New York City is extraordinary. I should have figured, long before I started to write this entry (with cold Thai noodles in a plastic take-out plate on my lap, by the by), how hard it would be to invent new words and ways to explain a city that has been hyper-explained already by an impossible number of authors, essayists, actors, songwriters, people on the street, people on Taxi Cab Confessions, etc. 

So I won't explain the city at all. Surriously. Instead, I'll (try to) explain my life inside it, which started out as lonely as ever and then got better, and which has taught me (cliche cliche cliche, who gives a shit) a handful of important lessons about life, my character, the character of others and how wildly special it is to belong to a little tribe of people with hearts as big as something very, very big.

And I won't focus on the lonely-as-ever city that started to consume me in the first weeks of July either, although that city also smothered me with heat, especially underground, especially as the days passed and the walls and the ceilings of the subway apparently accumulated sunlight and mugginess like a currency and then vanquished commuters. (I'm getting better at the subway.) Instead, I'll focus on the city I'm starting to see behind the city I saw at first. 

So far, I've checked out:

- The Brooklyn Bridge (I live right near it)

- all the super tall buildings that everyone else comes to look at, too

- a lot of gorgeous cityscapes set over the water 

- DUMBO, which is also nearby, and which I lava

- Murakami at The Brooklyn Museum (I'd like him better if he didn't pretend to be an artist with integrity who makes profound statements about other artists with less integrity, and erred on the side of businessman-who-is-exceptionally-good-at-art)

- a lot of other things

So far, I've eaten: 

- a lot of pizza

- a lot of hotdogs

- a lot of pad thai

Otherwise, I'm chugging along, on the hunt still for a part-time job, or at least an internship to fill my Tuesday-through-Friday. I'm waiting to hear back on a couple of applications, and I hope I get to make an excited blog post within the next few days that says "AHHHHHHH," or something like that. 

At WNYC, I've been loving every minute, all my co-workers, all our musical (and non-musical) guests and the opportunities that have arisen for me to help out behind-the-scenes. I played a big part in writing the second half of today's show, featuring Dan Zanes, who stopped by with his wonderful Band of the Moment to play a couple of tracks from Nueva York!, his latest kids record, full of traditional Spanish songs re-imagined through rock-and-roll. They sounded A+. 

I also got to listen to Sarah Rodman, the Globe's pop music critic, get scientific about ABBA on the first half of the show. She and I used to work together, which made for a happy reunion on the phone when I called her to prep for the segment. 

Anywho, I just wanted to swing by and say, I'm alive in New York, I will be posting more frequently (and with more substance - this entry is lame, sorry), and I will start to fill you in more and more about the radio.

<3