Bling Bling in the ATL

I stopped going to NY 3 years ago because... because I realized I wasn't going to move there and it was so hard to keep a friendship alive with my friends who had. Everyone got cool in one way or another, and I was still trashy, tacky, scene-less me. No one had a living room I could crash in, or even a futon - everyone was wedged into closets and hallways and basement nooks and staying the night put a big dent in their piece of mind. Worst of all, no one wanted to leave their little enclave to come meet me in the east village, or greenpoint, or upper west side, or wherever I happened to be staying. That slayed me, that travelling from brooklyn to manhattan was too great a hurdle to maintain the friendship. And so, over time, it all fell apart. I stopped going, I stopped calling, I figured NY was a big black hole into which good people disappeared, got overwhelmed with their big city lives, and lost all contact with the outside world.

Last year, made my first stop in the city since 2002. I was bringing my car from Boston to ATL, and I made an appearance at an ex's birthday party. Had a lovely time - saw 5 or 6 old friends, some who drove in from upstate to say hi, ran into some people I hadn't seen in years.

Since then I thought maybe the times had changed... maybe in the post 9-11 world, New Yorkers were starting to forge new bonds to folks in the rest of the country. I was reinvigorated to renew old friendships, break the 'I only see one person when I'm in NY' rule. So before I went up this weekend, I made an effort to contact some old high school friends, see whether they were up for some skiing or a gallery opening or to have brunch. And they Never Returned My Calls. Never returned my calls. I'd say thats 40% my fault for poor planning, and 20% my fault for being AWOL for a few years, but.... they should return my calls, even to msg 'hey, Ms. bling, I hardly know ya. Can't see you this weekend, I'm super busy. '

Anyways, hung out with the boys friends instead, who actually like him. And did see a friend from LSE, who just got back from London. Entertained with stories of the beautiful south... on tuesday we do strip club karaoke, on wednesday we do bible study, on thursday we make mint juleps and fried okra, and the weathers always nice and our dog is racist. Had some knishes, threw some snowballs, went to my cousins gallery opening... fun fun. Skiing was excellent. Haven't hit the slopes in over 10 years, and still, I can stop and turn and do all sorts of stuff! Because I'm stupid, I started off by going up with the boy to the top of the mountain and then heading down a black diamond. About 20 yards in, I plunged face first into the snow, skis, poles everywhere, and then fell about 30 feet until I crashed into another skier, who, happily, was the boy. Anyways, made it down the rest uneventfully and stuck to the blue squares thereafter and it was a lot of fun!