Category Archives: life in nyc

you get what you pay for

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I finally have internet…that I’m not stealing…that someone isn’t hacking into in order to email all of my contacts and ask them for money. (Sorry about that.)

Anyway…more to come shortly, now that I am reconnected with the world. (Internet at work doesn’t count when everything is blocked.)

where do i begin

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I think part of why I haven’t blogged very much lately is that there is just so much to blog about, I don’t know where to start. And I’m not home a lot. And I don’t want to download pictures (no idea why). So, I’m just going to pick one thing with which to begin, and then maybe I’ll get to the rest. And in case you are worried, this is not going to be a “life in New York is so fabulous, you should really wish you were me” type of post.

So, for those of you who don’t live in New York and don’t subscribe to New York Magazine (it’s fabulous, btw), you may not realize that there has been a lot of attention lately on bedbugs. They are infesting NYC with a vengeance. In May, there was an article that I read (while still safely in Arizona) about the oh so disgusting pests. For those of you who don’t know me (or my sister), paranoia runs thick in our blood.
Fast-forward to Monday of last week. I wake up with a bug bite on my ankle. Of course this means that I have bedbugs. So I start searching my bed (and entire apartment) for evidence of them. Monday night I cannot get to sleep for fear of the creatures. I get up, praying that the internet I am currently stealing from “NETGEAR” is working and do a frantic search on the WWW. This, of course, does nothing to calm my fears.
I finally get to sleep. Tuesday passes without incident. Then Wednesday night, as I’m getting ready for bed (which now consists of stripping down my sheets and looking for bugs)…I see a teeny-tiny bug. IN MY BED. I am FREAKING OUT. I get my computer out…again…and research. The hard thing about bedbugs is they are so small, it’s hard to compare anything to a picture because the pictures are all magnified. But of course, I’m convinced (despite the fact that I have not been bitten by any bugs again) that I have them.
The next day, as soon as I can leave work, I head to Bed, Bath & Beyond to purchase a mattress cover and a protective bag in which to put all of my bedding. I come home and do what needs to be done. I’m feeling better. Not good…but better. I’m still stressing out, but…I’m okay.
Fast-forward to this week. Wednesday night. I finally convince myself that I have got to put my kitchen table together because it has six drawers in it that I desperately need in order to put the rest of my kitchen stuff away. I get home and open the box from IKEA…(I wish I could explain what happens next in a way that will make your skin crawl the way mine did, but I’m not that good of a writer)…and there, in the foamy paper that’s protecting my table top from its legs, are hundreds of itty-bitty disgusting bugs crawling all around.
I freak out. I mean…FREAK OUT.
Over the next two hours I trash. I bag. I vacuum. And trash some more. I scrub. I show. And I cry. A lot. Kneeling on my floor and I search with my eagle eyes (a blessing and curse) for any signs of movement. I lint-roller my entire bed. Multiple times. I am seriously pissed off at the world…but mostly at little bugs.
Thursday, I call an exterminator and set up an appointment (after much cajoling) for today. This morning, two hours after they should have been here, I call and tell them not to bother and find another place, in my ‘hood, where I can actually take one of the lint-roller sheets containing a couple of “specimens” (is that word not totally gross…like, it’s never a good thing) to have someone hopefully tell me that I’m just really paranoid and I don’t have bedbugs.
Alas, I am really paranoid and I do not have bedbugs. The likely culprit, according to my new best friend (with a serious lazy eye that kind of creeped me out) at the pest control place, is a lovely bug known as a mite. So, I arrive home armed with two “bombs” ready to do battle. While mites are infinitely better than bedbugs (mites are really everywhere…but not this big), I have decided that I would rather not spend another night sharing my bed with bugs of any kind.
I un-bag everything I had previously bagged (one of the ways to get rid of bedbugs), set the bombs off, and head to IKEA to return some things that won’t fit and kill some time.
And right now, I am sitting in my hot, humid apartment with the windows open in order to air out the bug killer. Kind of miserable, but totally worth it. It turns out living in New York is not all fancy meals and Broadway shows after all.

a love affair

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I have so many things to catch up on. Pictures of my new apartment and it’s chaos/cuteness. Updates about my little mini-staycation while my cousin was in town. The new job. My lovely jogs around the Jackie O. Reservoir in Central Park. The Bachelorette. Etc, etc. etc.

However, I’m too busy being in love with New York. I love this city. Seriously. Love. It.
On top of everything else I mentioned, I went to the Met tonight to see Sting in concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The concert was AMAZING and I could do a whole post on that alone (which I likely will when I slow down a little). But what I want to tell you about in this post is my mini-moment when I walked out of the Met post-concert.
I was standing in Lincoln Center, by the fountain, looking up at the beautiful buildings, enjoying the barely-there-drizzle, and just thinking to myself that this really is the most amazing city in the world. I just stood there. Like an idiot. Smiling.
And then I hopped on the M7 uptown, hopped off at 96th, and home to my lovely apartment, all the while thinking about just how lucky I am to live in such a fabulous city. If you haven’t been, you must visit. And if you get a chance to live here, you should jump on it.
Yes, I realize it isn’t for everyone…but if you’ve ever wanted to live here, you should do it. Even for a year. Feel the fear and do it anyway. (Could I get any more obnoxious?)
That’s it. I’m going to bed now because in order to live in this city, I must also work…a lot…and sleep is helpful.

officially a new yorker

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Okay, so maybe not a New Yorker exactly, but I do now live in New York. (I’m not sure how long I’ll have to live here to call myself a New Yorker, or if I ever can if I wasn’t born here…)

In any case, after four days of driving across the country with Sarah and staying with Katie, Jennifer, and Jenny, we finally arrived in New York Friday night. Let me just tell you what a welcomed sight the Empire State building was when we first saw it from New Jersey. Four days of driving is rough…especially after discovering that I can in fact get carsick while driving, even though I have only been carsick one other time in my entire 32 years of life. Other than the driving part, it was really fun to see the country and catch up with friends along the way.

But now, I am here, sitting on my bed, in my apartment in my new city. We unloaded the truck Saturday morning (two of the guys interning here for the summer came over to help out…which made it go sooo fast) and then I sat and stared at the pile of boxes that had taken over my entire apartment. It’s amazing how much stuff fit into one little 10-foot truck. Since then, I’ve just been trying to get it all unpacked and organized…managing to also install my AC unit with lots of help from Sarah (it was 99* yesterday), squeeze in a Yankees game with Kelly, church, some fireworks, locking myself out of my apartment, and the Monday night movie in Bryant park.

Pictures courtesy of KP…since I haven’t downloaded any yet…or taking many for that matter.


Sarah keeps talking about how New York days are longer and I have to agree. It just seems you can fill them with so much more. I can’t believe how much I’ve done in the past three days. I also can’t believe how much more I have to do before I start working…the whole reason I now live in this city. Sometimes I forget that working is a part of this whole thing. I forget it until I start stressing about how expensive it is to live here, and then I remember that I will have a paycheck…eventually.

(Don’t worry, you’ll get to see pictures of the apartment in progress…along with a post about how overwhelming moving to New York is…)

and in case you’re wondering…

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The new apartment is on the Upper West Side. While I had a great time in the Village last summer, I can already tell that this is much more “me”. I like that it’s a little slower, a little more residential, and I am only two blocks from Central Park and three blocks from Riverside Park. I absolutely love my neighborhood already. And even better, my subway stop could not be more ideal for work. Seriously, it’s dreamy!