So every Wednesday day, joy comes into my email inbox and now I’m going to start sharing.

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/

Freshly-Minted Wednesday One-Liners

Annoying Jersey girl on cell: I’m not frugal. I’m, like, not frugal with a vengeance. I, like, refuse to consider money.

–19th & 8th

Overheard by: Hobo

Columbia University administrator: It gets difficult to manage finances as your endowment reaches the size of the GDP of a small country.

–Columbia University

Overheard by: Senatore

Bike messenger (yelling): Could anybody spare $50,000?

–6th Ave & 20th St

Overheard by: thiess

Man: I mean, what does does she *really* get out of riding a five thousand dollar scooter?

–Outside Think Coffee

Overheard by: nemily

Suit on cell: You see, the thing with money counters is they jam…and when you are in a roomful of illiterate afghans, there’s 8 million on the table and they mistrust you.

–Mercer & Grand

Professor: I bet none of you wrote that in your admissions essay. “I want money.” Actually, that might be successful. They might think, “hey, that’s pretty cool, they’re telling the truth.”

–NYU Law
10 Bucks Says He Falls to His Death in a Reflecting Pool

Little boy, singing and dancing: I’m too sexy for my skin, too sexy to be here, too sexy for this train. Oh yeah!
20-something woman: Stop it! Be quiet!
(train doors open)
Little boy, yelling: I’m gorgeous! (taunts 20-something woman and other passengers with a teddy bear, throwing his arms in the air) I’m gorgeous!

–R Train
Wednesday One-Liners Win the Door Prize

N train conductor: Ladies and gentlemen, “stand clear of the closing doors” does not mean “throw yourself into the closing doors inflicting bodily harm to yourself.”

–N Train

Sassy male train conductor: Yo! Release the doors so the train can leave the station! There’s another train behind this one. We can wait here all day, ladies and gentlemen, I’m already at work. (pause) Okay, well it seems that people just aren’t ready to move yet! Oh…oh…there we go! Well done! How about a round of applause?

–A Downtown Express

Train conductor over loudspeaker: We’re having a problem with the doors. That’s not me closing them on you. These doors have a mind of their own.

–NJ Transit

Conductor: Ladies and gentlemen, please stand clear of the closing doors. If I catch you holding the doors open, I will push you off the train and if you don’t die, then you’ll have to catch the next one.

–NJ Transit

Irate conductor: Ladies and gentleman, putting your baby stroller between the closing doors is a wonderful way to show your child that you care. It will also save on college tuition. There will be another q train, but there will never be another baby like that one. Please stand clear of the closing doors.

–Q Train

Overheard by: Himani
Jeez, Who Wouldn’t Want Devastating Vortices?

Overcaffeinated teen with drink: I need to blend this. I wish I had blenders for hands.
Serious friend: Some people would want to be able to fly or read minds… I guess that’s a pretty good super power too.
Overcaffeinated teen with drink: I’d used my blender hands to stir up the air and fly, like helicopter propellers.
Serious friend: Come on, think about the physics of that. If anything, you’d just create two devastating vortices on either side of you and suck everybody in. No flying.
Overcaffeinated teen with drink: If we’re already asking for blender hands, I think a minor change in the laws of physics would be workable.
Serious friend: True. (spins hands like blender-propellers)

–6 Train

Overheard by: Lynne
Who Says New Yorkers Can’t Be Gracious?

White guy, yelling to friends: Yo, where are you going? The train is this way!
Random black guy: It’s not the fucking train! It’s the fucking subway!
White guy: I live in Queens, I know what it’s called.
Black guy: You white people are so fucking stupid. You go into the subway to get on a fucking train!
White girl: Well then it’s a train!
Black guy: Fuck you, bitch!
White guy: Don’t call her a bitch! You don’t even know her!
Black guy, getting in their face: Fuck you, nigga! And fuck her! (pause) Wait…have you guys been drinking?
White guy: Yeah.
Black guy: Never mind, then. I was just fucking around. We cool?
(black and white guys laugh about it, shake hands, go their separate ways)

–Union Square

Overheard by: go rangers!

Soon I will be 35 and I could write this and say I had all these expectations about where I thought I’d be by now but really I’d be a liar because I’ve always harbored the deep dark secret that I see time lines as blurry dream sticks that just bounce around. My dad asked me what I wanted to be when I was kid and I said lawyer because I knew he wanted to hear either that or doctor but I had no desire to see any blood on purpose any time soon. We’d just come back from a field trip to the morgue at Wayne State University (still trying to work out who thought it was a good idea for sixth graders to go the morgue). Did I see years of schooling for this default legal field that was never to be mine? No. I saw LA Law on TV all the time though.

I actually like the age I’m in. I feel adult. I feel sound. I feel like a newborn baby raw with emotions still. And, since my father’s passing three and a half years ago, I feel like I’m more open to guidance. Especially from him. It’s almost necessary in my daily life. He being gone on the physical plane has made me more of a child than ever. Perhaps also I feel so akin to him now because our birthdays are ten days apart. He’s sort of guiding me by ten days! And, as an added bonus, I get a younger brother who thinks he’s older because he’s taller. But he is definitely a wonderful product of this continued spirit rearing I’m getting from Larry Robinson!

Once I thought I’d be married with a kid by now, that much I can admit. I always knew that my writing would take awhile to hit a level of success that most are familiar with. But the family part was something I thought was inevitable. With my big changes this year, I find this place I’m in kind of funny ironic. An ex who’s married with a kid. Me in a loving relationship enjoying the present moment and hoping for a lifetime of continued joy. I don’t have many “supposed to be like this” markers anymore. In an effort to not end up in the situation my mom was in, at an early age, I think I was trying coerce some of the actions of my life to be a certain way (with good intentions of course. children should go further than their parents!) much to no avail.  The good things are that I am still loving, that I would love to still have babies, that I am still writing.

I realize it’s been a while since I posted a blog! I blame Facebook. It’s addictive. Updating my status every few hours made it impossible to come up with something fresh to write, in my mind. It’s like lazy writing that Facebook. Plus it’s dangerous, this internet networking thing. I am convinced it set the course of a few “coincidences” from past relationships that led to their demise. I’ll never know for sure but it is dangerous boundary to feel safe in the privacy of your own keyboard as if you weren’t really touching people across the great internet divide. I still feel raw about it sometimes but then I breathe and realize you can’t know what you don’t know until you know. 

Another scenario is that of the faux business networking on the internet. Lord knows I love to email folks as the day is long. I’m shy (no, really, I am) and don’t love cold calling new potential managers/agents, etc. I hide behind my @ sign on the real. Except when it comes to be approached to work on new projects. This has happened to me a few times but particularly one instance comes to mind since somebody found me online and approached me to work on a potentially good idea with them given my background in entertainment. Great! Except when I’m invited, especially over the www, I like to feel welcomed and not like I have to re-earn my invite after I sat down and pulled out my wares. Sensing the resistance and the interrogation spotlight coming, I pulled out to finish my damn new screenplay. I mean seriously. I’ve come a long way to allow myself to make these kind of decisions. There was a time where I felt like I had to take what came since it came but I am getting too seasoned for that now. It’s not a boast because I’m not making money off of writing yet but I also didn’t just pick up a pen either. I have to set my internet boundaries this year to avoid these things I am looking at closely with one eye open…it is a condition of the future coming quick I suppose.

Lastly, I just had a thought. Writing is cheaper than therapy. And sometimes I’m just as resistant to each! But not anymore. Life is too short. Pop was here for a reason and that was for me and some others to learn to live.  Here’s to being present right now!