Last night was my first night alone in my new apartment. After helping me move into my new place on Broadway, Terrence stayed a week and helped me with the cleaning, the shopping and the other new housekeeping tasks. He flew out of La Guardia yesterday and returned to Atlanta, and I went back to a very quiet - and suddenly lonely - new home. I heated up some leftover Chinese food, sat on my air mattress and opened some mail. It felt so great to see my new address in writing, but the ripping sound the envelopes made as I opened them echoed off the walls and had never seemed so loud. No furniture, no cable, and I'm stealing wireless Internet from a neighbor until Time Warner arrives on Saturday.
I ate my food in silence then leaned against the wall. As I looked around my new space, I tried to picture what it would look like once I have furniture and decor. There is still a laundry list of things wrong with it (by anywhere-else-in-the-US standards), but it's really quite nice (by the Big Apple's standards) - in fact, it was the nicest I saw within my modest price range.
I've been exchanging quirky and often hilarious stories with coworkers about first New York City apartments. What you aren't willing to put up with ... someone else is ... and will pay double. The result is a mediocre living condition due to the high demand created by 8 million people seeking a cut of approximately 321 square miles.
When New York City hands you lemons, try to avoid the brokers fee, patch up what the landlord won't, throw some paint on the walls, and be thankful that you're no longer sleeping in your best friend's living room. I'm telling you, turning the key in the lock of a door never sounded so sweet as when I first opened my own door in the most densely populated major city in North America.
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