If only the term "rich and famous PA" wasn't facetious.

APOC: "Manhattan is for two kinds of people: rich people, and people who can do without."

I wish it weren't so. Am I spoiled by the inexpensive sprawling life I led in New Orleans? Could I do without a living room? Could I do without living alone? Would it be a better compromise than living in an obnoxious building in an unimpressive neighborhood?

Lady Galahad slays herself a dragon

This morning I woke up, bleary-eyed at 10:00. I decided not to go running...instead my plan was to drink water. Lots of water. I'm not hung over, but I went out last night with my Coworkers, Data Guy and Data Guy 2.0 and we stayed out pretty late. The wine flowed. DG2's wife's friend had a birthday some three weeks ago, and we were out in celebration of her turning 30 for the fourth time. It was a lovely evening! I love DG2; he's totally the kind of person I can relate to and his wife is really nice and funny. And she doesn't mind that her husband and I are becoming such fast friends, as some less-cool wives might. And the two of them are just too cute together. And their friends are great. Great! I particularly had a nice time talking to the Original Data Guy and Dave. ODG, I learned, moved here at about the same time I did. He comes from Northern California, and he likes camping and hiking and stuff! Hey, me too! Dave has a sardonic sense of humor and made me giggle throughout the evening. Fun was had. DG2 drank too much. Last time it was me, and the humor in that was not lost on either of us.

So. Back to this morning. I'm snuggling in my bed, checking email...because I'm supposed to have plans this afternoon...and I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. Above my closet. Weird. But whatever.

So I write an email, putz around Facebook for a while SuperPoking some folks, and then suddenly, matter-of-factly, a two-inch-long cockroach FLEW out of my closet and landed on the end of my giant knitting needle, which is displayed just so with all my yarn in a series of milk crates in the corner. It was like looking at a normal sized bug on a normal sized knitting needle through a magnifying glass.

I knew roaches can fly. In the South, flying gigantic disgusting roaches are the status quo. They're everywhere and completely unavoidable. As I have said before, I'm not exactly sure how I lasted in New Orleans so long. But several people here in New York have expressed to me that the roaches here do not fly. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but I had believed them. Until now.

I screamed and leaped out of bed to armor up... I was wearing a little cotton nightgown and I knew I might have to leave the apartment, so first I grabbed a sweater from my closet and put it on over the nightie. Then I grabbed my dance pants and put them on under the whole getup. I didn't have time to notice until later, but this outfit is actually quite comfortable. Next I put on an aging black Kangol hat that Aunt J bought for Salty many years ago, because I didn't want the thing flying into my hair. Now that I had my helmet and armor, I shoved my feet into the best weapon I own: my brown leather knee-high boots. I zipped them up, and checked out the status of my prey.

It was on the move, crawling along the highest part of the wall toward my bed. Oh no!

Like a flash, I grabbed my sheet and spread it out over the lumpy comforter and my three zillion pillows. I gave it a cursory tuck around the sides to ensure that the demon creature wouldn't be able to access the dark crevices between billowing folds of cotton and down. Thinking twice, I shut the closet door too. If it got lost in there my laundry bill would be hell.

I turned to face my quarry. Standing by the foot of the bed, armored, booted, brandishing my sword at the dragon, I gave a battle cry (I did!). "Alright, you, get out of my house!"

Almost in response, the thing lifted its wings and made a beeline for my head. I tucked and rolled immediately, then wheeled around to face the direction in which it had flown. Somehow I managed to evade the creature, although I did have to take off my hat and shake it to double check.

Now where had it gone!? It had flown into my little foyer, which would be the perfect place to get lost among the scarves and coats and shoes. Cautiously, warily, I took a step toward the alcove and then, like on an episode of Gossip Girl.... Spotted: Giant Flying Cockroach waggling its antennae on the circuit breaker panel, behind the front door.

Perfect.

In a matter of moments, I jabbed at the thing with a broom and then stabbed it where it fell, pinning it to the floor. I opened the door and then, like a flash, and with many cries of "Out! Out of my house!" I managed to sweep it over the threshold and out into the hallway. It landed on its back. I swiftly scanned my clutter for a paper that I didn't need. Finding one, I threw it on top of the wiggly-legged monster, and then stepped on it with my cute boots. There was plenty of padding, so no crunch was heard....it was a brilliant plan, really, squishing the roach in the hallway. That way its guts aren't hanging out in my apartment.

Now this raises a question that has come up a few times in my brain. Do I move? I'm bored with my neighborhood, and I pretty much hate my building. So do I start looking around for something else? I've also considered the idea of roommates a lot. I mean...don't get me wrong, I love hanging out on my couch in my underwear or whatever, but it would be really nice to have someone else to help me kill roaches and to laugh at me when I put on bizarre clothes just to do it. It would be nice to have someone here to hold me accountable for all the time that I waste lounging around and Facebooking. It would be really nice to live with a friend and make friends with her friends and introduce her to mine.

Then again, my cats are coming soon. Maybe I'll feel better about it when they arrive. I'll have Lu to catch the roaches and Penny to eat them. I'll have someone to sing to and laugh at and snuggle while I'm blogging and Facebooking. It will be nice, the three of us. But still...nice to have another person around...

How could I stay mad when my tiny kitchen looked like this?

More baking today. This time cupcakes.... Yeah, I know, I should be at some fabulous bar being cool or something. I know. But I had forgotten how therapeutic it is to bake. After the Hurricane I pretty much spent the entire semester in Colorado studying, baking, and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (oh how I wanted those Netflix to rush rush rush). I generated a lot of pumpkin pie and learned to make the perfect cheesecake. I gifted sweet potato pies (a southern classic) to people who helped us out. I made pumpkin brownies, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin rolls, and pecan pies and brownies and blondies and my mom's dream bars and wished I could kick demon ass like Buffy.

Oddly enough, I've never made cupcakes before. These ones are chocolate fudgy cake mix and peanut butter frosting. I LOVE peanut butter; the only thing I like better is...pumpkin.

Oh yeah, and I've been practicing my new bellydancing moves to a steady mix of upbeat Eurotrash pop music. The mood is definitely a little better.

I always knew I identified with Peppermint Patty for a reason.

Continuing to read some other blogs about New York twentysomething life, I have realized that I am disappointed with my own experience so far. It seems like I keep sabotaging myself somehow and setting myself up for that disappointment. Like every time I try to hit one of my goals I miss by a quarter inch. And then I get surly. And then it makes things even worse.

I am disappointed that I live in Prospect Lefferts Gardens. It takes me about 40 minutes to get to midtown from where I live. Late nights on the subway it has taken me over two hours to get home, with crazy transfers and a Q train that recently decided not to go through at Atlantic (instead they make you transfer from the D line, which is one of the most obnoxious transfers I have had to make). The annoying building I live in wouldn't be nearly so bad if it were, say, the first stop in Brooklyn or, say, in Manhattan somewhere. I don't feel safe in my neighborhood late at night. I don't feel like I can walk the ten blocks to the closest Duane Reade if I need to. It's not New York. Not really.

I live in PLG because I was desperate for an apartment. I took the first thing I could get--300 square feet with lots of closet space, a full-but-small kitchen, and a full bath for $900 a month. For $900 a month I should have looked in Washington Heights more.

I was desperate for an apartment because I didn't make an acceptable long term living arrangement that would allow me to sleep on someone's couch for three months...everyone seemed to need their couch for something else once every couple of weeks. My best friend Alecia lives three hours upstate, an hour north of the last stop on the Hudson line of the Metro North Railroad. Her house was the closest place I had to park my boxes and rest my head until I found that apartment I so desperately wanted. I hit a deer with my car during my three hour commute that first month.

I didn't make an acceptable long term living arrangement because I couldn't ask for one from PDF, who I had barely spoken to in years before my visit last July. I couldn't ask for one from cousin Jeannie because she has so much going on all the time that I just feel in her way when I'm around her. The big one though, is that I couldn't ask for one from Aunt J. I can't ask her for anything. I can barely talk to her without getting nervous and frustrated...

When I actually spend time with her it's so nice! She's really funny and relatively easygoing...relatively because everyone on that side of my family, including me and my sister, is typically very high strung and hard to please. So she's relatively easy gong (for one of my relatives), and it's obvious that she cares about me. Her girlfriend R, as is typical of people who marry into that side of my family, is very warm and sweet and incredibly approachable.

I love hanging out with them. I want to do nothing else! I want to tag along with their entire life! When I rented my apartment, a block and a half away from Prospect Park, I imagined their house, a half a block away from Prospect Park on the other side, in trendy and safe Park Slope. I imagined waking up on a Saturday or Sunday morning and putting on my goofy neon green shorts and my ipod and running out through the park, and all of a sudden I see Aunties J and R throwing the frisbee to their sweet little dog. They wave me over and we all have a nice time running around and frisbeeing. And then we go have brunch in Park Slope. What happens to my running shorts in this particular fantasy, I do not know, because I definitely do not wear them to brunch.

I guess I'm afraid of Aunt J because someday I want to grow up and be just like her, a successful filmmaker, a former Manhattanite who abandoned the noise and the grit for the sunny side of Propsect Park, living in a homey 4th floor brownstone apartment with my pets and my girlfriend or whoever, turning 40 and looking back and feeling like I accomplished something.

There's more than that though. My sister and I often wonder if that side of the family sometimes doesn't want us around because we remind them of him, of my dad. For a long time, particularly during my teenaged years after Mom got remarried, we felt like the Aunties were the only people we could talk to about him...so every chance I had, every time I saw one of them, I would press for more information like a squirrel frantically collecting nuts before winter sets in and all the nuts are gone. It may have made me a little one-dimensional in their eyes.

I guess a little of that goes both ways, like when I see Aunt J it's hard not to think of her in terms of her relationship to my father (his youngest sibling). She was thirteen when I was born, and by the time I could really remember stuff she had gone to college, so I don't remember her much from my childhood. From what I do remember of her, she used to tease me, but in the nice way that grownups tease little kids they love. Like in the same way that my dad was funny, but in a way I didn't understand when I was a little kid. I guess in a lot of ways it feels like every time we look at each other or talk to each other my dad is sitting right there in the middle, and a little bit in the way.

Miss Adventurous - Mighty White Hunter!

I may beat my entomophobia yet!

Just now I came in from my long B-train ride home. When I walked through my door, I noticed that there was an empty spot in my perimeter of boric acid. One of the kids next door must have accidentally kicked a part away. Like a hawk, I scanned the threshold and I found a renegade!

One of the icky little bugs from the trash room had found the hole in my perimeter! Quick as a flash, I tried to squish him with my shoe, but to no avail--he ducked into a crack. I ran and got the boric acid and filled the hole in my perimeter as well as the crack...out he came and the chase was on! I grabbed one of my boots and jabbed at him a couple of times before I finally got him. Now he's sitting in a gross little mashed-up mess of bug guts.

But I didn't shake! I wasn't afraid! I just squished him! WOOHOO!

$1650 - HUGE studio apartment furnished w/bunk beds and desk. No window. GREAT DEAL!!! (nyc)

Okay, so yesterday wasn't the day.

It was going to be, it really was. And I'm still all gung-ho about it, so maybe today will be the day (justification). I was signed up for this comedy improv workshop after work and I busted a move to get over there, so that's why I didn't call (excuse). But today will be better, provided I can tear myself away from my boss's earshot long enough. Regardless, the comedy improv class thingy gave me a little boost of confidence (it's okay to take risks!), so I really think that I'm ready! Really!

As an aside (aside?), the comedy improv thing was amazingly fun, and I was actually kind of good at it! If it weren't $20 a week I would really really want to do it on a regular basis. I'd like to get PDF involved too. How fun!

So, as far as my adventures in New York go, I've decided that I'm tired of hating my building (did I mention that I don't like my building?), and I am now determined to figure out what I can do to change either my perspective, or my building.

What I'd like to do is start calling the cops every time people play music inappropriately loud. I'd like to tell people waiting outside the door that they can't come in until they're buzzed in (I tried that once--it didn't go so well). I'd like to make a building-wide campaign to minimize pest infestation. I'd like to find out who's smoking in the stairwell and kick his ass. I'd like for everyone to agree on quiet hours in the building after 11:00 (at least!). I'd like to completely eliminate trash rooms in favor of outdoor trash bins with lids.

So why don't I rock the boat and organize with some neighbors to make things better? Well frankly I'm a little concerned about my safety. For the most part my neighbors are all really nice people with families or single ladies or single young folks like myself, but there are a few creepy twenty- and thirty-something dudes who have people coming and going all the time and act all thuggy and what have you. And there's whoever smokes in the stairwell. And...well...I have to say it; I'm a woman who lives alone. What happens if someone decides that I'm trouble and starts harassing me? What happens if someone decides to climb my fire escape one night and break in while I'm there? What could I do?

Living alone is great, but I get very nervous about those windows.

Since my thoughts are all-over-the-place today anyway (hence the parentheses), I may as well say that the concept of the trash room is really bizarre to me. Whoever thought it was a good idea to keep a bunch of garbage in a tiny little indoor room is insane... Oh, hello roaches, nice to see you. Glad you could live down the hall from me. Ew.

I'll take mine over easy, and don't skimp on the sac lining. That's the best part.

I love my apartment. I do. It's REALLY cute. If you unfocus your eyes and make your vision all fuzzy it looks kind of like this:And you have to admit, that multicolored bubbles are really cute! So what's not to love? Well from the picture of Gregor over there, I'm sure you can guess.

I found a cockroach in my closet this morning. Which means he was crawling around on my clothes! My clothes! Ew! Vile little roach feet on my clothes! Or worse, roach poop! Or worse yet--EGGS! EWWWW! I am a girly, entomophobic wimp. Especially with roaches. How I survived Louisiana in the spring, I will never fully know.

When I saw it on my closet door, it crawled about an inch and stopped, like it was just as surprised to see me as I was to see it. I just stood there for a minute, my entire body shaking. Then some images flashed through my mind: the roach crawling around in my underwear; the legs, the EGGS! I had to take action--but how!? I couldn't touch it, not even through a paper towel! How to squish this disgusting creature out of my life?? I quickly scanned my eyes around the room and spotted the tool I needed. Praise Jesus, I have a hammer! In a flash, I grabbed a wad of paper towels and wrapped it around the hammer's head. Then I-- couldn't move. I stood there, shaking for a minute.

The roach, which I have since classified as a young German Cockroach (thanks, wikipedia), waggled his feelers at me. It was taunting me.

I took a deep breath, then smacked the hammer against the closet door. I didn't kill it! Oh no! Oh wait, there it is on its back, wriggling its legs helplessly! YES! WHACK! Oh no! Where did it go!? Oh no, oh no, OH NO! Oh wait.... there it is... squished on the bottom of the paper towel... Ahhh... Thank God I had this hammer.

I was still shaking as I gingerly picked up the paper towel and stuck it in the trash can. Then I stood there for a moment, scanning the closet floor, the walls, the area around the closet. I delicately pulled my shirt off the hanger and shook it out as hard as I could, inspected it for legs or eggs, then put it on. Then I started sobbing. I had to go to work, but I wanted to stay and find its point of entry! I wanted to plug the hell out of that crevice, wherever it was! Then I started swearing at everyone; at my broker, at my landlord, at my lazy-as-hell super, at whoever-it-is that keeps cooking whatever-it-is that stinks up the hallway. And then I thought about how it was my own fault. I wanted to move in quickly, I signed the lease before making 100% sure everything was caulked and sealed, I let the Chinese lady do my laundry and didn't check it before I brought it in, I left clutter in my doorway!

So I did what I always do when I feel overwhelmed and like everything is my fault; I called my sister. She calmed me down and told me that it would be okay and that I need to breathe and relax and everything. I felt better. Then I came to work and read this online brochure about How to Control Pests Safely. I felt empowered. I can breathe. I'm not shaking anymore. No legs, no eggs.

But you'd better believe that I'm not going home tonight without boric acid and a tube of caulk!
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UPDATE: I later learned that these guys came from the laundromat on Lincoln Road! Ewwwww! Legs and eggs in the laundromat! I have since switched to the Super Laundry on Beekman.

We don't like to say flame retardant. We prefer "explosively challenged."

I had the cable guy come today. He gave me Internet access at home, and was really REALLY nice, so I had a pleasant experience. My super, on the other hand...

The nice cable guy had to go access some box in the courtyard of my building. To access the courtyard, he just needed the super to unlock a door for him. So out he goes and after a little while I hear him clanking around with a ladder in the courtyard. I was filing away a massive pile of papers that I've been accruing since I moved in. I got up to get a drink of water, and while in my microscopic kitchen, I noticed the faint smell of gas still emanating from my stove. I thought about it for a minute, sniffed again, and then turned on the fan. I figured I'd wait until the cable guy was gone and then go get the super. No need to panic.

Suddenly, I screamed. There was a man outside on my fire escape! It turned out that the super had fussed at the cable guy for being in the courtyard too long and had told him to use the fire escape, and then locked the door! He locked the door! I was really confused, and apologized to the cable guy. He maintained that it was no big deal, or whatever, and that he wouldn't be much longer.

A few minutes later there was a buzz at my door. It was the super. He mumbled that he had just painted my door and to be careful going in and out....apparently, painting doors is much easier and a bigger priority than sweeping hallways. I let him know about the gas. He muttered about it, but he came in and pulled out the stove to have a look, then he lit a paper towel on fire and put it down near the gas line. I know I'm no expert on natural gas or anything, but COME ON! He could have freaking blown up the entire building! Not to mention the huge mess he made with burnt paper towel in my sink! EUGH! And then, he had the nerve to fuss at my cable guy some more! What the hell!?

The cable guy just kind of placated him and then he left. Then the cable guy looked at me and point blank told me, "Your super is weird. That is not normal at all. You need to tell your landlord."

And I could not agree more.

Like my new life? I bought it at IKEA.

I signed my lease on December 17 of 2007, at which point I immediately dropped off my stuff at my new pad and then trucked off to IKEA to buy myself a mattress to sleep on. I soon got to work, unpacking this and cleaning that and killing the roaches that were crawling around in the bathtub (ew). I very gingerly made up my little nest of a bed and slept there with the new paint (fumes), the pilot light that had gone out on my stove (gas leak), and the soap scum from the last tenant (complete with roaches). My apartment--my first apartment that was just mine, all by myself--did not feel like home, but I felt lucky--so lucky that I cried tears of joy and relief while I ate my first meal in that apartment. It consisted of a cheese sandwich and a banana , and was eaten off of a new IKEA cutting board--I had forgotten that I didn't have any plates.

Before December 17 of 2007 I had been a hermit crab, carrying around a large, red backpack that contained everything I needed for the week. I bounced around from friend to friend to family for over a month, wishing almost every day that I hadn't decided to move to New York all by myself. I didn't always know where I was going to sleep, either.

My best friend, a Blackhawk pilot, lives upstate, about 2 hours away by car (3 by train--I did it three times a week for nearly a month). When I decided to do this, that commute didn't sound so bad. It didn't sound like it actually felt when I was doing it. So I packed everything that would fit into my car and headed East. Within days, I realized that I was going to have to be closer if I was serious about getting a job. My cousin JM, had extended a nearly-open invitation to stay at her fabulous-but-tiny Upper West Side apartment, but, with only a backpack on my back, I had to return upstate every few days to change out clothes and sleep in a real bed (that couch is super comfy, but it's just not the same). Concerned about overstaying my welcome with Cousin, I also begged my longtime friend, Mr. PDF for a place to stay. Luckily, his boyfriend was far, far away doing the accounting for a movie, and so he needed help with his sweet little dog anyway. So I bounced around and around between two city apartments and one country house, lost all claim to a home or to privacy, and developed a sort of love-hate relationship with my red backpack.

A couple of days before Christmas, I left my apartment-that-was-not-home and went home. I spent a week with my family, doing the old Christmas runaround. My mom and stepfather rented a van and trucked me and the rest of my stuff back to Brooklyn, helped me put together my furniture, helped me scrub windows and wash dishes and squish roaches and yell at my super to light the pilot. And when they left, it got quiet.

So, so quiet.

And then I looked around me and realized that my apartment, somehow, had become my home.