Le Breakfast with Caviar

I have a huge problem. My life for the past three weeks has been a series of movie montages from when the heroine is really happy and active and living life. You know, the three seconds of a movie where they show the 'living' or 'working' or 'building' part. And as a human being, it's wonderful. But as a writer, it's death, because I cannot describe what's happening to me without sounding cheesy, without telling a story that hasn't already been told several times over by Hollywood. Take for example the contrast between the two worlds I am currently living in.

In Brooklyn, I am the nice stay-at-home Jewish girl in a homely skirt who is over-fed by family, helps with the dishes and spends her evenings listening to stories about her grandparents. The cozy apartment is always full of noise, people and TONS of food. Breakfast is five different types of cheese and soviet caviar. It's all about the family as people constantly swarm around her.

When I make the trek over the East River, I turn into the awkward girl on the train who smiles as they go over water. The Brooklyn Bridge comes into view and she covers her ears, head bobbing to the beat. She listens to 'When the Sun Goes Down' from the Arctic Monkeys, the clicking of the wheels in time with the music while her eyes stay glued to the bridge.

In Manhattan at a friend's place, I am the city girl looking down from the dizzying 37th floor. She takes her coffee with soymilk and the view on the balcony as the skyscrapers boldly watch her. The big house is empty and the silence is sharp until the housekeeper shows up. In the evenings she teeters out with her two single girlfriends and talks about men and the city as they migrate from bar to bar.

See what I mean? I cannot write about one of these experiences without thinking to myself 'big deal you rode the subway today'. But at the same time I LOVE it, because when I am living these things I think 'wow. If I was still in Munich, I would be sitting at my desk at work right now or surfing the net.' They all fill some sort of void I had, every single experience is at once new and familiar and impossible to write about without sounding like someone before me. And just like countless people before me, I am living the rosy beginnings of a dream. I guess I will have to accept the fact that, for the moment at least, I am just one big walking cliché.