Who Knew it Could Rain Sideways?

It can and does here. I woke up this morning, feeling drugged from the sleepy sound of rain on the building. I love sleeping to rain but hate waking up to it. It was pouring outside, unbeknownst to me as I moved aroudn the apartment getting ready for the day, packing things up and getting dressed. I pulled on my LL Bean gumshoes and waterproof raincoat and with an umbrella in hand felt confident that I'd be able to get to work in relatively good shape, albet late.

But when I stepped outside the first of our double doors I could see that I was very, very wrong. It was not raining. It was pouring, a torrential downpour that flooded the drains and could run through your shoes and clothing in the blink of an eye. I cursed silently as, at that moment, a lit cab went by me and I realized that Susannah was right. "You can always catch a cab, except when it's raining and there are none." This would be one of those days. I spent most of the walk to work cursing as cabs with people safely tucked inside sped by. Finally, as if to finallize my condition one swung through a puddle beside the sidewalk, splashing me and making my jeans heavey. So heavy, in fact, that by the time I got here, they were pulling themselves down. I had to take them off and put on my workout shorts, then stick them in the dryer. Makes me thankful I work in an office that doubles as a home. What do other people do? I can imagine buying new clothes (I actually did that once at college, so soaking wet one day I bought a whole new, university themed outfit. Carolina everyone, even written on my butt). But I can't imagine sitting at a desk in wet pants and shoes, miserable and cold on a rainy Hump Day, and then on top of that being expected to concentrate and work and attend meetings in that condition.

When I got here I immediately called my mother telling her that I needed as much rain gear as she could spare. I was reminded of my friend Erica, who, while in a master's program at Boston University, described how after a storm the streets would be littered with umbrellas turned inside out, that the rain would blow right through you. I was in awe that she could live in such conditions but now understand it. Can see why everyone who doesn't live here cannot comprehend how bad it can get. Here there is no where for the water to go except in the streets, washing them clean (sort-of), and then flooding them, forcing people to leap across puddles for dear life. This is the most use I've gotten out of ballet lessons in years, leaping and dancing around what could lead to drowning.

Part of my adjustment to New York has been determining what's important and what's not. I now realize that what's important is outer layering. That truly is what people see of you day in, day out. So it makes sense to get only things you love and to spend as much money as you can afford without pissing off the Visa people. I am beginning to understand why what you're wearing is so much more important up here than it was in North Carolina. There, what you wore was generally hidden behind car doors and the privacy of your home and yard. Here you don't have that privacy. What you are, who you are, is on display twenty-four seven. A metaphorical Las Vegas casino sign, blinking long into the night and screaming out messages- "I'm beautiful! I'm confident! I'm scared you're going to notice the salsa stain on my white sweater!" Whatever you are comes out in what you wear. I remember being fascinated in Europe by how so many people there dyed their hair, wore twelve inch platforms, stretched their earlobes. Now I'm beginning to understand. It's a big city mentality that you are what you wear, what you have on your body. Because there is nothing else to show for living here. No one wants to be thought of as the person who lives in the trashy studio apartment with a pet ferret. Everyone wants to be something they can't be, or maybe they are just trying to be someone they are.

I can see why I'm considered Plain Jane here, mostly wearing jeans and sneakers with little make-up and boring shirts. I crave new clothes but haven't budgeted well enough yet to afford them. Instead I try to make the best of what I have, looking neat and blending in with the other ten million people here. It's nothing but fascinating the way I've worked out who I am here. Or at least who I am for the moment. I have routines, I have ways I go to work, places I go before, during and after work, shows I watch on my basic, basic television, books I read from the library. For the most part I don't run into many people I've seen before, except the homeless people who live on my street and the preschool kids who come in across the street most days of the week.

So for right now the blending has worked. I pretend that I've lived here my whole life, and in return, New York gives me the best possible overview of what it has to offer it can. Along with plays and the Met and operas, it comes in through rain that goes sideways, making rainboots the most pratical of purchases.