The Everywhereist

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The trips, after a while, blur together.

That’s awful to say, but it’s true. The first time you visit a city is like the first time you kiss the love of your life. You remember every single detail: the shirt you wore, the walk home from the restaurant, the smell of winter in the air. It’s so clear that if you were to recreate it again from only your memory, you could do a fairly good job (but maybe you’d remember your skin as being clearer than it was and your hair bouncier, and who’s to say it wasn’t?).

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Rand and I spent a few days in New York City last month.

The city was bright and busy and full of crazy. There were a million stories being written all around us: tourists seeing their first Broadway play; couples falling in love; and whatever was going on with that drunk guy in Times Square.

Here are five of my favorite stories from one of the best cities in the world. Enjoy.

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There are locations and happenings that, in my mind, hold a sort of mythical status. They are things which I’ve long heard and read about, and if I am truly lucky, if my life is as truly charmed as I believe it to be, I am able to see them. The list is long and random, and I’ve checked off enough of it that, should I die tomorrow, I won’t feel entirely cheated.

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You are never gonna believe what this is.

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Rand and I walked through the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, holding hands. It was early winter, and he was neglecting his work in order to enjoy the art.

This happens approximately never, so I was making good use of the time by squeezing his hand really tightly.

“Ouch.”

Love hurts, babe. Get used to it.

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I dreamed of New York for years before I actually made it there.

And when I was fortunate enough to finally visit, I found it was not as I had anticipated. The city did not twinkle all the time. In fact, only a few parts of it did, and we had to seek them out.

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I don’t understand kids today. I’ve tried. But they are nothing like I was at their age. In my younger years, I did not swoon over effeminate beauties like Justin Bieber (we didn’t even have an equivalent in the mid-90s. We settled for a young Brad Pitt and we liked it). I did not have floppy hair. I watched black and white movies, was oddly obsessed with David Strathairn, and I really liked wearing sweater vests (it’s cool to be jealous, because I was awesome).

I was concerned about things, though. I remember that. Things like nuclear weapons and pollution and equality. Those memories of my youth, of a time when I got angry at things more substantial than some dude leaving his blind up on a plane, are what led me to Occupy Wall Street this past fall.

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I probably shouldn’t have dragged them all that way.

If I had a conscience, I’d feel guilty, but I got rid of mine sometime around the 10th grade, when I let a boy touch my boobs for the first time.

Thank goodness for that. The conscience-ridding, I mean. The boob-touching was less to rave about (teenage boys lack the tenderness that mammaries require).

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On Halloween day, I headed to the Tribeca firestation made famous in Ghostbusters. That night, I channeled Margot Tennenbaum on the streets of midtown, eating stick after stick of candy cigarettes.

The next day, I realized I wasn’t yet done paying pilgrimage to movie locations or obsessing over Wes Anderson.

And so, on the first day of November, which was bright and clear and curiously warm, I left our hotel with a specific goal in mind: I was going to see the house on Archer Ave that Royal Tenenbaum bought in the winter of his thirty-fifth year.

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