One Day in New York City, Baby...

-Actually, it's been five days, but Neutral Milk Hotel ("Ghost") is still stuck in my head. I arrived Friday afternoon with my parents, and proceded to haul various of my belongings up to the fourth floor of a pre-war building in Washington Heights, a neighborhood less than half a mile wide, due to the difficulty of building on the East and Hudson Rivers.

-Yes, I have an apartment. All by me onesies, as they say here -- actually, that may be London, I 'll get back to you. I have begun decorating, mainly by recasting dollar-store shower curtains as non-shower curtains (thrift is the new irony).

-And by God, there are a lot of dollar stores, but there's one in my neighborhood that actually means it. Anything without a label is 99 cents. So technically it is a 99-cent store, and is labeled as such.

-One of the distinguishing features of New York is that most things are bigger, and those which are not are comically small. There are 20 Manhattan blocks per mile, yet each contains at least one each of grocery, pharmacy, laundromat, 99-cent store, Chinese restaurant, deli, and liquor store. The average "supermarket" is under 12 feet wide.

-Also, the average liquor store does not sell beer, but is strictly "wine and liquors." The silver lining here is that the pharmacy will sell you beer. Aren't liquor laws wacky?

-As an aside, I do not recommend Leinenkugel's "Sunset Wheat". Normally I am enthused about beers involving wheat. However, this is because most such beers do not taste alarmingly of Fruity Pebbles. A little heavy on the "natural flavors" added, guys.

-I have seen the face of evil and it is IKEA. Specifically, the IKEA on Red Hook, which is a tremendously unhelpful series of labyrinths for anyone who does not intend to build a new house and fill it entirely with IKEA furniture. This would not be so bad, except that getting onto Red Hook is impossible via surface roads. It took us quite a while to learn this. The advantage of Red Hook is that the IKEA store actually has its own dock and cranes. Yes, on the ocean. Did I mention it's rather large? On the upside, I have gained, for very reasonable prices, two tables, two chairs, and a bookcase. Hooray sitting!

-Hooray free internet. I have yet to register for internet service or any utilities. Also, I sleep on an air mattress. Were it not for the obscenity that is my rent, I could be squatting.

-I tried to get a sofa-bed at IKEA, but the cheap one was sold out. Unlike every other sold-out item, it was not labeled as such (I repeat, face of evil).

COMING SOON: 10-hour workdays: Also the face of evil?