A Synthesis

The Chamber Street JMZ station usually smells like the inside of an ice-skating rink warming house in mid-July, like mildew and urine. Yesterday they hosed it down with bleach. While this didn’t necessarily get rid of the previous stench, the odors intertwined into a new potpourri. Now it smells like a public pool locker room.

No. What you’ve been is not on a boat…

Lately I’ve found myself feeling a little down when I finally get home from work. It has nothing to do with the work, which I generally enjoy despite not being paid for it (while an internship may not be a job, it is still most definitely work). It has nothing to do with anything, really. Or rather (to pull a Stoppard) it has everything to do with nothing.

It’s just like: “Okay, I’m home…

…what do I do now?”

Let it be known:

As of three o’clock in the afternoon Eastern Standard Time on Saturday of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in the year of our Lord two-thousand and six, I will receive a key to a room in an apartment in a building in a respectably ungentrified neighborhood a little East of Williamsburg, a little West of Bed-Stuy in the borough of Brooklyn in the fair city of New York, and I will call it “home.”

If I can make it here…

I realize I haven’t written a lot lately; I’ve been keeping busy and kind of living day-to-day without having much time to reflect on it. I’ve got stories (about friendship, working, networking, interning, couch-surfing, money-burning, date-earning and generally learning) but they’ll likely have to wait until I’m a little more settled here, which I am decidedly not at the moment.

New York? You’re soaking in it!

During a way later night counting votes at the A.P. than I had anticipated and coming down with a scratchy throat, Lady says: “Way to be a trooper, kid. Come in tomorrow an hour later than I previously told you.”
Delirious with exhaustion, set alarm on cell phone, crash in friend’s living room around 5 am.
Wake up; alarm on cell phone still set on silent/vibrate from previous night. 9:45 am Have 15 minutes to get to midtown from Brooklyn. I’m going to be late. And *cough*; I’m sick.
Get belongings together in a hurry, throw last night’s clothes in a bag, call Lady as I’m heading out the door to let her know I’m running behind. No response. And it’s raining.
Fuck.
Run to subway, while continuing to try calling Lady. Step in ankledeep streetpuddle.
Make it to station, soaked, sneezing. Lady finally picks up phone. Explain situation quickly, that I’m en route but running behind.
Lady says fogeddaboutit, just go home.
Say, well, I’m already en route and would be happy to come in and offer my help if it’s still needed. Say I really mean it, need the work, give her my cell number to show I do, say call if they end up needing help.
Lady says no, I’m not really needed, fogeddaboutit, really just go home.
Turn around to leave station, realize I don’t have one. Watch the rain from the subway stairwell for a minute.
Walk down avenue to look for a place to dry off. Bag of now soggy clothes snaps.
Run into coffee shop to warm up and to use my recently earned off-day to look for more work and an apartment.