This was written on my SideKick @ 9.47pm (12/28), completed @ 1.07am (12/30)
I got called a Californian today!
As most people know, despite having lived in California for over 6.5 years, I still don’t consider myself a Californian. My phrase of choice is and has always been “displaced New Yorker” when I talk to people. I’m now and will always be a New Yorker at heart; I still hold strong allegiances to my Mets and Jets. There’s something about NY that’s impossible to describe to people who’ve never lived here: neighborhoods like SoHo, TriBeCa, NoLita, the Village & Meatpacking District; the street vendors selling hot dogs which have been stewing in hot water for who knows how long; the Naked Cowboy; getting around by horse drawn carriages, rickshaws, crazy cabs & the subways; Times Square when the clock strikes midnight on New Years.
So imagine my dismay when during the course of dinner at Joe Shanghai’s (Yelp) after finishing our Xiao Long Baos and scallion pancakes, the dude sitting next to Wynne and I–it’s one of those Chinese joints with large communal tables–turned to us and said, “Excuse me, I don’t mean to interrupt, but are you from California?” Yes, he was talking to me. I replied, “yes, I work in Santa Clara,” to which he said, “I was going to guess Northern California too. We work in Berkeley.” After questioning the dude (who was adorned with tattoos all over his arms and torso) some more, I discovered that he made this assumption based on the way I talk. He ended the conversation by saying, “I can recognize my own.”
I have to admit that this whole conversation threw me for a loop and it’s something that I’m still thinking about a day later on the LIRR at 1.30am coming home from Wynne’s birthday celebration at Thalia (Yelp). It’s lead me to ask myself this question:
At what point do I stop being a “displaced New Yorker” and start being a “Californian”?
