Nostalgia central

Witness above my commute to work. It ain't pretty, I know, but riding home today I started to feel a little sad. Maybe it was the JBJ rockin' on my iPod or maybe it was the drunken Knicks fans, but with seven days left until I move what little I own across the Hudson and East rivers and officially into a one-double-oh zip code, I got to thinking about what I would and wouldn't miss about living in New Jersey. Behold, my list, in no particular order ...

Au revior! to:

1. My 5:30 a.m. wake-up call and subsequent hour and 15-minute commute to work.
2. That pathetic look I get when I say I'm from New Jersey from every Alabama/Connecticut/Idaho native who's lived in New York a total of six months.
3. Living my life by the whim of NJ Transit.
4. Having to share a bathroom. (Nothing to do with living in New York, but it's still a perk.)
5. Spending every waking minute commuting to New York, Hoboken, New Brunswick, Stanhope et al because no one ever wanted to hang out in Bloomfield except for the one time I made them on my birthday.
6. Being associated with AquaNet, acid wash jeans and fringe bangs.
7. A lack of vegetarian options in the frozen food isle of the supermarket.

I may sniffle at:

1. No longer having emergency bathroom access on trains.
2. Feeling like I'm abandoning the homeland.
3. Spending every morning with the NJ Transit staff. Such nice folks, always, every day.
4. My roommate. (Aw.)
5. Parallel parking. It may just be my one talent in life.
6. Leaving behing my waxer and hairstylist, Tonya at Bangz in Montclair and Sam at Vanity in Upper Montclair. Oddly, I'm constantly getting compliments on my eyebrows and everyone just lurves the new chin-length hair cut.
7. New Jersey pizza. I have yet to find a slice in New York that can rival one of my many faves from the Garden State, i.e. New York Pizza in Rutherford, Vinnie's in Bloomfield, Lockwood in Stanhope, Ray's in NB and surprisingly, the pizza joint in the Hoboken train station. (I'm talking true $2 slices here, not ones that are of course delectable because you just paid $10.75 for it.)

That's all there is, folks. Tune in in two weeks when I'm having panic attacks because the toilet won't flush.

In the spirit of Valentine's Day...

Yeah, yeah, I'm a little late on this one as I'm sure you've all heard about the New York City cabbie who returned a Texas woman's suitcase o' diamonds even after she tipped him a miserly 30 cents.

Cute story and all, how it reaffirms one's faith in mankind, blah, blah. But the thing that bugs me is why this detail is at all relevant to the story:

"He said it never occurred to him to keep the diamonds.

'I'm not going to take someone else's money or property to make me rich. I don't want it that way,' said the soft-spoken cabbie, who was a contractor in Bangladesh until he came to the United States 15 years ago.

He does not own a cab but rents one.

'I enjoy my life. I'm satisfied,' said Chowdhury, who is single."
[italics: mine]

When the hell did The Associated Press turn into Match.com?