home sweet home

we moved into a new apartment a little while ago. did i mention that we moved? i must have. it was a big process (i've written about the hunt before), and we ended up finding something nearly-perfect (it's always nearly)--nicely sized and in great shape in a cute building plus a balcony with just barely-there views of governor's island. there are so many things i love about our new apartment, but the biggest thing is that it makes me feel like i have finally arrived in the new york life i always planned to live. it's funny, isn't it, how little it takes to make us feel like we're living the life we dreamed about? for me, it is our stairs. we have these real, honest-to-goodness brownstone-brooklyn stairs leading up to our double front doors, and every time i walk up them i think "ah yes, i live in new york, in an apartment i picked out and pay for, that i furnished and keep clean and love in the morning when the sunlight comes in perfectly from across the water."

the inside makes me happy, too. from the staircase in our little brownstone, i can hear our neighbors listening to music and washing dishes and laughing at the tv. i love our communal domesticity. one of my most favorite things about new york is getting to live in an apartment building. i much prefer shared spaces, even small ones. as a child, i hated living in a house, it made me too nervous; the unexplained sounds in daylight and dark, too many doors and locks to keep track of safely, the silent little-town nights outside my window, the space between neighbors too far to walk comfortably without shoes. (i used to tell myself i would only live in a big house some day if i got really famous and could hire people to hang out in my house all the time.)

this place we live in, that we picked out--it’s what i always thought new york life would be. i admit to being inspired by a vague pastiche of old tv shows where everyone knew their comic-relief neighbors (tv new york of the 80s and even 90s, before everyone got rich enough to live in fancy lofts by themselves.) i wanted the cramped spaces and the lived in rooms, the real life that says "this city is mine, i made it so." it was never a glossy new york that i craved, but a familiar one. i’m not one for stilettos and taxis and fancy drinks (at least not very often)—i wanted (and i got) bagels and coffee from the same little place every saturday morning, a favorite bar for date night drinks, good friends who will meet me at our spot.

and an apartment, small and charming and surrounded by other people living out their new york dreams.

209 reasons

in this new year, i am trying to enjoy where i am and what i am doing, instead of focusing on "the instead". a resolution, you say? sort of. rather than resolve, i decided to make a list of changes i want to accomplish in this new year, and work from there. i've already got some good plans in the works.

anyways, an important thing to me is to appreciate new york while i live here. and to appreciate brooklyn, because it is becoming my home, and i am starting to grow a lil bk pride. in my blog stumbling, i discovered a new site i like very much, even if i can't say their name aloud in polite company. (like, at work or in front of my parents.) they compiled a list of 209 reasons why brooklyn is so damn badass, and i think it is great. there are already a lot of things on there i know and appreciate, and a few things that i am like "ooh, gotta look into that!" so, read, enjoy, move to my nabe and let's get a bagel.

welcome 2009, you delightful creature. i've got big plans for you.

walking on water

i know i am acting like i've just discovered the camera recently, and in part i have rediscovered the camera (thanks due to the wonderful cams i got for christmas), but it's also partially because i have been doing things, you know, like having fun, recently. and then documenting said things in pictures.

yesterday s had to work in the morning, so we had saturday night date night. we've been itching to do more things off the "us map" (not u.s. as in united states, or even as in us weekly, of trashy mag glory, but us as in we) i made back in february, so we met yesterday afternoon at the base of the brooklyn bridge. (actually, tragically, we met in city hall park, and then mistakenly walked south down broadway to the staten island ferry and along the water back up to city hall park and to the base of the bridge.) the brooklyn bridge has a wooden walkway suspended above the traffic, with state-park-style placards along the way, mapping out old new york and the physics of bridges. i walked across the brooklyn bridge when i still attended nyu on the instructions of my father, and it was a pleasant, educational stroll. it's apparently much more popular on hot saturdays in june, and we had to hustle to keep up with the flow of walking traffic, but we still managed to stop in the middle, tourist-style, to take pictures and admire the view. (i took the above photo looking up at one of the piers, or whatever that's called. i obviously don't remember the info i read.)

once off the bridge and back safely in the bk, we headed to brooklyn bridge-fulton ferry state park to look for some dinner. we forewent the block-long line at grimaldis (some other time, i suppose) and had dessert first at the brooklyn ice cream factory, some of the best 'cream i've ever tasted. (super rich though; i couldn't finish my one scoop, and s, usually a champ, was bested by his two-scoop cone.) we ate overlooking the water with a view back at manhattan and the bridge we'd just crossed.

for dinner we trekked to smith street for pacifico and drank margaritas under the lights strung up on the porch. we were both pretty tired from the day (s had worked, i had run errands, we both had gotten lost and found our way back to brooklyn again), but we had a lovely dinner. we got home in time to watch the wire (we're total addicts) and fall asleep before work today. a miraculous date night indeed.

in praise of bagels and roommates

you always hear about the famous bagels of new york, but somehow the bagels i had been occasionally eating were not satisfying my new york bagel cravings. (tasteless doughy circles with a smush of cream cheese were not what my little stomach desired.) i have heard the russ and daughters hype, but the LES can be a bit of a trek when you are hungry for brunch on a cold december morning. and so when my roommates discussed their devotion to terrace bagels, i was unconvinced. but today, after a delightful evening last night of wine and games (both on the table and the screen), all six of us piled on the sweatshirts and headed out into the morning. i don't know why there isn't more hype about terrace bagels. i mean, i know the new york times mentioned them in six bagels worth the wait, but i feel like this place is a secret, and one only a block and a half from our house. about.com mentions long lines on the weekend; we were there around 11 am, and waited only a minute or two in each line. (you stand in one line to order, another line to pay at the cash register which an older man pecks at heavily with one finger.) i got my usual, a plain bagel toasted with cream cheese and tomato (when done poorly, gross, when done well, delicious!) and it was fantastic. crunchy on the outside, doughy and chewy on the inside, real cream cheese slightly melty from the heat of toasting, fresh tomatoes with an actual tomato taste. this place is indeed worth it, thanks new york times.

i should also note, in the ongoing saga of brooklyn vs. manhattan, that boyland is better than i ever thought possible. my roommates are great, they cook and clean (in addition to the video games) and watch project runway and silly tv with me and are appreciative of my baked goods. they are very good company, and they seem to enjoy mine as well. for awhile, s was working crazy hours and i only ever saw him at 3am, and so it was nice to get to come home to my other boyfriends. we are going to stay, at least until may when the lease runs out, and then who knows. it's sort of like college all over again, but with better paying jobs.

so come to brooklyn. we'll watch "the office" and i'll buy you a bagel.

brooklyn vs. manhattan part 2 of a multi-part series

right after i posted my cranky "overheard never listens to meeee!" post, i looked at it and lo and behold, there was something i had overheard. the universe is smiling on me indeed.

today was my first day of work. i was twenty minutes early, i got a tour of the building and met a million new people (none of them particularly "new-yorky", which is a little disappointing--where are the new yorkers? not working for arts non-profits, apparently), i learned the ins and outs of a grouchy old computer program, i charged credit cards for expensive private recorder lessons, i cleaned out my new desk (p.s. i have a desk and a phone and a computer all my own, like a real adult with a real job) of the crumbs left behind by the previous owner, i was taken to lunch by my boss, i wished i hadn't worn my brand new high-heeled boots without breaking them in first, i answered the phone in a scared voice, i left work at 5:45 and met s and his roommate at bed bath and beyond and bought boyland safari essentials, i rode the subway to windsor heights and ate some nachos at clemens, i walked home, i took off the offending boots, i got a present (!) from s, i am blogging. this was a full day, especially considering i spent last week sleeping in, working out and watching movies.

i also thought more about brooklyn vs. manhattan. in round 4, brooklyn has the advantage, because s's favorite roommate wants to switch rooms with us for a couple of months. we would have a bigger room, that doesn't share a french-door-paneled wall with another roommate, and only be paying about $450 a month each. which is tempting, i must admit, the prospect of saving some money for awhile sounds really good. and this morning's commute wasn't even that bad. am i converting? i'm not anti-brooklyn, not by any means; i like the people and their neighborhoods and the cute restaurants; i like prospect park and when the f goes aboveground for two stops and the skyline. but i fell in love with manhattan first, and i want to live in this city for the city living. and the possibility of walking to work is just so exciting. i just need to break in those boots first.

sigh. to be continued. indefinitely.

gainfully employed

well, it's time to change my "about me," as i have recently been employed. oh frabjous day, calloo callay. it couldn't have come a moment too soon. plus, it is a very good job, and i refused to settle for previous not-so-very-good jobs, and it has finally payed off, and i am happy and it is fine if you think something needs to burst my little bubble, because something already has. we need a place to live.

this may not be the most magical of all posts, but bear with me.

s currently lives in boyland. there are four of them total, they don't have a tv because they have an hd projector screen and every video game player known to man, they drink most nights, and they are very, very nice. i like them a lot. i also feel that i am intruding every time i stay over. and now that i am done splitting my time between boyland and parentville as the result of my EMPLOYMENT! (i did mention this, right?), i am in brooklyn to stay. but i want to remain friends with these boys, and i feel the best way to do so is to move out sooner rather than later. i mean, i would still be friends with that cool girlfriend who baked cookies and cleaned the bathroom and never complained about all-night gaming, but i wouldn't want that girlfriend there for longer than a month. she'd just be messing with the boyland je ne sais quoi. so this leads us to the deliciousness that is finding an apartment (and yes that is serious, i love me some real estate), which of course leads us to:

BROOKLYN vs. MANHATTAN

in round one, brooklyn takes it. we like affordability, the cuteness factor of brownstones and gas lamps (but the village!, i say. but the rent!, s says), the night-time quiet, the whole block-to-prospect-park thing, the fact that a lot of our friends live in the slope and near-by, the fact that when we were walking around in windsor terrace s said "wouldn't it be nice to own one of those" (brownstones) which got me thinking "he wants to stay in new york! he wants to be rich! he wants to have adorable children we can give adorable names!" our only negative is that i am a wimp when it comes to a commute. mainly, i would like it to be a half-hour or less. i just don't love the idea of standing on a packed a train and then a packed platform and then a packed f train for over an hour just to get to work and back.

and so in round two, manhattan takes it. "but s, we could live two blocks away from my job. i could walk to work! or we could live downtown. you could walk to work! i could just get on one train for 20 minutes!" i wouldn't have necessarily been doing this thinking already had two things not happened. one, i got really excited and found a million adorable manhattan apartments online, most in our price-range and in neighborhoods i could find on google-maps and then sort-of remember. and two, s called me saturday night at 11:30 pm. he had just gotten off work and walked to his usual f stop, and it was blocked off, no trains running. so i looked up the next-nearest stop and sent him there, and he called me again when the train wasn't running from there either. (the service notice was given through a hand-written sign, too, which of course sent my brain running towards "terrorists! it's terrorists! and we'll only know to get to safety because of the bravery of an mta employee with bad penmanship!") i had to direct him to another stop where he could get the 6 and eventually the f, and he got home at 1:30 am. that's a two-hour commute, people. when he called me at 2:30 to say he was going to bed (after an hour of video games; he is still in boyland), i mentioned that wouldn't it be nice to live in manhattan, he could've just walked home! now, as far as i have known, this one doesn't want to move to manhattan; he wants to live no further than a block from boyland, which originally even i liked the sound of. but he agreed with me on the whole magical-manhattan idea. which of course got me thinking "he wants to stay in new york! he wants to be rich! he wants to have adorable children we can give adorable names but never afford to feed, clothe or send to school!"

so we're tied. round three, who knows. what do you think?

oh, and also, who knows why the f train was so wonky on saturday night?