I work in an oddly dark environment, comparable to the deep, compressed core of a densely populated rabbit warren. Riddled with narrow passages and oddly placed desks, it can be a real obstacle course even when you're just trying to make it to the coffee machine (a place I visit often) or the men's room. Apart from the odd dash to the other, incongruously better lit side of the floor, I spend most of my day in this place. After a nice, ideally head-clearing walk to work from our home downtown, I enter the imposing Viacom building in the teeming morass that is Times Square, and often don't escape its thick, fortress-like walls until the end of the work day. No one really "takes lunch" at MTVNews. Given the nature of working online, we're playing beat the clock all the time. As such, folks grab lunch to go from "The Lodge" (Viacom's reasonably plush cafeteria which -- tantalizingly -- boasts a lovely, sunlit terrace facing the Square) and scurry back to eat at their desks in the dark confines of the news room. I've begrudgingly adopted this practice myself, often seen hunched over my keyboard frantically typing with one hand and grasping a tunafish sandwich in the other. It's certainly not the most restful way to consume one's lunch, but it's simply the way it is
Since the weather has started to let up, however, I've been seizing the opportunities to actually leave the building for lunch. Forgoing the Lodge, I opt instead for a two dollar hot dog (I know, I know…"eewwwww, how can you eat those?") and some robust lungfulls of the closest approximation of fresh air as can be found in the neighborhood. Being that I find Times Square to be about as restful as a root canal without anesthetic (for more on my ire for Times Square, see this earlier post), I head West down 44th street. While it's only a literal stroll around the block, I find it hugely refreshing and even therapeutic. The mere addition of sunlight and relatively fresh oxygen to my day is a huge relief. By the time I turn the corner onto 8th Avenue -- bordering on what would be the outer circles of Hell's Kitchen, I can even see the lush greenery of Central Park if I squint to the North. Time was when I spent my days off biking around this city's streets. I don't have the time do that as often these days, so I relish every chance I get to simply get out and explore the byways of Manhattan.
Turning back East on 45th street, my thoughts are no longer as jumbled. The two-dozen daily little items of irritating pop cultural ephemera that dance around my head as if hung from a sadistic mobile are more clearly defined and easier to tackle after this brief respite. I re-enter the tower on the `Square to take on the rest of the afternoon, batteries briefly re-charged.
When I leave the building at the end of the work day, I unfortunately don't walk home. As much as I'd like to wind down with a long, relaxing stroll homewards in the cool Spring air of the evening, the urge to get home before little Charlotte goes to bed drives me down into the dank tunnels of the New York City subway, headphones blasting something propulsive like the Ramones or Bad Brains to quicken my step. When I get home, I'm back inside again until the next day.
I had a recent chat with my sister about my inevitable financial exile from Manhattan (with now two little people residing alongside my wife and I at Flaming Pablum headquaters, we are rapidly outgrowing our modestly-sized apartment). In an attempt to ease my concerns about life in the `burbs (she de-camped to Westchester over a decade ago, and we might have to follow suit if Manhattan real estate continues in its inflexible trajectory), Victoria cited the life-affirming sensation of stepping out of the train after a long day's work in the belly of the beast and into the leafy hush and genuine fresh air of the country. Yeah, that sounds nice, and all, but I'm in no rush to leave the big, frantic city --- so long as I'm allowed outside every once in a while.
Log off from you computer right now and go outside!
Recent Comments