Today is my last official day as a Brooklyn resident.
Fourteen years ago in August, 21-year-old me moved here with no job and two thousand bucks I’d saved working back to back shifts at a record store and a Japanese restaurant in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. That year I had peddled copy after copy of that David Banner album to weird-smelling teenagers and Russians shipped in to work at Busch Gardens. When I wasn’t at Plan 9, I waitressed next door at Miyako with a born-again Christian. I don’t remember her name. We had not known each other at William and Mary, but we did share a love for Victorian literature and read Charlotte Bronte’s “Villette” together that summer. The sushi chef would ask me on lunch dates nearly every day to the Subway in the shopping center across the street. "Lady!“ he would sing, in the style of Lionel Ritchie and Kenny Rogers, every time I walked by with a tray of spicy tuna rolls.
Jay at Plan 9 bought me my entire hold box as a parting gift. He had also let me take home a life size cardboard cutout of John Mayer earlier in the year, which Stacey and I ceremoniously set on fire at our graduation party to the chant "No Room for Squares,” which was a play on his album title, “Room for Squares.” Mr. Li at Miyako gave me a going away card that read, “Send signed picture when you’re famous!”
My brother and I drove up in my old Camry, Andre. Andre had earned his name when I’d acquired him two years prior. My mom and I had registered him at the DMV in Wytheville (pronounced “Wuffle”) with an attendant who had a robotic hand. "What color is the car?“ she asked. My mother hesitated, and then said, "Champagne,” which she had read on the bottle of touch up paint in the glove compartment. The attendant looked at my mom, looked at me, and scrawled on the registration form, “TAN.” Even so, the car was named after the popular convenient store champagne, Andre.
After a two-day journey with a pit stop in Philly, my brother and I climbed to the roof of my new apartment near Greenwood Cemetery and sarcastically oohed and ahhed at the skyline. The next night, we stood on a sweltering street corner in the West Village, map of the city unfurled because this was PRE DATA PLAN GOOGLE MAPSVILLE YOU GUYS. A man reminiscent of Francis from PeeWee’s Big Adventure sneered at us and grumbled “I smell fear!” between disgusting bites of his slice.
I had to duct tape my chucks to get through the winter, but eventually, everything worked out ok. In my early days, when panhandlers can smell it on you, a man on the F train actually opened his trench coat to show me an impressive collection of pocket watches for sale. I moved apartments seven times. I performed in the first Mortified show. I went to the Double Dutch Holiday Spectacular at the Apollo every year for 12 years. I lost my razer phone at a party at Vampire Weekend’s house. I complained about trash in the snow on NY1, blew off Ethan Hawke in the taxi line at La Guardia, and bought an apartment. I served dinner to David Lee Roth!
And now I’m moving to LA to get tan and rollerblade, just like everybody else.
Miss you.
