Reunited -- but only for a few days

Sorry for the lack of posts, but the last few days have been a flurry of activity -- I flew back to Michigan after work a week ago Thursday, the movers came and packed first thing Friday morning (we were still asleep when they rang the doorbell), we had our second-round garage sale Saturday, the movers took away our worldly possessions Monday before we had goodbye dinner with my dad, we closed on our house Tuesday, then flew to NYC.

Exhausted yet?
Well, there's more.

We still had to meet with our new landlord Wednesday morning for final approval -- don't get me started -- then pack up my corporate apartment before starting to move Thursday. The movers delivered our stuff from Michigan Friday, and all weekend we tried to tuck three bedrooms worth of stuff into a 695-square-foot apartment.

But wait, there's still more!

At the moment, I'm in Columbus for a week-long business trip. So John is finally in New York, along with our stuff and our cat, in our new apartment, and I'm not there.

Here are a few photos to catch you up on our relocation week.

Breakfast with Barry and Carrie at A2 institution Fleetwood Diner:











Our house, packed and waiting for the movers to take it all away:









Our lead movers, Jack and Louie, who patiently put up with our naivity in how it works when someone else packs and moves your stuff. (Moving has always meant buying beer and pizza for friends, what do we know??)












Us with our Realtor, Robin, who was with us when we bought our first house, and was with us when we sold it 6 1/2 years later. He was such a godsend for us, helping us through things like knowing when to counteroffer and when to just accept, and coaching us on remembering to get the utilities out of our name.








Me lounging in our new palatial apartment, amid all the boxes.
Note to viewers: I'm actually wearing shorts, so this picture isn't quite as peek-up-my-skirt as it might seem.








The weekend wasn't all work and no play -- an MBA friend, Steve, has just accepted a job that will bring him back to the city so he rounded up a big group for dinner when he came to town looking at apartments Saturday, then John and I had a quiet picnic in Central Park Sunday evening. Well, as quiet as it can be with a few hundred strangers around, but with a little champagne, some cheese, bread and olives, it's easy to tune everything out and just enjoy a sigh of relief that it's all coming together.

It's lonely at the top

I am an extrovert. Not a little, but a lot.

When the whole staff at Argus did Myers-Briggs personality tests, we used the test scores to line up by score on each of the test's four scales -- from most introverted to most extroverted, most thinking to most feeling, etc. Maybe it's not such a huge accomplishment when most of your colleagues are master's degreed librarians, but I was by far the most extroverted in the office.

That means I draw energy from people, I solve problems by talking to people, and my most comfortable state is with people.

This past month has had me scratching and clawing for human contact.
For the the past eight years I worked in a cubicle surrounded by people. Now I go to work all day in my own secluded office. I've been married for six years, and I've been going to sleep alone every night in NYC. In between, I've jumped at any social opportunities that have come up. Yesterday I was so excited when the owner at my fave Italian sandwich shop wanted to chitchat for 20 minutes about feeling the protection of your dead relatives.

Even the physical layout at work is isolating. We have three floors. I'm on the top floor, which is the CEO, some VPs, finance ... all the really rowdy departments.
Each morning when I come in, I share the elevator with other folks for most of the ride, but I'm usually the only one left by the time I get to our floor. But I'm not even on the actual floor, I'm on a balcony overlooking the floor, tucked behind some file cabinets, so even if someone else does get out with me, I probably lose them in the lobby.

Maybe that's part of why these super-long meetings we've been having every week haven't bothered me. I'm just so excited to come out of my cave and talk to people that a meeting sounds pretty good. (plus my coworkers are so smart and informed on what we're doing that the content is like a seminar in how things work and why)

I've had some truly funny moments realizing that I'm an executive now, and not just one of the minions.
Like I went to the mailroom to borrow pliers to fix my watch. A guy down there fixed my watch for me and we were just happily chatting away while he did it. Then he asked me where I worked, and I saw him sit up straighter and get quiet.
Even funnier was the guy who gave me the "how you doin'?" smile on the sidewalk -- then when he got in the elevator with me, I saw the sudden jolt on his face when I hit the button for the exec floor. I could imagine him telling some sports copy editor how he just tried to make a play for one of the suits upstairs.
So there's another reason I probably won't be getting a ton of invites for drinks with the gang after work. It's no fun to complain about work if someone up the food chain makes you feel like you've got to watch what you say.

This is all the prelude to how excited I am to go to Michigan, where I'll get to see friends, cohabitate with my husband again, not eat dinners alone and generally have more social input than responses to my blog.

Once we're both here and we've got a home, that'll go a long way toward meeting my need for connection.

It's official!

John and I first saw an apartment at 2 Lincoln on May 14 -- and it took until this morning for me to FINALLY sign the lease.

Here's a picture I took myself of me and Nick, right after I signed the lease. He not only didn't stand me up, but he was even early for our appointment.



Now that it's official, here's a little tour of our new home.

And now, a fashion minute ...

As if scoring a New York apartment doesn't have enough money flying out of my wallet, I've been doing my part to support the NY economy by buying some new clothes for work.

I'm doing my shopping like Noah's Ark, two-by-twos. Two suits, two pairs of shoes, two necklaces. Yeah, I probably didn't need more jewelry, but the necklaces snuck up on me while I was looking for shoes and suits. And they were buy one, get one free, so I had to buy two.

The photos below are seeking the approval of my fashion consultants back home.
As you evaluate, know that girlfriend can smell a sale from a mile away so these two Jones New York suits cost me about what you might expect to pay for a nice blazer.

Closing the Michigan chapter

I've just booked tickets to head back to Michigan June 8-13 -- at the end of that, John and I will fly out together and we'll both be New Yorkers.

The movers will show up June 9 to pack for us. Anybody who's talked to me about this move knows I'm squealing with delight about not having to roll coffee cups up into newsprint.
On either June 10 or 12, they'll load whatever we think we can realistically fit into a 700 square foot apartment onto a truck. Estimate is it'll arrive June 15, but I've known enough people who've used movers to expect that John and I might end up on an air mattress for a few nights. Fortunately, my cell phone has an alarm clock and I have most of my survival gear (toiletries, work clothes, etc.) already here.

It looks like we'll have Garage Sale 2.0 on June 10 to get really vicious about clearing out the remaining goods. Stay tuned for details.

And our house passed inspection for the buyer, and I think we're signing all the documents June 13 before we leave town. John wants to get our new cleaning lady -- the goddess who whipped our house into shape for selling, thanks to a referral from Nancy and Laura -- to clean after the movers come. I've always had to do a big cleaning of every new place I moved in to, so that seems optional but obviously nice.

I wonder if I can expect Nick to be cleaning the windows and wiping the walls behind the stove at our new place?

Home-apartment security

There's a story in today's Times about NYC and D.C. getting cheesed off because Homeland Security cut their funding by 40 percent to help boost appropriations to obviously high risk places like Omaha and Louisville.

Maybe Dubya and his minions felt OK cutting New York's budget because they got word that NYC landlords had this terrorism thing under control.
Our lease at 2 Lincoln includes a clause prohibiting us from being terrorists. I'm not kidding. "Neither you nor any other occupant of the apartment is engaging in or supporting, threatening or conspiring to engage in 'terrorism' (yes, it's in quotes) as defined in any federal or state laws, rules, regulations or order ..."

Because, as I snarked to Brett, if I was masterminding a terrorist plot, and I realized Nick might evict me, clearly that would keep me on the right side of the law.
Phone call to Osama: "Blah blah blah 40 virgins in heaven for being a martyr -- do you have any idea what I went through to score an apartment with five closets in New York? Uh-uh, dude. I'm audi. "

I want to wake up in the city that doesn't sleep

I don't know about the rest of the city, but the last few weeks, Colleen the New Yorker doesn't sleep so well.

The first week of my job, which was also the first week John was gone and I was here by myself, I slept terribly every night. Probably nerves mixed with strange noises, compounded by not feeling 100 percent secure about living here by myself. I'd have trouble falling asleep, wake up every hour or two, then wake up way before the alarm. Only by the twin blessings of Starbucks and nervous energy did I survive.

Then I started to settle in at work, and the apartment search seemed less uncertain (though certainly not without its frustrations) and I began to sleep a little.

This week is off to a lousy start.

Last night I had just fallen asleep when my work cell phone rang. Twice. The first one I almost slept thru, but then the second came, and I spent the next half hour doing a reverse lookup on the number, trying to call it back ... basically I was awake and I wanted to find out if someone was actually calling me on a number I don't even know or if it was a mistake.

Tonight I smugly turned off the Treo before bed, only to have my personal cell phone ring about 12:30, jolting me from a sound sleep because the doorman had a FreshDirect delivery.
I threw on some clothes and went downstairs to get my groceries, which were supposed to come this evening and didn't, only to discover the front desk had called me but it wasn't my delivery. I could have kept this other woman's delivery, but who wants 8 rolls of paper towels in a 600 square foot apartment?
Only in New York can you get a 1 a.m. booty call from a grocery delivery guy.

So now I'm awake again. Good thing John got me hooked on coffee, because I have a three-hour meeting tomorrow morning and I need to be on my game.