Now I am Myself

One of the things I may NEVER get tired of living in New York is having the random well-known person spotting. It sometimes MAKES MY DAY. Yep, I am that uncool. I get a little BUZZ from it. I actually have come to believe that notable sights are a sort of GOOD LUCK omen.

I remember coming to visit Graham and us going to the International Center for Photography. I was standing in line, confused, mulling over if I could indeed move to New York to be with Graham. Graham wasn't the issue, New York was. I was literally asking myself, "Could I like it here?" when the guy in front of me, turned around after buying tickets and it was literally ONE OF MY FAVORITE PHOTOGRAPHERS, Lee Friedlander. It took my BREATH AWAY.

As if it wasn't enough of a sign, six months later, while we were in the subway, on our way to look at an apartment in Brooklyn, I was having fearful doubts. I quietly tested the universe and said, "If I'm meant to be here, let me see a celebrity in the next hour." I literally looked up and across the row was Kyan Douglas, from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. A minor celebrity, okay, but GOOD ENOUGH.

Since then I've spotted Ethan Hawke walking in SoHo; Jim Jarmusch hurrying in the Village; Chris Noth hanging out at Starbucks; Michael Kors at the movies; Alan Cumming at the Natural History Museum; Calvin Klein walking down 14th street; and on Sunday I saw Gilbert Gottfried all squinty and talking to himself on Broadway.

Graham saw Kate Winslet at the Empire Diner (I could eat my hat with jealousy on that one) and Andrew McCArthy at Whole Foods.

I like that these people live normal lives here and that I spot them, and get a little thrill and then go on with my day. The night before Graham's birthday this summer, I stood in a long line to get cupcakes at the Magnolia Bakery. If you've never been, the Magnolia Bakery is TEENY, and usually has a line out the door and down the block. They need a BOUNCER to ask how many in your party. This night the bouncer was a pretty woman, in her late thirties, to early forties, who chatted with everybody, making it a more pleasant night. When I talked with her, there was something oddly familiar about her. She had a look to her that seemed to say, "I was a 1980's beauty." Suddenly, I had a flashback to 1988, sitting in the livingroom of one of my high school friends watching A Nightmare on Elmstreet 3: the Dream Warriors. There she was, the pretty woman who I was talking to, playing a recovering heroin addict, who Freddy Kruger kills with (oh yes) NEEDLES IN HER ARM (just say no, kids). I remembered her, because I also had seen her in a movie called Permanent Record, a teen drama about suicide, also starring Keanu Reeves.

"Are you an actress?" I asked her. She said, "I used to be, but now I am myself."

I thought back to myself at 16, with bunchy socks and rolled up jeans, with mistaken beliefs of what the world was like, looking at this woman, thinking, "She's pretty. I bet she's going to be big." and me standing so many years later in front of this same woman, in a city I never thought i would live in. I thought, "I LOVE New York." Anything can happen here.

"Amen." I replied.