Am I Over?

So I'm on break. Winter break, yes, but also at the moment taking a break. I had fully intended to spend every waking moment of this break working, which for the first week and a half or so basically happened. For the latter half of the break however, I've found myself more just waiting... and waiting... and waiting... (wait for it) ...to go back to California. (Insert sound of needle scratching across record and the room going silent.)

Yes, things have changed. Don't make me make the Expose reference again, people. And yes, I fully recognize that I am one of those people who perpetually claims to never change -- I mean, how often do I use the phrase "Call me old-fashioned, but"? All the damn time! But you know, it's the end of the year, and so I find myself in a reflective mood.

I'm majorly dating myself here -- like literally, if you weren't sure you'll now be able to figure out about how old I am, though because of when my birthday falls, you'll likely err on the side of thinking I'm a year older than I am -- but I graduated from high school and started college ten years ago. It feels like a lot more has happened in the past ten years than did in the prior eighteen. And even though this year isn't like, an obvious dividing line -- getting my master's degree was not exactly life-changing -- I think all this has me taking stock and uhh, writing more personal blog posts than I usually would.

So yeah, I've been thinking... and I'm not sure what's going on, but am I getting over...

New York?
So if you've known me a while, you know that I hated living in New York. I spent all my time complaining about the exhaustion, the expense, and pretty much everything that ever happened to me there that wasn't like, the day I stumbled upon the secret sale at Marc Jacobs. I sat around watching The O.C. and mooning over California. Then I moved to California, and proceeded to spend the next two years complaining about the constant disasters (both fashion and natural), and going on and on about how much I miss the subways, the architecture, the restaurants, New York, New York. But now, I'm starting to think I've made my peace. California managed to suck a lot less this year, mainly by managing not to catch on fire as much, but also for a lot of other reasons. And coming back to this weird east coast that feels oddly depopulated (even in Soho. Even at Christmas) and where I'm having to deal with snow for the first time in a couple of years... yeah, I think I might be over it.

Magazines?
I have always been an avid magazine reader. And not just avid, but like, that ideal magazine reader who everyone says doesn't exist -- I read pretty much everything, and work my way methodically front to back. I don't skip to the well, I don't thumb through looking for one story, I take it all in. But lately, I don't know. The most recent issue of Lucky was the size of a brochure! New York has been little but recession fear-mongering. Even the New Yorker lately feels like it's just over-long profiles of politicians, short fiction about depressing parts of the world, and soon-to-be chapters in Malcolm Gladwell's next pop-academic opus. I know the media climate is horrible right now, but come on, what's happened here? I'm not giving up on this one yet, but I am probably going to spend even more time with books (which is good because, you know, grad school and all).

VH-1 Classic?
Okay, this one doesn't effect me the most, since I don't have cable. But they've even started showing ads before the videos on their website! I wouldn't mind this if they would give the website more capabilities -- or really, one capability. Let me be able to make a queue! If you could make your own playlist, I would gladly watch under-thirty second ads. Or even if the playlists they have were continuous -- you know, like the word playlist implies -- rather than forcing you to keep clicking through and reloading on your own. But anyway, this is more about the channel than the website. Man, I remember when VH-1 Classic the channel didn't even have ads! Then it was like, fine, there's ads, but at least it's all videos. Now, nine times out of ten I put it on and they're showing a damn movie! Or possibly worse, a bunch of people playing Rock Band while Sebastian Bach and Alice Cooper look on. For the record: Even as a resolute non-gamer I know that Rock Band is not the greatest innovation to ever come to music video games. That would be Guitar Hero (See, I'm being legit! I'm not even arguing for Karaoke Revolution or Singstar). Long story short: Rock Band? Not classic. Countdowns where they cut off the beginning and end of the videos and you have to sit through patter from a lame host? Not classic. Whatever the hell the Snuggie is? Not classic. I will say though, if you're reading this at the time I'm posting it, VH-1 Classic is for the first week of 2009 showing nothing but videos -- 2,009 in a row in alphabetical order! I approve, and I appreciate their overtures toward me.

American Idol?
This one's a definite. I have finally decided that the amount of enjoyment I gain from watching karaoke on TV is not worth the time commitment of watching it all -- I mean, it's like five hours a week sometimes! And that's not even counting like, time spent reading Idol gossip. All in all, it's not a wise use of my time, especially since I've got tons I need to do winter quarter. So yeah, my actual New Year's resolution is to not watch American Idol. And in general, to watch less tv -- I don't watch that much to begin with, but whatever spare time I do have needs to be for the gym. You know what this means: 90210, you're on notice.

Shopping?!
I know, right? I should probably say something so you know it's still me. Umm... Warren DeMartini? But yeah. Shopping has been depressing me lately -- spending money unnecessarily feels wrong (even though no one spending any money exacerbates our current problems), I hate the whole "recessionista" thing, and suddenly I find myself realizing that I do, indeed, already own a crazy amount of clothing. When I was in LA last month I bought two pairs of jeans (for less than $5 each at Out of the Closet). This brought my total number of jeans to 29, which led me to figure that I should look for one more pair to knock it up to an even 30 (I mean at that point, why the hell not). Then I was looking for something else in my closet, found my sewing bag, and what to my wondering eyes would appear but... two more pairs of jeans. Yes, I own 31 pairs of jeans. I know, it's disgusting. So I have stopped buying jeans. Okay, I've cut way down on the shopping. Except for the day before I left for CT, when I found a completely gorgeous Missoni sweater used -- I mean, who was I to resist?

P.S.: Something I am not over: YA series. I just read the newest It Girl (okay) and the next-to-newest Pretty Little Liars (zomg), and have to decide between the newest Gossip Girl: The Carlyles or the newest Pretty Little Liars for the plane ride home (the latter is the obvious choice except that I tend to make noises/facial expressions reading that one, which can be embarrassing when you're like, in a metal cylinder full of strangers for six hours). But also, OMG THEY ARE MAKING A NEW SERIES THAT IS SET IN LA JOLLA. I spotted an ad for this in the back of the PLL book I was reading (along with ones for a bunch of other new series -- clearly, they don't think the recession is going to affect the Upper East Side) which described it as being about middle school girls in San Diego. That piqued my interest, so I googled it up, and lo and behold -- La Jolla, baby! You know that now I am going to have to read that.

P.P.S.: Sing it to the tune of Diamondhead's crazy awesome "Am I Evil?" If you know this song, it may be because Metallica cover it a ton (also check out Dave Mustaine in that video -- weee-ow! So young, so shirtless!). But that said, with all the "yes I am," I couldn't go that far with this title, since I'm on the fence about so many of these things.

P.P.P.S.: Happy new year, y'all. Thanks for reading.