Erin Miller

Just the other night my loving boyfriend was making fun of me for the amount of money I spend on my “expensive New York City lifestyle.” The comment was prompted by me saying how I was going to pay someone else to wash my laundry today. And that is what is actually happening, and yes, it is a luxury. But how excited would you be if you knew that on the way home from walking your dog you were just going to stop by the laundromat and pick up your load of laundry that was just washed for less than 10 dollars? Did I mention that all of the clothes come back perfectly folded? From time to time I try to argue against New York City being particularly expensive. I do this partially due to my ulterior motive to have my cheap living style boyfriend move out here as soon as possible. And truly, I can get a great tuna sandwich at the Bodega downstairs (the one under my building, not the one across the street that was shut down for running a multi-million dollar a year drug ring) for somewhere between a buck fifty and two-fifty, depending on how much I am smiling and if its a sunny day. (Sandwiches seem to be cheaper when its sunny.) And for a buck-fifty, its almost cheaper than buying all the ingredients yourself. So I was thinking all of these thoughts — looking forward to picking up my washed and perfectly folded clothes, and thinking about maybe grabbing a cheap sandwich — while I went grocery shopping this afternoon. I picked up a few things for my roommates too, and while I was checking out, I realized, shocked, that there was no way I was going to carry all of this back to my apartment in one trip. So the guy who was bagging offered to deliver it. I reluctantly accepted, and had all of my groceries (including a gallon of milk and more than a gallon of juice, oh and did I mention an 18 lb. bag of dog food?) all carried all the way to the door of my apartment for a 3 dollar tip. It was a beautiful experience. And Dan, while you may think it was a frivolous expense, I think it is better to think that if that gentleman hadn’t carried my 18lb bag of dog food to my apartment today, I would have been asking you to do it on Friday:) Here’s to the New York City lifestyle.

Putting every piece of silverware, cup, plate, food item, dog food, dog treat, or anything that may ever come into direct contact with human skin into plastic bags is about as much fun as it sounds like it would be. And it is what I spent a significant amount of my time doing this weekend (between lectures.) We had our apartment “bug bombed” and an extraordinary amount of chemicals sprayed about, all in our extermination efforts. We have ended up washing all of the plates, silverware, and cups before we use them anyway because cockroaches can survive a nuclear blast and yet this stuff seems to kill them. We figure we should try to keep it out of our digestive tracks. We had to mop the floor too, to keep it out of the dogs’ digestive tracks. We had to wash every single article of clothing and bedding, including, of course, winter jackets, mittens, hats and gloves, and do all our dry cleaning. I spent 150 dollars on laundry. Turns out dry cleaning (even for the whole of 6 dry-cleanable items I own) is really expensive. Anyway, between all of this, I thought that I might be losing sight of what’s important in life and how lucky I really am. So I sat down and started making a list of things I was thankful for. They came slowly and arduously at first, but then started to flow. This list is by no means exhaustive, but I thought it might be nice to share.
I am thankful for:
-my family who loves me
-my wonderful boyfriend
-that I am my grandparents’ granddaughter and that means I can do anything
-my very cool roommates
-mobility in all of its meanings
-getting to look forward to my boyfriend’s visit, going to Hawaii over Thanksgiving, and going home for Christmas
-the experiences I had in Honduras
-the amazing host family I lived with in Honduras
-that my projects in Honduras have continued
-not having to worry if there will be running water when I get home
-warm water
-my old friends
-making new friends
-warm cookies
-my awesome dog
-being able to communicate in Spanish
-travel
-being able to drop off my laundry and pay someone else to wash it
-the lights on the George Washington Bridge
-the sunset over New Jersey
-Riverside Park and Trail
-the view from the Empire State building at night
-food carts
-shoes
-waterproof shoes
-warm clothes
-a dry place to sleep
-being in a very interesting academic program
-learning to manage a staff of 25
-the experience of getting to live in New York City even if it means that in a year I will complain about it endlessly, frown on the subway, and love it like only a New Yorker can.
And now, its time to get ready for midterms.

“Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
It turns out that this is not just the cute phrase I thought it was. Bed bugs are real, and at least in NYC, they’re back. People thought that they had been eradicated in the US, like polio. In fact, when one of my friends first went to the doctor for the itchy bites on his arm the doctor said, “Well, those look like bed bug bites, but they can’t be bed bug bites because we don’t have those in the U.S.”
In fact, most people in my parents’ generation have never seen a bed bug. My grandma has never seen one, though she remembers her mother making her search for them when they went to hotels. After the second world war, the bugs were nearly wiped out due to extensive use of DDT in extermination. But now that DDT is banned and more people are traveling internationally than before (offering the bugs hitchhiking options), they are back, with a vengeance. Mountains of mattresses form on the side walks on trash days. Our apartment has been the unwilling home to a couple of pests and we are currently undergoing an exhausting process of extermination, and preventative measures and as anyone will tell you, these pests are just plain hard to get rid of with modern chemicals.
Jon, chucking, likes to describe their rather unconventional method of mating, traumatic insemination, which is about as appealing as it sounds. This is the kind of thing I would rather not know.