I spent my last day in Ghana at an orphanage about 20 minutes away from Kokrobite Beach, where I stayed the last four nights. There are a ton of volunteers in Ghana, and a good portion of them were at the beach resort this weekend for the live music they have on Fridays and Saturdays.
This girl Alex, yet another Australian, is actually living and volunteering at the orphanage, and I was pleased with the invite.
I realize more and more that I know nothing - for instance, when I was in the orphanage in Yaroslavl, Russia, I remember thinking to myself that it was crumbling and third-world.
As it turns out, not even Ghana is considered truly third-world, and this despite the fact that the toilets were big holes where the waste goes god knows where, and flies, jesus, the flies swarming and the smell so awful I felt I would vomit.
I visited Naomi, the owner of the orphanage, who sleeps on a mattress on a floor and somehow manages to feed, clothe and educate 75 children with help from volunteers and private donors.
And I told her that perhaps I would come back to volunteer - she said it is $400 a month, part room and board, part donation to the kids ...
But I knew that I could never live there. I could never do something like that.
I am naive, yes. In Russia, the kids had clothes and running water and flushing toilets.
**********
But all in all I am sad to be leaving, not just because I dread the daily grind I am about to find myself in once again, but also because I know I could have spent more time with the locals ... I spent a lot of time on my own, writing and reading ... I wonder what other things I could have learned from the people that the hotel owners seem so interested in keeping away.
In Accra, there are actually hotels and "spots" where locals are not allowed.
Supposedly this is not exactly legal, but no one cares too much one way or another.
There was, I think, a bit too much tension between the beach hotel and the local villagers ... who know they are not welcome in the courtyard unless they have money to waste at the bar, and few of them do. And so there it was, again - the bottom line guilt.
**********
Spent the afternoon swimming in the beach, talking to Barbara and playing with the kids. Shopped for souveniers for my family - beads and handmade purses for my sister in law and grandmother. A small drum for my nephew.
**********
I wonder, when I get back to L.A., if I will remember that I hate my job now. I wonder if I will remember to save money and postpone a $1000 a month apartment so I can just get the hell out of there. I have met so many people on this trip who did just that ... saved money and dropped out of the rat race to travel around Africa for pennies.
I wonder if I will remember that my job is simply not important. And never was.
I wonder if I will remember Casey, the Peace Corps volunteer, Alex from Australia.
My chest is badly sunburned and I smell not that great, and I wonder if I really will come back like I said so many times this past week.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Seventh Day in Ghana
Jesus Christ, an advenure. From Accra to Kokrobite, to Cape Coast and Elmina and Kakum National Park. Hiking and making flubbing mistakes.
Meeting highly opinionated anti-American tourists. The woman called "your people" ignorant, naiive, short-sighted.
She was an awful woman.
The locals who call us Obruni.
Barbara and her children, Amy and Jeremiah. And David, the local Rasta man from Nigeria.
And the volunteers from everywhere.
Christ, an adventure. Broken down buses, buses always late, trying to navigate the local transportation, paying money that caused the awful Australian woman to call me a fool.
Swimming in Atlantic. The full moon so bright behind the cloudy sky. The moon so bright.
The heat, my God, the heat. Sweat pouring everywhere always. Sweat pouring like I've never thought it could pour, literally pour.
Barbara and her beautiful kids. The little boy Jeremiah. They live in a ... I can't describe the houses here. They are mud houses. They are sticks with palm leaves as roofs. They are small stone one room houses. The smell of sewage. The goats and chickens and children running amuck.
And every single Obruni I've met has a very opinionated answer to Africa's problems.
I am tired of hearing of white people who think they have all the answers.
I prefer to spend my time with David and Barbara, the local villagers who have nothing and who (which none of the other tourists can believe) have asked me for nothing. They haven't asked me for a cent.
Which made me buy a few bags of groceries.
The popular sentiment of today: handouts are useless, they help no one. The person is the same tomorrow. Billions of dollars of aid has gone to Africa and it hasn't done anything good. What they need is education, what they need is empowerment.
What Jeremiah looked like he needed was a big meal.
**********
I sleep in a hut and my showers are with buckets of cool water. The toilet ... wow, the toilet. At least there's a seat cover.
The food spicy and good.
The roosters wake me up at 3:30 am.
**********
I thought that since Ghana is the model of African Union's push to stabilize the continent, that it meant there was at the very least running water and food for everyone who lives here.
I was wrong.
Meeting highly opinionated anti-American tourists. The woman called "your people" ignorant, naiive, short-sighted.
She was an awful woman.
The locals who call us Obruni.
Barbara and her children, Amy and Jeremiah. And David, the local Rasta man from Nigeria.
And the volunteers from everywhere.
Christ, an adventure. Broken down buses, buses always late, trying to navigate the local transportation, paying money that caused the awful Australian woman to call me a fool.
Swimming in Atlantic. The full moon so bright behind the cloudy sky. The moon so bright.
The heat, my God, the heat. Sweat pouring everywhere always. Sweat pouring like I've never thought it could pour, literally pour.
Barbara and her beautiful kids. The little boy Jeremiah. They live in a ... I can't describe the houses here. They are mud houses. They are sticks with palm leaves as roofs. They are small stone one room houses. The smell of sewage. The goats and chickens and children running amuck.
And every single Obruni I've met has a very opinionated answer to Africa's problems.
I am tired of hearing of white people who think they have all the answers.
I prefer to spend my time with David and Barbara, the local villagers who have nothing and who (which none of the other tourists can believe) have asked me for nothing. They haven't asked me for a cent.
Which made me buy a few bags of groceries.
The popular sentiment of today: handouts are useless, they help no one. The person is the same tomorrow. Billions of dollars of aid has gone to Africa and it hasn't done anything good. What they need is education, what they need is empowerment.
What Jeremiah looked like he needed was a big meal.
**********
I sleep in a hut and my showers are with buckets of cool water. The toilet ... wow, the toilet. At least there's a seat cover.
The food spicy and good.
The roosters wake me up at 3:30 am.
**********
I thought that since Ghana is the model of African Union's push to stabilize the continent, that it meant there was at the very least running water and food for everyone who lives here.
I was wrong.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Landing in Africa
The plane touches down 45 minutes early, to the delight of my new friend who sits beside me, juggling two babies while telling me about the beautiful richness of his homeland. And how happy he is that an American is travelling there on vacation, "just because." He tells me that Bill Cosby has a house in Ghana, but I imagine people like Bill Cosby have houses everywhere.
Turns out I was dead wrong about Ghana -- it is third-world, or "developing" or whatever euphemism is used to describe a place where there may or may not be toilets available at the local pub.
Had an eye-opening experience yesterday at the local arts market, where I was led down an alley and in every other corner, there was a family watching me, and he pointed to beyond a concrete wall, and when I walked past the wall -- what was I expecting? -- I saw just a floor and some more concrete wall. And large openings in the concrete floor that served as drains. I think I actually said, "OK!" out loud, in shock.
It is warm here and for that I'm grateful. The wind and icy temperatures of New York were punishing and at one point last Friday, I couldn't even feel my face any more.
Here, it is very tropical and moist. I visited two museums and walked around a bit. Nobody is that surprised to see a foreigner - I saw three of them yesterday at the bank. One of them was a full-on ex-pat, a short white guy in his mid-fifties, wearing a brown and white local dress with a matching cap. However, I am the recipient of many kissing sounds and inquiries regarding my marital status, but I have not received any outright proposals as the guide books promise, and I wonder if, like in America, there are two types of girls: the type you marry, and the type you ____ and if even in Africa, I am the type of girl you ____.
Lodgings are a bit ... run-down. I have a room to myself. I wish I hadn't booked a room to myself, but I'm only spending two more nights here in the city before I leave to the beach hut I've been dreaming about.
Little girls with outstretched hands - remind me of Mexico. I press some coins into her tiny hand.
I compose a letter to Marcel in my head, the beautiful man at the piano bar on 51st St and 8th Ave. I write it like this: Dear Marcel, I don't know if you remember me, but we talked for a small while outside the piano bar, and you told the guy who was begging for change that you had been where he was: poor. And you told me that you taught high school history and you came from Brazil, and you found your way out of poverty through sports at the University of Kansas, and you asked me how long I was staying in New York and I said that I was leaving in two days, and you looked a little disappointed, and that's why I didn't give you my number, because you said, "People come and go all the time," but I wonder if you believe that maybe happiness and love are possible, even with a stranger? If you believed, then I would believe too. Your eyes were dark and beautiful that night, and I think I might have fallen in love with you; you looked like the person I dream about being in love with.
Here in Accra, the noises of the taxis so different and yet so similar to New York, I feel not at all a part of things, but somehow very separate and I start to crawl inside of myself, and I dream about work and I think too much and I walk back to the hostel and surprisingly, only get a little bit lost, and the smell of burning sage and sewer is overwhelming.
I have big travel books of all that I am supposed to see, but I find myself here and I don't know where or how to go.
Turns out I was dead wrong about Ghana -- it is third-world, or "developing" or whatever euphemism is used to describe a place where there may or may not be toilets available at the local pub.
Had an eye-opening experience yesterday at the local arts market, where I was led down an alley and in every other corner, there was a family watching me, and he pointed to beyond a concrete wall, and when I walked past the wall -- what was I expecting? -- I saw just a floor and some more concrete wall. And large openings in the concrete floor that served as drains. I think I actually said, "OK!" out loud, in shock.
It is warm here and for that I'm grateful. The wind and icy temperatures of New York were punishing and at one point last Friday, I couldn't even feel my face any more.
Here, it is very tropical and moist. I visited two museums and walked around a bit. Nobody is that surprised to see a foreigner - I saw three of them yesterday at the bank. One of them was a full-on ex-pat, a short white guy in his mid-fifties, wearing a brown and white local dress with a matching cap. However, I am the recipient of many kissing sounds and inquiries regarding my marital status, but I have not received any outright proposals as the guide books promise, and I wonder if, like in America, there are two types of girls: the type you marry, and the type you ____ and if even in Africa, I am the type of girl you ____.
Lodgings are a bit ... run-down. I have a room to myself. I wish I hadn't booked a room to myself, but I'm only spending two more nights here in the city before I leave to the beach hut I've been dreaming about.
Little girls with outstretched hands - remind me of Mexico. I press some coins into her tiny hand.
I compose a letter to Marcel in my head, the beautiful man at the piano bar on 51st St and 8th Ave. I write it like this: Dear Marcel, I don't know if you remember me, but we talked for a small while outside the piano bar, and you told the guy who was begging for change that you had been where he was: poor. And you told me that you taught high school history and you came from Brazil, and you found your way out of poverty through sports at the University of Kansas, and you asked me how long I was staying in New York and I said that I was leaving in two days, and you looked a little disappointed, and that's why I didn't give you my number, because you said, "People come and go all the time," but I wonder if you believe that maybe happiness and love are possible, even with a stranger? If you believed, then I would believe too. Your eyes were dark and beautiful that night, and I think I might have fallen in love with you; you looked like the person I dream about being in love with.
Here in Accra, the noises of the taxis so different and yet so similar to New York, I feel not at all a part of things, but somehow very separate and I start to crawl inside of myself, and I dream about work and I think too much and I walk back to the hostel and surprisingly, only get a little bit lost, and the smell of burning sage and sewer is overwhelming.
I have big travel books of all that I am supposed to see, but I find myself here and I don't know where or how to go.
Friday, November 16, 2007
And Then Good Things Start to Happen
The Connecticut leaves are golden. The days are rainy and some nights are frozen and others nearly balmy; though I haven't visited the park yet, I imagine what it will look like - yellow everywhere with hints of red. It's on my agenda for Saturday, my last day in the city.
Things improved dramatically on Tuesday, my second night in the East Village. I met a girl named Jayde from England, who is here after graduating from design school. Loneliness caused desperation and in this state, I fairly flung myself on this girl, who said she hadn't yet visited any bars because she is here on holiday alone, and hasn't felt confident enough to visit any nightspots - Oh, come with me, I said. We'll go out. I have been very lonely - I had spent too much time in midtown, where there are too many tourists traveling in couples and families.
And we did go out. We brought a Brazillian girl named Danielle with us. We drank overpriced drinks and listened to live music. We took a cab all the way uptown and navigated the subway back downtown.
Last night, we had coffee and cake at a nearby shop. An Austrailian woman fron the hostel joined us and we were four girls, sipping lattes and eating muffins on a cold evening in November in a cheap shop and I was extremely happy. I almost got enough sleep last night.
Today is my last day working in our Connecticut office, and I'm glad that at least it's a sunny day. Working from here has been stressful. I wish I could think of a better word. I wish I could write how sometimes, I get so frustrated at work that I need to put my head in my hands and take deep breaths and let a few tears leak out to relieve pressure.
I wish I could write about my daily headaches and the stiff tendonitis that leaves my hand muscles hard and aching.
I wish I could write about how hard I work and how quickly I fall into place with the bottom line: Make more money. Make more money.
I want to write about my boss who did everything he could think of to persuade me not to apply for a job opening in a different department, and when I finally said I wouldn't, acted like he could have cared less to begin with, and how goddamn infuriated I was, and how I implied he owed me some fucking gratitude, to which he said: Take a vacation.
On Monday I will be in Accra. It will be hot. I will be confused and discombobulated and jet lagged. But for 11 whole days after today, I am going to do my best Not to Think About Work.
So much left to do that I have not done - gone to the park, gone ice skating, called my friend Randy's friend Patty, bought my family gifts, have yet to visit the Empire State Building.
Was surpised to find that nearly every foreigner I've met wants to visit Ground Zero. Though I am not a New Yorker, one of the girls asked me about it, and I squirmed uncomfortably - I've got no wish at all to see that spot, none at all. I do not want to go where so much blood was shed.
I told her something that was part truth and part lie: It feels like a very long time ago that it all happened. And I cannot remember what things were like before it. I can't remember that things weren't always like this.
Things improved dramatically on Tuesday, my second night in the East Village. I met a girl named Jayde from England, who is here after graduating from design school. Loneliness caused desperation and in this state, I fairly flung myself on this girl, who said she hadn't yet visited any bars because she is here on holiday alone, and hasn't felt confident enough to visit any nightspots - Oh, come with me, I said. We'll go out. I have been very lonely - I had spent too much time in midtown, where there are too many tourists traveling in couples and families.
And we did go out. We brought a Brazillian girl named Danielle with us. We drank overpriced drinks and listened to live music. We took a cab all the way uptown and navigated the subway back downtown.
Last night, we had coffee and cake at a nearby shop. An Austrailian woman fron the hostel joined us and we were four girls, sipping lattes and eating muffins on a cold evening in November in a cheap shop and I was extremely happy. I almost got enough sleep last night.
Today is my last day working in our Connecticut office, and I'm glad that at least it's a sunny day. Working from here has been stressful. I wish I could think of a better word. I wish I could write how sometimes, I get so frustrated at work that I need to put my head in my hands and take deep breaths and let a few tears leak out to relieve pressure.
I wish I could write about my daily headaches and the stiff tendonitis that leaves my hand muscles hard and aching.
I wish I could write about how hard I work and how quickly I fall into place with the bottom line: Make more money. Make more money.
I want to write about my boss who did everything he could think of to persuade me not to apply for a job opening in a different department, and when I finally said I wouldn't, acted like he could have cared less to begin with, and how goddamn infuriated I was, and how I implied he owed me some fucking gratitude, to which he said: Take a vacation.
On Monday I will be in Accra. It will be hot. I will be confused and discombobulated and jet lagged. But for 11 whole days after today, I am going to do my best Not to Think About Work.
So much left to do that I have not done - gone to the park, gone ice skating, called my friend Randy's friend Patty, bought my family gifts, have yet to visit the Empire State Building.
Was surpised to find that nearly every foreigner I've met wants to visit Ground Zero. Though I am not a New Yorker, one of the girls asked me about it, and I squirmed uncomfortably - I've got no wish at all to see that spot, none at all. I do not want to go where so much blood was shed.
I told her something that was part truth and part lie: It feels like a very long time ago that it all happened. And I cannot remember what things were like before it. I can't remember that things weren't always like this.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Saturday Night Blues
Walked for hours in MOMA. Smile when I recognize Picasso across the gallery. Wince at Monet. Wore the wrong shoes; blisters by 4 pm.
Walked for hours in Times Square. Remembered the van Gogh I loved, the starry night, the first piece of art i ever really liked, and then was made to feel foolish by art majors in college who called it pop.
Walked for hours from the post office by Madison Square Garden; shipped home a bunch of stuff I won't be needing anymore.
Seriously contemplating ditching the shoes that gave me blisters - if I believed in god, would that be a sin?
**********
Brunch in cafe. Blinking tears.
You thought you loved someone. You thought they loved you back. They didn't.
**********
Had a disturbing thought while walking down the street - I will never leave L.A. I won't move here. I couldn't leave my nephew.
I know that's bullshit - I know it's not true.
But for the moment I thought it, it was true.
**********
I go to a coffee shop and order a large coffee and a strange Spanish pastry. I notice someone sitting alone. He is about 40. He has sandy hair and he is scribbling in a notebook. A journal, it looks like. I beg him silently not to leave. I say in my head: Don't go, don't go, please stay right there, and look at me and love me love me love me.
By the time I sit down, he's already left.
**********
When I was a child, I told myself I would never become a girl who needed a boyfriend. When I was 14, I told my best friend I never wanted to get married.
Nobody tells you what it's like. I guess because they didn't know - who would I have known, at that age, to tell me what it's really like?
Who would have been able to tell me how to behave when one is the only single person at a party?
Who would have told me what to say when a colleague asks me, "Are you with someone?"
Or how to respond when a relative asks, "So when are you going to get married?"
Who was there to tell me not to take it personally when someone says, "Don't worry, you'll find someone?"
Or how happy people are for you when you're dating someone. How they think it's the magic potion that will make you normal?
**********
For instance, I remember writing to an old friend very briefly when I began dating my last boyfriend. All I wrote was that I was seeing someone and he was nice. And when she wrote back ... it was a strange letter that said, in part, "I'm glad you found someone to make you happy, he seems like he's really good for you."
And I thought, "What the fuck?"
**********
I hate that half the time, I believe so strongly in the concept of Self, that I dismiss completely the idea that anyone needs to be with another person. When I'm in this mood, I pity women who have never been on their own, feel sorry for women who have never traveled alone or lived alone or even gone to the movies alone.
And then there's the other half of the time.
That looks at couples holding hands and thinks so often that couples often look very much alike. They have the same color skin; they have complementary features. They dress similarly. They look like they belong together.
That's envy.
**********
I cringe inside when I think about meeting someone and falling into a routine because I've been in relationships, and here is what I know about them:
1. Relationships demand compromise.
2. You can't be selfish.
3. You can't expect the other person to be everything for you.
4. You have to accept the person as he is, even if parts of him are deeply flawed.
5. No matter how much someone loves you, they will hurt and disappoint you, and you have to live with that.
**********
So. Here I am, in New York. Supposed to be having the best time of my life, like I did last year. And who knows, maybe for a few hours at the Lenox Lounge a few nights ago, I was having the time of my life. Maybe I was this morning, looking at all the art. Maybe I was at the weird French restaurant, writing in my journal.
Here I am, living my dream - "living" in New York. Working on the East Coast. Taking the train every morning to Connecticut. Making my way back. Going to bars and clubs and Broadway shows and movies and cafes.
If I'm living my dream,
Then why do I feel so goddamned fucking lonely?
Walked for hours in Times Square. Remembered the van Gogh I loved, the starry night, the first piece of art i ever really liked, and then was made to feel foolish by art majors in college who called it pop.
Walked for hours from the post office by Madison Square Garden; shipped home a bunch of stuff I won't be needing anymore.
Seriously contemplating ditching the shoes that gave me blisters - if I believed in god, would that be a sin?
**********
Brunch in cafe. Blinking tears.
You thought you loved someone. You thought they loved you back. They didn't.
**********
Had a disturbing thought while walking down the street - I will never leave L.A. I won't move here. I couldn't leave my nephew.
I know that's bullshit - I know it's not true.
But for the moment I thought it, it was true.
**********
I go to a coffee shop and order a large coffee and a strange Spanish pastry. I notice someone sitting alone. He is about 40. He has sandy hair and he is scribbling in a notebook. A journal, it looks like. I beg him silently not to leave. I say in my head: Don't go, don't go, please stay right there, and look at me and love me love me love me.
By the time I sit down, he's already left.
**********
When I was a child, I told myself I would never become a girl who needed a boyfriend. When I was 14, I told my best friend I never wanted to get married.
Nobody tells you what it's like. I guess because they didn't know - who would I have known, at that age, to tell me what it's really like?
Who would have been able to tell me how to behave when one is the only single person at a party?
Who would have told me what to say when a colleague asks me, "Are you with someone?"
Or how to respond when a relative asks, "So when are you going to get married?"
Who was there to tell me not to take it personally when someone says, "Don't worry, you'll find someone?"
Or how happy people are for you when you're dating someone. How they think it's the magic potion that will make you normal?
**********
For instance, I remember writing to an old friend very briefly when I began dating my last boyfriend. All I wrote was that I was seeing someone and he was nice. And when she wrote back ... it was a strange letter that said, in part, "I'm glad you found someone to make you happy, he seems like he's really good for you."
And I thought, "What the fuck?"
**********
I hate that half the time, I believe so strongly in the concept of Self, that I dismiss completely the idea that anyone needs to be with another person. When I'm in this mood, I pity women who have never been on their own, feel sorry for women who have never traveled alone or lived alone or even gone to the movies alone.
And then there's the other half of the time.
That looks at couples holding hands and thinks so often that couples often look very much alike. They have the same color skin; they have complementary features. They dress similarly. They look like they belong together.
That's envy.
**********
I cringe inside when I think about meeting someone and falling into a routine because I've been in relationships, and here is what I know about them:
1. Relationships demand compromise.
2. You can't be selfish.
3. You can't expect the other person to be everything for you.
4. You have to accept the person as he is, even if parts of him are deeply flawed.
5. No matter how much someone loves you, they will hurt and disappoint you, and you have to live with that.
**********
So. Here I am, in New York. Supposed to be having the best time of my life, like I did last year. And who knows, maybe for a few hours at the Lenox Lounge a few nights ago, I was having the time of my life. Maybe I was this morning, looking at all the art. Maybe I was at the weird French restaurant, writing in my journal.
Here I am, living my dream - "living" in New York. Working on the East Coast. Taking the train every morning to Connecticut. Making my way back. Going to bars and clubs and Broadway shows and movies and cafes.
If I'm living my dream,
Then why do I feel so goddamned fucking lonely?
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Harlem Nights
One of my East Coast coworkers asked me if I was coming in tomorrow, and I said "Of course," and then realized what he was implying -- I should have taken some time off.
My job is stressful. It's not supposed to be, and my boss doesn't want it to be, and the basic fact is that I've re-invented the department to the delight of nearly everyone ... but another fact is that perks (like getting people to say yes to me working out of Connecticut for 2 weeks) are connected to characteristics that cause me much grief in the workplace. Even telecommuting.
**********
Spent the evening at the Lenox Lounge in Harlem. Beers, chicken wings and great music. A man named Ron asked me to dance, but I said no, because I couldn't.
I love Harlem. I love the grit and the dirt and the jazz and the diverse people - white, black, hispanic, asian -- they are all there, all at the same time, on the subway, on the streets, helping a clueless tourist find her way home.
My job is stressful. It's not supposed to be, and my boss doesn't want it to be, and the basic fact is that I've re-invented the department to the delight of nearly everyone ... but another fact is that perks (like getting people to say yes to me working out of Connecticut for 2 weeks) are connected to characteristics that cause me much grief in the workplace. Even telecommuting.
**********
Spent the evening at the Lenox Lounge in Harlem. Beers, chicken wings and great music. A man named Ron asked me to dance, but I said no, because I couldn't.
I love Harlem. I love the grit and the dirt and the jazz and the diverse people - white, black, hispanic, asian -- they are all there, all at the same time, on the subway, on the streets, helping a clueless tourist find her way home.
Harlem Nights
One of my East Coast coworkers asked me if I was coming in tomorrow, and I said "Of course," and then realized what he was implying -- I should have taken some time off.
My job is stressful. It's not supposed to be, and my boss doesn't want it to be, and the basic fact is that I've re-invented the department to the delight of nearly everyone ... but another fact is that perks (like getting people to say yes to me working out of Connecticut for 2 weeks) are connected to characteristics that cause me much grief in the workplace. Even telecommuting.
**********
Spent the evening at the Lenox Lounge in Harlem. Beers, chicken wings and great music. A man named Ron asked me to dance, but I said no, because I couldn't.
I love Harlem. I love the grit and the dirt and the jazz and the diverse people - white, black, hispanic, asian -- they are all there, all at the same time, on the subway, on the streets, helping a clueless tourist find her way home.
My job is stressful. It's not supposed to be, and my boss doesn't want it to be, and the basic fact is that I've re-invented the department to the delight of nearly everyone ... but another fact is that perks (like getting people to say yes to me working out of Connecticut for 2 weeks) are connected to characteristics that cause me much grief in the workplace. Even telecommuting.
**********
Spent the evening at the Lenox Lounge in Harlem. Beers, chicken wings and great music. A man named Ron asked me to dance, but I said no, because I couldn't.
I love Harlem. I love the grit and the dirt and the jazz and the diverse people - white, black, hispanic, asian -- they are all there, all at the same time, on the subway, on the streets, helping a clueless tourist find her way home.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
November in New York
How do you measure desire when you identify it? I like to use scales of one to ten in life (how am I? on a scale of one to 10? oh, i'm a six today, thanks!).
I think maybe I saw desire today off the scale.
But there is the possibility of misunderstanding; we have all been there. You mistake friendliness for desire. You mistake kindness. You mistake happiness.
But I think I saw something today in someone's eyes, and then I knew for sure when his eyes scanned the front of my body a few times, and I held eye contact and waited for the scanning to end, and it did, and then we locked eyes and it has been a long ... long ... long time since anyone has looked at me like that.
Admittedly got off to a rocky start here in New York. My hostel is not really a hostel at all, but more like a glorified shared short-term co-op. It's nice. It's too nice for me. To reverse paraphrase Candace Bushnell - the address on 42nd Street and 8th Avenue sounds like it should be disreputable, but is actually extremely upper class. I share an elevator and breakfast room with rich people ... anyone who lives in this type of building is rich. Very new rich. Tiny dog rich.
I am moving downtown on Saturday.
Failure to find an apartment near work (two rental applications rejected, likely due to other applicants making more money than me) in Santa Monica led me to make an unusual request of my boss on October 25 - let me work out of the Connecticut office for a couple of weeks before my vacation. I'll pay my own way, stay in the city.
He didn't think I was serious until I sent him an email with bullet points. Then he asked his boss, who asked her boss, who asked the VP in the Connecticut office and it was my birthday, so everyone said "Sure, why not?"
And here I am.
Finally hit my stride today - took the 7:39 train to Connecticut, walked to the office in the rain. South Norwalk is a beautiful little toy town, with toy bars and a huge toy police station. Our East Coast corporate office used to be the old city hall.
Left work at 5:10 pm, not wanting a repeat of what happened yesterday (I got sucked and guilt-tripped into working until after 7, which gave me the 7:40 pm train back to the city, which landed me pissed off and drunk by 11) and went to a business to business networking event just a few blocks away from the condo.
Met new and interesting people - I met a capitalist, a real estate agent, a writer, a headhunter, a financial advisor and a personal trainer. I ordered a $13 drink that was too strong (I could only take a couple of sips before giving up).
I walked back to the condo and sit here on the 15th floor overlooking 8th Avenue. The buildings so high and bright, the long lines of cabs, people heading out of the city, on their way home from the long-houred jobs that give them houses in the suburbs, lofts in the city.**********
The look of desire I hadn't seen in so long, the look of desire that only comes when you yourself feel attraction toward the person who feels it (if you don't feel attraction, then that look of desire is not desire at all, but just "gross") - the look of desire that some part of me thought I might never see, that look that took me by surprise, so shocked, it lasted no more than two minutes timed. Maybe three. I didn't even recognize the look for what it was to begin with, because I just had not seen it for so long.
The moments go by so fast, you want to bottle them. Put them in your pocket, so the next time you're cold and lonely and sad and wish you were dead, you could bring out that bottle like a bottle of drugs, and be dragged back to that one moment when a very beautiful man looked right at you and liked what he saw.
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