Hi Arnie, I love it!
But bear in mind that:
* I was born and raised in NY City (the south Bronx, actually), and lived in NYC until I was 25 (except for one year in graduate school).
* Since then, my whole family except myself has moved to southern California.
So, while I can't say anything about the other locales...
At 10:48 AM 11/14/03 -0500, you wrote:
You Live in California when...
1. You make over $250,000 and you still can't afford to buy a house.
2. The high school quarterback calls a time-out to answer his cell phone.
3. The fastest part of your commute is going down your driveway.
4. You know how to eat an artichoke.
5. You drive your rented Mercedes to your neighborhood block party.
6. When someone asks you how far something is, you tell them how long it will take to get there rather than how many miles away it is.
This is right on! Pretty much all of it!
You Live in New York City when... 1. You say "the city" and expect everyone to know you mean Manhattan.
Close enough, but not universal.
2. You have never been to the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building.
Spot on!!! The weekend before I left for grad school (at age 21), I took a date out to both those landmarks -- for the first time in my life.
3. You can get into a four-hour argument about how to get from Columbus Circle to Battery Park, but can't find Wisconsin on a map.
Not me, nor the people I knew. (By the time I was 11, I had been in 40 states -- including Wisconsin.) That's a wrong but understandable rap on New Yorkers. They know exactly where Wisconsin is -- they just don't care. :-)
4. You think Central Park is "nature".
Again, not me and not then. Though I'm sure it is more true today. Back then, the Boy Scouts were much stronger than today, and more focused on the outdoors. I had overnighted in tents in the woods (Catskill mountains and Palisades), and was a better cook over an open fire than in a kitchen (mom did the kitchen stuff). We had tracking and stalking games in the wild. I could identify a lot of flora and fauna. In my teenage years, I put this to work as a nature counselor for several summers (at a camp about 100 miles from the city).
5. You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multi-lingual.
Yeah, I guess.
6. You've worn out a car horn.
WRONG!!!
REAL New Yorkers don't have cars. But there are enough UNREAL New Yorkers living in or driving around the city to give that impression.
7. You think eye contact is an act of aggression.
You bet!!!
New Yorkers value their anonymity, and eye contact violates it. I pretty much lived on the subway when I was a teenager, and I can assure you that the cultural rules of eye contact were quite complex. :-) But the last rule is: "when in doubt, don't make eye contact."
Thanks for posting that! DaveT
