Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Nothing Glam in Death

Last post was about the tug of war that many feel living in the City. Love-hate-like-Head over Heels Love-shocked.

Well today fit right into the roller coaster. It was a low point for me. I have never felt anything but safe in ol' Manhattan Island. Ok, i've gotten the creeps in other boroughs at times but never here for years upon years.

I was meeting some friends for dinner at Stanton Social* in the lower east side. I'm listening to an upbeat happy shania song on my ipod as I reached the block and then I just saw a bunch of vehicles and a police officer starting to put blue police tape around the area. I realized I couldn't get into Stanton b/c it was all blocked off. Apparently, woman (and mother) was killed by her boyfriend for wanting to break up. And wrapped in plastic & left in his apartment.

What bothered me most was people staring as the body was rolled out and into the coroner's van. I coudn't watch that...I mean...I feel like if I was her, I'd want that privacy. I did see her relatives crying and that broke my heart. And broke my teared up eyes into flowy tears.

It's always painful to see families go through acts of violence like this. I don't know sometimes why it stays on my mind so long and bothers me. I feel like the norm is that most just go about their days and it's just something that happened. But I'm sure a lot of you can relate...for me, I think about (a) how unpredictable life is (b) how short life is (c) how lucky we are to have any good people around us and (d) reminds me to tell those I really love that I value them.

So a bit of the Manhattan charm wore off today but I still love this place. For all that it is, and all that it isn't.

And God Bless that child whose mom passed.

*was a superb restaurant btw.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Le Cirque


sight+hearing+smell+touch+taste X NYC = internal storm

A funny thing happens with internal dialogue as the day progresses in Manhattan:
"Oh...wow."
"What the hell!? Move!"
"God I love this place."
"I hate this stupid dump!"
"I wanna live here foreverrrr!"
I want the suburbs and green grass. Or just grass!"

All in one day. It happens here.

You're spinning inside a blender. You have the most beautiful people, the strangest people. The smartest, the wealthiest, the most downtrodden. The best eats and the grossest grub too. It's a world of extremes. A schizo, beautiful splatterpaint work from oil paint...just keep sculpting and sculpting the color and shape.

I love it.




Saturday, June 11, 2011

Baptism by FiDi*

*FiDi = Financial District. Pronounce Fye-Dye or Fiddy? You can just choose I guess.

Much of the summer will be spent here working at Creative Realities (CRI), a digital, experiential advertising agency with one office in Midtown Manhattan. I will reside in FiDi, a block from Wall Street and 3 blocks from the WTC. More on the actual work coming up.

When you come here for work though, a large part of orientation is getting your senses to adjust to the City in a big way.

sight,
hearing,
smell,
touch,
taste.

I'll organize upcoming posts by those after this one.
To normalize is a journey, and you learn a lot about yourself. There are some foreign countries that are probably a lesser culture shock than NYC would be to the sheltered suburbanite.

I think I have a crush on New York. It's not love yet. But we'll see.

For those of you who aren't familiar with NYC neighborhood nicknames, there's a bunch. Like, SoHo stands for "South of Houston Street". Pronounced Howston :) I think the names are all cute.