a girl, a city

Things That Are Old

I am tired of people who are constantly saying “woe is me”. To paraphrase Henry Rollins… this is America! Here’s some Vitamin C! Have a gun! Get out there!

Over the past few weeks I have talked to so many people who are suffering from a victim complex. They moan about their circumstances without doing anything concrete to change them. I’ve never really been a pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps type of person, but really… do it.

A year ago my life was a mess. I was in a dead-end job I felt like I couldn’t leave because I had no education and no real work experience outside of that company to put on my resume. I was single after leaving a horrible relationship and the rebound to that. I had no money, my friends were busy with their own lives, and my family was (is) seven hours away. I was supporting myself and frantically trying to ease the shadow of debt that I’d been living under for the past two years.

Now? Now I am making double what I was at my old job. I am back in school (Ivy League, no less). I have a positive balance in my savings account. Life, in general, is good. Life can always be good if that’s what you want and you’re willing to work for it a little. Fuck anyone who says different.

P.S. I fucking love New York.

P.P.S. I am, perhaps, slightly intoxicated right now.

It is past my bedtime. Good night, dear Internet.

Thanks?

It’s funny that sharingtime says New Yorkers don’t say thank you to bus drivers, because just this morning I noticed the way that every person getting off the bus said some form of “thank you”. Even the Tough Guys, who just sort of grunted it, but were still unmistakably expressing their appreciation.

I don’t think all New Yorkers are jerks, I think it was just Lee.

sharingtime:

It took me a while to get used to people saying thank you to the bus drivers as they exit the bus here in Colorado. Now I’m doing it too. I’ve never said thank you to a bus driver in my life. In New York, there’s an unspoken rule about not talking to other human beings on public transit, transit employees being no different.

The words feel weird coming out of my mouth. I’m used to being polite and saying thank you to people in the service industry, but bus drivers are not exactly directly serving you. I’m a little freaked out by my own courtesy. I can’t really imagine any other situation where this would hold true.

“Thank you for performing that life-saving operation on me, Dr. Jewsurgeon.”

“Why, you’re welcome Lee.”

“Ok, I feel gross now.”

All of my “users similar to [me]” on OKCupid are in their forties. What does this say about me?

My dad called to complain that his lastname.com e-mail was not forwarding because I recently switched hosting companies, and things are set up differently. So he’s like “I missed all sorts of important e-mails!”

And the only person who e-mails him is my Uncle Pete. So I pointed that out.

“Well there were some good forwarded jokes in there!”