Confessions Of A Splenda Stealer

While I may be a timid driver, I am by no means a timid pedestrian.

I know what you must be thinking—a timid pedestrian? But, it’s a fact. They do exist.

Such creatures are those who commit the following acts while walking in the city: wait out each red light at an intersection even though there aren’t any cars passing through; run to the other side of the street when the “walk” sign is still blinking (the light hasn’t turned red yet, people); and those who start to cross against a light, but then hesitate—while you walk smack into them.

I used to feel a bit insecure that I don’t like to drive much, but ever since my status as a confident NYC walker has recently been compromised, I’ve decided that being considered as a timid or (gasp) slow walker is so much worse.

I blame this ugly rumor on the weather. Due to a weather pattern I have come to discover that hovers above the Hudson River during the winter season, my reputation as an urbanite is now under fire.

For some reason—and I really cannot fathom the science behind this—in Manhattan, unless there’s a blizzard, by the time that I step one foot out of the 33^rd Street PATH station, any snow that I mustered through in Hoboken has already become an after thought in the city. Random puddles are the only evidence that some precipitation had fallen.

Can someone please explain this phenomenon to me, since not only am I baffled by this, but also, it makes me look like I’m a slow walker in inclement weather, since I have a tendency to be a little late on “snow days.”

I’m the only employee that treks into work from Hoboken, and without fail, I always seem to be the only one held up from getting a late start due to snow. Coworkers who do not have to cross a river to get to work do not believe when I explain that Hoboken looked like it had magically moved a dozen latitude degrees north when I awoke.

During my first winter working in NYC with a “real” job, during the first snowstorm of that season, I actually questioned if I had to go to work. I decided to call my co-worker and fellow Hobokenite to discuss. She was in the same boat as me—first real job, first snow day in the real world. We decided it was best to talk about this in person, over mugs of oatmeal and coffee in my kitchen. Before we knew it, by the time we finally made it into work, at was around 11 AM—and of course, there was no snow to be found on the streets on NYC.

As a consequence of this mysterious weather pattern, I appear as a timid city walker. But, I’m telling you, it’s real, and it’s out there.  I may have been naïve my first snowstorm, but I know for sure now. It’s not me. It’s the Bermuda Triangle of snow over the Hudson.

From the January 29, 2010 issue of Hoboken Progress:

There’s nothing quite as humbling as sorting through your own stuff, especially, when you have decided to rearrange your bedroom on a random Wednesday night.

I’m not the tidiest of people. While I like to have a neat appearance, I find that my possessions are quite needy—they have a tendency to cluster together in groups.

In my determination to tackle time management and organization for 2010, (also inspired by the fact that my roommate and I got sick of hearing each other though the door that separates our rooms) I decided to play a little Russian roulette with feng shui.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve made a last minute decision like this. In the year and a half that I’ve lived in my current bedroom, the head of my bed has faced several directions. I’m a big believer in change the space, change the attitude.  This was no exception.

I have also lately taken on a crusade to simplify my life, and weed through all my possessions, which is quite an exhausting task. After flipping my room around for a few hours, I am now sitting next to two huge, black plastic bags: one full of clothes and shoes (some not even worn) to give away, and another full of beauty supplies, and other paper goods I have somehow convinced myself to part with. (I prefer the term “pack rat” to “hoarder.”)

But, besides accepting the fact that I really don’t need to hold onto notebooks from every college English Lit class, I’m also coming to terms with the fact that I’m not the only one maturing in my room—all the cheapy bedrooms things I bought when I first moved out are as well, and I am truly understanding the idiom, “You get what you pay for.”

When I first moved out of my parents house, after a brief stint which I refer to as my “Banana” years, ie, the year and a half I somehow pasted together 40 hours a week working retail at Banana Republic (my name tag is a magnet on the fridge), I was so excited, and so very poor. Almost two and a half years later, I’m finding that all the purchases I made with my new, tiny budget were essentially just short term solutions. Cute and design-conscious necessities for my bedroom (so that my room didn’t look like it housed a squatter) were high on my list, but low on affordability, so instead of sliding tubs for under the bed, I bought $8 flimsy plastic zipper packs to hold my jeans.

By now, surviving a major move downtown and several turns around my current room, these packs, a few other plastic items, and my “hand-me-down” furniture are begging for mercy.

Sorting through my stuff has made me realize how far I’ve come living independently—even if I can only measure time by falling apart, plastic gear from Bed Bath and Beyond. A little wiser, and better at budgeting, I feel that I’m always ready and excited for my next move, even if its only as small as changing which direction I face when I sleep.

This is another column-turned blog post, like my shower column, below. I got a little tired of showing my headshot on here, and missed being able to insert silly images as per my discretion. I can’t tell you how much material my apartment has given me for conversation, for blog posts, and, obviously, for my column.

Here’s another look into life on 2nd St in Hoboken—

I have a little secret. Sometimes, I prefer the company of couches.

It’s not that I don’t love my bed, or my pillows (I have several including a fancy one engineered for side sleepers.) It’s just that whenever I find a comfy couch, that’s it. When you find that perfect ratio between cushion give, but not so much that you sink, where else would you ever want to be?

Of course, I blame my wealth of knowledge on the subject due to the fact that last winter, I spent a lot of quality time on the couch. Among my family and friends, I am known as what you would call a night owl. I hardly go to bed at a reasonable hour. But, my logging in of long hours on the couch was not from my nightly habits.

While my roommates and I have been very lucky not to have a run in with any serious pests (except one water bug we caught and another I swear I saw in the utensil drawer that mysteriously got away) we do have another annoyance—our water pipes clang.

Alright—it’s not like it’s on the hour or anything, but rather, it cannot be pinpointed, which adds a whole other dimension of annoying.

I call it our Woody the Woodpecker. There I’ll be, in my room, and there it goes—a repetitive tapping noise that sometimes fires off at the rate of what a machine gun would sound like. I’m can even hear it now as I type this on my couch.

Other times, it starts slow and creeps up, then tapers off. Think of it as the unpredictable barking of a dog, or a car alarm, where soon enough, you aren’t even keeping up with what you were originally concentrating on (like writing) but rather, just waiting for the noise to go off again. Cringe.

When I discovered this unfortunate situation, I roamed my apartment and played Goldilocks around the apartment: which piece of furniture was going to be just right to sleep in? The Lazy Boy, the couch, or the air mattress? Since the air mattress is a tight fit next to the coffee tables, and the Lazy Boy rocks too much, it was clear that my bed for the next few months, at least until the cold weather thaws, was the couch. It was a rough winter 2009.

This year, I’m a little more used to our pet woodpecker, but he still gets me from time to time. Every few nights when I forget to put on music, you’ll know that I’m definitely thinking about making those couch cushions a reality, just waiting for the roommates to retire to their rooms for the night so I can break out my neck pillow. (Also, for some reason, the noise is worst heard in my room, naturally).

Between the freezing shower that I call Chilly Willy, and our Woody the Woodpecker noise that lurks from the southwest corner of our apartment, it’s like a ‘50s cartoon showcase in here, from which, I will watch from the couch.

In college, as soon as I signed up to be an English major, that was the end of math class, at least, for me. Never again did I have to worry about all those crazy formulas, prime numbers, and other math terms that I can’t even remember now.

Then, why on earth did I have the desire to create a line graph the other day? No, certainly not out of any nostalgia for geometry class, but, I have to admit, perhaps my teacher was right: I do need some math in the real world.

You see, it appears that for the second winter in a row, the shower in my apartment gets stage fright in the morning when it comes to providing hot water. Its nose of a nozzle appears to look down on us on the fact that we prefer to stand in hot water in the morning.

I thought plotting the times on a graph would help me spot a trend. Nope. The same 8:30 AM that gave me hot water on a Tuesday morning did not suffice the next morning, or on the following Tuesday, for that matter. The following times also failed: 6:50 AM, 7:15 AM, and 8:07 AM.

courtesy facesinplaces.blogspot.com

For three girls trying to hop in between one another in our primping rituals while getting ready for work, it really makes me want to convert to becoming a night shower-taker. I was one once, but I switched over when I first moved to Hoboken. In my first apartment, the shower truly spoiled me with perfect temperatures and pressure.

You have no idea what you’ve got ‘til its gone.

In my downtown apartment, I’ve been told that there is a better chance of hot water at night, but now that I’ve switched to morning showers, I can’t go back. More importantly, I’m stubborn, and I just want to figure out how this situation came to be. My roommates and I just can’t figure out why we don’t consistently get hot water in the shower. We get hot water in the kitchen faucet. So hot, in fact, I’ve used it once to sponge bathe when I first learned of our shower obstacle.

We’ve also learned that if you pull the shower handle really hard to the left, the water seems to get warmer. Either that or the sheer strength it takes to pull on the handle heats up our muscles so that we feel warmer. If I had the proper tools to make the handle loose, I’d have no mercy on the shower. We’d probably also have a flood.

Maybe the shower needs a little love. Maybe we need a new hot water heater. Either way, I’m afraid the roommates and myself are in for a few more months of character-building cold showers and ridiculous stories of bathing in the kitchen sink like pioneer women.

At least when we’re older, we can tell our kids, “In my day, we had to take cold showers!” And, just like my math teacher, I’d be right.