NYC Nomad

formerly zerocarb; traveling photographer living in NYC; working toward early retirement; intermittent fasting, eating one meal a day (OMAD) since June 2018; ESFP and Enneagram Type 7; married to J since December 2018! 

[nycnomad]

We went to California for my work trip, and it really was great leaving from our little airport with its 7 gates down here in Florida. (I didn't get groped by TSA!) We spent 4 days in Napa, visiting the vineyards where we're members, drinking so much great wine, and eating so much great food, then my work event went great, and then we went back home to NYC for two weeks for Thanksgiving with my husband's family and to see all of our friends.

It was a little peek into what our life might be like if we lived in Florida full-time and just went back to NYC now and then. We went to our usual bar trivia and some movies at our favorite theater, but then I also went to a 2 Michelin star $700pp tasting menu with one of my co-workers (work paid, don't worry!) and we went to one of the holiday markets with my husband's sister who was in town from Poland. So, partly everyday things and partly NYC-specific things! I'm a little jealous of our friends back there hanging out without us, but I'm also very happy right now to not have any social responsibilities and to be able to eat a little lighter and focus a little on my YouTube channel (that's been growing!).

Anyway, I was inspired to post because I woke up this morning and the sun was shining in through the balcony doors, and I stood in front of them and watched the ocean waves hit the beach as I put on some pajama pants. And I love waking up in my NYC apartment, too, but there's something special about walking around with no pants with my wide open windows and knowing that no one can see me! 🙂

Also, we bought our first-ever air fryer, and because my husband loves a gadget, he's almost exclusively been the one to use it. And because it keeps setting off our smoke alarm, he's been obsessively cleaning it. He does a ton around our house in NYC, but cooking and washing the dishes is usually my domain! It's been a nice break for me.

And one more thing: I need to renew my passport, so yesterday we took my photo and then went to Walmart to get a money order to send with my application, and then we went to Office Depot to print out my application, and then we went to CVS to print out the photo, and then we went to the post office to mail everything. And everywhere we went, people were SO NICE. Employees went out of their way to help us at every store, like they were just INTERESTED in us and doing their jobs. People said hello to us when we walked into the stores. There are of course amazing employees in some NYC stores, but a lot of people act like saying hello to you even when you're literally standing in front of them at their register is just out of the realm of possibility. I don't know if people outside of NYC just have better manners or are just less tired because they don't have to deal with as many customers, but it is REFRESHING.

Okay, enough of my blathering, off to read your posts!

[nycnomad]

Tomorrow we fly from our little airport in Florida to Atlanta to San Francisco for my work trip, and I'm SO PUMPED to leave from here.

The airport is so small that I'm convinced we'll be, like, the only flight leaving from there at that time. I highly doubt they have Clear, which I live for at the NYC airports, but I don't think it even matters when the security line should be so short!

What's funny is that it actually takes a little longer to fly from Atlanta to San Francisco than from NYC, plus we have the layover, but I don't even caaaaaaaare. I'm so tired of my massively busy airports right now.

PLUS, I've been getting groped so much by TSA in NYC lately. It never happens anywhere else we go, but when we're leaving from one of the NYC airports, I ALWAYS get pulled aside for an "extra screening" that involves fully touching every single part of my torso and chest. It's actually not my favorite thing to have some woman rub her gloved hands along my lady parts early in the morning.

I assume it's because I've been extra fat this year, but the fact that no other city nor country feels the need to do this to me makes me a little grossed out by my own city. Just get better scanning machines if you're so worried about drug mules.

So, really looking forward to seeing if tomorrow is any better here in Florida! And looking forward to all of the snacks in the Atlanta airport lounge, of course.

[nycnomad]

I was feeling okay about leaving Florida on Friday, but then I woke up and saw these rays swimming close to shore and dolphins leaping in the water farther out. Sometimes it's just magical! I don't feel sad about leaving, just a little wistful.

I have to go to California for work, so we're flying to Napa on Friday for a long weekend and then flying back to NYC after my work events for Thanksgiving. And then, thank god, we're flying back here for most of December.

(It's not GREAT that no one's renting our condos in December since they're supposed to be investment properties first, but they make enough money during the high season in the summer that they pay for themselves even if the winter is slow. At least so far!)

The other night, I needed to return some jeans to Old Navy, so we drove to the little town square area here and returned them in person instead of mailing them back like I usually would. And then we did some shopping in the store, which I NEVER do. And then we went to Olive Garden to pick up a carside order. And it's like, I live right by an Old Navy back in NYC, and I can walk to a million restaurants in my neighborhood. But I don't ever go to that Old Navy, and I love not having to put on real clothes to grab food in the car.

I guess everyday things just seem so fun when they're novel to you!

[nycnomad]

Can you friggin' believe this water? 60 degrees today, so there's absolutely no one on the beach!

They took away the little huts yesterday where they rent chairs and umbrellas for the day, and our poolside tiki hut closed for the season, so I guess it's winter now!

I'll still be going on my sunset beach walks every day, and let's not forget that 85-degree pool.

[nycnomad]

Listen, I know this is crazy, but I keep having thoughts about things I might like to post on Tumblr.

I totally forget what I've even thought about writing here in the past few days! But I guess let me start by saying that we just arrived at one of our condos on the Florida panhandle last week, and it's still 80 degrees here, and our pool is heated to 85 degrees. I am very, very happy.

But maybe not being around any of my friends in NYC is making me want people to talk to. 🙂

[nycnomad]

I'm trying to grow out my hair and can't see anything half the time.

I've had a mullet (I believe the kids are calling it a wolf cut now, but let's be real, it's a mullet) for a few years, and I thought I'd be interested in seeing how I like having longer layers. I'm hoping it'll make my hair look BIGGER.

But now that I'm doing it, is it worth it?! It doesn't feel worth it most days!

[nycnomad]

So it was a couple of weeks into December when we decided that moving to Poland was probably too big a step for us. At the same time, I found out that my company would pay me $20k to move out of NYC, but I had to do it by December 31st. Obviously, we were like, “Should we move to Florida immediately?!”

I would get paid 15% less if we lived outside of NYC, but there’s no income tax in Florida, and the cost of living is of course much cheaper. Like, our condo in NYC costs about $1250/sqft, while our condos in Florida cost about $575/sqft. A cocktail in NYC is $16 at the very cheapest, while I can get a cocktail in our area of Florida for $10. Plus, whatever stock I get from my company while I live in NYC, the state will collect tax on it when I sell it even if I’m living in Florida at the time. It doesn’t make sense to earn money in NYC!

So we really, really started to talk about moving down to one of our Florida condos. We went out to dinner with J’s two best friends and told them what we were thinking, and I kind of thought they’d freak out, but they were actually like, “Good for you! Go live by the beach!” 

We talked to my cousin, who’s a realtor, about selling our NYC condo. How much we could get, if December is a terrible time to sell, if he would interview some NY real estate agents for us. We considered officially moving our address to Florida but hanging onto our condo until the spring when buyers are more motivated.

J told his parents what we were thinking, and I emailed a former boss of mine who recently moved from NJ to FL to ask what I would miss and if he regrets anything. I asked my current manager, who left San Francisco during the worst of COVID and bought a massive house in New Orleans, what to expect when moving from a huge city to the middle of nowhere. She said to expect a much better quality of life. 🙂

We were so serious about selling! But then J started having second thoughts. He’s lived in NYC most of his life, and he doesn’t feel comfortable around smalltown things like I do. Like, to me, there’s nothing more homey than a strip mall sushi bar with ample parking and all-white decor that stays white because 8.5 million people don’t live in the area. To J, it’s stifling.

He started thinking about how we’d never have any true friends in Florida, because everyone in our area is old and conservative. Our neighbors are all super nice, friendly for sure, but we’re just never going to be really close with people who are worried about trans people in their bathrooms or don’t think black lives matter. I, of course, said that any of our friends from back home will jump at the chance for a free stay at the beach whenever we offer. And that his parents would love to host us in NYC whenever we were willing to visit. 

I didn’t actually hate the idea of visiting NYC a few times a year and doing all of our favorite things. What fun to have a whirlwind week of lavish dinners and fancy drinks with our closest friends and maybe even do touristy things we never did while we lived there! 

But the final straw for J was that when we go on international trips, we always go on tours (mostly food tours, let’s be honest) where we meet people from all over the world. And there will always be someone in the group who’s lived in NYC or loves NYC, and I’m going to be honest, it feels like we usually get special attention because of it. And J said he just couldn’t imagine telling people that we’re from FLORIDA. 😂 It’s so funny, because he doesn’t usually like the limelight at all, and yet he apparently likes that a Berlin tour guide might take a shine to us! 

So to him, the $20k wasn’t worth it to have to say goodbye to New York RIGHT NOW, and I understand where he’s coming from. All this to say, I still officially live in NYC. But you can bet I’m enjoying the month and a half we’re in Florida this winter!

[nycnomad]

There was a moment while we were in Poland in November where J and I really thought we might move there. I just want to record this, because in retrospect, it’d wild how serious we were! There’s just so much to love there:

- J is from Warsaw, so most of his family lives there, and I could get my EU citizenship for fun if we lived there for two years. 

- We’d love for his parents to move back there from NYC since all of their friends are still in Poland. They’re also getting up there in years, and the healthcare would be free. If we lived there, they’d be more likely to take the plunge and move back.

- His sister lives there and is a doctor and has three dogs that we just adore and is very into the culture and is my exact age!

- It looks like a friggin’ fairytale all of the time, and yet it’s also really modern. Like, they have a good public transportation system and a budding tech industry and then also literal castles and forts in the center of the city.

- The food culture is so up my alley. They have all of the traditional Polish food that I love like dumplings and also dumplings and did I mention dumplings, but then they have all of the surrounding European food, too. And we even had very fancy sushi there this time! 

- It’s just NEAT being in Europe. Look at all of those weird mayonnaises above! And I could work on my Polish.

- It. is. stupidly. cheap. I know that living in NYC makes everything else cheap, but I just remember being at a trendy Italian place for lunch, and we had each eaten three courses, cocktails, and espressos, and the bill came out to $45 US after we left a crazy tip because the owner let us play with his French bulldog. $45 US is two cocktails in Brooklyn. If we could both keep our remote jobs and our NYC salaries, life in Warsaw would be very, very comfortable.  

We genuinely started looking at the sort of apartments that are available and found two we really loved right off the bat (1, 2). Huge balconies and neighborhoods we would love and a third of the price of our NYC place! 

But when we got home, we started thinking about how it would be a MAJOR change. I wouldn’t be able to have conversations with people in their native language, and we might have to work really weird hours if we kept our NYC jobs, and we’d be leaving all of our friends and my family way, way behind.

So that led us to our next plan! To be continued . . . 

[nycnomad]

I just did my longest fast in a WHILE!

Since the new year, I’ve been doing alternate day fasting, so: 40-hour fast, eat a meal or two for a day, 40-hour fast, eat a meal or two, and so on.

But I kept reading on the fasting subreddit how this basically makes you do the hardest part, the first 24 hours, over and over, so people don’t consider it optimal.

And I remember that in 2019, J and I were doing three-day fasts all of the time and LOVED it! We’d fast for three days and then meet some friends for a night out in NYC where we didn’t worry about calories or money because we had three extra days of both saved up. The dream!

So after we ate dinner on Tuesday, I set a goal for us to not eat again until Saturday morning. And it was shockingly easy! We used Key Nutrients electrolyte powder to stay hydrated and keep from getting cramps (the orange flavor is my favorite), and we kept busy with walks on the beach and YouTube stuff, and we just . . . didn’t eat.

I honestly only felt ~really~ hungry a few times, and gulping some water fixed that. It was mostly just annoying to not be able to look forward to the taste of food! I didn’t need it, I just wanted it because it’s delicious. I told J we really need to develop a non-food vice we can enjoy while fasting, like shopping or gambling. 😁

But the super fun part was getting to walk down to our favorite cafe on the beach on Saturday morning and reward ourselves for 86 hours of “hard work”! Our stomachs had of course shrunk, so we just shared a couple of things. Like that AMAZING peanut butter pie on the right!

And now I’m in the middle of a 72-hour fast. I feel so productive and just wanted to write this to remind myself that it’s NOT HARD and I REALLY ENJOY IT! Hoping my future self will re-read this if it ever feels too daunting. 🙂

[nycnomad]

The Dancer Catherine Woods and the Yogi Paul Cortez | True Crime Documentary

The true crime story of a man who ratted his girlfriend out to her dad before ending her life. Or was it her OTHER boyfriend, David Haughn?Please hit Subscri...

It’s been a while since I’ve done an update on my YouTubing! Last time I checked in, it was October 25th, I had 2196 subscribers, and I was just starting to make a cut of the revenue from ads shown during my videos. 

Today, I have 2,774 subscribers and have so far made a little over $150 from YouTube! It’s really sad in a way, because you put sooooooo much effort into researching a case and writing up the details and setting up all of the video and audio recording equipment and making yourself look presentable and editing the video and posting it on social media and all of the many, many little things that go along with all of that, and then in the end, you see that your video has made . . . $5.74. 

Right now, my highest-grossing video (Killer Sally) has earned a little over $55, and I’m really proud of that! But it’s hard to imagine when it would ever be worth it to give up a six-figure salary to do this full time. I’ve seen people say that at 100k subscribers, you can expect to make a decent living at YouTubing, and I know at least one person who’s doing it at 60k subscribers. But even 60k seems a loooooooong way away at this point. 

I’m so grateful that 2000+ strangers are watching me, but I feel frustrated by the low numbers sometimes, because I THINK we’re making good content. The folks on the NewTubers subreddit are always saying that if you’re not succeeding, it’s because you’re not making quality videos. I have this idea that I should maybe do an advertisement somewhere, because if people just saw a video, they would subscribe. But maybe I’m delusional! 

I follow another true crime channel that had 30k followers just a few months in and now has almost 100k after not even a full year, and I just am not sure how what he’s doing is so much better than what we’re doing. I stalked him on Reddit and saw that he promoted himself in several posts in true crime communities and is very active on his Community tab on YouTube (where you can post articles or polls and ask questions of your subscribers), but I can’t imagine that those small things are getting him 98k more subscribers than I have. But he has SOME sort of magic that I don’t have.

I don’t want to be down on myself but also want to make sure I’m open to ways I can improve and where I’m dropping the ball! 

[nycnomad]

Is there a good way to track my calorie deficit for the week? 

I have a FitBit to track my calories out and MyFitnessPal to track my calories in, but I don’t seem to have a good idea of how they match up.

Like, right now, I’m doing some fasting, so I eat four days a week, usually about 2000 calories each time. And according to FitBit, I burn about 2500 calories a day. 

So that’s about 8000 calories in and 17,500 calories out, or a deficit of 9500. If a pound is 3500 calories, I should be losing about 3 pounds a week.

But I sure would like to see that on a nice pretty app or graph somewhere! Any ideas?

[nycnomad]

I’ve been fasting! I’ve been doing alternate day fasts where I eat dinner one day, skip a day of eating, and then eat the day after when I feel like it. It usually ends up being 40-42 hours of fasting. If you’ll notice above, I even fasted through Christmas. 😁 

I really just like doing it. It’s a mental struggle to know that I have to go a whole day without eating, and I do get hungry sometimes. But it’s fun to think about what I’ll get to eat the next day, and the health benefits are legit. When I get hungry, I just drink water. It works. 

But oh man, I made the mistake of mentioning my fasting to some “normal” girls from work the other day who have become my IRL friends. I told them I was at T.J. Maxx looking for lampshades, and one of them told me not to sleep on the snacks there. I said I didn’t even look because I’m fasting. Should have known better!

One of them said, “Fasting is no good, silly,” and the other said, “Be nice to yourself!” And I get it, these are women who diligently do their cardio and carefully consider whatever miracle cure the celebrity of the moment is hawking. But I really like looking into alternative ways of eating and hormones and hunger signals and all that. You know, weird girl stuff for weird girls like us.

I always say this, but I wish I was the embodiment of how much health and diet information I have and am interested in. It’s hard to be like, “Trust me, I’m doing a good thing,” when you’re the fat friend. I know what’s good for me; I just often ignore it when I’m off having a good time. 😁

But I told them that fasting is good for blood sugar, metabolism, and fat burning, and there’s some evidence in rats that it prevents cancer, and they left me alone and moved on to how we should do plastic surgery instead of diets. God bless.

[nycnomad]

I say that everything was good here when we arrived, but you know we can’t help but do things. So far, we:

- installed the same bidet I have at home on one toilet because we’re tired of being without one here and don’t care how weird renters may think it is, because they need to get with the TIMES

- leveled the toilet in this condo and caulked around it before discovering that it was making noise not because it wasn’t level but because the tank just needed to be tightened to the bowl 🤦‍♀️

- bought a new collapsible box spring to install, because we’re pretty sure our property manager replaced one of the two twin box springs under the king bed with a new one that’s slightly lower than the original one and is making the mattress feel wonky

- wiped down everything leather with cleaner and moisturizer even though it’s 150% humidity here at all times

- bought new pillows for the owner’s bedroom (is that what we’re calling the master bedroom now?)

- descaled the Keurig even though I’ve never once actively cleaned my Nespresso machine at home, so don’t drink coffee at my house if that bothers you 😁

- bought a wall protector for behind the front door and replaced all of the little springy door stopper thingies around the place because people LOVE to just throw open doors around here, apparently

- bought power outlet covers with built-in nightlights because people always steal our nightlights (just hoping they now don’t unscrew the whole outlet cover to steal that instead!)

- went to Home Depot, Walmart, Target, HomeGoods, Jo-Ann, Ross, T.J. Maxx, and Big Lots looking for lampshades, but no one has lampshades! I guess people are just out there buying whole lamps because their renters DON’T smash their lampshades? Weird.

- bought this chair and this chair to replace the very cute sea life armchairs in one of our units that have just seen better days, because we’re learning that even booking one more renter a year will absolutely pay for whatever improvement you did to bring them in

So yeah, we’ve done some stuff! And it’s been fun! I think we feel so motivated here partly because we’re doing things that will make us money and partly because we have NOTHING ELSE GOING ON. 

A cleaner cleans up after us here, and we have no friends here to do anything with! No one is asking us to go out to dinner, no one wants me to come hang out at the office for a day, J’s parents can’t guilt us into coming over. We have basically no responsibilities!

Perhaps that’s why being here always feels like a vacation even though we work the whole time. 🙂

[nycnomad]

We’re in Florida now! We drove from Charleston on New Year’s Day to stay at one of the two condos we have here as investment properties/short term rentals. 

You may remember that I’m usually horrified any time we stop by, because we have a property management company, but god bless them, they’re just not as eagle-eyed as I want them to be. I always find random marks on the wall that I would’ve cleaned off, or a lightbulb is out, or a lampshade is randomly smashed on one side in a way that’s completely baffling. But this time, everything was GOOD! The beachy tchotchkes weren’t exactly spread out around the place like I’d like them, but hey, at least they weren’t stolen. (Nothing to test your faith in humanity like renting out your home.)

We blocked off a week for ourselves at first, but it turns out the building is painting everyone’s balconies, and all of them have to be closed off for at least the next month. We wouldn’t really want to rent to anyone when they’re not allowed out on the balcony, so it looks like we’re here for a while! It’s driving me mad that I can’t go out and soak up the sun a few times a day while I try to avoid work, so instead I just stand with my face pressed up against the glass and stare at the guys painting the balconies as they go by on their ropes. 

We’ve been going for a walk every day at sunset, and it’s been in the high 60s or low 70s, so I’ll sometimes just wear my swimsuit and get LOOKS from all of the old people in their jackets and hats. That’s summertime weather, baby! 🌞

[nycnomad]

I would follow an account that was just good book cover art.

I’m not going to read the books, so it doesn’t matter if they’re good or not. (I won’t make excuses, I just prioritize other things.)

But book covers these days are such a delight to look at, am I right?

[nycnomad]

I keep wanting to write about things currently going on in my life, so I should just write a quick catch-up post to get me current!

At the end of November, J and I went to 1) Warsaw, 2) Amsterdam, 3) Berlin, and back to Warsaw to spend Thanksgiving with his family there. 

4) We then went to Napa because I had to be in San Francisco for work for a minute, and we ate at Casey Thompson from Top Chef’s restaurant and 5) did a bunch of wine tastings, including at the two vineyards where we have memberships! 6) Then we came back to NYC for two weeks to see my favorite band on their farewell tour and 7) spend a bunch of time with our NYC friends! 8) Then we drove down to Charleston, South Carolina, to meet up with my BFF and her husband for a couple of days including New Year’s Eve and 9) to see my favorite band since the year NINETEEN NINETY-EIGHT play their last show ever. It was so sad and so beautiful, and I don’t mean this as a slight to anyone else, but I felt so absolutely blessed that we were able to travel there together because we all work remotely and have so few responsibilities. We don’t have kids, and they have a trusted cat sitter, and it just made me feel really lucky. 🙂 

Okay, there’s two months of life, phew!

[nycnomad]

We’ve had such fun NYC-y moments lately! 

1) Our friend invited us to Queens the other night for Thai food, but we first stopped at this new secret cocktail bar he’d heard about. We were the only people there, so I started talking to the owner purely to not make him awkwardly stand around with nothing to do. Well, seven hours later, we were still at the bar, the owner had been making up new cocktails for us and then topping them off over and over again, his husband came up and also became our best friend, a deaf guy came in and I asked him if he’d seen the deaf guy episode of “Dahmer” because I was drunk but then he also became our best friend, J left to go get takeout with the owner’s husband and can’t remember how he managed to order anything, and I remembered later that I threw up in the bathroom at some point but am not sure if it was before or after the takeout. Good times!

2) We early voted, and I look absolutely terrible in this photo, but look how pretty the city looks behind us. I really hate having to go to bed so early so I can wake up early when I’m a natural night owl, but our morning walks just get the day going so perfectly.

3) We went to Staten Island to visit our friend’s favorite Spanish restaurant. The picture above is of the tapas platter J and I got. It was amazing. That’s all.

4) J and I shot a wedding reception on Saturday deep in Brooklyn, and it was mostly Irish people who had actually come over from Ireland for the party. They got SO excited when the DJ played Chumbawamba. 😂 I wore my Chuck Taylors that day for the first time in a LONG time to see if I wanted to bring them on our next vacation, but they’re too small and ended up hurting me. So on our walk home from the subway to our place, we stopped at a shoe store and got me bigger ones. And I don’t know, it just felt really New York-y to me. Walking from the subway, passing by a store that you can just pop into because you’re walking, carrying all of my camera gear because we’re photographers. I don’t know if that makes sense. But I liked it.

We’re leaving for that trip tonight with my new shoes! It’s TWO AND A HALF WEEKS in Europe. What kind of person am I that I had the guts to ask for more than two weeks off from work?! We totally just did it on a whim because J’s parents were going to Poland. So yes, I’m taking an 8-hour flight to Poland with my in-laws tonight. Pray for me.