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gotham

My last day in DC, Dan and I woke up at the crack of dawn. He’d spent the last month after our lease ended staying with his man; I’d spent it with a relationship that ought to have been dead on arrival – or so I should have known. We’d been permitted to leave our goods in the garage of the house we’d previously rented, but our former roommate had the key (Hi, Margs!) and she had nothing to do with a life that began before noon. We got breakfast and fumed. She finally arrived and we were on our way by 2 PM but what with traffic and the vicious heat wave of June five years ago, we didn’t get to NYC until after 7 PM, meaning that we’d missed our chance to get the key of the apartment we’d subleased before it’s primary leaser had landed himself at a party in Brooklyn. It was broiling on the upper end of Avenue B that day. We bought Chinese food for the first and last time from one of those walk-in joints with the pictures of the food above the register that never look like the grayish beige slop they boxed up for you. Mostly, we just wanted to use their bathroom, you know, until we saw it, and realized the dogs with their fire hydrants had the right idea. Walking outside, we sat at the edge of our van, feet dangling, while Dan wisely observed that all the couples that walked by consisted of an extremely attractive woman and an extraordinarily average-to-unattractive man. Until I met Alex, 38 months later, I was pretty sure that was the way NYC was going to be for me.

Eventually, our friends arrived and helped us heave our crap up the four flights of stairs into the not-actually-emptied for us roach-infested apartment that was so cheap we wouldn’t even consider complaining. We hovered around the malfunctioning air-conditioning and can I tell you? I’ve never been so happy to be anywhere in my whole life. I likened my first six months in NYC to Jews who make aliyah – I truly felt I had reached the promised land, and no roaches skittering by me while I slept, no Cat I had to sit that cried when we left the apartment daily, no poverty-that-had-not-yet-sunk-in, and no not-yet-dumped boyfriend in DC spotted in some club making out with a girl sitting on his lap could take this away from me. In my head, I was the gorgeous young thing running around with the aged pouchy bachelor that was my Gotham, and it was the best relationship I’d ever been in.

***

I thought of this as my friend Ang called last night to say that she was pulling into Manhattan with her Uhaul, hippopotamus of a dog, and creature comforts in tow and that she needed to know which avenues went in which direction, but oh, she figured it out, no worries, she was so excited to be here and just so happy and this is going to be so great! It’s going to be weeks before she’s in a permanent apartment and months before she realizes she gave up a back yard and a garden for a shoebox that ought to be spun from gold and not warped wood and cobwebs for the price, but if she’s anything like the rest of us, and I suspect she is a lot – this is going to be the best thing she’s ever done.

Welcome!

comments (8)

1 | Christian | July 13, 2005 12:22 PM

2 | PLD | July 13, 2005 11:47 PM

3 | Esther | July 14, 2005 12:51 AM

4 | k | July 14, 2005 08:52 AM

5 | Master Foley | July 14, 2005 09:30 AM

6 | womanofthelaw | July 14, 2005 12:12 PM

7 | Notorious ANG | July 17, 2005 03:24 PM

8 | Margs | July 26, 2005 04:12 PM

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