This mixtape is called New York

In my junior year of college I became friends with a guy named David. We were both majoring in Design. The main thing that impressed me about him was how he would leave school as soon as possible to go skiing in Tahoe only to return just in time to head back to class. He and I worked on some projects together and also enjoyed going out to the bars during our senior year.

A month or two before graduation he mentioned that his plan was to move to New York. Apparently it was something he'd always wanted to do. I was impressed that he had a trajectory mapped out. Even more impressed that it involved immediately moving across the country.

The first time I went to New York I was in eighth grade. It was a 'school trip' where you had to have money to partake. My memories mostly involve how excited we were to find people selling watches in the streets. We also attended The Phantom Of The Opera and after years of seeing the ubiquitous mask and rose image on t-shirts I felt like I was in on a piece of high culture.

The second time I went to New York was to visit David. As David and I had graduated in 2001 he moved out there just in time for the events of September 11th. A year later I went to visit him and New York was still in a weird way yet was also perfect for two 22 year old who had no idea what they were doing. David's apartment looked like it came from a 90s rom com where two guys lived in an improbably small space. The shower was hidden behind what looked like a cupboard door in the kitchen and the toilet was in David's closet. We walked everywhere, drank at cool bars, I bought a cool pair of shoes that I maybe wore three times and at one point I was convinced I saw Moby's house (highly unlikely) based on my viewing of his "MTV Cribs".

The last time I was in New York was when Serena and I were on our honeymoon driving from Washington DC to Long Island. The GPS we had borrowed got confused when inside the Holland Tunnel and instead of getting us onto our intended expressway we got rerouted. So no... this wasn't really a visit to New York but we did slowly drive a 1991 Volkswagon Vanagon down Canal St. I remember trying to convince Serena to jump out and buy some stuff from all the vendors. Perhaps my eighth grade self was lamenting some missed purchases. Serena, however, declined.

As you can see... I am clearly an authority on New York.