Brooklyn, baby

Friday night I sped out of Manhattan, into unexplored territory: Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I'd heard enough about the scene to expect a latte foam frenzy of hipster hipness, but all the chatter in the world couldn't have prepared me for what I was to find: Williamsburg is exactly like Eugene, Oregon, but with money.

It boasts the same mix of gender-bending grungy prep that makes you want to throw a Banana Republic skirt over a pair of ripped up no name jeans. Williamsburg also forced my hand up to my forehead to frantically try and reshape my Manhattan side sweep to the Brooklyn emo bang: straight down and hanging in your eyes just enough to make them constantly water. You suffer for the cause.

I went to a tiny bar overflowing like a cookie jar, spilling mixed nuts into the street. I danced/wedged my way to the back where, after 3 glasses of my signature elixer (vodka/tonic, extra lime) and enough pumk/emo/rock bopping to put BK to shame, I started to settle in. The funny thing about the boroughs is they each work so hard to define themselves as individuals no normal individual could ever really fit into just one of them. When I'm in Manhattan, I'm too poor. In Brooklyn I'm not quite smart enough (no I cannot discuss Nietzsche with you). In the Bronx I'm too white and Staten Island, well, like most New Yorkers, I have no reason to be there.

In NYC you find, due to these literal little islands, neighborhoods and even streets, you either struggle to fit in everywhere or decide to fit in nowhere and glean what you can while you're there.

I'm going to live it up.



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