Musings: or, New York is a relaly weird place...

So today I was thinking about how I haven't seen that many interesting New York things lately. I like reporting on weird people and happenings, but nothing has stuck out in my memory lately as being particularly weird or funny. New York seems to have grown lethargic in the heat.

But then I realized I was just being stupid. It's New York. It's summer. Weird stuff is happening all over the place. I've just been so wrapped up in the craziness happening in my life that I wasn't paying enough attention to the following things I've seen over the past few weeks:

1) A man walking a miniature long-haired Dachsund and a Great Dane at the same time. This spectacle was so hilarious that I reached for my camera phone but didn't get it out in time to snap a picture. Trust me, it would have convinced you once and for all that if an alien landed somewhere and saw these two dogs sitting next to each other, it would have no idea they were of the same species.

2) A man in a wheelchair pulling himself along with his very-much-working feet, at 1:00 am in Harlem.

3) A man in a wheelchair with an American flag sticking up off of it and who was missing one leg, which was apparently being replaced by a traffic cone.

4) An old man passed out asleep on a bench in Astoria in 85 degree heat... first at 6:00 pm, when I walked by on my way to my friend's, and again at 7:30 pm, when I walked by again, on my way to the bus. How he could have stayed asleep in that position for that long, I have no idea.

5) Barbara Walters, who was crossing Madison Ave this morning as I was going the other way, on my way to work. Or, if it wasn't her, she could have been a body double.

6) A man dressed all in purple, with a purple wig, playing a purple saxophone in the subway.

7) A woman wearing spotless new dark blue jeans, a bright yellow and immaculately clean fleece shirt, and with a fresh French manicure, begging for change in the subway because she was reportedly "broke" and trying to get food for her family. Ain't nothing 'broke' about your manicure, honey.

I'm sure there are others, but they've slipped my mind at the moment. All told, though, I guess my past few weeks haven't been so ho-hum as I thought.

With that, I'm off to spend a week hiding out in Pennsyvlania and working my butt off on my new column, some interviews for a new publication I'm working on, and so on and so forth. I will also be feasting on fresh corn from the fields, whoopie pies, ham and bean soup, chicken corn soup, and tomatoes straight out of the garden. Home again, home again, jiggity jig!