New Yorker.

So I moved to New York City. For the summer at least (an internship and a sublet won't get me past August, so if I want to stay I've got some work to do). I wanted to write something about an aspect of being here, everyone's been asking how it is, how I like it. But I couldn't really decide what to focus on. And a writer with no focus produces work that (usually) is hard to focus on.
So I sifted through my impressions of the city, things I could comment on. And I've come up with a list of let's say… 6 things that I would like to talk about in regard to my new place of residence. Here they are (in no specific order) –

1. Subways.
I really had to give up my beautiful blue spaceship car to ride in these crowded, dirty, loud, uncomfortable underground railroads? Every morning, despite the fact that I have to wake up before I feel like it and go sit inside for eight hours while the sunshine of the outdoors is begging to shine down on my pre-cancerous bronzed skin, I also have to wait in a muggy, smelly subway station until a train rolls in and I finally think, "thank goodness, air conditioning." Until it brakes with the sound of Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act 2 dragging her fingernails against the blackboard and the doors open to already full cabins of miserable people going to their miserable jobs and I have to file in with the masses and push and shove my way into this horrible train I don't even want to be so it can take me to a place I don't even want to go.

And once you get on a train, even though it takes you out of the horribly humid, hot station, you are forced to stand in uncomfortably close quarters with strangers you don't want to be near. And there's always that one person who shoves themselves into the space right by the doors that they don't fit in right after the helpful, polite robotic subway man has clearly stated "stand clear of the closing doors please, " so then everyone who was already shoved into the train car gets pushed that much closer to one another.

And then there are the metal bars that you must clench in your once-clean hands to ensure that you don't get jostled into the passengers around you. Because even though people are for the most part very apologetic and understanding on the subway about people accidentally brushing against others, there's always one person who genuinely takes offense to the fact that someone has nudged them and feels the need to respond with an over aggressive "Excuse me," or a comment to a friend they are standing near about how "bitches will best stop bumping me or I'll smack them." To which I always respond to (in my thoughts, for fear of starting a subway riot) with "we're on a really crowded subway I'm sure they don't really want to touch your gross body anyways but thanks for making everyone else's morning that much more pleasant with your passive aggressive bullshit. Why don't you just really smack someone so we can get the party started and do this up right?"

And when I finally get to my destination, it's a struggle to weave through the mess of people, around the group of tourists who somehow find it enjoyable to "culture themselves" by standing around a group of musicians who are playing as loud as they can in the echoing enclosed space of the muggy subway station, around the slow moving people who apparently enjoy moseying around the ol' subway station and finally file up the stairs until you hit the light of day again. And your cell phone commences to work once more.

Even though gas prices are at an all-time high and blah blah blah, every morning (and evening) during my commute I yearn to sit in my car with the windows down and one of my cd's blaring. I almost miss sitting in the horrifying LA traffic last summer on the way home from work. Because I'd much rather rock out to my jams in the privacy of my clean, personal vehicle than turn my I pod up way to high for my ear's sake, attempt to not fall forward and make out with the weird man standing face to face with me in the jammed packed compartment, and try to drown out the most horrible sound of all – "Ladies and gentlemen we are delayed because of train traffic ahead of us."

2. My Apartment (specifically, my bedroom)
So my apartment is in Brooklyn, in the hipster neighborhood of Williamsburg, and I guess it's not too bad of an area. But the apartment is small. Very small. And my bedroom is – very, very small. If I was some sort of gnome I might be rejoicing, but since I am a full-grown person with lots of things I like to keep in my room, it's not the ideal situation. I don't mind the cramped space, there's just enough space to fit my bed, nightstand, small fold up table for my computer and the closet provides just enough space to shove in most of my clothing, but the kicker is that there's no windows. A room with no windows.

I could walk in the room at one in the afternoon and it would be dark. If there were no clock on my nightstand, I'd never know what time it was. My body is confused. It wakes up in the morning and wonders why it is the same level of darkness that it was when I went to bed. It tells me, "don't get up yet – it's still dark." But it's not still dark in any normal room with windows. It's just still dark in my small dungeon room.

And when it gets hot – like two weekends ago when it was reaching the high 90's to 100 degrees, my apartment becomes a pressure cooker of heat and sweat. Just sitting on the couch produces the sweat output of a hard 30-minute run, and fans must be dragged out and positioned in front of wherever your immediate position is in order for living to even be tolerable.

But it gets worse. When it's really hot and you live in the room with no windows, your room is UNBEARABLY hot. Like, so humid you can't breathe and all you have is a small fan that hardly even helps because the small amount of cool air it produces cannot cut through the heavy heat filled air that is stifling around your room and you're sweating even with no sheets on you and by the slight chance that you actually fall asleep in your uncomfortable state, you wake up naked because your natural body's response has been to rip all clothes off to try and survive. And you're still sweaty. You get the idea.

So that's the deal with the small apartment.

3. Nowhere to Work Out
So at school, in return for me paying thousands upon thousands of dollars to sit in several classes every day, I also got a free membership to the Ithaca College gym. Which actually was a very nice gym. If you got there before or after the 4 o’clock treadmill rush, you could basically do any workout you pleased with the equipment there – they even had rowers and the girl-sized padded bar weights. But here, in the city of dreams, I can’t afford a gym. There’s actually a place by my work that’s touting it’s big “Summer Sale!” with banners outside and brochures on a little table. So I picked up one of these handouts and called about it (I should have known it was out of my price range when the prices weren’t specifically stated on the postcard…) For one month, their special price is $219. Now I don’t know how much other gyms cost around here, because I haven’t really shopped around too much, but if I decided to take this summer gym deal, it would cost me about one-sixth of my hefty intern salary. And the little apartment I live in – would be an additional 2/3 of my monthly stipend. So going to a gym is not in the stars for me. It would mean that I definitely couldn’t afford to eat at Chili’s in Jersey City once or twice a weekend. And if I can’t do that, it’s not worth getting up in the morning.

On the brightside, there is a park about a half-mile from my apartment. With a track! While this is a free easy place to go run and stay in shape, it is always absurdly crowded. With runners, walkers, little kids riding their bikes on the track, people playing numerous soccer/Frisbee games on the field in the middle of the track, racquetball court players, families just sitting around, and teenagers just hanging around on the track. Now I’m not that anti-social that I hate being around people, I just hate being around them when I’m trying to work out and they are in my way. I don’t mind weaving in and out of the other joggers/walkers when I’m trying to run around the track and no one is following the convention of leaving the inside lanes open for faster runners, but I also have to be on constant lookout for stray soccer balls, Frisbees, racquetballs, and teenagers moseying around the track. The first time I was there I was in my running zone when all the sudden I was struck on the leg, mid-stride, by a soccer ball. I didn’t fall or anything, but it scared me! And if it happens again, and I was to fall, it would be so embarrassing because of the sheer amount of people around hanging out at the track.

And who hangs out at a track anyways? Teenagers, the country is talking about the absurd amount of overweight young Americans, and I’m glad you are taking note. But merely planting yourself at the track and hanging out with friends while others struggle to run around you to get by does not qualify as exercise. Lace up those running shoes and get moving.
It’s also hard for me because I was really getting good at pull-ups (or assisted pull ups on the machine at least). But now I have nowhere to practice my sub par pull-ups, no machine, and even if I could find a bar I wouldn’t be able to pull myself up even once. Come to think of it, that may be my own fault for being too weak to lift my own bodyweight. I’ll work on that.
So I guess there is a place to workout if I really want to – the track is sufficient, and I even have room in my little backyard to swing my 20 lb kettlebell around. It’s just hard to leave the comforts of a gym and end up at an overcrowded track. With no rowers.

4. Elevators at Work
Going to work isn’t something I necessarily enjoy. And once I’m there, even getting to my desk becomes a hassle. Riding the elevator up to my floor (36 out of 38) is a task that takes forever. First, the wait in the lobby for the elevator to arrive seems to take forever, and if you’re there during rush hours (anytime around 9:30 in the morning or lunch time), as you wait for an elevator to arrive more and more people flood the waiting area. So when the “ding” of the elevator finally arrives, you have to be strategically placed in front of the correct elevator door to have a chance of squeezing in.

Then the ride begins. I’m usually squished somewhere near the back or side of the small enclosed area, and I’m glad that I am not a person who is frightened by riding elevators, because it’s not a straight shot of a ride. We usually stop about at about 7 to 8 floors before we finally reach my humble floor of 36. And since the car is so packed, once you get to each floor its usually the person standing all the way in the back who says “excuse me,” and then everyone files out, giving them room to exit, and then everyone files back in, ready to stop at the next floor. It’s also funny when the jam packed car stops at a floor and the doors open to someone waiting to get on who takes one look at the full to the brim elevator, looks confused for a moment as if they want to try to squeeze in but know they really can’t do it, then steps back and lets the door close once again.
And lastly, probably the most uncomfortable part is the unwritten rule of elevators that you can’t really talk to people who you don’t know, but in the case of this elevator, you’re actually with them for an extended period of time. At least long enough to make an acquaintance. Or even a friend. But instead you just stand looking up at the floor numbers and count how many are lit up, mere stepping stones on your way up to your desk.

5. Grocery Shopping / Laundry-doing
As I mentioned before, I gave up my wonderful car when I moved here because of the availability of the wonderful subway system and lack of parking. One thing that my car had is a lot of trunk space. For groceries. Let’s compare the amount of groceries I can carry in my car:


To the amount of groceries I can manually carry the six blocks home from the grocery store:


As you can see, the difference is staggering. And the other thing about the grocery store (besides the fact that anywhere you go that’s not Wegman’s is a downgrade), is that you have to go to the grocery store for most items, and then a separate store for your fruits and vegetables. Why must we make things more complicated than they have to be? And as I showed before, since I don’t have my car for transport and two hands can’t hold that much, it’s always a task to carry all the grocery bags and make sure all the fruit and veggies don’t fall on the floor. Last week I spilled my apples all over the store. Not only embarrassing, but I had to eat bruised apples all week.

The last problem I have with grocery stores here is that they don’t have all the things I like! Last week they didn’t even have original Triscuits. Only those weird flavors. Come on, get the plain ones.

I’ve also decided to group laundry doing into this itemized rant because it is another chore that is made harder because it takes a five-minute walk to get to. Then you must get about 5 dollars worth of quarters to get just one load done. And since I don’t really want to spend hours of my day sitting in the Laundromat, I have to walk there, drop my stuff off, walk home, do something that cannot last more than 20 minutes, walk back, transfer to dryer, walk home, do something that cannot last more than 50 minutes, then go back to get my clean clothes. I miss the days when doing laundry meant walking into the room next to mine throwing my stuff in (for free!) then leaving it there until I felt like moving it. Or my roommates yelled, “Whose stuff is in the dryer!” Then I simply had to walk next door and get it. Those were the days.

6. Crowds and/or Noise
And the last item that I can think of that really upsets me as a New Yorker is the fact that it’s always loud. And crowded. Wherever you go. Whenever I’m doing any of the other things in New York that upsets me (subway riding, grocery shopping, etc) it is usually accompanied by loud noises and lots of people. Even just walking down the street involves careful weaving through and around people, and even when you’re just standing on the subway, the squealing of the train on the track can sometimes be enough to make your face scrunch up.

For example, I’ll get out of work and want to chat with someone on my phone as I walk down the street, but we won’t be able to have a conversation of any sorts because a bus or truck will be motoring by, people are yelling, cars are beeping for no apparent reason other than to promote noise pollution, and some sort of emergency vehicle will have it’s siren blaring and will be headed in my direction. Apparently anytime I talk on my cell phone triggers an emergency of some sort. Maybe I should lay off the calls and numerous fires/crimes will be avoided.

And even if you are walking down the street with someone who is physically present, right there next to you, there are numerous times in a two block radius where you cannot hear a thing they are saying. And sometimes, if you want to walk briskly, you’ll lose the person you’re with completely. Especially when you’re in high traffic areas (Times Square) crossing a street. It’s a block of people crossing a block of people and it’s hard enough not to smack into anyone without trying to stay next to your friend as well.

And get this - the subways are so loud when they roll into the station, or even when you are on them, that I can have my I pod buds in my ears, and have the music turned almost all the way up, and not hear anything except the roar of the train. Which I think is probably really bad for my ears. So mostly now I just reserve myself to the fact that I can’t leisurely listen to music when on the train, but instead I have to hear the loud sounds of the underground subway machine. And whatever crying kid is on my subway car.

And it’s not like I don’t like people—I think people are very wonderful for the most part; I’m not a hermit or anything—but I hate large crowds of people. When they prevent me from doing something, like moving. Or getting where I want to go. And that seems to happen a lot here.

So, there you have it. 6 reasons preventing me from buying a 5$ tee shirt from the next street vendor I see and proudly proclaiming to the world:


And I would like to take this last sentence to apologize for sounding like a huge miserable Debbie Downer throughout this whole post.

“But Marci, there are so many things to do in New York, you’re lucky to be living in a city where dreams come true for millions of people… …”




Waaaah Waaaaah.