Here are some PG highlights from this weekend:

Marnie 2000 and cousin Lisa (with her BF) came down. We had a wild time on the beach with my new ENORMOUS boat/raft, the Scuba 300 - now named S.S. Captain Squarepants by Frank's 6-year-old niece Kelly. I asked her what her favorite cartoon was and I kept saying "Scooby Doo? Scooby Doo? Scooby Doo?" but she ignored me and said 1) she's 6, she doesn't really watch cartoons anymore (DUH!), 2) She watches Nickelodeon (DUH, clearlyI'm sooooo not cool), 3)She decided Rugrats is her favorite (I vetoed naming the boat after Rugrats, they're gay) and then she said she watches Captain Squarepants! I LOVE IT! So Captain Squarepants it was! Anyway, my boat/raft was a huge hit - the biggest on the beach! - and my arms are way, way, tired from pulling about 50 million kids in it while they rode the waves and then pulling them back out again.

But boy, did we have fun. I'm the new best friend of every 5-9 year old on my beach. And, I got to ride one kid's boogieboard while he rode my boat, which I feel, is a solid tradeoff.

We celebrated Marnie 2000's birthday on Saturday night. I stole a big banner from the bar we were at. The banner said "Happy 75th Birthday Rose." We thought it was appropriate as none of us will probably live to that old of an age.

Personally, I've already outlived my predicted lifespan, as I was picked in high school as "Most Likely to Die Before 25." The secret of my success is probably that I rarely drive anymore, as I used to drive like Satan was chasing me. I was an animal. And I had no fear of dying whatsoever. I also enjoyed car-surfing, which quite frankly I thought I invented in 1990, but I guess other people were doing it if everyone knows about it now.

Now I hit a rough patch on an airplane and I think I'm going to have a heart attack. This is what happens, kids. One day, you are the tuffest chick around, the next day you're sleeping with the lights on. (well, you get the picture)

Anyway, we wrapped it up around 3am as Marnie 2000 (a.k.a. Jammy Jam) overdid it and couldn't hang. Late night was in full force when we left, with no sign of slowing.

Sunday, I was hurtin'. Caught a 6PM bus back to NYC.

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Monday. Monday's suck, but today I was busy, and that's good. It makes the day go by faster. Tonight is only night this week that I don't have plans, so I'm looking forward to getting some errands done.

This working gig is becoming a major nuisance. There's not enough time in the day to get everything done that needs to be done in my life. What's up with that? Tomorrow, I'm going to have to run errands again on my lunch hour. It's so annoying.

Marnie 2000 was reading in the NYT about how hard it is to find a place in NYC and it reminded me of what it was like for me when I moved here 5 years ago (can you BELIEVE I've been here 5 years??? I must be crazy!?) It's hard. If any fellow New Yorkers are reading this or anyone hoping to move here is reading this, let me tell you, it's a struggle. But you are not alone. I remember first having to take a bus in for day trips, from PA or NJ to interview before I had a place or a job. And then, when I started to close in on a job, I moved up here. I lived in the YMCA for a month. I would live there Monday thru Friday and then pack up and bring my bag to work. On weekends I would stay with a friend in Hoboken or NYC. Because I didn't want to freeload and stay with them indefinitely, and you can only stay at the Y for 30 consecutive days, so this way, I could stay there for as long as I needed, because I kept moving in and out. That was tough. Staying in this bare room, knowing no one but hearing the laughter and talking and screaming of foreign kids traveling here together on holiday. No cares in the world but partying all night while I tried to sleep in the hard bed with the scratchy wool blanket on the other side of a paper thin wall. Lonelier than I knew anyone could be, because their good time was a hard-hitting reminder of how alone I was, crying myself to sleep. Showering in a community bathroom where there's no room for modesty, sharing the pay phone on the hall where there's not a word that's private - and good luck trying to get a minute on that phone - it was worse than college. And there was no escape, because I had no money. Every cent I made went to pay for the room, so I ate peanut butter crackers or frozen yogurt each night, and walked to work every day.

And when I got a job after living like this for about two months, and I got an apt., I learned what it's like to work in a competitive workplace. To work in a place where there is no team, there is only competition. You don't share information, but you share offices. Nobody spoke to me. Nobody asked me to go for lunch. I came in, I worked, and I left late. This is how it was for the first year there. Oh God, and the days when I couldn't even pull together enough money to ride the subway to work. The WEEKS I would live like this, without the $1.50 for a token, let alone money for food. It was so aweful. You'd just get home to your apartment and watch TV and hope your parents could come up soon and that they would bring groceries. And that terrible feeling in the pit of your stomach when you would finally have to call home, always your father and never your mother because you never wanted your mother to know that you couldn't cut it - that you needed her help, because you'd never hear the end of it - and ask your father to send a check or cash or anything with choked promises to pay him back. And you did. You paid him back the minute you got paid because it was embarrassing, here you are a college graduate and you don't have enough money to get the subway to work...or the bus home for Christmas...but you never let on that it was that bad. You told him you needed the money, that you were short, but he didn't know that you were walking 50+ blocks to work nor that you were subsisting solely on the free chocolate chip cookies that the paper supply company gave to your office each week when they dropped off your order.

Oh, those phone calls to your parents. Choking back the lump in your throat and telling them everything was great when everything was really not great. In fact, it sucked. When you were always popular in high school and college and you get into the real world and you lost it. Someone had lied to you when they told you about those happy hours afterwork with fun work friends and weekend softball leagues or whatever, because no one was asking you. And you look around, and your college friends with trust funds are wining and dining and shopping and dating and you can't meet them for drinks unless it's ladies night where ladies drink free. It seems like everyone has made friends, that everyone is having the time of their lives, that everyone has a hipper job, everyone is moving up the corporate ladder, everyone is going somewhere and you can't even figure out HOW to do your job and it is so goddamn frustrating.

And then, you look out your window at night, and you stare at all of the lights in the apt. buildings, and you look into your neighbors windows and see all of the fabulous funishings and you feel like you've lost. You're too far behind in this game called New York to EVER possibly catch up, to ever make it...and you think you may as well give up. It's too much. It's too much to go home and try to be NYC hip. To put on that fake smile, the same one you put on each morning before work - and go home for the holidays and tell all of the enthralled family and friends how FABULOUS NYC is. All of the celebrities you see, and the fabulous shopping you do, and the fabulous places you go...how fabulous you've become. And they tell you how New York you are but you really don't feel it. You just feel tired. Tired and overwhelmed and lonely. Lonely like you never knew lonely existed. Lonely like you feel for Jimmy Stewart when you watch "It's A WonderFul Life" when you watch it with PMS and you're overtired. So lonely that your HEART ACHES. Truly, so lonely that your heart hurts and it triggers burning-hot tears and you have a hard time breathing because your throat is closing and you look out your window and you see all these lights lit and you imagine all of these people and then you imagine them all knowing other people and you think how can I not have any friends in this huge city??? How? How? Is there something wrong with me?

BUT, then there's a turning point. There's always a turning point, people - don't you watch movies? There's a turning point and you evaluate your options. For me, it was this: I can go home and settle in a place where I will die (spiritually and physically), OR I can beat this thing. I can beat it.

And any of you, who know me know I will NEVER go home. I go anywhere else, but I sure as hell won't go home.

And that's when it all changed. I threw caution to the wind. I called people I had been too shy to call. I invited myself out with people from work. I took every opportunity to go out that came my way. These people introduced me to other people, who introduced me to other people. I started making more money. I switched jobs. I got out there.

Now I feel like I've beaten this city. It's maybe my only accomplishment in life. I beat the beast they call New York.

So for those of you out there, lonely, miserable. Make your choice. Beat it or be beaten.

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