2 Fruit Baskets and 2 Friendships

Those of you who followed along when I was a Stratejoy blogger may remember the worst birthday ever. If you don't remember, then click the link in that last sentence and read about it.

Usually when I post external links and reference them in my blog posts I say, "I know you won't click on that so here's a synopsis," but I'm not doing that this time. I refuse to summarize that blog post because I hold that one pretty close to my heart. Writing it, and experiencing it, was emotionally both a high point and a low point, and I won't boil it down to one sentence. So click on "the worst birthday ever" before continuing or you'll have no idea what the hell is going on. Ready? GO.

Insert muzak here. La la la.

Are you back? Marvelous!

Right, so. That happened. My 24th birthday sucked like a big bag of assholes. There were a few people who had been made aware of this story prior to my publishing it on Stratejoy a year and a half ago, but even most of my closest friends didn't, because it's really fucking hard sometimes to talk about someone doing something really cruel to you, especially when that someone was a person you considered a close friend. And even though I made up for it in my own self love-y kind of way, thinking about what happened 6 years ago still stings. I have a feeling it always will.

As I've mentioned once or twice on here before, tis the season of my 30th birthday! In fact, it was just a few days ago. My 20s are officially behind me.

My birthday was great. I got pampered at a spa, had 2 nights out with friends, got lots of calls and texts and Facebook messages and even some presents. Among my birthday bounty was this amazing display, from my bestie of 25 years (!), Lacey.

 

It's no coincidence that I got yet another Edible Arrangements basket on yet another birthday. Lacey did this intentionally, to make up for the other really hurtful one. Her card, instead of being short and mean, was actually thoughtful (and she signed it, unlike that other coward). This time, my birthday Edible Arrangements made me really happy.

It was nice to be reminded that even if sometimes the people you love can make you feel as low as you've ever felt, there are other people out there who can bring you up and remind you that yes, you're a worthwhile person. In a world full of shitty people, you have to be thankful for the good ones. And frankly, I know some of the best ones.

Yet Another New York Love Letter

"I read somewhere that 50% of people in the U.S. have a fantasy about living in New York City."

My friend said this as we were sitting in Central Park, listening to Alicia Keys at a completely free festival that also included the likes of Kings of Leon and Stevie Wonder, among others.

I have no idea if what she said is true, but I do know that I'd believe it if it was. It was in response to something I was thinking aloud, along the lines of, "What do people who don't live here DO with their time?"

It's naive, I get it. Most people don't live here and the vast majority of them probably don't lose sleep at night wishing they were New Yorkers. But even after all the time I've spent here I still sometimes look around in child-like amazement thinking, "I live in the greatest fucking city on earth."

It's not even that living in New York is some kind of utopian dream. We pay too much money for tiny living spaces, the air reeks of garbage in the summer, our transit system is often messed up to the point of being incomprehensible to even seasoned subway riders, and anyone who has ever tried online dating here will have a bevy of stories for you about the weirdos just waiting to send you a creepy or flat out bat shit crazy message (this is nowhere near the worst I've encountered).

What really continues to impress me, time after time, is the sheer number and diversity of stuff that goes on here. I mean, I got to spend a gorgeous Saturday in an iconic park listening to iconic musicians all for the price of zero dollars. A few weeks ago I dressed up in all white and had a flashmob-esque impromptu fancy dinner in Bryant Park with 4,000 other people thanks to Diner en Blanc.

Brie is my friend.

On Saturday night, my friend and I trekked from Brooklyn to Queens to go to an art show, which, as we found out when we arrived, featured a dark room with two men spray painted silver from head to toe, standing on turntables rotating slowly around in circles while an artist occasionally draped ribbons around them and there was a soundtrack of a woman, performing live, wailing and breathing heavily. I can't make this up.

The whole art show was pretty awful. It was so bizarre that it almost seemed out of a sitcom, a parody of what people think life in New York is like except that it's real. Shit here is sometimes extremely weird. Sure, we managed to turn a disappointing night into a fun one by grabbing some well-made cocktails at a speakeasy nearby, but it doesn't change the fact that we both traveled really far for something we really didn't like.

This is part of the appeal of this crazy city, to me. Sometimes you get to spend your Friday lunch break at a swanky ass club dancing to a Major Lazer DJ set, and sometimes you get silver, ribbon-clad turntable men. Sometimes you go to a warehouse party with a 30 foot inflatable slide, and sometimes you wait in line for over an hour for what you think is a party but ends up kind of being a job fair that, by the way, you can't even get into. For every online dating weirdo who thinks its appropriate to turn his webcam on and dance around with no pants on, there's a friend you met during an overnight scavenger hunt at the New York Public Library. The disappointments are still often great stories, and for every disappointment there's some other equally exciting or fun thing that makes you feel like all the bullshit is worthwhile. That's the amazing part.

I never know what a day in New York is going to hold. This place is totally unpredictable, but I don't think I'd have it any other way.

Sometimes I Wish I Smoked Cigarettes

Sometimes I wish I smoked cigarettes. Sort of. Maybe. Not really.

I'm not exactly in the market for a new expensive habit, and certainly not one that turns my teeth brown, makes my whole life smell, or, you know, causes lung cancer. But there's still something slightly intriguing about the thought of being a smoker.

Smoking in the media seems to fall into 2 categories: smoking out of stress and smoking just to be cool. So often in movies and TV we see someone with a high-power job, or with some insane amount of interpersonal drama, smoking a cigarette at some key moment where it legitimately makes me think, "Wait, that's all I need to do to calm down? When work or whatever is stressful I can just...go smoke a cigarette?" As a non-smoker, I don't have this option. When things blow up at work the only tool I have at my disposal is going into a coworker's office and gesticulating wildly like a crazy person. Only venting to coworkers doesn't calm me down, it just fuels the fire. The crazy, wildly-gesticulating fire. But what if I could smoke a cigarette and then come back all relaxed? Is that a thing? It sounds tempting.

As far as the coolness thing goes, I can't help but think of my sophomore year of college. One of my friends would buy these fancy Nat Sherman cigarettes, with a black body and gold filter, and she would call me over to sit outside her dorm and smoke them. We called it "stoopin' it." One time when we were stoopin' it she said, "You know it sounds stupid, but I really feel like I look cooler when I smoke." And I had to agree - somehow we're sort of trained to think that people who smoke are more badass. I guess the marketing department at Philip Morris can pat themselves on the back for that one. But apparently I don't care that much about looking cool, because aside from a few cloves sprinkled throughout college (what girl didn't go through a clove phase in college? Come on now), I definitely haven't had a cigarette since those stoopin' it times when I was 19.

(Was that 10 years ago? Barf)

Another thing about cigarettes is that there's this very romanticized ideal of being a writer and sitting at a desk, typing - and puffing - away. The specific image that comes to mind is Carrie Bradshaw, in her pajamas, hair in a sloppy bun, smoking a cigarette and narrating to us her latest piece of relationship wisdom. Despite the fact that I always hated the character of Carrie Bradshaw and it's not by any means something I want to aspire to, there's something about that image that makes me almost think that I would feel like an actual "real" writer, and not just a girl with a not-widely-read blog, if I had a cigarette here. After all, I'm already all over the pajamas and sloppy bun thing, and I can even add some glasses to look even more writerly!

Why yes, since you ask, it is totally normal to stay in on probably one of the last nice days for awhile so you can write a blog post and watch TV and generally not make yourself look presentable during the daylight hours.

All of this being said, I think I will continue to not smoke cigarettes because of the whole not-getting-lung-cancer thing. But what if I tried just having a candy cigarette in my mouth? One of the ones that even produces a teeny bit of fake smoke. They might not relieve stress or make me feel like a fancy writer (note: candy in general is probably not a good way to make yourself feel like a grown-up), but I think they would make me look super cool. Because those things are awesome. The end.