"You see I was in a curious position in New York: it never occurred to me that I was living a real life there. In my imagination I was always there for just another few months, just until Christmas or Easter or the first warm day in May. For that reason I was most comfortable with the company of Southerners. They seemed to be in New York as I was, on some indefinitely extended leave from wherever they belonged, disciplined to consider the future, temporary exiles who always knew when the flights left for New Orleans or Memphis or Richmond or, in my case, California. Someone who lives with a plane schedule in the drawer lives on a slightly different calendar."-Joan Didion, "Goodbye to All That"
If you ever want to know what it's like for someone my age and gender and of similar upbringing in New York -beyond my own self-involved moaning and virtual scowling- then it would behoove you more than I can ALL BUT SCREAM AT YOU to click on the above link and read Ms. Didion's essay about her decision to leave the city after eight years in her twenties.
The bold line (my own emphasis)- well, yes, I agree. Sometimes, okay, most of the time, I feel like I'm wasting my time here, that I have yet to make any substantial strides in my career, and that my living here has all been for naught. My time in NYC is a blip on the screen until I move onto something real, something worthier than online laments and nail-biting episodes.
But: my garganelli with three cheeses, lardon, and crimini mushrooms I ate last night here was VERY REAL INDEED. Or rather, the indelible mark they left on my hips is. My life has certainly improved, NAY, changed.
Sweet peaches, I cannot strenuously encourage you enough to partake in a meal at said restaurant, followed by a little Didion to cleanse the palette. And leave you perhaps just refreshed enough to dine on some king cake on the go the following morning. Just perhaps, rhetorically of course.
