Following my graduation and the departure of my family, I did a classic New York thing: I slept on my friend’s couch. My friend Valentina was gracious enough to let me sleep on her couch for about a week, during which time I continued my ongoing search to find the perfect summer sublet after my original arrangements fell through. Everyone assured me that searching for a sublet, having things work out, then not work, and then starting the search up again was “very New York of me.”
It was from this couch that I first toured the building for my internship in the financial district. From that point on, I’ve been having a dreamy time going to my fancy internship in the city. I have a nice long commute, which gives me ample time to read my book on the train and I have ample books to read, courtesy of my internship. This proves that even if I wasn’t doing the internship to afford luxury items like groceries, I would still be in it for the free goods.
During this long commute, I wear sneakers on the train and then change into my black slingbacks once I’m in the office. I’m practically Working Girl.
Do I sometimes listen to the soundtrack to the opening scene of The Devil Wears Prada as I get ready in the morning so that I can pretend that I am one of the glamorous women picking out their fabulous outfits in their splashy New York City apartments? That’s a stupid question. Of course I do.
Valentina and I had a fun time together during my brief stint on her couch. Together we went to the Paul Smith sample sale, where I showed enormous restraint in not buying anything. I went, yet again, to the MoMA, ingested some Georgia O’Keefe, and then ingested some Halal Guys. My time in the city was off to a great start.
After a few days of my crashing on the couch and probably flashing the people in the building across the street, Valentina and I went to see a play. Diary of a Madman, based on the short story by Gogol, was being put on nearby at a Russian theater and Valentina snagged some cheap tickets for the both of us.
For those unfamiliar with the story, like I was, the story is told from the perspective of a man who is descending into madness, believing that the aristocratic daughter of the man he works for is in love with him, having been told as much from her poodle, and then believing that he is King of Spain. This production was the adaptation of the man putting on the show with the audience being mostly made up of people who knew him personally. It all felt very cozy and intimate, like we were watching someone’s passion project being put on before our very eyes.
Despite the small scale of the performance, the play was excellent, with strong performances by the actors and a million other decisions that worked beautifully for the show. The set was basically a bunk bed being spun around to fit the show’s every need with the lead actor climbing up and down it while delivering his monologues. There were even weird traces of pop music that played during transitions, adding to the madness.
I began watching the play when I was one prosecco in, which was the only real way to watch a play that opens with people dressed like cogs in a clock circling the stage as dramatic music thunders behind them.
Much was said about noses to the point where I would now like to know what Gogol’s obsession with noses was since they crop up in his work a weird amount of times for noses to crop up in a person’s work (read the Gogol story, literally entitled, The Nose, if you don’t believe me). The motif of noses recurs so much that I felt I had to look up a picture of Gogol to see what his nose looked like, in order to understand him better. There were also noses plastered around the theater in order to really sell the point.
A few days later I was off to my new sublet and my first day of work. Thanks to her, I now had a working knowledge of the subway system and how sublets work, to say nothing of a place to rest my head and a play to go see.
Cogs in a clock, talking poodles, the King of Spain, and sentient noses– it was all in a night’s work at a Russian theater in New York City and an appropriate last hurrah before I became a working woman yet again.
Now I had new things to worry about and new adventures in store to add to the madness.
The Tragic Queen,
Raquel
The Tragic Queen 