Becoming New York-y

It happened the first time in Flagstaff.  While waiting at a decidedly laid back coffee shop in a very chilled out, Grand Canyon town, I went to the counter and asked the Flagstaff version of a Brooklyn hipster (you know, tats, gauges in the ears, worn out t-shirt and Chuck Taylor's) if I could "please have a decaf soy latte and may I please have the receipt?"  He glanced up at me slowly with ill concealed disdain and said in a voice at a speed that any snail would envy, "um...yeah...I'm...getting...to...that..."  A little flustered at the the notion of being thought rude, I apologized and laughingly said, "I live in New York City.  Sometimes if you don't ask for a receipt they just throw it out and move to the person behind you, so sorry."  And without accepting my apology he offered an apology of his own:  "You live in New York?  I'M sorry." 

When my friend arrived at the coffee shop, I asked him, "do I seem a little big city?  Do I have that BIG CITY vibe?  Because I try to be conscientious about that, you know."  And it's true, I take pains to match the vibe of whatever city I'm in .

When I was a kid I wanted nothing  but to live in the big city and have some glamorous Broadway life and live in a midtown apartment the size of a shoebox.   I wanted to walk down busy city streets undaunted, looking not "in people's eyes but past them," so they would know that I was there but that I didn't notice them, that I was indeed too busy to give them eye contact.  I would conceal myself behind giant sunglasses and baseball caps pulled low.  Even if I wasn't a star, I was going to pretend.  And, most importantly, I didn't want anyone to know that I lived in a town that no one's ever heard of called Ogden and that for fun I used to throw peaches from our backyard tree at the neighbor's barn in the field behind our house (it was a long way to throw.  That "thunk" was always satisfying).

The second time happened last week when I picked up a rental car to drive to a shoot in Connecticut.  The gentleman working behind the counter asked me for my driver's license, and the first response I get, no matter what state I rent a car in is, "Utah!"  He looked at me in what I thought was an appraising way and then said, "Wow, I thought you were one of those 5th Avenue girls.  I didn't think you'd be from the west." The third time came at an audition for a short film that I went to on Saturday.  They loved me.  Thought I was hilarious.  Didn't book me, of course, because when people gush effusiently, I never book.  Anyway, as I am making my way out the door the screenwriter says, "Where are you from?"  I told him Utah, and he said that I was the first person from somewhere else that he thought was from New York.

I've given this some thought:  I wear what I think are kind of western-y clothes.  It's not like I run around in fleece and Merrills, but you won't catch me dead wearing Burberry, Wellies, and the ubiquitous lady trench (gives me the shivers).  When I'm not working I'm probably wearing a skateboard cap and pigtails.  So I don't think it's something outward.  Clearly it's me.

Uh-oh.

It's always been a priority of mine to not become what is deemed by many to be a typical "New Yorker," you know, the pushy, rude, aggressive, impatient, demanding person you see in the movies.  I strive to be polite, gracious, and patient.  And yet just today as I was walking to Grand Central station (talk about a melange of the stereotypical New York; the bleary eyed travelers pushing their rolling suitcases, the homeless man reeking of ammonia taking furtive sips from a filthy water fountain, the uber busy business men walking purposefully with their attaches, the bored Upper East Side ladies sporting botox, Cleopatra-like make-up schemes and over-sized baubles, the guy wearing a track suit and baseball cap with a flattened bill selling his own poetry looking to make a quick buck), I found myself speed walking past the Euro tourists, muttering under my breath at the ladies walking in threes across the sidewalk pushing their babies in strollers, and cursing the mobs of people generally gawking in Times Square.

Have I become that New Yorker?

Perhaps my time here will teach me to savor the moments of slow-moving tranquility that I get while on a hiking trail.  Perhaps it will teach me to appreciate the joys of a mountain pass, or the challenges of driving in a blizzard.  I know that I often pine to drive a stick shift, to throw the car in gear and open the engine up on some vast desert road.

Or maybe it will teach me to ask for my latte at exactly 140 degrees while tapping my Jimmy Choos impatiently at a Fifth Avenue Starbucks while flipping through my Blackberry and listening to the latest podcast on NPR on my IPod.  But I really hope not.