Since as long as I can remember, my favorite weekend excursion was making the half-hour trek into the exhilarating city of Manhattan from the suburb of Fort Lee, NJ, both places I called home. I couldn’t help but feel warmed by the familiarity of the drivers’ faces on the one-dollar “Mexican” buses that took me, and at least fifteen other Jersey-ans, over the traffic-packed GWB. This saved us all the toll of $7 per car. The drivers’ returning smiles and “thank you’s” made the perfect jumpstart to those lone mornings. I always wondered why more people didn’t smile at them.

One of the many subway-lines responsible for taking millions of commuting New Yorkers everyday from up to downtown and back – the A-Train – was a place I learned to take solitude, reminisce over the past week, catch up on my reading and latest playlists, and of course, fulfill a key duty of every wannabe New Yorker: people-watch.

Through the corner of my left eye I caught sight of a disheveled homeless man sound asleep in the corner. Torn pages of what resembled yesterday’s New York Times blanketed his seemingly cold, motionless body. Completely unaware of his isolation and intolerable stench, his curled-up body stretched across three seats. What a waste of perfectly good seats, I thought, as I glanced not at the three seats he occupied, but at the six empty seats surrounding him that were dripping with what had to be his, or another toilet-less man’s, pee.

Like me, this homeless man was alone. And like everyone else around us, he was ignored. Just as equally invisible as every other homeless, middle-class or millionaire New Yorker, no one cared for him and no one dare looked. No one, that is, but me. I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. I thought I caught him shiver, but I must have imagined it. He was out cold. He must have had a home at some point in his life, I thought. Maybe a wife or a family. Pets, friends, a childhood, a high school reputation, an ounce of ambition, a life? Parents were a must. How did he get here? How does one stump to such a hopeless state? I wanted to give him my cardigan or something. A bible for comfort. I wanted to help him.

As a pondered over how much spare change I had in my Dooney & Bourke bag to give, I was distracted by the MTA announcement for my final stop. The thought of my new homeless friend fleeted. Instead, my focus was now on tightening my legs and arms for balance as the train came to an abrupt stop.  “Bump, bump, bump. Bumpity, squeak, bump, bump. Squeeeeeeeeeeak.” My head swayed back and jerked forward, my eyes involuntarily meeting those of the standing pregnant lady next to me. We awkwardly turned away.

New Yorkers hated eye contact.

I tightly clung onto the straps of my bag as I prepared for my exit. Did I have everything? I did a 360 assessment around myself, and at the sound of the train’s “ding,” a handful of us walked out, aggressively bumping into the others coming in – never making eye contact. Almost immediately we could hear the groans of those who had just discovered the newspaper-wrapped present aboard. I smiled.

As I raced up those sullied subway stairs alongside my fellow pushin’ and shovin’ crowd of “New Yorkers”, a rush of both excitement and comfort filled me. The mix aroma of trash and cigarettes, Grey’s Papaya hot dogs and sugar-roasted nuts, and yes, even that leftover subway stench of the homeless – all became stronger and more apparent with every step. We were getting closer. That unique New York smell, the view of millions of people from all over the world in such a rush to get to wherever they were going, the pressure to walk as fast as you can out of the ground and into the hustle ‘n bustle of the bright and energized streets – these are all things I so dearly miss.

My favorite was when it rained. There’s nothing more entertaining than watching a packed crowd of high-speed commuters whip open their umbrellas at the same time.

But outside the underground “shelter,” things happened a lot more quickly. Everything was by the minute, by the second. It was hard to keep up even for the fittest of New Yorkers. Once I reached the top of the steps, my peace was quickly interrupted by a deafening “HOOOOOOOONKK…..” that seemed to ripple down the avenues. 

”Watch it asshole!” A fuming pedestrian barked, hovering over the hood of a yellow cab. He slammed his hands down at the nose.

“Get the FUCK out of my way,” the driver yelled back with his hands and arms flailing out the window. Both men flipped each other off. Streetwalkers tiptoed around the scene, and without more than a second’s glance, ignored the brawl and continued on.   

“Comedy! Comedy show tonight!” My attention dropped to the flyers being shoved forcefully into my hands, as well as every other passing pedestrian’s. Ignore. Ignore. No thank you. And ignore.

“Prada? Prada? You want Prada? Fendi? I’ll take you to back room for good deal.” The overly pushy saleswomen of Chinatown were rarely intimidating. This one I trusted without fearing for my life.

And… my all-time favorite: “Who wants to buy some stolen shit?”

Yep. New York City could be menopausal like that. All this is what I call Manhattan’s very own, signature noise. It cannot be replicated. This craze is what makes New York, New York — and precisely what makes it the most incredible, unpredictable and interesting city in the universe. The culture, the food, the museums, the shows, the intense pace, the energy, the crazies – you name it. The incessant honks and colorful dialect. The overfilled crosswalks. The profanity. And ah, the smell. Not to mention, the beauty of having four seasons and every kind of place, mood, sight, smell, food, and breed of person conveniently located right at your fingertips.

New York wouldn’t be New York without every single one of these. This is my home as I remember it. 

LA is very different. It doesn’t rain in LA.