Visitors are sort of part and parcel when you’re a New Yorker. Look, you live in the greatest city in the world, with some of the most expensive hotels. When you’re out of town visiting friends and family, the words, “Oh, you live in New York?” are always followed by, “I’ve been meaning to go there to visit!” You, New Yorker, have an expected response of “oh, stay with me/us, I’ll/we’ll show you around!” It’s pretty much part of your DMV exam.
And for me, it’s not the city tourism part that gets me frazzled or stressed. I can reel off about twenty cool things to do in the city, for every taste, and pull up websites and hand out brochures, all in about thirty five seconds (oh, and talking faster – that’s on the DMV exam too). It’s the house that’s got me straight tripping, uh, boo.
Last night, when I was sitting inside the bleach-filled bathtub desperately scrubbing at the grouting in the tub, I stopped for a minute. This is my brother and his friend Ozzie that are visiting this weekend. Putting aside for a minute that brother is the most obsessively neat person I know second only to my mother, it’s not like the guy is fooled by my, uh, cluttery tendencies. He’s known me since I was what, born? I do this with every guest we have. I go pretty much full-tilt bananas with the cleaning until exactly the moment the doorbell rings. And for what? We’re never even IN the apartment when there are guests, we’re too busy seeing the city.
I dragged Stuart out of the house at 11:45 PM last night, after the cleaning had passed my neurotic sleep-deprived standards, so we could go to the grocery store and get things like soap for the dishes, paper towel, extra toilet paper, coffee, bread, eggs, bacon … you know, the things you fill your fridge with so that it looks like you actually LIVE there, instead of just collapse on the couch and dial for chinese three times a week. “What, that? Oh, is that what an oven looks like?” It’s this struggle to make life here in New York seem like other places, when really, it’s not.
And so I figured it out, why I always go so berserk with guests. It’s because of all the things we’ve got it better in New York City, housing isn’t always one of them. Sure, I can dump my guests on the plane, exhausted and euphoric, lighting that cigarette and going, “thanks, New York City, I’ll call ya, baby”. Chances are, where they’re going back to isn’t as exciting, exhilirating, breathtakingly chock-full of everything as New York City is. But their house? It’s probably bigger. With better organization. And a newer oven. And less dust. And they probably pay half the price for twice the space.
I’ve worked like a dog, and Stuart has joined me, to make our apartment a beautiful, cozy place. And it’s not small, cramped, or dirty by city standards. But sometimes, I look at it from Elsewhere’s eyes, and it must look like a tenement! So out comes the toothbrush to scrub the grouting that’s always a little dingy, and the swiffer to valiantly (and uselessly) try to sweep up every last dustbunny, and god, what am I going to DO ABOUT OUR KITCHEN CABINETS?
It’s a losing battle. Invariably, Luiz and Ozzie will arrive, be charmed by our sweet flat and comfy beds and nice coffee maker, and that’s all they’ll notice in between waking up and dashing off to enjoy the city, and collapsing into bed at the end of packed, busy days.
I just hope our ancient radiators don’t crap out, and that the sink doesn’t back up, and oh, I hope the dust-bunnies don’t start reading Marx and forming labor unions. And I hope they see that for all the money, stress, pollution, crime, and taxes we deal with to live in this crazy place, our life is just as fulfilled and – you know – CLEAN as everywhere else’s. And, oh, I guess I hope everyone has fun. Duh. It’s New York City. How could they not, right?
Let me just get this ONE last corner with the swiffer, just – right – argh.
company calls
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I do the same thing, but it’s a good thing because if I never had guests over I’d never clean. Yup, I’m a big fat slob.
OH MY GOD I left that dead mugger under the futon.
half the price? try a quarter of the price, for four times the space…
oh, wait, you live in queens. so you actually HAVE space, compared to us new yorkers.
Uh this is either telling of my Britishness or my studentness, but what the hell is a swiffer?
Had to laugh at this post. Just recently my New York-based friend came to visit me in Ann Arbor. I couldn’t get over his rock-n-roll city lifestyle, and he couldn’t get over my newly purchased 1800 sq foot townhouse. On a different note, I’ve been reading your words for a few years now and just LOVE your writing. Good luck with the manuscript.
I can almost relate – queens is probably on a par with San Fran. I have a palatial apartment, by city standards, but when I visited my inlaws in the seattle suburbs I was blown completely away by their four-bedroom house with furnished mediaparlor basement and backyard with hottub and gazebo. then again, we did not leave the house for three days – there was nothing to do and too much rain for the babies. When the inlaws visit us, we are cramped in our three-br apartment, but with 49 square miles of fascinating beautiful city at our doorstep, they don’t seem to notice for very long.
upshot: if you visit SF, feel free to crash here. I’ll try to keep you distracted from the grout that time forgot.