Above: My Snapchat video from earlier featuring "We Will Rock You" blasting away down 1st Avenue - all day and night the sounds of cars driving past, horns honking, people yelling, and the river rushing are prevelent. A world away from the quiet creek of Swisshome, Oregon!
I was going to write about my experience going to 29Rooms last night, but because it has a lot to do with my general thoughts on art (and I'm tired today), I'd rather just give a quick update about being in New York.
Woke up this morning feeling a little blue and a lot exhausted so I decided to stay in today. I was going to adventure to the East Village, but decided against it so that I could conserve my energy and try to get on East Coast time. I definitely know I'm jetlagged, since I keep waking up at awkward times and I still don't feel internally like 18:00 is truly 18:00 (it's more like 15:00). To try and counter this, despite staying out late yesterday, I tried to still wake up at my normal time today (9:00 EST/6:00 EST) which I did - although I stayed in bed until after 10:00 EST (a true lazy day). In the spirit of staying in the apartment all day, I decided to straighten up my room, re-organize all my storage, and put up some glow-in-the-dark stars on my bedroom wall (yes, they are in fact left over from my senior thesis premiere).
Contemplating last night art's scene may wait for tomorrow (or another day - huge shout out to my friend Jeff for getting me in - absolutely amazing), but the feelings of loneliness it inspired were definitely felt today.
Going to the show without any of my friends (especially Manar and Annaliese since I knew the event was something they would both love) was really hard. I tried to mingle, get a few pictures, and enjoy myself, but honestly being an observer at the event was not as fun without a friend to share it with. Luckily by the end of the night I got to talk with Jeff about the show, but being by myself got old pretty fast (although I did score a business card before the night was out).
I knew the fact that I don't know anyone in the city was going to be tough, but I forgot HOW tough it really is. In a lot of ways, I feel like I'm back in my first year of college again. For instance, my new roommate is very lovely, but she's never had a roommate before - so it really is like freshman year, (except we share an apartment rather than a single room). Additionally, I have an unprecedented amount of freedom and free time that I've never had before. It's odd. I thought college gave you a large amount of freedom, but truly post-graduation is the ultimate freedom. Aside from finding a way to pay my bills on time and having a good spiritual life I am not truly required to do anything - no classes I have to worry about or tests to study for. It's extremely odd. Not to mention the sense of isolation I feel simply exacerbates the overwhelming sense of freedom I have.
Granted, I wanted to experience isolation (to an extent) a la Bowie, who put himself into a lot of isolated/isolating situations for his art. However, the awkwardness I feel when trying to meet new people and try new things is a bit overwhelming - it's as daunting (if not more so) than the first time I went to Torrientation and I didn't know a single person. The difference, however, is that everyone here seems to know each other to a certain extent while I obviously do not (again, it was extremely lovely to see a familiar face last night in Jeff - especially since the circumstances for how it came about were unexpected!). So I honestly can't wait for Sunday when I go a church-hunting to try to get me some of that good ol'fashioned com-un-i-ty.
Although I am also content with taking things one day at a time (since this is my first true time "off" since my freshman year of high school between school and working part-time jobs). So tomorrow I plan on going back to the East Village, go shopping, and working on writing something longer and more extensive for both my blog and script (not to mention start applying for jobs once again). And the band played on...
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