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Suggested Listening: Channel Surfing by Feature Cast off the album Straight Out of the Cat Litter

(beware: surprisingly deep entry ahead)

So, I'm on a plane. Virgin America has WiFi. So at this very moment I'm online writing this. No mid flight shenanigans over the pacific and then writing about it later. No. This blog is LIVE!

Now...what to write about. Many of you know I have a massive west coast bias. I really do love Boston, DC, and many of the East Coast areas I've been...

Man it's just something about New York. (several blog readers just booed me, from the coasts of the Pacific to those green rolling mountains of Vermont. As always, you know who you are.)

My attitudes changed recently. Strangely enough it took a stay in New Zealand to get me to really examine my viewpoints on life. NZ does that to a guy. I used to sulk around just grimacing and avoiding anything NYC oriented . It became sort of a running gag with my friends. However, in truth, I was pretty immature about it. So:

(Big breath) I'm sorry. Most of my ideas and prejudices about the city came from only a few crummy experiences sprinkled in and around a few months in my first year at Sarah Lawrence. I got pretty thick headed and really just expected bad things to happen. Often times I'd just write the good things off as complete flukes.

So whats new? My time in New Zealand made me think about how I approach life and the people around me. I got tired of living in the shadow of a rather fractured and difficult elementary school life. It was almost second nature for me to shut myself away from anything and everythign that can hurt me. Sure, the city didn't hurt me, but at the time the stuff that happened was enough to get me to go back into my childhood and shut myself away from the things I -thought- could get at me. Wellington, and my abroad experience, in essence forced me out of a cave I had made for myself. You cant be too much in your own head and live in New Zealand. Its too active. It's too beautiful. I left challenging myself to break free.

I live with less fear, more action, and better sight now.

Man, this blog entry is getting personal in a hurry. In all honesty it's hard to explain. But, I'm no longer all grumpy about New York.

Last night I felt like a freshman again. Sophomore and Junior year I had similar expectations of how the year would turn out. I wouldn't give them much weight just because I would get down on myself over trivial things. I don't know how to put it. I didn't expect a year to have anything good. Of course there were great things going on but...I was too hidden if that makes sense. Last night I felt excited and scared all over again, eager and impatient to get it going. I walk taller now. Now I'm on a flight to try and renegotiate my experiences in the Big Apple. Its been the first time in a while I've felt like this.

Still, it's no San Francisco (or Los Angeles...Wellington, Chicago, Washington D.C., New Orleans, Seattle, Auckland, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Victoria, London, Paris, Geneva, Lausanne, Bern, Basel, you get the idea. Yes I have a new attitude about NYC, but... I just cant get in its rhythm or god knows what. I never will truly LOVE the city. It's alright, though... It's just not a favorite of mine. God knows what it is. Maybe I am just a west coast guy.) (that and I love my San Francisco and hometown LA.)

So yes, this is a live post from 32,000 ft above NNnnnnnevada? Colorado? One of those. Virgin America is sort of like the strange attempt to make a nightclub into a domestic airline. Its dimly lit with dark purple cabin lights, white LED reading lights, and white plastic seat backs fitted with trim black leatherette. I feel like this is the type of plane I would need to get carded to get into (not like I ever get carded however.) You can order food from your seat, pay for drinks at your seat, play videogames on the tv thing they have set up (they have DOOM. Oh, DOOM. Nostalgia.) Currently I'm waiting for the snacks I ordered to get here watching The Little League World Series. I gotta head on out right now, though. I'm running out of battery. Sorry to run out on you all of a sudden (and getting massively deep on you.)

Talk to you soon,

Chris

Closing Music: Come Fly With Me, as performed by Michael Buble off his self titled album. (I am quietly singing along)