While I don't miss having to get up at ungodly hours (i.e. before 11) and then pretending to "work" all day, there is one thing I miss about having a full-time gig in the city -- besides a regular pay-check -- and that's riding the train to/from work every day.
And what a train ride it used to be! See, I live out in the "sticks." My neighborhood is 1/4 mile from the ocean in SE Brooklyn (in an area much like South Florida if you compare the number of seafood restaurants and New Yorkers here). It's a good 45 minutes door-to-door to midtown Manhattan, which means I pay LESS rent and get MORE time to people watch on the train. It's a win-win situation, as far as I'm concerned.
Anyone who knows NYC knows that people watching is the number one sport here. Forget what you've heard about baseball or football. No, it's checking out the crack head in a wedding dress who's dancing around the fountain down in Washington Square. Or, cheering the half-naked Indian on as he prances around a hookah pipe at the footsteps of the 72nd Street Circle in Central Park.
(seemingly-normal and VERY fit guy I photographed using the B train as his personal gym. His workout lasted from midtown all the way out to Prospect Park where he exited sweaty and with one less thing to do when he got home. Let's hear it for multi-tasking and creative use of space!)
I used to be so entertained by these random encounters that I bought a Moleskine journal to keep in my purse and record the most memorable ones. Take the entry from 3/29/07 as an example:
"An old scraggly homeless man, toothless & bearded just announced to the 1 train @ 72nd: 'I'm going out to have a cigarette...somebody hold the doors. I'll be right back. Anybody want any coffee? How many sugars?' And then he exited the train. Some smiled, some laughed. I went back to sleep."
And that's the one thing that really depresses me about freelancing. Unless I start inviting meth addicts and homeless women covered in their own feces into my home, chances to observe these people are severely limited.
So, I guess my job search should include the following criteria:
1) boss must less than 103 years old (unlike my last one);
2) boss must not be in desperate need of psychotropic meds (again, last boss);
3) office must be in Manhattan and far enough away to afford sufficient time for people watching.
Oh, and salary in the mid-80's would be nice. Let me know if you hear of anything along these lines. Thaaaaanks!
