YES! THAT’S RIGHT. CANADA. Excuse me while I go vomit rainbows and sparkles.

It’s funny how something as small as lunch can draw a line in the sand between two jobs.

After a month of interviews and applications, I started a new position at a new company two weeks ago. On paper alone it looked like the best opportunity I’ve been offered since I graduated three years ago, and certainly since I’ve come to New York: salary and benefits, aka the Holy Grail.

(Health insurance never really bothered me until this past summer when a couple of tests at the doc’s cost me almost $2000. It wasn’t available to me at my job at the time and sadly my wages didn’t allow for yet another monthly expense. And I figured I didn’t really need it and could get by on over-the-counter meds if I happened to get sick. How wrong I was… But that’s beside the point.)

Within hours of being shown to my new desk, this job had trumped everything that came before, and while a brand new iMac sweetened the already-sweet deal, this isn’t based on money alone: the publishers, advertising execs, and various editors all came over and introduced themselves, actually taking the time to ask me about myself and explain their positions as opposed to the limp handshake and fake smile I was used to. On day two, my new bosses took me out to lunch at Gemma’s. Less than a week later the owner stopped by and treated the whole office to lunch at Peels.

This might seem like a tiny, insignificant thing but the last boss to buy me anything more than a coffee was Mika, from my first internship in the city, who brought her other intern and I to Chinatown for dumplings one day.

(I’ve been here since Feb ’09 and have interned/worked at three magazines since Mika. You do the math.)

Obviously I don’t expect everyone to feed their interns (Mika ran her t-shirt business from home) or employees but when you work closely with someone for a long time, I think it’s nice to show your appreciation for all that they do, be it coffee or a meal. It’s such a small gesture yet can mean so much.

- the only time I am known to slam doors is when I’m really pissed off about something, or 16-years-old. Going by the fact that you slam every door that finds its way in your path of destruction, you’re either extremely angry all the time, or we live in Neverland.

- hey, did you hear? There’s this amazing site called Pandora that lets you listen to music all day for free! Yes, internet radio! So when you’re sitting in the dining room on your computer, you don’t need to leave the TV in the living room on and tuned to the Soft Rock channel! We can totally save some money on our Con Ed bill now! High five!

- we are all adults. Sometimes when adults go out to bars, they get a little drunk and bring someone home. It happens. All your roommates ask is that you try to keep the moans to a minimum, especially given the paper thin walls and the fact that one of their brothers is staying on the couch. Are we still in college? Aren’t you almost 40?

- maybe I’m crazy but I quite like not having to set an early alarm on weekends. It’s nice to sleep in after a week of 6.45am starts, especially if drinks were involved on Friday night. What’s not nice is waking to the sounds of your nails-on-a-chalkboard voice talking about the score in some ladies gaelic football match back in Cork, and how you’re “on d’way ta get d’hair done far t’night”. Can you have that phone conversation in your room as opposed to right outside my door? Would that be OK? Or is the reception better here? Fuck you.

- IF THE GARBAGE STARTS TO SMELL, TAKE IT OUT. I DON’T CARE IF THE BAG ISN’T FULL YET. I HATE YOU.

FATE.

- if the draining board is full of dishes, the natural thing to do is put them all away. Not just your plate and fork – everything. Where’s the sense in putting just one plate away and leaving two more sitting out? How can you be so sure that that plate is even the one you washed?

- in the two years I have lived with you, you have never once cleaned the shower. What’s up with that? Is it because of your unused ensuite? We already know why you don’t use it but that doesn’t excuse the fact that you’ve never cleaned the one you do use.

- speaking of cleaning, remember that one time about six months ago when I saw you sweep the kitchen floor? That was great ‘n all but it’s something you need to do regularly, and not just in the kitchen.

- when you spill something sticky on the kitchen floor, it doesn’t just do to wipe it up with paper. You need to actually wash it off, otherwise the excess just stays there, attracting all kinds of everything and then we end up with dirty black stains. Yes! THOSE stains! They’re YOUR fault! And have you noticed why they’re not there anymore? Because I mopped the floor, bitch.

Within minutes of setting foot outside of JFK last month, I was giving a cab driver the finger and telling a French man he was rude.

Ah, New York. What wonders you do for my blood pressure.

After spending almost four weeks back home in Kerry, I guess it was weirdly comforting to find that the city hadn’t changed in my absence. Not so much when I walked into the office a few days later to find that everyone had moved desks and there was now an unfamiliar face on the other side of my cubicle.

Change. It’s something I’ve been forced to think about a lot lately.

For reasons I won’t get into here, I had to leave my job. It was one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever had to make. Much, much tougher than my decision to move to New York in the first place. Internal turmoil doesn’t even come close to describing it. After all, what had I come to this city for but to work at a magazine?

So, after weighing up my options and having many heart-to-hearts with my parents and closest friends, I handed in my notice. It was for the best. Going on interviews has become my new nine-to-five. I am quite content to work a job that has nothing to do with my career aspirations (well, for a while), and I’m still freelancing on the side, which is good. I’m NaNaWriMo-ing too, and while I know I won’t reach the 50,000 mark by the end of the month, at least it’s forcing me to be creative and to write every single day. I want to take up dancing again, and go to talks, and visit museums, and just do stuff. I want to take advantage of this city more. I want to be happy. And healthy.

I simply want to ‘hang out’ for a while – no, I need to.

When I started this blog three years ago, I never would have guessed I’d have accomplished as much as I have. And while there are days and nights when I beat myself up over not being… I don’t know…MORE… I do need to take a step back and congratulate myself for what I have done, and not kick myself for everything that I haven’t. Because there’s still time for that. It’s not about what I haven’t done – it’s about what I can do in the future. Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted, and the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.

Make no mistake, I fucking want it all.

I like to consider myself an artistic person. I’ve been involved in the Arts in some capacity since I was six years old: I danced my way around Ireland, I played three instruments, I acted, and I sang (badly). I’ve been composing short stories for as long as I can remember. In a nutshell, I was the family’s dramatic, weird, artsy fartsy dancer who always had a party piece. The Artistic One. So I always just assumed I’d be the type to go art galleries and enjoy them. This weekend, I learned very different.

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is free on Fridays between 4pm and 8pm. As I had the day off and Alfla was in town and looking for cheap things to do, it seemed as good a time as any to cross the MoMA off my list.

I honestly do not understand modern art. I just can’t look at a white wall with a colored line around it and take it seriously, nor can I walk through some white curtains with speakers making whooshing noises and go “Wow, this is amazing!” Really? It’s a CURTAIN.

All I wanted to do as I wandered from exhibit to exhibit was laugh, and make fun of everything and all the serious arty types standing around looking thoughtful as they stared at a wall of scribbles. Or point at a bench and ask “Seat or art?”. I even saw one old lady staring at an elevator and I had to wonder if she was waiting for it, or if she was so confused by everything that she actually thought it was part of an exhibit. The only thing that made sense to me was the architecture and design section, probably because I find that stuff interesting and enjoy it anyway. Yay for amazing chairs and beautiful buildings and practical objects.

De Kooning’s retrospective is the biggest show at the MoMA right now. It’s the entire sixth floor and to me, it’s room after room of utter wank. I guess if I had to push myself to say something positive about his work, I would say it’s very emotional, but overall, I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. If that’s art then I’m a genius and my grandparents need to auction off their kitchen table because the underside of it is decorated in a similar mess of crayon and paint that I did when I was 3.

Even the photography at the museum did nothing for me. I’m just glad I went with people who are equally as skeptical as me, so at least I didn’t have to pretend to like or understand any of it.