Vegetable Soup Eyes that Watch the World

Waking this morning, unable to sleep anymore after my boyfriend's "see you later" kiss as he went off to work, I was accompanied by a familiar restlessness. The roof seemed the only place to go and so I went, straddling the wall. There's something about elevation that seems at one time natural, an expected preference, but then at another time transcendent. Most of us live between five and seven feet off the ground. We are stuck by gravity to remain on the ground, to inhabit a vantage point that keeps us, in the great scheme of things, quite small. Sitting on a roof four floors off the ground, I become greater than my building, greater than the small buildings around me. I see over them and into Manhattan ahead of me, Brooklyn behind. The city, which is so easy to feel lost and swallowed up in, becomes an objective pinpoint "over there." It is small, manageable, containable. I like to look down on things, see them from above and watch.

Only a few people were on the street so early, though, in my part of Brooklyn, there are often only a few people on the street. An elderly woman entered her apartment building across the street, a few kids walked down the street, I'm sure happy for Saturday, a van of workers pulled up and begin unloading supplies as the climbed onto the roof of the single story building next door. 

A few workers noticed me, curious about the girl precariously poised on a fourth floor roof who watched them. A few waved and smiled. After sitting for a little while, I noticed another people watcher. An elderly man crouched at his window across the street with a cup of coffee, doing exactly the same thing I was doing. However, he didn't notice me, didn't realize that he had became part of the group of people to be watched on this early morning. I watched him watch the workers I had previously been watching. I wanted to wave to him, welcome him into this voyeuristic complicity. However, he didn't notice me. I left as the workers began changing on the roof, offering them privacy though the elderly man continued to watch. 

A Thought: There's a balance one must find as an actor of stripping down one's own tendencies and idiosyncrasies and developing new characteristics of the character. But where exactly is this balance? One creates and inhabits the character through the self, but where is the line between the self and the character and where do these two merge? That I do not yet have an answer for.    

A Find: Interstate Gallery on Knickerbocker. Last night there was an opening reception for a new exhibit that was based off of David Lynch's Twin Peaks. Opening receptions are wonderful. There are so many people to meet, artists to speak with, the gallery owner himself to become friendly with, as well as the art, of course. Any chance you have of going to opening receptions, go!

No Sleep Til Employment

I am my experiences. I experience New York. I am New York. 

I continue reaching deeper and deeper into the corners of my apartment, Brooklyn, and New York. Yesterday entailed two classes and a tour of application processes. Four resumes dropped off, two interviews, and my first haphazard attempt at a cappuccino on a manual espresso machine. That proved to be the most interesting interview, however.

My potential employer, the owner of a Swedish coffee shop, asked me what I considered my personal strength to be. I responded "customer service and connection," explaining that I was brought up by a psychotherapist and so developed pretty decent skills at reading people and making connections. Primarily, I sense energy and can pick up on a person's disposition and present situation fairly accurately, telling my potential employer that I understand people. He seemed intrigued, sparked up a little after an initially somewhat brusk interview. 

"Do you now?" he asked. I nodded. "Read me, then."

And I did. I told him exactly what I had picked up from him from the beginning of the interview: how his brusk manner suggested not only that he had a keen idea of what he was looking for and wouldn't accept those who proved to be sub-par, but also that he seemed to be a bit preoccupied and has probably had a particularly busy, if not even difficult, day. His manner also made me think that he was a business man in mind set, used to functioning in check lists and with systems, i.e. of a more analytical than empathetic manner (while I expressed that he didn't seem unempathetic per se, just predisposed to the former). So I sat there, on an interview, psychoanalyzing my potential employer honestly for about ten minutes. At the end he just nodded, saying I had done a fairly accurate job. We then turned to the technicalities of the job and my resume, after which I had to make him a cappuccino.

As I left, I thanked him for the interview, saying that if the barista job didn't work out, I was available for more analyzation, and that at the very least, the interview had been fun. He laughed and told me I'd hear from him soon as to his decision. 

Weirdest interview ever. 

However, I have already received a call back from the manager of a clothing store who was "very taken with my personality" and is thinking of pushing my application directly up to the district manager. So there seems to be considerable potential there :)

This morning, I wake to a large dofey black man singing "We Are the Champions" outside my window, and then come across two break dancers in masks in the subway terminal. Good morning, Wednesday.

A Thought: Going through the city, I encounter types of people. People who remind me of people from home, people from my last school, last city. It seems they exist as part of a group they don't know, these types. I meet someone new and think "Oh, he is like friend X, the same type of person." Though of course everyone is different and unique, I can't deny these similarities.

A Find: The station on the corner of 8th and 14th streets, where the L meets the ACE, has the funniest little metal statues. They represent somewhat socialist ideals, the workers overpowering the business men, but in these comical little depictions. However, their meanings are clear. Check them out if you have a chance.

Moved In!!!!

Loft spaces, now empty boxes, and local coffee shops. Yesterday, we moved, packed the van, drove, unpacked the van, unpacked the boxes. We assembled shelves and clothing racks, made the bed, and piled up our books. No longer Jersey residents, we now inhabit Brooklyn, the once distant dream of perpetual postponement now actualized. This blog about moving to the city now actually takes place in the city. 

It turns out our landlord actually allowed us to move in two weeks early, and so our loft is technically still unfinished. Currently, there's no fridge, no stovetop or top counters, and our shower grout is drying. But we don't care. We venture out to local falafel and ramen shops, coffee shops, and food shops for whatever we need, happy to just be here, happy to not have to make our way to Penn station to return to Jersey at the end of the day. We woke this morning in city sidewalks, sunshine through new blinds, and a world of New Yorkers around us. 

We now await our roommate, who moves in his things this afternoon. The loft space will eventually be converted into a two bedroom through the help of dividers and partitions, but for the meantime, we all bunk down in what it is we have to work with. But we're here. In Brooklyn. Starting our life in the city.

A Thought:  I know it's getting cold and dopamine vitamin D levels drop when the season changes, but it's amazing the difference a smile and a hello can make to someone. Just seeing a receptive, open face can make a person happier, make them feel more a part of their surroundings and thusly make them feel more grounded.

A Find: Shops at the Loom. An awesome first floor little collection of stores on Flushing Ave that houses a boutique, a co-op, a yoga studio, a tattoo parlor, and an awesome coffee shop that also holds events. Such a cool little place to live by!!!

Ants in Transit

Initial flirtings lead into outright sunlight, the first sunny day yet this week and already I feel more focused, more motivated. This commute, by now accepted as typical, presents itself as  much less daunting now. It is a means to an end, a very desirable end that constantly approaches. 

Yesterday, my boyfriend spoke with me at length about various forms of education, namely self-education. The conversation was inspired by a book he had gotten for his iPad concerning non-traditional means of self-educating and goal achieving. He was excited and, as though through infection, excited me as well. Our desires, at one time little more than foggy mirrors, condensed into words and explanations. "I want to learn this, and this, and that," we said, our stomachs rumbling like waking bears, ravenous, almost brutal. We spoke of our demands for the world selfishly, imagining the utmost and requiring its actualization. We take in books like bread, slurp others' knowledge like life-water, our skin aching for more, for contact, for abrasions through which even more can seep in. 

And today, there is sun, affirmative warmth on my skin, rays of vitamin D trickling through my pores and I am calmed. No more bumbling umbrellas battling each other on city streets, annoying the unfortunates who complain about the safety of their eyes. No more leaky charcoal overhead but rather a sky that reminds me of the bright blue gummy sharks I ingest by the bag. My eyes, less sleepy, less inclined to blink at the joyous construction workers this morning, blink at my hometown baristas, the friendly train conductors who occasionally recognize me.

Resolution. Such a simple yet desirable word. Five phone calls, some back and forth, minor details, a few text messages, and then closure. We finally move. For sure. On Friday. That's two days until my first apartment. Two days until a new residence, new state, new address, new roommates. No more commute, no more hassle. Things finally shift from a viscous goo into a more solid form, one with definite sides and angles, constructed of signatures and down payments. We no longer inhabit a world of extraneous what-ifs: what if the apartment falls through, what if we can't secure another one, what if my financial aid falls through, what if I can no longer afford this perfect school I've found, what if I can't find a part time job, what if my boyfriend is stuck at the job he hates, what if the world explodes?

But no. This structure, this building is built upon a lease and a check, only to be further constructed upwards towards a skyscraper's height of glory. These two months are simply a mosquito on the skin, a fraction of night through a blind as it closes and then we move onwards towards evenings of wine on the roof, midnight walks through the city, morning breakfasts on the high line, bike rides through Brooklyn, an eventual loft bed we design and build ourselves, and everything else we've romanticized about since the middle of August. It tastes like adulthood and independence, like cracking eggshells and new skin, feels like joints cracking from too much sleep and a warm sweater. Finally I'll be writing this blog about moving to New York from New York itself, becoming an inhabitant rather than a commuter. My blisters have all healed, my feet now tougher, my legs more muscular. 

A Thought: A puzzle, rather. So many people inhabit NYC, and with them, so many independent, local coffee shops. Yet people crave the familiar, creating nests in their comfort zone with their feet in the cement. I see so many Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks cups throughout the day and am astounded by  New Yorkers' lack of spontaneity and adventure. These chains will be fine without your business. Go find a local cafe and try the different kinds of coffee and espresso out there. 

A Find: Eat More Kale. A small time Vermont based group that sells t-shirts, stickers, and canteens even supporting their motto, to "eat more kale." Not only are these items fun, but the company actually makes a rather good suggestion. Kale is perhaps one of the healthiest and most beneficial dark leafy greens out there. It's amazing raw, steamed, blanched and sauteed, plain, with garlic, with Bragg's Liquid Aminos, with Annie's Green Goddess dressing, on sandwiches, etc... you get my drift.

Old Man Sweaters and Broken Clocks

As I sort through my clothing, tossing the desirables into a large garbage bag to soon drag up to Brooklyn, I keep my sweaters aside, reminding myself that it is indeed fall. The smokey sky, puffs of air that escape my lungs in the morning, and giant spider outside my screen door all remind me of this fact as we approach jacket season together. 

Later, sitting outside my hometown coffee shop, I watch a puddle of dog urine slowly creep along the street, evaporating slowly. I wonder where those piss molecules go to, and start thinking about cloud filters, Brita filters, and an idea for a Prozac filter my mother had jokingly come up with years ago. Like the pee, time trickles onwards, though the grey sky shows no sign of the sun's progression. Truthfully, days like today seem to hover as we wrap our jackets more tightly around ourselves, turning on our heat and moving indoors. My latte grows colder, my only sense of time.

I don't feel, but rather know that our move to a new city is imminent, through packing, through phone calls, through the fading shadows of summer. A classic rock station sings songs about days I don't remember, days I never lived through and I feel as though I myself am floating. The world is built not of concrete, but of whisps of cloud and smoke and small accomplishments: two guitars sold, half a home packed, small assignments completed, successful book recommendations to my boyfriend. 

While I do homework, he reads a book on American Noir that I lent him, a book I had purchased years back from the Smithsonian. It's fascinating how strongly noir is rooted in the disillusionment of the post WW2 era, stemming from artists who had grown discontent with their government, but rather than preaching outright dissent, they internalized their feelings into tragic anti-heroes and brutal femme fatales. For a brief period, I had contemplated doing my senior thesis on the relationship between post-war disillusionment, noir novels and film, and the psychological stages of mourning. Well, I guess it's still a consideration.

A Thought: Nothing is isolated into it's own field. Look at noir, a dark artistic movement that stems from history and mirrors psychology. Think of how mathematical music is, how scientific color theory is. These interconnections are where the most growth and transcendence can occur for a creative person, by playing on the interconnections and stretching them to their utmost reaches.

A Find: Not necessarily new, but the film Double Indemnity, adapted from the novel by James M. Cain by director Billy Wilder, is an amazing film and one of the earliest big-time American noir films. Starring Fred McMurray, Barbara Stanwick, and Edward G. Robinson, it's a forerunner off of which many later noir films have been adapted and modeled.