At first, the requirement to create content drives me. It inspires me. The topics are as mundane as always, but they’re infused with that certain-something thing that I wish I could reference with utter sincerity. That is one of the first things you should know about me. At least half of what I say is tongue in cheek. Most of the time I am being strictly ironic when I use the vernacular. (I will purposefully use “like” to emphasis a point and hide its’ seriousness in one syllable)

I used to find a lot of things to write about. Life DID feel like magic. I don’t need the entries as evidence, because I remember, but the entries are proof that I used to able to talk about certain-somethings without the slightest bit of irony.

[EDIT] I have posted a bunch of stuff from my paper journals, which has thrown off my post count. I feel the need to note that here [EDIT]

I have written 1,166 posts. This makes 1,167. Some of those are private and I’ve definitely deleted posts altogether, but still, that’s not so many posts for seven years. That’s about 166 posts a year. About a post every three days. When I say it like that, it does sound like a lot, as if my life would be completely and accurately (ha!) documented here. But it’s not. It’s missing the months I spent in Europe in 2003 (although I did write that all down and the journal is Somewhere) and when things are stuck, like now, I’m less inclined to write.  And then there are all the things that I hid from myself that I still can’t bring myself to blog publically about.

So I’m sitting here, on a Thursday morning, blogging about blogging, because NaBloPoMo exists, and gives me an excuse to write things like this. I have to post every day for 30 days, and hey, a post about posting makes one! Great!

But it’s more than that. I thoroughly (and unsuitably) miss my old audience. HWSNBN, for all his flaws, and for all the ways in which the situation with him was bad for my sanity and self-esteem and whatever, got me to write. He is the one who made me feel like writing down all these words was actually important. Which is also ironic, because I don’t think he ever really gave a damn about anything I said. And I cringe when I think of those essays I wrote back in 2004-2005 that I let him read.

Things between us ended so long ago – five years ago, actually. But there is so much of him in so many things I do. He is, after all, how I wound up in NYC in the first place. Five years ago, I remember writing something about how it was so confusing to let the same hands that pushed you away, pull you back up. He was always the master of mixed signals (and I, admittedly, was the queen of selective hearing) and for all the ways in which he made me weak, he made me believe in things again. And for that, I still miss him sometimes.

So Evan, this is for you. Because it’s a Thursday morning, it feels like summer, Skidmore won’t stop sending me emails, I miss the city, I’m trying to cull together words that collectively Mean Something and I’m wearing khakis and that makes me think of you.

A pile of half written posts sit in my drafts folder. Ones that, I swear to god, go past the whining and complaining. This past week has gotten to me, in little ways I didn’t expect it to. This happened once before, just before Christmas. I’m experiencing a similar sort of discombobulation.

And then also; May is going to suck. So much is going on at work. I’ll make some money from overtime, but I also haven’t applied to one job this week and the whole month of May is looking to be the same type of frentic pace. And also; it’s already May.

Last night, in one of my half written drafts, I started to think about a May, a ten years ago May, a May that was dreaded and referred to only in hushed tones, but that, when it arrived, my utter impatience had already forced the issues and dealt with the fallout, which softened the blow and it was anti-climatic. I think of six years ago May, which was eerily the same, in which I viewed more sunrises than in the rest of my life combined and drank black coffee at 2 in the morning. Four years ago May was about silence and quiet regrouping and the beginning of the best of times. Two years ago May was bold faced lies to myself and everyone around me as I pretended to get well.

While one year ago May was just about survival, this May was supposed to be about another beginning. I warned Keithers that I might not have a job by May, that the job market was tough, but really, I’m pretty sure that a part of me was sure I’d have a job in DC by now. In February, May always seems far away and like a time when things will be different.

This May is about false hopes and real, but vague longing and trying not to get depressed about my 27th birthday. May reminds me of New York and makes me desperately miss lunch breaks in Midtown and the way the city shimmers at 9PM on a Thursday and it makes me ask “DC who?” This May is weekends at work, for overtime pay to stash away for a financially secure exit to who the hell knows where, and brings the reminder that I’m not going anywhere this summer except back and forth on the oh-so-familiar curves of Route 287.

April is allegedly the cruelest month, but I can’t find a one word way to sum up May. I just want to get through these thirty-one days. Starting the countdown from today.

I have this long, sappy post that I wrote Friday morning while on the train down to DC, that I’ll probably post (and backdate) later. I spent Thursday night with (most of) my favorite people on the planet, playing trivia. None of this would mean anything without them, so I was very happy we were all able to get together.

Friday, I took the train into the city and as usual, had time to kill before my train to DC. I was walking around Penn Station, having my usual internal freak out about how the city still feels like home, and I have this deep, visceral love for it that can’t be put into words, and why am I trying so hard for DC when NYC is home? I can’t describe it, but even in the blocks around Penn Station, where no respectable native would find themselves for any longer than necessary, there is just something that feels right.

(For the record, even if NYC is home, it’s home in an entirely different way than Jersey is. )

And then I got to DC, and the weather was beautiful, and I spent Saturday evening walking around the Capitol Hill north district with Michael, and I thought “Well…I guess I could do this too.”

I like to project, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Anyway, the weekend was quite nice and it was very good to get out of Jersey for the weekend, even though getting back on Sunday was a hassle. Now I’m back at work and it’s rainy, and I hate the federal government. Basically, they’ve taken all the worst aspects of the U.S. Healthcare system and found a way to make them worse in one ridiculous, ineffectual bill. My prediction is that anyone who currently has issues affording healthcare will still have issues affording healthcare 5 years from now. Also, if the rhetoric-realism chasm is too deep and allows for Sarah Palin to step in and win in 2012 I…well, I’ don’t know what I’ll do. Probably write an outraged blog entry about it.

Grawrl. I’m conflicted on who to side with. Just reading facebook statuses from both sides of the argument last night was frustrating.  I don’t believe health care/insurance is a fundamental right, but I also don’t believe that the Obamacare is shades of socialism. But I don’t think it’s anything to celebrate, regardless of which side of the issue you fall on.

I don’t mean to go on blogging breaks, but work has been insane, and then, what do I have to say, really? I am still stuck. Oh, and it’s Saturday night, and I have no plans besides picking up some sushi, doing some laundry, and the SVU marathon.

I have basically become ok with the fact that my weekends are like this. I have gotten past judging them as “pathetic” and making self deprecating comments about them. I would just rather be spending my weekends doing nothing in DC (or NYC) and then I would have the option to do something that wasn’t nothing.

I think I might want DC like the way I wanted New York when I got out of college. Back then, I was also craving independence and the opportunity for a social life, to be sure, but I wanted New York because of HWSNBN. I think I want DC, and there’s not even a boy there. I suppose my therapist would say this is progress. Of course, it’s entirely possible that I have just forced myself to not want NYC, because I know that career wise, DC is the only place that makes sense right now. And, given that, there’s no use wanting what you can’t have, or torturing yourself with what cannot be.

HWSNBN still texts me very occasionally. He asked back in September when I’d be in the city next. I said December. He told me to let him know when, but I never did. I didn’t see the point, really, and also all the vain, shallow reasons like I want to be nothing but 100% together if I ever see him again.

So for now, I’m not quite sure what I’m doing. I have a phone interview on Monday for an organization that pays probably half of what my current job does, and who’s political orientation is possibly opposite of my own. Still, they do some interesting work in the security/foreign policy realm, so I’ll give it a chance to see what happens. Already, in my head I’m making excuses for why this is a terrible idea to even consider, and of course this is mere projection, because the phone interview hasn’t even happened yet.

When I moved to New York, I was actually pretty gutsy. Despite growing up 30 minutes away, I didn’t know the city, and I certainly didn’t know the boroughs. I spent the first half of the summer of 2005 job hunting and apartment hunting in the sweltering heat. I learned the neighborhoods of Brooklyn (where I never wound up living) by google map directions and walking. I learned the subway by following the colored lines on the map with my finger. HWSNBN and I were long over, and I didn’t have any friends in the city. I just did it.

“You have to take a step before you’re ready. Because if you wait to be ready, you’ll never take that step. “

Perhaps I would do well to remember this.

My feet are killing me from walking around the city in high heeled, pointy-toed boots. Michael was late meeting me, so I killed time by wandering around Union Square. I’d forgotten about the Union Square market, that makes the area even more of a people-traffic nightmare.

But anyway, Michael finally arrived, we got delicious Indian food, walked down by the Brooklyn Bridge (at his request. It was ridiculously windy and also boots not meant for walking) and got coffee. We were already in Tribeca, so I decided to just find the WTC PATH station. It seems to have lost the spell of HWSNBN. However, I had also forgotten that the PATH weekend service has been cut even MORE if that were possibly. It’s incredibly inconvenient to get to Hoboken Train Station from WTC on a weekend. I hate the PATH.

Also, taking the train in/out of the city is the only time I buy semi-trashy magazines anymore because even though they are the exact same thing as when I was 16,  they keep me from throwing murderous gazes at parents who let their little children SHRIEK the entire train ride.

I’m wearing a black polo shirt with a red cardigan and the guy at the register at Express told me I was wearing the “Black Friday uniform.” (he was wearing Black and Red, and was dressed like a hipster)

I went and got yet another suiting option for the interview next week. Because I am obsessive, even though I have THREE perfectly lovely options, I am annoyed because I cannot find black pinstripes. I have black pinstripe pants, and can’t find a blazer to go with them. I was willing to start from scratch, but I haven’t been able to find anything.

I have bought more, thought more about, and written more about clothes in the past month and a half than in possibly my entire life. It’s like wanting to play dress-up.

It’s too late to take a nap, but I’m tired. I’ll be up earlyish tomorrow for an appointment, and then I’m going into the city to meet up with Michael. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been in the city in the past year and each of them has been weird.

Other Things That Are Bothering Me:

1) My interview is in a week and that is not enough time for my ragged, bitten fingernails to be improved. I know the only solution is “stop biting your nails” but I don’t even realize I’m doing it half the time. And I’ve tried the disgusting tasting nail polish, but I’m so dedicated that I still bit my nails, even when wearing it. Anyway, I know that people are judged on appearances in interviews, so I am hoping I can remember to keep my hands positioned so as to hide my fingertips as much as possible.

2) For some reason I am slightly nervous about trip logistics, even though I have been to DC via train a number of times, and I’m going down a day early, so even a delay is not the end of the world.

3) Admittedly, the city sometimes still makes me think of/miss HWSNBN. He was the one who introduced me to the city, for real, and I never would have moved there if it weren’t for him, and even though it has been years, sometimes it still hits me when I’m taking the PATH in.

4) I am going through the West Wing WAY TOO FAST. Ok, it’s really good, so I’ll probably want to re-watch the whole thing anyway, right? And I’ll want to watch all the commentaries/extras?

A ridiculously overwrought reflection on NYC

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It’s been a rough week. Work has been crazy busy (in a somewhat good way). I had a stressful week regarding ride arrangement and some massive Fail. Oh and then I screwed something up at work and nearly gave my boss a heart attack and have spent the last 12 hours obsessing about it. Of course, this screw up happened about 30 minutes after I told my boss of my plans to apply for Libertarian-esque Fellowship and asked if he would serve as a reference. My timing is impeccable.

I basically spent last night fretting over aforementioned work mistake and babbling about my work mistake to a couple friends. Diagnosis: “You’re just being Rachel.”

I admit, it makes me smile a little that there are people who know me well enough that “Being Rachel” is a catch-all for my delightful neuroses.  I am actually far better than I used to be. I was able to watch Flash Forward and L&O SVU last night when in the past I would deny myself anything enjoyable until I knew for 100% certainty that whatever I was fretting about was resolved.

And now it’s Friday. I would really like to do something productive this weekend. Or, just to be novel, something fun. I am so sick of suburban New Jersey and general isolation. I miss NYC. And while this Libertarian-esque fellowship I’m applying for would be the best thing in the world for me, professionally, if I got it, it would mean NYC is at least that much further away.

It is cold in my office. If I say that, than it really MUST be cold, because I am always hot. My toes are cold, but this is because I insist on wearing flipflops. This summer, I have worn the uniform of jeans + tshirt + flipflops to work nearly every day, because I have Old Navy flip flops in 6 different colors (a joke birthday present from my mother) and I have t-shirts and polos in those 6 different colors to match.

Matching flip flops to your t-shirt is, I suspect, not very high fashion. In fact, I think it may fall under slightly more insulting titles than merely “bad fashion sense.”

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About a year ago, I thought I would be maybe, possibly applying for Law School this fall. It quickly became clear that my head was in no way clear enough to begin the process. And also, um…I’m not sure I want to go to Law School. I have moments where it seems like a great idea, but also moments where I think “why the hell would I want to go to Law School?” 

The problem is that Law School has begun to seem like an inevitable instead of a want. 

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Sometimes. Only somtimes. And this is one of those times, because it would make planning/doing anything a whole hell of a lot easier.

Take the second annual Message Board of Note Thanksgiving gathering. Yes O-L-B will be there. Yes, I want to go anyway, because other people who are awesome will be there, and I think with them as a buffer I can deal with the situation just fine.

But it’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving. And it’s NYC, so that means the thing starts late. Which means getting home is a giant major pain, because NJ Transit sucks, it means I’ll have to leave early, blah blah blah, the whole thing seems more trouble than its worth.

I need to be filthy rich, so I can live somewhere else, and keep an apartment in the city for times like this. Of course, by that logic, I’d be filthy rich, and I wouldn’t have to worry about so I could just live in the city and bum around collecting degress in, say Russian history or whatever.

So I need to decide if this thing is worth the hassle of going, and then I need a game plan for how best to not let OLB get to me while I’m there.

I miss loving New York, if that makes any sense.

The rest of the weekend was interesting. It included a drunk dial from HWSNBN, a text message from Dru that made me smile a ridiculous amount, and other grylliade-goodness, and just hanging around Astoria.

Friday, I met up with Michael. Michael had been staying with his boyfriend, but had broken up with him that morning. So we took a long walk through the East Village/Alphabet City, SoHo, etc. Michael suggested we stop & just chill out out in the cafe at the Whole Foods on E. Bway, and I was all snobby, like “Your’e going to come to New York and hang out in a whole foods?!?!” He was amused, laughed, and said “There’s the Rachel I know & love.” Once again, ti’s good to feel like myself again.

We walked some more and wound up at a cafe somewhere off 7th Ave on Bank Street. It was very good to catch up with Michael. He vented about his situation with his boyfriend and how he didn’t want to end things, but he couldn’t see things changing.

“Sometimes doing the right thing feels awful, but it’s better than doing the wrong thing” Those are the words Brent told me after I “ended’ things with HWSNBN, omg, back in the summer of 2004, FOUR YEARS AGO OMG I AM SO OLD.

We also talked about what I’d been venting about to Jim – how you shouldn’t have to work to get some one to like you. Relationships of all kinds take work. YOu do your best and they do their best, presumably. And if they’re not, you get the hell out.

Even though OLB was a repeat of my MO, at least I got out after 4 months instead of letting it drag — and even 4 months was pushing it.

Anyway, I saw Michael off to Port Authority — he just wanted to get home. That night, I wathced firework from the roof. Before the big Macy’s show you could see fireworks from other, smaller shows (Southport, Bronx, etc) plenty of do-it-yourself ones from nearby. I chatted with the guys on the neighboring roof, yay for meeting neighbors!

Late-late Friday night, i got a VERY interesting voicemail from HWSNBN. And then he drunk dialed me again and um…that was…interesting. He was trashed and I totally played that for all it was worth, basically taunting him with the fact that he could have had me anytime he wanted and he totally blew it. Anyway, I take the whole thing as a grain of salt, but still so entertaining. I still don’t quite get why now, since we broke up 4 years ago, but whatever, I’m not offended.

I’m so bored. The office is quiet and empty due to a staff retreat. I think I’ve already annoyed Drew, David, and Kevin enough with my incessant messaging but I am so bored. And as my recent LiveJournal history shows, I have lost the ability to write. Not that I had it too much to begin with, but I at least used to be able to waste a good amount of time composing articulate entries.

This morning, I got up early and finally got my computer to the Apple Store. When I lived in Chicago, it was not an exaggeration to say that besides my apartment and office, I spent more time at the Apple Store than anywhere else in Chicago. Well, the stupid Macbook continues to be cursed. Luckily this time it was just a case of replacing the battery. The Apple Store on 5th Avenue is fairly insane. I was leaving at about 8:45 AM, and going up the stairs to get out was similar to fighting my way up a crowded subway station stairwell; there were that many people going into the store.

I don’t get it.

It’s the American Way!

Around lunch time, we noticed that news trucks were beginning to gather around my office building. There was nothing on CNN or the like yet.

And of course it was this:  “Gov. Eliot Spitzer has told senior advisers that he had been involved in a prostitution ring”

(The Governor has his NYC office in my building)

NY Post this morning: ‘HO NO!

Ah NY Post. You can always count on them.

I have a snow day today, because my office is extremely cautious, and today would have been a short day anyway. (we get off early on Fridays in the winter because of the sabbath) But seriously, I’m the only one I know in NYC with a snow day. The only other time we had major wintery weather this year, my office sent us home early.

I’m not complaining. I took a walk around my neighborhood this morning and it was snowing heavily, and quite quiet, and I like seeing the N/W train speed by in the snow. Now I’m at home, making garlic vegetable soup, watching the news, and planning on napping soon.

Considering I don’t care about football in the lease, I am way too happy that the Giants won the super bowl.

1)       They are technically the NEW JERSEY Giants. They play in New Jersey

2)       They beat Boston. I HATE  all things Boston

3)       They were the underdogs. I am a sucker for the underdog, because I am such a girl.