It pretty much only occurred to me Thursday that I needed to make some plans to move my stuff from my apartment to my storage unit. I had various friends offer to help me with it over the course of the month so I just sort of assumed one of those was going to pan out. They didn’t. I’m not really surprised.
So, I ended up deciding that my best option was to rent a van from Uhaul and just move the stuff myself.
This was kind of a nervewracking decision considering I tend to be really really really hesitant about driving in Brooklyn, especially in a vehicle that’s fairly large when I haven’t driven regularly in quite some time (the last time was in the beginning on July and in a small car!) but I sucked it up and it ended up being not too bad!
The people at the Uhaul place I picked were super nice, they gave me one of the newest trucks on the lot, I drove over to my place and my roommate helped me move everything I had out. Annoyingly had to move the truck twice because I had to be double parked to get my stuff. Had a nice simple drive to the storage unit, unloaded my stuff all by myself and then drove the truck back to the rental place.
Whenever it’s time for me to move in NYC, it ends up being this ordeal. Something always goes wrong. Usually it’s in the realm of the money and time departments. I had some trouble being paid on time by my last client by what proved to be a post office screw-up, which made it so I didn’t get paid until a week ago Friday… which didn’t leave me a whole lot of time until the end of the month to be looking for an apartment. So, needless to say I have to move out on Sunday and I still don’t have one.
I can already hear all of you non-New Yorkers beginning to cringe, worry and scold me. Stop. It’s not helpful. The truth is, my situation isn’t really all that unusual.
Here’s the thing about moving in New York City. One, it’s expensive. Yes, it’s expensive to live here at as it is… but the whole moving into a new place thing is a lot of money up front. Moving into a place here pretty much means you’re putting three months worth of rent down. First month, last month and security deposit. Plus application fees, and sometimes a brokers fee. Two, it’s one of those things that moves fast. If you decide you like a place, you have to jump on things as fast as you can and make snap decisions. Doing things last minute is normal.
And… well… sometimes it just doesn’t all come together the way you want it to.
Truth be told, my pre-occupation with the burlesque show certainly has contributed to my feeling completely overwhelmed with the whole apartment search. It was just too much to be able to look for places, pack and still get myself prepared for this show. So, I just decided to put it off. Couch surfing for a week or two didn’t kill me last September, and it certainly won’t kill me now.
I don’t think I even have enough energy to sit here and whine about how hot it was today. I ventured into the city to go pick up my check and deposit in the bank, so I now have the money to look for an apartment this week… Hoping and praying that goes as smoothy as humanly possible.
Treated myself to a massage while I was in town and got my favorite guy that works there today, so that really made my day, and then got Italian for lunch at Buona Notte. Had a glass of red wine and Rigatoni alla Vodka. Totally delicious.
Then, I came back home and changed clothes and went out to play in the hydrant again… which if I may reiterate is the best thing ever on a hot day. I don’t have any pictures of today’s playing in the water, but I did take a few yesterday. Enjoy.
The view from my room which told me it was time to come out and play.
Alex using a can to direct the water toward the people standing on the other side of the street.
My downstairs neighbor getting wet in the pump for the very first time.
I guess since Tuesday was so good, the pendulum had to swing back the other way and give me a bad day on Wednesday. The first thing I noticed when I woke up Wendesday morning was that my heart was racing and it felt like someone stabbed me in the chest. My muscles were aching horribly. The last thing that I wanted to do was get out of bed.
This is what it feels like when I wake up having an anxiety attack.
I have an anxiety disorder. Days like these are just a part of my existence.
One of the things that I’ve learned over time is that the best thing to do to myself is to just be kind to myself when this happens. I avoid doing things that are going to cause extra anxiety, and I try to do things that are going to bring about relaxation.
The first thing I tend to go for is music. There is an incredible power to music in these situations. In particular, using music to induce crying. The easiest way to get a heart that’s all aflutter with anxiety to calm down is generally a good cry. I don’t know what it is, but it tends to just be an act that causes things to reset themselves.
Once a good cry has happened, you usually need something to bring yourself back up… For me there, is one go to song. A live version of Cowboy Mouth’s Jenny Says, where the chorus says:
Let it go, let it go, let it go.
Let it go, let it go, let it go.
When the world is coming down on me, let it go.
Watch the video. Fred LeBlanc has crowd control like you wouldn’t believe. I’ll wait.
Oops. I went on a tangent there. Isn’t ADHD great?
After I’ve had a good cry and let it go, the worst of it is generally over. The heart settles down, and then it’s just dealing with the rest of it… which in Wednesday’s case was muscle pain all over the place. So, I hopped a train into the city to Chinatown and got myself a backrub.
Usually this does the trick, but on Wednesday… man, my body wasn’t letting me off light! I came home in as much agony as I went in with, so I just laid low and slept on and off for the rest of the day, and thankfully woke up on Thursday feeling much better.
I woke up at 9:30 this morning, which is early for me. Usually I linger in bed cuddled up with my laptop for hours before I decide to get dressed, but this morning I got right up and took a shower and got dressed. Picked up my laundry and immediately put it away, and then sat and worked till about noon.
When James told me he started watching Mad Men, I recounted why I ended up stopping watching it after I started… The way the women were treated. True to form for the time, for sure… I just find it horribly upsetting to watch. This devolves into a conversation about gender roles and choice and ends when he has to go to work.
My stomach complains to me that it’s hungry and after feeling like I was going to die after eating fried chicken last night, I decide to go up to Mesa Azteca which has quickly become one of my favorite spots in the neighborhood. I had chicken quesadillas and they were totally delicious.
I stop by the store and get toilet paper. Once I’m back on my block, I’m greeted by my neighbor Alex, who has just opened up the fire hydrant, and he tells me to go put some clothes to get wet in and come back outside. He’s been telling me to do this for weeks now, ever since he found out that the country girl has never played in a fire hydrant on a hot summer day. I have to say, it is a pretty excellent way to cool off on a hot summer day, despite being a huge waste of water. Some blocks here have the sprinkler attachment on their hydrants which don’t use as much water, but truth be told… It’s not as much fun as a fully open hydrant and a piece of PVC pipe to aim the water with.
After about an hour, I came back inside and changed back into dry clothes, then headed down to Coney Island for my class. The trains have been fucked the past couple weeks and last week I was late because of it, so I left super early this time… and of course, since I did that everything ran right on time so I got there with about 45 minutes to spare. I walked on the boardwalk. I got a corn dog from Nathan’s and sat on a bench and watched the ocean. And the people, the best part is always watching the people.
While I was sitting eating my dinner, two guys who were Nathan’s employees came and sat on the same bench with their dinners and a girl came over but didn’t sit on the remaining seat on the bench because it was wet and just stood behind them instead. They chatted with each other in what I presumed to be Japanese, but I’m not sure if it was. I suppose it doesn’t really matter other than to say they were speaking in a language I didn’t understand, but could figure out well enough that the guys were flirting with the girl and one apparently said something that was out of line because she smacked him in the back of the head with a pen and then walked off. The other looked over toward me, and we both laughed. Another employee of Nathan’s came over with his dinner, but spent more time throwing his french fries to the seagulls on the beach in front of us than actually eating his dinner. We all laughed as the seagulls fought over the food and caught the fries in mid air. I got up and they waved goodbye to me. It occurred to me as I walked over to my burlesque class that I hadn’t exchanged a single word with any of them during the entire interaction.
The burlesque class was good, I feel pretty happy with the progress I’ve been making on my routine, and it sounds like everyone else is making good progress as well… but that’s a subject that merits it’s own post. For another day, for another day.
My friend Fernando met me after class, and we sat on a lifeguard chair in the beach and talked for awhile. We decided to go on the two new roller coasters, Soarin’ Eagle and Steeplechase, which was fun despite feeling like they were entirely too short for the $7 a piece we spent on them. We were going to do the Cyclone too, but we decided it would be better to wait until next week.
Oh yeah, and then back to Nathan’s for two more corn dogs. I think I’m going to turn into a Nathan’s corn dog.
So, all in all a pretty darn good summmer day in Brooklyn if I do say so myself. I hope I have a few more of those before the summer’s up.
Every once in awhile I end up getting nostalgic for what my life was like when I lived in New Hampshire. It tends to be cured by taking a trip back there. I returned to NYC late last night, and very thankful to be back to the city that I now call my home.
It’s funny. When I moved to the city, I had it in my mind that I probably wouldn’t stay here past two years. I just had my two year anniversary of moving here in June, and I certainly have no plan of moving away, just moving to a new apartment at the beginning of next month.
The nerves are beginning to settle in on that. I’m waiting for payment on two months worth of work that should, knock on wood, be here this week. Until that happens, I can’t really do much in the way of getting this finding a new home thing settled.
Update: Just found out they mailed it to me. Hopefully that shows up very very soon.
In general, I’m not a big fan of this whole moving / big change thing. However, I’m glad to be leaving behind the roommates and the dog behind. I’m looking forward to being in my own place, with my own furniture. I especially can’t wait to get my big queen sized bed out of storage!
Moving into a new space is one of those things that’s just rife with possibilities. How will I decorate? How will I organize? Will I do a better job this time? There’s a newness to it that I’m looking forward to having. Starting over, on my own.
At about five minutes till eleven, I decided that I needed to have some soda since my parents didn’t have any in the house. Which, quite frankly, isn’t exactly the best time to want a soda seeing as all of the closest convenience stores to my parents house close at 11. I had to drive fifteen minutes into town to buy myself a soda.
I suppose I am a little spoiled by the fact that at 11pm I can walk to the store on the corner in under a minute. If it’s like 3am, I’d have to walk seven minutes. I live somewhere where I can get what I want when I want it… and yet, half the time I sit there and whine that it’s way too much effort to walk to the corner. But, I digress.
My upset really isn’t about not being able to get what I want when I want it where I want it, though. It’s more being upset that things are different now than when I lived here. When I lived here, the convenience stores that are near my parents house were open 24 hours. I used to go in at 2 in the morning and get a sandwich and shoot the shit with one of a guy I went to school with.
I guess it just makes me a little bit sad inside that it’s not worth it to man a store here 24 hours anymore.
My friends Paul and Katie are having their wedding reception on Saturday, and seeing as what little work I’m doing these days I’m doing remotely, I figured it was a good opportunity to skip town for a few days and go to a place with a few more trees.
I’m looking forward to sitting on my parents porch and reading. I have tentative plans to see a few friends I haven’t seen in nearly ten years. I have a notion that I might attempt to clean out a closet full of my old stuff. I have some shopping I want to do. I have no idea if I’m going to end up fitting it all in.
I’ve been thinking a bit about my blogroll recently. I always end up getting kind of absorbed by this every now and again, and since I just sorta wiped the slate clean and started over with the blog, it means starting the blogroll all over again too.
There’s a ritual to this that I’ve done since the dawn of time.
It involves poking through all of the blogs that I’m subscribed to on Google Reader. I have no idea how many things I’m subscribed to, but it’s a lot and there’s a lot of broken stuff in there because I’ve been using it a long time.
I end up visiting all these blogs that I’ve subscribed to over the years and decide who’s worthy of being on the blogroll.
There are two reasons why I’d link to someone there. One, because I find this person somehow inspiring. Two, because they’re someone I consider to be a good friend.
After I’m done going through Google Reader, I tend to go through the blogrolls of the blogs I’ve just blogrolled. I usually don’t add any of these new people to my blogroll straight away, but I often subscribe to some new ones.
This whole ritual tends to be a bit of an inspiration gathering process. Getting inspired by the design of these blogs, by what they’re posting, by what they’re talking about.
Which brings me to want to answer the question, “Who have I been inspired by? Why?” I’d like to say this is going to be a series of posts, but if I say that I won’t do it so I’m not going to.
Amanda Palmer. There are a lot of reasons for me to be inspired by Amanda Palmer. She’s a fairly well known musician. She was half of The Dresden Dolls. She has a pretty successful solo career. She does interesting musical projects like Evelyn Evelyn. I’m certainly drawn to her because I appreciate the kind of art she makes. And if you haven’t heard of her, you should check her out… but that isn’t the point of this post.
The point of this post is I like her blog.
Musician bloggers tend to be kind of a rare breed. The blog tends to be a medium that falls into the realm of the PR strategy of a given musician or band, and most of the time if a musician has a blog, it’s more of a press release blog that may or may not be maintained by the musician themselves. A musician that talks openly about what their life is like, what the creative process is like, what being in the industry is like, and so on and so forth… well, that’s not exactly something that most musicians (at least in my experience) have much interest doing.
The thing I like about Amanda Palmer is because she blogs about her life as a musician who makes records and tours and goes to see the fireworks with her friends and how she misses her husband, I think of her as a person rather than, well… a brand that makes a certain kind of music.
I find I read her blog for a bunch of different reasons. One, I think she’s an interesting person and I find myself being interested in her life. Two, I’m interested in the field that she works in and how she approaches things in art. Which from what I’ve read, seems to be a series of impulse decisions to do something just because it might be fun, not because it might make money. She’s more concerned with getting by rather than getting rich. She does things just because that’s what she wants to do. The result might not be perfect and everyone might not like it, but at the end of the day if she had fun and created something, it’s a success.
I find I admire that trait in people. The just doing it because it’s seems like the right thing to do at the time.
I’m a pretty forgetful person. Well, actually, forgetful isn’t the right word. It’s more that it sometimes running out of things doesn’t bother me half as much as it probably ought to and it takes a bit of annoyance to inspire me to go replace things.
This is about toilet paper.
Oh, and it’s mildly embarrassing.
But goddamnit, this is my life.
I’m pretty sure we ran out of toilet paper sometime yesterday. I noticed it before I went to bed, I’d done my business, reached for the toilet paper and there was none.
FUCK! Now what do I do?
Usually my first choice in such a situation is to hop in the shower and wash the bottom half off. But there’s a flaw in this plan… Since I have roommates, I keep my towel in my bedroom not the bathroom. I’d have to go to my room to get the towel and I don’t want to walk that far with piss running down my leg.
The next choice is paper towels. Except for I know we ran out of those a week ago because I used the last one.
I remember the drawer where one of my roommates puts the napkins he gets from takeout and doesn’t use. It’s right across from the bathroom, I dart out and grab one. Saved!
Now, having just gone through all of that annoyance I suppose it would just have made sense to have thrown on some clothes real fast and walked down to the corner bodega and bought a roll. But no, that’s too much effort. I can just do it tomorrow. This despite the fact that I know full well that I’m a person who gets up to pee like twice a night. I’ll just remember to grab a napkin on the way in.
And this plan works fine for the next two times I use the bathroom.
Then, when I use the bathroom 20 minutes ago (this is a breaking news story, don’t you know?), I forgot that we had no toilet paper, forgotten to grab a napkin and worse still… one of my roommates is puttering around the kitchen making it impossible to discreetly scoot out of the bathroom, grab a napkin, and go back in. I sit on the toilet, trapped in the bathroom wondering what to do. It felt like ten minutes, but was probably something more like two. Mentally cursing myself out for not remembering that we were out of toilet paper and for not already buying some because there were napkins that could be used for such things for at least two more bathroom visits. Stewing about how much I hate having roommates so I can’t scoot around the house at will when I do something stupid like forget to buy toilet paper.
In desperation, I end up opening my drawer of bathroom supplies and end up finding a bag of those cotton squares. I use that.
That was enough annoyance to inspire me to go get dressed and buy the toilet paper.
