I have a friend who spent the last two months living (free - a miracle in New York) in a former office leased by one of her friend's dads. Nine girls in two open spaces on the 11th floor of a New York office building. When the business left the office to them, they left all the furniture, which becomes key to this story. A long time ago, Peggy had promised me one of the big leather office chairs the business had left and asked if she could store one in my apartment because she's studying in West Africa next spring.
Saturday was the big day. This office building isn't that far from my apartment and, contrary to all weather forecasts, the day dawned cold but bright and clear. I've mentioned here the complete lack of funds going on in my life at the moment, so Peggy and I, too cheap to hire a taxi, loaded the two chairs up with her extra TV (wrapped around with sticky saran wrap on a spool just in case) and various bags and boxes and pushed them across one street and up Broadway a ways and over again, trying to avoid 1. crowds and 2. construction (bumpy makes it hard to push the chairs). A tour bus passed and I was tempted to hide my face lest I should end up on someone's "crazy New Yorkers" scrapbook page. Okay, I actually did turn away. I have some shame. But I will push a chair fifteen blocks through crowded Manhattan streets to get things for free. So very little shame, really.
The chairs are great, by the way. Very comfortable and just the right height for typing without damaging my wrists. Which are not fixed completely. I begin to think they never will be.
Anyway, as Peggy and I began pushing the chairs away from her building we looked at each other and said, "Isn't this one of those moments when you look at the hilariousness of what you are doing and can't help but think, 'I love my life'? It's too perfect."
(Update on paper one of three: 5 of 20 pages. It's a start.)
Saturday was the big day. This office building isn't that far from my apartment and, contrary to all weather forecasts, the day dawned cold but bright and clear. I've mentioned here the complete lack of funds going on in my life at the moment, so Peggy and I, too cheap to hire a taxi, loaded the two chairs up with her extra TV (wrapped around with sticky saran wrap on a spool just in case) and various bags and boxes and pushed them across one street and up Broadway a ways and over again, trying to avoid 1. crowds and 2. construction (bumpy makes it hard to push the chairs). A tour bus passed and I was tempted to hide my face lest I should end up on someone's "crazy New Yorkers" scrapbook page. Okay, I actually did turn away. I have some shame. But I will push a chair fifteen blocks through crowded Manhattan streets to get things for free. So very little shame, really.
The chairs are great, by the way. Very comfortable and just the right height for typing without damaging my wrists. Which are not fixed completely. I begin to think they never will be.
Anyway, as Peggy and I began pushing the chairs away from her building we looked at each other and said, "Isn't this one of those moments when you look at the hilariousness of what you are doing and can't help but think, 'I love my life'? It's too perfect."
(Update on paper one of three: 5 of 20 pages. It's a start.)
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