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 Grylliade Thanksgiving. 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.

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.