truth be told… i’m really.quite.worn.out.

new york was supposed to be loads of crazy fun and excitement (and it is, really, quite enjoyable) but at some point in time between taking random shots of neon lights and policemen on patrol horses (one of whom butted me with its nose today. the horse, not the policeman), the need for some quiet and solitude started poking me in the ribs.

i love new york; at least, parts of it. i love the quaint little bookstores and cafes tucked away in west village, the loads of coffee, the brick buildings, and the dogs being walked down every street and corner. but it is so hard to hear your own thoughts in this city. everything else demands your attention… demands it loudly and insistently. our train goes one way to manhattan and the other to brighton beach, and i find myself wondering what brighton beach is like.

there are sights and sounds here that i would rather not have encountered. certain memories still surface a little too easily – i had meant for new york to distract me from them, but memories are contrary creatures, and i am but a weak-willed one.

tomorrow should be a leisurely day, spent partly with lady liberty and the financial moguls on wall street (likely to be depressed moguls right now…) it’s turned really cold now, with just a hint of winter in the air. i seek comfort in the company of hot chocolate and homemade brownies, and attempt to banish emotions that have no part in this holiday, with new shoes and cable.

…coffee (cups). you know, those ubiquitous starbucks coffee cups (or any other brand, for that matter). new yorkers walk around with those. any time of the day, any place. i am always just waiting for someone to spill it all over another commuter on the tube, but these expert coffee cup jugglers have never spilt a drop yet. impressive. but why do they drink so much coffee??

…high-speed revolving doors. i never used to fear revolving doors, not even when a kid was somehow caught and killed by one in tokyo. but here in new york, i head straight for the push/pull door whenever possible. these people are fast. and strong. one shove by a new yorker and the door goes spinning at… well, jogging pace. that sounds rather reasonably slow, but we’re talking about revolving doors here. every time i had to follow a local through the door, i ended up hesitating as the door whizzed past me, wanting to put my foot in, yet fearing to. i feel like someone who has just started to drive… and like a new driver, end up holding up the traffic behind me. give me the good ol’ single panel doors any day.

…bagels and cream cheese. our lovely bed-and-breakfast hostess has been sending us fresh, warm bagels with cream cheese just about every morning. they are to-die-for (considering that i don’t usually like bagels at all), but… in an ironic twist, i envision a quick death from carbo overdose. bagels, sandwiches, and pasta are about the most affordable food around. chinese food looks dangerous (even though we have been dying to find out at long last what chop suey is. but we haven’t managed to take the plunge yet.) and japanese both expensive and dangerous. i don’t mean to insult – dangerous only means that it is so hard to tell which places are good and which aren’t, that it’s often safer to just hop into yet another deli. it’s hard to go wrong with a sandwich, really. i feel rather like a loaf of bread myself now… in that stage where you set it to rise and watch it expand…

…non-new yorkers. it is possible that more than half of new york is made up of non-new yorkers (random percentage from my random observations). just about every single place is a tourist trap of sorts, which means, of course, that tourists abound. i have been asked for directions no less than three times, and i cannot see how that is even possible when i look obviously lost, obviously tourist-y (camera, shopping bags, and all), and obviously asian. but maybe it really can be hard to tell. after all, even among ‘new yorkers’ (meaning those who live and work/study here, i guess. because how many people would actually have been born and bred here…?) there are any number of non-americans swimming around. it is so interesting watching and listening to the people around us; there are so many new and unknown accents and indistinguishable types of faces, you cannot help but marvel. i heard a woman speaking cantonese that sounded strangely like vietnamese. really fascinating.

more to come!

not to a theatre near you, but to my life.

i am getting all excited and jumpy about new york. i have really wanted to be there since i first started watching felicity and her whole nyu-in-the-big-apple life. (it’s embarrassing, but i even wanted her hair.) that was almost a whole decade ago…! tokyo is metropolitan and crowded, and i suppose, exciting in its own way, but… new york is new york. sinatra did not sing about it for nothing. while i try to avoid doing the typical tourist-y stuff in other places i go to, you just can’t avoid it in nyc. in fact, there would be hardly any point in going to new york if you miss the tourist traps. fifth avenue! times square! broadway! everything is seriously glitzy and punctuated with exclamation marks. you can’t help but want to act like a tourist. oh, and visiting m&m’s world! the very thought is almost orgasmic.

and then after new york… i can start thinking about tokyo seriously. seriously seriously. that means i will have to dig out my books and try to read them all again (and then more) before i head off. all the self-doubts haven’t gone away – if anything, they are even stronger than before. faced with the thought of long hours of reading and weaving my way through social theories for three whole years (and then the rest of my life!), i can’t decide if i am jittery from excitement or dread. i imagine people reading my papers and saying, if she can do it, so can i! i imagine them tearing me apart at conferences, leaving me to crawl under the table in shame and horror. i imagine freshmen asking me questions i cannot answer (and then, crawling under the table again). i imagine having the scholarship taken away from me because i couldn’t graduate. i have to stop working myself up like this, but it is like itunes on loop, and i am quite powerless to stop it.

i will also have to go for surgery to extract my wisdom tooth. more reason for dread. it will be a good crash diet - nothing but liquids (more or less) for at least a week, and that is the only motivation i have right now. if not, i might have preferred to let it rot and kill me with pain before i agree to surgery. next to childbirth, this might be the most painful thing to undergo in life. (they didn’t say that. i did.) and yes, i should stop working myself up about this too. perhaps, in some crazy masochistic way, i really do enjoy being a paranoid freak.

what else? i don’t really know. i suppose it will be enough to just be, for a while. to enjoy the balmy breezes and tropical showers on our little island; to sing; to eat, drink, and be merry; to forget people and things that should have been relegated to history a long time ago… to give up, and yet not lose hope… just for a while.