“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.

People like to say that you can find anything you need in New York. I have learned that you can find everything you need—except someone who binds 11-by-14-inch graphic design novels.

It was the last day of my sophomore year graphic design class at Parsons and, insane perfectionist that I am, I had spent every spare hour finalizing my intricate design novel, leaving only two measly hours for printing and binding.

It was an elementary mistake. If I didn’t get my book printed in time for the final critique, I would most likely fail the class. And I was sure that if I did, my high-powered, highly employed parents would finally have something to say about sending me to an art school that cost more than a small house.

I had two hours.

I called every printing establishment in New York City, but no one would take on the project. It’s too complicated, they said. After putting off the inevitable for as long as possible, I walked over to East Side Copy, the dingiest printing place in the village. I knew those guys would do any job with enough goading and money; I’d had a few spare jobs done there before out of necessity, which had all turned out fine—a fact I conveniently ignored, because the place was filthy and smelled like cats and bad magenta ink.

I walked in.

It was finals week at the New School, so the place was akin to the Serengeti during lion mating season. From my few previous experiences there, I knew the only way to handle the chaos was to mark my territory.

“Excuse me!” I boomed through the confusion and sweat. I actually jumped up and down to make my five-foot frame noticable in the crowd. “I need a book printed and bound—can someone please help me as soon as possible?” I was twitching compulsively; the smell of magenta ink was already getting to my head.

A few minutes later, a serviceman lumbered over to where I was standing.

“You need something printed?” he asked gruffly.

“Yes, yes please!” I said, quickly conducting a lengthy rant.

“Alright. I’ll see what I can do,” the burly man answered slowly. He looked incredibly bored. Did this man not understand that this was an emergency? I glared at him and handed him my flash drive. Anger was bubbling up inside of me. How could I have left this so late?
“Follow me to the back.”

As I pulled up my file on his slow computer, an impressive amount of vitriol filled my body. One hour left, and my file was taking 10 minutes to open. The printers in the shop were creaky. The man helping me had beads of sweat forming on his forehead and a tired, shuffling stare. What did these people know about printing my complicated project?

He must have seen the tears forming in my eyes, because he said, “Look, we’re going to get it done, OK? My name is Eddie, by the way.”
I nodded, looking to him for support. A surprising half-smile graced his gruff, bearded face. I wondered how often he smiled, considering the customers who heckled him all day.

“I’m Elie.”

“Move over, Elie,” he said. “We’ve got printing to do.”

Ten minutes later, all 30 pages were printed perfectly and Eddie and I were upstairs, trying to figure out the binding.
The upstairs lair of East Side Copy looked like something out of a movie. Boxes stacked haphazardly created a labyrinth, and windows had signs that said “DO NOT OPEN!” I couldn’t help but grin.

When Eddie finally shoved the pages into a binding contraption and pressed the power button, the machine began to tremble and was soon shaking with incredible force. I looked at Eddie in shock, but he yelled, “Don’t worry!” and punched the bookbinding machine on its side with his fist.

My jaw dropped.

The machine didn’t stop shaking, so he went at it, pushing every button like a mad scientist in a laboratory, hitting it like it had personally offended him.

Suddenly, I began laughing like I hadn’t in months. Here was a grown man, a professional, beating a printer. I was laughing so hard that I hardly noticed the machine had stopped shaking. Tears were streaming down my face when Eddie handed me my book proudly.
It was perfectly bound. Well, sort of—Eddie worked a little more magic on it with some Super Glue, and the result was the absolute best I could have asked for. I hugged Eddie, then ran to class with 10 minutes to spare.

I will never forget what Eddie did for me that day, and I’ve been using East Side Copy ever since. You can definitely find anything you need in New York—you just have to look past the grime. And I definitely recommend the dingy, darkened little printing shop on the east side where the staff is professional, knowledgeable and, most importantly, unconventional.

Elianna Greenberg is a dual degree student at the New School, studying both graphic design and literature. Her musings can be found at 13thand5th.tumblr.com.

I could not lose my job. The envelope of cash in my top dresser drawer was too thin to pay the rent on my rat-infested East Village basement sublet.

Besides the threat of homelessness, I had a second, almost as crucial motivation to keep my job: It impressed my family. Back in suburban Minnesota, my parents were captivated by the revolving door of celebrities I served. It helped that I left out the less glamorous details.

“Dr. Melfi from The Sopranos!” they gushed when I called to say I served a plate of bucatini con sadre to Lorraine Bracco. Why mention the pointed look she gave me when I refilled her water glass and a stray ice cube slid toward her across the black walnut tabletop?

Among my relatives, my tales of the rich and famous spread like a game of telephone—through the actual phone. Home for Christmas that year, my aunt approached me.

“How’s the Big Apple?” she asked. “I hear you served Tony Soprano.”

I smiled and didn’t correct her. Growing up in a sports-loving family, attention and accolades were usually bestowed upon my siblings. They were the captains; I was the benchwarmer who once tried to score against his team.

My original plan to get noticed was hatched in 6th grade, when a friend returned home with tales of Broadway, a place where people sang and danced like Cats for a living. If I was bad at sports, maybe I should try the opposite: the arts. Unfortunately, my dramatic skills were on par with my athletic ones. The most lines I had were as a Party Guest/Nazi in a high school production of The Sound of Music. I ran through the auditorium with a flashlight and accused audience members of hiding the von Trapps.

After college, I was ready to relocate. Thespian dreams aside, I still thought living in New York would give me the prestige needed to prove my worth to my family and, in turn, myself. I believed Frank Sinatra when he said if you could make it there, you could make it anywhere.

Because it sounded cooler than the unexciting pharmacies already on my résumé, I decided to break into Manhattan’s trendy restaurant scene upon my arrival—despite my complete lack of experience. At a cattle call for servers, I was the only person without a headshot or an acting credit on a Law & Order franchise. I told a well-dressed restaurateur a merlot would pair nicely with duck confit because it had an earthly flavor; he asked if I meant earthy.

When I downgraded myself to food runner, I was hired by an Italian-Mediterranean fusion bistro that was opening in Soho. I got lost on my way to orientation and spent my first weeks looking like a bug-eyed rabbit backed into a corner by a salivating doberman. A server noticed my movements were slow and graceful and asked if I was a dancer—truth was, I moved at a glacial pace because the plates were big and the tables small; I could never figure out where to set things.

To avoid blowups—like the time I delivered food to the wrong table and our celebrity chef shattered a plate of carpaccio at my feet—I often took cover in our dimly lit wine room to polish the same silverware repeatedly. Unfortunately, I made myself too invisible. One night, the servers forgot to add me to the tip book.

“To redo it would be a hassle,” explained Morgan, the young, modelesque staff manager. I gave Morgan my best I’m-on-the-verge-of-eviction face, and she formed her well-glossed lips into a tight smile that said, “We’re done now, halfwit.”

Afterward, I locked myself in one of our lavish marble bathrooms and sat on the toilet fully clothed. Thankfully, my sobs were muffled by the classical music that played overhead.

Panic spread among the staff with the rumor that a major food critic was reviewing us. We hung pictures of him in our stations, and our high-strung house manager eyed diners suspiciously. Once the critic was spotted, I was not allowed near his table; the house manager personally delivered every dish. A server was fired between courses for pouring the wrong wine; I was relieved to be quarantined.

Before the review came out, I quit. Even if we received five stars, I could claim no bragging rights to them. Why stay?

The review, as it turned out, was dismal. A few weeks later, the restaurant closed; I was already back working in a pharmacy. My new job might not impress, but my rent was paid.

Back home for Christmas, I was ready to fade into the background once more.

“I hear you’re a pharmacist now,” my aunt said, backing me into a corner.

“Technician,” I corrected, slightly embarrassed.

She leaned in close, like she had a secret to tell me. “I brag about you to all my friends.”

Maybe I was making it after all.

Brian Kennedy no longer works in a pharmacy.  He lives and writes in Manhattan.

By Adam Garrett-Clark

You don’t know me, and you don’t know my bike, but the story of my bike and me is too beautiful not to be told. It’s a story of defying expert advice, of loyalty to inanimate steel and of creating my own personal mythology.

It was probably once blood was drawn and the emergency room bill was in the mail that I realized that my bike and me have an unhealthy yet mystical attachment to each other.

I met my bike on the edge of a curb on W.178^th Street. I had just moved to the city with little more than a duffle bag and a $1,000 loan from dad. At that point the exploitative sales job for peanuts and sketchy roach apartment were scratched off the list and all that was left was a cheap dependable ride. There it was, one morning, strewn like a piece of trash, dusty, a bent wheel, kinda Schwinny but not, with a thin grass green road frame and yellowing white taped handle bars. It was perfect. The two people on my stoop, agreed it was probably trash, but I thought it was good enough for me. Before someone else realized what a steal it was, I rushed it up four flights to my apartment.

With the exception of the roaches that kept me up at night, my bike became my pet. And despite my better judgment I would do or pay anything to keep it alive. Most mechanics hated us because the bike was so old and obscure. “You’re better off buying a new bike with the money you’re going to pay me to fix this,” was typically what I’d hear from them. “Its trash.” But trashing my bike never crossed my mind. That is, until the night of the missing tooth, but we’ve put that behind us now.

After hundreds of dollars and hours arguing with mechanics in broken Spanish my bike developed a problem in the bottom bracket that could not be fixed with money and insistence. Not taking “no” for an answer I yelled, and pleaded with the only mechanic in Washington Heights who could stand me, until somehow I managed to convince him to think creatively and find a way. He ended up welding parts together that normally wouldn’t fit which resulted in a working bike that could never be disassembled without a saw.

A few months later the crank completely seized and would no longer rotate. Every mechanic I talked too said the same thing, the bike was too old and the parts weren’t made any more. It’s over. Say goodbye. Time to get a new bike. Depressed and riding the subway now, I gave up.

I started shopping Craigslist and eventually found a guy who sold and repaired used bikes out of his garage deep in Brooklyn. He claimed he could fix it. I told him about the weld, sent him pictures, told him about all the other mechanics that said it couldn’t be done, he said no problem. Come on down. So I did.

It was an ominously cold Saturday in February, Valentines Say. I remember because I was hoping to get my bike fixed in time to make a 6 o’clock Valentine’s Day ride from Union Square that I saw on FreeNYC.

We sawed through the crank arm, he took it apart and inspected the hub. The bike was much older and rarer than he thought. It would be impossible to find replacement parts, he said. No hope. I bought a bike from him and left my bike in his back yard, strewn on the ground again, naked and exposed, like a piece of trash.

No time to mourn my loss, I was late for the ride. I raced to the subway. The train was pulling in on the elevated rail above me as I get there. I raced up the stairs as fast as I could. Fantasies were swirling in mind of meeting a pretty cycling girl on the ride, falling in love and spending our free time gliding through Jackson Heights, occasionally stopping for curry, in love with each other and our bikes. But none of that would happen if I missed the train.

I trip. My new bike jams against the stairs as I fall forward. My face lands directly into the sharp angle of the handlebar stem. One tooth is sheered off, another chipped, as I stand dazed, lips bursting with blood; just another Crazy on the subway to the indifferent New Yorkers rushing past me on the stairs.

Later I went back for a refund. This foreign bike isn’t for me, I thought. Out of pure stubbornness I decided to take the corpse of my best friend along with me, maybe I could get something for the salvaged parts I figured.

Bruised and dejected, we headed to the Village where I remembered seeing a vintage bike shop near the Nuyorican, maybe they’ll give me something for this. They didn’t. But the mechanic gave me a small drop of hope and rough directions to another shop that might, maybe, possibly have some parts for the bike. It was a tiny shop near the Brooklyn Bridge, or was it the Manhattan Bridge? I couldn’t tell you how to get there now and I’m not even sure if it was the one he was talking about, but they knew their bikes and they had the parts.

My first home in New York was the basketball frat house at Columbia University. The men were tall, smart and gorgeous. But in the July heat, the airconditioned-less house sweated and stunk of old beer and rancid gym socks. My space was an illegally subleased bunk bed in a two-room suite, compliments of the boyfriend of the daughter of my aunt’s colleague. I was 22 and decidedly Southern and suburban. So I felt cool and connected — until I realized everyone had such a real estate tale.

I spent my days interviewing Modern Orthodox Jewish women for my thesis, my nights throwing kosher dill pickles at the cat-sized rats that overran the ground floor and backyard. One night my roommates’ hamster escaped from his cage and I woke at 3 am to the feel of a thin rodent tail sliding across my bare stomach. I leapt out of bed, convinced the rats had come for revenge.

After my first two weeks, suddenly $1,500 poorer and limping with blisters, I decided New York was a great place to visit, but I’d never want to move there. Everything I had grown up hearing was right: it was dirty, expensive and full of vermin. I fled back to my quaint Missouri college town and promptly had four car accidents in just 10 months.

By the time of my May graduation, I couldn’t afford car insurance anymore and needed mass transit. I opted to try the New York City again, this time sans exit strategy. I vowed to stock up on rodent bait. I booked a one-way ticket, emptied my $3,000 savings account and sent my stuff and my dog to my parent’s house in Alabama. I landed at LaGuardia without a job, friends, or a place to stay except for a one-night reservation at a seedy hotel with a three-deadbolt door.

True to the single girl trifecta, I scored a job, an apartment and a boyfriend within two months. My shoebox-sized studio on 85^th Street was a fraction of my graduate school living room and cost three times as much, but it had a tiny balcony and an exquisite view of the firefighters next door. I thought I’d made it. Then one evening a furry rodent dashed across the floor.

I jumped on the bed and called the boyfriend. Jonathan trekked from Gramercy to Yorkville, with a collection of snap traps and peanut butter. He set the traps and warned me to be careful of my fingers. I didn’t tell him how I used to tease my grandmother for being petrified of mice. Karma was not my friend.

Alone later that night I heard a trap snap shut. I peeked into the kitchen. There was a long thin tail protruding from the trap’s wooden platform. In college when I found a bat in my house, I’d called animal control to deal with it. In New York, I called the boyfriend.

“I caught one! Now what?”

He headed back north. There was no mouse — the “tail” was the thin metal release arm of the trap. I felt even more pathetic.

When we broke up, I turned to glue traps, a cruel move that left me dealing with squeaking shaking creatures that stared me down with beady black eyes. More scared of them than they were of me, I dropped second traps on top and scooped them up in a dustpan while wearing plastic dishwashing gloves and knee-high boots.

Many mice and years later, I married and moved into my husband’s co-op in Murray Hill. From the window I could clearly see rat bait traps in the back patio area. My dog’s food was an irresistible lure and I developed the ability to smell dead vermin upon entry. Marriage and a live-in super had its perks. I delegated disposal of the corpses.

When my marriage crumbled, I couch surfed at a friend’s Upper East Side luxury high-rise. The best thing about it was that there were no mice.

When I was finally divorced, I moved to an alcove studio downtown. Two months in, the rampant kibble-fueled breeding of the mini Mickeys led to daytime sightings. This was different – this was my home and the mortgage was too high for heads to not roll.

A contractor discovered there were fist-sized holes around the pipes and no kickboards under the cabinets. I pictured rodent-sized ruby-red carpets from the holes to the puppy chow. I paid him to gut the kitchen and fill the holes. He promised me I would be vermin free and I was. For a year.

As the winter months rolled around another mouse made it into my place. It was war and I was going nuclear. So was he. I set glue traps; he ate the munchies and escaped. I put out poison; he rolled around in it with immunity, sprinkling powdery green pellets around the black plastic dishes like toxic fairy dust. The exterminator dropped guaranteed-kill poison packets behind the furniture; he dragged them out to the middle of the living room, an outsmarting act of vengeance. When I saw my pooch pondering the poison pack with a curious look I considered trading him for a cat.

We sprinkled sand-like layers of tracking powder behind the stove, the bookshelves, the TV. I spent hours on my hands and knees, using a flat-head screwdriver to shove extra-coarse steel wool into every crack and crevice. And every morning, my rodent – by this time he was mine – left a new trail of droppings. This was Mighty Mouse, and I hoped he was infertile.

Weeks into the battle, I smelled the stench of victory. I found his furry body on a pile of scarves, a casket worthy of a warrior. A dustpan was not an option — I doubled up a Duane Reade bag and lifted out my feather-weight foe, dropping him down the garbage disposal chute. I sent the scarves out to be dry-cleaned.

Last month when out on a date in the East Village, a rat ran across my path. I startled and grabbed my date’s hand, but it wasn’t out of fear. Perhaps rodents weren’t so bad after all.

Now relatively rodent-free in downtown New York, Alexandrea J. Ravenelle (www.alexandreajravenelle.com) is a marketing and communications consultant and adjunct instructor of sociology. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, thefrisky.com and The Houston Chronicle.

Until he moved next door. Not in the next building or across the street, kind of kitty-corner—I mean wall-sharing, within earshot, might-as-well-be-living-together, A3-to-A4 next door. In sleep, our bodies lie but 20 or so feet from one another.

It’s weird, at best. In our building, these two ground-floor apartments have the New York City luxury of a humble courtyard behind them. With this most recent occupant, however, my previously prized haven of solace has been rendered a potentially hellish, too-close-for-comfort point of collision, divided only by a flimsy cedar fence and a thick dollop of resentment.

My previous neighbors were the brilliant couple that introduced us. Approximately a year ago, when their twosome became nine months away from being a trio, they knew they would have to break their lease. Who better to fill the void than their old friend, her college buddy, his drinking buddy—my ex-boyfriend?

We had actually reached a comfortable tolerance after a raspy breakup, but when my soon-to-be-ex-neighbor broke the news to me over dinner one night, I don’t think I processed the depth of the situation. Despite a few hopeful lapses regarding a shoddy credit record and several delayed move-in dates, the lease was signed Nov. 15.

Since then, I’ve seen him maybe three times, with just about as many words exchanged on each occasion. His nine-to-five and my inconsistent freelance schedule provide for thankfully few encounters.

The frustration on my end lies simply in my insatiable curiosity; I honestly couldn’t care less what he feels about me at this point, though this might answer a few lingering uncertainties, but I do desperately want to know how he regards me, whatever it is. Disdain, disinterest, unrequited passion, animosity, vengeance (should I be wary?), fond nostalgia? I don’t know if I care which of these it might be (though my druthers would be the latter), I would just love to know whatever the hell he is thinking.

Beyond that, my only point of contention thus far is that he plays his raucous thrash music loud enough that I can feel the bass in my chest. Nearing 10-ish on a weekday winter night, having endured a solid two hours of his iPod shuffle, I guess I’d had it. I thumped five times, hard, on our shoddy sheetrock dividing wall.

It was only then that I bothered to recognize to tune that was invading my soundspace. I believe the band is Bread. I believe the title of the track is “Everything I Own.” Yup, that’s right: “Just to have you back again.” Do understand, though—it was coming from his Bose, not mine.

Rather, I have always found her intriguing for her everlasting appeal to the masses. In a world where there are a bazillion gorgeous bottle-blonde big-boobed babes, what makes her so different? How is it that in the past 20 years, since that fateful day she first appeared in that red swimsuit, she has become more famous, made more money and lasted longer in the public eye than her peers?

Was she in on some secret the other women weren’t privy to? Surely if I could harness this secret, it would be the answer to world domination—or at least career success. If I could figure out what made her different, perhaps I could use that to set myself apart from the legions of other similar writers.

Then, one day, I watched an episode of “VIP” and I realized: She’s in on it. She’s in on the joke.

Her character on the show is seemingly a caricature of herself; an airhead blonde with a predilection for acrylic stripper heels and excessively tight spandex clothing who somehow stumbled into the PI business. The show was pure genius. She had effectively harnessed people’s perceptions of her into a marketable persona that could now effectively be used to promote her and, of course, make more money.

It was marketing at its finest. She wasn’t really that ditzy; she just played a character. I was positive the secret to any future career success lay in studying Pamela’s business acumen.

So when I had the opportunity to meet this beacon of capitalism, I jumped at the chance. I wanted to see for myself if she was actually secretly a genius when the cameras stopped rolling and no one was looking.

As luck would have it, a friend of mine, Natasha, was friends with Pamela’s latest boy toy. When he was in town with her in tow, he invited Natasha out for a drink and Natasha, of course, invited me.

We agreed to meet up with them for a drink…or 12. We made our way to the hotel bar and waved hello.
Pamela and her voluminous, extension-laced hair promptly got up and hugged me, her massive silicone boobs squashing into me like two massive water balloons.

“It’s so nice to meet you. Do you want something to drink?”

“Sure, I’d love a glass of champagne,” I said.

She promptly hopped up and fetched me a glass of champagne. When she came back, she set the champagne down and immediately swiveled toward Boy Toy. She began fluffing her hair and rubbing his leg.

“So I was like, ‘We have to help these people. They don’t have any clean water.’ I had this idea to bring them these filters…” Boy Toy was interrupted by Pamela licking his ear.

As he gathered himself and continued his epic tale, I gave Natasha a sideways glance and kicked her under the table. What on earth is Pamela doing? I mean don’t get me wrong, Boy Toy was cute, but licking his ear in the middle of a conversation hardly seemed like the sort of activity people conduct in polite company.

“And that’s where I met Pamela,” Boy Toy continued. “She was there helping out earthquake victims too.”
She nodded. “Clean water is so important.” She bit her fingernail and gave me sexy eyes.

“It’s so amazing that you guys are doing this,” I responded. “I actually volunteer a lot with Amnesty International, and it’s…”
Pamela turned and started talking to her friend.

I guess she didn’t want to hear my story. It wasn’t as though I expected her to suddenly delve into the intricacies of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but I definitely expected her to drop the dumb blonde act.

Pamela spent the entire night touching herself, fondling Boy Toy, fluffing her hair, pouting, swiveling, biting her lip and posing—even as one of her sets of false eyelashes began to dangle off the corner of her left eye.

I was confused. Who exactly was she putting on this show for? Surely it couldn’t be my friend and I; we were a) straight and b) friends with her boyfriend. What need would she have to put on a show for us?

I knew it was time to leave when we made it up to the hotel room and the show still wouldn’t stop. As Boy Toy extolled Pamela’s virtues, she began pawing herself so raucously that I actually caught a glimpse of her nipple.

And then it dawned on me, like enlightenment dawned on the Buddha. It wasn’t an act. She wasn’t a marketing genius and she probably doesn’t even know what capitalism is. Pamela was just being herself. That was her secret.

Pamela Anderson is a ditzy, horny, blonde with zero filters or any concept of public decency. She really enjoys being naked, screwing and generally behaving like a nymphette. And while there have been many other big-boobed Playmates before her, none of them have had quite the personality of Pamela, and the world has rewarded her handsomely for it.

The secret to success? Be yourself. To think I spent countless sums of money on therapy and self-help books, only to learn that Pamela had the secret the whole time. Now, if I could only get all the money back.

Rachel Khona has written for Cosmopolitan, Inked, AskMen, and Vaga, where she is a contributing editor.  For more, visit rachelkhona.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.

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.