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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

Brilliant article comparing geopolitics to The O.C.

#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.

It's Official

I’m officially in New York. Not that I haven’t been here for a while already, but rather, I’m officially here now because I officially have an apartment.

Regardless. Friday night after dinner in my new ues hood, we ventured to the les to The Living Room to see what the scene was. The back room was full of people and, vodka soda in hand, I settled myself in for the act to come. Four guys head to the stage, the cutest one of the bunch sits at the piano and before long I’m tapping my foot, being pushed into by the crowd and wondering why he looks so familiar.

The Boys, my long time friends and Brooklyn hosts, don’t seem quite as taken with this quartet as I am. Their sound is an acquired taste of Billy Joel meets Dave Brubeck meets Tony Bennett, so we leave, much to my chagrin.

“He’s just trying to be Peter Cincotti” I say, rolling my eyes and shrugging on my coat. I myself am a long-time lover of Peter, whose black and white picture from Downbeat Magazine has been above my desk for the past four years. He is a twenty-three year old, newer generation version of Sinatra with great hair, and who am I to resist that? Once outside while we’re figuring out where to go next, my eyes venture to the small black and white chalkboard with the listing of the evenings performers. There scribbled in small yet legible print, is Peter’s name.

Apparently appearances can change after four years, so I go back in to the still crooning Cincotti and listen to the rest of the set and await the chance to meet my future husband.

Afterwards we head to Thor for over-priced drinks and witness how unfabulous the women of Sex and the City would be in reality.

More vodka sodas than I can count later, I head uptown alone to my new home and fall asleep to the sound of the city that never sleeps outside my window and feel like I’m home...officially.

“Love on the Free Love Freeway…”

So the girl at the desk next to me in this newsroom of an office, is on the phone. She's always on the phone. She's rarely at her desk but when she is she's on the phone. She checks her messages with the self-important speakerphone, and messages from friends that start off with "Hey you slut," she quickly picks up the handset realizing that perhaps she's not as cool as she thinks is. She wears huge hats and short skirts with hair that never looks entirely clean and her voice is a low and droning monotone smokers voice.

She's talking to her boyfriend, whom I have never met but know everything about because she talks to him all the time and makes it a point to tell everyone who comes to her desk about her personal life without any care to who is around her.

Like right now, how she's yelling to him because he thinks that the guy who was taking "racy" pictures of her last night is a guy she's cheating with. She says the guy is gay, "GAY!" she stresses loudly. She insists that the pictures are hot and are for him, Greg, her loving boyfriend. "I made a great face, a really great face, you're going to love it, you really are."

I hear the sound of his voice, booming on the other end but it has about as much clarity to it as the teacher on Charlie Brown. "It's not, it's not, it's not," she says, I guess trying to defend herself. Not such a great defense if you ask me, especially if this guy was taking half naked pictures of her while she was drunk and her only defense is, "They are for you." Right.

One of the managers walks by and shoots me a wide-eyed look because this girl is loud, as though she's in her own room with the door closed but she's not. I feel like I'm trapped in an episode of The Office, the awkwardness is so intense I'm fighting the urge to run away. However, there aren't any cameras here to capture my look of total confusion, embarrassment and horror at her outburst, and what's happening is actually real, no matter how much I keep asking myself if it really is.

I feel like I go through this every day and when she tries to make small-talk with me about how fabulous she is (cough) I try to avoid her, showing that I actually have work to do. When she's not on the phone or looking up people on Friendster she's talking exasperatedly about how overwhelming her work is and is asking everyone in the office to help her. Let me remind you that her job title is higher up than mine and presumably so is her pay.

The conversation calms down, which I assume means he (Greg) believes her (fool) or has given up or senses (smartly) in her voice (as do I) that she's about to cry (please). But not really cry, cry in that fake way annoying girls do when they want a guy to feel bad for them or believe them or concede. It works, because she's suddenly smiling slyly and saying, "Do you want me to wear those shorts tonight?" Right.

When she hangs up the phone she lets out a deep sigh and says, perhaps to me or perhaps just to the void of the office that has most likely heard her entire conversation, "Shit."

I don't know about you, but this looks like to me the beginning of a long-lasting and beautiful relationship.

Brewed Coffee Seeks Caramel Macchiato

We all know I couldn't love a man who didn't love Starbucks. The drink says it all, and apparently I'm traditional, genuine and am someone who appreciates quality, (however sometimes a vanilla latte on those days when I've saved up enough money). Regardless, that's the persona I'm projecting with every sip I take of that steaming grande bold.

Perhaps this is where I'm meant to meet men. How has something as obvious as this has alluded me for so long? I'm there so much already I might as well try to meet a fellow addict with whom I can form a real substantial relationship with over overpriced coffee and fatty pastries.

So perfect, yet seemingly unattainable...until now. If nothing else, at least you'll know where to find me- hopped up on caffiene at every Starbucks in Manhattan trying to find love.

I hope he pays.

To the guy across the way:

Sitting here in the living room which has become my home for the past two weeks, it’s still the same. The guy across the way with the light on in his living room where he dances, arms moving wildly, body spinning, and I can’t tell if it’s dancing, aerobics or an epileptic fit.

I wonder what the music is (if it’s not the latter of course), so I crack the window but still can’t hear. I try to look away but all the same I can’t, like the scene of a car accident or a celebrity on the sidewalk (I’ve been looking). The light goes off and I think it’s over and then I think that perhaps he’s sitting there looking at me, laptop on my lap, typing away, being boring, being unexciting. Then the light goes back on and he’s on the phone and ironing something or folding something and then the light goes off again.

It’s like the guy on the subway on Friday who looked normal enough but then, after staring at me from 14th street to 1st Ave (while I tried to avoid his gaze by looking at the ad that telling me I can learn French in three months if I just go to this website...) asked me to marry him. I smiled and said, no, thanks and got off the train.

Tomorrow is Monday and its tainted my Sunday. I didn’t make it down to the Living Room in the East Village tonight to see the boys play but will make it again next week. I’ll be out of Brooklyn in a few days, though I have come to appreciate it, and will have to say goodbye to what has become my own personal living room and the couch and the guy across the way.

The light is back on.

Who Stole the Weekend?

Friday night I took the 6 to the Upper East Side where I saw my soon to be new home. It’s weird looking at a place and picturing your life unfolding in it. I will finally be able to carry out half of my adult apartment dream: a grown up person bed and the money to afford the room to put it in. Now all I need to work on is getting the baby grand piano that will fit nicely (albeit snugly) in the corner. Perhaps I’ll get to that later.

The funny thing about New York is that the buildings are so high that you rarely take the time to crane your neck back to look at the sky. That’s why when you walk underground to get onto the subway and emerge minutes later to the sound of rain falling from up above you have you idea it was coming. I had to purchase an umbrella after I made it back home through the rain (unexpected) and arrived completely soaked.

In other news: the long weekend is almost over and it feels as though I’ve been here for a lot longer than I have. However my nights on the couch are numbered and 72nd street awaits me.

Whatever Gets You Through the Day...

coffees (1)
diet coke-12oz can(3)
grande skim latte (1)
food ( )

There's something to be said about the subway commute in new york. A far cry from the T, this beast of public transport (when not on strike) brings all sorts of people to all sorts of destinations.

Tired after a restless night on an air mattress, pre-caffeine and post the fifteen minute walk to the train, i stood (barely) crammed into the only car that would let me in. and near me? A man reading Love in the Time of Cholera. Marquez before 9AM? I dont think so. A woman standing facing me isn't holding onto anything but is maintating her balance while knitting? Right.

I have some places to look at this week (seeing one tonight) with the hope that one of them will work out (read: must learn to lower my standard of living).

Tomorrow is Thursday. It's one of the first Thursdays in a while that i won't be at the Pig. Leaving Boston is hard, at least for right now, as i'm in transition and missing my friends and old life. For such a large city, New York, at times, can be lonely.

My job is intense (just like the city) and talking to all these authors and being around all these books makes me eager to have something happen with mine. There are, currently, people I know all over the country who were mailed (before I left Boston) the first bound manuscript of my three-year-labor of, well, love i guess. One has to start somewhere and getting it off the key drive (yes, not floppy disk) and into the hands of readers, is the best way.

I'm still waiting to hear if perhaps I should indeed spend my time simply promoting writers instead of trying to be one.

Back in the New York Groove

I’m here because this is where my life has led me. And anyone who knows me knows that this is where I’ve always wanted to end up. In a city this large everyone who comes here creates their own. I’ve already started building my own private New York from the moment I laid eyes on it in a car speeding the GW Bridge with the skyline hazy and towering in the distance.

Since then the skyline has changed but the feeling remains the same.

To the last 48 hours of my life: you’ve been hell. However thank you, as now all those 2880 minutes later, I’m far away from the dim lights of Boston and am sitting on a couch (or large chair, but couch by nyc apartment standards) in the city that never sleeps, (regardless of how much I need it).

Everything is faster here. The cars, the people (though the tourists are always the same), the sounds and air even seem to fly past your face as though it has somewhere to be. I’ve been looking tonight for a new place to call home, at least for a little while anyway. Goodbye to the 7 story walk up with closet sized room. Thanks but no thanks to the curtain blocked studio share with a strange man. How much? Don’t call me, I’ll call you.

I’ve never liked Kiss because of a bad face-painting experience as a child and because I was born with good ears, however they do know what they’re talking about when they say

Many years since I was here, on the street I was passin’ my time away
To the left and to the right, buildings towering to the sky
It’s outta sight in the dead of night
Here I am, and in this city, with a fistful of dollars
Stop at third and forty-three, exit to the night
It’s gonna be ecstacy, this place was meant for me

Feels so good tonight, who cares about tomorrow