Friends

I had lunch today with one of my oldest friends who is going to medical school in the Bronx. He took me to a noodle restaurant in the East Village.

Then I sat on the street outside a subway stop and talked on the phone with my friend Alison for the first time since I've been out here. A modeling photo shoot (relatively common here, the third I've seen) was taking place across the street.

Now, I sit at the restaurant below my apartment and enjoy a new friend - the book "The Imperfectionists" - and a couple older ones - gin with tonic.

~Via Blogger for Android Mobile Devices

Okay, this is scary

I can't remember what I did yesterday! (Just because I've been doing so much.)

But then Lady Gaga reminds me. Her new album came out yesterday and my favorite track, "Americano" just started playing. So, of course- I went to Times Square and bought the CD. I only buy CDs when I purposely and especially want to support the artist. I suppose that she doesn't need my money, but it's like voting- you do it to voice your beliefs, not because that one vote will matter.

I'm learning, however, that some of the reasons I started to love Lady Gaga - her brilliantly, shockingly different outfits and artistic choices- actually should be credited to the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen. Because TODAY I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and saw the exhibit of his work, Savage Beauty. Check out details on the exhibit on this page. Lady Gaga wore the middle outfit below in her Bad Romance video.

So part of why I love her was his art. (Her new song "The Fashion of His Love" is a tribute to McQueen) He was an artist whose medium happened to be fashion and the pieces of his art in the exhibit were incredibly beautiful. They made me feel reverent and inspired and happy. Seeing everything in person and up close gave me a real appreciation for the clothes- they're traditional and subversive, intricate and deconstructed, and thematically rich. He used porcupine quills, alligator heads, vulture skulls, feathers, mussel shells, human hair, mud, as well as leather, silk, and wool.

Alright, I don't know that anyone else who might read this is as interested in Alexander McQueen as I am. So enough of that. After leaving the Met (NYC Survival Tip: Admission prices at the Met are recommendations. You pay what you can) and eating my responsible little packed lunch on the steps, I took a walking tour of Central Park courtesy of my friend Xandi. She gave me this little box that has cards, and each card is a guided walking tour of a part of the city. It's really great.

Events in my life transpired to give me 7 days in New York City with nothing I have to do. In my heart I feel an evolution that started when I moved to San Diego to go to college, continued when I went to Peru and saw Machu Picchu, and has brought me here. I almost can't write that because it sounds like bragging. What I mean is, the first event felt like the first proof I could do things. The second event made me finally feel I could stop doing things just to prove I could (it was the biggest so-there to my doubts that I had) and do something bigger with that knowledge. And here I am. So when on the subway, or in my apartment, or any other place here, I have a sense of it being anticlimactic. One side of me goes, "OH MY GOD YOU MARIA ARE BUYING GROCERIES AT THE CORNER STORE IN NY OMG OMG OMG!!" Because living in Manhattan is admittedly incredible. But the other side of me in fact learned years ago that I could do anything I dreamed of, in time, so it says...."calm the heck down...stop being so shocked you can do incredible things." To achieve your highest purpose you may lose self-doubt and incredulity along the way.

Also, I am a relationship person. I am having a great time seeing the sights but I'm also alone all the time. So I know I would never choose a life like this over YOU people.

Me on the roof at the Met:

"When I'm on a mission/ I rebuke my condition/ If you're a strong female/ you don't need permission" -Lady Gaga, "Scheiße"

"I want to empower women. I want people to be afraid of the women I dress." -Alexander McQueen

Giving happiness and gratitude (Or, How To Score A Bedroom Like This In NYC For $100 or Less)

.....BACKTRACK TO FRIDAY:

Stuck in my apartment waiting for my mattress.

There are a million free things on Craigslist, but not only can I not leave my apartment I don't have anyone to help me move things, and it's kind of drizzly.

Mattress arrives around 2pm. I soon embark (in the rain) on the 1 train up to the Bronx where there's a Target. I buy cheap sheets and a comforter, a lamp, some canned and nonperishable foods, and a carton of eggs because they're a dollar. Turns out, sheets and lamps and cans of food are heavy. On my way back-- it's only a block to the subway, and five blocks from the stop to my apartment, but still-- I have the unfortunate appearance of someone in need of a sherpa. (NYC Survival Tip: replace purse with LeSportsac weekender when running errands.) At least then it wasn't raining.

Later, my roommate tells me her friend who lives in the building is trying to get rid of her bed. I text her, go take a look, and though it's nice she wants $50 for it. But her roommate is getting rid of everything besides her bed for free! She offers to give me her tall dresser, her desk with drawers, a cupboard and a hutch, a bookcase, an entertainment center with shelves that she used for shoes (I will undoubtedly do the same), a computer chair, and two kitchen chairs! This is what you call freaking awesome, incredibly lucky, and extremely convenient.

The giving roommate agrees to text me when her stuff is ready to go, which happens at about 10:30pm. We move everything but the desk into my room, and she goes off to Panama. I fall asleep around 2am-- my new mattress is a little firm, plus despite all these improvements things don't quite feel like home yet.

TODAY:

I didn't eat anything yesterday besides yogurt and granola, some pasta, and a pita with hummus, so I took myself out to breakfast. Then, as I'm getting ready to go see Central Park and go look for a clock radio, a mirror, and a rug in thrift stores, the girl with the bed texts me. I can have it for free, just come now. So up I go. She and her dad help me move the bed, AND they get the heavy desk onto a dolly and move that in too. Feeling extremely appreciative for the significant ways people we likely won't ever see again help us, I reassemble the bed myself in five minutes, clean things up a bit, and then decide this warrants a sheets upgrade. The set from Target had a hole in it when I took it out of the package, and that just won't do.

After setting off for the Bronx only to learn the line isn't running above 168th St., taking the A train back to 125th (near me), and wasting 45 minutes, I walk to the Marshall's in Harlem. I pass the historic Apollo Theater which now has a Starbucks as one of its neighbors (hey, there's a McDonald's in the central sacred square in Cusco, Peru...it's literally built within four walls that were made by the Incas...so this isn't as bad, I guess). I walk home with Ralph Lauren sheets and three nice big pillows. This time I look just as encumbered as I did Friday, but I have a spring in my step: "HUAAAHHH Yeah That's right I'm BUFF!" (but really guys it's pillows in here....)

So there you go. $300 bed + $100 desk + $150 chair/dresser/shelves/bookcase (a $550 value, not including delivery) MINUS "Awesome fortunate appreciation-inspring good luck discount" + $380 mattress set + $70 bedding = $100. And I'm happy. As you see in the photo, I'm going to use the hutch as a storage bench. The How-To, I guess, is just to have initiative, and go with the flow, and be appreciative of the blessings you are given.

A few shots from the subway and around my block:

Day one and two and three

That's because today feels like two days. I left Sacramento at 6:15 pm PST yesterday, was in Salt Lake City until 12am CST, arrived in NYC this morning at 6am EST, and it feels like it's 8pm right now...I keep wondering why it's still light out.

It's strange of me to be typing away on a computer instead of out adventuring...I feel like if someone saw me right now they'd get the wrong impression of who I am. But I'm too tired. And Milad told me to take it easy- I do have 12 days still until my program starts. So I will buy sheets, and a MetroCard, and scrounge for furniture, tomorrow. The pickins' should be good on a Friday in May outside the freshman halls.

And it's a good motivator, too--writing things down before my fried brain forgets. I'm hoping to stay up til 8pm. I can't sleep on airplanes. Who was I kidding, "I'll take the red-eye, sleep on the plane!"? The girl next to me pulled out her tray table and just flopped over on it --Wham! I was in wonderment. Maybe she practiced in school? She made it look so easy, I was tempted to try it, but I just can't picture actually sleeping like that.

I arrived at JFK at six am. I called for a shuttle and when she asked me for the address, I blanked. I was planning to go to the housing office to sign my lease and get my keys. But I hadn't thought to write down the address. I just said "Uh... Columbia...?" like a freakin' rube. Then, when I searched my emails for it, I saw that I was supposed to have made an appointment, and brought two passport photos. Crap. I didn't know how I was going to to take care of that with tons of luggage in tow. I texted my new roommate and luckily she said I could just bring my stuff straight to the apartment first. (She's my soon-to-be-ex-roommate, too, since she graduated yesterday. So she was up still at 7am, not up already...)

Here's the picture I took when I arrived at my new home.

There's a doorman! And a laundry room.

My room, which looks out on a not-so-attractive courtyard (I can claim gritty city cred, though) :

The one main room:

My roommate's view is so much better. Her room's bigger too. A bit more street noise, but still, I think I'm going to try to request to switch rooms after she's gone (they're assigned). Looky:

So, this morning, after getting my lease, keys, and tour of the building from the super, I made my second venture outwards. I was on a mission: a new bed that I wouldn't have to assemble. I had been planning to go to IKEA, but that means more than an hour on the train, plus paying for delivery anyway, and then assembling it. So I walked 12 blocks (short ones- the north-south blocks are short and east-west ones are long), went into Sleepy's Broadway, and got a new, full-size mattress set at half price. Hooray! It won't come until tomorrow, so for tonight I think I'm sleeping on couch cushions. The roomie offered her air mattress, but she thinks the pump is at the bottom of the massive pile of junk in the spare closet. I dug for it until I encountered special presents from the rabbit she says used to live here. Couch cushions it is. Better than a tray table.

Guess what sorts of sights you encounter walking a few blocks on your way to buy a mattress in my new neighborhood?

That's the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, the largest cathedral in Christendom, and the diner from Seinfeld. (I trust you can tell which is which.)

Also, a tidbit that I give special significance: Last week, I cashed the savings bond bought for me at birth by a coworker of my dad's, who won the pool on the baby's birth date. It had almost doubled the face value and the last $20 bill I saved, to spend on my first day in New York. I bought a coffee, and a pub sandwich named "the Ivy League" which I ate on my way to buy my mattress. :) I like to think that's a cool way for that money to come around...

Another little instance that is making me feel good right now: the new roommate has the same dishes my old roommate Camilla did. (and the same messy/organized aesthetic, and the same type of foods) It's weird- here I am, moving into a new city, a new apartment--and these little things put me in mind of the last time I did that.

I think it bodes well.

On the edge of glory

New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of

There's nothin' you can't do
Now you're in New York
These streets will make you feel brand new
Big lights will inspire you
Let's hear it for New York, New York,
New York

We are also all on the edge of this.

Sometimes

I'll be trying to sleep, and the thought of living on the island of Manhattan returns to my mind, and my eyes just POP! open.

Like the idea is so big, so alive, that the energy of it flies right around and out of my brain.

Moving on

Tonight is my going-away party with work friends, friend friends, and family. Two weeks from today, I get on a plane for New York.

My first trip to NYC will be my move to NYC.

I'm excited, but I will miss this building. I'll bring along what it built for me, and the things I built for myself inside it :