Woman of the World

So I need to be straight with you guys.  The LA offer wasn’t an offer per se; it was more like they were asking if I wanted to be considered.  With other candidates.  And I said I did.  Obviously.  That part was true.  Now they’re saying they need a few more weeks to think about things, and am I interested only in LA or perhaps a Chicago position instead?  Right now I’m interested in everything and anything because, hey, after all this moving-related soul-searching, SOMETHING better come out of this.

Also, I’m getting tired of the interview grind: writing the Perfect Cover Letter, photocopying clips and extra resumes copies, getting dressed up in a suit, missing work (you know, shafting the employer who actually pays the bills), taking the editing test, writing the thank you note, and endlessly waiting for the phone to ring.  It’s exhausting.  EXHAUSTING.

Moreover, just like I suspected, I’m all Los-What? after seeing my boyfriend (let’s call him Bateman) again.  I don’t want to think about work (ANY work) — I just want to spend every hour over the next two months lying out in the sun with him.  (Well, maybe not EVERY hour.  I’d be really burnt then, and my red-headed boyfriend would be one giant freckle.)  Fortunately, I’m taking off a whole NINE DAYS this month.  And I will spend the totality of those nine days (and then some) with Bateman.  I just need to get through the days I DO have left.

I Wish I Could Go Back to College …

I’ll try to keep the mushy, warm-weather-inspired posts to a minimum. But I just want to point out that I got a sunburn this weekend after spending all of yesterday lounging on a front yard of a quiet street with a half-dozen dudes, a grill, and a few cases of beer. Can you say heaven? And then catching the tail-end of weekend daylight back in New York so I could finally, finally, finally get in a much-anticipated run today in Central Park. I’ve been waiting forever to do that again.

P.S. Fifty points to whoever gets the subject-line reference. Fifty points toward what, I couldn’t tell you. But, hey, that’s 50 points more than you had before, right?

Relationship, Take Two

You know what’s amazing?  After nearly 20 months of long distance dating, my boyfriend is FINALLY moving to my* city.  We did it.  We did it!

It didn’t hit me until now.  Usually I fly up to visit him with some degree of dread.  I dread saying goodbye.  Just the process of it.  Feeling pressured to “enjoy” and “cherish” every moment because our time together is so short! and fleeting!  (Those are sarcastic exclamation points, in case there was any doubt.)  And then having to go through the whole Sunday charade of driving to the airport (making forced, peppy chit-chat) and kissing him once, and then just-once-more-to-hold-me-over, and then getting out of the car and lugging my sad duffel bag through the airport.  It’s just so goddamn melodramatic.  And, then of course, on a very non-melodramatic level, I just plain miss him.

(Cue the harps.)

Anyway, the good news is it’s over.  OVER.  O.V.E.R.-over.  And we did it.  After this weekend, there are just nine more days (no time, really) before I go back up there for the last time to help him pack up his belongings.  And I am ECSTATIC.  We. did. it.

—-

* Well, technically, our city.  Moving here has less to do with me and more to do with home.  But I’ll celebrate anyway.

Antsiness

My concentration has been shot.  Of course, I’ve been writing those same five words since JANUARY, when I first went on the job prowl, but it bears repeating: I. cannot. focus. on. work.  Every phone call from an HR person has been a tease, leading me to giddily shirk my duties because — mwahaha — my days here are numbered.  Numbered!

Laughing all the way to the deadline, as they say.  (OK, they don’t really say that.  Even I don’t really say that.)

Anyway.  You’d think it would start becoming a problem but instead I’m only getting MORE popular around here.  Maybe because I’m finally talking.  I’m not very chatty to begin with, and kind of shy, and inevitably my first performance review at a new company is always, “hard worker, too quiet.”  The thing is, I am NOT quiet.  I talk a lot.  I talk fast.  I talk without thinking and my IM conversations with my boyfriend are usually something like 20 misspelled lines from me and three words from him.  He jokes that if he fell asleep during one of our “conversations” I WOULD NOT NOTICE.

(For the record, I would notice.  I think.  Probably.)

Anyway.  I’ve opened up and now I’m just coasting on my witticisms.  Or maybe they like me because they keep giving me more challenging assignments and I keep completing them successfully (usually after much procrastinating and covert eye rolling.)  I’m good at what I do, if I do say so myself.  But the point is, I spend most of my day checking blogs and half-waiting for the phone to ring.  AND IT’S NOT AS FUN AS IT SOUNDS.  The day. just. drags.

…

That’s the sound of me waiting for the day to be over.

Time might be moving even slower than usual since I’m going to visit my boyfriend this weekend — for the second to last time before he officially moves to New York.  I’m antsy to get a move-on already.

I’m flying there Friday night.  I fly a lot and one of my favorite parts is the airport bar.  (I shouldn’t admit this but I will anyway.)  I just love the idea of meeting random people — and I always do — while they’re coming and going.  I like to know where people are headed and why.  I like that feeling of we’re-all-in-this-travel-thing-together.  I hate to say it, but sometimes I even like being delayed because of weather.  You just sort of hunker down and wait because NO ONE is going anywhere.  I don’t know; I just enjoy the whole travel experience.  As cranky and impatient as I am in Real Life, Travel Me is wide-eyed and eager and zen-like.  I even talk to people on airplanes.  I know!  You couldn’t get me to say two words to someone on the subway or a bus.  But on an airplane?  Heh, I am one friendly girl.

A Moment of Silence

I can’t seem to stop watching the news about the Virginia Tech tragedy. I watched to the point where I didn’t even want to watch anymore, but I couldn’t seem to look away. And then it hit me: I’m watching to understand. It’s as if I somehow believe that if I watch enough news reports — pay enough attention to the smallest details — then this whole thing will suddenly begin to make sense. That somehow I’ll understand how something like this could happen.

It’ll never make sense, though. No matter how long I watch and how many horrific details I absorb. Sometimes I think that the older I get, the less I seem to understand the world around me.

He Speaks

I am going stir-crazy. STIR. CRAZY. When you live in an apartment roughly the size of a freshman year dorm room, you need to make sure you leave the house everyday. For at least a few hours. Today, I didn’t. For the first time in about a year. And I am going OUT OF MY HEAD.

My boyfriend finally had this to say about moving to LA: “Of course you’re going to say yes when they ask you in the middle of a nor’easter. Tell them to ask you again in June.”

Even though I spent much of my super bored afternoon trying to decipher the LA neighborhood map, I reminded him that — most likely — I’ll be doing the same old, same old three months from now.

And he responded, “Well, if that really kills you, maybe you should seriously consider this other opportunity.”

He always says the Right Thing, even if it’s not always what I want to hear.

Wanderlust

I am a lifelong New Yorker. New York City Proper. I’ve lived here almost my entire life except for that one year in Philadelphia/South Jersey. And during college, of course, where I got my first taste of driving.

Which is to say: I’m impatient — I hate waiting for ANYTHING. I don’t like it when strangers talk to me; I’m suspicious of everyone. Most of my friends never learned how to drive. I can catch mice without being all girly about it. I am a total snob when it comes to food. I love trains. I walk fast. Make that FAST. If you’re walking too slow, I’m not afraid to step on the back of your shoes. Whenever I leave the city, I prattle on about how RELAXED I am, and how I’m NEVER this relaxed in New York — but after two days it’s always get me the hell out of here. I will insist up and down that this is the Greatest City in the World. I care about what my cell phone area code is.

I think $1200 a month in rent is “cheap.” I am a New Yorker through and through.

And yet. One of my life dreams is to live somewhere Not New York someday. Some place cool, though, NOT Philadelphia. (Let me stop here for a moment to complain about Philadelphia. The whole time I was there, when people heard I was from New York, they’d say things like, Oh, you must go to Rittenhouse Square, it’s just like Fifth Avenue. Or: South Street is just like the Village. And I’d go check it out — all homesick and eager — and it was NOT THE SAME. Have you Philadelphia people ever been to New York? Like, ever? Actually my mom swears she knows someone who has never left the state of New Jersey. Not once in 40-some-odd years. This fact BOGGLES MY MIND.) So when I say I want to leave New York I mean someplace completely different, someplace that isn’t trying to be New York, someplace totally Itself. I get the feeling Los Angeles is like that. And Portland. Key West. Nashville. Austin. DC. Vancouver.

And I want to live in at least one or two of those places in my lifetime.

I think that’s what my family doesn’t understand about me. And why it’s really hard — as much as I love my boyfriend, and my friends, and my native New York snobbery — to not jump at the chance for an adventure.

And also for my sanity. Did I mention how RELAXED I am whenever I leave New York? And honestly, my New York snobbery probably needs a good slappin’ around.

Make-Believe

There are Legitimate Reasons not to move to LA, just like there were Legitimate Reasons not to move to San Francisco last year. But I can’t say I ever stopped second-guessing that decision. Three months ago, when everything seemed to be going wrong, ALL I WANTED was a dream job in California. To get back that chance. For a do-over on the Road Not Taken. And now here’s my dream job in California.

Unfortunately, though, I also got all my OTHER dreams at the same time — like a romantic trip to Europe next month and the end of a long distance relationship with my boyfriend and a separate interview with another Kickass Company. Why is life so crazy? Don’t the karma gods know I might want these things but I want them ONE. AT. A. TIME? Why do things have to be either all good or all bad?

… Which doesn’t mean I can’t pretend like I’m moving to LA, however. At a party last night, I told EVERYONE about the job offer. (Like, all four people I knew there.) I mean, it’s a really good offer. And it’s LA! It’s glamorous! In my heart of hearts, though, I must not believe it’s actually going to happen. Because later in the evening, as I was talking about the aforementioned end of my long distance torture, someone said, “Well, at least until you move to LA …” And then I realized: Oh, honey, don’t worry, moving to LA is just pretend.

Until I begin to regret it three months from now.

In Which I Get What I Wish For … Sorta

I was offered a job in LA. L. A. L! A! Just to be clear, I didn’t apply for a job in LA. I applied for a job in New York. And they rejected me. Rejected! Apparently they didn’t like me enough to hire me in my own backyard, but yesterday I got a phone call asking if I’d be willing to relocate to California. Just to be clear, I’ve never even BEEN to LA. Not once. Not even when I was a kid, not even the airport.

Part of me is super excited. L! A! The City of Angels. Or, at least, the City of Gorgeous Weather, Beaches, and Cars. My three favorite things, incidentally. And how often does a company offer to send you on a cross-country adventure?

Well, apparently, the answer is twice. Because last year I was in THE EXACT SAME SITUATION. Last year I was offered a promotion in San Francisco, a city I actually HAD visited and really, really liked. A lot. And I turned it down. Because of a boy. (Well — officially — for a number of Legitimate Reasons. But also because of a boy.)

A boy I’m still dating. A boy my dad really, really likes. And because my dad really likes this boy, he thinks moving to California is the Worst Idea Ever. My dad wants me to marry this boy so he can finally have that son he always wanted. Someone with whom to go fishing, watch baseball, talk about medicine, play poker, and barbecue. Also complain about women. (I have two sisters.)

The thing is, when I told this boy about California, he said nothing. Nothing! Or nothing more than: that’s exciting, I hear the weather is nice, now I have to go watch sports. That kind of nothing. How do I plan a future around a boy who goes mute whenever I ask him to talk about Feelings? How much longer can I put my life on hold without some sort of Grand Commitment?

My dad wants me to gamble on my career to pursue my relationship. I’d prefer to gamble on my love life to pursue my career. In L! A!

As I See It

I think fundamentally my urge to write is not about boredom but confusion. At 25, I’ve accomplished every single goal I’ve had since graduating from college — and learned the important the lesson that 21-year-old-me didn’t have the faintest clue about what it means to be an adult.

In 2003, all I wanted to be was a professional writer living in Manhattan. And if I could really have my way, I’d throw in dating a cute doctor who’s also a really good cook and the return of my high school body. Well, here I am four years later and whatdaya know? I’m a huge success! Writing career? Check. Apartment in Manhattan? Check. Dating a doctor/amateur chef? Check. High school body? Well, not exactly, but I can run three miles now when High School Me could barely manage three MINUTES. And that’s so much better, right?

Except I don’t feel like a huge success. I feel like I don’t know where to go next. Sure writing and editing is fun and exciting MOST OF THE TIME, but there are plenty of unglamorous parts, especially the paycheck. And the apartment in Manhattan is small and dark and noisy (typical of Manhattan, really) and costing upwards of 50 percent of my writerly paycheck and THAT’S JUST WRONG. And my boyfriend is amazing and perfect and I love him, but I don’t think we’re on the same page or even in the SAME BOOK about the future. And running? Running is all I have to keep me sane.

Clearly I should have rethought these goals before I wished for them. Clearly I should have wished to be a lawyer in San Francisco. Or a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. Or a financial advisor in San Diego. (I’m kind of obsessed with California lately, can you tell?) But it’s not even about my career so much. I’m equally unsure that I want the white-picket-fence fantasy of being married in the suburbs with 2.5 kids and 1.3 cars. (Well, maybe 1.3 cars since I miss driving these days. But definitely not 2.5 kids. My bare bones MySpace profile lists two facts about me: my birthday and “I don’t want kids.” The totality of what I know about myself.) But I feel like that’s what I’m supposed to be gunning for.

And that just leaves me more mixed up than I ever was in my entire life. And also, quite frankly, TERRIFIED. But uncertainty sometimes equals possibility, right? I guess I’ll find out …