The Things They Carried

Day 23

A deluge of duffel bagged visitors has side tracked me from my duty of informing strangers about my move to New York. Quelle triste. However, like the gay black buddhist vegetarian male Carrie Bradshaw that I strive to be (just kidding), I will be back to blah-blah-blog about the Yankees, thongs, Staten Island, visitors, Phantom of the Opera, black outs, and more in two shakes of a lambs tail.

The Beautiful Room is Empty

Day 16

 There is a business man in Brooklyn who is walking down the street who is touching himself, hands down the pants, elbow deep. And he’s not just readjusting, he is going at it full throttle, and no one else is phased by this. I know this because I went to Brooklyn yesterday, unintentionally, when I became absorbed in a book I was reading and accidentally took the 1 train much much past my street. I’m pretty sure the universe is pulling me towards Brooklyn, each day there is a more clear sign, and the idea of centering myself here in New York is an appealing one. Over the weekend at the Nu Yorican poetry slam, which was awesome, the dominant part of the crowd was from Brooklyn, and none of them seemed to be touching themselves. Hmm. However, the cafe did help re-establish my purposes for coming here, or at least re-affirm them. With all the people and traffic and freedom to get away with anything (including public urination, read on) it is easy to forget why you’re here. After a delicious dinner and a French Toast Ale (soooo good) or two at a local brewery, a friend and I rushed off to catch the opening round of the poetry slam. While hailing a cab my friend could not stop freaking out, about being late for the slam and missing a poem and disappointing our friends who would already be there and about if we left a big enough tip at the brewery and if we had enough cash for the taxi and everything in between. Finally, as we sat in the back of the surprisingly clean taxi, I was able to calm him down. He just hailed his first taxi in Manhattan, polished off some top-drawer fish ‘n chips, washed it down with a local draft, and is now comfortably whisking through traffic to watch a friend win a poetry contest at a well known cafe… It doesn’t get any more real than that. From Bummblefuck, Kentucky, he’s made it here. Everyone needs a little reality check sometimes.

Then again, I lie. A lot. Life is like a poker game, and I’ve been called on a bluff or two in my time. Not that it won’t keep me from doing it again, but I’m more conservative about it, and I’m getting rid of most of my tells. My friend PokerJew, however, is not quite at good at the life skill of bluffing. He met a girl over the weekend and (mindlessly) decided to introduce himself as a 23 year old graduate who works for Spark, instead of a 20 year old who interns for Spark. Mind you, he goes to a great school and has a prestigious internship, so lying was probably a bad choice. Regardless, this girl threw in her chips and they got to chatting- she’s 25 and working at her dad’s company. …Or at least that was her bluff. After the flop, it appears that both of them are about to call… that is, without the poker metaphore, she’s about to realize he is actually 20 and he’s already discovered that she is a fairly wealthy Greek shipping heiress. …My, how we play our hands close to our chest before the reveal. He’s looked her up on Forbes, and is now trying to take her out on a classy date. She thinks he’s 23, but when his ID doesn’t get him into a swanky joint (or bluff-friendly dive bar), he’s going to have a little ’splaining to do.

See, poker is a spectator sport. People watching on Broadway is practically as good as seeing a play. Only with more gratifying tears.

 As if all of these little episodes haven’t convinced me that (one) Brooklyn is pretty ok, afterall, and (two) that I should keep my focus while in Manhattan, a day spent enjoying a street fair followed by a night trip to Chinatown helped reinforce the ideas. I polished off some sesame noodles and began talking with a friend who’s done a lot of bizarre video work (like shooting under-water births and scoring them to original music). It seems my friend who’s spent time professionally capturing life (in aquatics) has had the same problem I have of keeping focused with all these damn tasty distractions. Steve Zizzou and I walked through Little Italy and gorged on gelato as we discussed on honest passion for media, for success, for moving to a city and really making something of ourselves. We made jokes about where we would be in 10 years, her having been deported and making documentaries from Columbia, me drinking and pill-popping my days away, a la Valley of the Dolls, under the roof of a much wealthier and older man. But it was in jest, as we both knew we were digging our heels into this island, or at least our dreams for it. But achievement and debauchary don’t have to be mutually exclusive, success can come along with spoonfulls of gelato and poetry on Saturday nights, it can be balanced with trains in Brooklyn and noodles in Chinatown, but it does depend on personal resolution. I think I’ve already reached the point in my summer where I can say I’ve become resolute. I’ll be staying in New York, dating and eating and drinking and working and job searching and drinking and apartment hunting and talking and watching and drinking- whether I have everything else in place or not. I will be here.

Inspired by our gelato and resolution that we bought in Little Italy, we decided to further indulge our international appetites and make the night a little Irish. And Russian. And Mexican. And whatever rum is… Pirate. It was a multicultural buffet. As we wander-stumbled back to our apartment the feeling of our earlier conversation combined with our current drinks converged, and we couldn’t have been more full of life. At least it felt like life… it was actually pee, though. I’m told those get confused a lot. Next thing I know I am so full of life that I think I’m about to die, so I find a conveniently dark street and pretend I’m camping. Only then I realize, this is not that dark of a street. Suddenly there are people walking towards me, as I’m one handedly attempting to desaturate my body, and enough sobriety kicks in to provide shame. At this point it’s too late to cut off the stream (it stings, bitches) and I’m too embarassed to just stand in front of on-coming foot traffic, so I walk behind a car and continue to walk behind it as people come closer. However, walking around the car quickly means being in the street, and next thing I know I’m draining life all over on-coming taxis. I zipped so fast I nearly hung myself.

After all of that time spent being appauled about the nonchallance everyone had about the Brooklyn stroker, I find the shoe is now on the other foot. Or that the hand is on the other… yeah. The point being, perhaps settling into New York means learning to (one) focus, (two) suspend some judgement, and (three) go to the bathroom before walking 20 some blocks.

Still, after giving a pep talk in the taxi on Friday on the way to poetry, and a prolonged drink-fueled pep talk on Saturday night, I was pumped about everything New York had to offer. On Monday I made more advances at work (already discussing possible long term employment) and got a great set of interviews lined up at various media firms in the city. Hooray! On the way home I was able to talk with Dr Mario, my longtime friend and roommate who is still residing in Bummblefuck, Ohio, to finish up a vary impressive pharmacy degree and play video games. Considering we’ve been close friends for just short of a decade (even though he consistently makes better decisions than I do), his seperation anxiety has been lower than I expected it to be. Upon returning from Europe he waited almost a day before calling me. I walked home from work and chatted with him for quite some time before I had to (unfortunately) cut our conversation short. Promising to call back one of my favorite friends, I hung up to field a text from Mary Jane (one of my new favorites), who wanted to have dinner and a bottle of white at a nearby Indian restaurant. The food was overpriced, but light, and the sub-par coffee kept me from having too many glasses before settling down for the night. But if we didn’t get our moneys-worth in tastiness, we definitely did in atmosphere; it’s hard to be upset with spacious seating on an open verandana on a highly trafficked street. I’m glad she suggested the place.

I was even more pleased to discover Mary Jane hadn’t suggested the place at all. Instead, Cute Clerk had mentioned to her that she visit this location to avoid getting rained on (which we did, fortunately). Upon returning to our place I was suprised to see Cute Clerk working on a Monday (he only works Sundays, as I’ve dutifully noticed), but thanked him for his Monday dinner recommendation. It turns out Cute Clerk has a name of his own. He also has a phone number. Both are currently saved in my phone (just saving one of them wouldn’t be useful). Considering the gay learning curve isn’t always kind to those of us who didn’t date for four years (I lived in Bummblefuck, after all), I’m surprised how quickly the learning curve can be conquered. I suppose conquering a curve is easier if you’re bent.

Another strong day at work and it seems like everything is falling into place for a little while. Nothing is settled, but it is falling. Work is going well, interviews are lined up, phone numbers are saved, friends are being made, and I already had dinner plans for the night- dinner and casual conversations with a few sales people at a major computer company that’s expanding into television… I’m not feeling creative so we’ll just call them Goodle. At any rate, the conversation at Boogel couldn’t've been more interesting, and when they loaded us with free Clif bars and walked us past they’re ball pit (yes, the employee break room has a ball pit), I was pretty convinced that my re-found sense of purpose and resolution in the city could lead to my own personal ball pit o’ success someday (or at least the money to afford my own Clif bars). Building a professional life and a social life here can’t be that hard.

Walking past the ball pit I decided to check my phone. Last call- Cute Clerk, which means I didn’t miss any during dinner. But the call before that- Dr Mario. I never called him back! I was so busy with my over-priced Indian ambiance dinners and Goodle visits and Cute Clerks that I couldn’t even remember we had talked …My first pangs of New York guilt. Worse, Goodle guilt. I should’ve called. A reluctant wunderkind can apply himself at work and achieve wildly, but keeping friends to play with in the ball pit of success isn’t so easy.

[in chinatown, hungover, you showed me just what i could do]

The Master and Margarita

Day 13

Richie Rich lost his brown-rimmed Gucci sunglasses, which is pretty much the worst tragedy to occur in the history of man. Just so you know. Fortunately, his former co-chair of the croquet club from his prep school days bought him some passable Ray Bans. …I’m not kidding! This is exactly what’s taking place in my apartment. He also refuses to leave the apartment while it’s hot out because “New York will still be there when it’s cool” and has Whole Foods delivering food here later today. This kid is lucky I’ve just had multiple mimosas, otherwise my disgust would be visible.

The stories begin to get richer and the characters deeper as we settle into the summer. For example- objects in NYC are older than they appear. Sure, the subway system functions very well for it’s age and a few ultra-modern buildings exist, but most everything here is way older than you think. Never has this been more true as when the entire group went out to celebrate a birthday at a nearby Mexican restaurant. The food didn’t look appealing so I passed it up and instead obtained my daily calories through some viciously strong margaritas. Don’t judge. After everyone catches their buzz (or pretends to) it is decided that everyone will reveal an embarassing story about themselves as an ice breaker. The game is funny but benign for quite some time until Mormonzo (of course) stands up and starts telling a story about getting beaten up that was only mildly funny. Then, just to provide a reference date for the story he says, “yeah, that was when I was in 8th grade, about 14 years ago.”

Wait. What? Yeah, it turns out Mormonzo is in this program (mostly populated by graduates or grad school students) and is actually 28. That stalled the embarassing story game as everyone needed time to push through the margarita buzz to do a little bit of math. 28 years old and still ridiculously awkward. That’s tragic.

The group recouperated a few days later with a blurry game of “I Never” (or “Never Have I Ever” for Jersey kids) over at McKenna’s Pub, which has the best happy hour of all time. The game definitely peeled off the innocent veneer so many people had laquered on, revealing that pretty much everyone involved in the broadcast/media community has given or received oral sex in a public place. Classy. I definitively came out the loser, sipping to such top-drawer phrases as “I never messed around with a TA” which provoked more than a few questions.  But please, Burkeman does not mess around and tell. It’s tacky. Despite the group proving my lack of good judgement, I have been saintly since arriving to New York. I’d like to think of myself as a reformed drinking drugging hedonistic (solely because of boredom) gay man. Of mixed race…. who’s vegetarian… and Buddhist. Ok, so I don’t fit into a demographic easily, but the point to focus on is the “reformed” part of the drinking and drugs here. I have a running bet about how long it’ll take before I become unreformed. It’s me versus New York City, and thus far I happen to be winning (minus the drinking, but that doesn’t count in New York!). I’ve also revaluated my relationships with a few people in the group, solely based upon drinking experience (which is the true way to gauge friendship) and have slowly begun to fall in love with a beer swilling girl who enjoys cheap pubs and happy hours just as much as I do. I cannot be positive, but I believe Hard Coors may be a good drinking buddy for the weeknights when sobriety is just too much effort.

Life at work is fairly good, I’ve conquered the first few tasks and at this point I’m legally not allowed to talk about the work I do… Yeah. I can say that the software I learned during my first week costs 42k a month to keep… wow. I’m in the “information business” more than anything, according to my boss. Honestly, the interviews I have set up with other industry figures are also very promising, so my professional life is in a good place (for now). I suspected my boss of being a drag queen for a brief time, but I put those thoughts aside when she told me about her love of Jersey and yogurt. Drag queens don’t do Jersey. I’ve also weaseled in with a few other people in the department who’ve become fond of me during this first week, largely because they all enjoyed my story about waking up covered in blood. BTW, that mystery was solved! I sleep right next to the air conditioner, which frequently wakes me up because it is freezing but I don’t dare turn it off lest Richie Rich have a tantrum and throw one of his Keds (he has a low heat tolerance and I high tantrum potential). At any rate, apparently I sometimes turn the air conditioner off while in-between the waking and sleeping state, which I can never account for in the morning. The other day I casually turned the air conditioner onto fan (because the Republicunt can’t distinguish the sound difference if you just turn the fan on) and immediately hurt my finger. Upon inspection I discovered three very large shards of glass next to the regular controls. That’s how I cut my finger open. All that blood and hoopla was just because my roommate cannot tolerate a room above 65 degrees. I think he owes me something to make it even. A quarter pint of blood would make us just about square.

I could waste time mentioning all the great places we’ve been and the great things we’ve done, but those were all sober moments, so I’ll avoid it. Regardless, there’s a sweet international candy store, a badass poetry cafe with a slam poetry contest that one of my friends rocked last night, french toast beer (just one), Vietnamese dinners, Ukranian mimosas (just two!), Dumpling Man, Red Mango, and a homeless man named Meth Mouth who’re all part of the Burkeman New York Tour. But why talk about all that when I can talk about the world’s least favorite blond kid…

Mormonzo’s insatiable appetite for making people look at the ground and say “anyway…” did not end there.  A few days later the entire group of media kids was invited to the headquarters of a major news / political entity for a mixer with industry bigwigs and a chance to nab a few more worthwhile business cards (and free drinks to fend off this heat wave!). Everyone calmly introduced themselves to a group, but Mormonzo had to be the stand out. The memorable kid. Or… that guy. Now, you must imagine a deceptively old religious fanatic holding a microphone, but I think just writing his script is sufficiently uncomfortable. – Taps microphone – “Aloha!” The crowd does not react. “Alooooooha!” The unamused crowd responds with an “aloha” that is so unenthused you would think that Hawaii had the cultural appeal of a potato. “Yes, aloha! I’m having a great time enjoying all the heat here in Hawaii.” Smattering of socially kind laughter. “Yes, it’s great in Hawaii. Of course I haven’t gotten leid yet, but I look forward to it.”

Silence. Shock. I may’ve blushed a little.

Our group director was, again, mortified. There’s no fixing that one. I think he’s been banned from introducing himself at this point.

Mormonzo shouldn’t be the only one with tragic decisions while in New York, though, and quickly a few of us followed up with ridiculously awkward moments of our own. A fine one arrived when Preacher Man revealed that he was actually 25, and then asked me if I could get him a job at the network I was working with, as he didn’t like his network. Um, no. I can’t, and I don’t want to. We’re too different to work in the same area- you’re a biggoted faux baptist, and the only thing I discriminate against is half-proof drinks. However, this entire conversation was taking place in front of Preacher Man’s boss, the man who happens to be the national president of sales for a major television network (I’ll give a hint, the middle initial is B). Attempting to distance myself from Preacher Man, I go speak with his boss, who I’m hoping to arrange an interview with despite our rocky start- I spoke with him a week ago at a cable network’s brunch, where a slip of the tongue led me to swearing at him.

I make my way over to the intimidating and vaguely weird salesman and put my beer down on the table to avoid nervously sipping it the entire time. He does the same, which lets me know I made a wise decision. Good for me. He asks me about my first day at a rival network, which is encouraging because he remembers where I’m working. All things that are good. Until I gesture just a little too emphatically, because I was finishing my second beer in about 30 minutes and having skipped dinner (again) because apparently the media mega-mogul throwing our cocktail party didn’t believe in vegetarian food. I blame this on him, it’s always the media’s fault! Regardless, my large gesture sends my beer clear across the tiny table and directly into the lap of the network executive. And not just a little bit, the whole thing. Down the suit jacket, on the shirt, across the tie, and on the pants. I immediately lung not for a napkin, but for my beer, which I grab and sip before retreating to another table to grab napkins.

The whole series of events happened so quickly that few people observed the blunder, but when waitresses converged on the pres sales extraordinare the entire room stopped to see what was causing a stir. There I was, next to a major network executive, patting his suit jacket dry with a wadded napkin in one hand and half a beer in the other. At this point the soggy salesman looks at me and says “you need to learn how to hold onto a cocktail even if bumped into, that’s when you’ve made it in the sales business.” With that he grabs his beer and walks away, leaving me the awkward center of attention. I suppose there’s no use crying over spilt beer.

Yeah, Mormonzo might be 28, but he didn’t test the Scotch guard on a prospective employer’s suit. Richie Rich lost his sunglasses, I lost my dignity. Well, shit.

[you're so cute when you're slurring your speech, but they're closing the bar and they want us to leave]

In Cold Blood

Day 8

A prominent media celebrity made me promise that I wouldn’t write about him or anything he said last Monday, so I, Burkeman, am keeping that solemn and totally unnecessary oath. The last seven days have been spent chumming with pretty much every star in the New York media constellation, and that star’s producer, too. Lots of interviews and meet-n-greets and other ridiculous things of that nature. Its lovely and exhausting. 13.5 hours spent with premiere cable networks can really drain you. Major producers and financers, top notch production teams, news celebrities, network presidents, and even a chick who had a movie written about her; all of which we’ve been sworn not to blah-blah-blog about. Damn. However, all of these networking and work-place climbing shenanigans include group interaction, meaning that the 30 strangers who gathered here a week ago are already forming alliances and plotting eachothers’ deathes.

Only seven days in, it’s too early to judge the roommates. But why let that stop me now? Upon arriving last week I was greated by a boy who is either Richie Rich himself or just wearing his skin. Within minutes of meeting he was telling me all about the important people his father is friends with and whatnot. I stared at his boat shoes while he told me about his excitement to go on the McCain-jet and at this point it occured to me that Burkeman and the Republicunt will never be friends. Still, I can listen to his boyhood stories about Connecticut and pretend I’m sipping ice tea in the Catskills with his WASP-y crew. I bet he rows crew, honestly. Still, he’s a nice guy.

While I debated wether or not Richie Rich’s sister had a debutante coming-out ball on her 18th birthday I was joined by our newest roommate. Clad in Men’s Express and trendy brand name glasses, our LA raised roommate managed to make it all the way to New York (not to mention up the elevator) with his acoustic guitar as one of his checked bags. The new roommate, Dude Mathews Band, is actually a really nice guy. A fellow vegetarian and a fellow Fellow in my program (Richie Rich is independently interning with a mega PR firm), Dude Mathews has proven to be a lot of fun, largely because we’re the only socially functioning alcoholics in the group. That is to say, there is left over eggplant parmigiana and beer in our refrigerator, exclusively. My original opinions of him changed dramatically, even though he is as ridiculously worked-out and model-esque as anyone else who deserves guitar-playing meat-head heckling.

The rest of the 30 kids are each beginning to develop personalities, as well. I have quite a few personal favorites, including roommate Dude Mathews, but a few dark horses are revealing themselves to be… least favorites. The pre-arrival odds-on favorite, Mormonzo, took out a slow start out of the gate and now instead of chasing the rabbit is busy awkwardly making moves on uninterested lady horses. But the lady horses treat him like tomorrow’s glue. Oh, it’s sad to watch. Mormonzo went with me to the Rilo Kiley show on Tuesday, which was fucking sweet, I might add. Plus, last minute Whatser Name was able to snag a ticket, too. The three of us trampled our way through the streets of New York (pretending I knew exactly where we were going, while secretly just following the desperate indie kids who’s years of smoking have made them too slow to out walk me), and arrived at Terminal 5 in time to catch the second opening band. They weren’t Rilo Kiley, so I’m not concerned with them. However, Jenny Lewis/Blake Sennet and company put on one hell of a show. It was bizarre, in the middle of the crowd and a pretty small venue I couldn’t help but think about how incredibly close I was to the band, yet so incredibly far. Regardless, they jostled most ideas out of my head as they blazed through a few songs without even saying a word, then taking the time to talk with the audience and whatnot. It’s hard to pick an all out highlight- I Never, Better Son/Daughter, Silver Lining (they had giant ballons full of silver confetti when they popped!)- a lot of songs stood out. Oddly enough, I think it was Ripchord that somehow got the most life when being performed live versus on the CD. Another big highlight was the fact that Mormonzo’s 40 dollar ticket was purchased weeks ago, so when he paid me back I suddenly had lots of concert beer money. What’s a boy to do?

While we’re happily waiting for the band to take the stage, Mormonzo turns to me and Whatser Name (another of my new favorites) and asks “How much did you guys have in student loans?” What the hell? I suppose thats not too weird, but it just kept expanding (along with my beer tab). By the end he was telling us about the size of the roads in Utah being dictated by Brigham Young or some shit… I was busy drinking the alcohol he’s too pious to sip.

Mormonzo upped his antics even a bit more at a meeting we had with an extremely prominent advertising agency, which was kind enough to set aside a team of five executives and let us simply talk to them for two hours. Mormonzo swoops in with “Can you tell us about one campaign that totally failed?” The room was vaguely silent and incredibly uncomfortable… it wasn’t a bad question to ask, just asked in a manner so begrudgingly tactless that the advertisers were caught a little flat footed. They began to spin an answer about campaigns that “under perform” when a cell phone begins chirping inappropriately. As the advertisers ignore it and stumble their way through the awkward question, Mormonzo actually gets his phone out of his bag, stands up, walks to the door and says “this is my internship, sorry” and waves the advertisers off like he’s Paris Hilton brushing off the cameraman for Fabulous Life Of… Yeah, it was that uncomfortable. Our group leader was mortified, rightfully so, and the advertisers waited for Mormonzo to shut the door before immediately mocking him in front of the entire 29 remaining audience members. I love New Yorkers.

The idea that New Yorkers are angry and mean is a total myth, they’re just angry and direct. People in the city are incredibly willing to talk to you about anything you ask, and will (normally) give (almost) flawless directions when asked. However, New Yorkers are all on a mission to survive the day as fast as possible, and it’s best you don’t interrupt that mission lest you get stabbed (or sent to Jersey). Getting lost in the city, not that scary. Not knowing what kind of bagel you want when you’re next in line on Tuesday morning, the most terrifying event of my life.

Not that I’ve gotten lost often, the grid here is incredibly convenient unless you’re below it… then it’s impossible for newbies to get around. The lost moments last for about 2 minutes until you reach the next block, then the helpful numbers tell you where to go. Everything I needed to know about New York navigation I could’ve learned from Sesame Street (almost). However, drinking nights are an entirely different story. After meeting up with some old friends on Saturday night for a b-day bash (and more than a few drinks), I patted myself on the back for making my first real friends in the city and wander-stumbled back to my place in the Village. Just then, I get a call from the now long-distance-friend who used to be the no-distance-boyfriend who now lives in Los Angeles (and refuses to acknowledge the time-zone differences between us). Pretending to be plenty calm and sober, I proceed to have a semi-memorable cross country conversation and a few bottles of water before saying goodnight to the LA-X and retiring to bed. Overall, a good night.

Richie Rich, however, is a big fan of overall good mornings. I am not. He refuses to close our blinds, so every morning at 5:30 I wake up with the sunrise, the gorgeous mother fucking early sunrise. I’m not happy about that fact. Today was a bit different. The excess booze helped me sleep until about 10 in the morning. However, when I woke up Richie Rich was just looking at me, horrified. Considering this was a kid who cordially asked me to remove my Mexican restaurant watermelon, I figured he was just freaking out because I slept in a John Edwards t-shirt. Unfortunately, his befuddled shock had nothing to do with my now-vintage campaign shirt. I shook myself out of the morning haze to discover that I was surrounded with blood. Patches of dried blood all over my desk, on my chair, on my headphones, on my clothes, bed, and even smeared across my cell phone. It was a lot like Johnny Depp’s death scene in Nightmare on Elm Street.

Mildly frightened and not entirely unamused, I inspected my body and found that I had somehow cut my finger open during the night. How the hell do you cut your finger in the middle of the night? And what prompted me to bleed everywhere without knowing? The answer to both of these questions is likely “alcohol”… or perhaps “finger-vampires”… but one is much more likely than the other. I think that best describes my experience in New York so far. I’m so close but so far from Rilo Kiley and from building a life in the city, and I can have a great evening out with friends but I’ll always wake up wondering how I’ve gotten into such a mess. A lovely, roommate horrifying, somewhat self-destructive and entertaining mess.

[And it's bad news, i don't care I like you]

Das- Spalt!

Day 4

I drunkenly dropped a watermelon outside my apartment door. It split. There will be no clear winner in the seed spitting contest. I should find a mop. Manhattan treats me right.

The Invisible Man

Day 0

Anonymity and invisibility are not the same thing, a fact that I have learned on Day 0. After waking up at an ungodly hour I managed to hurd my family into the car before my plane took off. Unfortunately, I left my pre-selected travel shirt (it’s long sleeve but breathable!) in my closet, which is now the Dominican’s closet. So at 8 in the morning I attempted to become invisible and quietly snuck into my/his room and opened the closet door, all stealthy like… until I kicked over a cardboard box that my mother (inexplicably) keeps (precariously) balanced in my closet. Sad. Double-sad, the cardboard box didn’t wake him. Triple-sad, when the box fell and I involuntarily yelled “Dammit!”. This prompts naked Dominican to notice someone is in his room. He yells. I yell again. The dog starts barking. And I find myself awkwardly apologizing for entering what used to be my room to grab my travel shirt. However, I made a rule to never speak Spanish before 11, so I held up my travel shirt and vigorously shook it. I figure that translates.

The plane ride was relatively normal, minus the fact that there were babies ALL AROUND ME, but they were all astonishingly quiet. One even smirked, if you choose to believe potato-like post-fetal babies can smirk. However, there was a band of Italian men who were traveling back to New York and apparently weren’t used to flying. Naturally, I was seated next to the one man who was accustomed to traveling, so when any turbulance hit I would get jarred out of my plane-haze by the movement, then fully woken up by the experienced Italian air traveler as he shouted reaffirming Italian phrases to his band mates. If its not the screaming-potato-babies, its the screaming flight-weary-Italians. This is why I should drink before flying.

 Anyway, the city is everything I remember it to be- cabs and graffiti art and lights and people touching themselves in public. I met up with a girl named Ryan at the airport and we took a cab together to our apartment. Conversation with Girl Ryan wasn’t exactly mind blowing, but I can’t hold people to that kind of standard considering my last conversation of the day involved shaking a dress shirt. She seems nice. During the cab ride I could not shake the overwhelming feeling that this city was not going to let me in it, I can’t explain why. In a place this large its easy to not really feel too special, to just kind of be invisible.

And thats when we ran into the Cute Clerk, the guy who works the front desk of our building in the Village. I took the time to pretend pulling 8 tons of luggage didn’t make me miserable, and instead asked unnecessarily witty questions while he got my room key. I got checked in and he got checked out. Plus, he seemed eager and responsive to all my rooming related questions…. no cute-clerk cares about questions (alliteration)! Needless to say, I will likely make this situation as awkward as possible by the end of the summer.

Still, it is nice to be in a place where Burkeman (yours truly) can hit on unsuspecting minimum-wage employees. Back at university, not so much. Here, s’all good! In fact, independent life seems entirely possible now that I’m here. No more waiting for others to be out of groceries before I can buy some fresh fruit, no more waiting on family to deposit my checks before I can make reasonable transactions, no more pretending Taco Bell is edible, no more complaining that there simply isn’t anything to do, and a sense of anonymity. All big cities are just big small towns, but it is nice to be in a place where you can get a bit of a fresh start. I’m new here; in fact, Cute Clerk doesn’t even know that I’m incredibly emotionally unavailable yet! Being anonymous definitely has its strong points.

 However, don’t start thinking you’re invisible, again. While walking down the street with Girl Ryan I noticed a heavy-set woman walking in front of us. But this was no ordinary heavey-set woman, this was a heavy-set woman in sheer white pants. …Oh, no… Clearly, this woman was not wearing underwear. Really, clearly. So I may have (loudly) whispered this to Girl Ryan, who appropriately chortled into her Diet Coke. But at this moment I was reminded that I was not invisible, nor inaudible, as the woman turned around and glarred. I’d like to imagine her inner-monologue was something along the lines of “I’ll stare you down but good!” Regardless, it was my first dose of anonymous hatred since middle school. I’m hoping to make it 24 hours before getting my first “fuck you”.

The rest of the day has been spent unpacking, figuring out which direction is north (which I did), hunting down the closest metro stops, and buying plates (even though my Republicunt of a roommate demands using only disposable items… ozone murderer). I think I’ve got a few things down, and am realizing I’m a bit more city-savvy than some of the other kids who came out here. At times the new city seems to incredibly daunting, and the idea of building a life is so much more frightening than just succeeding at an internship like last year, but whenever I get stuck on that train of thought someone (or thing) snaps me out of it. I remember I’ve got something to prove here. I’m ready for Day 1.

[go, baby. go, baby! were right behind ya]