(I wrote this post on my three-year anniversary in New York City — January 27, 2010 — but didn’t get around to posting it then. A couple days later my mom reminded me that I moved to New York on January 26 — and she would know, because it’s her birthday. Regardless of the date, the feelings are the same).
• • •
Three years ago today, I moved to New York. It was the day after my mom’s birthday. My family and I woke up very early in the morning to say our goodbyes. I cried a lot. My dad and I went to the airport. I was thankful that it was dark because I couldn’t stop crying. Then my dad and I got on a plane to New York. A few days after that, I cried again when I said goodbye to my dad. Then I opened a gift my mom had sent with my dad, the book “Love You Forever,” and started crying even more. Moving to New York meant a lot of crying for me and I wondered what I was doing to myself. Growing pains are hard.
Three years ago I moved into my first apartment with a stranger in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I started my first real job. I wore tennis shoes to work and then switched into heels (eventually I ditched the heels, but I was totally Melanie Griffith Working Girl for awhile). I picked out which health insurance plan I wanted, even though I really didn’t understand the process. I filled out forms for my life insurance beneficiaries — my best friends and my sister. I hoped I wouldn’t die by getting hit by a cab or mugged by one of the 15,000 scary people out on the streets or internally combusting from all the noise or catching a rare disease from touching a subway pole.
Three years ago, I moved to a city where I knew only two people — my cousin and a friend from college, Lindsey. I got confused on the subway and sometimes wound up on Canal Street when I thought I was going to Times Square. I wanted to cover my ears because everything here was so loud. I said “Excuse me” when the situation called for it and people looked at me funny. After depositing my first paycheck, I bought my first iPod.
Three years later I am living with my cousin in an apartment that feels like home. I’m a pro at navigating the subway. I still get excited when I see celebrities. I’ve actually been tapped by a cab when I was going through a crosswalk and managed to walk away just fine (though with some nasty bruises). I realized that the people here aren’t scary, just different from the people I grew up around, that their vibrance and diversity is what makes New York City the way it is. The magazine I worked for ran an article called “25 Reasons I Love New York” compiled from reader submissions. This one particularly sums up what New York means to me too:
I love New York because it’s inconvenient. It makes you work a little harder. It wears you out. It forces you to interact with life. With the street musicians. With taxi cab drivers. Hot dog vendors. Hipsters. Baristas. Pigeons. Trash. Trees. Graffiti. Flower shops. Coffee shops. People riding the subway. People riding bikes. People talking on cell phones. People talking to themselves. You can’t hide from life in New York. Poor. Rich. Dirty. Ugly. Hungry. Spectacular. Honest. Unforgettable. I love New York. Unconditionally.
Three years seems like such an incredibly long time ago, especially considering all that has happened in the last six months. I was laid off (on my dad’s birthday). I started a freelancing job on my birthday (starting to notice a trend of life events coinciding with birthdays…). Then I traveled for five weeks. Had jury duty for three weeks. Was able to spend a solid amount of time at home for the holidays. I dog sat.
Three years later I am unemployed, trying to find a job that will keep me happy and keep me in New York. Funny the irony that life throws at you sometimes. Now I’m trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Suggestions and job offers welcome. Just try me. All ears over here. I think there are jobs out there that I would love, but I don’t even know they exist. I’m open to a new experience, preferably one that pays all my bills with leftovers to fund my retirement, buy eclectic picture frames and purchase a unicorn.
Today I felt an intense urge to clean out my closet. I’m spending most of my days hunting for jobs, hopefully the next place where I can meet new people who will eventually become my friends and a place where I can learn new things, and if it happens to be somewhere I can see celebrities, well even better. But the hunt can be pretty overwhelming. So I decided I needed to clean. That whole feeling that maybe if I get my closet in order, everything else will have an easier time falling into place.
And what did I find but the customer receipt from Bank of America from when I deposited my first paycheck. A paycheck for seven days instead of the normal 10 since I started mid-week, which initially freaked me out when I didn’t realize this because the amount was not what my dad had budgeted and used in the Excel spreadsheet that basically said after taxes, health insurance, rent, utilities, student loans and food that I would have a whopping $5 of fun money each month. Thankfully I didn’t spend as much on life as my dad budgeted and I was able to have more than $5 of fun.
I have absolutely no clue what the next three years have in store for me. And that scares me. Because for so long I knew that I wanted to be in magazine journalism. I was on the yearbook staff all through high school and knew I would major in journalism in college. I worked on the yearbook, newspaper and magazine through college and new I wanted to end up at a magazine in New York. By some stroke of magic, I was offered the first job I applied for in New York shortly after graduation. I worked at that magazine for two and a half years, received a promotion, became incredibly close with co-workers and could see my career path clearly charted out. Then I was laid off in August 2009 and everything changed. I remember thinking afterward that the lay off was an opportunity. Which is much harder to grasp now that my career path is waiting for a new direction, one that I can’t chart out at the moment. For as long as I thought my future was in magazines, this economy is making me think otherwise.
But if these first three years here are any indication of my next three, I will make it through everything good, bad and scary just fine, thanks to my friends, my family, a couple cries and a good run.
Don’t be too timid or squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sometimes I think the experiments would be a lot easier if I just had a teacher in the corner making sure I didn’t blow off my arm or start a fire. Then again, my teachers weren’t always fans of chit chats or bathroom breaks during experiments, so maybe things are fine as is.
I know I’ve been very quiet here for awhile. I’ve been so consumed with looking for and applying to jobs that things like writing and looking at blogs made me feel guilty — though I did reach some breaking points when I realized those were the exact things I needed to make me feel better, recharge me and inspire me. I haven’t been writing because the place where I am in life is confusing to me, sometimes overwhelming, and I was worried about sharing that publicly. Worried about looking fragile and totally unsure about my place and my future. But as I’ve been writing in notebooks, I’ve realized the sharing part is what makes things better, what helps us connect to others who can remind us that we are strong enough to handle this and things will work out in the end, even if this wasn’t the intended path.
A word that encapsulates your year? Unexpected. The magazine I worked for went through massive layoffs in March. Then I got laid off in August. My parents got a second dog. I was a freelance designer for the first time. Then I traveled for five weeks. When I returned from Costa Rica, I served on jury duty for three weeks, after which we found two men each guilty of four counts of murder and five counts of criminal possession of a weapon (dear readers, please stay away from MySpace and Far Rockaway, Queens. Thank you). And I finally succumbed and got a smart phone (not an iPhone, mind you, but I’m in love with it nonetheless).
What’s a gift you gave yourself this year that has kept on giving? Blank notebooks and pens. Even when I have writer’s block, there’s still something magical and therapeutic about backing away from the computer and putting an actual pen to paper.
Did you meet someone you used to only know from her blog? Senior year of college, I had an inkling to work for a magazine in South Africa. In the midst of my research, I came across Bridget McNulty’s blog. I followed her for quite awhile before finally sending her a note, because more often than not, the things she was writing about were the same things I was pondering. When she came to New York in May to promote her book Strange Nervous Laughter, she suggested meeting up. I about peed my pants.
When our lunch date finally arrived, I wore one of my favorite dresses, a light blue button-down with pockets and a sash at the waist. I told my then-boss (hi Amy!) that I had a dermatologist appointment during lunch and might be gone a little longer. I felt like sneaking out of school as I met Bridget and her friend Dan in the West Village at a little French restaurant called Cafe Henri.
The rest of the afternoon flew by, partially because I was a bit starstruck and still giddy from meeting someone I’d found online who wrote interesting things. I continue to be envious of Bridget, as she and her fiance are traveling the world now. You can catch their adventures over at The Sweet Life.
What advertisement made you think this year? Now that I’m unemployed, I sometimes turn on the TV in the afternoon for background noise while I’m organizing or making lunch. I never knew how many different TV court shows were on the air now. For the record, divorce court is actually pretty entertaining. The episode I caught involved a woman claiming that her soon-to-be-ex, Mr. Norwood, wasn’t nice to her dog. Mr. Norwood claimed his woman treated the dog better than him. Verdict: She definitely did, making steak for the dog but not her husband, and making Mr. Norwood sit in the back of the car because the dog’s car seat was in the front. Yes. Dog car seat. Because apparently the previous dog died when Mr. Norwood was driving and the dog flew out.
ANYWAY, the kinds of commercials that come on during the day are pretty ridiculous, much like TV court shows, and the one that left me flabbergasted was for the Liberator.
There are so many things wrong with this. Like washing a catheter and being afraid to talk to strangers. I am in no way saying that this was the best advertisement of 2009 — far from it. But it’s the most memorable, and shocking. People like this actually exist. And other people think they make good spokespersons. Whoa.
After my eavesdropping experiment at Thanksgiving, I decided to continue the tradition while I was home for Christmas. Technically it wasn’t even eavesdropping, just remembering ridiculous things my family said so I could publish them on the internet. Except this time they knew what was in store for them. And they continued to open their mouths. And for that, I thank them.
Dad watching a KU game, before a 3-point shot: GRILL IT BABY!
(swoosh) Dad: Put the steak in! Me: Did you really just say “Grill it baby. Put the steak in”? … Now we’re cooking!
Dad, after a 3-pointer with 12 seconds left: Twist that dagger! … Hey, don’t write that down.
Sister: Do they have wireless internet on airplanes? … That’s probably a stupid question.
Mom repeating a Jane Seymour jewelery commercial in a British accent, and adding her own ending: Leave your heart open. Learn to let love in…and buy necklaces.
Sister on the never ending drive to Christmas Eve dinner in a snow storm: I think I may be in grave danger of dying from hunger.
Mom to Zoe as she attacks the advent calendar, again: Baby Jesus isn’t there anymore. You ate him. What, do you think he reappears? … wait, he does. After the third day. You are a religious puppy!
Grandpa opening a scrapbook all the grandchildren made for our grandparents: Oh an album. We have about 15 of these at home that we never look at.
Mom, responding to an e-mail about a recipe I said I wouldn’t make because it requires cooking chicken: I was thinking we need to have a chicken intervention when you’re home next. Really, you need to get over that. Repeat after me: Raw chicken is my friend. It will not hurt me as long as I wash my hands after touching it.
December 13 What’s the best change you made to the place you live?
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I have a love/hate relationship with my room. I love being in my room, surrounded by books and cards and pictures. I hate that I have a diagonal wall, and it’s hit or miss whether a nail will go through or just force the unknown materials to crumble to the ground. It makes decorating and positioning things difficult. So for the first, oh, nine months that I lived in the place, I just didn’t try. My walls were empty. It was a little depressing.
After I saw a blog post with a new spin on the clothesline concept, I bought some thin wire and more clothespins than I knew what to do with and hung cards and photos on one wall. Better in theory, because my cards weighed the wire down, and the clothespins wouldn’t stand up straight and looked freakishly large compared to the cards. So I abandoned that idea and returned to the Jacky Carter decorating staple: cork board squares, which I use to tack up notes, post cards, autographs (Hello, Hillary Clinton), hand drawn comics, photos, prints, cards…
But before I left to travel this fall, I took down everything on my walls and packed up everything in my room to store in my closest (which is in the living room…that’s how crazy New York is! As if the diagonal wall wasn’t enough) while another girl sublet my room. It was a pain, but coming back from such a life-changing trip felt like the perfect time to rethink how I wanted to decorate my room.
The big change I made, which really isn’t that big at all, was to take all the clutter and crap and toiletries off my dresser and put them in the top drawer instead. I downsized my pj collection to make room and put my socks in a basket. Now the top of my dresser is clean. I can’t tell you what a refreshing feeling that is — to have space and openness after two and a half years of make up mess.
Then I rearranged the contents of my bookshelf, transporting three small piles of books to my dresser and propping a “Keep Calm and Carry On” print on top of the books. Dudes. It was like “Extreme Makeover Home Edition” came in and Ty Pennington screamed “Moooooooove…thaaaaaat…buuuuuuussssss!” That’s the happiness I felt by that tiny little change. Which I think was more indicative of a shift in thinking and perspective after my trip. Of looking at the same stuff in my life, but just in a different way. I’ve managed to let some papers and a tad of clutter come back to the top of the dresser, but my “Keep Calm” reminder stays on top, so that’s just what I do…carry on.
New food I forbid myself from buying a few things because most of the time I know as soon as they are in my kitchen, I will not be able to stop eating them until they are gone. Forget portions. Forget servings. I have no willpower in their presence. When it comes to dark chocolate with almonds, chips and salsa, and cheese with cranberries, oh watch out.
I’ve known the chocolate weakness for awhile, that’s why my cubemate Michael was responsible for storing our M&Ms, because I didn’t trust myself to not eat them all. Chips and salsa came as a surprise this year…it was always my BFF Natalie’s weakness, and every time I devoured a jar of Tostitos salsa in record time, I let her know, because she could understand. The cranberries and white cheddar cheese combo entered my life after evenings over at my friend Rebecca and Tamara’s homes, where they had nice little plates to hold the cheese and cute little bowls to hold the cranberries, and I hovered over the table combining them, debating whether it would be totally rude to eat the whole thing. I erred on the side of not being a complete ass and left some for everyone else.
Best place
Jet Blue airplanes. After flying on Jet Blue for five weeks with my All You Can Jet pass, I quickly became attached to the entire experience. All the free snacks I wanted (which was nice on a travel budget. My fav drink concoction was Diet Sprite mixed with Orange Fusion. Wild!). Satellite TV in each seat (I don’t even have cable at home. It was crazy!). And I love staring out the window at clouds, water and towns below. The Caribbean was gorgeous to see from overhead, which got me as close to Cuba as I will probably ever come.
There’s also something about the transition of going from place to place. The anticipation of a new experience or seeing old friends. The possibility and unpredictability of what’s ahead. When you’re up in a plane, the whole world is ahead of your (or below you, if you want to be all technical. WHATEVER).
Shop
My favorite shop was a lovely little place my friend Sammi took me to in Houston called ph design shop. It’s a stationery/paper goods store with a design studio in back. I loved all the products they carried (Sammi and I got really excited anytime we recognized someone’s work from Etsy) and I did not want to leave. Literally, I could have lived there. ph design shop was where I purchased my 2010 planner (yes people, I still use a paper one, in conjunction with my Google Calendar). My planner is the prettiest one in existence. The design shop also got me thinking of maybe one day having my own place like that — where I would sell adorableness and do custom designs too.
The first Thursday of every month, galleries in DUMBO, Brooklyn open their doors (and bottles of wine) for people to stroll through. My friends Rebecca and Justin live nearby and have been trying to get me to join them for….like, a year. And I finally made it in December. About time, I know.
I started off the evening getting lost, which I always do in DUMBO, no matter where I’m going or how good of directions I have. The highlight of the evening was a panel at VII Photo Agency called Believable Imagery: When Should We (Dis)Believe Photos and Why. Panelists included a photography professor at NYU, the director of photography at Time magazine, and the president of the Advertising Photographers of America.
One of the great things about New York is all the opportunity to attend lectures, book talks and panels like these…for free. The discussions took me back to college journalism classes (and Ethics class debates. Egh.) This perspective of photojournalism, not photography, is quite different from what I was introduced to in magazines when I came to New York (omg you took one photo of a woman and placed her in another picture of a beach for the cover…THAT IS ALLOWED?!)
(from left: moderator Stephen Mayes, APA President Theresa Raffetoo, Time magazine Director of Photography Kira Pollack, and Professor of Photography and Imaging at NYU Fred Ritchin. Photo courtesy of Rebecca Simpson Steele)
Photographers, photo retouchers and photojournalists were all in the audience, which led to a pretty heated Q&A session. One of the controversial topics was war photography. A concept the panel and audience kept discussing was whether it was authentic or accurate for a photographer to recreate an event that happened (the moderator’s introductory slideshow included raising the flag at Iwo Jima as an example). True photojournalists (i.e. news images) will not pose people or recreate an event they couldn’t capture. Photography and photo illustrations allow more liberal interpretations…but the problem lies when a credit doesn’t acknowledge something is an illustration.
Having learned in the photojournalism environment and worked in the photography industry with magazines, it was really interesting to hear so many sides including advertising photography. If VII has more panels, I’ll definitely be making more of an effort to get down to Brooklyn for First Thursdays. The seating was limited, with some people sitting on the floor, so I’d recommend arriving early if you end up visiting. And there’s free wine in plastic cups.
December 10 Album of the year. What’s rocking your world?
•••
I never thought I’d like a song about pickles. Maybe being in college and working in the newsroom had something to do with it. Because things seemed to go wrong there more often than not… which meant I got stressed. And then senile. So a song about a jar of pickles didn’t seem weird. In fact, Regina Spektor’s pretty piano playing and silly song were the perfect calming combination and exactly what I needed in that chaos (who needs a functioning printer or server when you can hear about reading a book to a jar of pickles?).
I was so entranced by the song that I went to her site and listened to more. I’ll admit, some of them are kind of weird – when she goes off on a chord and it sounds like screaming or you really have no idea what she’s saying. But some are brilliant. So I downloaded the brilliant ones and made people listen to them too, and then they kind of got annoyed. Some people just can’t handle my enthusiasm.
Fast forward three years later to summer 2009. I read that NPR was streaming her new album, Far, before its release. And so this is what I did: I left NPR’s music player loaded on my computer at home AND AT WORK, where I wore earbuds all day, listening to her album over and over and over. Then when I was home I played it before bed and while I was getting ready for work. When the release date finally arrived, I downloaded the album – extended version! — from iTunes. Which is saying something because I never download entire albums.
What’s magical about her songs is the intricacy of the lyrics, not only how the words sound together but what they mean. By listening to this album nonstop for days, I developed a dear attachment to it. I put a link to the NPR stream as my Google chat status and talked about what it meant with friends, which songs were our favorites, how certain lyrics were applicable to our lives. It’s the kind of feeling I rarely have anymore with music. And it was nice to share it with friends.
The stream of her album isn’t up anymore, but you can hear a live NPR performance here.
An e-mail from my mom about what the puppy has been up to:
Subject: Zoe ate baby Jesus
yeah, she did. the little tiny baby that was glued inside an acorn…one of you girls made it. I used it every year in the advent calendar to count down the days. destroyed. and it was hanging up on the side of the bar.
My response: that’s just like jesus, sacrificing himself for others.
(I wrote this post on my three-year anniversary in New York City — January 27, 2010 — but didn’t get around to posting it then. A couple days later my mom reminded me that I moved to New York on January 26 — and she would know, because it’s her birthday. Regardless of the date, [...] […]
Don’t be too timid or squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Sometimes I think the experiments would be a lot easier if I just had a teacher in the corner making sure I didn’t blow off my arm or start a fire. [...] […]
I know I’ve been very quiet here for awhile. I’ve been so consumed with looking for and applying to jobs that things like writing and looking at blogs made me feel guilty — though I did reach some breaking points when I realized those were the exact things I needed to make me feel better, [...] […]
A word that encapsulates your year? Unexpected. The magazine I worked for went through massive layoffs in March. Then I got laid off in August. My parents got a second dog. I was a freelance designer for the first time. Then I traveled for five weeks. When I returned from Costa Rica, I served on [...] […]
After my eavesdropping experiment at Thanksgiving, I decided to continue the tradition while I was home for Christmas. Technically it wasn’t even eavesdropping, just remembering ridiculous things my family said so I could publish them on the internet. Except this time they knew what was in store for them. And they continued to open their [...] […]
December 13 What’s the best change you made to the place you live? ••• I have a love/hate relationship with my room. I love being in my room, surrounded by books and cards and pictures. I hate that I have a diagonal wall, and it’s hit or miss whether a nail will go through or just force [...] […]
••• New food I forbid myself from buying a few things because most of the time I know as soon as they are in my kitchen, I will not be able to stop eating them until they are gone. Forget portions. Forget servings. I have no willpower in their presence. When it comes to dark chocolate with [...] […]
The first Thursday of every month, galleries in DUMBO, Brooklyn open their doors (and bottles of wine) for people to stroll through. My friends Rebecca and Justin live nearby and have been trying to get me to join them for….like, a year. And I finally made it in December. About time, I know. I started off [...] […]
December 10 Album of the year. What’s rocking your world? ••• I never thought I’d like a song about pickles. Maybe being in college and working in the newsroom had something to do with it. Because things seemed to go wrong there more often than not… which meant I got stressed. And then senile. So a song [...] […]
An e-mail from my mom about what the puppy has been up to: Subject: Zoe ate baby Jesus yeah, she did. the little tiny baby that was glued inside an acorn…one of you girls made it. I used it every year in the advent calendar to count down the days. destroyed. and it was hanging up on [...] […]
