This will be brief, as I’m about to run out the door.  But, as per usual, I’ve been a blog slacker, and wanted to check in with the interwebs.

I’ve left San Francisco, and am back in New York.  This has been long anticipated, and yet…my emotions are not entirely where I expected them to be.  Here are some things I was not expecting:

- To start to fall in love with San Francisco.

- To make some incredible friends (and deepen existing friendships).

- To meet someone I actually like days before leaving.

- To feel at home.

- To feel homesick upon my return to NY.

- To be sad to leave.

My time in San Francisco was brief, and really rough along the way.  It’s easy to forget how hard it is to move.  Don’t get me wrong, I am so excited to be back in New York.  This is home, I’m begining a new adventure.  I look forward to old friends and new and the energy of Manhattan.  But, I’m sad to have left that city by the bay.  It’s cliche, but SF will always hold a piece of my heart.

I love this idea, so I thought I’d piggyback on Jen’s blog and post 10 things I wish I could say. Seems pretty therapeutic, no? And who am I saying these things to? The world may never know….

1) I miss you more than you know. I hope that you miss me too.

2) I think you might be my soul mate.

3) Do something with your life! You are wasting it away.

4) Seriously, I just want to fool around.

5) I wish we knew each other better, will you please be my best friend?

6) I hope the sex didn’t complicate things…

7) Get over yourself, you’re not that great.

8 ) Get over him! He’s not that great.

9) I still wish you would call me.

10) Don’t forget about me, okay?

Well, they say home is where the heart is…and my heart is definitely in NY. This past visit definitely confirmed that I am making the right decision. I felt ridiculously happy and high on life the entire time I was back east. Back home.

I had to work Friday night, and my plane was leaving at 7am the next day. So what did I do? Captain Brilliant here decided to get really drunk with my co-worker, starting at work, and continuing to my favorite bar! Which meant that when my shuttle came to pick me up at 4:30, I was still drunk! Great one, I know I often joke about flying hungover, but seriously….

Saturday night was dinner and lots of drinks with my friend Shani (a girl I know from the hash, also my future roommate!), her boyfriend, his roommate, and a HS friend. The night was nice and warm, so we sat outside and started drinking beers at the restaurant. Our waitress forgot to put in our food order for almost 2 hours, and we proceeded to get nicely buzzed…before bar hopping and throwing back booze like it was the new thing to do. We shut the bars down at 4am. The next day (er, later that day?), however, I was due for brunch at 12:15 with my gay hubs. At 12:45 I awoke to his ringtone – shoot! Made it there late, but was greeted with a cheese plate and a bloody mary. I impressed the pants of the bartender by naming some of the cheeses (hell yeah, cheese expert!), and we continued to drink bloodies and nosh on delicious italian brunch. From brunch we moved to more drinks and oysters, and by the time my friend from the teaching fellows saw me, I was on my way towards drunkiness. And it was still light out. Operation pickle my liver was doing its job. But was a wonderful Sunday, even if the “drunch” part was a little out of control.

Monday was a Vietnamese sandwich lunch with Claire, who I’ve known since pre-school. Claire is one of those friends that I had a falling out with waaay back in the day, and I’m so glad to have reconnected with, she’s an awesome person AND getting her phd in school psych. We have lots to talk about We had delicious banh mi and iced coffees and walked around Prospect Park. Made her biological clock go off for the kiddies, but I was more about the dogs! Go fig.

Monday night – hash night! Good lord have I missed the hash in NY. It was a Brooklyn hash, and I was able to get most of my hashing friends to meet me there. Ran at a good clip with my girl Erin, got excited for a summer of hashing with my home hash, sat outside and drank beer. Life is good.

Tuesday I went to The New School to check things out and speak to students, then spent the afternoon wandering the city with Mary, a hasher friend. That evening, I got to go to my first game at Citi Field! And while the game left much to be desired, the stadium was AMAZIN’! Had a Shack Burger and a Shackmeister Ale, the night was perfect, my friend Stefi’s season ticket seats wonderful (just a preview for when I come back for fall games, she wasn’t using the season tickets that night!), and all we needed was a Mets win..but a loss at Citi felt less devastating than a loss at Shea…go figure!

Wednesday was back to The New School to sit in on an attachment lab, and meet with a professor (hugely beneficial), then I hopped a train to the South Bronx! I know, you never thought you’d hear me say that   And it was the greatest!!!  I saw all my old kids.  My kindergarteners (who I loved) are now in 2nd grade and they are amazing.  They ambushed me when I entered the playground.  My favorite student of all time (who was not in 1st grade at that school last year) is back!  And he remembered me!  One girl made me a card that said “I miss you because you was the best teacher I ever had”!!!!  Too cute.  They all wanted me to be their 3rd grade teacher.  I’m telling ya, absence makes the heart.

Then on Wednesday night, some friends gathered at various points for drinks, food, good times(food, folks, and fun!)…Seriously, I can’t wait for July

I’ve been meaning to write about this past weekend in Coachella, because really, it was one of the best weekends I’ve had in a loooong time.  But I’m kind of still exhausted from it!  I need to load pictures and I need to sleep for about 17 more hours, but just know that it was worth every second of the drive down (and all $40 I spent this weekend – crazy, right?) and that I will be going back next year FOR SURE.

My goodness, there is so much to be excited about right now, that I don’t even know where to begin!

To start, let’s recap and talk about last week for a bit.  A few weeks ago, LBN asked me if I wanted to work at a spring camp for the JCC.  Apparently public schools in this city got off on Monday, so a lot of parents sent their kids to spring camp – who knew?  I happened to have three days off from the cheese school, so I agreed.  Whew, I forgot how exhausting kids are!  The kids were 5-12 (I love those little ones!), and we worked with all of them.  Day one was spent around the JCC – swimming, playing, park, scavenger hunt (which is crazy fun with a group of five year olds, let me tell you!), meeting special children, and whatnot.  Day two involved much of the same, but also bowling.  Oh, and a public transportation nightmare.  And day three was a trip to the academy of sciences!  Of course, I didn’t get to experience it so much as count heads all day.  Taking children in public places (and on public transportation) is terrifying!  The good news is, I still love kids, 3 years of SoBro didn’t truly beat that out of me.

Also wonderful last week was Passover!  LBN hosted two nights at her lovely Noe Valley pad.  The first night was more traditional, and with a smaller group.  We sang songs (“Let my people go!”), ate matzo ball soup that rivaled any I’ve had, drank loads of wine, and had a wonderful night.  Passover is one of my favorite holidays (I mean, it’s the Jewish Thanksgiving!) and team LBN/ABN did a fantastic job – it was a worthy substitute for my family.

Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of breakups and engagements.  I worry about being alone and empathize with my friends who are going through hard times.  Every once in a while I think about my ex, and the breakup that almost broke me.  The flame that lit the desire to leave New York and move across the country.  I think about the person I was then, and who I am now, and I have to smile.  Despite the fact that I have hit some hurdles along the way (and lord knows the dating thing is STILL a disaster), I love who I am and where my life is right now.  I am doing incredible things- about to embark on a new and exciting educational/career path, have run another marathon, have developed a knowledge of fine cheese and wine, am going to a concert at the Fillmore and then to Coachella this weekend, have wine trips and friend visitations in the upcoming months…and despite all anxieties (omg, I’m moving back across the country, how the hell am I going to make it through grad school, how am I going to tell my friends out here?) I have to say, I am really happy.  Damn, it feels good to say that

Well, I’m not leaving today.  But…it looks like I will be making a return to New York, New York!!!

Yep, you heard right.  And so soon!  I know, I know…

When I first moved here, in September, I really had to sit and evaluate my life.  Finding a job wasn’t easy, especially since I was still struggling to define what I wanted to do.  So I thought a lot.  I’ve had a strange series of jobs, so I tried to figure out what the common denominator was that had either drawn me towards them, or what I liked most about them.  I wasn’t entirely surprised with the answer – in all my jobs, the part I liked best was talking to people, listening to them and sometimes advising them.  I realized that I want to be a psychologist (when I grow up!).  So I did what any rational self-discoverist would do, I applied to graduate school in psychology.  And I mostly applied in New York.

I’ve heard from almost all the schools.  I didn’t get into any Phd programs, but I did get into 2 masters programs.  And, after much deliberation, I’ve decided to go to The New School for Social Research!  It’s going to be a really hard 2 years, during which time I’m going to work my ass off so I can apply for their Phd, but it’s a great program and yeah…that’s what’s been going down!

I’m super excited, and nervous (and a little freaked out – I mean, I just moved to SF, what am I doing?), and I’m also stunned – they offered some $ towards tuition!  So start spreading the news, and let me know if you hear of any great apartments for rent, and get ready – my adventures in grad school will start in September!

So I’m sitting at home, making a batch of my great-aunt’s granola, watching season 2 of The Wire (um, can anyone loan me season 3?  HBO isn’t putting that shit on demand till May!) and kind of lauging about life.  Lately I’ve been doing a lot of reminiscing over how strange my life is.  I mean, if you’d asked me one year ago where I saw myself in a year…I doubt I could have dreamed up the circumstances I’m in.  Today I went to an artisan cheese festival in Petaluma.  And I was an industry person!  People knew about the cheese school, it was pretty cool.  But seriously, what am I doing?  I never could have pictured becoming a cheese nerd who’s learning about Italian wines.  Did I tell you that this is my bible for job #2?  Oh yeah, job #2…since job #1 (cheese school) isn’t paying much or giving me enough hours, I picked up a second job here.  Yeah, what is my life?  Could this be much further from teaching SpEd in the Bronx?  Meanwhile, funny is good, I mean this strange period of time.  It’s given me the perspective I needed to make some big moves, although I must say, I’m so torn about things at the moment.  I’ve heard from all but 1 grad school, so that decision will likely be made this week.  This is scary, and real, it’s the rest of my life….and I’m not sure which route to take.  This whole cheese/wine thing has also given me some great life/food skills, and if anyone wants to hire me as a cheese/wine consultant, I’d be happy to do so.  Anyway, I won’t make any false promises about being a more consistent blogger (is anyone still out there?) but thank you for reading.

x,

bex

You can’t manage to update your blog or continue a weekly weigh in! Poor form.

I just came back from Spring Training. So much fun! Seriously, one of the highlights of my year. This year was especially great, as I hadn’t seen SNK since Nov, and her parents since even longer. We spent the first night drinking wine and looking at our senior year yearbook. Do we know how to have a good time, or what?

Did I tell you I started hearing from grad schools? More on that once they’re all in…

Please read this blog by my friend. He’s a very good writer and dealing with some pretty difficult shit in Law School. I’m sure he’d appreciate your insights.

Hey all. I did actually do my weekly weigh-in yesterday (just forgot to post). And I am down 1.5 to 138.5. Yay for losing! Although, after Sun-Mon’s debacle, I would have expected t be down more! Nevermind that,
Current weight: 138.5
Goal weight: 125
Lbs left to lose: 13.5