Jenny Elsewhere
Every time I go to New York, I feel like I’m going home. I felt this way when I was a 14 teen year old kid visiting for the first time, and I feel that way now. And I feel all the things that go with returning home… the nervousness, the memories, the predictions, the visualizations of what’s been happening while you’re gone, the fear of being forgotten and the responsibility of being remembered.
I’m flying in on a flight given at the last moment because a friend wants me to DJ his small party of 20 in a restaurant he rents out every year for a corporate Christmas Party.
Tomorrow will be his first summer party, and has asked the girls to wear bikinis in a French restaurant run by Indian guys. Sure. Why not.
So that’s one reason I’m coming. The other is that in a week and two days I will be leading 12 people as a part of the Art Parade and I’ve got some costumes to make. Then my Aunt’s getting married upstate and the whole fam + members of Alex’s family will be here. Then… I go home?
We are the elsewhere generation. A phrase coined by Jose Parla, and its only a matter of time before we do away with those silly things called jets and start telaporting
I’m going to be here for three weeks away from our home overlooking a canyon where the coyotes strike fear and the moon feels like its bathing you when you sleep at night.
“There’s a party tonight,” our neighbor comes down and tells us last Saturday, “Leo will be there.” The first Leo that comes to my mind is… “Leo Fitzpatrick?” “No, DeCaprio”
Alex laughs at me.
I have a set of keys caked in foundation that exploded in my purse the last time I was here in June. I think they are Kate’s but I’m not sure and they never worked for me anyway, the Dominican guy who runs a resturant next door used to always help me get in, or my ex-boyfriend who coinisedentaly lives above Kate could sometimes be pestered into coming down and letting me in.
But I can’t count on it and, the thought of trying to get into her house from Newark at one am doesn’t excite me. These foundation caked keys, that may or may not be Kate’s, the mini NY license plate on them and the name STEVE for a humanization affect are kind of magic, and if I’m supposed to get into her apartment, I will. If not I’ll go to another friend’s house.
I can do that. I can just land like that, cause can at any moment be elsewhere.
Hello Again, New York. I’m home for a bit.
