Di-Annie Get Your Gun

This morning, in dream land, I toured a one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn: it was absolute heaven. My subconscious arranged everything in the apartment as I would have: library-sized bookcases with a classic rolling ladder, massive granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances, shiny hardwood floors and, even more rare in NYC, a little patch of grass to call my own.

Assuming my dreams also provided a wallet the size of the hoover damn, yearning to burst and spew twenties all over the floor of this mini palace, everything was in order. I only had one question: "So what is the neighborhood like?"

With the almost-comic, matter-of-fact enthusiasm only a New York broker can muster (usually while telling you it's a good thing your apartment has one window and no closet), she said: "That's what the shot gun is for".



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Enough Already

According to my most trusted source, Facebook, about 20% of my friends are either engaged or married. This calls for the definitive acronym of my generation:

wtf?

No one I really know on Facebook is over 25. How then can they all be getting hitched? Have I become so "citified" that I think everyone has to get married at 40 and pump themselves full of fertility drugs to have their first baby at 50?

Am I going to be the childless, lonely, (though rich) woman in the back of the room at my high school reunion in head-to-toe prada pushing around an IV of Grey Goose? If so, I'm half way there.



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I HAD a Dream

An Oregon native is ever the optimist about racial differences. A land of diversity and tolerance, the west coast breeds the belief that we really are all equal, that our only differences are the privileges with which we are born and that every group in our country can be educated, trained and set free in this capitalist playground, if only we had the resources.

Living in NYC has put a whole new spin on my feelings about diversity. In Oregon it was so free and easy to talk about equality, rights, access (and beyond!) when everyone within 100 miles was white and middle class. Those that weren't white had been swallowed up by a small town and had thus had their ethnic identity, lingo and habits absorbed right out of them.

In NY, with it's tiny--though very divided--neighborhoods, most groups have not only preserved their identities, but amplified them. A long time city girl and former Oregonian once told me: "In the city it's hard to be open minded about ethnic groups because, for some reason, they live out their worst stereotypes; black men hit their wives, Dominicans sit on their stoops all day, Asians are unsanitary. The longer you live here, the more racist you'll become."

At the time, slightly horrified, I brushed this off as yet another racist comment from someone outside the superior (and yet ironically equal) Oregon bubble, but I'm starting to see what she meant. After just a year of living here, I've seen enough from various groups to start feeling the kind of discrimination I thought only existed at a Republican rally. I've succumbed to the temptation to block out fights in the street, hold contempt for beggars, turn my nose up at the fried chicken stalls of Harlem and below-health-code nail salons of China Town.

Short of being born male, I've been given the most classic set of advantages in the US and, like those before me I used to criticize, I'm starting to forget I even have them.
If everyone in NYC becomes the worst version of themselves, then I'm now the over-privileged, well-educated, skinny, white, blond girl who looks down on anyone who isn’t the same.

What happened to me?


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Welcome to Hell

That's right--it's time ONCE AGAIN to look for an apartment/closet/dumpster on the NYC housing market! Let's get excited to see the parade of shit that will soon pass through my blog.

Kappa Kappa Canine

For whatever reason, I signed up to receive "daily candy". I think it may have been the peer pressure or the idea that this did in fact involve candy. I've been sorely disappointed. However, I do sometimes enjoy browsing through their ludicrous offerings: "blah blah designer's shoes, reduced from $2,000 to $1,200!" Oh good. That will really get me in there.

Today brought an even better deal: "rent a pet in NYC!". That's right, for a small fee (monthly membership Fee of $49.95, annual account charge of $99.95 & weekend dog $39.95 or week day dog $24.95, plus applicable sales tax) , you can have a doggie friend at your side in Central Park, out in the Hamptons or just on your couch watching the game. Just like ZipCar, these fees go to dog tune ups 4 times per year and a built in GPS system in case you can't keep hold of a dog you just paid $200 to hang out with.

I understand the concept behind this business, but if I planned to purchase my friends I would have just joined a sorority. Too late now; I guess I'm stuck with the retriever blonds instead.



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A better stage

This is horrible. I need to either become more of a geek (very quickly) or dupe someone into making me a really awesome blog template. I've been switching every other day and I'm just not happy. And when I'm not happy, well, no one really cares.
But I care.

So for now, until I can find a solution, my huge fan base (3) and I are stuck with "Tic Tack".
If you can't stand it either, send me the most awesome html ever made. I don't care if you have to lie, steal or kill to get it.

I mean, this is my narcissism that's at stake here.

(The) Sticks or Stones?

I packed up the lightest, most subway-friendly suitcase I have yesterday and headed out west. And no, I'm not talking about Jersey. I am all the way west to the kind of exotic place you might think has never seen a small pox vaccination, let alone the inside of a yellow cab: Portland, OR, Home to hippies, Davy Crockett wannabees and lots of lesbians. While a faux coon skin cap might suffice for all of these subcultures, I never thought I looked very fetching in vermin wear. This could have something to do with why I went to the other side of the country. While I love a quick nature hike as much as the next girl, I'm not exactly the poster child for living in simplicity.

Thus begin the conflicts and comparisons.

"Well they don't even have trees in New York, so you must be happy to see them"..."When you move home the grandkids can come and visit"... "Why don't you come back so you can live with your best friend, she needs a roommate"...etc. My parents are surprisingly understanding and their comments only slip out occasionally; most of these are from a mixture of those I've left behind who, for westerners who've probably never tasted proper bagels & lox, have really nailed that Jewish guilt thing.

Despite their complaints and my attempts to placate them, I will ultimately have to make a choice. Even with my fondness for magazine publishing, this isn't Town & Country, this is Town OR Country and it's only a matter of time.