So my job and a slight amount of homesick depression have taken over my life recently and I have not been frequenting my beloved blog as much as I should have been. There has been no recent news worthy of telling.
Well...I guess one of my friends up here did convince me to finally express how I feel towards someone who has meant a lot to me for the first time recently. So I called said person and, like the coward that I truly am, left it on their voicemail. The point of this exercise was not necessarily to tell that person how I feel in any hope of promising resurrection of what we once had. The point was to finally let my heart break. For the last year I have aggrandized this person. An entirely conscious (which makes it even more pathetic because you can’t blame it on your subconscious) craving always accompanied this silent and desperate fantasy. This fantasy that warped my world towards this desire for the unpossessible. It became a blanket I used to block out sunlight. It was my justification for sullen afternoons and nights of crawling into a bottle of Jameson and building a bed. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I was using him as an excuse to be miserable. I realized that he had become my comfortable spot in the sadness. So I called him to relinquish that hope. I knew he wouldn't respond. He's happy in another relationship and has moved on. I called to prove to myself that even after all of the complication and harsh words followed by heartache, if I let my guard down and told him how I truly feel about him (albeit long after when I should have) there was still no shard of potential in existence on this glorious planet of ours. So I realized that I've been lonely and heartbroken of my volition. It's time to truly break the heart and not just leave it in purgatory anymore. Then I can actually be restored and stop being hung up on my bloody ex boyfriend. So the lack of response was exactly what I expected and needed. The band-aid was ripped off after causing an infection that should have been healed long ago. The world, after your first love truly kicks you in the teeth, suddenly loses its terrifying nature and becomes a land of immeasurable prospect where true potential really lives.
For anyone who cares I am coming home December 21-27. If you wish to hang out I would love to see any and all who would like to have a beer.
Jay Z's Empire State of Mind drives me absolutely crazy. It is a song I cannot get away from and yet can't help but liking. Hence the title of this post.
These streets will make you feel brand new, the lights will inspire you.
You do it to yourself....
When you incur a debt from God you eventually have to pay for it. I grew up the tomboy who played sports, loved music, made fart jokes, and wrestled with the neighbor’s dogs. I also had long blonde hair and an easy smile. I was oblivious to the fact that boys did not necessarily hang out with me just because I happened to hit a mean curve ball. Over the years of my youth I had to have several, “I’m sorry you like me but we’re just friends” conversations. Too many for my comfort, truth be told. Moments of awkwardness in parked cars puffing a joint, outside front stoops easing your way into the easy joy of a first cigarette puff, a collective LSD trip moment where the collective consciousness of the group trip was ruined with the worst seven words in the English language, "I want to be more than friends." I dreaded that moment. And everytime it happened I braced myself in my next male relationship to wonder if it would happen again. Or the other inevitable, which is that they obtain the girlfriend that they obviously want and cast you into the dead seaweed of the ocean that fisherman dread having to get out of their lines. Usually they do this because their girlfriends feel threatened by your close relationship with said friend and you don't happen to be bad looking. I always felt bad and it usually resulted in the end of the friendship, or at least a death of the comfort that existed between me and the guy it happened with. I am not trying to sound arrogant in this regard it is just what my experience has been.
And then I fell in love. And it was with the entirely wrong person who did not love me back and made that apparent on every level that he possibly could, physically forcing me out of his life when the opportunity arose. But then he dissipated. From the sudden world changing nowhere that he rose he returned and I never knew where that spot was. I just (slowly and painfully) found a peace with not knowing where he came from in my life. It also made me question whether or not he had ever been real. I never had to face him. I never had to look up into his beautiful face and realize with longing that this was someone I could never have. I did not have to confront the very deep realization that I had to sit next to someone I pined for so much that their very presence illuminated the shadow of loneliness that I felt. I’ve made it a point my whole life to not stay friends with people for whom I had feelings knowing that it does nothing but ruin your self-worth and make you feel insignificant. So I never had to feel what those guys felt for me. I valued my own worth enough to put my feelings before theirs and pull my friendship when necessary to spare myself the waterboarding torture that is unrequited emotions.
Until now. Days where you spend time together turn into endlessly excruciating events where you ache and remember those moments of lying in bed together with your legs so tangled you don’t know whose belong to who and the only solution is to find their lips with yours to further the spider web that is your bodies. The soft feel of their chest under your fingers and the lingering looks of adoration that make others jealous and lift the corners of your mouth all day when you think of their hands pressed into your hair while you hold each other. Then it ends and you’re left to wonder why.
In some of these unfortunate situations a friendship occurs because of those moments when you felt close to them and confided in them. As a person who frequently finds it difficult to open up to anything more than a blank, anonymous computer screen it is rare to meet a kindred spirit that you can feel at ease sharing with. So you cherish that familiarity. But it comes with a heavy and impossible to pay price. Like student loans. You still look at that guy with the adoration that you feel, knowing you are merely a mortal person who is incapable of quelling that desire within you. But you know that there is nothing you can do about it. It will not change. That person does not want you. It has been made up in their mind that they are looking for something better than you. And it hurts. But you have to move on and accept it. With time your feelings grow for them but you care enough about having them in your life that you swallow hard and drink beers together. This is my sentence. I am repaying that debt to karma that I have accrued for far too long. So I suffer. Because it is only fair.
New Beginnings!
Okay so my camera broke and I am officially unable to physically document my new life here, which is slowly killing me. Anyone who knows me well knows that I am very fond of taking pictures. Not being able to chronicle my experiences for my three readers (and myself) is really upsetting as more and more exciting things begin to happen to me. My desperate need for the practicality of a bicycle right now is overruling my absolutely insane desire to buy myself a new camera. So anyone who would like to start a project fund for a girl in an expensive city and take collections would become a hero of mine.
Today I had one of those amazing days in my new neighborhood in Greenpoint (which is right next to Williamsburg) that I've been craving to experience here. I needed to run a bunch of errands and I've been working crazy hours at my job at Brooklyn Bowl so I've not had as much of a chance to check out the area as I'd like. I laced up my battered Converse, brushed my teeth, and set out to my adventure into my new home. I'm so thrilled to be able to think of this neighborhood as home after so long of feeling like a green eyed alien. I set out early and decided to try to kill as many rats with one BB pellet as possible. In Bed-Stuy a day where I needed to go to the post office, laundry mat, bank, grocery store, etc. would have meant I needed a car, or at least a bicycle. And it also meant getting cat calls whereupon I would be compared to a piece of bread or some other cute nickname, often by a boy no older than fourteen who stood on the dirty, overcrowded corner with his pants practically around his ankles. I walked four blocks away from my apartment, which is on the last street before Manhattan so I have an absolutely glorious view of the skyline, and managed to accomplish all of my chores in under an hour. It was incredible! Walking around I found that everything I needed was right next to my doorstep. Which is the picture of NY I'd had in my mind before I left. I laid awake at night dreaming of the city and having everything you could possibly need or want lying in covetous wait just for you. All it craved was for you to find it. I felt so charged and happy. The air was brisk but not cold and while I know I am about to encounter a winter I am indescribably scared of I am enjoying these last days of an all too short summer. I'm seeing fewer and fewer pigeons, which truly means that the warmth is about to make its prison break.
One of the best things about it though is that I live so close to work and all of my friends now that I rarely need to take the subway anymore, which is saving me a huge amount of money. Everything is so close! I'm excited about leaving my house for the first time since I moved here. I step outside and lock my door and finally feel like I'm easing my way into becoming a New Yorker. The streets are lined with oak trees, there is a cute little park across the street where weary day shifters take their dogs to walk and kids sit on swing sets. Every other small side road off of the main avenues possesses a hidden art gallery covered in graffiti or a whole foods market sporting an illustrious line of fresh flowers that will all too soon be pulled inside. Bicycle riders already wearing winter hats speed past in the bike lane and people chat happily on their cell phones while enjoying a glass of white wine in the early evening hours at an outdoor Bistro. It's my perfect version of Brooklyn. It might not last, but for now I am sincerely just enjoying the moments of being able to savor it like a good neat whiskey.
The fact that I am blessed enough to be able to walk along Franklin street (my street) and look over the river where the Empire State Building towers over the Manhattan skyline on my way to work is a treasure that does not cease in value as the days slide by. In fact, it is a testament to me that I am finally truly here, in one of the most exhilerating cities in the world. Now I just need to start making some new friends so I can begin my journey as an urban explorer. There is so much here! I feel rejuvenated for the first time in more months than I wish to admit and realize that I am so lucky to be able to say that I live here.
Bring it on NY!
Padawan learner.
So today I had an epiphanic realization and decided that it is time to really start my New York life. I've been living my Tampa life just in a place that's a lot bigger and a lot colder. I've been pining for someone for far too long who has clearly moved on, watching another year slip gently past me while I sat watching the fascinating wall at a bar. I've been in New York for three months and have not achieved any of the things I desire. Some of which are as simple as buying a bike for myself and others of which are as lofty as starting my career, which I know takes patience. But the huge thing that occurred to me today was none of these things, although I believe it will set me on the path that may lead to many of them.
It was that I cling to my pain so completely and so exquisitely that it gives birth to a fear of not only letting it go, but feeling it again. The Catch-22 of this silly tendency that I have to harness that anguish and grief within myself is that if I let it go I would no longer be afraid of it coming back around. It wouldn't be so terrifying to get hurt by the opposite sex if I was able to move on from my setbacks more gracefully. However, fear of losing the familiarity of heartache can also be a giant step forward. On this day to begin all days I've decided that instead of jealously coveting the characters in Tom Robbins novels and the grandiose and story book love that they share I've decided to relinquish the stranglehold I've held on my failed relationships and stop longing for the things that I cannot have. Some of these, like my most recent very short lived dating situation, will be easier than others to pry my fingers away from. Obviously. The huge heartbreaks will be all the more difficult. If I've learned nothing else in my 29 years on this planet it is that there is much comfort in being sad. Cobain was right. But sometimes that comfort does nothing but hold you back and make you drink too much.
Sitting across from a friend today at a restaurant he posited a really interesting theory that made me stop in my tracks. He asked me, "What good is it doing you to sit here thinking about someone else when they're off not thinking, or probably caring, about you?" I realized what a huge waste of time it was. Sincerely. Something a Kindergartener figures out their third or fourth day of class and it took me this damn long. Pathetic. But that one simple thing unraveled so many other things for me. How much effort it is to be heartbroken. How much strain fighting with an ex is. How painful it is to lie in bed and think of them. And for what? Where does it get you but wasting countless hours you could have used to learn to play the guitar, take a day trip to Prospect Park, sew a quilt. You get the idea. I've wasted so much time I could probably have been accepted and finishing my first semester of law and/or graduate school. Still torn on that one, by the way. Thoughts?
Anyway, the point is that this time spent could have been utilized in such a better manner. Sure, I wrote a novel to cope with how much pain I was in but that was just sanity survival. Without that project I wouldn't have made it through that break up. Maybe that's what I have to do every time I go through a break-up. Just find a new project to immerse myself in that will in some way enrich my life and distract me from more unpleasant thoughts. Or even just an activity. Rather than hating being alone all the time I should begin to relish it and see it as an opportunity to grow more as a person because I do those things on my own terms and experienced them with myself. How many great documentaries, movies, books, TV shows, conversations, etc. have I missed because I was talking and/or thinking about an ex or a recent acquisition of a crack in my heart? Why do I feel compelled to let my overtly sensitive and emotional nature run my life? And why do I get so hung up on guys who are toolboxes anyway? Because for a few months/days/years we got along? So what. Let it go. Drop it. Fuck 'em. They were never worthy of someone like me because through all my flaws the one thing that most of my boyfriends cannot generally deny is that I was a good girlfriend who spoiled, pampered, and loved them. I do that because I care about them and want them to be happy. And I, just like most of us walking, talking bacteria that crawl around the face of this damaged world, deserve someone who will do that for me. The point of dating someone is that they make your life a little better. They complement you as a person. It's not always easy, but it shouldn't always be hard. When it is, it's time to shake your head sadly like they do in old movies, look down at the ground forlornly, and walk away.
I've recognized within myself that I am looking for someone to commit to and hand my trust to. And I need to be with someone who not only really wants it, but realizes what a true blessing it is to have someone believe in you enough to think you are worth it. There are many things that we take for granted in our self-involved, overly indulgent lives and having someone in the world who thinks your smile is worth more than Mona Lisa's is one of them. That is not something you throw out with your old McDonald's wrappers. It's something you frame.
So today was a good day. Tomorrow I am buying a bicycle or scanning the East River to see if there are any usable ones on the bottom. Whichever gets me something with two wheels and a basket.
It's insane how one comment can unravel your whole world. I'll tell you this, the person who said that is my Obi-Wan.
Christmas lights in September are totally appropriate.
So I've been here almost three months and winter is about to descend on the city like a plague of rats that have been given cheese food stamps and an immunity to anti-vermin drugs. There is no avoiding it. No matter how much I relish the moments of 75 degree weather in my backyard these days are coming to an end. In more ways than just the brisk air that has permeated the NY streets. I have to move out of this apartment. And as much as I've bitched and moaned about this neighborhood I've actually found a bit of a balance here. Sure, I've avoided becoming familiar with Bed-Stuy because I never wanted it to feel like home, but it kind of has. The corner deli at the end of Madison has become a safe haven for me. They know when I enter the door that I want a veggie sandwich and I don't even have to give the specifics of which cheese to put on it anymore. They also began to carry diet coke for me. This was a hard won battle of me whining that I was a frequent enough shopper there that they should accommodate me. I don't even tell the guy at the Chinese place anymore what I want because he always knows I want the vegetables and noodles with extra brown rice and a hearty dose of watercress. It wasn't ever supposed to be home but after three months it is. The huge backyard that is illuminated with Christmas lights where I spend my lonely evenings on my computer, smoking cigarettes and having a beer. Now it's suddenly going to be gone. I love the comfort of this place. And I'm completely unprepared to leave it and now I have an expiration date. Wow I'm screwed.
And now I'm venturing into the unknown. I'm thrilled to be doing so because I do, indeed, dislike the place where I'm living and am seeking to move somewhere that I can exhale sharply without feeling like I'm a red sock in the dryer but it is still removing myself from the familiar in the land of the unfamiliar. Scary on top of crazy. The ultimate bad mixture of girl, as any guy would happily point out.
There is so much happening in my life right now that I feel incredibly unprepared for. I want this job. I want it so badly that if I were a model and this was Victoria Secret I would be laying awake all night wondering if my ass was too fat. You get the idea. But am I ready to transition ten years in the hospitality industry into a career? Am I ready to give up my twenties in the face of my thirties? These are the things I am struggling with. None of my friends are the same age as me and they are certainly not in the same place that I am. I'm left to wonder what lies up ahead and if I am woman enough to handle it.
And the answer is yes. Yes I am.
The open aurora of the sky.
So today I cast my new New Yorker hatred of Manhattan aside and went to the city. 3 months in and I am a die hard Brooklynite. I love it here. The lack of tourists, the smaller buildings, the slower pace, the concentration of restaurants and bars. It feels like a more down to Earth slice of home. When walking with friends today they commented that I've found my New York stride, which made me feel pleased and proud. I've survived here for two months with little battle wounds. The exception being the fear that exists on a day to day basis. So I crossed the East River and endured the ear popping that always happens on the subway to go to a job interview for my dream job.
It's the New York Restoration Project, which is a large government funded non-profit organization. My job would be to write and organize workshops and lead up a team of ten volunteers who are looking to educate the public in different facets to get on board with the green movement. Specifically to participate in a community based project to plant trees in residential and commercial spaces to preserve NYs parks and natural wildlife. I feel I did pretty well but sincerely do not want to jinx myself. I want this job very badly but the last year has been wrought with disappoint and heartache over jobs I sincerely wanted and felt qualified for, but did not ultimately get. One of which involved me flying to Chicago and the other driving to Jacksonville and back in one day. So while this job would be a major step into the career I have chosen for myself based on my sincere passion I am not going to let myself fall into a pit of despair should it not happen. I'll know by Monday and will be either posting my elation or disappointment. We'll just have to see.
My lease ends in a few days and I have nothing lined up in the way of apartments. I am getting a little scared as I do not want to have to go the couchsurfing route but am thinking that unless something pops up quickly I may be screwed.
NY is beginning to open itself to me to the endless opportunity that is the reason I moved here. Even if this job does not work out at least I know that there are others out there. Keep your fingers, toes, legs, and arms crossed.
The bartender is supposed to cut you off....
Two months was all it took to realize that forming relationships of any kind up here are perilous. Like the cliched and oft quoted line above Dante's Inferno "Abandon all hope ye who enter here," it is much the same. Bars tend to house the young, clique-ish types who are far more jaded than their twenty three years should allow. At twenty nine years old I have had a revelation that has set me on a path that is rapidly spiraling into what I can only hope may be a less bleak future than the present I feel currently trapped in.
Smiling at someone while you stand next to one another on the subway, hopeful eyes gently appraising one another while locked in the new and exciting should be illegal.
As we speak my friend is en route to my house, too drunk to remember where he lives or give directions to his friends. It is five am after a long shift at work that was one of the most cruel nights I've endured in the borough and I am waiting for a phone call that will tell me whether my friend has safe refuge for the night or not. Or give me insight into whether I will be making a trip to the emergency room for alcohol poisoning.
NYC is tougher than leathery skin that has had way too much exposure from the sun.
I've decided to sit in for the LSAT. If you don't know what that is then you should find out. Not sure when the next test is so we'll see. In the interim I am going to sign up for prep classes. Just to keep my options open. I will commit to nothing, as so many in my past have told me they are incapable of doing. Sad state of life to be in at the age that I am. Words like "I'm sorry" and "I'm not ready for this" have lost any meaning they may have had ascribed to them when they were first forged.
I am tired and waiting for the phone call to tell me what condition my friend is in has left me with an odd realization. We need to change our lives.
Don't listen to Radiohead when you are depressed and contemplative. They mirror too much of the angst and humiliation that you are feeling to be helpful. As much as I may worship them.
The unknown road.
So I received an email today from the Bloomberg campaign. They are apparently very interested in my resume and I have an interview set for Thursday, which doubles as my birthday. Oh how sweetly ironic and fitting that is. However, I am hesitant because I am not sure what position they are interested to bring me in for. I have absolutely no desire to be a canvasser, walking the streets and attempting to find cold voters who might decide to (maybe) vote for him. In addition to that I am not terribly familiar with his politics or political history as I am still very new to the city and have not been studying him for years. So tomorrow is intensive research day where I try to find out as much about his time in office as possible before I walk through the door and get grilled about why I want to work for him. Wish me luck.
Something odd has happened to me recently and in the interest of disclosure I do not plan to elaborate upon it except to construct a very short (and shitty) poem about how I am feeling. Bear with me as I have not written poetry in over a decade, despite that it was once the greatest love of my life.
Gigantic and sinuous proportions fit into a mold
That has shifted into a rotten, damaged shape
Unexpectedly strange and overwhelming
Alienation leading to the construction of a path
Suddenly left in question
No new knowledge comes
But gentle hands serve as tentative guidance
Delicate strokes over gaping wounds
Does not insure a healing
Frayed hope on the lapel of an old mistress
Whose painful lashing is an all too prevalent reminder
That relief is fleeting
and misleading
For one moment
It all feels
As if an easy curve in the world
Can possibly bring comfort
Brief as it may be
Thank you folks. I'll be here all week.
My Body is a Cage.
I am too cut off. I am too afraid. I am too intimidated by other people to drop my guard. I let myself allow very limited access to even my friends. I still do not give them passage to the one way train ride that is me. It is too full of chaos and volatility and I am scared that they may not like me anymore if they see how emotional and intense I can be. Maybe that is how it is meant to be. Maybe you are not supposed to let anyone in. Or maybe that is the conundrum of people in general. Perhaps they are never supposed to get to know you, no matter how many intimate moments you may spend with them. You can laugh, joke, drink, fuck, move, cry, and commiserate but it does not entail closeness. It just gives rise to comradery. And that may be the best one can hope for. That unlooked for stranger that glances at you on the train is probably not going to be the answer. They are more than likely never going to be your friend. But that one moment of connection might be enough. A lock of the eyes that says that you are, for the moment, one and the same. Losing yourself to the sinister neverland that is too brightly lit and highly indicative of the world you’ve chosen may mean finding yourself in the cataclysm of disarray.
Walking through the street, Arcade Fire blaring into my headphones I could not help but ponder the inevitable. Death and instability. Fearing getting into my bed that has it out for me, which I have already fallen out of twice, I stay awake. It is an eight foot climb into my bed and on the night of infamy to my friends I slipped while getting out of it and slammed my face on the radiator, cracking my jaw and leaving a swollen face that lasted for weeks. My bed is determined to kill me. Further proof that it hates me and that this fraction of my life needs to end, because it does not fit me.
Subway ads are repetitive and shout pathetic pictures of second rate movies and bad colleges that no one will even pay attention to.
That guy you pass in the street has a story. He probably lived through the Vietnam War, as the majority of the homeless are vets, and you just walk by without stopping or considering because you get asked too many times to be able to spare change for all of them.
I am not making the transition well. I feel like when I get into a home that is a more comfortable space that feels like mine I will be able to breathe. As it is I feel scattered and discontent. I drink too much and spend too much of my time hiding in my bedroom that never gets cool and sweating out a New York summer that is more intense than any I'd ever experienced in Florida. I am forever walking into every place I go with a sheen of perspiration on my face to a point where the first thing they ask is if I’d like a glass of water. And I’m a Floridian. That’s just sad.
When I hang out with my friends from here and listen to them talk I can barely keep up as they have been here for years and have their day jobs and knowledge of the city that I cannot remotely understand. I try to research New York politics as it is my first love and come up with random sites on the web that yield very little unless I have access to academic databases, which I do not. The news focuses on local stories, which gives me nothing in the way of the inner workings of the political animal of NYC. I'm drowning. None of my friends up here care about the same things I do so I have no resources to tap.
Nights of endless drinking lead to mornings that are mostly afternoons.
I'm missing something. I know it's there it's just not showing itself to me, despite that I keep looking.
I'm lonely. In so many ways. I am tired of coveting. I just want to meet someone I can feel a connection with. Sexual, emotional, intimate, friendship, or otherwise.
I lay awake at night and I see this image, much in the same way that they do in movies in the bad flashback dream sequence that has the horribly cliched muted and blurry scene and I see a person that is not real lying next to me. The other night a dream I had was so intense that I rose between the waking and non-waking world and felt someone squeezing me. I awoke with a gasp, shocked and looking over my shoulder, fully convinced someone had crawled into bed next to me because the sensation was so real.
When I lay in bed and cry now I no longer cry because of the person. I cry because they were the night thief who pillaged my ability to trust others. And I hate him for that. Every person I meet I size up with the constant, lingering question of "How are you going to hurt me?" And it's really unfair. My youth is slipping further and further away from me and I am standing on the precipice, watching it go and knowing I don't get a second chance. When the image fades there is nothing left but blank, white sheets that abandons me with the stark image that I am totally isolated. In every capacity. And that leaves me with a quiet, but resolute, desperation that others can probably see all over my face, the mask that covers the cavernously insane damage that makes my heart the 38th parallel. One of the most dangerous zones in the world. At least in mine.
I don't want to be some project for a guy to rebuild anymore than I want to be someone that they use and leave in the dark. I live in the dark. I don't need more shadows looming over me, making what little moonlight that comes into my world even more menacing.
If this is love I want to treat it the same way I would as the mafia. No affiliation.
I thought the demons that have stalked me for so long might forget me and remain in Tampa but it appears that someone gave them my itinerary to New York and they took a first class flight to follow me. It's unfair. I did much in the way of subterfuge to get here without them knowing. I guess it's true that you can't flee from your feelings.
It is becoming more and more apparent to my friends that I am holding back. They can tell that I am hesitant about everything and scared to death. I am happy that I moved here but feel no closer to answers. PBR and Jager may know me better than anyone but they are not exactly the best networking connections to a bigger life beyond the escape that I need to escape from.
Dickchicken?
Dickchicken is all over the city. Everywhere. So I decided that my next move is to buy a can of spray paint and start a graffiti movement underneath it that says "Tofu Butthole." Inspired by Chris G, of course.
The city has these moments. The doorways of places you would've normally passed melt into drinking passages. Slowly, alluringly, she presents herself to you. She does it in this seductive way. She charms you in with her illustrious and sensual manner. Then she jerks you to reality with her tendency towards the volatile. She can love you and she can despise you. And it always happens in an instant. You have no control.
There is nothing that you can do but give in. And pray...
The new face of my blog is 100% because Dan is amazing. And tomorrow when I don't suck so much I will elaborate.
Oh how nice it would be to feel nothing and get credit for being alive.
Started my new job tonight. It's pretty cool but it is incredibly long hours and as such I am very tired so forgive the briefness of this post. I have actually become so fond of the Greenpoint/Williamsburg area that I'm thinking of moving there provided I can afford it and Dan and I find something available there when the lease is up in October. So I'm excited that my new job is there as that will make life much more convenient for me. I am not, however, allowing myself to become placated in the restaurant industry, owing to the comfortable familiarity that I feel in hospitality. It is my birthday month and I am turning twenty-nine, making the fact that I do not have a career even more frustrating as I draw ever nearer to the big 30. I am still actively pursuing jobs and internships that may parlay into jobs. I'll keep you posted. Pun fully and completely intended. An internship I am desperate coveting with the Baha'i International Community (which is an organization run by my chosen religion) would be a great way for me to make contacts that could steer me towards my career. They do work with the UN regarding international human rights and it is right up my alley. I submit my resume tomorrow so we'll see if they deem me worthy of using the shit out of me for no pay. Oddly enough they can be selective about who they choose to somewhat exploit, even if it does indeed mean they may give them a jumpstart towards their professional career. That's how brutal NY is. Even volunteer jobs are competitive.
I'm pretty sure tomorrow is new tattoo day so if that is the case I'll post a picture after it is done. It's a small one but my next tattoo will be a large one on my right upper arm. That one is going to be a bitch. I should be getting that one in the weeks to come.
I found out that Radiohead leaked their new song tonight and thought I'd post the link for my two readers who care.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XXZFVECM
As a weird personal aside, I've become obsessed with Super Furry Animals. They are the most fun electronic, psychedelic, poppy rock band I've encountered in years. If you don't know you should find out. I'm currently stuck on Hey Venus! but just downloaded Outspaced and Dark Days/Light Years. Give them a listen.
I will post more later but am not in a very articulate mood considering I worked for twelve straight hours with no cigarette breaks and an overwhelming amount of new information.
Goodnight kids!
Some fun visual and musical things..
I made it into MoMA but did not get there in enough time to see all of the exhibits but did manage to catch quite a few. The one installation piece being featured presently was grand and poignant. It was called "Waste Not" by Song Dong that chronicles the life's collection of a Chinese woman. You are absolutely blown away by how attached people can become to possessions, both transient and permanent. She saved plastic bottles, grocery bags, shoes. My camera is on the fritz (much to my chagrin) but I lifted some photos from someone else who is more talented at photography than I anyway. This is one of the most relevant pieces I've seen in awhile as it truly shows how collectively immoderate we are as people singularly and holistically. Having switched over to a more conservative and eco friendly lifestyle over two years ago I was already painfully aware of that fact. But here's now a testament of proof.
One woman collected this! Insanity! Cats and dogs! Living together! Mass hysteria! :)
For the Radiohead lovers this was a happy little tasty treat I found on the interwebs of For Orchestra doing an all instrumental version of Reckoner. Let me let you know that it's beautifully done and the accompanying video is VERY cool. Enjoy and you're welcome for having no social life yet.
And a friend posted this beautiful nature video on my MySpace page set to "All I Need." Chilling and exquisite so watch it.
In addition to that there was a recently released compilation album of covers of Mark Mulcahy and Mr. Yorke did "All for the best." It also features Dinosaur Jr. and Frank Black. I've yet to download it but am excited.
Pretty things:
Narcissus, after Caravaggio by Vik Muniz. This piece is particularly special because it's deceptive. One would believe it is a sculpture of some construction but it is a photograph. I love the texture and desperation.
Johannesburg by David Goldblatt. Pretty self-explanatory commentary on urban development and corporate interests. I was struck because this is in Africa, making the social insight much more relevant.
Lake Louise, Canada by Lee Friedlander. I am, always and forever, a sucker for any artwork that expounds and celebrates the wondrous beauty that lies within the natural world. I also love how rough the rocks look, almost fake even, against this stylized and picturesque lake. 
Shibuya, Tokyo by Reagan Louie. I love the visual chaos of this photograph. It makes no sense and yet it is fun and stimulating.
Y.A., M.S.B., Vevey, Switzerland by Nicholas Nixon. I enjoy that this photograph is only vaguely erotic, mostly showing the positioning of the bodies, alluding to faint curves and the intimate pressing together. Their bodies are almost like puzzle pieces. And the muted black and white makes it soft.
Anyway that barely scratches the surface of some of the museums photographic exhibits but seeing as how it is one of my favorite mediums of art I was delighted to get to see their displays in person. These were just a few that touched me.
I'm starving and am on the way out to venture for Vegan food. I have subsequently decided not to go vegan as originally planned owing to the fact that I'd rather take death over cheese but vegan selection up here is pretty incredible. I'll post more stupid stuff only I'm entertained by later.
I sail to the moon. I spoke too soon...
Today NY finally gave me a break. After weeks of tortuous beat down I felt like she hurled me into her more favorable corner after showing me her vitriolic ways. Oh happiest of happy days!
I found a job. Not a proper one that I deeply, truly crave, but a good job. The job I work now is bullshit and insignificant. I am not paid hourly in addition to the fact that I have to tip out my manager, who earns a salary wage unlike me.
This place is a bowling alley/music venue/bar/restaurant in the heart of the trendy, up-and-coming gentrified neighborhood of Williamsburg. Everyone loves to hate this area because it is the congregation point for the hipster revolution and where the mass exodus of scene kids go to that migrate from all areas of the globe, but I adore it. Strolling through this district you get a sense of history that electrifies you. The graffiti scrawled from fifteen years ago when this was a highly Latino dominated spot breathes its way into the hip, white place it has become. Gentrification has two elements that make it evil and glorious at the same time. Allow me to elaborate as I know this is a highly contentious and sensitive subject. The whole scheme of gentrifying a region is for the benefit of the whole. Slowly developing areas next to one another encourages integration as well as progressive urban development, albeit very gradually with a lot of planning and much sacrifice. This is the purpose. In actuality the disastrous side comes with the part where the poor are shunted out of their homes. I can see the bigger pictures but also acknowledge the victims that suffer for it.
I desperately needed a win. I was beginning to feel like this place was kicking my ass. I am so happy to have found a job that will not only supply me with financial security but will enable me to work with people of like mind who share my love of the independent culture I have become so deeply fond of. I am starting to feel like I may be planting some roots. I don't want to get my hopes up too much but I am exhilarated.
After a very disappointing third date with a very promising contender, whereupon I was stood up, I spent a full day completely stewing in the mentality that “Men are all shit, why do I bother with this species?" Today, after finding a gentle happiness in my step, I released some of the demons currently on my payroll. I thought to myself, "If I'm forever carrying this shadow behind me who stalks my everyday moments I'll never allow myself any peace that might lead to opening up and trusting another human being. Why am I wasting my youth and time frivolously wondering what things may have been?" You must, of course, keep in mind that people are guilty until proven innocent as far as your trust is concerned but at some point you must stop making new friends (or whatever) pay for the sins of your past relationships with others. It was with this new illumination that I felt my eyes blaze for the first time in months and that put buoyancy into my resolve that I've not felt for far too long. I spent the evening at Dan's house in the company of his roommates and their friends and found myself finally exorcising the goofy, alive, witty part of me that has been long absent in favor of brooding and silence. I feel like myself again for the first time in a year.
That faint sunlight behind the buildings that obscures the clouds is not only the sunrise, it's the new dawn of a new day of a new life for me. And I'm feeling goooooooood. (Thank you Nina Simone)
----------End transmission------------
2009 BC
So the other day I waited on Chloe Sevigny. She was incredibly nice and a very generous tipper. I've waited on celebrities of Tampa infamy before but this was a totally different experience. I work in a little nothing restaurant that mostly attracts European tourists who are looking for "authentic NY Italian food" that happen to decide to stop while traversing the East Village. It is not a place where the elite go to dine. So I was surprised. It mostly reminded me that there are so many celebrities living here that you'll kind of just run into them. By the way, I hate my job. Which is to be expected, I guess, considering how ready to move on to worlds beyond hospitality that I feel in my gut. My co-worker tonight turned to me, randomly, and said "you are way too smart to be working here." That struck a chord.
It has not yet sunk in that I actually live here because I've yet to have that quintessential NY moment whereupon you realize, once and for all, that you are now a New Yorker. I'm waiting for that moment where the city suddenly looks to me the way it does on film. That moment of recognition where the city of my dreams is suddenly a reality. Maybe it's because I have yet to find my niche. I guess time will tell the story that I cannot.
At work this evening a boy at my table struck me. We started a conversation about religion and music that parlayed into him asking for my phone number and inviting me out for an after work drink. I spent my first night hanging out with a non-Florida friend in the city and thoroughly enjoyed myself. You must be guarded when it comes to dating or making friends anywhere because people are so often not what they wish to portray themselves as, but you must be even more careful here. In a construction of superficiality everyone is presenting themselves to be what they wish they were and not who they actually are. Genuine, in this place, is a rare commodity. So I guard myself with a tenacity that I did not think my hopeful and desperately romantic at heart nature was capable of.
Skyscrapers turn into monsters in the right light
A weekend of debauchery illuminated the need for me to find something more in this town. I got lost on the train. So lost, in fact, that it became a parody that most people would probably write a screenplay about. Mostly to mock those who have no idea where they are going. I spent almost four hours underground, trying to figure out where the hell to go. It was pathetic. We wandered through the snaking world of the underground, transferring from train to train, with the ultimate goal to end up at Central Park. We wanted to drink beers in the park and wander around. We finally made it. It was the most painful excursion I've yet to encounter.
I've never felt so frustrated in my life. When Melinda and I finally hit our stop we ran, exulted, towards the sunlight, happy to be out of the myriad of underground subway traffic. We'd actually proclaimed ourselves the mole people because we'd been underground so long. It was absolutely pathetic. We actually managed to ride half of the trains in Brooklyn and Manhattan because we're retarded fools who paid little attention to where we were going in favor of interesting chatter whereupon we decided to come up with our own language.
It was a glorious and horrible experience all at the same time.
Two straight days of drinking lead me to the realization that while NY is a city of fun it is also a city that can yield very little without the right contacts. I have no job prospects. I spend everyday online responding to ads, praying one of them will guide me to the reason I moved to this hellish and depraved land.
Even Dan is settling here better than me. I feel so jealous of everyone that has found their roots here. I feel like I can't find mine. I feel so lost. I scour Craigslist everyday with no idea what I'm qualified for or what I want to do.
There has to be some hope...
Even self-love is often unreciprocated.
The weirdest of human emotions that one can experience is love.
Every artist who has ever existed has tackled this elusive and constantly evolving topic that none of us will ever, or should ever, understand.
I awoke today after a vivid dream of the person I have spent a year craving for. I spent the entirety of my day in bed after that, not wanting to face the world after the person in question had permeated my thoughts. I laid in bed and reminisced about the feel of their skin, their hands, their tattoos, their smell. I became so overwhelmed with loneliness and desire that even my friendly roommate's offer to bike ride through Brooklyn was refuted in favor of lying in bed and clinging hopelessly to this image I have created in my mind of this person I am so desperately, irrevocably in love with that I cannot shake him. Every moment of every hour this person stalks my life. Waking and otherwise.
What makes this so incredibly unfair is that I am no longer in love with the person. I am in love with the idea of the person I have built. I have this shattered heart that I am totally unwilling to let anyone even see, much less gain entry to, and for what? An image I have built. In my mind he is no longer mortal. He is this abstract perfection that doesn't even exist. He wasn't even that great of a boyfriend. But I want him so badly. And why? Because I can't have him? Because my pain is exacerbated by loneliness? Why, out of every man I've ever met, do I want this one? Is it for the mere tragedy of it? Do I just covet it because it is so totally and completely denied to me? Or do I just genuinely love this person?
I know that the majority of the time when I think of him all that I hope for is his well-being. I take comfort in thinking that whatever he is doing that he is content. Isn't that how you should feel towards someone you actually love?
I fantasize about seeing him again. But even in my fantasies I incorporate a level of reality. Even in my daydreams he hates me. So at least I'm not fooling myself.
I wrote this book hoping the demons would be expelled, but they weren't. Time is supposed to heal all wounds, right? But I feel like time is mostly just a turkey baster full of lemon juice that slowly allows itself to drip on your open wounds until they become infected and in need of a surgical consult. I guess that's why old adages hold little merit.
It is really unfair to have someone out in the world who could so easily be a source of happiness for you, but ultimately ends up doing nothing but causing this lingering, horribly burning feeling in your chest that destroys every true moment you may experience of joy, because they are not there. It leads to nothing more than making your life a mere mockery of what it could be.
Death seems like an escalator ride to the top floor of the mall in comparison with unrequited love.
Does the tormented animal that lives inside of you ever find peace?
Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. But I disagree. The unloved life is not worth dying for.
Excuse me sir, can you spare a quarter?
I am so...unbelievably...lost...
My plan, for all of my college experience, was to finish my B.A. and then go on to graduate school. I always wanted to teach college. Scratch that. I just always wanted to teach in general. I sat amongst the other political science students, knowing that they wanted to go on to become the future lawyers of America (at least most of them) and felt smug knowing that I wanted something more lofty. And, of course, something that would mean I could die with my soul intact. Which a career in law would never be able to provide.
Then, once upon an (unhappy) time...
A professor sat me down and told me about the stainlessly steel cold world of academia. How grueling it is. How competitive. How intensive. How unforgiving. How unloyal.
I became utterly and completely demoralized. I abandoned my lifelong dream and graduated, with no idea what to do and no options.
Now I sit here, on a wooden bench in the middle of the night scanning various career oriented websites with no idea what sort of skill set I possess, trying hard to ignore the 'hospitality' tab on the JOBS LISTED margin. I know it is the only thing I have any experience in. I am beginning to panic. I only have so much money saved and I'm clueless on where to embark next. I am truly getting scared.
What the fuck?!?!?!
Feel no fear...
So tonight I decided to wander, carelessly, through the barren streets of Nostrand Avenue in Bed-Stuy in the middle of the night owing to being out of cigarettes and a cavernous allergy to normal sleep patterns that most people seem to possess so easily. Nightmares about things which I know nothing of haunt me and keep me awake at night. I find Bed-Stuy most comforting at night, when no one is left in the streets but other walking undead who cannot sleep and cops. I approach the window of the bodega, owing to the fact that it is the vampire hour and they are as afraid of being robbed as I am in this impoverished and direly sick and jobless neighborhood. I glance back at the man waiting on the corner, eyeing me with apparent interest. "What's up, sweetheart?" He asks me. "You lose something?" As I'm handed back my change I reply, "Nothing but my soul." "I heard that," he replies. I'm allowed to pass, safely. Apparently, admitting that you are among the lost and barren of this city means secure passage.
This place can invigorate you. It can also destitute you at the same time. Oh how I long for the less dangerous, and comforting, streets of Ybor. Thank God for Google Street View when my thirst for home grows wild and vicious in my chest. I did, however, run into a few of my more entrepreneurial, to be kind, regulars from the Big O. I was greeted with coldness and disdain. It just goes to show that when you have something to tender for their companionship, like free alcohol, people can be your best friend. But when you are looking for comrades in a new area and you have nothing to offer they are as scarce as the hyenas and leeches that they truly are.
I was fired, unceremoniously, of course, from my second bartending gig up here. I'm so used to the hospitality industry that I am completely unfazed. The manager who hired me was quite fond of me but she went on vacation and the surrogate took an obvious, malicious, dislike of me from the moment that we met. To coin a phrase, it was a matter of time.
The one thing that I can say is that it has fueled the fire to find something more than this. Now I have the incentive. I have grown weary of listening to people complain about their food. I am far too smart, excuse my lack of humility, to play this game anymore. I deeply long for something more meaningful.
Maybe New York will provide me with the answers I have so anxiously been searching for.
I didn't make it to MoMA. I did not want my experience there, which I have craved as a fan of the arts for far too long, to be marred with being fired for absolutely no reason with misery and fear of survival here, which occurred while I was waiting in line for the exhibits.
I have promised myself more in this city. And I intend to keep it.
No sleep til Brooklyn
So today God decided to empty his tear bucket on the five boroughs and bring with it a wave a chilly weather that permeated the city like a wrathful little monster. I'm not yet ready for the cold. I'm a Florida girl. Tank tops and flip flops. I need that for awhile before I deal with snow jackets and double lined boots. A little more time, please....
Hung out with Ms. Melinda this evening. A regular of mine from the Orpheum. Actually, the majority of the friends I have here are from the Orpheum. So at least the place gave me my sugueway into a totally new life. Is that a word? Oh well, hopefully you get the point. I went to an awesome bar in Williamsburg tonight called the Levee with dollar beers. Met a very cute boy with crazy shoes who relentlessly quoted Ghostbusters at me so maybe there is life on this planet that isn't filled with douchebags and liars. However, I am guarding myself life Fort Knox. One can only endure so much disappointment before you eventually throw in the Rocky towel. And by then it may be way too late. I'd rather be safe than be sorry. Came very close to going out on a date with a boy who I ultimately found out dated my roommate and screwed her over. Bullet dodging. It's what I do. Another indication that dating in this city is like kayaking through the white water rapids. You may end up skewered on a fucking rock, if you don't watch the curves in the waterbed.
Right in front of my work yesterday a bicyclist was hit by a taxi. I managed to shout "Sue the fucking bastard" before ducking back into the doorway. Seriously. Drivers here are absolutely insane. They are so intent on getting to their destination that they do not mind pedestrians, bicycles, or anything else on the road. I thought drivers in Florida were bad, but this is a world where cops have way better things to do than issue tickets. So traffic laws go unchecked. As a slowly emerging person who wishes to travel by bicycle around Brooklyn this scares me more than zombies. And I didn't think that was possible considering the zombie revolution is coming. Seriously...avoid city squares. However, being on a bicycle is exhilarating and an incredible way to get to know a terrifyingly confusing landscape. Maybe the danger rush is part of the appeal. Of my few ventures out into the city by bicycle I was almost hit twice. I guess I'll have to accept that this method of travel means your life may end at any given stoplight.
Tomorrow I go to MoMA. Finally. I have been deeply yearning to see the paintings I have forever been in awe of. I will be reporting with rapture and captivation. Stand by my two avid readers. :)
For now it is time for sleep. I still feel the vibe of being the stranger, but this place is starting, day by day, to feel a little less foreign. Maybe it's the best I can hope for.
Dinosaurs galore.
Yesterday my good friend visiting from Tampa Chris G and I made the pilgrimage up into Central Park West on another spectacularly beautiful NYC day to the Museum of Natural History. I have coveted going to a museum since I first got here, but it was mostly in the desire to see the fine art I spent all of my adolescence and adult years admiring. I did not think that I would be that keen on the idea of going to a museum dedicated to science. Until I got there. It was then that the nerd in me was brought out. Chris G pointed out that this particular museum embodies all of the progressive ideas that both of us subscribe to. Evolution, climate change, life on other planets, evidence of dinosaurs, etc.
The exhibits were enthralling. It is sincerely one of the best places to go to see authentic fossils of creatures that existed billions of years ago. They even had the oldest rock ever found on the Earth, which is how scientists managed to date the planet at 4.6 billion years old. The dinosaur skeletons were phenomenal. Tall, intimidating, scary, and grand. And the fossils of turtles that were a few million years old and bigger than me were pretty astounding.
The crowning glory was the Blue Whale hanging from the ceiling in the Hall of Ocean Life. It's a life size depiction of an actual blue whale and it's beyond enormous. You feel infintesimal in comparison with such a great, gentle beast.
We left picture happy and full of overpriced Museum food to go to another open bar thing that they'd found on the internet. Myopenbar.com is probably the most amazing thing to occur since tall boys and M&M's. Free vodka for two straight hours meant another early night of drunkenness, which I don't do so well with. I'm a late night drinker and when I drink too early it means I'm pretty much useless for the rest of the evening. So while I actually did make the venture to Union Pool I was not sober enough to properly evaluate the place except to say that it had decent music and a totally rad patio.
Overall, another great day in New York. Some days I wake up and hate this place because I'm so homesick it's intolerable and some days I wake up and can't believe I'm actually here. I've not yet decided how I feel about the city. Some days she is amiable and tolerant of my bumbling, ignorant bullshit and some days she seems intent on punishing me and filling me with panic attacks that I have no hope of subsisting here. When she does that it is in small, very mean ways. Such as the subway line to get me home being under construction after a double shift and me having no way of knowing what the alternative routes are. But the good days make me really glad I came.
Days in the park
Today was amazing. We ventured out to Greenpoint to go to a free show in the park that is part of the concert series that the city puts on through the balmy summer afternoons. I'm not sure of all the bands playing but the headliner was the Dirty Projectors and they were quite good. It was crowded and beer was overpriced but we managed to enjoy the set. If nothing else the view of Manhattan off the shore was breathtaking.
We then wandered out further to a bar giving away free beer in the form of short bottles of Colt 45. This is the reason for the briefness of this post. I indulged quite a bit in the beer o'clock hour and may have to elaborate further at a later, more sober time. But here's some photos of the shenanigans....
Tomorrow promises to be a day of museums and hopefully sobriety will mean a more eloquent post.
My neighbors are listening to Dirty Diana by Michael Jackson. The craze continues...
The appleseed can be rotten
After an afternoon of much needed rest from this city that is set at a pace that is about sixteen times what I am used to I made a venture into the lower East Side. It is an area of town I am growing familiar with as both of my jobs are there and it is the hightlight night spot scene in Manhattan. Dan took me to the Young Designers Market, which is where up and coming designers go to hock their wares for cheap while they try to pioneer their way into the incredibly cutthroat and viciously elegant world of fashion. It's still overpriced, but New Yorkers pride themselves on being able to buy jewelry and handbags from the unknowns so they can say, "I knew [such and such] when nobody else did." I managed to restrict myself from indulgence owing to not wanting to bankrupt myself in the city that eats through your wallet like a tapeworm through your intenstines.
A jaunt through the grimy and wonderful little world of thrift stores that put even the most savvy and fashion forward in Tampa to shame led to my first favorably priced bar carrying PBR in an old Irish pub whose name escapes me. An absolutely divine and cheaply priced meal at a tiny French Bistro off of Mulberry eased me into my first shift at Paladar by myself. Things went smoothly, owing to the steady hand of an experienced waitress and bartender, but I find myself even more weary of the hospitality world here than I've ever been. Eye rolling and customer hatred aside I wanted to move here to dominate the world, as Kyndal has instructed me very succinctly to do. Not to bring Mojitos and Pacificos to thirsty suburban refugees fleeing New Jersely for the fun of the big city. What to do, what to do....
Dating here intimidates me. And I come from the horribly incestuous cess pool that is Tampa. If men in this city scare a girl from Ybor, that is saying quite a bit. I've been warned that men here are a worse breed than even the most ravenously vicious great whites of the sea. I've seen a bit of it. My first night here some guy subvertly solicited me for sex while I was innocently withdrawing cash from an ATM in Williamsburg and this evening some ridiculously over-cologned asshat was trying to ditch his girlfriend to have drinks with me at a bar on Ludlow. Cruel little world of selfishness and cheating. I see nothing more than my world weary hardened shell developing a bit of a thicker layer.
In this alien and intimidatingly giant planet trapped inside of a little city you can find almost anything, if you walk down the wrong alleyway at the right time.
Just as an aside, this video is a little old but nonetheless absolutely amazing from a band whose creativity is bound by nothing. Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjxef8AfVQg
Today I didn't even have to use my AK...
I gotta say it was a good day.
I began my day in my new life as a (pretend) New Yorker by taking an extra long shower to wash off the fourteen hours days I've been enduring and enjoy my first, very welcome, day off in the last week. My bestest friend in the world moved here a few days ago and I've been ecstatic that I managed to convince him to make the move with me. So after a phone call from Dan the days plans were confirmed. We would begin by walking the Brooklyn Bridge, a desire that I possessed the last time I was in NY that never came to fruition. I promised myself that even though I now live in the giant fruit state I would still allow myself moments of being the total sightseeing tourist I am every time I travel. It was well worth the cluttered subway ride.
An absolutely heart stopping view of the river and the downtown Manhattan skyline was worth the long walk over the bridge that brings together the two buroughs. We embarked on the financial district. I took a moment to look down Wall Street and view the basis point for the meltdown of the American economy. Standing on the corner of Broadway and Wall Street filled me with an odd chill. I could almost smell the regret, shame, and humiliation of the investment firms, banks, and trade companies as I stood on the avenue of horribly broken dreams that ruined an entire conception of the American way of life.
I also discovered there are no good restaurants in this section of town.
Starvation brought Dan and I to Union Square. We are, of course, still tourist/residents of this city so everywhere we go we're using iPhone internet and subway maps so we are not so lost that we end up in a corner stoop, scrounging for scraps out of garbage cans, hoping to find our way home. Union Square is not much better for food options so we eneded up at Chipoltle. Which is fine by me because it reminded me of home. I've been notoriously homesick despite being in this exhilarating and challenging environment.
After searching for quite some time we found a theatre playing the Harry Potter movie in Times Square. Another jaunt through the subway and we were treated to the best-as-of-yet Harry Potter movie. I am an avid, as anyone who knows me will attest, Harry Potter fan. I own all of the books (which I have read at least a dozen times each) and movies. I've been following the series since movie #1. I am a tried and true devotee of the series and possess absolutely no abashment. I have always found this to be a well-written and interesting story and fully enjoy following the mania. I was thrilled that my first movie in NYC would be this one. I was not disappointed. This was easily the most visually stunning, innovative, and creative movie of the series thus far. The director was one I am unfamiliar with, David Yates, but he was able to create the movie in the way that I had envisioned it in my head, with the obvious modifications. It incorporated more humor than in movies past and attempted to challenge the actors in more ways. The cinematography was extraordinary. It doesn't matter if you think this is the most retarded phenomenon to hit the world, this was still an amazing film. Take check all who doubted the Dark Knight. Not comparing the two, merely making a point. I was enthralled and highly recommend any fan to go see it.
We decided to walk through Times Square at dusk and fuck with the tourists. Nowhere in NY is more of a trap for the weary traveler than this area. Crowded, thronging, clashing bodies all try to avoid each other while waiting for the little glowing white walk signal at every street corner. If one is a phobic of crowds this is an area to be avoided at all costs. However, the brazen stream of advertisements on every square possesses its own little element of beauty if you can value the flashy and somewhat degrading quality it exhibits. The stunned wide eyes of the people snapping fervent photos all throughout it of anything and everything they pass is worth it alone, as I can empathize with them being the stranger that I really am.
We don't do posed photos. It just ain't our style.
We ended our evening with drinking in a warehouse in Williamsburg, indulging on cheap cans of beer and good conversation with a crew of people that I absolutely adore being around. It even ended with awesome posed photos on a motorcycle and taco shenanigans on the way home. Overall, fantastic and beautiful day in NY with only slightly rainy weather that couldn't have dampened my mood even in its wildest dreams.
The locals lied to me.
Everyone told me PBR is totally the staple of every trendy hipster bar in NY. But I've been to half a dozen bars now and they've not had it. Even this crappy little dive bar marred with tacky graffitti, bad photos, ripped bar stools, and teeming with scene kids in the lower East Side didn't have it and their cheapest beer was Yuengling (obviously a Tampa brew) for four freaking dollars. The only thing I desire for a bar to carry is Jagermeister and PBR and I can't find it. It's really unfair and makes me feel robbed. I want nothing more than to find one little bar that has affordable alcohol that can become my home away from home, like Reservoir Bar was. A place where I walk in and the bartenders have a beer sitting for me in a stool that I always occupy. I've come pretty close. The only bar I've found so far that may qualify is a little one in Bed-Stuy (of all places) that isn't being mobbed with people sporting baggy pants, eyes roving around to find someone to fight. They even have a patio covered in sand to simulate a beach feel, which makes me happy. Getting to the beach here is not easy. It requires connections, money, and a willingness to endure quite a bit of travel. I've never lived away from the beach in my entire life. It's a weird feeling not to have immediate access to seagulls and the lull of the ocean that can put you to sleep under a tirelessly oppressive and welcome sun.
I've mostly stayed out of Williamsburg owing to the desire not to see an Orpheum bomb that has exploded over an entire city burough. Hipster culture up here is even more ridiculous than in Tampa. The kids in Tampa are what hipsters were here three years ago. Their fashion is actually tame in comparison to the ludicrious bullshit I've seen up here. Remember acid wash jeans and those stupid sunglasses in the Pepsi simulation in Back to the Future part two when he goes into that diner? Yeah, they wear that garbage here. It's redundant. I can somewhat appreciate that it is supposed to be a tribute and amalgamation to seventies and eighties fashion but I find myself mostly thinking that retro is kitcsh and unecessary. Why not make an attempt to forge a new kind of fashion rather than just (badly) borrowing from the generations before? It mostly just shows the minus sign in ingeniuty that can exist in this subculture. I'm told that Union Poll is hipster mecca, like Sink or Swim was, so I may check it out just to give myself fodder for some seriously mean, ass-rapingly vicious comments. I will be more than happy to report once I decide it is worth the trip.
I've found a balance with both of my jobs, but I'm hoping to manifest something a little more substantial. I'm entertaining the idea of shopping around my book to see what happens and maybe submitting an op-ed piece to a small publication or two. We shall see...
By the way, the new Harry Potter opens tomorrow and I'm very psyched. Fuck you if you think I'm a nerd.
I promise I'll eventually post some pictures up here but I keep forgetting my camera and I've yet to experience a truly depraved, drunken, busy night out. But I will. I'm sure of it.
Friendly ghosts?
The shadows of Tampa lurk forever under my puffy, almost bruised eyes in a land where I am unable to get a decent nights sleep. A misplaced sense of comfort means that I feel ever uneasy, shivering in the warm NY summer afternoons, not with cold but with anxiety. Hollow disquiet as I walk through the bustling streets leaves me feeling, at times, like maybe this was the greatest decision I've ever made. I am beginning to find a sense of ravenous desire to feel more and more out of my element. Being overwhelmed is starting to feel less daunting and more like an enthralling, albeit jerky, ride through this endlessly paved, neon world.
I've begun, slowly, to admit to myself that my very deepest desire is to be a writer. My whole life I've been told that I possess an affinity for it. Maybe it's time to chisel the stone and steady my hand to push it into the intimidating and relentlessly rewarding world that I've spent my whole life admiring and taking solace in.
Ventured recently to Greenpoint, which is a nice up and coming neighborhood that, less than fifteen years ago, was close to the equivalent of Bed-stuy, my current place of residence. Bed-stuy will never be my home here. I admire and even enjoy the cultural element that many directors and authors have attenpted to capture (notably Spike Lee in his urban protrayals of this area of Brooklyn) but know that my pale face will always be rejected and unwelcome. Standing in a crowded bodega the other day while purchasing a sandwich the woman standing behind me very pointledly said, "I fucking hate these white people coming into our neighborhood." I looked over my shoulder and saw a look of such derision that I was temporarily stunned. Can I blame such blind hatred on upbringing/environment, or just the fact that there really is deep racial divide that I've been somewhat sheltered from in my bay hometown? Maybe I'll never know. I am definitely getting tired of being called snowflake, that's for right sure.
I adore my new job in the Latino fusion restaurant. I got behind the bar tonight for the first time in almost a year and felt an immediate sense of belonging that surprised even me. I thought going back behind that little sliver of space covered in plastic bar mats would remind me of the painful memory of my abrupt and unwelcome expulsion from the Orpheum, but it didn't. It actually made me realize that if I'd stayed there I never would have left Tampa. The last year of my life was one of the most painful I've ever endured. Intense heartbreak that led to my first novel, couchsurfing for a year that destroyed a friendship, a tireless and frustrating attempt to sell my vehicle resulting in huge monetary loss, and many lonely nights spent longing for a love that is very much refuted has brought me to this city of new beginnings. While I am a decent waitress, I forgot how much I truly enjoy the feel of the cold glass of a liquor bottle and a metal pour spout between my fingers. It may not be what brought me here or what I wish to do but it felt nice to find something that felt comfortable in this continously trepidatious environment. I walked back into my career of the past decade with such an ease even the other bartender was impressed. My personality is able to flourish when I have six feet of wood between me and the customer. It felt like walking back into a family home. Easy, comfortable, familiar. Almost like a friend. Bottle openers, draft beer, iced wells and all. I'd lost all sense of how much I love it.
My neighbors are having loud, passionate sex next to an open window next door due to the beautiful NY weather and a complete lack of central air and I tire of sitting here and jealously coveting the romance and intimacy I have been lacking in my life for the last two years. While I present the hardened face of the skeptic when it comes to dating, telling all who cross my path that I find much comfort in being alone, deep down the sensitive soul that I truly am lurks, waiting to be hurt. I know that my lot in life is to put my heart on my face so that it can continually get ground into a fine dust. I've accepted that. Love is not in the stars for me, so to speak. I am relegated to a life of solitude where I live in too much fear to trust another person. It's a shame. My loyalty is only to be enjoyed by my friends. It is the small things that I miss. A gentle smell that you awaken to that eases you into a busy morning, hand holding and easy smiles through the streets. The feeling that in a city where you are never alone you feel oblivious to all but each other. However, there is nothing one can do except enjoy a beer with kindred souls and push forward through this surreal life while looking for more than yourself. But I do not want the reminder that I am lonely any more this evening so I will leave you with this thought.
"Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire." ~Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld
Niche in a clique culture.
Finding a way in to NY is not exactly an easy feat. It's been a week and I realize that it will slowly come with time. Finding the right subway stop when getting off of work is a small triumph. Meeting easy strangers willing to point you in the right direction. Familiarity with the unknown.
I'm constantly being told that my move up here is one of the ballsiest that [insert random person] has ever seen. No apartment, job, or stability and I just did it. In the last eight days I've been thrown out of a place to stay, taken in by friends, and found two (yes two) jobs.
But I've still not experienced any of NY. I've been to three bars. I'm attempting to reconnect with friends I haven't seen in years, despite that they've been incredibly helpful. I know I need to exercise some patience but that has never been my strong suit. I want NY to feel like home more quickly than I think most people expect it to. However, I've found a clutch with which to desperately cling to alot faster than most people do, apparently.
I'm hoping that the city will open itself to me and show me the aurora of horror and beauty that she has to offer. The city that rarely shuts its eyes to rest will become my sanctuary, leading to the soul that I know is buried deep within the cynicism and fear that lurks so closely to the surface of the mask I carry every day.
I didn't move here to be a waitress and a bartender. I've could've stayed in my safe little haven to do that. I just need to find whatever it is that I came here looking for.
I just wish I knew what it was.
