Moving

See, I meant to blog this story, but I ended up telling it to a couple of people already, and now I feel redundant blogging it. Even though I only told it to two people, and a good 7 read this blog. I keep this blog so I don't have to talk to anyone. Individually, like. But then it kind of undermines me when I get home and people say "SO TELL ME A NEW YORK STORY" and I don't know whether they are one of the 7 people who read my blog, where anything remotely interesting that happens to me is reposited, and I would feel like an ass telling the same mediocre (non)story twice, and so I just stare at them.

Yesterday I moved out of the dorm. Yep, I am no longer a Financial Districtite, which is really weird, since I lost my bed and roommates and living space and grocery store and neighbours and street and subway stop and zip code all at once. I moved my stuff into the storage space a ten-minute walk away. I had a hell of a time getting a cab to take it all there. After being turned down a few times, one guy spelled it out for me:

[thick NY accent] "Look lady, it's a $2 fare, and I have to do all the heavy lifting. Forget it."

I wasn't letting this guy go - he had a minivan. So I bribed him with a $20 tip. Isn't that cool and spontaneous of me to make a side deal with the cabbie like that? I am proud of myself.

So that was a long effing day. I had to lug my giant suitase and a couple of bags across the East River on the subway. People kept offering to help, but I turned them all down. And now I am squatting someplace temporarily, before going someplace temporarily-permanently. By some confluence of parental aid and being in the right place at the right time, I actually am getting MY VERY OWN APARTMENT, four subway stops from school. This is a New York miracle. Oh man. Sometimes it all works out.

Houseparty in Fort Greene

Hah hah! Jay-Z and Biggie Smalls, nigga shit ya drawers
(Where we from?) Brooklyn goin out to all
(Bushwick...) You don't stop
(Fort Greene...) You won't stop, niggaz!

Bushwick I've mentioned, but last night I was in Fort Greene, which despite what Jay-Z says is actually very hipster and cute with tiny restaurants (all filled with 30-somethings wearing black sweaters), and well-kept brownstones. As with almost every apartment I've been to, there were no internal walls or rooms, so all the partying takes place around the bed/kitchen sink/small open floor area. There's no storage space either, so it makes me wonder where they put all their shit when people come over. There was a GIANT bass case in the front alcove - apparently it belongs to the bassist for the SNL house band; he lives upstairs. I brought a tiramisu cake that I had bought at Ferrara, which is a bakery in Little Italy that is supposedly world famous. Meh. Cake was not that good.

The night before, well... The most dangerous thing in New York is to go out with people who actually have money. In this case it was to "Beauty Bar", which is set up like a beauty salon but is actually a bar, see! Although you can get a manicure for $10. It includes a free drink. Anyway, someone was buying us drinks all night, and roommate and I can't believe how much we imbibed and lived to tell. Also, Grace left her wallet and cell phone there and got both back the next day. I myself have left my (pre-paid) phone in the back of a cab and got it back. Had to find the garage in Soho where the cabs get fixed, but there it was, as promised.

P.S. I have discovered another New York thing: "giving someone a ride home" means splitting a cab with them and not making them pay their fare. Hee!

Wheeee! Gah!

So each of the three times I've made the trip from Calgary to New York, I have had the same US border guard. In fact, today I walked past one available guy and went straight up to my regular. Why? Because he doesn't care that I am incapable of dotting my bureaucratic i's and crossing my t's. He takes one look at my photocopies-instead-of-originals, at my nearly-expired passport, and sweeps my documents back across the counter to me with "You're all set, kid."

Then, each time I have arrived in New York, I have taken a different mode of "GTR". First, a flat rate $45 cab ride, then a $19 shared van service, and today the plain old subway. I recommend the latter. I don't even have to transfer to get to Fulton. Also, as I was waiting for the train (an interminable 25 minutes - that should never happen), a heavily-accented thirty-something brown guy asked me to confirm that this line goes to the World Trade Center. Hee.

Now I am coming down with my third cold in the space of ten days. Cold number two was my favourite: my glands got so swollen they bruised the outside of my neck, and I had to go to the doctor to get antibiotics. Tomorrow I have to turn in a grant application (as yet unwritten), not to mention reckon with the monstrous pile of work that accumulated while I was drinking in Edmonton and Calgary.

But seriously, what a great freaking time. A little brawl in the Garneau Pub, a cosy apartment on the North side, icicle fights behind the Black Dog, bummed cigs, free tequila, home-cooked meals, and most of all, weepy declarations of how it just ain't the same without me and Grace around.

Oh yeah, tomorrow the forecast here says "partly cloudy and 18 C".

Almost famous

Good god. I've been out of commission for a few days, since my very bad influence of a friend took me all over the East side and Brooklyn, in a drunken haze of meeting up and parting with various people, from bar to rooftop to bar, getting home finally at 4:30 am courtesy a cab driver who inexplicably turned off the meter and only charged me $10 for what should have been a $20 cab ride. Yesterday was spent in pennance, curled up in the 18 square feet of personal space that is my twin bed, watching true crime all day (I love you Court TV), and wishing that the roommates didn't have to file past my wretched self every time they needed the kitchen or bathroom.

Today I'm all business. Okay, so I took myself out for breakfast at this little diner around the corner - called "Andrews" [sic] - and had a remote date with my own Andrew, which involves doing the same thing simultaneously in our respective cities, and conversing about it via cell phone text messages. He had sausage and eggs; I had the ham and cheese omelette.

But since then I've been reading and cleaning the house, all the while squealing with excitement because I just received word that my first publication - a book review - is officially slated for next month's issue of the journal in question.

Post 4: A very good night

Very good night last night. Went to a talk in the philosophy department which they followed up with wine and pizza – those giant, floppy slices of pizza that are stereotypically New York. (The trick to eating them is folding them in half.) Then went uptown to Murray Hill/Grammercy to meet the lovely Karen near her hotel, and drank margaritas at a place called Dos Caminos. Real, limey margaritas like you get in Mexico. The best part of that place though was the guacamole truck. There is a guy whose job it is to wheel a tea trolley around with ripe, fatty avocados, fresh tomato, cilantro, garlic, etc., and make guacamole for you to your liking. We devoured two bowls and what must have been 6 avocados, because let’s face it, no indulgence – not cake, not wine, not chocolate – is better than avocado.

Then we went crosstown a little to a rooftop party at someone’s walkup (see how I can just drop those New York words right in there?), where there was all manner of substance abuse and fun and frivolity with the other philosophers. Actually, we have been socializing a little, but this party really congealed the scene quite a bit, which was good. There had to have been 80 bedroom windows in the immediate vicinity and I don’t know how or why the neighbours let us get away with that crap: a raucous chorus of “Happy Birthday” for a guy who, upon closer inspection of his driver’s license, was born in March. Accidentally smashed glasses. A naked guy. We split a cab home with that guy, since he lives in our building. As we were walking towards where we hailed the cab, we chided him to get naked again, and before we could even turn around he had done it. And then did a naked backflip. And the guy nearby loading baked goods into his street vendor stall at 3 am was so delighted with our antics that he gave us doughnuts and pound cake.

Post 1: Shoes and rats

Okay, okay – I have been very negligent with the promised New York blog, and apparently it’s highly anticipated. So here it is…

Things have been going pretty smoothly. Our place is spacious, our neighbourhood has a 24-hour grocery, Trader Joe’s has $4 pinot grigio and vinho verde, and the subway is user-friendly. Our roommates have yet to check in, which is nice, except that we could use their broom and their cutlery and whatever else they may be bringing with them that we are trying to avoid having to buy. Also, half of my stuff is being held up in the Toronto airport waiting for stand-by cargo room on a flight to Laguardia.

New Yorkers are eminently, consummately, unabashedly open and helpful. Whenever I ask someone a question on the subway or the street I always get a big, enthusiastic answer back – and of course even better when it’s in a thick Brooklyn accent. People aren’t TGIFriday’s-nice, and they aren’t Southern hospitality-nice, they’re just friendly and direct: “You want the L-train, sweetheaht. That’s ovah theah.”

Of course living in Manhattan, Grace and I have both discovered, to our horror, that we are pathetically unfashionable and frumpy, that every article of clothing we own is old and tired, that our hair is boring, and that our shoes are worn out. So we’ve both given ourselves haircuts and taken advantage of the cheap fashions. In fact, the walk from school to home is probably only about 40 minutes, but we’ve never made it in less than 2½ hours, because we are unable to walk past a single shoe or clothing store.

Despite all the walking, I’m not sure whether I’ll be losing a few pounds here, or gaining a few since Grace and I have taken to eating several Oreos before and after every meal. And yes, that includes breakfast.

There have been some truly New York moments, like hailing a cab in the rain and listening to Frank Sinatra all the way down 5th avenue, or seeing a young woman step on a giant rat and scream in City Hall park. I made the mistake of asking for 100g of black forest ham at the deli the other day. The guy looked at me like I was being a smart ass. I guess if you trade in ounces and pounds, asking for 100 of anything sounds a bit absurd.

School has yet to start, but I managed to get into the class being taught by Julia Kristeva, which will be sort of like getting to watch Freud lecture. There’s no New School university bookstore per se, but the old men selling used books on the street have multiple copies of Kierkegaard and Sartre.

I will post again soon. Do email since it’s always nice to hear what’s going on back home.