Betty Blog

The Big Apple Has Eluded Me, But I Still Matter

Good God, woman, how can it be?

-Candace Buehner

I am about to confess something that may shock you. It is likely to perplex you. It will make some of you wonder how, exactly, I have been able to live my life - quite fully, I may add - without having this particular curiosity FIXED. Especially since a free weekend, a credit card and Hotwire could take care of this particular issue in a New York minute.

That, you see, is my secret: somehow, I have never been to New York City.

My travels have taken me far-ish (does Ireland count?) and wide (California is pretty far over there), and I have managed to fly enough to qualify for Silver Elite status on Northwest for the past few years (free drinks on the one-hour flights to Indianapolis - whee!), but in life's bizarre way of making some things happen and others not, NYC has never been one of my destination points.

I was a bit hinky about making this confession, I will tell you, if for no other reason than I feel as though for some people, my lack of experience in NYC may confirm a stereotype. I am conservative in my politics; I have been known to wear shoes from Target; I am a Christian (Catholic, no less); and I not only live in flyover country, I apparently am so backward that I have not taken the time to better my troglodyte self by going to the Only Place That Really Matters (that is, If You Work For the New York Times, CNN, or Any Other Major Media Outlet).

I'll tell you, when the Meryl Streep character in The Devil Wears Prada explained to her (clearly-from-the-Midwest) assistant how fashion trickles down from its pure runway beginning to its ugly Kohl's end, where the masses lap it up and ask for more, I literally blushed. I knew she was right. I buy the "in" color probably two seasons after it last showed up at a weekend party in the Hamptons.

But you know what? I don't care - I like what I like, and I think what I think, in spite of the various "supposed-to-s" that are slamming into us daily as edicts we should believe in, with disagreement deemed not only bad, but downright ignorant.

Universal healthcare? Per the powers that be, not only should I WANT universal health care, but I should realize that unless we get it in and SOON (before Congress has time to think!), MILLIONS WILL DIE (and it will, of course, be partly my fault). Cap and trade? I must encourage my congressman to vote yes or the only green thing that my children will grow up with is Kermit on TV. Sotomayor? I should realize that her Latina comments were just JOKES that would have been explained away exactly the same way had they been made by a white male. Iran or North Korea? I should recognize that they're not friendly, true, but they Just Need to See That We're Good People, We'll Have Kimchee and Hummus, and All Will be Well...

...and last on that list? I should know that anyone who hasn't even BEEN to NYC can't have an opinion worth hearing.

Sorry, you have to hear mine, and since a night at the movies would qualify as a sad little vacation in my small-child-and-work-dominated life, my NYC visit isn't happening anytime soon. Not that I'm in any hurry to go.

Candace Cavanaugh Buehner lives and works outside of Detroit, Michigan, where every summer, her family would take the 10-hour trek from Michigan to Syracuse, New York. So close, yet so far away.

Read Candace's last blog: How Do You Handle it When a Friend is Rude?

Read Candace's full blog