I’ve been rather lucky in that my first three New York City apartments were all modern and in pretty good shape when I arrived. The first was a luxury furnished apartment, beautiful until my company stopped paying for it; the second a lovely, freshly-renovated apartment in a relatively new building; and the third a beautiful, spacious converted set of factory offices.

My new home, however, is – par for the course in this older neighbourhood of Park Slope – a little older and rougher around the edges. When we arrived a week ago, one bedroom had horrific green paint on every conceivable surface, even the ceiling light mouldings, and paint was flaking off the walls around old nail marks. Doors were hanging listlessly in their frames and those that weren’t were off-kilter and dragging on something above and below. In this brief week, that’s been rectified, and I’ve found time to tidy up a few other pieces too.

We have a coat rack affixed to the wall, which took some effort, lacking a drill or an electric screwdriver. We have a new toilet seat, a job that surprisingly wasn’t as unpleasant as I imagined. The wonderfully bright orange bookcase (IKEA easy assembly) is a constant reminder of the time my mother offered my teenage self the opportunity to paint my own bedroom walls – I opted for roughly the same shade of orange on two walls, with a slightly tamer yellow on the other oppositional pair.

Whilst occasionally taxing or time consuming, none of this has been particularly challenging, but it has put me in a hands-on frame of mind, and to that end Alex and I eschewed the default of choosing a dining table from IKEA along with the bookcase, and instead headed out to a hardware store to find some lumber. We came across a beautiful piece of red oak, far too large for a table in our modest apartment, but with such a beautiful grain it couldn’t be passed up.

The remainder should serve well for shelving, providing a beautiful bit of consistency in the place, having all been cut from the same bough (as it were). I’m hoping that with some sanding, protection, veneering the edges and getting some legs together the whole effort shouldn’t take more than a weekend, and whilst it probably won’t look as beautiful as a professionally handmade effort, it’ll certainly have some charm, and every meal will be all the more satisfying from being served atop our own handiwork.

Plus, it turns out, this is a pretty cheap way to go. That entire hunk of red oak was a mere $50, and I doubt the whole thing will come to more than $130 or so in total.

Xx

I’ve never owned an umbrella. They’ve always seemed a little too effeminate to me, but as it’s currently pouring with rain outside and I need some crackers to go with my cheese, I’m starting to reconsider that assessment. The problem is, I don’t know where one buys umbrellas from: there’s definitely no such thing as an umbrella shop and I don’t recall seeing them in any other shops I’ve frequented.

I know that, back in the UK, I could probably nip into a particularly large Tesco or Asda, but in Manhattan no such thing exists. So, I Googled Walmart (figuring that, as they bought Asda, they must be quite similar.)

Wow.

Presented below, are a very representative selection of user-submitted Google Reviews for the nearest Walmart. The full set are available here.

It was so dirty I think someone wiped a dirty diaper on the floor, and there was crusted faeces all over the floor in the cookie aisle. I couldn’t buy any cookies, when I told the lady she yelled at me and said I didn’t need any more cookies.

All the workers look depressed.

This Walmart is soo small & dirty [and it] stinks like fish & cheap perfume.

Of course, when not buying cookies, Google Reviews users always enjoy a bit of casual racism:

All the people that work in the store are black and if you ask them for help they yell at you.

At least three times I was behind someone who slowed down the line because they didn’t speak a word of English (NO HABLA, GET IT?)

But, if all the above isn’t enough to keep you away, then the next couple of quotes might make you think twice.

Do not ever come here at night.

This is the store that a man lost his life [in] the day after Thanksgiving.

I still really want to go to Walmart, just to see where it’s like to walk through the firearms aisle on my way between the dairy and car-parts sections. And get an umbrella. Just, maybe not this one.

Xx

It would appear, quite improbably, that since arriving in New York, I’ve turned into a girl.

I know, I’m as surprised as you. The chauvinism; the inability to use a washing machine; the complete look of panic and bewilderment if I stumble into the make-up section of a department store— the signs were all against this discovery, but the evidence doesn’t lie. Since I’ve been in New York, I’ve bought three pairs of shoes and been sorely tempted by more. Although however seductively and salaciously these red loafers looked at me, I couldn’t quite bring myself to go that far:

It’s not that I arrived here barefoot – though I wouldn’t put that past me – I’d brought with me a pair of shoes and a pair of trainers, which should have been enough for any occasion, and yet I felt myself irresistibly drawn into places I’ve previously feared, and browsed the racks alone, with no threat of violence or unlikely incentive at my back, driving me to do so.

In my defence, somewhat, I should point out that shoes here are cheap. To prevent any girls getting too excited, and planning their visits to NYC to revolve around shoe-shopping, or endlessly checking their post for shoe-boxes from Manhattan, I should point out that it’s only guys’ shoes that are cheap. Girls’ shoes are made of molten lava and rusty nails and all cost in excess of $18million. Each. So, that’s the end of that. Here’s some of my new shoes:

There is, however, a slight downside to having beautiful, beautiful shoes (and hats) over here though. You see, there’s quite a well-established game in the USA called Gay or [just] European?. Seriously, people play it in bars. With me as the subject.

For the record, I’m statistically European so far.

Xx

The Strand is a New York institution, and one of my new favourite places. It has more books than most libraries I’ve been in, not to mention a rare books room I didn’t even have the temerity to enter.

The majority are used: there’s something beautiful about second-hand books, with love letters scribbled on the inside cover pages and page corners turned so often they’re about to fall off. The layout of the shop is wonderful too, no chairs, no space, books stacked in a semblance of order on every inch of shelving and a hundred carts dotted around the floor.

One oddity The Strand offer that I’ve never seen before is books by the foot, for rental or sale. The former is entirely reasonable: film sets, stage shows, there are plenty of reasons to want to temporarily line the walls with a beautiful array of leather-bound classics. But, anyone who actually fills their home library in this manner needs shooting.

A foot of books is quite an easy thing to picture, but a mile of them starts to strain the imagination. Nevertheless, the folks at The Strand kindly volunteer the information that their stock equates to 18 miles of books, in store, at any given time. To put that into perspective, this is enough to line every inch of the route from Farnborough Industrial Estate to Slough. Presuming none get stolen along the way, that is. I’m assuming that local illiteracy will win out over the regional predilection for crime.

One of the things I picked up was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short stories, to enhance my American education. Apparently they all read him at school over here. I can see why.

Xx

New York City is cold. It’s deceptive, every building (and, fairly often, even the awning outside a building) is well-heated, there’s still plenty of sunshine around, and there hasn’t been a hint of snow or ice, but the ambient air temperature is hovering around 1°C and the wind-chill drops that a lot further. I could elaborate, but frankly I think the chances of anyone believing I bought these to keep my ears warm are pretty slim regardless:

Those are a pair of Skullcandy Skullcrushers – Snoop Dogg Limited Edition. The very name makes my eardrums quiver in nervous, fearful anticipation, like a teenage girl tentatively walking to her first date with that boy who has a sliver of hair on his top lip and a faux-leather jacket.

These headphones have a subwoofer on each side. These headphones have a subwoofer on each side. When you turn the bass up to maximum – not recommended whilst the headphones are actually on – you can actually feel them pulsing and shaking. With some drum ‘n’ bass, they’d probably jump out of your hands.

Plus, they look badass.

Xx

It’s been a little over a month now, and I just found a draft I wrote on my very first afternoon here. It seems a lifetime ago: come reminisce with me about that first morning, when the world was fresh and alien and almost nothing I saw made any sense to me.

–

After a tipple or two (or three) the night before, I awoke at 6.30am – hey thanks jet-lag, appreciate it – stumbled over last night’s clothes and a couple of half-open suitcases and wondered fruitlessly what was happening in the real world (aka London), where it was 11.30am and presumably rainy.

By 9am I had a place for every thing, and everything in its place, and had moved on to re-arranging the living room and kitchen. Nice.

Shortly thereafter, my cunning plan to navigate Manhattan by compass accidentally took us to Battery Park and spurred us to get American mobile phone plans sooner rather than later, so we could once again deny any evolutionary or learn-ed skills and resume status as savants with lightning-fast and pinpoint-precise fingers darting onto a touchscreen faster than the eye can see; think The Sundance Kid, but with the ability to show you the exact weather in the Republic of Kazakhstan at any second (subject to 3G connectivity.)

3G connectivity for iPhones is only available in America through AT&T, but after AT&T told us only offered two-year contracts, we turned, disconsolate and inconsolable to the helpful and friendly (I tried to avoid using American as the adjective, herein I fail – it’s just too true) folks in the nearby T-Mobile store. Life on the EDGE was, alas, a step too far. We were in a pickle, so it was time to turn to the ultimate source of aid: Twitter.

A return to the AT&T store replete with a plausible lie (recommended by an Internet person); a confident gaze; and a pair of T-Mobile leaflets held none-too-subtly, and we now have their two-year ‘family plan’ (a fantastic concept – check it out), but with the right to cancel it without penalty after our 6 months are up.

Next up this morning (yep, we’re not even at noon yet, go get yourself a cup of tea and settle in, I’ll wait) was a visit to Radio Shack. If you met the perfect girl – witty; fun; shapely; blonde; deviant – this is what her father’s shed would look like. Gadgets and toys littered around the shelves, but the real treasures hidden away in draws categorised and stuffed with obsessive precision – if there’s a fuse, connector or cable you’re after that they don’t stock, the store manager’s firstborn’s child is forfeit.

That’s a picture of a Radio Shack store I found on the Internet. I have no idea what’s happening but that guy looks like a cross between Elvis and a Gunslinger.

We rounded off the morning with an American ideal – a good burger from goodburger; I absolutely adore the notion that one can choose how a burger is cooked (and order it online.)

Xx