Witness This

I skyped this weekend with KVS, one of my best friends from college and a freelance writer in New Orleans. (One of my favorite memories of New York is when KVS was in charge of making and taking pictures of the recipes featured in New York Magazine each week. Her pictures then were turned into sketches, so every so often I would open a NYM and see a drawing of my hands. Or Megh’s.)

The longer I am here, the more accustomed I am to having stupid conversations (“Hi, I’m Alex. I am American. I like the beach.”), so it was nice to talk with someone who knows me so well. KVS also can relate to some of my feelings about living in Budapest as she moved to New Orleans last year knowing only a couple of people.

Like anything, transplanting to Budapest and New Orleans has its ups and downs, but KVS described it perfectly; sometimes you just want someone to “witness” you. Like if I weren’t to run around Margaret Island in the morning or walk around Tesco during lunch because my office makes me claustrophobic, would anyone notice? This has to be part of the reason why everyone and their mother has a blog or twitter account.

(For the record, the aforementioned “anyone” excludes my mom. One Friday night when I worked at DB, I didn’t respond to my mom’s email because I went to bed at 7 PM after pulling an all-nighter. The next morning I awoke to ten messages from coworkers whom my mom had called trying to track me down.)

At the same time, not having many people “witness” you is kinda fun and part of the appeal about moving to a new city in the first place. So it goes both ways.

And I am sorry to say that you now are witness to my sulking following the mysterious Govinda closure and ramblings resulting from not having moved from the couch except to get up and pour another bowl of cereal. Nougat Pillows, I am cheating on you.