33. rundown dirty hellhole

It may seem strange that I plug all the arbitrary places we went and ate and viewed, but please try to understand. I’m from a (gorgeous, fantastic, ground-breaking) little third-world country far, far away. To us, concepts like Time’s Square, Dunkin Donuts, uptown, Pastis and 5th Avenue are all coated with the same shiny veneer of fame. These are words we’ve only heard in movies and television shows. In our geographically limited experience these streets, sights and restaurants are peopled with all the characters we know and love.

The effect this had on me was that every mundane little thing I did there was somehow glamorised and made more meaningful because I was doing it in New York. I even enjoyed my two-hour journey on the subway all the way from 181st Street to JFK, to go fetch my Beautiful Boy. We took the subway back to Manhattan again as I was too lazy to figure out the buses, though it would’ve been a good sightseeing trip! But my Boy was there, and I didn’t want to look out at the city, (sap alert!) only into his eyes.

We checked into our “hotel” just off Time’s Square. We’d booked late and we were on a budget, let’s just say that the place was a little worse for wear. Our “room” was about the size of my suitcase, but we had our own little dingy “bathroom” for which I was thankful. We’d read horrible reviews of our “hotel” on tripadvisor, which was a great idea, as we were consequentially quite impressed when we found clean sheets, no overwhelming smells and no blood anywhere!

The best feature in our palatial suite was the back wall of the room, it was painted a pure bright red. That might put normal people off for seeming a bit shady, but when Boy and I had dreamt of our One Day home, we both agreed that there would definitely be a shrieking red wall somewhere.
It’s a powerful testament to the wonders of love, that what might be construed as a rundown dirty hellhole by some, was to us the most perfect little love nest.