I don’t remember much of the nearly five hour bus ride form New York Boston aside from the fact that the guy next to me was literally sleeping on top of me. Boarding the bus without anything, no book, no magazine, not even an ipod, I knew I was in for a long trip. The worst possible thing would be that he might want to talk with in order to pass the time. Probably talk about where I’m from and where I’m going and why I’m on this smelly bus looking like I don’t want to talk to anyone. Like I’ve mentioned in other posts about traveling, I don’t like to be troubled with other people.
So I sat and diligently read The New Yorker and tried not to encourage him. An hour into the trip he was out like a light, sleeping like he might were he home in his living room, sprawled out on his worn-in recliner. At one point his head was on my shoulder, his leg almost draped entirely over mine and the irony didn’t escape me that it was there, on a reckless, speeding, smelly (did I mention that before?) bus that a guy is all over me.
If I got any closer to the window I would have been outside.
When he woke up, finally, he looked up at me with sleepy eyes and asked in half-amazement: “We’re here?”
Yes. And the symphonic range of your snoring made the journey all the more delightful. Can I have your number?
But in this day and age (meaning living in New York City and being 23) I can’t argue with spending $15 on anything, and in this case I guess that meant some unwanted bus-time canoodling.
August 27, 2006
August 23, 2006
New York Is...
When I first came here I didn’t know what I was doing. Eight months later and who’s to say I’m any further along that path to figuring it all out. Who says I’ll ever get there. I spend too much money on coffee, throwing in cash to keep awake in this life I’m still creating, each day as the sun rises and sets, as I make my way to work and to home, Lower West side to Upper East. And it’s always alone, the daily grind, the coming to terms with change and how this city is constantly moving.
And then one day you wake up and realize things are changing. It’s been happening so gradually you hardly notice it, but then you come home from work and your new roommate, your old friend is marking another birthday and you find yourself surrounded by friends, new friends, people you’ve just met but whose lives you’re suddenly a part of, even if only in the smallest of ways, and you feel you’re making something of yourself. You’re finding a life you never knew existed. You’re starting to make ties to people who will eventually tie you to others, and who knows where that will take you.
In a city where you’re constantly surrounded by people it’s almost impossible for the direction of your life not to be influenced in some way.
And then tomorrow, or today really as it’s rounding one o’clock and people are still filtering out of the apartment, dizzy on Dirty Waters and beer, I’m leaving for Boston to visit my old life for a few days. A night at the Pig, sleeping in my old home in the Back Bay realizing maybe (maybe) that life is where your stuff is, where your new friends are, where your future (no matter how uncertain) rests, waiting for you to come back.
Because there are always certainties, like the life you know and have left behind. But New York Is…the life you’ve yet to experience, where certainties come and go as fast as subways and it’s the idea of the day to day that keeps you moving forward (with coffee).
So tomorrow is Boston (still sad and recovering I’m sure from the five-game sweep), and after that back to the city. Because New York Is…home.
And then one day you wake up and realize things are changing. It’s been happening so gradually you hardly notice it, but then you come home from work and your new roommate, your old friend is marking another birthday and you find yourself surrounded by friends, new friends, people you’ve just met but whose lives you’re suddenly a part of, even if only in the smallest of ways, and you feel you’re making something of yourself. You’re finding a life you never knew existed. You’re starting to make ties to people who will eventually tie you to others, and who knows where that will take you.
In a city where you’re constantly surrounded by people it’s almost impossible for the direction of your life not to be influenced in some way.
And then tomorrow, or today really as it’s rounding one o’clock and people are still filtering out of the apartment, dizzy on Dirty Waters and beer, I’m leaving for Boston to visit my old life for a few days. A night at the Pig, sleeping in my old home in the Back Bay realizing maybe (maybe) that life is where your stuff is, where your new friends are, where your future (no matter how uncertain) rests, waiting for you to come back.
Because there are always certainties, like the life you know and have left behind. But New York Is…the life you’ve yet to experience, where certainties come and go as fast as subways and it’s the idea of the day to day that keeps you moving forward (with coffee).
So tomorrow is Boston (still sad and recovering I’m sure from the five-game sweep), and after that back to the city. Because New York Is…home.
August 17, 2006
Salsa Wednesdays
Only in New York can you be at one place, mention to someone how much you'd love to go salsa dancing, and, ten minutes later be in a cab en-route to the best Afro Cuban salsa club in the city.
August 15, 2006
We're All Afraid
I think about it every time I see someone whose home is the corner of 72nd and Lex and I think I have no idea what I’m doing in this place that houses the person in the penthouse and the one who sleeps beside it. And when I pass them by I think that the story books never told them about this.
Because one day it hits you. Like a truck or a speeding biker on 5th Ave or the deep pangs of regret that happen upon you when you lay awake and night, staring at the ceiling thinking about all the things you should have done, or shouldn’t have, wishing you could go back and change it, rewind, fast forward, delete, become someone else…
…someone on the corner of 72nd and Lex, hand outstretched. It hits that what you were taught about life isn’t the way things are at all.
We have been raised on measures of fear, of reality, of self-hatred. Instructions: use sparingly.
But the thing we’ve been made certain of is the restriction of one thing – our time.
Time in itself, offers very little.
So I think about it, every time I see someone whose home is the corner of something 2nd and anything ave. that maybe we don’t know much, but we know one thing. Because one day life could hit you, bam, like a truck or a speeding bike and there you’ll be, hand outstretched wondering where the hands of the clock have run off to.
And yet, still we’re all of us, all afraid.
Because one day it hits you. Like a truck or a speeding biker on 5th Ave or the deep pangs of regret that happen upon you when you lay awake and night, staring at the ceiling thinking about all the things you should have done, or shouldn’t have, wishing you could go back and change it, rewind, fast forward, delete, become someone else…
…someone on the corner of 72nd and Lex, hand outstretched. It hits that what you were taught about life isn’t the way things are at all.
We have been raised on measures of fear, of reality, of self-hatred. Instructions: use sparingly.
But the thing we’ve been made certain of is the restriction of one thing – our time.
Time in itself, offers very little.
So I think about it, every time I see someone whose home is the corner of something 2nd and anything ave. that maybe we don’t know much, but we know one thing. Because one day life could hit you, bam, like a truck or a speeding bike and there you’ll be, hand outstretched wondering where the hands of the clock have run off to.
And yet, still we’re all of us, all afraid.
August 14, 2006
August 6, 2006
different cities, different lives
And there I was, me, playing tour guide in a city I barely know. How can someone know a city so large in only eight months? How can someone ever really know a city at all? It’s always changing and with that comes the inability to really get comfortable. Because as soon as you do it’s another favorite bar that goes out of business or restaurant that relocates, leaving you lost and alone, making your way out again into the fray to forge ahead in an attempt to recreate your life.
And there I was, me, playing tour guide in a city I’m learning to love, to my friends. They’ve been left behind in different cities, in different lives, and when they came to visit I wondered how it is that I’ve been managing all this time on my own.
And there I was, me, playing tour guide in a city that has become my home, realizing that the street corners grow on you and change (as does a city) from daylight to dusk, from walking past at 2AM drunk to 2PM sober. They incorporate themselves into your life like the mundane chores of breathing and eating and this is how you come to know them. This is how 72nd street becomes your life and how you find the man who works at the 24 store on the corner (Kevin) giving you life advice at 3AM.
It changes, life (and the city) like the array of smells that hits you from one block to the next. And then suddenly it’s 48 hours later and your friends have to leave, back to their different cities and different lives and you take comfort in the fact that you’re building something here, in the ever-changing city that surrounds you.
And there I was, me, playing tour guide in a city I’m learning to love, to my friends. They’ve been left behind in different cities, in different lives, and when they came to visit I wondered how it is that I’ve been managing all this time on my own.
And there I was, me, playing tour guide in a city that has become my home, realizing that the street corners grow on you and change (as does a city) from daylight to dusk, from walking past at 2AM drunk to 2PM sober. They incorporate themselves into your life like the mundane chores of breathing and eating and this is how you come to know them. This is how 72nd street becomes your life and how you find the man who works at the 24 store on the corner (Kevin) giving you life advice at 3AM.
It changes, life (and the city) like the array of smells that hits you from one block to the next. And then suddenly it’s 48 hours later and your friends have to leave, back to their different cities and different lives and you take comfort in the fact that you’re building something here, in the ever-changing city that surrounds you.
August 3, 2006
And to think in February we couldn’t wait for summer.
At the end of the day the office was buzzing with who had power and who didn’t.
Lower East Side, Park Slope, the Bronx.
People were making plans on where they were going to stay and making phone calls to the electrical company demanding (as New Yorkers do) to know when it is expected to come back on.
“We’re not sure,” wasn’t good enough. It rarely is.
On the way home it started to rain. I got off the bus early at Park Ave and walked home to 2nd and people around me were running, newspapers on heads, large umbrellas taking up sidewalks impeding vision and all I could think was: is no one ever satisfied?
Lower East Side, Park Slope, the Bronx.
People were making plans on where they were going to stay and making phone calls to the electrical company demanding (as New Yorkers do) to know when it is expected to come back on.
“We’re not sure,” wasn’t good enough. It rarely is.
On the way home it started to rain. I got off the bus early at Park Ave and walked home to 2nd and people around me were running, newspapers on heads, large umbrellas taking up sidewalks impeding vision and all I could think was: is no one ever satisfied?
July 31, 2006
(real) city people
1) There’s a girl I saw Friday and then again today when I was, both mornings, tired and hot from the oppressive heat that was seeping up from the sidewalks and consuming me from my feet up to the tips of my hair. This girl I saw, both days, on my way back from buying a grande bold at Starbucks that I can’t hardly afford, but because that’s just the kind of mornings they were, and there she was, walking towards me in the same light blue dress, both days, with long blonde hair and knees up to her neck and it made me suddenly feel 5'1" and like I might as well have just melted right into the sidewalk and disappeared forever.
2) Do you ever see people and wish you could just know their entire life story by just making eye contact? Sometimes when I’m riding on the subway or walking down the street I see people and I wonder what their lives are like. I want to know when was the last time (yesterday? this morning?) they got their heart broken and by whom. I want to know what their first car was (neon blue WRX?) and how they came to the city and what holiday’s were like at home growing up as a kid. But then I pass them by and never know and figure that perhaps if I’d just said hello, that maybe one day I might have found out.
3)There’s a woman who gets on my bus everyday and gets off at 72nd street. She walks the same route as I do to the subway and bizarrely on the way home there she is, waiting by the bus stop on Broadway for the bus back home. Everyday it’s the same and everyday there she is, talking to herself, saying God knows what, but most of the time I can’t help but listen. I wonder how it is, with all of the people there are in this city that her path always crosses mine. Why is it that with all of the people there are in this city I’m destined to be near someone so lonely all they can do is talk nonsense to perhaps the only person who will listen.
2) Do you ever see people and wish you could just know their entire life story by just making eye contact? Sometimes when I’m riding on the subway or walking down the street I see people and I wonder what their lives are like. I want to know when was the last time (yesterday? this morning?) they got their heart broken and by whom. I want to know what their first car was (neon blue WRX?) and how they came to the city and what holiday’s were like at home growing up as a kid. But then I pass them by and never know and figure that perhaps if I’d just said hello, that maybe one day I might have found out.
3)There’s a woman who gets on my bus everyday and gets off at 72nd street. She walks the same route as I do to the subway and bizarrely on the way home there she is, waiting by the bus stop on Broadway for the bus back home. Everyday it’s the same and everyday there she is, talking to herself, saying God knows what, but most of the time I can’t help but listen. I wonder how it is, with all of the people there are in this city that her path always crosses mine. Why is it that with all of the people there are in this city I’m destined to be near someone so lonely all they can do is talk nonsense to perhaps the only person who will listen.
July 27, 2006
the past.
I just got a call from my friends in Boston. Another Thursday night and they were at The Pig, my old haunt on The Hill. Through the loud sounds of the crowd I could hear that my favorite guitarist was playing my song (it’s only my song because my name rhymes with the songs title, and since I started frequenting The Pig, I was written into a verse). As my friend held up her phone I could hear the song being played, and my favorite guitarist was singing for me to come back to Boston.
He then took the phone, held it up to the crowd and after telling them that I was on the other end, on the count of three, they all screamed my name.
It’s sad really, the things and people we have to leave behind.
He then took the phone, held it up to the crowd and after telling them that I was on the other end, on the count of three, they all screamed my name.
It’s sad really, the things and people we have to leave behind.
July 26, 2006
Flies
You know it’s going to fly out of your life as quickly as it came in. Like the minutes and hours of your day. You wake up and brush your teeth and go to work and come home and make dinner and then suddenly, bam! it’s 11:56 pm and you don’t know where the time went, where the day went, where your life went.
It flies on the wings of the passing years and suddenly there you are, looking back on all of it, looking back on that hazy cluster of forgotten time wondering where it’s all gone. Through the fog of reality you see your life as a series of forgotten conversations, of missed chances and passionate kisses, of flashes of familiar faces without voices without feelings without pain.
And then you realize that all of the significant things, all of the significant moments and people are going to fly out of your life as quickly as they came in. You’ll see it one day when summer is on its way out and the changing colors of fall are not far behind.
Have you ever watched those temporary little things? And the dent they can make on the front windshield of a person’s mind.
It flies on the wings of the passing years and suddenly there you are, looking back on all of it, looking back on that hazy cluster of forgotten time wondering where it’s all gone. Through the fog of reality you see your life as a series of forgotten conversations, of missed chances and passionate kisses, of flashes of familiar faces without voices without feelings without pain.
And then you realize that all of the significant things, all of the significant moments and people are going to fly out of your life as quickly as they came in. You’ll see it one day when summer is on its way out and the changing colors of fall are not far behind.
Have you ever watched those temporary little things? And the dent they can make on the front windshield of a person’s mind.
July 23, 2006
manhattan solitaire
When a friend of mine asked me what I did this weekend, I told them, and then they asked me if I was okay. Yes I’m okay. Why shouldn’t I be okay? I didn’t get mugged or assaulted or get hit by a bus, I didn’t get food poisoning, or lose a lot of money in the stock market (like I even have enough money to begin with). No, what prompted the question of “are you okay?” was that everything I told my friend I did this weekend, I did alone.
In a city where there is never a lack of things to do, why should it be surprising that a single gal spent the weekend doing things by herself? Coffee and writing at the Starbucks around the corner on Friday night (I know, very cliché) where dinner was a venti soy latte that lasted me through a few chapters. I watched couples stroll in and out, on the way back from or to dinner, maybe at Due or the posh new Brazilian restaurant Buzina Pop on 73rd and Lex. I listened as the two girls (smart) next to me debate over whether or not Donnie Darko and Donnie Brasco are indeed, the same movie. They left the discussion agreeing to disagree, deciding that they would both ask their friends Mark and Robbie that they were meeting later to make the final decision, and the loser would have to buy the other one a bud light at Doc Watson’s.
I strolled down 5th Ave on Saturday night, the Upper East Side looking barren and quiet, to The Paris Theatre, tucked nicely next to The Plaza to catch the latest French import “Changing Times.” I bought my ticket “one please,” walked in and bought a box of Milk Duds, “one please,” and made it through the next two hours of subtitles and Gerard Depardieu. It was no Green Card, but it had its charms (namely Catherine Deneuve). French films have an uncanny ability of making a basically interesting story into something a lot more bizarre. Gerard’s character has come to Tangier to track down the love of his life, whom he hasn’t seen/found in 31 years (actually 31 years, 8 months and 20 days). While I’m already rolling my eyes at the overall absurdity of this love plot (like any man can still love someone after 31 years of not having seen them), we move from a love story to a closeted gay son story, to a sheep slaughtering, to a coma. Les temps qui changent indeed.
As I left the theatre, the New York night humid and hot, I trailed closely behind some of the other couples to hear their opinions of the film. As most of them were over fifty, they didn’t seem to understand it, and those that did, were speaking in rapid fire French.
Sunday was a day walking around Manhattan as the bad weather finally broke and I spent almost three hours in the MET checking out the new installments and revisiting my old favorites (the Impressionist wing, especially Monet’s Haystacks, The American Wing, and the circular panoramic view of Versailles that makes you feel like you’re actually there). I stopped by the Telegraph Café for a cappuccino and a pain au chocolat and another weekend passed just like all the rest.
Why is it people always seem unable to understand the concept of living life on your own? This is Manhattan, you’re never alone. And besides, I like the things I do alone, like as soon as I get The New Yorker in the mail I stand at the counter eating pistachios, drinking a diet coke and I circle in the calendar section (after checking out the cartoon contest in the back) all of the wonderful things I’m going to do next weekend.
In a city where there is never a lack of things to do, why should it be surprising that a single gal spent the weekend doing things by herself? Coffee and writing at the Starbucks around the corner on Friday night (I know, very cliché) where dinner was a venti soy latte that lasted me through a few chapters. I watched couples stroll in and out, on the way back from or to dinner, maybe at Due or the posh new Brazilian restaurant Buzina Pop on 73rd and Lex. I listened as the two girls (smart) next to me debate over whether or not Donnie Darko and Donnie Brasco are indeed, the same movie. They left the discussion agreeing to disagree, deciding that they would both ask their friends Mark and Robbie that they were meeting later to make the final decision, and the loser would have to buy the other one a bud light at Doc Watson’s.
I strolled down 5th Ave on Saturday night, the Upper East Side looking barren and quiet, to The Paris Theatre, tucked nicely next to The Plaza to catch the latest French import “Changing Times.” I bought my ticket “one please,” walked in and bought a box of Milk Duds, “one please,” and made it through the next two hours of subtitles and Gerard Depardieu. It was no Green Card, but it had its charms (namely Catherine Deneuve). French films have an uncanny ability of making a basically interesting story into something a lot more bizarre. Gerard’s character has come to Tangier to track down the love of his life, whom he hasn’t seen/found in 31 years (actually 31 years, 8 months and 20 days). While I’m already rolling my eyes at the overall absurdity of this love plot (like any man can still love someone after 31 years of not having seen them), we move from a love story to a closeted gay son story, to a sheep slaughtering, to a coma. Les temps qui changent indeed.
As I left the theatre, the New York night humid and hot, I trailed closely behind some of the other couples to hear their opinions of the film. As most of them were over fifty, they didn’t seem to understand it, and those that did, were speaking in rapid fire French.
Sunday was a day walking around Manhattan as the bad weather finally broke and I spent almost three hours in the MET checking out the new installments and revisiting my old favorites (the Impressionist wing, especially Monet’s Haystacks, The American Wing, and the circular panoramic view of Versailles that makes you feel like you’re actually there). I stopped by the Telegraph Café for a cappuccino and a pain au chocolat and another weekend passed just like all the rest.
Why is it people always seem unable to understand the concept of living life on your own? This is Manhattan, you’re never alone. And besides, I like the things I do alone, like as soon as I get The New Yorker in the mail I stand at the counter eating pistachios, drinking a diet coke and I circle in the calendar section (after checking out the cartoon contest in the back) all of the wonderful things I’m going to do next weekend.
July 19, 2006
seasonal depression
“It’s so hot out, I just can’t stand it.” It’s the girl in the office who talks loudly and often and never has anything of any real significance to say.
It’s July, I want to say to her, softly and just once. It’s summer and the heat, as long as I’ve been alive, has always corresponded with this season, unless you’ve recently spent a lot of time in Alaska and are still adjusting to the light.
Nothing has changed. Nothing will change. It will always snow in January and be hot in July.
When I think of things I can’t stand (lies, local news, country music, people who talk loudly and often when they don’t have anything of any real significance to say, math, limp handshakes, all of the Times columnists, people who don’t know the difference between their and they’re), I don’t think of heat.
Then it rained last night (does it rain in Alaska?) and the heat is now considerably less. It's standable. More able to stand.
So now I’m just wondering, waiting to hear about what she can’t stand next. And I know I’ll hear it. Often.
It’s July, I want to say to her, softly and just once. It’s summer and the heat, as long as I’ve been alive, has always corresponded with this season, unless you’ve recently spent a lot of time in Alaska and are still adjusting to the light.
Nothing has changed. Nothing will change. It will always snow in January and be hot in July.
When I think of things I can’t stand (lies, local news, country music, people who talk loudly and often when they don’t have anything of any real significance to say, math, limp handshakes, all of the Times columnists, people who don’t know the difference between their and they’re), I don’t think of heat.
Then it rained last night (does it rain in Alaska?) and the heat is now considerably less. It's standable. More able to stand.
So now I’m just wondering, waiting to hear about what she can’t stand next. And I know I’ll hear it. Often.
July 16, 2006
work(ing). it's not easy.
1) Spent my Friday night in, writing (working). What does this mean? I read somewhere that if you have a passion you have to weigh it against the other elements of your life and make a choice. So I chose. I choose. What am I missing out on in the process? (time spent not working, vodka sodas, pick-up lines, hangovers).
2) I love The Moose. I think he’s a solid pitcher and I also think he’s pretty dreamy. Got to see him start on Saturday when my dad came into the city and we went to Yankee Stadium to catch the White Sox, with perfect seats behind home plate. What I love most about the Stadium (despite the overwhelming lack of Red Sox fans), is that first glimpse of the field as you walk through the corridor to your section and the entire park opens up before you. Also, A-Rod doesn’t bring anything to the game. But then again, what difference does it make to him at $156,000 a game. What incentive does he have to really care (work)?
3) Speaking of ridiculous, I wasn’t entirely able to experience much of this beautiful day as I was locked inside my apartment for most of it. That’s right, locked inside my apartment. Something perhaps very implausible became something very real and irritating as the door to my apartment is so old one of the screws came loose in the door-jamb, and despite the door actually being unlocked, it was caught by the protruding piece of metal. I was of course confused initially, questioning immediately my own intelligence and my overall ability to simply open a door. Am I losing my mind? Have I just had a stroke? Lots of pushing (work) and hours later the doorman (Tony) literally knocked the door down, letting me out.
4) It’s not easy being held hostage on the 9th floor.
2) I love The Moose. I think he’s a solid pitcher and I also think he’s pretty dreamy. Got to see him start on Saturday when my dad came into the city and we went to Yankee Stadium to catch the White Sox, with perfect seats behind home plate. What I love most about the Stadium (despite the overwhelming lack of Red Sox fans), is that first glimpse of the field as you walk through the corridor to your section and the entire park opens up before you. Also, A-Rod doesn’t bring anything to the game. But then again, what difference does it make to him at $156,000 a game. What incentive does he have to really care (work)?
3) Speaking of ridiculous, I wasn’t entirely able to experience much of this beautiful day as I was locked inside my apartment for most of it. That’s right, locked inside my apartment. Something perhaps very implausible became something very real and irritating as the door to my apartment is so old one of the screws came loose in the door-jamb, and despite the door actually being unlocked, it was caught by the protruding piece of metal. I was of course confused initially, questioning immediately my own intelligence and my overall ability to simply open a door. Am I losing my mind? Have I just had a stroke? Lots of pushing (work) and hours later the doorman (Tony) literally knocked the door down, letting me out.
4) It’s not easy being held hostage on the 9th floor.
July 12, 2006
Just call me Hana.
What struck me most in this New York Magazine article about why New Yorkers can’t be (or don’t want to be) happy is the writer’s reference to the closing lines of The English Patient.
“In the last paragraph of The English Patient, Hana, the protagonist, stands alone in her house and, because her hair flies in her eyes, accidentally knocks a glass from the cupboard. Meanwhile, halfway around the world, Kip, the man she loves, catches a fork an inch off the ground, similarly brushed off the dinner table by his daughter. Some of us are Hanas. Some of us are Kips.”
I know some people who are Kips and one in particular whose name I won’t mention here. He has an uncanny ability of living his life with as little worry and consequence to the world the around him as possible. Me, I’m a Hana. Call it luck or fate or chance or whatever it is you believe and ask yourself why is it that certain people catch their falling glasses and some people can’t seem to ever stop them from breaking.
And it’s not that I don’t want to be happy, but I don’t know the components to my own S+C+V= H equation. Is happiness really formulaic? Or is it as Milan Kundera writes, that happiness is the longing for repetition? Who knows, but this is coming from a man who wrote a book about two people whose entire romance is based on a string of chance events and coincidences.
Maybe this city really is too big of a place to be happy in. You come here and feel at first like you’re part of the city’s plan. That is until you realize that getting to where you want to be is going to be harder than you thought, and walking down 6th Ave. you pass at least two dozen people who all embody little parts of the person you’re trying to be. Everyone comes here to get somewhere else, to get a better job or a better apartment, a better boyfriend, a better life. But is the constant quest for something better leaving us unable to appreciate the things we already have thus leaving us all (gasp!) unhappy?
Who knows. But New York draws a certain kind of person and those people aren’t settlers. You don’t come to New York with no money in your pocket just to find yourself a nice little 9-5er with coffee breaks and a cushy vacation package. You don’t come to New York to keep being the person you were before you came here. You don’t come to New York with your high school girlfriend to settle down. You come to New York to find your own happiness and hope every day as you walk to the subway that perhaps this is the day it’s going to find you - no matter how many glasses you break.
“In the last paragraph of The English Patient, Hana, the protagonist, stands alone in her house and, because her hair flies in her eyes, accidentally knocks a glass from the cupboard. Meanwhile, halfway around the world, Kip, the man she loves, catches a fork an inch off the ground, similarly brushed off the dinner table by his daughter. Some of us are Hanas. Some of us are Kips.”
I know some people who are Kips and one in particular whose name I won’t mention here. He has an uncanny ability of living his life with as little worry and consequence to the world the around him as possible. Me, I’m a Hana. Call it luck or fate or chance or whatever it is you believe and ask yourself why is it that certain people catch their falling glasses and some people can’t seem to ever stop them from breaking.
And it’s not that I don’t want to be happy, but I don’t know the components to my own S+C+V= H equation. Is happiness really formulaic? Or is it as Milan Kundera writes, that happiness is the longing for repetition? Who knows, but this is coming from a man who wrote a book about two people whose entire romance is based on a string of chance events and coincidences.
Maybe this city really is too big of a place to be happy in. You come here and feel at first like you’re part of the city’s plan. That is until you realize that getting to where you want to be is going to be harder than you thought, and walking down 6th Ave. you pass at least two dozen people who all embody little parts of the person you’re trying to be. Everyone comes here to get somewhere else, to get a better job or a better apartment, a better boyfriend, a better life. But is the constant quest for something better leaving us unable to appreciate the things we already have thus leaving us all (gasp!) unhappy?
Who knows. But New York draws a certain kind of person and those people aren’t settlers. You don’t come to New York with no money in your pocket just to find yourself a nice little 9-5er with coffee breaks and a cushy vacation package. You don’t come to New York to keep being the person you were before you came here. You don’t come to New York with your high school girlfriend to settle down. You come to New York to find your own happiness and hope every day as you walk to the subway that perhaps this is the day it’s going to find you - no matter how many glasses you break.
July 10, 2006
Vacation Part II
I spent $5 on a pen. I literally paid five whole dollars (plus tax) in an airport gift shop surrounded by trash magazines and #1 bestselling paperbacks for a feeble green click-on click-off pen that had Florida in italics on the side, just so that I would write. A writer without a pen. I guess I deserved to pay such a price for such an infringement (note: as in my life everything is measured by Starbucks, do you know that $5 is like two grande bolds?! or a venti soy latte?! or a grande iced coffee!?) But the pen was necessary as I had 5 hours to wait in the West Palm Beach Airport for my flight back to New York. I read all of my reading material and called all the appropriate people and balanced my checkbook and braided and unbraided my hair and then needed to write, as there was nothing left to do. I don’t typically write with a pen and paper (hence, no pen) and struggled to get my hand working up to the same speed as my brain. After the carpal tunnel set in I gave up and simply sat and watched people as the passed. Families with screaming children (note to all parents everywhere: please get your kids under control), couples crying goodbye or kissing hello and I sat and watched and counted down the hours, for there were several.
I thought about how I insulted a member of 80’s hair band White Snake at a bar when the roughly 55 year old man (Michael?) with bleached hair looking somewhat cracked out asked for my phone number and I didn’t know who he was. Who born in the 1980’s knows who White Snake is? I was what, 5 when they were supposedly big? Please. Even then I was listening to Prokofiev at 6 and Coltrane at 10. I wasn’t the best girl for him to pick and when he looked at me slyly and asked “have you ever met a rock star before?” I thought to tell him the story about when I was running down Newbury Street early one morning two years ago and literally ran into Steven Tyler, almost knocking him over. That’s basically meeting, right? Instead I gave him a fair rendition of a withering look and simply said “no, and I’m still waiting.”
Can one really be a groupie to a band one has never heard of?
I also thought about how earlier that morning, midway through my cup of French Roast at brunch, the waiter, young, tall and somewhat oafish was holding my half-eaten plate of egg-white omelet when he looked at me and said “Can I just tell you that you’re really very beautiful.” I sat and blinked, the cup poised in my hands ready for consumption and felt my cheeks go red. What is with this place? People here are just incredibly open and honest. Maybe there’s something in the water. Embarrassed and flattered I mumbled a thank you. He nodded and walked away and his declaration had caused the rest of the diners to look over, I suppose to gauge for themselves how accurate his statement really was.
I don’t know what the consensus was, but I know I liked it there.
Anyway, I’m back in New York now and back to reality where there are no beaches or friendly cab drivers, where Just Wants To Get Laid Man is everywhere and Sensitive Man is a lot harder to find. Where perhaps has-been band members still lurk in dark bars and I still won’t know who they are. As great as getting away is, there’s no better sight than Manhattan at night from 10,000 feet, and as you look down on the colossal city with its lights shining below you, you think to yourself that vacations are great, but it sure is good to be home.
I thought about how I insulted a member of 80’s hair band White Snake at a bar when the roughly 55 year old man (Michael?) with bleached hair looking somewhat cracked out asked for my phone number and I didn’t know who he was. Who born in the 1980’s knows who White Snake is? I was what, 5 when they were supposedly big? Please. Even then I was listening to Prokofiev at 6 and Coltrane at 10. I wasn’t the best girl for him to pick and when he looked at me slyly and asked “have you ever met a rock star before?” I thought to tell him the story about when I was running down Newbury Street early one morning two years ago and literally ran into Steven Tyler, almost knocking him over. That’s basically meeting, right? Instead I gave him a fair rendition of a withering look and simply said “no, and I’m still waiting.”
Can one really be a groupie to a band one has never heard of?
I also thought about how earlier that morning, midway through my cup of French Roast at brunch, the waiter, young, tall and somewhat oafish was holding my half-eaten plate of egg-white omelet when he looked at me and said “Can I just tell you that you’re really very beautiful.” I sat and blinked, the cup poised in my hands ready for consumption and felt my cheeks go red. What is with this place? People here are just incredibly open and honest. Maybe there’s something in the water. Embarrassed and flattered I mumbled a thank you. He nodded and walked away and his declaration had caused the rest of the diners to look over, I suppose to gauge for themselves how accurate his statement really was.
I don’t know what the consensus was, but I know I liked it there.
Anyway, I’m back in New York now and back to reality where there are no beaches or friendly cab drivers, where Just Wants To Get Laid Man is everywhere and Sensitive Man is a lot harder to find. Where perhaps has-been band members still lurk in dark bars and I still won’t know who they are. As great as getting away is, there’s no better sight than Manhattan at night from 10,000 feet, and as you look down on the colossal city with its lights shining below you, you think to yourself that vacations are great, but it sure is good to be home.
July 9, 2006
Vacation Part I
I haven’t written because I haven’t been around because I’ve been sitting on a beach getting tan and not wanting to come back to work again…ever. I sat on a beach with good weather, the open ocean in front of me surrounded by West-Palm-Beachians. Granted, I had wanted my beach vacation to take place somewhere in the vicinity of Greece and not where old people go to die, however I’m on a budget, a Manhattan-lifestyle-budget and beggars can’t be choosers (note: will be living off of peanut butter from the jar for a while as all of my money is now currently gone). People in Florida are friendly (well, the people who aren’t over sixty-five that is, as I’ve found that old people can be mean). I’m not used to friendly cab drivers or people having an overall interest in the well-being of the people around them, and I’m entirely not used to men offering to buy me drinks at bars. Granted two girls drinking in a crowded bar (note: vacation was for classy girl and longtime gal pal from jr. high) is typically a draw for most men. However, I’ve never really experienced much of it in Boston and New York (note: New York men are of a whole other breed and I’m still trying to figure them out. That’s a whole other post).
Regardless, I don’t think there was one night where I bought myself more than one vodka soda, which turned out to be a blessing as money is tight. Perhaps it’s a Southern thing, but men there are outgoing, talkative, unpretentious and, what to me is the most important trait of all – unafraid. Yes, they all seem to get a somewhat frightened look on their faces when I tell them I live in Manhattan, but when they got over that they made surprisingly interesting and intelligent conversation. (note: isn’t it sad that this is a rarity?). I of course met the one guy who wanted to suddenly be in a relationship with me after only a few drinks. Sensitive Man. There aren’t a lot of these walking around, but when you come across one it’s an interesting thing to see. He told me I completely changed his opinion of what New York women are like. I took it as a compliment and was too afraid to ask what he thought about New York women before (are we all bitchy, stupid and blonde?) Nevertheless, he was wearing a pink Lacoste shirt and, Sensitive Man or not, I could never be with a man wears pink Lacoste.
But Sensitive Man is better than Just Wants To Get Laid Man. At least Sensitive Man will remember your name and take an active interest in the things you’re saying. At least Sensitive Man won’t grab your ass and laugh when you turn around and forcefully tell him to knock it off. Just Wants To Get Laid Man doesn’t care about you. Just Wants To Get Laid Man has been ruined by the girls who aren’t Classy Girls. What is acceptable to these other girls (i.e. ass grabbing) has confused Just Wants To Get Laid Man into thinking that it’s an okay thing to do thing with every girl he meets. Just Wants To Get Laid Man is everywhere and thinks Classy Girls are a waste of his time, and it’s sad to think that Sensitive Man might turn into him one day. That is if he hasn’t already.
Anyway, I spent the Fourth of July watching fireworks on the beach, and as they went off over the ocean I noted somewhat sadly, how it was the first Fourth in a while that I haven’t seen the fireworks over the Charles River. And then it began to rain and we sat on the beach with towels over our heads as the crowd all rushed to leave. We didn’t care. All we did was sit on the beach, get wet, and not want to come back to work again…ever.
Regardless, I don’t think there was one night where I bought myself more than one vodka soda, which turned out to be a blessing as money is tight. Perhaps it’s a Southern thing, but men there are outgoing, talkative, unpretentious and, what to me is the most important trait of all – unafraid. Yes, they all seem to get a somewhat frightened look on their faces when I tell them I live in Manhattan, but when they got over that they made surprisingly interesting and intelligent conversation. (note: isn’t it sad that this is a rarity?). I of course met the one guy who wanted to suddenly be in a relationship with me after only a few drinks. Sensitive Man. There aren’t a lot of these walking around, but when you come across one it’s an interesting thing to see. He told me I completely changed his opinion of what New York women are like. I took it as a compliment and was too afraid to ask what he thought about New York women before (are we all bitchy, stupid and blonde?) Nevertheless, he was wearing a pink Lacoste shirt and, Sensitive Man or not, I could never be with a man wears pink Lacoste.
But Sensitive Man is better than Just Wants To Get Laid Man. At least Sensitive Man will remember your name and take an active interest in the things you’re saying. At least Sensitive Man won’t grab your ass and laugh when you turn around and forcefully tell him to knock it off. Just Wants To Get Laid Man doesn’t care about you. Just Wants To Get Laid Man has been ruined by the girls who aren’t Classy Girls. What is acceptable to these other girls (i.e. ass grabbing) has confused Just Wants To Get Laid Man into thinking that it’s an okay thing to do thing with every girl he meets. Just Wants To Get Laid Man is everywhere and thinks Classy Girls are a waste of his time, and it’s sad to think that Sensitive Man might turn into him one day. That is if he hasn’t already.
Anyway, I spent the Fourth of July watching fireworks on the beach, and as they went off over the ocean I noted somewhat sadly, how it was the first Fourth in a while that I haven’t seen the fireworks over the Charles River. And then it began to rain and we sat on the beach with towels over our heads as the crowd all rushed to leave. We didn’t care. All we did was sit on the beach, get wet, and not want to come back to work again…ever.
June 26, 2006
Short Cuts
In DC this past weekend we were moving from bar to bar, from Cue Bar to Local 16 to Saint-Ex. Too much vodka later I started thinking, and everyone knows that after too much vodka you’re not really thinking much at all.
I started thinking about timing and how when it comes to relationships timing is everything. People can be brought together or torn apart because of this one single word and it’s difficult to know when the timing is right. Most of the time it can come around and hit you in the face and you won’t even recognize it. We spend so much time trying to chase it down that sometimes it’s almost impossible to deal with when we finally catch up with it.
In DC and too much vodka later I got upset with timing and tried to grab hold of it and do something about it. Too much vodka later you can start to actually think there’s something you can do about it, something you can say to make it slow down the way you want it to. But, if you’re lucky as I was, in this futile but courageous attempt to reach out into the spinning vortex of passing seconds you’ll find that the person you were trying to reach has changed their phone number, leaving you wondering when this happened and how is it that you didn’t know. Has it been that long? you ask, as timing again is working for or against you and you’ll never know which.
And someone asked the question, “so what’s better – being in an easy relationship or not being in one at all?” I guess when something is easy it’s a lot more comfortable to stick around than go chasing after timing, especially when there might not be anyone on the other end. Because I get it, that loving is a fix, like a drug to an addict and it’s easy to take a hit and make it automatic. But still I answered the latter, thinking that in the end lost phone calls and quick fixes are never enough. We all take drugs of some kind to help ease the pain – and that was me sitting there just drinking too much vodka, alone.
I started thinking about timing and how when it comes to relationships timing is everything. People can be brought together or torn apart because of this one single word and it’s difficult to know when the timing is right. Most of the time it can come around and hit you in the face and you won’t even recognize it. We spend so much time trying to chase it down that sometimes it’s almost impossible to deal with when we finally catch up with it.
In DC and too much vodka later I got upset with timing and tried to grab hold of it and do something about it. Too much vodka later you can start to actually think there’s something you can do about it, something you can say to make it slow down the way you want it to. But, if you’re lucky as I was, in this futile but courageous attempt to reach out into the spinning vortex of passing seconds you’ll find that the person you were trying to reach has changed their phone number, leaving you wondering when this happened and how is it that you didn’t know. Has it been that long? you ask, as timing again is working for or against you and you’ll never know which.
And someone asked the question, “so what’s better – being in an easy relationship or not being in one at all?” I guess when something is easy it’s a lot more comfortable to stick around than go chasing after timing, especially when there might not be anyone on the other end. Because I get it, that loving is a fix, like a drug to an addict and it’s easy to take a hit and make it automatic. But still I answered the latter, thinking that in the end lost phone calls and quick fixes are never enough. We all take drugs of some kind to help ease the pain – and that was me sitting there just drinking too much vodka, alone.
June 25, 2006
Honestly, men.
I couldn’t help myself. My eyes started to look around me, on the floor, under the seats as a small strange subconscious panic overtook me as I was standing on the subway reading the latest TIME magazine book excerpt from Ron Suskind about Al-Qaeda’s plot to attack the New York City subway.
Great. As I read the article (and other people tilted their heads to read it too) I think all of us started to wonder when the morning might come when something could go terribly wrong. When I finished the article just before I made my exit at Houston, I took a deep breath, shoved the magazine back into my bag thinking there’s nothing I can do. No one knows what might happen tomorrow or the next day or the day after that, and living in fear is no way of living at all.
However this article from the New York Times gives me yet another reason to try to suppress fear on the subway. It happened on the T in Boston, but with all the more people on the subway here in New York it happens more often. While I’ve yet to be “groped” on mass transit, I have been verbally harassed, and have, on more than on occasion given withering looks to men standing next to me who have more than enough room that they don’t have to be pushed up against me and their eyes have more than enough other angles to look than the general proximity of my chest.
While I am someone who has yet to really understand the overall thought process of the opposite sex, this subway exposure thing really takes the cake. Men grabbing women as they pass and dropping their pants in front of them on the 4/5/6 really doesn’t make any sense to me at all. But then again, neither do men. In Tokyo they have already started the movement towards all-female subways. That’s just what I need – a morning stuck in a perfume packed car full of women ranting about the latest sale at Bloomingdales all while struggling to find room for their huge sunglasses and Louis Vuitton bags.
It’s getting more hazardous living in this city than ever, and it’s not because of what’s happening between the high-rises and cab filled streets – it’s what is taking place underground that has people living in fear. Whatever happened to the days when people could commute to work without worrying about whether or not they’re actually going to make it to the office? Whatever happened to the days when men respected women? Perhaps those days never really existed at all and what is happening now is the slow destruction of a society as it seeps down beneath its surface, infecting the core.
So when I finished reading the Times article I took a deep breath, shoved the newspaper back into my bag and thought there’s nothing I can do. Because this is New York and the city plays by it's own rules and because some men just never grow up.
Great. As I read the article (and other people tilted their heads to read it too) I think all of us started to wonder when the morning might come when something could go terribly wrong. When I finished the article just before I made my exit at Houston, I took a deep breath, shoved the magazine back into my bag thinking there’s nothing I can do. No one knows what might happen tomorrow or the next day or the day after that, and living in fear is no way of living at all.
However this article from the New York Times gives me yet another reason to try to suppress fear on the subway. It happened on the T in Boston, but with all the more people on the subway here in New York it happens more often. While I’ve yet to be “groped” on mass transit, I have been verbally harassed, and have, on more than on occasion given withering looks to men standing next to me who have more than enough room that they don’t have to be pushed up against me and their eyes have more than enough other angles to look than the general proximity of my chest.
While I am someone who has yet to really understand the overall thought process of the opposite sex, this subway exposure thing really takes the cake. Men grabbing women as they pass and dropping their pants in front of them on the 4/5/6 really doesn’t make any sense to me at all. But then again, neither do men. In Tokyo they have already started the movement towards all-female subways. That’s just what I need – a morning stuck in a perfume packed car full of women ranting about the latest sale at Bloomingdales all while struggling to find room for their huge sunglasses and Louis Vuitton bags.
It’s getting more hazardous living in this city than ever, and it’s not because of what’s happening between the high-rises and cab filled streets – it’s what is taking place underground that has people living in fear. Whatever happened to the days when people could commute to work without worrying about whether or not they’re actually going to make it to the office? Whatever happened to the days when men respected women? Perhaps those days never really existed at all and what is happening now is the slow destruction of a society as it seeps down beneath its surface, infecting the core.
So when I finished reading the Times article I took a deep breath, shoved the newspaper back into my bag and thought there’s nothing I can do. Because this is New York and the city plays by it's own rules and because some men just never grow up.
June 22, 2006
Another weekend away
I'm going to The District tomorrow for the weekend and will be staying at the Brokedown Palace (Love Shack formerly known as the Urban Family's Secret Lair) in U Street.
Should be interesting if I make it back unscathed and still with my wallet. I will spend more money traveling via cab from my office to LaGuardia than I will for the entire flight to Reagan. I hate that I can barely afford to travel. I hate that I can barely afford much of anything.
Last time I was at the Brokedown Palace was in December for a Christmas party with Kinsey. I got incredibly drunk on vodka and cheap champagne which was spilled on my tulle skirt and ended up singing to (shouting to) Journey with everyone else who was there. I will of course be drunk for the better part of this weekend, and am looking forward to going back to New Vegas Lounge. Will report more upon my return.
Don’t stop believing indeed.
Should be interesting if I make it back unscathed and still with my wallet. I will spend more money traveling via cab from my office to LaGuardia than I will for the entire flight to Reagan. I hate that I can barely afford to travel. I hate that I can barely afford much of anything.
Last time I was at the Brokedown Palace was in December for a Christmas party with Kinsey. I got incredibly drunk on vodka and cheap champagne which was spilled on my tulle skirt and ended up singing to (shouting to) Journey with everyone else who was there. I will of course be drunk for the better part of this weekend, and am looking forward to going back to New Vegas Lounge. Will report more upon my return.
Don’t stop believing indeed.
June 19, 2006
People Tell Me Things
The girl on the train had just about every gossip magazine you could imagine tucked into the seat in front of her. I sat down next to the window and opened up the manuscript I was supposed to be diligently reading for work, with my head down, absorbed, like any good New Yorker would be, not acknowledging anyone else around them.
Truth is I didn’t want to sit next to anyone. I didn’t want to get stuck next to the guy who ate the whole time, or the girl who talked on her phone, or, god forbid the person who wanted to talk to me. I didn’t want someone to ask me questions about myself and go through the typical travel bonding that people go through, thinking that just because they’re going to be sitting next to someone on a train for the next 2.5 hours going to the same destination, that suddenly we’re comrades in battle, old acquaintances, or come to it, friends.
In the end call it cynical or whatever you want, but I simply want to be left alone. And I could see out of the corner of my eye the late-comer travelers doing what all late-comer travelers do – scoping out who is the least terrible person to sit next to. With all window seats taken they look, assess who is the least offensive person, the least attractive, the least likely to smell, and they make their choice.
Kathleen chose me. She sat down reading with a box of Good ‘n Plenty, a candy which I have never thought to be neither good nor plentiful and about twenty minutes into the ride upstate decided she’d gotten enough information about the status of Nick Lachey and his new girlfriends, enough about the Dateline interview with Matt Lauer and Britney Spears and how she’s now white trash and should seriously reconsider the length of her skirts, and the latest about Brad and Angelina and that old looking dude from American Idol. Twenty minutes into the ride she decided she wanted to be my friend.
Kathleen, or Kathy if you will, is a sophomore at Pratt who is obsessed with Sex and the City, going to clubs, Midori sours, Spring Break in Miami and great literature like “Oh my god have you even read Bergdorf Blondes? Its only like the BEST BOOK ever written! I mean I don’t like to read but that book like made me want to read again. You have to read it!”
She can’t wait to graduate and come to New York and be like Carrie Bradshaw. When I told her how I came to New York from Boston she said, “Oh my god that must have been so hard. How did you do it? I mean I want to do that but I don’t know if I can, it’s like, so scary. I mean, alone?” she asked. She thought it was “fabulous” that I live in the Upper East Side, she thought it was “amazing” that I occasionally work with celebrity authors. She liked my sunglasses and my shoes and my outfit and asked me that if she ever gets to New York would I’d take her out to the hottest clubs and the hottest bars and introduce her to the hottest guys.
As callous as people may think I am, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that my life isn’t as fabulous as she thinks. I didn’t tell her that her perception of great literature was making me slightly nauseous. I couldn’t tell her the truth about life and money and shitty New York (or anywhere) men. And then I realized that sometimes we can go through life not really seeing our lives the way other people see them. Some people, such as myself, are our own severest critics, and it is the Kathy’s of the world that can help us see we don’t have it so bad after all. Some people (gasp) even aspire to be like us. Now while that might make Kathy certifiably insane, and if she really got to know me she might entirely retract that thought - but for those 2.5 hours she thought I was pretty great and I couldn’t help but love her for it.
On the way back to the city this morning, reading the still unfinished manuscript half asleep with sunglasses on, a man sat down next to me, said hello, read half of Newsweek and fell asleep – just the way I like it.
Truth is I didn’t want to sit next to anyone. I didn’t want to get stuck next to the guy who ate the whole time, or the girl who talked on her phone, or, god forbid the person who wanted to talk to me. I didn’t want someone to ask me questions about myself and go through the typical travel bonding that people go through, thinking that just because they’re going to be sitting next to someone on a train for the next 2.5 hours going to the same destination, that suddenly we’re comrades in battle, old acquaintances, or come to it, friends.
In the end call it cynical or whatever you want, but I simply want to be left alone. And I could see out of the corner of my eye the late-comer travelers doing what all late-comer travelers do – scoping out who is the least terrible person to sit next to. With all window seats taken they look, assess who is the least offensive person, the least attractive, the least likely to smell, and they make their choice.
Kathleen chose me. She sat down reading with a box of Good ‘n Plenty, a candy which I have never thought to be neither good nor plentiful and about twenty minutes into the ride upstate decided she’d gotten enough information about the status of Nick Lachey and his new girlfriends, enough about the Dateline interview with Matt Lauer and Britney Spears and how she’s now white trash and should seriously reconsider the length of her skirts, and the latest about Brad and Angelina and that old looking dude from American Idol. Twenty minutes into the ride she decided she wanted to be my friend.
Kathleen, or Kathy if you will, is a sophomore at Pratt who is obsessed with Sex and the City, going to clubs, Midori sours, Spring Break in Miami and great literature like “Oh my god have you even read Bergdorf Blondes? Its only like the BEST BOOK ever written! I mean I don’t like to read but that book like made me want to read again. You have to read it!”
She can’t wait to graduate and come to New York and be like Carrie Bradshaw. When I told her how I came to New York from Boston she said, “Oh my god that must have been so hard. How did you do it? I mean I want to do that but I don’t know if I can, it’s like, so scary. I mean, alone?” she asked. She thought it was “fabulous” that I live in the Upper East Side, she thought it was “amazing” that I occasionally work with celebrity authors. She liked my sunglasses and my shoes and my outfit and asked me that if she ever gets to New York would I’d take her out to the hottest clubs and the hottest bars and introduce her to the hottest guys.
As callous as people may think I am, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that my life isn’t as fabulous as she thinks. I didn’t tell her that her perception of great literature was making me slightly nauseous. I couldn’t tell her the truth about life and money and shitty New York (or anywhere) men. And then I realized that sometimes we can go through life not really seeing our lives the way other people see them. Some people, such as myself, are our own severest critics, and it is the Kathy’s of the world that can help us see we don’t have it so bad after all. Some people (gasp) even aspire to be like us. Now while that might make Kathy certifiably insane, and if she really got to know me she might entirely retract that thought - but for those 2.5 hours she thought I was pretty great and I couldn’t help but love her for it.
On the way back to the city this morning, reading the still unfinished manuscript half asleep with sunglasses on, a man sat down next to me, said hello, read half of Newsweek and fell asleep – just the way I like it.
June 15, 2006
Because some things never change
Woman on the subway today, painting her nails. Pink, I think. I can hardly begin to understand how she did it. I’m nowhere close to being that coordinated or, come to it, that desperate for time that rattling uptown on the express is the only chance I have to give myself a quick manicure.
I was talking to Sweet Girl tonight (pls. refer to Dirty Water) and we were both recognizing how tonight is Thursday and on Thursday’s in Boston we would always go to the Pig on the Hill and we would always have a great time and I would always be hung over at work on Friday. Not hung over on Friday anymore (sadly), as this job requires a lot more focus and concentration.
Speaking of a job that requires focus and attention – I’m heading out of the city tomorrow to visit home for the weekend. Since I’ve been here I don’t feel like I can function normally outside of the city limits but this weekend I’m giving it a try. Once you get into the New York groove it’s difficult to get out. Different cities have different feels, and while I’ve got Boston under my skin, New York (for now anyway) runs my life.
I smiled at the woman painting her nails with her groceries balanced on her lap on the subway, and thought that perhaps I’m headed down the path to becoming that kind of New Yorker. That kind of New Yorker is everywhere. But me? I would never wear pink.
I was talking to Sweet Girl tonight (pls. refer to Dirty Water) and we were both recognizing how tonight is Thursday and on Thursday’s in Boston we would always go to the Pig on the Hill and we would always have a great time and I would always be hung over at work on Friday. Not hung over on Friday anymore (sadly), as this job requires a lot more focus and concentration.
Speaking of a job that requires focus and attention – I’m heading out of the city tomorrow to visit home for the weekend. Since I’ve been here I don’t feel like I can function normally outside of the city limits but this weekend I’m giving it a try. Once you get into the New York groove it’s difficult to get out. Different cities have different feels, and while I’ve got Boston under my skin, New York (for now anyway) runs my life.
I smiled at the woman painting her nails with her groceries balanced on her lap on the subway, and thought that perhaps I’m headed down the path to becoming that kind of New Yorker. That kind of New Yorker is everywhere. But me? I would never wear pink.
June 13, 2006
As if I had all the answers
My friend just had her first one-night stand. She said that apparently the price of getting laid by her is a few 2 dollar PBR's and a taco at 3AM. A “seemingly amazing guy” who drove her home in the morning said he'd call and take her on a real date. So far, no call.
So she asked me for my advice. Now I may not have any clue on how to run my own love life. I may be someone who always likes the wrong people – guys who lead me on, guys who treat me badly, guys who cheat on me, guys who are in relationships. I may not have any idea why this is or how I might go about fixing it. I may be single and alone at 40 with cats, still on the upper east side swigging martini's every night and showing up drunk at all of my friends weddings. Regardless of all of this, other people always seem to come to me for my advice.
She talked about how her and the “seemingly amazing guy” walked around for hours talking about everything and nothing at the same time. She told me how she had never felt such an instantaneous attraction or connection with anyone before in her life. And one thing led to another and the next day after he brought her home, she knew. She knew in her gut the way girls know in their guts that he wasn’t going to call.
We go home with people knowing they’re not going to call because we’re all looking for something and we don’t know how to find it. We think they see something in us that no one else has ever seen. But there’s a difference in looking at a thing and seeing a thing. And people tell lies. They tell them easier than they should and more than they should and we believe them, even though we know we shouldn’t.
So I tell her among other things that there are no answers. I tell her that sometimes things just are what they are in the end no matter how you feel, and there’s no changing that. I tell her that a one night stand is a one night chance to figure out who you are and if you ever want to be a one night anything to anyone ever again. I tell her I’m no good with advice.
So she asked me for my advice. Now I may not have any clue on how to run my own love life. I may be someone who always likes the wrong people – guys who lead me on, guys who treat me badly, guys who cheat on me, guys who are in relationships. I may not have any idea why this is or how I might go about fixing it. I may be single and alone at 40 with cats, still on the upper east side swigging martini's every night and showing up drunk at all of my friends weddings. Regardless of all of this, other people always seem to come to me for my advice.
She talked about how her and the “seemingly amazing guy” walked around for hours talking about everything and nothing at the same time. She told me how she had never felt such an instantaneous attraction or connection with anyone before in her life. And one thing led to another and the next day after he brought her home, she knew. She knew in her gut the way girls know in their guts that he wasn’t going to call.
We go home with people knowing they’re not going to call because we’re all looking for something and we don’t know how to find it. We think they see something in us that no one else has ever seen. But there’s a difference in looking at a thing and seeing a thing. And people tell lies. They tell them easier than they should and more than they should and we believe them, even though we know we shouldn’t.
So I tell her among other things that there are no answers. I tell her that sometimes things just are what they are in the end no matter how you feel, and there’s no changing that. I tell her that a one night stand is a one night chance to figure out who you are and if you ever want to be a one night anything to anyone ever again. I tell her I’m no good with advice.
June 11, 2006
Because what you see isn’t always what you get.
There we were sitting in Tea & Sympathy and it was like no time had passed at all. More old friends coming into town to keep me company and it’s hard to think that one would need company in a city so large. We had walked from the East side to the West side through the Park and around the reservoir and could see from the north side, the city skyline. My friend looked at me earnestly and said “how can you look at this and not realize how great it is that you are here?”
Because, I thought to tell him, great isn’t just skylines. Because great can’t just be great views and great restaurants and tall buildings.
From the West side back to the East side we went to Bella Blu on Lexington for dinner where the bartender was burning napkins behind the bar and people were clapping at the flying sparks like they were sparklers on the fourth of July. After drinks uptown we walked home drunk and I thought that great is old friends and conversation and memories and not feeling like such an insignificant blip on the radar of such a massive city.
Because, I thought to tell him, great isn’t just skylines. Because great can’t just be great views and great restaurants and tall buildings.
From the West side back to the East side we went to Bella Blu on Lexington for dinner where the bartender was burning napkins behind the bar and people were clapping at the flying sparks like they were sparklers on the fourth of July. After drinks uptown we walked home drunk and I thought that great is old friends and conversation and memories and not feeling like such an insignificant blip on the radar of such a massive city.
June 6, 2006
Conversation on the 1/9
Cute guy next to me on the subway looking exactly like all the suits who pile on the 1/9 express at 42nd street. Blonde hair and blue eyes with a black leather messenger bag with attached hanging nalgene bottle.
I was busy reading the latest New Yorker, the “Life During Wartime” issue. I skipped to the back first, which I always do, to the cartoon contest. I didn’t win the last one I sent in a few weeks ago. Apparently I’m not clever enough. At least not New Yorker clever.
Interrupting my reading of “Yugoslavia 1991” was two girls who were standing next to me:
“She just doesn’t get it. He totally doesn’t like her, it’s like so pathetic.”
“Oh I know, I mean she should take a hint ya know? You don’t just DO something like that when it’s so OBVIOUS that the guy doesn’t like you.”
“I know, like what was she even thinking? It’s like so ridiculous I can’t even believe it.”
“And then to like keep calling him?! Trying to like talk to him and shit.”
“Oh I know! I like honestly don’t get what was going through her head.”
“Me either. But whatever, she’s not even pretty.”
“Ew I know, totally not pretty enough for him. She’s like such a bitch anyway. I don’t even know why we’re friends with her. She’s always talking about everyone behind their back.”
I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help it. I was eavesdropping because that’s what people do when you’re packed in like sardines on the 1/9 uptown express. They were right there sharing the same pole as me and cute guy with the briefcase and too much gel in his hair. I looked up realizing my outburst, and the two girls shot me a dirty look and got off at the next stop. Cute guy was smiling and holding back a laugh too. The girls weren’t pretty and the guy got off with me at 72nd and walked in the opposite direction, his nalgene swinging behind him.
I was busy reading the latest New Yorker, the “Life During Wartime” issue. I skipped to the back first, which I always do, to the cartoon contest. I didn’t win the last one I sent in a few weeks ago. Apparently I’m not clever enough. At least not New Yorker clever.
Interrupting my reading of “Yugoslavia 1991” was two girls who were standing next to me:
“She just doesn’t get it. He totally doesn’t like her, it’s like so pathetic.”
“Oh I know, I mean she should take a hint ya know? You don’t just DO something like that when it’s so OBVIOUS that the guy doesn’t like you.”
“I know, like what was she even thinking? It’s like so ridiculous I can’t even believe it.”
“And then to like keep calling him?! Trying to like talk to him and shit.”
“Oh I know! I like honestly don’t get what was going through her head.”
“Me either. But whatever, she’s not even pretty.”
“Ew I know, totally not pretty enough for him. She’s like such a bitch anyway. I don’t even know why we’re friends with her. She’s always talking about everyone behind their back.”
I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help it. I was eavesdropping because that’s what people do when you’re packed in like sardines on the 1/9 uptown express. They were right there sharing the same pole as me and cute guy with the briefcase and too much gel in his hair. I looked up realizing my outburst, and the two girls shot me a dirty look and got off at the next stop. Cute guy was smiling and holding back a laugh too. The girls weren’t pretty and the guy got off with me at 72nd and walked in the opposite direction, his nalgene swinging behind him.
June 4, 2006
Another Friday night
Without me saying anything he bought me a drink and it came back a small vodka soda with a lime and I realized that I have become a forgone conclusion, something I’ve never wanted to be.
But that’s what’s good about having friends and people who know you well. You don’t have to worry about being another version of yourself the way you do when you’re meeting someone new and trying to get them to buy you a vodka soda.
And there we were amidst New Yorkers on the Upper East Side who made it out in the rain at midnight on a Friday/Saturday looking for something. Every guy had on a collared shirt that was, patterned or not, blue or black. Every girl had on cleavage revealing tank tops with lots of jewelry and were traveling in packs.
Most of the time when we go out looking for it, it finds us and we hardly know the difference.
But that’s what’s good about having friends and people who know you well. You don’t have to worry about being another version of yourself the way you do when you’re meeting someone new and trying to get them to buy you a vodka soda.
And there we were amidst New Yorkers on the Upper East Side who made it out in the rain at midnight on a Friday/Saturday looking for something. Every guy had on a collared shirt that was, patterned or not, blue or black. Every girl had on cleavage revealing tank tops with lots of jewelry and were traveling in packs.
Most of the time when we go out looking for it, it finds us and we hardly know the difference.
May 29, 2006
Two On the Subject of Distance
Over spicy tuna rolls at Sake Haven on 79th and 2nd last night my friend told me that sometimes you have to leave a place in order to escape the memories tied to it.
I said that sometimes no matter where you go your past always has a way of catching up with you.
I said that sometimes no matter where you go your past always has a way of catching up with you.
May 25, 2006
The Way #71 Sees My Life
I think the Starbucks near my office is cursed. And I say the Starbucks because if it's not the place then it's just got to be me because every time I go there (and it's not often anymore) something strange happens. I have, yes, out of my current financial problems and need for the extra ten minutes of sleep in the morning rendering it impossible to make it from the subway to the Starbucks and then to my office in order to be on time, stopped frequenting my old haunt. I'm now friends with Ralph, the guy at the coffee stand on the sidewalk right outside of my office where I can, every morning, have my coffee ready for me for just one dollar. He asks me about my weekends and tells me to have a good day and his coffee is hot, which is about as picky as I can be these days when it comes to getting anything I can get for a dollar.
An entire two weeks ago when I went to Starbucks in a free ten minutes I had during the day on Friday, my grande non-fat latte setting me back a whopping $3.75 which is like, enough to almost buy me dinner for an entire week (read: a box of cereal). They forgot my order and after re-ordering it on the fly I got a half full cup of whole milk that was barely steaming (whatever happened to, careful, the beverage you’re about to enjoy is extremely hot?) and suddenly my world was falling apart. Holding the white and green cup with # 71 on the side by the inarticulate man-hating Maureen Dowd, I realized that perhaps our relationship (Starbucks and mine) is hitting a rough patch. Perhaps it’s time to sever the cord of this love-hate (usually mostly love) union and look for someone who treats me with more respect and appreciates my feelings, can understand the kind of girl I am.
This morning (back again, some of us never learn) I was harassed by the man standing in front of me in line. He wouldn’t stop asking me if I had a quarter. No, I said (which was true) I don’t, but he just wouldn’t let it go. He asked about five other people, all of whom didn’t even bother to acknowledge his existence (that’s New York for you). The man (Irwin) then proceeded to ask me about my weekend plans, what I was going to get, if I had ever tried the bagels, if I was going to be late for work. He, apparently, loves their muffins and isn’t, “damn it,” going to get a paycheck tomorrow. The whole scene was just so awkward for me that it was all I could do from turning around and running away, my only typical response to awkward situations.
When the British guy behind me jokingly asked me if I had a dime, I started to laugh and then Irwin shot us both a hateful look and asked pointedly: “are you laughing at me?”
Well, I guess sometimes life (and Starbucks) is like what #71 says: the minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.
An entire two weeks ago when I went to Starbucks in a free ten minutes I had during the day on Friday, my grande non-fat latte setting me back a whopping $3.75 which is like, enough to almost buy me dinner for an entire week (read: a box of cereal). They forgot my order and after re-ordering it on the fly I got a half full cup of whole milk that was barely steaming (whatever happened to, careful, the beverage you’re about to enjoy is extremely hot?) and suddenly my world was falling apart. Holding the white and green cup with # 71 on the side by the inarticulate man-hating Maureen Dowd, I realized that perhaps our relationship (Starbucks and mine) is hitting a rough patch. Perhaps it’s time to sever the cord of this love-hate (usually mostly love) union and look for someone who treats me with more respect and appreciates my feelings, can understand the kind of girl I am.
This morning (back again, some of us never learn) I was harassed by the man standing in front of me in line. He wouldn’t stop asking me if I had a quarter. No, I said (which was true) I don’t, but he just wouldn’t let it go. He asked about five other people, all of whom didn’t even bother to acknowledge his existence (that’s New York for you). The man (Irwin) then proceeded to ask me about my weekend plans, what I was going to get, if I had ever tried the bagels, if I was going to be late for work. He, apparently, loves their muffins and isn’t, “damn it,” going to get a paycheck tomorrow. The whole scene was just so awkward for me that it was all I could do from turning around and running away, my only typical response to awkward situations.
When the British guy behind me jokingly asked me if I had a dime, I started to laugh and then Irwin shot us both a hateful look and asked pointedly: “are you laughing at me?”
Well, I guess sometimes life (and Starbucks) is like what #71 says: the minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.
May 21, 2006
I'm Not Easy
There was a girl in front of me drunk and dancing to the music, which was loud and obnoxious and she was the only one doing it and it made me embarrassed for her.
The guy who was talking to me was talking about what guys at bars talk about, and I wasn’t so much listening as I was looking at his hair and how it bounced when he opened and closed his mouth with each word.
As he talked I couldn’t hear over the music all that he was saying, and I just nodded my head and smiled thinking, here he is talking when it all just comes down to whether or not I’m going to go home with him.
I pictured the morning and how it would be after the vodka wore off and how it’s just as easy to be nobody to somebody, so why go out of my way to be nobody to nobody.
Outside a sad scene: the drunk girl falling onto the ground and the guy trying like hell to pick her up.
The guy who was talking to me was talking about what guys at bars talk about, and I wasn’t so much listening as I was looking at his hair and how it bounced when he opened and closed his mouth with each word.
As he talked I couldn’t hear over the music all that he was saying, and I just nodded my head and smiled thinking, here he is talking when it all just comes down to whether or not I’m going to go home with him.
I pictured the morning and how it would be after the vodka wore off and how it’s just as easy to be nobody to somebody, so why go out of my way to be nobody to nobody.
Outside a sad scene: the drunk girl falling onto the ground and the guy trying like hell to pick her up.
May 18, 2006
elbow wrench : directions ::
You want to think you're better at things than you really are. You want to think that you can handle anything life throws at you and when the time comes to really to step up to the plate you'll be able to follow through. And, unlike Alex Rodriguez up at bat two runs down at the bottom of the eighth, you won't cave under the pressure.
Well yesterday, for me, the time came, and it came in the form of a box from ikea. My New York apartment, albeit on the Upper East Side, is still somewhat small. The two-seater couch I acquired from back home makes just enough room for me and The Texan (my roommate from Austin) to sit snugly next to each other while watching Grey's Anatomy. But New York is the kind of city where you're constantly surrounded by people, pushed up against them in the subway, walking around them on the sidewalk, trying to avoid them (your boss) at the office. People here are everywhere. So in going home you long for a little space, a little time alone, the chance to feel like your life has more breathing room than it really does.
That's where the chair comes in. I bought a chair from Ikea, the only place to buy furniture when you're living in Manhattan and are so low on money you fully believe that two tablespoons of peanut butter out of the jar really constitutes as breakfast. When I hauled the box into the apartment I realized the test was upon me: assembly.
Looking at the one large picture covered with circled numbers and letters that correspond with the key in the lower right hand corner, I started feeling the way I did the morning of my SAT's, that feeling that perhaps I'm not as smart as I thought, that perhaps something that should be so simple, is in fact, very difficult. Thirty-five laborious minutes later all I had managed to do was piece together the two arms and connect them with a beam. That little elbow wrench only letting me turn the screw half a centimeter made me want to kill someone, and, as my hand started to cramp I yelled with frustration to the empty apartment "I can't do this is!"
There it was. I admitted it. I can't assemble chairs that come in boxes from Sweden. So I sat down with a cheap glass of pinot noir and looked more calmly at that one page of directions and accepted the fact that I'm not as handy around the house as I thought.
At least I know that until I work up the patience and brainpower to have another go, I can just put one of the cushions on the floor between the two arms, and have some personal space – because in this city, that’s priceless.
Well yesterday, for me, the time came, and it came in the form of a box from ikea. My New York apartment, albeit on the Upper East Side, is still somewhat small. The two-seater couch I acquired from back home makes just enough room for me and The Texan (my roommate from Austin) to sit snugly next to each other while watching Grey's Anatomy. But New York is the kind of city where you're constantly surrounded by people, pushed up against them in the subway, walking around them on the sidewalk, trying to avoid them (your boss) at the office. People here are everywhere. So in going home you long for a little space, a little time alone, the chance to feel like your life has more breathing room than it really does.
That's where the chair comes in. I bought a chair from Ikea, the only place to buy furniture when you're living in Manhattan and are so low on money you fully believe that two tablespoons of peanut butter out of the jar really constitutes as breakfast. When I hauled the box into the apartment I realized the test was upon me: assembly.
Looking at the one large picture covered with circled numbers and letters that correspond with the key in the lower right hand corner, I started feeling the way I did the morning of my SAT's, that feeling that perhaps I'm not as smart as I thought, that perhaps something that should be so simple, is in fact, very difficult. Thirty-five laborious minutes later all I had managed to do was piece together the two arms and connect them with a beam. That little elbow wrench only letting me turn the screw half a centimeter made me want to kill someone, and, as my hand started to cramp I yelled with frustration to the empty apartment "I can't do this is!"
There it was. I admitted it. I can't assemble chairs that come in boxes from Sweden. So I sat down with a cheap glass of pinot noir and looked more calmly at that one page of directions and accepted the fact that I'm not as handy around the house as I thought.
At least I know that until I work up the patience and brainpower to have another go, I can just put one of the cushions on the floor between the two arms, and have some personal space – because in this city, that’s priceless.
May 12, 2006
Help, I'm a bookish underachiever
I have to say that im insulted, not only as a woman but as a writer. Okay well I'm not a writer because everyone who is a writer by defintion has to have had something published. If not, then we're all writers and I hate be the person who goes around at cocktail parties eating canapes cooing "oh yes, i'm a writer."
It doesn't, however, stop me from having what i have deemed "bitter writer syndrome." When reading about kavvaya a long time ago I remember automatically hating her. a sophomore harvard student with a book deal. Right. I've been slaving over a book for the past three years and haven't even gotten an agent, but Kaavya was able to get a hefty book deal for what is after all, chick lit, and not just any chick lit, plagarized chick lit. This, by definition means you're not a writer.
This NYT article by Whitney Otto struck a chord with me because it seems as though she dislikes Kavaaya as well - and what self-respecting writer wouldnt. There are a lot of things I have written and looking back on them later I squint my eyes in overall disgust saying, what was I thinking? It's what any writer goes through, you work on it, and it takes time, it takes age (Otto is 68) to really get a grasp on life and what you're writing. Kaavya decided to bypass that difficult stage, the endless rounds of editing, the writer's block, the time it takes to really write something worthwhile and just opt to take it away from someone else and pass it off as her own.
I work on doing what Otto says, drinking heavily (yes) and lazily listening in on other people's lives. If there's one thing I took away from my creative writing classes in college (aside from other peoples seriously freakish stories) is that listening is the key to any writer's success, add non-stop vodka sodas to the mix and I'm pretty sure I've found my calling.
And anyway, according to Kavaaya's school of writing I can just plagarize The Sun Also Rises because yes, I feel like that is a book I could have written - if only I had the chance to write it before Hemingway
It doesn't, however, stop me from having what i have deemed "bitter writer syndrome." When reading about kavvaya a long time ago I remember automatically hating her. a sophomore harvard student with a book deal. Right. I've been slaving over a book for the past three years and haven't even gotten an agent, but Kaavya was able to get a hefty book deal for what is after all, chick lit, and not just any chick lit, plagarized chick lit. This, by definition means you're not a writer.
This NYT article by Whitney Otto struck a chord with me because it seems as though she dislikes Kavaaya as well - and what self-respecting writer wouldnt. There are a lot of things I have written and looking back on them later I squint my eyes in overall disgust saying, what was I thinking? It's what any writer goes through, you work on it, and it takes time, it takes age (Otto is 68) to really get a grasp on life and what you're writing. Kaavya decided to bypass that difficult stage, the endless rounds of editing, the writer's block, the time it takes to really write something worthwhile and just opt to take it away from someone else and pass it off as her own.
I work on doing what Otto says, drinking heavily (yes) and lazily listening in on other people's lives. If there's one thing I took away from my creative writing classes in college (aside from other peoples seriously freakish stories) is that listening is the key to any writer's success, add non-stop vodka sodas to the mix and I'm pretty sure I've found my calling.
And anyway, according to Kavaaya's school of writing I can just plagarize The Sun Also Rises because yes, I feel like that is a book I could have written - if only I had the chance to write it before Hemingway
May 8, 2006
How to save a life.
Losing it fast I scream “help!” waving my arms leaning over that scary dark abyss that is in between me and the other side of the station where an express subway is flying past and the sound is deafening.
I want to reach up and cover my ears but I don’t because I’m waving my arms and screaming “stop!” even though I know that the man driving the oncoming subway can’t hear me. It’s like the way you yell at a fly ball as it’s cruising high over center field “go! go!” even though you know it’s not going to help it stay just above the outstretched mit below it.
Timing in life, I’ve come to find, is everything. Two minutes before everything was normal and I was heading home from work and thinking about how I hadn’t eaten anything since this morning and how work is exhausting and how its been too long since I’ve been on a proper date, all while reading my newest edition of the New Yorker like the good little New Yorker that I am. And just like any good New Yorker, I know that a train never comes when you want it to. You run and you miss it and you curse yourself for stopping in the bathroom on the way out of the office, for letting that woman push through the revolving door before you, for not running across Varick Street when you saw the light was just turning yellow.
Timing has led me to where I am now, watching the man at the end of the station sway back and forth. I think that he’s just had a few too many Pilsner’s after having had a bad day at the office, (haven’t we all). But when I see him fall onto the tracks I blink and then think that this isn’t my life and then blink again. Frozen in time nothing knocks me out of my stupor but the low rustling sound of the oncoming train.
The New Yorker now on the ground my arms are waving and, losing it fast, I scream “help!” Two other men have joined me now, all three of us leaning, waving, screaming, trying to save a life.
At the last minute the subway car screeches to a halt just like in the movies, two inches from its victim. I see it because it’s right in front of me, and wanting to look away I can’t because my brain isn’t working fast enough to catch up with my reflexes to let me.
Men in uniforms come running in from out of nowhere and push me aside, hopping down onto the tracks. In a daze I watch as they haul him out, his bottle of Maker’s Mark still in his hand. They prop him up against the wall and a pool of red forms behind it. As I stare, slowly reaching down to pick up my dropped New Yorker, I see the man drunkenly take a sip out of the bottle and utter one simple line to the medics who are desperately trying to help him:
“That was a close one, huh?”
As I leave the subway station, deciding to walk off the nerves that are still built up in my body, I start to think about how life’s just one big game of chance. How if you’re lucky you get out of the way in time, or are fortunate enough to have someone there save you. I guess sometimes we all need saving, even if we have a hard time admitting it.
I want to reach up and cover my ears but I don’t because I’m waving my arms and screaming “stop!” even though I know that the man driving the oncoming subway can’t hear me. It’s like the way you yell at a fly ball as it’s cruising high over center field “go! go!” even though you know it’s not going to help it stay just above the outstretched mit below it.
Timing in life, I’ve come to find, is everything. Two minutes before everything was normal and I was heading home from work and thinking about how I hadn’t eaten anything since this morning and how work is exhausting and how its been too long since I’ve been on a proper date, all while reading my newest edition of the New Yorker like the good little New Yorker that I am. And just like any good New Yorker, I know that a train never comes when you want it to. You run and you miss it and you curse yourself for stopping in the bathroom on the way out of the office, for letting that woman push through the revolving door before you, for not running across Varick Street when you saw the light was just turning yellow.
Timing has led me to where I am now, watching the man at the end of the station sway back and forth. I think that he’s just had a few too many Pilsner’s after having had a bad day at the office, (haven’t we all). But when I see him fall onto the tracks I blink and then think that this isn’t my life and then blink again. Frozen in time nothing knocks me out of my stupor but the low rustling sound of the oncoming train.
The New Yorker now on the ground my arms are waving and, losing it fast, I scream “help!” Two other men have joined me now, all three of us leaning, waving, screaming, trying to save a life.
At the last minute the subway car screeches to a halt just like in the movies, two inches from its victim. I see it because it’s right in front of me, and wanting to look away I can’t because my brain isn’t working fast enough to catch up with my reflexes to let me.
Men in uniforms come running in from out of nowhere and push me aside, hopping down onto the tracks. In a daze I watch as they haul him out, his bottle of Maker’s Mark still in his hand. They prop him up against the wall and a pool of red forms behind it. As I stare, slowly reaching down to pick up my dropped New Yorker, I see the man drunkenly take a sip out of the bottle and utter one simple line to the medics who are desperately trying to help him:
“That was a close one, huh?”
As I leave the subway station, deciding to walk off the nerves that are still built up in my body, I start to think about how life’s just one big game of chance. How if you’re lucky you get out of the way in time, or are fortunate enough to have someone there save you. I guess sometimes we all need saving, even if we have a hard time admitting it.
May 6, 2006
restaurant du jour
Last night over Coronas (leaving the over priced vodka soda on hold for another night) at the Baggott Inn near Washington Square Park, I got to talking with some people and realized that everyone, in their own way or another, is getting over that one bad experience that has yet to fully leave their subconscious. It’s like going to a Restaurant-of-the-Moment in Soho and having a really bad experience with their steak au poivre. Just because you get food poisoning once doesn’t mean you’ll get it the next time you order it, however, it’s difficult not to associate the taste without that memory of having spent the entire night on that bathroom floor come rushing back.
The problem however, is when you can’t stop yourself from subconsciously letting that one night ruin your life, uh I mean, rather, your love of steak, forever.
As I walked home from the subway, the construction workers on Lexington and 3rd asking me how it was possible that I was going home alone, I started to think about how life’s just like one long endless street of restaurants. You move from one to another, feeling betrayed when they close down, and walking back home, your hands in your pockets, the overwhelming feeling of disappointment hits you the way their Chianti did after the third glass.
But in the end you can’t stop life, or restaurants, from happening or closing down. I guess the only thing you can do is take comfort in the knowledge that new places will eventually open up, that menu choices will change and in the end, you can always just go vegan.
The problem however, is when you can’t stop yourself from subconsciously letting that one night ruin your life, uh I mean, rather, your love of steak, forever.
As I walked home from the subway, the construction workers on Lexington and 3rd asking me how it was possible that I was going home alone, I started to think about how life’s just like one long endless street of restaurants. You move from one to another, feeling betrayed when they close down, and walking back home, your hands in your pockets, the overwhelming feeling of disappointment hits you the way their Chianti did after the third glass.
But in the end you can’t stop life, or restaurants, from happening or closing down. I guess the only thing you can do is take comfort in the knowledge that new places will eventually open up, that menu choices will change and in the end, you can always just go vegan.
May 3, 2006
The Last 48 Hours
Have been sick for the last 48 hours and have consumed so many liters of Gatorade and so many Nyquil caplets that I don’t even feel like a functioning human being anymore.
Awake yesterday after having had to leave work early the day before due to high fever and exploding headache, I was trying to watch some tv before the massive amounts of over the counter medication kicked in. I don’t know how people don’t work. There’s nothing even good on tv during the day, and, too comatose to read I was forced to sit in front of it for a good portion of the afternoon hours yesterday.
Even sick, I was getting stir crazy, wanting to get back to my real life and away from the world of daytime talk shows and soap operas. I actually watched (regrettably) an entire episode of Date My Mom, which, I have to say, is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen.
I am in no way looking forward to going back to work tomorrow (fever subsiding or not) to the stacks of work that will inevitably have piled up in my absence. Even if I am feeling better, getting back there and frantically plowing through missed work in a struggle to catch up, will bring me right back to where I started two days ago, feverish with a headache.
Awake yesterday after having had to leave work early the day before due to high fever and exploding headache, I was trying to watch some tv before the massive amounts of over the counter medication kicked in. I don’t know how people don’t work. There’s nothing even good on tv during the day, and, too comatose to read I was forced to sit in front of it for a good portion of the afternoon hours yesterday.
Even sick, I was getting stir crazy, wanting to get back to my real life and away from the world of daytime talk shows and soap operas. I actually watched (regrettably) an entire episode of Date My Mom, which, I have to say, is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen.
I am in no way looking forward to going back to work tomorrow (fever subsiding or not) to the stacks of work that will inevitably have piled up in my absence. Even if I am feeling better, getting back there and frantically plowing through missed work in a struggle to catch up, will bring me right back to where I started two days ago, feverish with a headache.
April 27, 2006
Hyperopia
I think I saw New York for the first time tonight. 70+ degrees in Manhattan today and I didn’t make it outside at all. Living within the confines of a 5 x 10 cube doesn’t really sound like living at all, but we all have to work to live and live to work and it all becomes a hazy mess between Monday’s and Friday’s and the tainted Sundays because of the sinking feeling that work is looming just beyond it.
I walked through Central Park after work where people are walking and running and running pushing strollers with sleeping children and walking holding someone’s hand or the leash of a dog.
The park on Saturdays is full of people who are happy on that one good day of the week where they’re actually living. But at 6:30 on a Thursday night as the afternoon is falling into evening and the sun is slipping behind the Essex Hotel, the park feels different.
You know how it is when you walk and walk and you don’t know where you’re going but you know that walking is the only thing that feels right. Maybe it’s because all day we don’t really feel like we’re walking towards anything. We’re getting up and going to work and going home and it’s all static, it’s all the same. Maybe sometimes we’re being pulled forward when we don’t even realize. Maybe sometimes we’re being pulled towards something when we don’t even know what it is.
In the end, though, we always end up walking home. I’ve decided that my favorite part of the city is 5th Ave along the park because walking down that sidewalk you’re caught in between two worlds, like being in two places at the same time. The fast-paced-passion of the city with its speeding cars and honking horns and gray pavement, and on the other side the calming feeling of nature where you can hear the birds and trees and feel the feeling of grass beneath your feet and you’re being pulled by both but you don’t have to choose.
I may not have seen a lot of the world, a lot of exotic cities or foreign cultures, but I’ve just seen New York for the first time. Maybe sometimes we’re all too concerned with wanting to see what’s just beyond that we fail to see what’s already there, in front of us.
I walked through Central Park after work where people are walking and running and running pushing strollers with sleeping children and walking holding someone’s hand or the leash of a dog.
The park on Saturdays is full of people who are happy on that one good day of the week where they’re actually living. But at 6:30 on a Thursday night as the afternoon is falling into evening and the sun is slipping behind the Essex Hotel, the park feels different.
You know how it is when you walk and walk and you don’t know where you’re going but you know that walking is the only thing that feels right. Maybe it’s because all day we don’t really feel like we’re walking towards anything. We’re getting up and going to work and going home and it’s all static, it’s all the same. Maybe sometimes we’re being pulled forward when we don’t even realize. Maybe sometimes we’re being pulled towards something when we don’t even know what it is.
In the end, though, we always end up walking home. I’ve decided that my favorite part of the city is 5th Ave along the park because walking down that sidewalk you’re caught in between two worlds, like being in two places at the same time. The fast-paced-passion of the city with its speeding cars and honking horns and gray pavement, and on the other side the calming feeling of nature where you can hear the birds and trees and feel the feeling of grass beneath your feet and you’re being pulled by both but you don’t have to choose.
I may not have seen a lot of the world, a lot of exotic cities or foreign cultures, but I’ve just seen New York for the first time. Maybe sometimes we’re all too concerned with wanting to see what’s just beyond that we fail to see what’s already there, in front of us.
April 23, 2006
Gina and Todd
I couldn’t sleep on the couch of my old apartment last night as Gina and Todd were fighting in the hallway just outside the door. She said, Todd, I can’t believe you chose Kay over me. He said, Gina, you need to get over this. She yelled, you chose your friends and beer over me and he yelled back asking her what she wanted him to do.
So she cried and cried and yelled and cried and he didn’t say much of anything. His friends were out on the sidewalk and they laughed and smoked and the smoke drifted through the living room window and I could smell their Marlborough lights.
Gina screamed, you have no idea how much you’ve hurt me. You don’t know how it feels, you don’t know how it feels, she yelled and he didn’t say much of anything.
So she cried and cried and yelled and cried and then threw a brick at the wall outside the front door that made the windows shake and left a gash three inches deep.
After a long time it stopped but I still couldn’t fall asleep because I was thinking about how Gina and Todd probably used to be happy before he starting choosing his friends and Kay and beer over her and before she started screaming and crying and being irrational.
Every time you turn around it’s always another Gina and Todd getting together. They’re kissing on the subway and holding hands in the street until one starts choosing his friends and beer and Kay over the kissing on the subway and the holding hands in the street and she starts screaming and crying and becoming irrational.
Every time you turn around it’s always another Gina and Todd breaking up.
So she cried and cried and yelled and cried and he didn’t say much of anything. His friends were out on the sidewalk and they laughed and smoked and the smoke drifted through the living room window and I could smell their Marlborough lights.
Gina screamed, you have no idea how much you’ve hurt me. You don’t know how it feels, you don’t know how it feels, she yelled and he didn’t say much of anything.
So she cried and cried and yelled and cried and then threw a brick at the wall outside the front door that made the windows shake and left a gash three inches deep.
After a long time it stopped but I still couldn’t fall asleep because I was thinking about how Gina and Todd probably used to be happy before he starting choosing his friends and Kay and beer over her and before she started screaming and crying and being irrational.
Every time you turn around it’s always another Gina and Todd getting together. They’re kissing on the subway and holding hands in the street until one starts choosing his friends and beer and Kay over the kissing on the subway and the holding hands in the street and she starts screaming and crying and becoming irrational.
Every time you turn around it’s always another Gina and Todd breaking up.
April 22, 2006
Boston v. New York
I got off the train at
The streets were almost empty, a far cry from the
Maybe
April 17, 2006
Tomorrow Is My Birthday
Time is passing and I think of how I haven’t done nearly half the things I’ve always wanted to do. Haven’t taken enough chances or vacations, haven’t seen the Pacific, or caught a fly ball at Yankee Stadium, haven’t kissed anyone on a sidewalk or have been published in a major magazine.
If I were to look back (and I have a lot recently because birthdays make you do that), to a year ago, I would think about how time has moved so quickly between then and now that I hardly know where my life is going.
I was noticing the other day a small scar on my left knee. I don’t remember how old I was or how it happened or what kind of day it was. I don’t remember how much it hurt or if I cried.
There are times in our lives that for one reason or another, become lost. Days weeks months pass, and as birthdays tick by like the flash of a blown out candle, it’s though those times never existed at all.
Occasionally we come across a picture or a postcard or see a familiar face that makes us wonder. A severe case of acne or love or a fall from a bike, these leave scars. I think about all the close calls that didn’t.
So birthdays and years come and go and the past starts to melt away. I guess those of us that bruise easily, must learn to heal the same way.
If I were to look back (and I have a lot recently because birthdays make you do that), to a year ago, I would think about how time has moved so quickly between then and now that I hardly know where my life is going.
I was noticing the other day a small scar on my left knee. I don’t remember how old I was or how it happened or what kind of day it was. I don’t remember how much it hurt or if I cried.
There are times in our lives that for one reason or another, become lost. Days weeks months pass, and as birthdays tick by like the flash of a blown out candle, it’s though those times never existed at all.
Occasionally we come across a picture or a postcard or see a familiar face that makes us wonder. A severe case of acne or love or a fall from a bike, these leave scars. I think about all the close calls that didn’t.
So birthdays and years come and go and the past starts to melt away. I guess those of us that bruise easily, must learn to heal the same way.
April 14, 2006
Good Friday
Every Friday morning when I'm leaving my building, hair a mess because I snagged a few extra minutes of sleep for opting not to shower, brain still non-functioning, fumbling to get out my subway card, sunglasses on in order to hide an exhausted face (especially this week, never making it home before 10PM) my doorman smiles at me and cheerfully says, "Happy Friday."
I do what I always do which is smile back and say thank you. But what I want to say is, why never Happy Monday or Happy Wednesday? You know, when I really need it.
I do what I always do which is smile back and say thank you. But what I want to say is, why never Happy Monday or Happy Wednesday? You know, when I really need it.
April 11, 2006
Today has been okay.
“This city is really testing me today,” I shouted to International Girl (pls. refer to Dirty Water) over the phone tonight as I was standing on the sidewalk on Central Park West.
After not having left the office until after 11:30 PM last night, I took the subway up to 72nd to catch the cross town bus. I was there with three other people as the clock rounded midnight, half asleep thumbing through my latest issue of the New Yorker as the man across from me stared at my legs. The other man was talking on the far end of the subway car, at first to himself, and then to us, and then to the people who got on at 18th street, and they didn’t pay much attention to him either.
He was talking about how he was homeless and needed money and food and “whatever we could spare.” I did what I always do, which is pretend like I can’t hear even though I can and I know they know I can and I feel mixed feeling of guilt and sadness and guilt and confusion about how the world is so strange and how sometimes I don’t know how to deal with it.
At 72nd and Amsterdam I waited for the bus to take me to the east side and to home and to bed and it never came. A cab ride and $10 plus tip later I was home and out the money to afford my morning coffee for the rest of the week.
Today was the same late night, followed by having to walk around the upper west side in hurting feet trying to find various apartment buildings to personally hand-deliver them tomorrow’s touring itinerary. The last and final building was on West 61st and impossibly tucked behind Lincoln Center where the numbers don’t go in any sort of order and after walking in circles I vowed to hate west 61st forever. Upon seeing me the doorman said, “Have a hard time finding it? Happens to everyone,” to which I gave him a fair rendition of a withering look and simply said, “yeah.”
I finally made it back over to Central Park West just in time to see the cross town bus pull away from the curb despite my running with arms-flailing attempt to stop it. My heart sank and as a few expletives left my mouth, the proper CPW Burberry-clad woman with her jack russell terrier probably named Forbes gave me a look of semi-disgust.
That’s when, in my defeat, I called International Girl. “This city is really testing me today,” I shouted over the phone as I was standing on the sidewalk on Central Park West. She of course told me not to worry and said that if anyone can overcome the hardships of the city, it was me.
I guess it’s the way any good relationship is, with the bad things and the awkward things and the homeless men (okay maybe not all relationships), and the missed buses and missed chances and the late nights and getting lost and being too proud to ask for directions.
And anyway, it is, after all, only Tuesday.
After not having left the office until after 11:30 PM last night, I took the subway up to 72nd to catch the cross town bus. I was there with three other people as the clock rounded midnight, half asleep thumbing through my latest issue of the New Yorker as the man across from me stared at my legs. The other man was talking on the far end of the subway car, at first to himself, and then to us, and then to the people who got on at 18th street, and they didn’t pay much attention to him either.
He was talking about how he was homeless and needed money and food and “whatever we could spare.” I did what I always do, which is pretend like I can’t hear even though I can and I know they know I can and I feel mixed feeling of guilt and sadness and guilt and confusion about how the world is so strange and how sometimes I don’t know how to deal with it.
At 72nd and Amsterdam I waited for the bus to take me to the east side and to home and to bed and it never came. A cab ride and $10 plus tip later I was home and out the money to afford my morning coffee for the rest of the week.
Today was the same late night, followed by having to walk around the upper west side in hurting feet trying to find various apartment buildings to personally hand-deliver them tomorrow’s touring itinerary. The last and final building was on West 61st and impossibly tucked behind Lincoln Center where the numbers don’t go in any sort of order and after walking in circles I vowed to hate west 61st forever. Upon seeing me the doorman said, “Have a hard time finding it? Happens to everyone,” to which I gave him a fair rendition of a withering look and simply said, “yeah.”
I finally made it back over to Central Park West just in time to see the cross town bus pull away from the curb despite my running with arms-flailing attempt to stop it. My heart sank and as a few expletives left my mouth, the proper CPW Burberry-clad woman with her jack russell terrier probably named Forbes gave me a look of semi-disgust.
That’s when, in my defeat, I called International Girl. “This city is really testing me today,” I shouted over the phone as I was standing on the sidewalk on Central Park West. She of course told me not to worry and said that if anyone can overcome the hardships of the city, it was me.
I guess it’s the way any good relationship is, with the bad things and the awkward things and the homeless men (okay maybe not all relationships), and the missed buses and missed chances and the late nights and getting lost and being too proud to ask for directions.
And anyway, it is, after all, only Tuesday.
April 4, 2006
opening day
I remember them clearly, the days when the sun would start to stay out later and my father would be watching the game. Windows open (I grew up without air conditioning), we would sit and watch (I grew up without cable) until even the light summer nights would turn to dark. On TV, though, it never looked like night as the bright lights of the stadium fell on everyone, illuminating the field.
He would talk about baseball when he was younger, the 1962 Yankees with Joe Pepitone, Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, 1977 with Thurman Munson, Bucky Dent and Reggie Jackson. He would talk about the way it used to be, the way they used to wear their socks, the way they never used to get into fights the way they do now. And we would sit, windows open in the summer heat from opening day on, and watch.
And I then went to college in Boston, which he didn’t like. People picked fights and made jabs and wore shirts that declared their hatred for the team I had grown to love. So in 2001 New York lost in a year I wanted them to win the most and in 2003 I watched from a bar next to Fenway Park as Aaron Boone made grown men cry.
Whenever he would see me my father would always ask the same question, “So is this gonna be the year kid?” And I’d smile and laugh and say “they always say this is the year.”
Until one time, it was.
Opening day always makes me miss being a kid. This will be my first season in a while watching the games on safe ground. However I will miss the man who would always scream and cheer from the apartment above me every time the Sox would make a base hit. I will miss the drunken fans in their Jeter Drinks Wine Cooler’s t-shirts. And I know it will take me a while to realize I don’t have to hide being happy when Sheffield hits a home run. But a part of me will miss that certain hum that starts on opening day in Boston and doesn’t die until long after the last pitch leaves the mound.
But things change, people move on, say goodbye, take bigger paychecks or more steriods or retire and then come back. So you can’t tell too much from opening day, and it won’t be until they’re home in the Bronx that will I really feel like the season has started. Because it’s like the great Yogi Berra once said, “in baseball, you don’t know nothing.”
He would talk about baseball when he was younger, the 1962 Yankees with Joe Pepitone, Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, 1977 with Thurman Munson, Bucky Dent and Reggie Jackson. He would talk about the way it used to be, the way they used to wear their socks, the way they never used to get into fights the way they do now. And we would sit, windows open in the summer heat from opening day on, and watch.
And I then went to college in Boston, which he didn’t like. People picked fights and made jabs and wore shirts that declared their hatred for the team I had grown to love. So in 2001 New York lost in a year I wanted them to win the most and in 2003 I watched from a bar next to Fenway Park as Aaron Boone made grown men cry.
Whenever he would see me my father would always ask the same question, “So is this gonna be the year kid?” And I’d smile and laugh and say “they always say this is the year.”
Until one time, it was.
Opening day always makes me miss being a kid. This will be my first season in a while watching the games on safe ground. However I will miss the man who would always scream and cheer from the apartment above me every time the Sox would make a base hit. I will miss the drunken fans in their Jeter Drinks Wine Cooler’s t-shirts. And I know it will take me a while to realize I don’t have to hide being happy when Sheffield hits a home run. But a part of me will miss that certain hum that starts on opening day in Boston and doesn’t die until long after the last pitch leaves the mound.
But things change, people move on, say goodbye, take bigger paychecks or more steriods or retire and then come back. So you can’t tell too much from opening day, and it won’t be until they’re home in the Bronx that will I really feel like the season has started. Because it’s like the great Yogi Berra once said, “in baseball, you don’t know nothing.”
April 2, 2006
Recession
Well, it’s that time of year again when writing deadlines are upon me. I spent much of early spring last year working on one short story, slaving over each round of edits, meetings with a writing professor, more revisions, changing the end, then keeping the end, take away this scene and re-shaping the sentence structure in that one.
But that’s what writing is, editing. What started off as an idea about a neurotic girl who can’t help but mentally pair everything she sees into groups of two, suddenly turned into an almost 20 page story about the loss of a parent, a professor crush, mild obsessive compulsion and economics.
By the end of the summer the rejection letters were piling up. In addition, the essay I spent over a week writing for Vanity Fair ended up a total bust and now, with the onset of the Glamour writing contest telling me to, (by May 14) write up to 3,500 words detailing something that has happened to me, a “great real-life story.”
Truth is, I’ve hit a recession. After a stack of rejection letters and hours of wasted time, money spent on reading fees and postage and copies, endless pages of text that still remain saved safely on my key drive (yes, no more disks, my poor old friends), I’m feeling less than inspired. Yes, I could win $5,000, but it’s not about the money, it never is. As a writer (and I’m not being so lofty as to call myself a writer) you have a day job, and when you want to write you do it because you have something to say, and the reward is the simple opportunity to share that story with others.
I’m bankrupt of ideas, inspiration and motivation with no Greenspan of my own to turn to. But this is how life is. It comes in waves, surges of an up-cycle followed by the inevitable crash that follows (remember 1929?). So, like the economy, I'm hoping this feeling is cyclical. Pretty soon I’ll be back on top, riding the wave. And true, the wave will most likely bring me back to the sandy rejection letter shores of yesteryear, but who knows. That’s the thing about life, you just never can tell.
Because really, a bomb could drop tomorrow and result in a city’s economic ruin, but, just as a city is demolished, it is rebuilt, and the cycle begins all over again.
But that’s what writing is, editing. What started off as an idea about a neurotic girl who can’t help but mentally pair everything she sees into groups of two, suddenly turned into an almost 20 page story about the loss of a parent, a professor crush, mild obsessive compulsion and economics.
By the end of the summer the rejection letters were piling up. In addition, the essay I spent over a week writing for Vanity Fair ended up a total bust and now, with the onset of the Glamour writing contest telling me to, (by May 14) write up to 3,500 words detailing something that has happened to me, a “great real-life story.”
Truth is, I’ve hit a recession. After a stack of rejection letters and hours of wasted time, money spent on reading fees and postage and copies, endless pages of text that still remain saved safely on my key drive (yes, no more disks, my poor old friends), I’m feeling less than inspired. Yes, I could win $5,000, but it’s not about the money, it never is. As a writer (and I’m not being so lofty as to call myself a writer) you have a day job, and when you want to write you do it because you have something to say, and the reward is the simple opportunity to share that story with others.
I’m bankrupt of ideas, inspiration and motivation with no Greenspan of my own to turn to. But this is how life is. It comes in waves, surges of an up-cycle followed by the inevitable crash that follows (remember 1929?). So, like the economy, I'm hoping this feeling is cyclical. Pretty soon I’ll be back on top, riding the wave. And true, the wave will most likely bring me back to the sandy rejection letter shores of yesteryear, but who knows. That’s the thing about life, you just never can tell.
Because really, a bomb could drop tomorrow and result in a city’s economic ruin, but, just as a city is demolished, it is rebuilt, and the cycle begins all over again.
March 31, 2006
I am a Doughnut
I was sitting across from two men on the subway today. It was early, I had overslept and dragged myself to the bus just in time to watch it speed away. I thought about chasing after it and then, looking to the flask of coffee in my hand (I’m bringing now since money is tight, pls. refer to 3/22 posts for more info.) and opted against it.
When I finally did make the bus and then the subway, I found myself, (sunglasses on so that no one would see that my eyes were closed), sitting across from two men. They got on at 66 and immediately rushed up in front of me to eye the map behind me. They were talking quickly in a language I couldn’t quite catch being as it was still too early for my brain to properly function. One of them was tall and skinny with glasses and a face like Christian Slater (remember him?). He had a sport coat on with light blue pants that looked as though they were to be worn only when painting a house or something large that needs painting. From the looks of them, it appeared as though that’s what he had already done.
The other one was shorter and stockier, with an angry looking rough face with jagged teeth and a scar that ran from the middle of his cheek along the jaw line, down to the bottom of his chin, probably from an encounter at a bar after too many pints of dark amber wheat. He was gesticulating wildly and was angry, or least it sounded like he was angry, but then I realized he was speaking German, and people speaking German always sound as though they’re put out about one thing or another. I caught more than a few shizer’s in there, and when he noticed me looking up at him, his face hardened and I looked away quickly.
He tied his shoes on the inner corners in double knots, he wore a thick wool coat even though it was 70 in the city, he was German, he was yelling, he was scary.
Now I’m not saying that all German people are scary. I’ve never been to Germany and know someone (International Girl, pls. refer back to Dirty Water) who spent quite a lot of time there and came back boasting of great people, great sausages and great beer. I personally don’t really know any German people, but it seems to me like they’re doing pretty well after that whole incident that that mass-murdering psychopath and that little problem with that wall in Berlin. But we helped out a little bit though.
It was, after all, the great John F. Kennedy who stood on that wall and proudly said, “ich bin ein Berliner!” Which, of course means, I am a jelly doughnut.
Well. Just goes to show you can’t win ‘em all.
When I finally did make the bus and then the subway, I found myself, (sunglasses on so that no one would see that my eyes were closed), sitting across from two men. They got on at 66 and immediately rushed up in front of me to eye the map behind me. They were talking quickly in a language I couldn’t quite catch being as it was still too early for my brain to properly function. One of them was tall and skinny with glasses and a face like Christian Slater (remember him?). He had a sport coat on with light blue pants that looked as though they were to be worn only when painting a house or something large that needs painting. From the looks of them, it appeared as though that’s what he had already done.
The other one was shorter and stockier, with an angry looking rough face with jagged teeth and a scar that ran from the middle of his cheek along the jaw line, down to the bottom of his chin, probably from an encounter at a bar after too many pints of dark amber wheat. He was gesticulating wildly and was angry, or least it sounded like he was angry, but then I realized he was speaking German, and people speaking German always sound as though they’re put out about one thing or another. I caught more than a few shizer’s in there, and when he noticed me looking up at him, his face hardened and I looked away quickly.
He tied his shoes on the inner corners in double knots, he wore a thick wool coat even though it was 70 in the city, he was German, he was yelling, he was scary.
Now I’m not saying that all German people are scary. I’ve never been to Germany and know someone (International Girl, pls. refer back to Dirty Water) who spent quite a lot of time there and came back boasting of great people, great sausages and great beer. I personally don’t really know any German people, but it seems to me like they’re doing pretty well after that whole incident that that mass-murdering psychopath and that little problem with that wall in Berlin. But we helped out a little bit though.
It was, after all, the great John F. Kennedy who stood on that wall and proudly said, “ich bin ein Berliner!” Which, of course means, I am a jelly doughnut.
Well. Just goes to show you can’t win ‘em all.
March 30, 2006
Kissing in Manhattan
I’ve been asked to post. So here I am, making a post because apparently waiting from Sunday to Thursday, “and it is literally almost Thursday,” is “no good.” Thanks for the tip. And for caring. Really.
Okay so let’s talk about a few things. Firstly, and most importantly it’s that time of year again. Purchased my first iced coffee of the year as it’s in the sixties here in Manhattan and I can already feel a shift in the city. Of course there was still the same pushing on the subway, the same woman with the oversized Vuitton bag always asking which stop it is because she can’t see through the thickness of her equally oversized Gucci sunglasses.
On another note, they’re filming a movie over near West 72nd which I noticed as I was waiting for the bus yesterday. Probably some romantic comedy about how some quirky girl who aspired to be more (and they always do) wins the heart of the guy whose heart no one thinks can ever be won (and it always can, but not until the very end). Throw in a gay best friend and a colossal misunderstanding that gets corrected in the last ten minutes and you’ve got yourself a winner.
Do you ever notice how people in soap operas (come on, admit you’ve seen at least one episode) and romantic movies are always kissing on street corners, especially in New York? Loretta Castroini and Ronny Cammereri, Harry (did he have a last name?) and Sally Albright, Holly Golightly and Paul Varjak (with a cat no less). I know I haven’t been here all that long, but I have yet to see anyone kissing anywhere let alone on 72nd and Amsterdam. That sort of thing must just be frowned upon above the park.
Someone told me recently that when she was living in New York she “made out on street corners all the time. It’s fabulous, you should try it.” Maybe she’s seen too many movies or I just haven’t been here long enough, but I guess the next time some guy asks to kiss me on the street (it happens all the time, naturally, and is typically a man in five faded shirts sitting on the sidewalk swigging Marker’s Mark out of the bottle with a cat eating his face) I’ll let him, instead of asking him to get back to me after he’s checked the temperature in the general vicinity of hell.
Only, of course, if I can keep the cat.
Okay so let’s talk about a few things. Firstly, and most importantly it’s that time of year again. Purchased my first iced coffee of the year as it’s in the sixties here in Manhattan and I can already feel a shift in the city. Of course there was still the same pushing on the subway, the same woman with the oversized Vuitton bag always asking which stop it is because she can’t see through the thickness of her equally oversized Gucci sunglasses.
On another note, they’re filming a movie over near West 72nd which I noticed as I was waiting for the bus yesterday. Probably some romantic comedy about how some quirky girl who aspired to be more (and they always do) wins the heart of the guy whose heart no one thinks can ever be won (and it always can, but not until the very end). Throw in a gay best friend and a colossal misunderstanding that gets corrected in the last ten minutes and you’ve got yourself a winner.
Do you ever notice how people in soap operas (come on, admit you’ve seen at least one episode) and romantic movies are always kissing on street corners, especially in New York? Loretta Castroini and Ronny Cammereri, Harry (did he have a last name?) and Sally Albright, Holly Golightly and Paul Varjak (with a cat no less). I know I haven’t been here all that long, but I have yet to see anyone kissing anywhere let alone on 72nd and Amsterdam. That sort of thing must just be frowned upon above the park.
Someone told me recently that when she was living in New York she “made out on street corners all the time. It’s fabulous, you should try it.” Maybe she’s seen too many movies or I just haven’t been here long enough, but I guess the next time some guy asks to kiss me on the street (it happens all the time, naturally, and is typically a man in five faded shirts sitting on the sidewalk swigging Marker’s Mark out of the bottle with a cat eating his face) I’ll let him, instead of asking him to get back to me after he’s checked the temperature in the general vicinity of hell.
Only, of course, if I can keep the cat.
March 26, 2006
"That's just like, so abstract..."
I’m trying to experience Manhattan on a budget since money is currently considerably tight. So yesterday I ran outside (free), made coffee at home (free) and went to the MET (again, free).
The couple standing next to me in front of Cezanne's “Still Life with Cherries and Peaches,” are talking as they gaze intently at the painting: “...and it’s just like him too, I mean that’s how he was, Cezanne, just like totally into the whole abstraction thing, like as a way of creation, like with multiple meanings and like you never knew what he meant, it’s just so, wow, like so abstract.”
I look to them and then back at the painting and make a face of "what?" Abstract? I might not know much about art but I know it’s a painting with fruit. Isn’t that all it’s supposed to be? According to this couple it isn’t about fruit at all, it’s about the male and female, the female cherry and the male peach living together in harmony on a table, I mean in a relationship, which I guess is what the table signifies, the base on which their relationship sits on. Right.
I think I shake my head and move on because they’re cramping my style, which was trying to be very cultured by spending three hours walking through the MET with no one to say profound things to like, “yeah I mean it’s so textured, the depth here, the meaning is just, I can feel what he was feeling when he painted this” (girl speaking of Monet’s Haystacks). That’s the one thing I hate about museums, it’s all of the people who, upon entering, think they’re art experts.
For a while I followed around a High School Art History class visiting from Ohio or Illinois or something, I didn't really catch it, and melded into their walking tour because their teacher had a lot of great things to say. At one point one of the boys who didn’t seem to care about art at all and was hanging in the back of the pack (as I was) looked at me and asked me as we stared up at Washington Crossing the Delaware, “are you even in this class?”
I promptly left the American Wing and went to Frank Lloyd Wright’s living room to hide.
When the exhaustion and pangs of hunger hit it was time to leave. I didn’t seen half of what I wanted to and will have to return at some point to see the rest. I walked outside into the warm night and bought a hotdog from the street vendor on 81st and walked down 5th Ave alongside the park while I ate.
That’s the great thing about New York, you can have a great day, and all it will cost you is 75 cents.
The couple standing next to me in front of Cezanne's “Still Life with Cherries and Peaches,” are talking as they gaze intently at the painting: “...and it’s just like him too, I mean that’s how he was, Cezanne, just like totally into the whole abstraction thing, like as a way of creation, like with multiple meanings and like you never knew what he meant, it’s just so, wow, like so abstract.”
I look to them and then back at the painting and make a face of "what?" Abstract? I might not know much about art but I know it’s a painting with fruit. Isn’t that all it’s supposed to be? According to this couple it isn’t about fruit at all, it’s about the male and female, the female cherry and the male peach living together in harmony on a table, I mean in a relationship, which I guess is what the table signifies, the base on which their relationship sits on. Right.
I think I shake my head and move on because they’re cramping my style, which was trying to be very cultured by spending three hours walking through the MET with no one to say profound things to like, “yeah I mean it’s so textured, the depth here, the meaning is just, I can feel what he was feeling when he painted this” (girl speaking of Monet’s Haystacks). That’s the one thing I hate about museums, it’s all of the people who, upon entering, think they’re art experts.
For a while I followed around a High School Art History class visiting from Ohio or Illinois or something, I didn't really catch it, and melded into their walking tour because their teacher had a lot of great things to say. At one point one of the boys who didn’t seem to care about art at all and was hanging in the back of the pack (as I was) looked at me and asked me as we stared up at Washington Crossing the Delaware, “are you even in this class?”
I promptly left the American Wing and went to Frank Lloyd Wright’s living room to hide.
When the exhaustion and pangs of hunger hit it was time to leave. I didn’t seen half of what I wanted to and will have to return at some point to see the rest. I walked outside into the warm night and bought a hotdog from the street vendor on 81st and walked down 5th Ave alongside the park while I ate.
That’s the great thing about New York, you can have a great day, and all it will cost you is 75 cents.
March 22, 2006
Low Budget Lifestyle
For those of you who don’t know, I’m currently holding down two homes. Yes two. I’m a fabulous multi-homeowner in my early twenties. One place here in the city naturally, and when I’m not too busy working all hours in Manhattan, I try to jet set up to Boston where I am currently paying rent on yet another apartment.
Of course side note is, that I haven’t been up to Boston to enjoy the greatness of this other apartment, and I’m still paying for and the sad fact that the sub-letter who moved in the morning I moved out, has since decided to move out.
So right now, funds are tight, and living on a shoe-string budget is something I’ve started to really adapt to since I got here. However this is a bit of an extreme and as I currently have roughly $20 in my checking account (because of the two rents, naturally) I barely have enough to split between my addictions. Coffee (you guessed it) window shopping (which in Manhattan means buying something) and vodka sodas.
Friday night, with money tight I went to Merchant near 14th St with a fellow co-worker to indulge in addiction no. 3. Headed then up up uptown to 125th street for a party hosted by an old Boston co-worker, where the drinks were free, and right now as a two-apartment-holding-classy girl, free is the word d’ jour. Made it there and back successfully without any muggings, stabbings, etc. I’ve realized that anything above 85th St. is a whole other world, and even on the express train it seems to take forever.
The rest of the weekend was spent doing things that didn’t cost me anything, like sleeping. I did however find out two interesting things by the end of the weekend. One, that I’ll only be a two-apartment-holding classy girl until the end of the month, which is wonderful news as I will be able to indulge more in addiction no. 2.
Also, wandered around the city for the day on Sunday (really making that grande bold last) and ended up around 46th and 5th and found that, upon looking twice and feeling a sort of heart wrenching loss, that my favorite restaurant in the city from years ago, has gone out of business.
I guess not having a lot of money in Manhattan is only okay for some of us.
Thankfully that will all change for me soon…well, somewhat.
Of course side note is, that I haven’t been up to Boston to enjoy the greatness of this other apartment, and I’m still paying for and the sad fact that the sub-letter who moved in the morning I moved out, has since decided to move out.
So right now, funds are tight, and living on a shoe-string budget is something I’ve started to really adapt to since I got here. However this is a bit of an extreme and as I currently have roughly $20 in my checking account (because of the two rents, naturally) I barely have enough to split between my addictions. Coffee (you guessed it) window shopping (which in Manhattan means buying something) and vodka sodas.
Friday night, with money tight I went to Merchant near 14th St with a fellow co-worker to indulge in addiction no. 3. Headed then up up uptown to 125th street for a party hosted by an old Boston co-worker, where the drinks were free, and right now as a two-apartment-holding-classy girl, free is the word d’ jour. Made it there and back successfully without any muggings, stabbings, etc. I’ve realized that anything above 85th St. is a whole other world, and even on the express train it seems to take forever.
The rest of the weekend was spent doing things that didn’t cost me anything, like sleeping. I did however find out two interesting things by the end of the weekend. One, that I’ll only be a two-apartment-holding classy girl until the end of the month, which is wonderful news as I will be able to indulge more in addiction no. 2.
Also, wandered around the city for the day on Sunday (really making that grande bold last) and ended up around 46th and 5th and found that, upon looking twice and feeling a sort of heart wrenching loss, that my favorite restaurant in the city from years ago, has gone out of business.
I guess not having a lot of money in Manhattan is only okay for some of us.
Thankfully that will all change for me soon…well, somewhat.
March 13, 2006
To the girl at the corner store on Lexington
I know it’s tough, it has to be. Every day it’s the same, the same people asking for coffee, asking for change, asking for your number. They’ve been coming in with their large coats and pressed suits knowing that every day it will be the same, that they will come in, and you’ll be here.
I know it won’t be long, and soon they’ll be coming in with their flip flops and tanned faces from their weekends at the Hamptons and they’ll find you’re gone. You feel your life is on the other side of the world, that no one here understands you, and you wish you had someone to count on.
Count on. Count faces, count names, count Burberry scarves and Dior sunglasses, count missed chances and glances and lost lives.
You think that in time, they’ll remember, once you’re gone, once you’ve taken the chance to start your life somewhere else, out from behind the counter of this city that moves too fast for you.
But you don’t count on it. You’re tired of counting, so you smile and say good morning and good afternoon and good bye.
Because you know it is easy to love people in memory, the hard trick, is to love them when they are there, in front of you.
I know it won’t be long, and soon they’ll be coming in with their flip flops and tanned faces from their weekends at the Hamptons and they’ll find you’re gone. You feel your life is on the other side of the world, that no one here understands you, and you wish you had someone to count on.
Count on. Count faces, count names, count Burberry scarves and Dior sunglasses, count missed chances and glances and lost lives.
You think that in time, they’ll remember, once you’re gone, once you’ve taken the chance to start your life somewhere else, out from behind the counter of this city that moves too fast for you.
But you don’t count on it. You’re tired of counting, so you smile and say good morning and good afternoon and good bye.
Because you know it is easy to love people in memory, the hard trick, is to love them when they are there, in front of you.
March 7, 2006
Play it again, Sam
Listen, this is what I have to say about New York. It's the same thing I would presumably say to anyone thinking about going to Casablanca: don't go to Casablanca expecting it to be like the movie. Casablanca is the armpit of Morocco and being 23 in Manhattan is nothing like being Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City. This piece written by a fellow (albeit irritating) young female in New York, is least reiterating my thoughts, (somewhat) as a poor, entry-level female trying to get a sense of reality about what it’s like to live in New York.
"Essentially, I think it's fair to say that for a young woman there is more fun to be had in New York City than anywhere else. But beneath the vodka sodas, the great bars and clubs, and the entertaining flirtations with men, are deeper issues about independence, friendship, relationships, and sex. Whether it's what Carrie Bradshaw would have been doing at 23 will remain a mystery. It is, however, what my friends and I are doing at 23."
Right. Vodka soda. My thoughts exactly. But at 23 Carrie Bradshaw was probably still getting money from her parents so she could afford to live in the West Village and was waiting tables to afford writing classes at NYU. After reading this I don't think the author has much understanding of any “deeper issues” at all, as her idea of a “low-key night” is $14 mojitos at 60 Thompson, while mine is $1 beers at the bar on 84th and 1st. And if what she says is true and phone calls to guys are “so 2002,” then the outlook for where her next drink is coming from is bleak. Come on, it's what any self-respecting classy girl would say.
In this city you know you’re going to be buying your own drinks, paying for your own cabs, waiting for tables and walking, feet hurting, long distances in less than fabulous shoes. Because when the latest Jimmy Choo costs as much as March rent, you pass.
And anyway, in the end of Casablanca Rick says goodbye to Ilsa after they’ve finally been reunited, shipping her off on a plane, saying he loves her too much to let her stay. In reality? He never would have talked to her again after she lied to him all those years ago, after she never showed up at the train station and left him waiting in the rain with Sam, As Time Goes By humming softly in the background.
That’s why we have television and movies, to get a glimpse of the way we would like things to be, far removed from harshness of reality, wishing rather than hoping that a kiss is still a kiss after all.
"Essentially, I think it's fair to say that for a young woman there is more fun to be had in New York City than anywhere else. But beneath the vodka sodas, the great bars and clubs, and the entertaining flirtations with men, are deeper issues about independence, friendship, relationships, and sex. Whether it's what Carrie Bradshaw would have been doing at 23 will remain a mystery. It is, however, what my friends and I are doing at 23."
Right. Vodka soda. My thoughts exactly. But at 23 Carrie Bradshaw was probably still getting money from her parents so she could afford to live in the West Village and was waiting tables to afford writing classes at NYU. After reading this I don't think the author has much understanding of any “deeper issues” at all, as her idea of a “low-key night” is $14 mojitos at 60 Thompson, while mine is $1 beers at the bar on 84th and 1st. And if what she says is true and phone calls to guys are “so 2002,” then the outlook for where her next drink is coming from is bleak. Come on, it's what any self-respecting classy girl would say.
In this city you know you’re going to be buying your own drinks, paying for your own cabs, waiting for tables and walking, feet hurting, long distances in less than fabulous shoes. Because when the latest Jimmy Choo costs as much as March rent, you pass.
And anyway, in the end of Casablanca Rick says goodbye to Ilsa after they’ve finally been reunited, shipping her off on a plane, saying he loves her too much to let her stay. In reality? He never would have talked to her again after she lied to him all those years ago, after she never showed up at the train station and left him waiting in the rain with Sam, As Time Goes By humming softly in the background.
That’s why we have television and movies, to get a glimpse of the way we would like things to be, far removed from harshness of reality, wishing rather than hoping that a kiss is still a kiss after all.
February 28, 2006
Self Reliance
I still think about Starbucks a lot, and how I want it but I just don't have time in my lifestyle for it anymore. It's like we're breaking up and it's starting to hurt the way my head does by 11AM if I haven't had any caffeine.
The thing is, I've become a person of routine, more so than when I was in Boston. New York is a city of routine, five minutes late to the cross-town bus and your whole morning is thrown off. So after my ride through the park on the m72 and then over to the 1/9 down to Houston, I don't have time to walk those extra five blocks (five, can you even believe it) to get to the closest Starbucks. I see them at a distance as I gaze out of the bus window, they flash by a blur of green and light and I can almost taste the richness of Coupage del Sol, hot and comforting.
However now, it's just not working out. I'm pretty sad about it too, but I don't know what else to do. I have (and I don't even know if I can admit this but I'm going to) been going to...well...dunkin donuts. ffftttt!!
I know. I really do. Please, forgive me. I can't even really write it without shaking my head in overall disgust at how my lifestyle is regressing to such an extent that it's as though I'm living in the middle of suburbia and not the largest metropolitan city in the world. Have I really thrown away all my good taste for the sake of routine? Is this what urban living has brought me to? I’ve already given up any semblance of a young person’s life by working all the time and being too poor to go out, so is this, now, the last thing to go, the final straw in what is going to make me a solely single routine-driven person for the rest of my life?
I’m okay.
It’s like Emerson once wrote, consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Whatever that means.
The thing is, I've become a person of routine, more so than when I was in Boston. New York is a city of routine, five minutes late to the cross-town bus and your whole morning is thrown off. So after my ride through the park on the m72 and then over to the 1/9 down to Houston, I don't have time to walk those extra five blocks (five, can you even believe it) to get to the closest Starbucks. I see them at a distance as I gaze out of the bus window, they flash by a blur of green and light and I can almost taste the richness of Coupage del Sol, hot and comforting.
However now, it's just not working out. I'm pretty sad about it too, but I don't know what else to do. I have (and I don't even know if I can admit this but I'm going to) been going to...well...dunkin donuts. ffftttt!!
I know. I really do. Please, forgive me. I can't even really write it without shaking my head in overall disgust at how my lifestyle is regressing to such an extent that it's as though I'm living in the middle of suburbia and not the largest metropolitan city in the world. Have I really thrown away all my good taste for the sake of routine? Is this what urban living has brought me to? I’ve already given up any semblance of a young person’s life by working all the time and being too poor to go out, so is this, now, the last thing to go, the final straw in what is going to make me a solely single routine-driven person for the rest of my life?
I’m okay.
It’s like Emerson once wrote, consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Whatever that means.
February 23, 2006
My First New York Celebrity Citing
I was walking down Spring street in Soho today after a long morning at work, the first in a long while that I've had the time to actually pop out of the office for at least five minutes of fresh air. I was inhaling deep the crisp air, the same air that ny1 told me this morning would be almost 50 degrees and was actually considerably less.
Digging my hands deep into my coat pockets to keep warm I looked twice at an attractive man in a pale green velvet blazer with jeans, talking to himself. It was in that moment that I realized he was talking into the earpiece microphone that was hanging infront of his mouth, and that his face looked familiar because I had seen it before. It was Liev Schriber and we made eye contact as he said "...but all of my equiptment is upstate," to the person on the other end of his hanging earpiece microphone. He then smiled at me and said hello as the person on the other end undoubtedly made some comment about the fact that his equiptment being upstate is going to cause some sort of problem for him in the near future.
I simply looked back, unable to say anything as the thought of saying something as simple as hello didn't regsiter in time for him not to entirely pass me, cross over to Thompson and disappear from view.
Regardless, I hope that his equiptment, no matter where it is, is in good hands.
Digging my hands deep into my coat pockets to keep warm I looked twice at an attractive man in a pale green velvet blazer with jeans, talking to himself. It was in that moment that I realized he was talking into the earpiece microphone that was hanging infront of his mouth, and that his face looked familiar because I had seen it before. It was Liev Schriber and we made eye contact as he said "...but all of my equiptment is upstate," to the person on the other end of his hanging earpiece microphone. He then smiled at me and said hello as the person on the other end undoubtedly made some comment about the fact that his equiptment being upstate is going to cause some sort of problem for him in the near future.
I simply looked back, unable to say anything as the thought of saying something as simple as hello didn't regsiter in time for him not to entirely pass me, cross over to Thompson and disappear from view.
Regardless, I hope that his equiptment, no matter where it is, is in good hands.
February 21, 2006
"I draw the line at seven unreturned phone calls."
If Lloyd Dobler does it, it’s considered romantic. If we do it, it’s considered crazy. Okay, so I’ve done some considerably ridiculous things in my day, being personally profoundly poor at playing the game that everyone tells me must be mastered in order to find love and happiness with a significant other. I relate to this article only on some levels, but certainly on the level of tripping when trying to be attractive and having ones relationship of heart and sleeve in need of distinct and immediate separation.
What are “the rules?” The rules of calling back, emailing back, take this amount of days if they said this, this amount of day if you said that, divide by two, carry the three…
Perhaps Lloyd with his stereo-above-head-insanity, is the embodiment of what we feel but cannot say. Perhaps the attraction of him is that he symbolizes what we are ultimately looking for–a man who is able to show the things that we as women need to repress in ourselves, in order to get one.
What are “the rules?” The rules of calling back, emailing back, take this amount of days if they said this, this amount of day if you said that, divide by two, carry the three…
Perhaps Lloyd with his stereo-above-head-insanity, is the embodiment of what we feel but cannot say. Perhaps the attraction of him is that he symbolizes what we are ultimately looking for–a man who is able to show the things that we as women need to repress in ourselves, in order to get one.
February 14, 2006
Happy Single's Awareness Day
Right, so how entirely ridiculous is this holiday? A holiday marked on a calendar, as a day specifically set aside so that single people can remember that they're single and so that people in relationships can remember that they're suffocating and can't remember why they got into this thing in the first place. All while buying cards that will be thrown away, eating an obscene amount of chocolate and buying expensive and unnecessary dinners.
The plethora of flower vases that were in the lobby of my office building this morning awaiting their recipients, made the taste of my $1.25 deli shop coffee go bitter in my mouth. It's men giving their women (and we all know that's the only way it goes) flowers that they were not-too-subtlely informed they had to get in order to save themselves from the month-long celibacy that will surely follow (learning from last year when they realized that "you don't really have to get me something," is the biggest lie of all time) if they failed their mission as boyfriends.
People keep asking me what I'm going to do tonight. What do you mean what am I going to do tonight? Like, aren't you going to go out and like, get drunk with your girlfriends or something? Umm, no. You mean cry into my vodka soda with fellow female singletons over the fact that I don't have a man? Get it together. There are other things to cry about, like Michelle Kwan dropping out of the Olympics and the Vice President shooting people in the face.
Okay, okay, so the Vpotus is a little crazy and MK does already have some medals under her belt, and love lasts forever, blah blah blah. The only good thing about this holiday are those sugary little hearts, which are ruined because of the lame messages branded on the front. Well that and the fact that you can tell which guys aren't single. All those guys on the subway and on the sidewalk that you secretly would like to date, you know they have girlfriends when they're holding flowers or a bag from Godiva.
The plethora of flower vases that were in the lobby of my office building this morning awaiting their recipients, made the taste of my $1.25 deli shop coffee go bitter in my mouth. It's men giving their women (and we all know that's the only way it goes) flowers that they were not-too-subtlely informed they had to get in order to save themselves from the month-long celibacy that will surely follow (learning from last year when they realized that "you don't really have to get me something," is the biggest lie of all time) if they failed their mission as boyfriends.
People keep asking me what I'm going to do tonight. What do you mean what am I going to do tonight? Like, aren't you going to go out and like, get drunk with your girlfriends or something? Umm, no. You mean cry into my vodka soda with fellow female singletons over the fact that I don't have a man? Get it together. There are other things to cry about, like Michelle Kwan dropping out of the Olympics and the Vice President shooting people in the face.
Okay, okay, so the Vpotus is a little crazy and MK does already have some medals under her belt, and love lasts forever, blah blah blah. The only good thing about this holiday are those sugary little hearts, which are ruined because of the lame messages branded on the front. Well that and the fact that you can tell which guys aren't single. All those guys on the subway and on the sidewalk that you secretly would like to date, you know they have girlfriends when they're holding flowers or a bag from Godiva.
At least when I got home today my doorman asked me my name because, "people have been getting flowers and packages all day and I might have something for you." I told him, even though I knew the answer. He looked into his book and then looked back at me wounded, shaking his head, simply saying, "no."
I guess I just have to embrace this money making holiday orchestrated by all of the greeting card companies across the country and look to next year, when I will get flowers sent to the office…after I send them myself. Be mine, indeed.February 12, 2006
New York in the Snow
I wake up this morning and for a moment don't know where I am. Everything is silent. Pushing away the curtains I see it, Manhattan in white.
It falls, slowly at first, then fast, disappearing into the sidewalk and collecting on windshields. The children in the apartments across the way, press their hands to the glass and watch it float, knowing it's difficult to building snowmen in the city.
It drapes the city like a blanket, covering its insecurities, masking its imperfections. It mutes the traffic and the car horns, the soundtrack that is constantly humming, the living pulse that propels the city forward.
Walking in Central Park is like walking with an old friend or lover-it looks different on its surface, almost foreign, yet underneath you know it has remained the same.
White collects on coats and clings to hair before it melts away, becoming forgotten, lost, as new flakes inevitably fall in its place.
It falls, slowly at first, then fast, disappearing into the sidewalk and collecting on windshields. The children in the apartments across the way, press their hands to the glass and watch it float, knowing it's difficult to building snowmen in the city.
It drapes the city like a blanket, covering its insecurities, masking its imperfections. It mutes the traffic and the car horns, the soundtrack that is constantly humming, the living pulse that propels the city forward.
Walking in Central Park is like walking with an old friend or lover-it looks different on its surface, almost foreign, yet underneath you know it has remained the same.
White collects on coats and clings to hair before it melts away, becoming forgotten, lost, as new flakes inevitably fall in its place.
February 9, 2006
February 6, 2006
#49
The Way I See It is back and bigger than ever. I know I've complained about this before, but my annoyance by it has yet to dissipate along with my love for Starbucks. #49 is so ridiculous and irritating that I hardly know if I should pour out the remaining coffee in protest or simply finish it and throw the empty cup at the reflecting glass windows on the corner of Spring and Varick (the closest Starbucks to my office).
Friday night was Boy Number 1's birthday (1 of 2 of the Brooklyn Boys) and we went to Schiller's on the les so we could check out this apparently hot-new-place that charges me $10 for a small, very dry (powdered if you've got it) straight up with a twist vodka martini.
Mehanata was next, this Bulgarian culture center/dance club that had a woman in not much more than a barely-there Bulgarian bra shaking her hips to the pulsating monotonous stream of music as she clipped her finger bells together. Suddenly it became participatory. I needed more vodka sodas than usual to get me through the night.
Sunday was a glorious New York Sunday, and I went for a run in central park and then down 5th Ave. to Rockefeller Plaza where I rested for a while and watched the ice skaters (fallers) below.
Super Bowl? I'm over it. Went to a movie with The Boys in a very anti-who really cares-Super Bowl movement. If I'm going to watch any football it's going to be college football anyway. The way I see it? The NFL is so painstakingly ridiculous and the Super Bowl so entirely un-super, that it should be #50.
Friday night was Boy Number 1's birthday (1 of 2 of the Brooklyn Boys) and we went to Schiller's on the les so we could check out this apparently hot-new-place that charges me $10 for a small, very dry (powdered if you've got it) straight up with a twist vodka martini.
Mehanata was next, this Bulgarian culture center/dance club that had a woman in not much more than a barely-there Bulgarian bra shaking her hips to the pulsating monotonous stream of music as she clipped her finger bells together. Suddenly it became participatory. I needed more vodka sodas than usual to get me through the night.
Sunday was a glorious New York Sunday, and I went for a run in central park and then down 5th Ave. to Rockefeller Plaza where I rested for a while and watched the ice skaters (fallers) below.
Super Bowl? I'm over it. Went to a movie with The Boys in a very anti-who really cares-Super Bowl movement. If I'm going to watch any football it's going to be college football anyway. The way I see it? The NFL is so painstakingly ridiculous and the Super Bowl so entirely un-super, that it should be #50.
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