Unexpected things

I was in a pretty bad mood on Friday, evident from my last post here. God, it's so easy to fall into that "I feel so sorry for myself because life is so unfair sometimes" mood! Beyond my own feeling of loneliness, I could not stop thinking about my good friend whose teenage son might have cancer, beyond any imaginable unfairness that life can put a person through. But sometimes it's ok to be sad and to try to write about it and to make yourself even sadder by looking at old pictures, getting nostalgic, and thinking about people no longer with us. Puts some perspective on the good days, the happy moods.

After a good long sleep the world usually looks much brighter. Running errands, doing laundry, cleaning - oh my god, it's not even funny anymore how much I have been neglecting all of these things these past couple of months while I have been traveling and refereeing a lot: for over 2 weeks, there was no soap in the bathroom (I wonder if the other 3 people living in the apartment don't use soap?); I considered going to buy underwear instead of doing laundry but then I remembered that I would have to wash those too before wearing them; let's not even mention the state of my bedroom. For Saturday evening, I was planning to meet a friend of a friend who just moved here from Spain. I worked with the mutual friend for two years before she moved back to Barcelona and met the friend once while she visited NYC nearly a year ago. We had been emailing back and forth for a couple of weeks to try to figure out a good time to meet and finally it was going to be Saturday evening. On my way home from Target, I got on the bus - I was lazy, it was still cold out, etc - sat down and as soon as I looked over at the girl sitting next to me, I knew it was her: my friend's friend from Barcelona. I didn't really remember her face from when we met, but we both knew. After about 2 seconds of staring into each other's faces, she cautiously asked "Are you Julie?" and we laughed for a long time about how tiny this city of 8 million people really is. It turns out this is not as weird as we thought at first since we both live in the same neighborhood.

I did have some more errands to run that afternoon - like finally checking out Rob's wine store in Long Island City, which I was really impressed by (I really was there to get a bottle of champagne for a celebration today at a reasonable price, since I do get the friends and family discount, it's good to have friends who have alcohol!). Besides the reasonable priced alcohol, there is also this view from there, whoa! Right across the river from the UN. Can you imagine having this view from your living room??



So, back to my original thought. My new Spanish friend and I were to meet up for dinner in Harlem later in the evening, after my excursion to Queens. I am always a little anxious about these let's meet a friend's friend situations. Not to say that it isn't a wonderful thing! If I ever moved to a city where I didn't know a soul, I would absolutely want to contact anyone and everyone who was a friend's friend or a friend's friend's friend! Especially here. It can be so hard to make connections if you are here for a job. I always had the advantage of going to school in new places: so much easier to make friends. But in any case, I always meet up with friend's friends, especially if they are from far away, but sometimes I feel like even if we don't hit it off, I am sort of obligated to become friends with the person; after all, they don't know other people here and that's just not a good way to be anywhere.

After all that worrying, of course we totally hit it off with Pilar. Had a great night, she even took me to a Spanish party (and here I was thinking she didn't have any friends in New York), which was not so much fun - crowded bar, people only speaking Spanish, $12 drinks! - but I like having this feeling of "wow, I just met a really cool person". As a consequence of this late night adventure, I made it to bed after 2am, which was really 3am (day light savings) and my plan was to get in a good long run early on Sunday before brunch and other plans. When I opened my eyes just after 10am on Sunday, that did not look good at all. Shit! Quick text to push back brunch, quick advil for the headache I knew was the result of that $12 gin&tonic, and I was out the door and in the park for my longest run of 2012 yet. Reason: last minute desperate try to get in shape before I most likely run the NYC Half this coming Sunday - David, my marathon buddy, who signs up for every race on the face of the earth often can't actually make it to those races, so here I am with a possible race number for this year's big half! Cool, I didn't register because it's so freaking expensive this year, and what good thinking that was! Except for the part where I ran less than 8 miles yesterday and I am SO sore today! Oh well, should be fun :)

Best part of a long weekend morning run: the excessive amount of food one can consume for brunch afterwords: my favorite American meal - nearly tied with wings and beer. And there is nothing better than being totally lazy and going to see a movie after consuming a huge omelette. Friends with Kids, what a cute movie! Very New York, very funny, yet touching, real. Afterwords, walking down Park Avenue in the sun (it's suddenly very much like spring here, not that we really had a winter to speak of) I can't imagine leaving this place. When I think about it rationally, about making a choice (right now, that's between staying in New York or moving to Boston next year), it's difficult to make a decision. But when on a Sunday like yesterday was, I have no idea why I even have to think about it. No matter what I chose, I will meet a bunch of people next year. I will have a whole new life. But the more I think about it and the more I let myself feel it instead of thinking about it too much, the more I realize that the urge I sometimes feel to leave and start over in some new place is because, well, let's face it, it's always greener on the other side. Or so we always think. Would any of my problems be solved by moving to a new city right now? When I say problems, I do not really mean problems. I mean things that I am not totally satisfied with. No, no, most likely not. Because no matter what, it will always seem greener on the other side, no matter what side I am on. So with that, I think I am officially leaning towards Einstein right now. This weekend made my mind up. Starting over from scratch at this point also seems a little scary, unless of course it is in a place like California :)