Becoming a New Yorker

My mother told me that I'm becoming like a New Yorker. Hard edged. Back up against the wall. Spiteful. All or nothing. And she's not quite amused by this, because it's not natural to the girl she knows.

Years ago, when I was a sunny, ever smiling twenty-something, Claude, who had recently turned sxty, told me that people in their thirties and forties were "shit". That they were too consumed with houses and jobs and getting ahead to give of their time, ears, hands or hearts. And so he spent his pension financed afternoons at the KultuurKaffee playing Chess with the Flemish grad students. I even saw him at the Tappers Fuif ("keg party"). Danced by him