This is a thread of tiny stories from my travels, beginning in September 2024 with my tour of the Eastern Seaboard. You can check out the first four parts of my travelogue below before jumping into my tour of New York City.
READ PART ONE
READ PART TWO
READ PART THREE
READ PART FOUR
4/23/2025
The best place to have dinner in Connecticut is Manhattan, so that’s what I’m doing before I board a train to Greenwich today. I am so freaking happy that I pushed this trip back a day. I leave for LAX feeling grounded, well-rested, and ready to go. Proofs are chosen, dog supplements prefilled into syringes for the neighbor that I share pet care with, I am READY.
I know I could make a lot more money if I did things differently, but I would have less self-respect, which is something I value much more than money.
The trip across the country is easy. I’ve been taking Southwest lately. I feel safer at the front of the plane. I like boarding early without having to flag myself as disabled, and their seats are a pretty decent size (cue horrible flashbacks of flying from London to LA in the last possible seat available on an AA flight after missing my buddy pass on JetBlue two days in a row.)
I land and take the airtrain to the subway to West 4th, my old harbor. When I first started sex work, I Ubered everywhere just because I could, but it’s been eight years and I’ve grown up, gotten used to having money, and begun investing. At first, I think I felt as if I didn’t deserve to have it, not my own. Money in my life, before sex work, was largely something people with power over me had, like my parents or a man. Gamifying saving and investing for my dopamine-deprived brain helped a lot, too.
I’ve also learned to pack light. I’m meeting one of my best friends at my favorite restaurant, Red Farm. For a while, my preferred location, Hudson Street, was closed, but it’s opened again like all the flowers everywhere. It’s Dogwood season, motherfuckers!
I take so much time walking there, integrating memories into the moment. I haven’t eaten all day, so I stop at Joe’s on Bleeker for a slice even though I am literally walking to my dinner reservation. I stand at a table a man is trying to hold and tell him I’ll be gone before his friend gets out of line. “That’s fair,” he responds. I stop to buy bodega joints and double-check the number. When the cashier questions me, I tell him I don’t know him. “That’s true, you right,” he says. I love that about New York City. People are direct, open-minded, and accountable. At least in the daylight to a beautiful woman.
I stop at the tree guard next to my old apartment, the few feet of dirt where I used to take my dog outside every day for years, and remember the feeling of arriving here in Manhattan, of getting that rent-controlled sublet, of it being me and this teeny dog against everyone. Sometimes I know that life is good enough right now, in this moment. The first moment I ever had like that was when I lived here.
The light in the village is so magical this afternoon. It’s very romantic, this walk of self.
I cross Seventh Ave after looking in the vestibule of my old apartment, and head to the restaurant. Every few feet, I see Daffodils and Tulips that were not there before. Everyone said the pandemic changed New York, but nobody mentioned that it wasn’t all bad.
I had a writing teacher once who said artists are more awake than most people. This golden afternoon, I am more awake than most versions of myself.
And then dinner. They are stunningly out of pastrami egg rolls, but jokes on them, I’m on GLP-1s and just had pizza; I’m going to struggle to eat more than a few bites of my favorite dish, spicy, crispy beef. It is, as promised, very crispy and very spicy. While we eat, my friend fills me in on the drama of a friend I stopped talking to last year. I miss her, but I’m happy I didn’t have to watch. I hate walking away from people, but it’s necessary. I evolve fast. I can’t break my own heart and abandon myself by staying stuck at the waystation someone else decided was good enough.
After dinner, I walked by Carrie Brawshaw’s apartment to see the gate the owner put up and the people gawking in the street. For a brief moment, I am one of them. I say goodbye to my friend and head toward Grand Central.
And just like that, I’m off to Connecticut.
♥
