My route to 66...

Much like Joaquin Phoenix I've had a strange and surreal 12 months.

It's exactly a year since I packed up my life in Cardiff and arrived at JFK with a sobbing Teenager. She shedding tears for the boyfriend she left in Wales, me still in shock at my Dad's death a month previously. At my feet some seriously bulging excess baggage.

The American picked us up in a rented SUV and we drove into Manhattan. I was all broad smiles and endless chat, but with a belly groaning with nerves. This is home now. Excited and scared for what lay ahead. Bye bye Cardiff. A fresh start packed to the brim with hope and blindness to any troubles that may lay ahead.

There was no time to ponder on my grief. No pontificating on the enormity of what I had done-giving up a great job at the BBC, renting out my beloved house to strangers, leaving my recently widowed Mum. I was the project manager of this whole new family life and there was a lot of gluing to do, or things would fall apart.

The work started pretty quickly with enrolling The Teenager in school, which was swiftly followed by finding another school, as she hated the first one. Next, the blistering footwork to find an apartment, followed by ploughing all our savings into securing the right one-which then had to be decorated and furnished. We moved from our temporary digs in Queens to our permanent bijoux box in the West Village and wondered how we were all going to live in harmony in such a tiny space.

There was then the small matter of getting married in Central Park by a naval captain in the freakish hot Autumn sunshine and then a rodent infestation in our perfect apartment in place of a honeymoon. Then began immigration and all the ridiculous, comedy bureaucracy that accompanies it. Have you ever been engaged in vice? Are you planning a coup against the U.S. government? Were you a member of the Nazi party between 1939-1945?

When the excitement wore off and it no longer felt like we were here on a long holiday- the missing came. Missing my Mum, missing my friends, really missing my Dad, missing working, missing Corrie and Cadburys, missing the NHS and missing someone knowing what a wanker is.

I had to find my way around New York and my new family life and there was maps for the first but not for the second, but in both I got lost frequently. Some real personal stuff happened, that even I as a chronic oversharer didn't want to blog about. Winter days got shorter and darker and colder and then snowy. Then there came some even bigger problems which I  couldn't blog about and then there was some money problems due to the stuff I couldn't blog about.

Throughout it all I missed not having girl mates to talk the extra 15 thousand words a day that women need to say. Finding them became my mission and I was horribly desperate at first, a girl's girl starved of female company. But by the time there was spring blossom outside our window the friends came. Then the friendships had to be fostered through NY girl activities like toxic cocktail drinking and $20 manicures from women who bitch about you in Korean. But mostly it was about the drinking. There is little that cannot be forged over a Manhattan mixed Martini.

Summer, the last season in the cycle. (More) Tears (than usual) for my Dad on the anniversary of his death, temperatures of 100 degrees giving birth to an obsession with air cons. Our green cards arriving in the mailbox and the U.S. immigration service using the worse photos I have ever seen of The Teenager and I. A deliberate ploy I believe, so immigrants will not commit crime and end up with an unflattering picture of them on the news. 

I blogged about most of what happened over the year here on Welsh Alien. In fact, I wrote so much I didn't actually write my book, but then I have not been writing my book for at least a decade, so at least that's one comfortable consistency to keep me warm at night. I can safely say I penned at least a book's worth of blogs, except none of you paid 12.99 for my hard work on Amazon. Although I'd like to think you would, given the chance.

I have written 66 blogs so far. This one makes 67.

66 would have been nice. An even, rounded number that evokes World Cup wins and famous American roads. But then that's not my number.

My life here is far more of a 67. A lovely, odd imperfection.

Big walk home

(part 3 of 3)

I am at 80th Street and 5th. I do the calculations in my head- 2 Avenues and 67 blocks. 

I can walk it.

I've spent the afternoon lazing around in Central Park on the Great Lawn after the fight with The American. I've read my book, listened to my ipod and gazed skyward at the sun through scrunched up eyes. A hot breezy day that brought all forms of life out- school kids, Upper East Side Mummies, buskers, the unemployed, runners, cyclists, even a man playing the bagpipes. Unlike 95% of New Yorkers, I bet he'd know where Wales was. I didn't get a chance to ask him though, as he was surrounded by tourists asking him to play some Rod Stewart.

For a while it was a kind of nirvarna, my spot in the middle of the park. I wondered how long I could stay there, being left alone to just stare at the sky? Until 5.30 p.m. was the answer, when all these baseball teams arrived and I realised I was smack bang in the middle of everyone's outfield. Two guys came up to me and politely told me if I stayed I risked being hit by the ball.

"Shouldn't you all still be in work feeding the corporate beast?" I yell at no one in particular.

So with my peaceful escape cut short I decide I'm going to walk it, all the way home. I need to get my head straight, decide if I should apologise. I want to listen to my thoughts, soak in the changing landscape as I head downtown, so I leave the ipod off.

The Upper East Side never feels quite like New York to me. It's so...serene. Where I am on 5th, the park is on my right, walled off by 4 foot high stone. There are benches on my side of the wall, with wet paint signs on, which people are sat on anyway. I wonder who was the first to put their hands on and declare "S'ok people-it's dry now!"

Over the road are generic apartment buildings with grand awnings and doormen. Thin, tanned women  pass me, wearing preppy clothes and walking tiny, rat-like dogs. It's so quiet as if people are scared to interrupt the monied hush. There are hardly any black people. There are hardly any brown people. There are no visible homeless.

When I hit 60th, the restraint of the U.E.S. gives way to an explosion of people and traffic and noise. The Mac shop, it's glass cube, like an alien ship that landed in the middle of the city.

Opposite it, the gilded and newly renovated Plaza, with it's $20 million condos and tourists waiting outside for the movie bus tours. As I pause to cross the street on one side I am flanked by some French businessmen, on the other- a man in a rickshaw.

I take a right at 58th to cross over to 7th Avenue and grab an iced coffee from a food truck to fuel me up. I head South again, hitting luggage and camera shops and remembering what is coming up ahead: Times Square, the frenetic beast. The centre of the world, yet the middle of nothing. Neon winks at me seductively in the distance.

Then I am in it: total sensory overload, lights, noise, the smell of pollution mixed with caramalised nuts and hot dogs, people everywhere, their necks crained at the man-made beautiful ugly in the sky. Everyone's selling something: "Do you like Comedy?" "Hey Miss, you wanna bus tour?" "Sunglasses 5 bucks!" Teenage girls in too tight dresses and too high heels, out of towners lining up to go into an open fronted bar and drink watered down well drinks. The TKTS see-thru stair case that's in the Jay Z and Alicia video, around that the highest signs, clamouring up the side of skyscrapers.

It flirts with me, entices me, begs to be photographed. No. I am not a tourist anymore. I can't get my camera out in bloody Times Square....

I take out my camera and snap. Just one. Naughty neon clad whore.

I seek solace, escape into Sephora, but in this branch they are playing Abba's greatest hits. I go around and rub $160 face cream on my hands and play with all the sparkly make up. I put some bronzer over my newly freckled face and then I leave. The make-up makes me want to make-up. I'm going to say sorry to The American.

Another 10 blocks and I am at 34th st, dominated by Macy's- busy people everywhere, criss crossing my pathway, racing like worker ants to their destination. I go the wrong way at the spot where Broadway crosses diagonally. Then a whole block filled with people dressed in Mexican costumes for Cinco de Mayo.

The sun is setting and cars are turning their lights on. What time is out? I don't have a phone. How long have I been walking for? I see a sign opposite Penn station asking me to ''Feel the Love' for crocs. I scoff loudly to myself. No more than I will feel the love for a child molesting Tory, thanks.

Midtown makes way for Chelsea. The outfits are more interesting, people are younger, hardly any suits and plenty of gays. I pass the road where The Teenager's first school was. The Jamba juice where I would met her after school and she would tell me how much she hated it here and wanted to go home. And I would say "We are home. This is where we live now."

Then I'm into familiar territory, lower Chelsea, past all the shops and cafes I frequent and and I am nearly there. I  pop into the rip-off Gourmet market where your groceries still get thrown at you despite the high prices. I buy a chicken to make me and The American some dinner. I cross over 7th and take the right onto W13th Street and I am in Greenwich village, the trees, now lush and leafy with Spring, sweep aside to welcome me back.

I climb the three flights of steep stairs to my apartment that always leave me breathless, no matter how much I go to the gym. My apartment is called a 4th floor walk-up, but it's on the 3rd floor. There is no ground floor here you see. Ground is first. Another thing lost in translation.

The American is lying on the bed watching TV.

"I'm sorry!" he says pleadingly as soon as I walk into the bedroom.
"No. I'm sorry!" I say.

And that is how it goes, we both say sorry at the same time, like we are in a cheesy Rom Com. Now I am pissed off I apologised at all, but then I remember what Dr Phil says above love not being about 'winning' and 'scoring points'. Hurumph.

For two people who rarely admit they are wrong, this is quite a moment. I lie down on the bed next to him and I can feel the muscles in my legs starting to ache.

Walking is easy in Manhattan. It's all straight lines. If only relationships were the same.

Big Bambu, Big Drama and a Big walk home

(Part 1 of 3)

I am not a woman of few words as anyone who knows me will testify. I am a woman of too many words, both in the written and oral form.

However, sometimes, something happens so strikingly visual that words alone will not do enough justice. Big Bambu -the new rooftop exhibition at The Met museum-is just that, a creation lending itself more to telling the tale in pictures.

So as means of introduction to the visuals, here's as minimal a written introduction as I can muster:
Big Bambu is the brainchild of identical twins Doug and Mike Stern, who, with the help of a team of rock climbers have built a free standing structure made of fresh grown bamboo and tied together with just climbing rope.

It stands on top of rooftop garden on The Met Museum in uptown Manhattan. Work started in March and continues daily,  to take it from the current 25 foot high to more than 50 ft by the end of the summer. The best thing about it is you can take a guided walk through it on a pathway for no more than the suggested cost of admission. The worst thing about it is that you can't take a camera on the tour and you have to sign forms promising not to sue should you fall off and lose your limbs. Waivers aside, in this litigious world we live in, I am amazed and heartened that such a thing exists at all. Apparently we should be thanking Mayor Bloomberg  for 'making it possible' -it even says so on the tickets.

On a sunny May day last week our small group of ten gasped our way through the 30 minute tour, throwing out superlatives in awe: the baby blue skies tipping into the sea of trees, framing a 360 view of the Manhattan skyline. At one point a Saxophonist began to play down below in Central Park and I had to catch my breath through sheer pleasure. Even the guide getting slightly wanky about juxtaposition and dichotomy couldn't spoil it for me. The American said she was young and enthusiastic, so we shouldn't really judge. 

Too many words already. When I got down from the jungle in the urban sky, I took pictures. Here they are:

If you're still with me after all those pics, then you should know that from such a high, only a low can follow. Tomorrow, read what happened next in part 2- Big Drama...

Style matters

This is it.

The last blog about New York Fashion Week-I don't want to seem like I'm clinging on desperately or anything. After all, NYFW is already so last week, all eyes are now on LFW and soon it will be MFW, then PFW and then we'll have run out of fash weeks and acronyms.  Meanwhile I'm left here thinking about the swirly whirlwind of it all and wearing my Fashion loves Haiti T-shirt like a sad twat. The party is officially over at Bryant Park- permanently. Next season it moves uptown to Columbus circle-where there will be proper toilets. No more watching ladies in Lanvin heels hobble out of the tents to use the portaloos.

So I guess I should be writing one of those summary pieces, that pulls everything together neatly and summarises the trends for Fall 2010? I should, but I don't want to get bogged down in the detailing of the what to wear-for reasons I will expand on later. If you're interested though- there was tons of high waisted peg legs pants, winter florals, classic American sportswear in the veil of loose blazer jackets and slouchy suits. There was also a (disturbing) dominance of real fur in the collections.

None more so than at J. Mendel, where even the Louboutins had a mink trim.  I was just worried for this lady in the audience, for fear her pooch might get turned into a handbag

I could focus this last fash blog on the lack of celebs, which was a big talking point. It started with Marc Jacobs banning stars from his front row and then undoubtedly the economy also played a factor. The few famous faces that did rock up were at the biggest shows- where I was not. The only spot I got really excited about was 'noted fashion photographer' Nigel Barker from America's Next Top Model front row at Carlos Miele. Am happy to report he is just as shaggable in the flesh.  So this is why I am picturing a celeb stylist like Philip Bloc to illustrate this, rather than an actual celeb.

Plenty happened during the week, including the realisation that NYFW is more than a week, it's actually 8 days. I covered the Bloggers v editors debate and terrified teen blogger Tavi's mum by bombarding her with questions when she sat next to me at a conference. I told you about all the other  kids at the tents.  I rambled on incessantly about getting a seat at a show. I networked, met some lovely people and also some right tossers. I shopped inbetween shows and experienced some super charged style serendipity, grabbing the best vintage finds of my life. I got turned away from Christian Siriano I had a superlative attack at Elisa Palomino. I got fashion flu, met some lovely female paparazzi and a Welsh intern. I failed to get snapped by any street style photographers and concluded only thin people make it onto The Satorialist.

I wrote every day and treated my blog like my own little fashion magazine. It's pretty exclusive, you're probably one of only a few hundred readers. Lucky you (this won't get me a book deal though, so please keep spreading the word). 

The most important lesson that NYFW has left me with is thus: What you wear is less important than you think. The best looks were always in the audience rather than the catwalk, confirming for me that street style leads where designers follow. I noticed the outfits I envied weren't the matchy matchy, but  more eclectic, considered, yet with that air of thrown together.  There's an anything goes attitude among true fashion lovers that's refreshingly lacking in elitism. There are a few exceptions though and they mostly centre around neon on pensioners:

How you wear it is the key as ever. And that has nothing to do with fashion and everything to do with style. Fashion week left me thinking less about this season's pants or heel and more about being creative and caring less.

So for Fall 2010 I say fuck fashion.

And embrace style for every season