OK, I went to New York and I got back. There's a lot to say but I probably won't say it. The sheer laziness that's taken me over in the last 4 weeks of unemployment puts all my previous laziness to shame... and in my more energetic moments, the thought of sitting at the computer for hours to write this stuff makes me cringe.
Anyway, the main point was to see people I hadn't seen for 18 months. That was good, though now I'm sad that I won't be there again very soon. I also went to some places I hadn't been lately or ever. That was good too. And the enjoyability of New York is very much improved by not having to go to work. I didn't stay long enough to be harmed by the air or by my massive junk-food intake—though when I first stepped out of the airport, I was stunned & scared by how bad it smelled; that was just the airport though.
Things I had never got around to doing in 13 years of living there, and finally did: going up the Empire State Building; going to the Cloisters medieval museum; lying on a beach in Fire Island, naked; taking two tapdance classes from the great Roxane Butterfly. Things I had done before, but not enough, and did more of this time: talking to strangers in bars, walking around Central Park, seeing a random movie (*)
(*) Edvard Munch by Peter Watkins is the best artist-bio movie I've ever seen, and the weirdest—it's a period piece with a bunch of good (mostly amateur) Norwegian actors, but there's narration and "interviews" as if it's a 19th-century documentary. It also does an unusually good job of showing how paintings and etchings are made. After 3 hours I was dazed & weepy (his was not a happy life) and had to go straight to the bar. |
I expected to see a lot of changes since 2002, but my old neighborhoods had already hit a plateau of gentrification and there were just a few restaurants etc. that sadly were gone. The Williamsburg waterfront lot is still fenced off and overgrown, dammit... they cancelled the park plan in order to build a big NYU/Olympic sports extravaganza and then they didn't even build that. Manhattan is still too big for me but I loved walking around the Lower East Side with Sean and Tory... though I was spooked/saddened/annoyed to find that my old apartment building door buzzer is still showing the names of me & my ex-girlfriend; looks like the building has gone downhill a bit and they haven't changed the nameplates in five years.
For some reason I find it much easier to do public transit sketches in NY than here. Something about the seating arrangement, or the extra anonymity provided by the deafening noise, or maybe I just understand the faces there better.
I'm working on putting the photos on here, but not tonight. Tomorrow I start my new job and I am ahhhhhhhh a little nervous...