We currently live in a world where it’s pretty much impossible for a family to live comfortably with a single income, yet despite that this is a fact as opposed to an opinion or a preference, some men really are resistant to it, especially when they have babies at home that they are too terrified to be left alone with. So to deal with the work dilemma, they decide to put more pressure on their wives to quit their jobs and to stay home with the kid. While I am all for women choosing a work life, a stay-at-home-mom life, or some combination of both, I will never be for men trying to make those decisions for their wives either directly or indirectly. The real problem in this case is not a single or dual income household; it’s men refusing to acknowledge their fears and weaknesses and not taking responsibility for this.

I first read of the concept of an “urban tribe” when I took a sociology course in college on marriage and family. In its strictest definition, a “family” is your nuclear family – you, your parents, any siblings you have. Because of the blood that bonds you, you are connected for life. If you stay in the same city the rest of your life, you will probably all be physically bonded, as well. But today, a lot of people leave their families for school, career, pursuits of seeing the greater world around them. Among my three best friends from the Bay Area, only one is still in San Francisco. The need to form new families, or “urban tribes” in our new lives away from home, becomes greater. How do we find people we can trust like family in areas that are less familiar?

The latest big topic in the last few months about Millennials, aka Gen Y, has been “FOMO” – the Fear of Missing Out. The meaning behind it is that in our new generation that is obsessed with social media and keeping up with what everyone is doing, we are more obsessive about constantly checking Facebook and Foursquare because we are scared that if we do not check, we are missing out on “vital” information, and we are scared we are missing out on that same fun. It sounds pretty shallow, but sadly, I don’t think that this is just about Gen Y. I think it’s about society in general just becoming more shallow and of course, measuring themselves against what everyone else has and has accomplished. It’s a futile road to happiness.

Once upon a time, the world regarded New York City as a dangerous place to be. Graffiti was strewn all over buildings and the subway, rapes and homicides were frequently mentioned in local news, and young women were often advised against going home alone at night. Lucky for me, I will never know what that is like since I moved to New York in 2008, long after the city cleaned up, and because no one really sleeps here, you’d rarely be on any block at any hour of the night and be alone. I was briefly reminded of my ignorance of this when a friend warned me to be safe during our planned trip to St. Louis, Missouri, because the city, though a cosmopolitan area, is still struggling with poverty and does not have even a fraction of the racial diversity that New York has.

Over dinner last night, my friend and I lamented how jaded we’ve become looking at the latest photos in magazines and news sources across the web. Before I got into photography and invested in a DSLR, what impressed me the most with photos I loved was the way these photos captured light. After dummy-proof photo editing apps like Instagram have made adjusting so simple, and once you know exactly how much editing is done to turn an ordinary photo into a masterpiece, the more skeptically you look at any photo and think, “Sure, this looks great, but how natural is it, and how much does it truly capture what the photographer really saw?”

Tonight, I went to see an incredible concert that included Lang Lang, Joshua Bell, and John Legend, among other incredibly singers and pianists. While the performances themselves were awe-inspiring and far beyond what I expected, I couldn’t help but notice the girl next to me who constantly texted her boyfriend and friends throughout the night. I get that you can enjoy music by listening and not watching, but this bordered on excessive. The concert lasted about 2.5 hours with an intermission halfway through. Are we really becoming a society when disconnecting for just a couple of hours is too much to handle? How much information do we really need to share with each other, and where do we draw the line for what is considered acceptable?

I finally finished reading Tomatoland, a book about how the tomato as we know it in the United States has lost all of its flavor due to the agriculture industry’s desire to compromise quality (taste) in favor of quantity (pesticide-laden, green and thus not ripe when picked, but certainly plentiful). Happily, I discovered that most of the tomatoes that are grown with fewer pesticides and with more flavor happen to be grown in California. It makes me miss California produce even more while living in New York, where it’s easy to find produce, but it will cost a lot more, likely be shipped from more distant lands, and also not taste as great.

Summer in New York has arrived. This week, the temperature has exceeded 90 degrees F, and after work, all you see are people hurrying home to hide out with their comforting ACs and tons of cleavage, legs, and butt exposed by city women. I’ve always loved warm weather but abhor humidity. Sweat dripping down my body and clothes sticking to my skin are not fun sensations. I also do not enjoy walking out of my apartment first thing in the morning, and inhaling to realize that the first smell wafting through my nostrils is that of garbage roasting in the summer heat. But, I do look forward to shedding my layers, weekend getaways outside of the city, and outdoor boozing with sangria and mojito pitchers. Homemade fruit popsicles, here we come!

Today, my friend told me a story about how her friend’s girlfriend became angry with him after he told her a friend’s engagement story and how he thought it was completely overdone. She found the gesture romantic and was upset that he thought it was excessive, and he had no idea why she would be so mad. I don’t know her, but I can say the reason she was angry was she thought her own boyfriend would probably never do something as grandiose for her. When a man proposes, that is his way of declaring to the woman (and the world) that this is how much he loves her. This story will be shared on the wedding website, retold again and again to family/friends, and possibly even for generations to come. And life is all a competition, so if a man really loves a woman, he wants to win, right?

Being a friend is hard work. No, I’m not that group of “friends” you see just so that you can do group activities like bowling because in those cases, “the more the merrier.” I’m talking about real friends – the ones when you ask how they are doing, you actually want to stick around and listen to the response. It’s taken me many years, and sadly, even watching Sex and the City episodes and observing Miranda, to realize that your friends don’t always want to hear what you think or what your suggestions are. This is pretty hard for me considering I’m an opinionated person. Your intentions might be completely out of love, but they are not always received in that way. Sometimes, they just want you to smile, nod, and listen.