New York

Pt.1

In 2022, I decided to apply for jobs in Portland. My first room mate was from Vancouver (WA), and told me it was mandatory that I go. Indeed, I fell in love. 2001 Portland was a city draped in evergreen trees,ivy climbing up buildings, and moss carpeting steep stairways up to beautiful old victorian buildings, old brick buildings, and the air always begging for a deep inhale of the smell of new rain hitting the earth, creating the most intoxicating smell of newly washed streets. Any grime and all evils wiped clean. The people were warm and kind, and I always left with money still in my pocket, and at least a couple of new numbers in my phone.Fuck if I ever called them….but the fact is.. there were people threatening to be my actual friends.The Nordstrom counter acted as though I walzed in with subtle highlights and well structured, fitting clothing, made of quality fabric, and expensive shoes, wofting of new perfume, although I actually waltzed in with bleached blonde hair, whatever roots, in (well put together) second hand store and thrift store clothing. Or vintage. Purchased before vintage was ungodly expensive. The beer (my favorite being McMenamin’s Ruby Ale) hit like the first drink of water after an extensive 100 degree hike, and I would walk into public establishments frequently that played music I actually owned. I had 13 trips throughout the years going there being a tourist. My first time in Portland, I decided that this was the city I was going to marry. This is where I wanted to buy nice furniture, and a home. I wanted a small yellow home in NW.

I got an interview. It was for a $16/hr. job in SW.I love SW, and am extremely familiar with it. Every time I visit, I always make a pilgrimige to SW. It was for a PT secretarial job/call center that answered the phone and booked appointments for a salon chain, which was perfect for me, since I certainly get my hair done a lot ( or did throughout the years) and had gone to beauty school, although never graduated (another story for another day). She asked where I lived and I said “Idaho.” She was shocked that I had come that far for a $16/hr. pt job, and offered me the job on the spot, and of course, I accepted. She asked when I could start, and so I told her I needed to get my custody situation squared away. A trusted attorney friend told me it wouldn’t be impossible after having gotten offered employment, so maybe this dream was finally happening!

The interview ended and I walked across 6 or 7 encampments, smelling good, with the luxurious privilege of having a shower, and stopped on the way to my (old) chandelier laden hotel that I reached via airfare, at a (delicious vegan) restaurant where I filled my belly and went shopping, and got on the bus with people who stunk to high heaven whose lives had taken disadvantageous turns, and did not have the privilege of showers, or cute hotels with fancy salt water hot tubs, or full bellies.

After returning to my hotel, I got hungry and decided to get some dinner, and had forgotten hair ties, so need to swing by the store to get some. Apres 2020 Portland was a sad Portland.Not the Portland I remembered and had committed to. Still full of good music, food, alcohol, and kind people who shared values with me, and graffiti art in non art places. The most perfect displays of shananigan-esque do- gooder anarchy. People who believed in rebellion for the greater good still stood as the majority there, but joined by a population of drug addled, unhoused population whose lives systems had failed. People whose neurodivergence wasn’t seen. People without love, support, or families that fell prey to drugs, and whose lives drugs took over, thus furthering poor mental well being, coupled with legal and financial issues drugs ( or foul life circumstances) had created.

Poverty is complex.Homelessness is complex. I have worked with the homeless population, and fucking love doing so. It’s neither this nor that that causes homelessness. Anyone that has money and is responsible with it can be on their ass in a heartbeat (or opposite for that matter!).Tents don’t freak me out. But people on God knows what mixture of whatever do. Then it becomes a potential mix of anger and resentment of systemic failure, callousness of the general population,ill judgements of strangers, anger of capitalistic demand for basically breathing, and the desperate need for both basic needs AND escape from the horrors of this life, which can then turn into substance reliance, which can then turn into a nasty, gnarly cycle of poverty. Each demon feeding the other.

I finished my meal, feeling like Marie Antoinette, and headed to the CVS for hair ties. Before I noticed the person, I noticed the energy being emitted from them, resentful and full of rage.I was alone ( per usual). I tried not to seem uncomfortable, and picked up my pace. When I walked faster, so did they, til I was almost running, and did run full speed for (thank God) only a couple of blocks back to my hotel, being completely out of breath by the time I arrived. 11PM.Downtown. Staying at a hotel I had stayed at for probably a full decade prior to this incident without incident.

So when I got home ( read Chpt. 1 as to how this worked out), I had to decide whether to provoke a malignant vindictive narcissist, with the manipulative powers of Adolf Hitler, or.. go back to the drawing board.

After speaking to an astrologer, she immediately told me that my state was NOT great for me and that I was very misaligned there, and had a medium tell me the same thing a few months later, urging moving as soon as possible, so I plugged in astrocartography for places that might be suitable for me ( knowing nothing about astrocartography but the basics).

I started entertaining Brooklyn. I had been to the city, and never was enchanted enough to want to live there, but Brooklyn had many elements to it that I loved (and cherished) in Oakland.Economic,racial, and cultural diversity. Landscape diversity. A multitude of different flavors and people with a city full of opportunities next door. NYC was a logical choice for a person who has a degree in fashion, and has spent a lifetime performing. I could do almost anything for a living there, in things I shine in. As it were, my moon line ran through Brooklyn, lower Manhattan , as a diagonal, and straight up through Washington Heights and the Bronx, making several great aspects that meant that I would be a lot more likely to experience success in several areas of life, and not just one. Moving to Portland would might better health and social life, but no even potential romantic partners (in all practicality I find this almost impossible, since this is where my type exists as a whole species, but I digress). I believe at that point, I had spent 6 years single, and almost all of them friendless and in all but total solitude. I’m ready to be someone’s must at the very least.

So I put my idea on social media. I had a few people tell me I wouldn’t want to leave and holy shit what a great idea this was, so I booked a ticket to see for myself.

It was Aug. 2023. I flew in to JFK and stayed in Williamsburg. The train went past rooftops where people sat in their living rooms brick and graffiti on the outside of the buildings, cruising past the architecture of so many different lives. I fell in love with it. As a night person, I got in late, and went to go get food in the humid, warm air. Neighborhood residents communed around porches. I walked past someone resting on their front stoop , draining the day, and the eye catch lingered as I walked by, like I was wofting expensive perfume.

My friend Malorie lived there, and I had an artist friend/internet aquaintence, and a DJ friend I had met online that lived there too. I kinda felt… plugged in. I came just in time for Malorie’s birthday. Virgos are my favorite people, and she was one of my favorite Virgos. We shared a birthday season, and at the time, she was dating a guy who indulged us with a luxurious, beautiful rooftop bar, bought us fucking sushi,AND paid for us to go to this lovely spa retreat on Governor’s Island, where we went at night to get a full helping of the Manhattan skyline (visually, almost nothing beats this), gleaming off the Hudson, as we sat in warm water, seeing if we could hear the music in the underwater music pool, and ended our night, after an evening of giggling and trying to contain our punk asses in an environment of wealthy, quiet, refined women . She is one of those friends that gives forever gives slumber party energy, and no matter what shit tries sitting on her chest, she somehow still remains vibrant and untouchable. We ended our night in what I can only describe as basinets for fully grown adults, finally taking off my eyebrows and makeup that was smeared all over my face from the steam rooms, saunas, and rinse offs, and made our way back to my new favorite island. I felt like I was somewhere everything just clicked, and I didn’t feel like I was from outer space, trying to speak alien.The best part? No nazis.No trumpers, and if there were, they were stray cats, passing through as tourists. I was there for 8(ish?) days and was sold. Williamsburg is still my favorite. It reminded me a lot of early 2k’s Portland with warm,stylish, artistic people, the weird being pungent, the live and let live being strong, guerilla artful graffiti murals, and sidewalk grafitti, and a city full of people unafraid to express in every single way. Telephone poles littered with venue posters of bands that had come and gone, but the adherence methods outlasted the tour dates. Single people MY age, and no one being singled out for being single. Diversity. Economic, and artistic, and cultural, and ethnic. No macho dudes in trucks riding around unhinged and brainwashed by an inarguably never elected man with guns. The streets swept clean of white supremecy, and I felt comfortable and completely safe, as a single woman traveling alone, to walk the streets at 2 A.M.

So… I did the thing and applied for jobs there, and began to apartment hunt, quickly learning about the 40*s the rent rule some landlords have (fingers crossed this changes). I landed a job interview, and in honor of my daughter always professing how incredibly “funny” I was( I am not… but in solidarity for her, I played this up),and decided, in her honor, taking seriously her kind words she’d tell me, to book myself a spot at an open mic in a comedy club.

I had hired a second attorney, as I had fired the first one (this story will be split into multiple chapters in the future).I liked him, he was smart, told me how very fuckin weird everything had gone in my case so far ( uh no shit), and so I paid my retainer that day to get the shit going. I knew the next step was a zoom conference with the judge or whatever, and he was gonna schedule that, yada yada. When you hire a legal professional, you assume they are someone you can trust.

My directions for the interview went to my voicemail, and my phone never rang, and apparently, the zoom call meeting with the judge had been scheduled for a time during the stretch of time when I was out of town, AND I’d learned, after not hearing from the attorney I hired, that he had quit? Been replaced? Under mysterious circumstances? By someone I most definitely did not hire, and did not consent to representing me, thus causing me to fire that law firm. During my first few days, when I got a voicemail notification a day after my interview was scheduled, and my phone did not notify me of having a voicemail, nor did it ring ( I had my ringer on), the zoom conference (fucking COURT?!!!!!!!!) also went to voicemail. Anyway, how to piss a judge off and get someone to come for you for lawyer’s fees tho,amiright? So an in person court date was set for Jan., so I knew I could come back after that and the ink was dry on my custody situation, and I could grieve and build a new life.

I was supposed to come back Feb.6th, but I didn’t really wanna leave somewhere I had a female friend that I could tell anything to,loved, and supported me, a love interest ( although clearly shot out of the sky as a possible option by that point),endless career possibilities of non-miserable ways to collect monies and spend my time, and a place where I could feel safe and live my life, and build a new one, uninterfered with by someone’s salty narrative of me. I felt like a bag of shit for not annoucing my new arrival, but total instability to my love interest, and it made me want to grow roots at lightening speed to maybe water this … potential thing. Rare is it like someone intellectually and physically.

So I cancelled my flight home.That’s how you do it, right? That’s how people move to NYC, right? I had left a financially struggling friend in charge of my pets and thought he could ( bit by bit) send my stuff up to me, and I would air b n b it til eventually someone would rent to me. likely a room. I figure this is a win for my friend, who covid fucked up, and thus had a bitch of a time finding jobs.

“ Oh I don’t know,man. It’s hard for me to get over there.” “ I can probably help you til the end of the week” ( it was a Monday). I pitched him the idea of sending me my stuff, and that was a no-go.

The first hotel I stayed in was in DT Brooklyn, just 4 or 5 blocks away from Malorie’s apartment, and in hindsight, I should have just stayed at the Holiday Inn next door, and had laughter/friend/pool time. The first thing I noticed was that they gave me a room with a broken safe. As in… it wouldn’t lock ( or even close).

I had to have headshots, and so I went to take cash out, and the cash had concerningly seemed to have taken itself out in advance, and they were just plum out of rooms, and couldn’t give me a different one.

I had brought cash with me that I was needing to deposit, but my credit union was local, and so I had to go to some ghetto weird named sister branch to make a cash deposit. The banker was behind plexiglass, and put my money in the money counter, and was half of what ought to have been there. I knew what money looked like visually, so this was NOT what she was telling me, per my counting, which could not have been off by HALF. When you steal money from the bank, it’s a federal crime that you go to prison for, but no one talks about what happens when the banks money counters or possibly human money counters have huge variances in amounts, and steal from you.

The next hotel I booked was also downtown, but closer to the bridge. I started noticing cars that would park ( and loiter) under my hotel room. The neighborhood felt iffy ( mostly at night), but the hotel itself was so incredibly beautiful, with audacious amounts of natural lighting, and mirrors across from the bed, and champagne (and coffee) decorating the bar area, wine ( and champagne) glasses on deck.

Hotels for extended stays were getting costly, so I booked my very first Air B n B in Hancock Park. I stayed in a beautiful old brownstone. Cars loitering outside my Air B and B, even though I was on a second floor walk up.There’s no way, right? What would anyone want to do with me? Surely these were bored Uber drivers. It was around Valentine’s Day, and I had laid off, after noticing social media announcing the arrival of some scrawny lookin’ broad with a black lab, but the idea that he could change his mind and instead come over for cookie and some cookies (there was an oven!) put steam in my little engine that couldn’t ( and didn’t?)

My second Air B N B claimed to be in South Prospect Park, but was actually 2 train rides away from South Prospect Park. Fun! It was actually located in E. Flatbush. There were violent bar fights and people screaming at each other (usually fighting) at all times of day, and at night, that building had some sort of apparent trash can poltergeist that banged violently on the metal pipes that were likely the originals.The building smelled like retirement home made biscuits and gravy,trash ( it was across the hall from the trash shoot), and a really really awful, pungent glade plug in, which aroma I am not sure I could name, that seemed to be covering the smell of a dead mouse in some unknown location. All swirling together for an incredibly unsavory scent. The interior was adorable though. There were close bodegas ( oh the feeling of walking to get snacks and coffee), and the bodega dudes I was unsure if I was the butt of their jokes or if someone had said some crass shit after I left. But one thing stayed steady, despite the street. The loitering, always occupied vehicles. Probably not that weird for New York, but when the patterns pattern, they pattern.Call me schizophrenic if you really want to. It was also there that I discovered a book on manifestion, got to take real baths (after I figured out how to work the tub), and could purchase real groceries for the week! It is also where I got my first “job” ( an acting gig I found on backstage). I was thirsty for the taste of defeating all the nay sayers and people who told me I can’t. I felt safe inside the walls of the castle, and the neighbors soon began to be familiar with me, and by the end of the month, the smell started to become faint. Since my friend failed to be able to accomplish the task of sending my shit, I had to involve my mother in feeding my pets, and asking her to send my shit. She just kind of elected to not participate and was enraged at my leaving. She sent some things, sure. A couple boxes worth, but nowhere close to what I needed, and once she knew my address, I was getting knocks on the door. Not in a neighborhood where I felt unwelcome, and in an unfamiliar neck of the woods, train rides away from my friend, was I going to answer that. I wouldn’t answer the door now-a-days in mister rogers fucking neighborhood. Anyway,she seemed to be connected to the Weird. I seemed to be less stalked/harassed when she did not know my plans or locations, and according to a friend good at “calling it”, she had everything to do with everything Weird. Between the bar brawls, loud ass radio blasting out of the “furniture store” (where more moved in and out that was most definitely NOT furniture), having to have a night time curfew for myself, no shit I was up to or into or friends around me, I was thrilled to get to my next destination, and ended up leaving a few days early. That place sucked. I was also blowing through cash, because of the lack of support ( I also hate hate hate asking for anything from anyone) around me staying there. Malorie had (so so generously) given me her coat for the severe NYC winters.As much as I hate puffy coats, I am so incredibly grateful for the one she gifted me with. NYC winters are incredibly bitterly cold, and something I was entirely unprepared to experience, with eagerly celebrating the arrival of “hoe clothes season” every year.

My next destination was another cute brownstone that was split into 3 different apartments, one of which was mine, in Sunset Park. The woman who was renting it out was the owner, and her dad usually lived there, but was traveling. I loved living there. I lived there for about 1.5 months, before my step-dad died and I had to cut my stay short to come home and help my mom bury my step dad. I am her only, so although I think all the time about how my life would have been different if I just didn’t go back home, it would have been a serious asshole move.

Sunset Park is incredibly diverse. Pretty much any and every race, ethnicity, various languages spoken, foods to eat, people to get to know. Basically this neighborhood was poor and contained anyone and everyone but white people, so wealthy white men in nice shoes that cost more than most of these residents rent showed up, along with a militant demeanor (serious,ready to shoot,quietly rage filled,expressionless) showed up to catch the train that day, I switched cars at the next stop. Imagine my surprise when I got done with class, and arrived at the train station I would always leave from with him waiting, patiently at the top of the stairs.Hunting. He waited for me to pass. I went around the corner, giving the illusion that I continued making my way back, but I when I ducked around the corner, sure enough , he had jetted the stairs after he watched me pass. Same dude that had caught the train , same car with me that morning, which wasn’t the first time that had happened. That time didn’t feel weird though, and felt more like coincidence, because they appeared to be two gay men in fabulous colorful sneakers, which is how I remembered that it was them. Same car there. Same car(and train) back.

I lived across from a gargantuan catholic church. There was almost no lighting, and the only way to manage to see at night was lit by a dim lamp ( which made for a cozy setting, but was annoying to get ready with). The bathroom was for shitting and showering in, and didn’t provide space for much else, so all makeup doing had to be done with the dim lamp, and natural lighting provided by opening all the curtains in the bay windows that led out to….the street.Where cars were parked, and people were often. …_________. Maybe this should turn into a Mad Libs?

During the course of my stay here, I tried to have mail forwarded to this address, which the post office denied, saying I “needed to speak to the post master.”

I ran into difficulty/impossibility getting a bank account, because I needed a fucking LEASE, which no one is keen to give you without INCOME, and people give fuck all about you arriving with a fat bag that you are ready to generously share with anyone willing to give you a space to call “home”, whether that be a room or home.

Before I left for home, I had a weird random gig through The Casting Agency I always went through, wherein a medium would air your session with him, if he was right about things. So I decided to contact (or try to) my maternal grandfather, who was my favorite grandparent, and who I had watched die ( he was 92 and died of natural causes).No one could save him (legally)because he had a “ do not resuscitate” . As we began the session, he said he was in contact with someone “really aggressive” and told me he doesn’t usually encounter people after death that are “this aggressive”. He told me this dude was like giving chest bumping bro energy, and that really only describes my step-dad, who had recently passed. My step- dad, in the session, interestingly enough, told me not to trust my mother, and to not spend time over there, and most certainly to not move in with her.