Reverse Thinking

November 28, 2006: Ok so the previous post dedicated to planting my foot in the social scene and turning over a new leaf of fresh starts and exciting new opportunities has almost completely boiled down to the classic and oh so familiar sample of gourmet BS reduction. The only reason I have included my half-heartedly witty comparison to food is due to the amount of random episodes of Top Chef I have seen in the past few weeks.

Today, Tuesday, I experienced what I think might have actually been the first day I was tired. Not just a little tired, hung-over, or wishing for an extra few minutes of tranquility in the morning, but tired. Good and tired. Thoughts of napping and locking myself in my room with flannel sheets and a dead cell phone left at the doorstep consumed me. To make matters worse it was probably one of the most hectic days at work; while my boss ran back and forth across Manhattan for interviews with various entertainment mediums, some of which did (and didn't) happen, I was left picking up the bits and pieces of miscommunication between parties, catching various messages flying through the air at maximum speed with my own version of some high-tech-virtual-reality-matrix-baseball-glove.

No wonder I am mental.

Today I asked the receptionist how to close the security gate separating the office and elevators. How hard can that actually be?? And more importantly, is that even something I would consider part of her job? Or something I would need to ruin my cuticles over?

I postponed holiday shopping with my roommate, resorting to cooking my own salty version of chicken noodle soup with celery, red-onion, broth and frozen chicken. I ate it while simultaneously watching three different TV shoes and one-edited-for-TV movie.

My multi-tasking skills are optimum, but my sanity seems to be fading.

Dirt

November 18, 2006: For some reason or another the subway was not crowded during the week - and I managed almost every day to catch the train without finding myself pinned between 100 people in the aisle way of the car, fighting for dissipating quantities of oxygen and swaying with the rocking of the train like a school of mindless jelly-fish riding the breaking surf of the ocean.

But as they say, nothing comes without it price, so instead of fixating my morning attention on the numbers and faces of strangers, I started to notice the subway itself, the walls and tunnels, inhabitants (both human and otherwise), stockpiles of trash, smoky and dank underground air, and dirt. Tons of it.

Out of the 1, and ready to weave my way to the R, I stop short after I feel something hit my sleeve. I look up and to my horror, I see the foulest representation of a cavern stalactite - a dripping curdling mass of subway dirt. A filthy rendition of slow forming earth in the form of goo and guck that had filtered from city street and gutter, oozing through cracks of concrete, attaching itself to the platform pillars, manifesting on old thick metal, and seeping into the pores of the affiliates of mass transportation.

I waited for the drop to soak into the fabric of my sweater and for my last minutes of tranquility to transform in nauseating waves of germ induced panic. Dousing the spot in Purell, I feel momentary rest-assurance that I will not die from third degree burns and a plaguing infection caused by a drop of deathly subway muck.

Optimism

November 14, 2006: Today I ran hard on the treadmill. Fast. Since I joined the gym, I've usually taken a leisurely pace to my workouts running around 5 mph (a few less than in my cross country days) and burning a few hundred calories before cooling down and heading home for dinner.

Today was different. After an after work shopping trip with Ann, and little success, I finished my workout with the feeling that running might have been the best thing for my day. It woke me up, jostled me out of the fumbling funk of the last two days. After a busy weekend, and a lot of gin on Saturday, I felt as though a good run could get anything toxic out of me, leaving me healthy for most of the day tomorrow.

I am going out this week. I am meeting people. I have accepted the fact that I am someone who thrives on having too many things to do instead of nothing, someone who would rather feel overwhelmed than empty. I now live in a city with millions of people, and all it takes is a few hours and I am on my way to building my new community. My foot is planted.

My senior year of college I wrote a book review on a few collections of personal essays that focused on solitude, isolation, and finding "solace" in new places and foreign territory. I've found the isolation, and the independence, the loneliness of the city, and the solitude of your own little room in a dusty, overheated apartment. I refuse to find solace; I am ready for fresh and interesting people, the small community in many, and the six degrees of connection that even prime television portrays as reality.


November 5, 2006: I was on MetroNorth Sunday evening, taking the train back to the city after a great family weekend with Margaret. I pulled out an old envelope and start jotting down words on the back of the pastel purple paper. Any words that came to mind I scribbled down, plucked randomly from my stream of consciousness, never stopping or straining to think of something that would look good on paper, or show my creativity. Just plain, boring, and somehow mindless brainstorming.

The paper was filled within a half and hour, with another half-hour left to ponder and sift through the twisted list of words. I closed my eyes, allowing my pen to circle and pick a word. My makeshift game narrowed down to 10 words:

Style
Pressure
Intuition
Understanding
Company
Elegance
Projects
Betrayal
Solitude
Imagination

I fancied myself having the inspiration, creative capacity, and intellectual stamina to actually turn these words into a story, a novel, a national bestseller, but time had gone to far for me to plan any of that before the train pulled into Grand Central.

Betrayal stood out; solitude, pressure are two things I felt almost everday; imagination, intuition, elegance, understanding, and style are four things I hoped never to lose; and projects and company I hoped always to have.

Maybe a sentence first, or a paragraph should go down on paper, before anything else is thrown into the mixture of ideas that have filtered in and out of mind, applying for the little space left available in my day of corporate 9-6 work weeks, gym hours, and 7-hour sleep.

We Might as Well be Strangers

November 8, 2006: I have the tendency to rewind, my mind constantly shifting towards the memoir frame of consciousness, when sitting down to pull together the wandering thoughts of the past few weeks. Its a natural habit for people, no matter how many quotes are said for "forgeting regrets" and "looking forward", we always end up finding time to ask the proverbial "what if". I wonder if I had never looked back, I would still be writing today, although the same can be said for looking ahead.

Today was one of the dreariest, rainy days I have lived here in New York yet. Making my way through the streets, I noticed that everyone, naturally, took up more space than usual - fighting for space on the street, and weaving through the crowds in morning and afternoon rush hours seemed to take more stabs at my composure than my patience.

To make matters worse, my broker calls to mumble something about my electric bill, and as I stand feverishly in the subway, complete with a dripping umbrella and cold rubber wellies, I can only think about what could have happened - fire, bounced checks, gas leaks. But not to worry - it was a false alarm and after Cosi, Coldstone, Lost and a few glasses of German Reisling on the couch, I was confident that everything was fine, and we would indeed have electricity at least for one more day.

October 31, 2006: Backtracking a bit to Halloween. The day, and those on either side of it, was jumpy. Coworkers, friends, and people in general seemed too edgy, pushy on the subways, lacking in respect, and short on gratitude. That evening, I made my way to Ann's apartment and up to the rooftop we stood with plastic solo cups filled with vodka and orange flavored club soda in spirit of the holidays. It so happened that her apartment overlooked the infamous 6th Avenue, of the Americas, which marked the path for the Village Halloween Parade.

For three hours, anyone and everyone walked down the street - with big floats filled with dancing drag queens, skeletons, pumpkins, Borats, toast, kegs, fairies, IPODs, and caravans of sperm chasing the lone egg. Without exaggeration, the parade nearly outdid my previously well noted list of American spectacles, which include experiences that can only be saved for another day.

While we debated on whether or not the parade would prevent us from making it to DeMarco's for a late night slice of pizza, I found myself enchanted by the number of strangers that had all been brought together at the thought of one holiday, walking through the streets of New York, together, boasting their proud displays of character, personality, and loyalty to the traditions of the lonely city. After the last few stragglers had left the avenue, the street sweepers promptly circled in - honing on the remaining traces of celebration like vultures, quickly wiping the slate clean of any original voice and flavor, leaving bar asphalt for stampeding taxi-cabs.

I went home early that night, thinking of my Grandfather, who had just 4 years ago passed away on Halloween. 4 years ago I had just started college, and on this day, the "day of the dead", I seemed like I was just starting life. I missed him, I missed my family, my friends, my comfort.

During the summer, I was ready to move on, but lately I feel as though I am ready to fall back. These days are fragile, it seems, but give it a chance they say.

The End of the Beginning

The story began back in early August, when the decision to move to New York became real. Two weeks later the lease was signed, and one month later I moved in and became a part New York City, joining millions of recent college grads looking to stick their foot in the door of professionalism.

September 5, 2006: The day after labor day, I went to New York for a job interview after spending the interim weeks packing up my stuff in Delaware. After a recommendation from Ann, I was walking through the doors of 257 Park Avenue to the offices of Spa Finder, a global spa marketing company. At 11:00 I metwith Susie, the president of the company, and within a half-hour I was offered the postion. Assistant to the President. After a solid two and a half months of searching for a job, I found one in 30 minutes. My high school Social Studies teacher told us "its not what you know but who you know" and this, I must say, is entirely true.

September 15, 2006: As the rain fell I trudged through afternoon rushhour to the subway, carrying a weeks worth of clothes in an oversized duffle. Holding an umbrella was useless, as I teeter-tottered my way down Park Ave, stopping just short of the intersection to look up at rain filtering down through rising skyscrapers. A tall man interupted my moment of solitude, offering to share his umbrella with me until we parted ways on the steps of the subway. 20 minutes later, I finally reached my apartment, sitting on the dusty hard wood floor with wet bags and clothes strewn about me. That night, I slept on the bare mattress with a thin sweatshirt for a pillow, waiting for the morning when my parents would deliver the life i had temporarily left behind in Delaware.

October 15, 2006: Mid-month marks the date: one month as a citygirl, with one alumni weekend already behind me. I received my business cards two days before the start of the college weekend, a sublte reminder that I was truly a part of the corportate world. Days of classes, midterms, and lazy afternoons were fresh memories that have not yet faded in the wake of the enveloping 40-hour-work-week shadow.

So, the blog begins October 30, 2006:

After a month and half of life, work, and adjustment, I am left feeling utterly inspired by the city. The creativity, the personality of the streets, supplies so much raw emotion for its tenants, who between work, family, friends, and fun are just trying to determine what it was that originally lured them here in the first place. I now understand it, the lure. I am looking for it too. It's New York City, what else could be better?