Pic @ Julia Corsaro
I’ve been living in New York for just over a month now, it’s great! I miss London kind of but not really. Change is good; I’ve officially decided. In fact we all need to make more of an effort to frighten ourselves out of our everyday, everyday. Take note! That was a very un-me thing to say, I know, but I’ve just had some stimulants and am feeling uncharacteristically chipper at the moment. As I’m still relatively new to NYC, I figured now is a good time to make a list of some of the observations / sweeping generalizations I’ve made about this city and the people in it since moving here. Here goes!
1. The hot girl / hot guy radio = insanely depressing
What the fuck?! This city is crawling with beautiful, half naked, horny women and there are NO hot guys! I’ve seen like 3 potential fucks in the past month, and I’m being generous at that. Despair! (Hot guys take note.)
2. People LOVE cocaine
SO hard! They want it like RIGHT NOW all the time forever. It’s so gross! (No, but for real, is that why are the girls here are so thin, because if so I want some.)
3. New Yorkers love aphorisms
Everyone speaks Bumper Sticker here. People literally walk around saying things like “You just gotta be you,” and “Follow your dreams” without any shame or reservation. It’s like being back at Christian camp! Last night at a bar, after telling a guy 3 times that I most definitely did not want to dance with him, he actually said, “Girl, you have to learn to just let go and be free, ya feel me?” Eww! No, I do not feel you, or your cargo pants, so feck off!
4. People get wasted but not that wasted
In London it’s totally normal to walk into a bar and see someone face down on the floor, motionless, covered in their own vomit. You just assume they either did too much K or are taking a quick disco nap and will be up to finish their pint in no time. New Yorkers, however, seem to possess a vague level of constraint when it comes drinking/drugs that others simply do not. I think it has something to do with people here needing to feel in control / wanting to retain memories / not hating themselves, but I can’t be sure!
5. The food is worryingly sweet
For realzzz! Bread tastes like biscuits, apples taste like apple cider, peanut butter tastes like Reeces Pieces and semen tastes like milkshakes!
6. People are generally more positive, look healthier and smile more in New York than anywhere else I’ve been in the world
It’s creepy but it’s true. I guess it being summer helps, but I also just think the quality of life is better here than in most places, i.e. in the UK where people talk about the sun like it’s an urban legend and think Guinness is a vegetable!
7. It’s too hot
It’s so nightmarishly hot in NYC that in order to feel mildly comfortable you have to either be 1. in the shower 2. standing with your face pressed directly up against the air conditioner, or 3. running through one of those cinematic red fire hydrant fountain things, which I have actually taken to doing quite frequently (in slow motion, obviously).
8. People dress boring
As a general rule people in London dress retarded (this is good). Here not so much. That doesn’t mean people care less about they look (oh they do), I just think they’re less inclined to be outrageous or take noticeable risks. It comes across far less try-hard, but also in turn slightly less interesting. Although sometimes admittedly in London people take it way too far, i.e. people who go out with plant pots taped to their head / dress like futuristic, introspective vampires.
9. People love beards
Seriously!
10. It’s not “cool” to be a disaster.
In London being a poor junkie squatter is seen as really cool, believe me! Even all the rich west London kids rip their designer clothes and sleep on jank mattresses in abandoned warehouses to fit in. Here it’s all about having a job, not being a pathetic junked-out monster, having an apartment (furnished), and taking showers. Who knew?!
i guess what's in movies isn't always true. ;)
which is why i could never move to new york
Fuck that shit.
I'm never leaving London.
i hate my life
This was very cool, especially this bit > 'As a general rule people in London dress retarded (this is good).' O this is very VERY good <3
Hahah
I love you and your sweeping generalizations, karly
interesting
WAIT?! Does that mean there are more cute guys in London?
1. Attractive women outnumber attractive men by a factor of at least 15 to 1. Why this leads women to date effemenate doucheholes is beyond me though. 2. Visit Miami. 3. People think that living in NYC will, by extension, make them important sources of timeless wisdom. Especially if they have lived here only 2 years and nowhere else but buttfuck Ohio before that. 4. You can't get laid if you're covered in your own vomit. 5. That's just America! Everything is sweetened. Except for the semen, are you fucking Mister Softee or something? 6. I moved here specifically because people are outgoing and friendly. Then I got here and remembered I hate people, so I have not made any new friends and mostly sit at home in my underwear in front of the AC because …7. … this much concrete + this much sun = the worlds largest open air oven. 8. What the hell? Where are you going out? 9. I got nothin on this. People really do. 10. I have no idea where or when ambition became cool, much less expecting your ambition to be taken seriously when you have a moustache with waxed tips or oversized ironic fake prescription glasses or men wearing women's shoes or jesus christ I need to stop now my head hurts.
It sounds so much like Sydney that I'm not so afraid of the move I'm making at the end of the year (yes, change is good. I'm hauling my ass to COMPLETELY the opposite side of the globe. Perhaps while there I'll run into you. You'll know me because I won't pronounce my 'R's and I too will be searching for hotties. Although I do like the beards, so it might be easier for me).
haha. Thats exactly the list I would have written. As a matter of fact I might start referring people who ask me this question to this post.We miss you Karls. We are in Japan on our honeymoon and its insanely hot.
Is it just me or are you using more exclamation marks? It seems to work tho! I think!
Darren it's so weird that you pointed that out, because I've just been ranting to everyone about how I've recently embraced the exclamation point after years of despising it. Why is that?!!?1 It's like I've suddenly opened my eyes to its infinite power!!!!
new yorkers do love aphorisms, haha. we are such misdirected softies in this place.
I wondered what was different about the writing. It is the punctuation(!) It makes me feel a bit unsettled / sad / nervous. Please don't let this fabulous New York life, full of sugar, unashamed ambition and exclamation marks make you forget London, Karley…. Though I'm happy your happy, or whatever. x
The beard thing is so yucky.
I think most of these things, oddly, boil down to creative types having no real access to health insurance. wanna get wasted but not TOO wasted because we don't want to die. can't be a squatter because we don't want to die. gotta be nice and smiley because fights could lead to hospital stays which would be 2-3 grand we don't have and then, yeah, potential death. and all of that worries us a lot so we just wanna do a lot of cocaine in a rash display of "well, fuck it!"boring clothes because we are poor. beards because..well gosh i don't know really. it's the only manly thing we can do. that and drink whiskey. so we feel as though we have to embrace it.
the sun IS an urban legend in the uk! god save the queen.
welcome to new york slutever, now you know why me, and every other not disastrous looking male love living here, as specially in williamsburg, where the ratio is truly 15:1 (god bless). the heat will be over soon and I'll see you in a few weeks when I'm done with europe