Winter in New York

...so far has been a joke. Aside from the freak winter snowstorm on Halloween, and last weekend's little flurry - there hasn't really been anything "winteresque." A few days with temperatures in the low 20's does not count. I survived Chicago snowstorms, snowpacalypse, sub-zero temperatures where you might as well snap your fingers off.

I could blame global warming, but what I really mean is that walking around in a hoodie in January and feeling just a bit breezy is just strange.

Which hasn't meant that I've been out and raging like...the last six months. One of my goals this year was to drink less, contemplate more. There's some sort of cyclical cycle in me - live, think, live, think. This month, I've been out relatively little - but I have been museum-ing, brunching, visiting folks and trying to put together a plan of 2012.

I was talking with a friend of mine who remarked that as he was not asian, he enjoyed simply enjoying his life. It made me think - how exactly do I approach free time? I didn't have a lot while under the claws of my loving tiger mom. And there's enough of that left in me to be supremely uncomfortable whenever I don't have a plan. I don't like drifting. It makes me lazy, and like I'm not living up to my potential. Which isn't bad, except for the fact that I often confuse "having a great time" with "drifting." Which makes "living a chill life" much harder than I assumed. I don't blame this entirely on being Asian. Though where that ends, and where my own beliefs on productivity and forward momentum begins is impossible to discern.

I wouldn't regret the last few months - and they've pushed me into seeing all the great things that New York has to offer. However, I do think that I should probably put together a tentative schedule so that I can at least feel the pull of a "goal." The real beauty of this plan is that I completely ignore plans. I'm the kind of girl who isn't too into rules in the first place, so McGuyver-ing her way through things isn't an obstacle, it's practically a calling. So I have plans this January, nothing set or definite, but the tendrils of "life" that occur. I'll sip mojitos outside, in a light spring parka in the middle of February and see how far I go.