Please Don't Tell

The title of this post seems relevant on so many accounts of recent happenings. As of Friday June 8, 2007 I have been living in New York for one month and I gotta tell you that time has flown by faster than I could have ever imagined. I'm going into my 5th week of work, I'm still visiting parts of the city that I haven't seen and I'm slowly adapting to the lifestyle of a Big City young professional.




(Bronx Zoo with Michelle- May 2007)



Everyone has a New York story to tell. You know, the tale they tell about their move to the city where it typically consists of a rat infested apartment, some kind of robbery or the roommate from hell. Well, if I had my pick I'd gladly take door No. 3 and as it turns out I've chosen correctly. Moving to New York I didn't have the misfortune of having to hunt down an apartment on Craigslist, hire a broker or crash on a couch for a month before getting my footing.


(Andy Warhol- Museum of Modern Art)


I was fortunate to fall into a space with a good friend from high school (DB) and a 48-year-old pilates instructor (DW). It was the ideal situation for my big move to New York. I get a room within my budget, in a nice neighborhood and in a large apartment (see pictures below). My intention (and agreement with DW) was to stay until October 1st. A verbal agreement that I was prepared to honor. However, I never imagined that my post-college experience would require me to live by someone else's rules in an apartment that I had to walk on eggshells in. The month I've spent in this space has been like living with my parents, while there were no formal declaration of rules, it is clear that there are lines of distinction present. The energy in the apartment is burdening and the borderline psychotic laughter, mid-life crisis and lonely desparation of DW begins to question whether one could put up with living here until October 1st. So, when an opportunity arouse to live in a much better apartment with only one roommate (a 21-year-old NYU student) for far less... I would be foolish to commit myself to the asylum I've called a home this last month.

It took some time for me to work up the nerve-- nay the balls -- to confront DW. I knew the confrontation would not be pleasant with a woman whose eyes bulge out of their sockets on a day-to-day basis. I knew it would be an all out brawl with a woman whose passive aggressive manner and ignorance are prevalent in every word that leaves her congested mouth. I came home preparing myself for the daunting task of remaining rational with a woman I knew could not be rational even after 48 years of existence. I asked to speak with her and she immediately became defensive "what about?" I started "Well, I'd like to move out July 1st."

Now, normally I'm a down-to-earth, albeit feisty guy who genuinely respects individuals as long as they remain on my good side. However, when you start cursing at me about how I am "fucking you over" that Hispanic fight rears its ugly head. We exchanged words with this 22-year-old remaining calm and have mockingly staring at the 48-year-old woman who looked like she was seconds from a panic attack. I reminded her that I was uncomfortable in a place that I paid so much for and felt confined to a room. I explained that I understood it was "her" apartment since her name is on the lease and the renters (myself) should sort of live by her rules, but this did not feel like home. In her usual demeanor she proceeded to tell me that I was the crazy one, while yelling at me reminding me that everything has been "just sooo convenient for me." I stood my ground and reminded her that she was not my mother, and that my mother does not even speak to me the way she was speaking to me. Granted this was probably not the best approach considering the woman has never been married, doesn't have children nor speaks of a significant other-- ever.

So how did it end?
Well, lucky for me I had plans that night with DB and did not have to stick around for long. I told her that I would be moving out July 1st, in which she replied she needed 30 days notice (making my move-out day July 8th). My only concern now is having her screw me over by not giving me my entire month's rent back that I paid her June 1st.

Where will I be going?
Here's where the hag had a point... DB and her boyfriend DP are moving into an apartment together, so I will conveniently be taking over DP's apartment, which as mentioned is better for me. It's a five-story walk-up apartment with my apartment on the 5th floor. I have roof access, my own entrance and a fire escape. I also have a window in my room (which I don't have any in the room I am in now), I get a small room to serve as office or lounge (my choice), a nice living room and the kitchen and bathroom rests in between my room and my roommate's room. The best part is I don't have to answer to anyone and I can make my own rules at my apartment. If I wanted to live with my parents I would have stayed in Florida.

In true New York City style I hit-up a lounge on the Lower East Side. Picture yourself walking down a crowded street lined with restaurants, bars and trendy hipsters overflowing the sidewalks. Now, picture yourself walking into a tiny hot dog joint nestled in between two buildings and smelling of cooked pork. At first glance it seems like the perfect locale for a 3 a.m. snack binge following a heavy drinking binge. You give the place a sweep looking left and right-- minding the fact that it isn't much of a place to begin with. The tables are cramped in-line one next another, an arcade machine hinders the walk way entering the restaurant and for whatever reason a crowd stands in front of a phone booth. You make your way to a tiny phone booth and peer inside. Its a phone booth...or is it? Could this phone booth be a portal to another dimension? Could it be a threshold to an alternate universe? No...its the doorway to an exclusive bar appropriately named PDT. For both pretentious and selfish reasons I will not disclose the locale or name of the bar, but if you happen to visit me I will decide whether ye are worthy of this happening bar. So for now this discreption will have to satisfy your curiousity.

Once you pass through the phone booth a cute bleached blonde reminding you of Scarlett Johannson reminds you that if you arrive 15 mins. late to your reservation she will give your table away. You apologize and are immediately escorted to a U-shaped leather booth lit by a tiny boxed light in the center of your table. The bar feels like a cellar. The roof is lower than usual, the floor lined with hardwood and walls made of what looks like red brick, but difficult to distinguish due to the lack of light. The place is small and could easily fill to capacity but the bar has a strict policy of not allowing more patrons in than the number of seats available. There is no standing room allowed here. The decor reminds you of a hunter's trophy case with deer heads and taxidermy serving as the focal points. The bar plays music, but just loud enough to hear without having to scream to have a conversation with your mates. A short italian woman with a sexy birth mark on her face and bright red lipstick comes to take your order. You skim the cocktail menu that boasts $11 cocktails and finally decide on a tequila-riched cocktail titled "El Diablo." You sit back and watch the bartenders (dressed in non-typical aprons that remind you of something a scientist in Amsterdam would wear) make cocktails from behind a bar lit from beneath a fog-paned bar. They taste their creations (like true bartenders should) to ensure the taste of their concoctions are just the right mixture. Your drink arrives and nothing as tasted so sweet. You realize there and then that, that is what a real cocktail should and does taste like. It's just the right amount of liquor to give you a buzz, but not enough to make you wince at every sip. By drink 2 (which you ask the waitress to choose her favorite beer) you are ordering a "Chihuahua" hot dog. You're begrudging paying respect to the fraternity nickname you never embraced, but the idea of a fried hot dog wrapped in bacon and topped with cream cheese and avocado sounds amazing. By now you have moved on to letting the waitress choose a cocktail not featured on the menu with an "S" name and contain "absinthe" as an ingredient. It's strong-- but you wouldn't have it any other way. You sit back, enjoy your conversation with good mates and appreciate this tiny gem of a bar that's "perfectly engineered," as DP put it.