So, I'm hopping on another plane and flying to another coast again. Thursday morning. As in a couple days ago. I'm going to New York - a quick decision that I made on this past Thursday. Greener pastures and such. I bought the plane ticket before I had time to second guess myself. It's happening without nearly as much ceremony or crazy anxiety as my move to Portland, which is a good thing. My nerves would not be able to stand up to that whole experience of panicking and crying and freaking out again.
NEW YORK CITY! I am excited beyond words. I can't wait to meet Ryan Adams and sweep him off his feet.
It is 10:50 pm as I write this, and I'm sitting in my basement room nursing a burly hangover. Hungover?! at 11:00 pm?! Yes, indeed. Last night The Native of the New Dawn came through Portland on their tour. After watching them play their brief set (they're supporting the band Fishbone) we headed to a bar to have a going away get together in honor of my impending deaparture. Eventually Tom (drummer of the natives, old friend, and generally the rowdiest man alive) met up with us. We got kicked out of the bar, and while everyone else drove home in a car, Tom and I picked up an 18 pack of PBR and biked home. Biking and carrying an 18 pack are mututally exclusive - meaning that they are two things that cannot occur at the same time and have no common outcomes. The chain fell off my bike and I couldn't get it back on, so we had to walk our bikes. And I got us a teensy bit lost, which is unbelievable now that I'm looking back on it, because we were so close to home.
Once Tom and I finally made it back home, everyone had gone to bed. The Natives pulled up in their van, all of them already asleep save for the driver. Vince (MC of the Natives, new friend, and general sage-like guy) sat on my porch with Tom and I for a bit, whereupon Tom passed out. I fetched a red sharpie, and giggled while Vince drew on all of Tom's exposed skin. Creepiest place to draw on someone while they sleep: their eyelids.
So Tom snored, and Vince and I talked. We smoked cigarettes, we drank some beers, and we just talked. And it was amazing to have that experience, to sit with a stranger on wide porch and have a real conversation. And you can have conversations in those late hours that you can't have at any other time during the day. Because the world is asleep, there are no potential interruptions... it's this totally focused situation and all that matters in those moments is listening and speaking and learning about this other person. He had so much to say and he's lived so much life. And everything he said entwined in ths ribbon of serious heart and warmth, because he's a poet, he translates thoughts and feelings into beautiful rhymes and verses. He kept my feet warm and he really listened to what I had to say. And then the sun was rising, my housemates all woke up to start their days, and the loveliness of that one-on-one experience sort of evaporated in the sunlight and the company of 6 other people. And there I was, drunk at 9:00 in the morning. I went to sleep around 11:00, right around the same time that the Natives rolled on to Seattle.
It's rare to connect with somebody like that. To just take a night and spend it with a new person and know that for a few hours you opened up and were entirely yourself, unabashedly. Or maybe it's not rare. But it's rare for me. So it was a good night. A great night.
I'm left with a few parting questions, to be broadcast out in to the universe:
1. If I got so lost in the streets of Portland last night in a neighborhood that I'm actually pretty familiar with, how am I going to make my way in NYC?
2. How am I going to make my way in NYC at all?
3. Where, oh where will I find the energy to pack all of my belongings up?
4. Why do I find myself needing to finish watching "Undiscovered" online when itis one of the worst movies I have ever seen? Am I really that hard up for means of procrastination?
5. Would it be cruel of me to adopt a tiny dog in NYC and then keep it in my apartment while I'm at work all day? I think that it probably would be, but is it possible that my enormous love for it would make up for that cruelty?
That is all.
1 comment:
Items 1,2 &5
1) NYC is on a grid. And therefore easy as pie to navigate. With the exclusion of fun nonsensical places. Brooklyn(my father's birthplace), Bronx(my father's early adulthood) and Queens(my childhood). Navigation in those boroughs is an acquired talent best handled by trained humans or pigeons.
2) NYC is easy to survive in if you have a quarter of a brain or more. Talk. Be friendly. And when that fails, don't be friendly - act holier than thou. People will feel like they have the need to get your approval. Above all 'act'. And remember everyone else is acting too.
5) Good luck finding an apartment ok with dogs. And if you do, don't leave one alone for too long. S'mean.
Other news: Hello, and thank you for reading my blog. I've enjoyed reading yours as well.
Best,
M
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