Finding the right words at the right time

Artless

I recently found an old folder that I used when taking a Photography class in NYU around 2005. During this time I had writers block and had quit music. For almost three years I done nothing creative and worked solely on getting rid of my debts and settling into my new NYC life. Frustration began to show due to my artless existence so Marisa pushed me into taking a photograph class at NYU. Each week we learned about the science and art of photography. Building our own cameras and experimenting with different techniques. I loved it, I'd been interested in photography since I was young but never pursued it as a career. It was too much fun. 

In the folder I found some old photos I took during the class. I scanned them and posted them below. 

The class got my creative juices flowing and the following year after much procrastinating I decided to try comedy. This then led to everything I do now including a return to music. I view those three years as a reset. I work even harder than I ever did before. Anyway, I'm not in the mood to write about "art" or "creativity" right now. Let's just say I'm glad I took the class. 

Old Day Job

Handsome Devil

Published Online

A segment of my writing series New York Shots got published online recently. You can find it here on the comedy website Chortle. I'm very happy about it as it's a website I've been reading every day for the last few years. It's also the leading comedy website in Ireland & The UK.

Other good news, Spring is here at last which has allowed me to write this post on my balcony.

 

New York Shots #6

NYC

He banged from below over the slightest noise but he was quiet tonight. Then the buzzer rang. Most of the time that meant it was the landlord or a vulturous religious nut, but when I opened the door, this time I found a small thin man in his early fifties. His suit, although sickly green, was crisp and neat. His greying hair was styled as if he had nothing else to do with his time. He pushed his wire frame glasses up his pointed nose and smiled. Although I had never met my cantankerous neighbor from the apartment below, I knew it was him.

"Can I talk with you?" he inquired as he entered my apartment.

"Sure" I said, pretending I had any choice in the matter. He scanned my sitting room smiling as if it was exactly as he had imagined it.

"Your water is leaking down" he said, pointing to the bathroom.

"That’s impossible.”

I was in the bathroom, casually showing him the bone dry floor tiles when I realized we were actually strangers.

"The water is not coming from here." My voice became stern.

"Let me show you.” He said motioning for me to follow him downstairs.

His apartment was organized and sterile. It was a mix of fashions from several past decades. The furniture ranged from retro to antique; collectively it resembled a thrift store. The bare light bulbs made him look older and the apartment far bigger, but less inviting. It lacked a woman's touch. It was a man's apartment, minimal and efficient.

He showed me the ceiling where I eventually spotted a faint watermark. I decided to put an end to this as I had cold beers waiting upstairs and a free evening in which to drink them.

"I work in construction,” I said. “What’s happening is that some water has leaked in through the outside wall between our apartments and trickled down. It’s not coming from my sink, toilet, kitchen or shower, okay? I suggest you let the landlord know about it as it’s his responsibility. Get him involved, not me." I was polite but firm.

"I'll call him I suppose, maybe tomorrow.” He shrugged. It didn’t seem so urgent now. “Another thing...you have music here.” He pointed up to the corner of the ceiling.

"Yeah, that’s where my computer is. You’ve seen it!"

"You have a subwoofer or something.”

"I don't, but I'll try and keep it down."

"I can hear it sometimes y’know? Boom! Boom! Boom! Y'know? And the walking, you make a lot of noise walking around.”

"All I'm doing is living up there and that’s not going to stop anytime soon."

I snapped. We stared at each other in silence for a few seconds. I felt guilt rising in my gut.

"How long have you lived here?" I asked him.

"20 years."

"Where are you from?"

"Romania. Where are you from?"

"Ireland."

"You here long?"

"Five years."

"That’s not very long."

“It is to me.”

We stared at each other again in silence. This happens with immigrants sometimes. We should have so much in common but we don’t. I turned to my left and saw a cabinet with a large collection of vinyl records and a record player. Below it was a large bar with every liquor you could want. He saw me looking at it and snatched a bottle like a child grabs candy.

"You want a drink?" He widened his eyes.

"No thanks" I said. He forced a smile and lowered the bottle back.

"You live here alone?" I was just trying to make conversation.

“Yes.”

He leaned back into the cabinet and told me a brief history of his life up to the moment he rang my buzzer. He came to New York with his wife to study. She died soon after arriving and he married again. His second wife left him. They had no children and now he lives alone. He showed no bitterness towards his second wife and I could tell how much he loved his first by his face when he spoke of her. He was a software engineer but lost his job many years ago. Now he worked in wallpaper.

"You design wallpaper patterns?" I asked.

"No, I hang wallpaper."

I looked around his apartment and its bare painted walls. "You don't have any wallpaper in here."

"I know" he said with that dismissive shrug again. The silence started again as we both stared at the walls.  

“I gotta get back.” I started moving towards the door.

"What have you got planned tonight?"

"My girlfriend is visiting her mother so I'm gonna sit in and have a quiet night. I need to catch up on some stuff anyway."

"You sure you don't want to have a drink here?"

"Thanks anyway but I really should be getting back."

I made my way to the door. He followed me out to the corridor.

"You should call the landlord," I said.

"I will if it happens again,” he replied. “It’s not really that bad"

“No, it isn’t I guess.”

I was making my way up the stairs when he called after me.

"Do you like fishing? I go fishing.”

I made a face, I did not.

"I like eating fish.” I smiled.

He nodded and returned to his apartment and I returned to mine.  

Both of us spent the night drinking alone for entirely different reasons.

- April 2008

Note:

* New York Shots are those small moments that happen while living in New York. They're so small that they are rarely mentioned yet take up considerable space in various notebooks I carry around with me at any given time. This blog was started as a writing exercise and I thought this would be a nice way to write shorter snippets of life in NYC. They won't always be interesting but I don't want them forgotten either. 

New York Shots #5

A Tough Room

I was terrified. I rested my head against the wooden door that separated me from a room full of people howling with laughter at the worst jokes I had ever heard. I was up next.

I had been unofficially "passed" at the comedy club a few weeks earlier. After failing an audition they called me back anyway and gave me paid spots every Wednesday night. The crowds were light and any heckling was good natured. One evening I got a call to do the late Friday night spot. I agreed. Simply being asked to perform was reward enough, but a weekend late show? Absolutely.

When I got there I noticed that I was the only white comic on the bill. I had learned that being Irish had rendered me neutral in such affairs but I then noticed that I was still the only white guy among the entire crowd waiting to enter. The host was a polite skinny comic with wild hair. He seemed confused that I was on the bill and said he would put me up first. Something wasn’t right so I hit the bar and immediately began double fisting Indian Pale Ales, as they have the highest alcohol content and tend to render even the toughest gigs smooth as a sad Lincoln car ride home.

When the MC hit the stage he morphed into an furious street thug and screamed up into a microphone that he held upside down just above his face.

Where my Puerto Ricans at? A small table clapped. Oh yeah, there you are! Hey ladies watch your handbags and cover yo’ assholes! Boom! The room erupted. Dominicans were next. What kind of show was this? Why was I booked? I thought of my set and how whimsical and nice it all was. Maybe I should write more edgy material or perhaps I should just check the shows i’m booked on in future. Christ, i’m opening with a bit about my Irish mother. I’m so fucked.

To my growing horror I listened to the MC talk at length about a recent event that had happened in New York in which a black man was pulled over driving home by two white cops and shot over fifty times because he reached for his driver’s license too quickly. The room vibrated with anger, and oddly enough, laughter. I seriously thought of running away. Every time the MC acted out the gruesome killing, more people slapped their hands on the tables and shouted out with incredulity.  

“The first comic tonight is a real good friend of mine” he said as he fumbled for a piece of paper before turning it around in his hands a few times. Please welcome to the stage...Mr Collins Dempsey.

As I walked to the stage through the crowd I got an applause so loud I presumed it was sarcastic. Grabbing the microphone I looked into the crowd and was met with a mix of confused, disinterested and genuinely concerned facial expressions. I started into my material immediately.

Three minutes in and barely getting a chuckle someone shouted out, “Hey, do you work for UPS?” I looked down and realized I was wearing a brown shirt, brown trousers and brown shoes. My lack of fashion sense often means I leave the apartment in a less than aesthetic coordination of color, but this was a major oversight. I did indeed look like I worked for UPS. The crowd erupted for the first time and I turned to address the heckler only to see her texting. 

A large man sitting in front of the stage shouted out something I couldn’t understand. I turned to address the new heckler by asking his name. “Flip” he said. All I could do was ask the obvious “Why are you called Flip?”. “Oh you know, because I like to F to the L to the I to the P,” he responded. 

This sounded more like subway directions than an answer. 

He continued talking but his accent was so strong I couldn’t understand a word of it. As I tried to have a conversation with him in order to mine some jokes, a table at the back of the room began talking amongst themselves. This is the worst. Another stream of heckles came from Flip but the more I tried to hit him with a comeback the more I realized I had no fucking idea what the hell he was talking about.

Normally you get the crowd on your side in order to shut the heckler up. Unfortunately, in this case, I learned he had brought the crowd. In just a few short minutes I had lost the whole room except for three girls in the front row who grimaced through it all, wanting me to do well.  

I tried to move on to other material but it was all story-based jokes with no real zingers. I struggled to remember my earlier stuff that had actual jokes but it seemed pointless. After an attempt at recalling a funny anecdote at a recent concert of The Shins, someone in the crowd cried out “Will somebody please bounce this motherfucker from the stage!” The room cheered. The MC appeared at the side of the room as my lifetime of fifteen minutes was up.

As I walked out through the crowd, Flip called me over in a manner that told me I had no choice. He squeezed my hand and pulled me close, “You passed the test, you’re an American now. Well done bro, you’re alright”. I thanked him and left confused for the stairs. Outside the room I heard the MC explain to the crowd that it was my first time on that particular show and that I deserved a round of applause. He could have shit on me but didn’t, and I got the applause.

My embarrassment exploded to new levels when I remembered that the show was being shown live in the lounge upstairs on giant flat screen TVs, a lounge I had to go through to leave the building. I tip-toed to the top of the stairs and peaked around the corner. The manager and other performers had their backs to me at the bar. There was no way I was going to collect my $20 and when I was sure they weren’t looking I ran out the door to the street outside. I made my way to the subway and tried to evaluate what had just happened all the way home.

It was late when I got back to the apartment, I opened the fridge and found my roommate’s bottle of vodka. I poured myself a stiff drink, crashed on the couch and turned on the TV. Comedy Central came on and a comedienne was shouting at an audience similar to the one I had just died in front of. It was a lot of noise about nothing. She seemed as disconnected from them as I had been, but she was winning. She was awful, the absolute worst. In a strange way it made me feel a whole lot better.  

- June 2009

Note:
* New York Shots are those small moments that happen while living in New York. They're so small that they are rarely mentioned yet take up considerable space in various notebooks I carry around with me at any given time. This blog was started as a writing exercise and I thought this would be a nice way to write shorter snippets of life in NYC. They won't always be interesting but I don't want them forgotten either. 

Rejection Letter

I promised myself that this weekend I would clean the apartment, more specifically the "Computer Room" which is a small room that we keep the computer in. It's unofficially my room as it's filled with guitars, mics, amps and stacks of half written scripts, song lyrics and short stories in boxes. In fact, I'm writing this blog entry sitting at the computer right now. During the upheaval I found DVDs of early stand up shows, old band demos and even the first professional recording of songs I wrote in a band I played in back in Dublin.  

I also found a letter.

I left home when I was 25 and my first stop was New York. I arrived on January 4th 2002, to a city that was still trying to come to terms with September 11th. I worked for a small construction company and saved every dollar I could for an upcoming back packing trip I had planned with friends in three months time. While I was in New York I decided to send a copy of my E.P. to every record company I could. I pulled out the phone book and each morning, or lunch break, or late evening I would call them to confirm addresses and contact names before writing a letter and placing it with the CD for mailing. Every single person I spoke to told me they would not accept unsolicited music packages. I needed a lawyer or some type of representation. I said I understood and sent the package anyway hoping at least one would get through. 

One lunchtime I lied my way passed the reception desk and got to someone somewhere inside EMI. She gave me the same speech as the others, but I pleaded with her that she at least give me her information just so she could hear it and then throw it in the trash if she wanted. There was silence before she changed the subject and told me that I reminded her of her husband. I asked if he played in a band, he didn't, he was Irish too. We chatted for about 20 minutes about everything except music. To be honest, she seemed to enjoy being distracted from her corporate job. Our conversation ended with her giving me her information and suggested I mail the CD to her directly. She promised me nothing except that she would place it on the desk of someone who would listen to it, that was all. And that was good enough for me. I sent the package that day in the late mail.

A week went by, then a month and then three. I quite my job and returned home. After six days I left home again and spent the next year backpacking around the globe. When I arrived back in New York I stayed with my old roommate as I had the year before. As I was unpacking he handed me a letter and told me that it had arrived a few months after I had left. It was from EMI. I opened it, it was a rejection letter. It was the only letter I had got back from the many record companies I had submitted too. I couldn't top smiling at it, even though I knew I should have been disappointed. She done exactly what she promised me she would. How often do people actually do that?           

5 Bar Crawl: Lucy's Bar

5 Bar Crawl

Out of the blue and for no reason at all other than it would give me the opportunity to see more of the city I love and live in, and also to have an excuse to drink more alcohol I decided to do a bar review. No ordinary bar review. I planned to pick five of New York's worst bars, go to each of them and review them at my own leisure. How did I define worst? I didn't.  I simply wanted to visit bars that are any of the following:

1) Bars I've never been to before.

2) Dives.

3) Unsafe or have an element of danger.

4) Unusual / Unclean and/or unfriendly.

5) In some way interesting. 

Bar #3: Lucy's Bar

No chain-smoking bike riding dogs allowed

Lucy's Bar

This bar was chosen at random. Sean and I were heading to another dive bar in the Lower East Side when we stumbled across this place at 135 Avenue A (between 9th & St. Marks Place). We took a peek inside and found it to be delightfully empty. The bartender was an elderly woman from Poland who turned out to be Lucy herself. As the only patrons we got served with particular attention. 

The bar itself had a natural charm that can only be found in an ever shrinking number of genuine dive bars in the city. Beers were served with a smile, conversation was easy and Lucy herself selected several songs to get the jukebox going. The setup was typical, bar to one side, cafeteria tables and chairs to the other, a Jukebox, Deer Hunter and two pool tables at the back. I fell in love with this place as soon as I entered. We were her first customers but the crowds that followed only added to the laid back atmosphere. Being surrounded by magnet knucklehead bars meant that Lucy's reaped the reward of that filter. This was a bar for locals only.  

I like to review these dive bars with Sean because he is a total nerd, which I can relate to being one myself...kinda (I like Star Trek & Zombies but I have had full sexual intercourse with a woman). Nerds never run out of stuff to talk about and as a matter of fact Sean never shuts up. During this bar review he droned on and on about how many drinks he had at my recent wedding. 

Nine drinks

Sean is a great deterrent for people who might want to talk with us due to him looking like a cross between a clown without make-up and a baby dressed up like a grown man. This means that I can do my bar reviews undisturbed by fellow patrons. He is also a budding musician* and released an album of original heartfelt cowboy songs called "Waiting For A Dream". If you wanna hear the sound of a grown man crying without shedding tears this is the album for you.

Available on iTunes

The first single is called "She Sent Me A Text" which is a true story about Sean getting a text from a girl he liked. Nothing ever happened. My favorite track on the album is "Since you left me you're not around anymore" because it's the shortest.  

Heartbreaking

The wood paneling, low ceiling and dim lights make for a cozy atmosphere. This made beating Sean twice at pool to win the "all time world's best pool player in the universe ever, forever" all that more intimate. I could almost feel his pain.    

Pool Table/Sean's Table O' Shame

The bar when people turned up

I made this shot. 

Sean in shock at my superior pool playing

The real test of any dive bar is the condition of the toilets. If your genitals are the cleanest thing in there, than it's a real dive bar.  I paid them a visit. Unlike Stillwater on 4th street which looks and feels like a dive bar but has immaculate toilets, Lucy's was well and truly a real dive bar.

My new headshot.

I don't even know what this is.

I seen the light

Le Toilet 

Double the horror with a mirror. 

The Pissing Scenery

Toilet Humor

The exterior facade of the bar has an inviting quality. Neon lights and the red glow from the bar lights inside should attract even the most stubborn alco-moth.

Lucy's

Someone can't sleep in the apartments above.

Outside is cab heavy, no problem hailing. 

After Lucy's I wanted to check out a local open mic known for its Artstars and eclectic performers. These type of shows are also fading as The Lower East Side (and Williamsburg) slowly loses its alternate art scene to the outer Burroughs of Bushwick, Ridgewood, Astoria and South Bronx. Upon arriving we seen a woman wearing nothing but a trench coat mime Madonna songs and talk about her kidnapped son. Sean spotted a middle-aged man waiting to perform wearing only a G-String. I will never forgive him for pointing that out. Once you see something like that you can't un-see it.

On a trip to the restroom I got cornered by a giant who was downing beers in a cubicle alone. He told me his life tales of crime, drunken debauchery, violence and his attempts at being a writer when not providing security at local dive bars and performance spaces. I asked for his name but he refused to tell me. I pushed him on it in case I would ever see him again but he was reluctant. Eventually he relented and said he performed under the name 'Gerber'.

Has anyone seen this woman's son?

After an hour of some unique and entertaining performances, Sean and I decided to leave. I made a pit stop for the restroom and thankfully the giant was gone. Washing my hands I noticed something about the manufacturer of the urinals.

Gerber

Nice. Maybe the Lower East Side still has a little mystery left in it yet.

CONCLUSION:

Opens daily from 6pm-4am. Cash bar only. Pool tables work. The jukebox has a good classic rock selection. Lucy pours her drinks heavy. Regulars bar, no meatheads. Close to the L Train. Bursting with charm. Pretty good beer selection. The bar has been used for many film shoots and their posters line the walls - find out which ones yourself by paying this little gem a visit.

* I lost a game of bowling and had to promote Sean's album on my blog. I'm sorry to anyone who bought it before reading this. I feel your pain.  

New York Shots #4

Two nights was all I needed. I’d take my laptop and head upstate alone to the smallest town I could find and dissolve myself in it. I had a romantic notion that in isolation I would finally finish that short story or other loose end I was lost and tangled in. The train trip was long but the walk to the hotel was short. The main street was both the good and bad part of town. Everything looked haunted.

I dropped my bag off at the hotel and spent a few hours walking around the outskirts of town. I always gravitate to these places as they’re the most interesting, the graveyards being my favourite. Always empty, even on weekends and it’s the only place to find guaranteed stillness no matter where you are in New York. I watched the distinctness of the gravestone styles fade as they got younger. Some were so old that I could only read them by tracing the worn letters with my fingers.

Here lies a man who died making this country, here lies a man who fought his brother for a better one, here lies a man who fought foreigners who tried to take it from him, here lies a man who fought in a war, here lies a man who was rich, here lies a man who had a family, here lies a man who owned a store that looked like every other, and here lies a man who once existed.

I tried writing in a coffee shop but the staff and fellow patrons were trying too hard to be a hipster cafe. I stocked up on booze and returned to the hotel. I set in for the night with my laptop and got to work. After a few hours of writing the booze kicked in and I decided to do what I love most and reached for my guitar. I’ve always mixed up the importance between the two. I learned to write but I found music. The last thing I remember was sitting on the porch with my guitar drinking beer beside a candle watching the house lights of the street slowly fade out.     

I spent the following day staring at deer staring back at me confused from within various abandoned buildings. The kitchen of a house, a gas station forecourt or a train station storage shed. I had rented a bike and ventured further from the town in a bid to burn off my hangover. I found a disused railway line that once connected the town to a river port. It was lined with several abandoned buildings from more prosperous times. As I cycled past each of them I tried to imagine the people that once lived there.

I should have been writing but I had the sun on my face. I was too damn happy cycling through webs of light, down small tree-lined back roads. I was as far from people as you can possibly be in New York.

Later that afternoon I found an old bar near where the railway line cut the corner of the town. Inside was dark, long and narrow with a covered pool table at the back. The bar itself was small, overstocked and tended by a middle aged woman too large to function in it but she did. Her actions as she served the three barflies were as mechanical as a submariner under attack. I bought a beer and listened in on the locals. A tall thin man walked in and scanned the bar. His black hair was combed back by manic hands, his wild eyes never blinked and his mouth hung permanently open. He let out a squawk, and then another. The locals ignored him but the bartender stared at him in curious silence. He squawked again before I recognised the sound, early morning crows. He continued trying to communicate like this before he stormed out frustrated. Nobody mentioned what had just happened. Unusual, that a man would try and order a beer speaking as a crow and nobody even comments on it. Two barflies staggered out into the evening and left just me and an elderly man who had been quiet since I had arrived, lost in his own thoughts fumbling at a notebook. The bartender started a conversation and we spoke about nothing for half an hour before I decided to leave.

It was dark so I made my way to the lights of the main street and hit a place I’d seen earlier. Inside was an old bookstore that doubled as a bar at night. A band was was setting up so I decided to stay. On a shelf near the back I seen a book on hunting with a deer on it’s cover staring back at me.   

After my second beer I looked up and saw The Crow Man at the end of the bar, he let out a squawk and the bartender poured him a drink as if fluent in his language. He smiled to himself, licked his lips and sat waiting for the band. A short time later he squawked again and the bartender brought him another beer. He smiled at a few locals and they smiled back.

The band started up and were beyond terrible. An incoherent mash of inconsistent rhythm and disconnected melodies cut through my beer buzz and left me feeling nothing but anxious. Their family and friends cheered them on but their growing confidence brought no repair to the broken ensemble. I had one more beer but it didn’t help. The Crow Man was loving it while the staff and barflies tried to talk amongst themselves against the onslaught. In between songs the silence was stolen by squawks of approval and beer requests.   

I left early so I could catch the liquor store before closing. When I returned to the hotel I sat on the porch and wrote about nothing in particular in silence with beer. One by one all the houses turned off their lights again and the stars burst into full bloom. What a strange little town.        

Waiting for the train home the next morning gave me the time to conclude that these breaks from the city were not as productive as I had romanced.

When the train entered the city I felt the comfort of distraction. Buildings sang with people, crowds heaved like music on platforms and cars shifted light around in the darkness. I love living in a city. The last three days were the adventure I wanted, and yet, again I was glad to be home. Sometimes you get what you want and it just doesn’t feel right.     

Emerging from the train station it began to rain. I waited in a long faceless line for a cab home and thought of the silence of the graveyard and it’s sunlight. I thought of what it must be like to have all you were carved in stone, weathered by storms and read by strangers’ fingertips.

- June 2010

Note:
* New York Shots are those small moments that happen while living in New York. They're so small that they are rarely mentioned yet take up considerable space in various notebooks I carry around with me at any given time. This blog was started as a writing exercise and I thought this would be a nice way to write shorter snippets of life in NYC. They won't always be interesting but I don't want them forgotten either.  

New Song

I love making these electronic noodles. I wrote this and a few others for Marisa's blog. I look forward to seeing how she uses them.  

New York Shots #3

"Drawbridge Over The Manasquan River" Sue T. Oliver (edited)

The bridge was midway, that I knew. I had done this late night walk from the beach bar to the house where I was staying a few times before. Now I was lost. This particular night I was sober, even with a belly full of booze. Bad company will to that to you. I noticed everything and knew nothing. I could not rely on my fail-safe drunken autopilot in this condition, I had to really think about this. As I walked down the other side of the bridge into the darkness I called my friend for directions. He didn’t answer so I left a message. At the bottom of the bridge I passed a bored looking girl calmly smoking outside a chaotic house party. Hey, she said, are you Irish? I hung up immediately upon seeing her. I heard your accent, she said. We chatted for a few minutes about how she was Italian but grew up in an Irish neighborhood in The Bronx. We talked, exchanged some Irish slang we both knew and laughed enough for her to invite me into the chaos behind her.

The back lawn had several tables on which people played beer pong, leaned drunkenly on, or both. At the far corner near the water was a beer keg and that was it. It was mostly all guys. Big tanned muscled Italian guidos with waxed eyebrows and tattoos of their grandmothers. Of the few girls I had seen, it was clear that I had been invited in by the most beautiful one. They all hated me. I knew this from the simple observation of how they stared at me in silence when I spoke. One guy with a crooked grimace and perfectly bleached hair never took his beady brown eyes off me.

The more we talked the more we laughed, you know how it goes. My head was spinning after only one beer. Good company will do that to you. I don’t know what I said but she laughed so hard that an angry guido ran inside the house and reappeared back on the porch with a Fender Stratocaster and Peavey amp. He was awful but he strutted about like a bronzed chicken for her attention anyway. What madness was this? She seemed completely oblivious to the growing guido tension.  

She offered to get me a refill and took my cup. As she walked towards the keg, beady brown eyes turned his face to his friend’s ear beside me and said without breaking eye contact with me.

If that motherfucker drops that Irish accent for a second, i’m going to end him!

That was enough for me. I was drunk now and suddenly I remembered where I had to be. I left without saying goodbye and I never saw her again.  

- June 2003


Note:
* New York Shots are those small moments that happen while living in New York. They're so small that they are rarely mentioned yet take up considerable space in various notebooks I carry around with me at any given time. This blog was started as a writing exercise and I thought this would be a nice way to write shorter snippets of life in NYC. They won't always be interesting but I don't want them forgotten either.