I love New York

It's been awhile since I've given the blog any love. What can I say? The holidays are great for filling up your time with food and family and booze until, if you are anything like me, you wake up sometime in January and decide it's time to clean up your life.
I don't know how successful I've been so far, but I've made some changes. Modifications, really.
I paid off my credit card at the end of December, just in time for me to open another one and charge more than $1200 for a computer. I had such great intentions with my $350 pseudo-budget. The good news is, my computer is awesome. I got a Sony Vaio and it was only 800, but then I had to get the people who know what they are doing to get it up and running. I also paid a lot of money so I could call a help number for the next 3 years or so-- and talk to someone whose first language is English. But did I mention my new computer rocks? And it's RED! It is Fierce! Rarely do I have such joy at my purchases.
So, out with the old debt and in with the new? I guess, but I also realized I haven't been paid anything for the cover stories I've been writing as a freelancer, so that's almost $400 bucks backed up. I hope to get out of this debt by the time I leave for Alaska. That would be great, but a stretch. Especially since I will also have to raise the funds to fly or drive up there. Now flying is actually seeming like the more cost-efficient option, but I'm still unsure.
As far as the Oregon Trail I like to imagine myself on, it's going to take some more bends before I make it out there for real. I got the idea of NYC back in my head and now I'm thinking I may just take my summer savings and come back to the East Coast.
New York City has always seemed to me like the biggest and greatest city we've got here in the US. I mean, if anything defines my idea of real and this is it. I've always been kind of intimidated and awed and scared and drawn to New Amsterdam.
I think taking up in NYC for a year or two following a new adventure in Alaska could be good. It could be very good.
I still want to make my way West, but if I don't do New York now, I'm afraid I never will.