Wednesday, January 15, 2014

A brief retrospective on my time in New York

I arrived in New York two years ago as a poor boat bum.

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Not much has happened since then. It’s sort of a dead town with little to do, less to see and almost no one to meet. Nonetheless, being the social animal you all know me to be, I met a few folks.

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As you can see, everybody seemed fairly normal but then I ran into a couple of really weird dudes and that put me off socializing for awhile.

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I thought it would be a good idea to acclimate myself to the city so I carefully watched locals to pick up their habits. New Yorkers really like being outside.

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Watching traffic - what can be more exciting than that? These folks are real hipsters.

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On the off chance that they might get bored watching taxis, there’s always the option of marching on Wall Street. I had a great view of this social movement from my office. On Wall Street. I’m sure they weren’t thinking of me while chanting against The Man.

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Parking is really convenient. They even let you pay for it so you aren’t tempted to spend money on luxuries like food.

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Nonetheless, I decided to bike a lot. I figured it would get me closer to The People so that I could convince them that I was not The Man. I went on a little ride to the beach that involved a ferry ride.

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After that, I decided that I didn’t like The People so much. There’s too many of them. So I used my bike to escape the crowds.

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I liked the bike so much that I decided to make it a piece of furniture because New York area apartments are so spacious that you really need stuff to fill them up.

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I then thought it would be fun to use my bike for all the things that most people use a car for. I find carrying large things on my bike through heavy traffic much more convenient than using a car.

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That last picture isn’t actually of my bike. It belongs to this guy.

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I don’t like to take advantage of people but my RV needed fixing. I was here at the time:

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And he was here:

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So it seemed totally more convenient for him to do the work. Unfortunately, he really messed up my RV.

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And that upset my little boy

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So I made that guy put it all back together again

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It looked ok but it didn’t work so well

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Even the RV electrical adapter was sad after that

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I went back to riding my bike since my RV was now ruined. Being a hipster myself, I even took the bike on mass transit.

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I’m sure that made me popular with my fellow passengers but I didn’t stick around to find out. I felt stressed out so I ran away to a place without any mass transit.

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All the sunshine and fresh air bothered me a little so I came back to New York. I decided to partake of quiet, intellectually stimulating cultural events.

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This lady kept hitting on me so I had to stop going to cultural events

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I decided to start living a cleaner lifestyle. I had a pretty good diet.

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But I felt bad for all the animals so I stopped eating them. I ate a little bit of fruit instead.

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But things spiraled out of control

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And I had to liquefy everything or I would choke on all that fiber

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I tried to eat healthier

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But vegetables don’t deserve to be bottled so I tried cooking them

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Things soon spun out of control again

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When tools appeared in the kitchen, I knew it was time to stop

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I tried eggs but, as always, things got weird fairly quickly

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So I relied on professionals to prepare wholesome meals for me

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I soon discovered that a well balanced diet consists of fruits, dairy and wheat cuz it’s a vegetable too

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I felt full so I got out of town

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Way out of town

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Seriously out of town

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But people missed me so I returned to find someone looking for me

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He was such a tourist

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But he could helm a ship

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And train like an astronaut

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So I decided to keep him and make a city boy out of him

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I then went looking for his sister but she had run off to someplace Nice

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I made her come back to steer my boat

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But she just wanted to make music instead

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After that, I needed to relax on my boat

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After getting rid of the vermin

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Everything worked well and I’m not used to that so I sold the boat

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And starting using my other boat that needed repair work

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I’m pretty handy with repairs

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So much so that I replaced this perfectly good bilge pump just for fun

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Everything worked fine then so I don’t know what this guy was trying to do

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After that, I needed to meditate so I went to the calmest place I could find

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And looked for other Zen temples of bliss

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I love bridges, especially ones that sway in the wind, but I guess some people have problems with them. It’s good that’s there’s help for those folks.

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When I feel nervous, which isn’t often, I just think of a nice sunny day

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After all, every cloud has a silver lining

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This one washed the sidewalk for me

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And helped clean out the hallway

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People should be careful where they put their boats. They don’t belong on land, they should be in the water. The clouds tried to help put the boats back where they belonged.

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When it was all done with its work, the cloud painted the sky nice colors

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There are lots of nice colors in New York

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New York’s a nice place. I think everyone should live here. In fact, we have a saying here. It’s like an invitation.

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

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That’s why I am going to leave. I’ve been homeless and tempest-tossed enough. It’s time to let some other wretched refuse have their chance for a bite of the Big Apple.