Like Simon and/or Garfunkle, I’m Homeward Bound

I’m back in New York this weekend to attend the illustrious Tony Awards. No, not because when I was younger I dreamed of someday taking musical theater by storm with my frenetic dance moves and fine-tuned timbre. (That was but a pipe dream, lost after the ego-crushing Debbie Gibson concert my sister and I performed for my mother in third grade. “Only in My Dreams” was never so apropos.)

No, in fact my good friend from college produces the show (with some help from bosses and a few co-workers) and I just like crashing the afterparty, showing up all boozy in my tux, waving around a martini glass saying things in a deep British accent like, “Jolly good fun! Not take off that pantsuit and sing it again!”

Not only that, but it’s the first time I’ve been back in the city since we moved. While it’s only been three and a half months, the longest I was ever out of New York in the previous ten years was two weeks. And I have to say – it’s a bit shocking. Not just readjusting to the faster pace, the crowded streets, and the towering skyline, but mostly just feeling like a visitor in your native land. (Home may be where the heart is, but it helps when you have a familiar bed, TV, roof, and bath products. Ever try washing yourself with a heart? It’s not easy.)

And even worse, I seem to have forgotten everything about New York. Like I only have a limited capacity for geographic information, and the names of Miami’s causeways have replaced where the fuck the N train stops. Which has made riding the subway a thrilling adventure. I always took for granted knowing where I was going: You don’t realize how much you run on autopilot in New York until you have to start making a concerted effort to travel in the right direction.

So after much effort to find my way from Mott St. to Times Square last night, I land on the R train and sit down having forgot both an iPod and a magazine. The subway ads are of no help entertainment-wise because they haven’t changed since I left. So I’m left sitting there, prone to sporadic conversation.

Enter doofusy tourist – the kind of guy that’s wearing his high school ring and carrying a bottle of flavored water in his cargo shorts. He’s trying to look cool and conceal the fact that he has no clue where he’s going. Nonchalantly, he looks my way. Having no defense system (iPod, magazine) I’m caught.

Guy: “Hey, do you know if this train stops at Penn Station?”
Me: (internally) Are you wearing your class ring?

Now, as everyone knows, New Yorkers pride themselves on their knowledge of the subway. Generally speaking, if someone asks for directions loud enough for a group of bystanders to hear, at least three people will chime in with responses, with at least one know-it-all offering a faster route (“Transfer to the J!”) and one elderly know-it-all calling it “the IRT.” I was never one of those know-it-alls, but yes, if I overheard someone asking for directions and the person gave them the wrong answer, I would politely step in and say with a chuckle, “The 4 doesn’t stop at 23^rd. Only the 6 does. Oh the folly!” (I can’t shake my internal British accent.)

Suddenly, though, I was caught speechless. Did the R stop at Penn Station? Who the fuck knows? How could someone possibly answer such a difficult question? What do I look like, a cartographer? Did I design the New York city subway system? I LIVE IN MIAMI!

Gasp!

I live in Miami.

It’s like I didn’t believe it until right now, when this poor schlep eating a bag of trail mix needed directions that me, an out-of-towner, couldn’t provide. I was crushed. If New York was my lover, I just walked in on her tea bagging an investment banker from Ohio.

Granted all this happened in about two seconds, because of course I coolly responded, “Yup,” and went back to reading an ad for the latest six-month old inspirational self-help book. I avoided eye contact with the dufus, perhaps out of shame. Of course, with some time to reconsider my answer, I remembered that the R train didn’t stop right at Penn Station, rather a couple avenues over. But I couldn’t correct myself now.

Either way, when we pulled in to 34^th St., the guy was too busy trying to look like he knew where he was going to notice that this was where he was supposed to get off. I considered grabbing his attention again to tell him, but in the end decided it just wasn’t worth the trouble.

And with that, I felt like a New Yorker once again.