Sayonara, Nueva York

DRAFT 1

SOMEONE ONCE TOLD ME YOU SHOULD LIVE IN NEW YORK once in your life but not until it makes you bitter. I'd be lying if I told you I had no idea where on that barometer 22 years puts me. 

June '94. Lazy real estate agent at his office doesn't even get up out of his shitty, fake Aeron chair, tosses the keys to my 3-molecule apartment across the room at me. An hour later, I'm back, I'll take it. I write the guy a finder's fee check for $750. My first time being bent over by a fellow New Yorker. Four years as a superintendent. Mop a few floors, haul some garbage at 4am, get yelled at by crabby tenants, make a few life-long friends, save money to buy an apartment.

January '99. Broker finds me a gymnasium of a loft. Marky in love. Fast foward 17.5 years, 6 jobs, 10 New Year's parties, 95 trips to New York's finest Pakistani food joint, 30493049304985 dates, marriage, kids, sell apt at 4x what I paid. Woo.fucking.hoo. There's my $750 back.

I don't miss New York...yet. I'm sure I will. Right now, I feel pretty much nothing on the matter. From my perspective, it's the only way to get through such a life-changing move 3,000 miles away. On the face of it, New York will not miss me a single drop. The new owner of our apartment has probably gutted it and started over. But that's what happens in New York. It's a constant wave of change. 

Hopefully Seattle will welcome me. I look forward to being a Seattleite. I've heard nothing but great things about Seattle. The wife and I have been there three times together, most recently with our little dumpling. Ironically, the three people in my industry who moved to Seattle have all moved back east. That didn't help the decision, but I see those as a la carte situations that I can justify (one moved back to be with her family, one was gay and missed the socialness of New York. Wait, he probably still is gay. And I forgot why the third one moved back.)

But I predict I'll miss a few things at some point. The guy outside the gym near our apartment who would always stop his card-snapping sidewalk sales pitch just long enough to bless our little one as we strolled by. Being the first to discover new little restaurants in our area, before New York Mag or Time Out New York got wind of it. What I won't miss? Every asshole Port Authority bus driver who blocks the intersections, making it difficult and dangerous for us pedestrians to cross the street. May they get the punch in the teeth by some crazy person walking by that they so desperately deserve.

Will we find work here? Fuck if I know. But you know what they say; if you can make it here...

I will add to this and make it the essay it wants to be. I'd be upset if I left out so many New York stories I've experienced. Stay tuned for more after we land.

Mark