This Sucks........A Top Ten List

Ok, so I really, like my job and I've met some really awesome people but I"m not warming up to this city at all. Here is a list of all the things that suck.
1) the grocery store sucks. They have 2 brands, theirs and their cheaper version and maybe like 3 national brands in addition so it's more like a command economy in there.
2) the water sucks. This is a hard water region and it's royally fucking up my hair. See my previous blogpost to understand how I feel about my hair.
3) the infrastructure sucks. I ride my bike 6 1/2 miles one way to go to work (go me) and there are places where there is no sidewalk. I'm talking about roads going through residential areas. They don't have sidewalks. What? Is the city too busy being self obsessed that they can't pay for sidewalks or something?
4) The bus system sucks. There are buses that stop running at 8 at night. What? Don't people work late sometimes? This is part of the reason why I started riding my bike.
5) Every place you need to get to requires highway driving. But it's not just highway driving, there's like 3 levels of highway and the exits are not super well marked. You really have to know where you're going in order to get anywhere.
6) The streets make no fucking sense. How is it possible that you're at an intersection and the road in front of you is called one thing to the left and another thing to the right? Then there are streets that have the same damn name but don't connect. You think to yourself "Oh I can get to my friend's house if I just stay on this one street." Nope. They just don't connect. Back home, the part of the city that was designed by a woman is on a grid. Granted, I forget how the grid works i.e. which streets go in which direction, but there's a grid and if you're a little more directional literate than myself, you can figure it out and go on about your merry way.
7) The weather.....be prepared for anything! Rain, shine, heat, or cold. It can all happen in one day.
8) The food sucks. There is not a heck of a lot of variety and everything, absolutely everything is fried. They have something called a "chicken fried steak". It's a breaded and fried burger. Let's not forget fried oreos and fried pickles and fried jalapenos.
9) The radio stations suck- Now I like country, but there are just one too many country stations. You have an oldies station that plays the same 100 songs day after day and they are played at more or less the same time every day. Then you have some top 40, a couple rock stations, one hard-to-find 'adult' station that plays 1940's/1940's style music. That's the one good station, actually.
10) Everything is closed on Sundays! How can a mall close at 6 pm on a Sunday. I mean, don't people work on the weekdays? What are you supposed to do for fun on the weekends? When do people run errands and do what they need to do?
I've heard from a lot of people who have lived here all their lives that this is a great place to live. When I ask them what makes it so great they give me some vague answer about local pride and how it's something you're born with. I guess this city just doesn't feel like home. My apartment feels like home, but I guess since I don't have a car, I can't really explore the city. However, one of my coworkers whom I've gotten close to over the past 3 months says this city is too calm for me She might be right. I want to like where I'm living and I've been trying to give it a chance, but so far nothing.

Keep Going...

For the fist time, I feel myself climbing out of this chasm. It's been easy enough, just keep pushing along, going in some arbitrary direction until...things sort themselves out? I guess so. I can't say I've done anything to really help my situation other than to keep going. I had taken the old sage's advice, to stop resisting. I stopped trying to define, to mold, and shape things into the way I wanted them to be. Instead, I let things take their natural course and to my surprise things have turned out quite well. This philosophy is working for me so far. Now I just need to continue waiting and hoping, and following my heart. The only certainty I have is that somehow, someway I'll end up where I need to be.
Of course, I'm scared and my future is uncertain. I want to know where the next stage of my life is going to take me. I hate living in uncertainty. Maybe I really am an in-denial control freak. There are times when it is difficult to not resist things.
But I keep going...

Everybody's changing and I don't feel the same

It's amazing how much people change in a year. If you don't believe me, go find some of your old e-mails, diary entries, comments on your facebook, or any other tangible link to your past. Now read it and you'll see what I mean. I read a couple old e-mails and I laughed. Not because I was so young and naive then (even though I was) but it surpised me just how much I had changed in such a short amount of time. But it's a logical change, a gradual one, so you don't notice. You think you're so mature, or that you know who you are, but the truth is, you really don't know who you are because you're always changing. You have to make the effort to get to know yourself every day. Try new things, take risks, and don't be afraid to say 'I don't know how I feel about X'. With the new year approaching, I think we all need to step back and re-evalute our lives. Are you where you wanted to be 5 years ago? No? Are you happy where you're at anyways? Then it doesn't matter. If you are unhappy, you do have the power to change your life. It could be as simple as buying a new sofa because you hate the one you have now. Or it could be as drastic as divorcing your spouse and buying a 1996 red Camaro. (I support the former!) But the point is, you don't stop growing and changing when you reach a certain age.
Carpe Diem!