Fight Club

Days back in Michigan: 5

My computer blew up. Ass.

Home is an extremely bizarre place. There are entire fields of grass for absolutely no reason. There are stars at night… STARS?!?! And you can hear crickets when you’re trying to sleep on the couch of your entirely uncomfortable living room couch (not to mention that the house is without air conditioning). It’s kinda nice, though.

Needless to say, I am back in Michigan for a week before heading back out to the city. In a few short days the new job begins. Exciting! Until then, baseball games and Dominicans and ice cream and Project Runway. In that order. It is a far cry from the life I grew to love in New York, which culminated with Burkeman (yay!) and Dude Mathews drunkenly hailing a cab to La Guardia at 5 am. Bars in New York close at 4, so staying up the extra hour at a diner was no problem. Finding my ID in my bags while drunk in line to pass security, that was a bigger problem. When I tripped and fell in the Detroit airport during my layover I realized perhaps I should’ve slept a little before arriving home. Nothing says “you fucked up” quite like eating shit in the middle of a magazine store in an airport. Note to self: drinking on a flight is great. Drinking for six hours and then catching a flight- not so great. On the upside, the crying baby next to me on the flight stood no chance against my binge-drinking coma. I slept like that baby should’ve. However, that only lasted a half hour before arriving home, where my family was mildly horrified that I reaked of Jameson and hadn’t bathed in a few days. New York turns scion into a slob.

There is one large change between home and the city that I’m not adjusting to very well, I admit- my computer. Its on the fritz and cannot be revived until I am back in Manhattan. Only problem, I might not be going back to Manhattan…

While walking home on a Sunday evening Straight Boyfriend (of the Harlem Harem, a group I recently elected to live with) ran into three large men on the street. Well, he didn’t run into them so much as their fists. Multiple times. The attack is believed to have been racially motivated, as Straight Boyfriend is a large white Alaskan dude in the middle of a largely Dominican section of Harlem, but his attackers weren’t Dominican.

Forunately the incident was stopped before it could become to brutal, but he does have some bruising on his face and a severely broken desire to remain in Harlem. Thus the Harlem Harem may soon become the Brooklyn Brigade. It will be a journey.

Oh, and Weather Man will be back in the city when I arrive on Saturday. AND I’m living with the Femme Fellows in Hoboken for the month of August. And work, the first day of the rest of my life, starts on Monday (same day as Drag Queen Bingo).

It’s about to get very interesting.

[we are adventuring, we are adventurers]

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]