I'm back in New York city after two years of trying to fall in love with California. It just didn't take and I had to come screaming back to my first love: New York.But this time, it's different. Now I know I can't live anywhere else. Before, when I was living in New York, I thought I could go on to other places and be happy. I thought I could live anywhere. Now I know that's not true; I'm a prisoner of New York City. For how long, I do not know.
I've never been married, but this is what I feel: resentment. Like the day after the wedding, I look at my spouse who I'm supposed to love above all others and who I've chosen to be with for the rest of my life and I think, "I'm stuck with you?"
New York is not perfect. It's cramped and dirty and expensive and competitive and there isn't a straight or right angle on the whole isle of Manhattan. I knew all these things when I was a care-free fiancee, but now that I'm married, all these flaws are glaring and difficult to swallow.
Just for today, I will love New York as it deserves to be loved. Because I dated his ugly, safe brother with a good job--Sacramento--and that sh*t just ain't happening.
3 comments:
I'm going to be annoying and list all the things about NYC that I MISS SO MUCH while living up here in cow country:
1) the Magazine stores that has EVERYTHING
2) All night delis THAT DELIVER
3) Wasabi peas
4) Cheap ass roach coach coffee
5) Having a ton of stuff to look at while walking instead of trees and grass and um, trees.
6) Akin to #5, WINDOWSHOPPING
7) Because of the competition SUPER CHEAP manicures, pedicures and waxing. Want a pedicure up here? It's at LEAST $30. THAT'S DISGUSTING...at that nail shop on 3rd between Tirtieth and Tirty-First had a $19.99 for a manicure AND a pedicure and they'd wax your face for $5!!!
8) Unimaginable selection of foreign cuisines..afghani? No problem? Up here? Mexican, Chinese, Italian and THAT IS IT. Wait, one shitty sushi joint that is horribly overpriced.
9) $10 clothes stores. Just in case you puked on your work pants. The clothes are totally DISPOSABLE.
10) NO YARD WORK
11) People selling stuff on sheets on the sidewalk. I got a pair of clogs for fitty cent!
12) Sweaty hassidic junkies nod off on you on the bus. That kind of stuff NEVER happens up here!
13) The tiny pockets of OLD New York peeking through the new modern buildings. Everything is old up here except the Wal mart.
14) Barnes & Noble on Union Square.
15) I COULD ostensibly sit on a park bench on our village green and watch the roving goth youth gangs skateboarding and the occasional old person but it doesn't have the same flava as Washington or Tompkins Square park.
16) Who do I gotta F*&K around here to get a DECENT MOTAHF**KING BAGEL?
17) Museums with "suggested donations" are a great way to kill a rainy day.
18) Do you want to see a movie other than "Over The Hedge" or "X-Men 3"? Not up here you can't.
19) Do you want gelato? Tirimisu? Balkava? Hammentaschen? Linzer Tarts? How about some Carvel? Because that's what we got. Just Carvel.
20) There's also the rumbling, the smells, the crazy cacaphony of multiple languages, the ambulances, the con artists, that fetid hot subway air, the fact that turn a corner and you're in a whole new world it's a nightmare, a muse, heaven on earth and the total center of the whole world--- there's nothing like it.
You might be "stuck" for a while but in the long run I think you'll see that you married a keeper.
Sometimes just for kicks I try to fool myself into thinking I could leave. There are days when I hate the whole stinkin' city and everyone in it, including myself. I'll start to muse on other places. Austin? San Francisco? Atlanta? But really, I know better, for all the reasons LB cites and more. All it takes is a trip away from here for a few days to set me straight.
WELCOME BACK
WE MISSED YOU
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