it's a shoreline and it's half speed

i'm totally disoriented in the suburbs. i take long showers and fall asleep by the pool and drink vodka and eat like a condemned man and keep trying to figure out what the one big thing is i forgot to do and won't realize until the plane takes off and then that "home alone" moment happens and i scream, "change of address!"

it's getting desperate around here. i've been left to my own devices for too many hours at a time. i suppose today i could start packing. or, i could listen to "i have a dream" from the new "mamma mia" movie on repeat all afternoon. somebody pass the svedka and the headphones, this song is my jam.

not that i've seen "mamma mia" or have any particular affinity for musicals, but much in the way that if "wall-e" had found me on a particularly hormonal day, i would have needed a direct line of xanax and an escort out of the theater, "i have a dream" plays epic symphonies on my heartstrings.

and this happens, i think, this emotional swelling, this desire for melodrama, when life changes so devastatingly much. alas, i've come to realize that i've been reduced to material nothingness. i once again have no job, no home, no boyfriend, and no idea how all of this is going to work out. how terribly bizarre, to be back at that point again, and to realize how all of it is so different to me now. i'm entirely content with the groundlessness of my life. a little intimidated, slightly nervous, somewhat aghast, but completely empowered by the responsibility i now have to build up a life for myself again.

times like these just call for a little abba.

i love this record baby, but i can't see straight anymore

i left new york on the best possible note. i didn't even know i could leave new york on such a good note. if there's a better note, i don't want to be on it.

strange, i had written the last post, about the friends i had made, before pulling it together and still slightly overwhelmed with all the packing i had left, headed downtown to maggie and paul's to start off a "one final hurrah" night. i had been out every night that week, i was drinking way more than usual, and underneath it all was this minor anxiety about just making sure everything was sorted out before i left. but i knew it was important that we all have one final night together.

well. i show up around 10:30, paul answers the door terribly excited to see me, and i think it's just because i can hear the men at work song "down under" playing in the living room, so i assume it's just a little joke and i'm all caught up in that, that i'm totally thrown off when i come into the living room and everyone yells, "surprise!"

"what the fuck!" i cried, because i could hardly believe none of this was a joke, it was in fact a surprise going away party that maggie had been planning for weeks. ashley and joey are there, and a number of maggie's friends i had met only a handful of times but were just as excited as anyone else to send me off with a fond farewell. unfortunately, kristen and jay were both out of town, but just the fact that maggie was plotting this with jay and people from work and trying to arrange a perfect time that everyone could make it--and i, of course, was totally oblivious--was entirely endearing. and despite a few missing faces, it took nothing away, and the timing could not have been better.

so we had a fantastic night. the highlight, of course, being that maggie and paul--taking a cue from this little blog of mine--decided to make, from scratch, wedges with sour cream and sweet chili sauce. i mean, they bought the potatoes and all the spices and followed a recipe from some australian website, scrubbing and slicing and baking and pretty much doing everything but what anyone in australia would do, which is just buy a bag of the frozen wedges and throw them in the oven for twenty minutes.

it's silly how touching something so basic as homemade wedges can be. appropriately enough, i got very drunk and ate almost all of them. they were really good.

i also have to note, throughout friday, between the last day at work and the night out, how many incredibly kind and moving sentiments were made. i think back to that first few weeks that i lived in new york, how awfully lonely they were, how insignificant i felt in this city, and now a little over a year later, the huge 180 my life has done. i count no greater success in new york than being told, "you've truly touched all of us." i don't really think there's a better definition of making it somewhere--of "making it in new york"--than actually being capable of connecting with other people and making a difference in their lives.

friday night was probably my favorite night out in new york of the past year. even if some things didn't go according to plan, as far as i was concerned, it was exactly how it should have gone. i feel like i left everyone remembering them just the way i wanted to, and knowing without a doubt that i have something to come back to.

now i'm in new jersey for a few days, with a small to-do list left of things that need to be done. and then i fly out friday. already, when i look back on new york, i see it as something encased, a period of my life that is over for now, but preserved.

and that leaves me with no option but moving forward. i'm entirely ready.

i can't wait to tell australia about these potato wedges.

a million hours left to think of you

this will not be conclusive.

and yet everything has become exactly that: the conclusion of a life. and rife with all of the fixings of what goes into spending the last few days trying to tie together a thousand strings and avoid the dreaded "loose ends" that threaten to tap you on the shoulder just as you've turned around and started walking away.

it's been a long, strange, surreal week, with a lot of goodbyes, countless exclamations of how much fun i will have or how excited i am, some strange emotional turns, and of course, plenty of vodka. the one thing that's been entirely consistent in my last year or so in new york, to an absolute fault, is vodka.

i don't know what i want to say, and i'll know tomorrow, when i've left the city, when my job is long left in the dust, when all of my friends have stopped waving and moved on to the next task of the day. as i write this, my goodbyes are not completely over, my bags not completely packed, my time in new york not entirely bid adieu.

but i want to at least say this: i take it back. i take back what i said earlier this month, what i started all of this believing, what i insisted must be true in order to fully justify this turning upside down of my life. i take it back.

new york and i get each other. new york and i make perfect sense. new york and i can have a good life together. the costs are high, the jobs are competitive, the pace is fast, and the peace is scarce, but the people are incredible. the people are fucking brilliant.

this of course is what i knew would happen, what was meant to happen. i tossed out the idea, once i settled on australia, that as the countdown to australia started, i would fall in love. i of course thought it would be with one person, with some dreamboat who would show me what love really meant, and by august, would inadvertently reintroduce me to the heartbreaks involved in life's inevitabilities, the consequences of choices made, but i'm thrilled that that's not the case.

you have to understand, it's been top priority on my list since i was old enough to socialize; it's been at times a terrible struggle, marred by shyness and insecurities. it's soared at times and crashed and burned at others. but it's always at the forefront of my priorities: making friends. there were many times in my early new york life that i thought it simply would not happen, that new york was far too large and i had too few connections to fall in with anyone. bring on the random sexual partners, bring on the weekends alone, bring on that tricky vodka.

i know that i don't know what i really want to say yet, but i want to at least say this: i made friends. i made amazing, kind, brilliant, funny, incredible friends. these are the good people of new york. these people are what i fell in love with, and bear with me on this one, but the self-help books would be terribly disappointed if i did not mention also the great love affair i finally discovered with myself.

because it wasn't until i finally did that that i was able to truly connect with these people. no, i didn't have any actual relationships in new york. a few dates here and there, mostly a free dinner and some uninspired flirting. but with friends like these, i hardly noticed. i don't think the point (one of many points) of my living in new york was to have a relationship with anyone. (david and i ended only a week or so after i got here, and i think that was purposeful, we could not last together in this period of our lives.)

i was supposed to get down to the bare bones of the end of june in 2007, staying on sonam's couch, searching for an apartment with the clock ticking and a sense of desperation and exhaustion i hardly believed i could face. one night, after a day of apartment hunting and stumbling around the city, i was walking back to where sonam was staying on the upper east side. she was away for the weekend, and jay was working, and i didn't really know anyone else here. no one in this city was looking for me. i had nowhere to go. i had no home, no job, no boyfriend, and no idea what i was going to do or how this would all work out.

so i just walked, looking up at apartment buildings, jealous of the simple fact that there were people living behind the lighted windows, entirely absorbed by the idea of lives being lived out all around me. i felt entirely untouchable, untouched. disconnected. life brought me down to the minimum of my self.

so it is an absolute pleasure to now, in some time-defying way, reach back and comfort this former self in some way, and tell him that he will find a home, he will find a job, he won't need a boyfriend, and he will eventually soon be surrounded by friends. he will be completely connected. he will leave this city soon to brave a whole new challenge, and he won't believe it, but he'll be leaving behind an incredible life.

that's what i want to say.

i remember please don't ever leave

i walked to the thai restaurant on 9th avenue after work, yes, the one i always go to. it's not even that amazing, but i have so few attributes that would be considered "habitual" anymore, so i take what i can.

a waitress glanced at me as i walked in, waiting for some sort of explanation. "just one," i said.

"just one?"

ah yes, the great 21st century peril of dining alone.

i nodded. she looked around, smiling, hoping to spot a small, two-person date table along the wall, but a number of couples had beat us both to the punch. she looked down at the empty four-person table a foot away.

"is this okay?"

i nodded and smiled and sat down, as she quickly cleared away three sets of silverware and dashed off, leaving me with a menu. i think any number of months ago, i might have hoped that i just looked early. i might have even taken out my cellphone and read old text messages that had nothing to do with my imaginary scenario. as groups of four came in, i might feel a little embarrassed.

but if new york has taught me anything at its most trying times, it's that you can function alone. so i ate in silence, surrounded by empty chairs and a waitstaff that didn't know what to do with me and all of this dining real estate.

after dinner, i decided to walk for a while, and ended up trekking up 9th and onto broadway as it cut into the upper west side, eventually logging over fifty blocks before deciding to hop on the 1. the whole time, i had a strange sense that i would see someone i knew. i kept thinking david. i sometimes think that's wishful thinking. i guess old ghosts die hard.

i shook it off by the time i was heading down the steps into the 96th street subway station. a 2 train had just let out, and between the suffocating heat and crowds of commuters scattering before the 2 made its way to harlem, i was feeling a little woozy. i sat down on the bench and looked around, feeling the pressure die down as the masses filed up the stairs.

i had a premonition that i would see someone else tonight as well. i forgot about david well into the upper west side, but once i got into the 90s, i thought about someone else i would find myself speechless in front of. i can't say who. i know that may render all of this irrelevant and anticlimactic, but i can't tell you who.

and there he was, holding a briefcase and walking up the platform towards the stairs, towards me sitting on the bench sweating and suddenly not breathing. so i did the only thing i knew how to do with him: i looked the other way. i didn't even have to think about it. fight or flight? i just hid behind some branches in the tree.

it seemed to take forever for him to pass behind me, and i'll never know if he saw me. but he kept walking, and i watched the back of him, and i expected him to turn around, and truth be told, i almost wanted him to. i owed him an apology. i owed him an explanation. something in between.

but he kept walking and disappeared up those stairs, and i imagined that maybe he did in fact see me. maybe he even stopped, or slowed down briefly, but ultimately kept moving. realized it was me--or who he thought was me--and decided there was nothing to say. i think there are some people who are meant to disappear, and there are some people who are not. the ones who disappear have nothing truly left to offer, and the ones who don't haven't said everything that needs to be heard. even if they don't say a word.

but he said everything i needed to hear tonight.

sometimes, you're better off alone.

exchanging the common heart for the salt in the sea

an older dominican man sat on the front stoop watching while jay and i said goodbyes fit for a weekend trip to the country. bring me back some country air, i'll tell you what you missed on this saturday night in the city. we'll hash it out over dinner on monday. ok, see ya.

and then jay and his luggage rolled up the street towards broadway for a taxi, and i went back inside, not looking at the dominican man, and only looking back once. the end of an era, my friends. bring on the flood of things we should have done before that. another photo-op adventure, another rehashed old joke or routine, maybe a final lunch at pram forest, with the socially retarded waitress, overpriced diet cokes, and good bread.

alas, alas, as a number of people have said, not knowing someone else has already made the same point and thus are only reinforcing the truth, "it'll all be here when you come back." and not...come back in six months, because i can't handle australia. (aren't i supposed to be moving to boston then anyway?) but, whenever. whenever i come back to new york. it's strange, though, how "if" has turned to "when." but in this last month and a half, it feels like everything has really suddenly fallen into place. i mean, sure, there's still the matter of the crappy apartment in the lame neighborhood, and the unsatisfying job, and the pretensions and competitiveness and crowds and noise and the costs and the fact that it is so incredibly hard to find inner peace in a city without any.

but i can always move. and get a better job. and nowhere is perfect. so maybe i have to put up with pretentious neighbors, bitchy queens, and always someone somewhere honking their horn, but if it's not that, it's something else.

now i'm talking like someone who wants to stay in new york, but to be honest, i don't. i'm just someone who isn't fleeing from new york. i have friends here now. (baffled, for months, on how people actually make friends in new york, and all the while, i was making friends.) i have a routine i don't terribly mind. as i've said before, even if i wasn't moving, i would have quit my job, and who knows what i would have fallen into. but considering the life i was able to live and the money i was able to make with this salary, i'm sure i could afford a nicer place to live and a more comfortable lifestyle.

so it's nice to know that sense of possibility will always exist in new york for me. when i come back. maybe it's for two weeks, maybe it's for two years. maybe it's not for another five or six years that i even consider moving back. maybe i say all this now, and the moment i step foot outside of this city, i decide i'll never come back. maybe i never see any of these people ever again. maybe jay and i start planning trips every six months to our respective locations for extended visits, and maybe that location is anywhere but new york.

the truth, right now, though, is that i have less than a week left in this city. and i'm not planning on cramming much more into it than i would any other week. i'm not planning a huge, weepy farewell. there will be nights out and drinks and hugs and a tear or two, but essentially, i'm aiming for that goodbye fit for a weekend trip to the country.

maybe minus the old dominican man.

old teenage hopes are alive at your door

i am no connoisseur of good music, mind you. i listen to a lot of remixes. and i'm usually ten steps behind what everyone else was right on top of weeks ago. i'm often pushing the door when i should be pulling, and someone usually has to finally sigh and just let me in.

so i'm not saying you've never heard or heard of feist. and i'm hardly introducing you to "1234," because apple took good care of that if you weren't already well-acquainted. but in the spirit of being ten steps behind and listening to a lot of remixes, sink your bicuspids into this:



but the real apple of my queer eye is this gem i discovered through the grapevine. i can not be sad, ever, knowing this video exists.



i believe there is no more joyous a moment than when she croons at 1:14, "1,2,3,4 chickens just back from the shore" and it seems the sheer euphoria of the moment begins to take over, as she throws about her ponytail like a five year old girl completely entranced by the magic of it all.

moments like this, we are reminded that life truly is beautiful. let me count the ways.

the rain is like an orchestra to me

on this date, two years ago, i had landed in newark airport after a day of flying i hardly remember. how strange, i remember so many minute details about my flight to australia five and a half months earlier, but hardly recall the return flight to america.

i do remember how silly my parents looked, standing by the baggage carousels as i came down the escalator. my mom had that tight smile on her face, her eyes seemingly all puddly pupils and lashes, which is the look she has when she's trying to not lose her shit in public. my stepdad kept it together as usual, but wouldn't let go when we finally hugged. my mother's relief that i was back in her midst was physically palpable. i can't remember for the life of me how i felt. tired, i suppose. happy to see them, but completely blindsided by the huge sense of vague familiarity of it all, and how very far away australia seemed.

as a surprise, my parents brought food from an italian restaurant i grew up going to, and craved on many an occasion in melbourne. best pizza i've ever had. it's so typical of my stepdad, and his affinity for elaborate surprises. sometimes they go over like the hindenburg, but this time, he nailed it. i sat in the backseat and gorged and talked about my flight, talked about how weird i felt, but couldn't seem to figure out what to say about australia. it was almost like temporary amnesia. what are we doing at the airport? who came home? from where? that doesn't sound familiar.

it took days to shake the jet lag, and just as long to know what to do with myself. i went back to work very quickly, and it was the definition of humbling. i was working in a kitchen with people who could hardly comprehend what i had just come back from. it was very "a little princess." though i fucking love that movie.

but life picks up and starts to happen again. i finally saw jay again and we went to penn state to see meagan and all of her friends and drink and drink and drink, and there was that sense of falling into something new and fun that i would not totally embrace before australia....maybe only a week or so after i got back from oz, i started talking to, and quickly fell head over heels for, nate. in the spirit of the agreement david and i made in sydney, i went with it, and our courtship became the very definition of putting the cart before the horse, but it was entirely enthralling and i thought, "my life is taking its next exciting turn..."

suffice it to say, this was the beginning of what i endearingly described to jay last night as, "the worst two years of my life." i know, how terribly judy blume of me. are you there, god? it's your old friend peggy again.

and i don't want to get lost in the trenchant doom-and-gloom of that. as jay pointed out, "there were good times, too. remember your birthday, when erin melnick dressed up in one of our chair covers?" yes, those were good times. and really, honestly, calling them "the worst two years of my life" is not fair. and anyway, i mean, essentially, they're over, as far as i'm concerned. as that self-help guru louise hay says, "i intend to make this the best year of my life." that woman is a fucking peach. and it's much easier now, when i'm feeling pretty bloody fantastic and on the cusp of exciting new things, to look back and say, "well, that was all very important."

but truly, i think anyone can agree with this quote from the astounding play "august: osage county" which i can't seem to ever shut the hell up about: "thank god we can't tell the future, or we'd never get out of bed." to that i say: true story. but thank god we can't erase the past, either. i wouldn't give up these last two years for anything.