So Lifelike!

You know which moments speak the most about life? Ones like that time when you stopped in at your sister and her boyfriend's apartment with your new friend (expressly to use the bathroom), interrupted him as he was cleaning in his underwear, and proceeded to overflow the toilet all over the bathroom floor. Or that time when your dress' buttons flew open during rush hour on the subway. Or that time when the amateur Mariachi band stepped onto your train car and played bad Mexican music directly next to your head, just as the world bestowed upon you a teeth-grindingly bad headache. Or that time when you were eating an awesome lunch with your friend and, in a sudden fit of laughter, he rocketed tiny pieces of chewed food all over your meal and you picked one off the side of your sandwich and ate it because you thought it was a piece of Mozzarella. But it wasn't.

Especially lifelike is the fact that I now probably know more about skincare than any of my friends, but I'll be damned if - at the age of 24 - I can get my face to stop breaking out.

These are the moments that make me laugh. Oddly.

But trust me when I say things are good.

Really.

I still might not have a job, but this week, I have my best friend in town. And I got my guitar back, and no matter how much I play and how sore my fingers get, I can't quite seem to get enough. And today, I had a conversation with the doorman and he asked me how my job hunt was going. I told him that I'm honestly not sure, and he said,

"Girl, with the way you look, talk, and carry yoself, I can tell you right now you gonna be fine. You're a total sweetie. One of these days, you gonna be in a restaurant, and you gonna be talkin' and sayin' you ain't got a job, and someone big's gonna be sittin' right behind you and they gonna be all like, 'Hey, girl, I don't mean to be gettin' all up in yo business, but did I hear you say you can write?' And then they gonna be like, 'Here's my business card. Call me.' I'm from New York City, born and raised. And like Alicia Keys said, this be the place where dreams are made. Things happen here. You just gotta be tough."

That really added some pizazz to the middle of my mediocre cubicle afternoon.

On Rekindling the Passion

... Ugh. You make me tired.

New York City was love at first sight. But now we've been dating for 12 years, and since we moved in together just over three months ago, I've been discovering all these little things about him that just. drive. me. nuts. In other relationships, people might say, "How many times have I asked you not to leave the toilet seat up?" or, "For the love of god, stop leaving the sponge in the sink!" But for me, it's, "Why does the R never run right on weekends?" and "Who the hell isn't wearing deodorant?" and "Why does stepping out of my office building feel like walking into a blow dryer?" and "Can you seriously fit one more jackass on this train? Can you try?"

Sometimes I feel like our love is suffering a long, slow, relationship death.

But a few weeks ago, I was sitting at the table in my sister's apartment, mentally damning how hot this summer has been and how especially intolerable the city makes that heat - much like a lover you want to shove out of the bed when it's too humid out because every time you touch each other, it feels like flypaper and it makes you want to murder him a little bit - when I randomly started perusing Time Out New York. And lo and behold, I stumbled across something that very much piqued my interest: An event deep in Brooklyn called "The Lost Circus." Described as "circus meets dark cabaret with a steampunk twist," I was pretty much in before I even decided to go. There were only a few factors holding me back. It started at 11:59 p.m. and went until 4:30 a.m., it was located in a desolate and slightly questionable part of Brooklyn I had never been to before, and I would be going alone. Indecisive, I turned in the spinney chair to look at the TV I'd undoubtedly end up watching HBO OnDemand on all night if I decided not to go. Petra, my sister's grouchy, porpoise-like, spinster of an old crone cat let out a long, abrasive yowl. Holding back a yowl of my own, I stood up and said, "Screw it. I'm going."

"New York," I thought. "I want to be in love with you again."

We eat out every weekend.
Let's try something different.

As I'm writing about all this in retrospect, it's needless to say that I survived. And I didn't even have to use my pepper spray! Although my sister's friend was right when she said it was in the warehouse district, and I, meanwhile, showed up looking like a bumbling mix between a failed Lolita and a high school, western cowgirl (we won't explore that any further). It's not a good sign when you stop at a diner for directions and the local cops whistle and shout out, "You can stay here with us, sweetheart!" It was that kind of neighborhood.

However, The Lost Circus was well worth the six blocks of anxiety that I click-click-clicked my way through in my sister's high-heeled leather boots. It delivered what it promised: belly dancers, stilt walkers, fire dancers, a contortionist, a dominatrix, a visual feast of fascinatingly intricate steampunk costumes, an amazing band called The Vagabond Opera (seriously, check them out), and a few strange, sweet, geeky men who - through the compliment of their company - made me feel like I didn't look quite as absurd as I thought I did. And I got to get painted up like a cat! And who doesn't like face paint? I like face paint! Maybe a little too much. And at the end of the night, as I was dragging my sore feet out of the venue, I spotted a well-known steampunk author hanging at the bar. Though I'm not very familiar with steampunk and had never read any of his work, one of my friends was a great admirer of his. So in one of my slick moments, I walked up to him, addressed him as J.D. Faulksen, and obtained an autograph to mail to Massachusetts. It was later (earlier?) that night (morning?) when I found out his name is actually G.D. Faulkens, and I wrote him an apology, to which he replied that "these things do happen."

After I left the venue, but before I got back on the subway, I was feeling a slightly more fearless, and so I went to the diner where I stopped for directions in order to mentally absorb the evening over a cup of coffee. By the time I climbed back into the bowels of the city, it was well past 5 a.m. As the train passed over the Brooklyn bridge, I looked out at the river, which was slate gray under a gradually lightening sky and I thought, "This is first sunrise I've ever seen in New York City. This is home, now."

As if on cue, however, because this is how my life works, I noticed a man sitting across the car gesturing to me. Taking my headphones out of my ears, I turned away from the river and said, "What?" After several attempts to understand what he was saying through his very thick accent, I finally got it. He wanted to know whether my cat face paint was a tattoo.

Laughing, I exclaimed, "Oh, no, no!" and to demonstrate, I licked my index finger and smudged a small spot of the paint on my cheek.

Suddenly he smiled, looked slightly alarmed and said, "Oh no! Don't do that!" Getting up, he hurriedly crossed the train, sat next to me, and then reached his hand out and gingerly attempted to fix the paint. On my face. With his unidentified-strange-subway-person-at-five-in-the-morning finger.

courtesy of hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com

My brain shorted out. After a night of tireless stimuli, all I could do was look at him awkwardly and wait. Yup. Thanks for fixing that, sir.

After that, we chatted about life for a couple minutes. As it turns out, he's a man from Egypt who makes hookahs for a living. A man from Egypt who makes hookahs for a living and reaches out to touch girls' faces on the subway at five in the morning [sigh]. When I refused to give him my number, he absolutely insisted on giving me his. When I said, "Erm, I have a boyfriend," he smiled the broadest and most genuine smile in the universe and said, "No, no, sweetie! I just want to be friends!" Then, just as I finished programming his number, because "no" was not an acceptable answer, he reached out - yes, again - placed his hand under my chin, and tilted my head up ever so gently. "Let me take a picture," he said. Cocking one eyebrow, I hesitantly smiled. CLICK went the iPhone. My cat face lives on. And then patting me on the shoulder, because I clearly have an inviting presence, he said, "Get home safe, sweetie," and got off the train. 

What a nice man... ?

I swear, these things only happen to me. 

I swear, I'm the only person who lets these things happen to me. 

Turning, I looked back out the window, but all we were passing now were graffiti-covered tunnel walls. A reaffirming experience, I thought, "Yup. This is my home now, like it or not."

Since that evening, I'm pleased to announce that New York City has taken me on several dates. I watched a Woody Allen flick on the Elevated Acre with Dana as part of a summer art festival. We spread out a picnic blanket on the plastic grass and enjoyed some cheese and fruit. I explored Governors Island and attended the Time Traveler's Picnic with Anne. I chilled out in Battery Park and took the free ferry from Manhattan to Staten Island just to see the skyline light up after sunset. I even had a job interview this week. And I have another one tomorrow! Can you believe that?

I was pretty convinced that our relationship was on the rocks. But after the last few weeks, I can safely say, I heart New York City. Like real people in love, we're finding ways to keep the passion alive. 

The Eternal Optimist

Sometimes, I think I come off as a pessimist.

This could be for many reasons.

Maybe it's because I'm often sarcastic and crack jokes that air a little on the dry side. Or maybe it's because I have a slightly self-deprecating sense of humor and always prepare for the worst. Okay, yeah. And maybe sometimes I become a little self-defeatist when things aren't rolling out the way I intended them to.
But that's not because I'm a pessimist. It's because I'm a huge advocator of self-control and it really gets under my skin when a situation spins away from me. Like employment. Or lack thereof. I graduated college - against all odds, it seems - packed up everything, moved to New York City, and found a great apartment in under two weeks. But man, I just can't find a job anywhere. Maybe the cosmic forces of the universe are holding out until I find the perfect job. Yeah. Maybe that's it. See? That's optimism!

But in all seriousness, perhaps it's a little naive, but despite my wry sense of humor and daily brushes the strange and calamitous, I honestly feel that I'm capable of accomplishing anything I want to accomplish if I work at it long and hard enough. Yes, seriously. I feel this  regardless of the fact that mass media clearly plays both sides of that coin:

America is the land of opportunity.

The economy is in shambles and everyone is unemployed.

So maybe America is just the land of opportunism?

[from top to bottom] America, My Dreams
Okay, maybe THAT's a little pessimistic...

Perhaps all I need is focus. Right now, I don't really know what I want to get out of my life, and so I'm having trouble formulating an end game. There are three tiers of employment I could try to go for right now.

1. Work that is entirely unrelated to my college career: waitress, bartender, prep cook, cashier, barista, burlesque dancer, dog walker, customer service representative, janitor, McDonalds employee...
2. Purgatorial work that is kind of connected to my college career: copy editor, fact checker, researcher, copy writer, transcriber, or really any form of organizational office guru...
3. Rewarding work that is absolutely connected to my college career: feature writer, restaurant reviewer, travel journalist, blogger about quirky events and NYC subculture...

So far, I haven't dared to make eye contact with [3], and [2] is the a--hole who keeps me up waiting and never calls me back. But as far as I go out of my way to avoid [1], who I've known for a long time, he loves me no matter how much I've changed or how educated I am. I don't care. I don't like him. But after $1,000 more down the tube, he's going to start to look pretty good. But I'm still holding out for [2]. I'm still waiting. Maybe if I get with [2], [3] will start to notice me more [girly sigh].

I wish I could sit down to coffee with potential employers and say, "Listen. I'm good natured, I'm cooperative, and I work well with others. I have a great skill set and I'm dedicated. I'll complete whatever task you set in front of me, regardless of how menial or mind-numbingly boring it is, and I will do it well. And no, the fact that I went to college in cow country does not mean I am an uneducated, back road hick. I received a solid education and I worked hard to get where I am now. Hire me."

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. And I have a sneaking suspicion that every journalism graduate who received an education from a big, private, city university has a huge competitive edge over me, even though a highly populated journalism program undoubtedly has a greater likelihood of yielding a more watered-down learning experience.

This is not how I learned journalism.

I am ready for bigger and better things than Pizza Hut or the supermarket. If this venture doesn't work out, perhaps I'll look further into that work program in Tasmania I've had my eye on. But don't you worry. I'm not giving up yet. I am ever the eternal optimist.