Getting all prematurely domestic and shit

3 members of the DeWolfePack went to New York City this weekend on an impromptu mini-vacation. We were bored and nearly sober at 12:30 on a Friday night when one of us suggested, as an expensive, lengthy, and somewhat absurd alternative to finding a new favorite bar, that we instead board the 2am Fung Wah to New York. One race-against-the-clock cab ride and one even more breakneck (breakneck-er?) bus passage later, we woke up to a night-scene Manhattan and began a thoroughly enjoyable (still expensive) twelve and a half hours in the city that (almost) never sleeps.

By Saturday night we were back home, our very Cantabrigian calendars once again burying our lives - and perhaps spirits - under piles of literature, approaching deadlines, and unpleasant intellectual engagements. To overshare, the last of New York City probably passed through us when we shat out our overpriced, defiantly un-cosmopolitan diner food Sunday morning. And with that, New York was behind us and we locked ourselves back up in the Ivory Tower, probably not to emerge until spring break.

Except, see, that I applied for some jobs in New York, and since I got back I've spent about a third of my waking time checking apartment listings on Craigslist. And Google-mapping all the locations. And street-viewing them to scope out the neighborhoods myself. And finding the best nearby restaurants and laundromats. And learning about New York's most popular supermarket chains. And Wikipedia-ing all the neighborhoods in Manhattan, and after finding that almost all of them are out of my price range, doing the same thing with Brooklyn. And imagining how wonderful it would be to take the subway to work and take it back afterward to my place and cook dinner and watch a movie on my laptop in my apartment and be a totally hip young New Yorker. And how cool it would be to have a dog and take it on walks in Central Park on Saturday mornings because so many people have beautiful dogs there. And actually visiting the New York Humane Society website to look at dogs I could adopt. Did I mention I don't even fucking like dogs?

The previous paragraph illustrates several things about me. First, my use of modern technology is casual and thoughtless (if, to my benefit, generally comfortable), and I'm apparently not one to frown at a little website-name anthimeria. Second, I'm easily enchanted by places that I visit, as evidenced by my one-time plans to settle down in Colorado, Los Angeles (where nobody should live), Seattle, Boston, Montreal, and pretty much anywhere I've ever been.

Third, though, it illustrates how I've recently become both irrational and boring. The next year of my life is heavily dependent on employment, which I don't yet have. But even if there's no paycheck or desk waiting for me in New York City yet (or ever), I can't help but imagine my life there. After all, this is Senior Spring, a time reserved partly for trying to enjoy everything that'll be over in a few months and partly for trying to figure out what's going to replace it. And yes, I would look really awesome living in a cramped apartment in Harlem or one of the less desirable Brooklyn neighborhoods, riding the subway or my bicycle all over America's largest and most overpriced city. I would look awesome shopping for groceries and making myself dinner and doing crazy, New York kind of stuff, or maybe just going to sleep early in my cramped apartment. I'll have a bed that's larger than a twin for once. And I'll look awesome showing up at work in my work clothes with my coffee and my super-intense work face and totally casual but businesslike demeanor, and then I'll look really awesome when I start getting work done and everyone is impressed with my total competence and says, "damn, he probably shops and cooks dinner really well too." And so on. I'll find a bakery that I like, and my girfriend and I will go there on the weekends, maybe with the dog that eventually I'll totally have.

I guess it doesn't matter what I actually end up doing for a living, or how that's going to effect my living conditions or the very way I spend most of my time over the next several years. I'm thinking big picture, Hollywood-style life here, and if I can eventually become cinematically boring, I'll have brought myself to a good place.

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