Category Archives: living in new york is neat

Eight Years in NYC

Posted by katie ett on August 21, 2013 – 12:00 pm
Filed under i used to be so cool, living in new york is neat, living in new york sucks so hard, no i really do love ohio
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I was reading my old LiveJournal last night at 3 a.m. (narcissism!) and found this post from the end of my first year living here, when the boyfriend I had followed here from Ohio was moving back home and I was changing my mind daily about whether or not I would stay behind:

A year and a half ago, when my Best Friend 4 Eva™, Tracey, realized that her 1st year of teaching junior high was actually sucking pretty hardcore, she started talking to other teachers about how she was feeling. They tried to console her by saying things like, “It’ll take you about five years to get used to it, but after that, you’ll be fine.” And she kept thinking, “Why would I spend five years just trying to get used to something when I could be doing something I like right now?”

And so she quit. I’ve decided that’s how I feel about New York. Don’t get me wrong–I’m happy here. Some days, I’m happier here than I ever was back in Ohio. But for the most part, it seems like most of the people I’ve met here moved to NYC because they wanted to escape their old lives. They didn’t know anyone who thought like they did or all of their friends had grown up and gotten married or they’re introverts who want to be nameless and blend in. And that’s not me.

This year hasn’t been wasted for me at all. I got to experience a million things I wouldn’t have in Ohio, and some days I felt so alive that I thought I might burst. But it drives me crazy the things I’ve missed at home. Now that Tracey’s only working part-time, she has free time like she hasn’t had since we were in high school. And since she’s doing things that she loves, she’s a completely different person. She’s not dating her boyfriend-who-didn’t-like-me, so she’s going out and talking to boys, and I’m missing it. My friend-since-we-were-born Katie just got married to a boy I set her up with, and I missed her bridal shower and bachelorette party because I had to save my money to make it home for the wedding itself. My grandfather found out he has cancer last month and despite getting treatment in Mexico will probably die before I’m able to see him.

Sometimes I’m amazed at the number of people I’ve gotten to know here and will miss if I leave. On Friday, when I was 1000% percent sure I was moving back home, two of my co-workers came into the kitchen where I was making a warm beverage with the ridiculously awesome tea/coffee/hot chocolate machine and started talking to me about all of the reasons it’d suck to be blind when using the subway. I said, “Hey, guys, let’s agree not to become blind, okay?”, and one of the girls said faux-enthusiastically, “That’s a great idea!” And I loved her. And I thought, “If I leave, I’ll never have the chance to get to know this girl.” But it’s very obvious to me that I’ll never replace Tracey. And as much as I like my new job, its not like my old job at the library, and I don’t want to be a receptionist for the rest of my life. I know that eventually, all of my friends from home are going to be all settled in with real jobs and spouses and babies, and then they’ll be dead to me. That’s when I’ll make my escape to NYC. That’s when I’ll be ready to make new friends and sit in jazz clubs alone and spend two bazillion dollars on a one-room apartment.

People keep trying to console me by saying things like, “It’ll take you about five years to get used to it, but after that, you’ll be fine.” But I’m not sure that I’m willing to spend five years trying to build a life for myself here when I’ve already got a great one back home.

And now I’ve been here for more than eight years. And I have a hard time imagining living anywhere else.

What I’m Doing With My Unemployed Life

Posted by katie ett on August 13, 2013 – 2:25 pm
Filed under a day in the life, all of my friends are prettier than i am, living in new york is neat
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I’m about as useful an unemployed person as you thought I’d be. The other day, I met for tea with a friend who recently quit her job when her manager told her she was being put on probation for not being able to handle the four-other-people’s-work they had thrown at her, and she told me I need to do something great with my time that I wouldn’t do if I was employed, like volunteer or take up yoga. I’m obviously not equipped to, like, even be in the same room as homeless people who need to be fed, so I did 15 minutes of yoga on my Wii Fit and called it a day.

PRODUCTIVE.

I wanted to be one of those people who continues to wake up at 7 a.m. to shower and get dressed so I can be in front of my computer from 9 to 5, applying for jobs like it’s my job. But from about Day 2, I fell into my natural cycle, which is going to bed at 4 a.m. and forcing myself to get up at 11 so I don’t accidentally sleep through an entire day and end up a vampire. I’ve been going into my old office to work on my resume and cover letters because all of my old friends are still there, and they’ve been saying really helpful things to me like, “Before I got this job, I counted up how many resumes I’d sent out, and it was over 80. And that was back when the economy was GOOD, so . . .” I decided with Ellie‘s help to try to get into the social media space since that’s basically where I am all day long no matter what I’m actually getting paid for, so I’m in the process of trying to convince someone, anyone, that my fifteen years of blogging will totally translate to killing it when it comes to managing their brand’s online presence. Everyone says I’ll eventually get a job through one of my friends, so get on it, loyal readers.

Here’s what I’ve been doing when not applying for six whole jobs:

• Going on long walks through my neighborhood to gather materials to pump up my Instagram feed, because I’m THAT DEDICATED to social media and would be really, really good at it career-wise.

• Immediately turning on “The Hills” on MTV when I wake up, despite it being fully available on Netflix and despite my actually having every season on my computer from when I thought I wanted to watch it years ago because I really loved “Laguna Beach” and don’t care who knows. MTV was promising this alternate ending to the series that I just couldn’t resist. And then I slept through it.

• Purposely going out on our roof deck to get skin cancer. I really like my Puerto Rico semi-tan, okay? And there were so many other people out there doing the same thing, and I wanted to yell at all of them that they were killing themselves.

• Cooking my meals at home, eating low-carb, and saving money half of the time but then spending the other half of the time with my friends at all of the restaurants Kamran and I didn’t get around to before he left and dropping $100 at every meal like I still have a job. But donuts4dinner lives, and my first review since the break was basically quoted in full by Eater, so that’s pretty hott.


from the night Andrew, Jack, Chantee, and I met Nik and Anthony for dinner at The Marrow

• Watching four seasons of “Breaking Bad” with my roommate/landlord/former co-worker/friend, Jack, that result in fights about whether or not Walt is an inherently bad person that result in us going to bed mad that result in apology emails the next day.

• Going to see Pacific Rim in 3D with Jack, Nik, and Chris on a Sunday morning so we could get matinee prices. It was Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots punching aliens in the ocean as envisioned by Guillermo del Toro and was exactly what you’d expect it to be. Meaning tons of plot holes, but who the eff cares.

• Also seeing Sound of My Voice (compelling!), For a Good Time, Call . . . (why don’t I become a phone sex operator with my BFF instead of getting a real job?!), Trouble with the Curve (terrible, awful, the worst thing ever), “Masterchef UK: The Professionals” (the best cooking competition show I’ve ever seen and makes all American cooking competition shows seem silly), Captain America (sure, okay), The Avengers (yeah, absolutely), Thor (NO!), Wreck-It Ralph (totally cute despite my innate disdain for children’s things), Oblivion (meh), and The Place Beyond the Pines (DRAMA).

• Hanging out with Kim nonstop since she and I are the only unmarried people in all of NYC.


I like that it looks like maybe Kim and I were at an art gallery here, but this is in the hallway of my apartment building on the way to get buffalo chicken quesadillas.

• Really, really desperately needing to be kissed but dreading absolutely everything else about going on dates.

• NBD, GUYS, JUST EATING A CRONUT MADE BY MY FRIEND ASH IN CENTRAL PARK.


It’s a croissant and a doughnut and is everything you want it to be. No, more.

Okay, there’s a lot more to talk about, but I have to go take a shower. At 2:25 in the afternoon. And by “have to”, I mean “totally don’t have to, because I’m unemployed”.

Life as a Single Lady

Posted by katie ett on June 4, 2013 – 12:00 pm
Filed under everyone's married but katie, living in new york is neat, narcissism
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I know you’ve been thinking about my well-being every moment of every day since I announced the year-in-the-making Great KamKat Breakup of 2013, and I want to assure you that I’m doing fine. Much better than expected. Terrific, really. I don’t want to say that I’m flourishing, exactly, because that somehow implies that Kamran was holding me back, and on the contrary, I think it was he who set me up to flourish: there’s a certain kind of confidence that comes with having been loved so hard for six years. When I visited my family last week to shoot my first wedding, my stepmom sent me home with a card that told me she and my dad were really worried about me in the days leading up to Kamran’s leaving but that I’ve handled myself “beautifully”. That was meaningful.

Before he moved back to California, I wrote in my journal that “the cons associated with Kamran’s leaving are too immense to even begin to list. My life is about to change in just about every way I can think of, and even the things that are staying the same will be affected.” And it’s true that my life has changed, but it doesn’t feel nearly as melodramatic and bleak as I expected. Granted, it’s only been a little over a month since he left, and my feelings may be different when I decide to date again and find that the only available men are finance guys who didn’t get married in their 20s because they were busy “working hard and playing harder”, and by that I of course mean “sleeping around”.

But so far, here are the pros to “being alone”, and by that I of course mean “not dating Kamran but still being surrounded by the love of my friends and family”:

• I’m now actually living in the apartment I’ve been paying rent on for the past two and a half years. All of my things are in one place for the first time in six years.

• The subways that converge at my apartment are as follows: A, B, C, F, G, N, Q, R, 2, 3, 4, 5. I never have to be annoyed at having to go to the West Village or Tribeca, because everywhere is convenient now.

• My roommate is great. The time we spend together doing the mundanest things somehow feels important.

• I have an oven to bake in instead of just a two-burner stovetop. I haven’t baked anything, but I can, goddammit.

• I have a freezer to store ice cream in. Do you know what six years without a quart of ice cream in your home at all times is like? DEATH.

• I have a gigantic 3-D TV and six seasons of “The Sopranos” on HBO Go.

• I have a memory foam mattress and can take up as much space in bed as I want to. Sleeping in the center of it feels like life’s greatest luxury.

• I can order whatever I want for dinner. And if that’s Indian four times a week, no one cares.

• I buy the toilet paper I want to. I have my own bathroom. All of the cabinets are filled with girl stuff. I am a princess.

• My commute to work is one subway stop. One.

• No one will give me a hard time about my low-carb diet. Butter on my omelet! Pizza toppings!

• I can do my laundry once a week or once a month.

• I can go to the gym or not go to the gym.

• I can take up totally random hobbies. Archery!

• I can stay out late on Friday nights with my friends and not have to worry about having anyone to get home to.

• I can wake up the next day whenever I want. I can stay locked in my room that day until 1 p.m., and no one will pretend to clean up around me just to make noise so I’ll get up before I’m ready.

• I can do a photoshoot that afternoon and then go out for dinner without feeling like I have to ask anyone permission.

• I can stay up that night until the sun comes up listening to music, or I can go to bed at 10 p.m.

• I can kiss boooooys.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m enjoying being an independent lady. The great thing is that I have so much time to do anything I want to now, and there’s no one waiting at home for me making me feel guilty about seeing my friends too much.

Let’s forget about the fact that when there’s someone waiting at home for you, there’s nothing you want to do more than sit at home with that person.

The New York City Apartment

Posted by katie ett on May 17, 2013 – 12:00 pm
Filed under creepy boyfriend obsession, living in new york is neat, living in new york sucks so hard
Tagged as , ,

My friend Kim is in the midst of her yearly post-finding-out-her-rent-is-being-raised-another-$200-per-month, “but-I’m-too-pretty-to-move-to-Brooklyn” freak-out and posted this on Facebook to summarize her strife: The Worst Room.

I may be self-centered, but I think NYC is singular in its ability to rent out the very shittiest apartments for the very most amount of money. I lived in some shady campus housing during my years at THE Ohio State University, but slumlords are supposed to take advantage of unwitting college students with their futons and their Gustav Klimt posters, right? I thought that by the time my friends and I all had jobs and hints of grey hair, we’d live in modest but bright/airy/crown-moldinged one-bedrooms in the East Village. But that doesn’t exist for normal people in NYC.

The normal people I know in NYC will have roommates until they’re ready to be moved into the retirement home, unless they want to live in the ghetto. The normal people I know in NYC share a one-bedroom apartment with their brothers so they can get away with only paying $700 each. The normal people I know in NYC live in apartments where there’s no living room because it’s been converted into a second bedroom, and they still pay $1000 each. Apartments are covered in 100 years of paint layers here. Linoleum floors left over from the 70s run rampant. I once looked at a converted factory loft with bedroom walls made of plywood that didn’t even go all of the way to the ceiling, and it was $2800 a month.

And that brings me to Kamran’s apartment. There were so many times I wanted to show you where I was living, but I didn’t necessarily want to show you all of my underwear, and you know it was all over the place in a 275-square-foot studio being shared by two people. When I first started dating Kamran, I carried a tote bag of clothes with me back and forth from my apartment to his every day when I was staying over. By the end of our six and a half years together, I had a small dresser, two tables in a corner with clothes piled on them, a chair for my folded dresses, a chair for my cardigan collection, more in the two closets, and more stored in bags on the floor.

There was a queen-size murphy bed, which we actually raised approximately twice, and once was to take my infamous cape photos, one of which I will now display simply to relive my five-years-ago youth:

You’re welcome.

There was a nook with a dresser piled high with books and a TV stand with a 36″ TV. It was one of the old tube TVs that weighs 200 pounds, made by a company called Classic. (That’s my favourite part.) Kamran would’ve replaced it, only the apartment was furnished by his landlady, so he couldn’t throw anything out. The only table in the place was taken up by his computer and printer, so we ate all of our meals on the love seat on top of two leather ottomans with removable tops that converted to tables when flipped over. I bought those ottomans for Kamran for our anniversary one year (romantic!), and he was so against them at first but then decided that I could use them for storage. So every time I would want to buy something (a slow-cooker, a clothes steamer, a puppy), my BFF, Tracey, would tell me to store it in my ottoman so Kamran couldn’t complain.

The kitchen was a galley style with three cupboards (one of which I couldn’t reach), a convection oven that was later replaced with a microwave when it finally stopped working, a half-size refrigerator, a sink, and approximately six inches of counter space between that and the two-burner stovetop. There was no oven. There was no freezer. The first night I stayed over at his apartment, we tried to save a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cinnamon Buns and ended up eating ice cream soup in our pajamas the next day. Everything I bought at the grocery store had to be used within four days. Not a single blondie nor brownie was ever baked in that apartment. Any time I pan-fried anything, every wall in the kitchen would be splattered with grease because they were all so close together and to the stove. The refrigerator would fill with ice every few months, and Kamran would need to take a hammer to it while I stood with a broom and dustpan to catch the shards.

There was a phone on the wall that connected directly to a switchboard in the lobby behind the doorman’s desk, so the next-door neighbor who spoke to us approximately three times despite my repeated hellos could simply pick it up whenever he wanted to complain about our not-at-all-loud music. Every night for the first few years, the elderly doorman would call up to tell us to come pick up our delivery from the lobby with “your food is here” in his some-sort-of-European accent. Even when he was replaced with young, unaccented men, we would get off the phone and say to each other in the old way, “Your food is here.”

The room had two windows, one of which was cut in half by the air conditioner and the other of which opened approximately two inches. It always seemed pretty sunny in the room, though, until we realized a few years in that part of the building stuck out from the rest and that the neighbors living in that part could very, very clearly see into the apartment. Where I wore very little in the way of pants. We kept the blinds closed after that. We basically had to run the air conditioner year-round, because there wasn’t enough air coming in through the two-inch crack in the summer, and the building was so old and its walls so thick that it retained and multiplied heat in the winter.

The bathroom was a heavy porcelain pedestal sink where the bowl wasn’t exactly attached to the base and could fall off and, you know, crash through the floor into the apartment below if you pushed on it too hard. The shower had great water pressure but also a healthy mold habit that required many, many replacings of the bath mat thanks to the lack of air flow from that two-inch window opening. There were three mirrored cabinets and two racks for towels but not a linen closet to be seen. The best part was that because there were so many layers of paint on the door, it didn’t actually shut. You could slam it and lock it, but then you were likely wasting the next fifteen minutes trying to pull it open again. I think Kamran and I became very comfortable with each other very quickly because of this.

Kamran paid $1750 a month for the place, which was such a drop in the bucket for him it sometimes made me crazy to think about where we could be living. I wanted us to cook dinner together in our kitchen and then eat it on our balcony and then go to sleep in our bedroom that wasn’t also the living room and kitchen. He tried to buy this apartment in the building two doors down in 2009–forever known as “Joseph’s apartment” because of the realtor who rode a Vespa that matched his blue eyes and the blue tie he always wore–and I dreamed about our life together in this place with a separate bedroom and a view of both the East River and everything down 42nd Street to Times Square. But his offer wasn’t accepted by the building’s co-op board, and they don’t have to tell you why, and so we continued our life of him staying up all night studying for law school exams while I attempted to sleep with the lights on.

But to be honest, I sort of loved living there with him. I felt more at home there than I have in any of my NYC apartments, both because I spent the most time there and because it was so cozy. We used to say things like, “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me!” and then take two steps to the right. The lighting was just right, and everything was always within reach because the whole place was sixteen feet across. The building itself was beautiful, we could see the Chrysler Building through our window, and there was a garden outside the front door. The United Nations was right across the street, I’ll never be able to replace my favourite food delivery options from the neighborhood, and we went on the most epic walks along the river esplanade that started at 38th Street. My current apartment in Brooklyn may be bigger and nicer and much more conducive to actually living a half-normal life, but living in that apartment was living in the center of New York Fuckin’ City.

NYC Studio Apartment

A Day in the Life

Posted by katie ett on May 3, 2013 – 12:00 pm
Filed under a day in the life, creepy boyfriend obsession, it's fun to be fat, living in new york is neat, living in new york sucks so hard, restaurant ramblings
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The Kamran’s Last Week in NYC edition:

• Tuesday, we went to dinner at Louro, which is owned by a chef friend of ours and can be summed up in three words: asparagus ice cream:

• Wednesday, we went to Soba Totto for their lunch special that includes a rice dish, a bowl of hot or cold soba, pickles, and salad. The food is deliiiiicious, but the best part is seeing how the different people around you eat their soba. There are the people who use their spoon to gather some broth and then use their chopsticks to add some noodles to the spoon. There are the people who eat some noodles and then slurp some broth. And then there are these young Asian dudes in crisp black suits who don’t talk for an entire hour while they bury their heads in their bowls.


• Thursday, we went to Mission Chinese Food. It’s originally from San Francisco but opened here a few months ago to long lines and hugely hyped reviews. IT IS AMAZING. Wait for my review.

• I have no idea what we did Friday night–probably watched “Shark Tank”, knowing us–but I can tell you that we ate Cambodian sandwiches from Num Pang. They were out of the corn-on-the-cob we like with the spicy mayo and the coconut and, you know, lightly apologized for it. They probably didn’t realize that was MY LAST TIME EATING THAT CORN EVER. Unless I take a half-an-hour subway ride. For corn.


• Saturday afternoon, we met our friends Anthony, Jeff, Nik, and Marko at a sushi buffet called IchiUmi for Kamran’s farewell lunch. (My roommate, Jack, was out of town. I know you’re all in love with him and would have noticed his conspicuous absence.) We ate something like 240 plates of food. Everything tasted better than ever, as everything had all month long. Kamran tried on Anthony’s sunglasses to prepare him for his new life in sunnier climates:


I had asked Jeff to help me move my things from Kamran’s apartment to mine, partly because he’s strong and partly because he’s nice and mostly because he has a car. But over the course of the lunch, everyone else was somehow convinced to help me out (well, except for Marko, who was getting ready to defend his dissertation and thought getting a PhD was more important than schlepping my underwear across town), so I suddenly had a gaggle of movers and Anthony’s car, too. And thank god, because what I thought were a few boxes turned out to be several boxes, a dresser, a nightstand, two ottomans, and a zillion bags stuffed with shoes and toiletries at the last minute. We hadn’t told the building about my move in the hope of avoiding having to get permission from anyone and to avoid the $50/hour fee they charge to use the freight elevator and just walk out the front doors with all of my stuff. But of course the doorman saw through us the moment we asked to borrow one of the rolling carts and told us we needed to use the freight. So we loaded everything onto the carts and rang the bell for the freight elevator, and the porter stepped off and said we had to write him a check for $50 before we could go any further. So Kamran paid $50 for a trip on an elevator for me. And what a ride it was.


Kamran rode with Anthony and Nik to give directions, and I rode with Jeff and was of course the one who got us lost. Never trust a person who drives a car twice a year. One of my biggest annoyances living here is cab drivers who ask me how to get to my apartment. Um, take the 4 train to Brooklyn? I wouldn’t be in a cab if I had a car, buddy! Now do your job. Anthony and Nik went to get coffee while they were waiting for Jeff and me to arrive, and then Kamran had to watch their illegally-parked car, and Jeff had to watch his illegally-parked car, so I was left to bring everything up to my apartment on my own. But of course the doorman at my building was kind and helpful, because it’s Brooklyn.

Anthony and Jeff left in their illegally-parked cars while Kamran and Nik came up to my apartment so we could order banh mi and watch the new Louis C.K. stand-up special and hang out on our roof deck


watching the sun set:


When we got back to Kamran’s apartment that night, it was so weird to look around and not see any of my stuff. When we first started dating, I would haul a bag of clothes from my apartment to his every time I stayed over. Eventually I was staying over so often that he bought me a dresser. And then I filled the dresser so full that I started stacking my clothes on a table beside it. And then another table next to that. And then a chair. I had my laptop there. The scrapbook I was working on. All of my camera gear. My birth certificate. That’s how moved-in I was. So it was strange to be at his apartment and have clothes for the next three days and nothing else. We watched movies and ate one of my favourite meals, the quesadilla enorme from Baby Bo’s Cantina:


• Sunday, we took a walk to Beekman, the secret park we discovered a couple of years ago and have been walking to all of the weekends. There are waterfront parks near me in Brooklyn–much bigger, nicer ones, actually–but this one was ours. I got pooped on by a bird as I was passing under a tree, which is the only thing that could’ve logically happened my last time there with Kamran:




• Monday morning, I took the bus from Kamran’s house to work for the last time. I got the most perfect seat in the front by the window and thought about how it was my last ride on the bus and was nostalgic for a moment until I remembered that I would be going home on the bus, too. So I stopped looking out the window and enjoying the sights of 2nd Avenue and read my book instead. But then Kamran asked me to meet him in the Flatiron after work so we could return his cable box together right off the 6 train, so I didn’t get to ride the bus home for the last time. I’m sure I’ll get over it. Someday.

His movers had come that afternoon and taken what seemed like almost everything away, but “almost everything” still left, like four hours of packing and cleaning for us. I took his plant, and he posed with the gigantic Scooby-Doo that took up half of his 275-square-foot apartment for seven years but that he wouldn’t throw out (nor give to Jeff, who really wanted it) because he swore he was going to someday mail it to the ex-girlfriend he had won it with in Atlantic City. YET ANOTHER UNKEPT PROMISE COURTESY OF KAMRAN. j/k, j/k.


The first pictures of Kamran I saw before our first date included Scoob creepily looking over his shoulder in his old Princeton apartment. But we still left him by the freight elevator to be tossed out with the day’s leftovers. JUST LIKE OUR LOVE.

We ordered our favourite Greek dinner from The Famous Chicken Place,


and had to, like, actually sit and talk to each other with the cable box already being gone. For the six and a half years we were together, his kitchen table was the same as his computer desk (studio living!), but with his computer gone, we talked about eating at the table for the first time ever. And then we ate on the couch like always. He texted the guy from his floor he’d made friends with to see if he wanted to say goodbye to us, and I was hoping to run into the girl I had casually talked to in the hallway for two years and had been meaning to become friends with but hadn’t, but the guy didn’t text back, and I didn’t run into the girl and didn’t even really know which apartment was hers, so that was that.

We made a trip to the lobby with as much as we could carry, and then I waited downstairs while he went up for another load, and then he waited downstairs while I went up for the last load. I took a picture of the apartment completely empty (I have to do a separate blog post on that because it’s so hilarious/sad) and a picture of the closed door for the last time, and you can faintly see the yellow stain on it that may or may not have been pee but that we didn’t clean off in all of those six and a half years,


and then we went to the doorman to leave our keys. He asked who they were being left for, and Kamran said, “Oh, um, the landlady, I guess. I’m moving out.” And the doorman was like, “Oh, really? Well, sad to see you go. Good luck with your new place!” And we were like, “Yeah, thanks for calling up to us every night when the delivery guy arrived with our dinner.” And that was to be the extent of our goodbye to the building.

It felt pretty strange to be leaving so unceremoniously after so much time there. I mean, it’s not like we were heavily involved in the goings-on of Tudor City–there were art shows and concerts in the park and building committees that we weren’t remotely a part of–but it’s also not like we didn’t know people there. People talked to us. People recognized us by our sweater vests (him) and our winter capes (me). People ran into us in the street and laughed about how funny it was to see each other in regular clothes outside of the building’s gym. We had wildly creative nicknames for people–The Tudor Lady (whose greyhound was named Tudor, after the neighborhood), The Crazy Lady (who stood outside with her mangy old bulldog and danced to music only she could hear)–and people would ask Kamran how his wife was and me how my husband was (awwwww (or barf, depending)). I kind of wanted some sort of send-off from Stacey with the red hair or the woman at the end of the hallway who always passed me in the morning in her yoga gear or even the asshole neighbor who would literally run into his apartment to avoid having to be polite to us if we nearly passed in the hall after he had taken his single empty can of Pepsi to the trash room. But no one was waiting for us with banners and balloons, so we silently carried our things to the curb and waited for a cab to take us to my apartment.

But then a moment later, the girl from the hallway came out to smoke, and we exchanged e-mail addresses. And then another moment after that, the guy Kamran had made friends with walked up, munching on a sandwich. We all stood around chatting and talking about future plans, and then the guy helped us load our stuff into the cab that pulled up. Well, first the cab driver said he wouldn’t take us and drove off. But then he stopped down the block, reversed, and popped his trunk open. CAB DRIVERS. We finally got to my apartment close to midnight. I think it was Kamran’s, like, fifth time there.

• Tuesday, Kamran came to work to say goodbye to all of my co-workers who actually like him better than me, and then we went back to my apartment to do laundry and eat one last banh mi. When we sat down to eat, I accidentally knocked his bubble tea to the ground, and it went eeeeeverywhere. Kamran, who used to act like I was the least-responsible person in the world whenever I spilled anything at his apartment, calmed me down and did all of the work of cleaning it up. And then we shared my bubble tea while watching “Deadliest Catch”, which we started watching together a few years ago and seemed appropriately epic for our end times. We cried and cried and then went to bed and cried and then held hands and cried and I told him not to say anything nice to me the next morning so I wouldn’t cry before work.

• Wednesday, I left for work knowing that I’d come home to an empty apartment. I hugged Kamran and closed my eyes for a second to enjoy it but then was like, “Shit! Shit! Don’t cry!” So I stopped thinking about it, kissed him, and left. It sucked.