well it's the best damned thing ever that no one knows this is here or reads this shit. this way i can rant on about whatever the hell i want without fear of reproach. sorta.
anywho, i have taken a grand tumble and in the spirit of quick healing, i've pretty much just been on the couch with my leg elevated, icing one of several badly bruised parts of my body. the funny thing about it is that i'm paying the physical karma for ranting on about how stupid people are on the sidewalk. so while i sit here with a bag of frozen berries consoling my injury, i will go over some sidewalk stuff.
there is only so much room on a new york sidewalk. there are sooo many things to consider and the sidewalk dynamic changes at different times of day, so you have to be paying attention. people are walking in and out of the thousands of doorways you pass with varying levels of attentiveness. This means that there is a perpendicular factor involved in managing the stream of situations. I have found however, that many times the people going into and out of the stores are actually the most aware, given a situation. the trouble is with your fellow in traffic. the man or woman who is walking in the same direction on the same side of the street who has no fucking sense of his or her surroundings.
this person has no idea that when walking in a limited space, some basic courtesies should be extended. for example, don't zone out and wander aimlessly during morning or afternoon rush hour foot traffic. people have their walks timed down to the minute during these times. i know exactly how much time it takes to get to work within 2 minutes. i rarely see the same people on the sidewalk, which i find interesting, but i can't have some jackass weaving around like a drunkard when i'm on my way to work. it fucks up my flow and it's just generally annoying. i am not alone in this sentiment.
i am also not alone in thinking that when in a crowd of 3 or more, the crowd is required to give way to the single pedestrian and not force said pedestrian into a planter or a heater grate (particularly annoying to the woman in heels). a simple sidestep by any one person in the party will alleviate so much irritation for so many people. these nuisances are compounded during times of 'weather' by the random ice / mud burm, 3-bag-deep garbage, the heater grates that on some blocks take up most of the area and so many other possible obstacles. this is not the environment in which to be unaware.
now i do admit that i am one known to zone out and get lost in my thoughts while i wander around. i try to do this late at night or in places where it is socially acceptable not to be on your game; not hog up the sidewalk and piss off my fellow pedestrians. by this measure, i exempt myself from participating in this annoyance-fest because during normal work and transit times, i make it a point to be cognizant of what is going on around me.
all of this was true until friday, when in a fit of stupidity, i didn't look where i stepped and it all went terribly awry. i crashed down on so many parts of my body simultaneously that it must have looked how it looks when little kids are learning to walk and just spontaneously take a huge dive and take out an entire hemisphere of their bodies. only when you're 32 years old, size and gravity are not friends. so i interrupted the path of many, while also providing instant laughter and fodder for the breakfast table the next day.
i'm not sure what the actual point was of this anecdote, but the dual achievements i believe are that i have laughed at my own stupidity and educated my vast audience on the tip of the iceberg where sidewalk etiquette is concerned.
30 May, 2007
11 May, 2007
a list
in light of all of the things that have transpired over the last 18 months or so, i am creating a list of good things that i have discovered in that time period. there are 10 in no particular order and they are pretty much all centered around new york, so it is easy to infer that i am quickly falling in love with this city.
1. central park. you can run, ride, sit, play, skate, walk or do any combination of the above. it's huge, beautiful, cool in the summer and only a warm-up jog away from my house.
2. men who always open doors, let you into and out of elevators, walk on the outside of the street, lead you with their hand on your lower back and just generally have good manners.
3. street meat. halal food is the bzzomb. $4 for a plate lunch that is chicken and rice. enough to be lunch for 2 days.
4. plaza diner. the only 24hr diner in the world where the server does not recognize an omlette as a food item universally known for containing eggs.
5. yelling. new york is the only place where you and everyone else in the city can fall prey to the sudden urge to shout out on occasion because you know that no one is even gonna look once. feel free to show your elation and to celebrate out loud. if even one non-tourist eyelash is batted, i'll be a monkey's uncle.
6. "the deli". the deli represents any and all small markets where a bevy of random items may be purchased. you can get a pretty decent bagel, eggs, all sorts of different lunch dishes ranging from sushi to actual deli sandwiches, to a respectable buffet bar. you can also pick up beer and wine, a mind-blowing assortment of green tea drinks and vitamin waters and any random hygiene item you could possibly need on a moments notice. they usually have one random item that keeps you loyal to that particular deli and they are the best thing in the fucking world at 4 in the morning.
7. neigborhoods. when i used to come into the city to play, i went to the middle tier places. the ones that you know about if you live outside the city that tourists may not know, but not ones that are neighborhood specific; not the place "around the corner" that you suddenly can't live without. now that i live here, i'm finding neighborhoods within neighborhoods and the number of historical layers to this place is amazing.
8. go getters. if you want to jump into a rushing river, come to manhattan. the place is bursting at the seams with energy. the beauty of it is, behind your apartment door, is the 'off' switch for it. you can have your little sanctuary and then go out and jump in the river. if you've ever been pulled along by rushing water, you'll get this analogy for sure. it's not even so much a matter of fighting because everyone has his or her mind on the goal; whatever the goal may be. it's more a matter of learning to navigate and use the flow to your advantage. it's learning how to focus your energy and get things done. it's learning how to really get ahead. you can't spit without it landing on 10 go getters on any given corner in the city. they are smart, sharply dressed, neurotic, interesting and some of them are coked out. but whether the city created the go getter or the go getter created the city, i'm fucking stoked about all of it. finally challenging pace again.
9. connections. i'm not talking about favor connections. those are wonderful, have their place and if you know anyone who grew up in or anywhere around new york, he or she "has got a guy" for every possible scenario you could fabricate. what i'm talking about however, is the connection to interesting people. the variety of thought and opinion is fantastic. people here seem to have a better grasp on what is going on in general and they seem to be both more genuinely interested and vocal. *note* this place is not perfect either, but the contrast is refreshing right now. anyway, being connected through people socially means that you actually go out and have interaction with these people instead of only hearing about them and knowing them through story. you pretty much constantly meet new people if you are even a moderately social person. it makes for the best conversations.
10. anonymity. when i walk around in new york, i look around at the people and take such comfort in the fact that approximately none of them give a fuck what i am doing. you have your occasional eye-sex with someone, but other than that, you are hidden under a cloak of urban anonymity. it's fabulous.
it will be interesting to have a look back at the list and see how it changes after spending more time in and on the Ihlend. regardless, i find these are good things with varying degrees of gravity.
1. central park. you can run, ride, sit, play, skate, walk or do any combination of the above. it's huge, beautiful, cool in the summer and only a warm-up jog away from my house.
2. men who always open doors, let you into and out of elevators, walk on the outside of the street, lead you with their hand on your lower back and just generally have good manners.
3. street meat. halal food is the bzzomb. $4 for a plate lunch that is chicken and rice. enough to be lunch for 2 days.
4. plaza diner. the only 24hr diner in the world where the server does not recognize an omlette as a food item universally known for containing eggs.
5. yelling. new york is the only place where you and everyone else in the city can fall prey to the sudden urge to shout out on occasion because you know that no one is even gonna look once. feel free to show your elation and to celebrate out loud. if even one non-tourist eyelash is batted, i'll be a monkey's uncle.
6. "the deli". the deli represents any and all small markets where a bevy of random items may be purchased. you can get a pretty decent bagel, eggs, all sorts of different lunch dishes ranging from sushi to actual deli sandwiches, to a respectable buffet bar. you can also pick up beer and wine, a mind-blowing assortment of green tea drinks and vitamin waters and any random hygiene item you could possibly need on a moments notice. they usually have one random item that keeps you loyal to that particular deli and they are the best thing in the fucking world at 4 in the morning.
7. neigborhoods. when i used to come into the city to play, i went to the middle tier places. the ones that you know about if you live outside the city that tourists may not know, but not ones that are neighborhood specific; not the place "around the corner" that you suddenly can't live without. now that i live here, i'm finding neighborhoods within neighborhoods and the number of historical layers to this place is amazing.
8. go getters. if you want to jump into a rushing river, come to manhattan. the place is bursting at the seams with energy. the beauty of it is, behind your apartment door, is the 'off' switch for it. you can have your little sanctuary and then go out and jump in the river. if you've ever been pulled along by rushing water, you'll get this analogy for sure. it's not even so much a matter of fighting because everyone has his or her mind on the goal; whatever the goal may be. it's more a matter of learning to navigate and use the flow to your advantage. it's learning how to focus your energy and get things done. it's learning how to really get ahead. you can't spit without it landing on 10 go getters on any given corner in the city. they are smart, sharply dressed, neurotic, interesting and some of them are coked out. but whether the city created the go getter or the go getter created the city, i'm fucking stoked about all of it. finally challenging pace again.
9. connections. i'm not talking about favor connections. those are wonderful, have their place and if you know anyone who grew up in or anywhere around new york, he or she "has got a guy" for every possible scenario you could fabricate. what i'm talking about however, is the connection to interesting people. the variety of thought and opinion is fantastic. people here seem to have a better grasp on what is going on in general and they seem to be both more genuinely interested and vocal. *note* this place is not perfect either, but the contrast is refreshing right now. anyway, being connected through people socially means that you actually go out and have interaction with these people instead of only hearing about them and knowing them through story. you pretty much constantly meet new people if you are even a moderately social person. it makes for the best conversations.
10. anonymity. when i walk around in new york, i look around at the people and take such comfort in the fact that approximately none of them give a fuck what i am doing. you have your occasional eye-sex with someone, but other than that, you are hidden under a cloak of urban anonymity. it's fabulous.
it will be interesting to have a look back at the list and see how it changes after spending more time in and on the Ihlend. regardless, i find these are good things with varying degrees of gravity.
09 May, 2007
man with a van: a cautionary tale
"i thought you said you had a van." i said in as normal a voice as i could muster.
"it is a van." was his fairly hot retort.
i moved. switched houses and got the hell out of the fake-wall-weird-roommate-non-public-transportation-access-having house. hooooo fuckin ray. last year when i moved to new york, i decided that next time i moved, i was gonna hire someone for a couple of hours to actually help me transport my stuff because i hate having to put my friends out for that sort of work. plus, it's a total pain in the ass for me too. i don't have too many things to move because some things are in storage and generally i haven't accumulated too terribly much in the way of furniture that i'm attached to.
* * * *
taped on phone poles all over new york city are leaflets advertising movers. moving-esque companies that have competitive rates, such as $15 per man, per truck with a 2 man, 2 hour minimum. if you quickly do the math on this (i have a math major to loan if you can't), that is a pretty good deal. tip them and get them a case of beer for afterward and you are good to go. so i had collected a couple of these to call on in the case that one wasn't available. but then (dun dun duhhhhhnnn), i was told about the movers on craigslist. craigslist is an interesting phenomenon is a dichotomy within itself. occasionally, it can be extremely useful. a couple of different people steered me away from the phone pole movers and onto craigslit to just get a "man with a van".
these men and their vans are random people who have day jobs during the week, but who own or rent large vehicles and then lease themselves out to people to transport whatever it is that you have to move. for instance, you can call a man with a van to take you to ikea to pick up some furniture, instead of paying for delivery. you can have the man with a van take you to costco to do your bulk shopping. this is generally cheaper and less of a hassle then renting a car or begging your driving-favor overstressed friends.
"they always end up being cheaper and they work harder and faster." said a friend. "when i moved a few months ago, that's what i did and it didn't even take 2 hours."
so i gave it a try....went through some ads and made a couple of phone calls and looky here, we have a mover. easy as pie, the guy is friendly and fairly well spoken and he's available on saturday. i tell him what i have to move and give him some actual dimensions because i have a large dresser, but he says we will have no problem and we move on. he and his van will be over to move me around 3:30 - 4:00. sweet.
i relax, pack, get things ready and think excitedly about moving on saturday into my clean, freshly painted apartment with no roommates. i even had many of the boxes provided for me, due to a couple of complimentary circumstances. "everything is comin up just fine." i thought.
then saturday rolls around. i go over to the storage unit and get the things i needed from there and drop them off in the new, uncleaned, unpainted apartment. no biggy....i have the mover coming so i jaunt on back to the old place and start getting ready for the movers. i get the boxes and the furniture moved out into the living room. i put the finishing touches on the packing and got the room cleared out for the new person. while i do this, i listen and sing to music, i dance around a little and i prepare everything for easy and quick transportation and installation. go me.
at 4:30 i place a call to my man with a van. it's getting late and although another of his moves may be taking longer, i need to know what is going on. this actually raised my hackles a little, but it was too late to reverse course, so i just went with it. he had accidentally forgotten to bring my phone number and was waiting for me to call so he could come over. fine. so at approximately 5pm, my man with a van showed up at my door. he was about 5'8" tall and of average to low-average build and he smartly sported a back brace. he carried with him a small handcart like you would find in wal-mart, maybe. my man with a van told me that since there wasn't too much stuff, what we would do is move everything to the elevator and then load it all in over 2 trips and move it out. and by 'we', he meant me. so i went with it in the interest of expediency and because he had no one helping him. my illusions of an easy move were waning.
we moved everything to the elevator, he surveyed the space and we packed it all in there. it took 3 trips. this would have been fine except that rather than load the things that took 2 people on the first trip and then splitting the labor to keep the flow going, we had to be together at all times. he was chipper and talkative so i focused on his positive energy and just kept working.
the progression continued. stuff to the elevator, down the elevator, around the long hallway to the door and we're ready to get the stuff up onto the little road in my apartment complex and into the VAN. i'm workin hard and feelin good. i hop back on the quickly and smoothly bandwagon and start to plan out what i'm going to put where in the new house. i carry the first boxes up to the top of the stairs and the happy music came to an abrupt halt. there was no van. i started to panic; did the stupid security guards have it towed? what will i do next? how will i pay for this? my brain is racing to find a solution to the problem. i notice a car parked in the area that has a bright orange sticker on the windshield; an annoyance that the complex presses onto you if you park in the area for more than 30 minutes. i reasoned that the cargo van might have frightened their fragile security, so they towed.
right about this time, man with a van pops out with a box and starts to get very agitated. turns out he had a bright orange sticker on the window of his van. he was afraid he'd have to pay a ticket.
wait......that is a 1993 dodge MINIVAN. where is the cargo van? the big, cavernous, one-trip-only cargo van? there was suddenly a flurry of activity in my veins and i had to take a second to process everything. i looked around to see which of my friends was hiding, waiting to tell me it was a prank and ha ha. no such thing occurred. this was it.
"i thought you said you had a VAN." i said in as normal a voice as i could muster.
"it IS a van." was his fairly hot retort.
clearly i had insulted him in my assertion that a fucking minivan does not count as an actual van. that's why they gave it the distinction of mini. you have to qualify that shit when you have something mini. this is true on all levels. mini bagels, mini cars, mini skirts. things that are not the full item are mini because they are small. this was a MINI van. my heart sank and inside i heaved a heavy sigh. on the one hand, it's the most obvious question to pose. however, when one advertises as "man with a van" and says that for your small move, he only sees it taking one trip in his van to move everything, well it's safe to assume that he does indeed have a van.
now i won't bore you with the rest of the story in great detail, but the end result is that after 5 hours of slow and careful moving (which should have been 2 hours TOPS), i dropped the boxes for the last time that day, trotted up to the deli on the corner and picked up some soup for dinner and some cereal and juice for breakfast. i ate the soup while i moved everything to the area of its eventual location and then assembled the bed, got in it and hit the lights.
i sit here now in my cleaner, happier apartment and twinge a little, but it's all good now.
....but be warned, my friends. things are not always what they initially seem to be. sticking with the mid-range option is really the best thing to do sometimes, despite your budgetary concerns.
08 May, 2007
apartment stories
man, i can't wait to have my own work area again. my computer back with my monitor, MY stuff! my clean, useful stuff. my life has been in storage since the end of july 06. i went through my stuff when i was moving and picked out what i really thought i need and left the rest in queens in a storage unit. i want my shit back and i want it behind real walls.
real walls. i never really thought of a wall not being a wall until i moved into my current apartment. i truly believe that a thick curtain may have been the better choice when they were dividing the space. Here are some fun facts about the wall.
1. the wall is not actually finished. light seeps in from the top and the sides.
2. due to #1, if a person of any size leaned on it for even a couple of minutes, the wall would be irreparably damaged.
3. there is virtually no sound filter between the person sitting on the couch who's back is against that wall and my 'room', so this means that all activities on either side of the wall can be heard with extreme clarity, resulting in virtually no privacy.
so this means that if i've had a conversation with you on the my-bedroom side of that wall, if anyone is sitting on the other side of that wall, they too are a part of our conversation. not to worry though friends, i've taken the appropriate precautions to safeguard our privacy. but that i have to do this has pushed me to an interesting investigative phase. i am absolutely fascinated by some of the options.
i have a friend in real estate who is, unarguably, the hardest working man in the whole joint. he is totally goal driven on his accomplishment criteria and wants to get shit done. this is the ideal situation for me because i'm looking for a new place to live that is both nice and reasonable within realistic expectations. the two options then are: one, to scour through the rags, the craigslist bullshit and just asking around. This however, requires an immense amount of time, stress and frustration. option two requires paying someone to access a wide database of both privileged work files and personal contacts. generally this person costs between $2500 and $5000 once the apartment has transacted and requires up to or less than a 5 hour commitment on my part on my schedule.
i haven't actually done the math on this, though i now know a former math major who could, but basically in life dollars, i'm starting to think that option two is more than worth it. i've done some sporadic looking on my own recently, but within a quarter of the time in research, my friend found several places that were all within my budget and fairly realistic places. sooo impressive. just happens that when i found one that i liked, my lack of guarantor was just a little too scary. understandable. when life actually starts turning around for the better, there are always a few interesting growing pains. but it was worth it just for the places we saw, with one exception.
we walked to a nice block on the east side and cruised up to the 3rd floor. upon opening the door i noticed that it was a true one bedroom and that there was pretty good light, a cute view of the garden and a small, but workable kitchen. then i took a second look at the place.
the bedroom was of a decent size, but was on about a 4% grade. anything you put against one wall would roll to the other in a jiffy. i had a place like that in boston and it was kind of endearing after a while. so next i take a peek in the bathroom. not a bathroom, a toilet. tiny toilet room in the bedroom. then the real confusion started to set in. where's the shower? is this a situation where i need to shower at the gym and shit at home? spit bathe in the sink? i remembered we had passed a closet in the kitchen when we exited the bedroom to see the livingroom. it had shuttered doors, but i hadn't opened it. i walked over, swung them open and there it was.....the shower tucked away in the closet in the kitchen. i wanted to move in immediately. i mean who wouldn't rent a place with the shitter in the bedroom and a shower in the kitchen. i wonder, did anyone actually set any criteria for this process (that of creating livable apartment spaces) when they started doing it? really, a person could conceivably get away with a totally unsavory apartment like that for a long time in new york because there are so many places and so many ways to get around any set guidelines, it would be impossible to find all of those that are sub par. i must point out that i can say with totally assurance, that my current situation is, by some standards fantastic, so i make no complaint; i merely comment.
but the search goes on, and thanks to my hardworking friend, i am not alone in this quest. but this process leaves me time now to do things like get my laundry done, have a series of insanely long phone calls, do the dishes, clean the bathroom and welcome the new roommate who i never met or heard of in my life, into the house and tell him where everything is. see......this is what i love about new york. no, seriously.
real walls. i never really thought of a wall not being a wall until i moved into my current apartment. i truly believe that a thick curtain may have been the better choice when they were dividing the space. Here are some fun facts about the wall.
1. the wall is not actually finished. light seeps in from the top and the sides.
2. due to #1, if a person of any size leaned on it for even a couple of minutes, the wall would be irreparably damaged.
3. there is virtually no sound filter between the person sitting on the couch who's back is against that wall and my 'room', so this means that all activities on either side of the wall can be heard with extreme clarity, resulting in virtually no privacy.
so this means that if i've had a conversation with you on the my-bedroom side of that wall, if anyone is sitting on the other side of that wall, they too are a part of our conversation. not to worry though friends, i've taken the appropriate precautions to safeguard our privacy. but that i have to do this has pushed me to an interesting investigative phase. i am absolutely fascinated by some of the options.
i have a friend in real estate who is, unarguably, the hardest working man in the whole joint. he is totally goal driven on his accomplishment criteria and wants to get shit done. this is the ideal situation for me because i'm looking for a new place to live that is both nice and reasonable within realistic expectations. the two options then are: one, to scour through the rags, the craigslist bullshit and just asking around. This however, requires an immense amount of time, stress and frustration. option two requires paying someone to access a wide database of both privileged work files and personal contacts. generally this person costs between $2500 and $5000 once the apartment has transacted and requires up to or less than a 5 hour commitment on my part on my schedule.
i haven't actually done the math on this, though i now know a former math major who could, but basically in life dollars, i'm starting to think that option two is more than worth it. i've done some sporadic looking on my own recently, but within a quarter of the time in research, my friend found several places that were all within my budget and fairly realistic places. sooo impressive. just happens that when i found one that i liked, my lack of guarantor was just a little too scary. understandable. when life actually starts turning around for the better, there are always a few interesting growing pains. but it was worth it just for the places we saw, with one exception.
we walked to a nice block on the east side and cruised up to the 3rd floor. upon opening the door i noticed that it was a true one bedroom and that there was pretty good light, a cute view of the garden and a small, but workable kitchen. then i took a second look at the place.
the bedroom was of a decent size, but was on about a 4% grade. anything you put against one wall would roll to the other in a jiffy. i had a place like that in boston and it was kind of endearing after a while. so next i take a peek in the bathroom. not a bathroom, a toilet. tiny toilet room in the bedroom. then the real confusion started to set in. where's the shower? is this a situation where i need to shower at the gym and shit at home? spit bathe in the sink? i remembered we had passed a closet in the kitchen when we exited the bedroom to see the livingroom. it had shuttered doors, but i hadn't opened it. i walked over, swung them open and there it was.....the shower tucked away in the closet in the kitchen. i wanted to move in immediately. i mean who wouldn't rent a place with the shitter in the bedroom and a shower in the kitchen. i wonder, did anyone actually set any criteria for this process (that of creating livable apartment spaces) when they started doing it? really, a person could conceivably get away with a totally unsavory apartment like that for a long time in new york because there are so many places and so many ways to get around any set guidelines, it would be impossible to find all of those that are sub par. i must point out that i can say with totally assurance, that my current situation is, by some standards fantastic, so i make no complaint; i merely comment.
but the search goes on, and thanks to my hardworking friend, i am not alone in this quest. but this process leaves me time now to do things like get my laundry done, have a series of insanely long phone calls, do the dishes, clean the bathroom and welcome the new roommate who i never met or heard of in my life, into the house and tell him where everything is. see......this is what i love about new york. no, seriously.
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