On The Streets Of New York

My home for September

It hasn't been so bad, a few days after this was taken, the garbage bag got replaced with an actual sleeping bag that one of the lads gave me!

This entry is being brought to you from McDonald's restaurant, where I've spent at least two hours almost every single night this dark month of September. Don't be alarmed, I haven't been eating the food here that frequently. I usually just walk in, buy a coffee, sit down and take advantage of their free Wifi service, all the while ignoring their "No loitering" sign.

And for those who don't know the story, thankfully I haven't been sleeping on the streets of this big bad city. I have, however, been wandering them nightly, going nowhere in particular, killing time and just occupying myself until my boss goes to bed so I can head back to St. James' Tower, blow up my air mattress and get a few hours sleep in the basement before the next day begins at 6am. I've also been returning to Queens regularly to do my laundry at a cheap laundromat or hit my gym in Astoria, mainly just to take a shower.

More on that towards the end, I'll kick this off with happier times.

The Westmeath lassies with myself, my housemate Ruairi and Screwy

At the end of August (seems like a very long time ago) came the eagerly anticipated weekend in Chicago and the much dreaded moving out of Sunnyside. The Chicago trip took place in between meeting up with two close mates of mine in New York, Paul Lewis and Kate Hennessy. Paul landed in NYC to round off his J1 summer in the bright lights and came to my place for a few/a lot of beers on the 29th. Entertaining all the housemates and guests with his tales of San Francisco, he became an instant hit, as he tends to do. Honestly, the stories he has about his US summer experience make mine seem tame. We then stumbled out to NYC's classiest spot, The Mean Fiddler, myself being heavily intoxicated and the rest is history (I don't want to talk about it!). But very glad I got to see the guy this side of the pond.

Up early supporting the Irish at O'Malley's

I loved every second of the few days in Chicago. The city itself is wonderful, but it was mainly because of the people I was getting together with, the ever pleasant former St. Mary's chicks, Elizabeth, Hanna and Alli - who came from Minnesota, with a cameo appearance by the good dude John Reynolds. I was obviously disappointed that I couldn't make it over while my mates Keith Fal or Luke Dev were there, but labour day weekend was actually the first opportunity I had to go anywhere! After a night on the beer with John the day of arrival, the three girls and I woke up at 8am the following morning to go to a bar and watch the Notre Dame vs Navy game, being played in my beloved Ireland - explaining the early start! The bar was packed full of ND supporters and every time the Irish scored a touchdown, there was free shots for everybody in the joint. The Irish went touchdown crazy in the second half and we were finding ourselves absolutely sloshed by 10am, great times! JR came and picked us up then, bringing us out to one of his friend's house where Beer Olympics was scheduled to commence that afternoon. I withdrew early after the very first round of the very first event (F The Dealer) as I was incapable of handling any more alcohol (weak, I know!). I crashed on the couch for a couple of hours before the four of us said thanks and goodbye-for-now to John and got a taxi back to Elizabeth's where I called it a night. Sunday, we just took a jolly stroll around the city, had a few drinks that night with game of Scattergories, that Alli dominated, to end a much-too-short but utterly enjoyable vacation.

PK, Liz and John at Uncle Fatty's

Kate and myself at Times Sq.

Arrived back in NYC then on Monday September 3rd and finally after over a week of her being in the jungle, Kate decided to hang out with me. Due to our work commitments, we couldn't spend that long together unfortunately, so we just went for pizza, briefly chatted about our ever so interesting lives and I'm sure there was some reminiscing about Maynooth in there somewhere too!

Then the fun began.
I spent a week crashing with friends again before I practically moved into St. James' Tower, 415 East 54th street, basement level! Work at St. James' began to get tedious this last month. With none of the full time guys on vacation anymore, I was pretty much surplus to requirements but because my boss, Mr. John Faldetta, is such a top man, he had me in there forty hours a week regardless, the only reason I stuck around the city with no place to live. Sure, getting the hours was grand, but I felt about as useful there as a chocolate fire guard. Finding something to do was hard work in itself. But then Sammie, one of the handymen, assigned me the task of painting floors 24 down to 16 on one of the staircases. Basically I just had to throw a few coats of white over the walls and then paint the steps blue, a job which should have been completed in a couple of days maximum but took me the bulk of two weeks. What happened was, because I'd only get to sleep for at most five hours each night, I'd capitalise on being alone and totally forgotten about on a staircase, which nobody uses, and nap for an hour or two. I'd lie on the landing of one of the floors, turn off my radio/walkie-talkie and shut the eyelids. I was absolutely exhausted at the beginning of each shift so more sleep time was greatly needed and appreciated. I was caught one day though, when some dipstick ignored my "wet paint" sign hanging on the exit door of his floor and came down the stairs. Had I actually been doing my job the resident would have destroyed himself in paint, don't know what was going through his head! Fairly embarrassing being caught sleeping on a stairs but he didn't rat me out, thankfully.

It was funny; Sammie would ask me how I was doing and I'd reply "Yeah going good, almost on the 18th floor". I could sense he'd be a little suspicious but didn't say anything about the snail-like progress being made. Then a couple of days later, John would ask me the same thing and I'd be like "Yeah going great boss, flying through it, almost on the 18th floor!". "Good job" he'd say. He didn't know nor care what I was doing or how I was doing it as long as I was kept busy. And he certainly didn't understand that me saying I was on the 18th floor meant it's taken me a week to paint 6 short flights of stairs. He had more important things to worry about than a staircase that nobody uses. Well almost nobody, apart from obviously that one dingbat. I don't think I'd even finished it by the time I left on Friday.

What I definitely didn't want to do was sleep in the building the nights where I had the following days off work. At least I had the excuse that I was working early the next morning five days of the week. And because I wasn't on any proper schedule, John was kind enough to let me make my own, essentially just show up whenever I felt like it. So I planned three two-day trips for each of the final three weeks.

I got through the second week of September and, that weekend, took, what was to become my new best friend, the Megabus to the University of Rhode Island to visit our buddy from NUIM, Brooke. Next, the following week I hit Boston, stayed with my new buddy Andrea at Framingham State and partied with top man Mike at Boston College. And then just this past weekend I went to Pennsylvania, partied in Scranton with Amber and Katie at Marywood University and headed with them to Amber's hometown for some more alcohol-filled festivities.

After seeing this I did always want to party in Scranton!

I'd love to have time to talk about how great each of these trips were, how I realized what awesome, cool people I know throughout the east coast and how delightful it was seeing them, meeting and partying with their friends. But I think the photos I post on Facebook can convey that enough!

I've had it relatively easy the past 22 years. But I don't exaggerate when I say that, with the exception of the trips I ventured on, September was one of, if not the toughest month of my life, and spirits were dampened even more when I found out my family home in Clara was broken into one evening, with a lot of stuff swiped. Here in NYC I was incredibly bored, lonely, tired, miserable etc. more so than I ever want to be again. And it was compounded with seriously missing the old country. I'll admit, one night there was even tear or two shed, however any time my parents called to check how everything was, I told them all was absolutely dandy. I had to be extensively durable, enough to withstand the shame felt finding myself in the situation I was in but knew that if I struggled through it, possibly the best month of my life would follow. I've had my fair share of bad luck this J1 summer but would I change one thing of how it's worked out to this point? No chance! (NO)

When I look at it from the more positive hand, this is what happened. A change in management meant the job I was supposed to have coming over fell through and, therefore, I couldn't afford a place to move into right away. Luckily I had a friend, Jenn Slesinski, who was kind enough to let me crash at hers for 5 - 6 weeks until I got sorted. Mates from Clara, Rob Kelly and Ciarain Beefy O'Keefe, also in put me up for a couple of weeks and I'm grateful to them just as much. Not having the part time work meant that I had to find myself another job and hold out for a house to move into. Surprisingly quickly, I found another building willing to hire poor PK. With that, I had a full time schedule and made more money than I ever expected to. I also encountered John Faldetta, whom I referred to earlier as a top man. Well he's more than that. He's a very great man and meeting him was one of my favourite moments of this past five months, not just for the way he helped me out but it was a pleasure to witness his composed manner and the relationship he had with his family and staff.
This pretty much sums the guy up. I obviously kept it from him that I was sleeping in the building each night because, aside from being too embarrassed, it was forbidden due to insurance issues. I delayed going to sleep until I was sure he wasn't coming downstairs again and got up before him each morning. My final night I didn't care and arrived back at the building at 10.30pm, about an hour and a half before normal. The boss, for some reason, was still walking around downstairs and strolled past me, as I was at my locker, saying "You're back earlier than usual tonight, Paul", smiled and walked on......................... All I could do was laugh. Until, of course, it dawned on me that I didn't have to stay out until midnight every fucking night the last three weeks!
On top of all that, holding out on accommodation for so long led me to finding 5020 46th street in good old Sunnyside, Queens where I also met some nice, pleasant Irish students like myself.

More than anything, I thrive on my life being interesting, if even just a little bit.

So I really don't want to sound like I'm moaning too much. In life you just got to take the bad with the good, maintain a level head and you'll be a lot happier, trust me, as I'm sure everything will pick up more often than not. The only advantage I had in this case was I knew things would get better. It was far from ideal, and I wouldn't wish it on any mate of mine, but there's MILLIONS of people in far worse conditions than I was or, I think it's safe to say, will ever find myself in.
Actually, if one were to view the last month this way, there's few better places to ramble about aimlessly and I was actually living rent-free in Midtown, Manhattan, New York City so, I guess, how can anybody complain about that?!

Keep calm and rock on!

PK