This entry will focus on three aspects of art in New York city.
1. I have started taking art classes – something I’ve always wanted to do, but never got around to
2. John and I visited MoMA on Friday
3. The red wall…

1. I have always thought of myself as an ‘artsy’ person, but have never felt equipped to express myself fully through drawing or painting on canvas. So, on Wednesday night I hit a mini ‘I’ve lost my mojo’ moment and decided that the only way to get out of a bad cycle is to get into a good one. So, on Thursday night I trekked all the way to the Upper West side (we live central East) and joined an art group. Every Thursday for the next 10 weeks, I’ll have 90 minutes of creative expression. As with everything else in this city, these classes are costing me half an arm and both legs, but I’ve decided that my mental sanity is worth just that! As an addition to the class, I had a shopping list of basic art supplies, including basic acrylic paints, brushes, charcoal sticks, sketching pads and canvasses) which I had to purchase yesterday from this HUGE 5-storey art shop. I felt like a chameleon on a Smartie box with the amount of choice. Was fun. Now all I need is an esel, a baret and a french accent. Oui, oui!

2. On Friday after work John and I went to ‘Free Friday Nights’ at MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) and were amazed at the wide variety of art that falls under ‘modern’ art. From Picasso and Monet to a 2×2 meters canvas painted just, uhm, plain blue – all called art… The museum is huge – 5 storeys with little nooks and crannies, stuffed to the brim with every type of art imaginable. My favourite (ha!) was a 3x3metres tiled area in the middle of this huge room with a security guard posted to make sure no one walks over this piece of ART. I mean, plain dark grey slat-stone tiles laid down on top of the wooden floors. Not even any grout in between? I’m just sorry I didn’t do that and call it art first. Might have made a difference to my bank balance…
This wall is about 3-storeys high and at least 8 metres wide, and this (aparently well-known) satirist from Italy is busy writing his thoughts on it. Fascinating and HUGE.x

3. The red wall
We were going to paint the wall behind our bed bright red (so the bedroom would be red, white and black – very stark!) and after we decided that red was indeed the colour of aggression and fire, not just passion, the red wall was relocated to the living area. So we went shopping at Home Dept (aka Lesboville) and got Ralph Lauren (nogal!) paint. I did the borders, and John filled in the middle with the roller. Layer 4 is currently drying. I’ll be sure to post pictures once we’re done.

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This is how you know you’re living the American dream. Your balcony is about 3 x 2 meters big (and you’re proud because it’s huge!) and you have a fake lawn laid out on it. Yes ladies and gents…fake lawn.

John and I went shopping at Home Depot (aka Lesboville) on Saturday and spotted this prized home-builders’ must-have item (ON SPECIAL nogal) instant fake lawn. It’s relatively soft to the touch, doesn’t require any mowing and gives the home a more, uhm, homey feel. Now let’s just get one thing straight. This is not something I would ever have bought for any house I lived in before New York. But when you’re living 27storeys up in the air and there’s not much other than concrete and man-made stuff around you, a little fake grass goes a loooooong way.

Best fake grass moment yet was when the wind started blowing on Sunday and John said, ‘Oops there goes our lawn’ while it went flapping around in the wind, held down only by my latest project – two balcony flower beds with some yellow flower bulbs which I planted on Saturday. (Praying it will start growing…)

Introducing our new friends:

Utterly lovely Annie and Sam and the adorable Justin

The infamous and gorgeous Bree and Will

The gayest straight man in New York, Digs and here-for-a-night-from-Sweden Roya

If you feel like I’ve been neglecting my blog I have to apologise immediately. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, wiping a tear of sadness off her cheek. ‘It’s just…I’ve got a new online addiction…I feel…used by it.’ WHAT? you think? An addiction more addictive than her personal Sue And the City blog? ‘It’s called Facebook.’

And addictive it is! I have gotten in contact with people I had long since forgotten, we have shared photos, laughed, written naughty things on each other’s walls and formed successful (and non-successful) social groups. It’s the best thing since mail went online. I swear!

But the main reason for this mention of my new addiction is to let you know that I’m sure it’s temporary. I mean, it has to be – else I’ll be permanently sucked into the claws of technology and end up spending the rest of my life floating around in an electronic bubble. If you don’t believe the severity of this addiction – go see for yourself.

www.facebook.com.

But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

John treated me to a lovely dinner at Haru, a Japanese restaurant, last night. It’s a New York instituation that you receive a glass of tap water when you sit down for dinner – and this is whether you’re sitting down at a cheap diner or at a world-renowned Japanese restaurant. Fabulous tradition as I think we should all drink more. (Water, that is.) Dinner was exquisite – we shared a main portion of Chicken Teriyake and had about 20 rolls of sushi, with a great bottle of Chilean wine.

It’s quite different to not have any incling of wine brands, or any brands for that matter. We went to a wine shop to buy some stock the other day and the only South African wines were brands that I really had never seen before – and they were SO expensive. I just don’t think I could justify paying USD50 for a bottle of unknown SA wine, so we ended up with a white from California and a red from Aussie-land. Both were utterly delicious, making me think that there may be life after the Franschhoek winelands!

I went to the deli down the road the other evening to buy margarine. Now you’d think that would be an easy-enough task. Right? Uh-huh. The choice is overwhelming. Butter that tastes like butter, but is not butter, so you simply can’t believe it’s not butter competes with low fat, no fat, full fat, half fat, natural fat (as opposed to?), plant fat, milk fat…you get my drift? It’s utterly confusing, if you ask me. I ended up with the ‘Tastes like butter, I simply can’t believe it’s not butter’ option, by the way.

We have arranged a mini house-warming soiree for our new friends at home this evening. I’ll be sure to take some pics and introduce them to you soonest.

New York is a smell sensation and someone with a finely tuned sense of smell is constantly accosted with a wide variety – ranging from the bitter sweet to the downright foul. I thought I’d share some of the scents that regularly attach themselves to the molecules of air I inhale on my missions out to play.

The most notable smell is that of the giant pretzels being grilled on every second streetcorner in this city. Right next to it, hangs the smell of barbecued skewers or hotdogs, alternating with the sweet smell of sugary nuts – choice of almonds, cashews or peanuts (and they’re yum!). Those who’ve been to any big city in Europe or here will be able to attest to the fact that you’ll find a Starbucks on literally every second corner. From the open doors of this popular coffee-in-a-hurry, wafts the smell of freshly roasted (i.e. fresh from the vacuum-packed!) beans. Walk past any of the popular delis that line the streets, and you’ll smell freshly baked bagels or roasting meats.

Due to the high level of human traffic on the streets here, you obviously encounter the very many (often gross) smell that is man. Expensive aftershave, cheap perfume, freshly showered, never showered, straight from gym, straight from bed, straight from the pit…anything goes. I find myself sometimes involuntarily holding my breath from fear of catching bird flu. I’m not the only one, though. You often see eastern visitors walking around with hospital masks or those dust-masks you can buy at a hardware store. I was a bit weary of the dirty air, but my asthma has almost cleared up completely, so I don’t think the air is all bad here!

Back to smells, though, and one that will always remind me of the time spent working in Debenhams in London in 1997 – and one I smelt on Monday evening when I went window shopping at Macy’s – is what accosts you when you walk into the perfume department of these huge stores. I love it. For about 10 minutes – that stuff is serious headache prototype!

Another smell is the dirty smell of the subway stations. Initially I didn’t want to take the subway for exactly that reason. It smells just too dirty. I guess eventually you learn to ignore it for the convenience of speed-travel by train. Every street has these airvents that come up (from the trainstations, I guess?) and the steam that rises from there has a certain damp smell to it. Not my favourite.

The other thing that people don’t realise about New Yorkers is the amount of dogs that live here. There are puppy playgroups where you can drop your pooch off for the day and collect again after work. These dogs are happy dogs. Naturally I won’t know how many unhappy dogs there are in New York, ’cause I guess those are the ones that never leave their homes. The dog-school pooches are happy ones and they get little snackies and the occassional doggie-bath too. Whenever I walk past the doggie school on my way to and from work, I get the smell of doggie shampoo. Another aspect of having dogs in the city is that they like lifting their legs against every lamppost. So you’ll often see a bright yellow stream running into the street – and know it’s not human, cause for humans to do it is against the law! Naturally, pooches also have the occassional urge to dump a number 2 on us…These are usually taken care of by the owner and disposed off in the nearest garbage bin – also not the freshest smelling spot.

These are a couple. Seeing as how I just got home from the first Muay Thai session in about 2 months, I desperatly need a shower as I now smell too. And it’s not a sweet one!

My John returned from his travels last night and arrived (a weary traveler) just after 1am. It’s so good to have him home. Now, life is 100% good again.

After my disappointing seamstress-hunting on Friday, I decided that I did not need any old Chinese woman telling me that she would charge me ridiculous amounts of dollars to sew my cushion covers. It’s taken me the better part of the day, but…

Ta-dah!:

Sewed by hand (with a now-cramping thumb and what will definitely be a blister on my forefinger tomorrow), I am happy to say that my standard 4 sewing lessons finally came in handy.

Because I promised some more pics of the house, here’s the kitchen wall – Marmite clock compliments of Gavin (as a farewell gift).

Also happy to report that my friend-searching efforts are starting to pay off. Had wine and dinner with Nicola (thanks Anina!) last night, and spent the better part of today speaking Afrikaans (!!!) with Annie (Sara, you biscuit). Tomorrow night I have dinner planned with Justin (another score for Sara, who is fast becoming my SA-based social manager, it seems) and then John’s back on Tuesday night. All in all his being away for a week has not been that bad at all.

Saturday was beautiful out (except for the fact that I had to go to Ikea AGAIN – don’t talk to me about it, it hurts!) and there was a slight feeling of Spring in the air. When I came back from dinner, the radio broadcast in the cab announced that a huge storm was heading for New York. Walking into the lift in our building, notices had been put up, asking all tenants to move their patio furniture inside (lucky our patio is still very bare) and shut all windows. True’s Bob, at 1am the storm started. Howling winds, thunder & lightning and rain, rain and more rain. Horrible weather, expected to last til Tuesday. Oh boy, walking around town tomorrow is going to be such fun!

We bought beautiful (almost-African) fabric that I plan to make cushion covers for to go on the couch – a nice little touch in the big décor process. We got yards and meters confused, though, so when I thought 3 meters would be plenty, we bought 3 yards and now have so much fabric that I think it may be overkill!

So anyway, I thought that it would be nice to have the cushion covers made while John’s away so that it would be finished and gorgeous by the time he came back. On every street corner in New York, you will find a laundry service, most of whom also offer the services of an in-house tailor. I figured it would be easy (and cheap!) enough if I cut the sizes of the square cushion covers and ask the tailor at the laundry service next to our building to quickly sew it up – drop it off in the morning, pick it up that same evening. Done. Easy, right? No. Not at all.

I waded into the dry cleaners this morning, nose just managing to peep over the two feather-filled (ikea) cushions and 3yards of fabric I was ready to offer the tailor. (BTW – most of these laundry services are run by Chinese people, so naturally, most of the tailors are Chinese.) The tailor looked at me and said, “You vont eh zip in zees two?”. I nodded yes and asked how much it would cost, keeping in mind that we’d already spent $6 per cushion, and $7 per yard of fabric. (My (I thought generous) budget for both, was $10). She dropped her oversized glasses onto the tip of her nose, squinted her eyes and scowled at me: “Fah joe, special prais…You geev me fotti dolla”. I gasped and said, 14 dollars? “Noh, you geev me fotti dolla”. With that, I turned on my (snow-ruined leather boots) heel and said, over my shoulder naturally, “In that case, I’ll just sew it by hand!” and stomped out.

Does anyone know of a cheap tailor, or a free sewing machine in New York?

Let me introduce you to my new colleagues. I’m doing 2-week unpaid internship at a South African friend’s PR agency. As you can see, their office is a highly stimulating, very entertaining place of business where we laugh a lot, make such funny jokes, really all get along well and often hang out together – just because.

This card was made for the president of the company (an ex SAcan) and it was so exciting to pose for this. Can you see how happy we all look? I mean, I really think this was one of the funnest tasks ever.

And this one time, at bandcamp…(whatever!)

John’s on a business trip to Miami, LA, Atlanta and Texas over the next couple of days and tonight is my first night all on my own in this crazy big city! It’s a bit scary, I’ll tell you… No one to talk to when I wake up, no one to giggle with over the crazy people you see on the street, no one to cook for (or have cook for me!). It’s the little things you miss when someone’s away, isn’t it?

Lucky for me, it’s only a couple of days! And I have a couple of fun activities up my sleeve. One of these include doing minor house decorating. If all goes well, I hope to have photos up here for you by the end of the week. Now that the house guests have gone, it’s really begin to feel like home. John still has to spend some time with his new girlfriend (the plasma tv/mac mini combination) to get her working perfectly and we still have some painting and shopping (more shopping!) to do, but slowly, yet surely, I’m starting to remember in which cupboard my shoes/plates/scarves/knifes/underwear is being kept.

Just over one month into this adventure and I’m feeling a whole lot more comfortable using the subway, taxis and buses. I no longer convert every dollar I have spend into Rand (because that will just give you an ulcer), and no longer have compulsive urges to buy everything because it’s so different (lucky for us the exchange rate is so bad, otherwise the house might have looked like Barbie’s palace – I couldn’t afford the pink bed, pink couch, pink dining table and Ken’s pink dresser). It’s still terribly exciting, but I am missing my friends like crazy.

Meeting people in New York is not easy. I researched signing up for a creative writing course, but that will cost almost USD400 – that’s almost R3000. Joining one of the 30 Muay Thai gyms here is another option – easy enough, but that will cost the better part of USD170 per person per month. The expenses here are crazy (but let’s stop converting into Rand – no further ulcers required here!).

So for the time being, I’m trying to focus on being happy with my own company. Reading. Going for sightseeing walks. Listening to my Afrikaans music John hates. Watching the ugly naked guy in the apartment across the street. Basically, this girl is getting to know herself a little better, and it ain’t half bad (said in an American accent).