You don't even need to be here to get a taste of New York

One of the things that I love about New York that I've been to places in New York even before setting foot in this city for the first time.

I was mentally in New York while reading books set in the city Rex and the City or while watching movies on sets in New York City, like Ghostbusters.

I saw the movie Big Daddy starring Adam Sandler well before moving to the city, but it's always cool to see the spot in Central Park where he threw sticks in front of Rollerbladers.

But apparently, some scenes in the movie were more significant to others.

"Hey guys, welcome to Hooters! Any of you ever been here before?" our scantily clad waitress asked of myself and my friends Rigo and Amanda after we decided to grab a bite after my art gallery opening at the Hooters located just more than a block away from my apartment.

"I have," both Amanda and I replied, then looked at our friend Rigo, the only guy at our table, who shook his head no.

"You've never been to a Hooters before?" I asked him.

"Never," he replied.

"Oh, well then let me tell you about us!" our waitress squealed about the restaurant . I then obviously expected her to go over the menu, and tell him about their (admittedly awesome) burgers or something.

"Ever seen the movie Big Daddy?" she asks.

We all nod yes.

"Well, they filmed that scene at the end right over there," she said enthusiastically, pointing to a front alcove of the restaurant, and then proceeded to tell us the logistics of needing to close the restaurant to get all the equipment and the actors in the restaurant to film the scene.

"OK then! What can I get you?" she asks after her movie pitch, without telling us anything about the menu or their specials.

So we tell her we need a minute, and watch her skip away to the next table.

Gotta love New York.

Never in a million years...

... would I have thought my paintings would be displayed in an art gallery in New York City.

That all changed this week.

For several months, I've been studying the art of watercolor technique under Frederick Brosen at the Art Students League of New York. During that time, I've created some paintings that just didn't work, but some that did.

I submitted the ones that I thought worked for a week-long art show at the school, and nervously waited to see what my peers and professor thought of them. After asking me some questions about my first painting - which I made sure they knew was my very first one, because I pretty much learned several techniques by trying them out in the painting - everyone agreed that all three that I submitted should be in the show (including the first one because it taught me how to apply the techniques for the other two, which I'm pretty proud of).

I beamed for a week straight.

But let me tell you, waiting for the gallery opening was the longest week ever! But it finally came, and I took a few friends to the wine and cheese art gallery opening. In the photo, my first painting is the one on the bottom of the island, which I drew and painted from a photograph I took while Brent and I were on vacation at Lake Tahoe. I drew and painted the sunflower for my mom to give to her on Mother's Day. Then there's the one I'm most proud of, even though it's relatively simple. It's the one on the bottom left in the photo - of the leaf on a still pond of water in Central Park. What I love about it is not only its simplicity and beauty, but I love how the gorgeous fall leaf stands out.

Though I'm still very much a beginner, I really poured my heart into these paintings. I mean, before I created them, all they were were just blank pieces of paper. Once I started working on them, they became pieces of paper with pencil marks on them representing the creations I saw in my head (or on a photograph that I took). Then, they became pieces of paper with specially-mixed color on them that I invented to get the perfect shades I wanted.

And then they became paintings. They became art. MY art.

Nothing made me prouder than to see people looking at what I created (even though this is a photo of my friends Rigo and Amanda, who went with me to the art gallery opening, other people did look at my paintings!)

The icing on the cake was when I took my friend Janine down to the gallery on our way to a football game to show her my work. After just looking at the paintings for awhile, she turned to me and said incredulously, "Erika, your paintings are on display in a gallery in New York City!"

Though it's definitely not something I'm good enough at to make a living, it's definitely become one of my favorite hobbies!

Maybe you could wipe the blood off your face before you threaten me again because I have witnesses.

Anyone who's read even just a handful of my blog posts knows that I'm always compelled to write about the colorful characters that come into my coffee shop.


While compelling, "Bloody Nose Guy" was a bit different. Never before have I ever felt like I just might have to prepare myself for actually getting punched in the face. Never before have I ever felt the need to make a mental note at what was within arm's reach of my interaction with a customer just in case I had to pick it up and use it to defend myself. Welcome to New York City!


When I first saw the guy, I thought he was just someone standing in the lobby having a conversation with a friend. But then he shifted his body so he was facing my direction and I realized that bloody nose guy had, well, a crusted-on bloody nose and was essentially talking to himself in close proximity to someone else.


So, being the manager responsible for crap like this, I went out into the lobby to ask him if he was OK and to steer him away from the customer he was talking toward who obviously had no idea who this guy was. Even from a few feet away, the stench of alcohol assaulted my nose, which is when I realized that getting this guy out of the store without conflict was not going to be easy.


And it wasn't. This guy - a short, overweight, bald Hispanic man about 60 years old, which is what I later told the police - was so drunk he was incoherent. After responding to my question of whether he was OK in garbled nonsense, I suggested very calmly that maybe he go across the street to the hospital to get checked out. He just stared at me like he didn't understand what I was talking about.


That's when I made the mistake of more firmly suggesting that he leave. Apparently, that was the sentence that he happened to understand. And the next sentence he uttered was the only full sentence that I actually understood. "What. Did. You. Say?" he asked emphatically, his eyes weirdly focused on mine while very blatantly stepping well inside my personal space bubble.


Not wanting to actually get hit - which from the look on his face was a very real possibility at this point - I took a bear step backward so I'd have room to pivot and dart back around the counter to what I thought would be safety and call the police. But bloody nose guy apparently wasn't satisfied with our interaction. I have never heard my coffee shop as quiet as it was just seconds after he started screaming string after string of profanities while stumbling at my heels toward the back room. Enter my colleague, Rigo.


Thank God Rigo was there and thank God he was willing to block this guy's access to me. He also apparently knew how to talk to him, which was essentially in a hushed tone, and had the amazing ability to remain calm while this guy was spitting profanity into his face. Not wanting Rigo to get hurt, I quickly slid this small metal cart between him and Bloody Nose Guy - which the stranger didn't even notice, he was so out of it and busy cussing - and called the police.

Eons - also known as about 5 minutes - went by before a police cruiser rolled up to the store. In the meantime, a customer from California - who later told me that he feels safer here than in L.A. where apparently everyone carries a gun - intervened and helped talk this guy more toward the door. Unfortunately, that backfired in the sense that before the police arrived, this guy wandered out of the store and stood in front for awhile before ambling down the street. All I could do when the police waltzed in a few minutes later was describe the guy and point them toward where he went. I did the same thing with the second set of officers who pulled up two minutes after the first set not knowing that their colleagues had just been there. Weird.

Thankfully, I haven't seen Bloody Nose Guy since, but by virtue of where I work, someone else is bound to come in soon and threaten the status quo. Can't wait.

Go Bobcats!

The job hunt that's going nowhere fast has got to stop. Not only am I getting nothing that would further a potential publishing career except for short-term or unpaid gigs, but I can't take any more rejection.

So a few months ago, I applied for two ridiculously highly competitive, highly intensive summer publishing programs - one at Columbia University and one at New York University. Going into it, I knew that about 300 to 400 people apply to each of these programs, and I have since found out that both programs had larger-than-expected applicant pools this year. Thanks, economy. Nonetheless, I was determined that my essay would convince the admissions committee that I deserved to be among the 100 students chosen for each program. Hell - writing is what I do.

Though the similarities between the two programs are endless, I was still hoping for Columbia. Name recognition means a lot, and the Ivy League is where it's at. So even though I was thrilled to find out that I was accepted into NYU's program, there was still a part of me hoping that Columbia would want me too. That part cried when I soon thereafter read my e-mail rejection from the Ivy League, but that only lasted a short while, as I pumped myself up for the program waiting on my at NYU. Go Bobcats!


In reality, both programs are nearly the same. They're each six weeks long, with half the time focused on magazines, and half the time focused on books; both have been around for decades, and both pull the same caliber of people - including editors and CEOs of major publishing corporations and magazines - to teach the workshops or be guest speakers. Plus, NYU told me that unlike Columbia, whose job placement rate after the program is 92 percent, their job placement rate is nearly 100 percent. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT! (Now let me say that I fully realize that this 100 percent is very likely inflated, and that these "jobs" could include unpaid internships or jobs that former students got several years down the road. But I'm still hopeful!)

So though I won't have a life from May 31 until July 12 - when I say "intensive" I mean in class from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. six days a week with workshops and lectures at night between working with my several groups on our group projects - it means I get to drop everything to focus on myself. For the second time in two years - like when I moved across the country to New York in December, 2007 - I'll be completely changing my life to try something new.

I will soon be putting in my letter of resignation at the coffee shop and telling Skyhorse Publishing that while I have learned a lot and appreciate the opportunity, I'm going to work toward gaining experience that will land me a paid job. It's both exciting and terrifying at the same time, but I'm ready for the experience!

OF COURSE the egg hatched into a rooster so the chicken could come before the egg. Obviously.

I have found the guy version of me.


And weirdly enough, he's a colleague of mine at the coffee shop.


We often remark offhand that we must have been twins. However, because people naturally look at us weird after we say that (besides the fact that he's a few years younger than me and a few inches taller, he's also black and could pass for Will Smith's younger brother) we then explain that we're twins with two different mothers and fathers. Obviously.


Whenever we work together, nothing gets done. All we do is laugh. It's now to the point that all I have to do is make eye contact with him after walking in the coffee shop for the beginning of my shift and I laugh because I'm thinking about a conversation we had the day before.


We talk about former colleagues turning into cockroaches and haunting New York City. We talk about his (made-up) obsession with our district manager and his cat. We talk about the jokes we made up involving both a lemon loaf and a butter croissant drinking in a bar together. We talk about catching monkeys in Grenada and training them work at the coffee shop I'm opening that won't include either frappuccinos or customers.


And now since we know nothing will get done when we're together, we try to take our breaks at the same time so we don't have to feel guilty just sitting and bullshitting about absolutely nothing. And I do mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. The conversations don't even need to happen because they're just so ridiculous and add exactly zero value to anything, yet neither of us is willing to stop because it's so dang fun.


Here's a snippet of the conversation we had today:


Me as I was putting change away doing absolutely nothing that could be misconstrued as relating to Alice in Wonderland: "Hey Hansen! Do you think the Mad Hatter knew that the answer to whether the raven was like a writing desk before he asked the March Hare to get out the mouse from the teapot?"


Hansen without missing a beat as he was standing by the drink bar doing absolutely nothing that could be misconstrued as relating to chickens: "I think the chicken came before the egg."


Me: "Don't you think they'd need a rooster for that then?"


Hansen: "The egg hatched into a rooster."


Me: "Oh, OK! That makes complete sense."

Desensitized to the point where I can no longer put myself into their too-small shoes

This city is a hard place, and if your attitude doesn't match, I've learned the hard way that it's so much more difficult to live here.

So I've adapted, but in some cases, I'm not loving every aspect of the city person I've slowly become.

For example, there's this short, older, Chinese homeless woman we've dubbed "the art lady" who regularly comes into the coffee shop. (The reason she's the art lady is whenever she comes into the store, she always hands us a brochure of a new art exhibit opening at a museum, a new gallery opening, etc.)

Usually, she uses our restroom and sits harmlessly in our lobby for awhile before moving on in her too-small shoes which she said cost $600, but "suddenly" don't fit anymore because someone performed some voodoo on her.

But the other day, she annoyed the hell out of me. I ended up opening the store about 30 seconds late (on a Saturday, of course) simply because I wasn't ready to open it yet. But this was not before she started banging on the windows and looking at her watch before looking meaningfully at me. Strike one.

I gave her her usual large cup of hot water with a splash of coffee in it for free, but then she started pestering my colleagues and I for extra coffee, saying God would want it that way and was disappointed in us. Strike two.

Then she went and sat down and almost immediately fell asleep. Per the usual, I woke her up and told her not to sleep in the lobby. She told me she wasn't sleeping, but was meditating. Regardless - warning one.

After about 30 seconds of pretending she was going to stay awake, she fell asleep again and I woke her up and brushed off her protests of meditation, telling her if she wanted to meditate, she should go to the church right next door. Warning two.

Her falling asleep for the third time a few minutes later puts me at warning number three and strike number three, so I told her I was on my way to call the police and suggested she leave before they got there.

But of course, like the homeless almost always do, she started arguing with me, saying she has a right to meditate. But by that time I was more than fed up, so I literally told her that I'm not an idiot because I know the difference between sleeping and meditating, and I'm not going to let her stay if she's not going to respect my simple requests.

This is where she sees that I'm not backing down and admits to maybe dozing off, but says she'll stay awake. Hmm... where have I heard that before? And she almost pleadingly asks me if I'm really going to make her leave while it was still raining. At the time, I interrupted her to say something along the lines of "I am not arguing with you. You need to leave now."

After hemming and hawing and stalling for a ridiculous, yet impressive, amount of time, she tried to no avail to get my colleagues to let her stay - mostly because I told them to ignore her - and told me God was upset with me because she's His messenger, blah, blah, blah. Then she slowly trudged out into the rain in a raincoat carrying her two giant white snap-top bags that whenever she leaves them in the store unattended to use the restroom are accompanied by a cardboard sign that says "DO NOT TOUCH" three times.

Later on, when I was thinking of this episode and my interactions with Jack, our coffee shop's other regular homeless person, I realized with a start that living in this city has sucked out my compassion.

At first it scared me because I first thought I had lost all of my compassion. But after thinking about it some more, I realized that I do have compassion, but virtually none for the homeless.

I feel bad when I think of it in a broad sense - how horrible would it be if I didn't have a warm bed to sleep in, shelter in the rain, or money for food?

But here in New York City, you are nothing short of bombarded by these people on an every-few-minutes basis. If I gave a dollar to every homeless person who was begging for money on my 20-minute, mile-long walk to my internship, I'd easily be out at least $5. EVERY DAY. And that's on the days where I choose to avoid the corners where I know I'll come across the ones I've seen so often that I've named them "Winston," "Jesus," "Charlie," and "Ying Li."

It used to be tolerable, but when you're accosted for the same thing multiple times in just one walk, it moves beyond annoyance into simply indifference.

I can no longer put myself in their too-small shoes because I'm so desensitized to it that it doesn't even affect me anymore. I just put in my earbuds and pretend I don't notice them on the sidewalk. And in a broad sense, that bothers me.

However, when the tables are turned and I'm asking them for something - stay awake if you're going to occupy a seat in my coffee shop's too-small lobby - how many times do they give me that simple request? It's definitely not that often.

Put them together, and that's a really sad cycle.

Where else but New York would you...

... be sitting on the subway and notice there were long streaks of liquid on the floor of the subway car. No biggie. It was raining, everyone was wet, and it's not uncommon for someone to have spilled a beverage while being jerked along on the subway.

But then you hear something that sounds like a trickling faucet and look quizzically over at your friend before both turning toward the sound and simultaneously realizing the liquid is actually urine coming from the passed-out homeless guy repeatedly pissing his pants right across from you.

Ewww on so many levels.