The things we find here

Last time, I wrote about the idea that everybody in New York is seeking the life that's just around the corner. I don't know that I'm so much seeking that - not yet. Day-to-day existence here is still a novelty and a joy, even if it sometimes is a pain. For now I'm happy with what's here, what I happen across. I'm learning every day, and I take this life as it presents itself and Iove the whole experience.

The thing I seem to have found, without even looking for it, is some part of my personality that hadn't been as visible before. I'm bossier since arriving here. I'm stronger and more assertive. I'm more confident, I walk fast. I flirt more. I don't take bullshit from people, and sometimes I come across as demanding.
I like it.

The other day, Sabra and I went to the East Village to pick up the futon we were buying for our living room. I knew a car service that would send a Suburban, so I called them once we go to the guy's apartment, and I guess I used a very authoritative tone with the dispatcher, who was trying to rush me off the phone.

"Do you work in fashion?" the guy asked, when I hung up. Not in a mean way, but very matter-of-fact.
I stared at him astonished for a moment (I was wearing ratty moving clothes and no makeup) and then told him that, in fact, I sort of did.

"Oh, he said," because I know lots of people in fashion and they're always ordering car services to come pick up this and that."

"I've just adopted a bossy New York demeanor since I moved here," I told him.

And yet, like many New Yorkers, I'm bossy and can be brusque in crowds, and at other times when it's necessary to assert myself, but talk to me one-on-one and I'm as friendly and down-to-earth as can be. That's how so many people are here - you've got to demand to get many things, but if you talk to people directly they go out of their way to be nice.

I think it has something to do with this: we're united by our willingness to put up with place, both tyrannical and wondrous, and our love for it - our willingness to sacrifice for that love - unites us. It's as though we were the multiple wives of a charismatic, mercurial man, and we were all alike (despite our rivalries) by the way we loved him in spite of ourselves. That's the feeling you get in New York.

So I like this new me. I may finally be living up to my fiery Aries nature. I never thought I fit the stubborn, take-charge Aries profile, but I think maybe I had just stifled it beneath the good-girl behavior I learned so well.

It's not about being mean, it's just about asking for what you want and telling people, in a reasonable way, when you're not happy with something. I find this tactic rarely has negative results. When you're merely asking for what you want or stating how you feel, no one can really argue. And people respect you more for your cojones. I'm glad to be here, finding mine.