I’ve been traveling. I spent a week in New York City, then I went to Los Angeles and treated myself to a day at Disneyland. Soon I’m heading to Hawai’i. I’m visiting all my happy places, while I’m happy. There are all sorts of things looming in the future which threaten my continued happiness, but for now, life is good. Because I can afford to travel, and I'm healthy enough to sleep on strange beds and climb subway stairs.
When I’m in a multiverse frame of mind, I’m convinced that I’m a New Yorker in at least half of them. Visiting New York City gives me an odd combination of longing and déjà vu. Possibly even past life memories, or epigenetic experiences handed down from my ancestors’ adventures in the city. I feel both like I belong there, like I’ve always been there, and like I can’t wait to get back home. Every block is crowded with amiable ghosts, whispering that there’s an apartment available here, that I should try the deli there. That happiness, love, companionship, and the elusive state of never-being-bored are all right around the corner, waiting for me to change my zip code. Gooble gobble, one of us!
The weather report was predicting heavy rain, and I was thinking I’d spend my time inside museums, but instead it snowed. I generally dislike snow, and it’s one of the reasons I decided to settle in San Francisco rather than New York. We don’t have snow, except for an occasional thin yet photogenic dusting over the Golden Gate Bridge. We have cold clammy fog, and we also have cold sunny days, and usually it’s hoodie weather except for the annual cold snap and heat wave.
New York City was wicked cold, and I was glad I was well prepared with a bulky down jacket and warm cashmere scarf. And a hoodie, and a thermal shirt. And a tiedye for the concert. Lately I have been rebelling from my self-imposed fashion tyranny of band shirts (the greater bulk of my wardrobe) and wearing a uniform to shows consisting of a tie dye and either cargo jeans or my cargo jacket which is decorated with 100+ patches representing all the bands I’ve seen while wearing it (@ConcertCommandoCoat on IG if that sort of thing interests you).
I’ve been dressing like one, but I was never really a Deadhead. I liked them, and I saw them live a handful of times in the eighties and nineties. Their music never really grabbed me but I was fascinated by their scene, and still have a lot of friends who are in it, and many of those friends make tie dyes. Meanwhile I’ve been trying to shed an unfortunate goth phase which led me to dress mostly in black, with band shirts, and tie dyes are a nice colorful alternative. There’s also the added bonus that people tend to treat me gently when I present myself as an old lady in a tie dye, as opposed to dressing as the gloomy old music nerd that I am.
On my first day in New York, I went for gloomy old music nerd, and wore a t-shirt celebrating The Downward Spiral (see last post). And then I walked to Central Park. In the snow. I wandered around the trails and took photos of the frozen edge of the lake, and I hung out with a Russian tour group inspecting the John Lennon memorial.
Then I went over to look at the Dakota, setting for one of my favorite novels, Time And Again by Jack Finney. And slowly made my way through the Upper West Side, Hell’s Kitchen, the Seventh Avenue that you can’t give it away on, the Broadway I regarded. I figured out the subway relatively quick and found my way to the World Trade Center crater, and Greenwich Village, where I ate an overly rare yet delicious steak frites across the street from the Stonewall memorial.
I never did get around to seeing a Broadway play. We have those here. I’m not a major fan, although they’re fun once in a while. Nor did I eat cheesecake, too much sugar. I did eat White Castle, pastrami, and several slices of pizza. And I drank several flavors of seltzer, and had a couple baristas doublecheck to make sure I didn’t want it with cream and sugar. I balanced out my street food with visits to a couple of fancy restaurants, the Algonquin Hotel and the Russian Tea Room.
New York, to me, feels like the most American place in the world. I haven’t seen a lot of America, mostly tourist attractions and places where you transfer planes. My sole ventures outside the US have been brief stays in Mexico and Canada. I’m a homebody. If it weren’t for live music I’d never leave my county. Even with my limited experience, New York hits me right in the patriotism button. It’s full of the same kind of regular normal Americans I grew up seeing in movies and reading about in books.
I did not grow up feeling like a regular normal American. I grew up in a conquered Pacific island nation, and when I grew up I found myself wanting to live around gay commie liberals and similar people. Flag waving confuses me. I’m more about that life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, which in my mind means living a European lifestyle as far as walkable cities and grandiose architecture (and food) and also an Asian lifestyle with regard to technology (and food). The whole thing about living in outer burbaria and doing your shopping at a big box, and spending hours of your valuable time in a car … just no. Cars give me headaches. Probably relates to my neck issues.
I had neck surgery almost one year ago. Basically my own body was stabbing me, growing arthritis spurs that sliced my discs to ribbons and trapping one of my more frequently used nerves. The surgeon freed the nerve and fused a couple levels of neck, which helped a lot, but I also had to basically grow new muscle tissue. Which hurts. So does having a bone graft in your neck that lights up whenever it’s cold or the barometric pressure is erratic.
I’m accustomed to pain though. And now that I’m having actual zero-pain days for the first time in years, I feel like I’ve won the lottery. While I won’t speculate on what the future holds, I’m taking advantage of the fact that I can walk and subway all over New York, and then bounce back for Disneyland. After taking a few days to recover from a cold.
One of the things I’ve been doing on my journey is trying to figure out what to do with my creativity before I die. I do love writing novels but it’s an impractical labor of love. Most people don’t read novels. And I don’t get along with that many people in the subculture. I just tend to encounter the toxic call-out type of person, and make enemies for stupid reasons. I’m still planning to show up at the 2026 Worldcon, because Disneyland, and that means I’m going to crank out a novel for it to justify the expense, but you’ll hear more about that when I actually figure out what it’ll be about, and then write it.
I’ve been playing my guitar. My old lady voice is actually way better than my twenty-something voice, because I’ve got loads of character and a low alto range. There was a chance the surgery was going to make it worse, give me a permanent rasp, but it’s actually made my voice better. I’m not extroverted enough to play music though. I lack that all important customer service attitude when it comes to audiences.
And I’ve been doing fabric art. I actually learned quilting and made my first square for a group collaboration. And absolutely hated it. I’m an embroiderer, used to making visible stitches with a huge needle. Not invisible stitches with a tiny needle. I can decorate the hell out of basic garments though, so I’m experimenting with that.
Seeing New York and Los Angeles with my very own eyeballs was good for my art. It reminded me that there’s a greater America – intense concentrations of America, in fact.
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