The Coldest Winter I Ever Spent

There's a saying attributed to Mark Twain, although that's very likely apocryphal, that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. I've been to San Francisco in the summer, and it gets cold. Really cold. Sometimes it even reaches 50°. But I've just acquired new evidence, and let me be the first to say: Mark Twain was a liar and a whore.

The High Line

There is a nifty little park called the Promenade Plantée in Paris on the Seine’s Right Bank. But this isn’t just any park. No, sir. This is a park perched 25 feet in the air on a former elevated railroad line. This is a park that meanders four and a half miles through the city, beginning near the magnificently unforgettable Opera Bastille and snaking between buildings and over intersections and across tree-lined boulevards before finally making its way to one of Paris’s many gardens on the outskirts of the city. Gone are the railroad tracks that once lined this railroad, replaced by cobblestone walkways weaving through islands of flowers and trees, benches and trellises overgrown with vines. Gone are the passenger and freight trains running its length, replaced by aimless Parisians who can finally enjoy a park that puts them where they always thought they should be: above everyone else.

Hey, New York!

New York is a giant city.  Unbelievably gigantic.  It’s such a large city that when you’re in it, it’s difficult to imagine that there’s much else outside, or much reason to leave.  You want it, the city’s got it: grocery stores on every corner, 24-hour subways, pizza parlors, churches, cathedrals, synagogues and mosques (but, for the love of Christian God, watch where you put those things!).  In the mood for expensive clothes?  I give you Fifth Avenue.  Cheap clothes?  Here’s a Target.  Don’t mind if last season's perfectly good clothes have been shredded?  Here’s the dumpster behind H&M.  Or maybe you need a break, a walk through the woods.  Central Park has you covered.  Horses?  Prospect Park has those.  Water?  There’s the Hudson River (of course, I’m using the term “water” very loosely here).  Museums?  Yeah, we’ve got 86 of them.

Reflections on Raleigh

Fayetteville Street, downtown Raleigh's main thoroughfare.

While I was waiting to hear back from jobs in New York, I stayed with my dad in Raleigh, North Carolina for about a month.  Raleigh is a sleepy town, but, of course, calling someplace a sleepy town suggests there is some mild activity like, you know, breathing, that I have yet to observe in Raleigh.  Instead, here is what I have observed:

The beginning

This is my blog.

Welcome.

Oh, watch your step.  Yeah, I have to get that fixed.

In case you haven't heard, I'm moving from Los Angeles, where I've lived for the past five years, to New York City.  Why?  Because, that's why.

Oh, you want a real answer?  I've lived in California my entire life, where I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended UCLA for college.  Now, don't get me wrong, California is great.  It's probably one of the nicest parts of the country, if not the world, which is why until there weren't any, you know, jobs there, people would move to California from all over the country, if not the world.  But, except for vacations and a travel study program in Paris, California is the only place I really know.  I feel safe, and I feel comfortable.  Hell, some of my best friends are from California!

But, from what I've gleaned over the last 23 years of my life (and I've done a lot of gleaning), and from what I've heard from TED talks (like this one)(or this one)(or this one), happiness isn't going to come from playing it safe or avoiding risks.  Happiness is going to come from new experiences, different experiences, and, most importantly, having interesting stories to tell my grandchildren someday.

I could be wrong, and God knows it happens a lot, but what's the worst that could happen?  I could end up alone and homeless in the middle of Central Park, where I get up to pee one morning and find myself in the middle of a Shakespeare in the Park performance of Hamlet, and though I try to fit in (but, of course, the bright orange Gap jacket, something I fished out of a dumpster on 74th and Broadway and that reminded me of middle school when Gap had all those catchy commercials -- I'm sure you remember them, too -- where the people were singing about being mad about Saffron, and being called mellow yellow and whatnot), I can't hold it any longer and end up peeing all over the stage, and since I'd been holding it in all night, you know, I'd had a large reservoir building up, and then it starts to spill over the side of the stage, and people are running away from it, worried it's going to get all over the towels they've laid on the ground, or soak into the picnic they brought for the day, and then I just feel awful.  Anyway, that's probably the worst that could happen.

So, moving to New York, I'm off to new experiences, new stories and new insights into who I am.  Hopefully I'll make a few friends along the way, and if I'm really lucky, I'll find some buried treasure or win the lottery or something, and then I can just buy happiness.  I'm living the American dream.