This is walking into my $18-
lychee-martini bar located in the back of
a
lower Manhattan building up 2 flights of stairs and behind a Japanese restaurant twice a week, and ordering
Glenlivet by which the
unobtrusive bartender always knew I meant the 15-year with rocks. When I felt extravagant
I would order the 18-year; I got a kick out of drinking the Macallan (my second favorite
speyside distillery-- they
didn't carry GL 18) not because it was really much better, in fact it was
too flowery, but that I could drink scotch
older than I was.
I became addicted to the
Bossa Nova at this bar, ever since I usually sat in the back room, with the worn-in red velvet
banquettes and draperies-- quiet enough to hear the quiet
samba-jazz in the background. I came here often with my Rio-born London-raised American-schooled friend who knew all the words to '
Garota de Ipanema', which would start him reminiscing about when he was a child, watching the
sunrise sitting on the rocks between
Copacabana and
Ipanema under the towering statue of
Christ the Redeemer. He'd talk about how it was more civilised - he would say it as if it were spelled with an 's' - but I know he is only referring to the simplicity of
childhood that we both lack-- and though he is only 26, I make him feel very old.
For the past few years, I think, I have been wearing my
age on my sleeve, as an excuse to feel special just doing what you're supposed to do in everyday life;
get a good job, go to a
good school, save money,
keep my
grades up, give to
charity, be
nice to old ladies.
On the 15th of August I moved into my new apartment, the day before I turned
18.
The fourth apartment
I've lived in since I got to
New York. For 2 years I've been living in immoderately huge places in
Good
Neighborhoods, and taking them for granted. When I got to this one on Morton and
Greenwich the first thing I thought:
'I'm supposed to live here?' It was, suffice it to say, a typical
Manhattan apartment. Small. Small like a closet, except without any.
So I got on the phone with my parents in
Pennsylvania and begged them to
do something about it. They sent me a
Hallmark birthday card and a
compact hanging shoe organizer and just told me, '
You knew what you were getting into when you moved to New York.'
I called my friend from
Rio at his Between-Park-and-Lex pied á terre looking for sympathy, but
he just told me horror stories about attending
undergrad
in
West Philadelphia during the 1990's
crack epidemic. "You're
spoiled. Just get rid of the things you don't need."
"But I need everything."
I'd moved into this apartment with everything in the trunk of a 14 year old
Acura.
Still, I didn't know what I was getting into. I realize now I'm very lucky to live in this crap apartment in the
West
Village, all the way on the west side near the Hudson, in a
charming neighborhood best expressed with a
venn diagram
with '
gay men' in one circle and '
weird yuppies' in the other with substantial overlap.
This tiny thin-walled ridiculously overpriced
apartment is the kind I should have been living
in all the time.