-It’s been almost two years since I moved to Manhattan following graduation.  While I grew up on Long Island and therefore the city has always been close to me both in spirit and proximity, you never get to know the true meaning of Gotham until you’ve lived here for a while.  While the rent is high, the drinks expensive, the winters freezing, the summers sweltering, the cabbies rude, the women uninviting, the streets dirty, the bars smoky, and the subway confusing, New York is somehow still the best damn town in the world.  How is this possible?  Let’s, once again, examine life in the big city.

-You can’t survive in Manhattan without a cell phone, at least on the weekends.  It’s all a game of meeting up, getting together, going out, and getting smashed.  Since the bars don’t close until the wee hours of the morning, the next day I find myself hungover and confused.  I’ve found that by examining the outgoing and incoming call logs on my cell phone, I’m able to piece together where I was and who I was with between the hours of 10pm and 5am.  It’s kind of like CSI: New York.

-Back in college, you used to worry about hallcest, or hooking up with someone on the same floor as you in your dorm and then running into them awkwardly all the time.  In the city it’s even worse.  We have buildingcest, whereby if you hook up with someone who lives in the same apartment building, you run the risk of uncomfortable elevator rides for the rest of your lease.  And it gets worse.  We’re so on top of each other here that I’ve even experienced windowcest.  This girl I hooked up with lives in the building across the street and we can see in each other’s bedrooms.  Now I have to walk around with the blinds closed all the time.

-Of course, everything being so close to each other does have its advantages.  The other night I was at the bar, felt the urge, told my buddies I had to make a phone call, ran down the block, went up to my apartment, took a dump, and was back before anyone even knew the difference.  I love New York!

-The fire trucks that blaze by my window each night are so loud that they actually set off all the car alarms on the street, creating a symphony of sirens so lovely I can’t sleep without them.

-I recently moved to a new apartment.  Moving within the city is a fate I would not wish upon my worst enemy.  I only moved four blocks up the same street.  My roommate Brian and I calculated that we moved about a thousand feet door to door.  Where else in the world can you move a thousand feet, have it cost you a thousand dollars, and still be able to see into the bedroom of the last chick you hooked up with?

-Brian and I decided to live together again when we moved apartments.  It was definitely the right move.  He’s one of my oldest friends and we get along very well.  You can never underestimate the importance of a great roommate in a cramped apartment.  I’ve only got one pet peeve.  Brian inexplicably puts enormous bottles in our tiny bathroom garbage can.  He’ll finish an economy size shampoo that his mom bought him at Price Club and jam it into our blue miniature IKEA garbage can, leaving no room for any other trash.  And I can’t convince him that what he’s doing is wrong.  It’s like he’s missing that part of the brain or something.

-Three signs that you are a true New Yorker: 1) When you first moved here, you took cabs to get around.  Then you figured out the subway and used that every day.  Then you started taking the bus.  Now, you’re like, fuck it, I’m taking a cab.  2) You never look up anymore.  Skyscrapers and hotels are erected around you and you don’t even notice until an out-of-towner points them out.  3) No matter how often you used to go there, the moment a store on your block goes out of business, you instantaneously forget what was ever there.

-Three signs that you are not a true New Yorker: 1) Your cell phone number’s area code is still from New Jersey where you grew up.  2) You still buy CDs at the Virgin Megastore instead of from the guys in the street near NYU.  3) You actually yell “Taxi!” when trying to get a cab because you haven’t yet realized that the cabbies can’t hear you, they’re all talking on their cell phone earpieces.

-There is a place near my new apartment that sells ice cream that is “all natural, low calorie, kosher, low fat, sugar free, lactose free, low sodium, and cholesterol free.”  Not surprisingly, it is also taste-free.  However, the place is always packed!  Yeah, it’s filled with emaciated brunettes wearing Burberry scarves wrapped seventeen times around their frail necks.  Ladies, you could use a calorie or two!

-Since September 11th, New York has been on high alert against the threat of terrorism.  Everywhere you go, new measures have been put in place to prevent possible attacks and weed out suspects.  Sometimes I wonder if anyone has put any thought into these measures.  For instance, a few weeks ago I went to the dentist’s office and, unlike any previous visit, I had to sign in at the front desk.  I had to print my name, then sign it, then write the floor I was visiting.  Woah, take it easy there!  You need my name AND signature?  Wow, this must have Al-Qaeda shaking in their boots.  Hey look, Osama’s got an appointment on twelve, get him!

-I never realized how many people lived in Manhattan until I got the Yellow Pages.  The thing’s so big we use it as extra seating when guests come over.

-I’m pretty sure the manufacturers of laundry machines for apartment buildings in the city are from Neptune.  How else can you explain why you need like twelve quarters for one spin cycle?  That’s why everyone in New York is constantly searching for quarters.  “Quarters?  Can I get change for this?  Do you have any Quarters?  Quarters!!”  I asked my doorman about the muttering homeless guy constantly walking the street in front our building.  Apparently he does have a home, he’s just looking for someone to break a five.

-I love when friends try to explain to me the layout of their new apartment.  They’re like, “You walk in and there is a little vestibule and a closet on your left.  If you keep going, the kitchen is in front of you, there’s a little dining area off to the side, and the living room is to the right.  Then, if you turn right…”  I’m like, stop right there dude, you lost me at “You walk in.”

-Quote of the Month.  This, if anything, defines the absurdity of being a twentysomething in New York City.  I went to this new lounge on the west side.  Pretty swanky place, but nothing unusual for the area.  I sat down on a velvet stool (standard lounge seating) and motioned for the waitress.  She came over wearing a scowl that sent shivers down my spine and a mini-skirt that sent shivers up my leg.  I ordered a beer.  Again, nothing crazy.  Imported.  Bottle.  The waitress came back about six minutes later and placed the open beer on a small, white square napkin on the table in front me and said these words: “Nine dollars please.”  Nine dollars for a beer.  That’s right, kids, say it with me, “Nine dollars for a beer.”  I gave the waitress a two-dollar tip because I was afraid she might eviscerate me with one of her stiletto heels if I didn’t.  An eleven-dollar beer.  I’m never leaving my apartment ever again.

-When I was looking for a new apartment this time around, I knew exactly what part of the city I wanted to live in.  It made me think back to when I first moved here and barely knew the distinction between the upper west side and the lower east side.  You are basically at the mercy of the apartment broker.  He takes you to an area, you look around a bit and say, “Looks nice, people seem nice, the price is right, I’ll take it.”  I wonder if that’s how the Midwest first got settled.  Immigrants got off the boat at Ellis Island and there were brokers there to greet them.  The immigrants didn’t know any better so the brokers took them off to Kansas.  When they got there they said, “Well, it looks nice, the people seem nice, the price is right, I’ll take it!”

-The recent blizzards in New York didn’t have the exact effect on the city that most people outside of the Northeast thought it did.  The streets are clean and clear.  Driving isn’t a problem.  Walking is.  What the city does is plow all the snow from the streets into ten-foot high mountains on the sidewalks, leaving about six-inch wide slush-gaps at each intersection for pedestrian passage.  I feel like fucking Lewis and Clark out there!

-The night that the massive blizzard hit must have been the ultimate boon to Blockbuster, because there was nothing else to do but watch movies.  After scaling the sidewalk snow-mountains on my street, I made it to the store, but soon realized that I didn’t have a Blockbuster card.  My roommate, for all his giant shampoo bottle shortcomings, was always the one who got the videos.  Now I don’t know if any of you have applied for a Blockbuster card recently, but it’s more difficult than getting into college.  They want credit card numbers and addresses and blood types.  It’s a ridiculous and highly intrusive effort all for a piece of laminated cardboard that allows you to rent a five-dollar DVD.  But after I passed the test and was leaving the store with Zoolander in hand, I had an epiphany.  That’s the way to catch the terrorists!  Make everyone apply for a Blockbuster card!

-In the end, New York City is not for everyone.  It’s fast-paced and expensive and the incense they sell in the street really stinks.  But if you’re a young and single twentysomething like me, there’s no better place on earth.  I’m going out now to brave the latest blizzard.  I have to return some videos, pick up some CDs down by NYU, and get some miniature shampoos for my roommate.  Life, in the big city, is good.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-I’ve noticed an evolution in my generation’s answering machine messages.  When I first got my own phone line, I left a funny message with a song playing in the background.  When I got my first cell phone, it was something casual like, “What’s up, it’s Karo.  Leave a message.  Peace.”  When we all graduated and got real jobs, we became serious: “Hello, you’ve reached the voicemail of Aaron Karo, please leave a message, thanks.”  Oh how I long for simpler days.

-I don’t know, maybe this is because I’m from Long Island, but I really don’t think it’s right to order a bagel with cream cheese and they give you a bagel and a packet of cream cheese with a plastic knife.  That’s like sacrilege.

-It is amazing to me how much marketing really fools me sometimes.  Have you seen Vitamin Water?  It’s this health drink thing that comes in flavors like Rescue and Balance.  I have to admit, it actually tastes pretty good.  But I can’t believe I find myself standing in front of the refrigerator in the cafe at my gym thinking, hmm do I need Focus or Perseverance right now?

-Being friends with triplets is really getting to be a pain in the ass.  We can’t go anywhere if they all come.  If me and my roommate call them, it’s five guys already and they won’t let us into the club.  Why couldn’t they just be sisters?

-Why are the taxes on my cell phone bill more than the bill itself?

-In my palm pilot, under the date February 14th, 2003, I have written down “The End of the Age of Innocence.”  On that date, the unthinkable happened.  My first friend got engaged.  And not just any friend.  A close friend.  A girl that I grew up with.  They already have a wedding date.  I have to get a tux.  Buy them a present.  Throw them a housewarming party.  Baby-sit their kids.  Celebrate their tenth anniversary.  OK, maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself.  But I’m scared.  Very, very scared.

-You have to love these ads for Michelob Ultra, the new low-carb beer.  They show hot chicks and ripped dudes exercising and shit.  So I took some beer with me to the gym instead of my usual Vitamin Water.  Talk about false advertising.  After an hour of working out, the only six-packs in the gym were the Michelobs.

-How come I can never fill out forms properly the first time?  You know, you put the city and state in the “city” box and the zip code in the “state” box and then you get to the “zip code” box and realize that you’re a fucking idiot.

-Was it just me who wandered around for hours the other day wondering why everyone’s faces were dirty until I realized it was Ash Wednesday?

-I think that all sports teams should just make that black memorial stripe on the left side of their jerseys a permanent thing.  That would prevent me from having to say every year, “Hey, who died on the Yankees?”

-My buddy has been showing off his new Sprint phone that has a camera in it.  He snapped a picture of us and then emailed it to me.  The image looked like someone took a picture through a piece of saran wrap.  The wonders of modern technology.

-I just spent the wildest of weekends in Mardi Gras.  Here’s my take.  Mardi Gras is proof to me that mankind as a society and a species has not evolved one bit in the past few thousand years.  I have taken classes in negotiation at the world’s most prestigious business school.  But as soon as I hit Bourbon Street, I found myself ankle-deep in mud, beer, vomit, and trash, bartering with skanky women for a titty flash in exchange for a novelty necklace.  For 48 hours straight.  By the end of the weekend, I collapsed on a side street in exhaustion, partially asphyxiated under a crush of plastic beads lit only by the dim glow of a passing Girls Gone Wild camera crew.  I did learn one thing, though.  Any trip where you have to throw away your pants at the end is a good one.

-Memo to girls wearing Avril Lavigne-style socks on your forearms: you’re not a skater girl.  You live in a building with a doorman for God’s sake.

-Memo to guys wearing chains that connect their wallet to their jeans: uh, that wasn’t even cool when it WAS cool… in 1996.

-Memo to anyone wearing those berets from Salt Lake City: yeah, um, the Olympics was like a year ago.  And you look ridiculous.

-One of my best friend’s names is Marcia.  Just about every other time I introduce her, someone will say, “Oh, like Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!”  Are you kidding me?  The girl is twenty-three years old.  You don’t think she’s ever heard that before?  I think that beret is on too tight, dumbass.

-Have you ever seen a female food delivery person?

-So 50 Cent’s new album sold one of the highest totals in its first week in the history of music.  Should have guessed it when I heard “In Da Club” playing on four different radio stations…simultaneously.  As for the music itself, it’s pretty good.  But it’s the only album I’ve ever listened to where I thought the rapper was actually going to kill ME.

-I finally figured out what T.A.T.U. stands for.  One hit wonder.

-Of course, maybe I shouldn’t be commenting on music.  Considering some chick I never even heard of just won every single fucking Grammy!

-I’ll admit it, though, I’m thinking about getting the Norah Jones CD, but only because I don’t have any good hooking up music.  I get a girl back to my place and I’m like, uh, would you rather hear Big Pun or Bone Thugs?

-I love reading the automatic disclaimers that come at the end of emails coming from major corporations these days.  It’s always something like, “Nothing in this email can be construed as an offer to buy or sell anything.  The person sending this email cannot and will not be trusted.  We make no guarantee that we even know the person sending this email.  We make no guarantee that the person who this email is from is even the person who wrote this email, but either way, we do not know him, her, it, or them.  We are not responsible for anything that has happened in the past, is happening now, might happen, or will happen anywhere in the universe until the end of time.  If this message was sent to you in error, please destroy your computer and kill everyone around you.  Thank you.”

-Here’s a little tip to those of you new to the Internet.  When choosing your email address, such as on Yahoo or Hotmail, don’t use an underscore.  Underscores are stupid.  Half the people don’t even know what an underscore is.  And God forbid your email address ever gets underlined, well so much for that underscore!  Thank_you.

-I bet that the last time you traveled anywhere, you forgot either your belt or your cell phone charger.

-When you are staying in a hotel room by yourself, don’t you use like a different towel to dry every single part of your body?

-Why do remote controls in hotel rooms require you to use fifty pounds of pressure per inch just to press the buttons?

-And, finally, as they say, New York is not just a state, but a state of mind.  Especially when it comes to driving, New Yorkers think they are God’s greatest gift.  For example, a few months ago I was driving up north with a buddy and I got stuck behind some jerk who was only doing 80 mph.  To no one in particular I yelled out, “Hey asshole, go back to Vermont!”  To which my friend leaned over and said, “Karo, we’re in Vermont.”  Fuck me.

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