Last December, I visited Australia for the first time to realize what it meant to be immersed in an obsessed coffee culture. Although I grew up with a dad who is a complete coffee fanatic, I had no idea how pathetic overall quality coffee accessibility was here. Everywhere we went in Australia, I never saw a single person pour milk from a carton into their coffee – steamed milk only! Australians do not just drink coffee for the caffeine and morning jolt; they are drinking it because it’s supposed to taste good and be prepared well. Yet if you are in New York, sadly if you want this, you will probably need to wait in a line of at least 15-25 people at any given time of the day at Stumptown or Blue Bottle. Oh, and you will also be labeled a “hipster.”

Tonight, we went to see Sans Merci, a play about a lesbian woman who gets brutally injured in Colombia, who finally meets the mother of her college lover, who died in the same attack three years before. The mother does not approve of her now dead daughter’s relationship, yet she says expresses that “love is the intersection of two poetries,” yet each person’s poetry is a different type of madness, so when those poetries collide, they create intense passion, protectiveness, and rage. If this is truly the case, does that mean that if your love survives, that you then have achieved the most ultimate form of poetry, and thus total madness in your life?

In the almost four years that I have been at my company, there have been constant changes. We’ve had five different CEOs, mass structural changes, and plenty of turnover to the point that I am now considered one of the “OGs” of the company. Most people who have started after me have already left. Whenever someone is “out of office” for an “appointment,” everyone immediately thinks that s/he is interviewing. I have been made fun of for that for the last three years (e.g. “So how was your interview – er, I mean, doctor’s appointment?”). It’s an obvious sign that company morale is terrible when everyone just anticipates that everyone else is on their way out.

Today, I received my first Birchbox in the mail with deluxe samples of new beauty products. I love skincare, and I especially love gifts in the mail. However, while going through samples, I thought about how excessive these once-a-month boxes could be, especially since I may not enjoy or even want to use so many samples. The product that annoyed me a bit claimed that your skin isn’t the only part of you that needs anti-aging help; your hair needs it, too! It seems like overkill in my book. Sooner or later, we will “need” to start applying anti-wrinkle treatments to our nails and nose hairs.

I decided that I would change my workout routines and begin going in the morning. I thought that if I took the train earlier in the morning at 6:15, it would be less crowded. Unlucky me, this was not really the case. And while commuting to work at 8:50am last week, pre-morning workouts, was crowded, one thing it never had been was loud. For some reason, the people on the trains at 6:15am feel that it is okay to talk louder and have everyone listen to their life stories. Initially, I thought that a fight was happening, but it was just a regular conversation. Just a regular morning on the 6 train.

It’s strange to leave the house at 6:15am on a Monday morning and see how quiet it is in a place as bustling as Manhattan. When I got out at Herald Square for my early morning workout, it stunned me how deserted it was. For the first time, I noticed the plaque on the sidewalk in front of the sixth avenue entrance, noting that this is the original Macy’s. I even looked up and noticed the surrounding architecture for the first time. Being there this morning was almost surreal, as though I wasn’t even in the real New York – at least, not the New York that I know.

For four years, I had to deal with constant subway construction, train alternatives, and delays while commuting between Elmhurst, Queens and Manhattan. The weekends were always frustrating, especially when I would come back from a weekend out of town, because I always had to anticipate subway construction, which would result in trains being re-routed and ultimately not running often at all. Now that I live on the Upper East Side, even when there are skipped stops or subway construction, the wait has never, ever been as long as it was when I lived in Queens. It’s another major reason living in an outer borough frankly just stinks.

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.