how I'm doing

because you asked

In the three-ish months since moving to New York, I’ve been asked “how I’m doing,” conservatively, five billion times. I never know how to answer. I usually default to some lame-but-true dodge like “well, I’m here!” to avoid detailing the roller coaster of fear, delusion, embarrassment, and curiosity that I seem to be strapped into. I tell myself that no one wants to hear it. And yet people keep asking.

It’s awful to be cared for, isn’t it?

Still, five months of nonstop explanation will inevitably mess with your head: first, an autumn consumed by where are you going what are you doing why why why how will you get there are you scared will you miss us, then a winter and spring of how long have you been here where did you move from how long were you there why did you move here where do you live do you like it do you hate it what’s your fucking deal girl please tell me.

My answers have become a practiced schtick, tired as a salesman’s pitch:

Three months.

Los Angeles. Eight and a half years.

Work, sort of.

Prospect Heights.

I like it!

It’s hard, but I like it.

(Ignore final question; pivot to the weather)

A few days ago, I told my mom I was tired of this dance. My little monologue felt hollow, and made it too obvious that the answers I gave others were just watered-down versions of those I give myself. None of it felt true. So I wanted to try and capture how I’m actually doing.

One definite thing: I feel shitty for not writing enough. An earlier version of me fantasized that the momentousness of this transition — a cross-country move, hitting reset on my life — would generate something raw and unceasing. Shhh don’t tell anyone, but one of the major reasons I moved was to establish myself as a writer, cut the ties I felt were holding me back creatively, allow my snarling sense of ambition out of its cage a bit, and figure out my next steps career-wise. There have been glimmers to that effect so far, and I feel I am oriented in the right direction. But the predominant feeling is fuck, I need to get moving.

A crueler version reminds me that without many community ties or social engagements, I literally have all the time in the world, and my lack of output is purely my own fault.

A stupider version believed that flinging myself into a fundamentally different mise en scene would stun me into a different person entirely.

The actual me has been reminded, once again, that I am only myself.

So I’ll share the objective facts: that I go to the farmer’s market every Saturday and get a bagel every Sunday; that I got food poisoning from an egg sandwich; that I dragged 150 pounds of unassembled bed frame down 3 hallways, into an elevator, and through my doorway; that I’m still taken aback by the whole “standing in line”/“standing on line” thing; that I’ve developed a neighborhood crush and hate myself for it; that I’ve run into 4 random acquaintances, slightly improved my winter wardrobe and successfully attended 3 parties alone.

I can tell you I’ve only cried into my pillow twice, and that both were because of Instagram. I can tell you things feel quieter, oddly, and more in my control, but I miss my old life like a phantom limb and haven’t truly laughed in several weeks. I can tell you I’m tired. I can tell you I’m happy. I can tell you I’m confused, and that I’m trying to be okay with that.

So that’s how I’m doing. Next, the standard question is how I like the city. I’m afraid to say anything about New York because I know it’ll look dumb in hindsight. I’m still in my Little Orphan Annie “I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here” phase, but more emphasis on walkability, public libraries, and proximity to bakeries. The city is smarter than me, and the growth and split of its cell walls are not yet something I have the ability to discern. I haven’t switched my voter registration, and the list of proper nouns to memorize grows longer every day. I won’t pretend to know anything, but I do have some initial observations.

A few years ago, a friend visited the neighborhood I’m living in now and remarked that it felt “very Busytown,” like those ever-smiling Richard Scarry drawings. You know the ones:

i am obsessed with the little goat here. i am constantly threatening to get a tattoo but this little goat might finally put me over the edge. i think he looks just like me and i want him with me always.

This one’s from a book called “busiest people ever” which I find adorable. These are the busiest people ever!!

He was right. There’s a storybook simplicity to seeing so many strangers going about their days, quickly sorting them into mental categories like mailman and mother and late-for-work boss. I don’t want to know what category they sort me into (remote-work gentrifier would be correct, if unflattering). It’s energizing to be around so much life, and makes every errand feel like a little adventure. I love that.

As an irrepressible eavesdropper, I’m still not over the thrill of picking up on a strange or delightful conversation on the sidewalk or train. Generally confined to restaurants and bars, the chanced-upon dialogue in Los Angeles seemed more practiced in contrast, like the speaker knew that an Overheard LA tipster could be hiding anywhere. The interactions here to are more tender, immediate and bizarre. A few examples:

UNDERHILL AVE, 11 am, SATURDAY: A forty-something man and a zero-something girl (probably five) walking home from the farmer’s market hand in little hand. The girl is struggling to understand the concept of car ownership:

“If there are so many here then why can’t we take one?”

“That’d be stealing. Would you like it if someone walked into our house and acted like it was theirs? That’s the same as taking one of the cars. They’re very important to people.”

“…but what if you put it right back?”

3 TRAIN, BROOKLYN-BOUND, 8:45 pm, TUESDAY: I walk into a car filled with French-speaking Orthodox Jewish teenagers who appear to be singing some kind of campfire song at a man who is passed out and definitely didn’t ask for this. The clapping gets faster and the man starts to rouse. I switch cars.

GRAND ARMY PLAZA, 8 am, TUESDAY: Two men walking behind me, don’t get a visual but hear this exchange:

“Yeah, you think these pigeons are small, but then you go to Arizona and see the rock doves there? Those things are itty-bitty.”

“Itty-bitty?”

“Like small. Tiny.”

“I know what itty-bitty means. Just haven’t heard anyone say it in a while.”

PARK SLOPE CRUNCH FITNESS, SAUNA ROOM, 1 pm, SUNDAY: A woman sitting in the 150-degree sauna fully dressed in running tights and a t-shirt, holding a hot (!!!) cup of coffee and loudly talking on the phone. She mostly speaks in Arabic, but switches to English to emphasize phrases like “my husband” and “hanging around with that gay guy.”

2 TRAIN, BROOKLYN-BOUND, 11:30 pm, FRIDAY: Two friends sit together. They are either very drunk, very stupid, or both. The woman gets excited about someone’s phone case behind her (it was from Casetify, if I recall correctly), then goes quiet when the phone-case-owner exits. They’re still for a moment. Her friend, a man, pipes up:

“Did you know that Paul McCartney thought God Only Knows was the most beautiful song ever written?’

This doesn’t appear to be connected to anything they were talking about before. The women stares forward for a minute. The man tries again:

“I’m going to repeat this because I don’t think you heard me the first time. Did you know that Paul McCartney thought God Only Knows was the most beautiful song ever written?”

Quiet again while the woman takes in the statement. You can basically hear the synapses firing. Then she smiles, turning to him like she’s just seen an angel.

“Beach Boys,” she says. He nods, and they collapse into each other again.

I’ve found people to be friendlier, or at least more open, than I expected, and gotten into random conversations with (1) a stressed-out model killing time between Fashion Week auditions (2) a professional saxophone player who shared he was struggling with his sobriety (3) a former GQ writer who described the short story collection he was reading as “deliciously elliptical.” I later looked up his portfolio and found a feature story about pornography shot by drone.

I kinda shot myself in the foot here by putting all the mushy emotional stuff at the top, because this would be an excellent place to put some musings about how maybe I’m in someone’s mental catalogue of odd interactions and overheard convos (I did get a genuine look of confusion while recording a voice memo about Tate McRae a few days ago) and how that might mean I am less of a stranger to this place than I initially thought.

But I don’t know. Sometimes it’s more fun to complain about the struggle. Maybe that’s a New York thing.

was this too much? too personal? too much “I”? I don’t know. it felt good to allow myself to write something quickly and earnestly, rather than agonizing over pull quotes for five weeks. I’ve gained a slightly-surprising amount of subscribers in the last few weeks and maybe am trying to scare them away by actually publishing something. anywayyyy other updates:

• Published an essay about What Not To Wear in Haloscope Magazine’s newsletter, Starmail, last month, and you can read it here. A lil taste:

  • “Transformations on the show were ruthless and efficient: once contestants agreed to the gimmick, they were frog-marched into a mirrored chamber and forced to confront their “unflattering” choices from every angle. When body-based insecurities came up, the hosts offered backhanded consolation: We understand why you hate yourself, sweetie…have you considered a structured jacket? They promised the tearful subject that both their “true self” and their “best self” (which were somehow the same thing) were, conveniently, just $5,000 away.”

• In the time since my last essay I read a book that has structured my thinking on solitude in the city, a book that was more interesting as a historical artifact than a story, a book that made me laugh in public and then cover my mouth, a book I was embarrassed to relate to, a book I wished I could relate to, and the 33 1/3 on the Twin Peaks soundtrack.

• I watched All About Eve, Stagecoach, Adaptation, House on Haunted Hill, half of Gilda, and Springsteen on Broadway. Currently doing the impossible (actually keeping up with a TV show) in the form of White Lotus s3. Severance seems too depressing.

  • I saw Adaptation with Nikhil, who wrote this lovely essay about it. I was going to write something about the movie as well, but the Egg Sandwich Incident got in the way.

• Shortly before encountering the French Orthodox teens described above, I saw Dakar 2000 at Manhattan Theatre Club! Well, the last 2/3 of it because I had to work late and then got lost. Thank you to the usher who let me tiptoe in.

• The remarkably talented and lovely Katie has been making the cutest animated series about pixies working at a waterpark and the latest episode came out yesterday! My personal favorite is episode two. You might recognize a familiar voice throughout >:)

• and lest you forget that I have a face, this is what it looks like on a receipt-paper instant camera. Both my dad and I are incapable of taking a photo without talking in the middle of it, and I love us for that:

okay that’s it, that’s all, this was messy but lmk if you enjoyed, see you on the flip <3