New York (The First 6 Months, roughly)

You see I am already poisoned by New York Media: I am turning in a listicle about a deep, personal experience! I will not get paid for it unless it performs well, but no one has told me what the metric is. That may be how much you touch it on Twitter, or touch yourself on Twitter, or if it compels you to go outside and grab a pigeon and squeeze it until it turns blue and yell at it to tell the internet What You Are Doing Right Now. I don’t know. It’s a dirty world! We just write in it.

But if you saw me pawing through my bag at half past two on the F train headed back to Brooklyn, this is what I would have told you makes it all okay:

Amazing headphones. And learning how to get in and out of them and swipe your Metrocard and balance your laptop bag and get on the train going the right way. Purchasing them is also an excuse to go into B&H for the first time, where the first salesguy will not know which headphones are iPhone compatible, but the second will, and will request to be your friend on Facebook after. I showed his profile to a friend, who instructed me to not reply, but if I did, to say no more than “Dude, I am definitely not kosher.”

Boots. All of my clothes were wrong right away, and especially the shoes. The black dresses I wore when I was sixteen and still wear were okay, but still. You cannot be a kindergoth every day. This did not stop me from buying my first Fluevogs in ten years.

Ladies. Fancy-heeled teevee women of Manhattan be damned, you really do need people to call at three in the morning. (Even if San Francisco is still awake.) I am too lucky and I will not embarrass myself or anyone else further with stories of what women-friends do. But — almost nearly unrelated — I think New York has made me a little more gay? Or at least more head-turning-ly drawn towards any outwardly queer-looking woman I see around town? (Butch/femme visibility, it’s just not what it used to be.) It’s complicated. In one weekend I got to tell a genderqueer pal, Yes I Do Too Like Girls, and a metrosexually ambiguous dude, No I Am Not A Lesbian. I miss you too San Francisco!

Good sex. Also almost nearly unrelated. Attentive readers will note that the word “sex” there does not contain a hyperlink. So but and.

Amazing photographer. Better if she can also teach you how to play poker on short notice. Sarah Sharp (aka Trixie Bedlam) and I palled around Times Square with her camera and my mic and produced the photos that will haunt me should I ever get more involved with public radio someday. A few have already made it to Time Out New York. The best one is saved just for a charity calendar to benefit Sex Work Awareness, a community-based organization in New York that produces media trainings for sex workers. I will still work it for a cause.

But more and more, I want to appear on camera completely undone. I did a series of portraits when I first got to town that are the first I’ve ever posed for, that raw and also, the first under my full name. More on those when they are ready for that kind of thing,

Proseco. Because gin is a three-letter-word for bad behavior.

The iPhone Holy Trinity: Google Maps, iTrans NYC, and Foursquare (also for where you don’t want to be).

Mascarpone. On gelato, with whatever fresh fruit you can get that doesn’t completely make you miss the Mission.

Virgin America. Hello California? What’s the weather like out there now?

Unlimited texting, unlimited weekly MTA pass. For getting lost, getting back in the right direction.

Notebook. I am starting to write better in transit: subway platforms, in line for coffee, from beds.

Local guides. My grade school “boyfriend” now lives with his partner on the Upper West Side, and recommends we go fantasy Craigslist apartment hunting as a form of tourism. And with my best city friend, we executed a comparative evaluation of Prospect Park and Dolores Park (ratio of children to dogs three feet tall or greater, bare chests to bear chests, etc.), a few Saturdays at a time. Throw in learning how to get from Rivington to Houston while not quite in one’s right mind, and I’ve got a healthy start.

Out of town guests. At least once a month, to reinforce that illusion that you live here.

Some books to swap. I managed to ship myself just over a dozen boxes of books, but not enough to keep me from borrowing off of everyone’s shelves almost immediately. Ensuring that I cannot move again, I also made sure to accrue some library fines.

Hide all my old music from myself. If I were Karl Lagerfeld, I’d have bought seven new iPods, too.

Loading up again on the black eyeliner. Because evincing all my favorite shards of 90’s subculture makes me feel as if I never left and Kim Gordon would not be a bad idea to grow up looking like.

But also because no matter how perfect I will work to make it, smearing the mess that’s left on my cheeks was always the point.