TOURING THE EAST COAST

Day 1 of my New York/New Brunswick tour is well in effect. I have not yet learned to sit next to strangers on the subway. I have purchased a subway card for 30 days. I have been approached by two people at different occasions concerning my flowery stockings, they both thought they were tattoos. I met Cory, who knew who I was when I told someone else my last name (I was signing in at the orientation session, I don't usually give people my last name out of the blue). I met some fellow students and New School faculty and received an awesome New School bag with paper and information in it. I am currently sitting in Starbucks at Union Square stealing their intarwebs without buying anything. I have the PIN I need to register for class. I have three appointments to view apartments. I didn't immediately find the shoes I've been drooling over online in the right size at the actual store, but I was in too big of a rush to ask anyone. I have yet to see any celebrities or squirrels. It feels great and surreal and amazing and dreamy. I am here. I live here.

I ♥ NY

You can stand under my umbrella-ella-ella-eh-eh-eh. You're welcome.

I'm back from New York. It was aamaaazingly, fantastically awesome. It sort of felt like I never left, with everything being exactly as I remembered it. Almost everything. The Virgin Megastore on Union Square is gone, the little Mexican place near our old subway stop is gone. And so on. Generally my old 'hood was a lot more "cool" now, but that's what happens when prices go upppp everywhere. I saw some of The New School buildings and I absolutely love that neighborhood, right next to Union Square which is one of my favorite squares in Manhattan. I got a tiny tattoo. I met Kine. The weather was wonderful my last couple of days there, so we hung out in parks a lot. I have hhhhot new shoes that are so high-heeled I can't walk in them. We saw street dancers asking for dollars as opposed to change like Obama on subway stations. We ate dinner next to Larry David at Balthazar, walked past Ben Whishaw and his boyfriend in West Village, took the same subway car as Tim Gunn downtown. We saw rats, squirrels, pigeons. We went to a comedy show and was placed on the first row and messed with a lot because we're Norwegians. We ate bagels, pretzels, cheese cake, burgers, gigantic milkshakes (at the Seinfeld café), M&M's with peanut butter. I sat next to some kind of therapist on Starbucks and she was having a phone session with a client right next to me. He apparently had some anxiety and argued a lot with his mother, but it seemed like he finally had gotten somewhere to live and a job.

Only in New York, folks.