The Misadventures of a Native New Yorker

Appropriate icon is appropriate. If having a fiancee who works in retail wouldn't be enough to make me cheer the end of the holiday season, working in the area around Rockefeller Center would totally do it.

Call me a grinch all you like, but I swear, if I was given a written document entitling me to one misdemeanor without any repurcussions, there'd be a certain tree around 50th street that I'd take a blowtorch to. It's dead anyway - they killed it to decorate for a bunch of people who don't really live here. Every year around this time, teeming hordes stream into town to take in the Christmas "Spectacular" (their words, not mine) at Radio City Music Hall, stare at this giant lighted twig, and take.pictures.of.everything. They stop every five feet, completely oblivious to any poor soul attempting to go and buy Carmex and Tylenol Cold at Duane Reade during their measly excuse for a lunch hour, except to carp at them for ruining a version of the shot that they and about 499 other people are trying to line up. Or sometimes, they apologize for stomping on your foot, which they do while walking backwards to frame some cheeseball shot of the family on their ZOMGNOOYURK vacation. They're stopping dead across the street from St. Patrick's on fifth avenue to GET A PICTURE. They're doing it on sixth avenue to get one with ZOMG RADIO CITY SIGN IN THE BACKGROUND. They're stopping dead to snap a picture of them with some loser in a mangy Elmo suit. In fact, for these last few weeks, I feel like I've been practicing for roller derby, as I'm trying to get around groups of 10 walking across an entire wide block (it's that wide because we're going in different directions in different speeds, fyi) or they stop dead in the middle of a fast-moving sidewalk to fiddle with a map, a camera, a coat, a purse, whatever. And seem absolutely flabbergasted that anyone would be annoyed with them for doing so. Is pulling over to get out of the way such a foreign concept? Wait, nevermind - I'm absolutely sure that it is. And there I am, trying to walk at my normal pace, trying to get to where I need to go for things I need to buy and do, and getting stuck behind slack-jawed tourists who don't get that they have to GET OUT OF THE DAMN WAY if they want to stand still.

After all, I'm not a real person trying to survive another crazy holiday season with a rotten cold, crazy people at the office, and barely getting to see the man I love. I'm just another character in the theme park of Manhattanland, and how dare I step out of character for one minute!

(And don't even start with the "We need tourist dollars!" argument. I understand and accept this - but I don't have to like it; especially the fact that we used to be a city that made things - real goods - and we've now been reduced to a theme park. It infuriates me to think about.)

I still think that "art project" that divided the street into a tourist lane and a non-tourist lane should come to pass. And if you're caught in the non- tourist lane an unable to prove a permanent NY residence, your ass gets fined. This way, they can dawdle along at their snail pace, and the rest of us can go on with our lives. It'll be excellent, trust me. Maybe my 15-minute errands will stay at 15 minutes, and I don't have to waste half of my lunch hour because I'm stuck behind some (able-bodied) person that's too busy staring at a shiny window to realize that there are other people who need to use the sidewalk, too.

This is my new theme for the holidays:

Happy Chanukkah, everybody!!! Time to celebrate with latkes or jelly donuts or both, whichever you prefer. Light a menorah if you swing that way, too! ;)

Speaking of the holidays, alyxbradford, one of redstapler's many brilliant friends, wrote this positively brilliant essay on the history of Christmas , which I encourage you all to read.

An excerpt:

But, by the early 19th century, Christmas was almost dead. A few centuries of tension between Catholics and Protestants in England and on the Continent had taken a lot of the joy out of it, and America in the wake of the Revolution disdained it as an English tradition. Y'know who brought it back? Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol is credited with saving Christmas as a holiday. If you've ever read the original, there's not a lot of God-talk in it -- no more than the offhand statements about Divine Providence that permeate pretty much everything written in that era. Certainly the spirits aren't trying to tell Scrooge he needs to go to church on Christmas Day, or think about baby Jesus. What does Dickens emphasize? The same things the medieval folk did: family gatherings, food and drink, dancing, games, and a festive generosity of spirit. A pretty secular holiday, really -- and that was the instigation for popularizing the phrase "Merry Christmas".

Sounds like a good suggestion. And I have plans to make a bit of merry myself this evening, badly needed, too, after the week I've had. I'm running on fumes at this point, and trying to make myself productive anyway. I'm starting to feel like the van in Little Miss Sunshine.

Thanks to the wonders of the internets I have a large chunk of my Christmas shopping done, no small relief. I'm hoping to maybe decorate a tiny bit this weekend, but I don't want to force J into anything. When one works in retail, the last thing one wants to see is more reminders of the blasted season when you get home. Still, I wouldn't mind a few garlands or such - we don't have much room for a tree.

So far I've been enjoying Christmas music and viewings of Love Actually. I should also bust out The Family Stone pretty soon, too, as that's become a new favorite of mine.

And now, back to work.