Home Alone: New Year's Day, 1993

During my senior year of college, I graduated a semester early -- in December instead of waiting until May -- in order to save money.

I'd spent a lot of college studying and trying to get it all done in three and a half semesters. And it worked.

But when December arrived, I had a new problem: I didn't know what the heck to do next.

The presidential election had just ended, and I cared about politics. I also knew I wanted to be a writer, and mostly likely would apply for publishing jobs in NYC. However, taking the train or bus to NYC for interviews and back was expensive and took an entire day. Some of the interviewers would say, "You came all the way up here from Philadelphia?" and look at me with pity. This didn't help me get the job. (Yes, it did say Philly on my resume, but sometimes the interviewers didn't notice it until the HR people handed them the document.)

I realized that it would be a lot easier to find a job if I actually already lived in NYC. But of course, without a job, it was hard to get an apartment. And certainly hard to pay a deposit and a month's rent.

Besides, I could stay in Philly and relax for a semester, put off the "real world" a little bit.

But I still needed a source of income, and a place to live.

My student status was about to run out. I stayed at my dad's in New Jersey through Xmas, but there wasn't a lot of room there, what with two stepsiblings. I came back to campus and was glad to see that my student ID to the high rise dorm I lived in still worked. I shared a three-bedroom with two roommates. But they were supposed to get a new roommate starting in January. So I'd already packed up my stuff. Some of my boxes were in the closet, and some were at my dad's. I slept on the couch in the living room of the dorm room.

During the rest of winter break, I was alone. Every time I slid my card through the card-reader in my dorm, I was scared it would suddenly stop working.

Finally, it stopped around Dec. 31. When it didn't go through, the security person recognized me and shrugged. "I don't know what's wrong with it," she said. "You live here." She buzzed me in.

Once classes started again, I'd have to hope friends were around to sign me in. But for a day or two, I just pretended I didn't know what was wrong with my card. And I slept on the couch in my dorm room on the 17th floor of my high rise.

Meanwhile, campus was pretty much empty. There was a rooftop lounge in my dorm with walls that were all glass, and I could climb up there and gaze on the buildings of Center City, Phila, read the lit-up messages scrolling across the Philadelphia Electric Company building. Early on New Year's Eve, I went up there and looked around, but there was a couple looking at the lights of the skyline, holding hands. I decided not to intrude. I went back downstairs to my dorm room.

I felt very alone. I didn't have any friends on campus at the moment, hadn't done much dating -- so of course there was no significant other -- and didn't have anyone really worrying about me or where I would live next, except me.

Where should I live? What should I do? And how could I move anywhere if I didn't have a job lined up there?

I used the campus computer room, one where you only had to show ID and not slide it through a card reader, and printed out resumes to send to publishing companies and PR outfits in NYC, Philadelphia, and DC. I applied to any job where I might get to write or edit.

On New Year's Eve, I decided that since Home Alone II was out, I would take myself to see it.

The theater was a block from my dorm, so it wasn't a far walk. It was a cold night, and the multicolored flyers from the wooden kiosks waved in the breeze. I plunked down my four bucks for the movie (it was a cheap theater) and sat and watched "Home Alone II." I enjoyed it.

In "Home Alone II: Lost in New York," a dove and a homeless woman played into the story. It was a sweet tale that gave me hope during a confusing time in my life.

When I was walking back to my dorm, I passed a homeless woman whom everyone saw on campus almost every day. She was a regular. She always gave the same spiel: "Hi, I'm selling these paintings to support myself." Her paintings were on 8x11 paper. I'd seen her since freshman year and never gave her any money. But I had always told myself that when I had graduated, I'd finally give her a few bucks.

So that time had come. I handed her a few bucks, and she gave me one of her paintings. It was a painting of a dove!

I went back home, taped it to the door of my dorm room, and felt glad to be warm and inside.

A few days later, one of my roommates came back and told me about a three-day-per-week temp job in downtown Phila. I could use the other two days per week to go on job interviews or just enjoy campus life.

And that's what I did for the next few months. I saw an ad in the Daily Pennsylvanian for a room for rent just off campus for $275 a month with a chemistry grad student. I went downtown to Odd Lot and bought a futon cushion for $30 and brought it back uptown via the subway, and slept on that.

In May, I heard from a former boss that a girl who had graduated a year behind me had a room for rent in Weehawken, NJ, which was directly across from New York City. The room was only $330 per month! It was so close to NYC, she said, that you could even see some of the Empire State Building from her bathroom. I called her up, saw the place, and put down a deposit.

On a weekend at my dad's, I bought a used car for $875 with some of the money I'd saved working in Philadelphia. I loaded my boxes into the car, hauled them up to Weehawken, and began temping in the New York City area. A year later, I found a job in journalism I liked. I've been here ever since.