Winning thought of the day

I keep being mercilessly reminded that I'm not cool enough to live here.

Making music underground

On our way back from an evening stroll through the Village, Christina and I stopped in the 34th St. subway station to play with "Reach," a sound installation, like a green metal railroad tie suspended from the ceiling, that plays marimba and various other percussion sounds, as well as assorted jungle noises, when a rider passes his hand in front of one of its many sensor eyes. It was really neat. I improv'ed a duet with a subway sweeper down at the other end of the instrument before a train came through and rumbled all the fun out of it.

Today really paid off. I worked my ass off in the morning and early afternoon 'til about 3pm, when I decided I couldn't stare at the computer screen any longer. So I went on a walk in the Village and SOHO, trying to rediscover the neighborhood I briefly glimpsed on Tuesday when I briefly walked up Lafayette Ave. to make a subway connection. I saw a huge gathering on Mulberry St. in Little Italy that I was intrigued by but which I didn't have time to investigate. I tried to head toward the giant towers of what I took to be the Williamsburg bridge, which seemed much closer than it really was and would therefore have been a bit far to walk to. I tried to look out for the Bowery Ballroom while standing on the corner of Delancy and Bowery, but couldn't see it; turns out it was right in front of me! I'm trying to figure out what "Nolita," the name of the neighborhood right next to SOHO means. All of a sudden I got a phone call saying I got a job! I had to call Christina and home to share the news. Then two brokers whom I hadn't been able to get in touch with all day called me back. It was a great few minutes.

The job seems like a good idea, though I have some time to think about it before I accept. It'd be a great way to get to know the inside of an industry I'm interested in before I convince myself entirely (and perhaps prematurely) that it's the job for me. It pays well -- better than the other, permanent job I'm waiting for -- and the fact that it's temporary means I can keep looking for something better to pick up when it's over, or try my best to work my way into the hearts of my coworkers there with the hope that they'll let me stay on. It also means I may have more time to explore the city at my leisure, as well as look for an apartment full-time, since it doesn't start 'til early November.

I visited Washington Square Park and the NYU vicinity twice today, and enjoyed it both times. It's a little studenty, obviously, and that can be kind of annoying, but the upside is that there's a lot of interesting commerce there, as well as restaurant choices. We ate at a macaroni and cheese restaurant this evening that definitely deserves another visit sometime in the future.

Cooped

That either rhymes with pooped, meaning worn out, or is a play on "co-op," which is where we would have liked to live had the original arrangemet on the UWS worked out. Either way, it doesn't make a lot of sense. But I HAVE been sitting inside at this computer for almost the entire day, looking for apartments and making phone calls to various people (friends, job contacts, landlords and brokers). I think I'm making some headway.

Staying inside all day in this soundproof little cell, it's easy to forget that there's a huge city surging in all directions below me, honking, screaming, swearing, smiling and laughing. I could be anywhere in the world right now: in a hotel room in Fresno, in an air-conditioned office, in an IMAX movie theater playing intensely real footage of me in a New York high rise apartment sitting at a desk and playing with a laptop computer.

Photo credit: Christina

More analogies

Stepping out onto the street in our neighborhood is much like jumping off a branch into the center of a rushing river, whitewater and all. You'll only survive if you give yourself over to the current and move only so slightly as to keep your head above the surface.

More on the "big change" thought from yesterday: maybe it's just what I needed to get moving in the right direction. This throws my whole life, not just my job, into a giant mixer and sloshes it all around. Who knows what'll come out when it's done spinning?

Revelation, or just exhaustion

It's a huge beehive!

Hmmm...and I was thinking sometime this evening about how moving here is a very significant change psychologically and whatever-ally but now I don't know what it was I was getting at. Maybe the thought will recur.

Today's thoughts

I've been here only a few days and already I think I can tell it's the not the kind of place I'd want to live for very long. People here strike me as missing some vital part of their humanity, like they're just overlooking something obvious, or not quite "with it." Then again, yesterday I was imagining that everyone here was in on some big secret I just didn't get because I'm an outsider. Not so much the suited stockbroker types; more the Black women in plantation-era headscarves who seem connected to some wider sense of history that no one else can perceive. But maybe that's just a superficial observation.

My interview today proceeded strangely. I ended up feeling as though it wasn't really an interview at all, more just a 10-minute chit-chat that didn't give me any sort of opportunity to tell the company why I want to work for them and what I'm good at. I felt like I made a big mistake when I told them my goal is to be a writer or editor for a major publication, preferably in arts/culture/music. They immediately launched into an explanation of how the job I'm applying for isn't "tracked" to become a writing or editing position, which I already knew and said so. But what was I supposed to do, say I want to become the best damn photocopier in the world? They're the ones who asked.

I thought a couple days ago that people here were generally very friendly. Well, I haven't experienced any direct unfriendliness myself, but I want to amend that earlier comment: people here can be real assholes to each other. I've witnessed lots of phone conversations on the street that involve one person screaming and cursing at another. When Christina and I were getting my new cell phone at Verizon, one of the employees took a call from her mother and got into a loud and very public argument about how her mother's demanding too much from her and she can't expect to see her daughter all the time. I guess people are used to living some parts of their lives very much in the open here, and figure no one else notices or cares.

I keep thinking I'm going to run into people I know, or even more strangely, people I've seen just the other day. I forget that this city is HUGE and that the likelihood of seeing the same person twice, especially within a couple days, is almost nil...it's sort of "magical thinking," in Joan Didion's words, whose book on the matter I have not read. But then again, I think I did see the same woman pushing a baby stroller twice in a couple days. And I saw Hank Azaria running in Central Park yesterday evening, which doesn't really have anything to do with this train of thought, but is interesting.

Chasing the dream....or just dreaming?

An interview with a storeowner in the front of the Lonely Planet "NYC" describes the city as a place where "you feel that your dreams are just around the corner...that anything is possible" (paraphrased). That's an optimisitic thought, but also, I think, a scary one: how do you know if you're just chasing a will-o-the-wisp? You could end up old and feeble and still thinking your dream is "just around the corner," when really you've spent your whole life following a path you thought would take you there and instead led you down into a gully full of a lot of brambles and mosquitoes, but no dream.

The day that would not die

Today I woke up a little earlier than yesterday and tried to accomplish a lot on Christina's computer in the morning. I think I did, though I can't really remember what it was I accomplished. Then, with no time left to shower, I headed out onto the street to find my way to Brooklyn.

I jumped on the first train I found and ended up at my destination, Prospect Park, an hour and a half later. I got lost a couple times but luckily didn't have any sort of hesitation or shame about pulling out my subway map in public. Once I got stranded at a station without any transfer opportunities and had to make my way overground, through SOHO, to another station, backtracking a bit. I got to see SOHO, though, and all the trendy shops it's lined up in tedious rows on its streets. Lafayette was the street I walked up, I think. From that transfer station I was able to make it a bit closer to my destination, though before I got there I would take a wrong turn into an underground cul-de-sac and have to head back the way I came one stop. It's gonna take me a while to understand the subway maps.

Finally I arrived in Brooklyn and watched the towers of Manhattan recede behind the rise my train was climbing. I saw the tealish gleam of the Statue of Liberty in the distance. I popped out into sunlight at 9th and 7th in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Had some pizza for the second day in a row, though this time I was charged correctly rather than undercharged like the day before, when a slice and a bottle of Gatorade cost $1.50 together! I read the Park Slope Courier but couldn't figure out who wrote the damn thing because I couldn't find the masthead.

I walked up to Prospect Park, admiring the crumbling rowhouses along the way, and not seeing any "For Rent" signs anywhere. The stroll through the park was very nice and felt secluded, unlike Central Park. Eventually I emerged in Prospect Heights, a slightly rougher neighborhood on the north end of the park, and decided I probably don't want to live there. Found a subway station and made my way, slightly more successfully, back to Manhattan, where I did some supplies shopping at Whole Foods and checked out the kids outside the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in Chelsea.

Rest of the day kind of flew by: back to the apartment to shower, then subway to Christina's office to pick her up and go for a stroll in Central Park, then walk to Chanpen Thai Restaurant for dinner with J. Now we're back in the apartment, it's time for bed, and I have an interview tomorrow morning! Woo-hoo!

Things I saw on my walk yesterday

I forgot to mention these things in my entry last night:

--The Random House building. Looks like they're owned by the Bertelssman (sp?) group.
--The Conde Nast building, very near the public library.
--The public library, very near the Conde Nast building. I thought of getting a library card, but they were closed on Monday. Famous stone lions out front.
--I already mentioned the trumpet guy I ran into from my airplane.
--Saw the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in the Upper West Side and thought it had a very interesting name so I remembered to look it up when I got home. Turns out to be a middle school (is that what a Fieldston School is?). Little too late for that.
--Noticed that there are a lot of bad smells one encounters when walking the streets. Sewer and subway grates emit hot, foul odors. I also thought I smelled elephants several times when walking up Central Park West. Maybe horses? But I saw only one, and it would have been too far away to smell. Also caught a strange whiff of something chemical that reminded me of bad breath.
--Must have unwittingly walked right past Mayflower On the Park, a hotel I stayed in with my family several years ago. I'd been looking out for it the entire afternoon because I was sure it was on Central Park West, but I never saw it. Looked it up online and there it was!
--Was going to visit the Lincoln Center but got waylaid by a huge Barnes & Noble that turned out to have nothing I was looking for. All the books I wanted, save one, weren't in. What do they carry, anyway? Then I finally got around to the Lincoln Center, but, like many of the storefronts and buildingfronts I saw yesterday, it was covered in scaffolding and plywood for repairs and there wasn't an obvious entrance.
--Farther along I ran into the outdoor opening gala for Madama Butterfly at whatever huge venue it's playing in. There was a police cavalcade (is that the right word?) escorting someone important to it. Across the street some restaurant workers were picketing because their managers had been skimming off their tips. I read a little more about it in a news article someone was handing out copies of. I'd insert the link here but I can't find the article online.

I came away with some rather indistinct impressions of the city, based on my first day. I'd have a hard time describing them. I got a generally friendly feeling from most people, but most people kept to themselves. People selling stuff on the street and doormen in fancy apartment buildings in the Upper West Side were a little less friendly, but unintimidating. You have to watch out for dog shit wherever you step, and from the looks of it, a lot of people don't watch out well enough. There are lots of kids and lots of schools. Central Park seems to be a nice place to hang out. Streets are always packed, especially Midtown.

My first day

I spent the day walking all the way up to R.'s place to see what the neighborhood was like. Very nice, though not obscenely swank; there were some nonwhite people there but most were pushing white kids in strollers. Lots and lots of synagogues and Jewish community centers. I saw a Unitarian church, too. I walked in Central Park for a bit and then dropped in on various apartment buildings to ask the doormen if they knew of any available units. All just referred me to the management companies. In all, I walked about 10 miles today! I got back at around 7pm, lagging behind Christina by only a few minutes.

We just ate a late dinner in the apartment, stuff Christina had in the fridge, and tomorrow I'll go shopping at Whole Foods for more groceries. Christina is encouraging me to have them deliver but I think I'll just walk back with them. Then maybe I'll take the subway to Brooklyn and see what those neighborhoods are like.

A strange thing: in Oakland Airport yesterday, in the departure lounge for my flight, a funny and gregarious African-American guy stopped me and asked me if I play trumpet (I was carrying my case). He was loud and oddly dressed and the kind of guy reserved people steer clear of in public situations and glance at out of the corners of their eyes, but I chatted with him about playing for a few minutes and then we ended the conversation. Today, walking up Broadway, I ran into him again! He remembered me and wrote it up to some kind of divine providence. He was with two friends, a younger girl and a middle-aged, well-to-do-looking guy in a business suit, and when I told them I was looking for an apartment, the business suit guy gave me his number and e-mail. He said he owns rental property but that he wouldn't have anything available for a couple months. Funny story, even if nothing comes of it.

I'm here!

Hi! Arrived at about 3:30pm yesterday and took me about an hour or a
bit more to make it to Christina's apartment. It's very fancy but the
apartment is rather small. Kinda feels like a hotel room but it's
very slick and modern. We had dinner last night at a restaurant
called "Artisanal" which is a cheese-oriented place just a couple
blocks' walk from her front door. I had fondue! They had a couple
Cowgirl cheeses on their extensive cheese list.

Christina left at about 8am this morning for work and I slept in 'til
10. I'll go out today to walk around, maybe try to take the subway,
and look for "For Rent" signs in apartment buildlings in the areas
we're interested in (not sure what those are yet, though). Trying not
to feel too overwhelmed with the things I have to do (find apartment,
get a job) AND get my bearings in this huge city. I'm a little
concerned about finding an apartment without a job, because apparently
some places require a steady income in order to rent.

This is kind of a test post -- more later!