Friday, September 29, 2006

An Essay at Starbucks

This week, two friends from high school came into the city. I haven't hung out with them since 1998, and I wasn't sure why. We went out to eat Monday night after they arrived, and I quickly realized why--my faction of friends were the drinkers.

True to my adored Malcolm Gladwell, we had a connector--Damien--who linked the two groups together. I had just become friends with him in the spring of 1998, and at first I was drawn to Group A (where my visiting friends fall) and only moved over to Group B when I discovered my soon-to-be-ex-boyf-turned-best-friend Poof there, and the more dangerous-yet-appealing white trash Daley clan.

That's when my drinking started, with bottles of Zima and Sour Apple Pucker, and I began to realize who I am--and who I'm not. When I was sitting with the two from Group A on Monday the other night, I realized that it's not just the drinking that separates us but an entire lifestyle.

Don't get me wrong--I don't feel superior and I still enjoy their company. I'm certainly not going to deny them when they try to be my friend on Myspace. But I'm not likely to have marathon phone conversations with them, either, like I do *still* with Poof. I'll actually be fine if I don' t see them for another eight years, actually.

It seems like all we had in common WAS high school. All my life, I've worried about fitting in. But this time, I'm happy I don't. Their world (and the world of Merrill Senior High) is foreign to me and always has been. And not like the way New York or Holland were foreign when I first moved here (and there). I simply can't understand the rules and customs of their life: what's its like to be divorced from your high school sweetheart, or run your own business. What it's like to be them.

I'm glad to feel different for nothing else than just being myself. My roommate commented on Tuesday, "What do you DO with straight-edge people, anyway?"
I admitted that I had no idea and then took contentment in that someone else mirrored the ideas that occur in my wine-and-beer swilling, big-city brain.

Maybe I'm not so foreign to myself after all.

I wrote this on Tuesday and revised it on Friday. This was one of those instances where I had to ask the Starbucks staff for a pen because I HAD to write. Maybe I am destined to be an author after all.......

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Baby I'm Amazed

I spent nearly 10 hours at work today. And read (for work) on the train ride home. Sometimes I wonder if being an English professor somewhere in the Midwest would give me a respite from this type of long work day. I decided quickly it would NOT be, given that I'd have to go to school for another three or four years, teach English 101 classes for five or six and then maybe get tenure when I'm 45 and be able to take a sabbatical (this is if I started now).

I've been thinking a lot about choices. My new philsophy is that choices and free will determine your life, with scraps of faith, luck and fate intervening intermittently. I choose to get up and work everyday; I chose to be obsessed with Todd for a year; I choose to let people walk all over me; I choose to feel bad about myself for reasons no one would suspect.

I'm also choosing purposely not to go back-- leave NYC, become a professor and dive into trying out a love with the one that could have been. Because I choose to let him love me. If he does, he'll come. He may even just show up at my door one day.

A girl can dream, can't she? I'm not exactly waiting for John Cusack here. He can snore so loud I once heard it OUTSIDE my apartment building, 10 feet away. He's so picky I want to kill him when he tells me what's in his fridge (New York's culinary delights, burgers excepted, will be lost on him). But he does call me to rescue me from my everyday doldrums and tells me that a particular song by Wings reminds him of me.

He reminds me of everything I am, everything I've been and everything I could be. But I've learned to live without him, too....hopefully even when he marries some lucky bitch and procreates, he'll still be my very best friend.

My twin..... if I had a penis, ate Ramen every night, had a completely amazing record collection, liked Nickelback (ugh! Except the new song, that's good) and knew there was a hunting season in effect nearly every day in America.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Chuck Klosterman Is Right

Where, exactly, did this weekend go? Friday night I was bored, so I went out on an unexpected Craiglist date that lasted until Saturday morning. (Apparently, according to Steve (Lori's fiancee) I need to stop taking men home if I want them to call me. I'm going to try that, I really am.)

Then Saturday went by in a blur after a friend called. She had an argument with her boyfriend and didn't know if this was the end, or if it's just really a huge fight. So I stayed with her, figuring things out for a long time. We sat at Columbus Circle for easily two hours, just talking about our lives.

It's funny, but I never realized HOW over Todd I am until I started talking to her about how long I wasn't myself, how long I grieved for a relationship that really wasn't there. She had her own little breakthrough last night, so hopefully she won't be stuck as long as I was. But I'll be there because she was there for me.

All women want a guy that will come after them if they walk away crying or upset. We all want someone to rescue us---but there is no Robin Hood, no John Cusack standing in their parents' yard with a boombox. For me there is only a eighteen year old boy who drove a four-wheeler ten miles to see me. And nearly eight years later, I wonder why I didn't believe in that.

Now I do, but now it's too late. In SEX DRUGS AND COCOA PUFFS, Chuck Klosterman was right---our generation always wants John Cusack in romantic relationships.

Unfortunately, while we're holding SAY ANYTHING in such high esteem, we don't realize when our version of The Geek from SIXTEEN CANDLES or our personal Duckie from PRETTY IN PINK is sitting right next to us.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Poor, Poor Audrey

Does anyone else find it disturbing that the Gap is using Audrey Hepburn to promote black Tshirts?

I do --- but my usually populist self says that if it gets one fourteen-year-old girl to watch FUNNY GIRL, SABRINA, or ROMAN HOLIDAY (pretty much anything but BREAKFAST AT TIFFANYS) her heirs did a good deed.

That being said, I don't think Audrey Hepburn ever wore skinny jeans.

http://www.gap.com/browse/category.do?cid=18569&mlink=5058,622653,1&clink=622653

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

I Like Redemption.....

Thanks to the rain last week, I have been reading ALOT of books. Probably at least 3 or 4 since last Friday. My last book was THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES by Sue Monk Kidd--a good book that substantiates my claim that a large number of bestselling fiction (that's not a mystery or a thriller) is either a coming-of-age story and/or a novel that tells a tale of redemption.

I like redemption. It reminds me of how human everyone can be, and I think it reminds readers that their fuck-ups are probably not as bad as they possibly could be (at least I didn't accidentally shoot my mother like Lily in BEES, for example).

But as I listen to Gladys Knight and the Pips, debating whether or not two of my close friends are just busy or if they're mad at me (could it be paranoia, or is it real?) I am struck by the realization that redemption, and VALIDATION is really what everyone's looking for in life.

I get validated by people liking me, wanting to spend time with me. And while that's not necessarily a bad thing, it's not good either. I've spent most of my adult life examining the causes of my major hangup, but now I think its time to figure out a solution.

So, in my arsenal, two recent bestsellers: THE MEMORY KEEPER'S DAUGHTER by Kim Edwards and THE HISTORY OF LOVE by Nicole Krauss. MEMORY KEEPER even includes "redemptive" in its back cover copy.

The last piece is ME vs ME, a chick lit novel about a girl who has to choose between a comfortable life at home and a dream job in the big city. Hmmm...

Navel-gazing much, Meg?

Friday, September 01, 2006

My Lost Twin!!!

Finally, a reason why I like Amanda Bynes so much:

Click here to create your own Celebrity Collage on MyHeritage - best site for your family tree and photos

I usually get a young Signourney Weaver, or sometimes Pink... and when my hair was cut like her, Sarah McLachlan. But I like Amanda so, so much better.... How this site EVER got the Asian lady, I have no idea.

Surprisingly though, I could be the sister of Faith Hill or Jenna Elfman.

The things you discover when you're at home on a Friday night.

At Home...

Bowling: My New Family Thanksgiving, Since No One is Home for Thanksgiving Anymore: Find pictures of my super-special fam at www.flickr.com/photos/meginnyc

I've been home in New York now for almost a week. I worked my ass off making up for the time I missed on top of doing my normal work. Hence the lack of blog postings.

I fell asleep at 4pm this afternoon, an unlikely event. I don't have any plans for this weekend since the remains of Ernesto made everyone want to stay in. I'm glad that the deluges of rain are happening this weekend, because I've got a stack of reading to do for work as well.

I could talk about how Kelly and I stalked celebrities from her window on Thursday watching the VMA Red Carpet (we saw everybody good I think, from Beyonce to Christina Aguilera to Diddy and Nick Lachey) but that's not the real story of what's going on with me.

I'm having troubles cutting my ties at home. I miss my friends, and my family. I guess I'll never know what would have happened if I had stayed in the Midwest. Would I have fallen in love with My Mr. Right by now? Or would I have regretted not living out my dream to live here?

I did adore work this week and loved my life sans Jackie in my Manhattan apartment. Maybe an entire weekend of doing nothing will help clear my head.