It's 8am on a frigid Monday morning and the last thing I want is to be berated about my lifestyle choices by a corporate video, yet here we are. I'm waiting to get a blood test and forced to listen to a Quest Diagnostics loop about the so called "Blue Zones" everyone is talking about now - those seemingly magical places where life expectancy is in the stratosphere. The locations - Japan, the Mediterranean, etc - are all far away from the North East of the United States. The friendly lady in the video assures me that heredity plays only a small part in life expectancy, and in addition to diet and exercise, where you live plays the biggest part in our health. A stressful environment  is the big killer apparently, which I am barely able to hear above the cacophony of car horns on 6th Avenue below. "Thanks for that", I think.

After my appointment I'm in a rush to get to work on time and I start crossing the street early against the light but the cars keep coming. As I quickly step back out of harm's way I hear a voice from behind me booming, "What's wrong with you? Are you trying to get yourself killed?" The voice is amplified and fills the whole block. Is this my sub-conscious made external? Have a I finally lost my mind? I look back and see a guy with a microphone attached to a small speaker, laughing his ass off. I can't help joining in. Apparently there's a man who spends his day walking around Manhattan narrating whatever he sees. A kind of street MC. I'm still smiling when I cross the street amid the stone-faced pedestrians. I smile again later when I think of all the people he'll interact with as he broadcasts little tidbits of their day.