21 and Some Change

July in NYC.

I’m 21 years old, it’s summertime, and I’m living in downtown New York City. I am everything that Carrie Bradshaw and her motley crew of 30-year-old women are jealous of, and more.

It has been exactly nine days since I have moved back into the Parsons dorms on 5th Avenue and 14th Street, met my new roommates, and started my new classes but the whirlwind of activities has made it seem like much more time. It has been exactly 15 days since I turned 21, which means I am currently 21 and some change.

I text my old roommates almost every day. No matter how much I enjoy (some of) my new roommates, nothing will ever compare to the cosmic connection that I had during the June term. There are six of us, just like there were six of us last term. We are in the same building and coincidentally, in the exact apartment I was in last month, just one floor up. Sometimes after class I still hit floor 13 and walk down the hall before remembering that I’m now on floor 14. I’m also, coincidentally again, in the same room as last month, which was randomly assigned to us. I’m in the opposite bed though, which is very weird. But my roommate got here first and chose the bed, so I took the opposite. When I wake up in the mornings, I am still very disoriented as to why I am on this side.

I am also in the photography class, which I have far more experience in than when I was in fashion merchandising. It also seems as though there is far less competition in this class than the last, which is nice. I’m a very competitive person, but I’m also a person who needs a creative community. On the first day of class I sat down next to a girl and we introduced ourselves. She said she was from South Korea, so when she asked me where I was from I got very embarrassed, given most people from out of the country don’t know Missouri well. When I told her, she exclaimed, “I love St. Louis!” I thought she was either confused, or just being polite but she continued, “My sister studies in the US, and she goes to the medical school in St. Louis.” It was very odd to hear, and I pondered how her sister would have even known about St. Louis University when they live so far away, but I decided to take it as another sign that I am exactly where I should be this semester.

There are lots of international students in this program. In each dorm, there are three students from the US and three international students. Therefore each international student shares a bedroom with a student from the US. I think it was supposed to be like a buddy system for the international students. One of the US girls is from Los Angeles and has no desire to speak to the rest of us in the dorm. When she is home she is in her room, but most of the time she is out with other friends. The other girl from the US is Harlow, who I like very much. Because there is one girl from Paris, Raissa, who absolutely hates America, hates Americans, and thinks that we are not good enough to be speaking to her. Except she wants us to speak to her, so she can tell us just how dumb we are.

America has very many issues and very many things that it is struggling with. But it is also a very large country with a very diverse range of people and opinions, so it is always interesting to see how she groups all 333 million of us into one. I have never been so patriotic to my country than when I see she is about to open her mouth. Harlow is the same. Whenever Raissa starts talking about her ‘problem with America’ we turn and give each other a look like we are Jim on “The Office”, turning to look into the camera for comedic effect. When Raissa is done going off on one of her tangents I often play dumb and ask, “Wait, so remind me why you came to the US if you hate it so much?” and she never has an answer, and Harlow always giggles.

There is another girl from Paris though, Leala, and I am a big fan of her too. She is one of those people who is very extroverted and outgoing and will cling onto people. As someone who often struggles to initiate friendships, these are my favorite types of people. She has the same view on America that Harlow and I have, and that I believe most people have, that it has it’s problems (big problems), but it’s hard to group so many people into one. I don’t know a lot about Parisian, or French in general, culture so it’s interesting to hear her talk about it.

On Friday morning as Leala and I were eating breakfast at the kitchen table, she told me how disappointed she was that she wouldn’t be able to go out to clubs and bars in New York City because she wasn’t 21 yet and didn’t have a fake ID. I asked when her birthday was, and she responded that it was on November 3, 2002.

I chewed a bit more on my peanut butter toast, pondering life and clubbing and alcoholism before asking, “Don’t most European countries write the date backwards?”

“What do you mean? No, we don’t write it backwards,” she responded.

A stupid way to ask the question, because of course it wouldn’t be backwards for her. The US way would be backwards. I asked to see her ID, and she pulled it out of her phone case. Instead of her birthday written month, date, year like in the US it was written date, month, year.

“Look,” I said, pointing to the date. “In the US we do month, date, year so it looks like you were born on March 11, 2002 meaning you’re 21.”

Her eyes lit up as she said, “Do you think anyone would notice? Do you think I could get into bars?”

“I would say 9 times out of 10 you could get in. Unless someone is European I don’t think they’ll look twice once they see 3/11/02,” I responded.

She got out of her chair and started dancing around the kitchen. She turned on the speaker and started singing along to “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus, continuously saying, “I’m going to party in the USA!”

Raissa came out of her room asking what was going on. Leala told her how we didn’t think the bouncers would realize that the European dates are written differently and will let her in. Raissa made a comment about how all Americans are stupid, which was no surprise to me, who was already running into the bathroom to get away from the comment as I saw it coming from a mile away when Leala started telling her the story.

Raissa wasn’t 21 either and her birthday didn’t work out in the same way Leala’s did, it was apparent that the month came after the date. But she has dual citizenship between France and Greece since her mom was Greek, and she planned on using the Greek ID to try and get in. She claimed, “I’m not 21 and I’m not worried about not getting into clubs. I’m going to bring my Greek ID which is basically a half sheet of paper, and none of the American bouncers will be smart enough to figure it out and they’ll just let me in because they will give up because they are so dumb.” 

Let the record show that this past weekend Leala did get to party in the USA, and Raissa has currently tried her Greek ID on five different clubs, bars, and liquor stores and every single one of them turned her away for being too young. We’ll see how she does in the next two weeks.

Our final dorm mate, my roommate, is from South America and isn’t too fond of Raissa saying “Americans are so stupid” and corrects her every time that people from the United States aren’t the only Americans. Aurea is from Brazil and in the kindest of ways she reminds me of Cece’s Russian roommate, Nadia, in New Girl. They talk the same way, but it’s also just the aura. Aurea wears all black all the time, has knee high boots with spikes that she wears almost every day, and several eyebrow piercings and a lip piercing. Once when I was laughing at a joke Harlow made, she turned to me deadpan and said, “Why do you giggle so much? All the time you are just giggling. It’s so cute, like a little doll.” I didn’t know what to say. I held back a giggle at the comment. She could tell.

On the second night of us living together, I learned that she talks in her sleep. It is more like she yells in her sleep though. Except when it’s in a language you don’t understand, it sounds more like menacing chanting. I still haven’t fully become used to her yelling at me in Portuguese every night, but I have started recording it and sending it to my brother’s girlfriend who is from Portugal to see what she is saying.

Although I have found companionship with some of my roommates, I have spent a lot more time alone this term than the last. In June my roommates and I did everything together, but now it is more only a select few activities. We were out late on Friday night, but I have trouble sleeping late and I also like to wake up early to be out of the house before everyone else wakes up. I’m not very social in the morning.

On Saturday I performed this routine and took to the scorching streets of New York City in July. There’s no humidity, but there is also no air flow and the sun reflecting off all the metal buildings and concrete streets is not something I have ever experienced in the Midwest. I found my new favorite thrift store on that Saturday though. It’s more like a flea market though, which I was overjoyed to have found as I have strongly missed the near daily flea markets in Madrid. This one is located in the yard of the Immaculate Conception Church at 14th Street and First Avenue.

A mostly outdoors venue, local sellers, cheap jewelry and clothes, even a table full of old camera gear to look at. Since I’ve lived in NYC I’ve developed the bad habit of not carrying my wallet with me anywhere. I wasn’t driving so I never needed my ID, everything could be paid for with Apple Pay, and if I didn’t have my wallet full of credit cards and cash, I could never be mugged. Foolproof. I’m lucky that I was smart enough to bring my wallet with me on this outing though, remembered right as I was walking out the door in the morning, because a majority of the vendors only took cash.

I sifted through old watches to find a brown leather one with a butterfly charm on it and a clock broken at 5:08. It has encouraged me to commit to a bit where anytime someone asks me the time, I look at my watch and respond, “5:08.” I’m sure people think it’s really funny! I also found a couple different necklaces, one of which was a key with “BKLYN” engraved on it which I give myself permission to wear since I did just live in Brooklyn for an entire two weeks, therefore I became a local.

My personal life is going swimmingly here in the big city but I am also, objectively, rocking my class life as well. Saturday evening, I ventured out by myself to a famous Brooklyn bar and concert venue to photograph my first concert in NYC. The band was Cende, which later made me understand the love for boybands. 

I am living my ultimate college girl fantasy! That night, I wore a little black dress with a different fabric to make outlines of tigers around the entirety and my blue Jordans on my feet for the long distance of walking. A little black dress, my favorite shoes, a valid ID to get into the bar, and a front row seat at a famous Brooklyn band! The next morning I went to the Starbucks in the Barnes and Noble at Union Square to edit the pictures and when I finished and sent them onto my parents, they immediately called me to compliment them.

On Friday, only a week into class, we had to present our first project of the term, a map making project. It was a very broad topic, as art classes generally provide. I decided to make a map of how nature interacts with the city going from Washington Square Park to Central Park up 5th Avenue. I tied it back to my personal life, being from the Midwest where nature is way more revered and in abundance than in NYC. One boy in the class, the one who I believe to be quite rude and egotistical, did a map of his body. That meant that for about 15 minutes on Friday, I was surrounded by pictures of his abs, feet, and neck on all eight of the large television screens in the room as he talked about his insecurities. Not very enjoyable.

I have come to the realization this weekend that I have only two more weeks until I will no longer be living in the city, and that I have to take advantage of everything I can, being 21 and some change living in NYC. I take my sketchbook and pencils out to Central Park to sit on a towel and draw the people playing in a rec softball league, hoping that one day I’ll be out on that field during the summer playing shortstop for my own NYC rec league. I go to lunch with my classmates and we gossip about people that each other don’t know about and one of them tells the rest of us about a Tinder hook up gone awry, involving a stubbornly lodged condom that required assistance to remove. We giggle and eat our sandwiches in the Garden Cafe.

I quite enjoy being 21 and some change in NYC. I try not to yearn for and miss a moment while I’m still in it. That’s a hard thing not to do this summer.

Yours truly,

Calihan