Bloom where you're planted.

Recently I found myself reading one of those overly cliche articles about New York...a battle of new and old, the age long debate about being a "true New Yorker". Now to preface this a little, I am Australian and was raised for the majority in Western Australia.

(Yes we are wearing beanies and coats....it was probably like 21 degrees/70 degrees Fahrenheit....Western Australian winters are hard)

I am very proud of where I come from and even though I am not an American citizen, New York is my current home and after many years of hearing constant rumblings of the essence of a New Yorker, I became curious as to what people consider the qualities of a "true New Yorker." I know for myself if you didn't grow up watching Round the Twist on a rainy day in primary school or burning the shit out of your feet on a hot January day running into the shops barefoot (No shirt, no shoes...no problem!)  are you really Australian?

But what did these all-knowing New Yorkers deem the qualities it takes to be considered one of their own? Well lucky for us Time Out New York complied a handy dandy bucket list to try and help us foreign schleps out!

According to Time Out, to be a true New York one must....

Buy a Dollar Slice at 4am
Great start! I do this often although I don't buy it because I want to be a New Yorker...I buy it because cheap, drunk and pizza.

Cry in the Street
Another +1! This is going great. Also, 2011 was a rough time in my life.

Steak out at Peter Luger
By this point I am throwing intense side eye at what kind of New Yorker wrote this list...I feel like New Yorkers shit on Peter Luger as being too mainstream and rave about some bullshit hole in the wall nobody has every heard of but alas, I have been to Peter Luger so I am currently crushing this assessment. 

Walk the Brooklyn Bridge at Sunrise
I'm counting this because I've walked both the Triboro and Roosevelt Island Bridge at sunrise and that's far more hipster and therefore more New York.

Smell Garbage and think summer
I smell garbage and think, wow I wish someone would move that garbage...is that close enough?

Nab Rolls from a Bakery before it opens
I'm now convinced the writer of this article is not only not from New York, but could also potentially be an alley cat...

Make out in a cab
Of course I've done this but I think it is less about the true New Yorker in me and more about being in your 20's and a perpetual mess. 

Complain about how everyone flakes here, then become a flaker.
I am THE flaker...is that a New York thing? Do I have another excuse to blame this horrible quality on? Success. 

Walk by a celeb without doing a double take
I walked by Sienna Miller yesterday and didn't do a double take...ok that is also because I didn't recognize her until 4 blocks too late but hey....check me out I hang out near Sienna Miller, I'm cool.

Attend an art opening and guzzle free booze
By this point I'm almost certain the writer got confused and started writing a list of how to be 18 year old Jordyn.

Be inconvenienced by a film or TV shoot
Correction: Walk nonchalantly in the background trying to get discovered and made into a movie star....It's called making moves people! 

Head to Staten Island
I got drunk there once

Swim in the Ocean?!?!

Ok that's it, as an Australian this offends me. I can't go any further with this bologna list. Yes, New York you know how to hot dog and your stench game is top notch but I refuse to associate you with any sort of ocean activities.

What I learned from this list is that....well....if eating bread in the wee hours of the morning before casually strolling across famous infastructure is more important than my hectic sleep schedule I guess I will remain #proudlyfromanywhereelse.

Concrete Jungle Wet Dream Tomato.

Tonight is slowly turning into one of those nights where my mind races at a million miles a minute and I end up starting the following day exhausted and cranky (exhibit A: It's 3:10am.) My mind is in a weird mood for many reasons but something is definitely weighing pretty heavily.

Today on the way to work I was in my typical,resting bitch face, staring off into space mode when the train decided to do it's usual stop mid-journey to hover between two stations and make me late for work thing that it always does at the most inconvenient of times. The longer we sat, the more annoyed I got and after a good five minutes I was huffing with frustration. I stared more intently out the window and realized we had stopped at the perfect midpoint across the Williamsburg Bridge that allowed a perfect view of not only the Empire State Building and Brooklyn Bridge but also the Statue of Liberty off in the distance.

I felt like an asshole.

People dream of this city, I dreamed of this city! These are landmarks that people pay thousands of dollars to come and see, people see these things and take pictures and treasure the memories of their wild adventures in the Big Apple and here I was numb to it all. I had seen these things so many times I had stopped caring, they had stopped being cool, but in that moment I let my mind rewind back to that young girl in Western Australia. That little girl that thought America was this crazy land of lights and movies. I would watch movies and see all the sights of NYC and it all seemed so cool, so different to where I was from, my best friend and I would spend hours talking in awful American accents because it all seemed so cool! Yet, here I was in the middle of it and after a few short years I was over it?

I was no longer a tourist using this city as a prop or backdrop for my happy holiday snaps. Times Square was no longer a destination it was just part of the commute. I didn't go to Grand Central to take pictures and pretend I was in a movie, I went their to take a train to work or school or something awfully mundane. At that moment it truly upset me how over it I thought I was.

I don't know where I'll end up, or even where I'll be this time next year. I have no idea what anything holds but I do know that New York is probably not a forever thing, and I want to be able to look back on this time in the years to come and to appreciate what I was doing and where I was doing it. I hope one day I can tell my kids that I lived in New York and they think it is as cool as 8 year old Jordyn thought it to be.

I have to be up in three hours to make sleeping cutie (he's asleep and he's cute....like what I did their...it's a play on words...sleeping beauty? HAH I'm funny...hah...no? ok) yoga with me and at this rate it is probably going to turn into hey how about we don't and say we did? Oh and you are going to make me waffles? Splendid. 

Life Updates:

• I'm sick. Due to almost every person in my life at the moment coughing their sickness all over me,  I have finally caught something. I predict I have about a week left to live and I plan to spend it drugged up on Nyquil.
• Last night I had a dream that I was pregnant and on the day I was supposed to give birth we had a huge party in my childhood home where I was also delivering the baby. I even uttered the words "I'm just going to go give birth real quick so I can come and eat with you guys!" I thought it was a weird funny dream until Calvin told me that dreaming of birth means someone is going to die. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? As if I need more paranoia! 
• Today another creepy man followed me down the street and kept saying weird shit to me until I escaped down into the subway. It's always me man! 
• A man at the bar last night told me I had a sexy little mouth....I am normally very self conscious of how tiny my mouth is in comparison to my gigantic forehead....so that was a high point of my week....it's the little things people.