Every week a different FADER staff member will pick a clothing item or accessory that he or she has lately been spending a lot of time with—or would like to—and write a little love letter to it. We would’ve done a column on who we’re dating but that seemed a little bit much. This week Deidre talks about Terrapin Stationers' New York Fucking City Notecards.
I have lived in New York for my entire life, save a six-month stint in Germantown, Maryland when I was two, which was totally against my consent. In just shy of 29 years, I have survived many near-death and life-altering experiences. As a kid, I bobbed and weaved my way out of shootouts in supermarket parking lots. As a college freshman, I was once punched in the shoulder by a homeless man who then asked me for spare change. While walking home from private school, a crackhead tried to take my sister away from me claiming that baby sis was in fact her daughter. This is just a brief sampling, but if I were to list all of the wacky and dangerous things that have happened to me in my life in NYC, we'd be here all day. I don't think my parents, June and David, had all this madness in mind when they decided to migrate from Trinidad to New York for the betterment of their childrens' future. I often wonder if I will raise my children here in my hometown. Will they too have to navigate a terrain of treacherous living? Will they fold under the pressures of the city's maddening pace? Despite all of this shit I've endured that might've ended my life, this filthy city has given me the street smarts and instincts necessary for survival. We New Yawkers can singlehandedly brave the apocalypse while picking up our dry cleaning and making bodegas runs. That said, I will happily send polite correspondences on my slightly rude notecards from Terrapin Stationers that do all the NYC shit talkin' for me.
