The Good Stuff

The big, fat, pillowy, good stuff is still around in my life, in case anyone was having doubts. First off, the responses have filled me with the courage to go on talking about myself and working out my experiences. Thank you. But then of course there are nights like last night when, despite a jerk or two, I had a bunch of nice people over who cooperated with my weekly potluck. I've been trying to pull off a weekly potluck in my apartment since the first week I moved in. It's sort of a continuation of a delicious event we got to have at the precious angel Allison's house. She was our mother who took us into her kitchen and everyone loved to be there. I couldn't dream of being this to other people, especially a motley crew of friends and acquaintances from all over new York city. But I wanted to provide a place for people to eat real food, to share with each other, to force themselves to cook something, to meet new people that they might like to be around, etc. At first it was like pulling teeth and it still sort of is. But when I moved the night from Friday to Sunday I started to see more takers. Last night, it wasn't just me making the food. In fact, all I made was vegan cornbread and a boiled artichoke with dip. There was carrot soup, vegetarian chili, a chile casserole, curry chickpeas and rice, hummus and pita, an avocado salad, and several varieties of bottled beer. I was so excited to see such a lovely assortment and so many hungry mouths eating. The cornbread wasn't my best but everyone praised it none the less. That was a pillowy night despite being made fun of for my taste in music, which hurt my feelings an unnecessary amount. Evidently I had been living in a bubble in which I thought that an adult would not be judged for his/her music taste. It's been a long time since high school.

There are nights here that could not have taken place in any city but New York that have made all of the loneliness worth it. It is all worth it because of those lovely encounters with total strangers, those times crossing paths with familiar faces from across the earth, staying awake for this sunset here that I have never had the point of view to experience before, standing on the rooftop and drinking it all in as if you yourself owned it, boarding a train for the long ride home and having a partner to fall asleep on, witnessing earth-shattering performances by the earth's heroes, falling down the stairs because you were awoken from the blackest sleep and because you aren't used to heels, kissing someone that you live with in new York city and feeling like you're on the biggest adventure yet with the person you love. These are all things that have happened to me here... funny and delicious and scarring in a good way.

P.S. I am changing the look of my blog to feel it out and to see if it makes Sam Goldsmith's eyes stop hurting.