East Side Story

Even though I work from home most days and often don't leave the house before 5:47pm, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of the lay of the land down here.  I surface around sunset, feeling like powder who has just been let out of the basement for the first time, just in time to be annoyed by everyone I bulldoze along my way to degrade myself at the gym.  I've decided that the East Village inhabitants can be divided into gangs, gangs who should be forced to duke it out to the death so that when I do leave the house, I don't need to see ANYONE and my plan to live in total isolation of the human race will be realized.  Here are the teams:

1. Crasian couples who hold hands and walk slow.  They are probably the first to go because even the Sushi cooks who chill outside Panya smoking and wearing socks and sandals are discussed by their lovey-dovey nature and slow cadence.

2. Hood girls who eat on the go.  Who eat slowly on the go. They also divulge far too much information on things I don't care about like who that slut Selena is sleeping with and if Mikey went down and got his test or not. That's a stereotype, so I'm sorry and I normally wouldn't use it had I not heard it despite turning my ipod up HIGH.  I mean, its amazing how much they are able to reveal while walking in a straight horizontal line, while eating their subs.  They are also 15. My money is on them.  Their remarkable multitasking skills alone makes them a front runner, their smuckers cherry lip balm makes them winners.

3. Gaunt hipsters who smoke and carry NYU student ID cards.  They are probably one step below the crasian couples in this rat race, although their ability to seek refuge in the NUMEROUS NYU buildings gives them a clear advantage. Honestly, who knew that every other building south of 14th street would belong to either NYU or Parsons- excuse me, The New School.  I saw a purple NYU bus accepting metro cards the other day.  When will this end? When the Hood girls give them wedgies and toss them to the side? Yes.

4. Gay men straight women don't know are gay.  It's the easy route to assume that most men in Manhattan are gay, but there is a distinct breed of gay that has every woman looking twice.  They are well toned, well dressed, don't carry Goyard tote or walk like something hurts yet while uou may be looking at them... they ain't looking back sister.  Second place.

5. The crazy homeless. CRAZY homeless.  I babysit on the Upper East Side and I really must say in addition to having the most square footage for the money and Central Park, they also have the best homeless. While eating dinner one night at Molly's Pub I had a homeless guy approach me asking "Would you like tickets to the gun show?" And then in an act of true creativity he crouched down and showed us his "gun", which for a part-time heroin addict, full time unemployment office fixture, was pretty toned.  It almost made me wish I believed in the trickle down system.  Our homeless are just crazy, dirty and contribute to my constant fear of having my throat slit at random. I liked the guy who did a great rendition of Madonna's "Like A Virgin."  He only knew the chorus though, which goes a little something like "like a virgin, touched for the very first time.  Like a viiirrrriiigginnn..." There's more but he didn't know it and you have to respect the guy who knew its not really a good enough song to know all the lyrics to.  I probably should've been more creeped out by the guy who said "Watch out ladies, big black cock coming through", but I wasn't.  He was really just being responsible and alerting my friends and I to a possible safety hazard approaching and after doing four years of hard time in a frat driven school, I'd heard worse.

6. The diaspora kids.  Great, this is the second time my people have been displaced from their homelands.  High rent and low paying jobs have forced many a preppy white kids of the suburbs from the desired West Village and Soho to the more unkempt East Village streets.  Every once and a while you'll catch a kid in lacrosse shorts and find yourself smiling at one another, not because you know each other, but because you know each other.  There is even a kid in my building who has a Barbour that isn't my boyfriend.  Sadly, I think he belongs in gang 4. I THINK.

And the winner? Picking one would just confirm I spend more time speculating rather than interacting with my fellow humans and thats just sad.

Appropriately on Project Runway last week the remaining designers were asked to create an outfit based on different Manhattan neighborhoods.  Jay Nicos Sario and Mila Hemeerionlymakeblackandwhitethings had the daunting task of tackling the East Village and in the process failed miserably.  Where are all the hole infested sweaters, skinny jeans, red lipstick and oxfords? I mean we are better dressed than this, we have an Urban Outfitters after all!

 

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