10 memories for 10 years

Things I recall from a decade in New York

Today marks an entire decade of living in New York. (Note: Actually yesterday now. I wrote more than I planned to.)

I don’t really buy into the adage of being a “real” New Yorker now, which rings of the sort of authenticity fetishism I’ve come to loathe (which reminds me of this poignant JP Brammer piece that I’m still thinking about more than four years later). My accent is still there, and rarely go more than a few hours without checking in on friends back home. I feel unmoored quite often, shredded between the places I love without knowing which is the right fit for whichever Me I feel like at any given moment. 

For now, I’m here. I really enjoy my current job (temporary as it may be), I’m still madly in love with the husband I moved here to be with, and my apartment is covered ceiling to floorboard in art we’ve collected or created, filled with five little creatures that have brought my life endless joy. A quick walk in any direction and I meet one of the dozens of smart, talented friends I’ve made in this city, and I’m a quick train ride from the rest. The relationships I’ve fostered with them and with myself feel honest, challenging at times, and expansive in a way I couldn’t envision as an unemployed bartender packing up the remaining shit I hadn’t tossed out way back in August 2013. 

*** 

I woke up sometime after the witching hour two nights ago - not due to a haunting, but rather my beloved chihuahua Tina tapping my face to let me know it was early-morning bathroom break time for her tiny old bladder. I usually fall back asleep quickly, but the sky was the eerie, pre-dawn blue that felt nice in my eyes. This staring led to contemplation, which led to Instagram scrolling, which reminded me to find old photos of a recently passed friend for his upcoming memorial. His name is Paul Weaver, and the friend collecting photos - Shanna, his best and closest friend of all time - is also arranging his memorial. 

If you can donate to GoFundMe to help pay for this service, please do.

This rummaging through old photos reminded me of so many great times, before and after the move. Some slipped my mind entirely and were great to re-live; others have become oft-repeated, exaggerated legends that you’ve likely heard if you’ve ever hung out with me after my third drink. All the collected stories of a lifetime that slip through our fingers lend ephemeral magic to the suffering we endure, but sometimes a little effort lets us hold onto the ones that felt like nothing at the moment. Even nothing-moments form the basis for all heartbreak in this world, which is the passage of time. 

So to honor ten years of it, and to make sure these moments have a physical place to live so I can revisit them in another ten, I would like to relay ten memories - some big, some small - that came to mind as I lingered on the decade past as of today. I’m writing this as I wrap up a busy day of work-related and personal issues, so please excuse the editing I’m about to skip in an effort to get it all out before I think twice and shut up. 

1. The first long walk I ever took downtown. 

There was nothing special about the walk or the day it happened, but the first long walk I took downtown from our old place on 108th Street and Broadway stuck with me. I was wearing a terrible sleeveless plaid top, medium-wash skinny jeans, and a huge skull belt buckle I thought made me look as tough as I was. I was a lot tougher back then, but my style needed plenty of polishing.

Judging by the way I recall the light flowing through the buildings at the intersection where Lincoln Center pops up on the right and Broadway cuts in toward Columbus Circle, it was likely late September. I didn’t have an apartment of my own yet, nor my pets with me (they were safe with a friend back home), nor any clue how I was going to make it all work in the long run. I had the pure lunatic drive to 1) be near Aaron and 2) ensure I never gave in to the assholes back home who said I’d fail within a year. It felt so good to merge into the crowds near Times Square with the quick-learn knowledge of how to move like water in a crowd. I made it to the West Village before I stopped for a whiskey and to text a few friends. 

2. Joining a Craigslist band 

Within two weeks of landing at Aaron’s temporarily, I had my first job: Head bartender at a newly open tequila bar in Harlem. It was great, but I wanted to meet people who weren’t asking for free shots and beef up my chops behind the kit. Bands back home were usually cursed by having run-of-the-mill misogynists in their ranks, or even worse, one of my exes.

Two bands interested me in the “gig” section of NYC Craiglist, and I responded. The first wanted some personal info which I gave willingly, and I guess they noticed from my name that I’m a woman. I left them on read when they shot back, “Are you like, a hot chick drummer?” The second callback came from someone much more straightforward, so we set up a time to meet.

The morning of our first jam came during the only winter I’ve ever had here when it really snowed. I wore knee-high oxblood TUK boots that were half-price in the last-size pile at Trash & Vaudeville, and I made it halfway from the UWS to Bushwick before they dry-rotted and fell apart in the snow.

Horrified, I texted my mysterious bandmate-to-be and told him my sob story. He told me to come anyway, and we hit it off immediately, played through a song we still whip out called “Mana,” and he told me: “It’s actually perfect that your shoe broke. You were always supposed to be a Nervous Breakdown.” Even though we’ve been through three (4? 5??) band iterations and names since then, I still am.

3. Playing a punk show on the same lineup as 8 EDM DJs 

I met Steve after we both saw Deafheaven at Saint Vitus a month before I moved here. We followed each other on Instagram after perusing the geotags and thinking he looked cool (what a deeply unsettling move that would be today), and he messaged two days later to offer me a ticket to see Baroness and The Melvins at the House of Vans show that week. I accepted, we hit it off famously, and the rest is history.

Around a year later, I was playing drums in Manutara when he and his friend Shane asked me to jump in on their math-rock trio for an upcoming showcase happening at a new Bushwick venue called Lot 54. We practiced diligently, twice a week for a month, and I learned the most intricate changes of my drumming career in order to pull this shit off.

Show day came, and I had to skip our friends’ wedding to make the gig before rushing over to catch the tail end of the reception. A flyer showed a slew of unheard names, and we assumed we’d be in good company until we showed up and realized we were the only live band on a roster of fucking DJs.

The backline was non-existent, and somehow we pawned someone into snatching two cymbal stands so I could pretend to follow the songs we’d tried so hard to nail. One fell over in the first song, and the kick pedal refused to stay screwed down, so I made it a few bars before the ass end of the song fell out completely as the moronic sound guy cranked Steve’s bass down so low it might as well have been a shitty harpsichord.

We made it 2.5ish songs in before we’d all had enough, and Steve kicked his monitor as he and Shane stripped off their guitars. I promptly grabbed what few breakables I had, took my drink ticket (lush payment for a sonic breakdown, to be sure) to the bar and exchanged it for a prosecco, and bolted in a fit of laughter with the boys.

I live close to Lot 45 now. It’s still the biggest shit hole on the Troutman.

4. The phone call from Steve telling me he couldn’t come back

I was on my way to tend bar at a Boozy Saturday brunch the month before my wedding when Steve called to let me know he was in Ireland, probably stuck for good, and wouldn’t be able to walk me down the aisle. I broke into tears and offered to legally marry him instead of Aaron (What’s a little fraud between friends?) and stumbled my weepy way through a too-long shift for my regulars.

In the eight years since I’ve been able to travel to Galway twice to see him, and he recently spent a week back over here with us drinking and being jackasses. It’s good to know an ocean can’t dampen our friendship, but I wasn’t ready to lose my first and best friend in New York so soon.

5. Moving into Aaron’s apartment uptown

It was the last day of January 2014 and somewhere around 13 degrees outside. My roommates, who had only been so for three-ish months, had been keeping after my cat and dog in our terrible Bushwick basement apartment while I worked long hours uptown and spent most nights walking back to Aaron’s instead of braving the two-train, mile walk journey back to Brooklyn. Having thrown out nearly everything I owned on my ambitious journey to the city, packing only took around 20 minutes - I even left the IKEA loft bed in my windowless walk-in closet bedroom for the poor sap who took my place.

By the time we’d gotten uptown and dragged my shit through the 30ft basement hallway, we collapsed in the lumpy bed and I snapped a picture of Jasper and Aaron snuggling up to one another while getting acquainted as roommates. Less than a year later, Merlin came along, too, and we managed to become a family despite the lack of natural light.

We stayed in that basement for almost seven years, which is about five longer than I wanted to. On a trip to the Upper West Side last week, I actually felt a twinge of nostalgia for the grumpy locals.

6. My wedding in Central Park 

Getting married to the love of my life in front of Belvedere Castle was amazing, but I don’t feel like expounding much on a day and ritual so sacred. I hope we do it all over in 2025 when we hit that ten-year mark.

7. Riding bikes through an empty Times Square

If you watch the opening sequence of Vanilla Sky, Tom Cruise speeds down a traffic-free Central Park West, swerves into Times Square, stops, and jogs toward infinity when he realizes he’s alone. Setting the tone for the rest of the film, the scene establishes the surreal mood; When in history has this bustling intersection of global commerce ever cleared out?

It turns out when there’s a pandemic and the epicenter is New York. We rode our bikes downtown to survey the scene one evening and found only a single security guard roaming the bleachers. There are two photos I recall from that night, one of myself, and one of Aaron, both staring up at the endless wave of still-lit screens much like Cruise in his thespian bewilderment.

No one came to offer me the gift of an eternal digital dream.

8. The infamous Halloween 2019 party 

If you know anything about me, you know I love Halloween. In our last October in the apartment uptown, I decided I was tired of coming to Brooklyn to see everyone and forced them to come to me. I shopped for decorations for weeks, stuffed old-fashioned treat bags with candy and plastic vampire fangs, and baked pumpkin and skull-shaped cakes for two days.

The night before the party, I saw My Life With the Thrill Kill Cult at Le Poisson Rouge. I went alone for some reason and spent most of the night dodging one of the biggest punishes in the local scene. Out of nowhere, an Australian man offered me a full drink, and, having had a couple already, I told him it was a fairly wild proposition seeing as he was a stranger and I was by myself. We laughed about it as he assured me he hadn’t touched it yet and, since the bartender vouched for him, I took it. If you like to have fun, you should never turn down a drink with an Australian.

We finished that one, the set ended, and we settled in across the street for a nightcap. The duo were on a month-long holiday that had started in Los Angeles, continued to Vegas, wound its way to New Orleans, and was soon to close in New York. Despite these weeks of travel, they’d yet to be invited to a house party. I did just that.

They showed up on schedule, as did 35 or so other people I’d bullied into taking the long train ride to 108th Street. We had a fantastic time snacking, drinking beers from a blow-up Dracula, and showing off our costumes when a local homeless guy named Frank asked to use the bathroom. Trying to be neighborly, I let him in. He quickly disappeared into the bowels of the sprawling duplex (we had Craigslist roommates, not trust funds) and allegedly dropped a crack rock into the pocket of Aaron’s then-boss. That boss also told us Frank was true to his namesake while discussing how he was casing us and planned to return when the party was over. I do have a tight little collection of Lemax Spooky Houses from Michael’s, I guess.

Frank never took anything, but he did repay me by letting me hit what I thought was a bowl on the way out. That was the night I learned crack tastes like electricity.

9. Seeing Tony Hawk at a Satanic Temple party

Ending up at the Satanic Temple party at the Jane Hotel was already fun, but if you got the secret room card from someone ~in the know~, you could end up in Room 304 for the show. The line stretched down the hall, so my friend Kim (my date that night and the person who got me in) watched as people filed in and - in varying degrees of amusement/confusion - left in measured intervals. One of the guests was Tony Hawk, who caused a stir as he slinked out of the secret room with a bewildered expression.

Since I’d had a few in the lush name of the devil, I shouted the stupidest thing I could think: “Are you Tony Hawk?” He was, and I went back to wondering what the fuck we were about to see.

The surprise was fine. We walked in on a BDSM scene featuring a dominatrix dressed in stereotypical gear. She was spanking a man tied to the bed, mostly nude, while a person in a gorilla costume and dressed as a maid sort of hovered in the corner. It felt like the type of thing a 16-year-old from Iowa might dream up when he’s making up raunchy stories about his big trip to the city. I left quickly to watch the theremin performance downstairs.

10. The day I left West Virginia

Two days into a marathon packing session alongside my friend Adam (he’s in a fantastic band called Horseburner), I sent him off and collapsed in my living room for a night of rest that was meant to prepare me for a long drive in a 10-foot box truck. My pets were already dropped off at their temporary home, and I had only a sliver of sectional left to sleep on in my otherwise empty house. I spent seven years, two husbands, and a lot of weird house parties there, but I loved doing the crossword while sunbathing on the porch. I loved the view of 7/11 I had from my huge kitchen window.

The liminality and quiet of the night was too much to handle. Around midnight, I hopped in the truck and took off, sad and terrified to be so alone. Ahead lay a whole new life in a city I barely knew with a boyfriend I knew marginally better. I took a handful of naps in dark parking lots along the way and made it to Manhattan by rush hour the next day.

I cried a lot during that drive. For me, for the end of my youth, for the uncertainty, because I had lost so many friends in the months preceding; I screamed and sand and wept for it all. Converge has never been a band I liked much, but “All We Love We Leave Behind” was still pretty new then, and it encapsulated a lot of the clashing thoughts I was too young to process.

When I arrived, Aaron surprised me with keys to a storage unit he’d rented for me for a few months. We dropped off everything but the two suitcases I packed to live out of and ate at a diner nearby. I posted a heavily filtered snapshot of the street right past the tunnel from the side mirror of the box truck, and tapped out my plans in the caption: "Next up, sleep all day.”

Honorable mentions:

• Meeting Robert Plant and Steve Earl backstage at Town Hall

• Dragging the dogs to Staten Island to pick up their new sister, Tina

• The first time I took Pamela Des Barres’ writing workshop and ended up meeting several of my most beloved friends

• Interviewing at the Dumbo WeWork for my first real writing job with Revolver

• Falling on black ice while trying to cross the street for a drink at 67 Orange after a shift at Bier

• Telling the woman who stole my cab at the Pyramid Club that “No, I didn’t call you a bitch, I called you ugly” before speeding off in another cab while Jamal and David laughed until we cried at the face she made

• Stripping down in some bushes on the north side of Central Park so photographer friend Blake could take “tasteful” nudes for my “Slut of the Month” placement on Slutist

• Shooting the Cup music videos for Nothing Could Be Wrong in freezing temperatures at Alphaville right before the pandemic broke

• Coming in from a smoke break while The Mountain Goats covered “Lucretia, My Reflection” at a sold-out Brooklyn Steel show

• Scotty surprising me by showing up on my doorstep unannounced for my 35th birthday in 2021 (I love it when he schemes with Aaron)

• Karaoking “Under the Milky Way” high on illicit substances on a random Tuesday at Tradesman

• The night we broke up Quitters and blacked out at, again, Tradesman

• Playing to a crowd of working-class Queens guys at Gussy’s in Astoria around Halloween 2014 (we opened for a prog-rock dad band)

• Taking a $100 cab from Newark to JFK at 4:30 am on my way to Berlin with my friend Luke

• Accidentally inviting 15 people to dinner at a tiny beer bar ahead of the Sisters of Mercy show in June

• Discovering I was finally enough of a regular at Mother of Junk in Williamsburg that the shop guy, Tommy, followed me on Instagram, followed by seeing a parody reel about girls who live in Brooklyn and go to Mother of Junk too much

• Every party we’ve had in our place in Bushwick that’s ended at 5 or 6 the next morning with INXS videos and poppers