Gemini 11°

I remember when we left the West Village, asking a friend to promise me that I would come back. I had lived there for twenty years. Things really changed. I would imagine that more changed more rapidly in the West Village of New York than most places. I loved my neighborhood although I can’t really stomach it now when I visit. And good thing because I was just perusing one-bedroom listings and they rent for over $5K. For a lousy one-bedroom in what was the best part of the city to me but is now a ghost town of empty shops that even the richest brands can’t afford to rent. Who lives there now? I mean besides Liv Tyler and my friends who own Tea & Sympathy and, I suppose, Lady Bunny, still.

It was a dream place in the 1990s. Before the Magnolia Bakery. Before the Sex and The City tours. It was perfect. I would walk to HB studio for acting classes. We could eat at Mappa Mundo or Tante Baci for total $30. I felt bad for people who lived in Brooklyn. We would get videos from Mrs. Hudsons. You could lie out and sunbathe on the piers. I don’t know anybody practically that still lives in that neighborhood. It’s sad to me that the joy of living there can no longer exist—even if one does still live there, so many of us have left. And there is nothing to do there.

I’m spinning the globe again wondering where on Earth I can live.