Obviously I could’ve (and hopefully someday will) written this better, but this How to Live in New York City blog post that’s being passed around did strike one chord with me:
Encounter a lot of people crying in public. Watch an NYU student cry in Think Coffee, a business woman in midtown sob into her cellphone, an old man whimper on a stoop in Greenpoint. At first, it will feel very jarring but, like everything else, it will become normal. Have your first public cry in front of a Bank of America. Cry so hard and don’t care if people are watching you. You pay good money to be able to cry in public.
I remember–when I first moved here and felt so alien and could only afford to fly home twice a year for comfort–crying everywhere. I remember breaking down in Union Square on my way home from a movie one night out of nowhere and realizing it was because I missed my dad so hard. I remember spending hours in the Olive Garden down the street from my Chelsea apartment sobbing to my then-boyfriend one afternoon, much to the bewilderment of our waiter, because the clothes designer I was working for had let me go due to my not showing enough cleavage and refusing to spend the weekend at his house. I remember crying so long and hard one night that we had to watch Napoleon Dynamite twice to cheer me up.
And I pay good money to live here and do that.
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Aw. Katie Ett has a heart!
So, I read the original post, and mostly liked it (except for the part of me that knew you could have written it better), until I got to this:
“This is just a note to everybody who is reblogging and saying how much they wish they lived here: If you don’t live here, you probably don’t understand this to its full extent.”
Um, yeah. Doi. I know I don’t understand the full extent of what it’s like to live in New York. You can’t really, fully understand what it’s like to live anywhere if you haven’t. Haven’t lived in Mexico City? Well, you don’t REALLY understand what it’s like. Haven’t lived in a rural town in the Ozarks? Well, you don’t get that, either. That’s a given. Does anyone ever really say, “I’ve never lived in New York but I know exactly what it would be like to live there!”
I mean, I suppose the author’s irritation–or whatever feeling it was that caused the addition at the end– comes from this sense that non-New Yorkers feel like they know New York. Because they’ve read about it, because they’ve seen it in movies, because they’ve visited. Fact is, the artists who do their job well make us feel like we know a place. And, naturally, lots of artists take a stab at showing us that particular city. But I don’t think it takes anything from your New York for a few people to daydream about what it would be like to live there. Even if they don’t REALLY get it.
I wish you hadn’t written the last paragraph, because after you quoted the not-understanding part, I was ready to flame that chick so hard. How pompous. And unnecessary. And obvious.
But you’re right–I see tourists looking too comfortable walking out of their hotels sometimes, and I want to yell at them, “You don’t KNOW! Until you’re walking out of your apartment that costs bazillions of dollars more than you can afford and that you literally ripped the hair out of some other girl to get, YOU DON’T GET IT!” But I remind myself that what I’m seeing is more than likely how much they love the city and how cool they feel being here and that I still feel that way, too, underneath all my disillusionment.
What I actually hate, though, are the people who say, “Oh, I could never live in New York City.” As if the burdens outweigh the benefits.
Huh. I also mostly like the original post, and am oddly moved by what a big giant sap you are, but I am thrown by this crying thing. I mean, sure, I GUESS. There are a lot of people here, the odds go up that they might be crying on the street. But the only time I have was the day before I moved away (standing in the middle of Second Ave at 83rd St., without warning) and I can’t recall an instance I saw someone else who wasn’t a child, THAT girl at a bar, or perhaps a homeless person doing so. But then, I don’t look at or speak to anyone, which I learned in Boston, so there is that.
My goal for 2011 is to find the publicly sobbing New Yorkers.
I know this is so not the point of this post, but I didn’t know you once worked for a clothing designer.
I hope I don’t own anything he designed (like I own anything designer that didn’t come from Goodwill or a Junior League trunk sale). He sounds like a jackwagon.
I think I’m too self-aware to live in NYC. I think I’d skip right over the new, novelty time and hop right into the “I’m so alone” bit. *sigh* Ah, well.
The crying part interests me because I’ve done this several times in my life, but I always found a church or a bathroom stall to hide in while I finished sobbing. Could it be that there aren’t many “private” places in New York to escape to for those moments? Neat point.