Chapter 92: Rooms and roommates.

i moved to nyc a little over a year ago in 2010. having graduated undergrad in may of 2009 and having lived a year at home, i missed the deluge of my fellow graduates who all moved to the city together. they managed to find instant roommates because if one of their friends couldn't be a roommate, there was always a friend of a friend.

not quite so in my case considering my timing. and thus, i started on the search. a search that has resulted in me living with my third roommate in a year and a half.

this almost makes it sound like i'm a bad roommate and have run them all off. not so! (at least, i hope not). i seem to attract people who are in very transient stages of their lives. new jobs that have brought them to a new city, new jobs that take them away, new situations that just force them to look for a new place to inhabit. enter me with my seemingly extra room at all times.

i sometimes wonder what this says about me. do i seem unsettled enough that like finds like? or do i seem SO settled that those who are constantly on the move crave my stability? and being in a state of constant state of dissatisfaction, i'm not ok with either. the former indicates a flakiness while the latter indicates an inability to adapt. in all honesty, it could just be that i have a fabulous apartment, but i can't help but wonder how such people are pulled into my life.

Chapter 91: The roaring twenties.

i follow a ton of blogs and websites on an hourly basis. i mean, A TON. i've had people look at my blog roll and gasp at the sheer amount of blogs that i follow. these are separated into categories such as "beauty" or "news" or "pop culture," to name a few. i like to think of myself as a renaissance women with such a myriad of interests that yes, i do need to follow all 500 of the blogs that i follow.

while i was reading a "beauty" article, i came across a survey entitled "are you using the right foundation?" curious as to whether i am or not, i started filling it out when i was immediately accosted with the age bracket question. normally, this wouldn't have even crossed my mind as i checked off the youngest bracket, or in this case, it was 18-24.

...the youngest was 18-24 which means that i will soon be leaving this bracket. in fact, i'll be leaving it in a little less than three months.

i know, entering my mid-twenties is not that big of deal. plenty of people have actually managed to live through it. i think what shocks me is how different my life is as opposed to what i imagined it would be at the age of 25. i'll admit it, when i turned 18, i acquired a swagger to indicate that i was ready to take on adulthood. a swagger that has now turned into an uneasy shuffle as i find myself not exactly sure where i'm going.

is this normal? i always knew that 25 is some kind of milestone - for those younger, it's the indication that you're old. for those older, it's the good ol' days. yet, i feel neither of these things. my unease at where my life is going is punctuated by random moments and memories of elation or despair, but neither lasts.

maybe this is the year that i make my life go the way i want. the year i actually finish all the projects i started in my "good years." the year i have answers. the one answer i do have right is that yes, i am using the right foundation. one down, not even sure how many to go.

Chapter 90: Impact.

as i've written before, i've always had a fascination with death in a very hands off kind of way. i'm always intrigued by the outpouring of grief and compassion that comes after a person's death. the younger or more famous the person is, the more the grief triggered around the world. it makes sense since when a younger person passes away, you can't help but mourn their lost potential. when a famous person passes away, you celebrate their influence in the world.

this has been especially on my mind as of late with the recent passing of steve jobs. now, personal beliefs and morals aside, everyone can and should agree that this man has truly contributed hugely to the world as we know it today. in fact, he changed our every day routines to the point that it is very rare for us (in the first world, anyway) to not touch an apple product on a daily basis. and if we don't, there is probably one within arm's reach.

interestingly enough, i found out about his death from a fashion blog that i follow through google reader. yup, you read that correctly: a fashion blog. is this because of how fashionable jobs was while he was alive? not really, no. but his impact was so great and reverberated through so many industries, that even the readers of this fashion blog--which was really just a new york city girl modeling her own designer clothes in rather crooked poses on the top of her parents' apartment building--could mourn the passing of this man. after all, those fashion forward viewers might have been reading that blog through a mac or an iproduct.

with blogger's new features (maybe they're not new? i haven't been here in a while...), i can now see how many people have viewed my blog over the course of its life. i can't help but wonder who you all are, and what can be gained through my blog, if anything. i started this blog over four years ago (jaw just dropped at that) in the hopes that i could find a corner of the internet to call my own. did i ever think that ANYONE would read it? well, i hoped someone would which is why it's a public blog in the first place. as ridiculous as it may seem, i'd love to imagine that some post i made was the butterfly flapping it's wings to create the storm on the other side of the world. highly doubtful, but at least i can hope to have some tiny influence on the world, some fraction of the impact that jobs left behind him. perhaps this blog will be my ticket to fame, or it will merely serve as place to record my delusions. i guess time will tell.  

Chapter 89: Excuses.

i have a ton of excuses for basically everything in my life. not all bad, but not all good either. i can convince myself and others around me of why i didn't get to work on time, of why i didn't go home one weekend, of even why i haven't written in this blog for nearly a year.

there are some days, however, that the truth comes smacking me in the face from that neat little corner where i tucked it away. naturally, once i have convinced myself of my excuse (read: lie), the truth can no longer stick around since the two are at direct odds with each other. every so often, though, i have these moments where i feel like i've just woken up. as if everything i had been looking at was cloudy and the sudden rush of clarity takes my breath away. kind of like those claritin commercials.

i've made a decision to myself that these excuses can no longer be a part of my life. if i am making an excuse for something, i'll have to question my intention in making that excuse. is it something that i'm ashamed of? something i am too lazy to do? something i don't want to admit to myself? if there is anything that i can't admit outright, then it shouldn't be a part of my life. it's definitely time to be more honest with others and most of all, myself. (and with my blog, of course.)