If you want to walk - to a destination or aimlessly or some combination of both - New York is still pretty great. Being stuck in traffic in the back of a cab will make you want to slit your wrists - or worse, if you're late for something it produces a special kind of high-intensity anxiety. Try taking the subway a few days in a row and see what happens to your impressions of humanity. Driving a bike is thrilling but harrowing. Walking is just about perfect, though. You can move swiftly enough to avoid hazards and unpleasant smells and sounds but slow enough to take in the small details. This is what everybody decided to wear today. Listen to the young man arguing with his mother. Another guy is arguing with his girlfriend(?) saying the sushi order wasn't his fault. Up there is a boarded-up building. What happened? What's that smell? The faces are young and haggard and beautiful and worried. So many Lululemon pants. I never noticed that the Chrysler Building pokes its head out from that set of buildings. What's that? Is that a real woman or a sculpture. How did the artist get the skin to look so lifelike. It's amazing how uncurious everyone else seems. Staring down at their phones and coming to an almost complete stand still. There's the deli I sat at right before my job interview. Doormen peer out at the world from under their caps. All the dogs looks so happy to be out. Most of their owners seem bored. So that's where the El Salvador Consulate is. What's that seagull doing here? It looks like it's doing laps back and forth on the block. It perches up high on a street light. Then when I try to snap its photo it flies off, its fully extended wings carve an outline against a skyscraper. Horns sound with insistent frustration. Friday night plans are made. I walk on, thumbing through the city's index of curiosities.
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