excuse me, i am from new york

it's promised to be a crazy day here at the mt. sinai medical center, because three of my four coworkers are out of the office. but, you know, stuff still has to get done. so i have to do it. yeah crazy. but i just had to blog, dear readers, to let you know that my family's visit was really fun. i've decided to call their whirlwind new york city visit (less than 20 hours) "momvisit 2006." if she comes in the fall, when my father has talked about coming (since he's never before been to new york and both my sister and i will be out here) i guess it'll have to be "momvisit 2006 v2.0" or something. we'll deal with that when the time comes.

we went to dinner last night at a restaurant called brick, which is down the street from my house. as i mentioned in yesterday's email, i made every effort to make sure that we did as little walking as possible the entire time they were in new york. this means that the n/w stop (my train) was literally under their hotel and that we went to dinner a block away from my house, and then dessert (at omonia cafe, of course) a block in the other direction. what's great about new york, though, is that you can do that: decide that you're not going to leave your block and still have a great dinner, outside, with good service. moms was impressed with astoria, impressed with our (messy) apartment. visit accomplished.

when i was in their hotel this morning (i met them for an early breakfast in the very new york-y diner that's attached to their hotel), i found myself wanting all of the people in there to know that i wasn't just a tourist. i tried to carry myself in a way that said, listen, i'm not staying here. i live here. see how i'm going down these stairs to the subway, all self-confident-like? like i know just where i'm going, hurrying off to work? that means that i have somewhere to go. because i'm not staying in this hotel. i'm a new yorker now. don't ask me why i cared if the fat midwesterners or the exhausted-looking front desk staff knew that i wasn't a tourist. i don't know.

scott and i have been joking about the line from some movie--i have no idea what it's called because i only saw it once, and i'm not even quite sure who said the line; tea leoni, maybe? is that even a movie actress?--in which the female lead is visiting some hick town. and she keeps saying, whenever something pisses her off, "excuse me, i am from NEW YORK!" like, don't fuck with me. i'm from new york. it's hard not to feel like that sometimes, living here.