Big City Living

Oktoberfest NYC

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According to the almighty Wikipedia, Oktoberfest is the world’s largest Volksfest, aka beer festival and travelling funfair. Since I don’t love beer and barely ever drink it, I turned down an invitation to go to Munich with some friends a few years ago to experience it in all its glory. However, this year my friend told me about an Oktoberfest in NYC, and SURPRISE, it was FREE. My favorite price. Beer or no beer, I am all about the free entertainment. (Third installment about my student loans coming up this week).

Oktoberfest runs from mid-September to the first weekend in October. Yes, Oktoberfest is not really an OCTOBER-fest. Germans are strange. Anyway, there are still a few weekends left of the event so if my blog below sounds fun, check out the event for yourself! General admission is free, or you can choose to buy tickets that include two hours of beer tasting for $60. Since I don’t like beer, and since I am poor, I chose the free option, duh.

The weather in NYC has been pretty gross: 80-90% humidity and 85 degrees Fahrenheit. However, last Sunday it was at least sunny and there was beer to cool down with. They didn’t accept any cash inside the event, so you had to purchase tickets to buy beer and food. The tickets were $9/piece which is hefty, but at least the beers were sizeable. Also, they had a “buy 11 tickets, get 2 free” deal, which we found out about too late. Serves us right for not reading the signs and streamlining to the bar.

The event was outside at Pier 15, with awesome views of all of the bridges, and of a few military planes landing. Some people thought they carried the President, but I personally could not care less if he’s in town, if you catch my drift.

There were ping pong tables, corn hole games, multiple “head in hole” boards, aka Cutout Boards. I tried one of them out. Not as many as this guy with 2,400, but still. And I couldn’t resist, I had two beers. I didn’t love the taste, or the carbonation, but it was very refreshing! Did I mention they had bratwursts and pretzels the size of your head? They did. They also had chicken nuggets, although I’m not sure the German connection to those. The bartenders were all wearing traditional dirndls and lederhosen, as were some of the patrons. Some of them were Halloween-costume-style, and not “traditional,” per se, as noted by my friend who has been to the real Oktoberfest. They looked real to me. And silly. Clearly we had to take a pic with one of the guys.

My favorite part of the day was when a member of the event staff began speaking in a terrible fake German accent and announcing a stein-holding competition. Guys, if you didn’t know about this before, there is literally a US Steinholding Association. They have official rules and FAQ’s like,

Q: How much does the stein weigh?

A: A full one-liter stein should weigh approximately 5.5 pounds.

Q: How do you practice for a competition?

A: Everyone is different, and being in good athletic condition helps, but to put it bluntly, you basically just practice holding a stein a lot.

Q: How long should a normal person expect to last in their first competition?

A: Your typical guy can usually last somewhere in the 3-5 minute range, with ladies lasting between 1-2 minutes. If you can go longer than that, following all of the rules, you should definitely find out where to compete in masskrugstemmen so you can take a shot at qualifying for a national level competition.

Q: What is the world record for steinholding?

A: There isn’t currently a world-level competition, so we don’t know of any official world record, but the US national record is currently 19 minutes, 15 seconds, set by Deryk Lindsey at the 2016 National Masskrugstemmen Championships at the Steuben Day Parade and New York City Oktoberfest.

Anyway, the gist is, you hold a very heavy and large glass that is filled with beer and you do not tip, spill or drop it. Longest holder wins. Everyone was video-ing and cheering and the event host was heckling the guys to try and make them drop the steins. I even got a photo with the winner while he was wearing his winning hat and holding his winning beer!

No girls participated, and in hindsight I should have entered, even if I only held it 20 seconds! FREE BEER. If only I liked beer. When is the Oktoberfest for vodka?

The steinholding winner with his winning stein in hand!

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Miscellaneous

Mystery Date Night

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My boyfriend has many pitfalls, the main one, of course, being that he has an emoji for a face. But recently he has been KILLING the date-game, and I must give credit where credit is due. You may remember less than a month ago, when he surprised me with 4th row tickets to see The Book of Mormon in preparation for our trip to Utah. TBH, I didn’t think he could beat that.

He has asked me early last week for a “date night” on Friday. Color me impressed. That was already a huge improvement. Pre-planning a date? Allowing me more than 3 days’ notice to put it in my always-full social calendar? I was excited.

Friday morning, he texted me while I was at work and said, “I checked your calendar. You don’t have anything tomorrow morning, right?” That’s right, ladies and gents, we share Google calendars. We are the COOLEST couple of all time. But honestly, I don’t know what we would do if we didn’t; I have too many things going on! Luckily, I had nothing going on the next day, since the UF Football game was canceled due to Hurricane Irma.

Anyway, my interest was piqued. A date that requires no plans the next morning? Were we going on a trip? We don’t have a car! Were we going out super late? Sleep No More? He knows I get scared way too easily for that shiz.

I got home from work and he told me to pack a bag. SO EXCITING. I packed an outfit, a gator outfit for the next day (it doesn’t matter if they aren’t playing, #InAllKindsOfWeather), a swimsuit (you never know) and some makeup. Then we headed out to our chariot (aka our Via, SIGN UP WITH MY CODE emily5s6e for $10 off!) and he still kept it a mystery as we headed downtown. I cheated a little by looking on the Via’s GPS, but all I cleaned from my snooping was that we were going super far downtown.

We arrived at the Hilton Millennium hotel just as the sun was setting. My emoji-bf has many great qualities, one big one being he is a Hilton Honors Gold member, so we got the highest room available, on the 48th floor. The room was overlooking the Freedom Tower, the 9/11 Memorial reflecting pool, and the Oculus. I’d argue there is no better view within Manhattan. The best view of Manhattan is from New Jersey, but really, WHO GOES THERE!? The view of the Freedom Tower could not have been more timely, the weekend before 9/11. 16 years later and I still have so many feelings.

We settled into our room in the third-best Hilton Hotel in Manhattan, and checked out the room service menu. How do I know it was the third-best? Because emoji-man was very upset when he looked it up and found out. Turns out the Waldorf Astoria is #1 and The Conrad is #2, in case these things matter to you.

Anyway, the emoji-BF decided on this mystery date because of an Amex offer (more on his and my credit card churning another day), which said that if you spend $300 at a Hilton Hotel, you get $350 back. FREE MONEY! MY FAVORITE KIND! We needed to figure out a way to spend $40 more to get the offer, so we perused the room service menu for items to “fit the bill,” literally. Unfortunately, this is NYC and room service, a lethal combination. Nothing on the menu was that cheap. So we started looking for other options.

We decided to dine at Osteria della Pace, a southern Italian restaurant inside Eataly. The food was delicious and I had a glass of no. 139 dry rose cider, which was sort of like a sparkling rose champagne. Yum! What is one of the worst things that can happen while dining downtown within one of the World Trade Center buildings? OH YEAH. THE ALARM CAN START GOING OFF. And sure enough, it did. In the middle of appetizers, the lights started strobing and an announcement started. I’ve never seen New Yorkers shut up so quickly in my life. It was quieter than a subway at 5 am when everyone is still asleep. The only problem was, no one could understand the announcement! It was static-y and the guy speaking had a very strong accent. After about 30 seconds of heart-pounding panic, we heard one word, “disregard,” and there was a collective huge sigh of relief. Besides that, dinner was DELISH.

We decided to stop at the newly-opened Oculus on the way back to the hotel, since we had never been there before. We actually had no idea what it was, besides that it looked like an exoskeleton of an ENORMOUS animal. And that is cost a sh*tton of money to build (first budgeted at $2 billion, but rose to $3.9 billion by the end). We entered, and I was immediately dizzy. It’s crazy-looking! In between fighting people for a space to take a selfie – this is a V popular place for selfies, go figure – we realized it was a train station. It connects the NJ Path to the NYC subway. As I said before, I clearly never go to NJ since I did not know this. It smells there. Ok, it smells in NYC, too. But I digress.

After our selfie, we went back to the hotel where we watched parts of 3 different movies on 3 different HBO channels. Remember life before HBO Now and Netflix? Where you had to tune into a movie in the middle? Those were rough times. Anyway, we also ordered a bottle of wine to reach our $300 minimum. The bottle was $45 (we are SO fancy), but with the extra added fees, it was $62. Those hotels are fee-machines. Oh well. We didn’t even open it, but we sure felt fancy getting it to our room! If anyone wants to come over to our apartment to share, no guarantees on quality.

We went to sleep and planned to wake up to swim in the pool. Unfortunately, the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, i.e. we overslept. We packed our bags up and headed down to the checkout.

After following my Snapchat/Instagram story and seeing the hotel view, no less than three of my friends texted me asking if I was getting engaged. To set everyone straight, I definitely did not get engaged. But I DID have an awesome night with my emoji-faced boyfriend. And for the record, mister, you have officially set the bar incredibly high if you ever do plan to “pull out all the stops” in the future. WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE. I sure hope you have another Amex Offer in the pipeline! In maybe a year. Or maybe more. 😉

Morning view of the majestic Freedom Tower.

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Travel

Park City, Utah

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Hello! My name is Elder LongLegsBigCity. And I would like to share with you the most amazing book…

JK, I did not turn into a Mormon missionary, but I did spend nearly 6 days in the beautiful state of Utah with 13 of my bf’s friends. I went on hikes, did innumerable flights of stairs at nearly 9,000 feet, took photos with multiple posters boasting puns about polygamy, and stayed in a 5-story home with a panoramic view of multiple ski slopes. Just look at the banner photo. Talk about #LifeElevated.

The emoji bf and I tend to have horrific travel luck, but the Mormon All-American prophet looked down upon us and blessed our journey and we departed NYC EARLY!! Unheard of. We arrived in Salt Lake City late on Wednesday night, met up with one of his friends, and took an uber to Park City. One of my bf’s friend’s family owns a house that they usually rent out, but lucky for us, it was vacant for (an extended) Labor Day Weekend. I got the grand tour when we arrived, and I don’t know if it was the lack of sleep or the elevation, but I actually got lost. There were 5 stories in this place! 6 bedrooms, 2 decks/patios, a shuffleboard table, a hot tub… I was floored. We arrived after midnight and the party had clearly already been going on for a while, but I skipped the drinks for the night and went straight to bed. When I woke up, I had a sleeping beauty moment when I saw on my phone it was noon. I thought I had woken up from a minor coma! Thankfully, my phone just hadn’t synced with the new time zone and it was only 10 am.

I sat on the balcony taking in the amazing view as I waited to meet up with my friend from middle school/high school/ college/NYC. She happens to live in Utah now, and she has an ADORABLE baby who I had never met yet. Luckily for me, she liked me enough to drive out to Park City with her husband and daughter to hang out. We spent the day eating amazing fried food, window shopping, and exploring the “downtown” area of Park City. Oh, and of course taking many many photos. We even saw a Banksy original! You think maybe my emoji bf is responsible???

The girl whose parents own the mansion where we were staying also have their own permanent residence in Park City in a neighborhood called the Promontory Club. Legend has it that the developer for the neighborhood went bankrupt in the middle of building, and when they same developer bought the land back (in foreclosure), he had so much extra money that he built these amazing amenities for the neighborhood to use. We decided to take full advantage of them. After a busy day in town, we went to the bougie AF clubhouse (“The Shed”), where they had an indoor bball/vball court, jump ropes, pinball, foosball, pool tables, and of course, bowling lanes. After working up an appetite, we ordered food and ate it outside as they turned on the gas fire pit that lined the patio. I didn’t quite break 90 in bowling… I probably didn’t deserve the pizza. Once the temperature dropped, we went back to the house and drank some more wine in the hot tub.

For some reason (time change?) I woke up early the next morning. A few of us took a trip down Shorty’s Stairs (actually, I did them 4 times trying to work off the booze from the prior night, this became a tradition), and we found this place called Little Donuts. The owner is a Michigan fan, which I will only forgive because these donuts were phenomenal. Fresh AND you could watch him hand dip and decorate each one made-to-order. They had a maple bacon one. I mean, come on. Clearly the 500 stairs/day were not going to be enough. After eating too many donuts, we put on swimsuits (thankfully I brought my one-piece) and headed back to Promontory, this time to “The Beachhouse.” There were 14 of us, and thanks to some A+ planning, we had rented a cabana, which we had all to ourselves with cookies, cheese, crackers and fruit. The best part was, the cabana was situated basically in the man-made lake, so as we took advantage of the free watersports, we could paddleboard/kayak etc. right up to our group of friends! We played some frisbee in the pool and soaked in the high-elevation rays before heading back to our mansion. After pregaming a little TOO hard, we walked down Shorty’s stairs to a tapas restaurant called Bodega 718/ We had picked up coupons for the restaurant earlier in the day, but (due to the heavy pregaming) we forgot them at the house. I offered to walk back to get them, which would also, hopefully, help me walk off the pregame overboard. On my way, I found an owl. I know what you’re thinking, I was hallucinating it. TBH, I thought I was, too! I walked right past it! But then I backpedaled and I was like, “nope, that is a f*cking huge owl.” His name was Hoot, and his handler informed me that he was, in fact a FAMOUS owl. He had a movie book full of photos of Hoot with the likes of Adam Sandler and Robin Williams (RIP). I am not an animal lover, but I knew I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take a photo with Hoot #DoItForTheInsta.

After my owl photoshoot, I got the coupons, went back to dinner, and proceeded to fight with my bf. I mean, what’s a vacation with your significant other without a fight, AMIRITE? Anyway, as I have already stated 20 times, I had too much to drink and it was a good time for me to go home anyway. I walked back to the house, got a cider out of the fridge, and read my kindle in the hot tub. Arguably one my favorite parts of the trip (minus the fight).

The next morning, I woke up early again. Wtf? Anyway, it allowed me some time to sweat out the booze again, and tackle Shorty’s stairs 8 times. Almost 1,000 stairs. Unfortunately, I did not know that this was the day we were going to hike. But hike, we did. At almost 10,000 feet. Luckily, the trail itself was not too challenging, and the views were totally worth it. I even hopped in the lake at one point, which was freezing since it is formed by snow run-off from the mountains. It was worth the adventure, and it was the one time we got a group shot of all 14 of us. On our way back up, we ran into a group of students from University of Utah (“Utes”), who were using a not-so-sturdy rope swing to jump into the not-so-deep lake. One of the guys said he hit his head on the rock. Then he tried to get us to try it. I decided that Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017 was not the day I wanted to die, so I passed.

We got home, showered, watched some football, and just as I was sure UF was going to lose (SIGH), we went to the girls whose family owns the house’s parents’ house (that’s a mouthful) for a BBQ. Since they also own the 5-story mansion we were staying in, I figured their full-time house may be more modest, but I was wrong. The place was GORGEOUS. It had a wrap-around deck where we could see the perfect sunset, a wine cellar, a “drive-through shower” (NEED this in my future house) and a firepit. We drank wine and Moscow mules, ate amazing burgers and brats, and then finished the night with more wine by the fire, while Amazon Alexa serenaded us. Oh, AND we made s’mores. Does it get more perfect than that!? When I was a kid, I didn’t think it got better than s’mores. But then I realized you can have them with a side of wine. SCORE.

The next day was low key because we were tired, and because it was HOT! It wasn’t humid, but being 10,000 feet closer to the sun makes for some high temps. We went into town for the weekly summer street fair called Park Silly. We didn’t last long there thanks to the temps, but we did find our way back to Wasatch brewery where they had $2 bloody marys. Somehow I only had one. Maybe I was tapped out for booze. Or maybe I felt guilty because it was Sunday and it was Utah. Or maybe it’s because it just tasted like tomato juice thanks to Utah’s liquor laws requiring no drink to have more than 1.5 ounces of booze in it. Anyway, eventually we went back to the house where we watched the new Baywatch. Incredibly underrated, if you ask me. The Rock AND Zac Efron? I mean, clearly 5-star-worthy.

Our last real night in Utah, we went as a group to Butcher’s Chop House, where we miraculously got a last-minute reservation for 13 people. The meal was great, and was made better by a BOGO deal on entrees. I can’t resist a good deal. I can, however, resist taking photos of food. I hate people who do that sh*t. So no photos. I got to know the restaurant well, since my bf forgot his phone AND wallet, so we went back twice. Once for the phone and wallet, once for the ID, which I had luckily reminded him specifically to check for since we were flying the next day. Another charming thing about Utah: they card everyone under the age of DEAD. So your ID is oftentimes out of your wallet. Once we had the ID, we stopped at No Name Saloon for a drink on the way home, as one does when they are relieved they did not lose their entire identity (aka phone and wallet) in one fell swoop. BF had whiskey neat (the strongest drink you can get in the whole state), and I had a bottle of cider, because anything on draught is less than 4% ABV. At that point, I was happy to be leaving the next day, back to the land of the alcoholic a.k.a. New York City.

The next day we cleaned up the house and headed to the airport, where we were through security before noon. Only problem, our flight wasn’t until midnight. Luckily for me, and to the sole credit of my boyfriend, I have started credit card churning (full blog on that another time), and therefore I had an AMEX Platinum Card that got me into the Delta Sky Lounge. (Highly recommend that card. USE MY LINK!) We had 12 hours of free booze, free food, and free wifi. I read the entire book, The Young Wives Club, and did some blogging. Watch out for my next Student Loan installment coming later this week!

Overall, I didn’t see too many Mormons except at the airport (disappointing) but I did have a blast. Also, any number of days where I am not breathing in NYC’s unique and trademarked mix of smog, trash, piss, and sadness is a good weekend overall.

Ready for our red-eye back to smelly NYC.

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Big City Living

September 11

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It’s been a rough few weeks. We’ve got pandemonium in Washington, DACA was repealed, massive fires in the west, Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma; I ALMOST forgot that today is September 11. But I didn’t forget. Because I never will.

I was reading You’ll Grow Out of It over the weekend, and the author was talking about how she knew her relationship was the real deal: they “talked about where they were on 9/11 (the deepest conversation you can have with another person).” And it’s true. For everyone in our generation, it was a defining moment. It’s like how my parents’ generation always know where they were when JFK was shot.

I don’t want to make this a long post, but I felt like I couldn’t let this day go by without paying homage to what it is and acknowledging this day, my first September 11 since I started LongLegsBigCity.

I was in my freshman year econ class when the first plane hit. I didn’t believe it when my friend said what happened. I remember laughing and hitting her on the shoulder, telling her to stop f*cking with me. I was in English when the second plane hit the other tower. This time the TV was on in the classroom so I couldn’t deny it. I will never forget how I felt that day. Stunned is probably the best word. I grew up in New Jersey until I was 10, but then I moved to Florida. I had so many friends and family in the northeast, and I had walked by the World Trade Center many times. But at the same time, I was in Florida, so far away. It didn’t seem real. The one thing I distinctly remember was watching the news all day. It had been a half day of school, so starting at 1 pm, I was glued to the news. I had so much homework to do. School was in full swing because it started mid-August in Florida, and I was in the Pre-IB program, which meant basically that I did homework or was in class all but 5 hours of every day, when I took a short nap. But I couldn’t bring myself to do any work. I remember seeing people jumping from buildings on the news, on repeat, over and over again. And I thought to myself, “these teachers can’t possibly expect me to do my homework, can they??”

I have now lived in New York for 8 September 11’s and it does not get any easier. The mood is somber. The people are quieter. I haven’t heard a single mariachi band on the subway yet today. People are on edge. My friend told me that there was an unattended baby bag in the elevator of Deutsche Bank this morning and there were police all over it in under a minute. Even with the Freedom Tower standing proudly above all other buildings in the city, something is missing. Every time I watch Sex and the City (more often than I should admit to), the opening credits show the twin towers and it reminds me of what is missing.

It has been 16 years since that day. This year marks the year that I’ve officially been alive longer without the twin towers standing than I was alive before they went down. Seems crazy. Seems like yesterday.

But there are two good things about this day: It reminds me that we have risen above and we are still here, living and thriving in the best city in the USA. And it is also a day of unity. It reminds me that there was a time that we stood together, before all of the current craziness in the world. There was a time when people talked to each other on the subway, not just out of fear, but out of solidarity.

Today, try to be nice to someone. Or to one more person than you would on any other day. Give someone (correct) directions on the subway, even if it means taking out your earbuds. Swipe someone into the train with your unlimited metrocard. Smile at a homeless person. Give someone a 25 cent banana from a street fruit seller. And of course, never forget.

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Miscellaneous

Hurricane Irma

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Ladies and Gents, it’s looking more and more likely that the deadly Category 5 Hurricane Irma is headed toward South Florida and I am terrified for all of my friends. Also, I am GLUED to every meteorologist on twitter (Bryan Norcross, anyone?? What a silver/blond fox). Personally, I have been tracking the storm since Saturday, paying closer attention to the direction of the “cone of uncertainty” than I paid attention to any of my classes in college. Or high school. Or anything in my life, TBH. The one class I did pay extreme attention to in college: Extreme Weather; thanks UF for those interesting GenEd Science credits. I took that class the year of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Wilma and I remember tracking them in class using cold and warm fronts, air pressure, wind speed and direction, altitude etc. Something about hurricane-tracking is mesmerizing. Maybe it’s the fact that we don’t really know where it’s going. We’ve all seen the meme about weathermen constantly being wrong.

Or maybe it’s the fact that it’s the one major devastating weather pattern that we can actually track days in advance. Talk about Must-See-TV… The Weather Channel LIVES for this! And one week after Hurricane Harvey, too. I didn’t forget about the thousands of people affected by Harvey, but I have a much more personal connection to Florida, so Irma has been catching my eye.

Irma is already record-breaking, with sustained wind speeds of 185 MPH. As a point of reference, the Saffir-Simpson scale, which measures hurricanes (common knowledge for a Floridian), has 5 categories of hurricanes with 5 being the biggest. Category 4 is 130-157 MPH, which is a 27 point range. Category 5 is over 157. Irma is 185, 28 points above that. Basically, if a category 6 even existed, it would be that. That is terrifying.

I moved to South Florida in 1997, hot on the heels of the last huge category 5 hurricane that hit Florida, Hurricane Andrew. Andrew hit in 1992, so you may argue that 5 years later was not “hot on the heels,” but I would disagree. I remember specifically the real estate agent mentioning hurricanes when we were looking at houses, because it was still on everyone’s minds. Would a house withstand wind gusts of 100+ mph? If we get a house with 20-foot ceilings and 20-foot windows, as almost all two-story houses have in South Florida, who would put the hurricane shutters up? Are the windows hurricane-resistant? I distinctly remember these questions.

If you didn’t grow up in South Florida, or any hurricane-prone region, you probably think I am nuts. Alternatively, you think Florida peeps have it all figured out because you have seen all of the memes that Floridians post about “preparing for a hurricane” aka buying beer and wine and downplaying the whole thing. But I can tell you from my very selective Facebook sampling of my South Florida friends – they are all officially freaking the f*ck out. Many of them are using the popular hashtag #Irmagerd. I had one friend who saw two armed police officers guarding the new supply of water at the grocery store. I have another friend who woke up at 3 am to try and beat the lines and fill her car up with gas, only to wait 45 minutes in line and then find out that all of the pumps were empty.

Social media can be both bad and good in these times of crisis:

Bad: Group hysteria. Horror stories abound. Also, sometimes fake news is shared. Don’t tape your windows guys, come on. I thought this was common knowledge by now.

Good: Keeping in touch with friends (until power goes out). Sharing preparedness tips and tricks, like this amazing quarter on a frozen cup of ice trick. Crowd sourcing any stores that still have water or propane. Finding AMAZING stories on twitter, like about the Delta pilot who flew his plane in and out of Puerto Rico yesterday between the bands of the hurricane. What a crazy person. Separate but related: I had my #bestdayever on twitter yesterday, I got 78 likes on a tweet about this pilot. I barely have 45 followers! P.S. FOLLOW ME!

My Famous Tweet:

I have some fond memories of my hurricane-preparedness in South Florida, and luckily, a big one never hit. Rather, I should say I never personally experienced one. Hurricane Wilma was pretty big and my family lost power for over a week. Also, the back windows blew out and my mom and brother evacuated to Atlanta. I was already at college at the time, so I didn’t personally feel the effects. But the fact that a big one didn’t hit when I lived at home doesn’t mean we didn’t prepare for a big one more than once. I remember filling the bathtubs with water, filling the cars with gas, stocking our canned goods and readying our internal camp-out room. We used to uninstall the shelving from the closet underneath our stairs, line the floors with cushions, pillows and blankets, and settle down in our window-less bunker, waiting for the hurricane to pass. My brother and I used to love hanging out under the stairs. Once, we even convinced our mom to keep the pillows and blankets in there as a play fort for an entire week after the storm. Luckily for us, it was all fun and games. And luckily, we were smart enough to be prepared every time.

So to my Florida BFF’s, BE SAFE OUT THERE!! And keep making memes. If you laugh, it’s harder to cry. And if, FINGERS CROSSED, this thing takes a sharp turn east and misses you, please still prepare next time. Better safe than sorry. Build your blanket fort and grab your beef jerky and transistor radio. I’ll meet you under the stairs.

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Long Legs and other Personal Problems

Student Loans Part Two A

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I want to thank everyone for reading my LONG first post about my student loans. I received some great feedback in the form of comments here on the blog, and also in the form of private messages from across the country. It means a lot to me that you took the time to read it, and that you are grateful I opened the conversation. I was incredibly nervous to talk about this, but I know from the response I received that I made the right decision. I decided to definitely add an entry (after telling my own story) to address some of the questions and comments, so please continue to give me your feedback and your responses so I can talk about them in a few weeks!

This installment is the most personal one yet because I talk about the staggering amount I actually owe. I know that there are many of you out there who owe more, and some who owe less, but no matter the exact number, it has an effect on our decision-making and our futures. Therefore, I am splitting this entry into two parts, with the second one addressing the impact my loans have on my decisions, and the compromises and concessions I make in my daily life. This stuff is depressing, and this blog is not called #LongLegsBigLoans, so I will try to intersperse these with lighter topics. As always, please subscribe and I welcome all comments. Also, if you know anyone else struggling in silence (you probably do, if you look at the numbers), feel free to pass it along! Thanks for reading ♥

Part 2 (A) – Amount of Money; Loans on Loans on Loans

Soundtrack: Bills, Bills, Bills by Destiny’s Child

“Can you pay my bills? Can you pay my telephone bills? Can you pay my automo-bills?”

Student loans are a generational problem caused by a hat trick of terribles: 1. Higher education is now necessary to get any sort of high-paying occupation, which it was not during our parents’ generation. 2. Education costs a sh*tton of money. Tuition has gone up 538% in the past 22 years! And salaries have not followed suit. 3. Banks and the Federal Government know that, and take advantage of it by charging astronomical and stifling interest rates, and not forgiving loans when they originally said they would. Some states have taken it into their own hands and have actually sued FedLoan servicing over their unethical practices, acting as the enforcer when FedLoans has repeatedly mis–charged borrowers and refused to reimburse them. Even the Massachusetts Attorney General called them out on their “unfair or deceptive practices.”

So let’s say you don’t actually get overcharged and you are just being “rightly” charged an arm and a leg every month for the indeterminate future. This installment is going to be about the sheer quantity of loans people carry. There are a lot of numbers at the beginning, so don’t let your eyes glaze over. The math will be over quickly and then I will explain in laymen’s terms how terrible this all is while I listen to the “Songs to Cry Too” (sic.) playlist on Spotify. Spoiler Alert: there’s a lot of Ed Sheeran.

People are afraid to say the true magnitude of their loans, so I’m going to start by just straight saying it: I currently owe $92,907 in federal loans and $6,713 in private loans. Total Owed = $99,620. In a few months, it will undoubtedly be 6 figures. I finished law school with $86,702 in federal loans and $12,000 in private loans. Let that sink in, I went from $98,702 in loans when I graduated, to $99,620 at the current time, 4 years later, and I have made thousands of dollars in payments over the years. My federal loans have literally increased by over $6,200 despite the fact that I have paid hundreds, and at some points, thousands of dollars to them every month since I graduated.

The good news is, some states are trying to curtail this problem by offering free tuition to state schools (GO NEW YORK, GO!). The bad news is, there are no such programs for graduate school, and if you go to a grad school, you’re basically f*cked. Americans owe over $1 trillion in student loan debt, spread out among about 44 million borrowers. That’s about $620 billion more than the total U.S. credit card debt. Approximately 40 percent of the $1 trillion student loan debt was used to finance graduate and professional degrees. Also, the interest rates on grad loans are higher.

There may not be any state-funded programs for grad schools, but there are still some scholarship programs or merit-based options. I received $39,000/year in scholarship from Brooklyn Law School. That means that if I did not have that scholarship, I would have completed law school with a whopping $216,620 in student loans. Just think about that for a second. If I did not have scholarship, I would have left school with the amount of loans that could pay for a nice, suburban home.

I cannot believe I just admitted that I had that much money in loans. As you read in Part One, one of the major emotions associated with loans is shame. But really, why?? Everyone has them. Or at least 70% of us do. What about the people who didn’t have scholarship? I was almost one of those people. I applied to 10 law schools, and I was accepted to 7. Many people suggested that the decision was simple: go to the highest-ranked one. For me, that was Boston University, ranked 20 at the time. Top 20 school, they said. No brainer, they said. However, BU didn’t offer me any financial aid. I decided not to go there, and that decision was based solely on money, not at all based on the fact that I saw a roach when I toured the building. (Ok, the roach probably made an impact, too.)

In hindsight, especially since I do not work in law anymore, I think I made the correct decision. But how would I have known that for sure at the time? Anyone I asked advised me to go to a better school, one that would improve my marketability, and therefore improve my job prospects, and therefore would improve my earning potential. When I was applying to and choosing between law schools, the conversation of student loan repayment almost never came up. In hindsight, that seems incredibly short-sighted and a bit unbelievable.

I was speaking with a friend who does not have any loans recently, and I was pitching the idea of writing about this topic. I cited a few vague statistics, noting that I owed about $100K, and that I had a combined $120K in scholarship. He looked at me like I had 5 heads, and he said, “What? That can’t be, that means that people can graduate from law school with over $200K in loans!” It seems crazy, but it is entirely possible. Brace yourself for some more math here; it’s basic, don’t worry. Tuition is $50K/year., which means 3 years of law school = $150K. That leaves only $50K for room and board for 3 years if you want to leave school with only $200K in loans. That means $16,666/year. Let’s say you live in a modest apartment in New York with roommates, for about $1,000/month (what a great deal!). That means your rent is $12,000/year, not including utilities, and that leaves you $4,666/year for food, utilities, metrocard, oh, AND BOOKS. Which can be $1,000/semester. Basically, there is no way you can get out of law school with only $200K in loans if you don’t have scholarship. And then school ends and the interest hits you.

Last year, my dad was asking me questions while filing my taxes (thanks again, daddy!), and he asked me, almost incredulously, “you didn’t happen to pay over $2,500 in interest on your loans this year, did you?” I basically laughed in his face. OF COURSE I paid that much in interest! Thankfully, the one place student loans come in handy is when you do your taxes, thanks to the big break you get for interest. But the fact that my own father had no idea that literally ALL of my payments I make toward my loans go ONLY to interest, shows the ignorance that most people without loans have about them. Last year I paid $5,500 toward my federal student loans. Of that, $5,500 of it went to interest. That’s right, all of it. Here is a screenshot of my payment to my federal loans from June of this year. $462.32, $0 of it applied to the principal.

But this brings me to my next obvious point: the reason some people cannot empathize is because they do not have any first-hand experience. I talked about this in Part One dealing with emotions, so I won’t say much about it here, but those who do not have loans just don’t think about it. Their world doesn’t revolve around these monthly payments, so they don’t realize just how much of a lead weight it is for so many people.

I have one friend who told me she used to pay student loans 8 separate times throughout the month until she consolidated them recently. Talk about a constant reminder. She was basically hemorrhaging money EVERY FOUR DAYS. According to CBS Money Watch, students typically end up with five to seven different loans at graduation. Each one can be for a different amount and carry a different interest rate.

I have another friend who told me her monthly student loan payment is higher than her mortgage. She lives in Utah, but STILL. For those of us not in Utah, or those of us without spouses, how are we supposed to purchase homes, build families, or become independent humans, when we are paying ridiculous amounts every month just to stay above water? It really is a huge problem.

THE MOST DRAMATIC BLOG POST CONTINUES NEXT WEEK!! Stay tuned and subscribe; next week I will explain the small and big ways I try to save money to stay above water, as well as the huge life decisions that will be impacted by my student loans: career, family, home, retirement, basically everything. The following installment, I will tell my personal story about which repayment plans I have opted into, and out of, and how I am using free credit card offers to pay off my private loans. $$ FREE MONEY! $$

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Big City Living

New Yorkers and the Side Hustle

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New York is filled with interesting people. Master of None did an episode in Season 2 called “New York, I Love You” where it explored the lives of the people we pass in our everyday lives: the taxi drivers, the guys who sell you your breakfast sandwich at the bodega, the doormen. But the reason I find New Yorkers fascinating is because even the people you see in their normal jobs, they all have a side hustle. I consider myself the Queen of the Side Hustle. I deserve a crown. For a while, I was even taking surveys online just to get free Starbucks gift cards. Most recently I joined Influenster in the hope that they send me free products. Hopefully I’ll start instagramming them soon.

New York is a tough place to live; the average price of a one bedroom apartment is $2,700/month, $3,000 if you only look at Manhattan. One job just won’t cut it. The New York Post recently wrote about it, as did CNN. CNN reported that over 44 million Americans have side hustles. Roughly the same amount of Americans who have student debt. I wonder if that’s a coincidence. But this multiple-jobs-just-to-keep-a-roof-over-our-heads lifestyle is what makes us all interesting. And multi-faceted. And tired. But that’s for another post.

Here are a few things I know people do as side hustles: uber driving, waitressing, bartending, lululemon educating, blogging. Oh, and of course group fitness. Don’t get me wrong, there are some people who do all of these things full-time. But it’s more likely that people cobble together multiple things to make a living. Waitress/Actor. Or is it Actor/Waitress? Does it make a difference?

Even the people who don’t think they have a side hustle often have one, but they call it a “hobby,” like investing. As far as I’m concerned, if you spend a few hours a week on it, follow finance blogs, have a special tweet deck for finance, and it makes you some mulah, it’s a hustle. Cough Cough Emoji BF Cough Cough.

One of my coworkers who just started at my full-time job kept one shift a week at her old job, bartending at a bar/restaurant/karaoke spot. She only works on Friday nights, but the extra cash she gets pays for her expenses for the week. Plus, it can be fun to meet people at your side hustle! People whose paths you probably wouldn’t otherwise cross. It’s fun for me too, because I can visit her and sing karaoke to my heart’s desire. It’s always helpful to know a bartender in New York. The problem is, she also works at our full-time spot on Fridays. That means her work day is basically 9 am to 4 am, 7:30 am to 5 am if you include the commute. WOAH. In what other city is working 22 hours normal? But I can’t judge, I do it too!

For a while, I was flipping clothes. I know you’re thinking that is ridiculous, but there is a HUGE second market. I would go to SoulCycle sample sales every time they happened, and I would go as soon as they dropped prices a second time. I would scoop up ANYTHING lululemon brand (they had other brands, too, but ew), and then I would sell it on apps like Poshmark (SIGN UP WITH MY CODE JLDNQ for $5 off!) and Mercari (SIGN UP WITH MY CODE FDXTKW for $10 OFF)! as “NWT” or, New With Tags. I turned hundreds of dollars in profit! It took time to take the photos, post them, monitor the listings and re-post them to my followers. And of course it took time to pack and ship them, but it was worth it!

Another side hustle of mine: retail. Two years ago, I worked at lululemon for a holiday season. I won’t lie, I did it first and foremost for the discount. Also, I liked the company and its goals. (Read: I drank the luxtreme koolaid.) When I had my interview with the manager, she asked me if I was sure I wanted to do this, and made sure I would have some semblance of a work-life balance. She only let me work Fridays after my other job and Sundays, insisting I took Saturday off. Most other companies wouldn’t give a sh*t about your “balance” from another job, but I did appreciate having that one day to myself every week. In fact, working at lululemon was one of the highlights of my past few years. As I’m sure you know, I have a passion for fitness, and it was fun to just chat about workout clothes and new niche studios with customers (also have some of my classes comped!) and get paid for it! My Fridays often went from 8 am to 10 pm, but I found myself looking forward to it. Having a side hustle is a good way to get out of the daily 9-5 grind and to keep yourself on your toes.

My main side hustle is being a fitness instructor. I’ve had that side hustle fitness job for 11 years and counting, through undergrad, “unemployment,” law school, lawyering, and now, my #JewJob. When I started, it was my only job, on the side of being a full-time student, but it was fun to have extra cash in my pocket, and it was also fun to see people at the bars who recognized me from my classes. I felt like I was semi-famous. In NYC, I get paid 3 times what I was paid to teach in Florida. Granted, my rent is more than three times as high. Also, since February, the YMCAs of Greater New York centralized their subbing system online so I can pick up classes at gyms throughout the five boroughs. If I need some extra cash, I pick up an extra class! Who am I kidding, I ALWAYS need extra cash (did you see my ongoing series about my student loans?!) and I am always looking for an extra workout. I pick up every class my body and schedule allows! The best thing about this particular side hustle is that it also good for my health. That’s a win-win. Until I sprain my ankle again.

Do any of you guys have a side hustle you enjoy? Can I join it? A penny saved is a penny earned is a penny saved. Or something like that.

 

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Fitness

CPXperience at Sky

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Friday night I died 5 times. But here I am, risen from the dead, very sore, and here to tell the tale.

Backstory: I heard about a gym called Ripped from Well and Good (review coming at another time), and at the class last Tuesday, the trainer, Courtney Paul, plugged this “super fun fitness event” he was hosting on Friday. He said the venue would be “bougie AF” and there would be “lots of hot guys there.” I was intrigued. Then he said it was FREE. My favorite price. So I RSVPed. But then I got terrified and so I invited 10 of my closest fitness buddies to come with me, and out of 10, one said yes. Shout out to Mary, my ride or die. Mostly die.

This event was a collaboration of Life Time Athletic at Sky, with Courtney’s special fitness baby called CPX. As he asks on his website, “are you ready for the CPXperience?” Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was. But his Instagram made it seem like it was going to be cool, there was a post-workout pool party, and I was interested in seeing the outside, all-turf space, 11 stories above ground. Plus, it was a breezy 70 degrees so I couldn’t even use the weather as an excuse. Oh, and did I mention it was FREE? I did.

But still, I was intimidated. Courtney was featured on the Bravo show Work Out New York, and he can sometimes be fun and playful, (lots of sexual innuendo), but can sometimes be f*cking terrifying, screaming at you to get your treadmill to 9.0 MPH for the sprint or he will do it for you. Luckily there were going to be no treadmills on Friday night, so I felt a little bit more at ease going into it.

A little about the workout: CPX is an “ultimate fusion of body conditioning with a circuit flare.” He says on Instagram that it is meant to “redefine HITT.” HITT is usually used in the military as “high intensity tactical training,” and I’m not sure if he really meant HIIT, or “high intensity interval training,” but either way, it was definitely high intensity. His workout (and he) has been featured in a lot of articles and magazines, you can see some links here on his website.

I arrived at Sky, where I went in a revolving door to a bougie AF lobby (he was not exaggerating). I had to sign a waiver on an iPad, check in, and receive my wristband. I felt so official. Mary and I took the elevator to the 11th floor, where we were some of the last to arrive, as usual. We grabbed mats and resistance bands, Mary got a complimentary energy drink, and we set our mats at the very back of the AstroTurf in the corner. I would ballpark about 80 people there. Not too shabby. The music started bumping and we started squatting. A lot of Courtney screaming in the microphone to keep our weight in our heels, and what seemed like 3 hours later, we moved away from legs, and on to abs. I think in reality, it was only 10 minutes. For the next 25 minutes we did squats, lunges, plank walkouts, butterfly kicks, crunches, etc., then we grabbed our resistance band for upper body toning. We did 10 minutes of bicep curls, upright rows, tricep kickbacks, partner rows in squats, etc. Finally, I thought we were getting a break. Joke was on me. We dispersed to the areas surrounding the turf where they had various benches and couches. They were not for sitting, though. They were for tricep dips, step-ups, and squats. For some reason this was my favorite part. Maybe because I just like being in proximity to seats.

We capped off the workout with some partner patty-cake planks, and partner core exercises. Check out my boomerang! Clearly staged, since I am smiling. I am a wuss and I probably stopped and didn’t do 10% of the workout. But to be fair, every time I looked around, there were always a few people taking breaks. That’s the nature of an interval class. Work as hard as you possibly can, then take a break when you absolutely must. I woke up the next day with a lot of different, obscure muscles aching, so I would say it was a success, even if I only did 90% of the workout. Ok, 85%.

Anyway, the workout was over just as the sun was setting, the apartment building/gym lit up, and we proceeded to the pool for the after-party. I had packed a swimsuit just in case, but it was a little too cold to hop in. The pools had an amazing view of the Empire State Building, PLUS they had one of those massive blow-up swan/flamingo floaties. (Check out Courtney flailing around on his Instagram after I left, LOL) I was very tempted to go in. Oh, AND they were hosting the 2017 Ultimate Hoops National Tournament. BALLIN’! It turned out this was a fancy-type bougie club. Too bad I was in spandex, with no makeup and covered in sweat. Also, the drinks were $16/piece. We stuck around for a bit for some Class A people-watching, saw some people (bball players?) getting interviewed on the step and repeat, then we took a photo of ourselves, duh, and found a place with more reasonably priced cocktails (read: cheap margaritas).

Overall, it was a successful FREE night of fitness in beautiful weather, and Calvin, the Studio Manager at Life Time Athletic gave us a free pass to try another one of their classes. I will definitely be taking him up on that! Go check out Courtney Paul’s CPXperience if you wanna get your butt kicked.

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Long Legs and other Personal Problems

Student Loans Part One

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Welcome to a three-part series about student loans. This is not financial advice. This is a summary of my personal experience, my feelings, and how I have dealt with this very big problem (pun intended). I got the idea to write about student loans from one of my friends who comes to my Spin class. She said, “I have an idea for your blog. Maybe I’m the only person who would be interested in it, but since you are a non-practicing lawyer, I would definitely love to hear what you have to say about student loans.” Here’s the thing: she is NOT the only person interested, because SO MANY OF US HAVE THEM. It’s unbelievable how large of an issue this is for our generation, and yet so few of us actually talk about it. The first rule about student loans, is don’t talk about student loans. JK, the first rule is to pay them because if you don’t your credit is screwed for life. Some credit blogs talk about it, but in the real world, it’s an unspoken ever-growing elephant in the room.

When I started brainstorming what I would write on, I realized I had SO many thoughts. In fact, I have way too many for one post. Therefore, this will be a three-part series with possible follow-up to address comments and questions. Part one, below, deals with the emotions associated with student loans. Part two will deal with the sheer quantity of loans, the weight it puts on me/us, and how it changes my/our behavior. Finally, part three will deal with my own personal story of loan repayment, the multiple payment plans I have opted into, and out of, and it will include some advice that I have (thankfully) taken from my very financially-savvy emoji-faced bf.

This is a bit more serious than my typical blog posts, and more personal for sure (I’m going to tell you how much I owe!! GASP!), but I hope to be helpful by at least beginning the conversation. If you have any comments, if you want to empathize, if you care to sympathize, or if it just plain makes you mad, please please leave comments. Misery loves company.

As they said on Real World, “this is the true story… when people stop being polite and start getting real.” Without further ado, my semi-interesting take on a super taboo, off-limits topic. Maybe I’ll even help someone.

Part 1 – Emotions

Soundtrack: So Emotional by Whitney Houston

“I get so emotional, baby, every time I think of you”

When I started to consider the real possibility of writing about loans, my first thought was, “will anybody care?” As I said above, there are a huge number of us young professionals, especially in New York City, who have student loans, so why don’t I hear about it? I recently was talking to a friend about how it seems that everyone on my Facebook is going on extravagant vacations, and I’m just drowning in debt. Last week alone, my Instagram feed featured 1 friend in Italy, 2 friends in Greece, 3 friends in Croatia, 2 in Austria, 1 in Iceland and 1 in Bali. WTF? Why wasn’t I going on extravagant vacations? Oh yeah, student loans. Even if my payments were only $200/month (LOL I WISH), if I didn’t have them, I would have an extra $2,400/year to travel the world! That brings me to my first emotion: FOMO (fear of missing out). Next week I will talk about how my spending habits are affected by my loans, but suffice it to say, I don’t take any extravagant vacations.

My friend reminded me that this FOMO is the unfortunate consequence from the nature of social media: people post the highlight reel. No one posts about student loans. She was 100% correct. As I started to pitch the idea of this post to a few friends, it turned out there were many more drowning-in-student-debt millennials in my circle than I originally thought.

But also, why DOES no one post about student loans since it’s such a huge problem? The answer is: it’s fucking depressing. There, I said it. Who the hell wants to talk about the fact that we are all so broke that we will never be able to purchase homes and we will have to put off having kids until it’s possibly too late, etc. etc. More on that in Part Two of this trilogy. But the point is, there are a lot of emotions surrounding student loans, and it’s not an easy concept to grasp for the 30% of the population who does not have loans. For those of us who do, we just suffer in silence. I was going to call us, the loan-havers, “the haves” and the others as the “have-nots,” but it doesn’t seem right to say that people with $150K+ in loans, HAVE anything. Besides anxiety.

When I first started dating my emoji-bf who I am not allowed to talk about at all on this blog, hence the emoji, I HATED talking about money. Dreaded it. Every time he would bring it up (which was a lot, he’s a finance guy), I would completely close off. Sometimes I would literally scream, “Alexa, bedroom off,” and our lights would go off, and I would turn away from him in bed and refuse to speak to him. Over the past two years, he has worn me down, and we now talk candidly about money pretty frequently. In fact, you will see some of the knowledge I have gleaned by finally listening to him in Part Three of this series. I was mostly shying away from the topic because I was ashamed, but also because I felt he couldn’t relate.

Now, I am about to break the “don’t talk about your bf at all” rule here, and I will put him out there, so to speak: he doesn’t have any student loans. Why does that matter? Because it makes it really difficult for him to understand me and relate to my feelings about the loans. Don’t get me wrong, he gets the idea of loans. In fact, he probably (read: definitely) understands them more than I do. He understands interest rates and consolidation, and he even knows what the abbreviation APR means. True confession: I still don’t know. Scratch that, it means Annual Percentage Rate. I just googled it. Anyway, even if he does know all those fancy words and complicated numbers, he still doesn’t get it get it. Or rather, he doesn’t get ME.

Having students loans to pay, especially loans of this large quantity, is not like having an electricity bill to pay, or a car payment. There is a lot more involved. Some of the emotions involved with loans: anxiety, dread, fear, helplessness, shame, regret, isolation. Just to name a few. A lot of these are interconnected, like the anxiety of having so many loans hanging over your head is combined with the dread that you will never pay them off. Also, there is a certain fear that you will be tied down forever, and of course, the constant fear that you will default if you lose your job, which will ruin your credit, or the fear that since you are forever-indebted, you will never be able to have a house or a family. There is even the fear and guilt that if you die, your family will get stuck having to deal with them. Yes, I’ve looked into this, and luckily, according to the U.S. Department of Education, if the borrower of a federal student loan dies, the loan is automatically canceled and the debt is discharged by the government. Unfortunately, this doesn’t apply to private student loans, but that’s a whole different story. At least there’s that to look forward to: the sweet release of death. JK. Sort of. And then of course there is the fear that no one will ever want to marry you, because they are marrying your debt. As if being single isn’t hard enough in NYC, AMIRITE? Sigh.

And then of course the embarrassment. This isn’t a “woe-is-me, this happened to me without my knowledge” sob story where I want you to feel bad for me. But that almost makes it worse. There’s a certain shame and embarrassment associated with the fact that I got myself into this situation by my own choices. It’s not that I unexpectedly had children I need to support, or I fell ill and I have medical bills I can’t pay. I made my own bed here. There are no ifs ands or buts about it. So now here I am, trying to figure out how to deal, but doing it alone. I was recently told about a podcast with WNYC called Death Sex and Money. They did a two-part series on Student Loans and the huge secret they are. They had a higher response than they ever have before, and everyone was keeping it a secret. There was a guy who called in from his car. He was a successful engineer raising a family, making 6 figures and he still had over $100K in loans. His wife didn’t know. His friends didn’t know. It was a huge scary secret.

All of these emotions combine to create a sense of helplessness. There is a certain feeling that you have dug yourself into a hole and there is simply nothing you can do about it. Part of that is true, but part of it isn’t. I will address what I am doing to try and dig myself out in Part Three of this series. Moreover, there is a unique shame associated with having so many loans, especially since no one talks about it. We know our parents don’t have it, so why us? It must mean we did something wrong, right? It must mean we made some wrong decisions along the way, right? And that’s where the next hard-hitting emotion comes in: regret. Lord knows I have a lot of that. Here I am talking about being weighed down by law school loans, and I don’t even practice law!! Do I regret it? EVERY DAMN DAY.

And then there is the isolation. But here’s the thing: it’s not our fault and YOU ARE NOT ALONE!! According to Forbes, tuition and fees have risen 538% since 1985, outpacing the Consumer Price Index by over 400%. Now more than 70% of students graduate with loans and outstanding student loan debt totals $1 trillion. And tell your parents to shove it, because they just cannot understand. Ok, maybe don’t tell them that, but it really is a problem that is unique to our generation.

How much money are we really talking about here? And how do I manage to live while facing these astronomical numbers hanging over my head like a depressing dark cloud? As they do in my favorite show, The Bachelor, I’ll save that for next week, when I will reveal the actual total amount of money I owe in student loans, in the MOST DRAMATIC BLOG POST YET.

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