Winter Wonderments: NYC through the eyes of a Valley Girl, Part I

(This blog was originally posted on Myspace, way back in April. But as I begin to make the transition from once-in-a-while Myspace blogger to pretty-regular Blogger.com blogger, I will be re-posting some of my original Myspace blogs into this account. I know, you're thrilled.)

I once said: "L.A. is home and NYC is weird. But weird in a way that is fantastic and fun and exciting and wonderful." (That's right kids, I totally just quoted myself.) I stand by that statement. Kind of. Except that NYC is starting to feel a little like home. And now that I am beginning to actually get used to the things that seemed so weird about NYC when I first moved here, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge those things before I forget them.

You see, I'm a born and raised Valley Girl. Like in the movies. I basically grew up at the mall. No, Daddy never gave me his credit card, though most of my friends did carry their parents' plastic. Up until recently, I could count the number of times I've seen snow on one hand. And if you asked me to tell you how many times I've seen snow that wasn't man-made, I'd say, "snow isn't man-made?" I like to consider myself a well-traveled individual, having made my way through seven foreign countries and several U.S. states, however, nothing could have prepared me for New York in winter. And apparently, this winter was a mild one, though I wouldn't say so. Before I moved, lots of people warned me that New York was very different from Los Angeles, but they were really vague. They said things like, "NYC is sooooo different from LA" but when I asked what made it different, they just stared at me blankly and muttered, "....uh.... the apartments are really small...." which did not at all help prepare me for the change. So this post is really for the benefit of any other Valley Girls/Boys or born-and-bred Los Angelinos who might be considering a move to NYC in the near future. 

Things About New York City in Winter That Completely Baffled A Little Valley Girl:

1) Old ladies in fur coats with matching fur hats. Seriously. I'm not even kidding. I've never seen so many women draped in dead animals in my entire life. And no one even blinks. No one cringes. No one thinks it's a problem. Somewhere in my head I understand that there are still people who think that dead animals make for good fashion, but I didn't really believe that was the case until I lived on the Upper East Side in February. I really had to restrain myself from buying a can of red spray paint.

2) The actual, legitimate need for snow boots. Who knew they were actually a necessity? Did you know that snow boots keep your feet warm and dry? Because I didn't! 

3) The legitimate need for a shoulder bag large enough to carry one's snow boots. Women inLA run around with these giant bags which is ridiculous since they have TRUNKS IN THEIR CARS to hold all their stuff. But in NYC, in February, if you are tromping to and from home to the subway to work and what not, you have to wear your snow boots. But you don't want to wear your snow boots at work (or in my case, in auditions). So you bring your nice shoes with you and put them in your over-sized bag. Then, once you've put your nice shoes on, you need a place to put your snow shoes. Ah Ha! This is when the over-sized bag comes in handy. 

4) Let's talk about snow that feels like sand being blasted against your face. Holy Crap. Now I know what the mean when they say someone has "weathered" skin. 

5) Automatic heat. Um, WEIRD. I've visited/stayed in at least six different apartments in totally different areas of the city and they all have heat that is controlled by the building. It gets so hot that you control the temperature in your apartment by opening or closing the window. The heat comes out of a radiator. I'd never seen one before. You can drape your soggy socks over your radiator and an hour later they're dry. At first I was worried my socks would catch fire, but everyone does it. You can also put a pot of water on top of the radiator and it helps bring moisture into the room because the winters here are very very dry.

6) The actual and legitimate need to dry clean one's coat more than once a year. In L.A. I barely wore my winter coat often enough to warrant a dry cleaning once every three years. But I wore my coat so often the first few months I was here, and so often while sitting next to a stinky homeless guy on the subway, that next winter I will definitely need to get into the habit of dry cleaning my coat at least once a month. Maybe more often. Which means I'll actually need more than one winter coat because I will need something to wear while the first coat is at the cleaners. Which means I will need to go shopping.

7) Snow. At night, walking home from the subway station, the snow looks like glitter as it falls below the street lights. It's absolutely gorgeous. Icicles form on the street lights too, and they glitter and glisten like diamonds. Breathtaking. 

8) The ability to genuinely say, "The weather is so nice today!" when it's 22 degrees outside. (You know, when it's been 15 degrees all week, 22 feels tropical.)

9) Slush. I now understand why people say snow is only pretty the first time it falls in the winter and then it just sucks balls.

10) Frozen rats. I only saw one. It was on the sidewalk, up against a building on 34th and 8th. I cannot tell you how badly I wanted to pick it up and put it in my pocket and bring it home as a souvenir. But then I thought about the reaction I would get from the people around me and I decided it probably wasn't worth the commotion I might cause. Although looking back on it, it SO would have been worth it.

Perhaps you can begin to understand how all these things might shock a little sheltered Valley Girl like me. I wonder if next winter these things will still hold all the shiny newness they held for me this year? We'll just have to wait and see.

Next up: Spring Fever: NYC through the eyes of a Valley Girl, Part II