A Letter to New York

© Krista Stryker 2011 

Dear New York,

It's been quite a year.  I know a lot of people love you, but honestly, I think you're a bitch.
  

Here are my biggest complaints about you:

• Your winters are hell.  Seriously, six feet of snow?  For months on end? I've never hibernated so much in my life.  
• Your summers are also hell.  Being covered in sweat and dirt with a blanket of humidity for months on end does not appeal to me.  And you should cover up that awful pee smell that permeates your alleyways and subways for most of July and August.
• It is way too expensive to do anything in NYC.  You bled my pockets dry.
• 1,000 square feet is not a big apartment.  Us native West Coasters would like some breathing room, please.
• Central Park does not qualify as nature.  It's manmade!
• New York is no place for the extremely claustrophobic folk (a.k.a. me, and my dog).  I feel like I'm in a video game when I try to navigate your streets - always trying to make it to the end of the game before I am trampled by mobs of people (who don't give a shit about me).  
• Your garbage-laden, bum-filled, nature-barren streets do not bring me joy.  On the contrary: they actually crushed my dreams.
• All anyone does in New York is work, sleep, drink, eat (optional), repeat.  This is not a life.

I'm being harsh.  It's not like I haven't gotten anything out of the experience.
  
In fact, I want to thank the forces of the universe a thousand times for bringing me here.  I've learned several incredibly valuable lessons during my stay (but am so glad it was only for a year): 

• I am not a person who needs seasons.  I would be incredibly happy with mild, sunny weather all year round.  F#*& winter.
• I like people.  I just don't like swarms of them.
• I do actually crave being around nature.  And by nature I mean mountains, lakes, rivers, and deserts, not Central Park.
• I want to have hobbies and a life outside of my job, not just be so depressed by the work I'm doing that I drink myself to sleep.
• Having a car is pretty damn convenient sometimes (sorry, environment - I went carless for three years, that counts for something, right?).
• I like the idea of being around creative, interesting people, but I think I could find those in San Francisco, or in just about any other metropolis in the world and not have to live in the hellhole that calls itself New York.

Sorry, New Yorkers.  Feel free to stay in your beloved city.  I'm off to enjoy better things!

PS.  Someone really should do something about that pee smell.  It's damn disgusting.