NYC Thoughts from the Left-Coasted Brain

Don't Look Down

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Fri, 01 May 2009 04:46:00 +0000

After escaping the impossibly tall skyscrapers of midtown, this year I relocated (professionally) to the East Village. Every morning I pass the same dry cleaner(s), coffee shop, weird pashmina store & the infamous Beauty Bar. It only took me about 3 months with this routine to realize I only ever look at the same dry cleaner(s), coffee shop, weird pashmina store & the infamous Beauty Bar. Despite having moved onto greener (or at least shorter) building pastures, I'm missing everything above eye level.

Visiting New York is an architectural delight. Each borough, neighborhood & building has its own unique, detailed character and living history. Residing in New York, however, leads one to see the neon signs on the first floor and the black trash bags on the corner. Somehow, in this city of always looking ahead, we forget to look up.

now with 75% more better!

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:49:00 +0000

A kindly friend just tried to post encouraging comments for me based on my last post. She didn't notice, however, that it was written almost one year ago. Shame on me. I think the reason I stopped "blogging" (if you will...oh, I will) is for the most part, I stopped struggling.

Once I stopped getting coffee for executives while researching food stamp options on the side, I thought I had nothing left to write about. As it turns out, the journey really is as important as the destination, but, as another kindly friend pointed out, there's a lot of meat in what happens in living (not just struggling toward) that good 'ol American dream.

So, with that (and with my new & improved life & general outlook) I renew my vows to you Mister Blog.

Ladders...and lots of Shoots

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 02:41:00 +0000

I can't remember how often friends and strangers have quoted Sinatra's famed line: "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere". In fact, I've heard it so many times, anywhere is starting to sound pretty damn good. One of the problems with "making it" in New York is that progress is almost unmeasurable.

Not only will you constantly be trumped by the inevitable advantages of the rich and famous (nepotism, plastic surgery, whatever you want to call it), but the standards are ever changing. Brooklyn is the new Manhattan, heels are out and flats are in, hell, riding the subway might even become cool now that you have to make over 30k a year to afford it.

Making it here is like baking a cake in a vortex. You think you have a simple recipe requiring only time and elbow grease, but when you look back to check the measurements, the rules have completely changed, the oven temperature is too hot and you brought the wrong ingredients!

When I moved to NYC, I brought my "A" game; an applicable degree from one of the best Journalism schools in the country, the humbleness required to sleep on the floor of a shit-hole apartment for the first 6 months and enough willpower to get me through a few years acting as head footstool in a variety of media companies. I'm starting to think that, in spite of Sinatra's mantra, I brought the wrong ingredients.

The worst part is, I don't know what I'm missing. I may need to reserve a spot on the train to anywhere...

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Growing up, or something like it

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 15:22:00 +0000

This month, I celebrate my two year anniversary in NYC. When I first moved here, the 2 year mark was my arbitrary goal. If I made it for 2 whole years, I'd consider the experiment a success. Well, here I am almost 25, employed at the Cadillac of publishing companies and fully supporting myself. I'd say that's pretty damn good.

Something strange has happened though. Call it age, call it hormones...call it scary. The idea of doing certain 'grown up' things that used to, for lack of a better phrase, freak me out, now seems normal. When I walk around my neighborhood and see a little brick house, I think, hey I might like to have one of those. The idea of living with someone of the partner variety doesn't send me running for the hills either. Don't get me wrong, I still loathe children or at least the idea of them coming out of me, so that may never happen, but something has changed.

So. Two years in New York...I went from a cardboard box dresser to wanting to buy a house (presumably not made of cardboard). Maybe someday I will really be all grown up.

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Emily and Katie made me do it

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:24:00 +0000

Tourist for Life

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 22:54:00 +0000

This morning I had the distinct privilege of riding the B express train from Park Slope to Midtown. Aside from being an express train (the only way to fly), the B travels up and over the Manhattan Bridge, rising out of its tunnel like the sun rising over the East River. To the left is a close up view of the Brooklyn Bridge, its cables suspended over the water, dangerously assembled in a day before cars, let alone trains, were imagined to cross bridges.

While I craned my neck, shifting it into abstract arrangements in order to see this bridge out the window, I couldn't help but look at my other passengers, so calm and self-contained. There were readers, sleepers and daydreamers. They were so wrapped up in their own lives, schedules and thoughts (or working hard to escape them through novels), they didn't even SEE the Brooklyn Bridge, the sunlight dancing on the river or the captivating contrast of sprawling Chinatown graffiti pushed up against the perfectly polished financial district. I've been in NYC for almost two years and these scenes still grip me, still fill me with the kind of awe only an outsider can experience.

If it means I'll never be a New Yorker, so be it.
I don't want to miss this.

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To Be or Not to NYC

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 04:27:00 +0000

One truth I've discovered over the last year and a half: living in NY is a constant battle. The struggle, however, is no longer over resources, space, housing. It's over a dilemma. The dilemma. To be or not to NYC?

On any given day or night you can have anything you want: art, music, theater or socializing, dancing, sex. This city is the bona fide buffet which dictates guilt and remorse the times you opt out of the 'all you can eat'. At least this is what it looks like to an outsider. Yes NY boasts more options than you can shake a fork at, but for those of us who actually live here, the city is more than a free-for-all playground.

Sometimes it's 50 hour weeks in midtown, 20 degree walks to the laundromat on a Sunday morning and hour long subway rides because a cab just costs too damn much. Other times it's pure exhaustion, emotional damage or regret from poor decisions. Grocery shopping, lunch making, snow shoveling, bill paying. Just like anyone else, anywhere else, real life runs right along side all we have and do here.

Because of this, I've recently struggled with my decision on the nights I choose to stay home. Do I deserve my peace and quiet? Yes. Is it good to have some down time? Of course! But, even after rationalizing it here before god and all my (3) readers, I'm going to defy myself and start hitting the town. This bastion of culture and commerce is worth a little fatigue.

We may be running ourselves into the ground, but at least we're running the world.

Andy Sachs:
"But what if this isn't what I want? I mean what if I don't wanna live the way you live?"
Miranda Priestly:
"Oh, don't be ridiculous. Andrea. Everybody wants this. Everybody wants to be us. "

--The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

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Brooklyn, baby

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 06:07:00 +0000

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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The Pod People

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 03:25:00 +0000

I bought an iPod right before moving to New York with the intention of using it the way you might turn a fan on to soothe a baby to sleep (ok...so I still sleep with a fan, but whatever). I considered it a valid expense because I needed something to help me transition from a pastoral aural landscape to grinding, squealing and whining. Well, transition it did, but the iPod also did something else that I couldn't put my finger on. It made the lights brighter, the cabs faster and the romance stronger. Finally, the other afternoon, my colleague called it: "When I have my headphones in, walking through New York City, it's like I'm the star of a movie".

The pod is not just a place to escape or dampen the bad noises; it's my own personal soundtrack.

Happy Halloweiner

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 01:02:00 +0000

Halloween, New York City, Greenwich Village. You'll have to see it to believe it. And you can see it. All of it. Any of it that you want, because Halloween is All Sluts Eve. Drag queens with no pants, straight women playing out the risque version of every fairytale, woodland or otherwise affiliated creature known to man (or she-man) come out of the brickwork and literally parade up Sixth Avenue.

I had to think though, while watching the exhibition, that it wasn't that far off from the everyday. It seems that each of us in NY, including me, is a bigger-than-life version of what we want to be or who we think we are. The village has its year-round parade of the out and proud, midtown has it's stilettos & Prada and the "starving artists" in Brooklyn want to starve just a little bit more than the artists in, say, Seattle. The 'greatest city on earth' seems to inspire us all to be greater or lesser, richer or poorer, straighter or gayer than the rest of the world. We all want to shroud ourselves in the label of what we want to be, regardless of where we came from or what's underneath. Each of us has something to prove, sometimes to our parents, our bosses, our siblings, but always, always to ourselves.

One of the float emcees last night, in sequins and headdress, screamed out "If you're not in costume, you don't belong in New York City!"

How true.

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Fashion...rocks?

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 13:27:00 +0000

The phrase "Fashion Rocks" is not one that graced my lips before this fall. The idea was more of an oxymoron than anything else. As a former Sociology/Journalism student from the University of Liberals, "fashion" usually conjured up wafer thin CK models from the 90s or flashbacks of ill-fated Dr. 90201 re-runs. But, like Kate Moss to a pile of coke, I was sucked in to Fashion Rocks by the promise of a free, celebrity-studded concert at Radio City Music Hall and, even more tempting, passes to the after party.
Ok. So I'm shallow.

The show was about 4 hours long and I got a seat close enough to see the creases in Adam Levine's pants (which were also shallow). There we all were: Aerosmith, Fergie, Tommy Hilfiger, J-Lo. It was, against my will, a thrill.

At the after party, dancing my way across a packed Rainbow Room at 1am, sipping a Belvedere & tonic, soaking in lights twinkling through the water around Manhattan, I grabbed onto a piece of what everyone comes to New York City to find: glitz, glamor, sparkle, perfection, magic.

At that moment I felt that, if only for one night, I had made it.

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Rest in Peace

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 01:34:00 +0000

Last summer I came to New York with a healthy dose of curiosity and a wanton song in my heart. To my surprise, I found someone worth forsaking the choir for. A charming, chivalrous Jewish boy from Connecticut. The picture of East Coast thorough breeding (tennis racket included!), he charmed me with his strange, contrasting blend of cuff link professionalism and child-like wonder.

This Friday night left me alone, in the middle of Times Square, digesting a street meat hot dog and the remnants of our one year relationship. It received a proper burial (not the hot dog) with all the trimmings. A decent amount of crying, the inability of either of us to yet remove my toothbrush from its weekend spot and the follow up call the next day.

Just as with any ceremony, I began to bury the things I had as well as the things I will never have.

Give me a break; I'll be funny next time.

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Di-Annie Get Your Gun

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 15:30:00 +0000

This morning, in dream land, I toured a one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn: it was absolute heaven. My subconscious arranged everything in the apartment as I would have: library-sized bookcases with a classic rolling ladder, massive granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances, shiny hardwood floors and, even more rare in NYC, a little patch of grass to call my own.

Assuming my dreams also provided a wallet the size of the hoover damn, yearning to burst and spew twenties all over the floor of this mini palace, everything was in order. I only had one question: "So what is the neighborhood like?"

With the almost-comic, matter-of-fact enthusiasm only a New York broker can muster (usually while telling you it's a good thing your apartment has one window and no closet), she said: "That's what the shot gun is for".

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Enough Already

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 14:50:00 +0000

According to my most trusted source, Facebook, about 20% of my friends are either engaged or married. This calls for the definitive acronym of my generation:

wtf?

No one I really know on Facebook is over 25. How then can they all be getting hitched? Have I become so "citified" that I think everyone has to get married at 40 and pump themselves full of fertility drugs to have their first baby at 50?

Am I going to be the childless, lonely, (though rich) woman in the back of the room at my high school reunion in head-to-toe prada pushing around an IV of Grey Goose? If so, I'm half way there.

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I HAD a Dream

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 04:27:00 +0000

An Oregon native is ever the optimist about racial differences. A land of diversity and tolerance, the west coast breeds the belief that we really are all equal, that our only differences are the privileges with which we are born and that every group in our country can be educated, trained and set free in this capitalist playground, if only we had the resources.

Living in NYC has put a whole new spin on my feelings about diversity. In Oregon it was so free and easy to talk about equality, rights, access (and beyond!) when everyone within 100 miles was white and middle class. Those that weren't white had been swallowed up by a small town and had thus had their ethnic identity, lingo and habits absorbed right out of them.

In NY, with it's tiny--though very divided--neighborhoods, most groups have not only preserved their identities, but amplified them. A long time city girl and former Oregonian once told me: "In the city it's hard to be open minded about ethnic groups because, for some reason, they live out their worst stereotypes; black men hit their wives, Dominicans sit on their stoops all day, Asians are unsanitary. The longer you live here, the more racist you'll become."

At the time, slightly horrified, I brushed this off as yet another racist comment from someone outside the superior (and yet ironically equal) Oregon bubble, but I'm starting to see what she meant. After just a year of living here, I've seen enough from various groups to start feeling the kind of discrimination I thought only existed at a Republican rally. I've succumbed to the temptation to block out fights in the street, hold contempt for beggars, turn my nose up at the fried chicken stalls of Harlem and below-health-code nail salons of China Town.

Short of being born male, I've been given the most classic set of advantages in the US and, like those before me I used to criticize, I'm starting to forget I even have them.
If everyone in NYC becomes the worst version of themselves, then I'm now the over-privileged, well-educated, skinny, white, blond girl who looks down on anyone who isn’t the same.

What happened to me?

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Welcome to Hell

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:51:00 +0000

That's right--it's time ONCE AGAIN to look for an apartment/closet/dumpster on the NYC housing market! Let's get excited to see the parade of shit that will soon pass through my blog.

Kappa Kappa Canine

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 17:09:00 +0000

For whatever reason, I signed up to receive "daily candy". I think it may have been the peer pressure or the idea that this did in fact involve candy. I've been sorely disappointed. However, I do sometimes enjoy browsing through their ludicrous offerings: "blah blah designer's shoes, reduced from $2,000 to $1,200!" Oh good. That will really get me in there.

Today brought an even better deal: "rent a pet in NYC!". That's right, for a small fee (monthly membership Fee of $49.95, annual account charge of $99.95 & weekend dog $39.95 or week day dog $24.95, plus applicable sales tax) , you can have a doggie friend at your side in Central Park, out in the Hamptons or just on your couch watching the game. Just like ZipCar, these fees go to dog tune ups 4 times per year and a built in GPS system in case you can't keep hold of a dog you just paid $200 to hang out with.

I understand the concept behind this business, but if I planned to purchase my friends I would have just joined a sorority. Too late now; I guess I'm stuck with the retriever blonds instead.

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A better stage

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 16:28:00 +0000

This is horrible. I need to either become more of a geek (very quickly) or dupe someone into making me a really awesome blog template. I've been switching every other day and I'm just not happy. And when I'm not happy, well, no one really cares.
But I care.

So for now, until I can find a solution, my huge fan base (3) and I are stuck with "Tic Tack".
If you can't stand it either, send me the most awesome html ever made. I don't care if you have to lie, steal or kill to get it.

I mean, this is my narcissism that's at stake here.

(The) Sticks or Stones?

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 04:32:00 +0000

I packed up the lightest, most subway-friendly suitcase I have yesterday and headed out west. And no, I'm not talking about Jersey. I am all the way west to the kind of exotic place you might think has never seen a small pox vaccination, let alone the inside of a yellow cab: Portland, OR, Home to hippies, Davy Crockett wannabees and lots of lesbians. While a faux coon skin cap might suffice for all of these subcultures, I never thought I looked very fetching in vermin wear. This could have something to do with why I went to the other side of the country. While I love a quick nature hike as much as the next girl, I'm not exactly the poster child for living in simplicity.

Thus begin the conflicts and comparisons.

"Well they don't even have trees in New York, so you must be happy to see them"..."When you move home the grandkids can come and visit"... "Why don't you come back so you can live with your best friend, she needs a roommate"...etc. My parents are surprisingly understanding and their comments only slip out occasionally; most of these are from a mixture of those I've left behind who, for westerners who've probably never tasted proper bagels & lox, have really nailed that Jewish guilt thing.

Despite their complaints and my attempts to placate them, I will ultimately have to make a choice. Even with my fondness for magazine publishing, this isn't Town & Country, this is Town OR Country and it's only a matter of time.

What's your name again?

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 14:14:00 +0000

Ok. So maybe I knew it was her birthday this week. Maybe she might have mentioned it at some point last week over, like, the one dinner we've had together in 9 months of cohabitation. Maybe I thought, momentarily, to get her something to commemorate it, but when you say "hi, good morning, how are you?" about twice a week to someone, it's not that hard to let the day they came into being slip out of your mind.

My apartment is definitely not off the scene of "Friends" as I'm sure most of my west coast dwelling acquaintances must think (somehow since I moved to NYC, I've become rave queen, sex goddess and "The Apprentice" style executive in the minds of some of my former Oregonians...obviously I don't plan on correcting the sex goddess part). But this is so not the set of Friends that we don't even have a living room. We don't eat together, we don't watch the news, we rarely have more than a brief exchange on the 3 or 4 mornings a week I care to stay at my own apartment.

Having a roommate is the most necessary, inescapable evil of the NY experience. Even in the humble boroughs, I have no choice but to share space (where's my fancy "Apprentice" salary now?!) and to share it with a stranger, no less. But when you share the bathroom, the fridge and a set of keys that guard your most personal space, where else should you extend or deny that intimacy?

This morning she was slicing into what looked like a hardly-eaten summer torte from whole foods while I dumbly joked: "oh is that your breakfast?".
"No, it's my birthday cake".

Oops.

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The best shirt ever made

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 23:03:00 +0000

I can't believe I don't own this yet.
Coming soon to my torso near you.

Contra Fund, indeed

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 19:30:00 +0000

At the tender age of 23, the big moment has finally arrived. If paying my own rent, settling up college debt and and working a 9-5 (or six...or six thirty) hasn't turned me into an adult, this development will surely scare away the last shards of financial virginity: It's time to plan for retirement.

The fact that I had to look up the definition of a 401(k) should indicate my level of experience in this matter (the name comes from a section of the 1978 Internal Revenue Code, in case you were curious), but I've been doing my homework. My choices are: big oil money, child labor or other popular, anonymous crimes. One of the choices I like, the "contra fund", seeks to invest in undervalued stocks which are anticipated to perform beyond their current expectations. I think all of us can relate to that feeling. I also have a thing for the contra fund because the name itself reflects how I feel about investing.

I went to one of the most liberal-of-the-liberal arts schools you can find in order to get a better eduction than my parents and their parents before them. Part of this 'advancement of the generations', in fact a lot of it, is for monetary gain and security. So, what this cruel and confusing world wants me to do is study worldwide social injustice for five years and then walk away with a piece of paper that will earn me a job offering the "benefit" of investing in those injustices.

Awesome.

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Face-off Book

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 01:25:00 +0000

Online community participation is at an all-time high & privacy is at an all time low. A year ago, employees complained that their bosses (or would-have-been bosses) were "spying" on them through social networking sites and, now that they are becoming more & more accessible to people in all demographics, they--we--are inviting those formerly untouchable big wigs into our circle of "friends". Does this new found closeness with the higher ups mean a more-comfortable, more-human experience at work or is it yet another way to let big brother in?

I told my boss recently that he ruined Facebook for me as an ever-evolving part of my job focuses on what one of my friends calls "My Face or Space Book". However, HE didn't ruin Facebook for me because he isn't in the category of those I wish to keep at bay. If you have human supervisors with interesting lives and a sense of humor, they might be a welcome addition to your 'space'. If not, they become the enemy.

So I guess the problem with open social networks is that it is difficult to let in the people you want to grow closer to and push out those you don't. This has been and will always be true of any 'network' of people whether in my space, cyber space or outer space.

The Asphalt is Always Greyer

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Sun, 13 May 2007 17:52:00 +0000

Having my friend Kari visit from home last week immediately opened my eyes to what I've missed for the past year: the beauty of New York City---the reason I came.

Self pity dictates that, for the last year, I haven't been able to live a "glamorous NY lifestyle"--but compared to my old life, that's not true. Parties, clubs, museums, Google, Food Network, 1010 WINS and now CondeNast...When I take inventory of what I've experienced in just 11 months, it's baffling. Watching Kari's face light up in the lobby of Grand Central, seeing her awe in Times Square and her tears on a sunset cruise around the island shamed me. While I certainly can't continue to drop the time and money I did when she visited, I still have so many resources at my fingertips.

Almost everyone from my graduating class at the journalism school wanted to come to NYC & I'm one of the handful that did it. They will probably always see my life as more exciting and I will always see theirs as more comfortable. But, just as they can't compare their lives (on the semi-rural west coast) to mine, I can't compare mine (at the start of adult life) to the upper ranks of Manhattan.

Even as I recognize my position and my privileged life, I have to wonder if the grass really will always be greener on the other side, even when you get to live in New York City.

"When I go to farms or little towns, I am always surprised at the discontent I find. And New York, too often, has looked across the sea toward Europe. And all of us who turn our eyes away from what we have are missing life. "
Norman Rockwell

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Monoga-me?

noreply@blogger.com (Diana) — Wed, 02 May 2007 12:00:00 +0000

There are 8 million people in this city, but there aren't 4 million couples.

Gay or straight, young or old, it seems like every time you turn around, someone is getting divorced, getting separated or sleeping with a strangely-related other (the son of that publisher who used to be married to the woman next door who used to go out with a woman who works in my building...etc.). I know happily-married or happily-partnered people exist in New York, but they seem few and far between.

In suburban living, a 'normal' couple has a (hopefully) long marriage, 2 kids, a dog, a minivan to carry the kids & dog and a house to store it all. In the city, a 'normal' couple has a short marriage, 1 kid (who's pre-school education costs more than a luxury SUV), a tiny dog that someone else walks, a Metro Card & an apartment with a park view instead of a backyard. Is it possible that in a place where you don't have the space for a white picket fence, you also don't have the same aspirations for, or definition of, a blissful home life?

And do some women living in NYC (with high-powered careers and $500 shoes you would never dream of getting near a sticky child) really have more to live for than the average housewife or do we trick ourselves into believing we don't want the 'stats quo' because it is so very difficult to maintain?
Whatever the reason, New York seems to bread infidelity and discontent. "Home" life here makes me think twice about tying one on in the kitchen instead of at the bar with the other working girls.

At least I know my job isn't going to ask for a prenump; At-will termination is a much less messy affair.

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