Yet Another New York Love Letter

"I read somewhere that 50% of people in the U.S. have a fantasy about living in New York City."

My friend said this as we were sitting in Central Park, listening to Alicia Keys at a completely free festival that also included the likes of Kings of Leon and Stevie Wonder, among others.

I have no idea if what she said is true, but I do know that I'd believe it if it was. It was in response to something I was thinking aloud, along the lines of, "What do people who don't live here DO with their time?"

It's naive, I get it. Most people don't live here and the vast majority of them probably don't lose sleep at night wishing they were New Yorkers. But even after all the time I've spent here I still sometimes look around in child-like amazement thinking, "I live in the greatest fucking city on earth."

It's not even that living in New York is some kind of utopian dream. We pay too much money for tiny living spaces, the air reeks of garbage in the summer, our transit system is often messed up to the point of being incomprehensible to even seasoned subway riders, and anyone who has ever tried online dating here will have a bevy of stories for you about the weirdos just waiting to send you a creepy or flat out bat shit crazy message (this is nowhere near the worst I've encountered).

What really continues to impress me, time after time, is the sheer number and diversity of stuff that goes on here. I mean, I got to spend a gorgeous Saturday in an iconic park listening to iconic musicians all for the price of zero dollars. A few weeks ago I dressed up in all white and had a flashmob-esque impromptu fancy dinner in Bryant Park with 4,000 other people thanks to Diner en Blanc.

Brie is my friend.

On Saturday night, my friend and I trekked from Brooklyn to Queens to go to an art show, which, as we found out when we arrived, featured a dark room with two men spray painted silver from head to toe, standing on turntables rotating slowly around in circles while an artist occasionally draped ribbons around them and there was a soundtrack of a woman, performing live, wailing and breathing heavily. I can't make this up.

The whole art show was pretty awful. It was so bizarre that it almost seemed out of a sitcom, a parody of what people think life in New York is like except that it's real. Shit here is sometimes extremely weird. Sure, we managed to turn a disappointing night into a fun one by grabbing some well-made cocktails at a speakeasy nearby, but it doesn't change the fact that we both traveled really far for something we really didn't like.

This is part of the appeal of this crazy city, to me. Sometimes you get to spend your Friday lunch break at a swanky ass club dancing to a Major Lazer DJ set, and sometimes you get silver, ribbon-clad turntable men. Sometimes you go to a warehouse party with a 30 foot inflatable slide, and sometimes you wait in line for over an hour for what you think is a party but ends up kind of being a job fair that, by the way, you can't even get into. For every online dating weirdo who thinks its appropriate to turn his webcam on and dance around with no pants on, there's a friend you met during an overnight scavenger hunt at the New York Public Library. The disappointments are still often great stories, and for every disappointment there's some other equally exciting or fun thing that makes you feel like all the bullshit is worthwhile. That's the amazing part.

I never know what a day in New York is going to hold. This place is totally unpredictable, but I don't think I'd have it any other way.