I wasn’t thinking about progress, though, as I got ready for the storm to hit. A lot of things were going through my head as I lay in bed, with Pollock whining, breaking my heart. The city hadn’t progressed much in a way that could combat the storms. All of us knew to get out, most of us had places to go. The ones who didn’t, I felt bad, but I didn’t feel that bad. I mean, when the last storm hit, I felt this twinge because my friends from the city and I went to my dad’s in-state compound and had a fabuleux time, weathering the storm, drinking mojitos, doing move. I felt kind of bad, later, having had a party when people were suffering. But people who stayed in the city were doing the same thing. When I got back I asked the guy who does my laundry what he had done, and he said, “Had a storm party.” We talked for a while. I talk to everybody, I’m just that kind of person. And his party wasn’t so much different than ours—drinking, drugs. The only difference was that he had stayed, and we had left. I still felt a little bad, though, when I realized that things had been a little worse than I’d thought they would be. I gave one of my paintings to an auction for charity. It was a painting that I loved, too, but I felt good helping people who had less.

I’d tried to get ready for Bernice, throwing things in boxes that I would have driven in-state with me. Then I thought back to the second storm, Maxwell, that had happened after I bought my little apartment in the Lower East Side. That’s when I laid down.

My apartment is the dream space I’ve always wanted to have since I moved to New York. It’s a beau ground-floor two-bedroom in a historic building. It’s just so quaint that I couldn’t resist buying it when it came up for sale. My dad said it wasn’t the greatest investment, that I should have got myself a condo in a newer building, or a place in somewhere up-and-coming, like Allentown. But that’s totally hypocritical, because he invests in these buildings all the way out in Brooklyn, which he says are safe because they’re so far in. But, anyway, this building that I bought my apartment in had this brown brick facade, and a big kitchen that I redid (not that I cook a lot, but I’m always hoping that someday I’ll meet someone who does), and two bedrooms with windows that let in the morning sun and open into this raggedy little garden below that all the neighbors are crazy for and take care of like we’re in the suburbs or something. It’s so cute and quaint.