but i still love you new york

**in order to set the appropriate tone for your reading of the following entry, it is absolutely mandatory that you play the youtube video below**

Anyone who has been subject to my rambling expositions on my ever-changing dreams and ambitions knows there has been one thing that remained semi-constant--a longing to number myself among the residents of New York City.

I experienced quite the emotional rush as I officially changed the billing address on my credit cards to reflect my city address and brandished my monthly subway passes at the turnstile.

Last week though, I bought a one-way ticket back to Salt Lake City and officially declared I had no intention to stay in my beloved (though windowless) room in the South Bronx. 

That doesn't mean I don't harbor intentions to come back to NYC. I mean, planes run both ways, and life in the city is just another one-way ticket away.

There is something a little heart-rending about thinking about leaving the city. However, I didn't really feel the ache until I went from a 50 percent to a 95 percent certainty that I would spend some time away. Now every New York minute has to really count. Suddenly, I see everything that I love about the city and its imperfections seem more like character quirks. (Oh, it smells like someone boiled wet garbage? How adorable! Just kidding--I think the city's smell is overhyped. Most of the time the place smells just fine, even pleasant.)

I can hardly pass a bookstore, gallery, bakery, museum without feeling the sting of realizing if I don't visit in the next two weeks, I don't know when I will get the chance.

That is not to say I am not overjoyed to be returning to Salt Lake City. I have lists scrawled on the back of envelopes detailing the mountains I want to climb, food I want to eat, events I want to attend, and other places I want to go (prominent on this list is the Nickelcade.) The bit of heartache at my impending move is just proof of that adage uttered by the goddess of my soul, Joni Mitchell, "You don't know what you got til it's [almost] gone."

I've had a pretty good run this year in NYC. I may not have written any plays, songs, novels--as I hoped the city would inspire me to do, but there has been a certain fullness to these 12-months.

A synopsis of said fullness in bulleted form:

• Spent 8 hours homeless, chilling on a park bench in Brooklyn with all my worldly possessions until gloriously, the cousins of a friend offered to take me in (saving me considerably on last-minute hostel fare)
• Got kicked out of Central Park at 2am
• Received a hug from Paula Abdul
• Threw up on the Subway
• Frequented the MOMA regularly on Free Fridays
• Shook hands with Andrew Garfield
• Staved off existential crises by watching sunsets from the Brooklyn Bridge
• Saw fireflies in Central Park
• Tried unsuccessfully to run past a bouncer when I forgot my ID on a night out
• Drove a UHAUL across Manhattan
• Won the ticket lottery for a Broadway show
• Became pleasantly inebriated while sipping white wine and touring Chelsea art galleries
• Explored Soka Gakkai Buddhism at the invitation of my roommate. (It involved a lot of chanting a Japanese translation of the title of the Lotus Sutra, but it was kind of nice.)
• Saw album release shows for First Aid Kit and Conor Oberst in Brooklyn and a life-changing Josh Ritter concert
• Learned that I could subsist quite happily on deviled eggs and dollar pizza slices
• Met a fair number of young celebrities, who just seemed like regular kids, but the middle schoolers I worked with were quite impressed
• Was mistaken for Joss Stone (this is really inexplicable) 
• Became obsessed with Neo-Futurist theatre
• Yelled loudly at TV screens in bars across the city as World Cup games were shown
• Haunted bookstores
• Installed insulation on houses in Staten Island wrecked by Hurricane Sandy
• Met some of the best people ever

It has been an incredible run thus far. Personally and professionally, I've had great experiences. However, lately I have been repeating to anyone who would listen that the career ladder is an invention of the late 19th century, created to keep British clerks complacent. I hope to become brave enough to do what I really want: 

Write and create and adventure. 

I've been feeling compelled to trek around Central Asia--so let's see if that latest vagabond dream comes to fruition, post Nickelcade, of course.