Monday, August 13, 2007
Epiphany
A new sort of tornado has hit New York. It started a couple of weeks ago when Judy arrived along with Josh. Friday night he went from drinking beer and arguing about football with friends in Brooklyn, to sipping cocktails and singing show tunes with Judy and me in Manhattan’s fading piano bars. It took my liver and voice about two days to recover.
The following weekend my cousin was in for his birthday. We went out in Hell’s Kitchen where he was on the prowl (ah, the younglings), then to an East Side piano bar. The weather turned from torrential rain to unseasonally mild, spring-like weather, and added fuel to the motley events that followed: We dined alfresco at a French restaurant for brunch, saw the hysterical new musical “Xanadu, Seriously” then out to Caffe Taci for a night of amateur (but wonderful) opera, before hitting the Monster. God, I’m getting exhausted just remembering it all.
And it all just reminds me that the sun may be, in some ways, setting on this lifestyle. With large rent increases for me and across Manhattan, the cost of this lifestyle is out of control. I just formally declined to renew my precious Manhattan lease. (My rent would have been increased to $2,400 a month, 20% higher than it was just two years ago.) The realization has also set in that there’s nothing left to explore. I’ve worked in Consulting, marketing, at a collections agency, luxury retail; I've done grad school, a failed attempt at a PhD, and have lived in Chicago, Washington, and New York just over the last 4 years - there is little left outside the the absurd. It’s time to settle down and save some money to do what my friends have already done: purchase a place of their own and tone down their lifestyle.
Nonetheless, there are things that will not, and can not, be cut: Going to the opera and exploring all the cultural live that Manhattan has to offer. I still have my subscriptions, opening night, etc. The great thing about this New York is that I can still consume its culture, but not pay so much to live here. I have finally gotten over that island mentality that has me paying twice what most New Yorkers pay in rent.
I have to also say that I’m really not a Manhattan person. I’m more bridge-and-tunnel, as they say here. Most of the people here that I regard as my second family here are bridge-and-tunnel. It’s time to make those foreign places across the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, Queensborough, and Triboro bridges my home and stop being a Manhattan wacko.
Yea. . . . eeer, great. Where the fuck to I start? I’ve never been across the East River.
The following weekend my cousin was in for his birthday. We went out in Hell’s Kitchen where he was on the prowl (ah, the younglings), then to an East Side piano bar. The weather turned from torrential rain to unseasonally mild, spring-like weather, and added fuel to the motley events that followed: We dined alfresco at a French restaurant for brunch, saw the hysterical new musical “Xanadu, Seriously” then out to Caffe Taci for a night of amateur (but wonderful) opera, before hitting the Monster. God, I’m getting exhausted just remembering it all.
And it all just reminds me that the sun may be, in some ways, setting on this lifestyle. With large rent increases for me and across Manhattan, the cost of this lifestyle is out of control. I just formally declined to renew my precious Manhattan lease. (My rent would have been increased to $2,400 a month, 20% higher than it was just two years ago.) The realization has also set in that there’s nothing left to explore. I’ve worked in Consulting, marketing, at a collections agency, luxury retail; I've done grad school, a failed attempt at a PhD, and have lived in Chicago, Washington, and New York just over the last 4 years - there is little left outside the the absurd. It’s time to settle down and save some money to do what my friends have already done: purchase a place of their own and tone down their lifestyle.
Nonetheless, there are things that will not, and can not, be cut: Going to the opera and exploring all the cultural live that Manhattan has to offer. I still have my subscriptions, opening night, etc. The great thing about this New York is that I can still consume its culture, but not pay so much to live here. I have finally gotten over that island mentality that has me paying twice what most New Yorkers pay in rent.
I have to also say that I’m really not a Manhattan person. I’m more bridge-and-tunnel, as they say here. Most of the people here that I regard as my second family here are bridge-and-tunnel. It’s time to make those foreign places across the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, Queensborough, and Triboro bridges my home and stop being a Manhattan wacko.
Yea. . . . eeer, great. Where the fuck to I start? I’ve never been across the East River.
# posted by otas : 5:17 PM
