It’s been over six years since I’ve moved to New York, yet sometimes, I still have these rare moments when I get shocked after seeing a bill at a restaurant, particularly given how much (or how little) I have ordered. Tonight, I went with a good friend of mine to a Mexican-fusion restaurant in the East Village, mostly ordered off the Happy Hour menu, which is supposed to be cheaper, yet somehow, my share of the bill after tax and tip still ends up being almost $60. How is that even possible considering I only had one happy hour drink and five out of the six items we ordered was off the Happy Hour/half priced menu?

This reminded me of a tapas restaurant I used to frequent in another part of the East Village that has a wildly popular special on Tuesdays, when all of its tapas dishes are half-priced. That may seem like a great deal to you, and did seem like a good deal to me the two or three times I went… except all of the times I went, I remember that the price per head probably still came out to $30-60 depending on how many cocktails we ordered. Even the “cheap” nights in New York City seem to be stupidly expensive.

A few of us at the office are participating in a contest to see who can bring lunch from home every single day — until someone breaks the rule. The whole point of this is to encourage everyone to see how much money they can save just by not buying lunch every day, and potentially to be healthier because we’d likely be making our own lunches (or our respective live-in partners would).

One of my colleagues today said that a lot of the time, he just doesn’t have time during the weekend to buy groceries. “I had stuff to do this weekend,” he said. “I have places to be. I actually have a life! Sometimes, you just don’t have enough time to buy groceries for the entire week. That takes a lot of planning.”

Honestly, that statement made me more sad than it did make me annoyed because then, I thought of a woman I met about a week ago who says that she is so busy that all she does is make the same enchiladas every week for her children, and the rest of the week, she chooses from among four to five takeout spots that the kids like that are walking distance from her apartment downtown. We live in New York; it’s the land of takeout, delivery, and eating out. Sadly, that doesn’t make for a healthy lifestyle for a growing child.. or even people our age. If we can’t pick up good habits for cooking and healthy eating before we have children and are constantly making excuses about being “too busy,” what makes us really think that we can do it once the kids come and we really do have less time?

A friend and I had dinner tonight, and over Vietnamese vermicelli noodles, we discussed how his office has already experienced three rounds of layoffs this year, in addition to colleagues quitting left and right. Some are leaving to pursue roles at competitor companies, others are changing industries entirely, and two or three have even quit without any other job lined up. They were that fed up with the politics and attrition rate that they couldn’t be sane staying there. It’s gotten to the point where this summer, on average, he’s probably only come into the office one or two days a week at most and just “works from home” the rest of the week.

A lot of us spend a lot of our lives making decisions (or lack of decisions) based on fear. As a twenty-something adult, we may be worried about leaving our jobs without anything lined up because of the fear of no health insurance, the fear of future employers asking us to explain the “gap” on the resume and their judgment, the fear of not being able to pay bills or save (pretty fair, though, obviously), the fear of what our parents or friends or peers will say to our voluntary unemployment — the fear. I’m not exempt from this. That’s why it’s always so rare to hear about people actually quitting their jobs with absolutely no plan or no job lined up. It’s such a gutsy, out of the ordinary thing to do or hear about. Granted, I’m not advocating that people quit their jobs and just sit around all day and do nothing, but I think that we all deserve a break from being miserable and controlled by terrible, toxic work environments.

We’re considering moving out of our apartment at the end of July when our lease ends. Our apartment is great in that it’s in a nice area, has electricity/gas at a fixed price, lots of closet space, and is in a well-maintained building, but it would be really nice to just have more space, an actual separate kitchen, and a little more natural light.

So while calling, texting, and e-mailing listings on Craigslist and Rent Hop this week, we went to view an apartment, and I quickly remembered why I hate real estate agents and the entire apartment search process in this city.

The listing originally claimed to have in-building laundry and an elevator. After visiting the building, we realized this was all a lie. The listing also said that the apartment had no fee, but the broker told us within two minutes of walking in that the fee is “just” 12.5% of annual rent. And on our walk up from our place, the broker changed the address from 92nd and 3rd to 92nd and 2nd, and finally to 93rd… but closer to 1st avenue than 2nd. Chris was angry, told them that they lied to us and said the apartment was crap, and we walked out.

There are some benefits of working in a male-dominated environment. One of them is that random “1 on 1s” get mysteriously scheduled on your calendar that for some reason include your entire team, and then you realize that this “1 on 1” is actually being held at the nearby pub, where everyone is drinking beer and watching the first game of the World Cup. No pale ales for me, though. I was enjoying the fruit beers on the menu.

Although I wasn’t a soccer fan prior to getting tickets for the World Cup and booking our Brazil trip, I’ve been reading about the World Cup, how the groups are formed and how the matches work, and I actually understand it now and can appreciate it. I like that the crowd seems to have a lot of energy (as opposed to those stupid baseball games. I will never understand the “excitement” of baseball. A bunch of men just standing around a big field waiting to attempt to catch a ball if it ever comes?!), and people actually wear the colors of the team they are rooting for – thousands and thousands of them in a big stadium. The world loves soccer; the U.S. loves baseball. The world is more than just the U.S.

The Upper East Side is not a trendy area of Manhattan by any means. It’s a nice, safe, family-friendly area that is known for the old rich, Jews, new parents with their new babies, and nannies pushing around strollers during midday. So it was a really nice surprise when about two years ago, JBird opened up on East 75th Street serving really creative cocktails that you would normally find at places like Little Branch or Please Don’t Tell further downtown. The food is pretty good, too. Since its opening, we’ve taken many people here – my best friend, Chris’s brother, parents, his cousins and their significant others (tonight), and other friends.

Even though it’s not “trendy,” I love this neighborhood. I love that I always feel safe walking its streets no matter what time of day or night it is. I love that there is a decent supermarket within walking distance, that Central Park is minutes away, and that I can walk down the street and see seasonal flowers lining the sidewalks. I love that there’s a bus stop right outside our door with a bus that will take us cross town to the Upper West Side. I love that H&H Bagels is right around the block (and that everyone there is always really friendly with me, unlike the Upper West Side location…), that  Rite Aid is, as well, and that there are a few reliable dining spots that Chris and I enjoy here. Everyone wants to move downtown, but I am quite happy right here.

Tonight, Chris and I went with his cousin and her boyfriend visiting from Melbourne to the Comedy Cellar for dinner and comedy. Since moving to New York, I’ve probably been to the comedy cellar about five times. There are usually 4-5 comedians plus the host that do their stand-up act each show, yet during all of those times there, I never once recall seeing a female comedian. They are always men.

I’m not a funny person (not intentionally, anyway), so I could never see as a comic, but I personally think that women are held to a higher standard when they are comedians than men are. Men can just sit there and make a stupid face and people will laugh; if women did the exact same thing, it might get a few chuckles, if even that. Men are allowed to be crass and act stupid, but when women do the exact same things, they aren’t perceived or taken the same way. That’s the case at work, in social circles, and in public. It’s another frustrating reality.

Tonight, we went to see the show When January Feels like Summer, a show that involves the mingling of two races that we don’t often see together – blacks and Indians. A black man and an Indian woman fall for each other in a not-so-common way in the story. In real life, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Indian dating a black person. That is especially odd given that I live in New York City. I see Indians with Indians (obviously), Indians with whites, East Asian (women) with white (men), blacks with whites, but never this combination. And the other thing about this is that in all of the shows I have seen in New York, you never see these two races together. Broadway would probably not welcome it (I’ve never seen an Asian on Broadway… Unless it were a story like Mulan), off-Broadway would not, and even the smaller, more independent theater companies throughout New York don’t often show these two races together.

So for the first time in my life, I got stuck in an elevator today. I was on my way back from my dentist appointment, which already ran over because my wait time was much longer than I anticipated, and as I got on the elevator in my office building to the 23rd floor where my company is, the elevator suddenly stops and makes some loud buzzing sound as the elevator read “21.” I hit the Open Door button. Nothing happens. Then I hit the number 23 again. Still nothing happens. Then I hit the Alarm button, and no one seems to respond. Hmmmm. I called our office manager and told her I was stuck. Then I texted my boss and told him I was trapped. I proceeded to text Chris and a friend, and they kept me entertained while my boss constantly went between checking up on me via text and yelling at the maintenance guys to get me out.  The doorman gets on the intercom to check to see where I think the elevator is (and to see that I’m not hyperventilating because I suppose that’s what other people have done in the past). It took about 40 minutes for me to get off at the 20th floor, and then I immediately got out and boarded another elevator (seemed logical at the time) to get to the 23rd floor.

It’s a good thing I am not claustrophobic or a massive worrywart, otherwise, that 40 minutes could have been really, really miserable.

On our way back from Lake Placid/Vermont today, we decided to conclude our trip with a drive to Elmhurst, my old neighborhood, to enjoy a last dinner together at Tangra Masala, one of my favorite places to eat and get takeout from when I lived in Queens, as it was a short walk from my former apartment. They are well known for their delicious and fiery-hot Chinese Indian cuisine, which pre-Tangra, I had never had before. I salivate thinking about their food when I remember it and get sad knowing it’s no longer a five-minute walk from my place now.

Since we were nearby, we drove by my old apartment so that Chris’s parents could see it. I noticed that our former third-floor balcony had lots of plants, tables, chairs, and other clutter-type things. Just from seeing it, I assumed and knew that the landlord and his wife probably extended their own second floor living space to also occupy the third. There’s no way that they could have tolerated anyone else living above them considering how quiet and easy going Crista and I were. I’m so happy that is so far in the past.