Snow! Not from today, though. This picture is from February 2006, taken out of my then-bedroom window, the morning after the massive, record-breaking blizzard that hit NYC hard. That was my favorite snowstorm ever, and here’s why. My roommate (the ninja) and I invited some of our friends from the building over for an impromptu blizzard party when it became clear we wouldn’t be able to leave anytime soon. Though we were well stocked with vodka and rum and illegally imported absinthe, we ran out of mixers at 2 a.m., so three of us walked, sloshily through the ankle-high slush, to the corner bodega to get soda. When we got back, my roommate (the ninja) holed herself up in our bathroom to smoke up for hours on end. Around daybreak - what there was of it, anyway, slipping in between the lingering clouds - I chased everyone back to their own apartments and went to sleep. When I woke up in the later morning, the first thing I discovered was that my roommate had left the bathroom window open, and we’d accumulated an impressive number of indoor snow drifts. The second thing I discovered was that our ancient building’s heater had died sometime in the night, and we had no hot water and no heat. I got dressed, taping plastic bags to my feet and legs in a rough approximation of the rainboots I sadly lacked at the time, and headed downstairs, intent on slipsliding uphill five blocks through the now-knee-high snow to get to the gym and take a hot shower. In the lobby, I spotted my own personal Bigfoot, the skinny Korean boy who would routinely skulk around our building clad only in tightie whities, a boybeater, socks pulled up to his knees, and flipflops. None of my roommates had ever seen him, and in fact were starting to suspect he was a figment of my imagination. There he was, in his usual attire, heading outside. He paused outside the door, threw his hands up in the air, smiled, and headed off towards Amsterdam in too cheerful a manner for someone who was wading through the snow in his underwear. I never saw him after that - I can only assume that he either froze to death in Morningside Park, or he really was a figment of my imagination. At any rate, I went to the gym, took my shower, came home, and shoveled the snow drifts out of our bathroom. Our heat and hot water came back on two days later.
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