still amazed i didn't lose it

My eyes fell on the colorful copy of Love in the Time of Cholera as if it were the only book on the table. I was on St. Mark's and it was raining. This old man had set up his table of books under an awning. I saw the book, passed it by and made it about 10 feet before I turned around and walked back.

I picked it up and turned it over in my hands, feeling the gloss of the cover slide against my damp skin and allowing the pages to pour one by one across my fingertips. I asked the old man how much it was, and he said seven dollars. I told him I had six, and a $20 bill, hoping he would read between the lines and give me the book for $6. Instead he took my $20 and gave me $3 in return. He still owed me $10, but he only had two $20 bills left in his wallet and he said, wait here, I'll go get your change. He handed me the book and told me to stand by the table, and that if I sold anything he would take a dollar off the price of my book. As he walked away I felt a little uneasy twinge in my stomach, a pang from my past self, the fear that maybe this stranger would take my $20 and never return with my change. But as I stood there alone with my half-purchased book, I looked out over the piles of paperbacks and realized he had just left a wanderer with his entire table of wares. Trust is funny that way: it's only hard when you look at it as a one-sided thing. Which it never is.

When he returned with my money, he thanked me and called me beautiful, shook my hand and asked me my name. He said, I'm Marshall and I'm here every Saturday. I said, only Saturday? He said, Saturday's about all I can take.

He said, let me know what you think of the book, I think you'll really like it, it's wonderful.

I said, I will.

city life

On the 1st avenue M15, an old woman who spoke no English turned to me and pointed to a piece of paper that said simply, "To 59th street." She had the sweetest eyes, and they asked me silently where the bus would stop, when and how she would make it to 59th street. We were only at 23rd street. I spoke to her but she acted like she didn't understand my words. She would make murmuring sounds with her voice, but she wasn't speaking another language, so I got the impression that she just couldn't speak at all, but that maybe at one time she could. I tried to communicate to her, with my eyes and my hands and my smile, that I would let her know when we got to 59th street so she could get off the bus. Her eyes were so sweet, they smiled in return even though her mouth never really moved that much. We got to about 54th street and I tried to let her know to get off at the next stop, which was 57th street. She looked confused and pointed to the paper, handing it to me and motioning for me to write down what I was saying. So I took her pen and wrote "get off the bus and walk two blocks up to 59th street." When the bus stopped at 57th street, I escorted her off, walked back to my seat and watched through the bus window as she walked to the stop and fished her umbrella from her bag. It was raining pretty good. I motioned to her through the window which direction to walk to get to 59th, but I don't think she saw me.

I hope she made it to where she was headed. 59th street is long.

treefingers

On the upstairs platform at 14th street, I see a man with a book in his bag called

How To Be An Existentialist.
I laugh out loud at his silliness.

Downstairs at 14th street, a man in monk robes comes up to me and offers me a book on yoga,
asking for change in return. 

I give him a handful of coins. 

I open the book and a card falls out with a chant on it. It instructs me to repeat the chant to make my life sublime, and it guarantees satisfaction.

I laugh out loud at its silliness.  

We haven't talked in a while, city

Dear friend Hannah inspired me with her latest post, which made me realize I hadn't talked to my city in a while. So I sat down and talked to her. Here's how the conversation went.

Oh, hi New York. Hi. It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? I mean, I’ve been here, and you’ve certainly been there, but I feel like we haven’t really talked in a while. The tolls are so high. The tolls are just so fucking high. If you google “toll-free, antonym,” I swear to God “New York” should be the first search result.

I know this. I know this because last weekend I left. I rented a car with two friends and drove to Asbury Park, New Jersey. I know, what the fuck, right? It was for love. Not for, like, “love” love, like I’m going to marry this person love or anything crazy. Nah. But some kind of love. There are lots, you know? Love is the color wheel on the Wheel of Fortune, just more or less annoying, depending on how you feel about Wheel of Fortune. There are, like, 100 varieties, but an infinite number of possible combinations. It can be fun.

Anyway, I drove to Jersey. Actually I didn’t drive. I was drunk. My friend drove. We went down on the FDR, fingered the island on Houston Street, then finally finally fucked the Holland Tunnel to get out.  It was good. It was really fucking good. It was cool to be in a car in the city, watching all the drones walk around me. I felt rich, except I know I’m not. I felt like a prince on an elephant in the middle of the dessert, except I know I’m not.

Once we were out, we encountered like a thousand toll stops. Seriously, every 15 to 20 minutes there would be another toll. Why you gotta be like that, New York? Northeast? In the South, there are no tolls. Period. There miiiiiiight be a toll on the bridge to Dauphin Island off the coast of Alabama, but I can’t really remember. Soon it won’t matter anyway because the whole thing will be covered in oil, ugh. But that could be kind of cool, I guess, because it will basically be a huge slip and slide. And who doesn’t love those from their childhood? Weeeeeeeeee!

Toll. Drive. Toll. Drive. On the way back too, driving at 1, 2, 3 in the morning, tolls. Why are you so hard to penetrate, New York? It’s hard to get in, and it’s hard to get the fuck out. Why do you separate yourself like that? I mean, I get it. You’re “New York.” You’re “Manhattan.” You feel threatened, you gotta protect yourself, you feel like people owe it to you to pay obscene amounts just to cross your borders. It’s probably Sex and the City’s fault. Name off all the things you dislike about yourself, dear city, and I promise you I can trace their source back to that fucking show. But whatever. What’s done is done, and it’s a good fucking show anyway.

 The tolls are confusing too. It’s not like it’s straightforward, you know? It’s not like “drive here if you have cash, drive here if you have a credit card, drive here if you have that E-Z-Pass shit.” I mean, technically, yeah, that’s how it’s set up, but all the highways in New Jersey I swear to God are like 25 lanes. So cars and trucks and hippie minivans are swerving all over the place, and then there’s us, and we don’t know where we are or where we’re going, we just know we have to pay to get there.

What? Don’t be a smartass. Of course it’s appropriate. Huh? Oh yeah, of course I know I’m using a hackneyed symbol for the crisis of the American youth. I don’t really need you to tell me that. And I really don't need you to tell me not to use the word hackneyed because it's hackneyed! But you know what? There’s nothing new under the sun, New York. Besides, what are you doing that’s new? What shit are you making? I had a dream last night that I got a tattoo of a turtle on my arm and he was wearing a CBGB T-shirt. Fuck you.

Oh, shit, I guess it is time for your monthly bath. Already? Goddamn. I feel like you just had one. OK, I’ll let you go. I’m not mad at you. Actually I’m quite content with you. It worries me. I’ve never been content with you before. Did I change, or have you changed? You look so different to me now, compared to just a few months ago. I should probably be more pissed than ever at you, but somehow I’m not. I’m just like, it’s OK. A cool stream of “it’s OK”s keeps swimming over me as I dunk my head under the brim of summer. I just sit on my bed and strum my guitar and those six strings vibrate with how little I know, and the sound bounces off the walls of my lonely little room, but it’s comforting, you know? I’m just like, it’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK. Splash.

Well, I mean, I feel OK, which is what makes me worry and feel not OK. Like a gnawing in the back of my mind, like my old self jumping up and down saying, ‘Remember when you used to be unhappy!? You were so much cooler and more artsy then!’ I guess that’s one thing: New York, you’re the only place in the world where contentment raises blood pressures. Systolic over diastolic, steady climbin', like a bridge over a tugboat where there’s probably a goddamn toll.

OK OK, I’ll let you go. Talk soon.

Love,
Meghan

several more things

1. Last week I went to the LCD Soundsystem show at Terminal 5. The following is a video I took on my iPhone of the last part of their closing set. They played "New York, I Love You," obvs, then the chorus from Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind," which I found kitschy but also couldn't help loving, before releasing a hundred white balloons from the ceiling. The concert was amazing - my friend Brady and I were in the general admission standing area and we were surrounded by young people obsessed with themselves and obsessed with just being alive. This video is terrible, because I was jumping around and acting like a damn fool, but I feel that it adequately  represents the entirety of the concert, which consisted of me jumping around and acting like a damn fool. It was fucking infectious.



After the balloons dropped, Brady and I posed with one of them in front of a dumpster, natch.

2. In other news: I bought one of these.

And I am taking piano lessons. I grew up in an extremely musical household - I can trace my entire childhood based on what albums I was listening to with my parents (read: Queen, The Eagles, Chicago, Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, The Doobie Brothers, Journey, Sade, Roberta Flack, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion were all in the repertoire), and I danced my youth away - and once I got bigger I played the flute for seven years. I realized recently that I had lost that outlet, which makes no sense. I miss making music or at least being somehow involved with it. I've always always always wanted to learn how to play the piano, so I'm just diving into it. It requires some budgeting, of course, because this is New York, but it's totally worth it. And the harmonica purchase is an addendum to that. I also intend to learn how to play the guitar this summer. I'm an ambitious lady.

3. Speaking of being a lady, I spent all day Sunday helping my amazing bestie Jenny Anderson with a pin-up photo shoot on the roof of my friend's Brooklyn apartment. I spent the whole day looking around in gape-mouthed awe that I know so many beautiful, strong, talented women. Jenny is a clit tease and has only shown us a couple photos. Here is one of them. The lineup goes something like this: actress, writer, writer, actress, dancer, actress, writer, writer, actress, dancer, and of course, photographer (behind the lens). Kick. Ass. Ladies.

4. Feeling rather ladylike from the shoot, I went the other day to get a mani/pedi, and as I was sitting in the spa waiting to indulge myself, I started reading Willie Morris' memoir North Toward Home. The book chronicles his life, moving from Yazoo City, Mississippi to go to college in Texas before taking on New York City, where he became an accomplished writer and the editor of Harper's Magazine. He grew to be totally disenchanted with the city and ended up moving back to the South - of course, he took root in Oxford, where I went to college - and the book obviously details his relationship with both the South and the North, both his past and his present. Because Zac is moving to New Orleans at the end of the summer, and because I too yearn for the South and ponder daily a return to my roots, it is likely going to be an incredibly important book for me to read.

ANYWAY. As I sat in the window reading, the sun was pouring through the window as it set, framing the words on the glass. I looked down and the shadow it cast was scrawled across my book.

The universe can't really get any more direct than that.

Can't read my, can't read my/she's got me like nobody

I am getting emotional. As in I am having an emotional moment. Today, Saturday, April 3, 2010, I got my first tattoo. It hurt like a MOTHERFUCKER and I yelped like a little pussy and I did not enjoy the process at all. However, now back at home, looking at my new arm art, listening to Gaga sing Pokerface at her piano - the acoustic version I first heard about a year ago - tears are welling up in my eyes when I remember why, back in September, I wrote about why I thought she would inspire my first tattoo. I wasn't sure then if I would go through with it or not - but the roughness the past year created in me has begun to flower into a celebration of who I am, and I feel more confident in that person than I ever have before. Gaga inspires me to be just who I am, unapologetically, and to explore parts of myself that I've always wanted to but have perhaps feared. Anyway. Before I get into all that, here's the tattoo experience.

I waffled for like 30 minutes before I went through with getting it. I have really sensitive skin, and I also have eczema, so I wasn't sure that it was the best decision. Once I made a decision - after saying something about it being an existential crisis and pulling out my favorite "no one can take a bath for you" spiel - she started inking me, and it only took like five minutes. An excruciating fucking five minutes. This is right after it was finished, all wrapped up, (with) a pretty little bow:

Finished art, unwrapped (with a cameo by my toothbrush):

I love it. It's cute, right? It's cute, but it means so much more to me than just that. Bullet lists are everyone's favorite, so here it is, unedited, what this tattoo means to me, who I am, right now.

- 2009 was the year of my first true heartbreak. Gaga was there with me, somehow, at every step along the way, and in my memories of that year, she always will be. It's not an exaggeration to say that by the end of last year, I was completely fucking destroyed. I've come a long way in the past few months, but I am not ashamed to say that I still miss Andrew and I still sometimes cry for his loss. I cut him out of my life because I had to, but it has not been easy.  A part of me still loves him. When I hear Brown Eyes, I think about him, and I probably always will. I'm OK with that. I learned the possibility of my emotional depth because of him, so ultimately I'm nothing but thankful.

- Gaga has always been pretty outspoken about her bisexual experiences. I have always had bisexual curiosity and tendencies, but I've just recently began to explore it. I don't really consider it fodder for this blog, but a world has opened up for me, and I have never felt more free or comfortable in my own sexuality.

- I am more free than I have ever been. I have stopped caring what others think of me, and I have taken to cutting and ripping my clothing however I see fit before I go out. I wear dark eyeliner and slick my short brown hair down with pomade. I wear glittery eyeshadow. I don't really consider something worth wearing unless I have somehow taken my hand to it or one of my friends has. Zachary sketched my tattoo for me. I never even knew what freedom was before this stage of my life, and now that I've tasted it I never want to go back. I can't even remember what I did before I made things or at least felt the drive and necessity to make them.

- I am more in love with New York than I ever have been, if that's even possible. This city continues to inspire me, envelop me, develop me and create new worlds for me. Literally everyday is an adventure, and I am surrounded by my dearest friends, who are actually my family, and I could not feel more blessed. Gaga represents New York for me, because that's where she got her start - she frequented St. Jerome's, which is my new favorite bar on the LES - and she just sort of embodies the grease, grit, dirt, harshness, and glamor of the city.

- Rivington Street

- I have recently discovered about myself that I truly feel like I'm meant to be an artist, and I think of myself as one, even though I am still really young and don't know quite what I want to do. I've been reading and learning about Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, and, yes, Lady Gaga, and what they did as young artists in New York.  I'm learning about myself through them. I am dabbling in poetry and songwriting, as well as trying to learn more about the art world in New York.

To that end, I recently transcribed onto my bedroom wall a poem Patti Smith wrote when she was 24, which is obviously how old I am now, about New York.

Here's video of her saying it aloud, back in 1971. I have no idea if she wrote it before the interview and was reading from memory, or if she wrote it on the spot. She was really into improvisation, so the latter would not surprise me.

Patti was born on December 30, 1946. I moved to New York on December 30, exactly 62 years later. I find this appropriate, because it took moving to New York for me to truly be born, and the process, I hope, has only begun.

Love and art and New York always,

Meghan

A change of pace

Late last summer, when I first started writing this blog every single day and pouring my heart and soul into it, it was because I felt a natural urge to do so. Every single post I wrote for months and months came from a sincere place, and if I didn't feel inspired to write something, I just didn't. For the past month or so, I have felt an artistic anxiety unlike anything I've experienced before, and I've been unsure of how to filter it into a product. As a result - and you may have noticed this - my writing and my blog have suffered. I've tried to create posts, and have succeeded at times, but mostly I have faltered. I've noticed that the quality of my work has dipped, and my readership has dropped off. Rather than continue on like nothing is changing, I thought it best to just be honest - since my blog was born out of an honest place - and keep it real in BtoA land.

As y'all know, I write a lot on my phone. I wrote this late last night on the bus home, and I think it adequately expresses how I've been feeling recently. Mostly because it's completely stream of consciousness and unedited. So, here it is.

I feel filled with an energy I can't explain. Up until recently, I have always just wanted to write. Forever and ever I've written, and had the urge to write, and have written. I always thought that was my ultimate calling, but now I'm not sure; not because I don't want to write anymore, but because I feel some new urge to create visual and audial things. I see myself crouched over papers, stop-going on camera, splattering paint on walls. I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing or why.

The fact that I'm compelled to write this down at all means something. Writing is still my first method of expression, my go-to for needing to get things out to the universe. But I feel an undeniable thing growing inside me, to express myself and make things in ways I never thought of before. I want to wrap my arms around a guitar player and have him love me back. I want to sing and write music and stay true to myself as I create beautiful things to share with other people. I want the present, past and future of New York to live through me. I want to breathe it in and feel it grow and burst out of me in whatever ways it deems best. Nanoosh. McDonalds. Symphony Cleaners. The Food Emporium. Duane Reade. Chase Bank. C town town town. Welcome to the johnsons. Brooklyn. Harlem. The 6 train. The M15. Summer in the park. Sunlight. Green grass. Patti and Robert. Love. Art. Friendship. Family.

I want to know my purpose. What I'm supposed to make for the world. I'm pleading with the universe regularly to show me.

Show me.
Show me.
Show me.
Show me.
Please.
How do I find it?

After this post, my blog is probably going to go through a bit of a transformation. I've been wanting to experiment with photography, videography, painting, drawing, decorating, everything. So - for those of you who care - you will probably see more posts relating to that type stuff starting soon. My posts will probably be more sporadic, less scheduled, and more varied in nature. Ultimately, for me, it always comes back to writing, so it's not like I'm going to stop using words. But I'm going to start doing other things too, as soon as I figure out where to start.

On the walk home, on my block, I stopped in my tracks on 104th street when I saw this stenciled on a door outside a church.

It says, "If it is to be, then it is up to me." Then it says, "God loves you."

I've walked 104th street a hundred times, even before I moved here, heading to my old home from Zac's apartment - but I didn't see this sign until tonight. It seems, of course, incredibly appropriate.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do, which is a very foreign feeling. I hope that those of who you really love my blog and feel some sort of connection with me will hang around while I navigate this unknown part of my life. I think and hope and pray that it will be worth it.

The magic of the New York food cart

New York has gone through a number of transformations over the years. From the 1960s and 70s - when love and art reigned, the time of Andy Warhol and the Factory, Patti and Robert and Woodstock and 20-cent subway rides - to the 80s, when Wall Street began to fully emerge as a driving force in the world, to the 90s, when disillusionment and safe sex reigned, to the 2000s, the New York of post-Sex and the City consumerism, which saw Starbucks and a number of other annoying trendy chain spots popping up on literally every corner. Perhaps ironically, that's the New York I fell in love with back in 2004 when I first visited the city - or more accurately, I fell in love with the city when it was in this stage of evolution. Because, ultimately, there's one thing that never seems to change about the city: its energy, and the feeling it stirs in people who are drawn to it. And that energy, that feeling, is embodied in another thing about the city that never really changes: the food cart.

The food cart is a magical thing. It's a cart in every sense of the word - it has wheels, it's pulled behind a vehicle, it's partially open-air - but it serves a higher purpose in providing busy New Yorkers with things that are edible. There are a number of different types of food carts in the city. The most common are the hot dog/sausage carts that heavily populate touristy areas like Rockefeller Center and Herald Square, and the gyro/shish kabob carts that tend to park in areas where young people gather in search of greasy drunk food: East Village, Lower East Side, Hell's Kitchen/Times Square. I still remember the first street gyro I had, in the summer of 2007 in the East Village. Life-changing.

Another staple of the food cart family, pictured above, is something I had inexplicably not partaken of until today: the coffee cart. These are all over the city in the mornings, spanning from Harlem to Wall Street. I see one on my walk to the train in the mornings at 103rd and 3rd, and then on my walk from the train to work along virtually every street in Tribeca. This morning I really, really wanted some orange juice - I know, I'm such a hardass - and, remembering I had a few rare dollars in my wallet, I decided to brave the mysterious coffee cart and partake of a New York staple.

I felt weirdly nervous as I waited in line, listening to the guy in front of me order a large coffee with two Splendas. The guys behind me, who clearly worked together, were having a conversation about their summer plans, tossing around the prospect of finding other work or maybe leaving the city. As they talked, visions of Coney Island danced in my head: the beach, sun, cool ocean breeze, sand, hot dogs, music, cutoff shorts, swimsuits. I felt warm and happy. The guy in front of me finished ordering and I stepped up to the window. The coffee cart man smiled down at me, and I told him I just wanted an orange juice. He asked me if that was it and I said yes. He told me it would be a dollar and 25 cents. I started digging my wallet for the extra quarter and he seemed to sense that I wanted a bag for my lonely little OJ, and I told him that no! I didn't need one. I fished out the quarter and laid it on the counter as he handed me the OJ and smiled warmly.

As I walked away, I felt filled with an unexpected joy and contentment. In that moment, I felt the city wrap around me for the first time in a while, protectively cuddling me from all sides. I looked around and saw the New York I had first seen in 2004: that energy, that life, that art pulsing through everything. No matter how many chain coffee houses there are, or how much money gets poured into meaningless capitalistic pursuits in this city, there will always be that feeling of endless possibility, that freedom, like if you just believe in it and want it bad enough, you can literally be anything you want. That feeling, that uniquely New York feeling, is something that everyone who ever came to New York to pursue a dream has experienced and can speak to, whether it was in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, or beyond; and as I walked the block to my office from the coffee cart - which, by the way, was set up right across the street from a Starbucks - I felt it pressing on me in the most comforting way.

Despite everything I've been through, and all the uncertainty that continues to face me, I heard the city telling me it's going to be OK, and I believed it. I put my hands in the pockets of my trench coat, smiled to myself and walked on.

iPhone Inspiration: Winter spring blooms

So I've kind of decided that winter is my least favorite season. It used to be one of my favorites, because in the South it's really mild and basically amounts to an excuse to snuggle under blankets and eat chocolate and sausage balls and celebrate the birth of a religious figure you may or may not actually believe in. I always hated summer more than the other seasons, because I despise sweating when I'm not actually doing physical activity, which is essentially the definition of a Southern summer. Summer in the South still might be one of the worst things ever, but compared with winter in New York, it ain't that bad.

Winter in New York is more terrible, because it's a stealthy little bastard. Summer in the South sucks, but at least it sucks immediately. You walk outside one day in mid-May (or April) and, fuck, it's summer. You're wearing jeans and a tank top and you're suddenly aware that it's far too hot for such garments. You turn around, go back inside and put on a cute little summer dress with flip flops. You come back outside and shut the door behind you. Your dress would blow in the wind like in a cute indie movie, but it doesn't, because there is no wind. It's just hot as balls. Stagnant. Sticky. Thick. Sauna-y. And, immediately, you're like fuck this. Then it continues for three to four months, the entire duration of which your hair is in a ponytail because if it's down it sticks to your neck and is completely disgusting. Then suddenly it's fall and you remember why life is bearable.

By contrast, winter in New York starts out delightful. It's cold, but it's bearable, and it's kind of fun walking around in your big heavy coat and cute new scarf and vintage snow boots. All your friends are bundled up too, and you might go tromping through Rockefeller Plaza to see the Christmas tree. You might stop and get hot chocolates on the way.  There are little stringy lights up everywhere, and you're all AHHH! Christmas in New York is so magical!  You go home for Christmas but you can't wait to get back for New Year's. The snow falls outside your window, light little tufts of gorgeousness that settle into a big pile of happiness.

This continues for, like, a month and a half. Mid-January rolls around, and you suddenly realize you like winter a little less. The snow gets harder, and grayer. Piles of snow-happiness turn into mountains of hard, packed together snow-ice-street-grunge... stuff. It gets in your way when you are walking to the train. Then it melts and huge puddles form on street corners but they look like pavement at night and you step in them and your foot sinks a good four inches so it's a good fucking thing your mom gave you these awesome vintage snow boots because they are the Army tanks of shoes. Snow becomes wintry mix. You're like ugh but you deal with it because what else are you gonna do?

Then the end of February rolls around, and you're a fucking fire-breathing dragon, vengefully melting snow drifts, icicles, and possibly any people in your path. You turn the corner on your way to work and an icy cold blast hits you in the face and makes it impossible for you to breathe for three to four seconds because you just got the wind knocked out of you by other wind. When you can breathe again, you take a deep one in and then yell FUCK! or maybe even FUCK YOU! Snow is still piled on sidewalks but all you see is death and destruction, be it real or imagined/hoped for. You stay inside your office at lunchtime and order takeout Thai, refusing to acknowledge that weather even exists anymore. You scarf it down shamefully, flinging rice noodles and dumpling bits all over your desk and keyboard because you just don't give a shit. You snap at coworkers who kindly ask for bagels from the kitchen. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the office mirror and you barely recognize yourself. Who have you become? What has this New York winter done to you? Is that caked dumpling sauce in your eyebrow?

And then sometimes, you get a reminder that nothing lasts forever, and that this too shall pass. Yesterday, the universe - via the 4/5 train - gave me such a reminder: a woman carrying a bouquet of red tulips - my favorite flower - in her eco-friendly grocery bag. It was so New York, so Spring, and so very welcome.  I took a photo and played around with it on my iPhone - yeah, I have Photoshop mobile, what? - and decided to make weekly(ish) segments called iPhone Inspirations, in which I post stuff I've seen/written/pondered on my iPhone. I do this a lot, especially whilst traveling by train or bus.

 

  

 

Happy early Spring, everyone.

A couple pictures of me in a cute hat

Y'all. I have been so, so busy recently, living life in New York and working on a few very exciting new side projects (more to come on these later), that I haven't had much free time to write, because I've been doing exciting things like buying hats on the streets of New York.

Yes, it's true, I bought a new hat. It was $5. I am very excited, because it is very warm. It is knitted and it covers my ears and it is cute. And it was $5. God bless this city.

Plus: it has those tassel things!

It's the little things in life, really. I've been wanting a hat like this since winter began*, and now one is mine. And this blog post is officially over, because it is lame.

*Started fucking my life up, little bastard

Inspiration from New York, Circa 1971

I recently read this feature in New York Magazine on punk goddess Patti Smith's new memoir Just Kids, which she wrote about the time she spent running around New York in her 20s (the 1970s) with her once-lover-turned-gay-best-friend (yep) and fellow artist Robert Mapplethorpe. If you have any free time, it's worth investing it in this story. This woman doesn't let a word escape her lips that is not thoughtful and poetic. She's 62 and claims to still be working to create her great life's work. Living and working as a "creative" 20something in New York in 2010, I of course found the piece interesting as a comparative study.

In addition to loving the story, I have become obsessed with this photograph. I have looked at it for at least an hour. As I flipped through other pages in the magazine, I found myself compelled to turn back to this one page, just to stare at this one photograph.

 

The caption below the photo reads: Smith and Mapplethorpe on their West 23rd Street fire escape, 1971.

I'm obsessed with it for several reasons. 1. Everything about it screams New York. And not the new New York, but the old New York; the New York we'll never get back, the New York of the pre-fame artist, the New York of Andy Warhol and Janis Joplin, Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, renting out rooms in Chelsea Hotel and living off whatever money they could make at their counter jobs, doing drugs and smoking cigs and drinking and creating amazing art just because they wanted to create. 2. Every time I look at it, I see something new. It took me several views to realize that Robert's right foot is actually not touching the fire escape. It looks like he's levitating, which seems appropriate. Writing this just now, I notice that Patti's fly is unzipped. XYZ Patti! 3. It was totally candid. 4. They're clearly fucking badasses and I want to be them.

I feel that I am entering into a new stage of my life where I want to explore everything and try everything. I want to listen to every kind of music that exists (just because). I want to read a gazillion books (just because). I want to stand around outside bars on the Lower East Side and smoke menthols, (just because I do it sometimes when I drink, and I always want to be those beautiful punk girls who let the smoke glide between their thick red lips while they talk). I want to get tattoos and then sort of regret them later (but not really because I'll just remember wanting to memorialize something that was important to me at the time). I want to make new friends, some of whom I'll never forget (and others I'll never remember). I want to write until I pass out. I want to use art to celebrate where I'm from. In short, I want to recreate (my version of) Patti's New York.

I want to remember that one day, I will look back on these young minutes and realize how special they were, and how important. I can't know now why they're important, but one day, if I'm real lucky, I will.

"...[Patti] was in the room in the Chelsea when Kris Kristofferson played “Me and Bobbie McGee” for Janis Joplin in her easy chair. 

'I was there for those moments,' writes Smith, 'but so young and preoccupied with my own thoughts that I hardly recognized them as moments.'"

Southern nap, FTW

I haven't been sleeping well in New York recently. My roommate has been home a lot and I have this psychological thing where even if she's not being loud and I can barely tell she's home at all, I know she's home, and that makes me antsy and anxious and I can't sleep well.

So naturally, when I came home to Bama Friday, after getting up at 5:30 a.m. to make my flight, I was exhausted and took a mid-afternoon nap. It was a nap for the win (FTW), or what I prefer to call a nap to the face.

This is why.

Because that's what I look like when I wake up from a nap to the face. My hair is fucked and my face is barely recognizable and - as I so helpfully point out in the bottom photo - I have a big mascara smear mysteriously located at least one full inch from my eye.

When I looked at myself in the mirror, my thought process went something like:

1. FUCK. Whoooooooa. Damn girl. Rough.
2. Ooooh! I should blog photos of how shitty I look.

Currently re-considering the wisdom of this sleepy decision.

It's gettin' hot in (this) herrrrrr (airless box)

So there's this chain of restaurants in the city called Vynl, and their claim to fame is that they're music-themed. They use old record sleeves to hold their menus, their drinks are vaguely punny and music related (read: the Fiona Apple-tini, the Pearis Hilton, the Purple Rain), and their decor tends to generally remind one of a disco ball. There's one in Hell's Kitchen and one in Chelsea, the main difference being that the latter is only marginally gayer.

Anyway, the best thing about these restaurants is that each bathroom is unisex and dedicated to a different musical artist. The bathroom is usually playing the music of the artist, there's a huge tile mosaic on the wall depicting the artist, and sometimes - if you're lucky - there is a doll or some other sort of miniature version of the artist. The first time I went to Vynl, I had the pleasure of using the Justin Timberlake bathroom. And as I'm sure you might have guessed, I find few things more pleasurable than having Justin watch over me while I pee. However, he may have actually been one-upped recently, when I had the thrill of walking into the bathroom and discovering this.

That's right. It's a huge science-project-style diorama devoted to Nelly. Except this diorama is better than any diorama you ever feebly created in middle school, because it contains the following: a doll of Nelly - complete with tattoos, doo rag, cheek band-aid, baggy sweatpants, and huge necklace that reads "#1" - some life-size blingbling necklaces draped behind the doll, and a large glass number one. In case you can't see all these things, I made sure to get a close-up shot. Duh.

Do you remember Nelly? Of course you do. How could anyone not? (Just in case you don't, click here, here, here or here.) He basically defined the 2000-2003 period in American pop culture. Or at least in my version of it. I am not ashamed to say that I owned his album Nellyville, and listening to Hot in Herre and Pimp Juice swiftly recalls the summer before my junior year of high school, when I blasted that album on repeat while I drove to and from dance team practices.

As per usual, I don't know why I love these things so much. But as I was peeing and staring in awe at the Nelly-rama directly across from me,  some lyrics from Pimp Juice seemed to stand out in my head.

Bitches got the pimp juice too,
Come to think about it, dirty, they got more than we do...
They got mo' juice in they talk, got mo' juice in they walk,
They got mo' juice in they pants,
Ooh goddamn!

This post ended up containing a lot more pee than I originally planned. Sorry about that. I just can't slow my roll.*

*And apparently neither can Nelly, because he's allegedly coming out with another album next year. Oh, I look forward to that shit. You know I do.

One year, one love: New York

I moved to New York one year ago today. I brought with me two suitcases, a computer bag, a tote, some goals, some dreams and one undying love for the city that had called to me for years. Since that day, I have gained a lot, and lost just as much. I thought I knew who I was when I moved up, but I did not. I thought I had a true love in my life when I came, but I was mistaken about where that love resided. I was right that I had no idea what I was getting myself into by moving here, but I could not have known just how true that was. Here, a month-by-month recap of 2009, one of the hardest and most amazing years of my life, inside and out.

January
I lived with Z for a week and a half before I found my own place on Craigslist and moved in. C was in town for a week or so and we bummed around the city a lot. One night I heard a cat crying outside my Harlem window and went outside in the freezing cold to try to save it, but to no avail. I spent $500 at Bed, Bath & Beyond to stock up my apartment. I interviewed for a good number of jobs and internships. I went to DC to see my LDR boyfriend A and to go to Obama's inauguration. We got into a big fight - A and I, not Obama and I - in which he threatened me physically. I went back to NYC and broke up with him. I started a part-time unpaid internship at a website for a national women's magazine.

February
A came to NYC unannounced to profess his undying love for me. We got back together, and my friends were not happy about it or particularly supportive. I was still interning part-time and applying for jobs the rest of the time. I hunted for and finally found a chair to spruce up my apartment a bit. Z and I went to fashion week, which was mostly underwhelming. I was pretty depressed for a while because of the job market. I explored Harlem and started cooking myself real meals, and I got a gym membership.

March
I got snowed in with A in DC. We built a snowman and had snowball fights and made a few of the sweetest memories I have to date. I went back to NYC and started another unpaid blogging internship where I wrote about health and relationships and sex.  The Harlem Singing Man first showed up. I went home to the South for the first time since I had moved up, and visited Oxford while I was down there to find that everything and nothing had changed. I got offered and started my first paid full-time internship at a regional magazine company. I quit my other two internships. My friend E came to visit from Alabama.

April
I went to DC for the Cherry Blossom Festival and to see A. I was really in love with him at this point. Then he came to visit NYC and something felt off so I decided to take a week off from him, before breaking up with him for the second time. My internship was going really well and I finally felt like I was where I was supposed to be. We had our first picnic in Central Park to kick off summer early. Everything was blooming.

May
My internship chugged along and I was stressed at times but I liked all the people I worked with and I was getting to write so I was really happy. Z and I went to my first official magazine party of the summer, and as we were walking through Times Square afterward I dropped my phone and the screen cracked, and my heart along with it. I bought an amazing backless vintage swimsuit which I wore with leggings to another magazine party. I saw my first psychic on the street, who told me A was my soulmate, so then I got drunk* at happy hour one Saturday and hopped on the Chinatown bus to DC, with my friends' support in tow, to profess my undying love for him again. When I got back to the city, I was offered my first full-time-with-benefits position in New York at the same magazine company where I was interning. I was ecstatic in every sense of the word.

June
A came to NYC for Mississippi in the Park, where he finally met Z and J after months of not meeting them. It rained and we frolicked and laughed. I started my new job and was taking well to it. Michael Jackson died and I was really upset by it because he helped define a good chunk of my childhood. Z and I saw Beyoncé in concert. It was epic. My Lady Gaga obsession was just budding.


July
I went to DC for A's and my one-year anniversary the weekend of July 4th. We rode roller coasters and cried and watched fireworks, and then he dropped a bomb on me. And not the good kind. I came back to NYC and lost a couple nights' sleep before having a minor meltdown and deciding that I had finally, truly lost sight of who I was. He broke up with me.  I got a new, smaller bed for my room, but held out on buying an air conditioner. I discovered a big public pool near my apartment that changed my life. I danced in a fountain with Z. Started drinking a lot and living the young New York life I had always wanted. Went home to the South for a few days.

August
I got an air conditioner for my room after one especially terrible night of sweating. A and I still talked sometimes, and he told me he wanted to get back together. I said no because it didn't feel right. My Lady Gaga obsession grew into full-blown worship. I continued running around New York drunk and going out all the time. Z and I saw Britney in concert. I told A that I wanted to get back together, and he told me he didn't love me the way he used to anymore. I started blogging a lot more, honing what might loosely be referred to as my craft.

September
I went to the first Effable Arts show to support J and her amazing photograpy. Was inspired by all the young artists and fauxsted a Lady Gaga dance party at a gay bar in Hell's Kitchen. Danced on booths and tables in windows. Found one of three straight guys in the bar and kissed him on the steps of a hostel. He was British. Decided I wanted a Lady Gaga tattoo. Struck up an online friendship with one of A's close guy friends, who provided some enlightening insight. Z and I went to a bizarre launch party for Keith Lissner's new line. I got an amazing new dress that I wore to yet another magazine party. I started online dating and went to a quiet party for the first time by myself. I wrote my first guest blog post. A group of friends and I went on a Five Borough Pub Crawl that took an entire Sunday and was epic. I went to my first NYC doctor for a physical and everything was great. I felt invincible.

October
I started blogging, like, a lot. I went to DC for the National Equality March and did not contact A, which I considered a victory. I also stood ten feet away from Lady Gaga as she gave her speech, which I considered an even greater victory. I did my first blog swap. Z started filming video of our lives. My parents came to visit, their first trip to the city. A contacted me wanting to catch up, and I told him no. J had her first photo show in Brooklyn. I dropped my iPhone into the subway tracks and went down to get it, then I wrote a blog post about it, on which I then based a play. I went to my first real blogger convention. I learned that fall in New York is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I found out that Gaga would be performing in NYC on my birthday. HLLWN 2009 happened, and was a total shitshow.

November
I started to feel tired. I got switched to a different magazine at work and it was really busy and stressful. I worked on my play some more and sent in my final draft. I talked to A and he told me he was totally over me. He e-mailed me a couple weeks later announcing that he was removing all our photos from facebook. I did not respond. I went out one Saturday night and made some bad decisions and had the worst Sunday of my life the next day. I started to feel depressed and empty. I was happy to leave the city to go see C in Chicago for Thanksgiving. We went to museums and watched theater and comedy improv and listened to bad hip-hop music. In the Chicago airport, I wrote a list of the things I still knew about myself, because I was having trouble remembering. I celebrated the first birthday of my dear blog.

December
I got Blogger's Blog of Note award. I cried at my desk. It felt like the first really good thing that had happened in a while. Christmas exploded in the city. I discovered that it was the second-most beautiful time of the year. I still felt depressed and exhausted, like I was walking around in a cloud. New York and I were not getting along. I cried a lot when I was by myself. I convinced myself that I still loved A because I missed his smile and his eyes and the way he talked with his hands. I read my first Chuck Klosterman book, fell in love, and started reading my second. I went home for Christmas. I saw a ceremony for a fallen soldier that shook me to my already shaken core. While in town, I chose to see A for the first time in six months. We had coffee and caught up. I told him honestly that he was still the person I loved, and he told me honestly that I was no longer the person he loved. It felt like a bus hit me. I flew back to New York, after e-mailing him to tell him not to contact me anymore. It took nearly a year of heartache, but I finally let him go and am in the process of re-discovering my love for myself.

When my plane landed a year ago, I was still too young to have any concept of looking back. My eyes were planted firmly forward, and I knew in my heart that New York was what I wanted more than anything. I had fear, but I was not afraid. After about 10 months of deep periods of depression, exultation, loss, joy and loneliness, my heart grew weary, and I found myself too afraid to look forward. I looked forward and thought I saw nothing, which is the scariest feeling I've ever had, so I just decided to look back. I blamed myself for my unhappiness; I blamed putting myself and my dreams before others in my life, and I blamed the city. I looked at the city and saw a place that had stolen my innocence, my courage and, I thought, my heart.

When my plane landed this week, I felt the city come back to me. I now see it again like I saw it in 2008. That piece of my heart that's forever devoted to New York came back to life, and with it came all the other parts of my heart I thought were ruined or gone. I made some mistakes this year, and I hurt some people, but I never once did anything that was not a true expression of how I felt in my heart. I loved with my whole heart, I feared with my whole heart, I learned with my whole heart, and I acted with my whole heart.

This past month, I had actually come to convince myself that I must be unhappy because I was innately not sensitive enough to experience meaningful happiness. But in retrospect, 2009 showed me my favorite thing about myself: I live honestly. No one can ever say I am not genuine and upfront and fearlessly honest about how I think and feel. This honesty dissolved my relationship with someone I loved, because he could not offer me the same sort of honesty in return. But then it enriched my relationship with someone I know I love unconditionally: myself.


Now winter is returning, and I still go out in the freezing cold in my pajamas and boots when I hear cats cry, which they do a lot. I know I can't help them - because most of them won't let people anywhere near them - but still I go, because I think that maybe I will be able to help, just this one time. Because that's who I am. The love in my heart propels me forward, against all odds.

Even if it ain't all it seems, I got a pocket full of dreams,
Baby, I'm from New York...

 
*I have never consumed one drop of alcohol in my life

No holes barred and other moments of honesty

Last night I went to dinner at this really hip place in Hell's Kitchen with overpriced seafood and even more overpriced whiskey. It was really delicious, and I was enjoying the company of an old college friend I haven't seen since March, so that was nice; however, the whole experience was made all the brighter by the presence of our server, who was really, really cute.

I never blog about cute boys, so bear with me here because I do have a point. He was tall and fit and had dark curly hair and cute eyes and a sweet smile. I thought he may have been eye-flirting with me, but I always think guys with bouncy eyes are eye-flirting with me. It's also entirely possible that he may have been gay. My gaydar is all fucked up in this city.*

Since I felt that he may have found me just as cute as I found him, I decided to make my affection known. I left him a note on my credit card receipt. I've done this once before, a couple summers ago when I was living in Atlanta and had a really cute waiter, but nothing came of it. And since I'm now taking charge of my life and turning over a new leaf, I see no reason not to put myself out there in every possible way. I really have nothing to lose.

So my note went something like this.

The real thing was a lot more legible. It's hard to try to replicate handwriting on a computer, OK?!

The amazing thing about New York is that there are actually entire venues aimed specifically at helping people find other people they wanted to connect with but for whatever reason could not. I love reading through the missed connections on Craigslist - it's just an endless list of hopeless romantics wanting to feel a real connection with other people. I would love to know if anyone has ever actually met his/her future husband/wife on there. Because that would pretty much make my life.

My friend from college said the one thing that struck him most about New York was that there seemed to be literally endless possibilities. You never know who you will meet, or what you will do, or where the day will take you. I agreed with him, and said that it's one of the things I love most about the city. You might wake up feeling like shit, and then later that night leave a note for your cute waiter who then googles your name and finds out you have a blog on which you wrote about him, then he comments on said blog and tells you he thinks you're cute too with a link to his blog, which you find hilarious and amazing, and then you go on a date and fall in love and have lots of sex and babies.

Or maybe you just made a gay guy feel even better about himself. The universe is full of snark.


*To understand why, see this.

Welcome to New York, again

Last night I moved to New York for the first time, again. I saw the city when I landed, and I could feel the anxiety trying to creep in, but I swatted it out like an unwanted insect. I never liked squashing bugs. I always squealed and asked my dad to do it; but now I'm grown up, and it's time to squash the fuckers myself. So inside I just yelled at the top of my lungs, You are not wanted here. I am too smart and loving and beautiful and valuable to allow you inside my heart and mind anymore.

I'm moving to new York for the first time, again. Except this time it feels like home. I see the city skyline blur outside the cab window, and I'm shocked when I feel a genuine relief settle over me. I have no idea where it came from, like a blanket I never expected. Before I left the South I dreaded my return to the city. I feared the loneliness it would impose upon me, and the new life I would now have to create for myself. I feared the city because I feared myself.

But then shortly before midnight I closed the car door behind me in Harlem, and the cabbie helped me with my bags. He bid me good night, I hauled my luggage to my stoop, and I paused to look down my street. A woman carried her daughter into the front door of their brownstone. A car was stopped in the middle of 118th street, and a man was getting out of the passenger side while he talked to the driver. Holiday lights still painted sparkling strokes on stoops and windowsills. On first avenue, sirens blared as fire trucks followed ambulances that followed NYPD cars. Tears welled in my eyes when I saw her, curled up on the sidewalk in front of my apartment.

I found her lying there in Harlem, bruised and exhausted, but with dancing eyes. I picked her up and carried her myself to a safe and warm place. Her body was limp in my arms and she mumbled something about how she couldn't feel her hands and her legs were aching. I carried her inside and gave her some water and tucked her in. I watched as she pulled the blankets up around her face and sighed relief from every pore. I cried, because I knew I had brought her home at last. Now she is home. I am home. I am home, in the tautological sense.

My heart is my home. Now it's back with its rightful owner, and he will never see it again. I have probably not cried my last tear for him, but all the tears from here on out will be pulling double duty as tears of happiness for my arrival back unto myself. New York was annoying me because I lost myself on her streets and I was fighting and blaming the city for stealing me. Then I moved to New York for the first time again, and just like that, I found myself there.

I am and have always been my home. The sweetness prevails, inside of me. Come inside; it's warm, and I have cookies. We will watch the snow fall on New York, and we will make up words and we will cuddle under blankets and we will laugh.

I am just where I'm meant to be, and where I have always been. Except now, it's for the first time. Again.

Schmom B. Says

Sigh, I dropped the ball on the Schmom B. Says feature. It's been like at least a month since I posted one. Well, Schmom B. came through last night with the following e-mailed words of wisdom, this time totally unsolicited by me. (Usually she doles them out in response to a pitiful text message or phone call from yours truly about how I miss my ex or work is hard or blablabla other uninteresting things about my life.) This just further illustrates that Schmom B. is the best.

Schmom B. Says: Don't forget, you are loved

Hey sweetie,

Heard something today that's very meaningful to me.  Struck me, you would appreciate it too.  "Scars remind us where we've been; they don't have to dictate where we're going." Something else I read:  "We tend to seek happiness when happiness is actually a choice." Happy "two weeks before Christmas."  See you soon.  Take care.  I love you.

Mom




This honestly couldn't have come at a better time. The city's been closing in, and I've been feeling really anxious, and my inner peace has slipped away from me, and I needed a reminder that I have people who love me, even if some of them are way down South in Alabama. 

Up here in the city, feels like things are closing in;
The sunset's just my light bulb burning out.
I miss Kentucky, and I miss my family;
All the sweetest winds they blow across the South...

Ugh please forgive me for the excessive song lyric usage recently.  I sort of hate myself for it.... but I just watched this live version of Ryan Adams' Oh My Sweet Carolina, and it made me cry more than anyone should ever cry in a public place ever. I actually had to stop watching. Self-sustenance. Shake it out.

New York is sort of annoying me

New York can be a big pain in the ass sometimes. I don't know if it's just because it's winter, and I've been feeling like I want everything to slow down to approximately the pace of maple syrup pouring over the edge of a huge stack of buttermilk pancakes, but lately everything is just bugging me. I want stillness, and quiet, and I want to be able to walk around without (gasp) seeing any people. I guess this means I want the South. This might actually be a little bit of playful teasing on the part of the universe, because I'm going home for like ten days in just over a week, and I am so fucking excited about it.

Things that have been annoying me recently.

1. I bought these new earbuds for my iPhone and for some reason the buds pop out of my ears more easily than the ones Apple makes. And for whatever reason, they also are constantly getting caught on things around me. Other people's bags, buttons on their coats, corners of books, whatever. Anything protruding from other people's bodies - it's likely my earbuds will get caught on it. So when the cords pull the buds out of my ears, I'm left grappling awkwardly to catch them so my whole iPhone doesn't tumble out of my pocket/bag. We've already seen the trauma such events can cause. Solution: Kick out half-to-most of the people in Manhattan.

2. It rained a lot yesterday morning and Manhattan turned into one huge slip-and-slide, except instead of being the funnest fucking thing ever like when you were a kid, you're just hopping over huge puddles and hoping you don't slip and fall in the concrete subway stations and avoiding people's nasty dripping umbrellas on the train and hoping the leaking bus window doesn't burst open under the weight of just a few too many raindrops. Solution: Make a lot of money and take cabs everywhere.

3. People walk too slowly. If you are old or handicapped or something, OK, that's fine. If you are healthy and of a reasonable age, please walk at a normal to absurdly fast pace, like the rest of us. And stopping in the middle of the sidewalk is just unacceptable. Solution: See solution number one.

4. People are fucking inconsiderate. In the South, we are taught to consider other people; and actually, "taught" seems like too strong a word, because it's more deeply ingrained than that - it's just the way people live. If someone is coming through a door behind you, you hold the door open for them. If someone is walking toward a door that you are blocking, you move out of the way, so they may walk through. If someone does something for you - whether they are required to or not - you say "thank you." You make every effort to smile at people you interact with, whether it's your boss or the girl behind the cash register at the drug store, because you just never know what other people are going through. In New York, I still do these things, because I am Southern and that's just what I have always done and will always do; but it is a sadly rare occasion when I see others doing these things for me. Solution: Start raising your kids right, New Yorkers.

5. People walk too quickly. Yeah, you heard me. If you live in Manhattan, you are either walking too slowly or too quickly. Slow the fuck down. I promise, wherever you're going, it's just not that big a deal. Solution: Everyone, everywhere in the city, just stop. Stand perfectly still. And listen.

6.  My apartment is too small and I really miss having a couch and my windows are too big and it makes it hard to hang my Christmas lights, which keep falling down because I can't use the proper hanging utensils because I can't reach because my windows are too big. Solution: See solution number two part one. Spend some of that money to rent a bigger apartment and buy some real furniture and stuff. Also, become an adult.

7. It's loud. All the time. Honking, screeching, yelling, talking, braking, clinging, clanging, halting. Normally, I find all these sounds beautiful. But recently, I just want to yell at everyone to shut the fuck up, which would of course be counterproductive. Solution: Hushhhhhhhhhh.

I just want to get into a car and drive.
I want to see the road in front of me for miles on end.
And while I'm driving, I want to listen to only albums I've never listened to before and would normally never listen to.
Where I would go, I have no idea.
For no apparent reason today I keep recalling the past, very specifically and at random times.
I keep remembering my drive from Birmingham to Oxford, in bizarre flashes.
The bridges I crossed.
The exits I took.
The particular gas station I always stopped at on the way.
I keep remembering the music I would listen to on the drive, back in the day when I actually had a CD changer and CDs to change.
I keep remembering restaurants in Oxford where I used to eat regularly, which was basically all of them.
I keep remembering you, and that's when I want everyone on the streets of New York to disappear.
Because when I think of you I get this huge lump in my throat and I can't breathe and my eyeballs can only contain so much liquid until I suffocate and this goddamn walk home is so long and why is that guy looking at me and please please please everyone just go away.


It's not like the movies
They fed us all little white lies

Running full-speed in subways, and other pointless things

I don't understand people who run during rush hour to make it to a subway car so crowded that there's no way in hell they will fit inside. Or even if they can fit inside, at the very least it will be an incredibly unpleasant experience.  There is nothing at all pleasant about being crammed in so close with your fellow New Yorkers that you have to stand perfectly still, lest you risk having someone's hair brush your hand or their leg brush your leg or, so much worse, their breath aimed directly at your face. And trust me, at 8:15 in the morning, it ain't good.

And yet every morning, I see people run to a train car that is very clearly packed to the brim. And these people aren't, like, walking swiftly. They are running, running, running. I always wonder why New Yorkers do this. In their brains, are they thinking, "If I don't get on this exact train at this exact moment, I will be late for work!"? If so, then that's 1) flawed thinking, because during rush hour the next train will arrive - guaranteed, at least on the 4/5 and 6 lines - in approximately 90 seconds, and 2) a case of seriously fucked priorities, if they're truly concerned about getting to work 90 seconds later than they planned. (Because I think few people would consider arriving at 9:01:30 to be "late" for a scheduled arrival of 9.) Or perhaps they're running without thinking about why they're running. I think this latter option is a lot more likely, for the following reasons.

Manhattan is a city filled with people trying to accomplish as much as possible as fast as possible, usually at the expense of all logic and well-being and pretty much everything else. They work as much as possible, to make as much money as possible, to rent as nice an apartment as possible (note: I would say as "big" an apartment as possible, but let's not kid ourselves) in as nice a neighborhood as possible, just so they can spend as little time as possible in said apartment. And they spend a lot of time figuring out how to maximize the use of their, um, time; they ask themselves, What would be more worthy of my time tonight, getting drinks with a friend I haven't seen in a long time, going to a book release event with someone I see all the time or working late to finish this project so I can leave early on Friday to go to a sample sale with my co-worker*? It might sound like a long and complicated thought process, but over time, as one gets used to life in Manhattan, all this stuff becomes first nature and takes place in a split second; one synapse fires against another, and - poof - decision made.

This is how New Yorkers - myself definitely included at times- live out their lives. So why would they act any differently during their morning commute? People run for packed trains not because they've thought it through, but because it's now their default mode of existence; they're so used to doing something 100% of the time - and using aforementioned deductive system to make sure that something is worth something - that it gives them anxiety to miss the train when they know that maybe, if they try hard enough, they can make it. They lurch forward at obnoxious speeds because, their brains instantly tell them instantly, there's simply nothing else for them to do.

I, however, do not run when I see a packed train surrounded by a crowd of people at the car doors, because I have decided that this - rushing around half mindless and half anxious - is not how I want to live my life. I walk at a normal speed, because in my brain I know I prefer being 90 seconds late to squeezing into a car so tightly that the only thing keeping me standing is the proximity of other standing bodies. I also know that, in the grand scheme of my life, being a minute and a half late to work does not matter. Some people might say this makes me wise, while others - likely including a lot of my city's co-inhabitants - would say it makes me (at worst) foolish and (at best) lazy. But quite frankly if anything is so serious that I can't be a maximum of two minutes late, then that is probably a thing I don't want to be involved in. Because it probably takes place inside a courthouse or a hospital or a funeral home.

And, contrary to popular belief, a packed New York City subway car is none of these things.

*The middle option is clearly the best one here. I get to see someone I like, I get free food and drinks and I get to network with people in the publishing world. Done, done and done. I, I and I.

My cab has wings

Late last night after a random and fun night with BFFs J and Z, I decided to splurge and take the rare cab home. After I paid the cabbie, an older Indian man, I got out and shut the door behind me; and as I was walking toward my apartment, I noticed he wasn't driving away. The car wasn't even rolling, which is weird because usually you're barely out the door when the cab speeds away. I thought it was a bit odd, but I figured he was just sorting through his mail or something else pressing that was preventing him from driving. As I scaled the first few steps of my stoop, I turned my head slightly and he was still sitting there. I waved at him, wondering if I had left something in the cab and he was trying to get my attention. He rolled his window down, laughed and said, "No, it's OK! I'm just watching you. I'm guarding you."

A huge smile spread across my face as I realized that I didn't think that was weird at all. I waved again, laughed and thanked him. As I turned the key in my beautiful front door and heard it creak open, just like every other night, I thought, New York is like this. Doors close, others open. And sometimes, unexpectedly, you have someone to guard you as you go through. Even if it's just to make sure you get home safely.