I Live In Idaho

Today, when The Holbs left for the city to finish training his replacement and my parents left to go back to Portland, it hit me hard. I live in Idaho. And this week I live in Idaho alone. Just me, my puppy, and a new job.

This is me being brave. It looks an awful lot like me being overwhelmed.

MOVING SUCKS

Thursday night, New York City.

Me and the B and his troupe of work friends had dinner at The Fry Pan, a restaurant on the Hudson River in Chelsea up on a boat about three stories tall.

We ate burgers and fries and drank milkshakes and looked at people and watched boats on the water. We talked about New York and and I imagined what it would be like to live in Chelsea and to not live in Idaho.

And then after we ate, on the way down the stairs, I fell. I fell down the stairs, knocked over a velvet rope, and then I just laid there for a minute. It was kind of like . . . yyyyyep.

Yesterday we drove around town with my parents in our new kicky ride looking at the neighborhood construction going up (my parents' favorite hobby), when I fell out of the car. No really, I fell out of it. I opened the door, and took a slow-motion nose dive toward the ground.

Brandon saw me fall and rushed over to make sure I was okay. I was, and as I was telling him so, and brushing gravel off my pants and picking grass out of my hair, these huge gushing sobs came completely out of nowhere. So then I gave up, and just sat there and cried. Kind of hard, actually. I cried for the frustration of leaving somewhere you love, for being an adult in your childhood home, for the stress of moving and trying to be perfect for everyone and for the disappointment of failing miserably.

This morning I decided to drive through our old neighborhood in Lake Oswego. We lived there before we moved to Brooklyn. It feels like a million years ago.

I remembered this gorgeous view we used to have of the temple, the temple where the Holbs and I were married once-upon-a-time.

So I bought myself a sodee and I drove down to the old apartment and I jumped out and I walked down the little stone path around to the back of our old place. And as I was walking down some pretty tame steps, I completely biffed it. Face first. I dropped the soda, which exploded on impact, sending gushes of cold coke into my face. I laid there on the ground a second, sort of pondering things, and then I stood up, my hair sticky with drink and ground-parts and pointing in all directions, and I limped back to my kicky ride and drove myself home.

Moving sucks.

One More Day

I spent this afternoon aimlessly down  5th Avenue. Oh I used the bathroom at Saks, I window-shopped at Tiffany, I tried on some shoes at Versace (I had that poor salesman fooled), I sent an email at the pretty new glass Mac store on 59th. It was like a four-hour meditation on sadness. I was in-tune. Me, my city, and my blisters. Oh it was a lovely, depressing afternoon.

I stopped in at the Barnes and Noble to sit in the air conditioning and relax for a bit. I read some of The Shopgirl (which is romantic and very sweet), I watched people browse the aisles. And then on my way out the door I saw little city kids and their city moms and I had a moment of what-could-have-been. Oh how I wish I could have lived here long enough to be a mom in the city. I swung open the door and gasped at the sight of St. Patrick’s Cathedral standing just in front of me and promptly forgot everything that was ever in my head.

At Henri Bendel I got a make-over. Tarte cheek stain where have you been all my life!

In other news, TODAY IS MY LAST DAY HERE.

I toyed around with ending the blog today, since I started it in New York and now New York is ending for me. It would have been a grand, sweeping gesture reflecting the end of an era, the end of a really great year . . . but then I started my period and decided it must have all just been PMS talking.

To Idaho!

And Blerg Again.

We are getting closer and closer to zero-hour. It feels like we're just visiting here again, and try as I might I can't picture life outside of Saturday morning. For all I know, once we get to Saturday and we wake up and board the plane, it will all just go black and stop. Not an end so much as just a nothing. You know what I mean? This is all very dramatic. Sigh.

Tonight we're going to eat at some burger place on a boat. In Chelsea. I don't have the details, but The Holbs’s Fabulous Friends have Lives and Know about these Great Places and do Fun Stuff and so we're along for the ride. I plan to be my usual sparkling self and dazzle everyone with my daring tales of packing and the joys of good, strong tape. Tomorrow night we eat our last New York sushi.

This reminds me of a story: Over a month and a half ago I stopped taking The Pill. I stopped mid-cycle, which was silly and impulsive, but this is how I accomplish most things and so it was really nothing out of the ordinary. Two weeks ago I was supposed to have a period and didn't. Two weeks and a day ago I was convinced I had been miraculously impregnated but science has assured me since that there is nothing interesting happening there.

So I'm just waiting for a period? Just waiting. Where is it? What's holding it up? Is it just late? (Just like me, never on time.) Is it upset at me?

Until we move, until my period starts, until the next thing comes. I'm just here, hovering.

Blerg.

The boxes are packed and picked up and on their way to Moscow. The apartment is empty.

We have just enough clothes to make it through the week. We fly away Saturday morning.

The puppy has his health certificate, his microchip, and a Valium for the flight.

Where's my Valium?

I had my last hurrah and went to the Barney's Co-Op in SoHo and bought a pair of $200 jeans. I am so depressed.

Yesterday we went to lunch at the Bryant Park Grill, this great little outdoor place where all the business-types meet for lunch. We saw a few famous actors and a few not-so-famous pigeons. The weather was gorgeous, it could not possibly have been nicer, the food was delicious. And after we ate I went to use the restroom.

This outdoor restroom was amazing! Marble sinks and gold-framed mirrors and beautiful flower arrangements and all so spotlessly clean. I have never seen a bathroom like this.

And then, the sick girl in the stall next to me. It just kept coming! It was traumatic for me, it must have been even worse for her! I felt so bad for her but also I have this HUGE fear of puking. It was AWFUL. It wasn't until I got past Wall Street on the 2 train that I life felt possible again.

So. For the next week I am going to walk around town trying to memorize things. How the buildings look. The way it smells. The crowds. The voices. Then when I'm in Idaho and feeling completely in shock I will close my eyes and imagine it back. I will feel the street beneath my feet and the pulse of the city, I’ll smell the hotdogs and feel the city air on my skin.

It won't be nearly as good.

Blerg.

Kiss It, Merrill!

Today was my last day at work. I worked at Merrill Lynch on the Early Case Evaluation team and since June 10th, when they chose my replacement and I trained her, I have done nothing - nothing! - like as in nothing, all day, every day. Nothing.

To mark the occasion of a last day at a job where I literally had no job to do, I showed up at 10:30, took an hour for lunch at 11:00 (sushi!), and then I went home at 2:00.

So as I was walking home with the bouquet of flowers my husband had left at my desk that morning, some guy in front of my building wearing stupid khaki shorts and stupid sandals with stupid tube socks says, "Those flowers for me??"

I contemplated smiling and ignoring and not making eye contact and just carrying on and leaving this man in peace with his sad, strange little sense of humor, but then I thought, No! I am in New York! For one more week! And people in New York are mean!

So I called up my best New York from the bottom of my soul. I gave him The Look.

Then the guy with no legs who lives in the penthouse of my building and who sits outside all day in his wheelchair and who always looks at me like I'm an idiot, well. He smiled at me.

And then he shrugged his shoulders.


So when I go to Moscow and they ask me where I am from (I hate this question, for there really is no answer, except maybe Heaven), I think I’ll say New York City.

And I'll let that be my excuse every time I'm feeling snarky.

Which is pretty often, let's face it.

Subways, Rain, Mucus

level five rapids!

When the sun came up this morning and I finally stopped moaning from ear/nose/throat torture, I decided to go ahead and be an adult and go to work. (Momentous occasion, this.)

By the time I got downstairs to the street it was raining giant, sloshy buckets. I courageously made it to the subway where four inches of water met me at the turnstiles. Luckily I had on my super fashionable wellies and so I was prepared for the worst, but the man behind me wasn't, and he yelled out "Aw hell no, I'm going HOME." And that alone made my morning all worth it.

At this point a nice old man bravely waded through the water and probably ruined his grown-up leather shoes. He was really cute. I have this thing for old men. Maybe it's a sickness?

But it was to get worse. There was water spilling down the stairs to the platform like a waterfall! A level-five white water rapid! I could have gone down those stairs in a canoe!

Once the rain stopped, the heat came. Like a hot towel. And now I'm home again. (Fascinating stuff, this!)

This afternoon we are going to pick up some boxes at our friendly neighborhood UPS store and start packing up our lives. A week and a half, that's it. Today I sat down with Peter Pan and explained that a lot of changes were coming, but that Mommy and Daddy would be there and that the flight wouldn't be scary and that he'd get to meet Uncle Monty. He is going to love Uncle Monty. And we would love for always and forever. I don't know how much it helped things for him, but I feel much better now.

Ten Things

I just watched 10 Things I Hate About You, which was on at the same time as How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days, and which is essentially the same movie, except that one is based on Shakespeare and the other one isn't.

I forgot how much I loved this movie when it first came out. And now I live in the same neighborhood as Heath Ledger, but I have never actually seen Heath Ledger or his girlfriend Michelle Williams, though practically all of my friends have, and they all tell me this and it always makes me grumpy, because I know in my heart that we were destined to be best friends, Heath and Michelle and I. We were meant to get together to watch Monday Night Football, and The Holbs and The Heath would eat chips and Michelle and I would eat fresh strawberries and we'd gossip about her other celebrity friends. Like Katie Holmes, definitely.

There is still time, but only two weeks, to meet Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams and casually begin this life-long friendship.

We’re here, guys. We’re ready!