The City and High Battery Bluff

CAUTION- seriously cynical tirade and exploration of lifestyle ahead

So Ryan is out of town this weekend and I have been spending my Saturday night by watching a marathon of The City on OnDemand (the one GOOD thing about Comcast) and eating an unmentionable amount of brownie mix before I cooked it. Shut up- you've done it too.

Anyway, while watching perfect skinny girls galavant around with totally awesome/easy jobs and access to the best clothes and accessories on earth I was starting to feel really old, boring, and unfashionable. I was pretty sure I had the unfashionable part nailed since I was sitting on the couch wearing the riding pants I've had on all day with black and white polka dotted tall socks under my Uggs along with an absolutely ANCIENT brown North Face Denali and a bra that could contain a herd of wild elephants. But I was thinking to myself... "I totally have the same if not better taste in fashion than these chicks and they are practically dictating what's "in" for the seasons to come!" This made me feel a little better about myself. Also, I pretty much think I could do their jobs on any given day and I have no "training" in fashion. Maybe I am overestimating my taste, or maybe they are making something really trivial seem harder than it is. Now, I wouldnt for one minute trade my life out here in the burbs with those chicks but watching that show does make me miss going out, shopping- which only happens in my dreams now, and dressing in things other than riding clothes and "nanny wear" i.e. workout pants and jeans. I wonder though if sometimes those girls feel like their lives are just plain awesome or a little "emtpy". Even though they look so cute all the time and are pretty much surrounded by cute boys wooing them every day, I think I would tire of that lifestyle- but probably not the paycheck.

Do they know what its like to look foward to coming home at night and snuggling with their doggie? Do they know what they are missing on a beautiful Saturday afternoon spent outside on a horse with friends? Am I the only one who thinks thats fun? I think I am at a point in my life where my priorities are changing. I seem to bounce back and forth between two worlds where reading fashion magazine and blogs about fashion and thinking that I need to pay attention to all that and then the other world where some days I think it all seems really superficial and unimportant and I realize that I am the same person in jeans and a t-shirt as I am in TIBI.

I also tire of the constant need of my generation to feel cool by (Disclaimer: if you eat at chain restaurants- stop reading now) driving all the way to midtown/highlands to eat at some crappy place like Cheesecake Factory or Dantes Down the Hatch when I can get actual good and healthy food at a REAL restuaurant that is not delivered by a Sysco truck. I am, totally admittedly, a major food snob because my bro is a fantabulous chef and both sides of my family are pretty much foodies but REALLY- why would anyone actually want to gather at a place like, "gag noise", Olive Garden, Shout, or Panera. It just kills me when people that I enjoy being friends with want to meet at places like this. I really do want to hang out, I just can't go to places like this. I used to miss social gatherings all the time in Athens because people always wanted to go to Jason's Deli. OMG I can't imagine anywhere more frightnening- except for an unnamed place that serves chicken and waffles together. Enough about my restuarant phobias, back to The City... those girls do seem to have good taste in restaurants and date spots- which also makes me want to go back to NYC to visit or spend more time in ATL proper at our plethora of great boutique restaurants but then again sometimes I feel like I should grab some fresh produce from the market and cook something wholesome at home with Ryan and friends and not be such a "consumer" all the time.

Bottom line is, as I travel what seems like so very quickly through my twenties and inhabit this cute little house sitting on the edge of a big fabulous city and a some beautiful Georgia countryside, I cant decide whether I want to wear great clothes and jewelry and wait eagerly to see what Michael Kors has for us this season, or just throw on my jeans and wellington boots and enjoy the sunrise when I feed the horses and then go home and pick some fresh basil to put on my homegrown tomato slices and be excited to see a goldfinch sitting on my birdfeeder. Can I just do both? Honestly, I do want to do both. Do I have to decide who to be when I grow up yet? For now, I'm just a granola city girl I guess.