What's my title?

I think one annoying thing about blogging is trying to find an appropriate title for every blog. Sometime I just cant think of one that suites the blog's content or I come up with the title first and then in the blog I end up migrating away from the topic in the title.

One thing I regret is not blogging before and throwing away my all journals. I should have wrote them online so they'd be up today. I also should have written more about my life growing up and my experiences instead of just about all my anger and fears. I guess that's what was on my mind.

I like to read memoirs of people about their times growing up and of the experiences during the times and places they take a place in. I like of those movies that take place years ago. I grew up in the 1990s and should have documented more of my experiences. I witnessed a dramatic demographic shift in my neighborhood from being mostly white Irish/Polish to turning Puerto Rican, then Ecuadorian, Peruvian and Asian. The Irish kids that I knew growing up started leaving one by one during the 90s. Many of them moved out to Long Island. I remember hearing their parents complain about how the schools here were terrible and talks of moving to nicer (i.e. whiter) areas were frequent as the immigrant population began moving in from Asia and Latin America. There were Puerto Ricans here as long as I can remember, but even they too started moving out of the neighborhood to the suburbs.

I used to think that Queens was getting bad. Now 20 years later that couldn't be further from the truth. White people are moving back into the area as the gentrification has spread from Manhattan. Crime keeps dropping and quality of life keeps rising. I hardly ever worry about crime anymore. I wonder if all those Irish kids who moved out of the neighborhood years ago wish they were back where they grew up. There are benefits to living close to the city. One is not having a car. Another is being able to walk to the supermarket and stores for what you need. The most important benefit is being close to the entertainment of the big city and not having to live in a dinky boring suburb.

Seeing all the positive changes to my area has made me realize what a great asset I have right over my head. I don't think anyone realized it back in the 90s when people were still worried about crime and were thinking of moving out of the city. I'm surprised that my mom didn't move out somewhere else. She grew up in the suburbs and moved to the city, which is the opposite of what most people do.

Seeing all these elements change in my short life has made me think of what type of change will take place in another 20 years. I imagine New York getting cleaner and safer with a renewed interest in urban living keeping the city well groomed and maintained. I hope you don't have to be rich to live in New York in 20 years. There must be a future for working class people.

I should have documented my early 20s more and wrote about my party years hanging out at drug spots, smoking weed, taking E and drinking 40s of malt liquor. A drug dealer once told me that he was afraid I was writing about all the shit I saw him and others doing and was going to write an expose about it. I really should have done that and I regret not doing it. Maybe now I can write about what I remember, but it won't be in the detail that I could've wrote at the time it happened.

This blog is not about personal shit. I try to refrain from writing about the petty personal issues in my life. It's about the big shit. The shit that effects all of us: politics, religion, and science. That's way more interesting than any girlfriend issues.

The changing demographics of New York and its history are interesting. I've always noticed change. It also relates to our contemporary economic issues, which is another topic as serious as a heart attack.

I think I could live in my neighborhood forever. I'd really like to move but if I had to live here for the rest of my life it wouldn't be that bad. I'm so used to it. I guess I am really attached to my roots. It's always home sweet home when I return. There's nothing like the feeling you get by being in the comfort of your own home. There's no where else I feel more comfortable.

I have so many great memories growing up here. All the people I knew growing up are gone, they left the old neighborhood years ago. I kind of like that, because no one in my neighborhood knew me when I was young. There is always this constant turn over rate in my community. It would be depressing to grow up and have to live with the same people for your whole life. I wonder if I would have kept in touch with with my old friends. Several of them I wasn't even talking to anymore when they moved out. So them moving away might have prevented some awkward moments had they continued to live on my block. Phew.