I'm back, baby!

I love internet so much it consumes me. And though I love my little Blackberry storm because it enables me to not only look up all the stuff I don't know, but also to use my phone like a little GPS finder to locate the right subway, it just doesn't match the pure unadulterated joy of full screen, full access surf-mania. Ahhhhhh...

BROOKLYN! Like all the major changes in my life, of which there have been many, I was approaching the move to New York as if it were going to be some huge horrible thing where the second I got here, I was going to be apartment-less, followed by being tortured and robbed.

So, yeah... freaking loving New York City. The food is so good and the band schedule line ups so copious that I may never leave. I have a sweet pad and roommate (SGU!) in Park Slope, I'm surrounded by ethnic food, Italian ice, and organic grocery stores, and I live staggering-home-drunk distance from the subway, which weirdly, manages *not* to pass under my apartment and vibrate my walls.

In the slightly-more-than-a-week time, I've managed to do SO much stuff. Daniel and his Zipcar(tm) got me to and from Ikea so I could put my bedroom together without trying to cram 400 lbs worth of furniture onto a subway. The food here is SOOO good. Tonight it was cheap/trendy Thai food. Yesterday, it was home cooked turkey burritos courtesy of a collection from Trader Joe's. Thanks to Lori, it was Vietnamese food and french chocolates. It was organic veggies saturated with some sort of heaven-sent vinegarette. It's Mexican chili tea and iced coffee and microwavable naan, and and and. And wine. Lots of it. Good and varied.

Coupled with walks through Grand Central Station, Central Park, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the East Village, and thanks to Lori, base of the Brooklyn Bridge, across the Brooklyn Bridge, city hall, courthouse, Ground Zero, Chinatown, Little Italy, Soho, Noho, Nolita, Union Square and mojitos and more. With guided history. And with Daniel, Times Square, Union Square again with bonus capoiera, the food carts that won the "Vendy" awards, Gramercy Park, the closing Virgin Megastore where I got the Tori Amos album and a cloth messenger bag for 35 bucks, Greenwich Village.

Not including the grand tour of Park Slope I gave myself simply by strolling around aimlessly while I did my freaking laundry. Used bookstores, parks, churches, old houses.

And the guy threatening to slit a cabbie's throat, and a woman smacking a car for cutting off a pregnant woman trying to cross the street. A thousand "give me money" subway announcements. An improv doo wop band on the M train that actually did manage to get some money because they made me smile. Cellists and guitar players and dobroists wherever they feel like setting up. Secret service-like men in black guarding the Armani store from the poor people. BBQs and border collies and old friends in Jersey. Sin City and Zinfindel.

And that whole med student thing. I started my psych rotation, and randomly got assigned to the most acute of the psych wards that they'd actually let medical students into, but the staff are incredibly chill, and the patients fascinating. I get a triple transfer hour long commute to get there, but that gives me plenty of time to catch up on my HP Lovecraft when I'm not perfecting my thousand yard subway stare.

Freaking... Love... It.