The mythology surrounding New York City, for the most part, is as true as it is compelling. Neurosis is common and endearing. 20-somethings live sitcom-esque lives. Concrete jungle where dreams are made. If you can make it here you can make it anywhere.
Disclaimer: Inspired by Josh Gondelman. As such, these would all make terrible tourism slogans.
Always talk about being Greek. Make sure that everyone you encounter knows, unequivocally, that you are Greek. Refer everything you do to how Greek you are. If you feel like you’re talking about being Greek too much, you’re not—talk more. If you talk about being Greek enough, your friends will probably give you a neat Greek nickname, like GKG (Greek Kat George).
There’s something magical about musical collaborations—rather than just being plain old “excited” about your favorite artist releasing a new album or single, you get to be “double”, “triple” or “super” excited to see two or more of your favorite artists performing together (remember how you felt the first time you heard “All About You”?).
And then—we were speeding through the thick Athens early morning humidity. Syntagma, Plaka and Monastiraki all became blurs and lines as the round circles of traffic lights morphed into long lines fading into one another like rainbows, and my hair whipped across my face, stinging my eyes and choking my open mouth.
It hurt because you didn’t really seem to care. You moved on so easily. Almost instantly, you found someone else to take to dinner, someone else to get too drunk with, someone else to hold in your naked arms in the sweaty early morning hours. I hate that the rotation was so easy for you; that you so effortlessly flicked me off your life and replaced me with someone you obviously deemed ‘better.’
There are countless options as to what might happen next, but the key is to maintain flippancy. Think of Flippancy as your new best friend. OH HAI, FLIPPANCY, LUV U FROM WHEN YOU HELPED ME GET THAT DIRTBAG! Hopefully the next time you see Dirtbag he or she will ply you with some kind of alcoholic shot—the moment Dirtbag buys you a shot is the moment you know you’re going to touch Dirtbag’s genitals.
Let’s imagine that I’m Kat schumuck-McClane-throbbing-member-Greek-Australian-Brooklynite George but that for some inexplicable reason all this is incredibly interesting, more interesting than keeping up with the Kardashians even, and Quentin Tarantino, or Spielberg-Lucas or Disney decides that the story of my life would murder the box office and so they decide to make a movie.
My panic still hadn’t subsided as he showed me how to rest the gun, just so, between my collar bone and armpit (“that’s to stop the kickback”), how to load the bullet (“pull the underside back like this, but don’t catch your skin”), where to aim (“look through this little hole here, the sight’s off a little to the right so try to adjust yourself”), and how to pull the trigger…
Would he look the same? Did I look the same? How much does someone change in 5 years? Even if he did look the same, I would be looking at him with different eyes—he wouldn’t be the same. I was 21 when I was crazy about him. And I was an innocent, naive 21.