Furry Pretty Things

I have decided that the unbearable cold of the Northeast makes you wear things that anywhere else, you wouldn’t be caught dead in. Only weather that drops into the single digits several times a month can cause you to look at a fox or a rabbit gallivanting through Central Park and think, “That’s cute, but you know what would be even better? If I were wearing it as a coat.”

On the F

Now that I’ve moved to New York, I go to bookstores a lot — they’re like libraries, but without all the poor people. I go to bookstores a lot because, in New York, when you’re riding on the subway or walking down the street or taking the elevator up to your office, you’re not supposed to talk to people. Why? Because, I can only assume, then the terrorists win. There are a few exceptions, like a time when I was on the 6 train and a disheveled man walked into the car and, after the doors had closed and we were shuttling on our way, started to pace up and down the train and explain, quite loudly, how he was going to kill all of us.

None of my fellow passengers batted an eye.  Apparently, this was a rather common occurrence.

Homesickness

With only a few days before I left New York to celebrate Christmas in California, homesickness hit me quite suddenly. It's a disconcerting feeling, and I can’t exactly explain where I’m homesick for: I haven’t lived with my family in the Bay Area since I graduated high school, and, despite living in Los Angeles for the last five years, I never really considered it “home”.

I have an odd connection with the places I’ve lived. In high school, I wanted nothing more than to move as far away from the Bay Area as I could after I graduated. I couldn't really think of a reason why, except that I wanted something new, something exciting. And, in a stroke of self-delusion that even Bill O'Reilly would envy, I convinced myself of something that I knew to be very much untrue: that I disliked the Bay Area. So for college, I settled on Los Angeles as being a sufficient distance from home.

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: