the city

if carrie bradshaw was a photographer

everyone refers to New York City as ‘the city’, as if it’s the only one in existence. I pointed this out to Naomi [who spent the year in London] and she admitted it basically is the only one in existence.

the owner at a neighborhood antique shop asked if he could put the copper coins in connor’s penny loafers.

I currently sit at a cafe bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, named after Mae West.

I watched Connor make a lavender matcha latte (sweetened) with the ease of an experienced barista. I admire his resolve to realize his dream, drive across the country to the city with only a brief summer sublet and no job offers and grind it out. now he has a salary. some real American dream shit don’t hate the players hate the game. I also appreciate a free place to stay after flying on the cheapest plane ticket I could find.

our first night, immediately after I landed in La Guardia, we got dressed and hit public records for a dj set.

since turning 21 in April, i’ve barely gone out in the Austin scene, except for a couple gay bars. I always feel like the youngest person there. probably because I am. the crowd at public records, too, was a little aged for me.

but the space was amazing, and the cocktails tasted great.

despite the initial impulse to mock glasses at the club, the chrome reflected plastic frames I donned in a laser & hazed room lifted sober inhibitions and suddenly my hips moved like the spirit of a north african belly dancer possessed me.

even the bored glare of a forty-year-old hipster with a tote bag that scanned the room didn’t deter my movements.

Connor and I cooked meals together for the whole house at helios. now I stood in his tiny kitchen with blue tile, starkly different from the industrial stainless steel countries we pinched the filo pastry crusts of tunisian brik on a few months ago.

I told him, isn’t it crazy that three years ago I casually asked him where he lived during a social at the daily texan, only to move into the same house he told me about and even later sit in his apartment in nyc?

we got caught in the rain at Washington square park, and the crowd and speakers blasting techno turned the arch into a club funner than public records the night before. [even if Connor and I were the only ones dancing there.]

L train

I told everyone I spoke to before I left to new york that i’d return with a shaved head. I plan to do that tonight. if there’s any place to do it, it’s here, right? but the last time I adopted an untraditionally feminine haircut I became too familiar with the feeling that creeps up the skin of my neck and flushes through my limbs when a someone calls me sir or directs me towards the men’s bathroom. I shuddered with dysphoria for a week until it grew [somewhat literally] on me. that’s not an issue I think i’ll face in new york, but I don’t look forward to public interactions in my home suburb of dallas when I return.

yet there’s no better time to shave and bleach your head than before senior year of university, by your best friend who lives in the most populous hub of queer culture in the country.

note to self: buy glass lenses when getting new frames. easier to clean on a shirt without needing to use microfiber to prevent buffing them translucent in a matter of weeks. thank u, woman to my left at the bar.

vie of manhattan from the roof of connor’s apartment