The Merchant of Venice

Day 59

There are approximately 13 million Jews worldwide. Most of them currently work in television.

I discovered these facts when walking down the street with my NYC accomplice JAP, a lovely LA girl with family money and challah to spare. 13 million is a staggeringly low number, it seems like there are more than that in New York alone, but she informed me of these statistics the other day as we strolled down 14th street and talked about how we were under-represented minorities in our fellowship. Only two Jews out of 30 students in a New York based media fellowship. Thats pretty surprising, come to think of it. Even more shocking, our fellowship only includes two gays… it’s television in New York! How is that possible? Under represented, certainly.

Now, exactly where all the homosexuals have disappeared to I’m not sure, but I’ve found all my Hebrew friends sitting right under my stubby-little-gentile nose. Of the 6 interns who work on my floor at *B& television network in Manhattan, 5 of them are jewish. FIVE! That’s a disproportionately large number considering there are only five of them left in the entire state of Wyoming. Turns out three of them all earned their internships through family connections with some higher-ups at the network. I’ve heard the Jews run Hollywood, but apparently they also run primetime television as well. The best part, none of them are even practicing Jews. Oye! So that’s why the descendents of David are underrepresented in my fellowship- they’re already working in television through family connections! Lucky schmucks. As an Irish Lutheran, I’ve got culture envy.

Not to worry, as the universe launched me some gay reinforcements in the form of my friend Weather Man, a former media professional who now dapples in internet technology. After a year of “friendship” and more than a few ups and downs, it seems as if the tectonic plates of our relationship have precariously balanced themselves for a brief time, allowing for a quake free weekend of boys’ nights out and the kind of conversation that can only be shared with a true friend. And anxiety. Lots of that.

Once before I was described as emotionally unavailable, which is funny because I’m perhaps the most available person in the world (except for my emotions). So as Weather Man began his torrent of “I love you”s and “I can’t stand being away”, I couldn’t help but think of anything besides being away. His loving grip became like a vice and I envisioned the concept of emotional claustraphobia, feeling your stomach and throat constrict- the more sweet his words were the more dizzy and overwhelmed I felt. What was supposed to be sweet and beautiful became dreaded and nauseating, which pretty much makes him the verbal equivalent of Janice Dickinson (eek!). But I have strong feelings for Weather Man… and I love Janice Dickinson… so what’s causing me to react to this intimacy the same way that guy reacted when he drank from the wrong cup in the old-school Indian Jones movie?

Word vomit.

That’s what makes me so queezy. I’m fine feeling these emotions for someone and perfectly comfortable knowing that he may feel something even stronger for me, but I just don’t need to hear about it constantly, bubbling out his lips like a fountain or raining down like the storm cells he used to forecast. If anything, I just prefer to talk about the warm front. Emotions aren’t scary, it’s the windy words that accompany them that make the thunder storm so noisy and frightening. But how do you tell someone that you cannot tolerate their emotional word vomit (hopefully not through a blog…  super eek)?

Fortunately many events that rescued me from the poems and soliloquies (moderate eek). Most notably the introduction of two of Weather Man’s close friends, who shall be dubbed Rick & Steve. They friendly and have settled in Manhattan as well. Unfortunately, they heard quite a bit about me (again, word vomit) before we met, so my introduction was followed with a knowing smile and a standard “Oh, you’re Burkeman” as if to say “so, you’re the face to the name I’ve been judging for the last year”. Greeeeat.

However, it’s hard to be the center of attention when you’re at a gay sports bar with a midget. Which I was. The friendly little person was a friend of Rick & Steve’s, and was a charming conversationalist even if he couldn’t see over the bar. The pint-sized pib-squeak of a homosexual may have been my saving grace, as engaging him in conversation kept me from being further judged by Weather Man’s friends (who’re still undecided if they should hate me and chase me with torches or love me and douse me with alcohol). I led them by example and doused myself with alcohol while chatting with the friendly little person, who turned out to be the most conversationally competent guy in the bar. By the end of the night Rick & Steve seemed to warm up to me and we even set a faux-dinner date for August when “life calms down” a bit.

Escaping the world of gay bars (which is uncommon for my time here in New York), I returned to the familiar territory of dive bars and met with my standard crew at McKenna’s for our LAST WEEKEND AS A GROUP. Tragic. McKenna’s low prices and stiff drinks quickly inspired the group to find a dance floor at Flannery’s… which just happened to be playing 80s music all night. By the time I got to Flannery’s the entire mess was on the dance floor and Take On Me was already in queue. Whatser Name was bopping around and on the prowl for boys, Times Square was doing the twist, Georgia Ann was going wild and shouting about calories, Stretch Armstrong was buying shots and the rest of the crew was breaking it down like the media nerds we are.

How could I resist?

Pouring myself into bed at 6 in the morning is always an exhausting experience, but with Weather Man in tow it was both physically and emotionally exhausting. It was hard to tell if the morning was going to bring word vomit or the real thing. That’s the danger of bingeing all weekend.

[there's a gentleman who's not so gentle cuz he's too generous with his chit and his chat]

The Futurist

Day 52

For a few years now I’ve been involved in an abusive relationship, and in the last few months it’s gotten even worse. My boyfriend, Alcohol, let’s me pound on him all night, but in the morning he treats me like shit. It’s a vicious cycle that neither of us are mature enough to escape. I’m guilty of using him, he (literally) makes me sick. But what are we to do?

Fortunately he’s a great date to almost any occasion. Last week a friend’s girlfriend provided a free pass on the VIP list to a MLB All-Star viewing party at Webster Hall, where my new boyfriend was already awaiting me at an open bar. Considering Tuesday had been a Red Letter Day for me (an interview that turned into a tentative job offer) I celebrated with some Red Stripe. And rum and coke. And rum and coke. And rum and coke. And I lost track eventually, but it ended with rum and coke. Regardless, the evening was perfect- I got to watch some baseball (hot), some baseball players (hotter), and had my free reign over an open bar thanks to a shinny little badge (hottest). Plus, a few of my favorites were there, and I wound up chatting with my friend Bad for Your Organs Brooke- perhaps my closest friend in NYC and also the only other individual I know who’s as intimiately acquainted with the world of binge drinking. Anyway, BYOB and I started chatting and the night blurred past quicker than ever. We had a riot laughing about … I don’t even know, everything. I even got to chat with her roommate, the inevitable Straight Boyfriend that I don’t yet have. He’s great, Alaskan, and entirely easy to ply with drinks. BYOB and Straight Boyfriend share an apartment together in Harlem (thus now known as the Harlem Harem) and by the end of the night I escaped Webster Hall with a VIP pass to become the newest member of the Harlem Harem- BYOB and Straight Boyfriend are performing a hostile take-over and removing their third roommate, thus making the way for Burkeman! RIOT.

Within the course of 12 hours I was offered the perfect job and the perfect apartment, for a starter New Yorker. Needless to say, the next few hours were going to have to go down hill from there. And then some.

Vaguely hungover but entirely chipper at work, I got some good advice from Jersey Queen who suggested I play the field. Considering Jersey Queen has played both sides of every field at this point, I’ll take her word on it- at least when it comes to apartments.

In Brooklyn that night I met a nice guy named Borwen, who was less than amusing but incredibly kind. He offered me the apartment on the spot; I was forced to admit that I had actually committed to another place and was just checking this place out to play the field. And honestly, the two meth-heads on the stoop and the myriad of broken fire-hydrants on the 90+ degree hike to his place didn’t tempt me enough to stray from my Harem, even for 50 bucks less a month. Meh, we’re both hopeful we can still be friends….

That weekend I brushed off my apartmental infidelity and let some friends whisk me away to the trashy beach. Literally, garbage everywhere, beach. I lost my Coney Island virginity on a hot day in July with a bunch of girls and a live band that sucked, which probably isn’t too far off from where most people lose their virginity, anyway. The park was fantastic, Coney Island is perhaps the biggest what-the-fuck location of all time; literred with fat chicks, hot dog stands, economically priced french fries, and life guards who blow whistles and wear needlessly enticing swim-suits, it’s as if the park in Pinnochio (where all the boys became donkeys) was recreated in New York as a tourist attraction. PS- the Cyclone is over-priced and hazardous for your health. The Cyclone is disturbingly like anal sex-unnecessarily rought but if you ride it multiple times, it gets better.

My day soaking up the sun on Coney Island passed all too quickly, as has my time as a fellow at *B&, the major network that has been providing me work lately. The acceptance of a job at a major sales orginization has brought an onslaught of *B& employees out of the woodwork to wish me well (aka buy me lunch in attempts to build loyalty for when I’m hire-able in 8 years). It’s been a generous outpouring, and I’ll have no qualms about returning to the network in a few years, especially if I can get a few more free meals out of it. The president of national television sales took me out for lunch, bought me a margarita, and then told me his daughter was troubled. I’m not sure what that means, but I had a free margarita!

As exciting as beaches and guest lists and working-margarita-lunches with executives can be (more lunches in the next week, yay!), it is impossible to overlook how frighteningly straight these last few weeks have been. After nearly two months in (arguably) the gayest city in the nation, I’m still play-less. What’s that about? Not even a kiss. Ouch. I exchanged digits with Cute Clerk a while back, but after ignoring Facebook messages and never calling him, it’s clear I’m not about to redeem that one (oops). However, a friend from DC is traveling to the City this weekend, perhaps with intentions of changing this situation. After a year of being close “friends” it is clear this friend, Weather Man, and I are going nowhere very quickly. As my emotions subside, his begin to swell… typical. Which means while he’s traveling to NYC to drop the L-bomb, I’m bunkering down in my apartment in hopes of surviving the fall out.

Meanwhile, my feelings for our mutual friend, Great Scot, have taken a surprising turn into the “maybe” category. Of course all of this is further complicated by the fact that both of these men are significantly older than I am… extra typical. And the additional fact that Weather Man may have cancer, and that Great Scot is having brain surgeory in a few weeks, makes for a rather decent checklist of reasons I shouldn’t have gotten myself this deep in either of their lives. Crap.

Elsewhere, I’ve found myself debating crazy things with a few of my friends. Tonight at a brewery, Dude Mathews and I were discussing marriage and my belief that forever simply doesn’t exist. Only today exists, and a promise to try again tomorrow. However, my beliefs are about to be tested… if Great Scot fairs well through brain surgeory he hopes to stay in the US, which means finding his green card one way or another.

Turns out Massachusetts opened a whole new chapter on man-on-man immigration, and as a born-n-bred American, all of the sudden I have post-brain surgeory marriage to consider.

First things first- Weather Man has invited me to a dinner party with his friends. And it’s my last weekend with my fellow fellows here in NYC. Which means two things- drinking with gay men and drinking with straight friends. Fortunately my abusive relationship boyfriend will stay by my side all weekend, otherwise I’d have to take responsibility for the mistakes I’m about to make…

[danger! danger! high voltage]

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

Day 46

I have long suspected that “cougars” are having the best year ever. It’s self evident- Desperate Housewives is still a hit show, Kim Cattrall is still getting acting work, and I received a very special birthday card wishing a “happy birthday to a very special cougar”. While I am not a cougar by the standard definition (or any other definition), I use this card as further proof that cougars are more en vogue this year than rehab. And rehab has had one helluva year.

My birthday itself was very enjoyable, a special thanks to all those who wished me well. My first spirit journey formation anniversary here in NYC, and it was brought in with some new friends at a new bar. Just a few blocks from my current apartment is a lovely little place called Wicked Willy’s, which is normally populated by 9 to 5 preppy douchebags who like to play beerpong and pretend it’s 2002 and they’re still in college. However, one any given weeknight Willy’s also hosts karaoke, which means my birthday was spent drunkenly soliciting dedications. I even indulged by celebrating myself with a rousing rendition of “You’ve Lost that Lovin Feelin”, because you can’t beat the Righteous Brothers when drunk. The night quickly escalted into my fifth (yes, 5!) blackout in less than 7 days. Birthday was great, but having a birthday on the same week as the 4th of July is rough on the body.

Blackout aside, I can recall enough foggy details to truly recognize the enjoyable party that The Mess threw for me, and most of my fellows showed up to wish me well, which was awesome. The night took an unexpected turn when our friend, Times Square, won a Broadway karaoke contest (think “Hakuna Matada” with a conga line of drunken strangers) and was rewarded with a 50 dollar bar tab that had to be spent that night. At 1:30 in the morning.

I spent the next day napping instead of eating lunch, and forcing down only a banana for the daily meal. Large billion dollar television networks frown upon visible hangover. Fortunately I look good in a tie. Unfortunately, there was one physical flaw that my boss couldn’t help but notice.

My eyebrow is shaved.

Not completely, but still, enough that she noticed. In honesty, it has nothing to do with birthday festivities at the bar (or the diner we headed to afterwards). Before the birthday evening began I ran a few errands and popped in for a hair cut at a low end hair-cuttery place. I’m not too picky when it comes to buzzing off a layer of curls. However, this bitch isn’t too picky when it comes to buzzing off layers of anything, and nicked half my face and took part of my eyebrow off in the process while attempting to buzz the side of my head. The worst part was when I looked in the mirror and said “Oh, this is awkward… you cut off part of my eyebrow”. The woman looked at me intently, as if waiting for a “magic eye” image to appear in my pores, turned me around in the swivel chair, and said “No I didn’t.”

Now, I’m not always the most observant person, but I’m pretty sure I can tell when my eyebrows are too different lengths. Mainly because I have vision and a mirror. Sparing unnecesary details, calling your stylist a “dumb bitch” will get you kicked out of a hair salon quite quickly, but it may also save my face from unwanted trimming. I want my eyebrow back. Dumb bitch.

However, all of this was far out of my hungover mind when my boss, Jersey Queen (the one who cannot possibly be a drag queen because she lives in the garden state) approached me and said “Hey, Burkeman, you got buzzed last night”. I was stunned. Granted, my wrinkled clothes and the fact that I wore glasses to work might signal a hangover, along with showing up half an hour later than usual, but I thought I looked inconspicuous. I scanned myself over quickly to be sure there was no glarring bar stamp on my hand when my boss interjected “I meant your hair cut, but apparently you had a few drinks, too.”

It was too late to bother stammering an obvious denial.

Waking up the day after your birthday with half an eyebrow and a visible hangover isn’t always the worse. I could be waking up to all of this in a sketchy ass apartment in Brooklyn. I’m actually quite fond of Brooklyn, I just have been to a few too many sketchy ass apartments there- mainly the one I visited directly after my birthday. I was excited by the multi-national roommate line up, but when one “come here to study acting” and another is a professional framer at an art gallery, it became clear that none of us were planning on living in luxury. The apartment was painted pink and purple on the inside, but the room was really quite spacious, I was a fan…. until I shut the door, and the doorknob literally fell off. Half an eyebrow, admittedly hungover in front of the boss at work, and considering paying hundreds of dollars to live in a shady neighborhood, I saw my life slowly swirling to a stop along with that brass doorknob. At least it was sad funny.

I’m still considering taking it. Who needs a doornob when you’ve got a doorknob sized hole in your door?

Other apartments have been better, which is a good sign thus far. Certain parts of Brooklyn are looking quite nice, I must say. Same with Jersey, Queens, and even WAY uptown parts of Manhattan. I’ve even begin to weigh the merits of Staten Island, which isn’t such a bad place if you don’t mind a ferry ride (which includes a daily dose of the Statue of Liberty). I even consulted my boss, who’s lived in New York forever, but something about mentioning Staten Island made her oddly blurry eyed and I immediately escaped the awkward situation. I mentioned it to a person who knows our boss well and she played it off by simply saying “Well, you know, she’s a bit off sometimes.” I said sure, who isn’t. She casually replied, “She’s having rough family times. You know she’s actually a man, right?”

Suddenly the phrase “the doorknob fell off” is extra sad funny. And though I had a birthday, I’ve just met the most special cougar yet.

[no one back in traffic school had told us- there're signs that can't be learned]

Bright Lights, Big City

Day 31

Peru is a hot tranny mess. In fact, South America as a whole is chock-full of transexuals, all waiting to get to the United States to surgically reassign their gender and then become extra fabulous members of the gay pride parade, which took place this last weekend in NYC. The entire affair was everything a gay man could hope for- long, in public, and coming for hours and hours. However, a rather long (yellow brick) road led up to all that was Pride 2008.

While that transition would be perfect to explain the historical significance of Stonewall, or even a chance to explain the penny versus thong incident at the Yankees game (my bad), I will instead focus on the historical significance of an underground band known as the Janice Dickinsons- who began my personal long road to pride. As a founding member of the JDs I was thrilled when 2/3 of the other JD veterans schlupted their lazy asses all the way to NYC via piss-stained buss. The Janice Dickinsons are known for a lot of things- liquor, projectile vomit, lying, amazing live shows- but we’re not well known for traveling without incident. Fiftydollarbill and Gretchiepoo both made it to NYC without causing a raucus, so it was left up to me to drop the ball. Thus rookie NYC mistake #26: Broadway does not become East Broadway… ever. East Broadway is in Chinatown, with the noodles and delicious coffee and the 2 JDs who waited patiently in the rain for me to arrive.

Myself angry and soaked, Fiftydollarbill and Gretchiepoo both happy and a bit tipsy, we headed immediately to McKenna’s once I collected them from a seedy Chinatown hotel. At McKenna’s we drowned our problems and bludgeoned our braincells with the world’s strongest rum and coke and I was well on my way to becoming a Blackout Betty until she appeared…. or maybe he…

The week of the Hot Tranny Mess officially began when Sheman introduced her/his self to us (always with the female pronoun in front, as I learned from the legos). Not quite a drag queen so much as a hideously pock-marked woman who likely had a penis, Sheman was very drunk and very eager to make our acquaintance, though we were quitely partaking in not-so-barely-legal drinks in a tiny booth. No booth is too large or small for Sheman, though. With her powerful badunk and ugly mug she was able to clear a swath right through the bar and stumble over to our booth, where she chatted with us, grabbed Gretchiepoo’s ass, and planted an extremely wet one on me.

My first kiss in New York and it’s from a (supposed) woman. Fantastic.

I’m not positive what happened the rest of the night, but I awoke with two friends asleep on my living room floor and pizza in the refrigerator… which leads me to believe I was healthy enough to walk home on my own power that night! Well done.

After such a trashy perfect evening with the world’s best band mates, we decided to spent an evening on the other side of class and got dressed up (except for Gretchiepoo, she doesn’t dress up, she instead wore shorts and accessorized with a blow-dryer burn mark) and headed to see Phantom of the Opera. Broadway, not the East Broadway bitch street, but the real Broadway. 42nd street. Phantom, the longest running musical in Broadway history. And three liquor soaked midwest kids sitting in the nose bleeds. Needless to say, it was perfect.

An evening atop the Empire State Building, an afternoon at the Met, and a day spent drinking 5 HOUR ENERGY DRINKS on the equally classy Staten Island provided for quite a bit of amusement. For the first time in this city I had friends to play in my ball pit o’success.

And then they left.

No worries, though, as KGB came to the rescue in less than a day. Korea Going Blonde arrived in Manhattan immediately after I got out of work (a television network that is still being vague about full time employment opportunities) and we whisked around the city for quite a few days. Which is to say, we went to see a Broadway play, visited McKenna’s quite frequently, and left quite a few people confused about what to expect. One highlight would include her visiting friend, who met the same fate that everyone of my friends meets at McKenna’s… only this tag-team black out lead both KGB and her friend to train to Jersey for the night. You know it’s a rough night when you wake up confused in Jersey the next morning. Even more rough when you wake up alongside a brand new 50 dollar vibrator that you can’t recall purchasing. That little dolphin will make itself memorable in no time.

Another moment which explains my relationship with KGB quite well (aside from the meaningful conversations and actions we participate in, because those don’t count) is the night I took her out to Little Italy for a dinner with the other media fellows that I’m in NYC with for these few months. Most of them are incredibly smart and excel in media (aside from Mormonzo and Preacher Man, that is), which means they are well behaved. Thus why I keep a safe distance.

Somewhere between laughs about scary transexuals and the hilarious homeless man who sang “Ain’t too proud to Beg” on the metro- one of my fellow fellows leaned in to listen to our chat and was forced to ask “Why are you guys discussing circumcision at dinner?” Aside from the obvious answer, Italian restaurant, we had to nonchallantly explain that this was standard conversation, this particular topic is one often on our lips. The rest of the group was not as interested in fleshing out the details of preference on this one, but it’s no surprise that KGB is quite comfortable with either variety- she’s had a slew of foreign boyfriends. I explained that it was an area I wasn’t familiar with yet.

And then Nelly Furtaco came to visit. Nearly a year after having been told “I love you” by Nelly at the MOST inappropriate time in history, our relationship has recovered and we seem to have agreed that it’s best we forget he said it and that I didn’t react so well when he did… Awkward. Anyway, nearly a year has passed and Nelly looks better than ever, which was a large motivator to come to NYC for pride weekend. I was excited for him to meet KGB so that she could put a face with the story, and as soon as I introduced them I remembered our conversation in Little Italy. I have had that experience.

A lovely night spent gawking, dancing, and sipping at a Middle Eastern club (Pride Habibi!) tuckered us out on Friday night and after getting massively lost for a bit of the day on Saturday (5th ave and 1st street don’t intersect… ever… rookie mistake #27) we arrived at a small Indian restaurant named Milon. Milon is on the second floor of a building and directly across the porch is a competing restaurant that offers the exact same menu, two men calmly wait for you to approach the restaurant and then forcefully convince you to come to their side of the porch to enjoy their restaurant’s entirely unoriginal food. These two men will split up your dinner party if you are not prepared.

Siding with the cuter of the two pushy Indian restauranteurs, KGB, Nelly and myself entered Milon, which looks less like the similarly pronounced Italian city and instead much like you would imagine a dollhouse decorated by a tranny who wanted to give her/his dolls epilepsy. It even makes that much sense. Peppers hanging everywhere, inexplicable blinking lights, wrapping paper, and a few inflatible dinosaurs in the canopy. At 7 dollars a plate, this is perhaps the most underwhelming food and overwhelming visual stimulus that you can get in the city without eating left overs in a crack den. The place is fantastic, and I will be frequenting often. The food isn’t too remarkable, but good home cooked Indian food served with delicious garlic naan and a decor that would give your retinas A.D.D.

After MIlon and a bout of Rick & Steve (rent it, be violated by it, love it) the three of us headed out to a birthday party for a friend that I’ve made in the city… the whole one friend I’ve made here in the city, actually. Half of the Harlam Harem (a kind group of media kids who now live in the city), Fozzy is a cute girl who knows how to throw a party… a party that was attended by the woman who used to be the head of the program that is footing my rent and living expenses while I work with the network… a party in which I blacked out with this woman who used to be the head of my program, and apparently a party where I started talking- A LOT.

Glossing over the blurry night (and the fact that I told a story and then immediately unknowingly retold it until a friend cut me off), life began to come back into focus when KGB, Nelly and myself all wandered out of a diner at 6 am and noticed that it was light out. As we poured ourselves into bed KGB revealed another surprise, we would soon be pouring caffeinated vodka into our gullets, as the former head of my program had unknowningly gifted us a bottle of PINK. KGB may have woken up in Jersey with a vibrator that wasn’t there the morning before, but I went to bed with a 5th of go-go vodka that wasn’t there the night before… I win. A buzz beats a buzzer for any guy in town.

Raising myself from the living room floor a mere 5 hours later was rough, but the ebbing headache demanded early morning Jamba Juice… and who am I to resist the headache throb that demands juice? No one. So I trekked my swollen brain to the nearby faux-health store and purchased myself some vitamin boosted brain freeze before heading out to the main event- pride parade!

As a midwest transplant, there was really no way to prepare for the over-the-top gala that took place, drag queens still scare me and crowded places are distinctly unlike the cornfields of my undergraduate days. However, the spectacle was everything I could’ve imagined it was, only with more glitter. It had all the colors of a dinner at Milon, all the boisterous celebration of a Janice Dickinsons concert and none of the morning after apologies, and it was spent with friends. For the first time I’m beginning to understand what a gay community is- more than the shallow sex we’re all warned about and instead a network of people who really just care about loving eachother. Not just physically, but as friends and neighbors, as gay soccer teams and color guards (self-proclaimed Flaggots, no less) and churches and parents and teachers and motorcycle enthusiasts (naturally) and politicians and foreign immigrants and stray straight folks and even a few st-st-stutterers… and just about everything else. And the event is not just for the gays, even my former academic adviser came to the event from Ohio and invited me to dinner afterwards. Pride is for the family… except the exhibisionist leather people, they’re not for the family. The parade lasts for hours and is a giant party.

But then it rained… It rained for quite a while and everyone was soaked. People responded by cheering everytime there was a thunder clap and parade floats responded by blasting “Its Raining Men” and taking off more clothes. PFLAG kept marching and old women kept passing out condoms, just to people who were wet. And it was encouraging, with a straight friend and gay friend, a friend from home and a friend from city life, and with New York, that I felt content for once. No striving for the ball pit o’ success, no more hangover, no more choosing words carefully, no more running around the city nonstop, just lots of good friends and supportive folks.

Except the Peruvians. They were busy applying waterproof mascara. All of them.

[so the day Noah's ark floats down Park my eyes will be simply glazed over]