stand clear, if you please

today i was on the 1 train, and i had a particularly genteel conductor, who said, as we waited at penn station:

"step in please, don't be tentative. step in please, we're ready to proceed."

if only every commute was so pleasant.

you will know him

overheard in the office.

tall, thin german man with ponytail: if you see ziggy--you will know him; fat guy, always wears a hat, even when he sleeps--if you see ziggy, tell him i said hi. we used to work together in munich.

don't you kind of wish you knew a german musician named ziggy, sleeping in a hat in munich?

whee!

this is my 100th post, and to celebrate, i'm on overheard in new york!

some so-so shoe jokes

real fandom

overheard last night at the laundromat.

major mets fan (in jersey and hat, attached to transistor radio): mets, baby, mets! (this was said repeatedly, to no one in particular.) i just want 'em to beat those yankees. i always say, if the yankees got in a plane crash and died, i wouldn't cry. i don't wish 'em dead, but i wouldn't be sad if something bad happened to them.

i don't think i have ever been that invested in any thing (people certainly, but not a sports team.) it's a devotion i don't totally understand.

tonight: governor's island updation--with pictures!

urban parenting

little girl, maybe four years old, looking at broken glass spilling out of a brown paper bag: what's that?
father: broken glass.
little girl: what happened?
father: someone dropped their beer.

i'm not sure my parents would have been so honest.

eh, spaghetti!

i totally forgot this excellent overheard from friday night (that i overheard with my own ears.)

toy soldier guarding fao schwartz: the store is now closed. no exceptions.
a man wearing pants that could only be european: (said in the worst italian accent i have ever heard, sorry if it was real) but meester, we are from eetaly!

we almost died laughing. seriously, my italian accent is better.

baby love

new york is filled with adorable babies in strollers and walkers, climbing on subway seats and toddling through the parks. today the cutest little mini downtown boy got on the train. he was probably about four or five years old, and he was wearing a plaid fedora over curly hair, a tan jacket, tan pants and little plaid airwalk slip-ons. (clearly dressed by his dad.) he was kind of squirmy, and i think he kicked or bumped the lady next to him, because she had the sourest look on her face. i think his dad just ignored her though (which i would have done too) because she kept over-exaggeratedly rubbing her leg or ankle. some people aren't kid people, which i totally respect, but come on.

i am definitely kid people, however. i love children. and i think i might have some spring baby fever. last night i dreamt s and i had three little kids, the youngest was named owen, and i carried him around on my shoulders. a few nights ago, i dreamt i was about to give birth to a new baby (we already had a son named parker) that i wanted to name molly, but i was waiting for s to get to the hospital. parker, molly and owen, huh? still better than one of my most favorite overheards:

angry woman to friend: i have a contention with the way people pronounce my daughter's name. i did not name my daughter 'lady nasty'! i named my baby girl 'la dynasty.'

ah-ma-zing.

a little local flavor

here i am with another update on the restaurant week front: delish. to the max. tonight i went out with mk (my bwf) and a (my owf) to mesa grill, which is a bobby flay take on southwest tex mex. i love a prix fixe dinner--i would never order an appetizer and an entree and a dessert, but tonight i got to try all sorts of deliciousness. mk and i started with a black bean soup that was not too thick but not too soupy, with different salsa toppings, a little spicy and a lot good. (a had a fry fread--i love! taquito which looked great.) my entree was a chile relleno stuffed with goat cheese and acorn squash with a roasted fig sauce. so good, although a little rich. mk had chicken and mashed potaotes (with a southwest twist) and a had some mango salsa'd fish with a risotto. dessert was the best sweet thing i have eaten in a long time: crunchy vanilla profiteroles. a puff pastry with vanilla bean ice cream and crunchy vanilla caramel and a spicy mexican chocolate sauce. ohmiGOSH so amazing. i would eat it again right now. it's a good thing we live so far away. dinner was made even better by the conversation. i really really like the girls i work with; they are truly fantastic women, funny and smart and really great. i just feel so lucky to have found friends in the workplace who i like so much outside of the workplace. we talked about work and men and books and theatre and the dentist, and it was just a lot of fun to have such a great evening.

now i am home, a little sleepy thanks to 1991's best margarita. but i do want to relay these two fantastic overheards.

friday night we went out for some tv-watching treats and the corner store opposite the local bar was open. after selecting ginger ale (and ok, some ice cream, it's my weakness) we were getting ready to pay when these brooklyn neighborhood guys came in, drunk and loud and having a good time. they were friendly with the guy behind the counter (mohammed called "mo") and were yelling at each other and at mo, especially "joey cheeseburgers" who loves, you guessed it, cheeseburgers. and who was really upset that they were all out of cheeseburgers. then this enormous guy in a coat with a fur collar came in, and they started shouting about the godfather, and that the godfather was here and "hey yuppies, don't be afraid of the godfather" (which sounded like "gawdfahthah".) though we were the only people in the store, it did not occur to me until stephen said later, that we were the godfather-fearing yuppies in question. what, i don't look like a girl from the neighborhood?

also overheard this weekend in windsor terrace (in my building, no less.)
guy: so this is my friend dave huspah (some last name that sounds like chutzpah), but we just call him chutzpah.
girl: what's chutzpah?
guy: you know, chutzpah. it's yiddish.
girl: oh, yiddish, is that like british but not really?
guy: seriously? (she doesn't say anything.) no, yiddish is the language spoken by eastern european jews (he gives a very intellectual explanation of yiddish and its origins, which i didn't catch all of.)
girl: oh, so you're jewish? welcome!
she then proceeds to tell a long story about a jewish friend who celebrated chanukah (which she pronounced like the chan in "change") and found a cracker and got $200 and "made out like a bandit". which then devolved in a story about make-out bandits (who are, i guess, those who will make out with anyone.) ah, the things overheard.

curly's and corduroy

my sister has been in town for the weekend, but i had to work today so we met up for dinner in the city. (she is staying with a friend with the most incredible name i have ever heard, but for anonymity's sake, suffice it to say, it is amazing.) sissy and i are both vegetarians, and i love fake meat (more than i ever loved real meat), so i took her to curly's vegetarian lunch (for dinner.) curly's is probably one of my most favorite dining spots in nyc. it is tiny (maybe ten two-person tables and one that could seat five or six) and they give you placemats to color that then get displayed on the walls and our waiter sang and danced around the restaurant and the owner came and talked to us after dinner, asking if it was worth the wait. it was, it always is, the food is really fresh and simple but well-planned and delicious. they don't use any meat, and almost every item can be made vegan (i even saw someone order vegan sopapilla.) i've taken non-vegetarians there as well, and it's always a crowd pleaser.

side note: if you didn't already go to the website, you should. they have a list of famous vegetarians with quotations. did you know russell simmons is a vegetarian? i just love him. he's like the sweet, gentle rap mogul. i mean, vegetarian, spoken word advocate, argyle designer, lisper. he's adorable.

also, this evening curly's gave me another excellent overheard:

hipster girl: so that club she got turned away from? it was for not having on two pieces of corduroy clothing. (male companion mumbles somthing indistinct.) you know what kind of club that is? a club full of poorly-dressed people.

overheard near FIT

i love overheard in new york and i have overheard many a funny thing, but they never seem to post my excellent snoopings. i guess i'll just have to post them here.

suit on cell phone: it just fell from the sky, like that feather in forrest gump, it literally just fell from the sky.

--overheard on west 27th near FIT.

i just loved this. of all the fell-from-the-sky examples, he picked the feather in forrest gump? excellent choice. very evocative.