But Back to Me

December 27, 2011

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Cab ride home from airport after 10 days in Orlando with Claudina

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August 25, 2011

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In Boston, June 3

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Sitting by the water outside the hotel, thinking about Claudina.

April 30, 2011, in Chelsea

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Sunday, March 20, in Chelsea

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East Village, circa 2003

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Early Tuesday morning, at home

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1993

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Found this photo today. Took it about eight months after I moved to Manhattan, with my godmother's point-and-shoot, using the self-timer. I was living in a studio sublet with separate kitchen on West 15th Street. Roaches in the kitchen—in the mini-fridge and everywhere else—and in the bathroom, even in the shower. I took this photo in the main living space, putting on a big enthusiastic smile like I was having the best time ever. Truth is, I was and I wasn't. That's how it sometimes is when you're starting a new life.

Museum of Modern Art, January 19, 2011

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Milady's, January 15.

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Greenwich Street, January 10, 2011

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Cab ride home from La Guardia

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After Christmas week in Orlando. And the blizzard.

Photo booth, One if by Land, Barrow Street

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Sunday night

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October 21, 2010, in Chelsea

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Cab ride home, after Orlando, Oct. 13, 2010

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Orlando, October 12, 2010

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After a week of visiting her in the hospital.

West Village, September 30, 2010.

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My Chelsea rooftop, August 1, 2010

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Orlando, July 16, 2010

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In the front room at my grandparents' last night, after they went to bed, each of them in separate rooms now. Her door closed. His open. It's the sad new reality here.

Temple Bar Redux, June 2010

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At Temple Bar, June 2010…

And at Temple Bar seven years ago…

Massachusetts, April 2010

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Tribeca, April 20, 2010

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Near Debrosses and Greenwich.

In a cab heading east, March 31, 2010.

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Phoenicia, New York. March 31, 2010.

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Think I'm done now

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I think this is going to be my last But Back to Me post. It's hard to believe that in April, I'll have lived here for 17 years. I still find the city extraordinary, but I am no longer overwhelmed by it, at least not most days. I now prefer to take photos of New York, usually in its details, rather than of myself in it or figuring out what being here means to me and who I am.

I'll end with two photos: one taken in November 1993 by my godmother, on the stoop of a three-month sublet I had on 15th Street between 7th and 8th avenues. We had just finished loading the few things I had (a futon I'd bought, a coffee table and small TV she'd loaned me, some clothes, a tiny dresser) into her car, and I asked her to take a picture of me.

And here's one 16 years later, almost to the day:

It's a self-portrait at Coney Island on Thanksgiving Day, 2009. It was a few days after a big turning point in my life. I'm excited to see what comes next and where it takes me.

At home, in Chelsea, after the day.

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Custom Hotel, L.A., Friday, Nov. 13

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3 more days

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Opaque morning, Noho, September 9, 2009

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Hudson River, dusk, August 27, 2009

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Greenwich Village

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At my sublet. Sunday, July 26, 2009. Dusk, after a long, hard rain.

Red Hook, Friday evening, June 26, 2009

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Brooklyn, May 15, 2009

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6th Avenue and Houston, Saturday afternoon, Feb. 21, 2009

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A clear, sunny day. I stopped to sit on a bench where just a couple of weeks ago I overheard two elderly locals conversing. "So what do you think about all these fancy shops on Bleecker Street?" one said to the other.

Today, the passersby consisted of smiling tourists and arm-in-arm couples. Inside the park, two small boys in T-shirts struggled to toss a basketball all the way up into the hoop, and hockey players on rollerblades had turned a pair of green steel trashcans on their side to use as goals.

I was thinking about a lot of things, none of which I could really do anything about.

Last 18 days in New York: Feb. 10, 2009

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I'm moving out of the city at the end of the month. Got laid off two weeks ago. Going to stay with a friend in California till I find a job. Not sure this job, when I find it, will be in New York; New York is nothing but layoffs these days. My landlord is showing my apartment, trying to find a new tenant for March 1. I only just moved in here, to the West Village, at the beginning of December. Still, the apartment I can get over. New York is a different story. New York, for me, has been so many stories over the past 16 years. I will miss it.

Riverside Park, January 19, 2009

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Marie's Crisis, Dec. 14, 2008

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M. and I tried to go here Friday night after seeing the show Liza's at the Palace. It was nearly 11, and the place was packed. Checking your coat was required, because there was no way to fit another jacketed body into the space. We demurred and went home. But I was thinking about Marie's tonight, and so I went by early this evening. There was a middle-aged woman at the bar drinking vodka sodas. She was wearing a Christmas sweater and glasses that looked like they came from LensCrafter. Judging only by appearances, she seemed like someone who should be with her husband in a cozy apartment somewhere, maybe on the Upper East Side. But here she was, hoping to make a connection with someone in the empty bar, where the bartender -- who was burly and small and wore a red cotton Yankees cap -- was girding himself for a double shift. He declined when, at 7 pm, she offered to buy him a drink. Told her he had 9 hours to go and couldn't start drinking so early. The pianist said yes, though. Had a vodka soda -- "Just like me, though I'm not sure what that says," the woman murmured, as she excitedly approached the bar and opened her wallet, happy to have a purpose. "You heard, you heard," she told the bartender, who had been reading a thick book and was probably not paying attention to her conversation with the piano player. "Two vodka sodas."

A young guy who works in theater struck up a conversation with me. He was keen to recommend August, Osage County. That song with the lyrics "Ding, ding, ding went the trolley/Clang, clang, clang went the bell" was being played, and though he told me how indifferent he was to Liza (whose mom made the song famous), he sang along at the bar, in the corner where he sat, near the wrinkled stack of papers constituting the Sunday Times. I encouraged him to go sit by the piano and sing. He begged off, but then ordered another drink vodka cranberry and ambled over. A jovial young group had just entered the bar and were prepared to sing, and he was going to join them. Was nice to see. That's what that place is -- all kinds of people, all coming to sing along to the piano. All of them wistful for their own individual people and places and achievements from their past.

Tudor City, November 21, 2008

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Goodbye, Sunset Park!

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On the bridge, in the car (Arecibo car service), on my way to my new apartment in the city. Three and a half months as a Sunset Park resident was enough for me.

Last night of my Manhattan vacation

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Brooklyn, month 3: This is not how I thought it would be

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Ciao, Manhattan

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I took this photo right before the movers and I made one of the last trips out of my East Village apartment. I had been ambivalent about leaving Manhattan right up to the last moments, especially because I had recently learned that my new Brooklyn apartment was not in fact 10 feet wide, as estimated in the previous post, but an ultra-slim 8 feet. What, I wondered, was I getting myself into, or out of?

3:19 a.m., East Village, February 2008

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Strictly speaking, this is not a self-portrait, but it does represent my state of mind this particular morning. I woke up at 3:19, having put a deposit the night before on an apartment in the so-called "South Slope" (translation: Sunset Park). I suppose I was anxious, though not unhappy. The new apartment is a floor-through that's strangely slim -- maybe 10 feet wide -- but it's fresh and clean, and there's a little backyard that I can use when I please. And it's cheap. I think I'll like it there. But the move, the change -- relocating to Brooklyn after 15 years in Manhattan -- that was on my mind, even as I slept. And so I woke up suddenly and just walked around my apartment. I've always liked the view onto the courtyard. The bare winter tree limbs like black veins in the sky, the lights that seem to burn in amber and green in my neighbors' windows. So I took some photos to remember it at its most still. And then I returned to bed.

Rialto, NYC, Dec. 1, 2007

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Downstairs at Rialto, a warmly lit favorite restaurant in Nolita. I took a pause from my 40th-birthday celebration with dear friends. The light makes me look waxen.

East Village, November 10, 2007

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Things I did with my day: the laundry, worked out, sent email to ex who professes fondness for me and seeks my company but is able to do so only on her terms. Substance of my email: Things cannot go on this way. Response I got back: none.

Alternate title for this posting: Is you is or is you ain't my baby?

See also: What kind of fool am I?

East Village, winter 2007

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East Village, winter 2007

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At the Viceroy, Palm Springs, June 2007

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The coldest spring, April 27, 2007, East Village

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My apartment; a cold, cold night; East Village, December 2006

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The bathroom at Temple Bar, NoHo, NYC, 2003

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In the foyer of my apartment on 2nd Avenue, NYC, 2003

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Umbria, Italy, in 2003

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Umbria, Italy, in 2003

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On vacation at a beautiful old farmhouse in Umbria, Italy, in 2003

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At my apartment on Watts Street, NYC, 2002

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At E and G's house, Houston, 2000

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At E and G's house, Houston, 2000

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At L's apartment on MacDougal Street, NYC, 2000

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At my apartment on Stanton Street, NYC, 1999

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At my apartment on East 8th Street, NYC, 1999

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At my apartment on East 8th Street, NYC, 1998

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At my apartment on East 8th Street, NYC, 1998

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At my apartment in Hell's Kitchen, NYC, 1997

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At Nez's apartment in London, 1997

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At my apartment in Hell's Kitchen, NYC, 1997

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At my apartment in Hell's Kitchen, NYC, 1995

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Staying at my cousin's house, Culebra, Puerto Rico, 1994

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El San Juan Hotel part 3, Puerto Rico, 1994

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El San Juan Hotel part 2, Puerto Rico, 1994

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El San Juan Hotel, Puerto Rico, 1994

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