Granola girl's a sell out

I wrote this one before the last post...weeks ago I think.

This feels like an interesting crux in my life because a part of me still feels like the outdoorsy, nature loving slightly overly righteous environmentalist who disdains corporate life, city life and consumerism and wants to live in a way that makes everything in the world right. And yet I am not living that way at all. Sure, I don’t pollute because I don’t have a car, I recycle and compost, I donate to NRDC and I always bring my sustainable mug to Starbucks. But this is not enough. What I DO is part of the problem. I work not only for the evil corporations that I so vehemently despised in college, but I am also a city girl in every other way. Because I have to find cat food ads in magazines to assess for work, I read US Weekly, Glamour, People etc. every day. I go shopping with my friends. I have been encouraged to get more exposure to advertisements. I haven’t backpacked or kayaked since the summer.
And yet, I love my life. I am getting attached to the glamour of city life. Frankly, for now I don’t want to go back to wearing fleece and slouchy jeans. I love hailing a cab in purple high heels and a lace skirt and pretended for an instant that I am Carry Bradshaw. I love having chocolate cake and wine in beautiful French restaurants with six women who are bona fide city girls, or go to a Candy Wine bar with three gay couples and two married couples and soak up pomegranate glazed chocolate ganache.
I love working in an agency where our boss gets everyone to go out dancing until three AM and it’s acceptable for everyone from assistants to executives to be hung over the next day, and still work hard and yell happily and listen to loud music and laugh hysterically. A job that has “Rodeo Wednesday” with loud country music and beers in the kitchen at 3 pm where attendance in mandatory, and when it's done people take beers back to their desks. Where the flat screens play Sex and the City in the room with all the girls and Surfer videos in the room with more guys. (But leaving the TVs on all day is SUCH a waste of energy!)
There are all these beautiful little moments and rituals that are associated with the city. Where else could my commute be a chaotic and lively one mile walk downhill, through the heart of Chinatown, where I have to fight through hordes of Chinese people, silk scarves spilling out of shops and the distinct smell of bitter Chinese herbs mingled with fresh fruits and vegetables at the corner markets.
Or walking to the park every weekend through North Beach, where I can pick up an espresso drink and sit and watch every kind of person play in the park. Or my runs to the Marina Green, with the Golden Gate Bridge spread out before me and sail boats, fish smells and Frisbee players to the side of me.
Or the Laundromat. The ritual of lugging my dirty laundry out into public and having conversations with strangers while we mutually and unabashedly shove dirty socks and underwear into the machines. And tonight because it is pouring rain, the little Asian woman who speaks no English and runs the place came over and put a long plastic bag over my laundry bag so my clothes wouldn’t get wet and gave me a big grin, muttering to herself in another language.
Or getting a bouquet of roses from the grocer at Trader Joes to “start my week out right” and getting free mochas from the guy who serves me my boss’ coffee, or five salad punches toward a free salad at the gourmet organic salad shop where I get my boss’s lunch. Or meeting new people every single weekend. The liveliness and diversity of the city- ahh it is so glamorous, so beautiful and so addicting. This life is sweet even though it doesn't feel like it should be mine.