RunningNheels Returns

My mother laughs and says, “We’re going to buy you a cat”. Actually I don’t think I could live with a cat either. After spending a night with a snoring male friend, I’m starting to doubt I could ever live with a man. I know, I know...I’m too particular. But you know I need my sleep! Let’s just say since college graduation in May ’06, I have moved a total of 4 times. Finally, again, like in college, I live alone….just how I like it. I love my Hoboken apartment…my private nest. However, like everything in the New York area, the rent is ridiculously high. In Bloomington, Indiana I was paying a mere $465 a month rent for a one bedroom apartment. Now I’m paying $1,600 per month for the same. My ten minute hike to the path plus a quick 15 minute path train ride and a 5 minute walk to my office is actually quicker than most of my Manhattan-living coworkers. Hoboken is a perfect place to live. Best known as Frank Sinatra’s birthplace and where Frank, the teenager actually began crooning on street corners, Hoboken today still recognizes him as their favorite homeboy. His picture is everywhere…local restaurants, bagel stands, etc. Today, Hoboken is filled with post-college grads, young Wall Street types, young film artists, and young fashion felines. Film, Fashion and Finance! Yes, the 3F’s make up this square mile city where everyone walks to the path train each morning for a long day of work in Manhattan. Bars are everywhere…on every corner! A $15 Cosmo across the river in NYC goes for a mere $10 here in the boken. Streets consist of turn of the century apartment buildings that are 4 to 6 stories high. All have been refurbished or are in the process. I feel like I’m living back in time. So different than South Jersey where there are green lawns and shopping malls. Who needs a mall when in 15 minutes you’re in Manhattan!! Here, I leave all my wash off in the morning at the cleaners and pick it up at the end of the day to find it washed and folded. Sure beats sitting at the Laundromat. Washington is our Main Street where you can walk to the grocer, the gym, the shoe repair, the cleaners, church, city hall, the library and the beautiful park that overlooks the Manhattan skyline…Hoboken is packed with lovely small fashion boutiques of designers who probably just couldn’t quite make it in Manhattan. I finally took a browse in one of them a few months back and checked out this little red spaghetti strap chiffon cocktail dress, which I have been eyeing in the window for some time, retail price $350. That’s ok; I’ll stick to using my Bloomingdale’s discount.

Like college days in Bloomington, my past year on the east coast has also been compiled of numerous disastrous dates, adding Europeans, NY lawyers, Wall Street types and OMG an actual “really bad kisser” to the list. My co-workers say I should write a book…no, I’ll write a blog instead. So here I go again.

Stay tuned.