1. I’m still not tolerating the humid heat well. It shows, too. The whole “Women don’t sweat; they glow” does not apply to me.
2. My calves are going to look great by the end of the year from all the walking I am doing.
3. Services ask for a lot more psychiatric decisional capacity evaluations here than they ever did in Seattle. I don’t know if this reflects a heightened “cover your @$$” practice or what.
4. The hierarchy is maintained through scrub colors: Nurses wear white scrubs, physical therapists wear blue scrubs, assistants and other techs wear beige scrubs, and the physicians wear blue scrubs. Everyone wore blue scrubs back in Seattle.
5. The long white coats help, too.
6. People are more receptive to smiling here in New York City.
7. Note the word “receptive”. Ain’t no one initially smiling at me, but when I flash that Winning Smile, watch those faces blossom!
8. So my experiences with hospital staff have been pretty good, actually.
9. Some of the notes are still hand-written. And they are still illegible.
10. I stood in the very first subway car recently.
11. So I watched the subway rumble through the dimly-lit tunnels.
12. Do the subway operators find the Manhattan subway rides dismal? It’s darkness for the entire length and width of the island! (”I work in the dungeon, thank you.”)
13. I like it when young men give up their seats for elderly women on the subway.
14. Do you know about the “Bridge and Tunnel” crowd?
15. Apparently, the “Bridge and Tunnel” crowd come in from Long Island and New Jersey on Friday night and leave Sunday. They go out and do stuff in the city all weekend.
16. Manhattanites, apparently, go out the nights of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
17. There’s good food in this city.
18. I’m compiling a list with some help. Maybe I’ll post the better places in the future.
19. Public performance is pervasive here.
20. I don’t know how much of this is merely driven by the need for money or if there is a cultural component to it, too.
21. I’m running a race through Central Park soon.
22. I don’t know what I was thinking when I signed up for this race. It’s going to be hot and humid.
23. Yes, I’m complaining.
24. I don’t think New Yorkers actually complain more.
25. I think they just talk more.
26. I’ve heard more conversations about nothing here than I have heard in my life.
27. And I don’t mean “nothing” in a bad way; I mean people are just talking for the sake of talking.
28. Like about the locations of locksmiths.
29. That’s not exactly “nothing”, but the context was totally unrelated. You’ll have to trust me on this one.
30. I tried my first bowl of matzo ball soup recently.
31. It apparently wasn’t very good. (I have no yardstick for this.)
32. People perceive me as “laid back”. They attribute this to my “West Coast” upbringing.
33. Because people on the West Coast never get agitated about anything.
34. Though it is true that West Coasters don’t honk our horns with the same frequency that people do in New York City.
35. I am grateful for fans.
36. The coolest part of the day is the early morning.
37. When I say “early”, I mean around 5:00am.
38. That’s when I go running.
39. Other people go running at that hour, too.
41. A lot of people run in this city.
42. I like the diversity of runners here.
43. A friend and I watched people in Central Park today.
44. There were people slogging along and running in the heat.
45. And a lot of people just laying out in the sun.
46. It’s like an instant community. We’re all sharing common space.
47. I wonder how territorial people are in New York City compared to other cities.
48. I’m still trying to settle into my routine. I believe I live here now, but I’m still not sure how I am going to live here.
49. It’s complicated.