My Endless Numbered New York Days

I am on my last day of my job at a small Brooklyn-based tea company and that's brought about a lot of existential philosophizing about what's next but also a lot of stress because I don't think that it has sunk in to a lot of my co-workers that I'm actually leaving and they won't be able to do last minute requests for Ad designs. But the existential philosophizing has me lost deep in my mind. That and some of the signs the universe is giving me have me questioning - Am I done with the New York thing? My father - naturally - says that I am. That I did it: moved to New York City, lived here, struggled here, thrived here, and experienced here but that much like many experiences in life, it is time to move on to the next one. When he first said that to me around February when I was up in arms about some of the company's policies and was ready to throw in the towel and walk out the door, I thought he was being the overbearing, concerned parent that just wanted his daughter to just give up on this crazy New York idea and come home. And while I'm still not certain Ecuador is the next stop on my life path, I think that my time here in New York is coming to a close.
Don't get me wrong. I love New York. I love New York in the way most New Yorkers love it. There's something about this city and its craziness and its idiosyncrasies and its culture that slowly but surely seeps into your bones and grabs hold. The love/hate relationship with the subway (and Times Square or anywhere particularly touristy for that matter). The random scouring of Craig's List and local real estate listings for apartments to rent - not because you might not be happy with your apartment, but you always got to stay on your toes because living in New York is like playing one giant game of musical chairs. Except that instead of chairs, they're apartments. And if you're not quick on your feet, you'll end up renting a room in what the real estate broker swears is East Williamsburg, but is really deep Bushwick or East New York because you're a newbie and didn't know that East Williamsburg is not a real thing. It's the gossipy chattering with the foodies about things like cronuts and beef tongue pastrami sandwiches chased down with craft beer. It's adventuring deep into Queens or Brooklyn in a quasi-religious quest to track down the best damned taco in the city that is sold from a dubious hole-in-the-wall only the initiated know about. It's about the thin layer of grit that slowly settles onto your skin and never lets go. It's the badge of honor that lets the world know - once upon a time I lived in New York City and experienced the wonderfully chaotic but strangely beautiful world that is the big apple.
Last night I made the decision to leave it all behind come early August. It's time to pack up my bags again and wander around the world. Because the is so much world to wander through and only one life to do it. But despite everything, New York will always feel like my home base, my crazy, gritty, beautiful base.

Because not all those who wander are lost.

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Ikea Hacking - A Way to get your Creative Juices Flowing

My room in my otherwise quite large Brooklyn with a view of Prospect Park is very small. When I first moved in a year and a half ago, I had to come up with creative solutions to make the best use of the space so I bought a loft bed from Ikea. It was the Stora loft bed (view it here: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80160867/) which looked pretty rad at the Ikea display floor with a neat brightly colored sofa under it and stuff. It even looked cozy. When I built it, it was a lot more wobbly than I wanted it to be, but otherwise fine. I made a weird arrangement to put my desk under it and thus made my room look a lot bigger (or well, for a lack of a better word, roomier) than it had any right to look. Unfortunately ever since December I've been feeling that the loft bed, although a great space saver and a great way to pretend to be 10 and playing fort, was actually quite juvenile. Its wobbliness started to worry me too. Not because it bothered me per say - I was used to it, but because if there were to be another person up there with me (as unlikely as that is considering my dating life has been eh....limited? My dating life is a completely other mess to talk about another time...*sigh* Is it too much to ask to find a nice, bearded, driven but mellow, hipster but not hipster in Brooklyn? Okay shutting up now) my computer underneath the loft bed would most likely become an Apple pancake if you catch my dift. Then there was also the recently warming weather and the return of the humid New York days when all you want to do is hug your AC unit and never let go. Those days are particularly terrible when one tries to sleep on a loft bed on the 4th floor of a Brooklyn Pre-War building. So. Freaking. Terrible.
So about a week ago I just had it with the bed. It needed to go. I put it up on Craig's List and someone came by to haul it out yesterday. I took the money from the sale and went to Ikea where still weary of the fact that I couldn't just really buy an actual bed because of storage complications, I devised an Ikea Hack using some research I had been doing to make use of some of the 2x2 Expedits I had floating around my room. I bought an additional 4x2 Expedit and a 2x1 Expedit and some basic Sultan Lade Slats (in Full/Double). Total tally: $130 (which is what I sold the loft bed for). Well okay. It was a little more. I paid for Home Delivery because hell if I was hauling up flat-packed Ikea furniture up 4 flights of stairs in 80 degree weather with 90% humidity. I'm not crazy. I also got a couple of extra Drona boxes to stuff into the Expedit cubby holes and a couple of bars of Ikea chocolate. And a pack of scented tea candles for my little Rotera lamp. Don't judge me. It's Ikea. I'm lucky I didn't walk out with the whole store. And the candles smell like MANGO. MY ROOM NOW SMELLS OF MANGO. Yum. Now I want a Mango.
Anyhoo, I got everything delivered today and set about creating a platform bed with 2 2x2 Expedits, 1 4x2 Expedit, 1 2x1 Expedit, and a set of Sultan Lade slats. And duct tape. Lots of duct tape. I'm really happy with the results actually. The bed is really sturdy and provides an excellent storage solution since it has all those cubbys underneath and the hole in the middle of the expedit shelves where I stuffed my cello flightcase. To make it easier to access the stuff underneath, I made sure the slats could be rolled back easily and the expedit and the end of the bed isn't attached to anything to I can just remove it and take stuff out. My room still looks roomy and actually a lot cozier now that I can add some artwork to the walls. Thoughts?

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