"This isn't New York"

I had this phrase said to me today for the second time in three days.
Total, I have heard this at least three dozen times since moving to Jackson, but for some reason these last two times have really bothered me.
Sunday evening I fixed Easter Dinner for Michael and I and his best friend and his wife. This is a couple who have dedicated their lives to having fun. Any sort of fun. And who do not embrace any sort of work ethic what so ever. They ski. They rock climb. They boat. They play. And that's about it.
The wife was trying to convince me that I should call in sick to my new job so that Michael and I could take a trip to the islands.
My response was that while that would be wonderful I was not willing to lose my job for a vacation that we couldn't even afford. "They won't fire you for that," she said. "This isn't New York."
No. No it's not.
Flash forward to today at work. My boss, a man whom I thought liked me and thought highly of me and deemed me worthy of my position asked me to render a lighting plan into AutoCad. I asked him if he wanted up lighting on the plants (this is a perfectly normal question and most public landscapes use them, it provides a softer more natural effect than downcasting lights, but I digress)... His response, "We don't need unnecessary lights here, we've got stars to light our plants. This isn't New York."
No. No it's not.
If this were New York perhaps people would be more welcoming. Less weary of strangers and their "big city ideas," or should I say ideals.
New Yorkers, for all their rudeness and crassness and dirtiness, are still good people. They are tolerant. They are hard-working. They are strong. They are open to change and new ideas and they embrace diversity and individuality.
New Yorkers are real.
And Jacksonites, well, quite frankly aren't any of these things.
There is one black woman in town. She's homeless. The only other minority group are the service workers, who are Mexican, and they are shunned. Forced to live in what the locals call "Taco Town," a development south of town and cussed by all the trust fund babies who spend their days skiing and doing their damndest to not contribute to society.
No. I am well aware this isn't New York.
In New York I could buy a lampshade. I could watch a play with puppets having sex. I could go to Dunkin' Donuts.
Here, Walgreen's can't even build a store because the locals don't want "big business to take over." (It would "break the heart of Jackson." - this is a quote straight from the Town of Jackson Land Development Regulations. Seriously.)
And, please, on many levels I am glad that this is not New York.
My dogs have played more, my husband's blood pressure has gone down, we own a home and a really nice car... I know this is not New York.
But sometimes I wish...

Winter, winter, everywhere

Well, in 31 days I will be 31.
A guy in my office told me I should be excited by this. He referred to his 31st year on Earth as "thirty-wonderful."
Can I please throw up now?
Anyways, it's not the aging I mind as much as the starting to feel and look my age part. I have always swore that I would never turn into my mother, the queen of anti-aging. This is the woman who cried on my 29th birthday, not for me, but because she could no longer tell people she was 29. She was devestated (truly, not the fake attention seeking devestation, but true heart-broken-end-of-the-world-devestation). Then I moved to Wyoming and a strange thing started happening. I stopped getting carded when I am buying alcohol.
This is truly heart-breaking to me.
I think I might actually curl up and die.
At first, I thought the alcohol sellers were crazy. Couldn't they look at me and see how young I am?
Then I looked at myself. My eyes have lost some of their youthful twinkle, years of unneccessary sun and dry airplane air and city smog have etched fine lines around my mouth and in the corners of my eyes. My hair no longer holds the youthful luster that it once did. And contrary to what all you brunettes think, natural blonds do get grey hairs.
Sad, so sad.
I think I will go lock myself in my room and kill all my clocks and basically stop living so that I can stop aging. Oh, and alcohol is banned. They can't make me feel old if I don't give them an opportunity to not card me.