R.I.P. Fifth NYC Apartment

Filed under living in new york is neat

My old roommate, Wen, and I had our very last evening in the old apartment last Tuesday. When I left him on Monday night, the place was still absolutely filled with his things, as his movers weren’t coming until the next afternoon. In fact, when my movers had come the Saturday before and taken apart a shelving unit of his in the kitchen in order to wedge my couch out the front door, he’d put it back together as soon as they’d left instead of using it as a head-start on his packing.

Our landlady came over to either wish us good luck or ensure we didn’t make off with any of her fixtures and stood around watching as Wen threw out a white trashbag packed so full of plastic grocery sacks it could’ve served as the base for a seven-foot-tall snowman. I loaded into a shopping bag my cutting board that looks like a pizza (classy!) and my Cocomotion, a gift from my best friend’s mom that was literally designed to make hot chocolate and nothing else. I plied the Go to the Head of the Class and Let’s Be Safe board games I’d used as wall décor in my bedroom off with a bottle of Goo Gone, and much-taller Wen scraped off the adhesive I couldn’t reach. Our landlady took my new address and promised to send a check if any of our security deposit remained but reminded me that the navy blue with gold moldings in the kitchen probably broke the “no dark paint colors” clause in our lease.

When the only things left were my two shopping bags, my over-the-door mirror, and Wen’s duffel bag, he actually let me take a picture of him for the second time ever to remember the apartment by:


I sure am going to miss those stenciled deer heads over our bedroom doors.

Deciding it was too unwieldy, I tried to pitch my mirror onto his desk and bookcase piled on the sidewalk outside the house, but he snatched it up and carried it to the subway alongside me. Outside the Whole Foods knockoff on our way to the G train at Lorimer Street, a hipster couple saw our armloads and yelled, “Trash day!” We were offended, and I could only think to yell, “Your face is!”

We took the train downtown together–me to my new apartment in Downtown Brooklyn and him to his girlfriend’s dorm (hott!) in Clinton Hill–talking about our Thanksgivings and how excited his mom is to have him back home in Queens for a month while he looks for his next place. We hugged goodbye in a way that felt possibly meaningful, I said I’d e-mail him about grabbing dinner sometime, he said “shhhhhhure”, and then he left with the mirror and four years of memories of me telling him that he’s Asian and will never have curly hair no matter how much of my special shampoo he steals.

It’s strange to leave a place you spent years of your life in and know you’ll never see again.

10 Comments

  1. Noel says:

    THE COCOMOTION IS THE GREATEST INVENTION IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND. I’m sorry, I’m just very passionate about this and had to share my enthusiasm on your blog. I basically didn’t read the rest of this post; the word “Cocomotion” distracted me.

  2. Jessica R. says:

    Moving is such a strange feeling… exciting and depressing all at the same time.

    And who stenciled that deer head above the door? That’s kind of odd and intriguing.

    Good luck with the new place!

    • Yes, I too need to know more about this deer head business.

      • Totally a random Wen thing. We’d been talking about finding some taxidermied heads on eBay but didn’t want to pay for shipping, so he took that upon himself. He pretty much stenciled everything in our apartment, which I’m sure you can appreciate.

    • Wen did them. His was a mandeer, and mine was a ladydeer, and they looked sooooo good in brown on the wall I had painted pink. Then he painted the wall red over top of them, and they became less prominent, but I still loved them.

      We really wanted stuffed deerheads but are too cheap. And also too aware of how much it would suck to have to move your taxidermied head every time you switch apartments.

  3. bluzdude says:

    Speaking as someone who has moved on from an number of apartments in my day, it is always so sad to see your apartment empty and shorn of your personalizations. When you see it before you move in, you’re picturing the potential. But on moving out, you only see what once was.

    Hope you enjoy the new place!

    • What always bothers me about moving out is starting to feel like my possessions and decorations are worthless. When you have 15 boxes piled in your living room and you’re only half-packed, you start to throw out things you felt you needed just the day before you decided to move. I love that feeling of having the opportunity to start over, but it’s hard suddenly seeing my gummy rats as possible trash.