There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you
I’m moving to New York.
Yes, that New York.
There are things to nail down, loose ends to tie up, belongings to sell or cast off, etc. There is also the small matter of my not having lived in a city other than Los Angeles since gaining maturity. Sure, I had an apartment in Montreal for a few months one winter, but nothing really had to change in order for that to happen. If anything, I reverted back to my younger, dumber, McDonald’s-scarfing self while I waited for the ice to thaw and my paycheck to materialize.
Eventually, though, I and my lovely girlfriend will move. Not eventually enough for my parents, not soon enough for the people who hope to employ me. If I think about it for any length of time, I get very nervous. Not nervous in a way that would make me back out, but nervous in the realization that there are a lot of things to take care of and a lot of things to learn before I will even be technically able to make a cross-country move, and many more things to take care of once I arrive. Once there, settled, and gainfully employed, the immense hurdle of figuring out how to live in New York will need to be jumped. That, I suspect, will be the largest challenge.
Anyone can leave LA. Anyone can go to New York. Not just anybody can avoid fucking the whole affair up, royally, or living a miserable existence for a year or so before returning home in defeat. I do not intend to be defeated.
Things to do before leaving:
1) Get a job. I’m going out on March 1st to talk to employers, hopefully this will be the easy part, as I’m actually pretty good at my job and have not yet approached my professional sell-by date.
2) Find a place to live. Everybody has an opinion on where to live, and most of those opinions are interesting, well-reasoned, and make perfect sense all while existing in direct opposition to other interesting, well-reasoned opinions I’ve come across. Craigslist? Invaluable or useless, depending on who you talk to. Financial District? Desolate hellhole or next West Village. Doormen buildings with roof decks and pools vs. charming brick walkups with a stove in the bathroom. Tribeca. Chelsea. The Lower East Side. I’ve seen episodes of Hannity and Colmes with less contention (that’s a joke, of course, I’ve never seen Hannity and Colmes).
3) Figure out how to move our shit. We’ve been throwing away or donating hundreds of pounds of crap every weekend for a month, and I’m still the proud owner of a lot of useless junk. My furniture is purely functional and isn’t worth moving, but do I really want to add shopping for couches and bookcases to the list of things we’re going to need to do in our first month? Particularly when conservative estimates suggest we’ll be plunking down 4 months rent to secure an apartment and another 5k to move our stuff?
4) Execute. Pull the trigger. Sack up and do it. Sooner or later we’re going to spend our last night in this apartment, and it’s going to be weird.
I hate the idea of being another cliched “life change” blogger, but a diary is the only thing that’s going to keep me sane in all this, I fear…
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