The Word of the Day ...

... is meh.

Some days you just don't have it. You're not entirely sure how you want to spend your day and then you get caught up in the malaise, sulking.

I honestly believe that holidays make me anti-social - I'm not entirely sure why.

I woke up before 8 and an hour or so later went back to bed ... the second time I got up was at nearly 1 p.m. While I know I needed the sleep, I couldn't think exactly what I felt like getting out of bed for. It was just one of those days and I knew it. The kind of day where you wake up and you just feel listless and ... meh.

I dragged my butt to the couch to watch an episode of "Rob & Big" on the DVR -- add a fleet of remote control helicoptors to the list of things that show has made me want. I ate a bowl of cereal for breakfast (or can you call it brunch, even though you're in boxer shorts on the couch?) I talked to a friend on the phone, who I am visiting in less than two weeks. I put on my workout clothes and made myself go to the gym ... worked out for an hour and watched my beloved Dawgs destroy any respectable bowl game hopes.

And now I'm home ... still feeling meh and not entirely positive why.

"And why do we like to hurt, so much?
I can't decide what you get when you let your heart win.
That's what you get when you let your heart win.
I drowned out all my sense with the sound of its beating."
- "That's What You Get"
Paramore

If I Were a Boy

"If I were a boy ....
I'd put myself first
And make the rules as I go"
- "If I Were a Boy"
Beyonce

Between my addiction to early morning Vh1 and satellite radio, I often listen to songs that I wouldn't otherwise play or pay attention to - case in point, "If I Were a Boy" by Beyonce. I was driving home to my parents' house yesterday and heard this song while aimlessly wandering through my presets.

I have an uncanny talent to catch onto lyrics, to learn the words to songs after only hearing them once or twice. Lyrics especially seem to stick when they resonate with you - in other words, sometimes they write the song for you.

And that was my day ...

One is the Loneliest Number

I accidentally minored in sociology. While reviewing my transcript for the hundredth time with my advisor, she suggested that by taking a few additional classes, I would graduate with a sociology minor. I was wise enough to realize that while this was by no means a marketable degree, I enjoyed the classes enough to do it. Since then, I have always been a geek for statistics and cultural studies.

I read the cover article in New York this week - "The Loneliness Myth" - and was completely fascinated by it. The premise of the article is stated early on: "Manhattan is the capital of people living by themselves. But are New Yorkers lonelier? Far from it, say a new breed of loneliness researchers, who argue that urban alienation is largely a myth."

The article begins with a hard-hitting statistic - of all 3,141 counties in the United States, New York County is the unrivaled leader in single-individual households, at 50.6 percent. Translated from numbers to words, one in two people in New York City proper is living alone. Following, the next most interesting statistic shows that "in Manhattan, 25.6 percent of households are married, whereas the national average is 49.7." While discussing this with my mom, she raised an interesting point of dissension - many people leave the City upon marrying to raise a family in the suburbs.

However, the author uses this stat to prove a valid assumption ... and provides even more statistical ammunition to back it. Having a cadre of single friends (who serve as the urban version of family) kept her from mistakenly marrying young. She then points out that the variety of new experiences available in an urban environment just may be what makes city marriages better - New York State is tied for the fifth-lowest divorce rate in the nation. While one can also argue that (from what I've heard), it's not easy to get divorced in New York.

Regardless ...

The article makes some interesting assumptions, but also reminds me of something that I have long believed. People in urban areas (New York, especially) live differently than the norm - not necessarily better, but differently. Facebook has shown me that nearly every person I attended college with in Georgia owns a house and has a minimum of one child. The majority of similarly aged people I know in New York are unmarried, not home owners and childless.

We can't afford real estate here - it's as simple as that. While everyone in Georgia and South Carolina always argues that we earn more, it is by no means proportional. What I pay for my one bedroom apartment an hour outside of the City (with no temperature control), can basically pay someone's mortgage on a starter house in the south.

Essentially, you could be doomed to rent for the majority of your life, while you wait to purchase in New York. Starter houses, you're looking at what, $400,000 - at least. Two bedroom apartments in Manhattan - do you have a million dollars? So you're stuck renting in a place where all you want is to be able to turn the heat off when your indoor temperature rises above 90, or turn it on when the outdoors are below freezing.

People become "stuck" at 22 - nothing changes - life becomes "Groundhog Day." You go to work, pay rent on an exorbitantly priced apartment and go out at night to meet people. 30 is the new 22. Yet people in other regions of the country can look forward to starting a real life - saving for a house, getting married and starting a family. If you can't imagine ever being able to realistically own something, why think about moving forward.

And so we get stuck.

New Yorkers are forced to become single-minded and career focused. We're forced to work harder and longer hours in hopes of moving up and making enough money to get by. A functional relationship takes time and takes work, so people forgo them in favor of making more money ... and so the cycle continues.

People live together who have no plans to get married. Traditional relationships and the concept of dating to eventually meet someone to start a family with, falls by the wayside. I couldn't count if I tried, the number of people I have met who have no intention of ever marrying or starting a family.

So do we have it figured out here, the more modern way of looking at life and relationships ... or do we have it anything but?

Re-evaluation

"She’s going out to forget they were together
All that time he was taking her for granted
She wants to see if there’s more
Than he gave she’s looking for"
- "I Don't Wanna Be in Love"
Good Charlotte

Having given myself a four day weekend (I've been off since Saturday), I've had plenty of time to get things done that I simply haven't made time for in the past month. I've cleaned my apartment, got my car inspected (kind of neglected to realize that it expired during October ... oops), ran errands, finished the two movies I had been watching all month and finished one of the three books I was reading.

I love being off on random weekdays while the rest of the world is off doing their everyday things. While it has been relaxing to nap whenever I want (and I have randomly napped at some point each day I have been off), the time and the silence are deadening. I'm not used to not having plans and not having somewhere to be. The worst place for me to be is left alone with my thoughts.

Only two things can semi-successfully clear my head when it is overflowing - running and aimless driving. I went to the gym today and had a solid run. After finishing my run, I decided to stay in my car - roof open, windows down - to enjoy the beautiful weather and to figure out what the nagging voice in my head was saying.

I have always been a people-pleaser, to my own detriment. I've always been the person who puts everyone else's interests and happiness before my own, thinking that if the people around me are happy, I will be, too. Sometimes this is the case; sometimes it is not.

I feel like this is a lesson I should have learned before - that it isn't my responsibility to put everyone else first ... that sometimes I need to put myself first. But as I very well know ... I seem to suck at mastering certain lessons and this just may be another case of it.

What Will Be of 2009?

I am mid-Google-chat with my friend Elizabeth, who has just typed: "when are we moving to la? I think the warm air will do ri some good."

Most of my life I have dreamed of living in Southern California. While other people romanticized a life in New York City, I fantasized about warm weather Christmases.

My parents were both born and raised in New York. To be quite honest, I doubt they will ever leave. My brother was the first to go when he moved to North Carolina for college. Two years later, I followed suit and moved to Georgia for school at 17. I remember when my mailbox was filled with glossy college brochures which pictured magical lands out west - colleges on cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. (Note: not only was I incapable of fathoming exactly what Pepperdine cost for a four-year education, I was also grossly unaware that it was a semi-crazy right-wing conservative campus. Nope, not for me.) Needless to say, at 17, my parents refused to let me go cross-country for school. Upon graduating, I wanted to go out to California, but my finances didn't allow for it. I moved to Charleston, to Massachusetts, back to Charleston, and then back to New York. But I never made it out to California.

I took a week-long trip to San Diego (Encinitas) and fell in love with La Jolla and Del Mar on my way to the campsite when I was 20 years old. I was sold on the dream. When I moved back to New York, I promised myself that I would give it a fair chance. Although I am far from the "I love New York" poster child that my brother is, I still felt that I owed it to myself to give New York a fighting shot. And so I did.

Last year, I made a pact with myself. I told myself that if nothing changed for better or for worse, I would transfer with my job to LA when my lease was up, in July, 2009. In order to make this happen, I figured that I would have to put my plan in action beginning in the new year. As 2009 creeped closer, I (predictably) felt that nothing was changing and I would be ready to go west. I even started to put the wheels in motion where work was concerned.

I spent a week out there last December and felt like I belonged there - that if I could have never come back to New York, that it would have all been okay. I checked out towns and neighborhoods, started to understand where the freeways went and accepted the fact that you have to valet your car at a $5 wing joint.

Lately, I've started to think about the option if something does change. How do you know if you're ready to leave it behind if there is a possibility of something better where you already are? And if it doesn't work, do you end up with a world of regret?

I tell myself that 2009 wasn't a drop dead date. It doesn't even make it in time to support the "before I'm 30" self-imposed deadline. I just wonder, as 2009 is less than two months away, exactly what I will be ready for.

If You See Something, Say Something

"If everything could ever feel this real forever

If anything could ever be this good again"

- "Everlong"

Foo Fighters

I've officially confirmed something that I have always suspected - I'm incredibly jaded. I used to think that I had become cynical but had still retained some (blind) optimism. Now I've come to realize that I truly am jaded.

It becomes difficult to enjoy being present when you are afraid of what awaits ten steps ahead of you. While optimism is key, hoping for the best possible outcome, past experience tells you not to get your hopes up. You can see all that is good in what you have but you are essentially terrified of losing it ... because that is what you have come to learn - the good ol' self fulfilling prophecy.

How do you get past what your mind and heart have been conditioned and let yourself believe that something good could actually be happening? And not just that it could be happening, but that it could still be even better the next day or the week after?

How do you tell yourself not to see something negative that isn't even there, just because you assume it has to be there? How do you regain the most fundamental feelings of not necessarily trust, but of having faith in people again?

I'm happy, but I'm scared ... and I've yet to figure out how exactly to reconcile the two.