A calm Saturday morning the phone rings. I should have know that it was going to be a strange Saturday right from the start. No one dares to call me on a Saturday, much less in the morning. Sleeping all weekend is one of the biggest indulgences for my otherwise plain and somewhat repetitive New York life.
I pick the phone and it's my college buddy Ed who lives a block down from my place. He finally has some time off from his crazy rotations and wants to go to a free concert in Central Park. I get out of bed trying to make my voice sound as awake as possible while he goes on about how famous this guy is and how big an event the concert is going to be. Somehow either because I have not seen him in a while or because I am too sleepy to say no, I say yes.
We take our sweet old time to get here and when we finally reach the site of the summer concert, the place is already packed and the gates are closed. We watch the hundreds of people still in line wondering what they're waiting for since it looks like no one is really going to leave the concert until it is over.
There are literally hundreds of people around the concert stage all on blankets, eating, chatting, drinking, getting a tan and being New York style fabulous and all. Maybe it is just me but taking a stroll in Central Park in the summer is like taking a trip over to the meat market, and a very depressing one at that. These people obviously were spending too much time between going to the gym and roasting on a regular basis in the solarium. There was also the remote yet viable possibility of these people belonging to another race, another species, perhaps another planet.
Anyhow, as we went through the crowd, Ed and I spotted one of those large volcanic rocks that have been scattered all over Central Park. It had all the characteristics of a strategic spot, good sound, lots of people walking by, yet providing isolation from the crowd's madness. In New York you can never really hope to the first person to find a good spot.
You learn this fast, and instead hope that you're not the last person to find the good spot. The rocks was already half covered with yuppies, students, and other strange New York types that I do not yet have names for. The concert started and Ed and I both listened to the bands and carried on a conversation about Ed's latest dating experiences. All seemed well.
Then without a warning, a saw a squirrel (aka tree rat) run towards our rock. At first I was a little puzzled yet I did not take full notice of the squirrel running like mad in our direction. Squirrels are neurotic animals, it is normal for them to freak out at the drop of a leaf so everything seemed typical so far. Soon the squirrel was climbing our rock and making its way to the left side of the rock where a bunch of incense burning, cool looking dudes and gals were rocking to the beat of the music. Let me tell ya, all those laid back and cool dudes jumped 3 feet up in the air when they saw the squirrel run towards them. What's worse is, the squirrel took much offense at this strong reaction and started to run in the opposite direction. It ran into another blanket full of people who strangely reacted to it like they have never seen a squirrel in their whole lives. So this continued much like a particle accelerator, until the squirrel was literally running all over the rock at the speed of light (ok so he was not about to engage in time travel but you know what I mean, it was no longer a squirrel running, it was blur). Next thing I know before I could move the squirrel was running towards us. I decided that my best best was to stay calm and statitionary since a moving object was more confusing to the squirrel which was in a mad rage by now. Strangely enough this turned out to be the worst choice because the squirrel kept running and running and rammed into my left ankle head first. I swear I felt his wet mouth on my leg. And then he turned and started running in another direction, the screams and people jumping in the air following his course of course.
I could see that it was about to turn back to direction (and possibly come and hit me again) so that was that. I got up and started to shout the following: "it is a god damn squirrel, calm the fuck down! you're freaking it out!!" Before my adrenaline wore off I realized that the whole rock was laughing at my statement, not because it was funny but I guess because it had been such a New York moment.
I could not see the squirrel anymore, it had ran to some obscure unseen direction by then. When I looked down I saw that my ankle was bleeding from three long scratches. Obviously the squirrel had decided to use my leg to pick up speed and in the meantime left me with my first physical and perhaps emotional scar from New York.
Ed and I got up and searched for an onsite medical team but there was none. The cops who were providing concert security told me that they could call me an ambulance but that did not seem right. Not for a simple bleeding scratch.
Because I was not sure whether the squirrel had bitten me or not we ended up going to an ER somewhere in Upper East Side. After waiting for an hour, a nurse took a look at my leg in triage and told me that there was no risk of rabies even if the squirrel bit me. My leg was cleaned and bandaged and I was out of there.
It took almost a whole week for the scratches to heal and there are three scars on my leg after three weeks.
This experience proved to me that even going to a free concert in New York has a price, in my case it was three scars in my left ankle and a damn good story to tell over drinks.
Category :
Just the other day, I was trying to describe my NY commute to a friend of mine and I realized all the little details were already gone. So before it all runs away from me, I wanted to capture my commute.
I lived in East Village at the corner of 14th street and Avenue C (yes it was almostBrookyln.com). I had to first walk from Avenue C to 1st Avenue and enter the L subway station. If you do not know the L line (Loser as I used to call it.), this is a major line that runs pretty deep into Brookyln and then runs underneath the east river and emerges in Manhattan right at 14th street and 1st Avenue. I soon realized that unlike my apartment broker's version of the story, L was an infrequent, overcrowded, and poorly maintained line. The schedule never seemed to make sense to me. Some days 3 trains would arrive one after the other, or some mornings I would wait 30 minutes with no trains. And then there were the times the train would arrive and it would have everyone and their grandmother from Brookyln on it.
The thing with subways is they're the ultimate tool of democracy. There's nothing like public transport to bring everyone down to the same level of misery. So here we were, the Wall Street ingénues, the new economy turds, the clueless Turks, the school children with questionable clothing and the last but not the least the homeless ... all stuffed into the same steel container speeding underneath the city of sex and glamour. Strangely enough there was nothing sexy nor glamorous about my commute. On the L line, designated with a round gray emblem, there were no colors, we were all washed out, tired, upset, bored, too late to places we never thought we would rush to this early in the morning.
The L line on Manhattan does not go far; and for a good reason too. The L line goes from the East side of Manhattan to the West side in a straight line. If you know Manhattan you will realize it's in the shape a long turd so it does not take long to cut it from side to side. Anyhow, enough about turd, the stops on Manhattan are 1st Ave, 3rd Ave, Union Square, 6th Ave, and final stop at 8th Avenue.
During the first few months, I took L to 6th Avenue changed over to the red line: 1,2,3 and 9. These different trains are on the same line but two were express and two were local. The groups of two further had unique stops, destinations and quirks as soon as they left Manhattan. To tell you the truth, I do not remember all the small details about these lines because I never used them for anything other than going to work and going to my cousin's apartment on Upper West Side.
To switch between L and the red line stations, you have to walk down this really long, and sometimes depressing underground tunnel. The only time that tunnel was fun was when they had street performers down there. I remember, there was this very tall, thin black guy that used to sing and play his guitar with the widest smile on his face. He brightened my day anytime I ran into him. I always tipped him, always --anyone who can brighten up your day in that city needs to be tipped. Perhaps this is why we pay so much money to entertainers, to all these movies, and musicians. They make our unbearable lives bearable. So in a sense we take what we should be entitled to: good living, and turn it into this rare feast, an occasional decadence, a shot of our favorite drug of choice and compensate for it with entertainment be it chemical, mental, physical or all of the above. I don't know where I fit in all of this. I seem to be pointing a lot of things and shitting all over everything but I am just as guilty of as anyone else for buying into, and contributing to the mess.
From 6th Avenue Red line station, I would throw myself into an express train and that usually was a major feat. The express trains were always sardine packed with the Wall Street people. A group of people that never seemed to dress down even during the sweltering hot of the summer months. I do believe that they really must be cold-blooded --otherwise there is no way anyone can have three layers of clothes on in the subway in August and not break a sweat.
The express line took me to World Trade Center station within one hop. It was amazing. I would stand in the train looking outside and watching all these stations race past us in a mad rage, all the colors, the light, the dark, the sirens all blending, running into each other like a Van Gogh painting. And there was a strange hope, a strange thrill there, as in now that I was moving faster I was somehow making up for all the time wasted?
World Trade Center station was amazing. It was not the most beautiful mall I have seen but it was full of stylish stores, all these tunnels and exits, and finally the entrance to Path, the New Jersey trains.
You have to appreciate the strangeness of the situation. In the morning everyone from NJ is commuting to the World Trade Center with the Path trains and I am commuting out along with a handful group of crazy people. So I would literally have to swim against the current of people flowing out of the Path stations and go down to the trains. The Path trains were always cleaner and mostly on time. They actually had a schedule if you can believe.
Almost there. The path train would eventually fill up and the doors would close and the train would always do this strange loopey turney thing so that it could re-enter the NJ PATH tunnel. We would speed underneath Hudson, and soon enough I was finally at my final destination, Exchange Place New Jersey.
A couple of months into my employment in NY, a coworker of mine recommended a less stressful route. Instead of taking the red line she suggested I take the orange like, the N and the R. It really was less stressful but it sometimes did not seem fast enough. NR transverse the same distance and roughly the same number of stops as 1,2,3,9 but there were no express trains, well at least for the part of Manhattan I was traveling in.
My cousin affectionately had named the NR, the Never and the Rarely. And that name says it all really. These trains would disappear for 30 mins at a time and would keep you waiting at the scalding hot platforms for minutes on end. When you finally got onto one of these, the cars were usually old, the A/C broken. I must admit however the most colorful people were always on the NR.
NR also converged at the WTC station. In fact many of the lines that traveled down to lower Manhattan were connected to WTC in one way or another.
I did not like my commute. I did not like the first day I did it, I did not like it the last day I had to do it. I never cared for underground trains, especially the ones in the US. If I was in London on the Jubilee line maybe my story would have been different and I would be raving. But I have a hunch that you could put me on a golden subway line with free express service to any station, I still would manage to be unhappy on it.
Maybe it's not the cities, maybe it is not the subway, maybe it is not a job, maybe it is not my parents, maybe it is not anything at all, perhaps it is not even me.
I lived in East Village at the corner of 14th street and Avenue C (yes it was almostBrookyln.com). I had to first walk from Avenue C to 1st Avenue and enter the L subway station. If you do not know the L line (Loser as I used to call it.), this is a major line that runs pretty deep into Brookyln and then runs underneath the east river and emerges in Manhattan right at 14th street and 1st Avenue. I soon realized that unlike my apartment broker's version of the story, L was an infrequent, overcrowded, and poorly maintained line. The schedule never seemed to make sense to me. Some days 3 trains would arrive one after the other, or some mornings I would wait 30 minutes with no trains. And then there were the times the train would arrive and it would have everyone and their grandmother from Brookyln on it.
The thing with subways is they're the ultimate tool of democracy. There's nothing like public transport to bring everyone down to the same level of misery. So here we were, the Wall Street ingénues, the new economy turds, the clueless Turks, the school children with questionable clothing and the last but not the least the homeless ... all stuffed into the same steel container speeding underneath the city of sex and glamour. Strangely enough there was nothing sexy nor glamorous about my commute. On the L line, designated with a round gray emblem, there were no colors, we were all washed out, tired, upset, bored, too late to places we never thought we would rush to this early in the morning.
The L line on Manhattan does not go far; and for a good reason too. The L line goes from the East side of Manhattan to the West side in a straight line. If you know Manhattan you will realize it's in the shape a long turd so it does not take long to cut it from side to side. Anyhow, enough about turd, the stops on Manhattan are 1st Ave, 3rd Ave, Union Square, 6th Ave, and final stop at 8th Avenue.
During the first few months, I took L to 6th Avenue changed over to the red line: 1,2,3 and 9. These different trains are on the same line but two were express and two were local. The groups of two further had unique stops, destinations and quirks as soon as they left Manhattan. To tell you the truth, I do not remember all the small details about these lines because I never used them for anything other than going to work and going to my cousin's apartment on Upper West Side.
To switch between L and the red line stations, you have to walk down this really long, and sometimes depressing underground tunnel. The only time that tunnel was fun was when they had street performers down there. I remember, there was this very tall, thin black guy that used to sing and play his guitar with the widest smile on his face. He brightened my day anytime I ran into him. I always tipped him, always --anyone who can brighten up your day in that city needs to be tipped. Perhaps this is why we pay so much money to entertainers, to all these movies, and musicians. They make our unbearable lives bearable. So in a sense we take what we should be entitled to: good living, and turn it into this rare feast, an occasional decadence, a shot of our favorite drug of choice and compensate for it with entertainment be it chemical, mental, physical or all of the above. I don't know where I fit in all of this. I seem to be pointing a lot of things and shitting all over everything but I am just as guilty of as anyone else for buying into, and contributing to the mess.
From 6th Avenue Red line station, I would throw myself into an express train and that usually was a major feat. The express trains were always sardine packed with the Wall Street people. A group of people that never seemed to dress down even during the sweltering hot of the summer months. I do believe that they really must be cold-blooded --otherwise there is no way anyone can have three layers of clothes on in the subway in August and not break a sweat.
The express line took me to World Trade Center station within one hop. It was amazing. I would stand in the train looking outside and watching all these stations race past us in a mad rage, all the colors, the light, the dark, the sirens all blending, running into each other like a Van Gogh painting. And there was a strange hope, a strange thrill there, as in now that I was moving faster I was somehow making up for all the time wasted?
World Trade Center station was amazing. It was not the most beautiful mall I have seen but it was full of stylish stores, all these tunnels and exits, and finally the entrance to Path, the New Jersey trains.
You have to appreciate the strangeness of the situation. In the morning everyone from NJ is commuting to the World Trade Center with the Path trains and I am commuting out along with a handful group of crazy people. So I would literally have to swim against the current of people flowing out of the Path stations and go down to the trains. The Path trains were always cleaner and mostly on time. They actually had a schedule if you can believe.
Almost there. The path train would eventually fill up and the doors would close and the train would always do this strange loopey turney thing so that it could re-enter the NJ PATH tunnel. We would speed underneath Hudson, and soon enough I was finally at my final destination, Exchange Place New Jersey.
A couple of months into my employment in NY, a coworker of mine recommended a less stressful route. Instead of taking the red line she suggested I take the orange like, the N and the R. It really was less stressful but it sometimes did not seem fast enough. NR transverse the same distance and roughly the same number of stops as 1,2,3,9 but there were no express trains, well at least for the part of Manhattan I was traveling in.
My cousin affectionately had named the NR, the Never and the Rarely. And that name says it all really. These trains would disappear for 30 mins at a time and would keep you waiting at the scalding hot platforms for minutes on end. When you finally got onto one of these, the cars were usually old, the A/C broken. I must admit however the most colorful people were always on the NR.
NR also converged at the WTC station. In fact many of the lines that traveled down to lower Manhattan were connected to WTC in one way or another.
I did not like my commute. I did not like the first day I did it, I did not like it the last day I had to do it. I never cared for underground trains, especially the ones in the US. If I was in London on the Jubilee line maybe my story would have been different and I would be raving. But I have a hunch that you could put me on a golden subway line with free express service to any station, I still would manage to be unhappy on it.
Maybe it's not the cities, maybe it is not the subway, maybe it is not a job, maybe it is not my parents, maybe it is not anything at all, perhaps it is not even me.
Category :
It was spring 2001, a different time in a city that never stopped changing. Early May, the streets of New York crisp with still chilly winds but calmly warmed by the sun streaming through the dark clouds finally losing their seige of the skies.
What is it about extremely cold winters that makes them prone to being followed by amazingly beautiful springs? Perhaps all springs are pretty much the same. Perhaps all of this variance from season to season, from year to year is all in our heads.
I got into the habit of taking long walks in my neighborhood in an effort to get to know the area. After a few weeks of exploring I felt like the king of Stuyvesant town. I knew the 14th street and 1st Avenue area well, every store, every restaurant, every little detail.
East Village felt like this not quite dry canvas I was walking around on, I could almost feel my shoes smudging the fresh paint as I was walking around. There were homeless people in parks, people who walked the streets, smelly, drunk, lost, perhaps insane. There were people with jobs and a thousand places they needed to be at like 30 minutes ago, running, rushing, pushing, sweating, stressing. That's the thing with ugliness and stress; they are both kinda contagious. You can not live in the center of ugliness and not become ugly yourself. Same thing applies to stress. You can leave your apartment feeling like a million dollars and with a great love for everything and everyone and in New York City, within 2 blocks you can change your mind and hate the whole world with all your heart.
All it takes is running into one or two negative, angry, bitter New Yorkers on the street and you can ruin your entire day. With such dangers looming on the streets, Manhattan sometimes felt like a field of land mines. Take a wrong step and you could be blow to pieces.
What is it about extremely cold winters that makes them prone to being followed by amazingly beautiful springs? Perhaps all springs are pretty much the same. Perhaps all of this variance from season to season, from year to year is all in our heads.
I got into the habit of taking long walks in my neighborhood in an effort to get to know the area. After a few weeks of exploring I felt like the king of Stuyvesant town. I knew the 14th street and 1st Avenue area well, every store, every restaurant, every little detail.
East Village felt like this not quite dry canvas I was walking around on, I could almost feel my shoes smudging the fresh paint as I was walking around. There were homeless people in parks, people who walked the streets, smelly, drunk, lost, perhaps insane. There were people with jobs and a thousand places they needed to be at like 30 minutes ago, running, rushing, pushing, sweating, stressing. That's the thing with ugliness and stress; they are both kinda contagious. You can not live in the center of ugliness and not become ugly yourself. Same thing applies to stress. You can leave your apartment feeling like a million dollars and with a great love for everything and everyone and in New York City, within 2 blocks you can change your mind and hate the whole world with all your heart.
All it takes is running into one or two negative, angry, bitter New Yorkers on the street and you can ruin your entire day. With such dangers looming on the streets, Manhattan sometimes felt like a field of land mines. Take a wrong step and you could be blow to pieces.
Category :
On 14th Street across from Stuyvesant Town is this pizza joint called: Pete's-a-Place. It was the first thing that caught my eye when my broker and I visited the neighborhood during my apartment hunt. The moment I saw the "cheesy" sign of this little greasy pizza joint I knew I was going to somehow end up living in East Village, perhaps not too far from this place.
And that is almost exactly how it happened. As much as I hated the 14th street, I loved the Stuyvesant town and my beautiful one bedroom apartment in it. My apartment was located in the far south-eastern corner of the development and I barely if ever heard any traffic or street noise, and I loved loved loved that. If I wanted I could be in the middle of Manhattan hell in less than 5 minutes, but when I wanted some quiet, I could have endless hours of it at home. You have to understand that for most Manhattinites with my level of income this was a rare luxury.
It turns out I ate at Pete's-a-place only once. Their pizza was possibly the worst pizza I have tasted since Mr. Gatti's chain pizza. It was the kind of food that you eat real fast because you can not bear the fact that you're actually eating it. When you're hungry and you've spent your fair share of lunch money for the day, you kind of have to eat what you got. And if what you got is the pizza equivalent of a bucket of lard, you have two options, go hungry for that afternoon or you just gulp it down hoping that your body will be less discerning than your taste buds and your sense of smell. I chose the second option that day...
I must have walked by that joint every day for the remainder of my days in New York. Every time I walked by I swear they never would have customers inside. I am surprised that they actually stayed in business. Maybe, just maybe they were some sort of horrible mafia using the pizza joint as a front end to some unheard of way to make a quick buck.
And that is almost exactly how it happened. As much as I hated the 14th street, I loved the Stuyvesant town and my beautiful one bedroom apartment in it. My apartment was located in the far south-eastern corner of the development and I barely if ever heard any traffic or street noise, and I loved loved loved that. If I wanted I could be in the middle of Manhattan hell in less than 5 minutes, but when I wanted some quiet, I could have endless hours of it at home. You have to understand that for most Manhattinites with my level of income this was a rare luxury.
It turns out I ate at Pete's-a-place only once. Their pizza was possibly the worst pizza I have tasted since Mr. Gatti's chain pizza. It was the kind of food that you eat real fast because you can not bear the fact that you're actually eating it. When you're hungry and you've spent your fair share of lunch money for the day, you kind of have to eat what you got. And if what you got is the pizza equivalent of a bucket of lard, you have two options, go hungry for that afternoon or you just gulp it down hoping that your body will be less discerning than your taste buds and your sense of smell. I chose the second option that day...
I must have walked by that joint every day for the remainder of my days in New York. Every time I walked by I swear they never would have customers inside. I am surprised that they actually stayed in business. Maybe, just maybe they were some sort of horrible mafia using the pizza joint as a front end to some unheard of way to make a quick buck.
Category :
No one prepares and nothing for that matter can really prepare you for the ever so treacherous process of apartment hunting in New York City. There are so many things to consider and take into account. First of there is the money you can put out for rent, then where you work, where you party, where you would like to workout, where the subways are, who owns the property, the lease terms, your cool friends' expectations, your parents expectations, your pets, proximity to restaurants and parks etc. The list is endless. This is why it seemed so strange when my apartment hunt took less than half a day. I either had the best broker in town, or I was rushed into renting an apartment, or perhaps both.
New York is a city that has absolutely no patience for people who do not know what they want in life. This city clearly, openly, and shamelessly discriminates against these slow decision makers --their life eventually turns into a trail of poorly made decisions, unhappiness, and misery in the city --eventually they move away and bicker about what a horrible place New York is. I am one of those people. I think glaciers sometimes make decisions faster than I do.
I found my broker through one of my new office mates' recommendation. He and his company Manhattan apartments were helpful but they were not ready and/or willing to spend a week with me while I went through my motions for making a decision.
So one Tuesday morning, John the broker and I went on our apartment shopping spree. I think there is a certain formula these brokers follow every time, and it must work like a charm, cause it sure did work on me. They first show you your worst nightmare apartments, one perhaps at max two of these. Once your expectations are lowered to the point of actually considering Brooklyn as a viable option, they start showing you the good stuff. But beware, the good stuff comes with its own emotional baggage. Every time you pronounce an apartment as one you would consider suddenly all other Manhattannites line up to steal this apartment from you. So just like a good opportunity in life, you have to make the excruciating decision of whether you should jump on the apartment or you should keep looking and risk losing it.
Well I am chicken. Predictably when I saw my dream apartment, I did not even care where it was located: Smack in the center of East Focking Village. I thought hey, at least I was on Manhattan, I was close to the subway --or so I thought, the apartment was huuuuge, and it was brand new for a whopping rent of $2200 per month. Ouch city. I could not imagine what the rent was like uptown.
Once I had made the decision, I needed approval. So I gave my older cousin Memduh a ring and he was rushed to my new address to approve the choice. He seemed to be fond of it. He was actually surprised by how glitzy the interior of the apartment was with comparison to the exterior. The property was located on Stuyvesant Town, a former veterans families project recently acquired and currently run by MetLife. The lease however pricey was very flexible, allowing me to move out almost any time without any serious penalty fees. So if I thought if I absolutely hated it, I could get rid of the place and move on up to better apartments.
John switched to high gear as he took me to the bank, then to the leasing office. The application fee of $500 was put down, then the deposit which was two month's rent (ouch), $4400, then they required me to pay the first month's rent another $2200 and finally there was the broker's fee 17% of my yearly rent --bend me over the barrel, any time now. So within the course of a few hours I parted with close to $11,000. It felt very strange, it felt good. Already a week into my stay in NYC, I was enjoying putting more zeros after digits. This was not a good precedent. This town was going to slowly invite me to live more and more beyond my means -- a pattern that will eventually make my continued stay there financially impossible.
New York is a city that has absolutely no patience for people who do not know what they want in life. This city clearly, openly, and shamelessly discriminates against these slow decision makers --their life eventually turns into a trail of poorly made decisions, unhappiness, and misery in the city --eventually they move away and bicker about what a horrible place New York is. I am one of those people. I think glaciers sometimes make decisions faster than I do.
I found my broker through one of my new office mates' recommendation. He and his company Manhattan apartments were helpful but they were not ready and/or willing to spend a week with me while I went through my motions for making a decision.
So one Tuesday morning, John the broker and I went on our apartment shopping spree. I think there is a certain formula these brokers follow every time, and it must work like a charm, cause it sure did work on me. They first show you your worst nightmare apartments, one perhaps at max two of these. Once your expectations are lowered to the point of actually considering Brooklyn as a viable option, they start showing you the good stuff. But beware, the good stuff comes with its own emotional baggage. Every time you pronounce an apartment as one you would consider suddenly all other Manhattannites line up to steal this apartment from you. So just like a good opportunity in life, you have to make the excruciating decision of whether you should jump on the apartment or you should keep looking and risk losing it.
Well I am chicken. Predictably when I saw my dream apartment, I did not even care where it was located: Smack in the center of East Focking Village. I thought hey, at least I was on Manhattan, I was close to the subway --or so I thought, the apartment was huuuuge, and it was brand new for a whopping rent of $2200 per month. Ouch city. I could not imagine what the rent was like uptown.
Once I had made the decision, I needed approval. So I gave my older cousin Memduh a ring and he was rushed to my new address to approve the choice. He seemed to be fond of it. He was actually surprised by how glitzy the interior of the apartment was with comparison to the exterior. The property was located on Stuyvesant Town, a former veterans families project recently acquired and currently run by MetLife. The lease however pricey was very flexible, allowing me to move out almost any time without any serious penalty fees. So if I thought if I absolutely hated it, I could get rid of the place and move on up to better apartments.
John switched to high gear as he took me to the bank, then to the leasing office. The application fee of $500 was put down, then the deposit which was two month's rent (ouch), $4400, then they required me to pay the first month's rent another $2200 and finally there was the broker's fee 17% of my yearly rent --bend me over the barrel, any time now. So within the course of a few hours I parted with close to $11,000. It felt very strange, it felt good. Already a week into my stay in NYC, I was enjoying putting more zeros after digits. This was not a good precedent. This town was going to slowly invite me to live more and more beyond my means -- a pattern that will eventually make my continued stay there financially impossible.
Category :
My plane landed in NYC on May 3 2001. It was the JFK airport, late in the afternoon. I still had a long ride to New Jersey ahead of me. My company had reserved some lame corporate apartment for me in Jersey City NJ. Here I was moving to NY and I was already knocked off the island on the first night.
I had two large suitcases with me and my backpack. I walked out of terminal one and found the yellow cabs. When I told the guy that I was going to Jersey, he was kind of confused. Apparently the sensible thing to do usually is to fly to Newark airport in Jersey. The ride I was asking for was way more than a cab driver expects when they pull into the airport cab line. He was both confused and happy while trying to figure out how much he wanted to rip me off. I think he had a non-New York moment and told me the truth. He told me the best thing to do was to turn on the meter and then compare it to the fixed fees listed on his sheet. The fees were totaling up to something like 100 dollars and I was worried. I was not even sure I had enough cash.
So I jumped in, the suitcases were thrown in the trunk and we started a long ride through the unfamiliar highways of Brooklyn. We went through Williamsburg bridge and then through Manhattan and then through Holland Tunnel to get to Jersey City. I am not sure it was the shortest path possible. It was getting late, and I did not care anymore. This was to become a pattern in my life in New York. This is a city that puts you in such situations in such urgency, or in such exhaustion that you make the dumbest decisions or most of the time you let the decisions make themselves. At least this was the effect this city would have on me.
Finally I was in front of the corporate apartment and $80 short. I got into my apartment and immediately noticed that I was assigned to a two bedroom apartment with another coworker. I was mortified. Being an only child I have never gotten used to living with others. Something I should probably work on but I never had to --well except for my freshman year in college where they put me up with this guy that was twice my size, ate like a hog and never cleaned his side of the room.
Anyhow, I did not care, I was there, I was tired, I had to sleep and I just jumped into my bed. Next morning I called the office. They were being very laid back about things. "Oh yeah, hi, great that you're here. Oh don't worry about showing up to work, look for an apartment first." I was confused. I thought they would want me in the office pronto. One of my coworkers told me that she lived in the free corporate apartment for a month before finding her own place. She was telling me this as an accomplishment on her part -- it sounded more like a nightmare to me. I needed a place of my own urgently.
So the next day I started calling up apartment broker services. One of my new coworkers had worked with this broker, and highly recommended him. So I gave him a call and made an appointment sometime later in the week. In the meantime I was showing up to the office, trying to get my ducks in a row --find a desk, get to meet the team, get my phone, computer etc working. It was all taking a long time. They could not locate my computer that was shipped from Austin for a day or two and then it magically appeared.
My team was another story. It was strange; something was strange. They were acting a little weird around me, or so I felt. Our supervisor was this thin thin almost emaciated tall guy that scared me. He seemed to be dissaproving everything I was doing, everything I was saying. I kept telling myself it was all in my head and I am sure to some point it was. Later I found out this group of people would never really accept me as one of them.
I had two large suitcases with me and my backpack. I walked out of terminal one and found the yellow cabs. When I told the guy that I was going to Jersey, he was kind of confused. Apparently the sensible thing to do usually is to fly to Newark airport in Jersey. The ride I was asking for was way more than a cab driver expects when they pull into the airport cab line. He was both confused and happy while trying to figure out how much he wanted to rip me off. I think he had a non-New York moment and told me the truth. He told me the best thing to do was to turn on the meter and then compare it to the fixed fees listed on his sheet. The fees were totaling up to something like 100 dollars and I was worried. I was not even sure I had enough cash.
So I jumped in, the suitcases were thrown in the trunk and we started a long ride through the unfamiliar highways of Brooklyn. We went through Williamsburg bridge and then through Manhattan and then through Holland Tunnel to get to Jersey City. I am not sure it was the shortest path possible. It was getting late, and I did not care anymore. This was to become a pattern in my life in New York. This is a city that puts you in such situations in such urgency, or in such exhaustion that you make the dumbest decisions or most of the time you let the decisions make themselves. At least this was the effect this city would have on me.
Finally I was in front of the corporate apartment and $80 short. I got into my apartment and immediately noticed that I was assigned to a two bedroom apartment with another coworker. I was mortified. Being an only child I have never gotten used to living with others. Something I should probably work on but I never had to --well except for my freshman year in college where they put me up with this guy that was twice my size, ate like a hog and never cleaned his side of the room.
Anyhow, I did not care, I was there, I was tired, I had to sleep and I just jumped into my bed. Next morning I called the office. They were being very laid back about things. "Oh yeah, hi, great that you're here. Oh don't worry about showing up to work, look for an apartment first." I was confused. I thought they would want me in the office pronto. One of my coworkers told me that she lived in the free corporate apartment for a month before finding her own place. She was telling me this as an accomplishment on her part -- it sounded more like a nightmare to me. I needed a place of my own urgently.
So the next day I started calling up apartment broker services. One of my new coworkers had worked with this broker, and highly recommended him. So I gave him a call and made an appointment sometime later in the week. In the meantime I was showing up to the office, trying to get my ducks in a row --find a desk, get to meet the team, get my phone, computer etc working. It was all taking a long time. They could not locate my computer that was shipped from Austin for a day or two and then it magically appeared.
My team was another story. It was strange; something was strange. They were acting a little weird around me, or so I felt. Our supervisor was this thin thin almost emaciated tall guy that scared me. He seemed to be dissaproving everything I was doing, everything I was saying. I kept telling myself it was all in my head and I am sure to some point it was. Later I found out this group of people would never really accept me as one of them.
Category :
It is amazing how once a difficult decision is made, it seems to execute by itself. It felt the same with the New York City move. Next thing I know I was called a "sodder" in the office which was affectionately coined office terminology for the likes me that were going to New York. Yes it was true, affectionate or not, I was sodding off, getting the hell out of the horrible project that was draining the life out of me.
There were 15 of us total and I was the last one to move because of my late decision and many project transitioning tasks.
The movers were scheduled, tickets were bought, items were packed, things were given away and soon all traces of my life in the US evaporated from sight right before my eyes. Now I was a nomad, no longer owning a place to call home in Austin and not yet found a new one in New York.
I was intimidated, I was shaken, I was bothered. For me having my own place is the most important thing in the world. Being without one felt like being a slug without a shell, I had nowhere to hide, and I felt exposed, very exposed.
My parents LOVED the move to New York. They hated the long flights they had to take to get to Texas. They figured with me being in New York, we would see each other more often and perhaps get a chance to mend some of the relationship issues that had run amuck in the past couple of years.
Now you're thinking all of this is happening too fast or perhaps you want me to get to the New York bit already. There is so much I need to relate to you before we get to the New York part. I would like to relate this information in a way that does not interfere with the flow of events. So here is a bit of detail we could just glaze over but I think it is important for your understanding of what's going on in my head currently.
As you know I am from Turkey, and being a male Turkish citizen I am required to do mandatory military service some time after graduation from a highschool. The usual duration of the military service is 18 months. You can be assigned to any of the camps in Turkey which means you can get stuck in the worst parts of Turkey in the coldest months of the year. Military service within these parameters is quite difficult and taxing. It really is what makes a man, a man in Turkey. I have never seen anyone come back from military service quite the same.
If a Turkish citizen attends a college be it in Turkey or outside, the military service requirement is postponed until their graduation. Getting a higher ed degree also has it perks in terms of the military service. Citizens with higher ed degrees qualify to do their service in either 8 months as grunt or 18 months as an officer --better living quarters, less hardship, more responsibility, and possibly better treatment. These are great but my generation in my family is a bunch of wussies. We were brought up in quite nice accomodations and we never lacked the basic amenities. Some of us never even camped once. So you can imagine the horror in our minds when we think of ourselves in military service.
Luckily for us, there is a further clause in the law. It applies to Turkish citizens who have been and are currently working abroad. It requires at least three years of continuous employment and a payment of $5000.00 and the service lasts only 4 weeks. As you can guess I started planning for this long time ago.
At the time the New York move came up, I had already accrued both the employment time and the cash to participate in this special kind of militart service. So I decided to pack up in Austin, fly to Turkey, do my service and then fly right back to New York. It was one of the best plans I made.
Military service was not what I expected, or I was tougher than I thought. Most guys in the service were a bunch of whiners and it was suprising to find myself supporting other people. I never thought I would be the strong and calm kind but here I was doing it.
There were 15 of us total and I was the last one to move because of my late decision and many project transitioning tasks.
The movers were scheduled, tickets were bought, items were packed, things were given away and soon all traces of my life in the US evaporated from sight right before my eyes. Now I was a nomad, no longer owning a place to call home in Austin and not yet found a new one in New York.
I was intimidated, I was shaken, I was bothered. For me having my own place is the most important thing in the world. Being without one felt like being a slug without a shell, I had nowhere to hide, and I felt exposed, very exposed.
My parents LOVED the move to New York. They hated the long flights they had to take to get to Texas. They figured with me being in New York, we would see each other more often and perhaps get a chance to mend some of the relationship issues that had run amuck in the past couple of years.
Now you're thinking all of this is happening too fast or perhaps you want me to get to the New York bit already. There is so much I need to relate to you before we get to the New York part. I would like to relate this information in a way that does not interfere with the flow of events. So here is a bit of detail we could just glaze over but I think it is important for your understanding of what's going on in my head currently.
As you know I am from Turkey, and being a male Turkish citizen I am required to do mandatory military service some time after graduation from a highschool. The usual duration of the military service is 18 months. You can be assigned to any of the camps in Turkey which means you can get stuck in the worst parts of Turkey in the coldest months of the year. Military service within these parameters is quite difficult and taxing. It really is what makes a man, a man in Turkey. I have never seen anyone come back from military service quite the same.
If a Turkish citizen attends a college be it in Turkey or outside, the military service requirement is postponed until their graduation. Getting a higher ed degree also has it perks in terms of the military service. Citizens with higher ed degrees qualify to do their service in either 8 months as grunt or 18 months as an officer --better living quarters, less hardship, more responsibility, and possibly better treatment. These are great but my generation in my family is a bunch of wussies. We were brought up in quite nice accomodations and we never lacked the basic amenities. Some of us never even camped once. So you can imagine the horror in our minds when we think of ourselves in military service.
Luckily for us, there is a further clause in the law. It applies to Turkish citizens who have been and are currently working abroad. It requires at least three years of continuous employment and a payment of $5000.00 and the service lasts only 4 weeks. As you can guess I started planning for this long time ago.
At the time the New York move came up, I had already accrued both the employment time and the cash to participate in this special kind of militart service. So I decided to pack up in Austin, fly to Turkey, do my service and then fly right back to New York. It was one of the best plans I made.
Military service was not what I expected, or I was tougher than I thought. Most guys in the service were a bunch of whiners and it was suprising to find myself supporting other people. I never thought I would be the strong and calm kind but here I was doing it.
Category :
My life seemed perfect during the summer of 2000. I had a great job, a great relationship, I was painting, I was selling paintings, I was writing. Life was good. I think we all go through these good times without knowing. I too did not know, how good I had it.
After the acquisitions, the crazy NY client project with the crazy unruly HC team, I could not see past all this noise to realize how good I had it all this time.
One day my technical lead walks into my cubicle and asks me to come to his room. Go figure, as the project manager I did not have a room to myself but my tech lead did. Also strange was the fact that my tech lead was my manager because I was a senior engineer in the SAPE corporation and he was the head of the tech team but I also was the project manager so I was supposed to be his boss too. Are you getting a headache yet? No wonder SC fucked up so bad eventually, how can a company be run with these circular hierarchies??
Anyhow, I get asked into his room and he starts to tell me about this new initiative SAPE has kicked off. They are planning to take several HC employees from the Austin office and relocate them to New York City offices. This was being done in an effort to transfer the rich media expertise we had in such abundance to the New York City offices that were in need of these capabilities. It all sounded great but I failed to see the connection between all this and myself. My life was already consumed by my ever-so-slowly tanking project, I could not see past it or think that there could be something else for me to do other than run this project.
And sooner than you know, it is taken away from you; the innocence is lost. With that one sentence he said to me, it was taken away from me, even before I agreed to it openly. He said that it did not matter if I was currently assigned to a project as a project manager, I still could be relocated to NY and also get to do what I liked doing --technology.
It seemed tempting, it seemed like the right thing to do, it also frightened me. I have never been the one to take plunges into major changes in my life. So to some point I was completely terrified and partially in a state of denial. Over the course of the next two weeks after much consideration, a prolonged over-analysis, and consultations with my partner, my parents, my best friends the writing was on the wall. I had to go; it really was not much of a choice.
The Austin office was being sized down, it was obviously we all could be laid off any minute now. The pressure of the possible future layoffs, the tanking morale was taking its toll and working at the Austin offices was becoming a pain. In the middle of all of this corporate drama, I was a foreigner who was on a H1-B visa which means I am allowed by the INS to work for a company for a specific period of time.
An H-1B worker can not work for anyone else other than the approved sponsor company. He can not have any others sources of income in the US. He also is approved for employment for a maximum of 6 years of employment in the US after which he has to leave for a complete year and stay out of the US for this period of time. After this leave of absence, he may return to the US for another six years of the same type of visa. Complete bullshit if you ask me. It never made sense to me, and I think it never will.
So the NY office presented the chance to stay longer with SC and created a chance that they might get me a green card eventually.
So the choice was made. I was moving to New York City...
After the acquisitions, the crazy NY client project with the crazy unruly HC team, I could not see past all this noise to realize how good I had it all this time.
One day my technical lead walks into my cubicle and asks me to come to his room. Go figure, as the project manager I did not have a room to myself but my tech lead did. Also strange was the fact that my tech lead was my manager because I was a senior engineer in the SAPE corporation and he was the head of the tech team but I also was the project manager so I was supposed to be his boss too. Are you getting a headache yet? No wonder SC fucked up so bad eventually, how can a company be run with these circular hierarchies??
Anyhow, I get asked into his room and he starts to tell me about this new initiative SAPE has kicked off. They are planning to take several HC employees from the Austin office and relocate them to New York City offices. This was being done in an effort to transfer the rich media expertise we had in such abundance to the New York City offices that were in need of these capabilities. It all sounded great but I failed to see the connection between all this and myself. My life was already consumed by my ever-so-slowly tanking project, I could not see past it or think that there could be something else for me to do other than run this project.
And sooner than you know, it is taken away from you; the innocence is lost. With that one sentence he said to me, it was taken away from me, even before I agreed to it openly. He said that it did not matter if I was currently assigned to a project as a project manager, I still could be relocated to NY and also get to do what I liked doing --technology.
It seemed tempting, it seemed like the right thing to do, it also frightened me. I have never been the one to take plunges into major changes in my life. So to some point I was completely terrified and partially in a state of denial. Over the course of the next two weeks after much consideration, a prolonged over-analysis, and consultations with my partner, my parents, my best friends the writing was on the wall. I had to go; it really was not much of a choice.
The Austin office was being sized down, it was obviously we all could be laid off any minute now. The pressure of the possible future layoffs, the tanking morale was taking its toll and working at the Austin offices was becoming a pain. In the middle of all of this corporate drama, I was a foreigner who was on a H1-B visa which means I am allowed by the INS to work for a company for a specific period of time.
An H-1B worker can not work for anyone else other than the approved sponsor company. He can not have any others sources of income in the US. He also is approved for employment for a maximum of 6 years of employment in the US after which he has to leave for a complete year and stay out of the US for this period of time. After this leave of absence, he may return to the US for another six years of the same type of visa. Complete bullshit if you ask me. It never made sense to me, and I think it never will.
So the NY office presented the chance to stay longer with SC and created a chance that they might get me a green card eventually.
So the choice was made. I was moving to New York City...
Category :
My experience in project management has left me quite disgruntled about the whole team dynamics, communication patterns and people in general. It seems that though people are smart, productive and constructive on their own when you put a bunch of these people into the same room all hopes go out the window.
I am not sure where my hopes went as a project manager; surely not out the window because our windows were sealed shut as we were in a fancy high rise building: 800 Congress in Austin Texas. My coworkers and I from Top Marks Productions(TMP) had been moved to this partially empty office filled with bitter memories of HC's first cut & clear project failure of mass proportions: the Smart & Big prototype. It was a proof of concept project made for a educational software publisher startup. I am not too familiar with all the intimate bitter details of the engagement but let's say the couple broke up before they were able to conceive any kids with the correct count of chromosomes.
So here we were in this fancy new office space, and it seemed like our life had immediately improved. Most of my coworkers spent their days surfing the net and plotting what they would do with the pay-increase. I was re-assigned to a huge project working closely with Ally Jackson, my boss from TMP.
Working with Ally was great, and we understood each other. However, Ally and I were the only TMP members on the project team, the rest of the team which by Fall 2000 had grown to more than 15 people were HC'ers. It seemed that HC'ers were taught to disobey project management, misbehave in meetings, just rebel against authority with or without reasons at any given time. This was almost a core value that was respected and encouraged in HC; the employees always had the right to throw a hissfit or if not that a 3 year old tantrum.
The whole six months I was on that project, I spent less and less time with the team and more and more time with my estimation sheets, paper trail, the contract, meeting with Ally. Some of this was the demands of the project, but I must admit most of it was my general fear/hatred of having to deal with the childishness of the HC people. So the rift between the project management and the team kept growing and I just could not bring myself to admit I had to do something; I thought I was fine, who could blame me? And if they did they could look at the tens of excel spreadsheets, the Microsoft project files, the 30 page client contract and admire my work.
The truth was out there, no matter how much paperwork I piled on it. I sucked as a project manager and what was worse was I did not feel the need to actually make it better. There are moments in our lives where we realize we're doing something we CAN do but is not meant for us to do; and we want to stop. We want to stop and pull out, pick the train up from the track and move it to the adjacent one; hell, sometimes I want to put the train on the green slopes without any tracks and see what happens...
I was nearing that point, I was dreading showing to work every day. I was dreading asking a team member to do something for me; mostly because every time I asked them to do something they would always come up with an alternative but not necessarily better and/or more efficient method of doing it and kept insisting on it until I caved. You see it was not about getting work done, it felt like they were trying to break me.
While my life at work seemed like it was completely falling apart, my life outside of work was as good as it had ever been. I was in an amazing relationship with someone who did not ask all the wrong questions, did not answer all the wrong questions. He could truly be counted on; he was someone who could actually calm me down. It is my personal belief that he has got to be the human equivalent of a deserted misty pine forest on the skirts of Zigana (A peak located on a series of mountains in North Eastern Turkey).
I am not sure where my hopes went as a project manager; surely not out the window because our windows were sealed shut as we were in a fancy high rise building: 800 Congress in Austin Texas. My coworkers and I from Top Marks Productions(TMP) had been moved to this partially empty office filled with bitter memories of HC's first cut & clear project failure of mass proportions: the Smart & Big prototype. It was a proof of concept project made for a educational software publisher startup. I am not too familiar with all the intimate bitter details of the engagement but let's say the couple broke up before they were able to conceive any kids with the correct count of chromosomes.
So here we were in this fancy new office space, and it seemed like our life had immediately improved. Most of my coworkers spent their days surfing the net and plotting what they would do with the pay-increase. I was re-assigned to a huge project working closely with Ally Jackson, my boss from TMP.
Working with Ally was great, and we understood each other. However, Ally and I were the only TMP members on the project team, the rest of the team which by Fall 2000 had grown to more than 15 people were HC'ers. It seemed that HC'ers were taught to disobey project management, misbehave in meetings, just rebel against authority with or without reasons at any given time. This was almost a core value that was respected and encouraged in HC; the employees always had the right to throw a hissfit or if not that a 3 year old tantrum.
The whole six months I was on that project, I spent less and less time with the team and more and more time with my estimation sheets, paper trail, the contract, meeting with Ally. Some of this was the demands of the project, but I must admit most of it was my general fear/hatred of having to deal with the childishness of the HC people. So the rift between the project management and the team kept growing and I just could not bring myself to admit I had to do something; I thought I was fine, who could blame me? And if they did they could look at the tens of excel spreadsheets, the Microsoft project files, the 30 page client contract and admire my work.
The truth was out there, no matter how much paperwork I piled on it. I sucked as a project manager and what was worse was I did not feel the need to actually make it better. There are moments in our lives where we realize we're doing something we CAN do but is not meant for us to do; and we want to stop. We want to stop and pull out, pick the train up from the track and move it to the adjacent one; hell, sometimes I want to put the train on the green slopes without any tracks and see what happens...
I was nearing that point, I was dreading showing to work every day. I was dreading asking a team member to do something for me; mostly because every time I asked them to do something they would always come up with an alternative but not necessarily better and/or more efficient method of doing it and kept insisting on it until I caved. You see it was not about getting work done, it felt like they were trying to break me.
While my life at work seemed like it was completely falling apart, my life outside of work was as good as it had ever been. I was in an amazing relationship with someone who did not ask all the wrong questions, did not answer all the wrong questions. He could truly be counted on; he was someone who could actually calm me down. It is my personal belief that he has got to be the human equivalent of a deserted misty pine forest on the skirts of Zigana (A peak located on a series of mountains in North Eastern Turkey).
Category :
No matter what I do, wherever I go, I do not seem to fit anywhere. I grew up in Istanbul, Turkey, a wild, wild crazy wild city. I lived in the Levent neighborhood, a sort of wealthy, well educated part of town -- along with the privileged/rich people. My family is not rich but I guess they make enough. I have never been short on cash until I started maintaining my own balances in my late twenties. Now in the US, I live a poorer life but somehow it feels a lot more centered than my carefree life back at home. I think this is definitely one of the appealing points for me in terms of my existence in the US --my freedom and the struggle that goes with it.
Istanbul is eight hours ahead of Texas time, seven hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. Right when it is time for me to go to bed over here, the people over there are just waking up. Needless to say this creates plenty of opportunities to have incoherent conversations between these two destinations. On the US side, I am fading as the late night hours roll, and on the Turkey side people have just jumped out of bed and have not even had the chance to wash their hands and have some coffee.
Conversations with my parents feel a lot like the weather; there are good days, there are bad days and then there are disaster days with tornados, and hurricanes with emotional casualties on both sides. I think my parents are just like the weather in NY, everything can be great for the first half of the day and then things can get mighty crazy all of a sudden. Many times I find myself tiptoeing my way through these perilous conversations trying not to trip over some word game, not to mention something that will remind them of an unpleasant event, not to make a single non-conversation related noise on my end (this usually results in my parents getting real paranoid that there's someone else in my apartment --the worst thing that can possibly happen to me according to them. We'll delve into this later.)
I believe that through the years I have developed an allergic reaction to my parents; its strength feels so beyond what simple bad feelings and arguments can create, it's almost a chemical reaction. They have been known to give me day long migraines and these days I can not find the strength to confront them on the phone, in e mail or in person. My parents have made an art of using their sorrow as a weapon to control me, my life, and my choices. My feelings of obligation make me unable to ignore what they do to themselves when I do something they do not like. So in many I guess you can say I am parent-whipped --big time. Or am I?
It is hard to find that comfortable sweet spot, where the desires/expectations of the family are met along with one's own wants and needs. It is a crazy maddening life consuming balancing act and I find myself in the middle of it all unable to find the energy to care. So what is wrong with me?
Istanbul is eight hours ahead of Texas time, seven hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. Right when it is time for me to go to bed over here, the people over there are just waking up. Needless to say this creates plenty of opportunities to have incoherent conversations between these two destinations. On the US side, I am fading as the late night hours roll, and on the Turkey side people have just jumped out of bed and have not even had the chance to wash their hands and have some coffee.
Conversations with my parents feel a lot like the weather; there are good days, there are bad days and then there are disaster days with tornados, and hurricanes with emotional casualties on both sides. I think my parents are just like the weather in NY, everything can be great for the first half of the day and then things can get mighty crazy all of a sudden. Many times I find myself tiptoeing my way through these perilous conversations trying not to trip over some word game, not to mention something that will remind them of an unpleasant event, not to make a single non-conversation related noise on my end (this usually results in my parents getting real paranoid that there's someone else in my apartment --the worst thing that can possibly happen to me according to them. We'll delve into this later.)
I believe that through the years I have developed an allergic reaction to my parents; its strength feels so beyond what simple bad feelings and arguments can create, it's almost a chemical reaction. They have been known to give me day long migraines and these days I can not find the strength to confront them on the phone, in e mail or in person. My parents have made an art of using their sorrow as a weapon to control me, my life, and my choices. My feelings of obligation make me unable to ignore what they do to themselves when I do something they do not like. So in many I guess you can say I am parent-whipped --big time. Or am I?
It is hard to find that comfortable sweet spot, where the desires/expectations of the family are met along with one's own wants and needs. It is a crazy maddening life consuming balancing act and I find myself in the middle of it all unable to find the energy to care. So what is wrong with me?
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