Confessions Of A Splenda Stealer

Wow. It’s been over a month since I’ve clicked the “Add New Post” on this blog. Sorry, all!

I could make some excuses, but I’ll spare the details and just get right back down to business.

The next few posts will be some of my columns from Hoboken Progress, which I also failed to post during my spontaneous hiatus from the blogosphere.

It’s been quite the morning. Currently, it’s right before 8:30 am. I spent the night at my parent’s house, and took the train into the city with the Dad. A 5:17 am train. Yep. I awoke at 4:55 AM, pulled on my clothes, grabbed my bags (and my lunch from the fridge) and somehow I blinked and was on the train, only to pass out again until my Dad elbowed me in Penn Station.

It had already been decided that a large Dunkin Donuts was in my future last night, so caffeine was just starting to filter into my veins around 6:30 am. Upon approaching my office, I realized that my apartment keys, which I left in Hoboken, a delightful fact brought to my attention by my roommates, also houses my office key. FAIL. I waited 40 minutes in the hallway, my bags sitting around me, with my back against the wall to wait for the guy with a key. I was afraid to fall asleep in fear that someone would think that I had been squatting in the hallway all weekend.

FINALLY, finally, I was let in. Pandora blasting, lights off except for the glow of my computer, I’m celebrating Monday morning with a new blog post, fueled by my large DD, which I am just starting to feel the effects of.

The sun came up slowly this morning, but, if anything, I love an AM where I can wake up peacefully, slowly, and productively at my desk.

Here’s one to get the party started:

Still Working It Out

You must forgive me for what I am about to quote, but as a single, 25 year-old, independent female, it would be a bold-faced lie to say that I never reference Sex and the City. In one particular episode, as Carrie Bradshaw is whining about being lonely, (I still love you Carrie) she says that in New York, as a woman, you can have a great job, a great apartment and a great man, but never all at the same time. Apparently, it’s always two out of three, and even if the two you’ve got are top-notch, the missing third will still make you want to hyperventilate in a Duane Reade bag. Continue reading →

I wrote this column in celebration of my re-signing of the lease. Here’s to another year!

A Circus Of Oddities

Necessity is the mother of invention. Or laziness. Or craziness. But, I can’t for the life of me figure out what it was that inspired the layout of my apartment. This column has been a long time coming. Since I moved to my current place, I have found a new hobby. I aim to supply everyone I meet with the knowledge that I live in a doughnut shaped apartment, complete with two front doors that face each other in the outside hallway. Tell people that you live on the first floor, but not which door to knock on, and let the fun begin.

Some believe that people have past lives. I believe the same goes for apartments. In some apartments, these former lives are more clear-cut than others. Uptown, I clearly lived in a closet, a fact that I myself had invented to illustrate the size of my room to family and friends. My room was only about a foot and a half longer, and two feet wider than the twin bed that I had somewhat managed to shove inside. I laughed that I slept in a closet. It wasn’t until a neighbor in the building found out where I lived in the layout that he informed me that everyone else in the building used that space as, indeed, a closet.

Today, I cannot figure out the “past life” of my current apartment. I understand that in some cases, apartments were zoned differently, and some rooms that have been morphed into bedrooms were once living rooms, and on and on. But here, on Second Street, my roommates and I are left without any clues.

In fact, we are left with clues that only confuse. I have a sliding door to my room. I get to feel as though I am a soccer mom, sliding the door closed to her minivan, every time I enter and exit. It’s a grand old time, but it doesn’t quite make sense, further complicated by the fact that this door mimics another sliding door that we only discovered a month ago, hiding in the wall of the hallway that divides the entryway to my roommates’ rooms and the kitchen.

There is another door that, if we used it, leads from my room to one of my roommate’s rooms. I call it the shoji screen, because it is paper-thin. When I sneeze, my roommate says, “God bless you.”

We’ve also found the following: a few electrical outlets halfway up the wall, with their on/off switches down near the floor; a fantastically ornate chandelier with hand-painted, porcelain-like flowers that hangs in one of the bedrooms; and three different types of linoleum that share abstract geometric patterns from the 80s.

All these curiosities, paired with the marinara sauce smell that permeates the air every morning that I have so lovingly mentioned before in this column, and I feel as though the architect to this building was Willy Wonka. It is a circus of oddities, that keeps me endlessly entertained.

By the time I finally collapsed on the couch to enjoy yet another wonderfully creepy episode of True Blood, I had accomplished three summer goals:

–to check out the South St. Seaport because I never have

–to check out one of the Water Taxi Beaches (they have three locations in Long
Island City, the South St. Seaport, and Governor’s Island)

–walk across the Brooklyn Bridge

Done and done. I felt both victorious and exhausted, because that is a lot to do in one afternoon. I literally felt like I had walked all the way back to Hoboken as well.

Here are a few snapshots from the day:

the view of the Brooklyn Bridge from the South St. Seaport

those blue plastic trees are rooted in the sand of the Water Taxi Beach

brunch stop on Beekman Place at Fresh Salt, delightful!

we finished before I remembered I had my camera, oops

before the hour walk, across and back

this couple in front of us where true power walkers and great to keep up with

"Back of every great work we can find the self-sacrificing devotion of a woman." Amen.

In Brooklyn! I wanted to see how far the walk continued in Dumbo, and we found this strange sign. No pretzels on the bridge??

As I said, that was only one afternoon. Saturday, the roommies and I hopped in between raindrops to brunch at The Elysian in Hoboken for some croque madams and frites, then shopped the boutiques. Two fun filled days, with a side of a kick ass yoga class Saturday morning, and karaoke Saturday night, and my weekend was chocked full–just the way I like it.

As much as I love Gmail, there’s a small part of me that longs to be greeted by that “You’ve Got Mail” from AOL, back in the day. It got me though the rough times, and by rough times I mean pulling my hair out from the sound of the dial-up connection.

Anywho–I meant to post this email from a reader a few weeks ago, but well, I just forgot! This email brightened my spirits and helped lift my writer’s block!

Hey Emily,

Amazing!!