for Elladan

Thanks Daniella for starting us off. So I'm subletting in the east village on the fifth and last floor of a walk-up apartment (in the most incredible neighborhood). I really don't know my neighbors but since I'm on the top floor I pass their apartments every day and try to figure out their life stories, obviously. Next door is an older husband and wife couple (I'm told by my roommate, Josh, who has lived in the building 2.5 years) and every time I walk by (multiple times a day, since it's right next door to me) I hear an instrument. I spent a couple weeks trying to figure out what instrument I was hearing until I asked Josh. "Oh, it's not AN instrument," he explained."It's multiple instruments. The guy next door plays everything." I think everything includes a clarinet, a triangle, a trombone, an oboe. I've never actually met him, and I wouldn't recognize him unless he was coming out of his apartment and that's just. So, sorry,Daniella, I don't think pictures are going to happen. Plus, I have been SUCKING with pictures this summer. As in never taking any. And I only have two weeks left in nyc...ahhh.

And to answer your other questions. I have two roommates, both are 26, I believe. One, Josh I was friends with before, since I worked with him at POZ last summer, and he's the one on the lease and he has a ginormous room that I'm typing in right now because he has A/C and I don't and it's a sauna in my room and I'm too tired to leave the apartment. Then the other roommate Rebecca lives in a closet. Literally. My room is the size of a cubicle and hers makes mine look like a palace.Both roommates are awesome, though I don't really hang out w/them outside the apt (although I did accompany Josh on a sneaker-shopping mission and considered $150 Nikes, but my sensibleness and cheapness won out over nyc trendiness though I'm still coveting them and considering it).

And I do have friends in NY. Like, I don't exactly have a rocking social life, but between Northwestern friends, Ossining friends,and some other assorted people I've gathered over the years I am not a complete hermit. I'm alone way more than I'm used to at school but not enough to be depressed. I went to my first movie by myself (to see Wordplay- really good!) which was actually kind of fun and liberating. I went to my first sit-down restaurant by myself which kind of sucked especially since I forgot the book that was supposed to make me look busy and cool. This summer makes me realize that when I go to San Fran in the fall I actively need to go make friends, because if I'm alone so much when I knowpeople everywhere and I see my family all the time, I'll be a hermit in a city where I know no one. I cannot imagine how hard it must be in Jordan, where you don't even know the language. p.s. everyone should read daniella's blog, she's in Jordan!