City Wendy

So Long, 2007

After a grueling 20-hour commute from my parents house, I'm back in Manhattan--just in time for all the crazy New Year's festivities. Even though we live just a few blocks from Times Square, we avoid that area as much as possible, especially tonight. There is something sort of surreal and fun about walking around the neighborhood in the hours leading up to the frenzy, though. The usual frenetic energy of the city is cranked up several notches and the air of anticipation sort of permeates every surface. People of all ages from all over the world gather in this 10-block radius and walk around in ridiculous New Year's glasses and hats and tiaras and carry an assortment of noisemakers that they blow or rattle or shake, punctuating the last day of the year with little bursts of uncontrolled excitement.

Drew and I are throwing a New Years Eve party so we've been running all around getting ready. I even managed to find the most awesome silver shoes at DSW before we stopped at Trader Joe's and I don't care that they're half a size too big--I got them anyway and I'll just stuff the heel with cotton balls or something! I hope the don't fly off when I'm dancing or doing one of my high-kicks that I'm known to do after a few too many drinks. And most of all, I hope our party doesn't suck. I hope people come and they have fun and they actually stay until midnight, because how lame would that be if they didn't? We'd be sitting there on our couch with our noisemakers in hand, shiny paper hats on our heads, and our bottles of champagne on the counter with no one to toast to, while the drunks on the street outside kissing and hugging and shouting "Happy New Year!" and being all merry mock us.

At any rate, I'm sure everything will be just fine and it will be a celebratory send-off to a year that was lovely in so many ways. During my long commute home from Germany, I had a chance to reflect on 2007 and here in no certain order are some of my favorites of the year (idea stolen from Em!):

Favorite Movies:
I'd have to go with Juno and Lars and the Real Girl. So far I can remember seeing 13 films in the theater and most were pretty good, but those were the two that stayed with me the most. Darjeeling Limited gets the prize as the secret come-back. I wasn't so sure I liked it when I first saw it, but two months later I'm still thinking about it and playing playing the music and dreaming about the colors of it, so maybe I liked it more than I initially gave it credit for.

Favorite Music:
I was sort of lame about music this year--I didn't discover nearly as much as I normally do and I didn't really seek new stuff out. Still, you'd have to live in a cave to miss Amy Winehouse or Feist this year, both of whom get my vote for best albums of 2007. Oh, and Peter Bjorn and John. Those are my top three. Also in 2007, I started listening to a lot of Drew's music which rarely overlaps with mine, so much of it was new to me. He listens to a lot of old country like Hank Williams and Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson and old blues like Howlin' Wolf and some dude with the "Fats" in his name and a bunch of people I couldn't even tell you the names of off the top of my head. But the point is, I like his music and I even catch myself listening to it when he's not around and that's kind of like discovering new music, even if it's been around for a million years, right? So I'll put all that stuff up there in the best albums of 2007, too.

Favorite Books
Geez louise, I was totally lame about reading books this year, too, and that was even my New Years resolution, so that's doubly lame! I think I read maybe 8 books, total. And my goal was to read 52, so how lame is that?! This year I'm going to stick with a realistic resolution like washing my face every night before bed, or better yet, eating something with chocolate in it everyday--that I can do! But, so, I don't even think I can really say what my favorite book was that I read this year, because there's not enough on the list to compare. I really liked that Year of Magical Thinking, though, so I guess I'll say that. Kind of by default because I'm lame, but also because it was really, really good.

Favorite Purchases
If you read Awesome, you might think I am quite the consumer, but that assumption would be only half-right. I am quite the consumer in my dreams. In reality though where unemployment and lack of income sort of keeps you from affording lots of things, I mostly just stick to essentials and the occasional lipgloss. I did splurge on a couple of things since moving to NYC, including this great winter coat from Zara which is not as warm as my big Michael Kors down coat that I wear in Chicago winters, but then again, I don't need anything that warm in NYC, which is why the splurge was actually more of an essential purchase, anyway, along the lines of eyebrow threading and cocktails. Another favorite purchase from back in my good ol' gainfully employed days is my bike and though it is locked up in storage at the moment, I had some good, good times on that thing before I moved. I guess I'd consider all the airline tickets I bought this year as the my third favorite purchase because they got me to New York lots of times, and then back to Chicago after I moved, and also to Missouri to see my family over the summer, and then to Germany this Christmas (but my parents actually bought that ticket for me, generous people they are, so not sure it technically counts as a "my purchase," but what the hell!), all of which provided some of the best moments of the year--good times with people I care about, and that's so much better than anything you can fold in a drawer or wear out to dinner or whatever.

which brings me to:
Favorite Moments
Man, this year was so chock-full of awesome moments, I don't even know where to begin. Even in the darkest, coldest months of the early year, there were days I've never been happier. The first weekend in February, in particular--the coldest days of the whole year in Chicago--when air temps dipped to 10 and 15 below zero and my car died and even just stepping outside to take trash out was almost too brutal contemplate, my friends Chad and Neil, hosted a small winter warmer where a handful of us cozied up inside with bottles of wine and champagne, piles of magazines, a deck of playing cards, a stack of movies, and lots of great food. I realized then that as long as you've got good friends by your side, even awful situations can be tolerable, and if you're really lucky, they can even be fun. Until the booze runs out.

Summer was a delightful string of afternoons at the beach. There were some weekends Nicki and I must have clocked nearly 20 hours there, breaking only for beer and food runs. Someday, when my Chicago tenure is just a distant memory, it'll be summers like 2007 that'll make me wonder how I ever left.

The one thing missing from most of my summer was Cafe Bong. When it suddenly switched owners overnight in the early part of the season, turning it from my favorite bar to a cliche dive completely void of any charm or character, I couldn't really bear to go back (dudes, they even took out the pool table!). But then, shortly before I moved, the original owner came back just as quickly and surprisingly as she left, and when I was able to have my going-away party there the night before I moved complete with my old karaoke favorites, and a pink lady toast with all my friends, and a hug and kiss from Jinni, the owner, who said I was like family, it made for one of those magical sorts of occasions...like discovering the dress you've been eying at Anthropologie has just been marked down 80%.

On the walk back to my apartment with Drew after the leaving the Bong that last night I lived in Chicago, I was so overcome with emotion, I just sat on one of those benches on Clark street in Andersonville, buried my head in my arms and sobbed big heaving ugly-face tears. Drew rubbed my back and asked tentatively, "You do want to move, right?" And I did--I wanted to be with him and I wanted to experience New York and take advantage of all of its opportunities, and after 7 years in Chicago, I was ready to leave...but that didn't mean any of it was easy.

And now I've been here three months and I'm still waiting for things to fall into place, but everyday it feels a little  more like home. Some of the best moments of the whole year have been in these last three months and they aren't the big, sweeping exciting kind that make for entertaining blog posts, but the quiet, sort of reflective kind that come when I'm with Drew and we're walking down the street, deciding what we want for dinner and whether we should watch Juno at the theater or The Savages after we eat. And it's the moment I exit the gym on Broadway, right across the street from the Ed Sullivan theater and the tourists are swarming around me and my cheeks are blushed and sweaty from my work-out and I feel so alive because I get to live here--I get to live and eat and go to movies and the gym in this city where all these people get so excited about visiting and I know I'm going to go home and take a shower and then have the whole day to do whatever I want in the city that has a million options. I usually just stay in and watch Ellen, but that's not the point. The point is: options, people, options.

And then there's the moment that comes after a 20-hour commute from my parents' place, where I spent the week relaxing and resting and enjoying their company and the utter quiet and stillness of their home, and then step off the bus on 42nd street just two days before New Year's Eve and am immediately jolted back to my reality in a shock of lights and noise and crowds as I rush the 10 blocks to our apartment, through throngs of foreign tourists and street vendors selling confetti and horns, and carry my heavy bags up two flights of stairs and throw off my coat and hat and mittens and hug Drew to me and the cats and take a look around the apartment--at the curtains we hung a few weeks ago and the rugs we bought in November and the flowers Drew got me at the Bodega, and I think, "I'm home. I made it."

It was a great year, and here's to an even happier 2008 for all of us!

Happy New Year, everyone.

Housebound

Dudes! So, I'm visiting my parents in Germany for the week and I haven't left the house in four days. Like, not at all. Not even to run to the end of the block and back. Isn't that weird? It is, I know. You can go ahead and say it, it won't hurt my feelings--I'm weird!! But you know what, it's been awesome because I haven't had to deal with anyone or do anything I don't want to do or even wear pants that don't have elastic waistbands.

I didn't set out to not leave the house for four days--it just sort of happened. I mean, my mom and dad and I went out for dinner the night I got in and that was nice--I had schnitzel and fries and wine, which is my favorite German meal. And then the next day we went to a Christmas market and I ate a bratwurst, which is basically my second favorite German meal. But it was really, really cold out and I don't know, I just felt kind of grumpy, to tell you the truth. I mean, here it was two days before Christmas and I'm with my parents I hardly get to see and we're at this very charming Christmas market surrounded by old churches and buildings with important people's faces carved into the sides and what not, and all I can think about is how fucking cold it is and crowded and I hate the way you have to stand and eat and drink at these things when it seems so uncivilized to be standing in the cold and crowd eating a bratwurst and I wish they had little warming tents with comfortable chairs where you could sit to eat your brats and frites and drink your gluhwein. Plus, my feet were frozen solid and I forgot to wear my uber-warm coat even though I packed it special just for the outdoor Christmas market and it weighed like 15 million pounds in my suitcase and practically gave me a hernia just carrying it. So, I was kind of grumpy and when the next day we couldn't really go anywhere because it was Christmas Eve and everything is closed in Germany on Christmas Eve and Christmas day and the day after Christmas, I really didn't mind.

You'd think I'd at least go out for a jog like I like to do when I'm here. But wrong. I got so far as taking my running shoes out of my suitcase and then I was all, "Hmmm...I think I'll just sit back down on the couch and read!" And that's what I've been doing. I've been reading and watching some movies and doing a little work and hanging out with my parents. Oh, and I found some yearbooks from '91 and '92 in my old bedroom that I hadn't looked at in years, so I started flipping through them and saw all these old names and faces I hadn't thought about in forever. And then I started googling these old friends and aquaintances and high school crushes as people do and I discovered that some of these people are married and divorced, some have shitloads of kids, some are doctors and professors, others are GI Joes, and some are dead, which was kind of sad to discover. Like this one guy I used to have a big crush on my freshman year of high school and he was a senior and so cute, and I remember sitting next to him at the movies once because he was with some friends who were friends with the people I was with and so we ended up sitting next to each other and the whole time the movie was on, I could not concentrate on anything other than how he was sitting right next to me in the dark and how there must have been some good deed in my history that led me to this momentously awesome good fortune as a reward and I needed to know exactly what that deed was so that I could recreate it and ensure that we would serendipitously find ourselves sitting next to each in the dark once again someday. And now he's dead! Just like that! With no explanation or anything! I mean, all I could find was that he died peacefully in his sleep and that was it. He was 32.

Other than that, it's been a pretty relaxing and anxiety-free week. I feel slightly guilty that I traveled halfway across the world and I've hardly stepped outside to look around, but it's not like I haven't seen Germany before. I've been visiting for 13 years and before that, I lived here for 5 years, so I sort of know what it's all about. I mean, if I had been staying in, say, Greece or Iceland or something, I'd be out and about. Or even Istanbul. And anyway, my parents live in a humongo house with a marble staircase and heated floors and rooms our entire NY apartment could fit into, so it's been sort of nice to just stay inside and relax in comfort and have a break from the sensory overload of Manhattan. I'll be back to reality soon enough where I'll have to leave my apartment and interact with strangers and wear pants with no elastic. I suppose I'll even be expected to shave. God, I'm already exhausted just thinking about it.

This Time Tomorrow

This time tomorrow I'll be starting my trek to my parents' house in Germany. If all goes well and I make my connecting flight in London, it should be a roughly 18-hour journey from door-to-door. And that's assuming (hoping, really) that my mother doesn't want to stop for some shopping somewhere on the way from the Frankfurt airport to their house in the little town of Schweinfurt. Actually, their house isn't even in Schweinfurt, it's in a suburb of Schweinfurt (which, incidentally, roughly translated means "where pigs fly"*), as if a town of about 1000* could have a suburb.

The last time I visited Germany was Christmastime two years.  I've turned 30 since then, something that seems to have affected me more than I thought it would. It's true what they say, you know, about time moving more quickly the older you get. I often feel like I'm running out of it, actually--running out of time to chase those dreams and do all the stuff I want to do while I'm still young...as if once you reach a certain age you can't have fun anymore, can't have adventures anymore, can't dream big anymore. I went to sleep one night when I was 25 and I woke up and was 31. I'm afraid I'll wake up tomorrow and another 6 years will have passed just like that. I feel like I'm running out of time.

I was trying to remember all the movies I saw this year in the theater. I started a list, but I'm pretty sure I forgot something. So far, I've got:
Once
2 Days in Paris
Knocked up
The Savages
Juno
Darjeeling Limited
Music and Lyrics
The Simpsons Movie
What Would Jesus Buy
Hot Fuzz
Waitress
Lars and the Real Girl

I saw most of these with Drew. We watched 2 Days in Paris at the Landmark in Chicago shortly before I moved. I imagined the two of us taking a trip to Paris one day, a city I haven't visited in over 14 years. I imagined us sitting at a cafe near the Seine and pretending to look less American.  After the movie, we hopped on our bikes and rode back to my place before heading to the beach at the lake. I miss my bike. And I miss the lake.

We watched The Darjeeling Limited at a theater in the Upper West Side soon after I moved to New York. It was raining that day and as I watched, I imagined us traveling on a train through India, the colors of the country a blur past our window.
"Do you think we'd travel well together?" I asked him after the movie.
"I think so, do you?" he replied.
"We might get annoyed with each other," I replied.
"We might," He said with a nod and a smile.
I hooked my arm through his as we walked back to his apartment. It was still "his apartment" in my mind. I hadn't yet made the decision to stay. We were still testing the waters--seeing if we annoyed each other too much to live together.

This time tomorrow I'll be starting my trek to my parents' house in Germany. They live on top of a hill that overlooks a small village. In the center of the village is a church with a steeple that pokes the sky. Between that village and the one where my parents live is a field. Some days there's even a shepherd there--he's got the robe and staff and flock of sheep, the whole nine yards. Through the middle of the field is a path, and sometimes I jog on it, and cross the bridge over the creek to the other village and stand right outside the church with the steeple that pokes the sky. If I time it just right, I arrive as the church bells ring (every hour on the hour). Sometimes I can hear a train in the distance and if it's late enough in the day--especially this time of year--I can see the moon and handful of stars scattered across the sky.

I'm hoping I can go there and make time stand still for awhile.
At least long enough to catch my breath.

* I have been corrected by my mother who reads this blog. She says that the literal translation is actually "Pig's Crossing," but I still prefer to think of it as "Where pigs fly." Also, it has a population of 51,000 (about the size of my alma mater), not 1,000.

Staggering Genius

The woman who lives downstairs from us has been taping Christmas cards to the outside of her door. Usually there's just a picture of a Chihuahua on her door that says "Psycho Chihuahua" and when you walk past, her dogs indeed start barking like psychos from inside her apartment. But then right after Thanksgiving, a Christmas card appeared next to the Psycho Chihuahua picture and a week later, another Christmas card appeared and now there are 7 all together.

I'm always tempted to stop and read her cards, but I'm too afraid I'll get caught. Those damn dogs bark like pyschos everytime I step within 10 feet of her door after all. Yesterday I tempted fate and stood outside her door for about 5 whole seconds and managed to read half of one card. It was from her parents and they wished her a "Very Merry Christmas." Her father happens to own the building, as did his father before him (the infamous Mr. Moffa) and I wonder if she'll own the building one day too.

Other than the fact that her grandfather haunts the place and she owns psycho dogs, I don't really know anything about her. I've passed her in the foyer a couple of times, but the most I've gotten is a half-nod. I can't help being curious, though. Does she work? Does she date anyone? Does she know a good stylist in the neighborhood? And what's with the holiday cards? Does she know how much everyone wants to read them as they pass by? Is it some sort of art installation? I mean, it's sort of brilliant really. Who among us doesn't want to snoop on our neighbors? Who among us doesn't want to read our neighbors' mail if we have the chance? Please, if a postcard addressed to your neighbor was placed in your mailbox by mistake, would you not read the entire thing before slipping it into the crack of the correct box? You would, and you know it. So, likewise, if you see 7 Christmas cards on your neighbor's door, you're gonna want to read them. It's human nature! But your neighbor's father owns the building and she doesn't have to pay rent so she probably doesn't have a real job and instead, spends most of her time at home with her pyscho dogs who bark like pyschos everytime someone walks past the door, so you can't very well stand there and read each card leisurly like you'd like to because she'd know you were snooping and then she'd never tell you the name of her stylist, oh, it's torture, I tell you, it's torture!!!

God, I wish I'd thought of it first.

Final Countdown

I had another focus group today (my third in less than a week!) and immediately spent half the money on Christmas gifts. I'm just about done now--how about you? If you need ideas, check out the gift guide on Nerve's Scanner--I'm a contributor, so see if you can spot my suggestions. And as always, Awesome has all kinds of great ideas too, so you really have NO EXCUSE to buy your sister another gift card to Target.

Naked Finger and Aging Ovaries

I made a Christmas call to my grandmother today in lieu of visiting her for the holidays since my blog of all things landed me right smack in the middle of family drama last year and as a result, I have been passive-aggressively disinvited to Christmas With the Relatives this year. Anyway, it's not my grandma's fault and I'll definitely miss seeing her, so I called her up today to tell her so.

I used to talk to her more frequently than I do now, but in recent years my always-gabby grandmother has increased her typical length of phone calls from 2 hours to 5 1/2 and it's just hard to find that chunk of time in my schedule, especially now since I joined Facebook. But today I did and I was rewarded with a conversation that has become as common now as seeing Britney without panties.

"You're no spring chicken anymore," my grandmother said immediately after we exchanged 'hellos,' cuing me for the marriage and great-grandbaby talk that's marked all of our phone calls since I turned 18.
"Hm-mm," I replied, noting the new and impressive record of 31 seconds.
"If you wait much longer, you won't even be able to have children!" she exclaimed.
"Hmmm," I said again.
"I guess it looks like I'll never have great-grandbabies. I guess I'll just have to settle for great grandogs and grandcats instead. And your cats are so far away, I don't even get to see them. Except in pictures."
"Hm-mm." I said, hoping my non-word reply tactic would disarm her.
"Well, your mother tells me you and Drew bought some rugs recently," she said.
"Yeah, we did," I replied, surprised but happy to be changing the subject so quickly.
"So, will there be a marriage soon?" she asked, apparently convinced that rug-shopping is now the precursor to nuptials.
"Oh!" I said, "Well, you know, we're very happy right now and if that's something we decide we want, then we'll figure it out from there."
"I already have it figured out," she said. "You'll have a rabbi marry you in New York since that's important to Drew and his father. Your parents will want to be there. And you can tell your friends in Chicago and it's up to them if they want to come or not. I'm too old to make the trip, but your aunt will have an Open House with the family here for you and Drew and we'll want to see pictures. Make sure you take pictures. And wear a pretty dress. It doesn't have to be a gown, but you'll want a pretty dress. I mean, it'll be your wedding day!"
"Well now, let's not get ahead of ourselves," I said, alarmed at how much she'd already thought out.
I could practically see her pursing her lips through the phone lines.
"You'll never do better than Drew," she replied after a beat. "He's a kind man. And you're getting older. You won't be able to have children for too much longer. ...Just make it legal already and give me great grandbabies!"

Desperate to change the subject, I asked the question I knew was guaranteed to get my grandmother talking about anything other than my naked ring finger, aging ovaries and wasted space of a womb.

"What was it like growing up dirt poor during the Great Depression, Grandma?" I asked.

Four hours later I finally hung up the phone and crossed one more thing off my Holiday to-do list. 'Tis the season!!

Focus on the Positive

Okay, so I'm over my pity party. I needed a whole day to mope about and whine and feel sorry for myself and today I feel a whole lot better. I even got a Christmas card from the Coffee cart guy when I got my small coffee this morning. And he asked me my name. So see, I guess some people do care what my name is after all. I love that coffee cart guy. His name is Bebo, by the way. And now when I see him I can say, " Hi Bebo." And he'll say, "Good morning, Wendy. One small coffee, cream and sugar?" And I'll say, "Yep." And then we can talk about how it's getting cold or whatever and all will be right in the world for a minute.

Another good thing about today is that I made 100 easy dollars to finish up my Christmas shopping. I do these focus groups, see, I always have. I started doing them when I first moved to Chicago and opened  up the Yellow Pages--this was back in the day when people used to still keep Yellow Pages in their homes--and I called all the market research companies I could find and got my name put in their databases to do focus groups. Over the years, I've done about 1 or 2 a month, at about an average of $85 a pop. I've given my opinion on advertisements, concepts, and tastes on everything from batteries to vodka. Today I did one on adult literacy and I was interviewed by a woman who, inronically, had very terrible literacy skills. She was reading from a booklet, but kept getting tripped up on words like "tendency," and "orientation."

At one point she gave me a card and she read from her little booklet: "Please look at the card and tell me which you closely identify with." I looked at my card and it said, "A. White, B. Black/African American, C. Asian, D. Hispanic, E. Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, F. Other." I looked up at her and said, straight-faced, "I'm B. Black." And without missing a beat, she wrote down 'black' in her little booklet. "Uh, I was just kidding," I said. She looked down at her booklet and up at me and said, "You're not black?"
"Um, No," I replied,holding out my hands as evidence, like my big, fat, white, freckled face wasn't enough, "I'm not. I'm white!"
Later in the interview, I had to do some literacy tasks, including sending fake emails to fake employers and also signing my fake name on a library card. At the end of it, I was handed a hundred dollar bill and told to have a nice day.

This focus group was different than most in that is was not a consumer focus group--it was for government policy makers. And also, it wasn't actually a 'group'--it was just me. And there was a parrot, too. A big blue and yellow parrot who kept saying 'hello' to me from her little perch by the interviewer's desk. Also, there was no food at this interview and usually you'll get little sandwiches and chips and oreos at these things, so I totally brought my appetite and had to sit there for an hour and a half with a growling stomach. At one point I was offered a Hauls cough drop, but I didn't have a cough or anything, so I declined.

When I get called for these focus groups, I always have to lie. They want people who only go to these things once or twice a year and not every other week like I do, so I have to lie about when the last time was that I attended one. I also have to lie about what it is that I do. They don't like unemployed people or anyone who works in entertainment or marketing. Being an underemployed freelance writer wouldn't fly for them, so I tell them I am a substitute teacher. This way, if they ask if I can come in at say, 11 am, it won't seem odd that I don't have to be at work. Sometimes I like to pretend I'm something other than a subsitute teacher and I'll tell them that I'm a professor or cook in a vegetarian cafe. A few times I've gotten things all mixed up though and I'll forget what I said on the phone by the time I get to the group and when we have to go around in a circle and introduce ourselves and say what we do for a living, I get all wound up and nervous and just say that I'm a stay-at-home Mom. Once, I was so frazzled I said I was a professional blogger! This is actually the truth as I do make money from blogging on both my own blog as well as corporate blogs. The truth got me into so much trouble. There was a big to-do over having a professional blogger in the group! They had to stop the group and pull me out in the hall and ask me all sorts of questions. I ended up getting kicked out of the group, but the people running it were so apologetic, as if it weren't my own fault for telling the truth.
"That's ok, " I said, "Do I still get paid?"
And I did! I got a hundred-dollar bill and some little sandwiches and oreos!

Just as I was writing this I got called for another group tomorrow, no lie. For this one I told them I was a part-time tutor and a Pepsi drinker. I guess I better go drink a Pepsi before tomorrow. After all, better a half-liar than a full-liar, dontcha think?

Aftermath

I cried every day for the first month that I was here. It wasn't that I was miserable, exactly. How could I be miserable when I got to be with my boyfriend all the time instead of being 1400 miles apart? How could I be miserable with all these fantastic restaurants within steps of our apartment, and Central Park just blocks away, and a bustling Metropolis at my fingertips? I wasn't miserable, but I was overwhelmed, and anxious, and lonely, and worried that things like employment and friendships and a settled living situation wouldn't fall into place as quickly as I needed them to and that months could go by and I might still just be feeling my way around in the semi-dark.

But then the cloud lifted and though things didn't exactly fall into place, I started feeling calmer and happier and less anxious. I started sleeping better at night and feeling more positive about things in general. I'll find a good job, I told myself. I'll make friends in time. I've got this great boyfriend and cool apartment and everything is going to be just fine!

And then I spent 4 days back in Chicago and walking down the street of my old neighborhood, shop owners came out to greet me and ask where I'd been, bartenders welcomed me back with pints of my favorite ale, friends told me there was a void since I'd left and now that I was back, all was right again. And it was right! It was more than right! It was as much fun as I'd had in years of living there compacted into four days (3 plus a bonus day when my flight was cancelled). My time in Chicago this past week took all the highlights of actually living there, left out all the sucky parts, and magnified the good times so much that now my perspective is all screwed up.

I'm back in NY where my job applications and follow-up emails continue to go ignored, and we're out of toilet paper and toothpaste and the cats need more litter.

Intellectually, I know that's not all there is. I know I meant it when I told my friends "New York is great! I love it there!" over and over and over. But waking up in the city again with chores to do and jobs to chase and streets to walk down where no one knows my name--and no one fucking cares to--is a little depressing. I wish I could wave a wand. I wish I could make this place home more quickly. I wish I could have all the comfort of my old life with all the excitement of possibility in my new life and I wish.

I wish I could just know for sure that I didn't make a big mistake moving here.

More Randoms!

1. Like every other corner in New York and every other city, there's a Starbucks just down the street from our apartment. Right outside the Starbucks is a coffee cart guy who sells Nestle hot choclate and jelly donuts and cups of coffee for 75 cents. Up until today, I'd avoided the coffee cart guy in favor of, yes, Starbucks over-priced shitty coffee and the cheap shitty coffee from the bodega across the street. Today after I hit the gym, though, I didn't want the shitty stuff I already knew, I wanted to try NEW shitty stuff, so I bought a cup from the cart guy and guess what! NOT SHITTY! Surprisingly good, actually. Very good, in fact. So, yay, coffee cart guy, you have made me just a little more excited about waking up in the morning.

2. So, there's this personal trainer at my gym who is sabotaging my workouts by being nice to me. See, I don't like making friends at the gym. I don't like being at the gym, so I just want to get in and out of there as quickly as possible and that does not include chit-chatting and making small talk with people or checking out the naked bodies in the locker room, no matter how much they look like Jessica Biel's, it just doesn't. But there's this personal trainer who gave me a free session when I first joined and he liked me so much and thinks I show such "potential," that he has offered time and again to train me for free. At first, this seemed like an awesome idea. Free personal training? Who wouldn't love that? But then I thought more about his motives, about how awesome I look first thing in the morning, sweating to the oldies in my 11-year-old, stained t-shirt and faded, stretched-out leggings, make-up from the day before dripping down my face and my hair in a tangled mess beneath a torn headband and I thought, "He's totally hot for me!" I ran this idea past Drew and he said, "Well, I didn't want to seem like a jealous boyfriend, but it is weird that he wants to train you for free." So, rather than just tell him I'm not interested, I've been trying to avoid him when I go to the gym. If he's upstairs, I run downstairs. If I spot him wiping down the weights or whatever, I take my chances and stick my iPod earbuds in and hit the stairmaster. But somehow he always catches me and wants to make chit-chat and ask when I want to be trained, which is such a strange phrase anyway, like I'm some sort of circus animal, and I'm such a lame-o, I always make up something about how today isn't good because I'm in a rush or I've got cramps or whatever and maybe next time will be better, when what I should say is, "Dude! I'm not even wearing deodorant. Save yourself!"

3. I fly to Chicago tomorrow! Yippeeeee! I'm so excited about seeing my friends and also stressed about how I can squeeze in quality time with each one in only three days. When I bought my tickets a few months ago with a voucher from my parents who couldn't use it, I figured I'd be working by now and wouldn't be able to take much time off. But as it turns out, STILL NOT WORKING! So I could have stayed a whole week and gotten in time with everyone I want to see and hit all my favorite bars a few times at least. But I just get three days and you better believe I'm going to pack in as much horsing around as I possibly can. In the last two+ months since I moved here, my social outlet has pretty much been Drew--and the personal trainer--and much as I like Drew, I NEED OTHER COMPANY, so this little mini-break will be great in restoring some of my sanity and reminding me that I can make conversation with other people. At least when I've been drinking.

4. All that has me thinking. Which is rarely a good thing. But this time I think it might be ok. Under-Employed Girl just left a comment on a recent post and mentioned something about organizing a happy-hour and I think that's a brilliant idea. What do you guys think? Maybe right after the holidays, some of us NYC bloggers can meet up for cocktails and such and exchange war stories in person? I promise to wear deodorant. Who's in?

Spooksville

When I first moved in with Drew, I noticed a couple of things that made me wonder whether his apartment was haunted. First, there were the few random dimes I discovered in various places. Ever since I lived in a haunted apartment in college where the ghost(s) used to leave dimes all over, I've been quick to jump to conclusions when I see a dime anywhere other than a coin purse and a musician's case on a subway platform.

In addition to the dimes, though, there was another indication that Drew's apartment may be haunted. From day one, both my cats see things that Drew and I do not see. It's clear when their attention is turned towards the ceiling and they're meowing or hissing or growling and there's nothing that we can actually see, that something spooky is going on.

"It might be Mr. Moffa," Drew said when I asked him who could possibly be haunting the place.
"Who's Mr. Moffa?" I asked, intrigued.
"He was my first landlord. He died a few years ago and now his son owns the place."
"Mr. Moffa, huh?" I said, and silently vowed to make friends with him.
"Yeah, I used to think he was haunting the place, and I told him he'd been a good landlord and I appreciated it, but that this was my apartment--I pay the rent here and I need my privacy," Drew said.
"Did it work?" I asked.
"Well, I haven't noticed anything weird since then."
"Until now," I added.
"Until now," he agreed.

So I introduced myself to Mr. Moffa. I told him that I lived here now and that I'd take good care of the place and that my cats were good and I wouldn't let them hurt anything and then I asked for privacy.

That was about 6 weeks ago and things were going ok for a little while, but now we have to reason to believe there are more ghosts. A female ghost perhaps. First, the cats are going crazy again. There's always something they see that we don't. They get transfixed on a spot on the ceiling, or on the rug, or on the wall and there's just nothing there. Not a bug, not a shadow, not anything. That we can see, that is. Then last week when I was trying to do some work, the desk lamp turned itself off and on a couple of times.

"No big deal," I thought, "It's probably just the wiring."
But then a couple days later, just beneath the desk lamp, I found an earring--a stud earring. One of those kinds of studs that little girls wear when they first get their ears pierced. I showed it to Drew and he couldn't understand where it could come from. He's had female roommates in the past, but its been years since another woman lived here, and the female friends we've had over would never wear this kind of earring.

"It's a birthstone," I said.
"For what month?" Drew asked.
"Well, it's yellow, so, November," I answered.
The day was November 30th.
"She wanted us to know it was her birthday, I bet," Drew replied.
I got chills.

I told Drew about the haunted apartment I lived in in college, about how I found a couple earrings there, too. That apartment was crazy haunted! There were the dimes and the earrings, but those were the least of the weird things. Appliances would turn on and off--once, when I was home alone watching Unsolved Mysteries, my hair dryer turned itself on in my bedroom upstairs. Sometimes the outgoing message on the answering machine would just randomly play without anyone touching it. I used to find shaving cream lining the entire bottom of my bathtub in the mornings. Once, when I was  putting some tator tots in the oven, a felt something down the back of my leg--I looked down and saw a dime drop on the floor and roll across the room. As I was watching that, a felt a tator tot hit me in the shoulder. These weren't even the scariest things.

I lost my glasses once. I'm sure I put them on my nightstand as I always did before going to bed, but in the morning they were gone. I looked everywhere. Everywhere! I called my mom and told her I thought the ghost took them. She was the only person I could say that to and not get laughed at. "You need to ask for them back," she told me. So I did. I said, "This isn't funny! I need my glasses back! They were expensive and I can't afford to buy a new pair and I need them!" Suddenly, something compelled me to look under my bed. I lifted the lid off a shoe box and there they were, my glasses. That wasn't the scariest thing.

The scariest thing happened one weekend when my roommate was out of town. These things always happened when she was gone, and in fact, if you were to ask her even now, I wouldn't be surprised if she'd tell you she's convinced I made it all up. But I didn't. These things all happened. And the scariest was that weekend she was gone and I woke up on a Sunday morning in my bedroom and the bedroom furniture had been rearraged during the night and right beside my bed, just inches from where I slept, was the rocking chair, facing me, like someone had been watching me sleep. I get chills even now just thinking about it.

So! I don't know what to make of the recent ghostly events here in New York--the cat's behavior, the desk lamp, the dimes, the earring. Is it nothing? Are there reasonable explanations? Am I a ghost magnet? Should I try to have a word with these spirits--the one who left her earring? I just don't know. Most of me thinks it's no big deal, that it's pretty harmless, really. But, what if it's not? What if it's an earring this week, and rearranged furniture next week? Maybe it's time for an intervention. Have you ever intervened with a ghost before?