Unapologetically Mundane » living in new york sucks so hard

Do You See?

katie ett — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:00:24 +0000

This morning, a woman ambled out of the bus and onto the sidewalk in front of me without checking to make sure she wasn’t cutting anyone off. I wasn’t in a hurry, but she was walking so-o-o-o-o-o slowly that I couldn’t bear to match her snailish pace. She walked in the middle of the sidewalk, though, not leaving room to pass her on either side. Just as I was stepping off the sidewalk and into the street to get around her, she decided to cross right in the middle of the street, cutting me off again. I was like, “Ohhhhh, no,” and excused myself as I sped around her, hoping she’d notice what a dick she was being but realizing she probably wouldn’t.

And I realized then that that’s the thing I really hate about New York. I can deal with tiny apartments that cost twice what whole houses do elsewhere, and it’s worth it to have to brave subway altercations to not have to drive anywhere, and I’ve learned to cope with having to shop at three different grocery stores because a single one isn’t big enough to carry everything I need.

But I can’t stand feeling like I’m invisible. When that woman stepped in front of me not once but twice, I wanted to yell at her, “DO YOU SEE ME?” When I’m crossing in front of someone and she’s crossing in front of me, and I hang back a second and let her go ahead because she’s wearing some five-inch heels and I realize that my life is much better than hers, and she doesn’t acknowledge me, I want to yell at her, “DO YOU SEE ME?” Or when everyone is waiting in a line to go up the stairs from the subway platform, and one guy comes from the back and cuts right in front of me, I want to tap him on the shoulder and yell at him, “DO YOU SEE ME?”

It’s like the episode of “South Park”, a riff on the movie Manhunter, where the killer ties Cartman to a chair, Clockwork Orange style, and shows the boy a projector slideshow so Cartman can see “all the things he has done”. You think the killer means all of the murders he’s committed, but the slides are all of the man at the Grand Canyon, at Niagara Falls. “DO YOU SEE?” the killer asks as each slide is displayed.

Because my being invisible has to be the reason for these crimes against humanity, right? The only other explanation is that these people somehow think they’re more important than I am, that they have somewhere more pressing to be. And maybe this is why people get mean living here. How many times can someone step in front of you just as the train arrives before you start doing it back?

The Time I Lost My Cool After the Biggest Jerk on the Bus Called Me Fat

katie ett — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:00:57 +0000

The last time we left our hero (yes, me), I had accidentally been engaged in a fight with a man so feebleminded that the only comeback he could produce to my most snide comment was, “You need to go on a diet!” I suppose he was one of those men who thinks the surest way to offend a lady is to insult her weight, but little did he know that I’ve achieved my current level of pleasant plumpness by enjoying dinners at the very finest restaurants in town with my beloved. I thought about returning the insult:

“I could lose weight, but you can’t lose ugly.”

“I could lose weight, but you’ll never get back your hair.”

“I could lose weight, but you’re stuck with that tiny–” Brain. Tiny brain.

But I figured that someone who isn’t clever enough to argue without immediately attacking outward appearance–pointing out that someone is black or gay or handicapped as if that person doesn’t realize it–isn’t worth my time, and I really didn’t want to lose any more of my cool, so I just said, “That’s very adult of you.”

“Keep stuffing your fat face, lady!” he called back from four rows away. “Maybe it’ll at least keep you quiet.”

I laughed, because at that moment, I was eating a low-carb, low-fat nutrition bar. It couldn’t have been more ironic.

Read the “exciting” conclusion here!

The Time the Biggest Jerk on the Bus Called Me Fat

katie ett — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 16:00:56 +0000

I told you yesterday about my recent resolution to be Holly Happypants on the bus so that I might lead others to good behavior by my example. Well, everything was going swimmingly on the bus the next day, with me not blowing up at a high school kid who was propping his elbow up on my shoulder to help him hang onto the strap, me getting a really comfortable seat one stop after I got on, and the bus being generally uncrowded. By the time we got to Wall Street, there were only a handful of people left, so no one made anything of it when a man began making the longest and most obnoxious phone call.

He was clearly talking to a customer service representative at a company that deals in batteries and started the conversation by angrily demanding to know if they had his particular battery in stock, though he couldn’t actually name the battery. “The one MY radio takes,” he said, as if that was any help. He gave the person his name and phone number and told him or her that his radio looks like an iPod. And then he began berating the person, getting increasingly more aggressive:

“I’m so tired of you people not doing your jobs.”
“Do you have the battery or not?”
“I know YOU don’t know, so go find someone else who does.”
“What am I supposed to do–call back every day until you get the battery in?”
“You’re not educated enough for me to talk to.”
“Give me your supervisor.”
“I want to talk to your supervisor!”

Everything was repeated twice for emphasis and said in the loudest and rudest of voices in the sort of accent that Angelina from “Jersey Shore” had. It was unbearable and almost incredible that a human could talk to another human that way, but we were almost at my stop, and I had that whole pact with myself about trying extra hard to behave myself on public transportation, so I grabbed a nutrition bar from my bag and popped a chunk of it in my mouth to keep myself otherwise occupied.

Just then, the bus stopped at the traffic light before the turn into the Staten Island Ferry station, and people in the back started yelling. The bus has to wait at that light every single day, so there shouldn’t have been a problem, but that day was strange for some reason. Traffic had been inching along all the way down from 42nd Street, the sky was overcast with rain, and this guy had been literally yelling into his phone–the air was thick with tension.

Someone in the back was saying, “The light is green! THE LIGHT IS GREEN! GO, bus driver!” Hilariously, I realized it was the same lady from the day before who complimented my hair and whom I was glad I hadn’t been rude to before despite her totally deserving it.

People began yelling back at her: “The light’s red!” “Check your eyes!” “Be quiet if you don’t know what’s going on!” It was complete chaos, as if everything everyone had wanted to say to one another all morning and every morning was spewing out now.

Someone said, “Some people around here need to get driver’s licenses!”, and I believe she was talking to the woman who didn’t know the difference between a red and green light, but the guy who had been making the obnoxious phone call screamed out, “YEAH! ALL THESE BUS DRIVERS SUUUUUUUUUUCK!”

And at that point, it was just too much for me, and I said, “Oh, my gosh, shut up!” That’s not really a phrase I use, but it had been building up in me for ten minutes, and it came out without warning.

I had been talking into the ether, but I guess Obnoxious Phone Call Guy took it personally and said to me, “YOU shut up!”

Read the super-juicy ending here and get so mad both for me and at me!

Rich in NYC

katie ett — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:15:13 +0000

The best way to show you’re rich in NYC is to own a white coat and to keep it dry-cleaned.

The Time That All the Bad Things Happened in One Single Night

katie ett — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:00:11 +0000

Kamran was already mad at me. The night before, I had been exhausted from walking around Brooklyn with a visiting friend all day, and his good mood was really pinching my nerves, so I’d laughed when he’d stubbed his toe on my suitcase, which was still sitting in the middle of his floor since coming back from Ohio, and I’d said, “THAT should bring your mood down a little!” It was a joke, but he hadn’t liked it. But I’d thought it was funny and refused to apologize.

There was also the problem of the fly that had inexplicably shown up in his apartment days before and was insisting on landing on our heads while we ate. (And everyone knows flies poop every time they land.) A fly swatter was in order.

So we walked up the street the six blocks to the hardware store, which wouldn’t have been a problem had my feet not still been burning from all of the walking I’d done that weekend. So in addition to being mad at me, Kamran was also having to walk ve-e-e-e-ery slowly so I could keep up with him. Except that he was impatient to get to the hardware store (and then the grocery store and the Middle Eastern place where he wanted to get dinner), so he kept walking ahead of me and then stopping and waiting, which was making me anxious, which was making me try to walk faster, which was making my feet hurt more.

We got to the hardware store, and he hastily asked the guy at the counter where the fly swatters were without saying thank you, and then he hastily asked a second employee for the same directions without saying thank you, and then he grabbed a fly swatter and handed it to me to bring to the counter, all of which is very unlike him. So now I was in a bad mood, too.

And it was then that Kamran realized he’d forgotten his wallet. And I never bring my wallet to the grocery store, because he never lets me pay, anyway, so we had the guy hold our precious fly swatter at the cash register while we went back to Kamran’s.

And it was then that Kamran realized he’d forgotten his keys. And I thought it was soooooo ironic, because I’m always pushing him out the door whenever we go anywhere, and he’s always complaining that I don’t give him time to get his wallet and keys, but I’d specifically hung back that night in order to not add insult to injury in light of the whole stubbed-toe situation.

So we walked/hobbled back to his building in the cold and asked the doorman for the spare key. It didn’t work. We went back downstairs and asked if there was another one. There wasn’t. We wiggled and jiggled the crap out of that thing. We tried popping the lock with the keyring. We tried being rough with it and then gentle with it. It didn’t work.

In my infinite wisdom, I asked the doorman if there’s any specific locksmith the building uses, and he took it upon himself to call one for us. I didn’t ask him about the cost, because of course he was going to call the cheapest and best locksmith for us, right? We sat in the lobby in silence for ten minutes until the guy showed up, and he replaced the lock in five minutes.

For $360.

Payable in cash.

Immediately.

He’d walk to the ATM with us.

And then we had to walk/hobble back to the hardware store and grocery store after that still. And then Kamran asked me to finally take my suitcase back to my apartment, but it had lost a wheel when my cabbie yanked it from his trunk and got it caught on something, so it was lopsided and scraped the floor wherever I moved it, and I knew it was going to be the biggest pain to get back to Brooklyn, so I cried for two hours.

So it was basically the worst night in KamKat history. But we came out of it not being mad at each other somehow, so there’s that.

Blame the Bus Driver

katie ett — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:00:15 +0000

I was going to start a new series today about beautiful things I see from my bus window on my way to and from work. Taking the subway shaves as much as twenty minutes off of my commute time, but riding the bus is an opportunity for me to see every neighborhood from Murray Hill to Battery Park each morning and afternoon.

I was going to tell you about the little boy on my bus who pointed to the St. Vartan Armenian Cathedral and said, “Taj Mahal!” and whose mother tried to tell him where Armenia was and that moment when she realized she had no idea. Or the very tallest guy walking the very smallest and fluffiest puppy. Or the girl in the camel hair skirt with the matching cape.

But instead I’ll tell you yet another story to illustrate how New Yorkers are absolutely the most detestable people in the world.

Read the rest here! (I know I’m annoying, but I get paid per click, so I have to make you go over there to read the story.)

Caught in the Train Doors

katie ett — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:00:37 +0000

This morning, a polite young man let me into a packed R train first, even though there was a chance he wasn’t going to fit in after me. I flattened myself as much as I could to allow him in, too, and as he tried to squeeze between the doors at the last minute, the sleeve of his leather jacket got caught. I stared at the fabric, pressed into the crack between the doors so tightly he couldn’t pull it out, and remembered a time when the same thing happened to me.

I was wearing a plaid cape and flew into the 4 train, superhero style, in the last seconds before the doors closed. One side of the cape got caught in the doors, and in the moments before I knew the train would begin to move, I had all of these terrifying daymares about what might happen as we moved through the tunnel:

Read the rest here!

Bus Stop Line Jump

katie ett — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:00:13 +0000

Kamran and I were in Hell’s Kitchen Sunday night, having traveled to the exact opposite side of the island to pour our months of collected pocket change in one of those machines that exchanges it for gift certificates. We were waiting at a bus stop with our riches in hand, staring longingly at the side-by-side 99-cent pizza and Gray’s Papaya, when a man approached with a large instrument in a case strapped to his back. We were standing just to the left of the bus shelter, leaving enough room for someone to slip past us in line if he wanted to be a jerk. But he stood behind us instead, avoiding the waist-high pile of garbage bags on our other side.

We stayed in that configuration until the bus arrived some minutes later, when the man with the instrument came out of nowhere to stand in front of me in the line of people waiting to get on the bus. I couldn’t even help myself when my blood took a sudden surge; I simply had to march around him and insert myself back into the line where I rightfully belonged. The fact that he had waited until the last second to make his move made me so much angrier than if he had just done it from the moment he came to the stop. At least then he could’ve pretended to be looking for a seat or a place to rest his instrument in the shelter.

Read the rest here!

Insulting Jerks the Classy Way

katie ett — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:00:09 +0000

Last Saturday, Kamran and I were out for a pleasant jaunt around the city to enjoy what seems like it may be one of the last days of nice weather. We were crossing 42nd Street on 5th Avenue in front of the Main Library when an aging compact car rounded the corner from the left and attempted to cut in front of us before we could slow him. We were perfectly within the limits of the crosswalk sign, of course, and continued ahead as such. This clearly displeased the driver, who kept not just inching toward us but, like, feeting toward us threateningly.

We were sipping bubble tea, and I had my camera slung ’round my neck, so maybe the guy thought we were a couple of podunk tourists, but this queen bee of the city doesn’t get messed with like that, so I bored a hole in the guy straight through his windshield and said, “Hey, F*** YOU!”

Because my mama, god rest her soul, raised me to be classy.

It took him a couple of seconds to recover from these words he most assuredly had never heard come out of the mouth of such a sweet-looking lady, but then he retorted, “Same to you!” while finishing his turn and continuing down the street. I felt fine about yelling at the dude, because you get your car out of my pedestrian city, a-hole, but I was a little upset that the first thing I resort to in times of crisis is cursing. (Not that you didn’t know that.)

I first decided I should’ve yelled, “Come at me, bro!”, but then I remembered that the guy was in a car and would’ve killed me had he come at me. I asked Kamran what I should have said instead, and he suggested, “I’m going to tell your mom on you when I see her later tonight.” Which are pretty strong words from someone who enacted a rule that I can only insult his mom once a day.

Well, luckily, my friend Sarah posted this on Facebook yesterday to help me out, from Tastefully Offensive:

So next time someone attempts to plow me with his car, I’m going to look him square in his beslubbering little elf-skinned eye and yell,

“THOU GLEEKING FAT-KIDNEYED WHEY-FACE!“

NYC: The Really Hot Boyfriend Who Beats Me

katie ett — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:00:08 +0000

The Hamptons feels so far away from New York City that I sometimes forget I’m still in the same time zone. We ride around in cars there and eat pastries on the empty patios of cafés and stock up for the weekend in grocery stores with aisles big enough to fit carts. The town has ten boutiques, and the people who live there make conversation with you for no reason.

But on the drive home, you quickly realize how close to the city you still are. On the road trips I used to make in college to South Carolina and Chicago, I remember stopping for gas at highway exits that had little else. A truck stop, an adult bookstore, and a McDonald’s perched on a hill with nothing but miles and miles of farmland as far as I could see. I always felt like I was on the prairie, even if I was really in the middle of the Appalachians. On the way back from the Hamptons, if you blink your eye, you’re in Queens. The exits all lead to neighborhoods with constantly-busy streets, strollers full of babies of every ethnicity, skateboarding teenagers, shopping bags on every arm.

There’s no rest. I feel my chest tighten as soon as the row houses come into view and a taxi cuts us off. The fact that I hold my breath all day in NYC is only noticeable after a weekend away with nothing but exhalations. It’s like I’m always bracing myself for the worst.

But then we’re on the Brooklyn Bridge, and the city’s skyline is the most exciting one I’ve ever seen, and I tell my friend Jeff, “If I’m this happy to see New York after only a weekend away, imagine how I’d feel after a year.” It’s scary to imagine yourself as a tourist here, older and settled somewhere else and without any more ties to this city than to London or Tokyo. Part of the thing about living in NYC is feeling like you’re in on a special secret that no one else knows about.

Well, no one but the 18 million other people who live here.

How Many Times Can I Talk About Excrement in One Post?

plumpdumpling — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:00:33 +0000

A pretty fountain in the gardens outside of Kamran’s apartment building that speaks of a grander time when you noticed the 1920s handmade Italian tiles on the sides of the buildings more than the streaks of not-quite-cleaned-up-well-enough dog poo on the sidewalks. Not that I blame them. Touching feces through a plastic bag is still touching feces.

And speaking of poo, I finally posted another poll on IS IT PEE-PEE? today. This one was motivated by Dishy of The Daily Dish and The Daily Dish, and her hilarious bloggin’ daughter, Madison.

You Know What This City Needs? Some Condos.

plumpdumpling — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 19:30:11 +0000

This is no New Yorky I almost can’t stand it: “A Final Look Inside The Legendary Mars Bar“.

It’s so absolutely awful that it couldn’t exist anywhere else.

And so absolutely cool that it couldn’t, too.

You Are the Master of Your Taxi Domain

plumpdumpling — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 16:00:59 +0000

I don’t take a lot of taxis. Not only am I usually unwilling to pay the initial pick-up fee of $3 when I can travel as far as I want on the subway for $2.25, but I also feel a moral obligation to embargo them because of the awful way so many cabbies drive.

I’ll admit that the idea of quietly relaxing in the back of a taxi really appeals to me some mornings, though. And this morning in particular, I was really dreading my commute to work because of the bag of clothes accompanying me for my trip to Ohio tonight. I could take the bus, which is right outside Kamran’s apartment, but aisle space is limited on those things, and jockeying the bag around at each stop would be a nightmare. I could take the subway, which affords much more aisle space, but it’s a couple of avenue blocks away from Kamran’s, and lugging my bag there in the 90+-degree heat and then sweating it out on the platform sounded almost worse than just walking all the way to work.

from the back of a cab on Manhattanhenge 2011

So I decided to take a taxi. It’s about $20 from Kamran’s apartment in Midtown to my office at the tip of the island, but what won’t I spend $20 on?, and this was a legitimate need. Kamran walked me outside (wearing a sweater vest on a 90+-degree day, because he suffers for fashion), but there weren’t any cabs waiting in front of his building, so I trekked down the street an avenue block and waved down the first guy I saw.

All of his windows were down, which didn’t work for my still-wet curly hair, so I rolled both of the rear ones up immediately. And then traffic stopped, and I sat boiling. I could feel the little sweat droplets bead up on my nose. I could feel a layer of wetness forming between the vinyl seat and my bare arm. I thought about asking the driver to turn on the air conditioning, but I felt guilty. I was going to pay by credit card, which eats into his profit, and then I was going to waste his gas, too?

But I was for-real sweating at that point, and since my best friend, Tracey, is kind enough to let me keep my toiletries at her house throughout the year for use during my visits to Ohio, I didn’t even have any deodorant in my bag. It was then that I realized I would’ve been cooler had I just taken the bus or subway, and here I was, paying $20 for the pleasure of moistening my pants.

So in desperation, I reached down and flipped the little A/C on/off switch on the vent near my feet, figuring there was no way I could turn on the whole system myself. BUT I DID! I could control my own fate! And swamp crotch! The fan started roaring, and hot air blasted my face for a second before becoming sweet, sweet cold air. My sweat dried right up, my cab driver suddenly seemed like an okay guy, and instead of typing 15% into the credit card tip screen like I usually do because all of the preset amounts are 20% and up, I just selected the 20% button like a normal human being.

Still learning, six years in.

Grappling for the Single Seat

plumpdumpling — Thu, 19 May 2011 16:00:39 +0000

Earlier this week, I told you about the advantages of the single seat behind the driver on the MTA’s fleet of new buses. Now let me tell you what happens when everyone realizes those advantages.

For a while, I really thought I was the only one who even noticed the seat. Most people board the bus through the middle or rear door–to avoid having to say hello to the driver, I assume–so it makes sense that they wouldn’t even be aware of the hidden seat all the way in the front of the bus. Obviously I like sitting there, but I’m also young and healthy and svelte enough to be able to fit comfortably in the too-small seats the rest of the bus boasts, so I tend to leave it for someone who could use the extra room, storage space, and privacy. (That may change as the summer months approach and body odor season is upon us, but as a daily-showerer and deodorant-wearer, my sense of entitlement will be deserved.)

So the other day, I was standing at the bus stop near the marker sign where the driver usually halts. I was playing it cool, standing a couple of feet back from the edge of the sidewalk so I didn’t look too eager, but I had an armful of bags with me that day and secretly planned to nab the single seat. Only when the bus began to pull up, this wild-looking woman came from behind me, where she’d been casually sitting on a bench, hiding her ninja-like seat-stealing skills.

Read about the fight! that ensued here.

My NYC Dream Apartment

plumpdumpling — Mon, 09 May 2011 16:30:36 +0000

While I was walking to Kamran’s from work a week or two ago, this cover of mist descended and blanketed all of the tall buildings around me. I expected to be soaked at any moment, but it was evidently just a veil of clouds too lazy to fly any higher.

The most impressive sight for me along the way was The Corinthian, an apartment building I’ve been admiring for years. I love Kamran’s building, but if he had to live anywhere else, I’d want it to be The Corinthian. The impressive name entirely suits the 54-story, avenue-block-wide building made to look like cylinders lined up asymmetrically. It reminds me of stacks and stacks of pennies on a rich man’s desk.

Because having a lot of pennies makes someone rich in my mind, apparently.

I’m just so in love with the idea that everyone in the building has a giant bay window overlooking the East River. Even the cheapest studio has one.

Of course, the cheapest studio still rents for $2,200 a month. And the cheapest apartment for sale right now? $650,000 for a 629-foot one-bedroom. The most expensive is a 1,666-foot three-bedroom for $1,740,000.

Guess I’ll keep saving my pennies.

I’m Really the Victim Here, When You Think About It

plumpdumpling — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:00:51 +0000

The other day, I had just bought some pastries from the Financier in Grand Central and was standing against the marble column outside its doors to text Kamran a question about electrons that had just hit me when some elderly gentlemen passed by and said, “You get the prize for stupidest person! STUPIDEST PERSON!” I think he was hitting on me.

The other night, I was walking up the hill to Kamran’s apartment behind a mother and her three kids. The two oldest ones, a boy and a girl, were wearing backpacks that were almost as big as they were and were holding hands. They started lagging behind their mother and saying, “We’re too weak to go any farther!”, and the other reason I didn’t speed up and pass them is that they were Asian, which everyone knows is the most adorable brand of children. (I mean, up until a certain age, of course, when they get too precocious and start babbling nonstop about math on the bus in the loudest voices possible. Stereotypes!) At a certain point, though, they were just walking too slowly for me to maintain any distance, and as I got right behind them, my shadow fell over them, and they turned around and yelled, “KIDNAPPER!” and ran to catch up with their mom. As if I would purposely acquire children.

This morning, I had to be at work early to make nice with the sales team, so I was hungry for a seat on the bus at 7 a.m. But after helping a rather frail old woman with the ticketing machine and having her tell me how nice I am, I was eager to keep the good times rolling and let her go ahead of me to get an open spot. The only remaining option was next to a very . . . large . . . hulk . . . of a sleeping person who was taking up three-quarters of a two-seater and was allowing his or her coat to spill onto the rest.

Usually I would’ve just stood, but I really want to relax, and I almost wanted to punish this person for having the audacity to be heftier than I am. (I have issues, I know.) So I plopped right down on top of that coat and scooted myself as far into that seat as I could, not caring how uncomfortable my closeness made this person. I figured it was a woman judging by the impeccable tweed of the coat and the amount of bosom it had to take to create such a soft pillow in which conceal the lolling head, but it also smelled distinctly of men’s cologne. He or she spent most of the ride snoring, coughing, and gurgling, and all I could think about was what sort of diseases I was being exposed to and would be bringing home to my delicately-immune-systemed boyfriend, godblesshim.

At Fulton Street, a heavy arm reached across me to the metal pole on the outside of the seat in front of us, and I thought it was aa hint to me to move so the person could hoist his or herself out of the seat, but you know I wasn’t moving without an “excuse me” and a “thank you”. So I continued on with my Hunger Games (what a ripoff of The Giver and Gathering Blue, right?) and ignored the hand. When it came across me again, though, this time with an “I’m sorry”, I wondered what was up and looked over at the person.

It was a lovely older lady with the nicest smile, and she explained that she was trying to push the button to signal for a stop but that it wasn’t working. I tried the button myself to no result and suggested she try pulling on the rubber yellow tube that runs the length of the bus high against the windows. Of course she couldn’t reach it, though, because I was sitting on her coat. We had a little chuckle, and then someone hit the button in another part of the bus, so I got up, and she scooted past me with some effort and many thanks.

This is your fault, other New Yorkers! If 4/5 of you weren’t awful, I wouldn’t have to treat you all with disdain just to be sure.

Living in New York City is HARD

plumpdumpling — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:00:14 +0000

My boyfriend and I like to talk about how people who don’t live in NYC shouldn’t be allowed to complain about things. It’s not that we don’t think other people’s problems are valid; it’s that problems that are manageable elsewhere are compacted by 100 here.

Hate sitting in your freezing car while it warms up? Hate driving in snow? Try waiting out in the cold for the bus. Try walking through the snow while cabs spray dirty slush onto your slacks.

Think your groceries are too expensive? Don’t have the money to eat out? Here, we pay anywhere from $1 extra to literally twice as much for the same things I used to buy in Ohio. Our grocery stores have one brand of some things and no brands of other things. We go to crappy chain restaurants in Times Square just for the novelty and drop $25 on the plates we used to pay $5 for in our homelands.

Wish you owned your own home? Think your kitchen’s too small? Want more storage space? Hate not having a guest room? Need a new washer/dryer? YOU ARE RIDICULOUS.

I don’t mean to pretend like there aren’t a million benefits to living in NYC, and obviously I love it enough to have spent five and a half years here. It’s just that sometimes I look at my friends lives, and they just seem so easy. I mean, not to put my best friend on the spot here, but she has a bazillion-room house in Ohio with a guest bedroom, an office, and a craft room that she had to put something like 3% down for. (Here, it’s no less than 20% down–even that’s oftentimes not enough–and we’re talking 20% on half-a-million-dollar one-bedroom condos.) She has a two-car garage, every retail giant imaginable right down the street, two personalitied cats and a place to put their litter boxes, the ability to do her laundry right in her house, and three bathrooms that ensure she, her husband, and I can all poo at the same time when I visit. That’s livin’ the dream, man.

But sometimes–and I don’t intend at all for this to sound mean–everything outside of NYC all seems a little generic. Everyone has their carpeted floors and their beige walls, their drive to work with their favourite radio station, their Walmarts and their Red Robins. They have boxes of decorations for each of the holidays and garages full of lawn-trimming equipment, a TV in every room and newspaper clippings of TVs they’d like to buy. The idea of once again having church-going homophobe friends who birth a bunch of babies because they mistakenly think their DNA’s worth passing on sort of makes me sick to my stomach.

Of course, it also seems very familiar, and I’m nostalgic enough to be attracted to that. Sometimes, when my best friend sends me a recipe for homemade Pizza Rolls and I look around my boyfriend’s 250-square foot studio and notice he has no oven, I think, “I will look back at this time in my life someday and ask myself, ‘HOW THE HELL DID I SURVIVE THIS?”’ Sometimes I think about the one-bedroom apartment my boyfriend almost bought, and I crave that extra room and a TV for it. Sometimes I crave an apartment in someplace like Los Angeles or Irvine–places that seemed so not New York City not so long ago–where my boyfriend and I can cook dinner in a room that isn’t also his living room, dining room, office, and bedroom.

How old do you have to be before you can’t live like a college student anymore? But how much will you miss it when you’re not?

Get Back on the Slow Bus and Quit Your Bellyaching

plumpdumpling — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 17:00:51 +0000

I love New York, but I think of most of the other people who live here as miserable narcissists who put razorblades in their Halloween apples and board up their chimneys come December. So it wasn’t surprising to me when on the bus yesterday morning, an otherwise polite woman next to me started going off on the M15 Select Bus Service.

Read the rest here.

A Tale of Two Crazy People

plumpdumpling — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 17:00:34 +0000

Crazy people exist in such abundance here that I usually forget about them moments after our encounter, but here are two from last week I happen to remember:

1) I was on the bus Friday morning, reading A Short History of Nearly Everything on my Kindle, when I realized someone was singing. It was soft enough that I thought it was coming from the back of the bus, and I figured maybe he was just so excited to be getting off and going to work that he felt like humming a little ditty.

But when most of the people left the bus at Wall Street, he moved to a seat quite near me and began singing loudly and reeeeeally awfully, all high-pitched but not on-pitch nor even close. He was a 50-something black guy, faceskin pock-marked to beat the band, navy blue suit, brown loafers, thick white gym socks pushed down, and one of the nicest Jheri curls I’ve seen since A.C. Slater. He was singing some song that went something like, “Girl, I’m going to get you,” which freaked me out a little at first, but then I realized it was actually much better than the time the guy behind me in the train sang into my ear, “L-l-l-l-lick me like a lollipop.”

2) On Thursday night, I went down to the lobby of Kamran’s building to pick up our dinner from the delivery guy, because for some reason, food delivery guys are allowed to come upstairs at lunchtime, and wine delivery guys are allowed to come up at all hours of the day, but at night, you have to go downstairs to meet the guy.

Like, the other day, I was in the lobby, and the doorman called up to someone’s apartment and asked her to come down to pick up her delivery, and she said all annoyingly, “It’s WINE!”, and he said all apologetically, “Oh, so sorry; I’ll send him right up.” Meanwhile, I’m there in my flannel pants and Christmas slippers with the fringe that Kamran says makes it look like my feet have mustaches picking up my food.

Anyway, on Thursday night, I was coming up the elevator after grabbing our dinner from the delivery guy, and this old lady was their with me, but neither of us even acknowledged the other, which is fine with me. But then, seriously out of nowhere, she looks at me and says, “I did my laundry earlier today and then went to D’Agostino, and when I came back, someone had stolen my jeans out of the dryer. They were nice jeans! At least five pairs of Ralph Laurens.” I’m too nice, and she had a pretty great Irish accent, so I pretended like I cared and said, “Oh, that’s terrible. Maybe someone just took them out of the dryer and put them somewhere else.” The door opened to her floor, and she stepped out. “Oh, no,” she said, “I looked everywhere down there.” I said, “Oh, I’m really sorry. It’s awful to think that could happen in this building.” The door began to close, and she said, “Goodnight, honey.”

And I thought, “Why did she just tell me that? Was there no one else she could tell?” And that is why everyone needs a blog.

This is What Being Good Gets You

plumpdumpling — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:00:28 +0000

My roommate, Jack, and I stopped at the local Wendy’s recently to pick up a snack before heading home. A man sitting at the table just inside the door greeted us as we entered, but after being preyed upon countless times during my formative years here in NYC, I’ve trained myself to ignore anyone who might possibly try to pry what little money I have out of my grubby little Ohio hands. Jack, on the other hand, despite having lived here almost his entire life, somehow missed out on those teachings and shockingly turned to see what the man wanted. FOOL!!

Immediately noting the man’s homeless appearance, Jack tried to escape what was to come by innocently saying, “Let me just get my food.” But the guy had obviously been around the block once or twice and said, “Oh, god bless you, sir. Thank you, sir.” How could Jack resist a guilt trip like that?

By going out the back door–that’s how. When we spotted the alternative exit, it was like you could actually see the weight lifted off of Jack’s shoulders. He would simply grab his food, slip out the other door, and feel like he was off the hook just by virtue of inconvenience. Surely no one–even god–would expect him to walk all the way to the front of the restaurant just to hand over his money.

But as luck would have it, the guy apparently watched us work our way through the ten-minute line and then met us at the ketchup stand, where Jack was busy filling little paper cups with the manifestation of all our sins. “Thank you, sir,” he repeated. “God bless you, sir.” So of course Jack had to give him a dollar.

And wouldn’t you know it, when he got home and unpacked his nuggets, nestled at the bottom was one shaped like a heart.

Unapologetically Mundane » living in new york sucks so hard

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