Oh, the places you'll go!

I've been freelancing/writing full-time (er, unemployed?) for about six weeks now, and I've more traveling since than I think I ever have. No place to be at 9am?! I can go to IKEA! Or get a delicious bagel across the street! See the sights! Like, you know, Court Street! Jog along the promenade! Look at me, I work from home!

Much to my mother's delight, I also went "home" to Pennsylvania for a week and a half. The last time I was home for that long? My junior year of college. Really. It felt a little strange to plan the trip, knowing that only a few weeks before I thought I would be moving back there for good. I looked for jobs and apartments and contemplated which local bank I would use, and how far I could feasible be from a Sheetz. But my life is a little wackadoo sometimes and that didn't happen the way I thought it would. Because, ya know, I was going to be a real WRITER and make it here in New York, finally.

Ahem.

Hershey and the surrounding area is never the same as I left them. When my hometown got its own Dairy Queen, I was like, WHOA. This time I came back and heard about a WEGMANS. I was concerned... that I'd died and gone to HEAVEN! I didn't get to visit the Wegmans, but it was reassuring to know that it was there.

Next week I will venture even further and travel to Florida via one of those airplane things I've heard so much about. I hear it's sunny there. And there's more air conditioning! Weeee!

Life in the time of air conditioning

My "new life," as I like to call it, improved significantly when we had a professional install our industrial-sized air conditioner last Friday. It's 15,000 BTUs of goodness. And I didn't even have to fake a pregnancy to get it. One of the nights last week when it was 976 degrees at 10pm, Rachel and I were talking about how our grandparents didn't have air conditioners and they just toughed it out. They sweat and were miserable bitches to one another. That's the way things were. My grandparents were better people than me, obviously, because I was freaking hot.

This week has been nothing but humidity-free bliss when indoors. I occasionally venture outside, though. To do silly things like run. I took up running. Yes, me. "My middle name is 'exercise is stupid.'" Yep.

I run on the promenade, two blocks from the new apartment. It's pretty. I see the Brooklyn Bridge. I try desperately not to compare myself to the scads of late upper middle class thirty-something mothers running with their strollers. They have hot bods, and my goal to look like Kim Kardashian seems eons away. Each morning that I run, there's a contingency of elderly Asian women walking and stretching alongside me. I do my best to keep up with them. It's challenging enough for now.

Then I come inside to the air conditioning, collapse on the floor in front of it, and all is right with the world again.

Soundtrack Edition (5, 6)

One of my all-time favorites... Morrissey, you are my idol.

(Track 5) The Smiths, "This Charming Man"




And this, too, because it was just freaking ridic!

(Track 6) Alex Wong and Twitch Hip Hop, So You Think You Can Dance

Familiar

Recently in therapy I recognized a pattern in my behavior - - every three or four years, I basically uproot my life and start again. Chaos ensues. Three years after college ended, I left my boyfriend, moved out of our apartment and quit my job. Then I started dating women. ANOTHER three years later (also known as last month), I quit my job, decided to freelance and "make a go of it" as a writer. Of note, also, I moved again (with little" although some, of the same drama and gravitas of the last time).

It’s no wonder to me that I prefer the smaller aspects of my life to remain familiar and comfortable. Although I attempt to keep up with current music and TV, etc. my favorite band will likely always be The New Pornographers and favorite series to be Buffy. Other things come and go, but I have a few constants. Addiction to coffee. Gap jeans. A slight Dutch accent when I say "radiator."

Today I spent the day in Philadelphia with one of my closest friends from college. We've kept in touch over the six years since we sat together at Newhouse graduation, but have yet to end up back in the same city.

We planned my visit the last time he was in New York - a fun cheesesteak-filled date in the city of Brotherly Love. Today we connected as well, if not better than we had in college. We ate, drank and laughed about the acronym for his family's restaurant being HOBAG. We talked about careers and marriage and families because that’s what old friends so when they're rapidly approaching 30.

He wooed me with Philly's best coffee and cupcakes. He knows me. I know him. I realized this August we will have been friends for ten years. I love sharing that longevity and familiarity with someone. If I’m not knocked up by 35, he's my guy.

Making up is hard to do

My brother and I got into kind of a big fight. We didn't speak for a week. A week. That's the longest my brother and I have ever gone without speaking. We're freakishly close.

It all started because I had a tad bit of an overreaction. For several weeks now, I've been planning a trip back home for a week - my longest in quite some time. Last week, my brother informed me that while I would be in town - the entire time I would be in town - he'd be helping a coworker's daughter's best friend's sister (or something) move across the country to California. He'd be gone nine days, and I'd be home for five. No overlap.

More than angry, I was disappointed, although I didn't express it that way. So, he got huffy, I got huffy. Some Yeiser blood a-raging. Then, THEN! my brother came to town for one night for a Yankees-Phillies game last week. The game was a gift to him from his best friend (a Yankees fan who grew up just an hour from Philadelphia... traitor), so I only expected to see the boys for dinner and then they'd be off to the game drinking illegal brewskis and yelling at pitchers. Except we didn't get a chance to have dinner. I saw them for no more than ten minutes. Again, disappointing.

My brother called after the game to ask me to meet up with them before their bus. I was already in bed, reading. There was a misunderstanding - a gigantic one - and a continuation of the previous knock-down drag-out brawl ensued via text that night and the following morning.

Then we didn't speak. For a week.

After the full week had gone by, I text-raised the white flag, "so, can we be done with this whole not talking thing?" He said okay, and then we were.

Fighting with my brother is especially difficult for me because I am extremely protective over the kid. And by the kid, I mean the almost 21-year-old who could totally kick my ass in a minute flat. But he's my little brother. I used to watch Barney and Power Rangers with him, so I deserve some cred for being a superior sis.

At least we're good now.

Soundtrack Edition (4)

Kickin' it old school to say goodbye to Bender.

(Track 4) Boyz II Men, "End of the Road"

Two weeks

My last day at my office is officially June 9th. June 9th is less than two weeks away. That's, like, really soon.

I've worked some crazy hours in this place. It's caused me migraines. And anxiety attacks. I've been the bitchy one and the funny one. I've had outbursts and have sobbed quietly in the bathroom.

For all intents and purposes, this was my second job out of college. The third on my resume, but my second real career experience. I had no idea how a PR firm functioned when I started here. I got a job as an "Account Executive," and honestly didn't know what I would be doing day-to-day. I just knew that I was ready to leave my previous job, after much angst. Being 28 and only having had two real jobs feels a little strange. Like I missed something.

As my last day gets closer, I'm having a hard time imagining how the office will be without me. I know that sounds completely narcissistic, and it is. But the office will be a little different without me. I will be a little different without it. My thoughts are still coming together on this whole leaving thing.

Someone else is going to have to cut the ice cream cakes in the conference room. I wonder if my boss will re-hire me as a freelance cake-cutter?

I believe in duct tape, too, Miles...

I will be vacating the death trap of an apartment in a mere three weeks. I can hardly believe I made it a year. Nothing worked for most of that time. For instance, here's my father fixing the wall when it started to crumble because I hung a curtain rod. A curtain rod was too heavy for a load-bearing wall. I strongly suspect that the place is largely held together by tape.

Problems with the building from memory. I am probably blocking things out...
1. lack of hot water in showers
2. balconies leaked into apartments below causing water damage
3. broken intercom (for nine months)
4. heat routinely needing to be "rebooted"
5. warped floors (likely a symptom of #2)
6. management company neglects to pay ConEd bill for common areas of building
7. cracking walls
8. terribly insulated windows / walls
10. overall contempt for everyone associated with the building

Over the past week, at least two of our neighbors have moved out on our floor. And, from the looks of it so far, there are no new tenants. Perhaps the management company wasn't able to get three times the market value on our crappy ass apartments like they originally thought.

My new brick-and-mortar apartment, however, can be vouched for. It's actually a historical building, constructed in the 1800-something-or-others. I'd have to look on the sign on the outside of the building.