Time Will Crawl

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In order to mark my one year anniversary with New York, I have compiled a list of lessons I have learned over the past year:

*If you have never seen more than two inches of snow in your entire life, prior to moving to New York, it is wise to invest in a puffy Eskimo coat, even if you end up waddling around all winter looking like a Michelin tire.
*It takes approximately seven months before you can (or should) leave your apartment without a map.
*You can hold out on getting food or pot delivered but eleven months and twenty days is the amount of time you can last before pussing out and paying someone $6 to wash and fold your laundry.
*You do not move to New York to save money. No matter how industrious you are, this city will drain your wallet on a daily basis. Yet if you work in finance, you will probably be fine.
*If you get more than four hours of sleep per night during your first summer in the city, you're not doing it right. There is way too much going on to waste time on sleep. Also, your apartment will be transformed into a bed and breakfast as everybody you have ever known will decide to visit you within the span of three months and it is your civic duty, as a hostess, to show them a good time.
*No matter how much time you do not spend in your apartment, it is not easy to live with insane roommates who you found in a desperate, last minute Craigslist search.
*If the guy who runs the bodega on the corner sometimes knows your name, you've got yourself a neighborhood.
*Some novelties will never wear off, like seeing a bum cradling an iPod and sleeping on a Ralph Lauren duvet.
*Sometimes, I feel left out because I'm the only one I know who doesn't go to a chiropractor.
*Although I am insistent on living in Manhattan, the best weekends to be had are in Brooklyn. The parties are better and the boys are cuter - that’s a fact.
*It is quite nearly impossible both to live in New York and dress like a New Yorker. However, there are ways to skirt around that issue. For instance, become best friends with H&M or trade editing skills for designer garments.
*Using ‘summer’ as a verb only works if you have a legitimate reason to do so.
*It really does take a full year to situate yourself within the city.
*It also takes one year to feel jaded. You think it’ll never happen until one night, you’re looking down at some kid who just graduated, saying, "Trust me. Get out of the publishing industry while you can."
*People truly are busy here. I don’t know how it happens, but you can go an entire month without seeing a close friend.
*Reading the New Yorker in New York makes much more sense than reading it anywhere else.
*With all of the choices in dating partners, you also have the choices in relationships. There's the open relationship, the semi-closed relationship, the sticking-out-the-lease relationship, the casual relationship, the engaged-but-not-getting-married relationship, the friends-who-sleep-together relationship, and the serious relationship.
*That last choice is the least practical because even though people here are much more serious than the people on the West Coast, it’s hard to take anyone here seriously.