those were the reasons, that was New York

Now, there is Leonard Cohen's "Chelsea Hotel" and dim lights and melting snow and it's spring, already, I think.
(p.s. "all men shall be sailors until the sea frees them")
The city is grand and all nooks and crannies and full of people who are so inspiring and shall never know it. There is the man who works two jobs for his five kids and who sleeps an hour and a half many nights but is so happy and shows me around the thrift shop where he works and points out all his favorite orange shirts and says, "don't I have a great job? I get to sing and dance all day long and nobody tells me to stop." When I leave, I wave goodbye and doubt I'll ever see him again. How is it possible that so many people sift through our lives, indent it, but fade to a speck on the horizon of memory?
I want to write honestly, truthfully, with force, but does anyone do this anymore? I distrust blogs, their faux-realism, their bluntness with no point. What will I be like at 80? At 27 (27?!), I already miss paper, its mustiness, its imperfections. The screen - it doesn't bend or yellow or crinkle with age.
I have too much to say and never know where to begin and so I skim only the surface. So, here it is, the surface: I am reading Lush Life by Richard Price and am loving it so far. I sometimes love my job but wonder if I am not meant to have a little cottage in Alaska/Maine/Montana and grow my own vegetables and grow old in silent moonlight.
In these months, here in New York City, I have wandered around Chinese fish markets, eaten honeydew near gutters, watched the lights of Manhattan appear, slowly, from my window in Queens. Alley cats fight outside my apartment and everything in this city can be so mean and so forgiving all at once. A homeless man holds the door for me and I want to cry.