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New York is full of visual stimuli. The skyscrapers are majestic, the people are good-looking, and the lights are intoxicating. A tolerance to bright flashy things trying to distract you at all times is an important skill you’ll need to develop if you’re going to spend a significant amount of time here, especially in Manhattan. Sometimes it’s good to live the flâneur life and soak up all the lights and colors and words drifting past you, but sometimes you just want to run out and get a coffee without turning it into some kind of spectacle outing.
I’ve learned to treat visual distractions like a game of whack-a-mole—whenever a new one pops up demanding attention, I have a big hammer of “whatever” at the ready to thunk it back into the ground. People say New Yorkers are jaded, but I don’t think it’s snobbery. I think it’s a defense mechanism. (Well, maybe a little snobbery.)
Anyway, sometimes I have the whatever hammer poised to whack a shiny distraction mole away, but then I realize that it’s someone wearing a gold lamé jumpsuit and have to take a second to make sure it isn’t Ziggy Stardust. Nope, it’s an otherwise professional-looking woman probably on her way back to the office after a coffee break. Is this the future of business-casual? I hope so. If the normcore plague keeps spreading among our alts, do we look to actual norms for fashion interest? Down is up, black is white, fleece is fashion. Truly, it is a topsy-turvy world we live in.
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