Just fix it.

What it is about technical people that makes them think you want to understand what the problem is?

I don't care about what's causing it. Just fix it.

As soon as the man from Time Warner Cable arrives to make the Internet work again I explain that I know nothing about computers and wireless connections. I tell him that I don't know the difference between a router and a modem and that my life is happy that way.


I essentially tell him "Just fix it." in a very roundabout British way. As proof that I am focused on our very definite gender roles I offer him a cup of tea. He laughs. I ask him why that's funny and he says:

"I love your accent." which makes me dig my nails into my arm until a bit of blood comes out.

"Ok! I'm going to leave you to it!" I say with a faux cheerfulness and disappear into the kitchen and do some dishes loudly so it's clear I am occupied and he won't bother me.

"What is your network key?'' he shouts 3 minutes later above the banging of plates.

"I don't know anything about computers." I say defensively
"Yes, but I just need to know what your network key is."
"Well I don't know, because I don't know what one of those is."
"Your network?"
Blank expression from me.
"We should call my husband." I say.
"No Miss, I can fix this, don't worry I will find the network key."

So I leave him to find the key, even though I don't know of any keys that came with the Internet stuff. Where does it fit? What does it lock? Maybe I lost them? I make crashy washing up sounds so it will be clear I'm busy and not bother me again. Doesn't work.

"I think you may have a problem with your router, but I am going to replace the modem anyway." he shouts at me.


I sigh and come back in from the kitchen holding my rubber gloved hands aloft as the clearest sign possible that I am busy doing pink jobs and should not have to be bothered with this bluest of blue jobs and that he is trying to make this Internet thing a purple job and everyone knows that purple jobs don't really exist.

I breathe deeply when he starts mentioning routers again and I allow myself to drift away into a happy place where technical things are fixed by a twinkly fairy who never dares speak of the reasons that things are broken.

''So you gotta problem with your proxy server Miss.'

What language is he speaking?

''I'm ringing my husband."
"No Miss I was just kidding on that last bit! I can fix this, it's just your router."
Oh. Computer humour. I am deadpan.
" I don't know what that is either, I'm ringing my husband."
"No, I can re-establish the modem connection with a hotwire."
Hotwire? I haven't heard that phrase since I dated a football hooligan in the late 80s. What has hotwiring a car got to do with the Internet?



He keeps speaking but all I hear is ''Na noo nam nam blah blah blim blim internet wah wah."

"I'm ringing my husband"

He says no again, but this time I'm not listening because I know that The American is expecting me to fail at this whole getting the Internet fixed thing and therefore actually wants me to fail, so he can swoop in riding a white Macbook and declare me unfit to deal with blue jobs in his absence. So I dial him and pass the phone over to Time Warner Cable man and they speak to each other in perfect harmony like Navi flying the magical forest. Blue Navi.

"It was a mainline ploxim issue with the mighty plexy server widget connecting with the blunket torch fixator?" The Time Warner Cable man says. Possibly.
"Meh." I say
"But it's fixed now."

I check the internet 5 times before I set him free and then bake some cakes.

Arctic flunky

I was warned about the New York winter. I didn't really listen.

The American used to drone on about the temperature for years while I listened via SKYPE from the comfort of my centrally heated thermostat controlled house in Cardiff.

"Honneeee it is 22 degrees here in New York! 22 degrees!"
"Is it darling?"
"Honneeee, do you even know how cold that is?"
"Umm, not really, are we talking Celsius or Fahrenheit?"
"Fahrenheit Em-ma."
"Right. Yeah. Which one is that?'

I am still not really sure now. All I know is that when it hits '70' in the summer it's hot. And '0' in the winter is really cold. Freezing in fact. It's not my fault I was taught metric in school but suffered parents who still talked imperial. Therefore I am a hybrid of both. How wide is that? About 2 metres and 5 inches I'd say...

So when it came to the NY winter I just thought The American was being a drama queen because he spent the previous decade of his life in California, bathed in year long sunshine. Now I see he had something of a point. Every day he tortures himself by checking the forecast on the West coast:

"Honneeee. It is 70 degrees in LA today."
"That's great babes" I say as we face the biting headwind wind along 7th avenue.
''70 degrees!"
I t least know that means hot.
"So what is it here?" I ask
"IT. IS. Twent-teeeee Twoooo fucking degreeeees!"
"And that is below freezing?"
"Uh yes Honnee! Thir-teeeee Twooo is freezing. IT. IS. Twent-teeeee twoooo."
He likes to spell out the stats like that. It adds weight to his suffering.

Not having a car is the kicker. Back in the UK I would go several metres from my front door to my car and then several more from the car to work, preferably by parking illegally somewhere near a BBC entrance. Admittedly my W reg Fiesta would take a while to heat up, in fact it would usually only kick in by the time I was pulling up to Broadcasting House.

Here you walk everywhere. And it's way colder. When the headwind hits you is face palsy freezing. It makes me want to wear a balaclava. As a fashionable substitute I often leave the the house with headphones and sunglasses and hat and scarf- looking something like a rapper about to explore the Arctic.


Here there are two options to keep warm. Real fur or a duvet coat. Being as I am not about to throw my principles out the window, it looks like I will have to throw my fashion sense out instead. Let me explain to those of you fortunate enough not to be familar with a duvet coat. Think puffa, but less puffy. Literally it is a duvet-with down inside and the fabric outside. The fabric is usually nylon, so possibly more like a sleeping bag? Anyway, yuck right? Do I need to add pounds at any time of year, let alone the winter? Do I want to look like the Michelin man while strutting my stuff around New York? Do I want to hark back to my puffa wearing rave days of the early 90's now I am a grown up? No, no and no. So I tell myself ''Emma. You will freeze rather than wear one of those hideous things."

I have scoffed at the duvet coat for years of visiting New York. What I didn't realise is that not only have I not visited in January before but have never lived with extreme cold day in day out.
What I was forgetting is that what New York demands, New York gets-and New York wanted me properly bundled up against the cold. This city had made me succumb to flats after years of being a die hard heel wearer. Who did I think I was trying to fight?

So I found myself playing with the idea in my head. Could I? Should I? I watched other duvet coat wearers and scanned them for signs of style. Could It be that even the fashionable were donning these too? In secret I logged onto some department stores and browsed the duvet coats. The models seemed happy enough, they didn't look like anyone was forcing them to wear duvet coats under duress.

Then on a snowy January 2nd The Teenager, The Boy and me are shivering in Madison Square Park waiting for a famous Shake Shack burger. In front of us are two stylish looking girls wearing duvets. They are cool and warm.

''I want a duvet coat." says The Teenager
"Me too."

So we find ourselves in Macys coat department and there's a whole sub section of duvet coats and everyone is buying them and it all seems quite reasonable and normal and what's this? Betsey Johnson does duvet? And Calvin Klein? Oh. They can't be that bad then.

The Teenager has the Betsey on and it's not hideous. In fact I might go as far to say it looks funky. I tell her I'll buy it for her as duvet-coat-by-proxy seems like a less painful way to initiate myself. She makes an 'I'm not sure' face and says she needs more time.

And then I am trying one on and it actually looks ok on me too. Then I am trying lots on and I find a navy one which is more sort of horsey that council estate chav and the duvet pattern is quilted, like a Chanel bag. And it's $80 down from $240. This excites me even though I know the full price is a con in the perma-sale world of Macys.

It's by Tommy Hillfiger, which just makes me think of pretty blond preppy girls in navy polo shirts frolicking in sunny parks with frisbees. Which seems like a nice image in the depths of the bleak mid winter. I am ignoring the other half of me says Tommy Hilfiger? Tommy frigging Hilfiger? Have you lost your mind woman? Next you'll be hanging out in malls.



So I remove myself from Macys and go home to stroke some vintage clothes and forget the duvet coat ever happened. But the coat has got to me. I toss and turn that night and stare at the Macys extra 20 extra percent of sale voucher on my bedside table. Sleep comes in the early hours but it is disturbed, peppered by dreams of duck feathers chasing me.

Then the next morning I find myself back in Macys and a woman is packing up the Tommy Hilfiger duvet thing and I am handing over cold hard cash that could have paid for something far more beautiful and far less practical yet I feel strangely excited and compelled to leave the store wearing the coat like I am six again.

So I bundle my vintage velvet number into the carrier bag and I put on the Tommy and I step onto 34th street and I feel no cold. I catch sight of others and realise that no one looks slim in a duvet coat, so there's a kind of great democracy in duck feathers.

I was warned about the New York winter but I didn't really listen. Next time I'll remember the city is the boss of things, not me.

Either that or I'll do as my friend here suggested and get a fur burka.

Raging bull

Today I lost it at The American Post Office.

The full force of my special sparkly festive edition wrath came down on the scary spiky haired woman at the counter who threw my credit card back at me. Really threw. She threw it so hard it bounced back over the counter at 20 MPH before narrowly missing a suicidal dive off the edge. The reason for this? Because I had earlier refused to go to the back of the 20 minute line. The reason I refused? Because I did not accept that filling in the wrong size of custom form was reason enough to do this. So I stubbornly stayed at her counter and filled in the correct form, while enjoying the tropical setting of the post office central heating system. All the time she bitched and moaned about me as she served other customers.



''You are very rude!'' I say in my poshest British accent.
''Next!'' she yells over my shoulder.
''Excuse me? I am serious. I just needed your help and you have been impatient and rude.''
''NEXT in LIIIIIIINE!"
''Oh my god" I continue with the entire queue watching the free Christmas entertainment "You can't treat me like this! I am a customer and you work here. What is your name? I am going to complain!"
"Oh you want my name?"
"Yes I do!"
''My name is (pause to laugh with her colleague)...uh...Jamie. Yeah, my name is Jamie."

I narrow my eyes to show my distrust, although Jamie could be her name, being as it's kind of unisex and because she has lesbian hair.

My wrath seems somewhat wasted on this woman. My voice may be loud in Cardiff, but in New York it's normal level. The woman continues to yell 'NEXT!' shrugs her shoulders, flicks her lesbian hair and brushes off my wrath. She is wrathed out.

Customer service is for those who may actually live in some fear of loosing their jobs. American Post Office employees at Christmas are not those people.

This is not my first blow up since arriving. If you are already a fairly passionate person then New York has the ability to turn you aggressive. If you are already aggressive then it can turn you into a sociopath. If you are already sociopathic, you're fucked. On a good day I fall into the second category, therefore I spend a lot of my days fighting people in the service industry. There are too many blow ups to account- they include, but are not limited to:




1) Yelling ''I JUST WANT TO BUY TAMPAX!'' in Duane Reade when I was told I couldn't switch queues to get served faster.
2)Shouting ''Do you like your fucking job?!'' at a cashier who threw my groceries at me at the 'gourmet' market on 14th street. Gourmet just means they charge more. It does not mean they stop employing cholitas with attitude from the Bronx.
3) Nearly getting beaten up by a taxi driver because I refused to shut the taxi door in protest at his rudeness. I just wanted my bag out of the boot. He didn't know what a boot was. I had to run away from this one, as he looked like he might have a baseball bat in his boot/trunk.

Rudeness is rampant here. The streets are mean in more ways than one way. New Yorkers can be abrupt, cold and couldn't care less. They can also funny and talkative, helpful and exceptionally kind.

New Yorkers are a bit like the city they live in, contradictory at best, schizophrenic at worst.

Mrs Smith takes Manhattan

 

There is no minimum qualification period for becoming a New Yorker.

As soon as you land at JFK you're in. In a city of great democracy all comers are welcome-the only conditions are a few dollars in your pocket and lots of attitude.

This week my mother arrives and has the latter down to a tee. It starts in the back of the cab when we arrive at the apartment.

''How much?''
"2o percent Mother."
"What for? I am paying him 50 dollars already!" The cab driver is rolling his eyes in the rear view mirror. Brits moaning about tips, nothing new I imagine.
"Mum, you gotta tip 20 percent, that's the standard."
''Ten dollars? You want me to give him ten dollars?" she protests incredulously "That's 20 percent!''
"Yes mother. I know, I just said that."
''Bloody ridiculous!" she huffs and hands me a wad of notes, ''There's $56 and that's all he's getting!"

The teenager and I laugh loudly and haul her suitcases out of the cab while she waits impatiently on the steps of the apartment. God we've missed her. Lots.

The next day Mum is tackling New York via the subway, armed with a laminated map and 66 years of finely honed navigation skills. Halfway through the day she has already declared me 'crap at the subways'. She also informs me my Blackberry GPS is 'bloody shit'.

We climb onto a packed commuter train later and a young boy, maybe ten or so, is sitting down reading Harry Potter with his bag sat beside him on the only spare seat. Mum picks it up and plonks it on his lap and sits herself down. He is agog but she ignores his looks of disbelief.

This might be New York, but they need to move over for Mrs Smith.



*
On October 19th at 1 p.m. The American I get married at the Ladies Pavilion in Central Park. The gloomy cold has turned to bright sunshine and warmth for the first time in over a week and the park is movie set pretty, dappled with Autumn golds. We say our 'I dos' with New York at our feet, led by a nautical captain we found on the Internet 48 hours previously. Tourists mill around snapping pictures on their SLRs.

Afterwards we take our own pics and while my back is turned Mum sprinkles some of Dad's ashes among the rose petal confetti.

We hail a yellow cab and go to Baltazhar for a $400 boozy lunch and get free champagne from the management. The freebies continue at the Gramercy Park hotel where we get a cake delivered to our room and an upgrade to a suite. Mum and The Teenager come for a cocktail at the rooftop bar where a round costs $120. As usual she is served without a blink but nearly gives her age away squealing with excitement when bumping into Terrance Howard from Iron Man in the lobby.

Mum and The Teenager leave and then it's just The American and I left to do what most newlyweds do- getting too trashed and passing out in what is probably the best hotel room you will ever stay in.

Goodnight Mr Rudolph. Goodnight Mrs Rudolph.



*

On Mum's last night three generations of Smith women go to Bitchy Bingo at a drag bar around the corner. Mum might be a drag virgin but when it comes to the bingo, she's got it locked. She wins the first game and secures herself top prize, which turns out to be two tickets to a gay play.

''Hello?" she shouts at the host while waving the tickets. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Ginger spins on her glittery platforms.
''Yes?'' she snaps back and shoves the mic at Mother
''What good are these to me?''
''Excuse me lady?''
''I said, what good are these to me?! I don't even live here!''
''Oh right." says Ginger. I clench everything, knowing the comeback is just seconds away:
''So tough shit England lady, go tell the fucking Queen about it!'' and with that she flounces off to laughter from the bar. This does not deter my mother. Amber and I exchange worried glances as we see her open her mouth to continue the exchange
''Uh excuse me! I am NOT English!''
Ginger turns around and I can tell that for a moment she is stumped. She buys herself a little more time...
''Ok, so where ya from lady?''
''I am Welsh.''
''What?
''Welsh!''
''Where?''
''Wales!''
''Yeah, no one gives a shit" and then she walks away again and tells my mother she likes the attitude, but to try turning it down a notch, which causes Mum to laugh uproariously.

It's a laugh I haven't heard for a while and thought I might not hear again. I think through a frozen cosmo haze how miraculous that laugh and my Mum's spirit are. And that I am a married lady now. And a New Yorker.

And that both of us are survivors of several of the craziest months ever known.

Cheers. To. That.