i *heart* NY (Updated 8/25)

the other night i sat down and watched one of my all-time favorite movies, the Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert. it got me thinking about a couple of things:

1. i love drag-queens. i do. it's an absolutely indisputable fact. they're sassy, they're gorgeous, and they're just plain fabulous. if there's one drawback to being...ursine...it's that i will never be able to be a drag queen. i'd be an absolute trainwreck in sequins and a wig. it really is a shame because i'm such a talented lip-syncher and would make a wonderful Keely Smith.
2. before i die, i want to visit Australia (or at least a Kylie Minogue concert. ok, i'd settle for Dannii Minogue)
3. i could never live anywhere but New York City (by which i mean the 5 boroughs, conveniently labled on the attached map, for your convenience).

this last thought may seem strange, but let me explain:

during a terribly tense point in the film, one of the characters muses to another, "It's funny. We all sit around mindlessly slagging that vile stinkhole of a city, but in some strange way it takes care of us. I don't know if that ugly wall of suburbia's been put there to stop them getting in or us getting out...." and i began to think that the same could be said about New York. Our city really is a cultural womb were all the "degenerates" and "freaks" of society (trannies, lezzies, faggots, drag-queens, etc) can feel at home. our city takes care of us, encourages us and sheilds us from the narrow minded, right-wing, ultra-conservatives that exist everywhere else. Stephen and i walk around the city (Staten Island and Brooklyn included) holding hands and giving PDAs, all the time and only once (in the middle of Little Italy) were we heckled. i wouldn't even dream of doing it on Long Island or New Jersey though (Fire Island and Princeton the only notable exceptions); i don't trust the whitebread suburbanites out there. It's a totally different world out there: people look at you funny if you're not wearing socks with your sandals.

sure, we complain about how dirty and crowded Manhattan is, but where else can you see a drag queen, in full make-up, waiting for a train at 7am amidst a crowd of people who are paying her no more mind than anyone else? new yorkers are so fantastically unphased by things that make others blush, wince or gasp. that's how you can always tell either a tourist or expatriate: they look absolutely mortified when they see a bum masturbating on the subway; all the other commuters know just to give him room or open their umbrellas. nothing shocks us anymore.

is this ennui a good thing? maybe, maybe not; but it's who we are, and i'll be honest: i'd rather live here than some town in "the Midwest" (read: anywhere outside the five boroughs) where they roll up the streets at sundown and thing GWB should be the new Emperor. I've become one of those New Yorkers who truly believe that New York really is the center of the universe; i can't even logically conceive ever leaving (except to go to another city like Chicago, LA or San Francisco, but i doubt i'd be as happy).

“I can't wait to get back to New York City where at least when I walk down the streat, no one ever hesitates to tell me exactly what they think of me.”~Ani DiFranco