We work too hard
We’re too tired
to fall in love.
Therefore we must
overthrow the government.
We work too hard
We’re too tired
to overthrow the government.
Therefore we must
fall in love.
—Rod Smith
This summer I fell in love with a momentum unique to New York.
The only reliable convenience in this city is the 24-hour deli. Otherwise, everydays are full of blockades. Sidewalks are tourist obstacle courses. Taxis become elusive as Uber surges. Seventy-hour work weeks are a norm. The culture calendar is concrete. Dating, in such a setting, can feel like a second job. Rarely do relationships of convenience form: If it’s not right, right away, it’s likely not worth it. There are so many other creatures to taste.
But, when one collides with another, each recognizing the other as ideal, a storied kinda love is co-created, seemingly immediately.
I had heard of it happening before. With Molly, Sarah, Sarah, and Simone (one of four names changed). Girl met girl in ‘x’ place and with one glance they knew. Girl saw boy from across ‘x’ room and unhesitantly walked into his future.
Ales emailed me on a Sunday in early July. I replied right away, from my phone, walking home. This strange-named dude was digging into a piece I’d published on Adult. He was the fourth unfamiliar to write me about it. I didn’t even think to Google him. After a few fluid replies, I did, and from one look at his pretty lips, I knew that we’d meet. When we did (the next day), I knew that I wanted him. When I figured he wanted me (the day after that), I knew I’d need to cozy up to cliché, as our love—declared within a week—charged my interior narration trite.
With Ales, I forget about time and space. A feeling like destiny, eternity, enables absolute presence. While great for my very being, this has created conflicts with work and friends. The intricate schedule that once supported "single-me" can’t hold "us."
When I first moved to New York, I became obsessed with the city's temporality. Time here feels somehow both fleeting and dense. We move through a torrent of new data daily; never before have I learned so much, so fast. From outside the city, I can look back and see myself in compressed progression, in a twisted timeline I’ll pull straight and inspect long. Now though, in the city, time is a flat circle. Every Saturday seems stacked on those that came before and after.
This Saturday, at the entrance of the Grand Street subway station, two women were passing out flyers on “How to prevent burnout?” On the front of the pamphlet, a pretty young woman with midnight bags under her eyes leaned her head heavy against a pane. The set suggested an end-of-day commute. I knew her face. I had seen similar wear on all of my peers here at one point. My friend Paul, a new transplant to New York, had started to dawn it, just weeks after arrival. The other night, peering into his tired eyes, I became angry at New York—at what it does to us.
Of course, a city doesn’t do anything to its populace. Us residents, our machinations, affect. We set the speed. (The busiest kids I know in New York rely on some form of speed, whether Adderall or Hiball Energy Water. “To keep up," they say.)
So then, how to prevent burnout? In this city “that never sleeps”? When even in-between time, like commutes and lines, can now be filled with the distractions of a limitless data plan?
The hardest working and playing New Yorkers I know are the same who’ll claim they never
We’re too tired
to fall in love.
Therefore we must
overthrow the government.
We work too hard
We’re too tired
to overthrow the government.
Therefore we must
fall in love.
—Rod Smith
This summer I fell in love with a momentum unique to New York.
The only reliable convenience in this city is the 24-hour deli. Otherwise, everydays are full of blockades. Sidewalks are tourist obstacle courses. Taxis become elusive as Uber surges. Seventy-hour work weeks are a norm. The culture calendar is concrete. Dating, in such a setting, can feel like a second job. Rarely do relationships of convenience form: If it’s not right, right away, it’s likely not worth it. There are so many other creatures to taste.
But, when one collides with another, each recognizing the other as ideal, a storied kinda love is co-created, seemingly immediately.
I had heard of it happening before. With Molly, Sarah, Sarah, and Simone (one of four names changed). Girl met girl in ‘x’ place and with one glance they knew. Girl saw boy from across ‘x’ room and unhesitantly walked into his future.
Ales emailed me on a Sunday in early July. I replied right away, from my phone, walking home. This strange-named dude was digging into a piece I’d published on Adult. He was the fourth unfamiliar to write me about it. I didn’t even think to Google him. After a few fluid replies, I did, and from one look at his pretty lips, I knew that we’d meet. When we did (the next day), I knew that I wanted him. When I figured he wanted me (the day after that), I knew I’d need to cozy up to cliché, as our love—declared within a week—charged my interior narration trite.
With Ales, I forget about time and space. A feeling like destiny, eternity, enables absolute presence. While great for my very being, this has created conflicts with work and friends. The intricate schedule that once supported "single-me" can’t hold "us."
When I first moved to New York, I became obsessed with the city's temporality. Time here feels somehow both fleeting and dense. We move through a torrent of new data daily; never before have I learned so much, so fast. From outside the city, I can look back and see myself in compressed progression, in a twisted timeline I’ll pull straight and inspect long. Now though, in the city, time is a flat circle. Every Saturday seems stacked on those that came before and after.
This Saturday, at the entrance of the Grand Street subway station, two women were passing out flyers on “How to prevent burnout?” On the front of the pamphlet, a pretty young woman with midnight bags under her eyes leaned her head heavy against a pane. The set suggested an end-of-day commute. I knew her face. I had seen similar wear on all of my peers here at one point. My friend Paul, a new transplant to New York, had started to dawn it, just weeks after arrival. The other night, peering into his tired eyes, I became angry at New York—at what it does to us.
Of course, a city doesn’t do anything to its populace. Us residents, our machinations, affect. We set the speed. (The busiest kids I know in New York rely on some form of speed, whether Adderall or Hiball Energy Water. “To keep up," they say.)
So then, how to prevent burnout? In this city “that never sleeps”? When even in-between time, like commutes and lines, can now be filled with the distractions of a limitless data plan?
The hardest working and playing New Yorkers I know are the same who’ll claim they never