tick tick tick

i've never wanted children. i'm not sure if it goes back to my knowledge at a young age that my aunt, who i idolized, hated children. or maybe that my mother's frustration with being a single parent planted the idea in me that children are a burden, not a joy. i'm not afraid of pain; i give blood regularly, make my yearly gyne appointments, i actually enjoy trips to the dentist, hell...i put myself through law school and the bar exam, some would say i'm a sadist. BUT i've never desired putting myself in the position of, how do they say it? shoving a watermelon through a hole the size of a lemon?

but contrary to popular belief, i do have a biological clock. and every once in a while the thing starts ticking. i have a few friends who have the loveliest babies ever. such sweet sweet dispositions. quiet and beautiful. full of smiles and giggles. dream babies, really. and i hold them and they spit up on me and that's when i feel that tugging in my gut. i want one of these little things to bring home myself. i see how happy my friends are and think, "you know what? it's not that bad."

i left my friend kristen's after seeing her darling boy. since i'm on the east side, i head over to cpk (california pizza kitchen, where i had my very first restaurant job at the tender age of 15). i sit down at the counter, order my barbecue chopped salad, watch the news feed scrolling on CNN. and then it starts. a group of 15 children (aged 7-10) enter the restaurant. whining and running around and jumping onto the counter seats next to me. i see little hands reach over to try to touch my food. "sarah! leave that lady alone! come over here right now!"

not only are these little people wrecking havoc at this eating establishment, they're making me feel really old. though she didn't say it, i heard an "old" in front of the mom's lady as she yelled. i mean, i'm a lady, but i ain't that kind of lady! the lunch lady. that's what i think of. ahh! i'm only 25! i can't deal with this.

i leave CPK and get on the bus and start to hear the old familiar sound....a child screaming bloody murder. he's probably two. and this little guy is so damn loud.

i turn the volume up on my ipod, sit back, shake my head and sigh. once again restored to the "i'm never having children" person i've always been.

and he wasn't kidding...

another jon stewart snippet. trent lott yesterday re: the next supreme court nomination...

TL: i want the president to look across the country and find the best man, woman, OR minority that he can find.

JS: now you know what people? No! give this man some credit! i remember a time when a senator from mississippi wouldn't even put a minority on equal footing with men and women.


somehow it's both surprising and not-at-all-surprising that something like this came out of lott's mouth...

harriet miers withdraws...

it's about time. now can we maybe get a nominee from, say, i dunno.....at least a top 5 law school? maybe someone who has actually served as a judge? i'm sorry, to not have one or the other will raise eyebrows a bit, to not have either? what a fucking joke.

bring it bush. he placated laura with this lady. this next one is gonna be a man. you think he goes for the minority card in gonzales this time?

now off with you to the HNT below!

a crush from the past...

for a couple summers during high school and college i often used to hang out with my friend shawny (one of those chicago friends who reads the blog) and all these guy friends of hers from a neighboring town, several of whom were in this band called the Plain White T's. i had such a huge crush on this guy dave. the band has lost and gained a few different band members over the years but they're starting to get biggish (or so my brother says, who listens to their music). when i was in his car listening to some mix he put together i was like, "is that tom higgenson singing?" so i looked these past friends up and found this picture of dave and am shocked at how cute he stayed. tom, on the other hand, looks pretty ridiculous with all that shaggy hair. i mean, he's kind of a funny looking guy to begin with...and that mop on his head looks a bit out of place. but maybe i'm just out of touch with the "look" in the indy music scene these days...


dave tirio, you're hot. call me, we'll do lunch. ciao dahling!

manhattan hook ups...

for anyone who lives in new york or who is planning on moving to new york in the future, the absolute first thing you should do is get a job at a bar, club or restaurant in the city. work there for 6 months or so a couple times a week and then quit.

yes, it's an investment of your time. but this investment will come back to you tenfold. the returns that it will yield are astounding because you, you lucky person, will be introduced to the all powerful manhattan hook up.

how it works: you get a job at aforementioned establishment and you officially enter the the bar/club employee scene. you'll find that everyone seems to know each other. a lot of these people are pretty transient (translation: they're actors, i.e. professional bartenders/servers). they've worked at a million different bars, all their friends work at other bars, etc., etc. before you know it, half your managers have left to open new bars, half the staff has moved to different places and all of a sudden YOU, you lucky duck, seem to know everyone everywhere too.

i'll explain to you how this works in the real world. this was my past week...

Saturday night: (had date with nice but not funny guy, will post about it later). met up with E and she gets a call from a guy she knows, a manager at a mario batali restaurant. he calls to say that emeril and mario were there and that they shut the place down and that everyone there was getting wasted. and that our presence was requested immediately. heck yeah!

Sunday night: dinner at a tribeca restaurant. i was tipped off about a once yearly free pork roast three course dinner they do once a year. so justy and i go for free pork. we show up and i see bill (a guy i used to work with at the soho house). bill can't hook us up food-wise because, well, it's already free. instead, he brings over tons of fat (or is it phat?) wine all through dinner. That same night was the secret hipster party where we got hooked up because we knew a guy who knew the bartenders.

Tuesday night: friends guest bartending at lower east side bar. pay for ZERO drinks all night.

Thursday night: E knows the executive chef at one of the best restaurants in manhattan. this place is an institution. we ate a ridiculous five-course meal (that could have been six but we had to skip the cheese course before dessert...we just couldn't handle it all). we were drinking amazing wine again AND tattinger rose after dessert. they also bring out a plate of chocolates and other teeny pastries after all is said and done. our bill? a whopping $0. BUT we did leave an $90 tip so it cost us a mere $45 each.

which brings me to a very important subject: tipping. folks, when you come out here and start getting hooked up, for the love of all things holy, TIP WELL! you're making out like a bandit by not getting charged for anything, you're going to have to cough up a decent tip. if it's food, give at LEAST 25% of what the bill would have been (the bill would have been $275 for E and i, if you can't afford to tip on that amount, don't take advantage of the hook up). if it's alcohol, throw $20-$40 down on the bar before you go. even if you don't know the bartender at a place, all is not lost for you! if you tip him/her well, they will remember that. i have a dozen or so bartenders that buy drinks for me regularly for that reason. and almost all of them are married, taken or gay so don't start thinking that they're just trying to get my boobs in bed.

Friday night: some restaurant people are having a "meeting" at a hard-to-get-into club and so we're going because we know they'll have bottles on the table and we won't have to pay.

but don't be jealous. i had to put in a solid year and then some at the hell-hole that is the soho house in order to reap these post-employment benefits. listen and learn kids. listen and learn and you too could be on the receiving end of the manhattan hook up!

the tale of the secret hipster party...

things have a funny way of happening in new york. people meet other people in funny ways who bring them to funny places. cue: the craziness.

my roommates had the launch of their fall clothing line. way hot t-shirt dresses (but to be worn over jeans) all ruched and stuff. it was awesome. they know a million people, and for some reason, 90% of them men. some of them datable, others that really weren't. i have my eye on a guy named mike. an i-banker who claims that he and his friends throw the most rockin halloween party in the city. we'll see whether he's all talk. melissa's brother came in from PA for it with her mother, aunt and uncle. they took us to an amazing lunch and then to famous Billy's for cupcakes. he's a friend of E and M's and is the sweetest boy ever! we picked up $400 worth of cheese donated by Artisanal for the party.

at the party we met ian, a cool-looking guy who lives in williamsburg. turns out he's a blogging friend of mel's brother! they both have blogs that are pretty theology heavy. we dished philosophical with ian all night. he called M on sunday to tell her about THE sunday night party. i'm not telling you where it is because i plan on going back. you can never be too careful with these stalkers!

on the train a homeless man felt like he wanted to talk to us.

homeless man: hi girls. what are your names?
M: tamika [pause...thinking it was too much of a stretch...] tami.
me: [D and I used to use fake names at bars but i couldn't remember mine for the life of me so i said...] lindsey (i remember now that i was jordan and that she was tina...i always forget!)
homeless man: so, what do you do for recreation?
M: jump rope.
me: nodding.
homeless man: both of you?
M: yes, we each hold an end of the rope. we have a friend who does the jumping.
me: [turning away because i was going to start giggling audibly any second...]
homeless man, to me: what's your name again?
me: jenn.
homeless man, to M: are you a virgin?
M: do i look like a virgin?
homeless man: you look pure, maybe you're just southern.
M: i am! i'm from dallas.
homeless man: you guys are an asian caucasion sensation!
homeless man, to me: what's your name again?
me: susie
cue: our subway stop...finally...so damn random...

we got off the subway in a very quiet neighborhood with no bars to speak of. we get to the corner where the party was supposed to be and would have left without finding it had we not seen someone else enter this random doorway. usually you see the tell-tale smokers outside but there were none here. we found out why, as soon as we entered we walked into a thick cloud of smoke (for those not local, smoking in bars and restaurants has been outlawed).

this bar was FULL of hipsters. again, for those non-locals, hipsters are the bohemians of the city. the thrift shop, artsy, chain-smoking, haters of the wanna-bes. hipsters all want to be different and in the process, all end up looking like each other. it's basically, a lot of pretension in a pretty package. the hipsters usually hang out in the hard-to-get-to-because-no-subway-trains-go-there alphabet city or in williamsburg. ian said he really liked this party because all the 20 year old hipsters (i.e. wannabes) didn't flood it. we had the older crowd here. ian actually lives with two of the guys who work at the bar so drinks were cheap cheap cheap. the music was fun and we danced (though, to that music, it's a lot of jumping up and down with some head bobbing, there is NO R&B here). this party won't last long. hipsters hate what is popular and this party...definitely falls into that category.

hopefully it'll hang on one more week because the music was good and the boys were pretty.

there's nothing like living in new york city!

my social calendar for the next month is booked up completely. everybody and their brother has moved and is having house warmings, has a birthday, is getting engaged, having dinner parties just because. i'm exhausted but happy!

an interractive post

i'm taking a few polls. please join in.

1.) in your opinion, what is the best karaoke song?

2.) would you ever have sex for money? if so, how much would it take?*

3.) you got any favorite posts of mine? am thinking of adding a "reader favorites" to the sidebar but i don't think any of them are particularly good. if you think i'm wrong, let me know.


*i've been getting e-mails asking whether this question is up here for any particular reason. a friend of em and mel's offered them (we're not sure whether or not it was in jest), 2K a month each for free reign of their sexual talents. we were shocked at how inadequate the offer was. we all kind of agreed that we'd have to be paid a few thousand (at least) to sleep with this guy even once. he is not good looking. we also also agreed that it would cost a lot less for someone who was better looking. it's shallow i know, but for those who can be bought, you'd probably agree.

my apartment: the weekend in review

this is the landing outside my door. the families in the other apartments decorated it and it's so cute! it makes me look forward to getting to the top of that fourth flight of stairs. there are a lot of kids in the building. maybe we'll have trick or treaters!!!

the dynamics of my roommates and i are quite different. they follow astrology and completely understand that i'm controlling and uptight and organized because of my virgo status, my rising sign, my moon sign, etc. i have no fault, it's all the stars! i'm serious, they're artsy, i'm cool and level-headed, they're emotional and romantic, i'm conservative, they're free and wild. we all really compliment each other pretty well.

in short, my first weekend was great.

i have a new love: the dollar store! there are exactly three of them in a 3 block radius. those places have EVERYTHING. we got brooms, paper towels, hand soap, and on and on. we had nearly three full bags of things and spent all of $14 dollars. AMAZING. i was looking for rubbing alcohol and walked by a girl saying, "i want those socks." the girl's older sister said, "they have better socks at the other dollar store." i stopped in my tracks and yelled, "what other dollar store?!" they thought i was nuts. i was, truly, a woman possessed.

we painted the hallway and sang fiona apple songs at the top of our lungs. a friend of theirs came over and gave salsa lessons in the living room. em and melis have decided that we should take stripping lessons and strip one night a week at some stripclub downtown. they know a girl who strips at a place and pays the club $250 for the night and she keeps whatever she makes (up to $1,500/night). we rented showgirls to get tips and it was the WORST movie i think i'd ever seen. sunday morning i finished the entire NYTimes crossword, something i haven't done in ages. later that night we had an impromptu dinner party. we invited some friends over, ordered in white rice, bought seaweed and avocado and cucumber, and rolled our own sushi while listening to bob dylan and norah jones. sushi is so much better with crisp seaweed! it's amazing!

the apartment is not without it's quirks. to turn the lights on, you have to move the switch down to the "off" position. the hot water faucet is labeled with a C, the cold with an H. we have no kitchen cabinets. outside the apartment are stairs that go down to a basement apartment and a drug dealer hangs out down there. EVERY SINGLE TIME i walk by there is someone receiving bags or handing down cash. he must be the busiest dealer in a 10 block radius.

okay. back to the yankees game. just watched crosby and sheffield knock into each other over the same ball. doh! this does not bode well...

the goddess is in the building...

i arrived at my apartment, finally. i tried to come yesterday. my good friend bryan helped me get my suitcase and duffle from lindsey's on the UWS. some crazy man watching us asked bryan if we were together. "we're married!" bryan told the guy. "you movin?" he asked. "yeah, we've decided we'd like to be in a nicer neighborhood." now, to those who don't live in the city, the humor of this may be lost. the UWS is about the nicest/old money part of the city. it doesn't really get better so i had to laugh. bryan and i arrived at my apt. to find there was no electricity. i couldn't stay at this place, in the dark, by myself, with my room a disaster full of boxes. i went back to hoboken for the night.

so today i unpacked a lot, set up all my electronics, tossed a lot of garbage, took a nice long shower, made my bed, gave myself a pedicure, and listened to the yankees lose before falling asleep in the bed i love so much.

i woke up to some funky jazz music and melis and em laying in emily's bed.

snippets from our morning convo:

"so i told the bartender to start adding vodka to our $18/glass rose champagne. and then i started making out with these two israeli guys. one of them was married but only for papers."

"i think we should make it a rule that when we're walking around the house we have to be in lingerie."

"i think another rule should be that we have to have at least five guys that we can call at any time to sleep with."

"it smells moldy in here."

"people say he's cold, but i don't see that, i think he's affectionate."

"didn't you come in with him? when did he leave?"

"i'm not a one woman man. i can't have a monogamous relationship. i'm not built for it. i can't try to have a relationship because i just hurt people."

"i know i said i wanted to wait to have sex until i was in love with someone first, but i'd really just like to fuck that guy. just once. then i'll go back to waiting."

"i just remembered!" [running to her purse] "that guy put this bottle of wine in my purse for us to drink! he'll probably want it back. let's drink it tonight!"

i was a bit worried about my social life after the crazy D went back to london. she was the one that made things happen. she was the one who drew in all the men that gave us access to VIP rooms and crazy clubs and who knew the DJs. basically, awesome stuff happened to her wherever she went and we were all lucky enough to follow her around for it. i'm starting to feel like my life might just get even crazier with these girls. i think i'm in for one wild ride.

stay tuned for more nights of debauchery than i can probably handle...

autumn in new york

today was one of those days it just felt good to be alive and in this city of mine.

i woke up and knew immediately that fall had come. strolling down the cobblestone streets in soho, the air was crisp and sweet. the scent of cinnamon and sugar roasted nuts dancing past the nose.

skim latte in hand, i stepped into a warm vintage store full of cowboy boots and gorgeous dresses. tiny dancer, one of my absolute favorite songs, started to play in the background.

evening fell in and i walked by a few guys tossing a football around on a quiet Lafayette street by the light of the streetlamps. reminding me of my childhood. the calls home at dusk in my neighborhood; everybody abandoning the game of "ghosts in the graveyard" to go in for dinner.

for a few glorious hours, all that stuff i stress about daily just melted away. just long enough for me to welcome the season.

hello autumn,

it's so good to see you back.

kisses,

jasmine

call me vila, bob vila.

so this apartment is still not finished. i'm not sure why. i also was not given a key to the front door. i'm not sure why. my closet is about 7 inches deep, which if you do a little math, will tell you that a hanger does not fit entirely into the closet. again, i'm not sure why.

so today i took a hammer, busted out the old pole (which was three inches from the back of the closet...no, it was in no position to have anything hung on it). and put up a closet rod that i found at bed, bath & beyond. i drilled the holes, called my mother to find out what to do with those little plastic thingies (expanders?) and i put that rod in that closet all by my little ol' self.

it was empowering, walking around with that drill. it was only a 6V but i wanted to walk around putting holes in everything, just for fun. so all my hanging clothes are finally out of the way and hanging where they should be, albeit protruding about four inches outside the closet doors.

i have such grand ideas for my room but have run into two problems. one: i have no money to spend decorating the thing. two: i'm about as creative as moss growing on the underside of a stone. i want my room to look "shabby chic." a hash of antique and modern, thrown together in a way that looks effortless but is obviously a conscious work of art. for now, i settle for a closet in which you can hang clothes.

all this planning and the fact my life is in a million scattered pieces for some reason has my brain spawning blog posts every five minutes. i'm always thinking of things i want to write about. so i may be a little post happy over the next few weeks or so. bear with me.

words of wisdom for today: happiness is puppy chow. i can't remember when i first had it, but all i know is that it's the best, most addictive stuff in the world. i used to make it a lot for my friends (it ALWAYS makes you the most popular one at the party, trust me). so today i got some in a care package/belated birthday present from my friend Niks (one of those few treasured chicago friends who reads this blog). i love how all my family and friends know that the way to my heart is through my stomach. thank you thank you kisi!

my move, in short

movers, who were an hour and a half late: $380 + $120 tip

ice cream from the truck that drove by my storage space as i waited: $2

handheld radio to listen to the yankees game during the waiting/moving: $10

getting to the apartment to find the toilet doesn't work and they haven't yet installed any of the kitchen appliances, leaving me on lindsey's couch still: Priceless