In the last couple of months, we’ve been noticing that there’s been a cigarette smell in our apartment hallway. Sometimes it’s faint, other times it’s strong, but regardless, it’s still annoying. We’re technically not in a non-smoking building, so residents are actually allowed to spoke in their units with the condition that the smell cannot leave their apartment. Well, this is New York City, and it’s not like people are stuffing odor blockers under their doors, so there’s really very little you can do to prevent those types of smells from not leaving your apartment unless you open your window and smoke out of it… and who is really going to be that considerate and do that anywhere?

So I got home early today after a customer onsite meeting nearby, and our handyman came by to ask me some questions about the cigarette smell. In a nutshell, our building manager had narrowed it down to the new tenant at the opposite end of our floor (there are only six units per floor in our building), but she couldn’t legally say that in an email to me, so she asked our handyman to have a chat with me about it today and to keep an eye (well, a nose, really) out for it.

I guess this goes to show that she cannot use “guilty until proven innocent” in writing as her approach, huh? Doesn’t that sound familiar with our current events today…

Autumn coming to New York is also a reminder to us that Open House New York has arrived, which is a weekend in New York City where public spaces that are usually closed off to the general public, as well as private spaces like notable apartments and office spaces with interesting architectural elements, open up for viewing. When we’ve been here and haven’t been occupied with other activities, we’ve always made a point of seeing a few sites. This year, one of the sites we visited was the Westbeth Artists’ Housing in the West Village, which has been providing subsidized housing for artists since the early 1970s (and, as my research revealed, was also a site where the Manhattan Project was worked on during World War II). As of 2011, the highest amount of rent any one tenant was paying was $1,700/month, and for many decades, a wait list has existed for artists to get admitted into the building.

In a city as expensive as New York, it is comforting to know that housing opportunities like this exist to allow for creativity and the arts to continue. Westbeth is known to be the largest federally subsidized collection of apartment buildings in the entire country. And as an added bonus, family who live here are allowed to pass their apartments down to their children and future generations.

I occasionally wonder what my life would have been like if I had taken the less “practical” route. But this housing opportunity allows the children of artists to take the chances that I was too scared of ever taking.

Tonight, we saw a show with a short run called All Because of Infidelity. The show is about four different couples at different life and relationship stages, and all are either going through or have gone through periods of infidelity that they are forced to deal with. One couple is engaged and planning to get married in six months, but the woman is having an affair with another man at work that her fiancé is unaware of. The second couple has been married over 40 years, and during every wedding anniversary, they run through a “recap” of their married life together, which also touches upon his infidelity early on, as well as hers… though she received his “consent” to sleep with this other man to make sure they were both “even.” The third couple is made up of two gay men, one of whom appears to have a sexual addiction and has multiple sex partners on the internet, whereas his husband walks in on the internet relationships and is horrified, just wanting a happy married monogamous life. Finally, the fourth couple is in couples’ therapy after the man cheats on his girlfriend with a colleague (they may be in therapy, but contrary to what the man has said, his affair is still ongoing and he has zero plans to end it).

Infidelity is one of those things that everyone seems to have strong opinions about. But as I have reflected over many years, I don’t really think it’s the end of the world. Human beings weren’t really designed to be monogamous, otherwise why would so many people cheat? People are human; they get bored. They crave newness, they want different experiences. Being monogamous really isn’t for everyone, and I dislike the judgment that people get for cheating. Maybe the relationship wasn’t right in the first place. Over time, people evolve, and not always together. I don’t think our ancestors ever thought that we’d be living on this earth on average for about 79-82 years. Assuming you get married at age 30, that means that you’d be monogamous with one single person for 50+ years; that’s a LONG time to be in a relationship with just one person. Infidelity, if anything, is just a sign that perhaps the open communication in a relationship that may be desired is not being met. Monogamy is a social construct that only works if the two people in question are committed to making it work.

A friend once naively commented about people who cheat, “I don’t have time for that type of thing (cheating), and neither would the person I’d be with. Life is busy, and there’s too much to do to have time to mess around.”

It’s funny the judgments you hear people come up with… because cheating can be fun and exhilarating, that’s another way of saying, “I don’t have time for fun.”

I was taking a break and scrolling through my Instagram feed today when this Rupi Kaur post came up:

yesterday

when i woke up

the sun fell to the ground and rolled away

flowers beheaded themselves

all that’s left alive here is me

and i barely feel like living

depression is a shadow living inside me

We always say that it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a village to help someone out of their depression, to help them separate the idea that ending pain does not necessarily mean s/he needs to end his/her life. The saddest part about that statement, though, is that even when people do show obvious signs they are struggling, the people who should care and give more attention do not. And then, it is suddenly too late, and those remaining have all these regrets of thoughts of what they could have done — should’ve could’ve would’ve. 

The laziness and inaction of human beings never ceases to anger me. That applies to voting, too, in today’s heated political climate.

The funniest thing about today’s day and age with social media is that people can “know” you and ongoing details of your life without ever having met you. It’s almost like in some ways, you are both celebrities to each other, but when you finally do meet in person, it’s as though you’ve really known each other this whole time. That happened when Chris suggested I meet him at a bar in midtown after work today, and lo and behold, there he was, having drinks with one of his direct reports who is living in Chicago, but who I’ve known of and who has known me pretty much as long as she’s been at the same company as Chris. We both follow each other on Instagram; she “friended” me on Facebook years ago, and has even donated to my AFSP fundraising drive. She even comments on my Instagram photos and occasionally sends me private messages through it. We chatted over drinks tonight, and she actually did not feel like a stranger at all to me.

There are certainly many evils to social media, but I can say that I am still on it and still feel like I benefit from its existence. These are some of the fun moments that happen as a result of it.

I was disappointed a few weeks ago when I received a notification that my primary care doctor, who I’ve been seeing for the last two years, had stopped accepting my current company’s health insurance. In this city, it’s one of the most aggravating and trying experiences to find the right doctor for anything. Her assistant said she’d happily see me as an “out-of-network” provider, but I immediately declined. My company is paying enough for health insurance for me; why should I have to give any doctor even more money out of pocket?! No one is that good in this crappy American healthcare system where we are constantly getting gouged left and right.

So, I was relieved when I called my gynecologist’s office today to find out that they have no changes in the insurances they accept and that I could still come in for a visit “in-network.” Well, there was a clarifying question.

Me: Does Dr. XXXX accept Blue Cross Blue Shield as in-network?

Assistant: Is it Blue Cross Blue Shield through your employer?

Me: Yes.

Assistant: Then great! We certainly do accept them.

Hmmm. What could this be about — the healthcare exchange through the Affordable Care Act…? We cannot even have those who are getting their own health insurance covered in the same way that we are covered because we have the luxury of having healthcare through our employers, whereas those others will just constantly get rejected left and right? This stupid healthcare system makes me more and more mad every single time I read an article about it or have a phone conversation with a provider like this. This should not be our normal.