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KW, let it be known here:
I WILL NOT BE YOUR BRIDEWENCH.
I’d felt restless.
A bit uncomfortable at times.
I am so homesick for New York. I just want to go back.
I don’t care how cold it is or how cold it’ll get. I just want the familiarity of the subway stations as they zip by, the foggy-windowed warmth of the buses, the bare trees overhanging Convent Avenue, the fabulous shopping, the reasons for ear muffs, the trees lining Park Avenue, the Cartier building trussed up as one big gift box.
Ugh, the pain of not being there is tangible.
The windows of my parents’ house are open and I hear the plunkering of some suburban kid on a piano. For a moment, I’m lost in it. This is nice, I think. I can do this. I can NOT live in Manhattan.
And then, I’m snapped out of the comfort. I remember walking down Bleecker Street on my way to Magnolia Bakery, a bit drunk from excellent Chianti at 11 at night. And there is a man with a cello at the corner of Perry and Bleecker. I smile sheepishly as I pass by and he winks. Beautiful music drifting down the narrow streets, warm lights behind hazy curtains of beautiful brownstones. Desperately happy laughter and generous moaning as people bite into cupcakes and banana pudding in front of Magnolia.
LGC asked me the other day if I wanted a care package from NYC. I asked for moments like these. She sighed aloud and asked why I moved. I wasn’t sure what to say. Instead, I stayed silent on the phone and kept nibbling on my mom’s leftover Chinese food, certain I’d be able to figure it out.
Having a job in NYC helps tips the comparison in that direction. After having a roller-coaster-am-I-on-Candid-Camera? day yesterday, I bought myself a baking book and snuggled with it this morning. It’s difficult to snuggle with a book about baking when I’m baking myself in this heat in the mid-end of October. JET said it was cold enough in NYC to require that the buildings turn on the heat, which means it’s nearly freezing at nights. I’m jealous but I’m also smug as I tape up boxes of ear muffs and long johns and thick leggings and hang my heavy coats in the far end of my closet, the side I can hardly reach without tipping over myself.
I want the comfort and freedom of living in NY without the costs. Which is, I realize, like asking for all the organic food choices and locally grown produce of the SF Bay Area without the food snobbery. Never to be torn asunder.
David Sedaris on undecided voters. Excerpt:
I look at these people and can’t quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?
To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”
To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.
Why would you ever want to stop people from getting married?
So, I moved to California.
A friend got married.
I went out. And out. And out. And out. And out.
I went to WalMart. Good God is WalMart amazing or what?
I got a job offer. I emailed my friends. I ran 5.5 miles. I got that job offer rescinded. I ran a faster 5.5 miles. I texted my friends to rescind my email. I would have preferred shoving a screwdriver into my skull via my left eye socket.
My boyfriend made me chilean sea bass and sweet potatoes, let me be as petulant as I needed to be.
I heard that in New York it’s so cold that the building owners turned on their heaters. Where I am, I have no idea why I own a fall or winter wardrobe. I’ll get by in sweatpants and tank tops just fine.
I’m ignoring the monstrous pile of clothes on my bed right now. Yesterday afternoon, I questioned the point of packing when I would very probably be moving out in a few weeks. Now, I’m willing to sift through the stuff. I figure I’m hunkering down, feeling as if I’m about to hibernate.
We set dates in Mexico. I bought The Art and Soul of Baking to make myself feel better about being unemployable.
DD called them Indian job givers. I laughed nearly the whole time on the phone with him.
I checked my old work email and waded through over a hundred new messages, doing unpaid work.
I keep thinking, Whatever.
The leaves are turning colors though in the intense California sun, they are almost too fiery, seem fakely-autumn and not like autumn at all. No crispness in the air. Just an unoppressive 80-degree sunlight streaming from red, orange, yellow leaves.
All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go
I’m standin’ here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the dawn is breakin’, it’s early morn
The taxi’s waitin’, he’s blowin’ his horn
Already I’m so lonesome I could die
So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you’ll wait for me
Hold me like you’ll never let me go
‘Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane
I don’t know when I’ll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go
Disclaimer: I’m not engaged. Not even close. Not even within years or lightyears of such a thing. But I do like pretty pictures…..
I check this webpage more than is healthy and right.
But it’s just so damn pretty. I mean, look at this crap. Gorgeous engagement photos. Disgustingly coordinated color schemes here, and here, and Oh! here again.
Disgusting. This all almost makes me want to plan a wedding. I guess it seems manageable enough when it’s not your own…
