Friday, March 28, 2008

Birthdays Are For Winners

Today is my birthday, and as any good New Yorker would do, i'm celebrating it by leaving New York (city that is).




If anyone needs me i'll be communing with nature in the Catskills (or something...)

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

I'll Take The Round Peg Please

"You can’t fit a square peg into a round hole"

I’ve heard that saying a million times, and I’ve often applied it to my own life. Every time I did so, I was the square peg and life as I knew it, work, church, and certain friends, were the hole. Yet, life isn’t perfect. Sometimes we have grandiose ideas of what we’d like to achieve and who we’d like to become. In mine, I was a partnered father of two with a house in Connecticut and a successful interior design firm in the city. In my grandiose ideas life is fun, and comfortable, full of creativity and passion. Now, take a look at reality, in which I’m a single guy in New York City with a pretty good career in investment banking. No present partner and no where near getting one. No kids and no where near having any. And no interior design firm and, you guessed it, no where near having one. Life is sometimes boring. I’m sometimes much more lonely than I’d like to be. Community, good and persistent community, is very hard to come by, and sometimes I don’t know why the hell I’m still here. That is my life, and although at times I wish it were different, it is what it is and it’s really not too shabby.

It can be difficult to realize that the world you created in your head when you were young isn’t the world you were meant to have, and that that life isn’t the one you were meant to live. However, focusing on that can cause one to miss out on the life and the world which exists right before ones eyes. When I was a kid I was creative and passionate about all sorts of things that seemed to have disappeared when I became an adult. Truth is that creativity and passion are still there. As a kid such things were pretty much all of me. As an adult, they’re just a part of me. I’m ok with that. That’s how it’s supposed to be.

The round hole has really been me, while the square peg has been my expectations, and i'm tired of trying to make my life conform to my expectations. I guess I’m reaching the end of my quarter-life crisis, and to it I bid adeu.


- Bryan

Friday, March 14, 2008

I'm Ready...

...for the weekend...



Switch me on
Turn me up

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Goldfrapp On The Brain

It’s odd how much social networking sites like myspace and facebook, as well as email and text messages, have connected us in a way that when we’re not “virtually around” it’s the equivalent of having fallen off the face of the earth. I’ve been virtually MIA lately, at least that’s what I’ve heard, as I’ve found myself having infrequent communication with friends via any of these methods. Those who have experienced my distance the most, I suppose, have been those friends who live far away. I made an attempt this week to resurface by reactivating my facebook account, only to feel more content by deactivating it again.

It’s nice having so many friends who live all over the United States. Yet, sometimes I feel like something is missing, and that I expect things from those relationships that the distance makes impossible. I’ve said it before, but I feel like I invest too much in people who can never be more than a plane ride away, and too little in those who are here. Makes sense, at least for me. It’s much easier to be transparent with someone who can’t actually see and experience your transparency. But, I’m finding that email, text messages, and phone calls can only do so much. It’s the smile, the smell, the touch, the laugh, the expressions of joy, sorrow, excitement, discontentment that I need these days. It’s kinda nice to be with people who know what the face you just made really means, and that kind of knowing someone takes time…time together.

In the technological age its become so easy to equate phone calls, emails, and IM conversations to time spent together, one on one, face to face. I suppose it can be a substitute when it’s with someone you’ve already spent significant time with, like my phone conversations with a close friend from college who lives in Pennsylvania. But, right now, anything outside of that seems to fall short. Not a waste of time, just…not enough, and not satisfying.

So, I’m Goldfrapping it…



I was feeling lonely, feeling low
Feeling like I needed you
Like I hoped you'd call and hoped you'd see me

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Daydreamin'

It’s easy to think about day dreaming as a simple and meaningless escape, and no doubt, sometimes it really is. But, sometimes it just serves as a way to hang onto thoughts, feelings, experiences, and people, that we really need to let go of. How many times have you day dreamed about a date with that guy you like but doesn't like you, or that house you want but can't afford, or what you’d do with that bonus you probably won't get, or that car you can’t afford, or some form of intimacy with that person you can’t have? I do it all the time. Sometimes it’s meaningless, but sometimes it creates expectations that will probably never be fulfilled. Just as important, it sets up expectations of that “thing” you’re day dreaming about which that “thing” may never be able to meet.

Yesterday on the train this guy was standing next to me. He kept checking me out while trying to pretend to read his newspaper. I only knew this because, well, he was cute and tall and I was kind of checking him out too. At one point I looked at him when he was glaring at me and we both started laughing. He had such a great smile. Two seconds later it was my stop, so I got off, and that was the end of it.

What does this story have to do with daydreaming? Well, similar experiences to the above have occurred a few times in the past two weeks, and BOY has it been fun! But at some point last night between talking to a friend about how to accessorize her home (so gay) and trying to decide what my weekend plans would consist of, I realized that nothing ever materialized over the past two weeks because 1) I’m shy, and 2) none of the guys I’ve flirted with, talked to, or chilled out with were like the ones I envision in my ridiculously romantic daydreams, or as seemingly compatible with me as my friend that I had feeli…eh, we all know that story by now. No guy will meet the criteria of the one in my head, and they shouldn’t have to, but…tell that to my overly shy refuses to “date” would rather fall in love with a friend, head. Something's gotta give.

So, the moral of the story is that every time you daydream a puppy dies…

Bryan

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Birthday Ideas...

My passport came today, which is shocking considering that I just submitted the application last week. However, my dream of a birthday in Montreal is still out of the question since none of my friends can afford to go to Montreal with 3 weeks notice. I’ve decided that the lounge thing just isn’t in me this year. The idea of planning it is exhausting. The more I think about it, the more I want to do something outside of New York City anyway. So far I’ve considered Rockland County NY, Portland OR, Seattle WA, Las Vegas NV, even Austin TX for heavens sake (no offense to Austin as I’m sure it’s a great little town!). I’d like to include friends in whatever I do, but that puts anywhere outside of the greater NYC area out of the question. At one point I thought, “hey maybe I’ll go camping upstate!!” But that was a no go. I love the outdoors. I can be outdoors for hours upon hours and part of my looking at the places I have so far is due to the fact that they have lots to do outdoors. However, I’ve always been a firm believer that doing things outdoors is that much more fun when you can retreat to the comfort of the indoors at the end of the day. From this I will not be swayed!

As I’m thinking about it, maybe I can travel somewhere for my birthday, but do so with the intent to give back to others in some way shape or form. What better way to celebrate the life you’ve been given than to use it to bless someone else’s. I’d still be away, maybe with friends (most likely only if I travel to a GCN hotspot) and maybe that in itself would be celebration enough. Perhaps this is something to explore…

- Bryan

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Intuition

Happy Birth Month!

On March 28th 2008 I will be...you may want to sit down for this...27!!!

Not quite sure what I’m doing yet. Of the things that I’ve considered are:

-Having a party at a lounge
-A dinner cruise around the city with a few close friends
-Packing up and leaving town for a nice long weekend.

Right now, I'm leaning towards going out of town since that's the least amount of hassle. A friend suggested I get some people together and head to Montreal since it's only an hour and a half away. I LOVED that idea! But alas, my passport hasn't arrived yet. Plus, it's a little short notice to get enough friends together to make it worth it. I could head to Southern California! But, it would do me well to experience another part of the US, preferably one I haven't visited every year since 2003.

Regardless of where I go or what I do, as I approach my birthday this month i'm just trying to remember what matters most...that I'm aging gracefully.

Cheers!
Bryan

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Good Day New York

As I lie in bed this morning, taking in all of the sunlight that comes in through my windows (thank God for the gift of unobstructed sky in Manhattan!), listening to the sounds of the street below, I thought about how much New York feels like home with each year that passes by. I still have my moments when I think about the cost and other sacrifices I make to live here. The amount that I pay for my tiny apartment could get me a really big house elswhere. And coming from the Pennsylvania suburbs, I know that in many ways life would be much simpler elsewhere. That is what, at times, makes staying here so difficult. Sure, I have my laundry washed and folded (which of course costs $), but that's because there's no laundry in my building and sitting at a laundromat for 3 - 4 hours when you hate doing laundry in the first place is far from appealing. I'd much rather have a washer and dryer in my apartment. Yes, we New Yorkers can take public transportation everywhere, but public transportation can be a major pain. There are many days when I wish I were driving to my destination in the privacy of my own car rather than packed like a sardine in a subway car which is sitting in the tunnel because of "train traffic ahead". Or the simple fact that it takes 35-40 minutes to get to work, when meanwhile work is less than 4 miles away.

Sacrifices are a part of life no matter where you are, and after continuously evaluating those sacrifices since moving here in 2005, I always come to the conclusion that the sacrifices I make here are well worth it. I may not call New York home forever, but i’m happy to call it home for now.

-Bryan

PS: In case you're wondering what the above picture has to do with NYC, it's actually a picture taken in Fort Tyron Park, here in Manhattan.