I guess I haven't really been in the mood to blog recently...

Years ago, when I started this thing, I'd make a mental note when things happened and think, "hey, this'll be great in the blog!" That sort of thought simply doesn't cross my mind anymore. Now, I'll sit down with the intention of blogging, but find nothing I really want to share. I don't think I'm a very private person, but I think I'm enjoying the fact that many of my more recent adventures are a shared experience within a small group of friends.

That said, I did recently go to a swank private event hosted by a food-review site that I contribute to. It was my first event through this site, and I'm not sure if it's typical behavior or whether the layout of the venue contributed to it, but the whole thing was very clicky. Luckily I brought a couple editor friends, and we had a blast drinking amazingly tasty (and free) mixed drinks and diving into the artisan table.

The Prodigal Returns

It's been a while since I've posted here: almost two years. To be honest, I had stopped because I found myself using the blog as therapy. Unproductive therapy at that. All I did was go on histrionic rants whenever I had a bad day. I started feeling like a passive complainer, the type of person I simply can't stand. So I started to change things in my life, and one side-effect was an end to blog posting.

Since then, I've missed having a record of things. A place where fresh thoughts and impressions could be memorialized. Well, there's that and the fact that old friends are feeling a little left out of the loop in my life. So here I am, blogging once more.

Things are pretty good nowadays. The quick 411 is that I've graduated law school, I passed the Bar in NJ and got waived into DC, and I'm currently studying to take the NY Bar once again (I failed by a frustratingly small degree). I worked for a small land-use firm in Manhattan, but that's over and I'm currently looking for work in Jersey City and Hoboken. I'm still living in the same apartment in Park Slope, and I'm pretty close with everyone who lives in the building. I've made a lot of new friends since last posting, and I feel like I've created a good life for myself here.

Ok, that's all for now, I need to get back to studying...

All Abuzz

Woke up about two hours ago and I can't seem to coax my mind into a sleep-state. My brain is racing. Not with anything bothersome, or distressing, or even interesting... Just the background hum of life - amplified.

I can't stop thinking of how much I like the word jejune. How my plants need watering. How I need to start jogging again...

This sort of frustrating insomnia always hits me during busy semesters. No longer am I wracked with waves of anxiety; instead, I find myself simply wired and unable to reach a delta-wave state.

I just wish tomorrow wasn't going to be such a dense day... I guess I'll need to go boil some lactose free milk.

Update

Wow, I was in a mood last night...

I guess I shouldn't read estate law before going to bed...

Sympathetic Nervous System

I'd like to think that things were easier at some point. That life was blissfully carefree for longer than the rare day or two. When trivial (and sometimes nontrivial) details didn't derail my desires or my goals or my happiness.

I think that time went away when I was about 5 or 6.

Life is hard. Life is bloody damn hard. What's harder still is internalizing that concept. Moving on. Accepting that life is difficult and making the best life you can out of it. When pitfalls are challenges and missed opportunities are doors to alternatives. Where flexibility and awareness replace the grudging complacency that seems so pervasive.

I mean, it certainly isn't like I'm a starving child sitting in a gutter. Yet I feel like one. I feel spoiled.

Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down

Things that made me smile today:

• An old van with porthole windows and an airbrushed scene of the ocean on it's side.
• A friend's newborn baby.
• A steak burrito.
• Typos in a class syllabus.
• A guy in the subway dressed in a black suit, black t-shirt, black sneakers, black ponytail, black earings, black shades, and a black fannypack.
  
• Using a page from the Internal Revenue Code to make an origami penguin.
• A couple dozen compliments on my shirt.
• A new phillips-head screwdriver with molded rubber grip.
  

Things that made me frown today:

• A subway car with no airconditioning.
• A woman poking me with her Swiffer mop.
• No chipotle sauce for my burrito.
• An airconditioning unit crashing to the ground outside my apartment in the wee hours of the morning.
• Guy next to me at the urinals feeling the need to strike up a conversation.
  

Things that made me squirm today:

• A friend's newborn baby.
• Stepping on the remains of a chicken dinner as I came out of the subway.
• Stinky cat-woman in the coffee shop.

Yep, school has started, so not much going on...

Strangers with Candy

Sorry I've been M.I.A. recently. I've been trying to stuff in as much dating as possible before school started... Oy, my poor poor wallet...

It isn't just the fiscal blow; dating in this city can be seriously tough on one's resolve to meet new people. After the past couple months, I think I'm going to lay low for a while. It's interesting to date complete strangers. Back in Philly I'd at least get to know a girl before dating her. Here, that's the reason to date. We're heavily fortified before marching in. No real illusion of commitment at the early stages. No leaps of faith. We've got our parachutes firmly attached. Sometimes, I think dating and interviewing are pretty much synonymous.

Trends start to pick up. So the dating formula (at least for me) seems to be two weeks of shameless bliss, followed by the actual "get to know you" part where you learn about personalities instead of anecdotes, then comes the realization that she's just as mixed up about life as I am, and finally the "wow, your quirks are endearing" vs. "whoa, this is way too much" weigh in.

What surprises me is how arbitrary the reasons are for dropping the whole affair. On both sides. I guess there isn't much holding you back when you get bored, or anxious, or skeeved, or just confused. I mean, there's no real investment, right? It does however create a breeding pit for persnickety behavior. All the commonground in the world is suddenly swept aside because one person doesn't like the color red. Or, suddenly, there's a huge issue with the age difference when it didn't matter at all for the past month. Or (worst of all), all those endearing qualities and quirks are quickly becoming offensively intollerable. I'm hardly blameless, a good share of these stupid reasons are my own.

Anyway, it's been a fun summer during my off-time, but I'm both weary and wary of dating now. When I first moved up here, everyone told me how hard dating was up here. I'd laugh it off and say, "What the hell are you talking about? I never have a problem finding a date up here, it's like a carnival!" But now the excitement of living in a new city has worn off and I'm just another tired, persnickety, and hyperentitled New Yorker.

Chapter 2: In which our hero gets lost, found, lost again, and retires for the morning.

Oog, long week, but I've finally got a minute to update this thing.

So Monday night, I had a great evening with an old internet friend. She'd just moved up to NY (well, Jersey City) so I wanted to show her some fun places to hang out. It was pretty late, so I escorted her home to make sure she got there ok. On my way back into the city, everything went wrong, then right, then wrong, then right again.

So, the train decides to simpy stop at some random station in Jersey with no further connections at that station (at least none that were announced. After an hour of waiting some of us got a bit antsy and decided to find alternative ways home. Some people found rides, others called taxis. I knew a taxi from Jersey to Brooklyn would be way out of my pricerange, so I decided to hoof it to the next nearest station. Little did I know that "just down the street" really meant that I needed to wind around a daedalean labyrinth of streets for five miles.

By about 4:30 AM, I ran into a group of guys looking for the same station. They were a bluegrass band from Dublin. They had a few 40's and spare cigarettes. We ended up searching through abandoned Jersey streets for an hour before finding the station, but in the meantime we had some amazing conversations about travel, Americana, Dublin, and one of the band members whom they seem to have lost sometime during the evening.

All said, I made it home just in time to watch the sunrise and take a quick nap before showering for work.