One Year Ago Today

One Year ago today I started work at my first job in New York City. I was living in a hotel in Chelsea for that first week.  I had originally planned on moving to New York in July when my sub-lease was set to begin, but I wanted to start work as soon as possible so I made the necessary arrangements. I went from the hotel in Chelsea to a "Home Away" short term rental in Bed Stuy, to my summer sub-lease, to a disaster in Crown Heights, and then finally to where I am now; My cozy little basement hobbit hole in Woodside. The ceilings are low and I am often lulled to sleep by the faint rumbling of the 7 Train two stories above me. That job I started exactly a year ago today is no more. I made friends who, for unavoidable reasons, I do not and probably will not see much  which is strange for me given that I spent the first 24 years of my life in the same small state and was bound to see everyone I ever knew at least once a year.

 I am happy to report that while living in New York I was only ever made late to work one time as a result of failing to read the subway notifications. My new job, which I really like so far, has its offices right between Times Square and Herald Square. This is...kind of the worst. BUT I basically work at the center of the Universe as far as cultural consciousness is concerned so that's pretty neat. If I am so inclined I can use the bathrooms at Macy's Herald Square and be back before anyone notices I'm gone. That's not really true because my job doesn't have much down time but you get the point. Macy's is a great place to pee.


Before moving to New York I wrote about how I thought living in New York would help "distract me from the insularity of independent consciousness" or something to that effect. Phrasing it that way was a load of self indulgent crap but so far I think its proving to be true in its own way. I never worry that I'm out of touch with the bulk of humanity because the bulk of humanity is represented here. There may be a sickening wealth gap, but everyone is crammed together in such a way here that a disgruntled homeless man can intentionally puke on a Wall Street dude without having to go too far out of his way and I think that's just great.

Blame It On My Glands

As far as my endocrine system is concerned, there is absolutely no difference between forgetting to pay my credit card bill and forgetting to turn the oven off. One is a small error which effects only me. The other is a potentially life threatening error which effects my roommate, her cat, our neighbors, and potentially an entire crew of emergency medics. I get the same sweaty, blotchy, bottomed-out feeling when I make any error of any kind. I actually don't make that many serious errors in my personal life, but you can imagine how this particular defect would effect me at work- and especially at a new job. I'm not intellectually prone to stress- I understand that I don't need to spend too much time worrying about small errors as long as I fix them and learn not to make them in future. Unfortunately that understanding does not stop my adrenaline glands from sending my body into panic mode whether I've made a small mistake that no one will know about but me, or a big mistake that will negatively impact everyone. Luckily the errors decrease over time so my days will eventually start feeling slightly less like 8 hours on a plane in turbulence.