That’s Right, It’s Better Than Mine
Email this article to a friend 
Print this Article
03 Sep 2007 ›
9:30 am
Ali and I went to a house party last night in Brooklyn. If you don’t live in New York, you probably don’t spend the first half hour of every party snooping around the person’s apartment and speculating about how much they pay. If you live somewhere else, you probably can’t relate – I guess some women are like this with diamond rings, and some dudes are like this with cars. But I doubt those competitions ever leave the confines of their particular cul-de-sac. On the other hand, I have yet to meet a single New Yorker who is truly immune to the pull of real estate porn. We all love a peak into the window of how another person lives. We seethe over the 1940s era rent-controlled palace or the loft, complete with a hedgehog boyfriend to sign the checks. Or we gloat when the girl with the genuine Kelly bag turns out to live in a linoleum hellhole.
So while the party itself was medium to good-ish, I spent most of it in the corner with Ali dissecting the apartment’s various pros and cons. If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be spending even 15 minutes in this manner, I would’ve said you were out of your friggin helmet. But alas, home envy has even infected moi. I think what really got me where the closets. There were four of them in all. Four! In a one bedroom! As sick as it sounds, by the time I’d seen closet number three I had already descended into a hideous envy-spiral the likes of which can only be overcome with the help of eBay (or Ben and Jerry). Yes, yes. I know, I know. I am in therapy.