I found a letter home from my inglorious two years in New York

Slices of the Big Apple

Occasional musings from a man rapidly becoming as bipolar as the city in which he lives.

So every day the weather is like this - between 6.00am and 10.00am - between 75-85 degrees. 10.00am - 8.00pm - between 85-100 degrees. 10.00pm - 6.00am - between 75-85 degrees. All topped off with no breeze whatsoever and 80-100% Humidity. EVERY single day! - I am basically reduced to being a bucket of jellied zombie sweat.

Every day 15 million people crowd onto Manhattan an island only slightly bigger than Bear Island. Fifteen million self- opinionated, perpetually petulant, oh-so-busy, short tempered and boiling hot people from every country culture and religion on Earth all pushing shoving, snarling, snapping, and griping all at once.

I honestly witnessed the following exchange last week , just between two perfectly ordinary strangers on the corner of 50th and Lexington (me now speaky de lingo). Excuse language)

Hey bud, excuse me.
What?
Got the time
What?
I said have you got the time?
NO
Okay no need to be rude m*****r-f******r!
What? Go f***ck yourself!
What? F**ck you! Rude mother f****r
No you f**k yourself, mother f*****r
A***hole!
You’re the A***hole!

Both men then departed having achieved absolutely nothing except steaming blood pressures.

As you may be aware I am currently living in an attic in Weehawken New Jersey - a place dominated by gaudy Soprano esque houses and lots of Cuban exiles - I feel I could randomly throw a rock and I’d invariably hit someone linked to the Kennedy assassination.

Living in Weehawken means I have to bus it into manhattan - there are two routes - both involving going through the twenty six lane Lincoln Tunnel. I can take New Jersey transit - big coaches, air conditioned everybody in buzz cuts, white shirts sitting upright and looking like we are all off to a Michael Douglas in ‘Falling Down’ convention or I can take the slightly cheaper Johnny Cabs - Needless to say Johnny has obviously long since sold out to Pedro and Miguel and these ‘cabs’ are in fact 30 seater mini buses obviously on loan between Monday and Friday before they go back for the weekend as fodder for the demolition derby.

Johnny cabs have replaced simple things like airbags and for that well known safety feature the faded cut out picture of Pope John Paul II taped to the dashboard. I’m all for bigging up the late Pontiff but I have to debate his real use in a head on collision in a 26 lane pile up - not that that is likely as NJ is the most densely populated state in the US and every day something like six million people commute into New York and as far as I can tell all of them have arranged to meet at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel at 7.45 every morning.

I have started to get some job interviews - I paid a company to have my resume Americanized - so now it is full of phrases like ‘spear headed’ and ‘leveraging’ which seems to be having some effect. Mean whilst I am still at the five star Waldorf inputting data like a Cyberman with a business studies degree - I have gone for the coordinator job as I have realized that moany people are moany people everywhere , regardless of whether they are drinking cider outside Camden Tube or drinking Crystal Champagne in the Starlight room - whining knows no barriers - as my writing proves.

I am still going to ‘Crunch’ the gym with ‘no judgments’ - this is complete nonsense as I have never f elt so much like I am attending ‘gay church’ - I am almost tempted to keep my beer belly as it definitely marks me out as being hetro - no self respecting gay man would ever dream of having one


Aside from all this I still don’t know if I fit in here - I am ‘in a strange place’ (another ‘me now speaky the lingo’) where I am observing lots and getting a lot of scribbling done. Its an adventure and as Kev pointed out it all comes down to ‘time over pressure’ - which is a quote from Shawshank Redemption - so cheers for the nightmare prison reference!

Ok I shall now desist. Just want you all to know that ‘I love you and mean it’ one of the few phrases I have heard and taken to my heart!

Hope things are well with you all - please send me any stuff at all as at the moment I am reduced to buying old Dr Who DVD’s to remind me of why I love home.

Fondest regards

Vincent