#the town i went to school in had a population of ~60K and was rural

[attractiverubble]

[day 198] - Magic Mountain

I went to New York yesterday. The West Village, to be more precise. I have rarely been down to that area. Its a really cool neighborhood. Rents are insane in that area though. $2200/month for a tiny studio - like 400 sq ft. Even in astoria, a 1 bedroom is like $1800/month. More space, but only marginally. Say you live in one of these apts with your sigot (significant other), and you’re splitting the rent while sleeping in the same bed. Wouldn’t try to scrimp a bit more each month to live in the village compared to astoria? Though there’s a bunch of other things you have to pay for (And I always forget about utilities. Damn utilities). So for $900/month, that’s $11,800 for the year. Typically, a livable budget accounts for 25% of wages to be paid toward housing, but I feel that a young age - below 30 - when you don’t have kids to feed or are trying to save for retirement, you can get by on 33% of wages to cover housing. If 11,800 is a third of your income, your income has to be about $36,000 per year. That’s usually doable for people with a college degree living in a city.

But new york is famous for the name. Its got a great reputation. And the village, as I said above, is super cool. Tons of very pretty people walking around, cool stores and restaurants and bars, everything someone below 30 would want. THere is NYU in there too, with all these immature college kids, but that’s somewhat avoidable (though I figure the NYU kids really mix into the general population). 

Just a quick check of places in LA, around los feliz and silver lake and echo park, you can get a 2 bedroom for that same $1,800/month you would pay for a one-bedroom in Astoria, and los feliz is a ton cooler than astoria. Now LA doesn’t have the same level of public transit as NYC, but if they get these new innovations in ride-sharing and connected cars operating in LA, plus the investments they’re making in the traditional public transit sphere, that gap will definitely close. 

Wherever you live, though, you want to be around friends and other people of a similar age. Its basically a more adult version of living at college. All of your friends and acquaintances and associates and enemies are within a 20-block radius. Every restaurant and bar and theater and venue and park you could want to visit is in that area too. I guess you need to have a job somewhere near by, but that comes with being able to pay for rent. 

[I don’t know if any of this actually makes sense. I think i started on a bunch of points, but never finished them.]

Now, where are my friends situated? Where is it I want to be? Where is a location that I can make new friends?

I was in the west village yesterday to spend time with a friend from college. A friend I’ve had a troubled and complex relationship with since I first met her 4 years ago. Lots of ups and downs. I haven’t actually seen her in at least 15 months, and haven’t spent this much time with her in more than that. I was scared/nervous/anxious about spending time with her again, because I don’t know how I want to feel about her. 

It was kinda weird how familiar talking with her felt. She was still confrontational at times, like I recall her being. Now, I could easily be taking some things too personally, because i had a crush on her for a good amount of time, and she knew this and had that power over me, and she’s dated the same guy the entire time and lives with him now, and I don’t know how to deal with that now. I don’t want to feel that way about her, but it seems like a comfortable spot to fall into with her for whatever reason. Its definitely a problem for me, myself and I to solve/work on, just weird to think about. I’d much rather not deal with it, just be open with this friend.

[aside here - I’m so glad I had two cups of coffee with dessert tonight, I can actually focus on this stuff I’m writing. Its very helpful for me to be honest here.]

If I was completely honest, I would tell her that I simply have bad memories of her and I don’t want to deal with them. I would rather avoid her and these bad memories I have from 3 years ago than gain her friendship. I do know she cares about me and values my friendship, but I fear this friendship can never again be on equal grounds. Mostly because of my faults/feelings/actions/etc., but somewhat on stuff she’s done/said to me. It sucks, but its a fact of life.

Now that being said, I did have fun with her yesterday. I had more fun being around her and other people than just the two of us eating lunch. There was some good conversation, when it was just the two of us, but there were definitely some of those awkward pauses. Now I wasn’t looking to rehash any of that old stuff, but I realize that when there are those awkward pauses, that just means we aren’t all that compatible as friends. We can certainly get along, but its weird. I don’t even know how it would be if the three people in the room are me, her and her boyfriend. If its a whole group, it should be fine. And again, I would rather avoid it all together than have that friendship. I am more comfortable and more excited to associate with a different group of people.

Now, as I’ve said numerous times before, I see New York as a dead town. Its peaked. Currently, rents are too high, transit too costly to dignify living there. There’s more older people that can avoid those costs and the city has become a bit stale. If anything, the West Village is not really like that, simply because the people there are so cool and so rich (plus I figure half the people that hang out there live in astoria/williamsburg/brooklyn).

I don’t know what its like to live in brooklyn or queens. Last time I visited, it was a cold dreary march day, and I went to gowanus and clinton hill in brooklyn. I really haven’t been to williamsburg or astoria. But all of those places are for young people. Still, they don’t excite me and seem to be too expensive for what they offer.

Circling back to this friend I met yesterday, she lives in Astoria. Wherever I live, I want to be around people I love and care about and who feel the same way about me. Wherever those people are, there will be cool bars and restaurants and venues to make life fun, and just being with these people I like will make life fun. (If I’m not clear, I’m saying that the people in a locale will make the spots there memorable, not the other way around). And I realized yesterday I could live in that area and work in Manhattan and also be around a bunch of other people I know from both college and high school, plus a ton of other young people. I’d become a stereotype, but whatever I do, I’ll be a stereotype - I’m a straight white male. I already am a stereotype. Also, fuck stereotypes.

Anyway, I had to reconsider my thoughts about New York. Now, trying to commute from this house in oak ridge is stupid. Its super expensive each day and takes way too much time. So I would need to live in the city to make it work. And I don’t think I would be totally opposed to that idea! Yet, I mainly enjoyed the ambiance and character of the west village. That neighborhood is too expensive for me, though. To afford to live there, I would need to make $60k per year. I don’t envision that happening. So I questioned my thoughts based on this one area. A spot I could hang out in, but would never live.

So, ascribing myself to that ideal I put forth earlier, [this rambling essay will not make sense to me tomorrow], I would wind up living near this friend from college. I just can’t envision enjoying my life if I wind up spending time with her every week. Obviously there are schedule conflicts and other people I would see, etc. But if we grow into those same social circles, which arise from being neighbors and similar ages and in similar fields, I think I would wind up feeling stuck. Stuck in a certain niche in life, and stuck in a certain way I would need to act.

Now I realize I give this friend way too much control over my life, and I don’t really know why I hand this over. Why I value her opinion of me so much. I just know that will happen. I kinda wanted to ask her something concerning that. Not even anything romantic, just something self-seeking, something that speaks to my insecurities.

And it would be awkward if I live in that area and try to avoid her as much as possible!

Now LA, I probably know a bit fewer people there than in NYC, but I do like the people I know in LA more overall. Plus, I feel I could grow more as a person there than in NYC. Have more fun.

So that certainly feeds into my belief that LA is still growing as a city while New York is now past its peak. The people I know who live in LA, I’m interested in. I want to know more about them. I want to explore that city and community. The people I know who live in NYC, on the other hand, I’m just not that interested in. I could be a complete asshole, but I feel like I know all there is to know about these people who live in NYC. Certainly this friend of mine. She didn’t seem to change - personality/socially-wise - at all. That shouldn’t be a surprise for me; most people don’t change all that much between 21 and 23. Still, I didn’t really like the human being at 21 to begin with, so its no wonder I don’t like the same person at 23.

I want to move to LA. i want that near-perfect weather year-round. I want to be in hollywood. I want to live in Ca-li-for-nia. I want to move out west. I went to college near boston for 3.5 years, and lived in the urban area for a summer. I think I accomplished everything there was to do in boston. Now, I still love suburban and rural new england, and would absolutely move to the coast of Maine, or cape cod, or a place like Billerica, MA. Or even a nice quiet spot in Vermont. But I’m not at that stage in life. I do think there’s a bunch of stuff to do in New york while living there, but I feel like the people who are my age, I don’t really fit in with (mainly based on my biases and pre-conceived notions of who currently lives there.) LA, I think as a largely transplant city, just welcomes people, and I’ll be more capable of fitting in. 

And I’ve done cool things in New York, been to cool places. Sure, when you’re having fun in a city, you wouldn’t mind living in that city. But if I lived in New York, I’d feel old at points, like life has passed me and this city by. I wouldn’t feel that way in LA.

NYC is my hometown metropolitan center. Everything cool to me growing up was everything NYC. I’m just used to it. I want something different.

This friend could be playing a large factor in this decision for me subconsciously too. Basically, knowing that she lives in new york, I want to go somewhere completely different and not feel obligated at all to do anything with her. And that idea was sorta reinforced for me yesterday. I also realized I would have plenty more opportunities to visit NYC, and I can take advantage of those times instead of moving there to live.

I don’t even know if I prefer to live in a city. I might want to be a hermit in some rural town of 890 people. But there’s no way to find an actual job in a town like that, which is why I feel it necessary to move to a city.

[now i’m starting to get tired.]