Day 3 - SF

I'm a big fan of being able to take my time. Which I have been doing since the move. Having no day job is kinda nice!

After dragging myself out of the house I had the pleasure of meeting up with my New York/NTI/FullStop friend Lillian who is just starting a cross country trip in a truck for the next year with her boyfriend (Jealous!). She lived here a few years ago and we chatted at length about SF vs. NYC, which is an interesting topic with her because she grew up in Manhattan.

The park is gorgeous and the day was perfect and the views were great. A lovely afternoon.

After that I trekked to an area of the city I have never been to where Dan grew up. It was weird! It looked like a hilly Iowa! the mainstreet could have just been a clean version of Boone. Small town and suburbia within an urban climate....perfect!

Day 2 - NYC

One. Tired. Puppy.

That was me. So, this was the first night I had had in a week and a half where I was sleeping in a bed by myself. I have been couch hopping for so long, along with working 40 hours a week, seeing streams of friends, moving across the country etc etc etc. What did I do this day? I slept. Then I took four hours to get ready for the day. I left the house at 5pm. My body was so in need of a recoop day.

Things I had today:

- A burrito (left over) for breakfast. Love that!
- The best latte I have ever had
- The most sleep I've had in weeks.

Day 1 - SF

Sorry, I'm gonna backtrack. I've been so displaced since I've been here that I haven't really wrapped my mind around writing too much. Let's see...

Sunday, my first full day in the city, was picture perfect gorgeous. I was told October was going to be the nicest month of the year here, and it's not disappointing. Getting an extra month of summer is interesting, especially knowing that heavy snow and frost bite aren't around the corner. 

On the docket for Sunday was a full day of Burning Man Decompression. Decompression is an all day event in each large city post Burning Man that allows for one final day before the end of the main Burner season. I went to Burning Man on a whim in 2008 not knowing what I was getting into and it turned out to be one of the best weeks of my life and one of the integral seeds that planted the 'I should move to San Francisco' idea. While I didn't visit San Fran for another year and a half after going, Burning Man was grown out of the San Francisco community. So coming here and spending my first day at an event centered around artistic freedom and boundary erasing really meant a lot to me. It's what I want to continue experiencing in this city, so a great way to start.

A few things I have noticed:

- Dogs here look like dogs. Not like little coiffed puppy children.
- Cars stop and wave you across the street...even if they weren't required to stop.
- No one honks.
- I'm going to have amazing thighs from living at the top of a 3 block hill for the next three months. Cheers to that!

Day 0 - NYC --> SF

I have a natural disposition when I move. It is loosely called "Laura is independent to a fault and likes to make things as hard as possible on herself." Here's how the day went:

Wake up at Leta's in the East Village after a night of dancing with my lovely friends one last time.
Train to Astoria.
Get a cabbie at the train to drive me to my apartment, pick up my massive amount of luggage and then drive me to La Guardia
Get to La Guardia and get told that if I don't remove 10 pounds from each piece of luggage I would have to pay $180 in overweight fees.
Throw away 20 pounds of my clothing and random accessories.
Lose my boarding pass when I try to go through security.
Finally get through and get on the plane carrying WAY more than is allowed for carryon (roller bag, bursting shoulder bag and purse)
Fly to Atlanta
Try in vain to reorganize my things to make it easier to carry.
Fly to San Francisco
Look out over the amazing Sierra Nevadas and be breathtaken by how much I love the west. Realize just a tiny bit that I have left New York (though this is still not clear to me at all. I'll figure out that I'm not going back to New York someday)
Land in San Francisco
Get my luggage and realize very quickly that I should have asked for help (please see picture for details as to why)
Take 45 minutes to lug my luggage up and down an assload of escalators, almost killing myself in the process, to get to my rental car.
Get my rental car, struggle to get my hated luggage into the car and realize I don't know how to turn the car on (keyless ignition?!). Finally sheepishly ask for help.
Pull out and get my GPS on my phone ready to guide me to my new home!
...phone dies ten minutes into the drive. I have no map and no directions.
Use my intuition to get me to my new apartment. Become highly impressed with myself.
Try to park on a hill. Almost shit my pants in fear. Abandon that attempt.
Park, grab all of my recording equipment, get into my apartment and instantly record a voiceover job.

Talk about a long and involved day. I could have made it so much easier on myself. It's been a few years since I've been in charge of a move so I kind of forgot that I naturally make things exceedingly difficult, but at least I always keep a good attitude about it and just laugh at myself for being unprepared.

Long story short. I somehow made it out of New York City in one piece and got to my new home in San Francisco all by myself without dying. Success! I officially escaped!

Day 1 - NYC

I was walking through the streets of Midtown Manhattan, walking out of work to the train for the last time, drinking them in one last time, the people, the smells, the traffic. This area of the city had been the breeding ground of all of my aversion to New York. I always connected midtown with the more painful and depressing times I had in New York, which was the majority of the time I was here so going through those streets has always made me anxious and down. I avoid it at all costs usually, but I always end up working in that stupid neighborhood. 

 Looking one last time, knowing that I would never again walk through these streets on a daily basis, I suddenly felt my heart bursting with love, adoration and inspiration. I kind of feel like I found myself in these streets. And now that I was no longer a part of the matrix of the city I was able to step back and for the first time appreciate the completely unique and frenetic never ending heartbeat of the city. Cars, people, horns, yells, bikes, food and trash swirling around without ever stopping. This is what makes New York so one of a kind, it truly never sleeps. The movement is a constant overwhelming pulse and you can either choose to be a part of it or get forced into the groove against your will. 

I kind of felt like a ghost standing in the center of Herald Square at that moment, flanked by the Empire State, Times Square and Flatiron all visible in my radius. I feel like I had already left but my eyes has stayed to finally sit back and watch all of the millions of moving gears that made the city tick. It wasn't overwhelming anymore because I wasn't a part of it. I was a spectator. And while I can't say I will ever miss Midtown I can say that I finally appreciate its one of a kind never ending series of moments. Those streets have seen more than any other place on earth. 

There was no better way to say goodbye.

Day 2 - NYC

It has not dawned on me that I'm leaving. Not one bit. This city is like that. Everything moves so quickly and with so much variance that you can never really see the present clearly. The buzz of the city is so fast that it blurs reality. Hence, I don't think I will notice I'm moving until I have already moved.

I'm not usually a massive social butterfly. I go out a couple of nights a week usually. This week however has been social social social! Lunch with my friend Adriana who couldn't go to my party last night and then dinner with my friend Matt so that I could nosh on some Rizzo's pizza (best pizza in NYC in my opinion) one last time. Tomorrow holds a possible Shake Shack lunch date and then my LAST NIGHT IN TOWN(!!!) eating Latin tapas with a few friends possibly followed by Karaoke. Then somehow I'm on a plane and just continue my weekend uninterrupted on the other side of the country. It's going to be Halloween by the time I've had enough moments to breathe to realized I moved. These things sneak up on you!!

I feel like my posts haven't been too insightful in the last week. I guess you can say I'm in an 'action' week, not a 'reflective' week.

Day 3 - NYC

The one thing I will miss is my friends, I am truly blessed to have such an amazing community here. If I could take them with me that would be ideal...though I can imagine that many of them will slowly migrate to the Bay Area over time. We will see :)


Beautiful people who came to say goodbye and have a final drink with me:

Day 4 - NYC

I've been officially displaced for four days now, so I was so thankful to get an evening in (what was) my apartment alone in order to get take a nice shower, make myself dinner, and have a few hours of alone time while I watched Glee and reorganized my luggage to ensure the big one isn't over 50 pounds. I don't wanna pay that fee! The fact that I still have my things at my apartment really makes this feel less definite. I feel like I could wake up tomorrow and say 'nah, nevermind' and move back into my place and cut off all possible ties that I had built in SF. Now, I'm by no means going to do this and to be honest I couldn't do this, I'm just saying that it feels very unreal at the moment.

I think things will feel much more real in the coming hours because my going away party is right around the corner on Wednesday night. It will be an interesting time mish mashing all of the wonderful people I have met and gotten to know in the last four years. People I met my first week in the city will be there along with people that I met just a week ago. I expect it will be a beautifully happy, if not emotional, evening.

I have created a wonderful world of friends here and they are the only thing I am really going to miss. Day 3's post will probably just be one thousand photos of the people I love. It's fascinating though because I don't really feel like I'm leaving most of them behind. The internet is an insane thing in this way. Ten years ago I would be much more sad about saying goodbye because I wouldn't be able to have a day to day update on their lives, their loves and their fashion choices. They would be forced to fade into the ether. This is so different though because I don't expect to fully 'lose touch' with anyone.

Oh Mark Zuckerberg, you done changed my life.

Day 5 - NYC

It seems I'm getting out of New York by the skin of my teeth. I promised myself I would not spend another winter here and I can already feel the steep decline that occurs every year from hot as balls summer to cold as balls winter. There is only about a month in between them. The city is going to be filled with rain for much of this week (but it's looking like the day I fly is going to be clear! Cross your fingers!)

Long stretches of rain in New York hit me like this:

Day One - Man, I love rain. I forgot how much I love it.
Day Two - My boots are still wet and my umbrella is now broken. Ugh...?
Day Three - Over It
Day Four - JESUS CHRIST WILL IT NEVER END!?!?!?

Through these rain storm I have been lugging my computer, my purse, and whatever necessities I need for the day because I am officially homeless. Last night I trudged through the rain with my guitar, my violin and all of my needed belongings on my back. Needless to say I was just a bit of a crankypants.

It's different here because you have no shelter from the extreme elements. You have no car to hide inside of with the windshield wipers and the nice crappy top 40 radio to sooth you as your jeans dry because you cranked the heat. All you get is an umbrella and a never ending stream of cabs to splash puddles on you. Meaning that there is no shelter from the moods that weather creates in you.

It's actually going to be warmer in SF than it is in NYC when I leave. Bring on the Indian Summer!

Days 6 and 7 - NYC and Upstate

I'm officially in the swing of my displacement which means I didn't get to sit down in front of a computer once this weekend. I'm officially moved out of my apartment, I'm officially done catering and I have officially said goodbye to my two favorite people under the legal drinking age: Brady and Riley.

These kids have singlehandedly altered my view on the importance of family. Now, I've always loved my family. I have a great relationship with both mom and dad and after many years my older brother and I are also great friends. Up until a year ago though, I never felt the need to cultivate relationships with my family. They were something that was always just 'there'. It's different though when the family member is a young growing mind.

I was never close to these boys until they moved up to New York after their parents' divorce. A little over a year ago these munchkins were suddenly an hour commute away from me. Having never really spent time with them before I didn't really know what to do but I felt a nagging need to become a more important part of their life, especially in light of the fact that my brother, their father, wasn't going to be able to see them very often because he had sadly remained in Florida.

What has ensued in the last year is a love affair of epic proportions. These awesome kids have taught me the value of family in a way I've never known it. I never had an aunt or uncle who was a part of my life the way I am in there's, so it means so much more to me that they feel a connection. They call me in the middle of the day just to say hi, from what I hear they count down the days until I visit, and when we're together they just light up my day. These boys are really the only thing about leaving that is making me sad. I never thought FAMILY would be the hardest thing to leave behind in New York...

Thankfully, the world has created Skype so I can sit in the comfort of my SF apartment and watch them light saber duel if I feel like it. I'm making a committment to get back to see them as much as humanly possible because it will break my heart if this one year was the only one where Auntie Loo Loo was really present.

Thanks guys, you are some damn cool kids.

Day 8 - NYC

Midtown during a weekday rainstorm is a death trap. I speak of Umbrella Wars.

We all know my general feelings on Midtown Manhattan. I generally think it is the ass crack of America and I try to avoid it like the plague. Unfortunately my job is right in the heart of it, so I spend most of my day every day in that beloved ass crack. People are ruthless on these sidewalks, and I'm one of them. I am a heartless defensive driver of myself through the throngs of gross and rude people. But nothing compares of an umbrella day.

The streets of Midtown just don't logically have the room to handle an umbrella for every person, but oh do we try. I become a warrior to get through it and if anyone crosses my path I will make them pay for it. If you've ever walked past me with an umbrella and I ran into you or blocked your way, rest assured that it might have been on purpose. People! Walk in a straight line, get off of your cell phone, don't loiter on the corner and get moving! The umbrellas will kill you if you don't and I will have no remorse. No one else will either.

I have been jabbed in the eye, I've had my hair pulled out and I've gotten clothing ripped by people weilding their umbrellas like Sherman Tanks to get through the throng. It sucks. It's not enjoyable at all. It makes me take my aggression out shamelessly on (usually) innocent people.

Bye bye Umbrella Wars! I'm definitely not gonna miss YOU!

Day 9 - NYC

The weather here has been turning quickly from hot hot summer to cold gray gross. I'm pretty okay with this because in a week or so I'm shipping out and getting a month or so of Indian summer followed by no winter.

I have been surrounded by extreme seasons my whole life. In Iowa the summer heat index (what it feels like when you add the humidity) can get up to 120 in a heat wave. In the winter the wind chill can rip over the plains at a deadly -60. New York is a more relaxed version of that but still very extreme. Both of these climates also see about two weeks of spring and two weeks of fall in a year.

I map my life by the seasons. I read fantasy only in the winter. I usually only run in the spring. I am the most social in the summer. I can't think of anything in my life that is fall based, but I'm sure there's something. What is going to come of my patterns when I leave the extreme seasons? Will I still have a winter weight gain? Will I still find myself in a period of shedding and renewal every April? Will I still experience seasonal depression? Will I still like reading in the colder months? Will my life continue on the same cycle?

Living in Iowa I never realized how guided by the seasons I was. In New York you are out in that season every moment. You trudge through the snow, you bake under the sun and there is no car to hide in either way. Without the refuge of a car I came to learn just how swayed I am by the cycle of the year.

When people ask me what my favorite season is I say 'the beginning of every new one'. I love the smell of the oncoming season. A fresh entrance into yet another summer or fall or winter or spring. I am fascinated to see what will come of me when I lose the snow, the sweltering heat, the perennial budding and the crunching leaves. Will I feel more lost or more balanced? We shall see!