Places We’ve Almost Died and Where I Like to Eat in NYC

I was in NYC two weeks ago for my event with the actor, writer, musician, and activist Michael Imperioli at McNally Jackson Seaport. I was incredibly panicked before the event because my worst event-related nightmare had just happened. Two nights prior I’d given a talk at Stonybrook University for a bunch of MFA students and I’d experienced a dissociative panic attack ONSTAGE. Now, I’ve long worried this would happen, so when it finally did, I simply announced that it was happening. “I just need to say,” I said “that I’m having a dissociative panic attack right now, so you get to witness it live and in person.” I somehow managed to recover and the event went extremely well, but I was still feeling the aftershocks as I took the “stage” with Michael. Even though I immediately floated away, whoever was left behind absolutely crushed it. It went so well and I got some fantastic audience questions. My aunt asked about craft, which is my favorite thing to talk about, and my best friend since high school, Effie, asked about how love fits into dissociation. Since the book is largely a love story, I was able to talk about how two relationships saved my life: my relationship to writing, and my relationship to my partner of 16 years, Gregory. I explained how, with depersonalization, I feel I’ve been exploded into innumerable pieces and there’s not enough of me in any one piece to make me me, but in every fragment there is my love for Gregory. This was the perfect ending to my Everything/Nothing/Someone events calendar.

I wanted to take this opportunity to give a little glimpse into how I do NYC. I always take my old, threadbare but precious clothing items to Eva Joan, an incredible creative mending place that will resurrect any old sentimental rag you just can’t part with. They’ve beautifully rehabilitated my dad’s button down that has, after fifty years, the consistency of a smear of dried mucus. Gregory and I got hair cuts with Masami Hosono at their salon, Vacancy Project, in the East Village. Masami was recommended to me by my friend, the fashion critic/icon Rachel Seville Tashjian Wise, who is also the force behind the funny, erudite, and oh-so-exclusive newsletter Opulent Tips. I love Vacancy Project for its simplicity (they only offer hair cuts, no color, no anything else), its gender neutral pricing, the fact that it only takes twenty minutes, and because Masami knows what’s good for you and will protect you, especially from yourself. Nextdoor you can get some of the best matcha in the city at Tokuyamatcha. I’m in this neighborhood a lot and will usually walk to Salter House on Second Street to stock up on nightgowns that make me look like a Victorian Child Ghost. On Avenue A is Big Sky Tattoo owned by Michelle Tarantelli who has done my last two tattoos - “Someone” in honor of my memoir and as a reminder that even though I feel like like a non-entity, I am in fact someone, and two ants drawn by my sister (who has a matching one). Down the block is one of my favorite restaurants, the vegetarian spot Superiority Burger. I’ve had almost everything on the menu and it’s all delicious. A six minute walk away on Avenue B, I like to grab a non-alcoholic cocktail at the NA bar Hekate. I’ve been sober 6 years and am excited for more places that prioritize non-drinkers. Other notable food experiences I make sure to have every time I’m in the city include the pandan sandwich at Kopitiam, the brunch at Thai Diner (this time with my best friend from elementary school, Kristine), and the tres leches cake at Tres Leches Cafe. Back on the West side I hit Three Lives & Co, my favorite bookstore where my mother and I used to buy stacks of books, dump them on her bed, and read the back copy aloud to each other. I trust anything the staff tells me - they are book oracles, bibilotherapists, reading doulas. Obviously I’ll get a slice at Joe’s Pizza (skip the TikTok famous Mama’s Too and L’Industrie). And on a weekday night, if I’m feeling festive, I’ll go to the happiest place on earth - Marie’s Crisis on Grove Street, an old piano bar where the crowd sings show tunes all night long. This trip, I also saw a fantastic Gina Beavers show at Marianne Boesky gallery, which I highly recommend.

NYC is very much haunted for me and Gregory. Whether we’re actively avoiding walking down Charles Street, where my childhood home is, or I’m pointing out the apartment in Chelsea whose windows I taped bedsheets over while in the thrall of a psychotropic-medication-induced psychosis that nearly killed me, we’re constantly butting up against our ghosts. While wandering around the East Village, Gregory will point to an apartment and say “that’s where my heroin dealer lived” or to a grassy knoll in Tompkins Square park where he curled up to die. We carefully peregrinate these nostalgia-slick streets, trying to maintain our balance between now and then. In those moments, I’m disoriented, and it’s hard to distinguish between loss and gain, triumph and tragedy. And then I realize I don’t have to, that all of these things can be true at the same time, and I can stay coherent in that revelation. As I peer into the window of Psychosis Apartment, I can still see the lopsided bookshelf my dad built for me, now holding someone else’s library. I search for former Alice, who collected “evidence” of malign, invisible forces and stored it in a box, and find my way instead to current Alice, who turned the rotting contents of that box into a living book, a book that would look so nice on that stranger’s familiar shelf.