Are you where you normally live?
Yup
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What are you currently reading?
NYMag, Legaspi by Rick Owens, & The Tao of Wu by The Rza
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What are you currently watching?
So you’ll basically see I’m an extremist with everything in my life, I’m kind of high brow low brow in every aspect-balance is very important in a weird ironic way. NY1, RealHousewives of Atlanta and NYC, Insecure, and anything Almodovar, and rewatching season 10 of RuPaul’s Dragrace to be inspired Age of Aquaria.
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What are you currently listening to?
It will range from Chopin, Motown, Amy Winehouse, Summer Walker, and Amy Winhouse, but most recently a lot and I mean A LOT of love songs, like ballads.
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What have you been eating the most? Do you have a recipe to share?
Does drinking count? Eek that sounds not healthy haha. Yerba Mate and coffee. Shakes that I make at home with blueberries and spinach.
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How are you moving your body/exercising?
I do some in home workouts rarely, but mostly I bike everywhere. I’ll bike 3-5 times a week minimum to the George Washington Bridge from Soho along the Westside Highway, then bike back down on broadway. My bike to me is everything and just feels like my wings. I’ve been biking my whole life and I feel safer on a bike that I do walking on the streets of NYC, sounds crazy but I just do. I also was biking since the beginning of the pandemic and I looked at as a cultural study-I saw how dead and empty my home that I called New York was and how it slowly and it slowly continues to come back to life from the westside highway to Broadway-It’s been nuts.
If you’re buying anything, what is it?
In the beginning I was actually shopping for clothes, which now I’m like that was not necessarily dumb but I just think my money could have been spent somewhere else. Right now where I choose to spend my money is on being an educated consumer-for example, I’ve never really had to be confronted with the decision of making an ethical choice with every dollar I spend. Now in this pandemic in the Covid capital of the world New York, I’ve seen Soho for example, this place used to be the loudest area to where I would call about noise complaints and now I don’t know where to go out and get a coffee because things are closing left and right because they can’t afford to stay open or re-open. I choose to spend whatever money I have that doesn’t go straight to my rent on sustaining these small businesses or just businesses that are keeping my city alive, that are keeping the faith, it can sound kind of sappy to some but I’ve never felt this kind of empathy and romanticism and need to help my city since 9/11.
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What’s one new thing you started doing big or small since this all happened? (Like a new skill/a hobby or even habit)
One day my best friend Luisa came to visit me I was inside my house and she was across the street and I had just gotten a DJ setup as many of our gigs have turned virtual, and something in me told me to play a song for her. So I played a song for her and I filmed it. This just took off. I then made it into a habit where I play and dedicate a song outside my window at 7pm everyday when all of NYC claps for our health heroes, it’s my giving back to our health heroes and my giving back to my city and just my giving back to the world. I know it’s a really difficult, I’m not trying to save the world, I’m not trying to cover a huge wound with a small bandaid but I know music has the power to heal and sometimes we just need to see something on someone’s wall or be sent something and it just makes us smile or a song just reminds us of a time in our lives where we were so happy that we forget what’s going on for 5 seconds and that’s all I’’m hoping to do, and the feedback I’ve gotten is proving that it’s doing that. I now have people coming every day just to sit at the park across my house and they wait to hear what song I’ll play, it’s really beautiful. I mean, I love the idea, if I lived in the neighborhood I would go everyday just because I don’t know when the next time I’ll hear music out loud like that again will be but it’s been a really rewarding gift that I’ve been able to give and I’ll be doing it until quarantine is lifted.
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Tell me about your evening routine! And your morning one too!
So Evening, everything basically revolves around my one 7pm dedication song, which is great because it has instilled a sense of discipline in my life during this uncertain time.
My Morning routine. I wake up, on the right side of the bed, only, always. Walk into the living room, Blast music from my ipad to my living room speaker immediately. Usually whatever is on shuffle from my liked songs from where I left off the night before ( Opera, Chopin, Motown, Whitney, something relaxing etc)-I’ll put NY1 on with the mute button on so I can watch it while listening to music. Open all my windows to let air ventilate through the apartment-good energy and bad energy flow through.
I’ll pour myself cold brew with oat milk, and take allergy medicine with a tablespoon of local honey.
Wash my face thoroughly with all the steps, then sit down on the sofa in a robe, and open my notebook and go through my to do list from yesterday and see what I didn’t do and add it to today’s and start my day.
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What’s one way big or small that you’ve been helping others?
I would say besides the 7pm dedication song, I think just checking in on people. I am already a caretaker by nature so this pandemic brought that out in me even more, I check in on people and just say “How are you doing” which I think even though it may trigger some people, sometimes you just need to be asked that-you know?
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What one thing can’t you wait to do?
Go to the beach
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Who has been the most interesting/unexpected person you’ve spoken with since this started?
I think honestly my neighbors around me-Ever since this whole thing started and my 7pm song series I have gotten so much praise and in contact with so many people either in my building or in buildings next to mine or across from mine. IT has given us such a sense of community which we don’t really have in New York City, you feel this in suburbs where you say Hi to your neighbors and now that friendlyness is carrying over to here which is really nice and warm, I wouldn’t change it for anything, I feel like we’re all in this together, you know?
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What’s one thing you’re grateful for?
I’m grateful for my strength & positive outlook on life which I partly get from my Mother. I think I’ve gone through a lot that some people may know and some may not, but like everyone we all have our own crosses to bear and how we choose to rise above them is what makes us who we are, no one’s is greater than or less than. I choose to not be a victim and let those past traumas dictate or narrate my life going forward . We can all let our inner saboteurs win but then we’re all just stuck in black holes that we’ll never get out of, it’s up to us to dig ourselves out and get back up and fight. Life isn’t easy but if you make the conscious decision to make yourself the best person you can be and try to have a positive outlook then who can blame you for that, no one that’s who.
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Anything else to share?
Even in quarantine, your intuition is still always right.
People will show you their true colors.