An Old Brick Studio

I occupy the top floor of a red-brick walk-up tenement at 199 Avenue A, nestled between 13th and 14th Streets, in the thick of the East Village. It has typical pre-war quirks. The hot water flow tends to take a lifetime longer than my general, two-second-tolerance-level of patience, and of course, none of the electrical plugs are in ideal places. Nonetheless, the place does boast a few truly winning qualities. Relatively speaking, it has a generous layout. The sun pleasingly illuminates the studio, throwing graceful light beams across the high, bleached ceiling—absorbed eventually, by the exposed burnt-red brick. This genuine, brick wall that actually sheds gritty cement crumbles when your hand meets its texture is a highly desirable amenity— my idyllic idea of cozy, urban décor, since the very beginning of my Manhattan obsession. The whiteness of everything else juxtaposes (my decorator mom’s term) magnificently against the brilliant, old brickwork. A Turkish immigrant in his 60s owns and manages the continually renovated building and sets in place the outlandish, noncommittal rent prices. The recent additions of washers and dryers, stainless steel kitchens and polished oak floors that shine in the worst of situations have seemingly provoked crazy-elevated rents. April is a particularly stubborn, inflexible month for him. He targets tenants like me who respect authority and make mistakes in judgment that never occur to the 21 year-old brain beforehand. I paid his inflated fee last month; but then got wise to myself the next time. I appeared as a prettier, girlier girl in a delightful sundress with my pointer finger (wearing a silver band) coiled around a small grab of my black curls. The sugary smell of my perfume disarmed his greed and he conceded to a small discount.

These bricked walls are so thick, that on two different occasions when I screamed out loud (either for emotional relief or in utter dread) with all three windows widely opened, none of the city people were summoned to curiosity. It sometimes feels like I’m alone in the world here. That first heart forsaken scream was just that: my tender, romantic heart had been shattered into shards of glass— like a porcelain figurine knocked off a table or a finished whisky bottle flattened by rush-hour traffic or a light bulb that spontaneously ruptures upon your return home. Perhaps I was hoping that the echoes of my mourning would commute further downtown and barge silently into my old lover’s office, with the translated message of everything I felt entitled to vent. But alas, not even the stray, city cats seemed stirred. My second earsplitting screech occurred in my tiny, shiny metal kitchen, while leisurely washing plates. A bulky, overfed rat scurried quite un-nervously across my big toe. The fuzzy creature seemed confused and bewildered by my horror, as I shrieked and kicked and terrorized it out the door. I’ve since, chosen to never, not even for a moment, allow my feet to go bare—even though the cool, smooth luster of the oak planks are sole soothing after a frantic day of working for a publication. The rodent encounter is mildly bittersweet, because I’m truly not the type to be pitiless toward animals.

Ernest (yet another lover lost) whose charming, five feet nine stature, dry, but robust wit and quiet intellect could deactivate any girl’s heart-guard. He has a way of showing sincere interest in the most mundane of life’s events that arouses a weird feeling of special-ness. His baby-like face, and dimpled cheeks, and eyes that are big and brown and loving are entirely compelling. His top lip forms a perfect “m”. That flawless, beige skin remotely reminds me of my own. When lazy, he sports a skimpy, black beard, which makes him appear manlier than his boyish smile that causes his cheeks rise so high that his twinkling eyes squint. Rather characteristic of a man in his late twenties and works in a bank, his attire is atrociously neat. For a pretty conventional, loner type, somewhat opposed to change by nature, he’s unusually verbal about starting a family in the next five years. To the contrary, Ernest appears as uncommitted to relationships as he is to Manhattan apartments. During the short period that I favored his company, he moved three times: from midtown to Morningside; from Morningside to Chelsea; and then again to Greenwich Village. In clearheaded hindsight, I suppose there were many times, when he didn’t make me feel so extraordinary. The final time was on a gray, nasty, rainy day, when he called me “a chronic sufferer of failing romance.” I was deeply offended by this all-too-familiar reminder. Why can’t I seem to keep a boyfriend or a dating partner or a monogamous lover or cuddle buddy for any longer than a willful teenager can handle a glass of scotch for the first time? I’ve been single since elementary school in my suburban, hometown in Texas—a predominately married population of Jones’, who act very much alike: the phony laughs, the upward noses, the yard-playing children, the bricked mailboxes and manicured landscapes, the arguing that is never heard on the street.

At least, here amongst my beloved red bricks, I don’t have to worry about being seen while I sulk. My three windows face a tree-lined terrace, which I don’t care to have access to because my allergies are terrible this season. Every now and then, when I’m trying to purge my mind of my agonizing love diagnosis (and quickly drain my sinuses), I opt for a few hits of marijuana over allergy medicine. My mom says pharmaceutical companies are evil and don’t truly want you well, but merely want your money. While burning scented candles several times a week may not be particularly smart for a person with weeping sinuses, I routinely light cinnamon-vanilla candles every day to curb my appetite for baked goodies. After smoking a joint last week, I lit a cinnamon pecan-roll candle that apparently lured the neighbor from 4A, to my door with a request for brown sugar. He appeared unconsciously nervous, and introduced himself with a lethargic opener and awkward mid-sentence pause. “Hi, I’m Michael. From across the hall.” He wore a red and black plaid shirt buttoned to the last hole and dirty black Converse sneakers. I don’t recall if they were high tops or not, because his trousers were so unbecoming. He briefs me about how the sweet, aromatic waves from my apartment drift through the outdated halls, presumptuously convincing him that my cabinets possessed sugar. I handed him the Domino Dark Brown Sugar, in a yellow and white box that read: “we’ll always be your sugar.” Inside the threshold of my doorway, he is more inquisitive than I expect. I am rather taken aback when he bluntly asks, if I smoke pot. Once our shared practice is revealed, he lights up with confidence and becomes slightly more remarkable than his poorly kept presentation. Shortly, we find ourselves passing a bong back and forth, while seated in the middle of my apartment floor, because my living room doesn’t have a couch yet. I refuse to settle for just any old couch. It has to be the perfect sofa—chic, square-shaped, white leather in the Barcelona-style that I once saw through a store window on Broadway. After knowing each other for a half hour, Michael proves he adeptly plays the ukulele and acoustic guitar. He then forces me to admit that I’m a poet, if not a very good poet, but an average or aspiring or unpublished poet. I always remind myself of Erykah Badu’s infamous line, “I’m an artist and I’m sensitive about my shit.” I have the spirit of an artist. Prefaced with this, I read him one of my good poems, and then one of my bad poems. He withholds judgment and claims to have a pathetic poetic sensibility. He can be profoundly cynical and awkward at times and has come to the conclusion, that people only enjoy his company because his humor is unexpectedly dry, unpredictable yet comical. We linger for hours. There seems to be a bizarre correlation between our separate lives. But even if it could have been something, it wouldn’t have turned into anything, because nothing ever pans out for me, amorously. Then of course, it occurs to me that, there is, in fact no true connection. Marijuana has the lovely ability to alter unambiguous reasoning. I said good night to Michael.

I knock off work early on a sunny Friday that doesn’t seem like too hot of a day to be purchasing leather. I’m finally buying my dreamy, white couch from a small furniture store on Broadway. Days earlier, Michael had prompted me to just do it.— as if he were anticipating being a sitter, who breaks in its newness, or one who causes its first crack or stain. I experience the same enthralling whiffs of enthusiasm as I had the first time I moved to New York City. On both occasions, when I stopped to gather my breath and took a look around, I realized that dreams can come true. Jabal, my dear friend who drives a mini-van, yellow cab is madly in love with me. Unfortunately, I’m unable to reciprocate. No matter, he generously transports my much anticipated purchase to my apartment. Riding in the front seat of his yellow cab feels like no other. I have the privilege of seeing things from his disturbed point of view about passengers and the liberty to lower the volume of his Ghanaian Christian soundtrack. Whenever a passenger left a measly tip, Jabal felt dejected. “Oh my god, oh my god,” he’d say as he nervously counted his stash of money held together by a rubber band, and stashed in the middle console. He regularly complains about money, and amuses me with his grumblings on people who either didn’t pay enough, or overpaid or didn’t pay at all. I’ve ridden around with him on several shifts and learned all the thru-streets, spotted the undercover NYPD cabs, and crossed every single bridge in Manhattan.

The first time I hailed a cab from Jabal was when I was living on Water Street, across from the South Street Seaport, in a thirty-two story high rise where the Brooklyn Bridge was the astounding view outside my bay windows. Even though 199 Water Street was a less extraordinary view than that of the East River, or the Fulton fish market, or the people of the financial district, or the convenient vision of the clock tower in Brooklyn, it meant masses more to me. Water Street was my meeting with destiny. It was a sign. I had encountered that exact address on my virgin visit to New York City, four years before NYU ever assigned me to that precise building. As an entranced tourist, I had randomly snapped a picture of that very spot as purely an insignificant NYC address. My intentions were only to have enough photo material to create a meaningful album. I wandered around every energizing section of the city, relishing its eclectic sentimentality and creativity and Xanadu, clicking pictures of every noteworthy locale. I now see signs everywhere. Signs which I have interpreted as pearls, that when stranded together, form a Mikimoto. Once, when accidentally eyeing engagement rings, the residing jeweler obstinately advised me that diamonds were far better choices than pearls. Midway through her informative spiel, I was completely unimpressed with her perceived advantages of wearing a diamond. I had spent a good part of my twenty-one years trying to get to New York City to find my strand of pearls—to discover my purpose in life. My burnt-red brick wall, which creates so perfect a setting for the back of my new white leather couch, is my gem, my pearl, my cultured little bead.

An Eiffel Tower Affair

I know this video is extremely late, but I just figured out how to upload video.

A Loner in the City

In my hometown, I never felt like a local. Even on my street, I never felt like a neighbor. In New York City, mostly southeast of 14th Street, sardined with the offbeats and mavericks, the bohemians dressed as gypsies, the washed-up vegans, the addicted Wall-Streeters, the everyones' who ever wanted to be anyones, the whatchamacallits, and the might've-beens, I felt at ease.

I was reacquainted with my style here, the fad that I was born with before my time. When my lips are stained red, I look like a flapper and live like a modern classicist. I wear silky, baggy shirts salvaged from second-hand shops, scuffed up boots barely fastened by their rotting laces, with a new pair of skinny jeans that occasionally make me look brawny, and my hair is big. Like the big pin curls the women admired in the 1920's. My facial skin is ageless and not perfect, revealing a childlike sense of adventure through an instant gaze into a pair of quarter-sized eyes and confused demeanor. Generally, I appear well put together. But my nails are always chipped with decaying cuticles, bad judgment slips from under my tongue sporadically, and I'm a chronic sufferer of failing romance. As a rule, I rarely flaunt my well-earned figure because I have a peculiar ability of finding a way around this. My heart is stitched on a rolled-up sleeve, gravitating up and down with every bend, movement, or endeavor. I lost my innocence a long time ago, way before I moved to New York, and after my heart was broken. That's a good thing. Because only the Frank Sinatras' survive here.

You have to know how to function alone in this city. As an individual. As an anonymous.
It's not a place for tender-heart rocking or closed-minded foolishness. The legacy of cultural tolerance is not for the unadventurous, incurable bigot. But, here in my city...color is silently pertinent. Having the facade of a multinational is a fast track to joining the medley. But, if you want instant conformity, be true to yourself. New York forced me to acknowledge my sufficient eccentricities. I grew up within the confines of Texas, south of the Mason Dixon line; even when forced, refuse to use "nigga" as a pronoun or invite like-skinned people of similar socio-economic backgrounds into my world. I don't wear racially-distinguishable garments; and my social circles are of Benetton nature. It's a shame that my character difference is mistaken as deviance.

This is me, unveiled. I'm an over-analytical oddball, a three-dollar bill, an idiosyncratic, a case, a rarity. And my name is too often found next to a parenthesized weirdo. I bullied a pigeon today in Cooper Square; one time, I made three mistakes in two hours; the word "mad" has inadvertently slid into my vocabulary; there are times when I don't believe in myself; I dream about reality, but my life is not a storybook; and I live in a city that fully embraces my creativity as an artist. As an individual.

I'm a self-proclaimed New Yorker inspired by invention and freedom.

My Dazzling City

I am a rather eccentric person. The nature of my avocations for the last 20 years has brought me to the capital of nostalgia. I found my voice on a long crowded island called Manhattan. If I bargain a job in this depressed society, I plan to die here. Bury my soul in the overpopulated cemetery in Queens. I want curly bamboo sticks on my grave. Please don't mourn over my headstone with fresh-cut or artificial flowers that lack originality. Because this city is all about having character.

It took a long time to get to New York. The eternity of the ride into the city is where I met my irrational love for the place. New York is a city of perpetual filth, occasional hatred, daily tests of individuality, and a daring amount of energy to fully appreciate its dollops of charm. It's mysterious allure is epidemic, like love. I came to this soaring madhouse to discover love. Not just a well-wished romantic companion, but to marry my passion. This compacted and beautiful segment of America is my muse, my feel good, my gem. Waking up on Third Avenue is a daily indulgence, like sex. My proclaimed affair I have a metropolis is real. I consider myself a native newlywed.

The interval between my fourth-floor address, create contrast, and so much more. The direction of my window commands attention to the curiosities of humankind. I romanticize the unobstructed view of neighbors from my desk chair. I accidentally eavesdrop on drunk weekenders from the uncarpeted interior of a red-bricked mini skyscraper.
"Dude, I can't tell if she's hot or not. She's wearing too many clothes," a city character once said, crookedly passing over the gum-spotted and worn sidewalk, marching to the 4 a.m. beat of the village. This city is tolerant.

My Manhattan has been my health and my allergy, my battlefield and playground, my bruise and my band-aid, my sweet lemon with salt on it, my fetish and my nuisance. It feels like there's no other place in this world that penetrates my creativity as a writer. All else is uninteresting.

And just beyond my glassed pane is an enlivened bus stop. The M101 is my night light. It has the kind of digitized, exterior advertising that would gloss your eyes in Times Square. Fourty-second street is infidelity. It's the face of New York, but not my source of adoration or comfort. My dazzling city is a diagnosed spastic. I support every symptom of eccentricity. It's most tranquil moments are hard to decide. It requires no prescribed lens to reveal the lurking commotion. I'm most comfortable in the gritty East Village where suburb-starved artists wear suspenders and Elvis Costello glasses, clinging hands, creating a portrait of Cupid's graces, anxiously searching for golden inspiration. I find restful peace in the rush of a yellow cab's wheels intersecting with street vents. The homemade cheese store across the street, that lacks all commercialized showiness, is poetic enthusiasm. I have learned to dream in a restless environment. When the sun sneaks into my city's overcrowded infrastructure, I wake up craving more, ready to embrace every beautiful moment of coexistence.

By winter, I still have the butterflies, even when all six trees on my block have been amputated of their springtime bio. They appear starved and shivered by the erratic falls of February's snow. My love grows through seasons, through every tear of rain, burst of sunshine, and gentle drop of snow. New Yorkers don't know how to appreciate everything. By mid-day, important business people their scriveners have trampled over every last piece of preserved flurry, leaving the scraps to the latecomers and call girls. January, February and sometimes chunks of March are winters that burn your skin, color your nose cherry red, erect your arm hairs, and seem partially miserable. But, I'm here until death do us part.

Oh America!

I'm officially back on American soil. I anticipated being jet-lagged, shocked and resistant to orthodoxy. There was no reverse cultural shock. There was no urgency to raid the pantry for hearty U.S. snacks. There was no speech stuttering or lingual confusion. There was no allegiance to religion. Instantly, I fit right back into the American way.

The first thing I did when I arrived home was take a bath in a bathroom that was built by an American worker who probably doesn't have state-given benefits. It felt just right. I arrived on New Year's Eve, but had no desire to socialize with the masses that evening. Most of my relationships with friends that I deliberately chose to not keep in contact with, changed. For the first few days, I was closely examining how things Changed since I had been gone. I know that I felt different, but if you were to ask me how different I am, I wouldn't be able to describe it. Everyones' life had gone on (imagine that), and I was completely out of the loop on pop-culture. It seemed for the past four months that I was acting out a dream and everyone else was in reality. I didn't get pregnant, pay taxes, or fail miserably at anything. Life gave me nothing but lemons these past four months.

Reality check inserted here.

Now that I'm reconnected with my Blackberry; impeccable Hi-Speed Internet; recordable HD T.V; a multi-functional washer/dryer; daily encounters with the SUN; the devalued American dollar; dishes that don't wash themselves; a dog that doesn't follow you leash-lessly; a non-recycling family; a career choice that doesn't show up on your doorstep; a few bad memories from the past; and all of my overdue relationships have ended. These are the publishable parts of my reality.

I'm off to New York City tomorrow to face the rest! I have dearly missed my dazzling city. Even though I haven't ever experienced love, I KNOW that I'm absolutely infatuated with my city.

Good-bye. The American way.

Tschüss Deutschland

I did Christmas the Deutsch way. My friend invited me to her house for a family setting. We ate kartoffeln (potatoes) and played Tabu in German. I never realized how much German I knew until I started describing words that were outside of my vocabulary. During my stay in Koeln, I was surrounded by Swahili, Spanish, German and English. Luckily, they all sounded completely different from each other. I'm going to miss multi-lingual people. In fact, I think my English has become more simplified over time. I stopped using big words like "onomatopoeia" in my daily vocabulary. (Does anyone Ever use this word?) I was asked to describe cake sprinkles the other day. That was an unbelievably difficult task. I got nervous and thought I would misrepresent them. Describing ordinary items to someone who has absolutely no idea what the fuck a sprinkle is presented a new challenge.

I'm on my last (for awhile, at least) European train to Dusseldorf Airport. I love trains so much. You don't have to worry about Nigerian bombers or being busted for having toothpaste in your bag. Trains are relaxing, calming, spacious and easy to escape in case of derailment.?Yeah, I guess every institutional creation has its flaws. None the less, Koeln was a great way to top off four months in Europe. I've survived all of this time without BBMing and texting (among other things). This is a personal achievement.

I can't wait to be reunited with my better half (and my family, too)!

Winter Wonderland

There's a white blanket all over Germany. It's beautiful to experience from indoors. I have a decreasing desire for all outdoor activities. All I need is a glass of Glühwein (hot spiced wine), my snuggie and a cheesy romantic comedy for fun these days. I think I've grown out of excessive socializing and have become more of a bore - or commonly referred to as an Adult (pronounced with the long "-ai" sound).

The good news is, I made it to Köln without being re-routed into a snowy Germanic forest. The six-hour drive started off as unusual as the nature of any foreign-country Ride Sharing would be. Everyone was getting to know each other in German, and I was awkwardly tuning them out posing as a sleepy college Adult. After I comfortably settled into my window seat, another passenger was picked up to further reduce the European carbon footprint. I was sandwiched between a funky, black-haired photographer and a fat man who wouldn't let me lean on his arm that was invading my space. Europeans don't joke around when it comes to moderation. Americans are the ones who should be car pooling between states with our gas-guzzling SUV's and Hummers. My nation makes me feel fat sometimes. In Europe, I've been the one who cut a thicker slice of cheese at breakfast; requested more bread in a restaurant; opened a box of cookies in the grocery store; asked for extra sugar cubes for my cappuccino; and filled my glass waaaayyyy passed their measurement line. Overindulging is our way.

Meanwhile, I've been watching movies to pass the snow and hanging out with my two friends who have graciously lent their hospitality for twelve days. German people are so nice. I even have my own room and set of keys. I'll be experiencing my first German Christmas with a Ghanaian family. I bet the food will be amazing!

This travel experience has been unforgettable.