“Believe it or not, George isn’t at home. Please leave a messsaaaage at the beep. I must be out, or I’d pick up the phone– where could I be?”
30 August 2006We were all reared on Seinfeld and Friends, trained to believe that, once we moved to new york, we would lounge in massive downtown two bedrooms across the hall or up the stairs from our best friends, who were always ready to meet up at the local coffee shop to talk about snickers bars or mastering your own domain. Like everyone else who lives on this island, I’ve made a small career of pointing out NY-based real estate flaws in TV shows and movies. Talk to sara for a great rundown– I once met up with her as she came out of a screening for 13 Going On 30 in which her main complaint was “So she lives downtown, and she’s going to a party on wall street, and yet when the car picks her up they drive through Times Square. Curious.” Similarly, when I first saw Hitch with sorority-friend Tammi, all I could think about was “how does the female lead have THAT apartment on a 28 year old journalist’s salary?” I’m not looking for a lot, but I’d appreciate one or more throw-away lines to address things like this. Just a little “I’d move to get away from the cranky downstairs neighbor who bangs on the ceiling whenever I dare to walk across my carpeted floor in socks, but this place is rent controlled and in my grandmother’s name and if I move I’ll have to pay 450% more.” Or, when all of your friends magically wind up living within 10 feet of each other, just give me a little “I gave them an in with my broker.”
I’m currently nestled in Year 3 of residency in my apartment, officially making it my longest relationship to date. I love it as much as I did the day marie and I moved in, which is saying something, since I used to carry pictures of my apartment around instead of, say, photos of family members, and was frequently heard confessing my fears that I would never love a man as much as I love my apartment. I know I’m lucky to have it, which is interesting considering I write a 4-digit check every month for a place that allows Amy and I to set our calendars by its upkeep problems– Oh, did the bathroom ceiling cave in? Ah, must be November. The utility bill came in at $140? That reminds me, I have to buy my dad a birthday present. All my friends located south of the mason-dixon line are currently reading this and chuckling, thinking about their teeny mortgage payments on their 9 bedroom houses where their many dogs roam around and their garages for their cars and bikes. You bastards with your “space” and your “quality of life.” Try getting pad thai at 4 am. Or riding the subway dressed as a pirate. Can’t put a price on that, now, can ya. I’ll keep telling myself that.
I live in what could casually be described as a “starter apartment,” which does not, thankfully, mean that the toilet is on one side of the living room and the shower on another (which was the exact arrangement of one of the apartments marie and I looked at), but rather that there’s a lot of turnover in the building, and we’re constantly getting fresh sets of 22 year olds lugging Ikea furniture around in their Sigma Chi Derby Days 2005 Tshirts. These people generally stay for a year and then move out, to parts unknown. I don’t actually speak to any of them– God Forbid– but there are tell-tale signs, like when seasonally-themed decorations started showing up on the door of 2B or I stopped hearing the gently amorous rhythms from the apartment directly above me. When I stopped hearing the electric piano that used to play at odd hours of the night (the day he tried to teach himself James Blunt’s “Beautiful” was particularly rough) I had to assume that 3A had either moved, or sold out to the man and dropped his artistic aspirations. I’ve recently realized that, aside from an old woman who lives on the 2nd floor and, I’m sure, is thrilled about occasionally discovering Bud Light cans on the radiator inside the building door, there’s a good chance I’m the longest standing tenant in my 10 apartment building.
The other apartment on my floor is the one I should, I suppose, have the most contact with. Here’s what I know about the past residents:
Ryan The Poet: Moved in at about the same time as Marie and I and introduced himself after getting into a conversation with Marie about Time Warner cable. I’m convinced he had a crush on Marie because he went out of his way to describe his roommate as his “close friend.” When a now-former friend with a penchant for throwing herself at random dudes got her claws into Ryan a random walk to get ice cream, she was able to learn that he was getting his MFA in poetry, and posted his work on the internet. We celebrated this information by getting drunk and doing dramatic readings of it. Ryan moved after a year and was replaced by:
Danielle The Teacher, and her roommate The Other Teacher: Perky girls I could never tell apart that were NY Teaching Fellows or Teach For America kids who frequently wore their Delta Gamma shirts. Also vacated after a year.
I was expecting a new rotation of someone equally perky who would also stay here for a year before moving back home/ getting engaged, but instead I got something WAY better. I got sorority-friends/ book club-friends Tammi and Lindsay.
Let’s think about how awesome and yet unlikely this is. If I could do basic math I would work it out statistically– we didn’t use the same broker and I didn’t even know that apartment was available, so HOW did two of my close friends wind up there? I feel like the 4 of us should take a picture for the W&M alumni magazine or paint green and gold racing stripes down the hall. “Isn’t that going to be weird?” people have asked me. Weird, how? Weird like, maybe they don’t want to come home to find me sitting on their couch in my underwear watching their copy of the BBC Pride & Prejudice? Weird like, when I knock on their door at 3am and ask them to hide a bag containing a gun, a vegetable peeler, and 3 human teeth, they might hesitate a little before placing it in a ziplock baggie and stuffing it in their toilet tank?
No, it’s not going to be weird. It’s going to be Seinfeld with less ugly people and more space to party. I’m already working them over on the New Years Eve Floorplay party. It’s going to be epic.
2 Responses to ““Believe it or not, George isn’t at home. Please leave a messsaaaage at the beep. I must be out, or I’d pick up the phone– where could I be?””
August 31st, 2006 at 5:21 pm
You should totally send that in to the alumni magazine so that I will finally recognize someone’s name in the Class Notes section.
August 31st, 2006 at 5:34 pm
Yeah for an awesome 4th floor!