iBLOG: Bea In Your Bonnet

Right.... so.... I started this series of guest posts where other bloggers tell us why exactly they started blogging. What made them decide to just put it all out there/here? Did they start with an intention? Was it a cathartic release for something? Did they have a story to tell? Was it out of frustration? Did their blog have a purpose? A theme? Did they want to teach the world something? .... or was it a whim? These guests posts are their stories, and I am more than happy to share them with you. There are no "rules" to follow (screw rules!), just their own individual interpretation of the question "Why do I blog?" Hence the series being named "iBLOG"...

(man, Bill Gates is gonna be PISSED he didn't think of this one first! ;p )

If you're interested in joining in on this I'd LOVE (like really & truly) to have you send me a guest post to put up here. My email is right over there >> on the right hand side of the blog (but, for the laziest of lazy, it's MsGoofyGirl2U@gmail.com- unlike many others I'm not afraid to put it up in fear of spammers sending me stuff, 'cause as you've probably noticed, I'm weird enough to enjoy the SPAM ;) ). Please, contribute!

Today you're gonna get a great one from Bea over at Orchids and Onions and you can get a glimpse into why she started her blog. I hope you not only enjoy it, and crack up like I did, but decide to peruse her blog and follow it as well. ♥

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Why I'm here


I arrived in NYC, sort of, "fresh off the boat" from No. California at the end of 2009.  My partner was offered a job in Manhattan and asked if I wanted to move out East.  Realizing that life is (sooooooo) short, I thought to myself, "oh, what the hell?" and agreed to come along.  It's one big country, but with so many differences big and small, I knew that I'd have some sort of "culture shock" adjusting to life in Manhattan.  The only problem was just how I'd cope with the shock of living somewhere entirely new. 

You know how when you've dated someone for a time, and, then you break up but remain friends?  Say you're out to dinner with that ex and, for some reason, whatever it is he's saying to you is really turning you off.  Maybe he has just gotten through praising the work of Boehner

"hehe...boner"

and his cronies in the senate for kicking women's reproductive health in the ass.  Suddenly, that person becomes ugly in front of your very eyes.  You can't possibly imagine how you ever kissed that person let alone gone down on him.  That reaction was, sort of, the reaction I had to NYC when I arrived.  All I could see was men spitting and/or pissing openly in the streets, people walking into me as I made my way down the sidewalk, bits of trash and doggie "deposits" lodged into the snow piles in front of my house, and numerous times losing my California footing on iced roads.  All the images I had grown up seeing on TV, in films, and in postcards of the Statue of Liberty, both the Empire State and Chrysler buildings, "Roc" Center at Xmas, and the lovely Central Park melted away before me.  NYC had become like an ugly ex as far as my critical Cal-eye could see, and we hadn't even properly dated yet. 

My partner, having lived here for almost a decade in the not too distant past, did not have the same reaction to Manhattan as I did.  He had friends, a job, a "mental map" of the city, and steady routine to keep him sane.  I, on the other hand, had none of those things.  Instead, I bitched, overslept, ate little, cried a lot, and, in general, was a total crab-ass for the first six months of my living here.  Writing the blog, as suggested by my bf, was an outlet for the upset I was feeling at not being able to quickly find a job, at having to pay exorbitant prices for fruits and veggies, and at not being able to easily find Terry Gross on NYC's NPR station which, incidentally, seemed to be filled with shows featuring men who droned on and on.  Oh, actually, both the blog and a therapist I had found down around Columbus Circle were helpful in letting off steam.  The blog outlasted the therapist as she was costlier to maintain, and, uncomfortably, would tear up whenever I mentioned something that really resonated with her.  Talk about taking you out of the moment!  One minute I'm sharing about how my dad's widow put down his animals just weeks after dad died without first offering any of them to his children who lived nearby.

(Never mind that Jaffa, his skittish chocolate point Siamese, predated the wife a few years.  And, I certainly would have taken the old coot.)  The next minute I'm wondering if I should be offering M. the box of tissues sitting on the armrest of my sofa.


As of April 20th, I'll be en route to a new adventure overseas, and leaving my Upper West Side existence behind.  Like GoofyGirl, the lovely gal whose blog this is, I'll be an "American (was) Girlfriend (now wife) in London".  More "culture shock" awaits as does, maybe, an entirely new UK blog replete with extra vowels and s's where z's should be.