Merry Christmas and all that Malarky

So Christmas has come and gone (thank goodness, I was reaching the end of my festive tether) - I hope everyone ate too much and fell asleep in front of the beeb, as is traditional. I was writing an essay in the morning, (typical) and toddled off in the evening to collect Dad from JFK airport. We're certainly been packing it all in - Dad's currently having a little rest on my bed before we head out to a Patti Smith gig at the Bowery Ballroom.

Dad likes to go into every vintage/thrift store in search of randomness. Today he bought some jeans for the bargain price of $3.50. I didn't let him buy this jacket though. He did sneak off one morning, however, and buy the converses I wanted for himself!

Thems my shoes!

Some random Jazz art saxophone thing - Roshni, its like cubism and jazz and pragmatism and stuff all rolled up into one sculpture! Er... yeah!

Some weird installation in a gallery in Chelsea


I think things with my name on should automatically belong to me.


The smallest gallery in New York, or something.


Dad in the corner of the Esperanto Cafe, off Bleeker. Yummy pie.

In Sardi's post play. The Vertical Hour was pretty good, Bill Nighy was great but Julianne Moore was less so. I thought she sounded like she was in a school play during the first half, but enjoyed the second half a lot more.

So, we've been to the Gramercy Cafe, the East Side Cafe, Sardi's (all the top NY eateries...) The Whitney, Broadway & Times Square, Central Park, Greenwich Village, Bryant Park (but it was too crowded to skate), Chelsea (where all the bloody galleries were closed), Herald Square, The Upright Citizen's Brigade Theatre, Columbus Circle... I'm running out of ideas! Oh well, maybe a lie in tomorrow. Anyway, enjoy the rest of your holidays and Christmas left overs, I leave you with my efforts at creating moving art at Astor Place...

End of an Era

It 8:09 am on Friday morning, and about 25 minutes ago, Kirsten was the latest of my friends to board the super shitty supershuttle and dash off to the airport. We've been up most of the night - Roshni left yesterday at 5pm and Kassie was at 2am this morning, Stacey having already left a few days ago. There's something fitting about my friends leaving on the darkest night of the year. It might be morning now but somehow it doesn't feel like day. I haven't slept properly in weeks as a result of trying to fit everything in, and there have been some pretty severe consequences. I'm now lumbered with an extra essay to write somewhere in between saying goodbye to Amy and James and preparing for Dad's arrival. I don't feel like doing anything right now, apart from maybe resting. My room is full of bits and pieces from my friends, artefacts to comfort me and to remind me that even though they wont be here for the rest of my New York experience, we all still love each other. On my bed alone I have Roshni's comforter, and about three other people's pillows, and I seem to have a box of mac and cheese from almost everyone. In a drawer there are all the beautiful Christmas cards and letters everybody gave me. I couldn't bring myself to write any, it made me feel like someone had died.
While I know that really no one is dead, and that I will be seeing almost all of these fantastic people in just a few short weeks during my West Coast Tour (c), New York just isn't the same. Already it has regained some of the hostile unfamiliarity that it possessed when I first arrived, friendless and clueless. The people I have met here have gone above and beyond the call of friendship to look after me and support me - which I am fully aware can be a pretty difficult task - but more than that, they have made this city for me. The subway, the West Village, Midtown, Broadway, St Marks Place, 25th Street - these places all seem to be somehow less real when not populated by familiar faces. I don't want to go to Times Square alone, I think I would cry.
Just a few days ago we were all together, watching rubbish movies, going to jazz clubs, having Christmas, laughing, crying and being silly. Now it feels like it's just me and the city again, one on one. From the 1st to the7th of January, I will be completely alone - except for I won't, there'll be people visiting, and familiar faces around the dorm and on the streets, and 8 million other New Yorkers ringing in the New Year. I can't find my copy of the New York Writers anthology right now - I suspect that, as usual, Joan Didion would have something appropriate to say about the situation. Instead, I have David Gray, playing over and over in my head. I'm going to sleep, goodnight and good morning kids.

New York was dark
dirty and stark
burning with yellow wings
everyday come
with fever and hum
who knows what it brings

The state I'm in...

Ok, so admittedly, it's been a while since my last post - so sue me! I've been busy! Very busy... so much has been happening in the last three weeks - Nadia's visit for a week, 4 papers (10,000 words), not sleeping and spending a whole lot of time being festive. Highs and lows have been:

- not sleeping for several days continuously, and then sleeping for way too long
- a full 9 hours of shopping for Xmas presents (both a high and a low - I LOVE buying presents for people on the condition that I actually get presents that are fiting and reasonably practical, but I HATE Times Square at rush hour the week before Xmas, why would anyone inflict that on themselves)
- Ice skating, not once, but twice at Bryant Park
- Comparing the Xmas tree at Bryant Park to the one at the Rockefeller Centre.
- Stealing ornaments from the Xmas tree at Bryant Park.
- Hot apple cider
- The Colour Purple, the Oprah endorsed Broadway Musical
- Going to Serendipity 3 (as of the eponymous film)
- Having to leave Serendipity 3 upon the arrival of my giant sundae owing to a migraine that caused me to be rather ill in the back of a yellow taxi
- The Met (Metrapolitan Museum of Art doncha know)
- The Guggenheim
- Bowery Poetry Club
- Borat, Happy Feet, Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny (my, I have been discerning in my movie going)
- Endless diner trips at all hours of the day and night
- Central Park
- The Empire State Building (I finally went up!)
- Watching movies on Kassie's bed
- Late night Jazz clubs in the West Villiage
- Spinning the sculpture at Astor Place
- Serious boy trouble
...and this is just a small selection. Mental.

Nothing, however, compares to today. For the kids at Brookdale, December 17th was Christmas this year. We got up early after late night of watching Love Actually (having watched Home Alone two days previously) and Kassie, Kirsten and Rosh made an amazing breakfast of eggs, parfait (museli, yoghurt, fruit), banana pancakes and such like. This was followed by a long session of present giving which was so much fun. Everyone bought fantastic gifts, very thoughtful and beautiful (even I managed some pretty good ones) and I got an amazing haul. Some of them don't make sense without the anecdotes and in jokes that go with them, which just makes them even more wonderful. I think the fact that I got a tiny flask with miny booze, a Shakespeare finger puppet and art supplies shows just how brilliantly these guys have me sussed. They really are my NY family, which makes this whole situation so bittersweet, because they are all leaving this week, starting on Tuesday. James and Stacey compiled a slideshow with music of all our best photos (just like you, dad) and watching this set all of us off crying. Even me, and I'm supposed to be a hardass! We had a bit of a rest, and then went to the comedy club for the last time this evening - every week, they ask the audience for a word to form their improvisations around and we'd been trying to get in there first for ages. Tonight, at last, Kirsten and me belted out "JANE AUSTEN", and then were mocked for hi fiving, but we know who the cool kids are. Besides, it meant that there were loads of dodgy British accents which were hilarious. Afterwards we managed to get photographed with some of the SNL regulars, very exciting. We got home, and I booked my flights to the West Coast - 7th to 17th of January. I'd love to plot my route on google earth and share it with y'all - if I could just figure out how the hell to do it (tips, anyone?). Currently the tour includes LA, San Fransisco, Eugene and Portland in Oregon, and a whole lot of travelling in between. I'm so excited I can hardly sit still, not least because it means I will be able to see all my American friends one more time before I have to face life without them. Which is enough to make me start crying again!

Well I have an exam tomorrow, and I can't even remember the last night I slept properly, so here are a few pictures to tide you over until I can get together a full selection. For now I'm going to bed, at long last. As for these guys, well, I couldn't have asked for a more wonderful group of friends, and tonight I'm one very honoured and humbled person. This was perhaps the best Christmas ever, and it's no surprise to me that it didn't even fall on Christmas. Have a very merry one - goodnight!

PS, just in case I forgot I live in New York, I just popped to the toilet, only to see a dead cockroach belly up in the middle of the room. That thing was the size of my thumb, I swear.
Yuk. Oh and of course the answer is New York... that would be the state I'm in. For now.