Quindlen seems to have a major hard-on for New York. Fair enough, and to go along with my previous post, her characters don't like it when other people question their lifestyle choice to live in New York. I will admit, I've committed the cardinal sin of asking a Native New Yorker why they lived there.
On one level, I can certainly understand wanting to be live in a major cultural center of the world. It would be amazing to be able to pop into the Natural History Museum or the Museum of Modern Art. I would love to be able to eat Ethiopian one night and Algerian the next. And while I'm not big into music, I could very much dig going to a small coffee house to listen to some jazz or folk music every once in awhile.
But I don't like the idea of living so close to such a large number of people. You know what they do in New York to get some privacy? They ignore each other. You can typically spot the tourists, because they are the ones that make eye contact. I'm just not sure I'm cut out for that kind of lifestyle, the constant hurrying and frantic work that is require to maintain a 500 square foot two bedroom that barely has a kitchen and where the term "water closet" has never been so apt.
I like space. I don't necessarily need a lot of it, but I definitely need more than the typical big city can provide. I don't really need three dozen ethnic restaurants within a ten mile radius. Would it be nice? Hell yeah, but I'm okay with making a special trip across to another town for really good Indian food in order to have some peace and quiet in my life. It's not that I couldn't survive somewhere like New York City, because I think I would adjust, I just don't have the drive to actually make that happen. I certainly respect the people who do make it work though.
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