I Heart NY

No matter where in the world you live, apartment hunting is a pain. It is only in a few select cities however, that your hard earned money (and that of your parents) becomes no object. Manhattan is a competitive city for rentals. The market is cutthroat, the paperwork a nightmare. When you find a neighborhood you love though, you remember why the city holds the magic it does. I've always felt that way about the West Village. From the time I was 13 through today I knew it was the place I'd felt most at home. Today, I watched my sister (and roommate) experience it for the first time. It was her "aha!" moment. The city revealed its best and greatest magic to her. From the beautiful brownstones, to the cobblestones, and the Vespas zipping down the street. It really is one of the few places in Manhattan proper where you get the sense of a small European-feeling community. Unfortunately everyone knows my secret, and is prepared to pay top dollar to experience it. Suddenly your top number gets pushed to the limit. You see places to rest your head, but not your soul. The village has its charm, but the apartments you can afford are far from charming. It's frustrating to witness such a centralized location of wealth, and see that you are just a spit in the ocean. "Humbling" does not even begin to describe it. Door-to-door we knocked, Super-to-Super we talked, freezing in 15-degree weather. Where do you draw the line on what you love and the price you are willing to pay for it? Our hearts our big, our wallets are small, but our minds are set. Wish us luck.

Virile Equinox

VIRILE: Having or showing masculine spirit, strength, vigor, or power.

I belong to a fancy gym. The kind where they advertise spa benefits just as much as they do the benefits of working out. Tonight I ran next to a former actor. Well, I can't say ran because I was simply walking fast, and he wasn't exactly next to me, he was lifting weights across the room from my treadmill, and I'm not sure if he's a former actor, but after his series ended, I don't believe he appeared on anything else. You get the picture.

So he's lifting weights the size of downtown hipsters and I'm walking like suburban moms power walk at the mall. I casually watched him check out his toned muscles in the mirror, and I wondered what he was thinking. Did he think the muscles would help him win that role, win back his wife--who has conveniently filled the "nnifer" role in another man's life--or was he just in it for the vanity, the virility, whatever you want to call it? He certainly wasn't doing it to stay fit. He took too many breaks for that. He lifted, spotted someone, grabbed a bottle of water at the juice bar, came back up, checked out CNN, spotted another guy, lifted, disappeared for ten more minutes, watched some more TV...you get the picture. He didn't want to be notice by strangers, but he definitely wanted to notice his biceps in every mirror of the gym. Gay men don't waste as much time at the gym checking each other out as this guy was checking himself out.

I finally tore myself away from his pretty-boy shtick long enough to look around to see who else was checking him check himself out. Two women next to me were fighting over the results of an inane reality show and didn't even notice him. The guy on the bike next to me kept sneaking furtive glances at "biceps" trying to figure out who he was. The spotting partner just kept rolling his eyes. I checked out "biceps" one more time. His arms glistening with sweat (or water, since he wasn't doing enough work to warrant actual sweat). "I am man," those biceps called out to us, "see me curl."