50 Things I Wish I Would Have Known Before I Moved to NYC

1) Avoid shopping at Fairway during peak hours. Which is like, always. (Alternative: break in during the night and leave a wad of cash?)

2) When you meet someone from Astoria, don't bother in asking if they live near the bier garden. The answer is yes. They all do.

3) You will pay an disgusting amount of money to live in a most likely an incredibly shit-hole. You will put up with rodents, bugs, holes in walls, leaking pipes, etc. -- in ways you never thought you would. But you'll do it. This will all become normal to you.

4) Shopping for an apartment? Choose fifth floor walk-up, no doorman. You will save a bundle, although it OFTEN SUCKS A LOT.

5) Oh yeah, and the fifth floor walk-up thing is good for another reason: you will buy less, because you're like, 'do I really feel like carrying this upstairs?' And unless it's a huge bag of Urban Outfitters clothes, the answer is probably no. (Still looking for a way to want to buy less from Urban Outfitters.)

6) Don't take cabs. Ever. Don't drive. Ever.

7) When you're on the subway, just stand. Even if there is nobody else in the goddam car. Subway politics are too complicated and it's too much trouble to try to figure out whether that woman is pregnant, or if it would offend that other lady if you offered her your seat. Also, it is so annoying to have to pay attention at every stop, reassessing the situation.

8) If you carry your groceries in plastic bags, you will get evil looks.

9) If you are missing your family at all, do not go to Central Park on the weekends. It will be like that scene in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure where his bike is stolen and everyone around him is having a bomb-ass time riding their bikes all over the place.

10) Get over closing the window shades when you are eating dinner in your underwear. The neighbors probably can't see that much, and I doubt they'd be able to identify you, anyway.

11) Watch your feet -- you don't want to step on one of those tiny dogs down there. Their owners bring them everywhere -- no coffee shop or clothing store is safe.

12) If anyone gives you anything or is doing anything awesome (like wearing a cat on his head, is dressed in an offensively dingy Elmo costume, or is shoving a rap CD in your hands) it is not free. They will definitely want money.

13) You may think you'd keep in touch with friends that live 20 blocks away, but you'd be wrong.

14) When meeting someone in Penn Station, do not choose the "Hudson News" as a meeting place. Not even "The Hudson News By The Police Stand." There are about four hundred Hudson Newses and they are all by the Police Stands.

15) It may not look like you can fit into that jam-packed subway car. Yes, I know, people's faces/buttcheeks are flattened against the glass. But you can.

16) Find an awesome friend like Eric that loves life so much that you can never forget to do the same.

17) If you're showing the city to non-New Yorkers who want to tour the Empire State Building or something, don't feel obligated to accompany them. There is a nice Starbucks across the street and Tanisha always gives you honey packets when you order tea.

18) At SantaCon, don't dress as Santa. It's too cliché.

19) When little boys are break-dancing in the subway, do not freak out. They are NOT going to crack their heads open.

20) You cannot just waltz into a movie in NYC. Get there like eighteen hours early. Opening night? Camp out. (OMG. Even if it's some random-ass foreign film you don't think anyone will go to. Especially if it's some random-ass foreign film you don't think anyone will go to.)

21) Buy moon boots. In an Ohio snowstorm, you hibernate most of the time and when you do leave your house, you traverse snow and ice in an SUV or 4-wheel drive. In NYC, when there is snow or ice, you have to walk through it. Everywhere.

22) Buy a Duane Reade card ASAP and buy everything you possibly can there.

23) NYC is huge, but not that huge, and social circles run small. Ex: When you are on a match.com date making fun of your last match.com date because he was a probably-gay kickball player, be safe and assume that your present match.com date is also a probably-gay kickball player, on the same team as the first one, and they are best friends, and things just got awkward and you have to go home.

24) If you have to pee and are out and about, use the Starbucks bathroom (NYC's public restrooms.) BUT DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING. Nast.

25) Think of NYC streets as water ways. The cars are like boats-- traffic rules do not apply. If there is space for a car to go somewhere, it will go there.

26) Watch out for Chinese food delivery men on bicycles. They don't even follow the non-traffic rules. They will come at you at full speed from all angles. And no fucking around -- they can hit you.

27) If you have been to one street fair you have officially been to 99.9% of all NYC street fairs.

28) Don't try to mug little old ladies. It is on the news every day -- "95 year old beats the shit out of hard-knocked gangster trying to steal her pocketbook".

29) Brooklyn is not a different universe.

30) When standing on the subway, touch as little of the subway pole as you can -- for hygienic reasons, obviously, but I have found that people actually get really pissed if you are taking up too much pole space.

31) Make sure you don't have exposed buttcheeks when you are walking to work (still drunk).

32) During restaurant week, restaurants serve the worst food they will ever serve.

33) During the Halloween parade, you will not be able to get anywhere you need to go, downtown. Go, go, go. It's fun. But I hope you don't have a strict agenda once you get there. (Unless your strict agenda is being drunk.)

34) Go out alone, all the time. You'll make awesome friends this way.

35) If you see a guy that sorta looks like Woody Allen, it is probably Woody Allen. That guys is all over the place.

36) K-town restaurants are either entirely vegetarian (awesome) or entirely carnivorous (think: monkey brains).

37) If you can avoid the subways in the summer, please do. Ass-hot weather is what I like to call "non-subway season" (bad smells, sweaty everything, etc.).

38) You can give homeless people all the money you want, but you are not obligated to listen to them rant for 45 minutes about the Mayan prophecies or some shit.

39) Don't worry about not feeling like a New Yorker. Hardly anyone in New York is a New Yorker.

40) There are enough intellectuals around that if you do something like carry a copy of The Trial around, you will get hit on probably like twice.

41) The hipster look might have looked semi-cool the first time you saw it, for fifteen seconds, but it gets old so fast. And it is impossible to escape in Brooklyn.

42) There is a definite Manhattan/Brooklyn riff. Brooklyn people will think you are snobby and hate that you like Sex in the City.

43) Don't ask out Starbucks employees. When they tell you they are 18, that means they are definitely not 18. Subtract two(?) years.

44) Do not feel ashamed when you exclaim, "Holy Moley!" or "Goodness!" when something incredibly New York City and non-Ohio happens. (Like, when the elevator seems to be going up 800 miles an hour, your ears pop, and you're now on like the 96^th floor.) It will make you seem like a charming country bumpkin.

45) Cancel all magazine subscriptions and read them sitting on the floor at Barnes & Noble.

46) If someone is particularly nutty looking, that means they are probably famous.

47) Bring visitors, everyone, to Café Orlin for dinner.

48) On Jewish holidays, expect a good section of your neighborhood to be closed.

49) It might seem like an awesome idea to take one of those bicycle rickshaws across town "real quick" 'cause you're late for a movie, but remember that those scrawny little guys have to actually carry you (and your mom and best friend), pedaling up and down hills and through dangerous traffic. Walking is faster and safer.

50) And oh yeah, about the bicycle rickshaw guys: most of them are really hot. But I think they must get propositioned all the time because whenever I try to flirt with them they don't look at me twice. Or perhaps they are all business.

Okay, I'm sick of my voice, now. If anyone read this blog, I would ask for people to add their own. I see we have 2 followers, and there's Nikki, so I will ask you directly: Mom, Nikki, Eric ... what have you learned?