Photo by Ross Terelle, Megacast News

“Looks like food’s not the problem in Staten Island,” I say. Photographer Ross Terelle and I walk through dark streets lined with great mounds of garbage that used to be people’s lives. It’s a week after Hurricane Sandy hit. Most of the people we’ve met along the way have been trying to give food to us and to each other: “You guys need some hot coffee?” “We got pasta, you guys hungry? You seen anybody who needs some hot food?” “Pizza anybody? It’s still kinda warm.”

We pass a man standing in the doorway of a house that God must have punched, on Hunter Avenue. I ask him what happened and his story spills out in Spanish-inflected English—a messy narrative interrupted from time to time by people begging to give us food. His name is Alfredo Zapata. During Irene last year, the water level only rose a couple of feet, so he decided to stick it out. He put boots on and sloshed through knee-high water with his neighbor, surveying, protecting his house from the thieves who work disaster areas. This year they did the same but the results were different. Zapata and his neighbor barely made it to his house. They shut the door and then watched in terror as the water surged through his neighborhood. Wave after wave—he called them tsunamis—brought the water to within six inches of his ceiling, where it stagnated for a day, leaving a brown ring of grime to mark an astonishing high water mark.

“That’s got to be twelve feet,” says Terelle.

“At least,” I say.

Zapata invites us in. His house is empty; he lost everything. The floor is a layer of brown filth and foam, the walls are grimy, the framing shows through where the drywall has crumbled away, and the walls that remains are soft to the touch. The smell of mold and rot is overpowering. A young couple comes to the door and poke their heads in. “We have hot coffee and hot chocolate. Anybody?”

Zapata graciously declines and sends them on their way. When they are gone, he points to a green sticker on the door. An inspector came and told him his house was habitable. “He looked in and said, ‘Uh, well, you can live here.’” He imitates the inspector’s voice with a generous dose of idiot. “’Well, maybe dry it and you can sleep here. I’m going to put a green sticker on your door saying you can live here.’ Come on! You think a child could live here?” Terelle and I shake our heads. He snaps pictures. I don’t think a prisoner should live in this place.

“This is the same story for all my neighbors,” says Zapata. “They’re complaining. They say the government forgot us. They’re helping Long Island, Brooklyn, Manhattan. This is not Staten Island, this is Forgotten Island.” In the distance a sound like the Muslim call to prayer, but muffled, echos through the neighborhood. It’s a truck with a bullhorn: “We…have…food. We…have…water.” “We…have…food. We…have…water.” It could be something official—NYPD, Red Cross, FEMA—or it could be a local church or a youth group or volunteer firefighters or bunch of friends who feel guilty for being warm. The Occupy movement has been ferrying food and supplies to the hardest hit areas. But nobody has come by handing out lawyers or a warm place for Zapata’s family to live. I imagine he would line up for that truck.

He tells us some of the Staten Island deaths occurred within a stone’s throw of his house. The neighbor who died trying to save her dog. Two children drowned down the road. A couple in the house on the corner. And there could be more. He worries about the illegals hiding from the authorities; people waiting in the dark, afraid to light candles or turn on generators for fear of being expelled from Forgotten Island. We thank Zapata and wish him luck—both come out hollow—and leave him standing in his doorway thanking-but-no-thanking people, waiting for his insurance company to call him back. Back on the street, we walk gingerly around piles of busted dreams towards the safety of the Midland Beach Distribution Center.

“Well,” I said, staring at the potholes up Brooklyn’s Third Avenue, “I guess I’ll just wing it.”

I moved to New York two months ago, but I didn’t move in anywhere. An unpaid internship and an uncertain future inspired me to test my friends’ tolerance this summer by crashing on their couches throughout the city. Now, in addition to being a part-time reporter, I’m a collector of Wi-Fi passwords and tricks to unlocking apartment doors. Thick key opens the front, thin one unlocks the room. Network “ClaudyPants,” password “areyouacat.” Jiggle the doorknob as you turn it and don’t lock the inside bolt or you’ll wake up at 3 a.m. when the housemate you’ve never met is angrily hammering at the door.

It’s tough navigating between temporary homes. Each week I find a new neighborhood to get lost in. I’ve visited the city enough to think I know what I’m doing, so I go to Brooklyn Bridge Park when I want to get on the bridge itself and convince myself that somehow the City Council changed an avenue name when I’m stuck on Park looking for Fourth. I end up where I need to be eventually, just always three wrong turns later.

I felt alienated at first by New York’s surprising geographical complexity—downtown Manhattan’s unnumbered streets, the way the roads bend off Flatbush Avenue—but increasingly I’ve found comfort in a sense of orientation that can only be gained through experience here. Any Joe Tourist, after all, can navigate a numbered grid. Getting around places like the West Village tangle of blocks demand expertise; even with iPhones, the uninitiated have to stop to read maps. New Yorkers earn their directional ease one wrong turn at a time. I’m starting to feel like I belong.

With no actual home in the city, though, my allegiance is less to New York residents than to the city itself—to the streets, parks, buildings and monuments between work and this week’s apartment that give me space to escape my obligations as intern and houseguest and to let my thoughts roam.

Most New Yorkers have bedrooms for time to themselves; I have the Hudson River Greenway, Prospect Park, Union Square, the garden on 28th Street where I eat my lunch and the shade under the Manhattan Bridge where I rest from the summer heat. I belong nowhere specifically, so I claim anywhere as my own and invest myself in street corners around the city instead of in neighborhoods or blocks.
I’m thrilled, then, when I stumble upon one of these corners a week or two later and suddenly know exactly where I am. The Astor Place Cube! Bryant Park! These rushes of familiarity sweep together the pieces my scattered city life and stamp them into place—Central Park is that way, the subway line to get across town is there, a Starbucks with a public bathroom is around the corner and the closest ice cream shop is down one block. That food truck is where I stopped to eat my first slice of New York pizza and that park is where I sat down in the rain and wondered what the hell I’m doing here.

Connecting the dots of my experiences in the city feels like I’m mapping out some part of myself. I’m still not sure where I’m going in life after the internship’s done, where I’ll live or what I’ll do—no directions exist for that, and I’d probably forget them at home if they did. I made it to Astoria, though. It just took a few wrong turns.

Paul Bisceglio co-edits land that I live, a literary blog that publishes stories about place and identity in America from contributors across the country. See more of his work at landthatilive.com.

This past weekend, I sat with two friends, sipping a Bloomberg-approved iced coffee, when a man on the adjoining bench proceeded to ask my friend holding a book on finance if she was enjoying the book and if she indeed worked in finance. Turns out she is and she is.

The conversation spilled over into further self-disclosure when the stranger asked my friend how long she’s lived in the city, what restaurants she likes and about the fragmented stone bracelet on her wrist. Things seemed to be going swimmingly when almost on cue, a tall, svelte glass of woman traipsed forth and kindly asserted herself as the girlfriend of the garrulous gentleman.

As I collected the lower half of my jaw off the ground, the couple departed arm-in-arm amid the other couples red-rovering along the sidewalk. Finance friend collected herself as cool as a cucumber and insouciantly played the interaction off like it was no big thing. But the question reverberates loudly: Was this man truly a financophile or was he dissatisfied with his current squeeze? Carefully executed research would suggest the latter.

Research conducted by Dr. Rowland Miller has found that commitment to one’s current relationship determines whether people are likely to pay attention to alternative suitors. In a well-designed study, psychologists evaluated whether dating, cohabitating and married couples were more inclined to pay attention to alternative suitors based on their satisfaction with their significant others. First, all participants completed comprehensive dating history questionnaires to assess relationship status and evaluate their commitment to and satisfaction with one another. Couples also privately revealed how attracted they were to each other and whether they believed they could realistically date someone better.

Following this, all couples were presented with pictures of attractive females and males, as well as products from advertisements to conceal the true motivation for the study. Participants were asked to familiarize themselves with the images and were given as much time to spend perusing the slides as desired. Next, couples were asked to look at the photos of the opposite-sex targets and were probed on whether they had any interest in meeting them. After two months, the couples were contacted to re-examine their satisfaction with each other and to determine whether they were still together.

As it turns out, attentiveness to alternatives might be an indicator of relationship failure. Remarkably, those who spent more time looking at the photos of the opposite-sex targets and were more interested in meeting them were less likely to be dating the same partner at the follow-up. Those who had indicated that they were less committed at the start of the study also spent more time inspecting the opposite-sex images than the happier couples.

The couples who were more committed and satisfied in their relationships wore protective blinders and showed less of an appetite for seeking attractive alternatives, evidenced by the equal time they spent gazing at the male and female pictures. These couples who spent less time examining the opposite-sex targets were also the couples who were still in exclusive, committed relationships at the follow-up two months later. Couples who believed that their current partner was better than those they could seek elsewhere were also happier and more likely to remain committed to one another.

What are these magical blinders and how can attached men who talk to pretty girls on benches snag a pair? Turns out, the blinders aren’t built in a day. It’s no secret that relationships take work; sometimes couples have to use protective tactics to maximize the good and minimize the bad. Inattentiveness to alternatives is one of those tactics, where couples in committed relationships choose to block out alternative partners in order to focus on the partner they’ve got.

It’s okay to look someone up and down once in a while, maybe even engage in a “what if” scenario, but if you’re almost subway meat because you were staring so hard at the woman across the platform, envisioning her as the mother of your children, it might be time to examine the state of your relationship. And if it’s really that crossword puzzle answer you’re after and the only available stranger around is Kate Upton’s body double, do your honey a favor and call your grandma.

Kristine Keller received her master’s in psychology from New York University. She currently works at Vanity Fair.

As a 20-year-old college student from a Boston suburb, I knew I had hit the jackpot, living alone for the summer in a recently renovated Upper West Side apartment that had just been purchased by a friend’s parents. For them, it was an opportune investment in the bad housing market. For me, it was a sweet deal with a one-year lease that aligned perfectly with my final semesters of school.

The two-bedroom condo was nestled right near the park on the first floor of a brownstone. In contrast to the cigarette and mildew musk that had wafted through my previous downtown abode, it had that squeaky-clean aroma of a new home. The sun gleamed through the big windows and reflected off of the shiny hardwood floors. I felt precariously mature with my private laundry, dishwasher and wrap-around patio.

Everyone else residing in the building was an owner. I could sense their disapproval of this undeserving undergrad intruding on the premises in their chastising stares and standoffish hellos in the foyer. It all covered up their trepidation, however, that I would turn their sedate uptown adult home into a frat house.

My friends had, in fact, been begging me to throw a party. As the oldest of three girls in an Irish Catholic family (always the example-setter, never the rule-breaker) I wasn’t about to chance pissing off my new neighbors.

My bleeding heart got the best of me, though—I couldn’t take the puppy eyes from my peers every time we packed into a Bushwick studio or stood in some ridiculous line outside a trendy club in the Meatpacking District. Finally, I bought some beer and created a Facebook event: “Let’s Get Trashed in My Gigantic Apartment, Wooo!”

By 11 o’clock, it was looking like a casual soiree. As we discussed it-bags and blowouts (most of the attendees were friends I had made at a fashion internship) the doorbell rang—a girl’s boyfriend from Hoboken was apparently bringing along a few buddies.

Opening my door was like emptying out a clown car of bros, all of whom looked like they had significant experience navigating a beer pong table. My party went from civilized fête to all-out rager.

The uninvited Jersey Shore extras took over my laptop and turned up the house music. Most of us migrated out to the patio, so I left the front door unlocked in case more guests arrived.

Back inside, the new floor was brown with dirt from people traipsing back and forth, and the granite countertop littered with empty shot glasses and beer cans. There was also a strange man standing in the middle of my kitchen. He was tall, about 45, and sported glasses, gym shorts and a very aggravated scowl.

He pointed his finger at me. “Do you live here?” I nodded and he ushered me into the living room to talk.

“I’m the landlord. I’m responsible for all of this. Do you know how much noise you’re making?” he asked as he waved his arms up and down.

I had never been introduced to any sort of landlord. I began apologizing profusely for my irresponsibility. No matter how much I groveled through my drunken haze, his questions and threats continued to pour out.

“What is your name?” I was so nervous I didn’t think to ask his.

“Where are the other tenants?” He seemed to suspect I was hiding them somewhere. “They’re home in Boston for the summer.” I answered.

“Do you want to be evicted?” Oh god no, where would I live? Brooklyn?

“I’ve received noise complaints from all of the other neighbors.”

“Sir, it will never, ever happen again, I’m not usually like this. I beg you!”

“I’m going to call the cops if this doesn’t stop in five minutes. We’re telling your parents about this tomorrow.” He slammed the door in my face. I had never had a conversation with someone so enraged and unforgiving.

I frantically told everyone they had to leave. A frat boy tried to console me, but this wasn’t Phi Kappa Delta. This was the Taj Mahal of New York City apartments—at least for a kid in her twenties. I wasn’t going to let it go that easily for some laid-back-affair-turned ripper with a bunch of strangers.

The next morning I sterilized everything, waiting in suspense for Mr. Landlord to come and hand me my eviction notice. He didn’t show up. I expected him to come by the next day, and the day after that. I never saw or heard from him again.

When my two roommates came back at the end of August, I told them what had happened. We concluded that it made no sense for the building to have a landlord; everyone living there was an owner. I probably should have put that together much earlier and saved my naïve self a lot of anxiety, but fear had hindered my ability to think rationally.

I described the man to them and their eyes widened. He sounded like the guy from the apartment down the hall. They had an awkward exchange the day before, where it was made apparent that he didn’t approve of the twentysomethings living 10 feet away from his perfect Pottery Barn split-level. After some strategic Google searching, we confirmed that it was our guy.

Two days later, the building manager called to warn us of a certain man living next door with a drinking problem. If he ever threatened us, we were to lock our doors and call the police right away. Evidently, there had been other incidents.

A week after that, we were having trouble with the hot water. The doorbell rang. Standing in the hallway was the landlord imposter. I froze. Was he finally here to finish what he had started? It immediately became clear that he didn’t remember our previous interaction—either that or he was trying to brush it off like nothing had ever happened. All cheery grins, he asked, “Do you happen to be having problems with your hot water, too?”

Swallowing my pride, I nodded and smiled back.

Still living in the same apartment almost an entire year later, the neighbor and I have only crossed paths on a handful of occasions. Every time we do, however, I can’t help but wonder which of us was more wasted that night.

Kelly Mullins is a writer and recent graduate of Parsons the New School for Design. She still lives on the Upper West Side but has yet to throw another party. Follow Kelly on Twitter @kellmullins or read more of her work at kellmullins.com.

I live in a one-bedroom apartment at the rear of the first floor of a well-kept building in the Bronx, where I pay a decent enough rent that I don’t complain about my view of the alley that runs behind my building. My neighbors and I often use it to go to and from the laundry room in the basement. Garbage and recyclables are stored in the side alley, where every other day my super neatly bundles everything for the early-morning sanitation trucks. I’m not saying it’s the Garden of Eden back there, but he puts in a lot of effort to keep it clean.

However, the building directly behind mine has an alley as well, but its condition is a totally different story. Like a two-way road with lanes separated by a single yellow line, both alleys are separated by a tall chain-link fence. In the daytime there is very little activity in either, but at night the other alley offers a very different view from mine.

It was something I had never noticed until a houseguest pointed something out to me one New Year’s Eve. We had opened one of my windows to get a little air and were joking around when suddenly she said, “Look!” directing my view to the other building and its alley. “What?” I asked. Then I noticed that the ground appeared to be moving. I squinted a little, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness.

Turns out it wasn’t the ground that was moving; it was a group of rats. Rats running back and forth. Rats squeaking. Rats tumbling and climbing over one another. It was like they were having their own party back there. “Ughhh!” I exclaimed, disgusted by the display. “It’s like they’re having a goddamned union meeting over there!” As I closed the window, I was relieved that at least it was the other building’s alley that had the rat infestation, not mine. Not my problem, I thought.

That changed the following summer. I was walking home around 10 p.m., enjoying the beautiful evening when that same friend, who was staying with me again, passed me on her way out of the building. “I can’t stay here tonight,” she said, sounding tired. “What happened?” I asked. “The music is too much. I can’t sleep at all.” I shook my head because I knew I was in for a long night.

The summertime is always ripe for inconsiderate neighbors to insist on sharing their latest iPod playlists at 15,000 decibels till the early a.m. But what I found when I walked into my apartment that night startled even me, when I realized that my neighbors had decided that their rat-infested alleyway would be a great place to throw a barbecue, complete with tables and chairs and a real live DJ. The music was so loud it sounded like they were in my living room, even after I closed all of my windows—which is never a great idea in the summer.

Hoping the police would sympathize with my plight, since they are known for being so empathetic, I headed toward my neighborhood precinct to ask for help. Spotting a police car patrolling the neighborhood, I approached the officer in the driver seat. “Officer, I’m sure you can hear the music coming from that alley.” He nodded as I pointed out the location. “The noise is right against my window.  Would you mind asking them to turn it down? I would really appreciate it.”

I figured that since cops often lament feeling a lack of respect from the people they are sworn to protect, a polite approach might go a long way. The officer nodded again and told me he would see what he could do. A short time later the volume lowered considerably, bringing a sigh of relief. No more than 10 minutes later, however, the music increased to the ear-shattering level it had been at before.

OK, I reasoned to myself, they’ll probably stop around midnight. They did not. After numerous calls to 311, 911 and anyone else I could think of, I gave up the pretense that I’d ever sleep and trekked to my neighborhood precinct again at 2 a.m. With my face set in determination, I refused to accept any excuses as I entered the building. I stood stoically directly behind the waist-high gated barricade meant to protect them from us and practically begged the police to have mercy on me and everyone else who likes to sleep at night. I needed them to demand that those people who like to party with filthy rats pipe down! The looks they gave me were surprisingly compassionate, but still nothing was done.

It wasn’t until around five in the morning that the music finally stopped and the only sounds left were people cleaning up. As I finally fell into a deep slumber, I imagined the rats were grateful, too. They had a book club meeting in the morning.

So when I moved to New York to live the life of a glamorous fashionista, the last thing I expected to be was broke.
When I first moved to New York, bonuses were aplenty, I got a fresh mani and pedi every week and my wardrobe received a fresh infusion at least once a month. But with the economy tanking faster than a body in the Hudson, our bonuses had all but disappeared and we received across-the-board pay cuts.

Being broke and working in fashion is like being on a diet and working at Krispy Kreme. So when the annual Stella McCartney sample sale rolled around, I knew I was in for trouble. There’s nothing a pescetarian fashionista likes more than McCartney’s vegan-friendly designs.

But still, I was broke. So I told myself, I’m just going to look. It would be research for future purchases.

Once inside, I made a beeline for the shoe section. I inhaled the sweet smell of faux leather and plastic. There were orange fishnet kitten heels, lime platforms with acrylic, pink-and-black crisscross sandals and gray basketweave heels.

Nothing could be better than this. I felt like a starving Ethiopian seeing food for the first time. Just because I hadn’t planned on buying anything didn’t mean I couldn’t try on a few pairs of shoes. I tried on one pair after another, but none of them seemed right.

Then I put them on. It was love at first sight. They were 4-inch wood, t-strap platforms in a denim blue, but what really made them was the cherry appliqué. I stared down at my feet, which were now glowing.

I walked over to the mirror to get a better look. As I stared at my reflection, I began to imagine all the fabulous outfits that would now be complete with the Cherry Bomb shoes. I pictured myself walking to work while rainbows beamed out of me like rays from the sun. People would stop in their tracks and ask themselves who that fabulous vision was. Word of my amazing shoes would travel wide and far across the land—even to places like New Jersey and Oklahoma.
I snapped out of my reverie. I was going to look amazing in these shoes. Fuck it, I’m going to buy these shoes. I scampered over to the line, eager to buy them.

That’s when it started: the voices.

“Um…. you can’t really afford these, even if they are on sale.”

“It’s people like you who are responsible for this shitty economy!”

“Ahhhh! SHUT UP!”

My palms started to sweat. I didn’t want to give them up. I loved my Cherry Bomb shoes. We had bonded, like the time in 1st grade when I picked out my Dressy Bessy doll from Kmart. How could I have given her back after I had picked her? It would have been like giving a child up for adoption.
I began to feel like I was in a chick lit novel, like Confessions of a Shopholic. Next thing you know, I wouldn’t be able to pay my bills and I would be out on the streets. I would start tap dancing in the subway—Union Square, of course—to make some extra cash. I would be too embarrassed to use food stamps so I would only eat once a day, allowing me to lose that last five pounds I’ve always wanted to lose. Before I knew it, I would be hanging out with that crazy schizophrenic man who hangs out on Bedford Avenue.

The line moved forward. I gulped. There were five people in front of me. I took a deep breath and ducked out of the line.
 “Oh, I’m just getting another pair!” I would shout in case anyone asked. I couldn’t let anyone know I couldn’t actually afford the shoes.

I glanced around furtively and pretended to walk confidently back to the shoe section. Were the salespeople looking at me? What about that security guard? When the coast was clear I quickly put the shoes back. I hurried out of there shamefully.

When I got home, I knew I needed to drown my sorrows quickly. How could I call myself a true fashionista when I couldn’t even afford a pair of heels? I should have just called it a day and moved to L.A., where I could dress like a cheap whore and pretend it was fashion—ahem, Uggs.

But I couldn’t give up on my relationship with New York. Not yet.

I pulled out a tub of low-carb, sugar-free ice cream. I didn’t even measure out the serving size. I’ll show that damn economy. When everything turns around, I’m going to buy those shoes at full price, damn it. Or at least at half price on eBay. In the meantime, I still have New York.

Rachel Khona is a writer and sometimes performer living in Brooklyn. She has written for Cosmopolitan, Inked, AskMen, American Way, Richardson and Vaga, where she is a contributing editor. She has also been featured as a dating aficionado on the radio show Broadminded and  Los Originales, as well as the website How About We.  For more, please visit rachelkhona.com.

My alarm would go off every morning at 5:20 a.m. I would throw on a grimy brown T-shirt, often still stained from the night before, dingy Nike sneakers and too-tight jeans. My blonde hair was carelessly thrown into a ponytail or braid, I wore no makeup and usually chipped nail polish. To top off my look, I had to wear a tan baseball cap two sizes too big. This was my typical attire as a food service worker at one of New York City’s most popular bakeries.

No, I never aspired to work in a bakery. I was just one of the many recent college graduates in 2009 that had either been laid off or were “underemployed.”

I had struggled for six months to find full-time work and was only able to find temping gigs on Craigslist (working as a receptionist at a real estate office, collecting signatures for nonprofits, cleaning the sides of boats out in Connecticut). Needless to say, my work history was about as irregular as my birth control routine—when I finally landed a full-time job at a swanky Chelsea bakery, I thought, This is great! But in the world of food service, that excitement quickly dwindled into burnout.

It took two solid hours to open the bakery. The inventory: an endless array of cookies, cakes, brownies, scones, muffins and breads. The appeal to eat any of it was quickly diminished by the overpowering and sometimes nauseating smell of sugary sweetness.

The bakery opened promptly at 7:30 a.m. and, like a bank or the DMV, people would line up out the door, eagerly drooling over the chocolate croissants, apple coffee cake and lemon bars. I generally gravitated to making the drinks—less interaction with people, less shifting around. Coffee, lattes, hot chocolates, macchiatos, americanos—all, basically, drinks I could never afford.

The rule I was taught was two shots for a large cappuccino, one shot for a small, followed by a lot of foam and just a touch of steamed milk. I never followed this rule. I made all of the drinks, cappuccinos and lattes, exactly the same (no measuring, no concept of espresso to milk ratio). Even the toughest coffee connoisseur never questioned my barista skills; any complaints I got were because the drinks were too hot. Looking back, my drinks probably tasted terrible.

We had another rule at the bakery that I never understood. The idea of stellar customer service entailed putting the milk and sugar in the customer’s coffee. If someone asked for two packets of Equal in their coffee, it was, “Of course, absolutely.” The problem with this was that the majority of the time, customers would complain that you put too much or not enough of something in, defeating the purpose of the ass-kissing.

After the initial 9 a.m. rush of grumbly people on their way to work passed, life at the bakery slowed—but not for long. There were still salads and sandwiches to be brought out, iced drinks to be made, tables to be wiped and product signs to be readjusted before lunch hit. The great thing about food service is the diverse array of people working in it: struggling artists, single moms, divorcées, college graduates, high school graduates, foreigners, etc. Food service is a very non-cliquey business—whoever you are, wherever you came from and however you want to define yourself, you have a place.

In food service, you always have one scene-stealer of the day. The woman who screamed because the orange juice wasn’t freshly squeezed, the line-cutters, the indecisive tourists and those who were just angry. There’s really no right or wrong way to react to such hysteria, though I found that remaining silent and staring blankly back seemed to do the trick. We did occasionally have a celebrity appearance—Rachael Ray, Tom Colicchio, Molly Shannon—so there was a faint hint of glamor in working behind the counter.

I’m happy that my food service days are behind me. I don’t miss the customer always being right. I don’t miss smelling like a Krispy Kreme donut. And I don’t miss putting half and half in someone else’s coffee. The next time a food service employee asks you how you take your coffee, know they really don’t care and are just counting down the minutes until they get to clock out.

Still, I can think of worse jobs.

A lot has been said about the severity of the student loan debt crisis in the United States. Much of the discussion, however, has centered on the perils of overpriced private schools; schools like New York University, which jack up tuition rates when endowments don’t raise “enough” money and get cozy with big banks to dole out student loans to unsuspecting freshmen.

What hasn’t been focused on, and what is more unsettling, is the five-digit debt some students are accumulating at public schools. Public schools are supposed to be the economical way to go about getting a higher education. They receive government funding and can keep tuition low, but it’s the hidden fees and living expenses that are upping the amount of debt for students trying to make the money-friendly college choice.

Christina is a senior at CUNY’s John Jay College and is $58,497 in debt—over twice the amount the average student has after earning a four-year degree. Why so much debt? While John Jay only costs $5,500 a year, she paid $13,999 per year for three years to live in the dorms. The dorms, called The Towers, are a CUNY-wide residence not directly affiliated with John Jay, and she was essentially forced to live there because, while an apartment in Harlem would be cheaper, her student loans can’t be used toward rent.

The Towers were Christina’s only option if she wanted to go to John Jay—the best school for what she wants to do, which is work for the FBI. Commuting from Long Island would leave her little time for homework and her part-time job, and paying for an apartment out of pocket was out of the question. Christina now lives in an off-campus apartment with three other roommates, but her costs are still rising. Tuition increases every year, and she still has two more years of graduate work to complete.

Her situation is all too common in the CUNY and SUNY systems, state schools that are supposed to level the economic playing field but are having to increase their tuition because of budget cuts and the floundering economy.

In his 2010 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama said, “No one should go broke because they chose to go to college.” Well, they are, and it’s escalating into the largest financial crisis our country has ever seen.

The amount of student loan debt in the U.S. will top $1 trillion next year. According to the Department of Education, there are over 1.4 million students in student loan debt. Collectively, they owe $829 billion, a number that recently topped the amount of credit card debt in the nation for the first time ever.

Student debt is growing at a rate of $90 billion a year, according to Alan Nasser, professor of political economy at Evergreen State College and author of The Student Loan Swindle.

“The extraordinary growth of student debt paralleled the bubble years, from the beginnings of the dotcom bubble in the mid- 1990s to the housing bubble,” Nasser said. “In the build-up to the housing crisis, the major ratings agencies used by the biggest banks gave high ratings to mortgage-backed securities that were, in fact, toxic. A similar pattern is evident in student loans.” The default rate for student loans is 25 percent— the same as the mortgage default rate at the height of the housing crisis.

Only 40 percent of student loans are being repaid, while the other 35 percent are delinquent, meaning payments have been missed. According to the Department of Education, this is the lowest repayment rate the student loan industry has ever seen, and there aren’t many options for those in financial trouble.

A diploma can’t be repossessed and basic consumer protections don’t apply. Student loans can’t be discharged in bankruptcy (unlike, say, gambling debts), the statute of limitations for a collection agency to sue a borrower does not apply, student loans don’t need to adhere to state usury laws, which cap interest rates, and federal student loan debt collectors don’t need to adhere to the fair debt collection rules. They can call as much as they want, whenever they want and can garnish wages and withhold tax refunds. It’s gotten so out of control that students have resorted to lying on their loan application forms to get more federal aid or setting up websites to panhandle for money on the Internet.

Elizabeth Warren, the brain behind the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a current Massachusetts senate candidate, has spoken out about the toxicity of student loans. “Student loan debt collectors have a power that would make a mobster envious,” she recently told the Wall Street Journal. Because of the lack of regulation, borrowers default, lose their homes, have their wages garnished, tax returns confiscated— livelihoods are lost. And nothing substantial has been done to change this.

Just a few weeks ago, hundreds of CUNY students took to the streets to protest tuition hikes and were joined by members of the Occupy Wall Street movement. These students are afraid that the once-affordable place to earn a degree will soon be out of their reach unless they take out more and more loans. Experts predict that, eventually, there will be no more money to loan to those who want to go to college because loan providers keep losing money on the increasing defaults. This is particularly frightening for the federal government, which provides 10 times as much in student loans as private lenders do.

“If the government runs out of loan money it would be much worse than any burst mortgage bubble,” said Mark Katrowitz, a financial aid expert who runs finaid.org. “The entire economy would collapse.”

Christina has accepted the fact that she’ll be paying her loans back for a long, long time.

“I think I’ll be paying them back for the rest of my life,” she said. “Government jobs don’t pay very well, but I’ll retire with great benefits.”

At night, I used to sit on my fire escape and smoke. It was relaxing and entertaining. I saw cab drivers get in a fight when one driver didn’t pull over far enough to let his customer out. I saw people get out of the steamy backseat of a car and adjust their clothes and hair before the car quickly sped away.

But the best thing I saw was two sanitation employees embarrass and rough up two snooty hipsters for honking and yelling at them without remorse.

For some reason, the garbage trucks decided it was a good idea to make their recycling rounds at 3 a.m. There was nothing better than waking up two hours into sleep to the sound of two men with Barry White-esque voices yelling a conversation over the noise of glass being thrown at metal.

Not only was the louder-than-hell work done early in the morning, they usually didn’t bother to pull the truck over, thus blocking the entire street. Drivers who decided to use my street as an early morning thoroughfare would lay on the horn for five to 10 seconds at a time to express their displeasure. This usually turned into a nightmarish opera of the old sanitation workers yelling obscenities at the drivers, with the sound of the honking horns and crushed glass as musical accompaniment.

On this occasion, I figured the hipsters needed to get their dad’s car home and had decided that honking wasn’t enough to speed up the workers. But where the horn didn’t work, rude comments, profanity and slurs reigned supreme.
I guessed the brilliant slicks figured their comments would be so witty (why else would they have been wearing knit sweater vests and loose scarves in July?) the garbage men would laugh so hard they’d have to pull the truck over. Oddly enough, and to the wild shock of the young men in the car, their tactic had quite the opposite effect.

“Get out of the way!” the smaller hipster yelled.

The garbage men stopped, and one of them bellowed, “What did you just say?”

“I said get out of the way! You’re slow as hell and blocking the whole street.”

Damn, either this kid is insane or his scarf is actually a superhero’s cape, I thought.

The garbage man dropped the bag he was holding and approached the car. “Yuppie scum! I’m gonna choke you with your scarf!”

I remember finishing my cigarette, but I continued to watch from my fire escape. The smaller guy, the driver, then decided to get out and help the workers, to speed up the process. Theirs may not be the most dignified job, but the workers still had their dignity and didn’t need or want help.

The moment the young man grabbed a bag of recycling, the workers snatched it back. His slightly larger friend then got out to defend the driver.

At this point, hilarity ensued. The hipsters tried to shove the workers, which worked about as well as if they had tried to knock over the recycling truck itself. This was followed by two light shoves from each worker, which sent colorful scarves flying and limbs flailing. Landing close to their car, they decided it would be best to scramble into their seats and drive onto the sidewalk to get around the truck. Sensing defeat, they parted with one last smart-ass comment.

Sadly, karma didn’t seem to side with the scarf brigade, because as soon as they drove off the curb, they landed on a piece of metal or some broken glass. The noise of their tire popping was only dampened by the bellowing laughs from the workers. By this point, I was laughing so hard it hurt.

After this incident, I frequented my fire escape in the hopes of another stellar performance. I would shoot out of bed to the window any time I heard the garbage trucks being honked at, regardless of what time it was. Unfortunately, it was a one-time-only show.

Thank you, Chelsea. You’ve taught me never to mess with a garbage man.

We’d run into some money trouble, but my husband and I had always adhered to the American isolationist policy regarding finances: act as if everything is fine and never, ever, under any circumstances ask for help.

Then again, a layman’s definition of insanity is to “keep doing what you’ve always done and expect different results.” So one day, when our bills-vs.-income ratio seemed especially dire, we gave up and threw a rent party.

As far as I know, rent parties began in Harlem in the 1920s. Some tenant behind on his rent hired local jazz and blues musicians and invited guests, who paid 25 cents for admission and 25 cents for items from the concession stand of homemade food and drinks. In other incarnations of the gathering, a hat was passed in lieu of a cover charge. After the cost of the musicians was covered, all proceeds went to the tenant in need of assistance.

The very term “rent party” sounds at odds with the Puritanical belief system my husband and I inherited. But it also conjures up images of the kind of community defined by Webster’s as “a unified body of individuals.” And what a unified body those early shindigs must have been, with apartments full of shimmying partygoers whooping it up to the Charleston, the Black Bottom and other dances from the ’20s.

For our rent party, we congregated on a Saturday afternoon with friends coming from near and far. The late summer light streamed into our home like a blessing, reminding me of lyrics from the 1927 song, “The Best Things in Life are Free.” The party peaked with 30 or so guests, and more than a few of us cut a rug.

We played Fats Waller, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong on our iPod, along with John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Aretha Franklin. Such gatherings in the ’20s often sported “cutting contests,” where pianists like James P. Johnson and Willie “The Lion” Smith attempted to outdo each other in virtuosity.

While we didn’t have the advantage of a piano, a few vocalists in the crowd urged one another on to some pretty fancy a cappella riffs. Our friend Omayra Rolon, also known as “The Empress,” performed her elegant and memorable rendition of the 1920s classic “Bye Bye Blackbird” in the spirit of those early jazz singers, and our 14-year-old daughter sang “Valerie” in soulful tribute to the late Amy Winehouse.

We’ve lived in the same rent-stabilized building in Washington Heights since 1995, so we know lots of our neighbors, many of whom donated whatever they could afford. Cynthia Guernsey, a local visual artist, auctioned off a painting she’d created for the occasion, a detail of Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss.” Klimt painted “The Kiss” at the height of his Golden Period, and Cynthia’s interpretation reflected the wealth she wished for us. Checks enclosed in love letters arrived in the mail from friends who couldn’t make the party. Someone sent an anonymous gift of cash. Thank you, Anonymous.

It was heart-opening to ask for help and heartwarming to receive the love. I am grateful for our many circles of friends. Luckily, in the weeks since the party, my husband and I have both secured work. Still, our experience has left us both pondering the word “community” and the many ways this financial crisis is bringing people together.

By an apt coincidence, we held our rent party Sept. 17, the first day of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. Whether in Zuccotti Park or at the home of friends, whether for a “long-term mass occupation to restore democracy in America” (as described on occupywallst.org) or to help a family pay rent, Americans’ right to “peaceably assemble” is a vital part of our First Amendment. Who knew it could also be the cat’s meow?