Never Can Say Good-Bye (Return to New York)

What can I say? I returned - after 3 years at "home" where I grew up, with 6 weeks volunteering in Vietnam, 6 months in New Haven working for Yale, a year in Huntingdon Valley outside Philadelphia living and working in a retirement community and that whole COVID lockdown (which is ongoing.)

In Sept 2022, I left my remote contact tracing job at University of Pennsylvania (and the retirement community job in August) and started a job with the New York State government for the Department of Health AIDS Institute. My first week there, I gave a presentation on the NYC water system. 

I also just began a long-distance relationship with PSG, a guy I knew from college, who lives in Philadelphia. We had lunch the day before I began my new job and it went from there.

And in Nov 2022, I picked up keys to my garden apartment in Jersey City, NJ. I can see the World Trade Center when I turn the corner on my street.

A lot of this looks like May 2004 when I moved here officially for the first time.

But make no mistake. It's way different. 

That cabbie in March 2004 wished me "Good luck in New York" and he wasn't kidding. That was a statement, not only a well wish. Nearly 20 years later and I thank that guy for saying that to me at that moment in time.

Good luck in New York.

Yes, indeed.

Goodbye to all that: Always a New Yorker, just not in the 5 boroughs anymore

It's been over 7 years, and all my cells have regenerated. I am a completely different person from the last post of May 27, 2010. I lived a little over 2 years on West 103rd Street in Manhattan, and am finishing 5 years on Skillman Street in the rapidly-gentrifying-not-for-the-better Bed-Stuy. Brooklyn. I am going back to my folks' in Ewing, NJ and will get a new job from there. When I moved here in 2004, Friends was in its final episodes. I was 30 years old and had a pet bunny named George. I was broke as fuck and had a nasty bitch of a false friend giving me garbage. I miss George. All that other shit is behind me. Sure, I found a lot of other user-losers in my nearly 14 years here, but they came and went as fickle user-losers always do. That's life. I have since founded a theatre company Always Love Lucy Theatre (www.facebook.com/alwayslovelucy) --- 4 classic productions in 3 years. I have modeled and acted and traveled (18 countries since moving here, about 15 states too, many of each are repeats.) Social media exploded during my time here, too. Blogs are obsolete. This post is pretty much for me. I doubt there is anyone reading it. But that is OK. I don't need anyone to read me anymore. I am tired, and I want peace and quiet. I don't want to deal with anymore BS from anyone -- not the unshowered rude punk-ass 22-year-old production assistants on film and TV shoots, not the billionaires and their crazy starving 3rd wives, not the 1% weirdos, no one. I never cared about celebrities, which ironically put me in contact with them a lot. It's just time to change the trajectory. I will always love New York, but New York sure doesn't love me. Ah well. That's life. That's New York. http://juliaallison.com/goodbye-to-all-that-by-joan-didion/

Ciao, Adios, Sayonara, Au Revoir, Yassou and Khodafus!

Last night, I handed back the keys to Apt 10 at 28-08 Crescent Street in Astoria. 

 (Yes -- now that I don't live there, I will let you know where it is!) 

 I had moved all the furniture out with the help of FlatRate, repainted my lovely yellow and light green walls with a coat of light-colored paint, and cleaned the whole damn place. 

I am a bit sad, there is a ton of memories, but they came from me, not the place. I made the place as great as it was, not the other way around. 

 Especially since, in all this time, the damn showerhead is STILL held up with twine! Apparently, they are going to renovate the place (they needed to about 6 years ago too, but then I went and moved in). 

Worst. Superintendent. Ever. Even before his dumb criminal wife broke in. 

I think it is only fitting that, as I leave Astoria, I end this blog. 

It captures my time in Astoria, my first NYC apartment, as I learned the ropes of the city and a whole helluva lot about my fellow human beings. 

 Did I learn EVERYTHING? Hell, NO -- and I never will. And neither will anyone else. 

But as long as we all keep on keepin' on, wherever that may be, it is all good. 

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? 

JAO -- still in MA, probably still living with his parents. I have not spoken to him since 2006. 

DRS - was engaged to be married when he asked me out. Saw him 6 months ago on the UES holding a little baby. 

JDM -- still see him around from time to time, don't really count him as a friend. 

The fabulous HB -- finished her Dr.PH at Yale, went to Oxford, then lived in CO, and recently moved to TX 

DMH - neighbor who moved back to Seattle to help care for her dad 

CSF - moved to China 5 years ago. I still talk to him from time to time. He loves it there. 

ED - don't talk to her. She left the Gotham Girls Roller Derby when she got preggy with her son, to whom she gave a terrible unisex name. 

Sancho and Dulcie, the parakeets --- Dulcie passed away and I buried her in Athens Square Park. I gave Sancho to my cousin, who released him in a park in New Jersey with several other parakeets. 

Susie and Harvey, the rabbits -- adopted them out to a nice guy in Queens, who had 2 sons who cared for 2 other rabbits. 

George the bunny - passed away in 2007. I buried his whiskers under a flowering bush at my parents' home in Ewing, NJ this past weekend. and so .... 

Ciao, Adios, Sayonara, Au Revoir, Yassou and Khodafus to Astoria and this blog. You were both great to me, but it is time to part ways. 

One last time --- Onwards and upwards! (Better than backwards and downwards.) 

Bye.

Andie MacDowell at the gym

I saw Andie McDowell at the gym. She has a very distinct look so I knew it was her. She is nice. But I was never a fan.

Great poster

OK -- so after 6 years of walking by the Second Best antiques shop on Astoria Boulevard, I saw (and bought) the greatest poster ever.

(Because, a mere 2 days before FlateRate comes to move my stuff, I really need to go and buy more stuff to move.)

But is is well worth it. It is a vintage poster from April 1976 with a picture of a big red apple and the words:

"New York: You have to be a little crazy to live here, but you'd be nuts to live anywhere else."

That pretty much says it all.

(So FUCK OFF, BOSTON! RED SOX SUCK!)

Magic at the gym!

I saw Magic Johnson at a certain gym on the UWS today! He is soooooo tall!

I accidentally stole his water bottle because I thought it belonged to my client. He was nice about it when I gave it back and apologized.

La petit rose cafe

Back in the USA now ----

There is a new cafe right by Astoria World Manor on Astoria Boulevard (2522 Astoria Blvd)!! It is cute, clean and damn good because you can get a frappe for $1.50!!!

The guy working there was Greek and looked a bit like Hank Azaria. He said he also had a bar in Santorini, Greece, and a restaurant in Panama.

He told me that "yassou" is goodbye in Greek. I taught him to say "Khodafus", which is Urdu for goodbye (or yassou).

Which is fitting that I should learn this now, because as of next week, I move out of Astoria, which has the largest Greek population outside of Greece.

I have been here 6 years, and it has been kickass, but it is time for me to move on to the next part of my life, on the Upper West Side (for now anyway).

Also, my superintendent's wife is a bitch who broke into my house, even after I helped her crappy kids with homework for so long. Seriously, why should I stay in a former tenement putting up with crap?? I ASK you?

Yassou, Astoria.

The Spitting Llama

I have found a kick-ass book exchange called the Spitting Llama! There is one in Copacabana. I traded 2 books for 1 new (to me) book. I got "Split Ends" by Rachel Barnes and read the whole thing. I also got a collection of stories printed in Seventeen magazine in the 1950s.

(BTW -- I had brought a bunch of books a neighbor had left under our mailboxes in Astoria. I read some, and brought the rest to trade.)

Back in La Paz, I found the main Spitting Llama near my hotel. I got "East of the Sun" from Julia Gregson (so good!) and "A Death in Brazil".

TheSpittingLlama.com