NYC: Preliminary Notes

NYC Beginning: I've been in New York City for about a week and a half now. Abby and I arrived the Sunday before last after a long, cramped Greyhound ride from Toledo, Ohio. It was, thankfully, easy to get to the Q train and find Andrew who showed us to the apartment, 2 blocks down from the Cortelyou stop. The apartment is great- much larger than I'd expected and with beautiful, light hardwood floors. I can't complain about being on the first floor either or the fact that the Q takes me to within a block of the Democracy Now! office. I was nervous anticipating the newness and difficulty of living in New York but so far things have seemed to come easily. The commute does take about 40 minutes of riding in a cramped and hot subway car but I still enjoy seeing the multitude of people in the mornings. Every subway car tells a hundred stories or more in this way.

Abby's visit: We had a brief visit into the city on the day we arrived, spent most of our time sitting at a cafe and in Union Square with coffee before buying a couple bottles of Trader Joe wine and hopping back on the train. Since I had to start work the very next day, I was in the office for 3 out of the 4 days that Abby was in town. We still managed a trip to Staten Island, to the cooperative community of Ganas, which, they tell me, "is a Spanish word for having the motivation to act." A good translation of that word albeit one I've certainly never heard contextually. We also got to see the ever-wonderful Banjo/guitar-playing, lovely-voiced Andru Bemis, who put on a great show at Pete's Candy Store in Brooklyn. On Abby's last day in NY, we ran around the Museum of History for a couple hours, spending most of our time in the fossil exhibits. I myself was especially in awe over the dinosaur skeletons filling enormous rooms, letting my imagination run all out wild about the endless possibilities associated with these ancient, fascinating, beautiful creatures. After visiting a few free wine-tasting visits, we went back to the apartment and Abigail jumped on her bus a few hours later. She certainly was a great help in getting me settled in here in this crazy town.

Democracy Now! I just finished my second week with DN! I worked myself up into an anxious mess not knowing what to expect from this organization that I've loved for so many years. To my relief, my supervisor wears cowboy boots, everyone wears what they want, and Amy Goodman pops in and out of the organization, all of which signaled to me that I don't have to fear my workplace at all and it's put my greatly at ease. It was hard initially though to find out exactly what I was supposed to be doing, but after asking some questions, I feel much more confident in my work. Basically I'm helping the Spanish equipo get DN! en espanol on more radio stations in Latin America. The work isn't terribly organized, which is great because I am surely more productive that way. Until yesterday, we were working in a over-crowded office composed mostly of a huge work table in the middle and some peripheral shelves and enclaves for some people's offices. There were never enough chairs, space or computers and finally we were able to move into a bigger office down a few floors and we all breathed a little easier. I will get into all the anecdotal, personality and organization stories later. For now, I love working at DN! and know already that I'm going to miss it.

Manu Chao: Putting my knowledge of how-to-get-free-things-in-life to its best use, last night I saw the most amazing Manu Chao concert that I could have imagined. I danced and danced and in the last song when the rain poured down, all of us only danced that much harder. Amazing, truly.

More to come...