it is where i am

i am sure by now i have completely fallen off your radar. completely.

i am, in fact alive.

and as promised, i was too busy gallivanting around new york city to blog this weekend.

last night i was too busy doing what every person i know and do not know was doing last night. peeling my eyes at the flatscreen tv of a local bar until the future of the country is decided. ok maybe it is unreasonable to assume the entire population of this country was at a bar watching the results of the election, but i hope that it is safe to assume they were watching.

i, for one, am completely satisfied with the results of the evening, as i prefer the president of my country to have full range of motion. just a personal opinion.

as the rest of the countries democrats, and many fence riders and a fair share of disillusioned members of the grand old party are rejoicing, locally, and abroad (my sister called me from israel last night...it was oh, 730am, she had been up all night watching,) i do know one democrat that is finding the day after quite lonely.

cnn.

after being the only news channel all of us dems relied upon, nearly gluing us to you for the past 24 hours. i formally announce, oh dearest channel 34, that we are officially on. a. break. i simply cannot stomach any more of your political commentary. for now, at least.

(you have just witnessed the first time i have initiated a break, or break up, ever. i think i should do it more often. noted.)

and now, we can never talk about politics again*. your welcome.

*i do have a related story that i am saving in my back pocket, but it is not directly related to the election, just an unpleasant side effect, ok, its about politics, but clearly, i make the rules, i break the rules (refer to my 1-peat 'regular tuesday blog')
...

so about new york. well, i'm in a lot of trouble regarding new york.

the trouble?

i am in love with it.

cliche, i know. but seriously. this is trouble. mostly because returning back to my apartment in the south, it was troublingly quiet. and it will be a lot of trouble to pack up all of my belongings when i move there. as will be carrying them up my 4th floor walk up the size of my current bedroom. selling my brand new car will also be trouble, because it won't be worth the, well you get the idea, to have it in a city where i will be too scared to drive it, and won't be able to afford to park it, either.

not to mention the trouble of having to find a new job with a living wage. ok, not the trouble of, the impossibility of.

so after just a little over 48 hours, i am troubled.

seriously, i used to think that it was 'soo loud' at my new apartment. since it is in the center of the 'city' and across the street from the fire department. but that is nothing compared to the noise of a 3rd floor apartment in murray hill. and i prefer the noise. no place is lonely where you can hear a consistent buzz of other people going about their lives at the exact same moment, at a close proximity but safe distance.

i also can't imagine that you would ever get upset about being dumped ever again in a city like that. where there are fresh opportunities walking towards you down 3rd ave every few blocks. i now understand my best friend laura's new found fear of commitment that came on at the exact same time as her change in area codes. i would be afraid to commit too when an even perfecter 10 is walking this way, right now.

okay, so all of you that do now or have ever lived in new york city are all vomiting all over yourself. fair enough. i also know that some of the comments i make are not as wonderful in real life, as in my imagination (such as the strangers on the street...new york is not a city where talking to strangers is condoned, or welcome...no matter how attractive they are).

the point is. i understand all of nyc's flaws. the flaws are the reason i have shunned it until now. the reason i gave myself a million reasons why i would never ever (ever x 100) live in new york city.

what i never considered is my appreciation of ambient noise. by noise i mean sirens, car horns, gun shots, squeeking breaks, motocycle engines, spousal abuse, the neighbor upstairs that tap dances only as soon as you start to drift off to sleep.

what i never considered is wanting to move away from here. i entertained the idea briefly on a few occasions: when i hated living with my old roommates dog, when i hated my job, when the Brazillian moved to chicago (we broke up shortly after so his residence there turned into a liability rather than a bonus, it was imagining my life there as we drove around the lincoln park apartment hunting that was the draw), when i lost my job at the beginning of the summer.

but all of those occasions were purely circumstantial and i have changed the circumstances. i live alone. i am employed, and enjoy my job. and chicago is nice, but new york wins, by a mile, and a half.

so my question is, now what?

how do i decide to move? how do i decide to leave my job, my friends, my car, the majority of my personal effects, and the city that i now realize i have been completely neutral about and tolerated simply because it was where i was, not because it was where i wanted to be, if i really thought about it?

i am completely unnerved. my first temptation is to go back to shunning the city as a whole. to looking down on people who move to new york to live the dream as a cheesy cliche. to believing that i am happier with more disposable income and lower rent. and that i don't require 24 hour delivery of anything my heart could imagine. and that i don't enjoy the convenience of efficient (a relative term) public transportation.

the only time i have ever changed my place is when i moved to college, which wasn't quite so scary, because no matter what you were moving into a self contained, protected community where things like job interviews and bills do not exist. how do i decide that 'it is where i am' is simply not enough of a reason to stay where i am? how do i decide, now, to change my place? to uproot my life? to leave this comfort zone behind?

no seriously, i'm asking, how do i do it?