Self Portrait

Sex and the City

"New York, New York, it's a helluva town,
The Bronx is up and the Battery's down "

Been here for four days,and I still don't know where the plain women hang out. Seriously: there's something unusual when the ugliest crowd you see are the people at the Apple store standing in line to buy iPhones.

After work,the bars fill up with groups of well turned out women, and I feel like an extra in Sex and the City. Around my hotel, yellow cabs dispense them in threes and fours, like money from cash machines.

There are gay men around, and gay women - I'm on the edge of Chelsea and Greenwich Village. Where are the groups of straight men? In another part of town, possibly with the plain girls. Here,they're outnumbered five-to-one.

Two blondes talking with a brunette friend about the man the brunette's been seeing. She likes him, but he's married. Still, she can let him buy her dinner, can't she?

I got into a conversation with a lovely girl who recognised my accent, and told me she'd recently had her heart broken by a man from London. No, she said, she doesn't hate men. She doesn't even hate British men. She just hates him. He dumped her a few weeks ago. She has a date tonight. I wish her luck.

At my hotel, one of the receptionists is showing off a book she's had published. It's about her experiences as a self-destructive teenage punk rock fan. Or as the book calls her, a Death Rock Cutter, which sounds like a spaceship in Star Wars. Still,the book looks very arty.

I walk around the corner to Starbucks, and pass a shoe shop called Shoegasm.They don't seem to stock much for men. Another part of town. Another part of town.

"There are eight million stories in the Naked City"

New York Conversation

I was sleeping, gently napping, when I heard the phone
Who is on the other end talking, am I even home
Did you see what she did to him, did you hear what they said
Just a New York conversation, rattling in my head

Oh, my, and what shall we wear?
Oh, my, and who really cares?

Just a New York conversation, gossip all of the time
Did you hear who did what to whom, happens all the time
Who has touched and who has dabbled here in the city of shows
Openings, closings, bad repartee, everybody knows

Oh, how sad, why do we call
Oh, Im glad to hear from you all

I am calling, yes Im calling just to speak to you
For I know this night will kill me, if I cant be with you
If I cant be with you ...
LOU REED

Breakfast in America

Venue: Starbucks Coffee House
Location: Greenwich and Bank, Greenwich Village
Weather: Sunny, 85F, very humid.
Company: A businessman in a linen suit, 2 surgeons from St Vincents in their operating theatre greens, a Dash lookalike in a t-shirt that says “Dinosaur Barbeque”, sundry others.
Music: To Make You Feel My Love, Kelly Clarkson
Drink: Venti 3shot skinny latte

I no longer feel empty, numb, tense, or angry.

I am unsettled in my stomach (which used to feel rock solid and dense). I feel calm in my chest (which used to feel tight and constricted.)
I feel free to speak my mind.
I haven't got a lot to say.

I have nobody to fight. I don't want to fight. This is good.
I have nobody to love. This is not so good.
Sex and sexuality: I know who I am, and what I want. I don't want to do anything about that right now. I don't know why that is. Tick 'other'. Tick 'none of the above'.

I don't like my short-sighted eyes. My semi-blindness bothers me much more than it used to. I barely recognise this world, even though the only thing in it that's changed is me.