reflections on a year (and some change) of living in NYC

& newsletters, ins/outs, etc!

Hello reader. I bet you’re wondering where I’ve been — or perhaps you haven’t even noticed the lack of my emails since you’re used to them falling victim to the rude Gmail algorithm that decides to put them in your Promotions folder. Gmail loves to think I’m trying to sell you something with this. This is a steal, baby — $free.99! To those who have been wondering what happened (aka just my grandmother), I took a short hiatus from this newsletter after completing my year-long mission.  

I started this newsletter during my second week of living in New York with the intent to hold myself accountable to write something new every week for a year. And that’s precisely what I did. So whether something incredible happened that week, or I remembered an old story I wanted to share, or I literally started typing with nothing in my head, there were words on a page in your mailbox whether or not you chose to indulge. So over 52 “newsletters” later, I would like to thank the readers for following along through the maze of this kooky mind. 

As for the future of this newsletter? I’m thinking I will continue on a monthly basis to give myself more time to think about what I want to write and (hopefully) less typing on the Peter Pan bus.

As a celebration of one year of newsletters, I would like to take a moment of reflection to share just some of the things I’ve learned in the past year.

• I’m actually not bad at directions, Boston is bad at directions. Don’t get me wrong, I still get disoriented each and every time I exit a Subway station but once I figure out which way is up and which way is down, I’m all set. Did you guys know compasses can actually be helpful? I also learned that. 

• The sinks in my apartment have cold water on the left and hot water on the right so I have completely lost all sense of which is hot and cold at any other sink. Every time I wash my hands outside of my apartment I act completely brand new. 

• You actually can kill cockroaches?? Why did I grow up thinking they were indestructible? Just last night I had the pleasure of meeting one face-to-face in my apartment. I grabbed my chunkiest boot to ensure the most distance possible between me and the intruder and hit him with it. When he fell to the floor, I slipped the boot on my foot and did a round of Dance Dance Revolution on him. Once I was sure he was dead, I checked my FitBit and saw that my heart rate was 113. 

• The way children live here is so different than suburbia. For instance, school field trips are sometimes done via the subway which seems beyond stressful for the teachers and chaperones (and me dealing with those twerps on my morning commute.) Also, they all meet at the same park for bday parties/after-school hangouts. On any nice day, you’re bound to run into 15 bday parties in Central Park. They’ve also likely never experienced a mall hangout. My coworker Julien raised his children in the city and told me that when they went on vacation, the drive-thru of a fast food restaurant was one of their big excursions because they don’t have them here. It really is the little things. 

• There’s a version of me that I hadn’t yet gotten to know until I moved to this city. It came out when I went to the locksmith. Yes… that was an errand I ran in the calendar year 2022. My sister was coming to crash at my apartment and I needed to leave her a set of keys so I had to copy my pair. When I walked into the locksmith, I immediately wanted to establish dominance so they wouldn’t take advantage of the fact that a girl like me has never once in her life been to a locksmith and overcharge me. I put on an act; I was a hardened New York City chick. I believe I even said, “And how much is that gonna run me?” It was $3 — but who knows? Had I not come in acting tough as nails it could’ve been $10. So at that moment, Lexie Keys was born. Occasionally she comes out in other situations. My roommate pointed out to me that I get a similar way when I apply command strips to the wall. Lexie Command Strips, if you will. 

• It is absolutely JARRING (to say the least) they take the scaffolding down outside places you walk by all the time. There was scaffolding outside the Duane Reade a block away from me for almost a full year and when they took it off? I didn’t know where I was. I thought I’d imagined Duane Reade being there all that time. It’s completely disorienting.  

To wrap up, allow me to share my IN/OUT list for 2023. This is just the start and as I get to know the year a bit more, I’ll add to it. 

IN 2023:

• Flossing (teeth not dance)

• Ordering lemonade at a restaurant

• Taking your leftovers even if you’re going to a second location

• Choreographing a dance with your friend

• Rewearing your Coach wristlets from 2009

• Matcha martinis (this is a risky prediction but I feel it in my bones despite never having tried one)

OUT 2023

• Flossing (dance not teeth)

• Calories on menus

• Espresso martinis 

• Dehydrated fruit in drinks 

• Instagram

• Nutella being part of any discourse