humor · stage piece

new york, same bitch

Written and performed at Written in Brooklyn, May 2025.

Everyone knows Friday is the best day of the week. Not because it’s payday, or because Rebecca Black wrote a whole-ass song about it. But because Friday is pure potential.

You can still be the person who makes it to Saturday morning yoga and brunch. Who locks eyes with the hot guy across the bar. Who folds laundry the same day you wash it. Who resets her whole damn life.

On Friday, the future version of you — the one with the energy, the discipline, the follow-through — still feels within reach.

And to me, New York was Friday. Not just full of possibility, urgent with it. On every block, a different life waiting to happen. But it didn’t just offer options, it demanded decisions. Because when you’re surrounded by every version of the person you could be, you have to decide who you actually are.

By high school, I had become obsessed with the idea of NYU. Emphasis on idea of, since I’d never actually stepped foot on the East Coast.

Did I know what I wanted to study? No. Could I afford a private, out-of-state school? Also no. Did I look good in violet? Absolutely not. I’m a bright spring. But I knew I’d look good in New York.

Tragically, NYU rejected me. I settled for California, bouncing up the coast over the next decade. 

By 29, I’m antsy. I’ve been in San Francisco for six years, trying on different jobs, hobbies, therapists, situationships, even a sabbatical in Europe. I said yes to a lot, but I was always dabbling, always waffling. One foot in, one foot out.

I needed a place that would force me to pick a lane and lean in. I needed New York.

There’s just one problem: I’m broke, and cross-country moves aren’t cheap. I run through the usual get-rich-quick schemes.

Beauty YouTuber? Hard to film a "get ready with me" when your typical morning routine involves applying mascara mid-commute on a city bus.

Sugar baby? The quickest path, sure. But my tolerance for small talk with men is even lower than my credit score, so that’s out. 

I end up going the practical route: I con my way into a corporate relocation package. I just have to take a soul-crushing job that I had no desire to do – aka a job.

Somehow, against all odds, it’s actually happening. Twenty years of daydreaming and some good old fashioned selling out: I’m going to New York. The best part? I wasn’t chasing a better career, or man, or even a rent-stabilized apartment. I was chasing a better version of me.

I could start being her now. I should start being her now.

Or—I could agree to attend a friend’s wedding in Southern California, the night before my move. Because apparently, I couldn’t resist just one last hit of people pleasing-induced overcommitment. You know, for the road.

• • •

It’s the morning of the big move. In 12 hours, I’ll be on a redeye from San Francisco to New York. And 12 hours after that, walking into my first day at the new job. 

Like I do every day, I rise with the sun. I unfold my yoga mat and crack open my gratitude journal. If there has ever been a day to reflect, this is it.

Kidding! I wake up to the sound of a leaf blower outside a Santa Barbara motel, having slept through my alarm. My head is pounding from 3 too many Moscow Mules named after the groom’s dog, my eyes partially glued shut by Ardell Whispies.

I force them open to look at the time: 11:04. Fuck. 

Running late for a cross-country move I’ve had months to prep for? This diva is LOCA!

12:38: I hit the road. Behind schedule, but caffeinated and ready to make up time. Besides, it’s Sunday, how bad could traffic be?

Bad. Very bad. The kind of bad that makes me reconsider everything that’s led to this moment: the choice to put a bra on for this drive, the decision to attend this wedding at all, even the very premise of marriage itself.

My Google Maps ETA jumps from 5 hours 10 minutes to 5 hours 30. I oscillate between palm-sweating panic and raw excitement – because this time tomorrow, I’ll be walking down a trash-lined Brooklyn street, scooped out bagel in hand.

Of course, that’s *if* I make it Home in time to pack.

Yep, pack. Did I mention I haven’t packed yet?

The relocation company grabbed the big stuff weeks ago, but I still need to cram a month’s worth of essentials into a handful of suitcases. I briefly attempt calculating how long this will take then remember I’m not a woman in STEM. I take a swig of Pedialyte and try not to throw up.

6:02: I reach my apartment. It’s the last time I’ll ever walk through that front door. I pause and look around. The fog is rolling in from the Pacific, soft and cinematic. I give my regards to El Rancho Grande down the block — the only place that ever accepted me, barefoot, braless and blackout adjacent. 

God, am I about to cry? No. There’s no time to be sentimental.

I jolt back to the present, and barrel up the stairs to play the highest-stakes game of suitcase Tetris of my life.

7:41: I zip the last bag and call a Lyft. Minutes later, the driver arrives. He takes one look at my mountain of luggage and his face falls. He is not the first man to look at me this way and won’t be the last. 

7:52: We hit the freeway. As long as I beat baggage cutoff at 9:00, I still have a chance. I stare out the window, exhausted and weirdly serene. Normally, top 40 makes me want to walk into the sea, but right now, not even The Chainsmokers can bring me down.

8:39: My driver throws the Caravan into park, and dumps me and my bags at Delta Skycap. 

“Hiiiii,” I greet the agent, signaling that I’m about to be a pain in the ass.

He does not match my niceties. “How many bags?”

“Hmmm…four?”

I shove my first suitcase on the scale: 53 pounds. Shit, that’s my lightest. The next one? 57. I resume sweating and spiraling.

Jesus, how much is this gonna cost? I have eight hundred dollars to last me until the end of the month. That’s food, transportation, emotional-support cappuccinos, everything.

He weighs the remaining bags and suckerpunches me with the total: $750.

I brace myself against the counter. “I’m sorry, WHAT.”

I plead my case. Explain the move. The wedding. The traffic. The sheer injustice of being a modern woman.

The agent softens a little. “If you drop one bag, I can waive the overweight fees.”

Was I hoping he’d be so moved by my story – or taken by my beauty – that he’d comp it all? Of course – I had charmed straight men with less.

But there’s no time to negotiate. I take the deal.

8:46: I’m splayed on the sidewalk outside Delta, surrounded by the spilled contents of my luggage like a one-woman yard sale.

Bulky items are the first to go — towels, sheets, two pillows. Trash.

Next, toiletries. I part with the nail polish collection I’ve been building since elementary school and several mitts for applying self-tanner. Then, an intrusive thought: If you can’t TAN it, you’ll have to TONE it…

Skycap dude interrupts from the counter: “5 minutes til baggage check closes.”

Time slows. I look at my piles and lock in.

Ok, this is a lesson in detachment. Today, you are Buddhist. You’re a hot, pale Buddhist and you’re moving to New York. What you may lack in stuff, you will make up for in life experience. 

I make some tough decisions and chuck a duffel bag-sized time capsule into the trash. Somewhere in there: an old sorority sweatshirt, my dignity, and $40 in unredeemed GAP cash. Marie Kondo could never.

9:05: I hand off my remaining bags and start sprinting to security. 

If running through a crowded airport is tough, doing it hungover is torture. Even worse? Running with a roller carry-on, a queen-size comforter stuffed into a trash bag, and…a stack of 3 wide-brimmed rancher hats on top of your head. This menty B sponsored by Free People!

9:28: I reach security. The TSA agent standing before me is the final boss—the last obstacle between me and my new life. I nudge the hats up from the bridge of my nose, hand over my ID and brace myself. 

Until now, I’ve been so focused on the time, I hadn’t considered that I may look too mentally unfit to fly. 

It’s fine, Kaia, play it cool. It’s actually SUPER normal to pack your personal item in a Hefty bag. People do it all the time. 

“Mmm what’s that?” The agent motions at the comforter. 

I don’t miss a beat: “A blanket. For the plane.”

I hold my breath. She glances at the bag for not even a full second, shrugs, and, as if I’m the third comforter she’s seen today, waves me through.

Holy shit. I’m going to make it.

Four bags lighter, three hats taller, this dumb bitch is going to New York.