Started this entry on January 1 and then forgot about it… It seemed fitting to complete and post it now. Now that I’m thinking of leaving.

I had New Years Day brunch with my friend Mary earlier today. Both of us spent time outside the city during the holidays. We have also both lived in other urban, and rural, areas, so our conversation turned a few times to the pros and cons of life in NYC and the things that make us consider leaving and then ultimately decide yet again to stay.

The day I returned to the city, I thought I was going to lose my mind. Traffic coming through New Jersey was awful (of course). Getting through the tunnel and into the neighborhood was fine, but then finding a place to park was horrendous (of course). I finally parked a block from home, got T and Snick and one load of luggage into the apartment, went downstairs and found a PARKING TICKET on the car! And not just ANY parking ticket, but a $115 parking ticket. <sigh> AND I had fed the meter and had the receipt and an ex-boyfriend’s police patch on the dash. I was so frustrated and upset that I didn’t think “oh, let me leave the car here now that it already has a ticket on it anyway,” and I moved it into a lot about a 1/2 block from the apartment. I finished unloading everything (including carrying Snick’s wire crate up to the 5th floor), dropped off laundry at the laundromat and then headed uptown to drop off the car. I was so fed up and so ready to leave the city forever. I dropped off the car (mercifully close to home) and started walking back. About 6 blocks into my walk, something clicked in my head. “I’m home. New York. I LOVE it here!” I was walking, dodging tourists, smelling pretzels and hotdogs and loving my town. THEN Snick’s friend Rafter called (via his owner of course) and said WOOF WOOF which translates to “meet me at the dog run in 20.”Life’s good.
I *HEART* NYSome interesting facts:

• New York City has had proponents of its independent statehood (and even nationhood) as far back as 1787. It has long been commonly recognized that the upstate state government at Albany is of a different world than ultra-urban NYC, which is about as devolved as a U.S. city can legally be (NYC itself contains multiple counties and collects its own income tax).
• New York City - officially named the City of New York - is the largest financial center in the world.
• The city is at the center of international finance, politics, entertainment, and culture.
• The city is home to all of the missions to the United Nations, which has its headquarters in New York City.
• New York City has an area of 309 square miles. Estimated in 2004 to have 8,168,388 residents, it is the heart of the New York Metropolitan Area, which is one of the largest urban conglomerations in the world with a population of over 22 million.
• The city includes large populations of immigrants from over 180 countries who help make it one of the most cosmopolitan places on earth.
• The city serves as an enormous engine for the global economy, and is home to more Fortune 500 companies than any other place in the United States.
• The city is estimated to have a Gross Metropolitan Product of nearly $500 billion.
• If it were a nation, the city would have the 17th highest gross domestic product in the world, far exceeding that of Switzerland ($377 billion) and nearly equaling that of Russia ($586 billion).

NYC facts courtesy of Wikipedia