For the Love of the Game

Living in New York City has its share of inconveniences, one of which is playing hockey. To give you an idea, I'll compare the process I have here in New York to the one I had in Nashville.

Nashville
Half an hour before a game, I packed my equipment, loaded it in my car, and drove five minutes to the rink. I then suited up and left my things in the locker room. After the game, I loaded my equipment in my car, drove home, and aired everything out on my porch. Total time elapsed: 2½ hours.

New York

1. An hour and a half before my game, I take a train from my office to Penn Station.
   
   
2. From there I walk 15 minutes to a Manhattan Mini Storage facility where I keep all of my equipment.
   
   
3. I go to the 10th floor and unlock my locker, whose locks are above my head and almost out of reach.
   
   
4. I locate a rolling safety ladder and push it near my locker.
   
   
5. I open the locker, move the safety ladder into place, pack my bag, and unload all my gear.
   
   
6. With leg pads slung over shoulder and sticks in hand, I drag my hockey bag eight blocks south to the ice rink at Chelsea Piers, which takes about 10 minutes.*
   
   
7. After putting my equipment on, I put all of my belongings in my bag and drag it out into the arena, since the public locker rooms are not locked. Other players opt for more security by carrying their bags onto the bench—a sight previously unseen.
   
   
8. After the game, I drag my 50 pounds of equipment back to a locker room and get undressed.
   
   
9. Tired and sore after the game, I cart all of my equipment back to the storage facility, often facing no choice but to brave the elements.*
   
   
10. With my hands full, I manage to prop up my hockey bag so I can retrieve the access card for the storage facility.
    
    
11. After swiping the card at three different card readers, I make it back to my locker.
    
    
12. I unlock my locker and use the safety ladder to load my equipment back in.
    
    
13. I lock the locker and leave the facility.
    
    
14. I take a cab back home, but on occasion have opted to walk across town to the 6 train.

Total time elapsed: 4½-5 hours.

*Now, I could make this all easier on myself if I chose to take a cab to and from the games. But an eight-block, 10-minute walk with my equipment in tow is just short enough where I don't want to pay for the short commute, but just long enough to not look forward to.

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What's worse about all this is that I often play twice a week on back-to-back nights. Meaning, after I complete this process late Thursday night, I rinse, wash, and repeat on Friday night. It's a rough life.

So why do I do it? That's what I asked myself after the first few games I played here. Why go through all this hassle? And then I quickly realized why: because I love the game. Simple, but true. Despite the time commitment, social sacrifices and lengths I go to just to get on the ice, I love the game enough to put up with all of the inconveniences that come with playing in New York City.

Maybe love *is* all you need.

Picking on PA

So in reviewing hundreds of resumes every week, I've come to realize that Pennsylvania has the worst city names of any state. Now I know that every state has its fair share of strange city names, but Pennsylvania's just strike me a little more bizarre than the rest. See for yourself:

• Altoona
• Bryn Mawr
• Coudersport
• Dillsburg
• Harrisburg
• Intercourse
• King of Prussia
• Oil City
• Orwigsburg
• Perryopolis
• Punxsutawney
• Rankin
• Scranton
• Shoemakersville
• Swarthmore
• Virginville
• West Conshohocken
• Wormleysburg
• Zelienople

Somehow I doubt that people from Virginville and Intercourse are friendly with each other.

Making Myself at Home

So it's time for me to talk about my shoes.

Since I've been in the working world, I've been notorious for not wearing my shoes at my desk or around my immediate work area when I briefly leave my desk. My co-workers seem to think this is odd. Maybe it is. But I ask: Is it really so weird, or wrong?

I understand that outside of home and in public, it's normal for people to keep their shoes on. But hear me out for a second.

Shoes are primarily designed for walking, so when I'm sitting at my desk almost all day, is it really so odd to remove my shoes? Are your feet really more comfortable with them on? And yes, I know it looks unprofessional, but who can really see your feet under your desk?

There's also this myth that my feet will stink without my shoes on. But it's for precisely this reason that they won't stink, since my feet won't get sweaty from wearing shoes for 10 hours straight. Food for thought.

At my old job, walking around without my shoes caused some problems. Enough so that they had to institute a departmental shoe policy. At my new job, it hasn't become an issue yet. I take that as a positive.

Maybe before long I'll have started an office shoe-abandoning revolution. Just trying to put the "casual" back in business casual.

Celebrity Sighting #2

After seeing Tim Robbins within days of moving to New York City, I was a little surprised that I hadn't seen another celebrity sooner. But they always seem to cross my path when I least expect it.

Last night my brother and I were getting a drink at Great Jones to kick off the St. Patty's Day celebration. We were sitting at the bar when a bearded Josh Hartnett walked up and surveyed the scene. As with Tim Robbins, there was that brief moment where our eyes met, I got that instant jolt of realization, and he knew that I knew.

And just like my other celebrity run-ins, I immediately thought of something I could say because I always feel compelled to connect with these people in some small but meaningful way. I know it's not the cool thing to do, but most of the stuff I do is uncool anyway. But, I bet Josh would have thought "Hey, Pearl Harbor sucked" was real uncool, so it's probably better that I kept my mouth shut.

Josh was apparently scouting the small, packed restaurant for seats. After coming up empty, he walked out but later returned with a group of his friends.

My brother and I thought it would be funny though if we gave up our seats at the bar for Josh and whatever bombshell actress he's dating now. Josh would be grateful and we would say "anytime, Josh" in an overly friendly manner.

Then we'd stand a few feet behind him the rest of the night, staring and eavesdropping while feigning real conversation. Josh would soon be onto us, though, and his mounting frustration would eventually snowball into some kind of dramatic confrontation or altercation.

Yep, the movies always beat real life.

Note: I did not take the picture above.

Lost and Gone Forever

One of the worst feelings you can have is losing something. I'm not talking about someone close to you or The One Who Got Away. I'm talking about material goods—items both practical and sentimental. Specifically, my NYC winter hat.

I bought my hat when I first visited New York City in 2002. I was a tourist in search of a souvenir, and I happened to need a winter hat. I thought it was a good purchase because it wasn't your typical "I ♥ NY" memento. It did say "NEW YORK CITY", but it was a warm, good-looking hat, and I could say I got it from New York.

At first the hat served as more of a souvenir, collecting dust in my closet for a good year or two. Then at some point, I rediscovered it and decided that I might as well keep it in my winter coat and wear the thing. Yes, it was a plug for New York City, but what the hell. It's not like I lived there.

Given the warmer weather in Nashville, I didn't have to use the hat often. But since I've been living here for the past three months, I've got a lot of use out of it. At first I was a little self-conscious about wearing a New York City hat in New York City because I hadn't yet learned that nobody cares about what anyone wears, because you see it all. But my brother didn't think it was fashionable, so he tipped off my mom that I could use a new winter hat for Christmas. Santa brought one, but it turned out to be too small and too thin, leaving my head cold with it on. So I quickly reverted to Ol' Faithful.

Wearing the hat here seemed a little odd at first, but the more I wore it, the more I embraced it. It was part of my daily wardrobe, and it added character. Here, anyone on the street who actually thought about me wearing a NYC hat assumed that I was a tourist—but they were wrong! You know how I like to keep people guessing.

Last week, I lost my hat. I took it off in a taxi and somehow left it behind when I exited the cab, even after I did a quick check to make sure I wasn't missing anything. But somehow its dark-blue hue eluded me in the darkness of 3Y10's backseat. It wasn't until I left for work the next morning that I realized the tragic loss.

Just like anything that you lose or misplace, there's that initial pang of panic that turns to instant regret the second you realize what you had is now gone. OH MY GOD, WHERE DID IT GO?? HOW COULD I HAVE LOST THAT?! IT WAS JUST HERE!

Over the next few days I made several calls to see if someone from the taxi company had recovered my hat, but there was no such luck. Someone recovered it, but I'll never know who. And they'll never know what it meant to me.

I've since bought another winter hat: a plain black one from a street vendor. It gets the job done, but it'll never be my NYC hat. I considered buying another one, but I knew it wouldn't be right. With me living here now, buying a replica would violate the whole spirit of the thing, especially since its significance was rendered when I coincidentally moved here. It can't be replaced.

***

I've noticed that some things seem to get lost even when you consciously try not to lose them. Take my birth certificate card for example. Before I moved from Nashville, I separated it from my wallet for better safekeeping. So of course when I needed to find it the other day, it had completely vanished. So much for safekeeping.

Losing these things reminds me of how someone futilely tries to change the future in a sci-fi film. No matter how hard you try to prevent something from getting lost, it's inevitably going to get misplaced one way or another. Even so, it doesn't make me want to turn back time any less to grab my hat from that cab.