the kindness of strangers

New York Mag was soliciting entries from this city's beautiful people about how their New York existence has once been touched by the unexpected kindness of strangers. My story:

Before I had a permanent address in NY I was crashing at a friend's whilst doing an internship. One crazy day I left my purse in a cab, containing all my valuables including passport, mobile, keys, wallet and diary. I was completely lost without them! I managed to track down my friend that night, who said a stranger left a message for him that he had my purse and I could pick it up the next day. Turns out the cab passenger after me had picked up my purse, rifled through my IDs, and seeing no NY address, rifled through my diary and happened upon my friend's phone number scribbled in a margin. I was able to get my purse back the very next day with everything in it, but how do you thank someone properly who just saved your ass in so many ways?! I gratefully babbled my thanks and quickly ran out. I couldn't look him in the eye, after all, he read my diary! For that stranger, thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I wish you all the good karma in the world. Now whenever someone talks shit about how nasty New Yorkers are, I tell them this story.

I think I've missed blogging.

music makes the people come together

As previously blogged about, in New York City we are accustomed to living on top on one another, privy to everyone else's business and pretending not to care. I know what time my neighbors leave for work and I know what time their kids get out of school. I know that there is a gay couple somewhere in the vicinity who frequently argue about not being able to fully come out of the closet. I know that Greg who lives upstairs likes to play the banjo, stomp his feet and yodel (or whatever that God-awful noise is emitting from his throat), as part of practice for his "bluegrass" band. Those are the times when I turn up my stereo, curl into the fetal position and whimper. There's also a beautifully-voiced opera singer who lives in the apartment adjacent to my bathroom window. Those are the peaceful Sunday mornings when I stumble into the shower, bleary-eyed from the debaucheries of the night prior, and find my sanity again just listening to her angelic chorus interplaying with the rushing water around me.

Then, in moments of inspiration, delusion, or emotional overflow, I belt it out in the shower. As you may or may not know, I'm a closeted, frustrated, emotional and angst-y rockstar. Karaoke is my best friend, when I have a mic in my grasp, a song in my heart and a captive audience of friends and strangers alike. The shower is my practice studio. So, a few weeks ago while rehearsing my rendition of Mariah Carey's "Vision of Love," a thought occurred to me...

If I can hear my neighbors, surely they can hear me!

Um, duh. Cringe.

So now the weather has gotten colder, much, much colder, and I've had to shut the bathroom window for the winter. So no more Sunday opera for the season. I wonder if they are missing me too.

alone

It is commonly said of New York City that you could easily go through everyday life here, in this city of 8 million people, and still feel like the loneliness person in the world. We live alone in this culture, most often in our solitary apartments, on top of other solitary apartments, forming no real connections to the masses that surround us and only interact with them in the shallowest of manners. We push through each other in the crowded subways and streets everyday, fight for reservations at restaurants and tickets to shows, and lay awake at night unable to sleep while a zillion car horns blare and pedestrians chatter excitedly on the sidewalk outside our windows. There is life all around us, and somehow we are so removed. I can put on my Ipod and tune it all out.

Mark Twain called it “a splendid desert—a domed and steepled solitude, where the stranger is lonely in the midst of a million of his race.”

New York Magazine's cover story this week is about this so-called "Urban Loneliness," and how recent sociological studies are proving this to be more of a myth than we feel. How so? Humans are social animals with a hypothesized biological need to interact, ultimately ensuring the survival of the species (i.e. sex). Really, that's all it comes down to? Everyone needs someone to love them. Woop!

That's the ultra-simplified analysis. Read more here.

hearting NY

Reason number 253 to heart New York: The summer time.

(stupid puggle just licked my whole face!)

• Summerstage at Central Park: picnic blankets on bare grass under the trees, sunshine, dogs, friends, and copious amounts of wine and champagne. Oh, plus your buds Gilles Peterson and Jamie Lidell performing live as your soundtrack to the perfect lazy summer Sunday afternoon.
  
• Rooftop parties.
  
• Outdoor dinners with the sun still up.
  
• Never-ending happy hours.
  
• Beers are ok pre-noon time, or anytime for that matter.
  
• There is *always* something to do and the hardest decision is fitting everything in.

Reason number 254 to heart New York: You could live a lifetime here and still never have enough time to do everything.

• Kanye West concert at Madison Square Garden. I'm not even really a fan, but tickets were offered and I couldn't pass them up. And hey, it's Kanye, self-proclaimed "biggest superstar in the world." The pleasant surprise for me though was when N.E.R.D. opened. God bless Pharell.
  
• Discovering new haunts and old friends. Old friend Anton spun at new club Love in the West Village, with its sprawling dance floor, waterfalls-as-projector-screens, dark beehive-like caves with cushions, all of it combining to induce a coma of nightlife downtempo.
  
• The Wackness at the Angelika Theatre. Coming-of-age story of a teen drug dealer, his pot-smoking psychiatrist, and the city itself, against the backdrop of the pre-September 11 NYC (one scene features the brilliant Ben Kingsley sitting on a Brooklyn bench across the Twin Towers), and the then-incoming Guiliani era that set in motion a wave of changes to result in the safer and less gritty NY we know today, all set to the beat of thumping 1994 NYC hiphop (think Biggie).

I laughed, I cried, I drank, I danced, and I fell in love with New York all over again.

no sleep til...

I don't know what I expected to be so different. As if I could disappear for several months and everything would suddenly change positions or close down. But no, every direction I looked, everything was just as I remembered. But with renewed vibrancy.

I slid back into the grind so seamlessly, and was instantly absorbed into the city's throbbing bloodlines (otherwise known as "the subway" and "traffic"). Arrived at the station and was glared at by a cranky old woman. But then a stranger helped me with my bags without even asking. The cab driver lies and tells me he doesn't know the way to Brooklyn. Are you freakin' kidding me? Fine, I'll direct. (Do I still remember?) Along the way, ensnared in the aluminum crush, I point out to myself the old archetypes of New York that I so fondly remember: rocker-junkie (track marks, check), East African immigrant, Indian cab driver, Middle American tourist with big camera, fashionistas in Jimmy Choos, Wall Streeters, the ubiquitous hipster, and the black-cowboy-slash-soul-brotha-in-skinny-jeans-and-Superman-cape... wait, huh? Unusual, but not for this town.

I arrived at the new/old apartment. Took a walk around the neighborhood and promptly picked up 2 perfect giant wooden picture frames that someone else had thrown away. Picking up other people's garbage- old New York survival skills coming back strong!

Hi New York, I'm back. Party.

re-running

Going back.

After a long, colorful intermission (I think it was a drag show. Asian-themed. I sipped some strong whiskey and mojitos with ginger).

Touching down, crossing that bridge, seeing all those lights heralding my arrival back into her concrete embrace. No matter what time of day or night there's gonna be some energy to find. Somewhere lurking in the back alleys, speeding through the subways or parading down 5th Avenue.

Will it be like returning to a life put on hold? Everything the same, the surroundings, the friends, the seasons, the city. I'll have the same grocery store, the same train line, the same bars. Even my ex-lover has called to say he'd like to catch up again when I return (as if).

Hitting reset and replay. It's deja vu, but it's not. Familiar furniture, slightly dustier. Me, slightly older.

Everything the same but my insides.

Going back.

Going forward.

displaced

In pictures:

1) My bedroom dresser. The world map is marked with all the places I am hitting in the next few months to remind me why I am doing all this.

2) Housewarming gifts from all our partays. The tile says "Home Sweet Apartment"- so very New York City.

3) My fridge. I collect magnets from every place I go. The cats broke my porcelain magnet from Capri, but the Armani model lounging in a boat in Capri compensates well.

4) The daycare below me. In this last month of unemployment, I've been awoken every morning by the sound of little children singing the hokey pokey.

Today I packed it all up & shipped it out. My life yet again packed neatly (ok, harriedly) away in boxes. I've done it so many times before but somehow I never seem to get any better at it, & it's so draining & I swear I'll never do it again, but that's always a lie. And it only gets harder as I get older & accumulate more, because I thought that's what adults do- settle & nest. But when it comes time to relocate, I again curse my materialistic weakness for shoes & again consider just trashing it all in favor of a Zen existence unburdened by unnatural attachments to inanimate objects. My hands are mangled, my muscles are aching, my eyebags are glaring, & I have half a brain left. All I want to do is collapse onto my huge queen feather bed & curl up in the fetal position & whimper, but I can't, because now there is no huge queen feather bed.

I am exhausted. Exhausted exhausted exhausted.

And now to get ready for my going away party. Some things just can't be avoided. ;)

escape from new york

New York,

How I love you. I love all the clichés- the ice skating in Central Park, the shopping in SoHo, the brunches in Brooklyn, the alcohol-saturated nights in the LES. I love that I don't have to know how to drive. I love that there are some bars where everyone knows my name, yet the moment I leave their cozy interiors, I fade into anonymity again. I love that I can go on an international gastronomic adventure any day of the week, & spend anywhere between $1-$600 doing so. I love that I can stay right here & the world comes to me, & I am always playing tour guide to the visiting friends constantly coming through. I love that on any given day, I could be in the midst of pompous lawyers, gorgeous models, trendy media-types, French tourists, struggling musicians/waiters, illegal Mexican immigrants, Malawian royalty, all sitting next to me on the subway. I love the way you can make or break anyone, whatever walk of life you come from, & how if you can make it here you can make it anywhere (sing it Frank!).

Everyone I've ever met tells me I belong here, & I'm as much a part of the fabric of the city as it is part of mine. After living the semi-nomadic life for the past decade, I thought this would be the city I would finally "settle" in... at least for the next 5 years. It's been 2.

Cracks started to appear in our perfect love affair. Everyday I'm bombarded with ads, flashing lights, traffic, smog, high-rise buildings, subway screechings, $2000+/month rent (not including utilities, mind you), the endless rat race, the endless RATS, 7 million beautiful plastic people crammed into the same 7 miles of space & every single one fighting for attention & that elusive last bit of elbow room. I know a good relationship means a lot of give & take, but I'm beginning to feel like a battered woman. And this winter weather? Brutal. How did you suddenly turn so cold?

New York, consider this a trial separation. I love you, but I just need time to myself right now. I think we should see other people...