September 29, 2008

Dining Briefs.

We were sitting at the bar of the hot new spot in alphabet city (so hot and new in fact, that the New York Times was sitting next to us snapping pictures of their signature cocktail for this story) drinking too many Poquito Picante’s talking about how life in New York isn’t worthwhile if you don’t take advantages of all the city has to offer and that it's true: Life. Happens. Here.

We became friendly with the bartender, Douglas, who went on to make us drinks we didn’t order that tasted unlike anything we’d ever had before. Drunk, and alone at the bar when my companion went to the bathroom, I watched as Douglas leaned in and asked me: is that guy your boyfriend?

"That guy has a boyfriend of his own," I said.

Why is it the ones who always ask never do anything about it, and the ones I’m with are already taken?

September 21, 2008

Safely walk to school without a sound.

Something about fall makes me want to buy binders and organize all of the messy parts of my life into folders marked things like "finances," and "goals" and "relationships." I’d like to 3-hole punch those documented pages detailing the specifics that might help me going forward to make sense of everything. I’d write notes in the margins in colored pencil, supply a grading system to keep on top of things: finances: C- (needs work), goals: B- (try harder), relationships: F (utterly hopeless).

I’d like to put all of the people I know into designated slots in the front of my backpack and carry them around with me so I’d always know where they were, letting me pull them out at the exact moment I need them. I’d like more gold-star days, I’d like more time for recess. I’d like to go back to the time when going to gym meant so much more than running for an hour on a machine that doesn’t take you anywhere at all, except further down the path of never-satisfied self-hatred.

I want those big pink erasures to rub away all of my past mistakes, leaving nothing behind but little darkened crumbles that I can simply brush away with a flick of my wrist. I’d like to not have to worry about time and finding dates and someone to love me for who I am. I’d like to not feel the pressure to think about settling down and getting married and having a house with a garage with tools in it (wasn’t it nice when just holding someone’s hand was enough? There was something exhilarating about the courage it took to just reach out and take hold of that one person’s hand you brushed your hair for, the one person you always looked for in the crowd, the one person you always hoped you’d get to sit next to in class).

Fall makes me want to go back to when everything was so much easier, and a failing grade didn’t necessarily mean that you were failing at your life. But it will pass soon enough, this urge for me to buy #2 pencils and make sense of everything that ultimately doesn't make any sense at all. With the coming of the winter weather I’ll just look for whatever extra credit I can find to get me through to next year, and hope that by then I'll have been able to bring up my grades.

September 16, 2008

You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.

You don’t have to go to Vegas for four days like I did in order to know that it’s easy take too many risks and place bets on your happiness. You also don’t have to go to Vegas for four days to realize that it is, in fact, the most depressing place in America.

Without much to gamble (what with rent already late) I was a bystander, an observer to the endless hope and silent desperation in those large smoke-filled rooms of flashing lights, without windows or clocks, (causing you to question not only what time of day it is, but who you are).

I can understand of course, that we like the challenge, that we always think we have more chances to win back what we’ve lost - all we need is just a little...more...time. It’s amazing isn’t it, how fast the things that you work so hard for can disappear so suddenly (money, dreams, love...) before you even have the opportunity to realize you were losing them? Most of the time it seems we try so hard to follow the rules that keep us away from the things that we want because we forget that we don’t get as many chances as we’d like to make of our lives all that we want it to be.

Admittedly I’m not much of a gambler, always preferring to play it safe in the face of rejection, of loss, of regret. But back in the real world where clocks exist to remind me of how much time I’m losing, I figure it’s never too late to take a risk on the things that matter. Time isn’t unlimited (just like money) and the hands of the clock are always there to pick you up behind your back and throw you out into a place where the days continue to pass you by.

You don’t have to go to Vegas for four days like I did to know that sometimes nothing ever changes unless you take the opportunity to place a quarter in the slot machine of your life, and pull the lever —just remember to keep in mind that it's always important to try and quit when you’re ahead.

September 10, 2008

Maybe kids aren't so bad after all.

Standing on the downtown 1 train minding my own business and late to work (I have officially given up on caring about being on time) I was enjoying perusing at the latest fashion magazine of things I can never, in all intents and purposes afford short of selling everything I already own, (lace is in this season, leather is out. Plaid is in, flower print is out…) when I spotted next to me the little girl in a stroller. Her and her mothers entry into the subway car had been time consuming, as these New York City strollers are roughly the size of my apartment and have enough food and water storage space to keep both mother and child fully sustained in the off chance they get stranded underground for the next ten to twelve months.

She was about four with thick goggle glasses, far too many purple plastic barrettes in her pig-tailed hair, striped pink and green stockings with a plaid (so in!) skirt and yellow shoes. She was a fashion disaster and part of me thought seriously about handing my magazine over to her mother for some sort of assistance.

The girl sat quietly and counted down the stops, holding a half-eaten muffin in her lap that was the size of her head. She was picking at it, stuffing the crumbs into her mouth with her little fingers as she talked:

"What stop is this?" and
"Why aren't we getting off now?" and
"What stop is this?"

Her mother said things like:
"This isn't our stop dear," and
"This still isn't our stop dear," and
"Just two more stops dear."

I caught the handsome gentleman in front of us turning back to take a glimpse at where these pestering questions were coming from, and his reaction seemed to have found the little girl to be much more endearing than I did. He smiled at the girl and then at me in a sort of aw-isn't-she-cute sort of way, all while I had a quizzical look of, what has happened to this city? I thought we were all supposed to be mean and annoyed and frustrated at signs of those who don't belong and get in our way and disrupt the silence of our early morning commutes.

Just then the little girl, mouth full of blueberry muffin, sneezed. And, knowing what I know about kids, she didn't bother covering her mouth. Sitting where she was at knee-level to the rest of us, I watched as large saliva covered chunks found themselves on the back legs of the handsome gentleman's pinstriped pants.

He turned around again, and not being in viewing distance to his backside, smiled just in time for the mother to wheel the little girl off the train at "now this one is our stop, dear."

This time, I couldn't help but smile too.

September 9, 2008

Mr. Biology.

It feels like it's been a really long time since I've posted. I suppose it feels that way because it has. September is here and summer is on its way out and I don't even recall having the chance to say goodbye.

The thing I've come to find is that as a writer you always want to write, but what stops you at times from showing it to others is the fear that it is in fact, at the end of the day, total and complete crap. That very real possibility compounded by living and working in a place that does nothing less than give me a hard time at every street corner, I’ve been halted from torturing my readers with nonsense posts for nearly a month.

And really, after writing for almost three years about this city I've run out of steam – I work too much, I'm tired, drained, poor, and the little things about this thriving metropolis that used to feel so unique, so post-worthy, are now just the annoying and all-too-regular aspects of my everyday life that I'm starting to hate: Has someone shit on subway again? People still haven't learned how to navigate a sidewalk? The only good men in this city are engaged or on social security?

But a writer's work is never done (and you see here after all this time I'm finally referring to myself as a writer. Another thing I've come to find about this city is that everyone wants to proclaim to the world what they are before they even make the effort of actually becoming it, and I'm tired of sitting around waiting while everyone else takes undue recognition. And anyway, just throw a stick in this city and you’ll hit a writer).

I read a quote somewhere by writer Richard Price that made me nod my head in agreement was I got to the end of it. "The only thing I can compare it to is if you're a woman of a certain age and you haven't had a kid yet, and Mr. Biology is tapping you on the shoulder and you're in a panic. You don't want to raise the kid by yourself, but you wanna be married . . . so you rush it, and you wind up in this horrific divorce with a kid . . . I've written - started books - that I never should have started . . . but I was too freaked out about not writing to stop."

I figure I’ve been married and divorced at least five times by now - but like any naive New Yorker who wants to make something of themselves, I’ll keep at it until I find true love.