I've been in New York for almost 3 weeks now and am truly in love. I totally understand what that T-shirt is trying to say.
New York is beautiful and weird and there's a million different worlds depending on where you get off the subway, you can be whoever you want whenever you want , you can have have breakfast for dinner or dinner for breakfast, you can find your dream job or make a job of dreaming. Sometimes when I'm walking down the street, looking around me, this sense of happiness washer over me in a way I've never felt anywhere else. The sun shines almost every day, even when its cold, and I can spend whole days in cafe's reading and people watching to my hearts content. I eat breakfast on the fire escape watching the autumn leaves blow around the street and it feels like I'm in a film but in a great way. I wear whatever I want without being judged or put in a box, and even if I am its ok because the rest of the people in here are really cool and I don't mind being like them. I accesorize pretentiously with a hot chocolate and a book and take the subway in a nonchalant fashion. And in amongst all these people and buildings, I feel more alive than I ever have before.
Obviously, its not all cinematic moments of perfection. I find myself more alone than I have ever been before and though I'm enjoying the freedom it brings, New York can be a lonely place. When I'm feeling really lonely I go across the street to the animal shelter and take a dog for a long walk around the area.
I've got to know some lovely dogs and had some great chats with random people on the street. I fell a bit hopelessly in love with a pit bull puppy and even looked into how hard it would be to get her home but it would have been way too complicated and expensive. It all came about because I went in one day and there were no dogs to walk but the guy asked me to play with the puppy because it was sad about being away from its mother so I happily obliged and sat there for an hour happily cuddling and petting her. She's gone now (heartbreak) but he said there's were more puppies coming in today, so hopefully some of them will need cuddling too.There's always something to do in this city, so when I'm not staying in to watch Mad Men or read I have been to some interesting stuff, including a back-room reading and the preview of Tiny Furniture in the Museum of Modern Art. Tiny Furniture is a film by a new up and coming writer/director/actress called Lena Durham.
She stars in the film, alongside her mum and her sister, and does a really good job of portraying whats its like to be released into the world after finishing a B.A. in Nothing Useful For a Job and feel lost. It's rare that I see something I find genuinely funny, and this was also clever and depressing in equal enjoyable measures.
Another interesting thing I went to was, you know *nonchalant*...Florence and The Machine!! Flo played up an absolute storm; it was the best show of hers that I've seen yet. Her voice sounded amazing soaring through the rafters of Terminal 5 and she twirled and danced around the stage like a leaf caught in a whirlwind of excitement. I always think seeing her play is like taking a Florence drug; you experience highs and lows and you get goosebumps and dance like crazy and afterwards you're exhausted but incredibly happy. She also looked like the High Priestess of Awesome.
As far as reading is concerned, I am lucky enough to be living close to The Strand which is only the best bookshop In The World.
I've just finished reading Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (which was great if even just for the fact that the whole book takes place within a 2 block radius of my apartment) and The Graduate, which was good at first but kind of degenerated into a farcical screen play meets Catcher In The Rye vibe in the end. I also read Clockwork Angel on the plane over, the prequel to the Mortal Instruments series I wrote about before. As someone who has never read Sci-Fi before and is slightly sceptical (I try not to lean towards scornful like most) about it, I really enjoy the whole vampires/demons/angelic descendant fighter world created in them.Ok, I have been sitting here nursing a hot chocolate for about 3 hours now and the sound of the rustling leaves blowing along the pavement outisde in the sun is distracting me and making me want to go out for a wander. I'm always secretly hoping to bump into Garance Dore and Scott 'The Sartorialist' Schuman and become BFF's...but for now I'll have to make do with my ipod and some adventures.
