I’ve been having a rough time lately. Mentally. Physically, things are wearing down a bit as well, but I can handle that sort of thing. I have been feeling a bit frustrated by the sheer lack of control I have over everything taking place around me. And it’s an exhausting state to be in while living in New York City.
I get upset over the fact that people don’t stop at stop signs. I get upset when the patrons of Maxim (quite possibly the worst gym in all of New York City, but that’s an article in the works that will go live at a later date) ignore the “Cell Phone Free” signs that hang directly in front of them as they gab on and on while using the elliptical or walking on the treadmill. Can’t these people go an hour without a phone? Some gym patrons don’t wash off the equipment when they’re finished with it and I don’t understand that either. I don’t understand why people litter under the BQE. I don’t understand why people have to smoke in parks and then toss their butts on the ground below. The color green is dying. And line cutters send me into a fit of rage. I have written about the rage before. I can’t stand when people run red lights or fly through intersections where the speed limit is 25. (In Greenpoint along Driggs Avenue, which cuts through two lovely parks, I have seen cars doing 55 in a 25-mile per hour zone all the time.) I don’t understand why everyone is in such a hurry all the time and why he or she has such little regard for all those around them. And clearly I need to stop driving.
I don’t understand why a developer has leveled the gas station behind our house and has decided to build another 13-story condominium in its place. A condominium where a 450 square foot apartment runs about 700 thousand dollars and its inhabitants get a view of the on ramp to the BQE.
Why would someone build something like that? And then who are their buyers? Either way, our view of lower Manhattan and my much cherished evening sunsets are quickly becoming things of the past.
And I can’t control that either. I’m totally useless here, a speck of dirt on this city.
Driving down Manhattan Avenue makes me curse like a tourettic trucker – people double-park, walk out into the middle of the street between two parked cars pushing their strollers out in front of them. Manhattan Avenue is quite possibly the second worst street in Brooklyn second only to Flatbush Avenue, which is how I imagine anarchy to look like. The violent, fast drivers are usually men and I want to sit them down and talk to them about it. I want to speak with their mothers, wives, and children as well. I want them to slow down or lose their right to drive.
I used to love New York City. But I love the idea of leaving it as well. It could be the fact that I’m 30 weeks pregnant and my hormones are raging. It could be the fact that I’m terrified of bringing a little boy into this not so even world. Truthfully, I am not sure what it is, but lately I’m having trouble coping. There have been moments that make up my day where I simply want to throw my arms up and ask the strangers around me, “What’s the matter with you?”
But really, a better question might be: “What’s the matter with me?”
Mihow 
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