Yesterday was Day One in my new Manhattan life. Tuesday saw us drive in from Youngstown, OH, a day that started at 7a sharp. We navigated a failing car and the Lincoln Tunnel only to pull up in front of my building late afternoon on one of NY’s warmest days yet this year. Unpacking was a beast – I’ll stay in this apartment just so I don’t have to go through that again. So. Many. Boxes. And this is my life pared down.
Woke up unable to shower – though I set up my shower curtain the night before, I couldn’t find any towels. So still smelly from the move the day before, I spent the morning unpacking several boxes, figuring I’d find the towels eventually. Unpacking is a generous way to put it – really, it was more just rearranging boxes so they grouped together, clothes with clothes, kitchen with kitchen. It also meant I could start my To Trash and To Donate piles, which only got bigger as the day went on.
I did find the towels, and I did take a much-needed shower, complete with my new favorite accessory, the Kate Spade shower curtain I picked out the day I signed the lease. I don’t have curtains or a trash can, but I have an awesome shower curtain.
I found my way to breakfast closer to lunchtime, but who’s keeping track? Stopped at the diner on the corner of my block, figured I’d start close to home to find my next favorite spot. While I’m not sure this will be it, the no-nonsense service and cacophony of foreign languages around me quickly confirmed I am, indeed, in the thick of the city. The breakfast wasn’t anything to write home about, but as I hadn’t eaten in almost 24 hours, it was divine nonetheless.
With nothing but time on my hands, I swung by the Starbucks on the next block (where I’m typing now, in fact) to borrow some wifi and take care of those just-moved-in necessities like ordering internet at home. Also canceled my car insurance. It still hasn’t set in that I don’t have a car anymore; still kinda feels like vacation, like my car’s just parked at the airport somewhere and I’ll pick it up when I get back. Wonder when that’ll sink in…
Online chores done, I headed back to the apartment to play musical boxes. Though little by little the box of empty boxes filled up, I still felt very much like all I was doing was moving the mess around to various corners of the apartment. I stopped to organize the CD collection that had made it’s way here – going to finally part with all the discs I have on hand (well, everything except my JM CDs, obvs). It’s 2013, after all – time to invest in an iPod for subway rides anyways.
Needing a breather from my four walls and hoping to clear up some space, I loaded the broken-down boxes onto the elevator to take to the basement’s recycling corner and then figured I’d head out to find dinner in the neighborhood. Fresh off the boat as I am, I’m still wide-eyed at the littlest things I’m discovering are no-brainers here. The laundry room in my building? Only takes cards. As in, NO QUARTERS. Amazing. Around the corner from my building? In one city block, there are the following restaurants: A pub, a pizza joint, a cafe, a sandwich shop, a falafel stand, a Chinese restaurant and a Boston Market. All restaurants, from corner to corner. I love my little kitchen, but I may never cook again.
I ended Day One hanging out on my bed/couch watching a movie on my laptop (haven’t set up my TV/DVD player yet, though I did unpack my DVDs and emptied four big boxes in the process…) and enjoying the salad I’d picked up from the cafe around the corner. Audrey, looking very much at home, was curled up at one end of the bed as if she’d been there all along. She seems pretty at ease in her new digs, and that is enough to put me at ease, too.
