Feel Good Hit of the Winter

I don't want to tell anyone that I feel guilty when I just go to work and go to the gym. Even though i'm in a city where people say "wow" when I call them, I turn away from the big events more and more and just throw my life to fate, which means that I do the same thing every day and evening, just waiting for a suicidal dog to hit me from the 14th floor of a classic apartment building. Even while I wait for my message from above, though, I always feel like I have to take advantage of New York's live entertainment, no less than 2 times a week.

The weekends, though, demand a bit more action in life. At least one day out of the week I need to get rid of a little pile of one-liners, observations, self-deprecations, and news that one could only get by reading the paper. I've even found some people polite enough to stand there and wait for me to finish unloading this. Truthfully, we have real conversations and real laughs. But I can't help but notice the lightness in my heels after having battled against bar music and rock concerts alike to keep the conversation starters going.

It helps, in finding activities outside of the category of instant fun (wine, women, and people who say, "you're funny!"), to look for free activities. So, at the Austrian Cultural Forum this week I saw some Mahler songs for free. They'll keep the program going and, in spite of my dateless status, I'll keep going to their program.

Saturday, after the weekly rounds of shopping and laundry, was anything and everything on music. There was a silly, terrible fiddlest in the first train station; in the next station and then on the train itself were drummers. In the bars full of pretty women I sought out one guy with wild pierced ears and we talked about music all night until we made it to a concert where I met someone from the radio station in Kansas. It turns out that my old Kansas friend was not the only one of us in New York: I then met another Kansan who, at his best, engineered albums and produced his own music. Next week, a Kansan comes up to work at a major-indie label, and another is back in Kansas saving money to come back here and continue his music career. Still another Kansan in the New York area works at a hip-hop magazine and manages bands. I'm no longer worried about New York's future: enough Kansans will make this place tolerable and genius filled, helping these poor New Yorkers out of their general rut.

posted by Wellsmus @ 8:30 PM