USA…USA…USA…

Submitted entry: I found an internet terminal in a laundromat were I can pay $6/hour to write from. Hopefully this doesn’t take quite that long. And Sage, you’re not making it up. There is American air conditioning. It is wonderful. You could hang meat in this place. And you could do the same in the subway cars. Absolutely fabulous.

Traveling back to the States has been quite interesting. After a largely uneventful trip I arrived in Newark where I picked up a car. It was obvious that I had arrived in the states from the minute I got off the plane. The deluge of American flags began starting with two hanging above each baggage claim carousel and ending when I totally lost count well into the teens on the second day. At a rest area on the New Jersey turnpike there was a teenager who, apropos of nothing, began to chant “USA…USA…USA…” and showed no signs of quitting as I left the area. [The Photo That Got Away: a man riding a bike with a t-shirt that showed an American map, filled with the American flag. Above, it read “Proud to be an American”. I gave him a tremendously dirty look before I could stop myself. I didn’t mean to! I mean, if he’s proud to be an American, more power to him, as long as he’s not hurting anybody. He smirked in response. After I passed him it occurred to me that he probably thought I was Canadian, which made me happy, and then I realized I should ask for a photo, but he had disappeared by then. - Sage]

Suspicion is the word of the day here as well with signs throughout the airport and public areas asking to report “suspicious activities or packages” Cynical me thinks that perhaps suspicious activities could include everything from wearing a dissenting t-shirt or having the wrong skin colour.

A few observations:

My mental processes have changed since leaving the states in subtle ways. Now I think of the place where I go to the bathroom as the “washroom” and have to remember to ask for a “restroom” instead. I’m also not entirely sure when it happened, but the last letter of the alphabet now seems to really be “zed” after all.

It seems exceedingly odd that signs here are only in one language. I think I have started to think of things as having a longer name consisting of both the English and French names. In a panic and need to get out of a burning building? Look for the “emergency exit sortie de secours”. [You have not heard cute until you’ve been in the same room with a bunch of little kids trying to read the Wheat Thins box. Did you know they’re called “fins oh blee” in French? - Sage]

So now I am in New York City and it is being hugely fun to compare NYC to Toronto. My conclusion is that Paul Martin is more than welcome to annex New York. Sage has told about the person who said - [Well, no, actually. I’ve talked about it so many times in real life, you just think I’ve mentioned it here. This summer I had a conversation with a man who’s lived in New York City his entire life. He came to Toronto and told me that he thought that every time New York City and Toronto came to a fork in the road, Toronto made the correct choice and NYC made the wrong one. - Sage] I would agree with that to some extent, however, I think thanks to Mike Harris, Toronto took one wrong turn when it came to transit. From what I hear, before he was elected, there were many plans for additional subway lines in Toronto. When he got in many of the lines were cancelled and the holes filled back in. New York, however, is a dream to get around. Subways are plentiful and go all over the place. They seem to be way cleaner and safer feeling than I remember, too. The greater NY area is served by excellent regional transit too which leaves me wondering why, when we lived in the area, Sage and I didn’t take the trains in instead of driving either to Hoboken or right into town.

NY is about 5 times the size of Toronto population wise (I am pretty sure anyway) [Including the boroughs, it’s fifteen million versus three million. - Sage] and in many ways it has 5 times the street life with several interesting musicians. I couldn’t help it, I had to buy a CD of jazz trio that was playing at the southwest corner of Central Park.

I also couldn’t pass up a consultation with a Chinese astrologer in a park near Chinatown. I actually met a woman who spoke no English but made her point (grabbing my arm and leading me around the corner), that the person who did know English and was an excellent fortune teller could be found not far from there. She brought me to a trio of Chinese musicians playing traditional Chinese music and presented me to a 60-something man who had been playing an instrument that looked much like a small banjo. So for my birthdate, Sage’s birthdate and $15 here is some of what I found out:

• This November is to be a dangerous month for me - I need to be careful, particularly driving cars. [It’ll be difficult spending an entire month indoors, but we’ll try to make it as bearable as possible. - Sage]
• I can expect to live to the ripe old age of 97. I feel kind of weird hearing that - not that I believe it 100% but just to hear someone basically put a duration to one’s life is a bit disturbing.
• I can expect great wealth - particularly from age 43-58
• Sage’s birth date indicates an excellent compatibility with me. [I know these people work from your body language cues, but we’ve heard this so many times that it seems unlikely they’re all making it up. My favorite was “you have the most compatible charts of anyone I’ve ever come across”. - Sage]
• Prior to getting together with Sage I had a short, rather serious relationship - this is somewhat true though it wasn’t that serious - it only seemed it due to teenage hormones.

Finally, to ensure excellent luck I was told that for $12.00 I could buy a lucky charm that would provide our whole family with good luck. Why not, I thought, since looking at it any number of ways it was worth it. I could look at it as what he said it was - ensuring good luck. I could look at it as a tip for an interesting and entertaining moment. Either way I won. So I gave him the extra money, and he took a red piece of paper out, asked me to write my name on it, wrote several Chinese characters on it, rang a bell over it then partly folded it and poured in some red powder before folding it up into what was shaped like the paper “table football” triangles I remember from elementary school.

I thanked him and went on my way back to the subway station where I met an Irishman who asked me how to get to the subway. When I told him how, he asked my nationality and I told him I was an American living in Canada. Which is a short way of saying that I feel a bit alien on both sides of the border now.