Talking to really small invisible people

I was on the platform waiting for a 5 train at Grand Central on Saturday: going to the last of a series of workshops that I was co-teaching on blogging for teachers.

A young-forty-something blond woman was with (presumably) her early-twenty-something daughters. I jumped to this conclusion since they all had identical big-but-straight blonde hair, really light and bright. And mom had blue mascara and eye shadow up the wazoo. Unlike the hair, the blue mascara and eye shadow did not seem to be genetic. (Perhaps the father had a gene for a more neutral palette of eye make-up?)

You see a lot of these family groups: kid who seems to live in New York with wide-eyed, loud-talkin’ parents from somewhere much less busy. What follows is a loosely-remembered conversation:

Mom (Holding up a gold-colored coin): Is this good here?
Daughter: What do you mean?
Mom: This coin. Can you use it here?
Daughter: Um, that’s a dollar! That’s a dollar coin!
Mom: Oh–
Daughter: That’s a U.S. dollar!
Mom: Oh?
Daughter: They came out with that a while ago.
Mom: Oh!
Daughter (Laughing, good-naturedly): Where do you think you are, anyway?

Poor Mom. She’s not the first person to have thought NYC was another country. Thing is, if it’s one other country, it’s 100 other countries. For example, today I took a wee detour on a work errand, and stopped off at Flushing Main Street.

As I used to say to my dad, before I ever set foot in Flushing, “Flushing: it’s not just a neighborhood in Queens, it’s a toilet verb.” Fortunately, I haven’t thought twice about the unfortunate name since I first visited.

It is a strange name, though, isn’t it?

And I was reminded of how Flushing can be, like the Midnight Mailman show, “for fun and learning.” It’s the meeting of worlds. On the one hand, it’s home to the oldest Quaker meeting in NYC (which also held the public school and first racially integrated school in NYC: they were one and the same), but also to the most recent immigrants from many parts of Asia. And from lots of other places too. Many stores, cafes and bars, have signs in Korean or Chines or Japanese, with no translation. And I have a hunch that you can buy just about anything East Asian here. (The traditional NYC Chinatown thrives in lower Manhattan, but Flushing is buzzing with activity.)

I went into one all-kinds-of-Asian-stuff store, and bought 3 fragrant soaps for $1 (one jasmine, two sandalwood. I do loves me some sandalwood, but no-one can say I don’t try something new when the opportunity presents itself.) They had jar upon jar of medicinals and edibles, including lots of things I could not identify (though assumed they were either medicinal or edible or both), and others I could. I was very tempted by black rice. But not the dried seahorses.

I went to another shop and got some cheap fruit, and I got my train.

And here I am, oddly enough, blogging in public for the first time: at a new wireless-equipped teashop in my own ‘hood. It’s a lovely day in Long Island City. And though there’s nary a dried seahorse to be had, we still love our neighborhood.

A ruggedly ragged and weathered-looking fellow outside the open window was just carrying on an animated conversation with an invisible someone who must truly be very small indeed, since the man was sitting on an 8-inch concrete ledge, slouching, and looking way way down, as he spoke softly and gesticulated in an animated fashion.

Their conversation presumably ended, the man came through the open window (I should say, to his credit, the window was actually a full-length window, and the most relatively together of patrons might have to think for a moment before deciding instead to use the proper door, also provided). He came in, wandered around, bought a coffee, and was off, for now.