Everyone in the city is an addict.



I have this notion that the city can be a vice, a recreational drug for the senses. But in excess the city can also be the onslaught of illness. The intoxication seeping out of the steam vents, taxi exhausts, street food carts, fashion houses, tapas bars, and magazine stands can send you on an acid trip- but the high is rarely noticed until the fall. Rarely appreciated, just like home.

It took an island of 8 million people and endless entertainment to appreciate the simplicity of the place I grew up. It took meeting art school students to realize the endless opportunities my education affords me. It took being treated like an intern to grow a backbone and define my own importance.

It has never been so blatantly obvious that you can't appreciate a couture gown until you learn the painful art of hand-sewing. You can't appreciate the power of Dorthy's red slippers, until you have left Kansas. You can't appreciate the simplicity of life until you are dropped into chaos. You can't appreciate a high until you've experienced a low.

Just as fast as the city builds you up, it can tear you down. One hit of the city won't hurt you, but hooking yourself up to an IV constantly filtering the city into your veins could be lethal.
The same with fashion. Snorting a Spring '10 line won't hurt you, but constantly inhaling fashion cycles could send your body into shock.


While there are those capable of dependencies to hard drugs like the city, I'll stick with the street legal drugs like cheap shoes and my dad's homemade salsa.

Walking in this this city is a dance.

Not the kind of dance you unleash at the Brass Monkey, but a much more vulnerable and choreographed dance. One that takes dedication and precision to perfect.


Glissade. Jeté. Pas de bourrée. Glissade. Jeté. Pas de bourrée. Glissade. Jeté. Pas de bourrée.
For all those ballet illiterate


New Yorkers know the streets like a stage they have danced on for years. They know every plank of wood by heart. Know the depth and width of the stage, and how to move gracefully across it. They cut you off so their moves can be seen, studied like an art, and respected.

For "natives", though it seems only a handful of New Yorkers are natives, tourists and their maps are like nails in the stage. Something to trip on breaking elegantly fluid movements.

New Yorkers are the principal dancers, and all else who dare to share the stage with them are forced to know their place in the corps de ballet (body of the ballet). Behind them on the curb.

The fashion industry isn't much different. Interns stand in the corps line glissading 'to and fro' in the back on rotting wood all to make the principal dancers movements on the shiny wood gracing center stage seem even more intricate and beautiful.

Monotonous moves on the back of the stage have led me to realize that it takes far more stamina, and dedication to dance in the corps line than it does to flawlessly fouetté until the curtain falls.

Without a doubt, corps line dancers have far more heart than the principal dancer who is more concerned with picking up the roses on the stage than stepping on your toes. Corps line dancers must love what they do, because there isn't much glory in dancing behind someone who is no better than you. Their belief in their art keeps them going, not the applause at the end of the show.

Tourists are far less fearful than hardened New Yorkers. No matter how many wrong trains or wrong turns tourists take, they keep at it, hoping the end result will be worth the much allotted effort. The desire to see and learn is far greater than the fear of the unknown or rude "natives" putting them in their place.


Just as tourists have been knocked around on the side walks, I have been shoved into the curtain so the principal dancer could be seen. I've been kicked in the face so someone else's arabesque extension could be more developed than mine. I've been standing behind the curtain watching someone else pawn off my moves for an audience who paid far too much for what they are receiving.

But I still go. Everyday. Even though my toes are bleeding, and my shoes are rubbing my blisters. I go.

Tourists still tour. Even though it might not be the place they set out looking for.


My place is the corps line is stable, but not indefinite.

My fouettés might not be as fluid as a principal dancer, and I might not know the stage as thoroughly- but my turnout rivals theirs, and my legs look just as good in tights.