Does anyone here watch Youtube regularly? I've decided it's freaker than Facebook. If you're looking for what made me really start thinking about this, delve into the videscapades of Lonelygirl15 and Danielbeast, which are now being documented by...the New York Times?
Bizarre.
Yesterday at work, when one of those "rare" occasions of boredom passed me, I read almost my entire old livejournal...including comment posts. What really struck me was how much I posted after my freshman year of college and how many comments I received, lots from Kim, Heather, Bryan, Matt, Ryan, Jessie, Barrak, and others. I only now realize that in order to convince myself that college still existed that summer and that it hadn't had some wonderful dream, I needed to update my livejournal to stay connected (and, most likely, update facebook every other hour).
The weird thing is that now most of my lj friends either don't have accounts or don't update anymore, and well, neither do I. Sitting at work yesterday, I tried evaluating what that meant. That I'm more mature? That I have less time on my hands? That I don't need that conection to college because I know it's there? Or that I am convinced I've become detached from college in the last few months?
I feel somewhat isolated; and whether that's because I'm very different than many of my "acquaintances/friends" at Northwestern, or because I started dating my best friend (there's a fast route to self-containment), or because I up and moved to New York for six months, I don't know. Regardless, it leaves me feeling like when I go back for the last two quarters of college, I want to make the most of it, not lose touch with my friends, not let "classwork" get me down and just generally be happy.
For the meantime, however, I'm here in New York and I am enjoying it. I'm not out doing some of the crazy things that some of my friends are this summer, but that's okay because I needed to have this "unpaid internship" experience. I do love the feeling of getting off the subway at Rock Center and weaving through crowds on Sixth Avenue. I feel part of something much bigger than myself, and we all know that's a good feeling. I am looking forward to the magazine internship switch from T to YL in the coming weeks. Something fresh is in order for the fall.
To those of you from home who may or may not read this, thanks for inquiring about my house and my family. My parents put the house on the market about ten days ago and are hoping to sell soon. This will be a big process as we have loads of antique furniture which will probably not fit either spacially or decoratively in whatever house my parents buy. Yeah, it's stressful on my family and on me (it's hard to be in New York, uprooted from Northwestern, and know that at the same time, your home is being sold), but I guess this is all part of growing up.
As usual, I've wasted the morning and early afternoon hours of my Friday lounging around, exploring ridiculous websites and watching TV, so I should go venture into the city and do something fun.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Another Month Passes
Sunday, August 13, 2006
The New York City Super
I have discovered another breed of being--The New York City Super.
The NYCS is not concerned with his job or the welfare of those he might otherwise save from jammed doors, frozen heaters or malfunctioning ovens. When his phone rings, he scans calls, recognizes tenants' numbers and silences the call. When he schedules appointments, he arrives no earlier than 45 minutes late, if at all. Upon his much-sought-after arrival, he wields WD-40 like Arthur's sword, leaving your apartment in a filmy layer of grease.
The NYCS is a force to be reckoned with.
This is my latest New York discovery. Last Sunday, after a relaxing afternoon in the Central Park sun, I returned home to discover our door no longer responded to my key. I twisted, pushed, pulled and yanked until I slumped against the wall in defeat, surreptitiously removed my bikini top from underneath my T-shirt and resigned to finally starting The Kite Runner, which had sat in my bag for over a week basically untouched.
When I could no longer take the saccharine Sunni and Shi'a allegorical friendship of Amir and Hassan, I stood up once more, gave the door one more try and, somehow, got into the apartment. J was already on his way home from work, having asked to leave early to help me get in or find a locksmith. While I waited for his return, dreading that he would be frustrated that I had already gotten through the door, I hopped in the shower which I had been dreaming of since I had left the park nearly an hour and a half before.
Now, really, as NYCS horror stories go, that's not all that bad. J and I figured a way to switch the automatic lock off and used the deadbolt to enter and exit our apartment with no incident--until yesterday.
As we gathered our stuff to go sailing in Larchmont, NY with J's cousin, Nick, we left the apartment, somehow switching the automatic lock back on as we exited. We realized this mistake almost immediately after it happened and started making the appropriate calls. First, Megan, from who we are subletting. Then, Curtis, our NYCS. Finally, Julie, J's sister, to see if "worst came to worst" we could somehow find our way to her Brooklyn apartment for a night's rest.
Fortunately, as our day wore on, we scheduled an appointment with Curtis (with Megan's help) at 11 pm, right about the time we expected to return from Larchmont. Despite all the wine we had drank and the lengthy trainride down to Grand Central (as opposed to the 125th and East River stop which J wanted so badly to get off at), we made it back to our apartment by 11:05. With no Curtis in sight, we tried the door and discovered he had been by earlier in the day to force the door open with the master key. Shocking. It didn't make much sense for Curtis to be coming back by, to maybe prove he had done his job or spray the WD-40 once more for good measure. But we decided to wait for him, pushing back our bedtime for the sup'. J called him twice while we waited, once when he was fifteen minutes late, again when he was a half hour tardy. Finally, at 11:45, I called from my line, which I figured he would not recognize and thus ignore, and demanded he come right away. He, it turned out, was downstairs, on his way in the building.
Curtis looked about what I had imagined Curtis Jackson would look like. Gruff, with acne scars and a patchy beard, his hair picked out to a small 'fro and shoved under a baseball hat. He wore what looked like a standard super uniform, mess pants and a button down shirt of a uniform blue that suggested prison or military service. He showed us what we already knew about the automatic lock and then went on to spray the lock box with his precious WD-40. The lock, he guessed, was probably not broken, probably just sticky. Thanks to my recently-gleaned This Old House skills, I knew he was wrong. The box had already come out of the door once, and I had screwed it back in. That spring inside the lock box had definitely come off its track or broken somehow else. Regardless, the lock box doesn't need a greasing-down; it needs to be replaced.
Curtis seemed a little surprised that a tenant would be talking at all about the anatomy of the door, let alone that it would be the chick who'd pipe up and tell him how she'd already fixed the door once. I blessed This Old House as he left us alone, promising to tell them that it did need replacing and it would be done Monday.
We let him know we'd give him a call on Monday, given that we'll probably not hear from him.
Tuesday, August 1, 2006
Catch-up
I've been bad about really letting you know what's going on in New York, so let me actually tell you. Let's start fresh, shall we?
I'm in New York! I've never been here before, and based on first impressions, don't know if I'll ever come back. But I'll give this city some time. I have yet to do so many things, I have no right to judge yet...
...and here we are in August. I'm still in New York. The furthest away from the city I've gotten was 44th St. and 4th Ave. in Brooklyn. I'm being patient with New York, but I'm not impressed yet. Granted, I'm a self-confessed cynic and Chicago-snob, so New York is playing to the tough crowd in me.
To catch y'all up on what these first six weeks have been like for me, I'll ramble a bit and then copy-and-paste the short updates I've been keeping--those are a little more concrete.
I work Monday through Thursday. T and everybody else thinks I'm babysitting on Fridays, but I'm not. Generally, I'm sleeping late and eating lunch and watching the Tony Danza Show. Not really, I hate the Tony Danza Show.
On the days when I work, I get up around 8:30 and shower, primp and shove some Cheerios in my mouth before I dash down the one flight of stairs of my Harlem apartment. On Monday and Tuesday J doesn't work and it gives me something sweet to kiss back in bed before I leave.
As I walk to the subway, I focus my energy on that particular New York attitude of mild non-chalance, or more likely, aggressive indifference. I often get comments from the Harlem Old Timers who sit on their stoops or their lawn chairs that they drag onto the sidewalk--"That's my babygirl!" or, "You lookin' fine today, Mizz!" or, "That's FBI right there!" and sometimes just a "good morning." I've gotten really good at missing the subway in the morning. I have lived my life in New York by the unused white Coffeemate on our kitchen counter. 9:37 used to mean "on time" for the B-Train, but not anymore. These days, 9:37 on the Coffeemate seems to mean "oh, you just barely missed the train again!" In the last ten days, I've caught the B-Train only once or twice. No matter--nobody arrives at work til 10:10 anyway.
The morning commute is tame. I'm usually half-asleep with either a magazine, book or my iPod keeping me conscious. However absorbed I appear in said object, I am spending half my time watching my reflection in the darkened windows of the subway car. Am I, sometimes I wonder, the only person who does this? I like to watch my crossed leg bob up and down with the sway of the subway--that's something you never get to see, just like you never get to watch yourself eat.
My building is connected to the Rockefeller Center stop. I scale the stairs and escalator and prepare myself for an awkward encounter in the elevator. The Brazilian consolate is on the 21st floor of the Bank of America Building. (TOH is on the 27th.) I usually get to hear lots of Portugese which I don't understand or watch some confused traveler try to jump onto the elevator to go down when it's still going up. By the end of the ride, I'm usually with one or two other T employees who I don't know that well and we joke about the Brazilian consolate to pass the last fifteen seconds of the ride.
After a full day at work, which I usually spend in true intern fashion half-checking my mail and half-writing/researching/fact-checking, I jump back onto the B-Train and head to Harlem. J and I have been known to hit the same train while he travels back from downtown, so that's always a treat.
Living with your boyfriend when you're only 21 is interesting. I can't imagine all those kids back home in "Ah'hia" who have gotten married already. I'm still trying to keep J from joking about penises and encouraging him to clean up his video games when he's done with them, so I can't imagine trying to work out taxes and diapers with him. I suppose I feel like I'm young, but it's really fun living with John and I'm enoying it.
When we both get home, we make dinner together. J prides himself on cooking meat, so I don't usually mess with that. We have a few traditional dinners--lemon chicken, "meat mulch" (a family favorite, apparently), pasta with porkchops, pasta with butter, hamburgers, and cheese and crackers with fruit (that's my influence). We sometimes drink wine (Pinot Noir), sometimes drink beer (Sam Adams), but we both like milk (non-fat) the best. We settle in with our dinners to watch some Wheel of Fortune or throw on a Seinfeld or Arrested Development episode. Then, we exploit the rest of our Netflix subscription by watching a movie almost every night.
On the weekends when J doesn't work, we lounge in bed til 11, eat and then lounge some more. Afterward, we'll go to the park. That's a nice lifestyle. On the weekends when he does work, he gets up so early that I sleep in and then I'm sad that we're not eating lunch and lounging.
In conclusion for catching up, here is my Facebook profile's "Week-by-Week Play-by-Play of NYC" as of now:
Week 1: Welcome to New York, or alternatively, Get Shivved in the Subway If You are White and 21 Week!
Week 2: Adjustment, or alternatively, Work Gets Boring.
Week 3: Adjustment, or alternatively, Harlem Gives CC a Lesson in Tattoo Art.
Week 4: Hot-Shot in NYC, or alternatively, Get Shot in NYC
Week 5: It's a Small World Afterall, or alternatively, J's Ex Lives Across the Street From Us.
Week 6: Meeting the Neighbors, or alternatively, Your Boyfriend Leaves the Door Open and the Neighbors Walk In and You're Naked.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
One month later...
Things in New York really don't change that much. I work, I eat, I watch Arrested Development, and I sleep. That's life.
There have been a few things of note in the last few weeks, however. Lately, I spend my free time (much of which is while J slaves away in the food industry down at SATC-infamous City Bakery on 18th St.) looking for a place to stay this fall.
I feel a tinge of regret about decided NYC was the place to be for fall quarter. J will be leaving me here alone come September, and I might be living by myself or with some 37-year-old guy with cheese for teeth. After the mild pang of what might be an infant-ulcer passes, I remember that the reason I chose to live in NYC for fall was one of independence. Let's face it. You start dating your best friend, live with him for all the time you're dating, hang out with and depend upon your friends, and know that your family is always there for you, and you start to wonder if you still have the muscles in your legs to stand alone. I think this fall will be a good experience for me. Maybe a quiet one at times, or lonely, but a good experience in the end.
New York seems to be a place where chance falls in your lap, or hits you with force in the head. I'll elaborate.
J's cousin, Nick--a 47-year-old investment banker with a wife and two teenage sons--took us out for dinner at one of New York's swankiest after-work restaurants. I ate until I hurt (I considered purging in the corner of the subway station while waiting to go home that night). He, upon noting that J and I are normal, responsible 21-year-olds, offered to take us on his yacht for the weekend to Nantucket. Unfortunately, a mild tropical storm befell Nantucket (and New York) and that will have to wait a weekend.
Julie, J's sister, invited us to the This American Life NYC office-warming party. At said party, we made the acquaintances of everyone from NPR's Iraq War correspondent, A (really, really nice), to B-the director of Capote who I was too in awe of to actually talk to. We also exchanged numbers with R, a condescending 20-something who recently released a book about his time spent in Baghdad. We promised to call one another before his book release party at a swanky club downtown. However, when the gin-and-tonic haze lifted the next morning, we thought better of our promises to R, and he must have done the same, for none of us called one another.
Last weekend, J and I took the advice of two Columbia professors we met at the NPR party and went to a swanky Harlem restaurant, Native. The thing about Harlem is that it's definitely stuck to sterotypes--old men on stoops, kids riding bikes up and down the sidewalks, fried chicken and people yelling "my nigga" all over--but it also is slowly becoming gentrified. This restaurant, tucked between a new bank branch and luxury condos, was also surrounded by rundown apartments and shut-down businesses.
Native's food was delicious, the wine even better, but in the midst of being served our entrées--three gunshots rang out down the block. People in the street screamed and ducked down, and our waiter quickly put down our meals and scuttled away.
It's a strange dichotomy here--people give you dirty looks because you're white or look slightly successful. (Hell, I don't even have a job, man.) But, once you've been in the neighborhood for a while, they adjust to you and say good morning rather than how they greeted you the first week ("You don't belong here, do you?").
Perhaps the biggest moment of chance falling in laps and bitch-slapping heads has been a trick of coincidence. J's ex-girlfriend, L, who I have met and like and who attends Fordham University during the schoolyear, emailed him a week ago. She had not emailed J in over six months, and last J knew, she was going to the south of France for the summer to live on a farm and work. Instead, she explained in her email, she was in the city. After a few more exchanged emails we realized that she not only still is living in the city, but she is living across the street from us. Literally. Here, see for yourself:
And now L is living with her new boyfriend/ex-professor, V. I'm something of a nervous wreck every time I go anywhere in our neighborhood now. I wear my sunglasses more often and am constantly looking twice at people around me. At the laundry mat, Is that one 30-something white guy V? At the grocery store, Is that blond ahead of me in line L? I better switch to another line...
Whether or not J and L meet up to have one of those once-we-dated lunches or something else is yet to be seen.
Oh, and in news to come, J and I may attend a Long Island beach party in honor of the birthdays of two gentlemen who are being filmed for an MTV reality series about rich, do-nothings and their travails. Look for us in the series premiere?
That's all from New York. Oh, except that I miss Chicago and desperately miss Ohio even more... or maybe visa versa. :)
Friday, June 23, 2006
Manic Update
I'd like to sleep in that city that doesn't do so.
I love my job. Enough to think that, Boy, working for T is so fun, I could do it for a long time. Honestly, salvage and interior decoration are pretty awesome.
Craigslist's "missed connections" might be my new favorite thing.
It sucks that I have to find another place to live for the fall in the same city I am in now.
It also sucks that I'm not making any money right now.
In Cold Blood is an addictive first read.
I'm pretty sure half the interns at T are not equipped with fully functioning social skills.