Incas of Emergency

I love how surly everyone is in your stories. Even though I know you're not in New York, all bitchy customer anti-service remarks get translated in my head into heavy New York accents. I'm really enjoying it.

I still wanna come visit you sometime. I'm reluctantly acknowledging that right after the quarter ends is probably not going to be a good time for me, as I will need to be frantically tying up 40-odd sets of graduation paperwork including one belonging to the student assistant who keeps my shit together and will be getting out of here precisely at the end of the quarter. But maybe sometime before then?

The personalities here range from surly, in customer-service personnel, to brusque, in the white-collar professionals streaming down the sidewalks at all times. I've already established myself as the neighborhood crazy lady because I make eye contact, smile and say hi to people when walking, hold doors for people, and habitually offer my seat on the Metro to the elderly and infirm. One thing I'm learning is how to tell instantly where someone's from. If they're sort of timid and clutching their fanny pack tightly on the Metro, they're a German tourist. If they're friendly, mannered and outgoing (but not running for office), they're from California. My DFH said, when he moved to California, that he was instantly struck by how rude everyone was. I genuinely have no idea what he's talking about.

On another note, how come when I try to upload photos it keeps telling me that the files are too big? They're just the regular JPEG format files that they automatically saved as when I downloaded them from my camera. Do I need to be saving as something else?

Also, is it giving you trouble when you try to post comments?

Dude, come out and visit! Let's brainstorm about when.

Comments: I can't seem to sign in from the nicely-formatted click-on-comment-on-CH page. But I can sign in from the stupid click-from-main-Incas-page comment page, so I've been doing that. Perhaps it's time for more over-our-heads technical dickering?

Pictures: I forgot, they come out of my camera at some outrageous size and I use Photoshop to shrink 'em to 640x480. I think you can even do that in Paint, actually, if you don't still have your h4xx0r3d Photoshop. Then they should be small enough to upload.

I've concluded that stereotypes about who's rude where are like accents, in that it is absolutely impossible to see the issue from anyone else's perspective. Those outrageous Minnesota vowels will never constitute an accent from the point of view of someone from St. Paul, and Californians' smiley eye contact will never redeem them from rudeness in the eyes of someone from Virginia who's expecting I don't even know what. I can't possibly know what, because I was not raised in that incredibly specific definition of proper manners.

To be fair to the DFH, though, he has far nicer dinner manners than I. So perhaps he does know what he's talking about.

I've found, since moving to New York, that people here are differently polite. What I mean is that there's a sort of code of behavior here that people enforce through all manner of pushing, shoving, harrumphing, and gruff manner. From my experience in DC, there's a similar code of behavior there (Stand on the right! Walk on the left! If you stand on the left, people will feel free to walk right over you!). This could be interpreted as rudeness.

Another way to look at it is as a set of sub-judicial laws. It would be silly for the DC government to actually pass and enforce a law requiring people to stand on the right, walk on the left, with fines for left-standers (of course, it'd also be silly for them to ban food from the Metro, and they went ahead and did that, anyway). Still, stand-right walk-left works, it makes things run more efficiently. People are better off for having the rule around. So it's evolved as a de facto rule of conduct and when you break the rule you get punished through acts of rudeness.

When you get past the superficial gruffness, I've found New Yorkers to be far more nice and helpful than Californians. They've been much more likely to help out if you drop your bags, to give directions, to stay open late if you come in at the last minute. It seems like there's more of a sense of community and a wilingness to help each other out than there is out West.

Success! Not a great picture because of glare, but success nonetheless! A photo post is forthcoming.

Just kidding. It's actually not a great picture because it's dark. But it's there!

I'd like to point out that what you're looking at is costing me $1150 a month. And that's a twin bed. Zach, does that sound more like New York?

11-fucking-50? Tell me that includes board and every utility you could possibly imagine.

It's actually almost exactly like a hotel in that all the apartments automatically have water, heat, power, garbage, that's paid for by the building. Only no continental breakfast -- for my 11 fucking 50 I have the privilege of feeding my damn self. Oh, and the closest store is Whole Foods, which I love, but where an ounce of quinoa and a chicken breast will set you back 20 bucks.

I take it from your response that this is not even reasonable by New York standards?

Well, it depends on the neighborhood. Also, I have a skewed perspective. I live in a really nice neighborhood in Manhattan, but I'm in a university-owned apartment so I get subsidized rent. That said: I live in a two bedroom with a full bath, big kitchen, living room, and a guest room. The apartment's furnished. I have a reasonably big bedroom. I pay $850/month, so between my roommate and I the total rent for the place is $1700/month. That includes all utilities plus access to the university's ethernet for internet.

I'm about to get kicked out of university housing, and I'm looking into non-subsidized housing. The places I'm looking at in Brooklyn and Queens are all 1 or 2 bedrooms for about $1300/month. If I were looking in a nice neighborhood in Manhattan, I doubt I could even get a studio for less than $1600, and that's probably on the low side. So, yeah: Your place would be reasonable by fancy Manhattan standards, but unreasonable out in the boroughs.