Tuesday, October 7, 2008

When I stepped off the train into a gorgeous Saturday afternoon that was–wait for it–pretty much as I imagined, the cogs began turning, bringing to fore a few things I immediately wanted to accomplish. First, I needed to avoid the wide-eyed touristy look, a tell-tale bearing traditionally accompanied by a hip pack and liberally swinging camera. Owning neither fortunately freed me to focus on the cardinal identifier of out-of-towners: the constant urge to look up. And it was a challenge, let me tell you. I found myself gazing up at the skyscrapers more than a few times.

The next order of business was to parse out the main roads, a goal easily met with the detailed maps, which listed the county jail as an attraction, generously sticking out of every other street corner. The final task was to calculate the Hobo Quotient, here defined as the maximum distance you may travel from city’s center before encountering lippy hobos. An equation, if I may:

Hobo Quotient = (# words slurred)/(distance in blocks)

Calculating the HQ allows you to determine how far you may wander before straying into the more unsavory parts of town. I was doing fine, a few blocks deep on South Tryon, when a bum with a cell phone (and charger) in hand was indignant because I wouldn’t lend him mine. I had to lie, citing rapidly depleting battery power as an excuse, because my compassion for humanity is only slightly outweighed by my aversion to hobo leavings on my keypad.

Well, lesson learned and boundaries set, I guess. Uptown absolutely pulsed with the potential to be a big city. You could feel it–the promise of being a destination, rather than a place where high-rises happened to be, with every new construction built. But I also realized I’ve lived near cities before–New York, Chicago–and it’s the idea of urban life that appeals far more than actually living it.