After waking up to yet ANOTHER morning without hot water, the Roommate and I decided yesterday that it was time to fight back.  Letters were drafted, complaints were lodged, and work time was squandered on attempts to get our living situation back in order after the nightmare of the last month.  We took matters into our own hands and crafted the flyer above, which we slid underneath every door in our building. (Multiple copies were given to the vacant apartment across the hall–it’s only fair that potential tenants see what they would be getting into.)

The Roommate and I combined our respective amounts of frustration, indignation, and greasy hair and came up with our plan during an online chat.

RM:  They effed with the wrong people.

Me:  Got that right.  The South will rise again, bitches!

Vigilante justice is best served as a Southern dish, after all.

The BF bought tickets for us last night to go to a truly New York event: a benefit for a non-profit organization called RestoreNYC, which provides care for survivors of sex trafficking in New York City.  The event was a Broadway night, featuring multiple stars of shows like The Little Mermaid and Aida.  Songs were sung, brilliantly, and money was raised for an organization that brings to light the horrible and all-too-common practice of sexual slavery.  You would be shocked if you had seen some of the statistics shown to us last night.  Between 14,000 and 17,000 men, women, and children are brought through JFK each year to be sold into slavery, and it’s going on right under our noses, in apartments and buildings we walk by every day.  Sobering, sad stuff.  If you want to learn more, go to www.restorenyc.org.  This should not be happening in our world.

The show was amazing, and as always I am blown away at the talent surrounding me in this city.  Living in New York is exhilarating and humbling as you are constantly in the presence of smart, successful people.  I have friends and friends of friends who are kicking ass in the worlds of finance, medicine, research, theater, film, and journalism.  At the event last night, AC sat with us and as I described my apartment woes to her, she mentioned a friend who is a producer at NBC and we planned an investigative journalism expose before the show was over.  So it may never happen, but here in New York you can discuss these things as possibilities rather than pipe dreams.  The world lives here, we’re all connected, and anything can happen.

Too bad anything isn’t always good, as I found out this morning on my way to work. I was standing on the corner of 36th and 2nd, waiting for the light to change in the rain that HAD ONLY BEEN PREDICTED AS A 40% CHANCE, WEATHER.COM! Before I could react, a black Escalade (probably carrying Jay-Z’s newest protege) sped by and through a puddle bigger than my apartment.  A wall of water shot up in slow-motion (in my mind, at least) and fell, soaking all of us on the sidewalk.

I’m not proud of what happened next.  I can’t tell you how many times a day I curse in my head, but so far the words have managed to stay there.  Not today.  “SHIIIIIIIT!”  I yelled, turning to the woman next to me who raised her fist in the air and muttered some words that they never taught me in high school Spanish.  She met my eye and we shook our heads in silent agreement that that driver was a grande prick. I turned back to the road ahead of me.  One step forward at a time. Biscuits and Bath and soul-healing puppies were a block away, and it’s also no small solace that in New York, you’re never unjustly drenched alone.

Well, Jesus had my number as he always does.  After an hour in front of the computer spent documenting my complaints for the weekend, I went to the BF’s apartment to resuscitate him from his corporate-induced coma.  We stopped at our favorite little local coffee shop, Dunkin’ Donuts, for him to get enough caffeine into his bloodstream to stay awake through church.  On our way out of the cafe and into a cab, we watched a walker and his dog pass by slowly, the dog slightly hobbling.  I looked closer and saw that the dog had three legs.  “Wow,” the BF said.  “I could never adapt to life like that.”  This from the guy who just worked overnight for fifteen hours straight and still had a smile on his face, said to the girl who complained about the lost weekend to her computer, God, sister, mom, and dad and offered to kill the BF’s coworkers.  On the scale of adaptability, I am hovering between one and zero.  I should clarify that this is a hundred point scale.  I am looking for pencils now.

So we went to church, which I was pushing for especially hard this week because I knew TK was going to talk about the Gospel and work.  Fitting, I thought, considering the weekend we (and by we, I mean the BF) had just experienced.  Or lack of weekend, whatever.  It turned out that God and I had different ideas of what was most fitting for this evening, because when we walked into the service we noticed a bigger crowd than usual and more activity up front.  Then I remembered that it was Open Forum night.

Every few months, Redeemer hosts what they call an Open Forum event.  It’s a program arranged around a theme relevant to life in the city, and is designed to welcome people who may not be comfortable with traditional churchgoing.  After some world-class music (past forums have included New York opera singers and Broadway stars), TK does a brief lecture on the theme (sex, love, the environment have been a few) and there is a period for questions and answers.

Last night’s theme?  New York, New York.  Nine New York-centric songs from movies and Broadway shows, followed by TK’s thoughts on life in the city.

Fitting, God said.

I considered my recent overwhelming frustration with the city and had to agree.

We heard Vernon Drake’s “Autumn in New York,” and the lines:

I’ll dispose of my rose-colored chattels

And prepare for my share of adventures and battles

Here on the twenty-seventh floor

Looking down on the city I hate and adore

The music ended with a rendition of “New York, New York.”  If that and TK’s message can’t revive a city-weary spirit, I don’t know what can.

He talked about how the city is incredibly wonderful and awfully terrible at the same time because it is a magnifying glass of the best and worst in human behavior.  He talked about the diversity of the city and how it makes you think out everything you’ve ever done, every belief you’ve ever had–because even if you arrive at the same conclusions about life that you had when you came here, you better be ready to defend them because people here ASK.  He paraphrased Woody Allen and said that New Yorkers are like everyone else, just much much much more so.  And he talked about how God loves cities, especially New York city, because every square mile here is more packed with human beings than anywhere else in the country.  And for some reason, God loves human beings.  He talked about our city and tied it to our faith in ways that we all needed to hear, and we all laughed and nodded and as I looked around, I saw my community.  The other people who are here in this crazy place and get it.

Once again, someone knows what I need more than I do.  New York made new once again, by the one who makes all things new.

Last night was AC’s birthday, and she picked the Red Lobster in Times Square as the site of the festivities.  This was a fun idea right up until the moment the BF and I had to leave for the event.  He was stuck in the middle of a work project that he would have to head straight home from dinner to re-engage in; I was coughing like I was one of Marge Simpson’s smoke-infested sisters due to a cold that has persisted for a week (a cold I believe is due to two things: one, NYU’s policy of forcing flu shots on its employees; and two, the destruction project in our apartment over the past month).  We walked outside and were met by a torrential downpour which, in New York, translates to a dearth of available cabs and an abundance of traffic.  We finally got our cab and sat in traffic for about twenty minutes before deciding to walk the rest of the way to the Lob.  Of course we were late.  And wet.  With bad hair.  I felt an empathy for the lobsters in the tank we passed on our way to the table–victims of a very rough day.

But the dinner was a bright spot in the weekend.  The highlight was the group’s construction of the following list, entitled Top Ten Signs You Know You’re at a Classy New York Restaurant:

1)  Your waiter sports an earpiece and walkie-talkie.

2) You can feel the subway rumble underneath your table.

3) The table beside yours is sprayed down with Windex as you eat.

4) There is a glass elevator to get you to your dining level.

5) Hideous industrial sculptures back-lit by ever-changing indigo/emerald/violet LED lights.

6)  Stock pictures of happy families on the wall behind your table.

7) Entree comes to your table with a lid over it.

8) Portions so large that you throw up a little in your mouth on the way to the bathroom.

Okay, so we could only come up with eight.  But you get the picture: class and style all the way.  Cousin Eddie would be proud.

The BF and I sadly had to miss the Dave and Buster’s after-party.  I sacked out on the couch and watched SNL while he got back to work.  Fifteen hours later, I brought breakfast over and he was still working, his desk littered with various containers of coffee.  He looked at me and I was reminded of the zombies in Shaun of the Dead, the cult classic we watched Friday night (or, as I like to call it, the good old days).   He sat in front of his computer, fielding phone calls from incompetent team members and corporate execs who care more about having a spreadsheet delivered to their inbox on a Sunday morning than getting to their son’s birthday party on time.

I left him to nap and went back to my place, where we have no hot water for the second time in a week and the super won’t call me back.  On the way home, I passed a honeless guy passed out against the side of a bar with a puddle extending from his crotch to the curb.  And I suddenly, violently, felt very over it all: the bums, the greed, the rat in the BF’s wall that scratches occasionally as we watch TV.  I felt raw and depressed and that’s not supposed to happen until at least late January.  It’s hard to find the beach escape hatch in my mind when my head is so cluttered with frustration.

What do you when life in the city is all storms?  Well, here’s my plan for tonight:  I’m going to Redeemer to hear TK speak the truth.  I’m going to believe it regardless of what I walk past on the way there and back.  I’m going to try to laugh about how charmed my life is that I have the luxury of typing about these issues on my laptop.  I’m going to look for that Beach Escape Hatch in my mind, and if I can’t find it I will use my Plan B Image, the one the BF pointed out last night on our walk home:

Bryant Park and the New York Public Library at night, lit up among streets shimmering after a rainfall.  A part of so many of my walks home over the years, though I have usually passed this view either by myself or in the company of bad choices and not-nice people.  Not anymore.  Now we’re at a different part in the story.  A part that includes the BF and friends and silver linings.  It also includes purple lips after a cold shower and my walk home from work yesterday being punctuated by an uncanny connection between the rain stopping and starting with the opening and closing of my umbrella.  In times like those, faith can feel like a liability because if God is in the details, why is he letting the details suck so badly? 

So I wait for the clouds to clear and the streets to shimmer, believing that God may be in the details but those details don’t constitute his character.  Okay, so chunks of my daily life are being documented as evidence in a possible lawsuit against my landlord.  But in life, as in New York, as in faith, the last thing that happened isn’t the end of the story.  It’s just the last thing that happened. 

“Wow, that was a journey,” the BF just said, staring at his work on the computer screen. 

It sure is.

There are few places in the world where I feel happier or closer to God than on the beach.  Any beach, and I have seen a few: Orange Beach, Seaside, Panama City, Delray, Outer Banks, Cape Cod, Newport, Coney Island, the Hamptons, the Jersey Shore, Positano…I should stop.  I’m getting sad.  Anyway, the picture on the left was taken on Malibu beach (or the ‘Bu, if you’re nasty) while the BF and I were there last month.  It’s a slightly disingenuous shot, considering I had to dodge homicidal birds and their poop to take what was meant to convey tranquility and ease, but it’s still worth a thousand words.  No worries, I won’t actually go on for that long.

I just love the beach.

Some of the happiest moments from my childhood occurred at my grandparents’ condo in Perdido Key, Florida.  I remember sitting on the balcony after the sun had gone down and listening to the waves roll against the shore.  I would fall asleep and wake up to that sound and felt wrapped in perfect safety and comfort.  To me, a few minutes spent watching the rhythm of the water afforded me a peace that was reason enough to believe in God.  But then again, I’ve never struggled with believing in Him, so maybe I’m an easy sell.  All I know is that when I’m on any beach, I’m home.

Maybe that’s why I acclimated to this island of Manhattan so quickly.  Although it’s easy to forget that we’re surrounded by water when there are so many inland distractions.  Not to mention the fact that the shores of the East River and the Hudson fall way short of my definition of a beach.  They’re rivers, for one thing. So there are banks, not coastlines.  Another thing is the swimmability factor, and you couldn’t pay me to dip my big toe into their briny waters.  But they are pretty to look at, as most bodies of water are, and they make me feel connected to something bigger, as most bodies of water do.  So they will suffice for now (though the countdown is on!), but in the coming months, I will need more.  In the coming months, I will climb up three flights of stairs, enter my Dante-themed apartment, and shrug off my down jacket, hat, gloves, and scarf.  I will remove my snow boots and whichever sweater dress I am wearing that day.  I will throw myself onto the couch in what my roommate calls my Sprockets outfit, which has become my winter undergarment: black long-sleeved shirt, black leggings, black socks.  And I will close my eyes, breathe deeply, and take myself to one of the aforementioned beaches, if only in my head.  I will hear the surf and feel the sun and thank God that he doesn’t limit me–or Himself–to one home at a time.

I’ve had a relationship with running for over a dozen years, and we have had our share of ups and downs.  I can compare it to my relationship with New York: love, hate, and everything in between, depending on the day.  Both running and New York demand things of me that I didn’t know I could give–they challenge me to be more, often by making me extremely uncomfortable.

One of the benefits of living in New York is constant, free access to Central Park.  I used to run around the reservoir at the north end of the park and felt pretty smug once I could make it around twice–a total of 3.2 miles.  But running has a way of knocking you off your high horse, and that happened when I decided to run the Manhattan half marathon last year and made my first attempt at the outer loop of the park.  Six miles.  Six miles of hills.  And those hills kicked my ass.

Until the first day they didn’t, and I came out the winner.  I remember the elation and accomplishment I felt as I completed the loop, thinking I could do just about anything now that this was under my belt.  Then I stumbled from my high horse as I remembered that the race ahead of me would require over TWO loops around the park.  And any course that includes a stretch known as “Heartbreak Hill” is not joking around.

But I made it and became not just a runner, but a half-marathoner.   Which is helpful to remember on the many days when my running is completely craptastic.  I don’t have to run well every day to be a runner, I just have to show up.  And keep going.  And trust that there’s always a better run ahead.  And a worse one.  And a better one…

Someone found my motherf***ing work pretzels.

I have a sore throat.

Global warming my ass.

Who’s the bitch now, New York?

The dreaded season is upon us here in NYC, and I for one am not off to a great start.  I have serious doubts about whether or not I’ll actually be able to make it through another winter here.  (Wasn’t I just writing about fall?!)  And, if I do, whether or not those around me will.  Because several times today alone, I have felt murder in my heart.  There was the twelve-year-old boy who yelled at the twelve-year-old girl, right as I was walking past and therefore right in my ear, “SLOW DOWN YOU FUCKING RETARD!”  There was the SUV who careened around a corner, cutting me off and *almost* making me spill my morning coffee.  There was the man wearing headphones who walked by me on the street and inexplicably muttered, “White bitch!”  And then, of course, there was the unseen pig who found and ate my work pretzels.

Have you ever been on a vacation so great that for weeks afterward, you use each day of the vacation as a reference point?  As in, two weeks ago today I was doing this.  Or I was watching this.  Well, two weeks ago I was lying here:

And later that day, we went wine tasting here:

And a couple of days before that, we were here, and here:

Oh, California.  Specifically, oh Avila Beach, oh Paso Robles, oh Santa Monica, oh Santa Barbara.  You seem so far away now as I sit in my apartment in wintry New York.  The apartment rendered hot as hell by the recent pipe-altering construction experience, another form of hell.  I sit here as the sky darkens at 6 pm and think of the long months ahead: months of ice and snow and gray.  Months of scarves and gloves and hats.  Months of dry skin and sore throats and swine flu.  I think of this and I want to wrap myself in a blanket and hibernate until May.

BUT!  Then I think of Fifth Avenue lights.  Of Starbucks red holiday cups holding pumpkin spice lattes.  Of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.  Of this:

And that helps a little.  At least enough to make me not want to kill anyone.  But I’m going to need a lot more help than that to get through the next few months.  Sometimes I truly fear the person I can be on a bad day (bad being determined by my parameters).  It makes sense that the prayer I send up most often is, Help me, Lord. Help me get through this winter.  Help me not get sick.  Help me not to be so ruled by what’s happening around me, especially by what the jackasses do.  Help me to be as good to my friends and family as they are to me.  Help me not to be the worst version of myself.

I know I always need Jesus, but I need him more than ever during a New York winter.  And I am committed to one more of those, which sometimes feels like entrapment.  It feels wrong.  But then I leave my sweltering apartment, bundled up in winter gear, sweating underneath, and I walk out into the gray and feel the cool wind brush my face.  And at that moment the seasons make sense and life feels new and God gets to know more than me and my apartment may be finished, but I’m still coming along.  And I just might make it through this part.