I love Queens. Maybe it’s because I spent my first four years in New York living there, but I have a lot of Queens pride. I love the fact that you can find the most authentic ethnic food in New York in Queens, whether it is five different Chinese cuisines, Thai, Greek, Colombian, etc., and simultaneously pay little for it. I love the unique ethnic neighborhoods, the random shopping centers, and even the Wendy’s where Coming to America was filmed. Brooklyn may have all the trendy neighborhoods like Williamsburg, but Queens retains its authenticity. Maybe having lived there gives me “street cred,” 🙂 especially since I didn’t live in Astoria or Long Island City, which are considered “acceptable” areas to live in by Manhattanites.

One of the best things about living in New York is the incredible access we get to live theater and performances, and I’m not just talking about Broadway — off-Broadway, off-off Broadway, underground theater in unknown basements in the Lower East Side. Can’t afford Broadway? That’s okay, because you can see live theater for as little as $10-15 if you know where to look. You name it, and New York has it. Budding actors and playwrights can get their start at these smaller theaters. Yet I’ve always wondered where one draws the line between creating actual “art” and just creating something incredibly depressing or nonsensical that should then as a result of that be viewed as “art” or “creativity.”

Yesterday, my coworker showed me photos from the house that his parents bought as their retirement home. This sprawling four-bedroom, five-bath house in Arizona was going to cost them in the ballpark range of $550,000. As I marveled over the photos of the gorgeous interior as well as the grounds, I joked out loud that this same dollar amount couldn’t even get us a  one-bedroom condo in Manhattan. In New York City, unless you are living way out in an outer borough, you pay a premium for small square footage. Some “bedrooms” here would literally be considered closets in another city, yet they’d go for three to five times the rent. Choosing to live here means a compromise in space and value to the extreme.

Girls are mean. I thought that if I attended a women’s college like Wellesley, it may force me to reexamine how I view other women, and maybe I could then have a more positive attitude toward them. This did not happen. If anything, I left thinking that women are just out to tear each other down because when one woman succeeds, it is at the expense of another. I experienced the fiercest competition I’d ever seen, and left thinking even more that I just get along with men better. In New York, I have met similar competitive women, even during job interviews, where it seems as though when I am answering questions, they feel threatened by me. Why does it need to be this way, or is it just me…?

As the popular saying goes, New York is the city that never sleeps. It’s also the city that never shuts up. Wherever you go at whatever time, there always seems to be noise in multiple forms – people talking and laughing, a train passing underneath you, cars and buses honking (this is also the only city where I have seen signs that read “$250 Fine for Honking”). Over time, I’ve gotten used to all the different sounds and the lack of quiet and learned to block certain things out. To enjoy and ultimately survive New York life, I think this learning is almost a necessity.

It’s common to hear that most who live in a city don’t really do many of the “touristy” activities that visitors will do. I am guilty of a number of these: in San Francisco, i still have not visited Alcatraz. Here in New York, I still haven’t been to the top of the Empire State Building, having favored taking guests to the Top of the Rock, and I still have not been to the Statue of Liberty. Like other locals, I detest Times Square and avoid it like the plague, and I take pride when tourists ask me for directions because it’s almost like a badge of pride that, yes, I do live here.

For the first time ever in my five years in New York, I actually saw someone in Spanish Harlem today carrying a bag of potting soil. This woman was apparently going to bring it home to grow plants this spring. If you really love growing fruit, vegetables, or flowers, this city really isn’t going to be the place for you unless you are so lucky to have access to a yard, or a sunny window (also definitely not a guarantee in this city; natural light in an apartment is highly coveted and in low supply), and if you have those things, they probably won’t be in Manhattan.

That statement, along with, “There aren’t many Mexicans in New York,” seem to be things people just enjoy saying about New York.  For those who have actually explored New York outside of Manhattan (because believe it or not, “New York City” actually consists of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island, in addition to Manhattan), they will know that there are big neighborhoods, primarily Corona in Queens and 5th Avenue in Brooklyn, where you can find huge Mexican populations, and along with them, really authentic Mexican food, like Tortilleria Nixtamal and Tacqueria Coatzingo.

Tonight, we went to see the off-Broadway play called ANN: An Affectionate Portrayal of Ann Richards. While I was not aware that Ann Richards was the second female governor of Texas before reading the synopsis of the play, I really enjoyed it. Crass, potty-mouthed, and completely not politically correct, it was really refreshing to hear someone who was so brutally honest. I know that is hard to down in our society, especially in cities like New York, where you are harpooned if you do not go out of your way to not offend people, but sometimes you really just need to hear life the way it is without the PC bullshit.

A year ago, I lived in a spacious apartment in Queens where hosting guests was a no-brainer: if I had two guests, they could sleep on the fold-out futon in the living room, or if I even had three guests, the third could sleep on the air mattress in the dining room, and I’d still have my bed (and room!) to myself. Now that I live in Manhattan, space-wise I am not so lucky. If guests sleep in our bed, we share our futon in the lounge room, but since the lounge room is basically the only other room in the apartment other than the bedroom, we officially now have no free floor space. Oh, the joys of living the life in Manhattan when hosting.