89. Seattle

Date: March 14, 2007

Age: 29

Have you ever been here. It is a nice area, but a lot of junkies downtown. Be well.

Love, Dad & H

This postcard goes out to my friend Dave, who just moved to Seattle from Brooklyn last week, effectively stealing my thunder in the ‘farewell NYC’ department, since his move happened before mine. Be well, Dave, and stay away from the junkies downtown.

This is my last week in New York, before a few days at my mother’s in Delaware, and then on to North Carolina. It’s a bit disconcerting to be following my normal routine these past couple of days, which involve going to my internship and drinking at my neighborhood bar. The only evidence pointing to my imminent departure is that I’m living out of a suitcase and sleeping on my brother’s couch, and yet chance has sometimes found me doing the latter in the past.

I still have quite a few things to cross of my farewell NYC tour, and I have a feeling I won’t get to all of them. High priorities are spending time in Dumbo and Red Hook and visiting my grandparents’ grave. Lower on the list are spending time in the West Village, visiting Greenwood Cemetery, and having a hot dog and PBR at the Gowanus Yacht Club.

I’ve done a bang-up job at hitting other favorite food and drinking establishments on my way out of town, however. I’ve had dinners at Alma and Dumont and drinxxx at Barcade, Bar(n), Southpaw (concert too), and of course Sepia, where I go to write. Lest anyone think epicurean urges are the only things I’m trying to satisfy, I got me some culture, too: I saw the Francis Bacon exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, caught Waiting for Godot on Broadway, did some city sightseeing by taking the Circle Line’s Harbor Lights Cruise, and had a picnic in Prospect Park.

I’d also like to get one of my tattoos touched up before I leave, and am thinking I should add that to the high priority list. I can’t guarantee the tattoo artist who did it will be around next time I’m in the city. Not that I know his schedule or have gotten wind of any sort of plans of him to also take flight from Brooklyn, but this city is ever-changing. I lived a very different NYC life when I first moved here in the mid-90s than I do now. Places I’d visit back then are no longer around—which for the most part, is fine, new places crop up—it’s just a blow to my nostalgia-tripping at times.

Dave told me he looks forward to being an NYC visitor. I do, too.

In other news, my dad is out there, somewhere, living his life, as opposed to reaching the end, which is the impression he gave us in June. But he’s getting his affairs in order—he told my brothers and I that he updated his will and what will come to us. He’s cashing in on assorted perks and passing them along to us—we’ve each received frequent flyer miles, American Express gift checks, hotel rewards cards. He let me know that I’ll also receive these wooden, glass-paneled bookshelves that used to belong to my grandparents, and were in my house when I was a kid. They went to my dad when my parents divorced. I told him years ago that if he ever decided to get rid of them, I’d take them. I think that was my thinly-veiled way of saying I wanted them willed to me. Anyway, I’m glad that he remembered. As of now they’re filled with books printed probably in the early 1900s, or whenever Horatio Alger was on the scene, because I remember a lot of Horatio Alger books in there. Also Gangs of New York. I’d like those as well, but wasn’t sure how to tactfully ask for them. I think I just said that if he and H didn’t want to hold on to them, I’d pick them up from him.