Reflections on NYC

[chanaleh]

One of the things I enjoy most about New York City -- and here I mean Manhattan proper, as I haven't spent any time in any other part of it -- is the feeling that, no matter where you are and what you're up to, you can kind of be as weird and grungy as you want at any given moment, because odds are there will be other people around even weirder and grungier than you, and there really is very little that will make anyone around you bat an eye. Years ago, while visiting jessruth one weekend, I remember going out for bagels on Sunday morning defiantly dressed only in a full-length J.Crew union suit (which she had recently bequeathed to me: dark green, complete with button-up back flap), because it was comfy and why the hell not? (The only question that occurs to me now is: what shoes could I have possibly worn with that? Converse hi-tops??)

Contrariwise, I also am highly susceptible to the feeling (depending very *much* on where I am and what I'm up to) that from the moment I cross onto the island, I am badly in need of a manicure. And possibly a haircut. Or a facial (never mind that I have never had a facial in my entire life). I start mentally noting the locations, names, and atmospheres of all the salons I walk by. I find myself prowling the aisles at Ricky's and Sephora, and having to talk myself sternly out of $20 leave-in conditioners and Ahava mineral creams. I fear that "grooming" is going to become an entire new category in my budget when I actually settle there.

So, it was a somewhat difficult visit due to being justom's single busiest week of the entire semester, which he duly warned me about a million times, but I still didn't grasp how hard it was going to be on me (and, transitively, on him) to try and be there. But overall it was (I felt, anyway) still better than staying home without him. :-} Home stretch now for real -- two weeks to the end of his semester.

And anyway, as a vacation, it was a lovely week of amusing myself, and hanging with jessruth and others, and spending my tax refund on... not exactly theater, but tickets anyway (all Stephen Schwartz all the time) and some reasonable and sensible clothes shopping, and walking all over the place, and cooking decent food (since restaurants were by and large out), and sleeping in when I could, and going to a couple of synagogues, and generally getting the lay of the land.

And now, off to meet the tremontstshul gang for PIZZA AND BEER!

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

One of the things I actually like about Boston as opposed to NYC is that Boston is much less fashion-conscious. I can go out of the house in geeky, rumpled business-casual and no one cares.

I know what you mean about going to NYC and feeling underdressed. BTDT, lots of times, and it's a big part of the reason why I used to be a lot more into clothes than I am now. (I think I may actually still have an Armani shirt or two buried somewhere, that was mine in ... another life, long ago.)

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

It's funny--I had almost exactly this conversation two hours ago. (Mostly because I left dance class completely overheated. I'm not willing to hit the subway in a sports bra, so I put on my polo shirt, but couldn't face my pants and just left the gym shorts on. Which looked awesome with my tan socks and brown shoes, let me tell you. It...was a look. A bad, bad look. But the conclusion we came to was that someone on the subway would look weirder than me, so what the hell.)

[c1.livejournal.com]

Funny, I do this all the time at MassArt: weekends usually feature a closed cafeteria and coffee is down the street by Children's Hospital. My clothes and my apron are all covered in clay, the rest of me is just as much of a mess, and yet, standing there amongst all the doctors and nurses in their clean lab coats and scrubs, I Just Don't Care what they think.

But I can't imagine what it's like to feel like I'm badly in need of a facial, let alone a manicure. :D

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Re: grooming--I have the same experience whenever I decide to go to a club. And conversely, I don't worry about dancing because no matter how bad I am at it, someone else will manage to be worse. :)

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, which reminds me, do you want to go to Heroes this week? :-) I couldn't go until after 10ish (going to the theatreatfirst staged reading at 8), but that seems like plenty of time...?

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Sure, that will work. :)

[navrins]

Third paragraph of this post.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. I dimly remember reading that, now you point it out, but I'd certainly forgotten. :-)

[scholargipsy.livejournal.com]

It will be interesting to see if (and if so, how) your feelings about New York shift once you are living here on a day-to-day basis; much as I love many things here, mine certainly have.

If you've not been to any borough but Manhattan, you need to start exploring more widely. Queens, where we live, is a garden of delights, culinary and otherwise. :)

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Conversely, after a while people start to fret about just how weird everyone might be. I went to see "After Hours" with a friend in Manhattan. I found it hilarious. He wanted to go home and bolt the door, because in Manhattan, you know that things like that are just around the corner.