In defense of New Jersey

Despite the fact that I often say I'm from New York, I am, in fact, only sort of from New York. I was born in Manhattan, lived in Queens until I was 8, and then moved to New Jersey, where I lived until I left for college. In Boston I usually say I'm from New York, mostly because it's where I lived before I moved here, but people have told me that they consider the place you're from to be where you went to high school. In which case, I am from New Jersey. And proud of it.

New Jersey is a state that has never quite found favor in the eyes of the rest of the country. And Jersey Shore, as much as I love that show, didn't do much to help.

The thing is, the people who hate on the Jerz are very frequently people who have NEVER BEEN THERE. And, for the record, I do not count "I drove through it once" or "I had a 2 week assignment in Hackensack" as having been there.

Jersey has been hated on as long as I can remember, and while I am usually the first to put my home state down, it's only okay when us Jersey folk do it. Recently, I saw a blog post expressing outrage at the fact that Cleveland was named the most miserable city in the U.S., and Alexa's response was, "Have you been to Jersey?" My first reaction was "New Jersey isn't a city last time I checked, let's compare apples to apples." My second reaction was, "Let me share the gospel of the Jerz to the world." So here I am.

Now, I'm not going to repeat everything you've ever read in defense of New Jersey, like "We have Bruce Springsteen! And we don't pump our own gas!" As awesome as I think the Jerz is, no one is going to believe any of that. So I'm going to now take the standpoint of, "NEW JERSEY DOES NOT SUCK ANY MORE THAN YOUR HOME STATE."

Oh really, you have things like theaters and museums and good restaurants and fun bars? Do you think the 2 major and awesome cities near New Jersey have had no influence on it in that regard? (Full disclosure: I know nothing about Philly but people say it's cool). Surprisingly, New Jersey is NOT 100% dirty, smelly highway. We have beaches and cute little suburban towns and cities that are not dumps and things to do. We have public transportation and malls and diners galore and pretty much everything required to live a normal lifestyle. We have some of the nation's top high schools and we produce a shit ton of cranberries.

We also have the country's highest population density despite the fact that 1/3 of the state is essentially forest and crops (see: aforementioned cranberries and also the fact that it is called the GARDEN STATE). So we are also magicians because really, how does that happen?

Specifically, New Jersey has my favorite science museum, the best sandwiches in the history of the world with the exception of possibly the New Orleans muffuletta, and the craziest ever St. Patty's Day parade which, yes, is far better than any celebration found in my beloved New York City.

The point is, New Jersey certainly has some crappy parts, but be honest, every state does. And if you want to start pointing fingers, let's go with middle America AKA lots of flat nothingness and no proximity to ANYTHING (rule of thumb: if you live more than an hour from a major airport, I have no desire to ever live where you live).

All you New Jersey haters, sit down. Take your insecurities about your own states elsewhere because we, my friends, are awesome.