You can hate me, but I'll always love New York

I’m at that age now where my Facebook and Instagram feeds are rapidly being taken over by wedding pictures, baby photos, SOLD signs and other telltale I’ve-Got-My-Shit-Together imagery. Kudos to them, but I know I’m not the only one who is not-so-secretly scowling at these people. I know this because there was once a site named UnBaby.me, which replaced images of babies on your timeline with images of bacon and kittens. Unfortunately the site is no longer, assumedly because of an inability to keep up with demand.

Well, people, today I’m here to add a new STFU category of social media friend. Meet the Friend Who Moved to New York and Wouldn’t Shut Up About It. Please let me preface this launch by saying that he/she (let’s be real, it’s me) by no means or on any level falls into the I’ve-Got-My-Shit-Together sub-category. Far from it, actually. I am currently drinking water out of a jam jar and my five open Google tabs are:

1: Children who remember past lives

2: An image search for different species of alien

3: Crop circles

4: Do pigeons carry bed bugs?

5: What does STFU stand for? (Because I wanted to make sure I was using the correct terminology.)

So although, no, I don’t have my shit together, I have it together enough to recognize that I moved to New York City and then began speaking and blogging about it almost exclusively, and to empathize with the hapless people upon which I force my rants. You officially have permission to unfollow/unfriend/unlike/unlove me, I understand. But right now, it’s my one-year anniversary with the city I love more than anything and – scowl as you may – I’m going give it the acknowledgement it deserves, God dammit.

It was 365 days ago that I traded in Sydney and all I knew for something a little bigger and less familiar. I was all sparkly-eyed (from tears of goodbye and excitement), eager and proud of myself. I always thought that when I finally made my big move, it’d be when a relationship went sour or I hated my job or where I lived, but, as it so happened, I left behind a legendary boyfriend, the best job I’d ever had, and a house that finally felt like the home I’d been searching for since I flew the coop at 19. Knowing how much I was leaving behind made it even more special – this wasn’t running, this was chasing; it wasn’t settling, it was searching.

They say time flies when you’re having fun, so when I add the fast-pacedness of New York City to that theory it’s really no surprise it feels way too soon for me to be writing this post. I still need Google maps almost every time I leave the house. I still haven’t been to the Top of the Rock, seen a Broadway show, visited the Met or looked up the Statue of Liberty’s skirt.

But I don’t care about that stuff. I’ll get there eventually. To be honest, I didn’t have any expectations as to what I’d find or do here. I do know, though, that if I did have expectations, I’d be disappointed. I’d be disappointed because in waiting for them to be met, I wouldn’t have been present to appreciate the unexpected that so defines this crazy-ass place.

If I expected a relationship, I wouldn’t appreciate my head spinning variety of bad date stories. If I wanted space, I wouldn’t have noticed that I was brushing shoulders with some of the world’s most amazing people, not to mention I’d be stuck in the dreaded empty subway car wondering why I came to this city in the first place. If I expected a rose-scented neighborhood, I wouldn’t appreciate the way being able to smell the nearby garbage dump for the first time in months signifies the end of winter and the start of all the excitement of spring and summer. If I’d expected New Yorkers to be the assholes that the world seems to think they are, maybe I wouldn’t have noticed that nothing is further from the truth.

I’ve found love here that would have been incomprehensible to me just a year ago. Not just in the friends I’ve made, but my love for the city. Chatting to colleagues today they asked me what I did on the weekend.

Me: “Oh, it’s my one year anniversary so did brunch and drinks and just celebrated.”

Them: “Oh, is your boyfriend Australian too or did you meet him here?”

I guess, yes, I did meet him here, but New York is clearly female. A bitchy, amazing, self-assured mother/wife/mistress. Before I came here I always thought there were three deciding forces in my life: Karma, the Universe, and my attitude. I worked well under these three conditions. I didn’t always understand the way they did what they did, but I always trusted that they would. I mean, the fact that I’m not a checkout chick sometimes still astounds me, so I have a lot to thank this awesome threesome for (get your minds out of the gutter – that’s a whole other blog). Most of all, they scored me the only goal I'd ever cared about: they brought me to New York.

Now that I’m here though, I realize that there is a fourth, much more powerful player. The City. If I have a bad day in Sydney, it’s just a bad day. When I have a bad day in New York, it’s the city kicking my ass. When it’s good, it’s her. When you fall, she tripped you and is laughing about it; when you’re standing tall, she’s the one holding you up.

It’s strange being here and realizing I’ve achieved the only goal I ever had. I now have a seemingly clean slate of hopes and dreams to fill, though I don’t need or want much. I don’t need to change the world, own it, or run it - it’s exciting enough to live among the people who do. Maybe soon their I’ve-Got-My-Shit-Together vibe will rub off on me (minus the baby photos. I’ll never have my shit that together). If it does though, I’ll still always write about New York, I’ll just be in a different sub-category. So if you were thinking about unfollowing/unfriending/unliking/unloving me in protest to my sickening professions of love, you definitely should – I plan on a long and annoying love affair with this city that only gets stronger as the years pass. If I have it my way, I'll still be smacking her ass when I'm 70.

Happy Anniversary, New York. Thank you for being everything I never expected and so much more. 

An Open Letter to New York

Dear New York,

In case you don’t remember it as well as I do (in fact, I’m positive that you don’t), I’m just writing to remind you that it was six months ago today that I arrived – bleary eyed and raped by travel, but eager to begin our life together.

Yeah, yeah, yeah…I know that writing to wish you a happy six-month-aversary might make me seem like an overly-sentimental idiot, but screw it – you’ve reduced me to tears of joy just from walking your streets so there’s really no point trying to hide my obsession with you now. Deal with it.

I always knew it was you, from as far back as my old-enough-to-think-past-what-mum-made-me-for-lunch-today memory can go. I remember sweltering under the relentless sun at the beach as a teenager, freckly and sunburnt with sand in my swimsuit and thinking to myself something along the lines of: “Fuck the beach. Give me buildings and bridges and bodegas and bums. Give me people and possibilities and seasons and snow.”

You were the first place I visited outside of Australia when I was 22. (Well, that’s a lie. I'd been to New Zealand, but we all know that, as an Australian, that doesn’t count.) I remember arriving and walking down 14^th street where I saw someone putting money into a parking meter, (yes – that’s my first memory of you) and wondering how the entire act of someone putting money into a parking meter became incalculably cooler merely for being done in you, New York. Today, that statement still stands but on so many more levels than I ever considered possible.

I don’t know whether it’s a Northern Hemisphere thing, but I feel a little closer to the Universe here. Everything I ask for, I get – and that’s not just thanks to Seamless.com…though, that’s definitely part of it.

Having said that, I didn’t ask for bed bugs in our building, an overly yappy dog next door or heartbreak at the hands of one of your native residents, but I got all of those, too. You’re like an amazing cheating lover. You don’t apologise for breaking me from time to time, because you and I both know that, no matter how badly you might treat me, I wouldn’t give you up for the world.

And while you occasionally fuck each and every one of us, you’ve got more love than I’ve found anywhere else so I’m happy to share you in one big, sordid open relationship with millions of your other full-time fools and part-time lovers just passing through. Everyone deserves a piece of you.

Something I’ve noticed over the years is that a lot of people say that when they want to feel better about life and the universe, they lay under the stars and let their own insignificance wash over them.

But if you ask me (and most don’t), I say screw the stars. I’m here in your amazingness and I get that same feeling by looking at you. Millions of people, each with their own story, their own universe inside them, going about their lives – it makes me feel better, it helps me feel connected to something bigger. It also makes me feel like going out and getting drunk, but you tend to have that effect on me no matter what I do, you marvellous minx.

You’re the one place where I’m not surprised at being surprised. All I can expect from you is to never know what to expect. Whether it’s a hug from an old black man on a train because he thought I looked sad, or realising the podium dancer at the gay club I am drinking at is the same guy I had a terrible date with two nights ago – it’s all surprisingly not surprising.

People keep telling me that you’ll jade me soon enough, but I know that for all you do have, New York, you don’t have the power to repel me. No matter how long this love affair might last, I’ll always love you as much. I’ll never be unmoved by your hip-hop dancers on the subway, or watching clouds swirl around your skyscrapers. I’ll never tire of your accent, your bright lights, or your incessant and unapologetic noisiness.

I know we’ll never be that tired couple in a restaurant, not talking and barely tasting their food through their distaste for each other. You’ll forever leave me smiling and bursting with love. I’ll never hurry through your streets and not take you in. If those are the characteristics of a true New Yorker, I’ll never be one.

Yours in love, lust, laughter and life,

Cass. X

Living, loving and dying in New York

I’ve always been one of those people where everything is my “favourite”.

Each band I like is my favourite band. Any good thing I eat is the best food I’ve ever had. A fun day is the best day ever. Every one of my friends is my best friend. I love everyone and am generous with saying so (something that can be a little uncomfortable at the start of relationships, but generally guys tend to understand that if a beer on a hot day can all but reduce me to tears of joy, then I’m probably just as overenthusiastic as I seem. It also means that when I say it from that other, more serious ‘love’ place, there has to be some sort of awkward cheek cupping and intense eye contact so they understand the depth of my words. I try to avoid being the instigator for obvious reasons).

Moving to New York just about three months ago has really put this fervor into overdrive. Every day really is the best day ever, and I really do love everything here. I can order a salad worth $7 to be home delivered. I can take a train and two songs later I’m in the most famous metropolis in the world. There are beer and shot combo deals for less than a price of just the beer back home. Alcohol is served with breakfast on weekends, almost as a rule. (There are so many alcohol examples: free pouring spirits, corner stores and pharmacies that sell alcohol and buses to the beach that serve it. I won’t dwell though. Mum, it’s not as bad as it sounds.) Transport is cheap. I can’t remember the last time I had to walk up a hill. People think I’m some sort of hero because I managed to escape Australia unbitten/unscathed/unkilled by snakes or spiders. It’s great. It’s all "the best".

But, if I had to choose, one of my favourite things about being here is the easy access to hard copies of the New York Times. Reading this every day reminds me that I’m really here. I’d long been eager to escape the journalistic embarrassment that is The Daily Telegraph and it’s almost like, 142 years before I was born, The Sydney Morning Herald created the broadsheet version of itself to spite me alone – by the time it went tabloid size, I was long lost. But The New York Times is a lovely size. I’m not sold on the different fonts or the stray capital lettered headlines, but I’m sure the appreciation will come in time. (That’s a lie. I hate the stray cap phenomenon.)

It was a long time ago I stopped reading newspapers for the news, and starting reading them solely for the obituaries. Either way, reading the paper will make me cry, better it be from joy (mixed with sadness, yes) than complete loss of hope in the world. Perhaps it sounds morbid that every morning I can be found teary eyed at my local café, pouring over the Deaths section, but unless they start a Humans of New York column in the paper that just features snippets of people’s lives, this is sadly the only place everyday people are celebrated. It’s a beautiful few pages, if you want to see it that way.

I’ve met so many new people on these pages throughout my life – ones that I’ll never forget. Sure, they’re dead, but they’ve still had an effect on me. Not just that, but it’s these pages that redeem the rest of the heartbreak in the publication. It’s the one place where all the bullshit is forgotten, all is forgiven, and only the good stuff remains.

I’ve had a longtime favourite memorandum note from a local newspaper back home. Each year on the same day, this man publishes a note to his late wife and it’s one of those things that makes me “lumpthroaty” every time I see it (in spite of the “WANT TO SELL? GIVE US A YELL!” post above it.) 

But today, I found another classic in the New York Times. Their obituary pages are by far the best I’ve ever come across. I’ve met mobsters, moguls and shoemakers.  I’ve been all around the world and read messages both short and long. Today’s favourite was extra long, but it made me belly laugh and cry at the same time, and I was in love with this man – Josiah ‘Joe’ Low – even before I was done reading.

Here are a few classic snippets:

“He blew his nose with a trumpet that turned heads.”

“He disliked mini-golf – “a bastardization of the game” – cilantro and the snapping of gum.”

“Ordering at a restaurant was always time consuming because Joe needed to learn the name and background of the waiter – some connection was always found. By the time dessert came, he was often sitting at another table with people he had just met.”

“He let you ride the ATV despite what your parents said. He paid his six-year-old granddaughter to paint his toenails.”

“His favourite fashion statement was a woman with a ponytail poking out the back of a baseball cap.”

“He gave his wife old pick-up trucks for her birthday. Children he barely knew named stuffed animals after him.”

Definitely the best obit I’ve ever read – and I’m not just saying that, I swear. Apart from being awesome and hilarious, it reminded me that there are still so many “best friends” to meet and “best days ever” ahead, and then once it’s done, my Cher impersonations, potty mouth, and tendency to smack people on the ass before I even really know them that well will be a few of the things I leave behind. And that’s the best thing ever.

My Impromptu Valentine

Last night I had the most memorable Valentine’s Day experience of my life. His name was Lee. He was a balding forty-something with an unappealingly thin frame and he wore a not-even-slightly-ironic tweed jacket.

He’d recently been back and forth between rabbit-sitting at his parents place in Gosford and “becoming more and more frustrated” with his Lewisham sharehouse of six, so was tired, but I didn’t mind.

To go with his vintage jacket, Lee used an original iPhone 3. He was the perfect picture of yesterday’s trends. His unnervingly crazed smile and twitchy demeanor captivated me – I couldn’t look away. And considering he was sitting right across from me with his attention buried in a magazine article titled “Getting rich quick”, I could stare as much as I liked.

I had chosen this particular Pho restaurant because I thought it was nondescript enough for it to have escaped the Valentine’s Day rush. Apparently it wasn’t. The place was crammed so I took the only available table by the door. I was secretly sniggering at all the legs and lipglosses on their cheap Valentine’s Day dates when he walked in.

He had a mothball smell and looked hungry and heartsore. When the waiter informed him that there was no table for him to sit at, I felt sad for him. I said he could sit with me. He seemed thankful and took his seat. Minutes of awkward conversation later the table next to us left and I told him that it looked like he had a table. He said he’d wait till they cleared it. They did. He stayed. Two more tables left. Still he stayed.

This is him. This is my Valentine. All these people think I am here with him. Well played, life, you cheeky bastard.

I then realised that while I was assuming he was a creep for not moving, he was probably thinking that I was a lonely, oily-haired desperado with flu symptoms and not a hope in the world. He surely feared I would come apart if he abandoned me on Valentine’s Day. I was his pity date.

So we ate and we talked and I gave him my beansprouts and lime. I told him about my love for hoisin sauce and New York. He asked me which I loved most and I told him not to make me choose. I told him that I would be moving there soon and he got so deep into the jealous and angry character that I actually became mildly afraid.

He told me about his psoriasis, his girlfriend who is ten years his junior, and how she ‘wouldn’t let up’ until she had him, as well as their impending trip to far North Queensland (for which I hope he will leave the jacket at home) where he would be assessing her as a future partner.

Satisfied with my pho and the fact that I had just had dinner with the strangest person in the world (and certainly hoping he felt the same), I bid him goodbye, secretly paying for his dinner on my way out just because I thought it would make him feel special, and despite the fact that it’s two weeks until pay day and I am not really in a position to even be buying myself dinner.

As I not-so-calmly power walked down the street, hastened by the fear he would find out I paid and come after me thinking that I was in love with him, I realised I would never forget him.

I hate Valentine’s Day. I really do. But my Valentine for 2014 taught me that memorable people come and go. Some stay for years, others stay for years too long, and some might just stay for pho.*

*That ending only works if you pronounce pho as ‘fo’ rather than the correct ‘fuh’ or ‘fur’. If you do indeed pronounce it correctly, well…good for you, you know-it-all prick. But I’ll have you know that you are closing the door on the endless pho puns that the mispronunciation produces. You think you win for getting things right? HA! Phogettaboutit!