Sunday, September 21, 2008

Dear Fools Who Think They Want to Rent My Apartment

1. To the young lady from Turkey: "Fully-furnished" means fully-furnished. Yes, that means all my furniture stays here. No, I will not box up my belongings. If you have guests, as you told me, who would take things from the apartment thinking that those things are yours and therefore okay to take, it's not going to work. Also, you should think about getting new friends.

2. To the young Princeton graduate who is a consultant: $1700 per month for a furnished apartment in a doorman, elevator building in Midtown East is not expensive. You're a consultant! You've been living at home in Westchester for months! Stop being such a cheapskate!

3. To the recent law school graduate who came with her lovely parents who loved the place: The advertisement said you'd have to co-sign a lease with me. I told you that the building doesn't allow six-month leases or subleasing. So why did you waste my time, your time and your parents' time asking for a six-month lease or a sublease, after saying that you'd take the apartment? This is New York, honey. Sometimes nice apartments in condo buildings (which your parents loved, since it gave both of us "a sense of security") come with conditions. Also? I have a job. You don't. Who should be worried about the other not paying rent and leaving the other one on the hook? Also? Forget about sending me your resume. Also? Don't be such a little snot.

4. To an acquaintance who wanted to rent for one month to see what it's like to live in Manhattan: Dude. I'm not made of money. The apartment's gonna be empty for six months. Do you really expect me to cut you a deal for one month because you've always wanted to live in the city, and leave the apartment empty the other 5 months? You've got balls.

5. To the young woman from Atlanta who was going to be moving here for a job: I was pretty bitter about you bailing out on me after I'd sent you all the paperwork, but I feel even sorrier for you. I'd watch out for this new employer of yours. Any company who hires you for an October start date and then, on September 11, tells you they won't need you until January or February, after you've already given notice at your old job (which sounded pretty cool already), is not a company to trust.

6. To the young Princeton grad who clearly didn't think the apartment was good enough for her: It's not a luxury building. But it's clean, comfortable, and got an elevator and a doorman. So don't stick your nose up at it. Not everyone wants to live in a McPartment Building, totally isolated from the rest of humanity.

7. To the marketing girl: Now I know why people snicker about people "in marketing." Also? I hate the way you pronounce your name.

8. To the Princeton Ph.D with the husband in Hong Kong: You, I liked a lot. You rock climb, which is way cool. We could have been friends, even. I wish it had worked out, but you didn't want your name on a lease past the six months. At least you were apologetic and cool about it. I appreciated you offering to connect me with your husband while I'm in HK.

9. To the HLS grad moving back home to the South: You, I also liked a lot. You took off your shoes without being asked. And you admired the way I handle food trash (I store it in the freezer, to avoid bug problems). You didn't want to store your stuff to move into my place for 6 months, and I totally understand that. I hope moving out of New York will make you happy, 'cause you seemed a little bit sad on the inside.

10. To the partner in a law firm in Mexico looking for a place for his daughter, who's also a lawyer in Mexico and will be coming to New York for a training program: I liked you too. You're a partner. I figure I can probably trust you. I hope to god you take my place, because I don't think I can take this any more.

11. To my landlords: You're very sweet. Fussy and demanding, but sweet. I bet you're regretting ever agreeing to let me try a co-tenancy/sublease arrangement.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Performs Above Expectations

On Friday night, I left work late, near midnight. On my way out, I saw a white cloth-covered table in front of the conference rooms on my floor, ready for putting out the name tags and firm goodies for the first year class starting on Monday.

It sort of stopped me in my tracks.

I wandered into the conference room and looked over the rows of messenger bags with the firm logo, the red emergency fanny packs that all New York firms now give their employees, the neat folders with the names of the fresh young graduates on them, and felt a painful sympathy for the hk who walked to work so reluctantly on October 1, 2007, and was the last person to arrive, and picked up her messenger bag and her name tag from that white cloth-covered table in front of the conference room on floor 20.

Staring at the materials set out for the first years, I had a Talking Heads moment. This is not my life! This is not my beautiful wife! Or is it?

The coming of the first years coincides with my annual review, which I had had earlier that day. In it, the partners gave me some nice compliments, which included telling me that while the firm policy is never to give a first year associate an "EA" rating (inexplicably, for "Exceeds Expectations"), when my name came up in the personnel committee meeting, the partners had a discussion of why they don't give out that rating to first years and whether that made sense.

It was gratifying.

It was nice.

It was mildly horrifying.

Why?

Because! What if I really was born to be a corporate lawyer?

I freely admit: the firm gets an EA rating from me. I don't wake up every day wishing that I could do anything but go to work. There are bad days, bad weeks sometimes, but overall, the people are nicer and more interesting than I thought they would be, and the work is more interesting than I thought it would be. But even so. A year of liking work more than I expected to does not blind me from the fact that what I do as a corporate lawyer is monkey work, involving little creativity and adding very little value to human existence. It is one of the great injustices of life that a job so meaningless pays so well.

I have been a good corporate lawyer my first year. I've been conscientious and thoughtful and I have projected an air of confidence. I've approached my work with a level head and I produce good quality work. My work is clean and well thought out and I'm almost never flustered or annoyed. I am professional, poised and I show good common sense. I am a good team player and I am dedicated to the team. I show a genuine interest in learning about the practice.

This is not my life! And this is not my beautiful wife!

It's like I've entered some bizarro world, but a world that's sad for me, because as it turns out, I'm really, really good at monkey work.

This too is the year in which I have written less in this forum than ever before in the six years I've been keeping a blog, and why? Am I less self-absorbed? Perhaps I have less time to be. And there are so many other venues in which to self-express: on Facebook, everyone writes their own stories, dozens of times a day, in updating their statuses: hk is hating due diligence. hk is looking wistfully at pictures of the Sierras. hk is looking forward to the weekend. hk is two weeks away from going to Hong Kong. hk is in maine, ogling green-eyed coffeehouse boys. hk is getting reviewed -- and has been found lacking. hk is wondering where it all goes, and what it all means.

Along with the decrease in writing came another change over the months -- I'm less concerned about money than I used to be. I still won't use a foreign ATM, but I will think about something, decide it's not worth the hassle, and throw money at the problem. Less time and energy to vacillate has led to a more decisive me. Sometimes.

I grow tired, and make less sense. I was at work 9 hours yesterday, and went to sleep at 3 this morning. But I wanted to mark this day, just as I will mark October 1 as the anniversary of my career as the corporate lawyer, and pose the question: Is this my life? Is this my beautiful wife?

The Way Life Should Be Indeed
(Or, Weekend Adventures in the Lobster State)

Morning started very early last Saturday. Any hour that starts with 6 is too early of an hour for me. But by the time the cab pulled onto the Queensboro bridge, heading into the rising sun, I was awake and looking forward to the weekend with The Ringleted One, who has been working in a organic, grow-your-own-vegetables-and-raise-your-own-pigs, locavore, sustainable, award-winning-chef-at-the-helm restaurant in the town of Rockland, Maine.

After a two-hour layover in Boston's Logan airport, I went onto the tarmac and boarded a tiny 12-seat puddlejumper. I got out at the smallest airport ever -- a one-room building with "baggage claim" that consisted of an opening in the chain link fence adjacent to the building.

The flight arrived a bit early, so I wandered around the parking lot and into the airport hangar, which had been taken over by a county auction. A grandmother clock, water pump, butcher shop signs, box of frames, rocking chair, wooden yoke, rug from the Palace Hotel in Manhattan, and a kayak were among the many unexpected marvels being auctioned off by a fast-talking seated man in the front of several rows of chairs, occupied by a handful of people, including a young boy who, with his father, seemed to be outfitting a house, judging by the number of things they bought. The Ringleted One bought a butcher shop sign proclaiming the availability of blade meat from pigs for $5, a Design Within Reach lamp, and an iron side table for a few dollars. I bid on a small yellow water pump. The kid with his father outbid me.

After the auction, which was pretty damn fun, The Ringleted One and I went to see the restaurant where she works. Oh, piggies! You are so cute! Why do you have to be so tasty?

Much less guilt involved with vegetables...


After seeing Primo, we got some hot dogs and ate them while looking out at the harbor in Rockland, after which we went to a charming state park overlooking the ocean. A woman in a satiny white coat walked past us and asked, "Are you going to the wedding?" No, but... we followed her anyway, and ended up crashing a 30-person wedding at the base of a modest lighthouse, overlooking the North Atlantic. The bride, who wore a violet dress with a lavender wrap, caught a glimpse of us peering over the side of the lighthouse and raised a quizzical brow, but took it in stride. The keeper of the lighthouse, a retired Coast Guard man, told the story of how he had gotten to know the groom through many evenings of watching the sun set from the lighthouse, just before the park would close for the night. One day, he said, the groom showed up with a woman. And the rest, the lighthouse keep said, would be history.
The lighthouse held a certain amount of fascination for both The Ringleted One and I, and we were particularly tempted to touch the actual light (which the keeper, who invited us onto the grounds, told us not to touch). But you can see how it would have been tempting to touch it. The Ringleted One said there was a certain spare, Scandinavian elegance to it.
There's a lonely romance about lighthouses, and I thought of solitary watchers in the night, keeping vigil on stools like this throughout history.
We went to another state park after the lighthouse wedding, where a woman collecting shells gave us one each. Maine! Where people are nice.

The next day, thanks to The Ringleted One's research, we went to a gorgeous, remote hideaway called Monhegan Island. Generations of artists have taken the ferry to Monhegan to paint the pounding surf, and there were indeed a gaggle of artists staying at the very inn we stayed at. Monhegan is about 12 miles from the shore, only got electricity about 30 years ago, has no paved streets, and no streetlights. There is, however, a post office, and apparently, Gretchen thought she was going to be postmistress, but didn't get the job. (Village gossip.)

The day we got there, the air was heavy with moisture, the sky threatening, and the winds blustery. At the Monhegan House, where we were staying, the Ringleted One discovered an unfinished puzzle of a Seurat painting, and then another of a map. I discovered a Pendergast novel I hadn't read, and, drugged from the Dramamine I'd taken for the ferry ride over, fell asleep in a chair.

We did rouse ourselves to go on a walk through the village (year-round inhabitants: 65).
Artists' studios were scattered through the village and down the lonely roads. Evidence:
And as to be expected, so was evidence of Maine's famous product.

Later that afternoon, I went on a walk to the south side of the island, where a real, honest-to-god shipwreck drew me close.

The wreck was pretty awesome to look at, but as I shivered when, after clambering over hundreds of rocks, I saw the ocean. You could so easily die in the uncaring embrace of the sea.
Mother Nature -- it ain't no joke.

The next day dawned bright and warm. We had breakfast sandwiches on locally baked bagels at the organic market in the village while reading magazines that someone else had left by the table. The window of the shop looked out onto an idyllic scene.

We walked past artists and the schoolhouse and were loathe to leave. A woman at the sandwich shop where we had eaten a pizza and Whoopie pie the day before said (as I bought one of each kind of Whoopie pie for the road) said, "See you next year!" I hope so.


After getting back from a rough ferry ride, The Ringleted One and I took it easy for the afternoon, and decided to take in a movie, Bottleshock, at the theater in town. Alan Rickman. Mm.

Dinner was in a nearby town, the name of which I've forgotten, but which, as The Ringleted One said, "oozed charm." We found a terribly charming restaurant and wine bar called Ephemere and had a startling good late dinner there. (The startlingly good meal thing shouldn't have been a surprise, I suppose, since The Ringleted One has a nose for good places, but Maine did seem chock-full of amazing food.)

The next day, after enjoying a pleasant morning at the Farnsworth art center in Rockland, which features the works of the Wyeth family, we went to an alpaca farm. Yes, it was The Ringleted One's idea. Yes, I loved it.
Alpacas, as we learned there, are good pets. They do their business in one place, are very gentle, and easily trained. Their wool is hypoallergenic, lightweight, and warm. And alpaca farming is catching on in the United States. Find out more about it and see if it's right for you! (We were encouraged to watch a video about alpaca farming that did make it seem like a bit of a pyramid scheme.)

After the alpacas, we went on to Portland, where we had another amazing meal for lunch before eventually sinking into the deep couches of the Portland Coffee Roasting Company, where we both ogled a very attractive gentleman behind the counter for the better part of an hour and a half. We finally roused ourselves to get to our dinner reservations at Bresca, a tiny 20-seat restaurant with extraordinary food and service. Portland: cute boys, good coffee, and unbelievably good food. I'm moving there next.