moving in the city

This uhaul contains all of my earthly possessions and can currently be found parked on the sidewalk in front of the Fairfield Marriott, Long Island City, Queens, New York. This is the moving truck I drove 15 hours from Lexington, Kentucky, through the winding hills of West Virginia, through the small towns in Pennsylvania, through Newark, across the 1-9 to be denied entrance to the Holland tunnel (no moving vans since 9/11), back to Newark to turn around at 11:00 at night, across the New Jersey turnpike, through the Lincoln Tunnel, across midtown Manhattan, through the Queens tunnel, before parking at the Marriott.

It was all worth it though because yesterday I found an apartment. Park slope, two bedroom, ridiculously expensive by my standards but a good price by New York's, with laundry in the building. Sigh of relief. The problem with having OCD is that apartment hunting is extremely painful. Moldy bathrooms, dingy carpets, stray hairs in uncleaned sinks, it's all enough to make a person lose their shit in front of a broker who is two feet from your face at all times going "so, so what do you think? huh? huh?" and who tries to convince you that an extremely tiny spiral staircase leading up to the attic bedroom is AWESOME instead of a deathtrap.

Since I found a place yesterday, I can spend today in the Red Hook IKEA buying a kitchen cart (new apartment has no counter space. and by that I mean there is a sink, an oven and a refrigerator. literally not one inch counter in space) and strolling through the MOMA with my mom.

From New York with Love,

Hannah

root root root for the home team

Am currently at a Nashville Sounds baseball game (minor league baseball=hilarity), enjoying my last night in the south (well, tomorrow night will technically be spent in Kentucky but not important). I went to the record store to pick up an album for Little Brother's birthday tomorrow, hit up my favorite dive bar for one (okay, two) of my favorite girlie mixed drinks (which tastes like a melted sno-come), and now am listening to rednecks scream at an umpire. Although I'm optimistic about my new job, and settling in New York, lord knows my heart belongs below the mason dixon. Needless to say, while tomorrow officially marks my final departure to the big apple, it's safe to sat I'll never be a yankees fan.

things that are annoying

• losing my deposit on my place in Nashville
• not having a place in New York
• being too scared to look at my credit card balance
• being out of eggs this morning
• repacking all of your belongings that you just unpacked.
• realizing that all of your belongings did not magically become consolidated and organized since the last time you packed them.
• not having seen any good television in the past week.
• the fact that the last moving you saw in theaters was "Year One," which was, in a word, fuckingterrible.
• not having enough free brainpower to write legitimate blog entries.
• getting your period for the second time in three weeks (seriously, that is beyond unacceptable)

Back in the big apple (my new home sweet home) on Wednesday. I'll be the girl in the uhaul desperately begging for a parkslope apartment that will only cost me 80% of my monthly income. Love, Hannah

big lights big city

Hello internet, I feel like it has been so long since we had a meaningful exchange. I am way too exhausted/scattered to write to you in a logical, coherent way, so you'll have to make do with the following crude bullet points:

• Job: Office manager/receptionist for a firm in Manhattan. That's all I can say about it since the employee handbook explicitly prevents me from blogging about the company by name, or in a way that could allow it be identifiable. What you need to know is that a) I think I'm going to like it, b) a family friend hooked me up with it, c) I feel extremely professional going into the city and sitting in an office with people who may or may not be the smartest people in the world (even though so far all I do is listen to the woman training me and internally freak out because it is so much to remember).
• Moving: Am in the city for this week to do training and look for a place. Will head back to Nashville on Friday, stay for the following week to pack up (and cry because I'm leaving the south, which we all know pains me to no end), then coming back up the following week (July 13th for those of you who can't add weeks without blackberry calendar). It's sort of exhausting.
  
• Living: I would rather convert to scientology then look for an apartment in New York City. It is absolutely miserable. Brokers fees! Ads that say Williamsburg but mean Bushwick! The G train, which connects to NOTHING. It's all pretty miserable. If any of you currently reside in this metropolis and have advice for me, any and all of it would be appreciated (or, you know, just find me a place to live. My budget is "as cheap as humanly possible," I need easy access to the 4, 5, R, M, or L trains, and I will turn down a place IMMEDIATELY if the landlord shows it to me without cleaning the bathroom. That's disgusting).
  

All for now, will post more when have quick moment to breath into between Au Bon Pain bagels and sprinting for the express train.

First Day of School

Today is my first day of work at my new, extremely glamourous, New York job. I promise I'm not trying to be coy on the details, I'm just very much overwhelmed at the moment (for example: am walking and blogging on way to lunchtime starbucks). Explanation soon!

an open letter

Dear Internet:

I wish you could have seen more of this woman's ensemble. The denim miniskirt, the rhinestone belt, the plastic turquoise heels (and matching clutch), the fact that it said "Harley Davidson," on the front of the shirt, the burgundy lipstick drawn outside of the natural lip, the Baby Phat eyeglasses, the face eerily reminiscent of a bullfrog.

Sincerely,

Hannah

prep

Okay, y'all know I am sort of, well, waspy. I own a lot of seersucker, a longchamp or seven, and have probably referred to a vineyard vines pattern by name. When bored I doodle polka dots. The only cutesy handwriting I can do is when you write in print and then put dots on the intersections. My high school boyfriend's nickname for me was "bootsy." When the Lilly catalog comes I usually squeal. I CAN'T HELP IT. But this doesn't mean that I refer to the woman who gave birth to me as "Mother" at all times, nor do I think that a hot pink and lime green shift is appropriate for all occasions (unless your grandmother went by "Mitsy," then you should probably wear black to her funeral). I don't adhere to the young women in pearls, older women in diamond adage (strapless living loves her some bling) and under NO circumstances will you catch me in critter khakis (grown women with martini glasses on their chinos? fuck no).

Honestly, I'm the worst kind of prep. The kind that knows if your Lilly is last season, who will mentally categorize you as "new money," and whose grandmother referred to yours as a "racist bitch," because she wanted to keep the Jewish girl out of Delta Zeta. So, to all you girls out there rocking lime green lacostes and ostentatious monograms, I'm sorry. I will roll my eyes at you. I will tap my sperry's at you while in line at the peppermint palm because you're taking effing forever to pick a quilted tennis racket cover. But I promise I'm not trying to be mean, I swear. When not surrounded by cable knit ad nauseam I will be more than happy to listen to you talk about how much you LOVE picking out toile lampshades. I mean shit, if we have the same initials I'll even loan you my signet ring. But I'm on to you, fake preps, and your days of cardigans tied around shoulders are limited. We're in a recession now and no one wants to listen to you drone on about what a steal $200 d-ring belts are. So do the preppiest thing possible, and put a lid on it.

p.s. I'm sorry this post is full of so much rage, I SWEAR it is not directed at anyone's blog (especially not you preppy commenters). I just had a mini-seersucker-overdose this afternoon.

to do list

• find an apartment in Brooklyn that will leave me enough income to buy the occasional food item.
• sublet my house in Nashville.
• beat the Valley Ghost House in Super Mario World.
• figure out how the hell I got a mosquito bite on the bottom of my foot.
• write a post about how wonderful my dad is, which I failed to do on father's day.
• complete a hefty stack of HR paperwork.
• celebrate the fact that in a couple of week I will have health insurance (who wants to go BASE jumping with me?).
• buy a capo for the banjo my dad loaned me to learn on.
• see as much live music as possible while still in Nashville.
• re-pack all of my earthly possessions.
• buy a hostess gift for my friend and her family, who are exceptionally nicely putting me up in their house in queens until I find a place.
• come to terms with the fact that I'm actually going to move to New York (notice I didn't say "becoming a New Yorker," I think we all know I'll never be that cool).

an open letter

Dear New York City,

Thanks for the job; see you in a week.

Love,

Hannah

photo from here

home

Yesterday New York embraced me with pouring rain before, during, and after my interview so I was able to teeter through the puddles around battery park in my almost-stripper-height-but-they-have-the-hidden-platform-so-I-say-they're-fine-heels before making it to the subway station and supermaning into the moccasins stashed in my bag. Interview went well--am almost as nervous to have them offer me the job as I am to hear them reject me. Because I know I'll have to take it. It's such a good opportunity. I feel exactly the same way I did when I sat in Washington Square as a high school senior having looked at NYU when my dad said to me "it's not for you is it?" and I really wanted it to be. 

I could be freaking out for nothing. They could totally call me up and say "sorry you just didn't seem to have enough experience in Lotus Notes," or "you were 6'3 in those heels, what were you thinking?" But if they do say yes I'll be packing up my bags in Nashville and shoving them back into my parents' closets in Lexington and setting up my second house in thirty days in New York. I'll have health insurance and 401k matching and probably the same pit in my stomach longing for the south that I had when I lived in Montreal. When I missed that humid-sweet smell of diesel and grass and the southern manners that I once heard described as "passive aggressive" but which make me feel less alone regardless of who I'm with. Where I don't have any money but I have hair destroying humidity and the kind of beer I like and window boxes on the windows of my too-nice-for-me-but-totally-awesome-house. I went into Duane Read to get a toothbrush yesterday and fumbled with the dollar bills in my wallet like they were foreign currency.

I think I'm just being a brat. No one should look a job horse in the mouth with nothing but a Bachelors and ability to make photocopies. So we'll see. We'll see what they say and maybe render this entire post moot and fly southward and drink sweet tea and dip into a drawl we don't have. We'll see.

interview checklist

• In the city of New York: check.
• Manicured nails: check.
• Rough draft of questions to ask interviewer: check.
• Directions to office via planes, trains, and automobiles: check.
• Change cell phone time to Eastern Standard Time from Central Standard Time so as not to be an hour late to interview: check.
• Hair straightener to tame wonky bang situation so as not to appear like the totally disheveled human being that I am: check.

photo from here

on the road again

• I don't know why so many of my blog entries are about travel. Jet setter I am not. But I am leaving tomorrow for New York so be prepared for "dear god, so many northerners on one island," posts. Sorry for not divulging too much about the job interview, I'm not trying to be cryptic, I just haven't even fully comprehended the situation myself so if I tried to write about in complete sentences I'd probably vomit.
• Went to the Centennial Sportsplex today and swam laps. Designer's Brew, I don't know how you do it. I swam eight laps and almost keeled over. It was so horrible I had to reward myself with a Sonic Strawberry Limeade afterwards. I don't know what they put in those things, opium maybe? They're so addicting. I'm serving Strawberry Limeade and samosas (the ones from an indian grocery store down here that are phenomenal) at my wedding. 

• There is a tornado warning today. I haven't packed a stitch of clothing for tomorrow. And I am having a blepharitis flareup. That's right, blepharitis. It's this weird eye inflammation that I'm pretty sure god cursed me with because I find saying the name so hilarious. "You think my medical malady is a joke? I hope you enjoy it bitch!" Just kidding. God would never say bitch. I mean, I don't know, maybe he would, but regardless, it sucks ass and my eye is going to be all red and flaky for my interview. AWESOME.

• Kenny vs. Spenny on netflix=how I plan to spend the next three hours. While eating the most delicious lemon zucchini bread on the planet, which I made from this recipe. Go forth, bake, you won't regret it.

photos from here, here, and here (my 14 year old brother took that picture of the van seats in our backyard, not bad eh?)