Apt 45 Part 2: The reality of Washington Heights

As the much needed fail of the MTV Washington Heights reality show moves into its next week of pointless drama, I give you part 2 of Apt 45.

One thing about this year is that the resolution gym rush occurred in February. All the people who promised to be gym rats starting January 1 are delivering on that promise in February; delayed start, but can't hate the intention. In the spirit of embodying the New Year Spirit in February, I'd like to tell you about the best of the worst New Year's Eve/Day stories ever experienced by this here writer -- in apt 45.
Remember 2009? It was a big one for me. It was the year I finished college, moved to New York and moved in with a crazy person. For almost four months I had to play a challenging game of let the hood rat run around until she evicts herself. The game goes something like this: hood rat does something crazy, Ohio girl attempts to let it go and documents the occurrence -- and repeat. My goal was to gather enough altercations (unprovoked) to convince the remaining tenants that life would really be much better without her. Well, this proved to be so much easier once I discovered the rat was a squatting one -- she wasn't paying rent. Determined with the lack of work ethic to not settle for a job and therefore not have any money for rent, my roommate squatted, but like a sitting duck she had to be nice to me and she had to be smart about her actions; the latter was something I certainly had an upper hand on. So as a self-declared master of passive aggressive activity, I began to sting small arguments with the venom of, "well I'm paying rent so ..." The veracity of my statement and the amazing teeter of the power structure let me sleep better at night (even with the ridiculous radio playing).
Now that you have a sense of the tension that broached the apartment, picture: December 31, 2009 a joyous night that celebrates the past and designates positivity for the future. My sane roommate and my bf are getting ready for a night out together. The crazy one comes by to let us know that she's having a party tonight and that it should be over by like 2. Annoyed of the idea that the apartment might be infected with her hood rat friends, we reside to agreeing that being back by 3am will give people plenty of time to leave and we'll be back without having to experience it ...

Boy were we wrong.

Enter 3:15am New Year's Day 2010.
As I walk out the elevator towards our apartment I hear music blaring, but an empty apartment! I'm thinking great we missed them, now off to bed. As I was quickly corrected, her party wasn't starting until 3:30. The level of anger cannot be explained in this post, but just think about narrowing escaping a really bad situation only to find out that you were still in the wrong place at the wrong time, in fact it was your living quarters. Seething, I return to bed hoping for the party to be over as soon as humanely possible.
7:30am ... Party is still going, music, drunk people, running up and down the hallway, knocking on doors while we pretend to sleep, and the kicker: my roommate was nowhere to be found...  I hadn't slept, the cat was hungry and I was beyond done. I go outside to feed him and am accosted by someone I could only describe as a misdirected Tim Burton character.

That I believe is what they call the straw that broke the camel's back, I succumbed to calling the police on my own apartment.

I mean, who has to disguise their voice as a scared neighbor to get the police to come to their apartment and break up the party ...? This lady. In apt 45.


Don't worry it can't get worse than this, right?
Stay tuned for more ...

Dare You to Tell the Truth

Friday, I spent a night with the ladies. An uninterrupted night (well besides the usual Harlem soundtrack) with wine, catch up seshs and trading of advice/stories.
Without going into detail, there were two ladies in somewhat transitional points in relationships: meaning it was starting to go down that "not working" path. My personal philosophy is that when you can start to identify those points that are borderline breakup material, you should probably end it before you become even more disappointed. So as I was top lining these convos of the night for the seemingly uninterested bf, he exclaims: "don't you know you aren't suppose to give your friends real advice? Just let them do as they want and agree to whatever it is."
Another odd, surprisingly might be true exclamation from the honeys. So does that mean, no matter how much my girlfriend wants my opinion she really just wants me to tell her "go ahead girl, stay with him?" At what point do we become intrusive as a third party and disable that sounding board effect you have as a friend?
We all know girl code exists, but I don't remember reading a vow of silence being ingrained in the commandments. We're also getting to a point where we have or had substantial relationship learnings that are crucial to pass along - and that leads to the sometimes uninvited comments. I admit I have been on the other end of the receiving unprovoked comments and I didn't want to hear that mess. So I know I'm not the only one that does it, what do we do it? I've decided there are two things that create this convoluted situation of what can be called Girlfriend Feedback.
1. Women, as most of us know, are infamous for ruminating. A natural, innate process that allows us to analyze, critique and belabor incidences, ever after. Girl talk is the pinnacle of the information dump that's going through your head all those days in advance of girl night. So when you are there telling your girlfriends your heart and soul, you don't really want to develop a solution or, as we say in PR, decide on next steps.
The second point is, it's hard to do when you care about your friends and you don't want them to fall into your old footsteps - you talk until you're sure you've convinced them. However, in the end it's her life and her decision. Something that works for you might not work for her: ergo stay out of it and let her make her own choices.
So girl night part two will include less commentary and more listening - guess that's why you have two ears and only one mouth right? Stick to those proportions.