Chronically Ironic

·Connecticut – Another Smart Choice!

It may very well have been temporary idiocy that led me to make the decision to quit my job of 4 years and move all the way across the country. It also could have been that I was pretty fresh out of a traumatic divorce (read “I Married a Gay Man!”) and I felt like I needed a change. It could have been hormones. It could have been many reasons – but now, it all seems like stupidity (read “Genius is Fleeting.”)

My best friend of what was now almost 20 years, Janet, had moved to New York, gotten married, and had a job at a really cool kitchen design company. Specializing in the insanely rich and beyond affluent society of Greenwich, CT, this company thrived in the community and was growing. Janet was also thinking I might need a change of scenery, and managed to snag me an interview in Connecticut with her company. They paid for me to fly in, and I of course wowed them with my appreciation of kitchens and my potential skills as a web designer as well as an office manager. I accepted the job like a fool. I missed my friend, and the pay wasn’t too bad – it was a little more than I was making at the time. I guess all the excitement made me completely throw out the reality of how expensive everything is back East. I started packing up my shit back home, and crammed all of it in a freight line half-trailer (a discounted, but DEFINITELY not recommended way to move) and drove my Isuzu Amigo all the way to just outside the Big Apple. I couldn’t wait.

I had made arrangements through Janet and over the phone regarding my living situation once there – a charming apartment in Greenwich. Let me explain. I had seen what is called a “garage apartment” before, and was of the opinion that this is what I would be moving into. No. It was just short of a shanty, built in the front yard of the larger (yet normal-sized) house. It was painted to match the main house, but that is where the similarity ended. There was a kitchen and one room, and an impossible attic-type crawlspace that someone had previously used as a bedroom (HOW??) and a bathroom directly off the kitchen that was positioned next to the refrigerator. It was small. And, as many houses are in the East, without air conditioning. Janet had an old window unit that she let me use, thank God. I moved in what was probably the hottest July on record for the Eastern Seaboard – and my furniture and all my belongings arrived a mere week and a half after I did. Fun so far? Yeah, it only gets better.

Once my stuff showed up, I managed to fashion an office/closet out of the attic portion, and the downstairs was my bedroom with TV, but there was no real room for any kind of guest seating unless guests felt comfortable enough to go ahead and climb in my bed. Needless to say, not many came over. I was excited to start my fun new career. It started out not so bad – they discussed the website of their dreams with me, what the vision of the company was, etc. There existed, however, a major problem: They were not interested in the least in spending a little extra money to do the things they wanted to do. Once I figured that out (which took about two weeks,) it was a swift, baffling, downward spiral in which my days at work were spent making copies of blueprints, moving heavy and annoying giant pieces of tile around the showroom, and listening to my co-worker Ben tell me all about his many boyfriends and his/their problems. I began to realize I had been lied to – not intentionally, but still, lied to anyway. Not cool. I was depressed about the job in a little under three weeks. Janet worked in another office, the accounting office, which was in the neighboring town, so it was not like we were spending all of our days together in happy, Best Friend Land.

In fact, we were slowly driving away from even the outskirts of Best Friend Land, into the wasteland-like territory of “Why Do You Have Better Conversations with My Husband than I Do” and “It’s Okay to Have Screaming Matches with Him in Front of You” Land. This was not a good place for me to be at all, especially since I was realizing that I may have made a huge mistake about the job. Could I have made a mistake about our friendship as well? Not yet, as we were still okay – I kept telling her that I really didn’t like the work or who I worked with (or for.) She gave me support, and I spent many a night hanging out at her and her husband’s apartment to avoid my lonely little existence in my one-room hovel. While I was in a state of regret, however, there were enough redeeming qualities and odd happenings that were worthy of staying, such as:

1. Dunkin’ Fucking Donuts. If you have not had the luck or opportunity to go to a Dunkin’ Donuts on the East Coast, my friend, you are missing out on the most magical coffee on the planet – in fact, I will say right now, in the UNIVERSE. Laced with crack and heroin, you fiend for it day and night, and you worship its wholesome goodness like you would a newborn baby or a perfect sunset. Growing up in the South, I had never known that there was a “way” to order coffee. You get the coffee, you put your own shit in it, stir, drink, repeat. WRONG. In New York/Connecticut, if you order a “regular coffee,” it already HAS SHIT IN IT!!!! Regular means “a little cream, a little sugar.” Whereas, if you order it like I finally learned to – sweet & light, or even sometimes extra sweet & extra light, your coffee appears before you on the back of a Unicorn and Magic Faeries dance around your head while you drink it. Holy shit. It was amazing.
2. Bagel shoppes/delis. Everyone knows this is where it’s at, and you have never lived until you have done nothing but eat bagels for lunch for an entire week. You can throw Pizzerias into this category as well – it goes unsaid, it’s just the best pizza you will ever eat. It needs no further explanation.
3. People are smarter. They just are. I don’t know if they read more, or watch the news more or whatever, but I had some of the most interesting and enlightened conversations of my life with the people that I was on line with somewhere, or cashiers – you name it, people were smart and cool, and – sorry, Southerners – fucking FRIENDLY. It was great.
4. New York City.  A 30 minute train ride away. Greatest City in the World. Period. I will say, it’s a lot greater when you have a shitload of cash, which unfortunately was not what I had.
5. People are weirder. I have never seen people at their everyday jobs in Texas just sing out loud. They do this everywhere in NY and CT. It’s awesome, no one cares, and good for them. I started doing it too.
6. Diners. Yumm. Late-night, all-day glory on a plate. Thank you, Greek People.

That’s the cool stuff. Now for the odd stuff:

1. The Garbage Situation. For some reason, I couldn’t figure out when the trash days were or where my main-house neighbors put it out at, so I tried to take my garbage to the Greenwich dump. I pull in with my Amigo full of Trash, and I am stopped by a friendly yet stern Jamaican that appeared to have possibly just arrived that morning from Jamaica. Smoking what very possibly was a blunt and wearing that weird macramé cap, he halts me, makes a motion for me to roll down the window, and says to me, “Where your permit, Gal? You got ta have da permit.” I am ashamed that I don’t know the law as well as the dude that just got here, and speed away. I start taking my trash to work. Easier.
2. Parking. Okay East Coast, what the fuck!!?! I know space is cramped and I guess I understand all that, but for me to have to park my car on alternate sides of the street every other day was just pointless. I found out just the other day from my New Jersey-bred boyfriend that it is for street cleaning. Well why the FUCK didn’t someone explain that while I was there??? I just thought it was for fun. Or spite.
3. No Target. At least not within a 30-mile radius. This was probably in the top 10 of Reasons Why I Could Not Live There Anymore.

The odd and good things kept me there for a total of 3 months. I hated doing the laundry by myself at various Laundromats, hated my job, was either grating on Janet’s nerves or she was grating my last nerve, etc. Then 9/11 happened.

I had spent pretty much every night crying myself to sleep before that day, but now my plan was cemented – it took me exactly until 9/17 to call my job back in Texas and beg. I wanted to be near my family, I was miserable, poor, and tired. I started packing my shit. I told Janet. She was furious. She was very upset that she was the one who got me the job, and now SHE looked bad. The thing I never understood was, lots of people did crazy stuff after 9/11. Why would my choices, whether right or wrong, not fall into the “forgiven” category? I was never forgiven, and a friendship of 20 years was gone, just like that. I still try to understand that to this day – I have made attempts to resurrect, only to get shit back in the mail marked “return to sender.” If she was my best friend, and I was miserable, why would she not want me to be happy again? Oh fucking well. Six years later, I have let it go. A little.

People say you shouldn’t regret any of the things you do, as they all mold your character and make you who you are. But I think I would truly take back Connecticut, if I could do it all over again. The good things were really, really good – but the badness and the outcome were much more painful than I could have ever realized. Sorry to bring the mood of levity down in this story, but moving back East was not the right thing for me to do. That’s okay though – if I ever do it again, because of the hypnotic call of coffee, history, and awesomeness that embodies the East – I will make sure I am loaded.

Why Girls Cry