Yet.

Heyyy.

You might've though I'd forgotten about or abandoned the blog, and the blogging days, completely. In actuality, I've been having blog-bound internal monologue for weeks now. Cause since I last wrote, a lot has happened and I've had a lot to say - I've:
(1) started a new job [yay! direct deposit, mac computers and marketing minds!],
(2) lived in two new apartments (and am looking for another for in two weeks) [please. just kill me.],
(3) gone to the optometrist for the first time in two years [and rediscovered why I loved the UK health system],
(4) bought new bedding [including 600-thread count bamboo sheets that I looove],
(5) had a few important thoughts and/or realizations [which i think i've forgotten],
(6) and went to a RADIOHEAD concert [that basically changed my life].

Also, I made my first non-through-someone-else in New York friend today, Greg. We met at the realty office near Bedford. We were simultaneously subjected to a terrifying-yet-amusing broker experience today, and we hope to be neighbors, decorate/paint and make Ikea trips together.

I suppose I should feel like a New Yorker by now. I commute. I've been spending more money on meals and groceries in a week than I do on (admittedly, incredibly low) sublet rent. Already, the bizarre acts and/or appearances of people here (like the guy pushing the shopping cart hollering, "Mother Teresa!" as he exited the pizza shop) no longer phase me or warrant a second, curious look. I can justifiably complain about New York real estate and brokers. I pay for taxis with a swipe of the credit card. I went on a weekend away to the Catskills, in which we even drove through New Jersey.

Except I don't (yet) feel like a New Yorker. In fact, lately I've felt the strain of the gypsy life more than I have ever have - even in comparison to the time I left for a different country without a job or apartment prearranged. I admit I don't have a lot of excitement for this city (yet), and the frustration of the cost of being here - both financially as well as emotionally - has certainly overshadowed the decent bits. I'm careful to remember that I'm not 'unhappy' here because I remind myself that my situation will soon improve. In the meantime, however, the barrage of complications and the continual postponement of planting my feet on the ground has left me completely exhausted and frustrated - not to mention a bit bitter and self-centric.

I reread some of my entries here from those really explosive times we had in London - the party with the Japanese guys, the epic weeks of closing down pubs, seeing 6 shows in 7 days, and crazy travels among others. The blog will swing into full momentum when things like that are worth sharing again. When life has less negative energy. Once I find a regular blues bar. Once I'm better about spinning. Once I have keys, and lease, and a not-lofted bed, and a wonderful roommate, and my own space in the refrigerator. And a social life. I miss that too. A lot.

It's been a tough move, this one. And it's strange (yet reasonable) to me to think that it's harder because I've been doing this too long. At 23, I can actually say that I'm too old for this shit. No one should have lived in eight different places in twelve months. It's bad for your mental health.

Perhaps most of all, I have to stop comparing, in my head, New York against London. As much as I'd like one to be the other, there can be no buyer's remorse for the new life I've tried on for size. London might've been my Cinderella glass slippers - the perfect fit, the magical style, the one that won you over. New York, I think, is more like the many pair of cheap impulse shoes I've been known to buy over the years: attractive, uncomfortable, maybe even an imitator of the real thing. But the thing is, sometimes once the shoes are broken in, and you've persevered, they become your favorite pair.

So it's time to break in - to find my square footage among the other 1.6 million people living in 23 square miles. I believe that the signing of a lease will both symbolically and literally end all this nonsense. In the meantime, I'm gonna need (yet) a little more time to recharge.