Tag Archives: living in new york sucks so hard

I’m Outta Here! Er, There.

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So, I’m moving. I don’t want to talk specifics, because there’s still a chance my future apartment could fall through up until Friday afternoon at 3, and I’m allowed to be superstitious when it suits me. But the point is that I told my landlord I’m moving out, and she’s already showing the place to other people, so whether the new place happens or not, I won’t be living in my current apartment come December 1st.

I could be living in a storage unit. Or in your apartment! Luckyyyyyyyyyyy.

My decision to move came about pretty weirdly and accidentally. One of my co-workers was interested in buying a place but was constantly out of town to visit clients, so another friend and I went to see a fancypants condo for him. And then I went to see another fancypants condo with him just for fun. He wanted a roommate to take his second bedroom, and it was assumed that another of our co-workers would move in with him, but then that guy decided he didn’t want to be tied to a lease, and I found myself casually mentioning that I was interested.

With NYC condos and banks and lawyers being what they are, it was unclear for a couple of months whether or not he’d actually get the place, but I started informally packing some things up just in case. I questioned my friends about proper techniques in breaking the news to my current roommate, and they seemed to think that living for four years with a boy you’re not dating is freaky and that he should take the news like an adult even if I did it by peeing a note on his bed. But, you know, finding an apartment in NYC is way more annoying than finding an apartment anywhere else, so I felt bad about leaving him to fend for himself, even with 30 days notice. Especially since he’d been quietly living with his parents in Queens before I convinced him to move out and shack up with me lest I have to move in with a stranger when my college boyfriend moved back to Ohio.

In the end, I went to Ohio myself at the end of October and wanted to make sure to give him that 30 days, so I took the coward’s way out and wrote him an e-mail. (I’m rarely home, and he never responds to calls or texts, so I wanted to make sure he got the message.) He wrote back very civilly and said he’d decide by the 31st if he was going to stay or go himself.

In a perfect world, he would’ve stayed. Even at $1800 per month, we have a deal on our 2-bedroom, 900-square-foot apartment, and it would’ve been totally easy for him to find someone to take my place. Our neighborhood is arguably the trendiest in NYC, so people pay crazy prices for apartments that don’t have necessary things like living rooms. We have a living room, a kitchen that fits a 10-person dining table, and bedrooms that aren’t the exact same size as our beds. Plus, then I could leave my unwanted stuff behind and not worry about having to paint over the navy-blue-with-gold-trim paint in our kitchen.

But he texted me on the 30th and said, “Let’s get out of this dump.” So I started coming home to pack and have probably spent more time with him in the past two weeks than I have in the past two years. He, of course, has packed absolutely nothing and still has no idea where he’s going to live. One night I asked him, “Are you sad to be leaving this place?”, and he said, “Actually, I am.”

Which is funny, because he’s been complaining about our apartment SINCE THE DAY WE MOVED IN. It doesn’t have enough windows in the living room, his bedroom isn’t perfectly square, he wishes we lived in Greenpoint instead, the restaurant across the street has bulletholes in the window, our own kitchen has a bullethole in it. NO BIG DEAL, right?

The moral of the story is: I’m a dreamboat of a roommate and have great taste in apartments, so quit pretending like you wanna move out.

The TV Understands Me: NYC Commercials That are Too True

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Somewhere out there, there’s a small town that wants you back.

I remind myself of this and then go look at the Facebook profiles of all of my now fat, married, and childrened hometown friends every time I find myself complaining about life in NYC.

This video is also amazing but unfortunately has embedding disabled. It shows exactly what it’s like trying to hail a cab in a city where every man is out for himself.

Can My Karma Withstand Altercations with Two Old Ladies in One Week?

Filed under fun times on the subway, funner times on the bus, living in new york sucks so hard, my uber-confrontational personality
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I was alone at the bus stop yesterday morning and standing at the far corner of the glass enclosure, which is where I always like to stand when it’s available, because it shields me from the wind coming off the river. A younger man approached, and rather than walk past me to also stand in the enclosure, he stood just on the outside, as if he was lining up beside me. A few more people walked up as we waited, and all of them also stood outside in line, and I was thinking, “What a civilized people we are.” I moved to the other side of the enclosure so all of them would feel free to move over and come inside, too.

When the bus pulled up moments later, it stopped directly in front of me, and I casually stepped forward to claim my rightful position as first on, when out of nowhere, this older lady rushed over from the right and attempted to intercept me. I have no idea how long she had been waiting there, because the right side of the bus stop enclosure is covered over with an ad for an opera singer who looks like Russell Crowe. All that was clear to me was that I had been the very first person at the bus stop, so no matter how long she’d been hiding, I’d been there longer.

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The Only Person to Apologize in All of NYC Still Gets Trash-Talked

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A friend recently asked me how I managed the adjustment from smalltown Ohio to big city culture, and I told her I was prepared for everything but how truly out-for-themselves people are in NYC. I told her that in Ohio, there seems to be more of a collective conscious, a bit of an “if I do this horrible thing to this person, everyone’s going to find out” mindset, and a bit of an “if I do this nice thing for this person, both of us will benefit from my niceness, and the world will be a better place” mindset. She asked if I think NYC has changed me, and it just so happened that I had the perfect story to illustrate my very definite yes.

Last Saturday afternoon, my boyfriend and I took advantage of the end of Summer/start of Fall weather with brunch at Bar Boulud, a stroll through Central Park, wrestling with giant stuffed dogs at FAO Schwarz, and buying a pound of chocolate-covered everything at Dylan’s Candy Bar to start getting our blood sugar prepared for Halloween.

We hopped on the downtown M15 bus around 4:30 p.m., and it was packed, as usual, with elderly people, because only elderly people leave the house before 8 p.m. on weekends. We stood for a couple of stops, sat down for a couple of stops when two seats were freed up, and then stood back up when we saw a feeble-looking couple board the bus.

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How I Became Independently Wealthy

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Kamran shared this article with me recently from one of his fancy lawyer blogs called “Earning $250,000 Does Not Make You Rich, Not in My Town“, and while I agree that $250k doesn’t make you anywhere close to rich in NYC, it’s ridiculous how out of touch people are with how much money you need to survive:

I own nothing (mmm… judgment proof) — not a stock, a bond — and the only market for my “assets” is the “Cash for Gold” shop in Atlantic City. I pay a ridiculous premium to live in my 2-1-2 area code, and I live in a hovel so embarrassing that when non-New Yorkers come to visit, they assume I’ve just been robbed. As we shuffle by Park Avenue apartments that I can’t afford to even look at, my dog tries to break her leash and get herself adopted by someone who can afford her upkeep. I’m a professional blogger, yet my computer is so old I can’t even download decent porn off the internet anymore. Last night I got a text from my Manhattan bedbugs which read, “Dude, we can’t live like this no more, peace out loser.”

In Ohio, my salary could give a family of eight a super-extravagant lifestyle, but here, it can get me half of an apartment in Brooklyn, eight plane tickets, a closetful of non-designer clothes, a couple of major electronics purchases, and all the homemade meals I can handle every year. (Luckily, Kamran helps me out in the dinner department.)

Basically, no matter how much I save up, I will never, ever own a home in NYC. Even if I wanted the very cheapest and tiniest studio apartment–250 square feet for $250k, let’s say–I can’t imagine a time in my life when I’d have the $50k down payment. I accept that while the middle of the country bases their success on owning homes, I have to base mine on . . . having lots of free time to blog?

Recently, I decided to make a deposit on a minorly life-changing thing (it’s a yacht, people! it’s a yacht!) (just kidding), and I had to figure out if I’d actually have the money for it. So I made something for the first time in my life that I realize probably every one of you have had forever: a budget.

And I feel SO. MUCH. BETTER. I’m actually spending waaaaaaay less money than I used to, but I somehow feel so much richer just because I know I can keep myself debt-free and saving if I stay within my weekly allotment. It’s so great to be able to stare a $32 pressed powder compact from Sephora in its sweet, foundationy eyes and say, “Are you worth not being to go out for dinner before our bowling match Sunday night?” And it isn’t.

I even set up a (so far, really pathetic) SmartyPig goal that will someday allow me to live luxuriously without guilt for three entire months when I get fired. Click on the “Feed Me” button to see how cute the site is and to TRANSFER YOUR BANK ACCOUNT OVER TO ME:

So, I’m not rich, and I’m not even $250,000 rich, but I’m working on it.

Do you budget? I’d love to hear your tips and tricks!