New Posts Saved in Draft Coming Soon to "Becoming a New Yorker"

... And a few newer posts here.

New York, New York

My dear friend Adrienne wrote a paper for her Communication and the New Economy class at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She emailed the paper to me with a little note: "... I hope you find it entertaining."

I had no idea that my life had been referenced in the subject matter: "New York, New York". I was more than entertained.

“Start spreading the news, I’m leaving today. I want to be a part of it - New York, New York. These vagabond shoes, are longing to stray. Right through the very heart of it - New York, New York.” (Kander, 1977)

For as long as I can remember New York City has been the place where fashion, theatre and artistic hopefuls flock to become a part of the cultural class that nurtures the New York City economy. As an undergrad, I participated in many of my universities musical theatre productions and became friends with many of the musical theatre degree seekers at our university. Many of these individuals are still close friends of mine and one thing about them has yet to change. They all are living for the day that they can move to New York City and become members of the creative class. It is as if the only place you can truly become a successful member of this class is New York City. Their professors encourage them to perfect their skills so that they can compete with other hopefuls in the city. They graduate with a degree in dance, theatre or art and as soon as they can sell all of their personal possessions and book a flight, they are on their way to New York City. More often than not, these same individuals end up working two or more jobs, auditioning on their days off, subletting a room from a stranger in a Brooklyn apartment, far from the Manhattan lifestyle they came seeking. Is it not possible to “make it” anywhere else? I believe it is, but like Currid says, “The “walkability” of New York’s streets and neighborhoods makes run-ins possible between those offering artistic skill sets and those needing them” (Currid, 2007 p. 9).

A good friend of mine, Katie [last name erradicated], made the decision to move to New York City five years ago after realizing that she was turning 25 years old and still had not moved away from the small town our undergraduate university was settled in. She decided to get a second job as a server at a casino in Cherokee, NC and save the money for the move. A year later, she sold her car, rented a minivan and drove to New York City. She slept on a friend's couch for three months and landed a job at [company eradicated] as a temporary worker. The temporary job led to a full time position and she is now the executive assistant in their advertising sales department. Because of her job, she has had numerous run-ins that have led to career advancement and even a guest spot on [television show eradicated]. Katie has the kind of handwriting that people pay for when it comes to event invitations. In the case of [company founder's name eradicated], she was looking for someone to hand-write placecards for a company project. [Company founder's name eradicated] saw a memo Katie had written to a co-worker and liked it so much that she asked Katie to hand-write the said placecards. I have a hard time believing that this could have happened had she moved to Memphis or Nashville. Whether we agree with Currid (2007) or not, she is correct when she says that the odds of making connections that can advance you artistically or culturally are far better in New York City than other United States cities. Katie is one of the lucky ones. If you google her name, the first thing that comes up is an article about how her move to New York City has been the ideal situation. For Katie, New York City has lived up to the expectations Currid (2007) writes of. Unfortunately, other friends of mine have not been as fortunate.

In chapter 6 of the text, Currid (2007) discusses gatekeepers within the cultural class. Reading this chapter immediately made me think of the television show Project Runway. Every week, Fashion model Heidi Klum tells the designers how in the world of fashion, “one day you’re in and the next you’re out.” Currid (2007) refers to this when she says that tastemakers, certifiers and peer reviewers pick who the cultural and artistic “winners” are. Small groups of people determine your fate. Too many people, this does not exactly seem fair, but I know individuals who have dealt with this harsh reality, specifically when it comes to breaking into the Broadway scene. As an undergrad, I worked under Terrence Mann, who originated the role of Rum Tum Tugger in Andrew Lord Webbers, Cats. While working with him, I would often hear him say, “It’s not the talent, it’s the type.” You can have all of the talent in the world, but if you do not look the way the “gatekeeper” wants you to look, you are out and someone else is in.

I do not think there will ever be a day when New York City is not a breeding ground for the cultural class. People will continue to flock there in hopes of becoming members of this class and the more people that come; the more money will be spent in the city and the wealthier the city will become. As desired as membership in the cultural class is, it can be difficult to get there and be successful. Many cultural class hopefuls end up as “starving artists”, working and waiting on that big break. I cannot help but wonder if these same people would be struggling the way they are if they had moved to a city like Nashville or Atlanta. These cities are known for their up and coming cultural class and the cost of living is far less than New York City. People make it to the highest ranks of the cultural class via these cities as well, but I believe people are in love with the idea of being able to say, “I made it in New York City”. Even I must admit that it has a nicer ring to it than, “I made it in Atlanta”.

I'll find my own words to close out my three-year chronicle of "Becoming a New Yorker", but I could not agree more with the final statement of Adrienne's essay.

Oh, and she got an A.

How Do You Deal With a Mooch in NYC?

... Hopefully, better than I am.

The Scenario
The Mooch moved to New York City from Arizona in the last week of December in 2008. The Mooch shares a full-size bed with my roommate, who has been a close friend of hers since high school. The Mooch does not allow my roommate's own dog sit on or sleep in my roommate's own bed in the apartment for which The Mooch does NOT share equal financial responsibility. The Mooch's best friend lives in Harlem, but - regarding location - our Hell's Kitchen apartment is more convenient for The Mooch. The Mooch still lives with us (note the date of this blog post).

The Error
The direct fault I carry in this situation was believing that the best friend of The Mooch - and mutual friend of ours - was completely out of line for initially wanting to charge The Mooch $600/month to share the mutual friend's $1200-studio in Harlem. I wrongfully thought that the mutual friend was trying to take advantage of The Mooch's unstable relocation situation and wanted to profit from having The Mooch stay with her. In all actuality, the mutual friend was fairly requesting upfront that The Mooch assume equal financial responsibility for the space they would have shared. She was well within her rights - as both a New Yorker and as a friend.

However, my roommate and I - initially and foolishly finding it harsh to charge The Mooch immediately upon her arrival in the city (even though millions of other NYC transplants begin paying outrageous amounts for a roof over their heads the moment they change their zip code) - offered to let The Mooch stay in our Midtown apartment under the following conditions:
1) She could stay with us as long as she needed.
2) She could sleep in my roommate's bed (with my roommate) regularly; she and her boyfriend could sleep on my couch whenever he wanted to stay over; she and her boyfriend could use my room whenever I was out of town as long as they washed the sheets before I returned.
3) She should start contributing financially as soon as she could.

Number 3 was where we went wrong. The Mooch moved in the last week of December in 2008. By May 2009, she had still been unable to secure full-time employment, yet refused to consider waitressing, retail or other gigs not befitting "a recent college graduate." By June 2009, she had been living with us rent-free for five months.

Things I Now Know Since The Mooch Moved in Six Months Ago
1) After one month - or even just two weeks of staying in our $2500-month, 600-square foot, two-bedroom apartment in Midtown - The Mooch was no longer a guest; she was living with us.
2) Once she began forwarding her mail and listing our address on West 51st Street as her own - The Mooch was no longer a guest; she was living with us.
3) Once I began overhearing her tell friends on the phone, "I'm back at my apartment now," - The Mooch was no longer a guest; she was living with us.
4) Once she began asking me and my roommate if her out-of-town friends could stay at our apartment during their NYC visit - The Mooch was no longer a guest; she was living with us.
5) Once The Mooch stopped allowing my roommate's own dog into my roommate's own bed - The Mooch was no longer a guest; she was living with us.
6) I should not have assumed that The Mooch would have a personal sense of self-accountability for the space she shared with us.
7) I should not have assumed that this said self-accountability would compel The Mooch to feel responsible for contributing to the rent within 1-2 months (maybe even three, tops).
8) I should have been clear on my expectations instead of assuming that The Mooch had the same sense of personal responsibility that I have (e.g. when I slept on an air mattress for three months in the living room of my best friend's $1000-South Bronx, two-bedroom apartment, I contributed $200/month toward their rent, bringing their equal portions to $400/month each, and I took it upon myself to keep toilet paper, paper towels and other "communal items" fully stocked over the three months I stayed there).
9) The Mooch once tried to pretend that she didn't know we were out of trash bags, even though someone had emptied the trash can half way to make more room instead of buying more trash bags (and my roommate told me that she had not touched the trash). The Mooch also often acted like she didn't have to buy more toilet paper because she bought the "last round". She'd rather substitute travel tissue paper, napkins and paper towels while waiting for me or my roommate to get the next round of TP, which always made me want to scream, "Dude! You live here rent free! We shouldn't be taking turns buying the toilet paper; you should always buy it!" But I didn't.
10) My roommate and I are enabling The Mooch to have no sense of urgency to find permanent, full-time employment, to have no need to pick up a second part-time job after finally obtaining a full-time job with a low salary in late-May, and to take a week of unpaid leave from said low-salary employment to go on vacation with her boyfriend to Aruba in June. Rather than help her develop into a proud, independent New Yorker, we allow her to spend her money frivolously instead of paying a fair portion of the rent. Meanwhile my roommate and I continue to make careful decisions and sacrifices in order to sustain our lives in New York City. We are enabling The Mooch to do things that most middle- and lower-income people cannot do when they first relocate to New York City.
11) The Mooch moved in with my roommate and I just six months after we began our $2500-month lease on West 51st Street. Just like the mutual friend in Harlem was within her rights to expect rent immediately from The Mooch upon her relocation from Arizona, we would have been within our rights to ask her to split our $3000-broker fee three ways and divide the monthly rent fairly between us. If we had known that The Mooch was going to end up staying over half a year (not to mention the $5000-security deposit and first and last month's rent that my roommate and I paid up front), we would have expected an equal contribution.
12) I was wrong for denigrating the mutual friend for wanting to charge The Mooch half the rent on her $1200-Harlem studio.
13) I am a coward for blogging about this instead of telling The Mooch how I really feel.

Things The Mooch Does Not Know That We Know
1) The Mooch, who relocated from Arizona, is using my roommate and I to live closer to her boyfriend, who lives with his parents in Long Island. She doesn't want to contribute financially to our current living situation because she wants to save money while waiting for him to be ready to move into an apartment with her. So she is using us to be closer to him and foster their relationship until he is ready for cohabitation.
2) When The Mooch goes shopping with another mutual friend, that mutual friend reports back that The Mooch throws away her receipts, shopping bags and boxes and hides her new purchases in a large purse or tote bag because she doesn't want my roommate and I to know she has been shopping.
3) After searching craigslist job postings for about 20 minutes a day, she walked leisurely around the city throughout most of the spring months, with Starbucks coffee in hand, accompanied by the same mutual friend mentioned in #2 - instead of visiting more temp agencies, going door to door with her resume, and looking for jobs (however, she knows that we know not to even ask her to consider the food service industry even though we live in the heart of Hell's Kitchen and mere steps from the plethora of restaurants on Ninth Avenue).
4) The Mooch bought her boyfriend a $350-camera for his recent birthday, but led us to believe that she could only afford to bake him a cake.
5) The Mooch had just learned of her boyfriend's disloyal indiscretions a few weeks prior to his birthday - thus proving that she'd rather buy her cheating boyfriend a present than pay rent to her more-than-generous friends.
6) We were willing to do more for The Mooch than her own family was willing (case in point: her own brother and his new wife live on the Upper East Side and would not have allowed her to crash with them for half a year, rent-free).
7) The Mooch doesn't want to live in New York City. She wants to be a merry, little housewife, and her current boyfriend is the best - and maybe only - shot she'll ever have at achieving her marital, baby-making dreams.*
8) People who really want to succeed in New York City are willing to wait tables or fold T-shirts in a GAP or do whatever it takes to be self-sufficient. She is not one of those people. She shamelessly continues to take advantage of a generous living situation despite the fact that I am making it clear that she has worn out her welcome.

To be fair, The Mooch is relatively easy to live with. She is clean, she didn't often leave her stuff all over the apartment (though I often tidy up after her), and she is generally friendly. However, I initially became irritated when my roommate expressed her frustration to me regarding The Mooch's response to a possible receptionist position at the engineering firm where my roommate is an executive assistant: "I didn't move to New York City to be a receptionist." And I further lost my patience with our living arrangement when we asked The Mooch to begin paying $300/month on June 1 and she replied that she would rather pay $200.

To continue fairly noting the occurrence of events, The Mooch did end up taking the receptionist position at the end of May 2009, but not without some strong encouragement from my roommate. And The Mooch did begin paying $300/month on June 1 after I made it clear that it was not negotiable. But to be completely blunt, I don't know how The Mooch failed her NY teacher's licensing exams this month when she has supposedly been studying for the last six months - sans the responsibilities and long hours associated with full-time, or even part-time, employment. Maybe she should have spent less time walking leisurely around the city with Starbucks coffee.

I don't know what to do even though I know what I need to do. But even though she has it in her heart to completely take advantage of our generosity - and potentially permanently tarnish her close friendship with my roommate - I don't have the heart to tell her that I think she's a puerile, manipulative, indolent sloth - to put it lightly.

Help!

Dear Abby ... [sigh]

*No offense to current baby-makers; I totally want to be a baby-maker one day, but I refuse to use my current so-called friends in order to achieve my eventual, long-term dream of family life. Or step on my friends for any other reason, for that matter.

Looking in the Mirror

It was pointed out to me in comment on a post dated June 1, that my blog used to be interesting but has become lame. The comment certainly did not send me spiraling into depression. I did get out of bed the next day without a second thought of it until I later signed into my Blogger account. To be honest, I was surprised that someone actually followed my blog long enough to have had an opinion of when it was good.

However, being one who never shies from self-introspection, the comment made me wonder if my life had, in fact, become lame. Rather than be offended, I took it as an opportunity to explore what my blog was becoming ... since my blog is ultimately a reflection of what I was becoming.

This blog is written primarily for me with the intention that my older self will be the main audience. My motivation behind the blog was never to gain Internet fame or to garnish a book deal. It has served its purpose of documenting my own transition from North Carolina to New York City and the subsequent day-to-days. So I have no apologies that I want to remember what my body looked like at 29 or the sight of my friends enjoying a day on a Long Island beach.

But if someone in cyberspace cared enough to offer a critique on the alleged progressive lameness of my blog, I had to at least be willing to take a look in the mirror and see if it was because I was losing my motivation to effectively document the world around me … or if my life was indeed becoming lame. And maybe it had.

I had been too busy trying to keep up with life in NYC to actually blog regularly about it. I guess I was no longer just an observer. I have been shamelessly backdating posts (which will continue through my last official post dated July 1, 2009) because I'm often too tired from long hours in the office or the night club. I've had too much going on at work to use lunch hours to people-watch some 20-odd floors below in Bryant Park. I use my Sundays to recuperate instead of taking my beloved city walks. And even deeper than that (or maybe shallower), I was surrounded by namedroppers, who revered night club promoters as if they were Gods, and arranged their social calendars around celebrity birthdays and music album release dates. I was beginning to covet designer exclusives and embrace materialistic ideals. Regardless of what any random reader thought about me, I was beginning to dislike what I saw in the mirror.

Anonymous’s June 1st post comment did not ignite my need to rediscover my true values, but it reaffirmed a slow change within myself that had already begun – though a little less consciously. In preceding months, I was becoming bored with the New York nightlife scene. All the things that were so exciting before were losing their luster. I was partying less and exercising more, giving up alcohol (though not entirely), much to the seemingly utter dispair of several friends. I was eating better and reading up on politics and personal finance. I even opened some mutual funds. And having achieved my goal of establishing a life in New York City by my New Year's Eve 2007 deadline (e.g. rent an apartment, secure employment, make friends to brunch with) - and having survived over the last three years, it is time for a new initiative as my 30th birthday approaches in January of 2010 and a new blog that will likely shed my cyber anonymity since everyone I care about already knows about this one anyway.

I’ll still spend the next few months, wrapping up “Becoming a New Yorker” with the continual shameless backdating of posts until the blog is complete on its previously intended end date of July 1, 2009 - the third anniversary of my first post. Backdating can’t be worse than leaving a blog unfinished altogether, I suppose. I can't say that I'll be able to suppress my new love for designer handbags. As shallow as it sounds, walking to work in Manhattan in a trendy outfit and designer bag in tow makes me feel good about not having spent my 20s having babies.

Regardless of the positive changes I succeed in making or the negative ones I knowingly choose to ignore ... in the end, I will have a record of my first three years in New York City – of my life … the good, the bad, the ugly, and even the boring … of becoming a New Yorker.

Hotpads' Rent vs Buy Heat Maps

Gotta love Thrillist New York for its colorful, politically-incorrect, slightly offensive yet always hilarious summaries of all things New York. In a simultaneous renter's and buyer's marketed created by Fannie and Freddie - if they didn't take you under with them, Thrillist New York has reviewed a handy tool:

New York's high-priced housing presents a conundrum: start mailing hefty mortgage payments to a bank, or resign yourself to abetting your Ukrainian landlord's enviable lifestyle of hookers and kasha. Pick your poison with Hotpads' Rent vs. Buy Heat Maps.

A new, financially dispiriting tool from an established rental site, HP's maps counsel whether you should rent or buy via color-coded hoods: from light blue for steal-worthy purchasing opps (Jersey City, Forest Hills), to green for market average (Murray Hill, UES), to red for rent-worthy digs, e.g., SoHo and West Village (Manhattan's gated clubdivision). The site's calcs are automatically done via esoteric math wizardry, i.e., avg cost of ownership / estimated annual rent -- a formula that's confounded many a couch-surfer's TI81. To further assist your hopeless quest for shelter, HP plots icons for thousands of current listings, each clickable for photos and details, which even include moving solutions and storage units (there's an affordable option for you).

HP also provides additional real estate heat maps, like Household Income, Foreclosures per Household, and Median Age, thus illuminating another conundrum: how to get into the low-priced hood beset by a cabal of rent-control beneficiaries who just. Won't. Die.

See your options unfurled at HotPads.com

All in My Head

There are two dates that strike a nerve with me every year: June 7 is the day Rickey was born; August 3 is the day he died.

I was reading the tweets of loved ones & strangers who recently lost a friend of theirs. In times of tragedy and loss, I'm always struck by how life goes on. I perused their tweets about missing their friend and their seemingly cheerful and unrelated daily goings-on within spans of less than 24 hours ... I suppose it all goes on for all of us at one time or another. And it will again.

But when will I stop trying to make connections out of coincidences?

I needed today to be a good day. And it was ... outside of my head.

City of Perspectives

When I think of evolution, I think of birds and dinosaurs, prehistoric man and opposable thumbs. I don’t often apply the theories of evolution to everyday life or my progression through age. But I was struck yesterday by the notion of a constantly transforming New York City as I dipped out of my apartment building in Hell’s Kitchen and trotted down the front steps.

New York City is a very different city to a variety of people. I blogged about my relocation from Harlem to Hell’s Kitchen last year and was amazed by how the landscape of the city transformed within a mere six miles. Of course, there are the obvious and beautiful surface-level ethnic differences. Anyone can witness them by venturing from Chinatown to Little Italy to Harlem. There is the New York City for the native, the transplant and the tourist. But there are deeper levels of constant transformation that took me three years to consider or even notice.

There is the New York City of the train commuters, the ones who can often tell which stop is next – not by the conductor’s announcements – but by the bends and curves of the subway tracks, by the segments under seemingly constant construction or by the barely visible graffiti along the tunnels. They know where to wait on the platform so that they can exit the train near a stairway to the street or a connection.

There is the New York City of the pedestrians, which I became when I moved to a walk-up in Hell’s Kitchen with a 10-block commute to a Midtown office building. We are the ones who would rather walk 30 blocks than wait for a train or bus. We know where the shortcuts are between streets – for example, one could cut through buildings from W 50th Street down to W 46th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues and grab a coffee in the tunnel between W 47th and 48th, across from the old studio for The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet.

There is the New York City of drivers, the ones who know the parking rules and which avenues and streets to avoid during rush hour. I became cogitatively aware of this difference yesterday when I trotted down the front steps of my apartment building and was stopped by a man who was trying to figure out the parking rules on my street. I realized that though I have lived on this street for over a year, I had no idea how long he could park outside of my building nor did I have any insider information on the best parking in the area. I couldn’t imagine how different my street might look from behind the wheel of a car. And the backseat of a taxicab does not count.

There is the New York City of the financially elite, who live and work in the upper altitudes of the Manhattan skyline. Their perspective dwells at a birds' eye view and through the back seat of a sleek black sedan or limousine.

Many New Yorkers can transition between any of the above at any given time, but just as many are partial to one particular form of transportation - which ultimately designates the New York City they know. It seems to be a trivial point to debate, but the mode of transportation one uses to get around the city probably forms their versions of New York City more than anything else. Everything influences the mode - residence, career, money, lifestyle. All determine how we interact with the city and thus determine our perspectives.

New York City is a landscape of evolution from its skyline to its culture, but the most personal evolution of all is the New York City of perspective.

ShopNYC - Episode 1

I am so excited about Natasha's first episode of ShopNYC!

Read more on Natasha's ShopNYCTours blog.

A Year Ago Today: Sex and the City: The Movie ... Life and the City: The Reality
Two Years Ago Today: Phone Photo Ops - Date Night

Photo Ops - Long Beach, NY

The view over my shoulder.


And the view to my right.


A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today: Once in a Blue Moon

"Things I Love" Thursdays - Side Walk Flower Stands

I love walking by sidewalk flower shops in Manhattan. It's like aromatherapy in the streets.

"Things I Love" Thursdays are inspired by "I Love New York" (BNY, February 14, 2007).

A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today:
Memorial Weekend Highlights
Sunday Mornings in Manhattan

The Return of Fleet Week

From the web pages of East Village Idiot - So funny that I've had to repost it or link to it every year during Fleet Week. I have to say that I continue to be disappointed each year that sailors aren't swarming the streets in the abundance portrayed on an episode of "Sex and the City," but men in firefighter gear continue to have a similar effect.

Without further ado is the warning issued on May 24, 2007, by the East Village Idiot:

Men of New York City,

For the next seven days, you will have a mortal enemy. He is desperate to get laid. In a head-to-head battle, he will always get the girl. You will spend months trying to get into a woman’s pants, and he will get into them in one night. You will wear your very best designer clothing to impress a woman, and your enemy, in his standard-issue polyester uniform, will take that woman home. You will meekly suggest going back to her place, and she will laugh. He’ll suggest the same thing, and she will graciously accept, and perhaps even offer to pay cab fare. You will wonder what consequences come with taking a woman home, like how long you have to wait to call her back after that night. Your enemy won’t even be in New York in a week, or a month, or perhaps a year. He’ll be out at sea, somewhere far, far away.

Gentlemen, this is your enemy:


Beware Fleet Week. He may be a mere Seaman on the open waters, but for the next seven days, he is the Captain of the Civilian Cockblock.

And SUBWAYblogger also made an announcement that same day in 2007: Hide your daughters: It's Fleet Week

A Year Ago Today:
Myths & the City
Real Estate LOL - Toilet & Shower Rooms
Two Years Ago Today:
Naval Warfare (as blogged by Chris, a.k.a. the East Village Idiot)
Phone Photo Ops - Beerpong, BBQs and Booths

Memorial Day Weekend in ATL

I went, I ate, I shot moonshine.

Back in New York City.
Summer trip #1 of 4 completed (Atlanta, GA).
Next up: Turks and Caicos over the 4th of July weekend.

A Year Ago Today: Unforgettable Day Weekend
Two Years Ago Today: No post

Phone Photo Op - In Production

You're more likely in New York City to use your lunch break to get your chipped pedicure fixed at NY Nature Spa on West 41st Street (yesterday) and notice this signage outside of Arena ... unless MTV happens to be filming a True Life episode of "I'm an Objectum-Sexual" in your hometown.


Side note: If men knew the extent of our maintenance - waxing, shaving, trimming, dyeing, filing, polishing - they'd always have dinner ready and waiting for us.

A Year Ago Today: "Things I Love" Thursdays - Dog Parks
Two Years Ago Today: No post

"Things I Love" Thursdays - City Lights

I love the view of the Time Warner Center from my bedroom window less than ten blocks away. I lay in bed at night and stare at the high rise lights until I fall asleep. It makes me feel like such a New Yorker within my exposed brick walls, looking through the bars of my fire escape.

Often, as I lay there, I notice random lights turn on and off in various buildings. Sometimes I spy a shadow passing by windows and I'm curious about the hundreds - and thousands - of separate lives living around me in the skyscrapers of Midtown. It's one way to humble yourself and make your own problems seem a little less significant. That - or look at images of outer space from the Hubble Telescope.

And often, as I lay there, I notice lights continually going on and off in the Hearst Magazine Building. It's home to the offices of popular monthly periodicals, such as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, O Magazine, Seventeen and Redbook ... and I think it's haunted. I'm sure there is a logical - perhaps environmentally friendly - reason why entire floors of lights turn off and then turn back on seconds - or minutes - later. Sometimes it's a single room of lights. Other times it's the row of a whole floor. And even more dramatically, several floors will go dark before relighting. Perhaps it's a nighttime electrical glitch, but it makes my evening wind-down more exciting to believe that it's haunted.

I imagine myself going to the doorman one day - a tall, intimidating and bald man perhaps similar to the hero in "The Shining" - and asking probing questions regarding the nighttime electrical activity of the building. And then the stereotypical response of a person of color warning the curious White (or half White, in my case) person to stop investigating paranormal activities that ultimately lead them to horrific ends: "If I were you, I'd stopping asking about those blinking lights."

If you work for Con Edison and know the reason, please don't email me. I like my (il)logic better.

A Year Ago Today: Real Estate LOL - No Bathtub in the Bathroom
Two Years Ago Today:
1300-Mile Walk of Shame
Phone Photo Ops - M.I.A. in the MIA

Phone Photo Op - Wienermobile

I walked by this on my way to the office ...

... and had this song in my head for the rest of the day:
Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener
because that's what I really want to be.
For if I were an Oscar Meyer wiener
everybody'd be in love with me.

A Year Ago Today:R-E-N-T
Two Years Ago Today: No post

Neighborhood Gem - Sweet Emily's

Terrence (back from the BJ League on his first visit during the off-season) and I discovered an adorable, below-street-level restaurant in my neighborhood with a menu so enticing that you need one or two rounds of drinks to decide what you want to eat.

Sweet Emily's is run by Emily and her husband (and head chef) on West 51st Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. With its warm decor, flavorful plates and low prices, it is a new personal favorite among the Hell's Kitchen diamonds. Take advantage of reservation-less dining now before a feature in Time Out New York or a Zagat review change it from a local secret to a tourist headliner ... like Roberto Passon's once quiet brunches. But the city couldn't keep Roberto's $8 all-you-can-drink bellinis, bloody marys, mimosas and screwdrivers a secret for long.

POST UPDATE:
Oops. Too late: What to Eat at Sweet Emily's, Bringing Comfort to Midtown on Saturday

A Year Ago Today:Real Estate LOL - "Separate" Kitchens
Two Years Ago Today:Six Stiches of Separation

Phone Photo Op - Police Pony Ponderings

Yesterday while walking home from work along Sixth Avenue, I watched a police officer write a parking ticket on horseback.

And I momentarily stopped pondering quadratic equations and the global economic impact on farm subsidy programs - which accurately reflect the depth and breadth of my daily thoughts while walking in the streets of Manhattan - and wondered who cleans up the manure when a police horse shits on the street?

A Year Ago Today: "Things I Love" Thursdays - My Friends (Again)
Two Years Ago Today:
Cyber Relating
Phone Photo Ops - Lunch in the Park

"Things I Love" Thursday - The Foods of New York

The Foods of New York on NBC's Today Show

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

"Things I Love" Thursdays are inspired by "I Love New York" (BNY, February 14, 2007).

A Year Ago Today: Nightlife Highlights of Late
Two Years Ago Today:
Phone Photo Ops - Subway Performers
BNY Updates

Phone Photo Op - Their Job is So Much Cooler

While walking to work the other day, I saw "Good Morning America" news anchors bouncing on trampolines in Times Square; two blocks away, I got to answer phones, schedule meetings, create spreadsheets and process data charts.


A Year Ago Today:
Phone Photo Ops - End of East Village Servitude
Creating Coincidences
Reviving my Greek Life
Two Years Ago Today: No post

Over It

Straight to the front of the line, hugs and kisses with the bouncer, private escort through the back, free Goose and Moet for my girls, and I - instead - downed water all night like it cost $300 a bottle.

Modest NBA Player [over loud club music]: I live in Miami.
Me: Nice. Born and raised in Miami?
Modest NBA Player: I play ball.
Me: No, I didn't ask what you do. I asked if you were born and raised there.

I think I'm starting to feel my age.

However, sundresses, champagne, sushi and snacks in Central Park this afternoon were just my style!


A Year Ago Today: The Latest Congestion Pricing Strategy
Two Years Ago Today:
Phone Photo Ops - Company Roofdeck
It's Second Guess Thursday!

KFC Sit-In

I can always count on my fellow citizens of New York City to demand chicken consumption equality for all.
Oprah's Free Chicken Leads to Long Lines, Sit-In
KFC Stores Mobbed by Coupon Holders Looking for Free Meal, Anger at NYC Shop

A Year Ago Today: "Things I Love" Thursdays - May Flowers
Two Years Ago Today:
Alternatives to Previous Norms
Phone Photo Ops - Walking to Work

More Middle-Class New Yorkers Face Eviction

Once ‘Very Good Rent Payers’ Now Facing Eviction
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
Published: May 4, 2009
More of the city’s middle-class tenants, their jobs gone, are falling behind on rent, straining legal and financial services once used mostly by lower-income New Yorkers.
Read More

"It’s kind of dehumanizing. They see you as a certain kind of person. We’ve never been that certain kind of person."
KEVIN BREWSTER-STREEKS, who, with his partner, was forced to leave his Bronx apartment after owing $7,000 in back rent.

A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today:
City Walk #6 - Midtown East
Phone Photo Ops - City Walk #6
Phone Photo Ops - Street Trees

One Degree from Michelle Obama

Texts you're more likely to receive living in New York City (or Washington, DC): I'm at the time warner center wrking the first lady till 10pm (sent by my secret service buddy).

Thoughts you're more likely to have living in New York City: OMG. The First Lady is at the Time Warner Center - less than 10 blocks from my apartment!

A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today: Subway Talk

In the Wake of Tough Love

Partied with our girl Natasha (and her adorable new beau) and her friend Abiola at the "Tough Love" Season Finale Charity Soiree last night at The 40/40 Club. I'm sure there are photos online somewhere.

In the meantime, check out Natasha's new Shop NYC Tour blog, where she dishes about her company, ShopNYC Tours. Whether guiding tourists or locals, shopping vintage or high fashion or visiting the East Village or Meatpacking, you'll hear about the best shopping NYC has to offer.

For more information about New York City shopping tours, visit www.shop-nyctours.com.

Other irrelevant reports of the day: My boss sat next to James Worthy on a flight from JFK to LAX today. If you, like me, are not an avid basketball fan ... you may need Wikipedia or a basketball-savvy boyfriend to find out.

A Year Ago Today:
Brunching and Walking on a Sunday Afternoon
City Walk #19 - Upper West Side 4: Church and Gown
Phone Photo Ops - City Walk #19
Two Years Ago Today: No post

Who's That Girl?

It was a warm day in May. Jessica was nonchalantly flipping through a magazine in an Atlanta parking lot. Apparently Walter was taking his time in the local fresh market. A tiny bead of sweat formed above her furrowed brow. Impatiently, she turned another page, and there in the "What they were wearing" section ... a familiar face ...

That's not how it really happened. We had actually been tipped off that she was in it ... but that's how we like to tell it. I mean, it's not every day that your best friend is 8x10" in a national magazine.
Today's Black Woman

A Year Ago Today: Phone Photo Op - Disappearing Acts
Real Estate LOL - Embracing the College-Dorm-Life for Life
Colleague Convo - Shoe-In Kitchens
Two Years Ago Today: Phone Photo Ops - Through Windows

TGIF

Welcome to the weekend!

That's damn right.

Taken outside of the House of Brews on West 51st Street and Eighth Avenue.

A Year Ago Today:

The Texts You Receive in New York

"Things I Love" Thursdays - Street Vendor Regulars

Two Years Ago Today: A Garden Grows in Harlem

Remembering Aprils

As with previous months, the responsibilities of my expanded job position and ups and downs in my personal life have prevented me from blogging as regularly throughout April as I would have liked. Thus, affecting my Year Three in Preview, where "posts of present accounts of being will end with 'a year ago- and two years ago- today' links to the past of becoming until the third year comes full circle and the 'Becoming a New Yorker' blogtale is complete."

So here is a year ago this month and two years ago this month for April:
April 2008
April 2007

Attack of the Swine Flu!!!

... Oh never mind. It's just a sore throat.

Facebook maps swine flu hysteria

A Year Ago Today:
My First Pair of Valentinos
Phone Photo Ops - Valentino
Two Years Ago Today: Indiscriminate Sunday: Societal Service, Cat-Sitting Cash & Tradition Choices (in Random Order)

Downtown, We Have [No] Problem

NYTimes.com Quotation of the Day:
"First thing is, I’m annoyed — furious is a better word — that I wasn’t told."
- MAYOR MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG, after a plane normally used as Air Force One and two fighter jets flew over Lower Manhattan.

I heard about this the next day from someone in Georgia, but I'm sure I would have been concerned, too, if I had seen a low-flying Boeing 747 speeding in the shadows of skyscrapers and trailed by two fighter jets.
Read More
Not a quote of the day, week or month. Just of whenever. Until the next quote that moves me.

A Year Ago Today: What Do Guacamole, Brisé volé, and Hookah Have in Common?
Two Years Ago Today:
West Side's Tale of Whoa
Phone Photo Ops - Horseback Riding in the City

Happy Administrative Professionals' Day

... to me!

A gift card to Sephora and Starbucks from my bosses.
April 22, 2009 was definitely better than April 22, 2008.

Company name and logo blacked out to protect confidentiality agreements signed at the start of my employment.

A Year Ago Today: My First NYC Emergency Room Visit
Two Years Ago Today:
City Walk #5 - Lower East Side 1
Phone Photo Ops - City Walk #5