Funny how I never posted photos of New York City until I moved away.
I suppose I didn’t need to, I had it to look at every day, out my window, down my block.

Now though? I’m glad I have these photos.
One of the Mister’s closest friends just arrived in New York. She’s moved into an apartment four blocks from the one that waits for us and she told me yesterday about eating lunch at a restaurant I used to walk past every day.
I’m incredibly excited for her that she’s getting to explore such an amazing city, but I’m also so, SO jealous.

We’re working on our fourth month here. People have told me that homesickness takes about a year to subside.
I thought I had felt homesickness when I left the Pacific Northwest, but this is something totally different.
This hurts like heartache. Like I’ve walked away from a friend or a love.

If we move back will I be overwhelmed by the pace, late hours and disconnection with nature? Will I daydream about year-round outdoor pools and flocks of parrots flying over our backyard?

Just how green is that other grass anyway?

Found another huge stash of photos taken over the years in New York.
It’s really nice to find treats like this lurking about my various digital storage devices, but it also quite clearly illustrates how I so desperately need to come up with some sort of real photo filing system.

Still working on accepting the fact that we’ve moved, and will possibly not be going back aside to get our stuff, but yeah. it’s really hard.

This is mostly for me.

I cleaned out the bookmarks on my laptop tonight and after deleting a zillion NYC-centric websites of businesses I intended to patronize, spots to see, classes, events, maps and who knows what else, I got a little nostalgic for back when I had a job and more than 2 friends in the city I lived in.

This isn’t some glamorous New York City that you see in the movies, this was simply my daily life.

I know that eventually I’ll feel more rooted here in Australia and I won’t think backwards more than I think forward, but I’m not quite there yet.

I miss New York.

Today I started really packing and making a list of the things I know I want to bring with me to Australia. The idea that we’re moving to HOT TROPICAL SUMMER is insane. IN-SANE. I literally put away my bevy of summer dresses two weeks before we got the we-gotta-move news. Today, it snowed. SNOWED.
ok, ok. It only snowed for like ten minutes, and I didn’t see it. The only reason I know that it snowed is because the kid who works at the bodega where I buy my daily caffeine told me, but I BELIEVED HIM. It’s cold!

An aside: I’ve decided that using Celsius to measure temperature is best done when temps are low, and Fahrenheit best when temps are high.
When the mister exclaimed to me yesterday “it’s FIVE degrees out!” that sounded –really- cold.
42 degrees is no sunbath, but has nowhere near the necessary drama.
Conversely, shouting about it being 41! Degrees! Has none of the power of “it’s one hundred and fucking five degrees today”.

Anyway, New York is now starting to get wintery. It’s a bummer, I was really hoping that we could do a summer-autumn-summer-autumn year but alas, it looks like we’ll have to deal with a week of winter in there.

TOUGH LIFE.

The universe handed me New York City and now it’s handing me Brisbane, Australia.

I have some things I want to say about my future town, but one subject at a time. Let’s talk about New York for a moment.

I came to New York to find myself, to figure out what came next in my life. I think that answers to those questions aren’t stated in sentences. Nobody ever knows what comes next and finding yourself doesn’t generally come with an ah-ha moment. I never exclaimed “THERE she is!” but here I am. I found myself, and I’m home.

There are clichés about moving to New York and how difficult it is to get your life really rolling here. It takes at least a year to find a good place to live. There are a million jobs, but finding the right one for you is almost as challenging as housing. When you do find work that suits, you’ll work your life away to pay your rent. New Yorkers are cold and building a social group takes ages.

None of those were true for me.

The day I got off the plane I moved straight into the very-affordable and central apartment I’m leaving only now. I had work offers the day after I started looking and a really good job within six months. I’ve spent the vast majority of my time in this city working part-time at full time wages. I’ve made amazing friends, and seen and done more than many get to do in a lifetime.

I heartily recommend that anyone who dreams of living in New York to do it, even if just for a year.
You’ll bartend, you’ll ride the subway, you’ll go out in the east village and learn about not paying full admission at the Met.
You’ll pick a favorite street food cart or maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll love them all.
Your friends and family from back home will visit and you’ll take them across the Brooklyn Bridge, on the Staten Island ferry, point out rats on the subway tracks and explain to them about how you can’t take (or even touch) the furniture off the street for fear of bedbugs.
You’ll pay more for sandwiches then you ever thought reasonable, but you’ll be fine with it. You’ll take the Chinatown bus and live to tell the tale.
You’ll learn to spot tourists and new people by how they say north instead of uptown and deal with the frustration of trying to receive a goddamn package through the mail and end up renting a box in a laundry somewhere.

I always dreamt of living in New York. From where I sit, I can hear the brakes of the nearby subway train screeching, and the babble of the neighbors through the wall and the window.
It’s tight and it’s crowded, true, but it’s worth it.
I know it’s silly to feel nostalgic for a city I have yet to depart from, but the idea of getting on a plane with a one-way ticket from this town breaks my heart a little bit.

New York is a beast and a beauty and I’ll dearly miss both.

Yikes, New York. I know it’s really nothing in the grand scheme, but still, yikes.

Today it is autumn in New York.
But my god, last night was spectacular.

The seasons change here with a click. Everyone feels it and it’s what they’re all talking about today. Some claim we’re going to fry with heat until October, but yesterday was the kind of day where you wear a tank top and shorts out on a rooftop at night and you’re fine. Today? Well, let’s just say I saw more than one scarf today.

Yesterday, whilst roaming the neighborhood with my close friend Sara, we happened upon Mike who invited us to a last-minute rooftop birthday party/first show of the birthday boy’s new band, Bull Thieves.

The band was awesome. The view was awesome. The wine was awesome. The friends are really awesome.

Summer 2009, you were so quick, but this was a good farewell.
Happy Birthday Nickolas and thanks, that was amazing.

Photos blatantly stolen from my amazingly talented friend Kevin.