First a note on the colors and fonts of this blog: they're not where I want them to be at all. If you have any suggestions, drop them my way - I'm feeling big on greens right now.

Now for the post.

NYC, day 1
Woke at 5am in a cheap hotel snuggled up with Jason. I almost cried when I realized it was the last morning I would wake that way in a long time, but I had already cried a lot, so I resisted and enjoyed the moment. On the plane, sat by Texans (West Texans I think) reading the financial pages and conversing in twangy accents, and thought about how I would miss a lot of things, but not that sound.

The flight was a cinch, but once I arrived the hard part began, getting 80 pounds of luggage from outer Queens to the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I took the subway rather than pay $50-$60 for a cab, and let's just say I wasn't the most popular person on any of the trains I took. I actually got reprimanded by an MTA guy for keep my shoulder bag on the seat next to me instead of on my lap... I think I strained a tendon lugging the 50-pound suitcase up the subway stairs - I bent the suitcase's expanding handle, anyway. A nice guy with some kind of Latin accent carried my other suitcase up the steep subway stairs. New Yorkers have been kind, on the whole. More open to everyday interactions, I think. My roommate says she thinks that's true, but that it's harder to get to know people on a deeper level here. We'll see. Luckily I've already got several good friends here that I've seen over the last few days. My roommate is Jen, (she also goes by Jenny and Jennifer sometimes) is a lot of fun, too. We went to my friend Maria's Salsa party together last night. People like Valerie say they like to have me around because I'm an easy laugh, but Jen laughs way more than I do - a big, full, appreciative laugh at the littlest thing. No wonder the neighborhood Dominican boys who hang out on our steps are so smitten with her.

Speaking of them, they're a noteworthy bunch - at least for me. They loiter constantly and the front steps (they live in our building), and they're always bugging to Jen to come hang out with them and drink on the stoop. They smoke pot, too, but she doesn't. Today (after they bought me drinks in my first foray to a neighborhood bar) I found out they deal drugs. These are kids we're talking about - 19, 20, 21, 22. As Jen said, they make way more money than she and I will for a long time. That made me feel better about having let them buy me drinks, but worse about keeping company with them. And the funny thing is, they seem like really nice kids.

Last night when we came back from Maria's (my high school friend's) salsa party in Brooklyn around 1 am, the whole group was outside on the sidewalk drinking and smoking and being louder than you can imagine. A group of girls that also like Jen was there, and they were sorts I've never encountered before: loud, brassy, sassy, trashy, drunk, French-manicured and full of attitude. But they liked Jen and they were sweet to her. I quite obviously didn't fit in, but despite that, I've earned a nickname: "Houston." At least they got the state right.

So much has happened since I got here that I've hardly had time to blog, but here's a short synopsis:

Thursday evening I headed to midtown to meet up with Caitlin when she got off work. I arrived thinking we'd have dinner and catch up but instead she said, "Hey, we're having a work party and you're coming!" So we all trooped over to a nearby bar with her co-workers, many of them rather attractive young men (though I was turned off when I realized most of them were way more accessorized than I was - one wore a cap glasses, scarf, watch, American Apparel tee, designer jeans and sweet kicks).
I only bought one round of drinks ($5 per beer), but we stayed out until midnight on the rooftop bar and then repaired to the .99 cent pizza shop for a gooey slice with hot sauce. Then off to our separate subways, where my train proceeded not to arrive for 40 minutes - finally I left that station, walked to 42nd street and immediately caught the 1. Now I know to take the 1. It's the worst being drunk in the subway under the bright lights but there are two consolations: 1) most other people out at that hour are also drunk 2) it's New York - nobody gives a shit!
I think that's one of my favorite things about this city so far - the anonymity. I could walk down the street on my hands wearing a rainbow tutu and hardly anyone would even bother to look.

Friday it rained. That pretty much sums it up. When it rains in New York, you do nothing. You brave the elements with your sturdy umbrella (the kind with a lifetime warranty, which you will inevitably leave in a restaurant or on a train, necessitating the purchase of a cheap newsstand umbrella which will flip open in the wind and remind you why you bought the nice umbrella. You'll buy another one and repeat the cycle. Really there should be an umbrella exchange program, like the Yellow Bike program. You leave yours in a bin and others take it when they leave the building if they need it. Then when you leave, you take an identical one. If the socialists ever get their way in this country, maybe we'll have such a program).

So it rained Friday and i got absolutely soaked trying to buy toilet paper (and an umbrella) and then I went to Caitlin's office in Midtown to meet her for lunch and my shoes squished-squashed as i walked through her office. Not only was it rainy but cold as well and fully miserable. After a noodle soup lunch I made an emergency dash for the Strawberry at Penn Station to buy galoshes. I then wore my galoshes out Friday night, having packed all rain-appropriate attire in boxes that are currently en route across the country. My roommate said good luck getting any phone numbers in those shoes, but I got two! (one on the bus - a black man who talked to me about his work as an HIV/AIDS educator, and about gentrification - smart guy - and one from a very drunk firefighter from queens.

Saturday I opened a bank account and asked so many of the right questions about interest rates and such that the guy opening my account took me for a savvy native New Yorker - or so he told me anyway, maybe he was flattering me. Then I bought a bed - my first (and hopefully only) big purchase, because sleeping on a thermarest on the floor just don't cut it. It's indignity enough that my window looks out onto an entirely un-picturesque airshaft - sheer curtains are in order.
Saturday night Jen and I trekked out to Brooklyn for Maria's party, where I saw a girl I randomly remembered from Stanford, made two possible work connections and danced a little Cumbia.

Sunday woke up feeling like Johnny Cash - alone while all the families and couples paraded up and down Broadway. I woke early to meet the guys delivering the bed I had bought and after it was here felt a little down. Went to yoga and felt a little better. It's just the yin and the yang - go, go, go for days - stay out late drinking Sangria and don't sleep enough and it's natural to have a down day. Tomorrow will be my first full work day in a while - nose to the grindstone! I need to get me a job! But from what people have been telling me, I don't think it's going to be as hard as you might think...