Keep Your Chin Up

My chin.

So sorry for the delay in updates, but on my way to FedEx and Bed Bath & Beyond on Tuesday I tripped and ripped open my chin. It was around four pm and on 21st street outside a valet/parking place. This woman who saw me fall (I tripped on the driveway right in front of her SUV) started screaming when she saw me. I hadn't realized how bad my trip was until I looked down and saw blood pouring out of my chin. She was screaming "you need to go to the hospital! you need stitches!" and the valets looked terrified and had me look in a car side mirror and that's when I saw it. I saw the gaping hole that looked like someone had stuck their finger in a raw hamburger patty that was my chin. And I knew just then that shit, yes, I needed to go to the hospital.

The woman wanted to drive me but I took a cab. I called my friend Alice who works at Sound Lounge as their awesome marketing coordinator and started crying in the cab, blood pouring all over myself and the cab and the bag of Bed Bath & Beyond supplies to return and the purses to mail via FedEx and I was hyperventilating and the cab didn't seem to know where to go with the command "nearest hospital." Alice told me to take it easy and I was just sobbing and blood wouldn't stop gushing and the cab driver gave me his Subway Sandwich napkins but those were soaked through.

The cabbie was so freaked out that he drove onto the sidewalk outside Bellvue Hospital thinking it was an emergency ramp and then the cops were yelling at him and I was still crying and trying to figure out how to pay him and the cops saw me and let him go and I paid and got out of the cab and saw everyone staring at me. I walked as calmly as I could through the remarkably modern and clean hospital entry rooms and into the ER, which was like walking into a movie set because holy shit, those shows have it right. The place was a hell hole of humanity run by caring people trying to do their job but god there are a lot of assholes out there.

So they saw me and this nice lady cop helped me figure out where to go and then I was put in the suture ward which is where they also store the crazies so I was surrounded by people in handcuffs with cops guarding them and I had no phone service so I couldn't text or call Nick or my mom... and finally a doctor saw me and said it was a clean wound, but I'd need two to three stitches. I ended up with three. They gave me tylenol.

I have this memory of lying back in the stretcher and thinking how weird it was because I knew the new doctor who took over, this female doctor, was putting a shot of some sort of anesthesia in my chin. Like she was putting a shot directly into the open flaps of the skin in my face and I didn't care. By then I had had a painful tetanus shot and had my chin ripped open. And then I laid back and watched upside-down as she sutured my chin shut.

Then I left. And I threw out the bag of Bed Bath and Beyond returns and purses because it was covered in my blood and I wanted no memory of what had happened.

Then I went back to work because I felt bad. I guess this means I have a good work ethic?

I blame the move for this. If I hadn't had to mail more shit to my cousins, if I hadn't had to return things to Bed Bath & Beyond, I wouldn't have been carrying such a heavy bag that knocked me over after the original trip onto my knees. But it's my own fault. Shit happens.

As my dad says, keep your chin up!

My chin the next day, post stitches.

A Laborous Labor Day Weekend

As Nick so cleverly tweeted in his twitter about our first year living together ShackingUpInSin, "adulthood means taking a break from moving boxes and furniture and going to work." It also means using labor day weekend to unpack and hire handymen (aka, Lynn The Painter) to hang up cabinets.

After two pretty tough days where I thought Nick was going to kill me as I put up yet another framed photograph, we were finally able to relax a bit. And a special thank you to my friend Elysse for the lovely Welcome Home card and to Genevieve Santos of le petit elefant for the beautiful pillows she made me and Nick!

It's me and Nick talking on a tin-can phone!

Park Slope is a really sweet neighborhood. There are kids everywhere, so you have to be cool with the kiddies, but there's lots of shops and good restaurants and it's nice to finally feel safe, like really safe, late at night. I realize it's sort of hippies-turned-adult yuppies, but I'm a fan.

Later I'll post some photos of the new place.

Photos - Move Part One

Here are some photos of our disaster of an apartment post-move/the beginning stages of unpacking. I'm happy to report that after these photos were taken more things were put away. That, or I'm just getting used to the clutter.

Yes, those are my clothes strewn out all over the sofa. I was busy putting the winter clothes in the very back of the closet.
In the right corner you can see the blue hutch that I refuse to let be 100% functional, much to Nick's chagrin. Poor guy.

The bedroom. Full of random chairs, etc.

Another look at our bedroom.

The den... sigh.

Nick took this photo from our bedroom. You can see the kitchen is an entryway to the den.

Moving Styles

The next day was equally as long. Nick and I woke up and basically immediately started unpacking. We also still have to wear sandals in the apartment because the kitchen floor is coming up and the whole place needs a deep clean. So, dirty because we hadn't properly figured out our bathroom and sweaty because it was in the nineties and we had the AC only on in the bedroom, we unpacked box after box.

I wouldn't mind sweating if I looked like this.

I soon discovered that Nick and I have different moving styles. I, for example, unpack for an hour, then take a break to watch an episode of Friends or Gilmore Girls. Then I unpack for another few hours, take a break, or have the shows on to distract myself. It makes packing/unpacking fairly pleasant.

This show always makes me feel good about life.

Nick, meanwhile, is a machine. HE PLOWS THROUGH THOSE BOXES. However, this also causes him (me) to tire and become crankier. It was only after four hours of unpacking that I thought to suggest to Nick we put on some music. It wasn't Gilmore Girls, but it definitely helped things out. As Nick put it, "Bob Dylan keeps [him] sane."

Is Nick the Terminator in disguise?

I think around that time I was waring on the guy's nerves. For example, Nick wasn't as interested in making things look "pretty" as much as getting them out of boxes. I, meanwhile, wanted to decorate while unpacking. So while Nick was wanting to throw his, for example, water bottle in the display hutch that I decided would show our "prettier" plates and mugs, he quickly realized that I was against that. This, in turn, frustrated the guy. Women!

I'm starting to relate with Annette Benning in THIS scene from American Beauty. Oh my God, I'm becoming my mother.

I, meanwhile, learned that taking constant breaks was not in Nick's plans and learned to take a mini break and plow through. And you know what, that was smart on Nick's part because we have a lot less boxes now cluttering things. (Pictures to come.)

One particularly fun adventure Nick and I had was pushing my old Ikea metal kitchen stand from my old apartment (I had originally planned on leaving it) to our new place. It was 1.1 miles of constant noise, but I got to say... for all the bitching about Ikea not holding up that thing put up with being pushed on shitty sidewalks for half an hour. And now we have SOME kitchen storage. We enjoyed pushing it and the weird looks we got. It was nice to bond.

My boyfriend is so beautiful!

However, near the end of the night the move wore on both of us because Nick tripped on the stairs and strained/tore/pulled his ankle. He was laid up (after stubbornly helping me carry a 12 pack of water) that night with a bag of frozen asparagus on his leg. Hopefully he can relax this weekend. Hopefully we both can.

This experience has been really educational. Nick and I haven't "fought," and we've both been so good at telling the other how much we appreciate them. That said, this is hard. There's no room for romance right now, thankfully we have plenty of trust and understanding. And love. We can bring the romance back. Once we unpack.

Moving Is Hard

So... moving sucks. Like, a lot. It's trying and every time I move I say I'm never going to move again but I mean I know I will until I own a house. I don't see myself living in an apartment for the rest of my house. I fairly 1950s suburban in that I one day want a house (well decorated in a country french style) with a small yard.

So moving sucks and this was no different. First, the movers I hired a month in advance were two and a half hours late to Nick's and they didn't bother to call. Meanwhile, Nick had somewhere to be at one so he was stressed. I ended up going over there in case they didn't finish before Nick needed to go, saying hi to the movers who showed up, then meeting them back at my apartment. When I first saw their truck I was concerned not all my shit (we're talking like 30-40 boxes) would fit in their van but it did. Miracle. And they ended up being a lot nicer to me once they realized I wasn't some spoiled bitch. At first they gave me attitude when they found out that 233 Garfield was a walk-up with no elevator, but it's not my fault that message didn't get passed on. They were lucky Nick's and my original apartments were with elevators! Poor Nick looked terrified when the mover started giving me attitude but I just gave it right back. I've dealt with enough movers my life to realize it's in their job description to have a bad attitude no matter how much money I throw their way. ANYWAY, once the movers got to my place they were much nicer. I bought them water and offered to buy them lunch and they appreciated that I correctly packed my books in small boxes.

Things got iffy once we finally (seven hours later) made it to The Pink House. For one thing, it was getting dark. For another, it's an old house that they couldn't just push their way through. And lastly, they started to harass the Park Slope residents. For example, during their breaks in the truck I'd watch them have a cigarette and when a woman jogger (and there were many, this is Park Slope) ran by they'd say something suggestive in their native language. While neither myself (watching from the den window) or the jogger spoke the language, as women we knew that tone and it was uncomfortable. I wanted to ask them to stop but I didn't know how. Plus, they were perfectly mannered with me.

So Nick arrived near the end of the move and was exhausted from his orientation at Nerve and I was exhausted from having to pace around whatever room the movers weren't in and from telling them where to place what and then I went to give the movers what I thought was a big tip ($100) only to have them demand a $300 tip so that was awkward. AND THEN we discovered the kitchen wasn't really complete and instead we had two very angry plumbers working in our kitchen until one am. It was a very, very long day.