very simple

I spent over 12 hours today unpacking and cleaning my new apartment. And I’m not done yet.

It was apparently over 100 degrees today in the city, which would explain why I wanted to cry when I had to walk all of two blocks to the Radio Shack to pick up some adaptors. At one point, I thought I had (in my delirium) accidentally stood on top of one of those steam grates, that blows hot air on you. And then I realized that, no, it was just the air.

Tomorrow I’ll head back over for another round of cleaning – now that I’ve gotten rid of a ton of boxes (other than a few miscellaneous things, I’ve unpacked just about everything but books) I can maneuver. I did save the "best" for last though – tomorrow I get to clean the bathroom…

And the cable got hooked up today, which was great – the service guy was actually awesome – it turned out that the wire running from the hallway into my apartment was completely frayed, and instead of making me wait for a "construction" rep, he just fixed it himself. Which took quite a bit of effort, thanks to the fact that the hole through the wall was bizarrely dug – the hole in the hallway was actually about six inches above the one inside my apartment, meaning that we spent almost two hours trying to snake various objects through what was essentially an "s" curve (for some bizarre reason the "canal" dipped down first before it snaked back up) in order to pull the cable through (i’d need Board permission to do anything else). And when I say "we", I actually mean "we". Both of us on stepladders, on either side of the doorway, with wire coathangers, kitchen knives, screwdrivers and various other miscellaney. The coathanger was the thing that worked.

Anyway, I’m now completely wiped out. I just took the longest shower in history and I can still barely walk. I keep thinking that this was easier when I moved to the city six years ago, and then I remember that…

…I was six years younger then…
…I didn’t renovate anything…
…I was renting a shoebox…
…oh yeah, and the bulk of my worldly possessions consisted of a mattress, a tv, a futon couch and a beanbag chair.

I suppose I deserve this for deciding to buy "real" furniture rather than crap from Ikea when I decided to upgrade…

and I have too many books.

Pictures soon – I swear!!

really really late edition…

• People are freaking out about the crazy weather in the midwest, but I distinctly remember that it snowed well into May back when I was in college in Buffalo. Why do I remember this? Because I had to warn my parents before they drove up for my mid-May graduation that they needed to bring snow-appropriate clothing. (Mon Apr 25 2005 3:56 PM)
• I’ve got less than 48 hours to go until my closing, so can someone explain to me why I felt compelled to read this horrible article about closing disasters? (Mon Apr 25 2005 3:17 PM)
• Man. Posting a ranty rant on my blog just seems so lame compared to one woman’s actions after a bad haircut (Fri Apr 22 2005 4:10 PM)
• So I started reading GwenWorld recently, and she seriously rocks. (Thu Apr 21 2005 3:26 PM)
• My apologies for the lack of updates. Between the beautiful weather and my apartment-buying/renovating fixation, I’ve spent quite a bit less time on the internet than I normally do. (Mon Apr 18 2005 2:08 PM)

This weekend was one of those supremely awesome weekends – yesterday in the 60s and today in the 70s, no humidity, and real sun. It’s one of those weekends which, after a crappy northeastern winter, really makes you feel alive again. Yesterday I spent the day at Ikea with my best friend from high school, where we obsessed alternately, over my possible kitchen layouts and her newly announced pregnancy. Since she moved up the ‘burbs with her husband, we don’t see each other as much as we used to (particularly not as much as when she lived 2 blocks from my office – it was a lot easier to drop in for dinner back in those days), and it was just really great to spend an entire day with her, driving with the sunroof open, with happy things to discuss.

Today, I spent the day with my dad, obsessing some more about the kitchen layout, debating which cabinets to buy and where to find appliances in miniature – my new kitchen is going to be extremely tiny – it’s a separate room, but the entire room is only 35 square feet and currently doesn’t have any counter space – right now it’s a 23" refrigerator next to an enourmous double basin porcelain sink next to a 20" stove. It’s pretty old school, and I’ve become somewhat obsessed about how to move things around to make it more practical. Oh, and I got to see my dad and stepmom’s new place again – they’re moving in in three weeks, and it’s almost complete. It’s pretty gorgeous. Of course, their living room is bigger than my entire current apartment, so it inspires a bit of jealousy as well. But the best part of the day was wandering around the Upper West Side, eating lunch at an outdoor table and actually getting so warm that I had to tie my jacket around my waist. Tomorrow it should be miserable, so I’m glad I got to enjoy it.

My brother e-mailed me yesterday to tell me that I wasn’t updating my blog enough. I suppose it’s too late to make this thing anonymous…

I thought about posting some amusing story from our childhood that would have embarassed him, but then common sense kicked in, and I remembered that I stopped intentionally trying to humiliate him around the time he got taller than me.

The weather around here has been absolutely dreary, so there’s not a lot to photograph. I’m not writing anything (more) on that thing that everyone else keeps talking about. And I’m waiting for the field to narrow a bit before I delve into politics again, with the NYC Mayoral race up next (I know I’m going to lose all sorts of liberal cred for this one, but for all of his faults, I kind of like Bloomberg, faux republican that he is. He’s just so…pragmatic, which in the long run seems to be more productive than being an ideologue).

Oh and the governor’s race too! I’m already getting e-mails from the "lawyers for Spitzer" campaign (which apparently got the mailing list from the lawyers for Kerry campaign), and while I like the guy, I think it’s a little too early to throw my support behind only one of the 2700 democratic nominees.

So here’s some completely random, sort of non-political stuff that I’ve been reading about lately.

First, plants that can apparently fix their own genetic deformities (warning, the article makes mention of evolution, so if you’re one of these people, don’t click on the link lest it offend your delicate sensibilities).

Second, take a look at the most obviously skewed bar graph that I’ve ever seen on a "legitimate" news site. I mean, really. The very first day of my statistical political science class back in college, we were specifically told to never, ever, present information this way. What’s really amazing is just how obvious it is…

and Third, and absolutely most frivolously, apparently some people are up in arms about about the Gap dropping SJP from it’s ad campaign. which is funny, because she was quite possibly the most annoying character on SATC, and most "regular" women really can’t relate to a spokesperson who reportedly needs to "take in" her size 0 clothing. And I don’t know anyone who liked those commercials ("I enjoy being a girl?" please. I enjoy being able to find inexpensive work-appropriate clothing that fits without being patronized to by a horse-faced, infantalized, anorexic 40-year old). Oh, and Gap sales keep falling, so perhaps spending $38 million to essentially feed one person’s ego wasn’t the best use of funds.

Now I’m going back to nurse my migraine some more.

It was an unseasonably warm day today in the city, and I’m glad I made it out of my apartment to see it. It reached the mid-50s (which was a refreshing change from the sub-zero blizzard weather a few weeks ago). Tomorrow is also the final day of sales tax free week, which is the most awesomest week of the year around here (or two weeks – there’s usually another one around labor day). I hit the sporting goods store to pick up a few things I need to go skiing at the end of the month (visiting my brother in Vail for a few days) and between the sale and the no tax, I probably spent half what I would have on any other day. Love that!

Of course, my radiator-heated apartment (building controlled) doesn’t realize how warm it is, so I had to actually turn on my A/C to counteract the overwhelming heat in my apartment. Still can’t open the windows because of the neverending construction next door. Lately it seems to involve constant use of a blowtorch.

Apparently there’s a really big football game tomorrow, and despite my overwhelming indifference to the sport, I’ve managed to get invited to two parties. My best friend from high school is having folks up to her house in Westchester, and regardless of how nice it would be to see her family, I can’t see myself spending an hour on the train to watch commercials (because really, I’m not going up for the game). A friend from work who lives two blocks from the office is also having a party, and I may stop by there, if only because I have to go to work for at least a few hours tomorrow anyway – It’ll make the day go by much quicker if I know that free beer is waiting for me at the end of it.

It’s going to be just as nice out tomorrow, so I may even walk to the office…

Once it stopped snowing this morning, it got gorgeous out. Freezing, but gorgeous. I spent some time running errands, including buying (finally!) a humidifier for my apartment. It’s so dry with the radiator on that it’s like living in the desert. Only stuffy too. On my way around, I took a bunch of photos of the post-snow shenanigans. Some things I noticed today…

This is what the street already looked like only a half an hour after the snow started.

A caravan of city snowplows, none of them actually plowing the street.

For some reason, no one ever takes pictures of this side of the flatiron building.

One of the less well plowed streets.

This guy is going to have a hell of a time moving his car tomorrow.

A documentary I own has pointed this out before, but I can’t help loving it – one of the most amazing things about the grid plan in the City is that regardless of how close the buildings are to each other, you can stand at almost any intersection and see for miles.

[Update 2015] In an effort to reduce the number of holdover pages on the blog, I am slowly (very slowly) integrating these albums into the appropriate historical posts on the blog itself. As such, pictures are now directly below.

So this morning, after being woken up by my super (I knew it was going to happen – they were doing a scheduled changing of all of the locks in the building and I was still asleep at 10:45 when they started banging on my front door), I decided, since it hadn’t started snowing yet, to venture out to run some errands.

Part of this was driven by the fact that FreshDirect had cancelled my order (and all orders) due to impending weather, meaning that I needed to leave the house to buy milk, and I figured that I’d head over to Tekserve to pick up a copy of iLife.

Well, I left my apartment at 11:45 and it hadn’t started snowing yet – about 5 seconds later, the snow appeared. By the time I got home, an hour later, never going more than 5 blocks away from my apartment, there was a full inch of snow on the sidewalk and the snow was coming down so strongly that you had to walk with your head down. And my neighborhood grocery store looked a lot like this. But it’s nowhere near as nice as Fairway (hence the plan for a FD order).

It seems that after a relatively mild winter so far, Mother Nature is finally going to dump some snow on us. But apparently she’s also making up for lost time, by dumping, in the next 24 hours, all of the snow that we haven’t gotten in the past two months. What fun.

Oh, did I say fun?

I meant pain in the ass.

I don’t know if it’s better or worse that it’s going to be on the weekend. On the upside, I don’t have to leave my apartment for the entire weekend (I can even get DVDs delivered to my front door). On the downside, I probably won’t be leaving my apartment for the entire weekend. Part of me does want to get up in the morning and take pictures, because the city only gets blanketed in white very rarely. Sure it snows plenty, but between the salting and the traffic, it generally gets turned into a big brown slushy watery mess in a matter of hours. I just may have to brave it.

After a surprisingly pleasant late fall, winter finally arrived last night/this morning.

Walking home from the movie last night was certainly cold, and it had started snowing (first snow!), but I was quite shocked when I walked out of my building this morning (which wasn’t helped by the fact that I accidentally left my UGGs at work last week in order to attend of of the 103 work-related parties I have this season). It was bitterly cold. And it probably didn’t help that it was still in the 40s over the weekend. walking to the N/R/W train, which is only three blocks away, I started thinking of ways to cut my outdoor commute shorter (let’s see, I can take the 6, which is only half a block away, to 59th street, then switch to the N in the other direction…)

The flip side of my commute is always easy, as I can just get off the train at 49th street and walk through the labyrinth of underground tunnels that connect all of the buildings around Rockefeller Center – it’s pretty nifty, except for the fact that it closes at 6pm, meaning that I only get to take advantage in the morning.

I’m debating whether to attend another party tonight, this time it’s the NY Office party. Employees only, which means about 1000 people. It’s at Lincoln Center this year, because there aren’t a whole lot of spaces that can accomodate us. Last year it was at Madame Tussaud’s in Times Square, which was kind of cool because it’s the kind of place that I would never go to otherwise (Have I ever mentioned that I’ve lived in the NY area for my entire life, save college and law school, and I’ve never been to the Statue of Liberty?). One of these days I’m going to take a weekend and be a "tourist", and force myself to go do all of the things that I never do as a native…

After all my complaining a few weeks ago that adults don’t get snow days, today, we have a snow day (It’s like being the reverse of a psychic). I have a bunch of stuff to do, so I’m still going in, but it’s kind of neat nonetheless.