Introducing the newest member of my family

Oh to have a dog of my own. It's been on my to-do list for a few years as an adult, and "puppy" was always high on my Hanukkah wishlist as a kid. For the last few years I've been an occasional foster momma to Shiba Inus through a local rescue but my crazy work and life schedule wasn't really conducive to dogs. (Or sleep for that matter.)

When I first moved to NYC my apartment was barely big enough for me, let alone a pet. Since moving downtown the space has been willing; it was just a matter of timing. A couple of months ago I realized I wanted to make room in my life for a pet. I watched a friend's dog for a couple of weeks while she was on vacation and got very used to coming home to happy barks and tail wags. It got me outside and exploring more and it was easier to talk to people with a dog as an icebreaker. Especially a really cute dog!

So I started looking into adoption slowly. Then a couple of weeks ago my rescue sent out an APB about a Shiba pup that needed a new home. I was in! She came home with me on Thursday and has been settling in ever since. Shibas are a challenging but rewarding breed to own and I'm loving my new life as a dog owner. My dog is about 8 months old and 18 lbs -- which makes her easily portable.

I do miss being close to parks like I was on the Upper East Side -- both Carl Schurz and Central Park were just a few blocks from my apartment. On the other hand it means more exercise for both me and my dog to get to the park and that's never a bad thing.

I have not decided on a name yet but am leaning towards Cinnamon. She's found her favorite spot (the couch, of course) and came with plenty of toys to choose from. Not that I won't be getting her more soon enough. We're off to the Union Square dog park later today to make some new friends. Life is good, whether you're a dog or a dog owner.

The road is calling and finally I can answer

I've had roadtrips on the mind recently. I re-read The Motorcycle Diaries a few months ago and followed it up with Travels with Charley. Guess I must have been influencing my friends subconsciously. Earlier this month during a Stone Street excursion my friend D announced that he had finished restoring his car and wanted to go on a Memorial Day Weekend road trip to celebrate. Even better? He wants me to come.

I was excited for too many reasons to enumerate. Here's a few though. First, I have not owned a car since I moved to NYC and man do I miss driving. I know this sounds like the oil barron's lament but I love driving on twisty, windy roads alone with my thoughts. Or alternately with my music blaring and me singing along. And nothing beats cross-country drives.

In college the thought of three months without my car over summer break was devastating to me. So every summer my little red 1992 Saturn SC coupe (with pop-up headlights!) and I drove 1940 miles from Fort Collins, Colo. to Bethel, Conn. Lots of people complain about I-80 being corn, corn, and more corn but dammit if I didn't love every mile of it. I will never forget cresting a hill in Iowa to a gorgeous rainbow in August of 2002 heading back out West. (I will also never forget stupidly outrunning a tornado in Kansas on I-70 in May of 2001 with my sister. That was the day my sister and I learned what it was like to drive 145 mph. Don't try that at home, kids!) My senior year I had bought a SUV and was moving back home so I actually did the trip thrice in two weeks. I miss those trips now. It wouldn't be as much careless fun now paying $3.05/gallon for gas I guess, or whatever gas is these days.

Another reason I love road trips? Bonding. I tend to be in my head a lot of the time but I love how car trips can be an excuse for stifling technology in favor of, oh I don't know, actually talking to each other. I suppose today's minivans with their in-headrest screens could kill the need for conversation. Luckily D owns a 1968 Chevelle SS. So that's not going to be an issue.

One more thing to love -- seeing the country. Living in NYC is like...well it's like being an asylum quite honestly. We're barely holding our sanity together. (Some of us just gave up.) And the standards of life here are insane and unrealistic. So it will be nice to escape and be reminded of how the other 99% of people live. My parents still chuckle that I was such a farm kid growing up but I ended up somehow living in the biggest city in the US. Don't get me wrong. I love living in NYC and wouldn't trade the last 5 years of my life for anything. I just need to get out a little more.

D also invited our friend J. And now the three of us are making plans. We've decided to avoid highways whenever possible. I have never done a true back-road trip so I'm thrilled to be giving it a shot. D is in charge of planning the route. Problem is we can't decide whether we want to go South (my personal preference), West, or North. Any of them would be fun. I just like the idea of South because I've never really driven South.

J is in charge of finding places to stay. I have a feeling we're going to be camping it which is fine by me. My sole concern is that I hope they take bathroom breaks into consideration since I am a chick. And I will not be using a bottle on the side of the road, thanks.

And me? I'm in charge of the music of course. The car used to just have an AM radio but D has upgraded it to a nice digital player. So I'm assembling a playlist. I proposed a 70s classic rock theme and the boys heartily agreed. I've been having a blast the past couple of weeks researching the best songs to include. I can't say this is a genre I knew very well. Still, I knew many popular tunes from the stations my parents listened to growing up and my friends have been great resources for more. Right now Three Dog Night's "Shambala" gets played at least once daily on my iPhone.

The setup is perfect. Three friends driving in a restored classic car across the countryside, music blaring and camping out under the stars. Hmm. This also sounds like the beginning of a bad horror movie. I'm sure we'll end up with at least one great story out of the trip. Here's a nice list of road trip books. I am downloading a couple to my Kindle to read at night. Guess I can't totally leave technology behind.

I am counting down the days until May 28.

Ancillary causes

Like most people, I spent most of college broke. For the first three years I spent any extra money I had on clothing. Not beer. Not food. Not drugs. Clothing. And it made me happy enough. (We've all got our vices.) I didn't really have discretionary income until senior year, which probably not coincidentally was the first year I gained weight in college.

Weighty issues aside I remember being so excited about my senior year. I was finally living in a cool apartment. I had a little bit of money to spare. I was getting ready to launch a fabulous career in journalism and/or the music industry (ba-dum-chick!). Every door seemed to be opening. My life seemed well in order.

So it was a shock what a disaster 2003-04 was. That year I also joined a sorority. It was something I'd wanted to do but didn't have the money for until 2003. But for some reason I got a major friend backlash about the whole thing -- they said it wasn't like me and that I changed. Maybe I did change, it's hard for me to say objectively even looking back now. I do remember feeling pretty lonely and commiserating that while one side of my life (the financials) seemed relatively in order, the other side (the social) had fallen into disarray. Much of my life felt out of control.

It helped spur me back East and eventually the move into NYC. That was a good thing. I had to make some difficult decisions. They say you're still forming who you are in your 20s and I re-examined my personality a bit. It felt weird doing it -- I literally evaluated my type of attitude and the way I reacted in situations. For a year or two I focused on consciously changing myself to be what I thought was more socially acceptable. While my social side slowly recovered to a semi-respectable state my financial side a-tumbled. Rent-poor became a term I got all too familiar with. Now an adult I had a serious conversation with myself that went something like, "Self, do you agree to become rent-poor if it means you're in a good neighborhood close to friends and happy?" "Yes, self, I agree." "Terrific, now stop talking to yourself, it's weird."

I think 2007 was probably the best year in terms of financial/social balance since college. In 2008 my financials started turning for the better and oddly enough, my social scale begin to tip downward once again. And now here I am in 2009 with the best pay I've ever made, rent-poor once again but loving where I live and yet goddammit I am fucking up the social stuff. In some ways it's worse because I feel like I am making the effort and yet the efforts are not yielding the results I want. I want to improve myself yet I'm not sure the concessions and changes I'm making are doing it. People must see through it? I'm not sure.

New York City is a tough, tough city to be social in when you don't know anyone. Even harder when you are still building yourself. At least that has been my experience. We are in so many ways a city of loners, a city where everyone is goal-oriented and driven towards their own personal goal. We often forget to step aside and see each other. I plead guilty on this as much as anyone. So if my failure comes from trying to please others and forgetting to please myself I don't mind taking a step back to become myself again. The issue is I've forgotten the right mix. I know small bits and pieces but the passive ingredient I introduced into my personality has overwritten some of harder pieces. It's an everyday battle to find the right balance. I am laughing as I write this because it sounds self-involved and silly. I must have missed this lesson when I was 4 -- how to make friends and influence people. Or maybe I just like crashing into walls. Repeatedly.

Poor T. He's crashing on my couch for 3 days in the middle of this existential breakdown. The guy just wanted to see the Financial District again for a few days. Ha, he had no idea what he was in for. He has suggested I make "Tubthumping" my personal anthem. It's a start.

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On a much lighter note, I made T watch "The Bachelorette" with me last nite. During the show I was telling him that I would totally do that show. Much to his chagrin. He came from the logical side saying that the people on the show were there for all the wrong reasons. I came from the modern romantic side saying it would be way easier to find one guy out of a group of 25. (Romantic, right?) Then came the previews for the rest of the season where we already see that poor Jillian finds out that some of the guys were just playing the game rather than actually trying to love her (!), that some were just fame manwhores (!!) and that some maybe left girlfriends back home (!!!).

I turned to T and said I would never, ever do the show. He patted me on the head. Lesson learned.

Andreas made me

Andreas told me I had to make a blog. Well buddy, who am I to say no?