Fire Escape Thoughts

I sat on the fire escape just now, like a New Yorker. Not a real New Yorker, real New Yorkers don’t actually do this. But more like a New Yorker from New Jersey who’s just trying to prove her own self-worth in a tight long sleeve shirt, with a camera on her for an upcoming season finale, for which there’s an ad for next Wednesday at 8/7c at the bottom of the Modern Family episode you’re watching on ABC. 

The real New Yorker part of me was smoking a plant grown by my restaurant coworker. 

I listened to “Both Sides Now” and Jim Croce’s “New York’s Not My Home.” The left side of my brain knew I was being so performative and hilarious, but the right side of my brain was committed and unironically so. 

I think I am supposed to do things like this in my 20s. I’m so young and spry. I’m supposed to be out until 7am and dance in shoes that hurt and sit on my fire escape first thing in the morning with smoke blowing everywhere. 

But I spend the majority of my days in bed waiting for things that have been on my calendar for weeks. I mean, I can’t do anything before work if I have work at 5pm, what if I don’t make it? I just have to kill time here. I guess I’ll play my favorite online games, Devilish Hairdresser and School Flirting Game. The other day I was watching a really long video of a venus fly trap, waiting for it to trap the fly that flew into it, and after two whole minutes of waiting, I missed the part where it was trapped because I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and checked myself out. This is your friendly reminder that everything I say in my writing is entirely true. 

And I sometimes hate Tik Tok because it tries to diagnose me with everything, and also other people are famous and I’m not. Should I have made a Tik Tok of myself on the fire escape? I did go viral during Covid. I used to choreograph Tik Tok dances to musical theatre songs with my sister. They always ended in a woah. Like we would hit the woah at the end like it was a signature. And I always put my sister in the back, sometimes a little cut off so it was mostly me in the frame, and I’d publish the ones where she messed up. Seriously, go look at them. They’re still there because I can appreciate irony. I’m feeling like giving back to you guys. The Mamma Mia one had the most hits.

It also takes me four hours to drink and digest coffee, so that takes up the whole day pre-work as well. I wanted to write about how I gave up coffee this past spring, but then I stopped writing for months, as you know. I had like three days off in a row sometime this past April and decided to try giving up caffeine. I thought to myself, I have nothing to really jeopardize with this switch, and I don’t have to make it anyone else’s problem. (I absolutely made it Josh’s problem, who was home with me for the majority of these days.) He and I both like to analyze common habits and behavioral parts of life, so he determined that I maybe ruined my life in high school by drinking four cups of coffee every day and that there’s really no turning back even if I try. I proved him wrong by giving up all caffeine, except for when I got really tired every single day so I drank green tea in the morning and large amounts of Coke in the afternoon of course, and except for when my coworker offered to make me a latte, and I said I gave up coffee, so she made me an espresso martini instead, and I said that’s better and drank it. 

Then, I started my annual rewatch of Gilmore Girls, where drinking coffee is encouraged. And I get compared to Rory Gilmore all the time— sometimes I take it as an insult, sometimes as a compliment. It depends on the person. I’m really good at reading people and their ulterior motives. So I went to Dunkin, even though that actor from The Notebook on Broadway was robbed at gunpoint there. My roommates don’t know I go there all the time even though we all agreed not to. There’s like three other ones on my way to work, where I am every day, but I’m stubborn.

Then Alex bought me an espresso machine and new ice trays. Oh well.

One of my favorite posts here is the one where I wrote half on the plane and half drunk by myself in a bar. It’s underrated and no one ever comments on it. That was Flight Thoughts, and this is Fire Escape Thoughts. This time, I’m starting to become very aware of the way my keyboard sounds and I think I can type at the speed of light. For sure I can, I’m doing it right now for sure. For the people who think I’m supposed to impress with these, you’re missing the point and can I please impress you in a different way, and also I’m of an age and in a state where what I am insinuating is safe and legal, I swear. 

I held the world national school-wide typing record in elementary school. Ask Mr. Gallo.

Today was a treacherous day because I paid off my credit cards. Money is so crazy. There is no reason why I shouldn’t be able to buy my own hair dryer, but I’ll happily drop $85 at a bar, on shots for my friends who don’t want shots at all.

What else should I do that’s so New York today? I leave New York on Wednesday until November so I had to sit on my fire escape. It would have been so weird if I didn’t. 

Sometimes I try to be more Type B when I’m sick of being Type A. The other day I was asked why I’m always so proud to always have Altoids on me. That was a wake up call.

I’m wondering if my across the street neighbors who I know from college saw me on the fire escape. And if they saw me walk home last night, too, they’d also know I’m still wearing the same shirt and that I still haven’t taken out the 19 bobby pins that are in my cute fall updo that I slept in. Nonetheless, I know I looked so cool out there.

I do all of this for you guys. You guys are my everything. Knowing that you all hang on to my every word really motivates my day to day decisions to inspire content, which is why I do really crazy things like drink coffee and go to the doctor.

Are you guys sure I’m not the main character, because Joni Mitchell is kind of telling me otherwise.

How do I order pizza on a Monday