  How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore? Lately, I've been feeling isolated. Well, that's a polite way of putting it. Lately, I've been feeling like an absolute loser. I feel like I'm on the world's "Do Not Call" list. To date, in the six months since I've been here in Albany, I've made one friend, three acquaintances, one ex-boyfriend, and a whole lot of shady, backstabbing associates.
All I need now is the partridge in a pear tree. And every day I come home from my eight hours hoping and praying that my phone's message light is blinking. I don't care who it is; I just want to believe that someone cares if I'm still breathing. Even if that person is calling to tell me how to consolidate my credit card debt into one low, monthly payment. Granted, I didn't believe that I was going to take Albany by storm. Okay, that's a bald faced lie.
I just knew that after six months in this town I'd be on everyone's guest list, adored by men and detested by women. So maybe I was ego-tripping a little. Or a lot. But I expected things to be different. And for a while it seemed that I was headed in that direction. It was like you dreamed the first day of high school would be. Somehow I managed to stumble into a relationship with the most popular guy in school and believed for a moment that I could actually be Homecoming Queen. But somewhere I took a wrong turn and ended up at the back table with the Trekkies and the Chess Club.
I expected things to be like they were in Atlanta. I had friends there, people that cared about me too much to let me be alone on a Friday night. People who knew that "friends don't let friends wear that outfit. " The mind's a funny thing that way. I've conveniently forgotten that it took me over two years to reach that point. I've forgotten that during my first year in Atlanta, I stood between Spelman and Morehouse and yelled that I should have gone to a white school (something that my friends will never let me forget). I forgot that the second year was spent isolated and angry, a big change from the naive, overeager and yes, slightly (very) obnoxious girl that I was my freshman year. I've even manage to forget that should you have asked me that second year what my friend status was, I would have said that I've made one friend, three acquaintances, one ex-boyfriend, and a whole lot of shady, backstabbing associates.
It's not that my friends back home don't call, they do. But unless I can convince Patty or Traci to give up New York and Atlanta, respectively, and move down here, I'm screwed. Or unless I can convince Flossie or Rachel to divorce their husbands and cohabitate with me, I'm screwed. They're my friends, true, but they can't, and won't, make my transition in Albany any easier. I have to live down here.
And although the urge to drive back to "civilization" where the streets don't roll up at 10 p.m., there's more than one Starbucks, and the stylists have never heard of "Pink Oil Sheen," is nearly overwhelming, I know that I can't give up. The problem was I became complacent. Eight years of stability and friendship made me soft. Granted, I never enjoyed the nomadic lifestyle that was my childhood, but at least it kept me sharp. Getting back into the swing of things post-Atlanta has been brutal. I am something that I haven't been since college.
I'm the new girl. And unlike college, where everyone was on new and unfamiliar territory, I'm experiencing this solo. The people in Albany have had their friends, lovers, and intrigue long before I came on the scene. Let me be more specific: on the airline of life, I'm the hot towel. Although I'm an interesting addition, I’m working on a “take it or leave it basis” with people who have established their friend base. And now, come hell or high water, I have to establish mine. So, I'm going to try to do what I managed to do in Atlanta, hopefully with a whole lot less angst, a lot more personal dignity, and in less than two years.
I will put down the phone and stop calling people like a stalker. I won't be what I'm not. I will start eating out alone again instead of waiting for someone to take pity on me and take me out. I won't compromise. I will learn to enjoy the silence and learn to enjoy myself. I won't keep trying to be friends with people who I wouldn't give the time of day, or my time to, if I lived back in Atlanta. I will be strong. I'll stop watching that fucking message light, and start living my life. 
