On FreshDirect.

So FreshDirect finally came here to Philadelphia. For those of you unaware of what that is, it's an urban grocery delivery service, a system whereby you order and pay online, then choose a delivery time for your food. It's incredibly useful for the average busy-slash-lazy person who doesn't have the time-slash-energy to go to the damn store and pick shit out themselves.

I dodged it for a while, and I wasn't really sure why. After all, I used it all the damn time in New York. And perhaps that was my reasoning; my life here in Philly is different from those days, and in a way, I wanted to leave that behind. Not because it was a bad time in my life - quite the contrary; living in New York City was the beating heart of my early adulthood. But here in Philly, I'm older, arguably more responsible, more in tune with myself and the people around me. Things have changed. My back hurts, I have to worry about my lawn. I go to the co-op now to pick out what I need for dinner.

Echoes back to my life are painful. Nostalgia is a dangerous thing; it filters your memories, leaving you wistful for halcyon days, leaving you with questions about where you are and what you've become. It's something I've wrestled with for years, leaving the big city behind (on some pronouncedly shitty terms, no less) for a dying father, a dissolving marriage, and a failed business.

But here's the thing. Time marches onward. And there's nothing you can really do about it. You can either sit around and wish things could be the way they used to be or take the time to really appreciate where you are today and where you're going tomorrow.

And maybe that's why I've dodged FreshDirect for so long. I didn't want to sit in front of my computer, remembering all the times I ordered a skirt steak for Pericles and I to grill off at our apartment in Brooklyn. I didn't want to browse through the onion selection remembering sitting at the counter in TriBeCa in the hazy halogen light.

But here, now, that's not what I'm doing. I'm sitting in the house I bought, trading suspicious eyes with a cat that's never known life in New York, debating ordering a 10 lb. sack of chicken thighs to set up a fried chicken party.

Because some things change, and some things don't. And why would you waste the time thinking too hard about it when you could be frying chicken?