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.
April 27, 2006
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
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