This is not quite what I had in mind...

This is not quite what I had in mind.

See, I arrived in the city not all that long ago, full of big plans and big dreams (Let's face it. Is there any other way to arrive in this city? I defy you to find me someone arriving in JFK or LaGuardia or (God forbid) Newark for the first time who isn't bursting with hopes for a fabulous future.) Right now, all I've got is big debt, tiny apartment, and big problems.

In a city full of big dreamers, how do you keep your feet on the ground (and do you even want to, considering you'll probably step in something gross before you'be walked 10 steps?) And in a city full of cynics, how do you remember what it feels like to fly (without paying a visit to the 420 lounge on a Saturday evening?)

Start at the beginning. This is one story out of millions-- 8 million just in this city. My attempt to make sense of a foreign world. My failures and triumphs and ultimate disillusionment-- everything I learned from the movies is wrong. At the end of the day, there's only one conclusion: my life is not a movie!

Hollywood lied to me...

I'm the first to admit that most of my ideas about life come from the movies. Or TV. Which is ironic when you consider that for the vast majority of my 20-odd years, I have been without a television set. In fact, even now as I write this, settling into my new apartment in this grand city, I find myself too poor to afford cable TV, reducing me to a steady diet of whatever the networks are offering online and whatever was on sale at Best Buy last week (at least if I buy it, I get to keep it forever.) My parents' early efforts to prevent the rotting of my brain were rewarded by my love of literature, but offset by the fact that since becoming (ostensibly) an adult, I have yielded to a long-supressed voracious apetite for all things on the screen, big and small, and not even the good stuff. I'm way more likely to enjoy the cheesy rom-coms, Lifetime Original Movies, and teen dramas than anything that approaches cerebral, intellectually stimulating, or even, let's face it, of high production values.

And yet, as I venture out into the great unknown, I've learned nothing with more certainty than the fact that Hollywood has lied to me. My life is not glamourous like the Sex and the City girls, or entertaining like the Friends. I don't have a bar like Cheers, a butler like the Nanny, or even a shrink like Frasier. And that's just the small screen. I also don't have neighborhood like in You've Got Mail, a gay editor to solve my problems like in My Best Friend's Wedding, or a hot boss like in Working Girl (although to be fair, I also don't have a horrible boss, like The Devil Wears Prada.)

So thanks are due to you, Hollywood, for the lies, the laughable inaccuracies, and the unrealistic expectations about life, love, and city living. You have made me so wise.