This is why I love New York:

Today some girl posted a Missed Connection on Craig’s List about having seen a man in a chicken suit feeding pigeons in the park. You would think this would be a pretty unique sighting.

So far, two different people have responded, thinking it’s them.

How many pigeon-feeding chicken-suited men are there wandering around this city?

Last week my sister came to visit from Pennsylvania. She’s been up here a bunch of times, but for some reason we always end up ordering takeout and watching bad t.v. So this time she was bringing her roommate, who had never been to the city, so I asked her if there were any New York touristy-type things they wanted to do. I figured they might want to go to the Empire State Building, Central Park, do some shopping, maybe see a play. Nope. She called me a week before her visit to say she had good news. She got tickets to a taping of Maury Povich.

I told her that was great, because she seemed really excited, but I was expecting it to be really lame. I was SO wrong. It was awesome. We got to watch two shows being taped. One about lying mates complete with lie detector tests and one where high school geeks come on the show because they’re all hot now. We had great seats for both tapings, the audience was hysterical and I cannot put a price on seeing daytime television up close, personal and uncensored.

Tickets are free and pretty easy to get, so if you happen to have some free time during the week, I strongly suggest checking it out. Go to: www.mauryshow.com.

I hardly get anything different in the mail – Bloomingdale’s catalogs, bills, credit card applications, Val-Paks… but last week, a letter from Chief Concierge & Co arrived.

What are they? A personal concierge and errand service for the extremely busy New Yorker – or anyone who is looking to free up some time. Well, isn’t that just about everyone in New York?

Seems as though they’ve hired a bunch of experienced luxury hotel concierges to take care of our every need. You’ll find a list of services here, but apparently, that’s the short list.

So, my question was… how much? The site says that their prices are affordable and that just about any middle or working class family can afford their services. Thing is, there aren’t any prices on the site. All it says is that they charge a one-time, monthly or annual membership fee, and from there, you can call them up and use their services as many times as you want. I guess it can be worth it if you’re using their services on a daily basis. You can even work without a membership fee and use them at an hourly rate.

I’m not sure if I would pay someone to run my errands, but I know a lot of people that would.

NYC Metroblogging now has its very own Flickr group! If you are an author or a reader you can join our group at http://www.flickr.com/groups/mb_nyc/. Please note that if you don

50 Cent (or Mr.Jackson if your nasty!) has succumbed to the pleas of Metroblogging NYC,(see: An Open Letter blah, blah, blah) calling a truce to his record-release timed beef with Comptonite The Game. Today the two donated $253,000 to the Harlem Boys Choir and an undisclosed amount to an undisclosed South Central charity. Afterwards they pinky swore to do this again when either dropped another record. Fellow east coast rap artist/AP photogrpaher Cam

I’m about to graduate from college, which yay…I guess.

Tomorrow, I will begin sending out resumes and looking for work. I’m terribly nervous and pretty scurred, because I have a drawer, I mean apartment, to pay for and a cat to support. Financial security in this city is never guaranteed, and I suppose that’s thrilling for some, but for me? I’d sooner donate a testicle if I could just to avoid all this stress.

To top it off, everyone I know has work lined up already or are already going on interviews. And, while they have been proactively looking for work, I have been studying the job market. This is what I have discovered:

There are two types of jobs in New York (and probably anywhere, but the dissonance is more obvious here). Type 1: the job for which everyone is qualified, and so EVERYONE applies for it. Type 2: the job for which no one is qualified, making it constantly available, which haunts anyone looking for work because there’s ALWAYS an ad for it. Always.

If anyone has any advice or connections, I would be forever grateful (so would my cat). At this point, I’ll take just about anything that will start me at a minimum annual salary of $30k. I have experience in healthcare, research, web design, media, clerical work, performance and fine art, and publishing. But, like, not years and years of experience, which is what ultimately kills me. I’ve made sure to apply for positions in all of those areas, so maybe something will click. Maybe.

Isn’t New York supposed provide opportunities for people? With college degrees? And high grades? And decent resumes? And charm? CHARM!

I should have majored in business. The fuckers who did have jobs already. Assholes.

Fiddy, (do you mind if I call you Fiddy?) I am writing this to you as a friend. A friend who is asking you to shut the fuck up, but a friend nonetheless. You

I hope everybody hasn’t read this already, but there’s a really excellent book about the people who live in the tunnels and subway systems under New York. “The Mole People,” by Jennifer Toth, was written in the early 90’s. Toth spent a considerable amout of time with a number of different people and groups who have chosen to live underground rather than go to a shelter, and she tells their stories with great compassion.

Although many are pushed underground by drug addiction or mental illness, the “mole people” have formed communities for support, and have become real families to one another. Underground living is not as primitive as you might think – although it smells, Toth writes about broken water mains that serve as showers, electrical lines that have been tapped into for lighting and refridgerators, ersatz schools, and internal hierarchies, including more than one community with an elected mayor.

One common misconception about the homeless is that they are all starving. In fact, many of the underground communities have arrangements with area restaurants to pick up their leftovers at the end of the day. More than one of the mole people told Toth that starving is the least of their worries. Cops and MTA patrolmen, interested in evicting the people and keeping the story quiet (so as not to frighten commuters) is a far greater issue. The shelter system is much more dangerous, where the sleeping homeless are liable to be raped and stripped of their possessions.

Besides a fascinating sociological study, “The Mole People” is also full of crazy facts about New York that you’ll want to tell every person you pass in the street – such as that under places like Grand Central and Penn Station, the tunnels run as deep as 18 stories underground.

For a few days after reading this book, I felt different riding the subway. When I saw someone come ambling through the cars asking for change, I wondered if he was “one of them,” and what his story was. And although I sit by the windows and peer between the tunnels to see if I can catch a glimpse, I know the mole people live much deeper down, and protect themselves in their caves like their animal namesakes.

Of course the book is widely available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc., but if you feel like patronizing an independent shop, it’s on the “Perennial Bestseller” shelf at Shakespeare and Co. on Broadway at Washington Place in the Village.

It’s not as if I’ve been living under a rock – I knew that the fare hike was coming, I guess I just didn’t want to believe it.

On March 1st, I was in Grand Central picking up my monthly ticket to Fordham (where I work) and the price had been jacked up to $143! That’s a lot of money for a 17 minute ride to work (which is hardly ever on time), and that doesn’t include the $76 for a 30-day MetroCard. Now I’m up to $219 each month to get to work. So, when a NY Times reporter who was writing an article on the fare hike asked if I thought it was worth it, all I could say was that it was ridiculous.

But, what can you do? It costs too much to take a cab everywhere, and it doesn’t pay to have a car in the city. I think I may just have to start working in the city again just to save some money. I can think of PLENTY of other things I would rather spend the money on.

I wonder though… why do these newspapers ask commuters if the fare hike is worth it? Are they really going to find anyone that thinks so? I even overheard 2 Metro North workers talking about how insane the fare hike was.

I guess I’ll have to wait until the article comes out in Sunday’s paper to see.

You can check out the new fares for NYC Transit, MTA Bus, LIRR and Metro North here.