The Girl With Blue Hair
23, ranter/writer, fresh New Yorker.
samanthaescobar.com
- Associate Editor @ Alloy Digital.
- I write for TheGloss, YourTango and Blisstree.
- Sometimes I laugh; sometimes I do not.
- I also do makeup: Portfolio//Contact info
- I love avocado, rant often & can be applied liberally.
Self-absorbed bitterness, now on a variety of social networks.
You Have Zero Friends: How To Meet People As An Adult
As you may already know because I mention it like twice a week, I just moved to Portland on December 31st. I’m settling in nicely, live in a great house and have only seen one spider in my room, so life is pretty great physical comfort-wise. Having never been here and knowing no one when I arrived, I was fairly nervous about meeting people here. Having been here a week, it’s safe to say that I am now sufficiently terrified. I have finally come to the conclusion that I have very little idea how to make friends as an adult besides via osmosis (i.e. friends of friends).
frequencyofwords Asks:
thegirlwithbluehair Said:
Hi there, Esther!
To be honest, I ended up opting to stay in upstate New York/Maine for a bit in order to get my life/goals together. I spent the last month and a half of school finishing a crazy thesis, packing all of my California life up, and saying too many goodbyes, then going casually wild in Boise, ID for a week before switching to a hectic Brooklyn schedule…I think I drained myself out, made some incredibly poor decisions, and also had some very bad things happen. However, I can help you learn from my shitty mistakes!
1) Do not ever accept drinks from anybody you don’t really, really know. I knew better and yet I let my eagerness to enjoy myself dissuade me. It ended very poorly.
2) Get hopstop for your phone! I have it on my iPod and it helped a TON.
3) Get grubhub, too. Seriously…good food being delivered when you’re overwhelmed is so awesome.
4) Explore alone during the day. As soon as I started doing this, I liked the city better.
5) Don’t make eye contact with strangers on the subway. For some of them, it appears to be the equivalent of lifting up your skirt and saying, “WHAT’S UP, COME AT ME!”
6) Write/draw/etc. about everything. It definitely helped me interpret the world around me as it was changing so rapidly.
I plan on being back down there in a little while (like a month and a half or so), so hopefully I’ll have better advice by then (though you may be more adjusted than I by that time!). Best of luck to you and let me know how things go! :) If you need a buddy to talk to about the craziness of a giant city over coffee, lemme know.
I’m terrified of the future but I’m getting on this train right now.
I left California at 6:45 yesterday via first class and got appropriately buzzed on the plane. I showed up in Boise at 12:45 and was picked up by Taylor. It was really rainy and cold (which was awesome; I don’t remember the last time I saw weather like that in Orange, but it was definitely a whiiile ago) and I got to wear my hood up without looking like I was mobbin it all sketchy-like.
We went and visited Chelsea at the Flying M, which is her coffee shop, and she gave me a fancy, heart-foamed latte and a tasty bagel. I took a nap with her two cats back at her house, then she picked me up and we went to an all-you-can-eat pizza night where fancy draught beers were 4.25/pint. Later, the three of us went to a show at a bar called the Red Room where, because Chelsea is apparently Boise’s most-loved resident, we got like a million drinks. Oh, and I got an appletini at some point—it was two dollars. I remember shitting myself in Syracuse when it was $5. BUT NO. TWO DOLLAR FUCKING GIANT APPLETINIS.
Oh and some guy who was also named Sam rapped for me to welcome me here. This is basically one of the most wonderful places ever and, as I kept saying last night, I’m fucking thrilled I opted to come here and not go somewhere like France or something. Why? Because after this trip, I’ll actually have enough money to afford NY and still manage to be drunk my whole vacation. Plus, I hate French accents.
Now, I’m gonna go nurse my hangover in preparation for my next hangover tomorrow.
For five months, I scoured the internet for exciting things about New York. For apartments, for jobs, for views and companies and restaurants. For night clubs and festivals. I grew up semi-near the city but didn’t even like it until two years ago; two weeks from tomorrow, it’ll be my home.
A little less than a month ago, I stopped searching. I started listening to all my pre-California-getting-stoked-to-move-out-west playlists and remembered the thrill of crossing the country for school, love, new people, whatever it was that brought me here. It began to hit me: me moving to Brooklyn doesn’t just mean I get a new start. It means I have to finish something, and finishing is far more frightening that beginnings.
I can’t stop crying; all I want is to be done with moving but then, if I’m done with moving, that means all my stuff is gone. And that means I’m gone, too. It hurts so badly to have everything I want in two places so far from one another.
I want you to move to California for yourself,
I want you to find whatever your heart needs,
I want you to move to California for yourself, but not for me.
I want you to go out there and find somebody else,
I want him to treat you like I know he should,
I want you to find somebody new for yourself, if not for me.
all of the feelings that I know you never felt,
and all of the simple words you never said,
I want you to keep them like a secret to yourself, they’re not for me.
I want you to wander silent past my outstretched arms,
I want you to hide yourself from all I see,
and though my heart will fight until its dying breath, you’re not for me.
I moved to California at least in part for somebody else; I intend on moving to NY for nobody but a Sam.
As of today, I am moving in five weeks out of California and into New York City. Specifically, Brooklyn. More specifically, Bushwick, Greenpoint, or Park Slope…which I think negates the “more specifically” part of this sentence. I’ve found a pretty wonderful lead for an apartment in Park Slope, but who knows as of yet. It’s not even May yet (though for me, 37 days is not even enough time to plan a road trip…let alone a move across the country).
Also as of today, I am scared shitless.
Recently, I was putting away clothes from the laundry and then stopped at a shirt I almost never wear. I decided I should just put it in a “discard” pile of things I’ll either sell or give away before I leave. And then it hit me: I have to get rid of almost everything, which means I’ll have nothing left here, which means I’m actually leaving permanently (or, at least for a few years).
So today, I ended up starting the process of thinning my closet out. For anybody who’s seen my closet, you know that it’s rather enormous and incredibly packed (as well as color-coded!). I’ve accumulated an absurd amount of stuff in California because I:
(1)tend to just do that in general
(2)thought I’d be living here or in the Bay Area for the next decade or so.
I had zero plans of moving to NY until I was at least 30. ”Too crowded” or “too smoggy” (lolLA) or “too expensive,” I’d say. And lo and behold…I’ll be there in a little over a month. Fuckmuffins. I have nothing else to do besides pack up/sell/give away my shit and go. Ya voy.
