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.

swamp city

new york has been hot and rainy and full of things like thunderstorms and lightning bugs flying down my shirt. (for seriously. not as bad as the time i found a bee in my mouth, though. i am fairly bee-a-phobic*.) which just makes coming home and turning on the ac and sitting in our gloriously unpacked apartment so. much. better.

this weekend was all about the unpacking. we bought a delightful desk-shelf-thingamabob at ikea and spent friday putting it together. (there is comedy monolog gold in the "putting together a piece of veneered-furniture from ikea is like your relationship put to the test"--thankfully we passed with flying colors.) i unpacked everything while s was at work friday night (which is how i like it--then i can put everything where i want it to go) and then saturday we did errands and sat around feeling smugly self-congratulatory about now living in the best apartment in brooklyn.

"really?" you say (you are fairly doubtful.) "see for yourself!" we say.



our pineapple-glazed living room.



the cubbies in all their glory.



the kitchen (i think i managed to crop out the dishes that need doing.)

once we've put away the laundry, i will post pictures of the bedroom (where the magic happens, says mtv cribs), and once we've got a cuter, less-moldy shower curtain, you might get to see our w.c.

saturday we took the path train to new jersey to meet up with the entire extended family of s, gathering to relax for a week in the hamptons (that's me, green with jealousy over there.) s had never been to new jersey, so we pretended we were on a grand adventure. mostly we talked about our jobs and new york city commutes and ate chinese food, but it was fun to see everyone.

all of this domesticity aside, what i really wanted to post about is this: i keep seeing hilarious t-shirts, and i want to share. last week, headed to the grocery store in the slope, i saw a guy waring a shirt that said (in multi-colored, bedazzled letters) "i'm stanky rich." not stinking, or filthy, or anything else i have ever heard before, but stanky. i am stanky rich. (i happen to find the word "stanky" hilarious, so maybe that's just me.) then today a girl got off the train in front of me with, pardon the indecency, the biggest chest i have ever seen. her shirt, stretched taut, said "don't hate me because i'm beautiful ..." and then something else i couldn't see. i thought to myself "wouldn't it be funny if it then said 'hate me because i have ginormous boobs'?" i turned around to look, thinking surely no legitimate clothing company could be as gauche as i, and there i read, in stretched ribbed-cotton letters, "don't hate me because i'm beautiful, hate me because i have huge boobs." then i almost walked into a pole, like the rubber-necker i am.


*apiaphobic, maybe? i should look that up.**

**apiphobia! (do i know my latin or do i know my latin!)***

***i do not in fact really know any latin.

playing catch-up

i'm a no-good, terrible, very bad blogger, but i have been too busy to update. a lack of internet makes updation a little trickier as well. but i promised an update about our apartment and the bowl-a-thon, so i'm going to resort to that old lazybones standby and do a picture post.

apartment


living room.


kitchen.


bedroom.

i know it looks a bit like a bomb went off (primarily a book and shoe bomb, i discovered in my unpacking) but can't you see its potential? think of these as before pics; i bet you can't wait until our apartment is posing in its formerly size 0XL pants.

bowling


my fellow charity bowlers (they feature in previous tales of happy hours, lost-watching parties and band concerts.)


we're an expressive bunch.

i didn't get many action shots, but we weren't all that active anyways. my teammates bowled well, i bowled terribly (but i did avoid any further injury), and we all had fun.