It's starting to happen again

I'm getting the itch to move again.

In the last 10 years I've lived in 5 different cities, and have had countless addresses.

New York, my dream city since I was a little kid and the ultimate place I thought I wanted to spend the rest of my years, is starting to get old for me. Y'all've heard me talk about how this city's values just don't jive with mine: the competition, the chaos, the impatience and rudeness, being driven solely by money... I can't find a decent guy. I said to some friends last night how it would be so pathetic if I left this city without experiencing the classic New York romance... that New York relationship. A girl at our table said, "Honey, New York romance is meaningless sex. The 'You've got mail' or 'When Harry met Sally' New York romance isn't real. Real New York romance is random, meaningless sex."

Last night was a classic example of the New York scene that has just grown so tired for me.

M and I went to a downtown club at 11pm to join her friends who were having a reserved table (which means a minimum $1,000 tab) to drown their sorrows in alcohol, expend some energy to pumping techno and grind up against hot chicks grateful for a VIP spot and free booze. Sorrows: these were Bear Stearn boys. And the guy who organized it all, who paid for all the drinks and who was the premier grinder was a man who's got a wife and 3 kids. He doesn't know if he's going to have a job tomorrow, nor who the hell he even works for, but he dropped roughly FOUR THOUSAND dollars. I couldn't blame them. None of them talked about it except for when we had the introductory chit chat and they had to say where they worked, the response was "I worked (emphasis on the 'ed') at Bear Stearns", delivered with a sad look in their eyes and followed by a quick holler for a drink.

Anyway, the bouncers made us wait a half hour in line. Mind you, I think I saw Dorothy's house fly above us in the bitter cold wind that kept us company in line last night. These guys didn't care that their guests no longer felt their appendages. They needed the line to be long enough so that when they opened, the club would fill up and thus look "cool". They also had a mandatory coat check. $4 per item. No exceptions for the four-thousand-dollar table. And our waitresses looked like they may have kept Spitzer company a night or two.

It was just the epitome of pretension. And I wondered "How do these people keep this going?" How do people who live like this, up the ante so that they don't get bored?

But the bigger question was "Why do I live here?" followed by "Where do I go next?"