Time Difference: -14 hours (from Brisbane)
Soundtrack: Phantom, Clare Bowditch, Presets, Amy Winehouse
Currently Inspired by: "There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in" Leonard Cohen
Words written: 92,815. So close!
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| Amazing place |
I’ve had this wholly predictable Sinatra earworm
for the last three days and am feeling completely unoriginal. Adding to that feeling is the fact that when people
here ask me what I do and I tell them I’ve (almost) written a book they go “oh,
you too” in distinctly unenthusiastic tones and then continue on with whatever
they were talking about. Thank god I’m
not staying in Brooklyn, where you can’t throw a pencil without hitting six
starving writers who are sitting in a vegan café with their soy lattes and
sharing a copy of the New York Times (it’s expensive!), flipping straight to
the book review section where they can happily while away a morning, chowing
down on sour grapes and eviscerating the latest bestseller for its amateurish
writing. It’s actually making me feel
quite panicky.
All these crazy cities I’ve been to in the lead up to arriving here have kind of been my practice runs for the biggest of all, this gigantic melting pot of the hopefuls and the hopeless, united and unique under a starless sky. The stars are all on the ground here, and there is only so much ground to be grabbed, so you need to be a combination of quick, smart, talented and lucky to make it. After just a few days of the frightening anonymity that this place is capable of delivering, my hope flaps in shredded tangles, and I’m really gripping onto it with my fingernails. It’s a death grip though! I’ll breathe and reboot, don’t worry.
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| Love how out there this place was |
Do not think that I don’t love it here,
because I absolutely do. Heart and soul,
New York City has wooed me and won me over with a minimum of fuss and
coquetry. That flirty shit doesn’t fly in
New York. It takes what it wants. If you don’t like what’s on offer, move on
sister. There are plenty of fish in the
sea, and plenty of seas to suit the fish.
For someone like me, an honest type A who constantly struggles with the societal
pressure to moderate my behaviour and censor my speech in order to avoid
upsetting all the sensitive types out there (why don’t they ever have to work
on moderating their sensitivities to avoid upsetting me?), it is a relief to be around pretty much an entire city of no
nonsense plain speakers who are also capable of being polite and pleasant.
From the lovely ladies in Central Park who
squished up on their picnic blanket to make room for me to sit while watching a
concert, to the guy who sheltered me under his umbrella when it started to rain
and the girl who asked me if I needed help when she just saw me looking lost in
the subway, I have had nothing but the most positive interactions with New
Yorkers. The service is great of course,
although it was recently and rather cynically suggested to me that this has
financial motivation, I think it’s more of a cultural expectation than anything
else. I mean, tipping at least 15% is so
expected here it’s pretty much considered mandatory, regardless of the service
you get. I guess the “at least” part is
the operative part of that sentence.
Hourly rates here for servers are stupidly low.
The reason I was in Central Park (not that
one needs a reason) is because the New York Philharmonic puts on free concerts
in parks in the five New York Boroughs every year in summer. The five boroughs of NY for those who are
curious are Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. Although from where I am staying in New
Jersey (in a suburb rather confusingly named West New York) I can literally
look to my left and see all of Manhattan and also some of the other boroughs, I
am in a completely separate state. With
traffic it takes about twenty minutes on the bus to get from here into Times
Square.
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| Fireworks after the concert |
So back to the
Philharmonic. The orchestra comes and
sets up on a stage, someone with a whole lotta cash sponsors the event, Alec Baldwin
randomly walks out to introduce the show for some reason and New Yorkers come
out in droves with picnic blankets, wine bottles and yummy food, and basically
sit there in the balmy summer evening listening to a world class orchestra play
beautiful music for a few hours. To top
off the experience there was a massive fireworks display over the darkened
Manhattan skyline. It was one of the
more memorable experiences of my trip, and was one of the very rare times over
the last eight months that I thought to myself “I wish I had someone here with
me to share this moment with me”.
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| The fab Chelsea market |
Speaking of company, I have made a couple of
friends already, which was quick work and also something of a relief given that
it is going to be my home for the next two months. My housemate slash landlord slash unpaid tour
guide Vanja - a native Bosnian but a New Yorker in every other sense that it is
possible to be - welcomed me into her apartment with three huge hugs and a “Welcome
Home”, the nicest greeting I’ve heard for a while. Us raggedy vagabonds like to feel at home
occasionally, too you know! Another
lovely person I met while here took me to the Chelsea Markets that contain,
among other things, a lobster shop where you can pop in and grab a freshly boiled
lobster, fast food style to tuck into on your lunch break, and a very famous
bread store that looks to me like it is going to be worth a second visit. That’s the beauty of staying the amount of
time I am. I haven’t done the Statue of
Liberty, Empire State etc yet, but they are definitely on the to-do list. I can tick the rather startling Museum of Sex
off, however. A girl has priorities, you
know, although I could have lived without the entire floor relating to animal
sex. (Animal and animal, not human and
animal – thought it best to clarify that one).
New York pizza is absolutely delicious and
very distinctive, and holds its own against the Italian style, although it is
quite different. My favourite so far has
been from a store called 99 Cent Pizza where the slices cost, rather
fraudulently, a dollar (I amused myself for a while wondering how many
Americans sue over that advertising) but they are smaller than other places so
you can get a piece for a snack without feeling sick. With such dizzying displays of cuisine on
offer, it is best to have small amounts of lots of different types. Frankly I can’t believe I’m not sick of pizza
yet. I have also tried a Jewish item
called a knish - not like knife, you pronounce it kuh-NISH - which to all
appearances was a deep friend hunk of mashed potato with mustard in it and worrying,
unidentifiable black things, with mustard in the middle and also slathered,
like everything here, in tomato sauce and mustard on top. It was like something students eat when they
can’t afford to go grocery shopping, and it was perfectly nasty. I threw the remainder of it out with some
relief.
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| Times Freakin Square, Man! |
Everything else so far has been so much fun,
exhilarating and a total sensory overload.
I’m so glad I am staying out of the madness of the city. It is great around here too, although I’m
having to get used to being the minority!
I went to a local pool the other day and was the only white person
there, which was a unique experience for me.
I don’t think I liked the feeling of standing out if I’m honest, but I
felt that it was a worthwhile thing to have happen, even just for the sake of
gaining a tiny bit of perspective.
My
laptop finally shat me past the point of no return with its constant
overheating and shutting down while I was in the middle of tasks, so I bought a
new one and am currently mired in the painful process of transferring all of my
music and video over. For some reason
when I’m dealing with people in shops I am putting on this really full on
American accent – I hate it and I’m trying to fight it but it seems to happen
before I can think to put the kibosh on it.
I don’t know why this is happening because I lived in England for two
years and never lost my Aussie accent, but I’m even thinking in an American
accent right now. It’s very odd. You’ll
all just have to beat it out of me when I get home.
So basically in three days here I’ve seen Alec
Baldwin, Michelle Obama, an almost naked Ghandi type character wearing Statue
of Liberty headgear and I’ve received a marriage proposal in Times Square, so I
very much look forward to the next two
months! Maybe even finishing a book
could end up on that amazing list. You can click here to see my photos so far, although be warned, there are a couple in there from the sex museum!
Til Next We Speak
*LOVE*
N
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