In the early hours of the third day of 2015, my parents, brothers and I packed up all of my belongings and an inordinate amount of IKEA furniture into a U-Haul attached to our car, then immediately drove to New York City. Along with my wonderful cousin and her wonderful boyfriend, we carried all of my belongings and an inordinate amount of IKEA furniture up six flights of stairs and into my new apartment on the Upper East Side.
That was over two weeks ago. Since then, I've started my first big-kid job, discovered how the subway system works and gotten so excited about cleaning my apartment on a Saturday morning that I almost felt like a real-life adult. But, living in New York is hard. Like, really hard. It's exhausting and expensive and I've gotten lost in the Financial District almost every single time I walk to work. Really, though, there's no place else I'd rather be -- I might be really poor and lost 90% of the time and also, currently sitting in a coffee shop typing this because the man who installed my Internet apparently doesn't actually understand how the Internet works, but I'm in New York City and I am happy.
It's only been two weeks, but besides the skill of figuring out how my oven works and successfully cooking chicken without getting food poisoning, here are some things I've learned.
1. The psychic (still) knows everything.
Back in July, I made the split-second (read: slightly intoxicated) decision to visit a psychic in NYC at 4 in the morning with my friends Ellen and Adam. We were leaving a bar and attempting to get back to our friend Chelsea's apartment, but when we stumbled upon a flashing sign that said "24/7 Psychic: Ring Doorbell," I had to obey the neon lights. A woman answered the door and before long, the three of us were in her apartment, getting ready to hear what our future held from our brand-new psychic friend whose name was Brandy.
(You can read the whole story about the interaction here -- though, disclaimer: it involves babies, sex advice and a lot of One Direction).
I don't want to sound dramatic, but since that night in July, I've low-key idolized Brandy. When people would talk about advice they received from their psychics, I would internally scoff at them, thinking about how much better MY psychic was, despite us only meeting that one time. Still, Brandy had known things about my future with ease, claimed responsibility from saving me from pregnancy and didn't even say anything about Adam taking some of her magic gypsy rocks. Brandy (who, full disclosure, I actually referred to as "B-Rand" in my head because I loved her so much) was the absolute best.
So, on Friday, after both a free beer tasting and an absurd amount of free tequila shots (I've learned that free things are good in NYC) from a bar that played Young Jeezy's "Soul Survivor" multiple times in the night (also, a good thing), my friend Zach and I decided it would be a perfect time to take a cab to the East Village to find Brandy.
Zach and I have been friends since our freshman year of college, or so people tell us. To be honest, neither of us remember each other until sophomore year, but since then, we've become very close. Still, throughout those three, possibly four years of knowing each other, not one of our friends ever let us go to a bar by ourselves. This was mostly because we both have the uncanny ability to find ourselves in ridiculous, awkward situations, so there was no telling what uncomfortableness we could get ourselves into if we went out alone.
Zach and I trying to be adults at our best friends wedding, shortly before he convinced all of the moms to do shots.
In fact, the one time Zach and I ever broke this rule our friends had set for us was on Cinco de Mayo a few days after we had graduated college. Within twenty minutes of arriving at Cleo's, we went to the bar to get drinks, then immediately lost each other until the following day. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, we decided to move to New York City together. It's going well, everyone, and Friday night at Brandy's is proof of that.
When we arrived at Brandy's, I was so excited that it was barely all I could do to keep from jumping up and down. And, when B-Rand answered the door in what I believe was the same outfit she had worn the last time I'd seen her, I think I actually squealed. Zach sat down to get his future told to him and I sat in a chair in the corner, rocking back and forth with excitement and wearing the kind of large smile that's generally only reserved for brides walking down the aisle. Coincidentally, B-Rand told Zach who he was going to marry, then how many kids he was going to have (spoiler alert: all boys), then offered him a $355 love potion that would guarantee the person he was going to marry to at least text him within the next few days.
He did not buy the love potion, but I'm sure it was legitimate. B-Rand would never lie.
This is a thing I have learned in New York.
2. New York real estate is the most difficult thing that has ever happened to me.
Trying to find an apartment in New York City while living in Boston is perhaps one of the most difficult experiences I've ever had in my short little life. After I accepted my job offer at Photo District News, I spent three weeks going back and forth between Boston's South Station and New York's Penn Station, attempting to find a place to live. Within a short amount of time, I became a pro on how to successfully sleep on an Amtrak train, experience the people of Penn Station at three in the morning and, in one remarkable instance, witness my seat mate eat an entire pizza within a half hour before 9 a.m.
Despite all of these life events, I still did not have an apartment.
In what could only be referred to as "The East Harlem Disaster," Zach and I hired a broker, pretty much based solely on the fact that she was really pretty and had once been in the Israeli army. This was a big step for us because, before moving to New York, the extent of our real estate experience had been in Muncie, Indiana, where I met my future landlord at a McDonalds and barely signed any papers before they handed me the keys. So, while I really wanted to hire Rob/d as my broker, we instead chose this woman and, for the two weeks she was in our lives, I've never been more anxious. To make a long story really short, she only showed us places in East Harlem, Zach kept asking her out, there were multiple language barriers and eventually, in perhaps the most expensive mistake of my life, we decided to remove ourselves from the situation.
Thus, it was the Saturday after Christmas, I started my job in a little over a week and I was very, very homeless. But, somehow, my father found a management company on the Upper East Side and my family went to go look at these cute little apartments that would hopefully be my home. Literally, in the amount of time it took for me to walk up the five flights of stairs to view the place, decide I really liked it, then walk back downstairs and attempt to apply, the apartment had been signed for.
Like I said, New York real estate is really, really hard.
Because it takes a few days to process the applications, my parents decided to leave my brother Jonny and I in New York until Monday on the off-chance that the application hadn't gone through. So, on that Sunday, Jonny and I took a train in from our grandfather's house, then proceeded to walk ten miles exploring Manhattan. We walked from Grand Central to Lincoln Center, from SoHo to the East Village, from East Village to Chelsea, then decided to walk the entire High Line. During this entire time, I fell even more in love with New York City and Jonny acquired another pair of waterproof jeans.
It was a big day for the both of us.
The next morning, after sleeping at my best friend Chelsea's apartment and having what could only be described as an excessive amount of margaritas, Jonny and I trekked back to the apartment complex. The deal had gone through, but we viewed another one that was absolutely perfect. I immediately handed over all of my personal information that my parents had told me to never, ever share with anyone and within three days, I finally had a home in New York City.
3. New York real estate is the most awkward thing that has ever happened to me.
When Jonny and I went to go view the apartment that would eventually become my future home, we were not alone. Besides Jonny and I, there were three other people going on our hunting adventure with us -- the lady showing us the apartment and a pair of sisters also looking for a place to live.
One time, when I was applying for jobs and writing lots of emails to potential employers, I had my friend Tori read over all of them while we were working at the Globe before I sent them out. After pointing out that the emails were fine, minus the five exclamation points I had in one email, she said it was okay because I basically was a walking exclamation point.
I only tell this story because the sisters who also wanted the apartment were about as opposite from walking exclamation points as you could possibly get. In fact, they were probably as different from Jonny, Dana and I as anyone I've ever met. Not only were they not generally happy people, but clothing-wise, they were wearing leggings, Uggs, the most glittery/low-cut tank tops I've ever seen in my entire life and also, looked so uncannily like cast members from the Jersey Shore that I was not entirely convinced I was not battling Snooki for an apartment. To put it in perspective of how outwardly different our family was from their's, here is a photo of my brothers of which I firmly believe you could probably find if you looked up the definition of "hipster."
Unrelated, but this photo was taken because they were having a debate about who had a better sweater. If you have an opinion, please let me know, it's become quite the debated topic in the Prandato household.
The situation of viewing an apartment you both want to rent is uncomfortable in the first place, but it got exponentially worse when Snooki looked me straight in the eye, told me this was going to be the Hunger Games and most specifically, that she was not afraid or above fighting me for the apartment. To say the least, I was horrified, but the feeling only grew when we walked into what would eventually be my home.
"THIS PLACE IS AMAZE-BALLS!," Snooki exclaimed loudly.
Twice.
Once, the only people who heard it were me, my brother, her sister and the woman showing us the apartment. The second time, the "AMAZEBALLS" comment was made for her entire Snapchat MyStory, on which I am prominently featured. "This is the competition," Snooki said as I turned around, incredibly startled. "Say hi to the camera!" I awkwardly waved and, in the most cheerful tone I'd heard her use all day, Snooki stated that she was, in fact, going to kill me for this apartment. Then, she called her manicurist to book an appointment because in the middle of viewing apartments is the best time slot for those type of conversations.
Jonny and I have the ability to communicate with our eyes very, very well and, by this point, we'd non-verbally established this was the apartment I was going to live in. The woman showing us the apartment, a kind soul whom I'm sure had never heard the phrase "AMAZEBALLS" before, had also picked up the skill of communicating with us via eyeballs and, as soon as we got back to the management office, she wordlessly began starting my application process.
While this woman, who I think actually might be an angel/love more than I love B-Rand, was silently beginning to get me a home, Snooki announced loudly she was going to the ATM to get the application fee. She left the office with a bang and it was quiet until Jonny slowly stated, "I hope the ATM is really, really far away." The sheer look of glee on my Real Estate Angel's face was priceless, yet not as priceless as when Snooki came back to apply for the apartment I'd at this time already put a payment on. I'm not sure if you've ever had the experience of feeling as if you were going to die from a manicured nail to the throat, but when the Real Estate Angel informed Snooki the apartment had been taken, I truly thought I was going to be murdered. For the next half hour, I waited for my paperwork to go through, with Snooki sitting less than two feet away from me, unblinkingly staring and absolutely fuming.
The entire situation was one of my more uncomfortable things that have ever happened to me, yet the competitiveness of the incident was wholly satisfying at the same time, a thing I've learned you have to have to survive in New York. I won the Hunger Games and it was, indeed, AMAZEBALLS.
4. One of my neighbors is a real-life Mr. Heckles and I think the other one is dead.
Like most people I've interacted with lately, I've been watching an unhealthy amount of Friends since it was released on Netflix. This steady streaming of the show has only recently come to a halt considering my Internet is currently broken until Wednesday, which pretty much is one of the reasons I'm actually typing this blog post and not laying on my couch watching Ross and Rachel fall in love. But, back in the days when I could watch Friends all night, one of the last situations I saw was when Monica and Rachel were fighting with their downstairs neighbor, Mr. Heckles.
My downstairs neighbor is not named Mr. Heckles, but he does not like me. More specifically, actually, I think he does not like the concept of IKEA furniture. I'm very lucky in the fact that I have an incredible family who really dropped everything they had to do to help me move to New York City. This included both my brother's staying with me for a full-week, sleeping on my floor and putting together all of my IKEA furniture, a task that requires a large amount of banging. Though I've never met my Mr. Heckles, he came to complain to my brother's about all the sound he heard from them putting together my entire apartment and, for unknown reasons, become quite convinced the three of us were hiding something or someone, threatening to call the police. Thus far, the police have not shown up at my door, searching for whatever my Mr. Heckles thinks we are hiding, but considering I have absolutely nothing illegal in my apartment, I truly am looking forward to the situation should it arise.
In Friends, Mr. Heckles dies. My real-life Mr. Heckles has not died, but I truly do think my next door neighbor is dead. When Jonny and I went to look at my apartment a few days after Christmas, there was an envelope stuck in the door right next to the doorknob. When I moved in on the third, it was still there and, currently, the envelope has not moved. During one of their altercations with Real Life Mr. Heckles, he mentioned that he knew the sound was coming from my apartment because the woman who lives next to me is 86, prompting the boys to become wide-eyed at the fact my neighbor may indeed actually have died and also raising the question as to how an 86-year-old woman lives at the top of a sixth floor walk-up.
The answers to both these questions are not things I have learned in New York.
5. Sunday's are made for family.
When someone first moves to New York City, it's pretty typical they feel very, very alone. I was highly anticipating this loneliness I'd heard so many people go through, yet surprisingly enough, it never came. I'm in the unique situation where I know an absurd amount of people in this really big city -- so many of my cousins and two of my best friends live here. I'm incredibly lucky.
Because we're all adults with big kid jobs, we've made Sunday's family days. For the past two weeks, we've spent most of the day watching football at bars, though yesterday we also started the outing with a fancy brunch. I moved out of New York 20 years ago and now, it's nice to be back with my family, to have the ability to walk to my cousins apartment, to look forward to seeing them at the beginning of each week.
Last July, when I intoxicatedly visited Brandy for the first time, she told me when I got a job offer, I'd initially be skeptical about the situation, but she knew it would work out for me. She knew I'd take the right opportunity because I was going to end up in a place I truly and genuinely belonged.
Brandy was right and, so far, it's been the foundation of the most important thing I've learned here so far -- that, when I moved to New York, I moved back home.
Living in New York City is hard. But, it's so, so worth it.