"Torn between wanting to stay & wanting to go & worried it will be the wrong decision either way" - Story People

As some of you know, I've been struggling lately with the decision to stay in NYC or move somewhere else. I always thought when it was time to leave New York I would be able to leave without feeling the same sadness that always seems to descend when leaving someplace you've called home.

I never thought I would get attached to a city so large, so lonely, and so loud. I never thought that the restlessness of the city would seep into my being. I never thought that above all else here, the city would be the one thing that eventually ends up keeping me sane.

The thing about New York is that it's all about the small moments. I've written a bit about this in a previous post, but it seems as if every day there are small things that I discover I love about this city.

It's the way the ground shakes when the Subway goes rushing underneath you. It's the way you can find takeout at 3 am. It's the way I feel when I am hurtling down Central Park West on a night bus. It's the fact that I recognize my fellow bus riders each morning. It's the way you can pack a picnic and spend an entire day laying in Central Park.

So as I come ever closer to the reality that I need to leave by the time my lease ends, I also come ever closer to realizing that I have become attached to this crazy, sweet catastrophe of a city.

New York, you could have been great. I just don't think I'm strong enough to be patient enough to give you anymore.

Tom Selleck Saved My Baby and Other Reasons I Love the East Side

As I've stated in previous posts, I love walking. I love The City in the summer because it means weekend days are nice enough to indulge my desire to explore the city on foot.

This morning a friend and I stepped out with no real destination. We started by walking through the street fair on 3rd Avenue. We soon realized we were close enough to the East Village that we could do lunch at the arepas bar that is always busy on weeknights. Since it was a bit early for lunch we decided to leisurely explore the East Village a bit first.

We wandered up and down the streets and avenues, turning as things caught our eye. We discovered a Ukranian street festival, complete with church ladies selling cabbage rolls and borscht. We wandered in and out of tiny boutiques and stopped to look at a few flea markets - NYC's version of a garage sale :)


Found on a trash can outside the flea market:


After lunch, we spent an hour sitting in Thompson Square Park watching a group of children run races with each other, people walking their dogs, and a group of people wrestling in the park. We decided to continue on through Alphabet City and walked all the way over to Avenue D wandering through every public garden we came upon.

Found in Alphabet City:


We made our way back up through the Lower East Side and the end of this walking adventure found us in a cozy, small Irish pub watching a live session of two acoustic acts.

It's days like these that make me realize I really will miss NYC when I leave.

There's a Reason Why People Suffer through Iowa Winters

Each year, as summer approaches I get more and more nostalgic about Iowa summers. There is something so spectacularly wonderful about an Iowa summer that I’m struggling to find the words to completely capture the essence of what I love about it. This is my third attempt at writing this entry, and I think only those of you who have also experienced an Iowa summer will truly appreciate this post.

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The heat begins to roll in around mid-June, but the stifling humidity usually doesn’t set in until July if you are lucky. Once it does, you know it will be sticking around until at least September, so you really appreciate the brief period of beautiful warm weather and the cool nights where you can leave the windows open and fall asleep listening to the sounds of leaves rustling outside or a gentle rain falling.

These early summer evenings are made for grilling. You sit on the patio with friends eating, drinking and talking as the sun sets. Burgers, sweet corn bought from a roadside stand, and fresh fruit afterwards. A cool breeze carries with it the scent of freshly cut grass as twilight falls and fireflies begin to appear. Soon twilight gives way to a deep blue sky pierced with millions of stars. Off in the distance the cicadas’ song mixes in with the deep croaking of frogs.





The air begins to cloud with haze and as you walk in flip flops through the grass back to your car at the end of the night, your feet become wet with dew. A slight breeze blows through and you shiver, but it’s that weird feeling of being cold and yet hot at the same time, similar to the way you feel after an intense workout in the winter.

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On the days that come later in the season it’s sometimes so hot by the time you wake up that you know taking a shower is essentially pointless. You watch the morning sun come up and gradually burn off the haze of humidity that has fallen overnight.

Everything is so green and lush as you drive to work. Wild roses and tall prairie grasses line the ditches of the highway.




You spend the day working in an extremely air conditioned office and, for a few minutes, the blast of heat that hits you as you walk out of the building to the parking lot at the end of the day feels good. You can hardly breathe in the thick air and you can feel the heat radiating up off the pavement in waves. You get into your overheated car and immediately crank on the AC and roll down the windows.

You know a day like this is going to bring in violent weather and you watch the sky change as you pull out of the parking lot and onto the highway. Gray clouds swirl about as the sun begins to disappear. By the time you get home, the sunshine is a distant memory. It’s now as black as midnight and you hear the faint rumble of thunder in the distance. The sky lights up as bright as day when a bolt of lighting streaks across the sky. A few sprinkles fall on your windshield. You briefly consider rushing into the house before the sky opens up completely, but you wait, because you know that getting wet on the walk from the car into the house will feel refreshing.

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And, in these moments, you are once again reminded of why people put up with Iowa winters.

New York is Full of Un-New Yorkers

I realize most of my posts about NYC lately haven't been all that uplifting so I thought I would share a little something I have noticed and do enjoy about this city.

Last Friday night a friend and I were walking home from dinner when we passed a group of five friends taking pictures outside a restaurant. One of them was trying to take a photo of the other four and my friend stopped them and asked if they would like a picture that included all of them. They seemed a bit surprised and excited that someone had offered to do so.

"That's very un-New Yorker of you," they replied as my friend handed back the camera and we wished them a good night.

We looked at each other and laughed as we walked away. The truth is, in most of my experiences here, it really wasn't all that un-New York.

As I tell people all the time, New Yorkers are generally a pretty helpful and pleasant group of people. I've often seen them offer directions, hold open doors, and help old ladies on and off buses. I've been wished a good morning many times by random strangers walking past me on my way to work. I've seen many commuters thank their bus driver as they get off at their stop.

I think we realize that somewhere within the hardships of city life that we cannot change, we can make the experience better for each other in small ways. There are good days and bad days, but you can empathize in almost any situation which makes you want to help if you can.

In general I've experienced far more good from New Yorkers. And, in my opinion, it's usually the tourists acting the most "New Yorkish".

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. ~Plato

Technology is Not Social, People Are

I came across this statement online a few weeks ago and have been thinking about it ever since. It's so true and recently I've been reading a lot about how most people believe the opposite. True, technology can make you feel more social, but just because you have 800+ friends on Facebook, you might not really be all that social.

Don't get me wrong, I love technology. I work on a Web site so I can't lie and say that technology is a bad thing. Social networking has allowed me to keep in touch with friends from home, this blog has given me an outlet for my thoughts, and technology has allowed us to be much more efficient. But sometimes I wonder if we are actually losing the art of being social. Lately I feel that it's harder and harder for people to live in the "offline" world.

Just today, Mashable.com posted an article summarizing the results of a survey they gave to professionals which found that smartphones and intimate relationships tied at 40% for the number one thing respondents can’t live without.

Yesterday, I read an article in the Des Moines Register where the head of my undergrad university's journalism school said, "Cell phones convey one message and one only, whether calling, texting or watching a movie, and it's that something somewhere else is more important than the person we are with."

Everyday I watch my fellow commuters immersed in their Blackberries all the way to work. I come home and watch my roommates chat online and send and receive emails all night. Walk into a bar and everyone sitting there will have a phone out in front of them. Customers in stores often talk on their phones through their entire interaction with the sales clerk.

Life is busy and I admit that I am guilty of doing the same things from time to time but I hope that I never lose that desire to interact with the real world. It makes me sad that all of this technology now means that it can be rare to even have a conversation where both parties are fully present and sometimes I just long for old school face-to-face interaction.

New York is Like Living on Another Planet Sometimes

I went to DC for the first time this past weekend. A friend and I decided to head down to catch part of the National Cherry Blossom Festival and also meet up with some friends who were there for the weekend too.

Our route to DC took us through New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. As I watched the scenery change along 95, it hit me that I hadn't left the city since November. Blocks and blocks of high rises, bodegas and 24 hour fast food joints gave way to houses with lush lawns, sprawling Home Depots and gas stations. My friend looked over at me and said, "I forget this is what America is."

I thought about it for a minute and realized she was right. This is what the majority of America is. It's what I know. I grew up with chain restaurants, shopping malls and parking lots an acre large. But for some reason it looked really weird to me as I side gazed.

It was like I had forgotten this because living in NYC is like living on another planet sometimes. There's so much going on here that it's easy to get absorbed in the immediacy of the city. Everything in this city takes place on another level. It truly is a place where you can have anything you want whenever and wherever you want it.

I had no idea I had gotten so accustomed to it this quickly and I sometimes forget that not everyone else gets the opportunity to experience that. And sometimes I also forget that New York makes me forget how much I can miss the rest.

The unseasonably warm day was fading into twilight. All she wanted was to spend some time feeling. She wanted to feel the grass tickle her feet. She wanted to feel the warm breeze caress her bare arms. She wanted to feel like she had accomplished something on this day. She wanted to feel that someone wanted to listen.

As the lights in the park came on, she gathered up her things and switched on the music. Loud enough to feel it.

She slowly walked towards the bus taking in every detail of her surroundings. She wanted to feel excited about living in the city. She wanted to feel excited that half her work week was over.

But as darkness took her in all she felt was the fact that she felt excited about nothing.

She couldn't remember happiness and that made her sad.