Will and Won't

Five things I will miss about New York:

1. My job. I worked Monday - Thursday from 10-5:30. It doesn't get better than that. Seriously, if you are a librarian looking for work in New York City, consider working in Electronic Publishing at Facts on File. It's a great example of one of those "what else can I do with an MLS" kinds of jobs (you actually don't need an MLS, but rather the sort of intellectual curiosity and all-around general smarts that comes with being a librarian. George W. Bush wouldn't like this job, but you might.)
   
2. Reading underground. On the subway, that is. There are some books I've read over the past two years that I'm convinced I wouldn't have truly got the essence of if I had read them aboveground. (The Sea Priestess and The Hero with a Thousand Faces, for example). If that's too tutti-frutti for you, skip directly to #3.
   
3. The smell of roasting nuts, and probably street vendors in general. (Can you still buy a curbside Polish Boy in downtown Cleveland? I'm not sure.)
4. FreshDirect. My biggest regret in life is that we didn't start using FreshDirect sooner (note: if you click that link and don't live in New York, just enter 10001 to look at the site. Tell me Cleveland couldn't use something like this). There is nothing like getting a huge shipment of packages and opening them up to discover interesting things like Concord grapes and quince paste. It's better than Christmas. In fact, we should just get rid of Christmas and have FreshDirect day. (pssst...that's what you'll get if you vote for liberal godless communists like Dennis Kucinich!)
   
5. The 6B Garden. Especially that towering sculpture of filthy toys and other detritus. As I remarked to Jim once, no other piece of art has come so close to depicting how I really feel inside.
   

Five things I won't miss about New York:

1. Rat Hill. That's what we half-affectionately call our neighborhood. (Because right by our subway stop, there's a big, weedy, garbage-strewn hill that rats like to caper around on.) This is probably the least interesting neighborhood in all of the five boroughs. We have the world's most pedestrian-unfriendly Main Street and the only coffee shop is a Dunkin Donuts. (But hey, if bail bonds are your thing, Rat Hill is the place for you.) I won't tell you where Rat Hill really is, but if you do some aggressive Googling of "rats dunkin donuts bail bonds good place to shoot people while i'm drunk and home from the army nyc" you might be able to guess.
   
2. Grime. In the summer, you are constantly coated with a thin layer of sweaty grime. Yes, even the Mistake on the Lake is cleaner than this place.
   
3. The airport. Which one, you ask? Whichever. They all have their flaws that drive me insane with irritation. Take LaGuardia - it's a five-minute drive from where we live, yet for some reason it takes an hour and a half to get there on public transit. (In contrast, from Ohio City, we can take the red line directly to the airport in 20 minutes. And what's at the other end? Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, one of the least horrible American airports I've been to).
4. My bank. I've always felt dirty about putting my money in one of those international corporate mega-banking conglomerates. You can't see their presence in the community. (In contrast, my locally-owned Cleveland bank refused to go the subprime lending route because its president, Marc Stefanski, thought it was irresponsible. He's also deliberately kept the bank's HQ in a struggling Cleveland neighborhood rather than uproot it to the suburbs.)
5. My neighbors and their yapping dog, Wookie. I grew up with a yapping dog whom I loved dearly. Wookie is an insult to her memory.