REAL NEW YORKERS DON'T...

So the other day I was reading a blog that 99% of the time I like, about things the author believes are musts for first time visitors to this great city. Some of the suggestions were good like check out the Highline while others were obvious like go to Central Park. However, then she got into things like the Empire State Building and Time Square and stating that "real New Yorkers" avoid ever being in such places.

It should be obvious by now that yours truly is nothing if not a bit unstable so my initial reaction was to copy her post and then comment viciously on her more pompous suggestions but then i realized that, as someone who was actually born and raised in this great city, I wouldn't know what a tourist would want to do the way the author, who was raised in rural Oklahoma and moved here about eight minutes and fourty-eight seconds ago, would. All I know is that people born here, both those who leave and return and those who have never left, do go to places that said author claims are too touristy for natives because, being that we belong here, we never are afraid we'll be confused for out of towners.

God bless anyone who moves here and considers the Big Apple their new or adopted home. If you vote here, if you live here, if you raise a family then, yes you are by definition a New Yorker but if you dare to throw around words like "real" I am going to be forced to point out how your backyard with grass playing, cow milking, general store visiting, no drinking until 5 o'clock selves are filled with horse honkey.

A real New Yorker knows that milk comes from a carton, has played in an opened fire hydrant, can sleep through sirens, knows that bagels (toasted or not, butter or cream cheese) need to be fresh & pizza isn't from chains. We know nature means parks & summer smells like wet concrete.