Jazz...in strange places

packed

2011-12-13T13:42:00.000-05:00

because i'm always living out of a backpack when a travel, and because i lived out of a single backpack for an entire month last year in southeast asia, soemthing about being able to fill a backpack for just two weeks felt luxurious.

i had all this space i could use! i'm even packing a cheap umbrella with the intention of just tossing it when i leave cusco (which opens up space in my bag for shopping). i'm packing the caudalie beauty elixer which is something frivolous and just takes up space. i'm packing an eye mask for the plane. things i'd certainly leave behind if i were gone any longer. i packed the gorgeous silk printed pants that i bought on sale at anthropoligie and haven't worn yet because it was too cold here for them when they were purchased. i mean, it's silly. i'm thinking of carting my mini humidifier with me just because i have the room in my bag.

and to top it all off i'll be in first class with all that reclining and legroom. i'm telling you, SO LUXURIOUS!

i wasn't all that excited before but i think i'm getting there. now that i'm running out of things to stress out about.

ooooh! and lounge access! free snacks and wine! people who come and let you know when your plane is boarding! eeeeeee!

two of my favorite things in life, together at last: brian williams and marcel the shell. DEAD.

men in bars

2011-12-12T11:56:00.001-05:00

this from cadiz is terrifying. and it could happen to anyone. i know that i've nodded off a few times while driving. found myself closing my eyes. i'm so lucky that something like this has never happened to me. (and don't even get me started on how, in high school, i used to drive into the city for operas and full on change into dresses and strap on heels and put on makeup while driving on 290 west. jesus.

i was sitting at the bar at marea, getting my fusilli fix, when the man next to me started chatting with me. he was from majorca, some finance minister or something. we were talking about his island and travel in general. i'm always meeting strangers. he mentioned his wife and children, so (presumably) i wouldn't have to worry about him thinking that anything romantic would happen. about halfway through dinner he asked how old i was. then he asked if i was married. i said no. and just like that, the tone of the conversation shifted. "oh, such a shame! you need to get on that because you're getting old and need to worry about having children."

um, excuse me?

"oh, actually, i don't have to rush. i'm not interested in having children."

the look of utter shock, SHOCK registered on his face. then it softened, "oh, you'll change your mind."

"no. no, i don't think i will."

"yes, you will"

"no, i won't"

"you just don't know it yet."

"i resent you acting like you know more about my body and my life ambitions than i do."

"you're young, that's all"

"but not so young that i don't need to worry about my eggs dying, apparently."

it went on and on like this. i just reminded him that he knew nothing about me and that he could think whatever he wanted but that he was wrong. a few times he acquiesed and leaned back and in a way that was so placative and condescending he'd put his hands up in a surrender pose and say, "you're right! you're right!" and i'd say, "i know." but then he'd say, "but in 1000 years, the world will be changed by my progeny, not yours." i responded, "i'm okay with that." "but you need to continue your lineage" "i need to do no such thing."

this is a fancy restaurant. people talk in hushed tones. but i found my voice rising to the point where, having asked for my check before i'd even finished my $22 glass of sauvignon blanc, saying something to the effect of, "you're serbian and you're a man, so i get that you think you're right all the time. but this is not about you, not everything is all about you and what you want and what you think."

to a stranger. at a bar. i've known many serbian men in my lifetime and they've all been of that mold. infuriating to argue with, completely condescending. i started to write him off as just a cultural oddity. but it was frustrating all the same. there's nothing like a man, treating a woman like a silly little uninformed thing, for disagreeing with him. And here I am, racial profiling out of anger.

he kept saying, "i'm only saying this to you because i'll never see you again." and i kept thinking, "well, that's just as good a reason to NOT say this to me." and i also thought about how small this world is and that he'd sealed our fate such that i'll absolutely run into him again. maybe it'll be on a future trip to greece. maybe i'll be right back where we started, at the bar at marea.

god knows that if i see him, i'll hide.

finishing touches

2011-12-09T10:35:00.000-05:00

just about ready to go.

have my crazy ass itinerary done with all flight numbers, transfers, entry fees, exit fees, train numbers, hotel/hostel/b&b info, restaurant reservations and just about everything else you can think of in one place.

have put some things aside: outlet converter, iphone speakers, eye mask, comfy pants for the plane, baby wipes (so so useful), altitude sickness meds

have downloaded the maps, as per my WSJ article and updated my currency converters. also added money to my skype acct so i can call the fam on christmas.

to do: add a couple movies to my ipad, figure out what clothes i'm bringing. low 60's and rainy in cuzco, sunny and high 70's in lima, high 70's with some rain in easter island and high 80's in santiago. that's just a bit all over the place to be really fucking annoying.

crazy party up in my head, you're invited!

so sad

2011-12-01T18:42:00.001-05:00

and hilarious.

read the reviews for: microwave for one

the end!

2011-11-30T08:48:00.001-05:00

first off, i want to thank cadiz and syar. both of whom did much better at achieving nablopomo than myself but both of whom were sweet enough to come here and comment regularly throughout the month. cadiz, reading how much went into your wedding exhausts me, but seeing how lovely the result, i know all the hard work was worth it and the food was KICK ASS. syar, this: "Oh the pains of being your own person, of living in your own skin, of speaking in your own voice, and declaring yourself. I am, I am, I am." was so beautiful. in fact, they've all been beautiful. i don't risk visiting actual blogs while i'm at work, so i don't comment often but know that i'm reading! and enjoying!

it's weekends like this last one that make me remember why i'd kept this place running for so long. it's not the most exciting reason and certainly not the most literary, but if i don't write some of these things down, i fear i'll forget them. my life is too nice to leave little bits forgotten by the wayside.

so, y'all, i'm firmly in the feminist rage part of "i love dick" and it's making me so angry! the first half was sort of, "i am woman, watch me falter and be crazy" and then it transforms into something like, "i'm crazy because i've been oppressed by men who consistently degrade women and fail to see them as intellectual equals" but it's not ranty because she then starts ticking off artists and their critics and each little drop fills a pail, and then another pail and then another and i'm basically at the point where i'm seeing red and wanting to scream, "fuck you!" at every man i see. however painful it was to follow her earlier behavior, and witness the failure of these films which she later sort of admits weren't any good, to put all of this on display and just OWN it. (i guess to be perfectly honest, she owns her crazy while blaming other people for it, but that's done in a way that isn't as hypocritical as it sounds.) anyway. and kraus is just reckless with herself, physically and emotionally. anorexia is the subject of enough of her writing that it's clear she likely has issues with it herself. on top of the fact that she keeps putting herself into situations in which she's battered (i.e. chasing after dick who, very early on, is clearly an asshole and then is a jerk to her face while post-coital). she lacks any sort of instinct for self-preservation.

i think i over-suffer from self-preservation. i take very few risks in life. this means a few things. my life is generally drama-free and even-keeled. it also lacks spontaneity. i make a fool of myself so infrequently that i'm wondering what bits of character i'm missing out on.

happy end of november, folks.

well, nablopomo almost over

2011-11-29T10:44:00.001-05:00

and i admit i mostly slacked through it.

i do, however, want to take some time to write up my past weekend for posterity.

i left work early (6pm) on wednesday and met some friends for a drink while i waited for a man with a van to pick up a friend's old dresser. mine had been broken for months and none of the drawers closed properly so it was a sign from above when he casually asked if i knew anyone who'd want it.

it was cold out and i hadn't worn a warm enough jacket so i borrowed an ithaca zip hoodie to head to the bar. as i'm standing on the corner, i see a horse and carriage trotting past. those horses always break my heart because it's a rough job and they mostly don't get treated well. i'm in the middle of this thought when the man driving the cart, a full-bellied, santa claus looking man hollers, "IIIIIITHAAAACAAAAA IISSSS GOOOOOOORGEOUS" as he drives by. it makes me chuckle and then i look around to see who else heard it and see several people on the street looking at me with confusion in their eyes. i retell this story to my friends at the bar. the guy doesn't know i went to ithaca and thinks i think the man was calling me gorgeous, and not just calling out ithaca's town motto.

quick dinner and back to my friend's place where the movers showed up on time. they were lovely. chipper, funny, genuinely nice guys. i rode up in the truck with them and we talked about the city (they were both born and raised there). the driver, an older asian guy kept making jokes about being single and how they'd moved some furniture for three girls earlier and had invited himself over for thanksgiving dinner. i wondered who he was actually going to eat dinner with, hopefully loved ones. the other guy had been laid off from a job a few months ago and started moving things to make ends meet. it's a constant reminder of how lucky i am to have a job and to have so many opportunities in front of me so often. most the other movers i called were charging a two hour minimum or were quoting $125 for the job of moving a free dresser. these guy charged $50 and promised to be done in under and hour and they were. I gave them $100 even. they said i made their night. that had been my goal.

i had this cough coming on so didnt' make any real plans for the weekend, a dinner here and there. i slept in most of thursday and sat myself in front of my humidifier and made myself cups of tea and put on a face mask and really exfoliated in the shower and shaved and put a hot oil masque in my hair and bathed myself in lotion afterwards and it was really the most luxurious thing i'd done for myself in as long as i can remember. stopped at dirk's for appetizers and then over to jane and richards for thanksgiving dinner. they had 16 this year, all the usual suspects. except that one guy brought a friend who'd moved here from kurdistan, he'd been working as a translator for reuters and they arranged for him to get a us student visa, a spot at columbia journalism school, and a guaranteed full time job once he graduated. we spent a lot of time talking about the middle east, which mostly meant me being embarrassed for the one guy who thinks he knows everything and kept saying really ignorant and foolish things, even though the man was extremely smart (he was a supreme court clerk for justice brennan, one of the best justice's there ever was), it's just that maybe he's used to acting like his opinion was the word of god and maybe when you're ruminating on the middle east, we're never going to understand the nuances as someone who was raised there, whose father died fighting there, etc.

as i left the dinner, there was an available cab stopped at the light on the other side of the street. i darted across and into his car. he'd thought he had his off duty light on, as he was planning on heading home for food. i insisted on getting out immediately but he'd have none of it. it was the father of him who wouldn't let this girl out of the car to fend for herself on a thanksgiving night. his daughter had just graduated from tulane. he had been a television producer for a local news station. he got laid off about a year ago and was close to retirement age but just not secure enough financially to stop working altogether. he found a garage in queens the let their cabs for 105 a day, plus $40 in gas. we talked about where we'd been, where we lived. we talked about ithaca. i mentioned that my friends thought i was crazy for moving all the way uptown because "they all have fancy places downtown" and he laughed heartily, but at first i wasn't sure what. "oh, your accent when you say fancy! it's so great!" but it was said in the warmest, most fatherly way possible. for all the interractions i have with cabbies, this was, by far, my favorite. i felt like a better person for having met him.

friday was another day of reading and steaming. i finished my new yorkers and started in, in earnest, on i love dick. syar, you need to read this. eileen myles does the forward, if that's any indication. the hardest part about reading this has been traveling with it, as i feel like i have to hide the cover when i read it in public places. that's a lie. the hardest part is stopping myself from judging. this reads like fiction, because who is this neurotic? who is this unaware? but this is real, and it's raw and it's fascinating. and for a while i understood the fiction of dick. the projection that they were putting upon this man who has barely appeared in person in this novel as far as halfway through. it feels like a game. it feels like a game to dick too. but to kraus, it's the furthest thing. so i find myself saying, "chris! stop! you don't even know this man!" and then they meet and he says the same thing to her. dick and i are on the same page. and i want to say that it's not about him, that he's the vehicle through which a new creative side of her blossoms. but it IS about him to her, and this isn't creativity really for her, it's obsession and insecurity and falling apart at the seams. there's a satisfaction in watching her stumble to a new level of self-awareness. there's a raw honesty here that i feel in my gut. and, every time i finish another section, i feel a kind of fearlessness. something like, "chris kraus did X, which was crazy. whatever crazy thing i'm thinking of really isn't so bad." and it's things like returning to restaurant bar to chat up the hunky chef. something that i'd ordinarily be too shy to do but seems downright submissive in comparison. but most of all, this memoir is brave. it's also really satisfying to those who like to nose through other people's things. i love the references to people's comments about the manuscript that she then inserts into the manuscript ("when Y read this part, she said it wasn't true").

tertulia with colin for dinner. though they normally have 2 hour waits it was downright serene on this holiday weekend. a winter ale was deeply, subtlely sweet. this place wasn't wholly different from boqueria. it was a cozier, warmer version. the food was one notch more sophisticated, a hair more intense. it was all lovely. aziz ansari sat next to us, though without dave chang and james murphy, unfortunately.

pilates in the morning. a 1pm showing of phililp glass' satyagraha. this was an opera in sanskrit with no subtitles. occasionally a translation would be projected onto the stage. this production is amazing. it felt similiar to william kentridge's "the nose" in setting. i wouldn't be surprised if the same person designed it though i'm too lazy to look it up right now. and in this opera, nothing happens. it's "about" ghandi's time in south africa, loosely. it's about persecution, and oppression. the music is stunning and the movement is slow and the result is that i was forced, for 4 hours, to sit and contemplate injustices throughout history. this opera gives you the time and the space in which to contemplate, generally, while providing imagery that is strong and brave. you sense the "we shall overcome" in the cast of characters who carry on through their hardships. it is a brave production, a gamble that pays off.

went home, showered and did a load of laundry and then came back downtown to see a friend's brother perform at UCB. it was a competition between six teams of three. a few weren't great, a few were awesome. my friend's brother came in third place, due to a coin toss, which broke our hearts a little but they're fairly new at this so they were happy to have almost nearly moved into the next round.

pilates again on sunday with a civilized brunch at the members's dining room at the met. their islamic art wing had recently opened and we took a careful stroll through after brunch. taking in persian rugs, illuminated manuscripts, handpainted indian fabrics.

dinner at casa mono with erika, sitting in front of the hunky chef. she's moving to chicago and is checking things off her bucket list. newly engaged, her ring is the biggest i think i've ever seen. i'd be terrified to leave the house with it. grilled calamari over a salad of fennel and grapefruit, grilled razor clams with a parsley garlic oil, seared duck breast over sweet potato, goat cheese croquettes. the wine was delicious, i didn't take down the name. the chef, under a full beard, had dimples. he had a quiet confidence and started chatting with us only towards the end of our meal but there was this spark in his eyes. and so i consider heading back and trying to get a bar seat right in front of him again but the sensible part of me says things like, "that's kind of stalky." and "he has a night schedule, so inconvenient!" and "but you're not that interested in dating!"

and then i pick up "i love dick" and consider going anyway.

Pillowcases weren't dry. I'm a genius, I think. T-shirt fits perfectly.

2011-11-27T00:44:00.000-05:00

packing

2011-11-23T12:06:00.001-05:00

though i do consider myself something of an expert at packing for travel, this trip is already a tad knotty.

for a while i've been traveling to sunny/dusty/dirty spots where flip flops and shorts served me well. toss in a maxi dress, a swim suit and sarong and i'm good to go.

this trip. oh, i'm so annoyed already. i'll need sneakers, a sine qua non, for all the walking/climbing/hiking. gross. how bulky and annoying are sneakers? AND i'll need to be prepared for rain, so i'm bringing a poncho and maybe an umbrella (but probably not).

and then i'll have a few days in cosmopolitain lima and santiago where everyone will be on their teeny spiked heels and so i might as well try, slightly, to not look like a dumpy american. so i'll need to pack one dress non-cotton and pair of heels.

i'll be checking the weather in the days before i leave but still, thinking i'll be cutting it close.

(and as always, bring detergent to wash a few items as needed over the course of two weeks.)

productivity

2011-11-22T14:10:00.001-05:00

there were a few weeks in which the amount of things i had to do was so daunting that i had something of a breakdown. no crying or sleepless nights but just a sort of low level depression where i thought about all the things i had to do while not doing any of them.

i had a long talk with a friend (who happens to be a nutritionist and life coach) and she told me to write everything i needed to do down on postits and put them on my bedroom wall.

and then a funny thing happened. i had all these bills that were due a week late (which never happens, but i physically couldn't bring myself to pay them) but when the act of writing "pay citicard bill" "pay chase bill" "pay coned" was in front of me it just thought, "oh, this is a ridiculous thing to put on a post-it" and then just paid the damn bills. all of them.

the physical act of listing some of these things as things i could not do, was so repulsive to me that i just did them. it's when i booked my south america trip. it's when i finally listed all my old winter clothes on ebay. it's when i scrubbed my room floor to ceiling. it's when i finally submitted all those restaurant reviews i was behind in.

i still have a bunch of writing to do, that i've been putting off but i met someone for new york magazine a couple days ago and she said she's always using freelancers and that i should reach out. and i have. so maybe i'll get the writing thing back afterall.

More Zach Kanin

2011-11-21T08:18:00.000-05:00

ebay

2011-11-20T14:25:00.001-05:00

so when i was pulling all my fall stuff out of storage i culled a lot of it and decided to throw the new/barely used stuff up on ebay.
i've had a good time with ebay in general. sell my things to nice people and am sure to always be thorough in my descriptions and even like to suggest how an item can fit into an outfit (for those that are sartorially challenged). i've sold a lot of shoes on ebay because i can't stop doing this thing where i buy shoes that are on sale in a size 6 even though i've never been a six and will never be a six. in short, i buy a lot of shoes that go unworn. these are perfect for re-selling on ebay.

Enter: Linda Babian

This crazy bitch in AZ who sent me this message:

I'm sorry to say that these are NOT in "New without box" condition !
the linen fabric is frayed... the shoes black spots inside and outside...
hairs, dust and whatever else is inside these 'NEW' shoes...
and the soles look like they were worn more than just 'inside the house'..You are going to get your first VERY NEGATIVE feedback from
me unless you refund my money ASAP to Paypal...and then send me a
postage paid envelope to get them back to you.

and then this gem!

I just googled and found an article on you...so THAT is what's in
those shoes ? OMG....
they're going outside ! you'd better get in touch with me before
it rains here...I'm NOT messin' around with these frickin' shoes.
Seriously, BED BUGS is what is going to go on your feedback if I don't get refunded TODAY!

if bitch read the article she'd see that the bugs were many years ago, that they were long gone before those shoes ever came into my life and HELLO, the whole point of the article was that they are no longer. so i reported her threat to ebay because she CRAZY.

so that's the thing with ebay. you can't really control who is buying your things and sometimes they may be ugly people who send ugly emails and who threaten and accuse you of terrible things. linda, i'm sorry you didn't like the shoes, and i'm even sorrier that you're a miserable person.

however: just re-sold my leica (i upgraded to the lumix GF1) for more than half of what i bought it for which is pretty good for a 3 year old camera. you win some, you lose some.

cartier-bresson

2011-11-19T22:27:00.001-05:00

thoughtful and thought-provoking

fashion staples

2011-11-18T09:50:00.000-05:00

this list is almost perfect.

garance dore's blog is something of an addiction for me. i don't remember when i first stubled upon it, but it's one of those blogs i'd never take out of my reader. sure, she lives this fabulous life, but she makes fun of herself a lot and is relatable to many whether talking about getting into yoga, weight issues, comfort v. fashion debate.

the most mysterious part for me is how she dates the sartorialist. i've known people who've worked with him and said he was less than pleasant. even the things she quotes him as saying to her are stuck up and borderline disrespectful. she must be used to it because his comments, instead of being rude, are portrayed as being funny or quirky.

anyway, she's delightful and has such such beautiful taste.

plastic money

2011-11-17T10:23:00.000-05:00

i love this. vietnamese dong (get your giggles over with, immature person!) is also plastic with a little see-through window. so neat, also perfect for those people who wash clothes with money in their pockets by accident. or even those who wash their money on purpose because it's dirty. (are there people who do this? that would be weird, yet smart! because money is filthy).

when colin and i spent that week on a sailboat in turkey, we swam to this little beach bar with money shoved in our swimsuits and when we paid they hung all the bills on a line with clothespins to dry, as everyone who came to the bar had to swim to get there, for the most part.

have put together an itinerary for myself for south america because i'm stopping in 5 cities and have 5 hotels/hostels that i'd want to have contact info for and some have airport pickup while others don't and some i've paid a deposit, and i needed a ticket to get into machu picchu and also train tickets to get there, etc., etc., so it became, easily, too much for me to keep in my head and far too much info to keep straight in my little planner that i carry around with me.

the downside to this is that now i feel as if my trip has no wiggle room. it feels regimented in a way that is so unlike the way i prefer to travel. i prefer to wander aimlessly. i prefer to have days to just peek into obsure neighborhoods. but the best restaurants in lima require reservations in advance, same with santiago, so i've pinned some of that down.

so i'm prepared, if not a tad constrained.

Zach Kanin #1

2011-11-16T10:35:00.000-05:00

marcel the shell

2011-11-15T11:36:00.000-05:00

i had big plans, big, HUGE, to start posting my favorite cartoons in the new yorker by zach kanin. i love them so much i tear them out and put them up in my cube with thumbtacks. it's like a thing an old lady would do, but for zach, i do this.

instead: there's a new marcel the shell!!!!

old one here.

new one here. adore them both.

THIS

2011-11-14T12:26:00.001-05:00

this.

(planning my trip to paris to find my own swiss lover as i type)

sending you over to peter's little place

2011-11-14T07:45:00.001-05:00

drabblerousers!

where i have an entry today.

is it a copout posting an entry that's nothing but a link to another entry? (maybe.)

do i care? (not in the slightest.)

my shoulder is broken

2011-11-12T18:28:00.000-05:00

i did a few bootcamp classes this week which meant i was still a little sore for pilates today (i can't even think about tomorrow).

i couldn't get my shoulder out of my ear. it's stuck up in this kind of knotty, rickety way that is making me feel like a crazy person.

got an email from the dude at Esquire for whom i do all their advertorial copy, saying that the editorial people were complimenting them on it, which never happens. but then, the client's lawyers fussed with it all and probably screwed up all my copy. i'd referenced the san diego bay of lights parade which is certainly not copyrighted! it's lawyers being lazy and overly cautious about things they just don't want to research. so i had to change the copy to talk around what it was without actually calling it what it was.

lawyers are the WORST.

Another Party...

2011-11-11T12:40:00.001-05:00

colin just sent out an email with the title "another party..."

and that's kind of how it is these days. always parties happening promoting some designer or brand or magazine. always something. i never thought i'd be the person to be so blase about free booze in chic locales, but i'm sort of over it. waiting at bars, waiting in line outside until a friend can come and pull you out of line, lots of insipid people standing around looking dismissively at canape trays.

the ny observer is looking for a party reporter and as tempted as i am to send in something on spec, i keep thinking, "but you don't even like parties! you're over parties!"

i keep opening up draft documents and starting to write up one event or another and then discarding the draft.

other things i keep doing: listening to spanish language videos to brush up before i head south. my vocabulary stinks and i've forgotten most my tenses so my spanish is all present tense and kind of jerky. i'm getting back into the swing of speaking about things i could do or will do or am doing or asking people to do things for me (oh, hey reflexive verbs!)

so yeah, i'm basically getting back into the espanol and it's pretty fun! i'm excited to have two whole weeks to try it out.

tissues

2011-11-10T07:28:00.001-05:00

i have a new roommate. lovely girl! so quiet! a student! i like all of these things!

and when you've lived with as many people as i have over the years you learn to let go, to a certain extent. if what a roommate is doing is annoying, but not anything that 1.) filthies the house 2.) attracts rodents/pests 3.) makes the apartment less safe or tranquil, i'm apt to just let it go. i'm never home anyways.

HOWEVER, this new one is doing something weird with toilet paper. in the last month she's been with us she's filled our bathroom garbage twice with rolls of toilet paper. she'll take what i'd guess is 1 foot of toilet paper and seems to roll it around her index finger and then tosses it. if she were blowing her nose wouldn't it be all crinkled up? the little rolls look pristine. i have no idea what they're for. and if toilet paper cost more than $1 a roll, maybe i'd say something, but it doesn't. whatever she's doing isn't really an inconvenience as long as she's taking the trash out (which i think she is).

the mystery is literally killing me. i was telling colin and ted about it and they want me to buy rubber gloves and inspect but that seems gross and crazy. i don't want to know THAT bad.

i ran into our other roommate james though and even he mentioned it to me. he said, "is this just a girl thing?" and i had to confess i had no idea what was going on. so it's small consolation that he's mystified too.

Guess they don't need these signs anymore

2011-11-09T08:47:00.000-05:00

so i already missed a day

2011-11-08T08:20:00.001-05:00

i'm going to forgive myself because i was out of town for a wedding.

a wedding which was really lovely and save for the fact that my drunk-ass friends never clean up after themselves and another friend of ours brought her boyfriend, who was disrespectful and otherwise sulked around miserably all weekend because he thinks he's too cool for us, it was a great weekend.

there's something so satisfying in going to the wedding of a couple that you know is perfect for each other. who compliments each other in the best ways and tempers each others' faults. their videographer sat them down and had them each tell the story of how they met. he edited their stories together, with each of them interrupting the other one to correct thier version of events, and it turned into the sweetest, most perfect capsule of who they were as a couple. the constant laughter and humor that they both shared, the teasing back and forth.

and all our friends came out so there's nothing better than sharing that kind of love with a whole gaggle of loved ones.

i hate on weddings a lot. mostly the travel, the cost, the pomp and circumstance (such a waste of money!), but my inner cynic took a backseat this past weekend.

Thinking of this while at my desk...

2011-11-07T10:07:00.000-05:00

oh, the places i have to go

2011-11-06T10:10:00.001-05:00

it's been hard to focus lately. i've been forgetting silly things that i should be remembering. i've been getting on the wrong trains or missing my connections. for someone who claims to have control issues, i seem to be losing it.

i think of my grandmother, who only knows who i am on the good days. worrying about my genes, i submitted to 23andme for some genetic mapping. i'm actually less likely to get alzheimers than the average person (must be the asian part of me, thanks dad), but i'm actually missing half my map in that i don't carry my father's Y chromosome. so i'm going to have my brother spit into his test tube and send it along so i can map out my shit.

that place connects you to people that they know you're likely related to (however distantly, i think some of them were 5th cousins or something) but one of them lived in the midwest and had the name fetty, which my grandmothers grandparent's last name. crazy and awesome. i'm half afraid i'll discover some half siblings (i know my father has other children with other women) and that's a reality i'm not sure i'm ready an willing to confront in such a forward way.

the original point of this wasn't even to go into all that. it was to talk about the friends i need to visit. the trip i must take back to ithaca because i love ithaca. the friends in chapel hill with whom we'll drink wine by a fireplace and drink red until the wee hours. the friends in baltimore who had the wedding full of wildflowers and paper lanterns and herbal teas tied with ribbons as party favors, my grandparents who are now in an assisted living center on the opposite coast. there's just not enough time. i have to schedule in days to do my damn laundry.

i'm headed for south america for two weeks in december. lima, cuzco, santiago and easter island. have booked all my hotels, b&bs, hostels. all that's left is reading up on my history enough to appreciate what i'm seeing and finding the right restaurants so that i'll know i'm eating well. certainly a more expensive trip than SE Asia but what isn't?

Peanut at 10 weeks. Mini schnauzer belonging to my friend David

2011-11-04T09:29:00.000-04:00

notes left on my phone during the last LCD soundsystem concert at MSG

2011-11-03T06:44:00.001-04:00

Herve lege. Gil Scott heron. "Weird thing in a boxing arena."
Surprised at the venue. 5day stubble. Began and ended with new stuff.
Best stuff. Empty seats in sunsets. Then purples. Big disco ball.
White balloons ready to fall. I would say they're from Canada but two
of them are Americans. Sheepish in the corner. Toured two years ago.
Cloudy skies, plane wings. Ahhh-Ahhh! Arcade fire bouncing behind the
stage. You guys, I love you, thank you (she bought me a beer. That's
the true test) excyse me, we're charging the stage. Single pluck of
the guitar.then 2, and 3. Band mbers hugging. Tossing water offstage.
Here's the truth: 3 more songs. Always want to be pretty. Ticket stub,
craigslist: last ever. Can't wait for the reunion. Already out the
door when I realize I'm wearing grey. Worst fan ever. X but not Gaga,
no body guards. Wood blocks, tambourines. Collapse to knees before a
blinding wall of light. Last song. What's that noise? (feedback) it's
our last song. No "ohhhs." thanked bad seats. Brother amd sister
there. I'm wearing my dad's watch. Twin peaks music. Stopped two lines
in, overcome with emotion. White shirts, skinny ties as we flood
towards 33rd.
And sbarro

fall for dance

2011-11-02T08:52:00.004-04:00

it's one of my favorite events in any given year in nyc (followed by things like lincoln center's american songbook series, the nyc marathon, jazz age lawn party on governor's island, the new yorker festival, et al). tickets are $10 a piece and they bring in some 20 dance companies from all over the world to perform.

headed to grayton beach FL for a wedding tomorrow so i'm missing programs 4 and 5.

highlights of programs 1-3

my favorite: VERTIGO DANCE COMPANY performing Mana. oh, was this fantastic. set in something of a temple, imagine monks wearing neutrals instead of bright orange, baggy and drapey. this piece had a heartbeat running through it, the movement almost primal but the dance moves contiaing a sort of downbeat that made you want to nod your head.

snippet here, go see this if you have the chance.

lil' buck performing the swan: THIS. amazing. beautiful. yo yo ma was sitting across the aisle from me.

steven mcrae of the royal ballet performed a kind of cheeky tap number. every time i see someone tap it makes me want to run to danskin to pick up tap shoes and sign up for a class at ailey. and then i remember i'm a terrible dancer and also don't have time to commit myself to yet another thing. this is at the top of my list for when i retire or something.

Pontus Lidberg performing Faune: this was lovely.

Hubbard Street performing Three to Max: i liked this, even though i felt it was too long. the women's dance sections dragged for me, this endless rounds of counting to 10 in some language I didn't know, wore on me about 3/4ths of the way through. by the time they'd stopped chanting uno, due, terra, blah blah i almost said "hallelujah" when i realized i probably didn't have to hear it again. that being said, the movements were raw, there was a lot of humor in this piece. very beautiful dance moves mixed with a jerky marionette "i'm losing control of my body" type movements. jason hortin was my favorite, i couldn't stop watching him, followed closely behind robyn williams.

clifton brown, my favorite from ailey since he started with the company, did Among the Stars by Jessica Lang. really beautiful. clifton used to do a phenomenal version of david parsons' caught a few years go that i still think about. the ailey guys rocked the shit out of this, a lesser version of the performance can be seen here with some white guy who isn't all that great.

nablopomo

2011-11-01T09:08:00.001-04:00

i think about this place more and more often lately. about how lovingly maintained it once was. about how abandoned it's been.

about how my focus is constantly changing (when i'm not losing it entirely). once i started getting paid to write (paid! to do something fun! imagine that!) everything i did i was looking for angles, looking for pegs, thinking about pitches. it's a crappy way to live and an even worse way to look at life because all of a sudden you start to realize that every waking minute feels like working, feels like hustle. terrible! so at the same time the day job started to get more rigorous, the time for pitching dropped off and i haven't pitched a single story in months, besides that talk of the town piece i half-heartedly pitched a few weeks ago and at least a week later than i should have.

in short, i'm sort of in flux here.

i'm also gonna try to get through nablopomo over here, get my little space back. some posts might be completely nonsensical, notes found in the crevices of my iphone notepad. some maybe just a photo. but i will try to get something up every day.

momentous

2011-06-24T23:40:00.000-04:00

tonight in new york ranks somewhere close to the feeling i had standing in grant park on election night. just as much dancing in the streets, but this is so much more personal. that my best friends can think about marrying the ones they love -- in hindsight it will be almost inconceivable that things were any other way.

i have to tell you all about Charleston, where i fell in love with a little place called Husk. i was lucky enough to go there with some food people (a chef and the founder of eater.com) so the red carpet had been rolled way the fuck out.

i have to just post my crazy ass notes from LCD Soundsystem's last concert at msg. it was pretty awesome. such a series of beautiful moments.

i have to tell you to maybe y'all should pick up the wall street journal this weekend. the off duty section might have something in there by yours truly? and maybe you'll hear me blurbed on your am stations that have WSJ segment feeds?

on the sadder side: my grandma is not well at all. we're moving them out of their house in a couple weeks. alzheimer's is, honest to god, one of the saddest saddest diseases.

and, for old time's sake because it's still true: still getting a million hits from ladies who want to know who robinson cano's girlfriend is. did nobody know thow the F the yankees were until playoffs started? or did they just not care. he's MY boyfriend. and we're REAL serious. like, he wanted to buy me a promise ring the other day but i was all, "baby, i'll wait for the real engagement ring but i appreciate the thought." except i said some of it in spanish 'cause i'm trying to meet him halfway, you know? that's why we work so well. neither of us know enough of the other person's language to get real nitpicky about what we've said to each other. also, we're too busy having sex all the time to even really talk at all. we could not talk, for hours. so yeah, he's totally into me and all and i'm one lucky bitch, aren't i?

mostly for memorialization

2011-05-10T20:31:00.001-04:00

so it's funny how when people start paying you to write, the free time you'd spend writing about the nonsense you did on the weekends is time you're spent researching and trying to meet deadlines and trying to think of the most hip way to talk about some las vegas's pool complex.

and so, because i don't want to forget it (and because i miss not capitalizing things) here's a post.

i went to see Sleep No More. i loved it more than anything i've seen in ages. it's a play cum haunted house in pantomime. loosely based on macbeth. there is no speaking in this play. you start by checking your bags and coat at the door. led into darkness in which you feel your way through a pitch black maze and onto a landing where you eventually find the bar in a vintage jazz club which, for a moment, fulfilled my dreams of living in a past era. you're given a white mask (very eyes wide shut) and taken up a few flights, who knows how many, before being set free to roam around this old hotel which has been outfitted, in the most painstaking detail, to resemble bedrooms, and sitting rooms, and police stations and mental asylums and little rooms where crazy people collect hair and candy shops and a forest/ballroom. and so you sweep through the house and touch all the things and rifle through the drawers. sometimes actors run by or walk into the room and you start to feel like a ghost because to them, you don't exist. but i did, for a moment at least. a frenzied girl was at a desk and had a locket on a piece of string. panicked, she ran into the room I was standing in and with a key around her neck, unlocked the bedroom door. she turned and looked me long and hard in the eye before putting out her hand. i put my hand in hers and she opened the door, pulled me inside and locked the door behind us. i could hear people trying the knob -- they wanted in too. she brought me to a vanity table, alongside a wardrobe and smiled at me. she pulled off my mask and hung it inside the wardrobe and then she began to speak. the first and only words i heard for the next 3 hours. a monologue, spoken to me as if i were her lover, about the grand days we used to have at this club we used to go to. how much she longed for those days. she grabbed my shoulders and put me into the wardrobe. she put the locket around my neck. i thought she was going to lock me in and that i'd have to find my trap door out but she pinned me to a side wall and walked in with me. still hoding my shoulders she spoke in wistful tones, inching closer and closer to my face. by this point she was whispering sweet nothings into my ear. she kissed me on the cheek, stepped back and put my mask back on before shoving me through a phony wall at the back of the wardrobe. I landed in a closet, with clothes on hangars which i inspected some, because i could. and felt around for another false wall and found a thick plastic curtain and a big metal door and before i knew it i was back in the hallway with the masses. we saw a barfight amongst bales of hay, i heard there was some naked sex dance with a fetus and lots of blood, but i was in the closet with the lady and missed that scene. we saw an acrobatic love scene and a bath with a man washing the blood off his body. this is all very gorey but i was too fascinated to be disturbed. there was a slow motion dinner scene, reminiscent of the last supper. there was the ballroom dancing scene. the fight and make up between the pregnant woman and her husband, before they both got dressed and she helped him with his bowtie. the elaborate shaving of the king before putting on their tuxes. the woman and waitress running around the restaurant. the lone bellhop dusting the hotel lobby. it was all just so glorious and intense and beautiful. so beautiful. i've been thinking about it so much since but don't want there to be a day where i forget that it happened. forget the nursery that had a hundred headless baby dolls hanging above it. the "L. Macduff" sewn into the pregnant woman's green velvet dress.

the beard awards happened. i happened to have a press pass but i've decided that the afterparties are really where it's at. the food glitterati was there. i hung with old friends and met new ones and gushed about how adorable rich torrisi was. a whiskey maker brought his pigs, mauve and mortimer, in evening attire. on the fucking balcony of avery fisher hall. they sat on command for chocolate chips. i had tripe by jaime bissonette and it was delicious. i met famous chef after famous chef. drank free drink after free drink. hopped from the modern to eleven madison park whose pristine and quiet peace was now a raucous nightclub with alcohol spilled all over the floor, topless guys dancing on the bar and bonnie, who i've known for ages but last time i saw her kept saying that the guy i was on a date with might be a leaf and talked about how wines are women because they come from mother earth or something? she was djing looking like a greek goddess. we danced and danced until it was time to head to the jane, where the torissi boys were holding court. finally got the go-ahead for the interview i'd been asking for and was bought a shot of tequila which wasn't the best idea, really, but it felt right at the time.

anyway, all is glorious, really. when i'm forgettign about how little i'm sleeping these days and how much work work work there is to do. i can feel myself aging but i'm okay wiht it. for now.

so beautiful

2011-04-15T10:16:00.001-04:00

watch.

Douchebag who shoved me over to get a seat, downtown A train

2011-03-30T09:01:00.000-04:00

an update? no links.

2011-03-22T20:04:00.001-04:00

so i got and quit a job writing for AOL Travel all within the same month. it just wasn't writing and i'm not in this for the money. i write because i like it, not because i want to feed the public SEO keywords the way you feed ducks from which you get foie gras. it was killing my soul.

i also got set up with a gig (maybe one time, still waiting on the verdict from the client) copywriting advertorials. (you know, those things that are ads but are presented like editorial mumbo jumbo.) and it pays good. like, insanely good. and takes no time at all and for the first time ever the thought has crossed my mind that i could actually write for a living someday. it was a small thought. a little, fleeting thing, but still. it was electrifying.

i have a series of birthdays and weddings and bachelorettes still. it's hard to find my own time and i'd kill for a single day that i didn't have something due under a deadline. but i suppose i'd still be pitching or my head would be full of things to pitch and various angles and whatnot. as it is i'm antsy. david and i think that goa, sri lanka and the maldives are going to be our winter trip this year. but i'd probably go a week early and stay in kerala and finally spend a week detoxing at an ayurvedic clinic, something i've been hoping to do for a while now. i'm itching to just get the ticket so that i have it. so when i'm stressed or upset i can stare longingly at my ticket to someplace beautiful.

speaking of beautiful, i'm not even sure i wrote anything about san juan del sur. that was beautiful too. and we lazed in hammocks and gazed off the edge of our private infinity pool to the ocean down below, from our little hillside perch. we had the best coffee ever. and homecooked meals by private chefs. a surfer chick chaffeur. lots of star gazing and satellite spotting. early bedtimes and rising with the sun.

something i wrote for capital ny.

i got in a cab the other day and found a clutch with a debit card and driver's license. i google this chick and see that she's on linkedin and message her. i've heard nothing. i called her office and left my number. nothing. you'd think this idiot would want her freaking purse back but at this rate i'm waiting for her to email me in three weeks asking me to fucking hand-deliver it to her office. i'd sooner drop it off at nyc transit lost and found where she's guaranteed to never get the thing back. i thought i was doing her a favor and here she can't even be bothered.

it's going to snow tomorrow. wish i had my ticket to goa.

my saturday

2011-03-06T21:07:00.001-05:00

woke up at 8:30 and started a gigantic pile of laundry.

made myself a smoothie (frozen mixed berries, flax seeds, almond milk) and tried a neti pot for the first time (not so bad!)

brunch at joseph leonard with dirk: bloody mary, salmon salad, three glasses of pinot gris and a slice of carrot cake. my gays walked in to my brunch spot and so we all went off together for some shopping.

drooled over everything inside bruno cucinelli. dead for his cashmere and drapey, sweaters and vests with crisp white shirts tucked underneath, all wrapped up in a leather belt. BEAUTIFUL.

stopped at bill bar and burger: one glass of pinot grigio. ordered onion rings that never came.

then to the lion king theater where i got a backstage tour and we picked up dirk's husband for an early dinner.

marseille: tuna tartare, no wine.

dirk and i went off to elsewhere: 2.5 glasses of cab, one bowl of popcorn with rosemary lavendar butter.

dinner at tenpenny: 3 glasses of Montepulciano, mixed chips, scallops, pork belly croquettas, french onion soup (one of the best things i've tasted in months), pork chop, ravioli, mixed lettuces salad (so much better than it sounds) and for dessert: chocolate cake with malted gelato and a kaffir lime tart with pistachio gelato

up to fishtag to meet up with friends: 1 glass of verdicchio that basically went untouched. offered the uni (which is incredible) but was stuffed, turned it down.

parlour with the boys: one vodka soda, another bought for me and never touched.

passed out in the cab home and got to bed somewhere just before 3am.

all this is to say: 1.) i can't believe the level of sustained all-day drinking that happened and 2.) i probably shouldn't be alive right now but 3.) i am but my body certainly can't handle shit like that anymore.

ted, ken, gaga

2011-03-04T16:32:00.001-05:00

fell into a ted talks wormhole (which is the very best kind of wormhole, IMO) and found this amazing talk by dan barber. it's twenty minutes, it's funny and enlightening and you should watch: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_how_i_fell_in_love_with_a_fish.html

and ken jennings has a really pretty amazing AMA on reddit that references charlie sheen (and is funny) and blade runner and what not to wear on jeopardy (a sweater, "you'll look like a tool") and old lavendar-scented ladies, what topics he's bad at ("I remember COUNTRY MUSIC kept showing up. That or HOCKEY. Least favorite categories. Basically anything with a mullet is my Jeopardy kryptonite") and various other kind of awesomeness. if i were into married men i'd want to jump all over ken jennings. even though he's mormon.

i watched this thing all the way through and then even teared up at the end. feeling sentimental today, i guess. i do, really really like lady gaga.

nica, cat, taxes.

2011-02-27T16:25:00.001-05:00

ever find yourself thinking, "oh, it's so cute that that guy remembered what i said about X" and then remember that such a thing is just called, "listening" and that it shouldn't be so impressive?

i'm not really a cat person. but i'm a choire person. and choire lost his cat. a cat that he talks about and features often on his tumblr. and, sadly, cat has passed. and, though i've never met cat, i felt a bit mopey about this. i offered to send choire a new york feel better basket but his hubby is in the city anyway and then we just discussed what he should have him bring back. so i guess i'm off the hook for gift basket duty?

but as i was roaming through tumblr looking for more cat, i found this: http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/32479 -- which i missed whilst traipsing through SE asia -- with seth looking particularly dapper and otherwise sounding crazy because he's speaking like he writes, which he doesn't so much do in person. or, at least, not to the extent that it regularly kills conversation like it does here in this bloggingheads?

had been hiding from my w-2s. those months of unemployment and scattered varied checks from the writing gigs, and thinking about how to expense what when i basically have two different careers? all these things were giving me cold sweats. hiding also WASN'T SOLVING MY PROBLEM. so i fucking did my fucking taxes and, HEY! i'm getting money back? not sure how this happens. but I'LL TAKE IT. i didn't expense nearly as much as i could have but i'm not feeling like i want to walk that line that trips an audit. i'm smart like that.

nicaragua was a dream. we stayed on an eco-farm and drank the most amazing coffee that had been grown on the farm and roasted that morning and then we'd put milk in our coffee that had been taken from cows and boiled that morning, etc. it was non-stop rustic luxury. perfect. lovely. sunsets that rivaled those we saw in kenya.

oscar party tonight. dirk has promised a gluten-free weight watcher compliant meal. i love when other people force me to eat better than i'd be otherwise inclined to eat. that's not to say i won't still drink a full bottle of wine by myself, mind you.

LCD Soundsystem

2011-02-11T22:26:00.001-05:00

so LCD Soundsystem announced their last concert. i think being famous just isn't really fun for james murphy, who is friends with aziz ansari and david chang so i'm obviously obsessed with him by default, just about. but anyway, fucking ticketmaster sold half their tickets to the scalpers at stubhub and whatever other ticket companies (one is a parent company, even?) and nobody got any. nobody who was a real fan seemed to get any.

then they tweeted: folks: maybe don't buy ANY resell tickets for at least 48 hours? give me/us that much time to try to figure something out. #workingonit

then james posted (maybe to his website first but it's been down for an hour, or maybe even straight to the brooklyn vegan comments section: this, which is just about the most heartfelt, heartwrenching thing i've ever heard come from a musician. (and doesn't help me wanting to be his best friend, AT ALL.) but basically, they were really bummed and he was angry. and so they've added 4 shows, ID only. how awesome and stand-up is that? that he even fucking cares about half the losers trolling comments sections who've been ripping him a new asshole all day and all week, basically, since they announced the finale? he doesn't owe them (or me) a damn thing. james murphy, you're my hero.

james blake, the internet, business, egypt

2011-02-10T20:02:00.001-05:00

have been listening to this fellow james blake. i go back and forth a lot about whether i can stand his voice. here he covers one of my favorite songs in the world: a case of you. the beginning is rough going but boy does this get beautiful. the piano chords underneath are my favorite. the sweet weightlessness at 50 seconds in. the meandering at 1:20. the chord change at 2:10! lovely.

have i told you lately, internet, how much i love you? when searching for places to stay in san juan del sur and how expensive it would be, i came across a guy who had a spreadsheet wherein he listed the cost of everything he consumes there. i commented on his blog and within minutes i'd had e-mails from both him and his girlfriend suggesting places to stay. amazing. when i was making merengue cookies for my grandparents and wasn't sure whether i'd beaten the egg whites long enough, i find a video of a woman beating eggwhites who says they're done when you can flip the bowl and nothing spills out. bowl flipped, problem solved. and then today when i was researching keyboards to use with my ipad so that i don't have to bring my laptop with me (and can't justify buying an air AT ALL), i was wondering which i should get, the ipad designed one or the bluetooth wireless. lo and behold, i find an 8 minute video from a guy who, in great detail, compares, contrasts and shows how both of them work.

and thinking david had a bluetooth wireless, i asked him if i could borrow it. i got an e-mail that said, "remember that birthday present that i keep forgetting to give to you? i thought it would be good for your writing." swoon! i challenge to a duel anyone who doesn't think i have some of the best, loveliest friends on this here planet.

nicaragua is approaching but not before three birthday parties this weekend and a few fashion events and this week was social media week so i had all these random techy parties to be at. i need sleep. and to do my laundry. and to get some writing done as i have no less than 5 different things with deadlines before the end of the month. it's making me dizzy.

and of course, i'm consumed by all thing egypt. almost as fiercely as i was all things iran (which kept me up at night and brought me to tears, regularly). democracy is better than no democracy. i believe in basic human rights. i hope they get what they've been fighting for.

independence

2011-02-08T15:18:00.001-05:00

another new year resolution: memorize a few john ashbery poems just because they're so lovely and surprising and funny and brief.

i can count the single girlfriends i have on 4 fingers. the rest have all partnered up, almost entirely from online dating, in fact. i had dinner with a few girlfriends and one of them was talking about a guy who broke up with her because he said she didn't need him enough. "if i left you tomorrow, you'd be just fine." she's wildly successful and independent. "of course i would," she responded, which is how i'd have answered the same statement if put to me.

but then i met my friend julie for lunch. in talking about another friend of hers she said, "she just talks about how happy she is and how fine she is being single. i think she's putting guys off by not wanting them badly enough." and maybe she's right? but it just got me to thinking about needing men. or not being able to get a man if you don't make him feel needed. growing up in a single parent household, i've never needed a man myself. i've never once thought about the fact i wouldn't have to work hard and always have to support myself. i've never been the type to feel broken or not good enough if someone didn't like me.

seems like a man should like a woman who is self-sufficient and confident and content. maybe i'm underestimating a man's aversion to strong women? the "you don't need me enough" guy seemed to think that if she didn't desperately depend on him for things, that there's no way to be sure she wouldn't just leave him someday, which sounds much more like insecurity issues on his behalf than any issues on hers.

who knows.

justin vernon making me cry, ladies,

2011-01-27T20:03:00.001-05:00

gave some product recommendations here. if you haven't heard of it yet, birchbox is amazing. for a mere $10 a month you get good sized samples of products that the editors there tested and decided they liked, so it's not just any old junk. curated samples. awesome. little presents once a month? even better. goddamn my crappy post office that i can't ever get anything shipped to me because someone steals it, or i'd buy into this in a heartbeat. i'm still trying to get the mail people to deliver my new yorkers. just a magazine!

maybe it's the weather but i've been listening to a lot of melancholy stuff lately. bon iver, adele. i am digging sufjan's newest each time i make it through the album. andrew bird. all lullabys these folks. i mean, a LOT of bon iver. i think if i ever met justin vernon i'm not sure i'd get out any words to tell him how deepy touched i am by his music. i think i might very well walk right up to him and do something embarassing and, i dunno, start crying. actually, that is EXACTLY what i'd do. just weep like a weird, sad lady.

speaking of embarassing myself! for the hairpin. on making up dances to paula abdul songs and on flashing.

and speaking of lady...all the kids in southeast asia called me lady. "lady, you wanna buy my postcards? where you live? albany is the capital of new york!" lady lady lady. and i guess i am. a lady, that is. i understand that i'm 30 but i don't really feel like a woman all the time. maybe it's because i'm often just as confused about things as i was when i was in high school. except for that the fine lines are going to start showing up around my eyes any minute. justy and i are going to a grownup brunch on sunday. i keep calling it that, even though, yes, i'm actually an adult myself. but this is at an older, refined couple's place. a place so fancy that i can't even try to bring wine because their cabinet is probably full of lafite and what would i show up with? some $40 something that they'd cook with? life is confusing sometimes, guys.

i have a new new year's resolution. the folks at joseph leonard were keeping track of theirs, which were all variations having to do with internet porn (stop watching it, start directing it, star in it, etc.) and then everyone agreed they want to learn french. which i actually do. but my real, honest to god resolution is to stop reading internet recaps of shows that i don't watch, or have any intention of watching. this is a thing i do. i know an alarming amount about the real housewives of beverly hills for someone who doesn't have a t.v. and even if she did have t.v., wouldn't have cable.

randomness

2011-01-25T19:11:00.000-05:00

a few clips:

the amazing-looking trailer for the bill cunningham documentary. i still can't believe colin and justin made it into his styles section for the jazz-age weekend. theme: suspenders!

adele being gorgeous

colin and i hit locanda verde's second annual trufflepalooza last night. we got the prime deuce in the far back of the diningoom, the best, and my favorite table in the whole place. too bad he's gay, otherwise it'd have been a perfect date-night table. the gnocchi won the night for me. and i wasn't expecting much from the citrus tiramisu but holy hell, was that shit good. and, how's this for some white whine: i do think i prefer a white truffle over a black truffle but the whole experience of those dinners is festive and decadent at the same time. rock on andrew carmellini! (if you're reading this, i may try to hunt you down for a story for AOL shortly, if you're interested!)

oh, yeah, i'm writing for AOL now. and they pay. hallelujah.

we're booked for nicaragua. we're staying on a farm with a private chauffeur and a private chef and we have a private infinity pool. i mean, insanity. for $400 for the week. it's about a 5 minute drive from the beaches at san juan del sur but with our own chauffeur, who the f cares?! and it'll be warm and the beer will be cheap and hopefully we won't get shaken down for too much money by the cops in nicaragua on the way from managua.

watching the SOTU tonight with azi and the kids from WNYC. may have some snarky twittering to do, follow it here: http://twitter.com/jasminemoy

told a little story for the hairpin today. paula abdul, i love your crazy face!

my schedule is becoming manic. everyone is moving or having babies or birthdays. it's a mess. chili fest this weekend!

tidbits

2011-01-10T19:07:00.001-05:00

i worry when i get e-mails that go something like, "david needs our help with a video. save the 21st."

the boys have been at it for the past couple months, making and curating videos over here.

in the last week i've my schedules for january and february have completely filled up. my year is filling up. i have five weddings this year. i have two 30th birthadays that require significant travel. it makes me want to drop everything and go into hiding somewhere in vietnam so i can eat my pho for breakfast in peace.

"i don't look in a microscope when i flip the chicken." - jose andres on why he doesn't use the phrase molecular gastronomy. cute bit about how he makes up words that he thinks are english but his staff doesn't correct him when the words aren't actually english. and also about hiding asparagus from alice waters when it's not local.

booked tickets to nicaragua for feb. used miles since i'm phasing out american airlines. got first class seats round trip for 45K? how is that even possible? i don't know! it's crazy! i'll take it!

modern family: james marsden, a pippin reference, and mitch being an asshole over word usage (i'm mitch! i'm a judgey asshole!). LOVE SO MUCH. jokes about gay marriage. who isn't watching this show? what's your excuse?

vowed to stop eating bread then got invited to a "breakfast for dinner" supper club dinner where fried chicken and waffles will be served. and cheese and sausage dumplings. so obviously i'm going. just don't ask how my stomach is doing the next day. the sacrifices i make for culinary explorations!

did a radio interview over here about food and food writing. i talk too much and don't answer his questions until i've already talked in circles for 5 minutes. basically, i'm better at doing interviews than giving them.

Sick

2011-01-09T00:22:00.001-05:00

Liberals want to save the planet. Save the animals. Help the poor. Help the elderly. Educate our children and help them to eat well. Accept those who are different from us. Give equal opportunities for all. Liberals want peace. Liberals think the life of a woman is just as important as the life of any fetus. Liberals may be accused of being weak, pansies, hippies, elitist, tree-huggers. Liberals get angry when the healthcare plan they wanted isn't strong enough or when discrimination laws are not repealed speedily enough. Liberals understand that many people who own them cannot be trusted with guns.

There will be those who try to paint Jared Loughner as leftist because a high school friend said he used to be one years ago. Loughner is sick. He is delusional. Many of his online writings are conspiracy-filled and sound like they came direct from Glenn Beck. He may not have been a right-winger but we know a few things: 1.) He owned a gun 2.) He didn't trust the government 3.) Spoke of gold as a safety net 4.) He's not opposed to violence.

Republicans know exactly what they're doing when they stoke fear into the hearts of people not smart enough to know the difference between the truth and the GOP dog whistled lies, subtle racism, hatred defended by religion, government involvement when it's in their interests (abortion) but not when it isn't (taxes).

Jared Loughner might not have been a republican but he's definitely picked up some of their "facts" along the way. All it takes is one crazy person to take it too far, to become too scared, to feel "the man" is out to get him, to hear the mystifyingly influential Sarah Palin to command people not to "retreat" but to "reload" before some sicko thinks he's justified to accomplish his goal by horrifically violent means. This kid is an idiot, he is an outcast, he was impressionable and he was looking for other people to tell him why and how he'd been wronged. Unfortunately, he had a lot of GOPers to help him figure that out. Anti-government, angry, armed and dangerous. Why do I feel like that describes way too many people than is comfortable?

Assassinations center around those who are advocating or protecting something bigger than themselves. Basic truths. Those who want freedom, equality, peace.

Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, Robert Kennedy, Malcom X, John Lennon, George Tiller.

Conservatives aren't ever going to stop the hate and nastiness. It's a game they're good at, one they've had a long time to perfect. One they know is effective because the liberals are too fucking haughty to dignify half their shit with a response. There's nothing stopping the Glenn Beck nutcase express or Sarah Palin delusion central members from continuing to take things way too far. Not when they think their "leaders" would approve.

dfw, jco, et. al.

2011-01-05T15:31:00.001-05:00

Q: The thing about Andre Agassi looking like a Port Authority whore—

DFW: —I don't know—

Q: —didn't run in the original.

DFW: I think Esquire, Esqiure did leave a couple of those in, and I remember my mom, you know, reading that and just, kind of, her eyes being very wide the next time she saw me. There was something about Brooke Shields looking like somebody you'd masturbate to a picture of but not have sex with, that was really one of those four-in-the-morning, 15-cup-of-coffee-really, if I'd been in my right mind, I wouldn't have put it in the final draft, but I did. And then Esquire, I remember, left it in. Being Esquire. You know, wanting to create as much unpleasantness as possible. So.

>break<

Q: Maybe if you'd emphasized that it was not in an unattractive way. Which is sort of a hard thing to picture.

DFW: Actually the first draft of that did have that, and the editor pointed out that not only did this waste words, but it looked like I was trying to have my cake and eat it too. That I was trying to tell an unkind truth but somehow give her a neck rub at the same time. So it got cut.

Q: But you actually did want to have your cake and eat it too. Not in a bad way.

DFW: I'm unabashed, I think, in wanting to have my cake and eat it too.

satiating my DFW desire for a while...

there was an essay in last week's nyer by joyce carol oates about the last week of her life with her huband. i've always loved her. she was the reason i ever started dating my college boyfriend, we bonded over our mutual love for her work. and she and her husband were gloriously in love until he died suddenly of pneumonia (and complicating infections), on a night when he'd been looking better and she'd left the hospital to get some rest. this essay just punched me in the gut, left me so winded that i felt crumpled inside for hours afterwards. she wanted to die, there was no life left for her. i wanted to die. as i toted my laundry back to my apartment the whole world felt so dark. i'm not selling this piece (or maybe i am) but you should read it anyway. she has a trillin-like level of love for her husband but it's just so much more personal. it broke my heart.

between her and DFW, there isn't much more that could make me feel more inadequate as a writer, that's for sure. maybe i need to pick up my borges just to rub it in a bit more.

re: prop 8, the 9th circuit did exactly what everyone thought they should do. standing isn't something a circuit court deals with unless they have to (and it's hard to think of there being a lot of fights about standings these days, it's not the most complex legal issue) and, really, nobody who challenged seemed to have standing at all so there you go.

choire sicha is finishing his novel. he procrastinates here and i love it. the site itself is bullocks, pointless, just like a few others out there i've been meaning to do a roundup on (oh, but if you hang out with enough of the tech/media kids: lock, rex, rachel, dennis, et. al., there's no way to do any honest assessment without pissing someone off. last thing you want is for them you hate on you the next time you see them at a party. UGH, social constraints). but choire! he's charming. and funny. and interesting. and i adore him. even though he's really into cats.

i mean, i can't even

2011-01-04T15:20:00.001-05:00

neil gaiman and amanda palmer had an improvised wedding at the house of ayelet waldman and michael chabon whilst jason webley officiated and daniel handler (a.k.a. lemony snicket) played accordion. DEAD. if that doesn't sound like the merriest, most literary, insanely brainy, amazing kind of celebration, i don't know what would. oh, to be a fly on that wall, or better yet, a friend to folks like that.

esquire's Chris Jones is amazing, this list is brilliant. (sufjan is on it, enough said.)

another two of my favorite things: josh groban and kanye west tweets!

my darling joseph leonard is back open. new years resolutions among staff and regulars were, "learn french" and variations on internet porn, "stop watching," "watch more," "make internet porn," "star in internet porn." (okay, that last one might have been mine. i specified that it must be french internet porn, which is totally classier than the american junk, or so i assume.)

merry christmas

2010-12-24T17:42:00.001-05:00

oh god, y'all. this made my day. a gay couple plays santa. "you don't think about it, you just give. that's always been your way and i just love that about you."

i've been absent. partly because all the writing i do, i try to do for someone not myself. i'm not sure if that's okay with me but i haven't had much time to start reconsidering my judgment calls. actually, as i write that, it feels good just to fucking get it out. i think it's because i've always used this place as a journal. an, honest to god, old-skool fucking online diary. the kind that people make fun of. those losers who think people care where they're at or what they're doing. but even going back to my archives, not even a year ago, i see write ups of things that already i'd forgotten i'd done. this is to preserve the facts of my life because i don't think my memory could be any worse, truly.

also, i've never (and this is a maybe a mistake) really proof read this, cared about the prose, even spellchecked. i don't write here. i log. anyway, not so sure what to do with this place.

but now i am writing and this is what i have to show for it. 5 years worth of cute animal videos, recalled memories of parties with my gays and gals (or squirrels, as we call ourselves) and random new york moments with a political rant tossed in for good measure. le sigh.

i wrote an essay about mixed race women in america that was published in this here book. and if you want to keep better track of what and where i'm writing, twitter is where it's at. hairpin. awl. esquire. huffpo. (i'll note that i made it a whole month, on a single backpack with room for me to bring back gifts for everybody, all as a carry-on).

then i went to thailand and while on the beach, decided that i didn't fly to the other side of the planet to stay for two weeks and head home. to stayed another two more and wished i'd stayed 10. from bangkok to phuket to ko phi phi (which was paradise, at a resort called "relax"), back to bangkok where i pieced together my next two weeks. i'd tried to head to burma but US citizens are getting huge delays on their visas because obama (appropriately) spoke poorly of their most recent election. so burma was out. i chose siem reap to see angkor wat and all the other wats and then to hanoi and then chaingmai. i have a whole moleskine full of notes and observations and not sure where i'll end up writing about it all but the thought of getting it down and arranging it into pitchable stories is daunting. hanoi was my favorite. i fell in love with vietnam for its food. and its people. i was in heaven there, eating and snacking basically all day, delicious food for pennies, on little plastic stools on the street. my version of heaven.

i'm also going to start writing up restaurants for a few places (contracts haven't been signed but i've been given approval) and, AND, i went back to lawyering. which, well, it's overwhelming.

but now i'm home with kate and ant. the baby has lots of funny faces and plays with you and it's awesome. but the whole day revolves around her schedule. am doing some cooking, watching tv (because i never watch tv) and loving when people sass bobby flay on his throwdown.

anyway, merry christmas! hopefully your last few months have been as satisfying and exciting and full of surprises as mine.

what i've been up to

2010-10-24T22:33:00.000-04:00

so we had a big gay brunch this weekend then headed to the standard beer garden to enjoy one of the last days warm enough for such a thing. someone said, "wouldn't it be awesome if we had a hotel room here and could just go upstairs and drink without tickets and lines?" and i won't say how it happened, but all of a sudden we had a room key. and a case of champagne. and we put on the hotel robes and ordered up more for people who showed up so we all looked like monk/cult members of some sort. we tried flashing people on the highline but were too high up to be noticed. we ran a hot bath and took turns lounging in it, taking photos and sipping champagne. a friend had to leave for a date but returned with a pizza, which was amazing. the night, in retrospect, was the kind of thing i wouldn't believe unless i'd been there. and thank god i'd been there because it was pretty fucking amazing.

my beloved joseph leonard had a fire! i stopped into jeffrey's to see the crew who was in as good spirits as could be hoped for. most of the damage is in the basement which means the dining room is okay, but there was a lot of expensive equipment down there and tons of smoke to get rid of. thank god for insurance? people have been pouring into jeffrey's to offer support and it's a really beautiful reminder of what a tight-knit little community gabe stulman has built with his restaurants. i'm happy and grateful to be part of the family of folks who feel at home in his restaurants.

i'm possibly going to thailand over thanksgiving? i mean, i'm definitely going to thailand over thanksgiving. we're flying in and out of BKK but want to hit an island or two, feel free to e-mail over suggestions or drop them in the comments! i'll be there for two weeks

no words. i have no words. people listen to this man and he gets paid to talk. ugh.

i'm also going to georgia to an auburn game in a couple weeks. i didn't really have football in college (they were DIII, which, who cares?) but this is a totally different thing. i went to a couple notre dame games when i was in high school but i think this will be crazier because they're all southern. colin and david want me to sleep with a college kid which might be funny just to say i did it, and likely not fun in practice.

have a couple pieces due out soon, will link them as they happen!

foodie things

2010-10-11T12:01:00.000-04:00

san diego was fantastic. stayed at the andaz, which is one of the best hotels in the city but we kind of hated it. the rooms had no light and no lamps and it was impossible to do work in the room. we got an "upgrade" which was just them moving us to a room with a king-sized bed which looked into the restaurant so we had to keep the curtains closed 24/7. they have this club on the roof which is pretty tacky but the pool is otherwise lovely and colin and i spent time getting sun and doing some work in a cabana in the rain.

the best part of the trip was searsucker, brian malarkey's new place. it was FANTASTIC. one of the best meals i've had in years. get the brussels sprouts.

i wrote up the new yorker festival for mediaite over here.

i've pulled a bunch of my eating posts here and moved them to a separate blog: A.B.E. Always Be Eating. just made sense to separate it. sorry to andrew carmellini and the joseph leonard folks who will have that new place pop up in their google alerts some 15 times each due to the re-posting. i'm still deciding whether to keep the food stuff entirely separate or whether to just repost it there as it happens...suggestions? i use this here blog as a sort of livejournal and would hate to have my life separated into two like that, but feel the food stuff has to have its own place now that i've started writing.

trufflepalooza is coming up again! ted is joining, I'll come back with a full report.

i've had such a busy few weeks that i'm starting to just forget where i've been and what i've done. BAD.

had the honor of attending the Michelin Red Guide drop party. i'm possibly working on a story about supper clubs and talked to michael white, drew nieporent, jean georges, daniel boulud and others about them. the food at the party, cooked by supper clubs, was fantastic. the caliber of cooking these guys are doing blows my mind. whisk and ladle had this celery root soup with veal cheek croutons that i'm having dreams about. city grit did fried shrimp and grits which were awesome (and eater's favorite). i met the sweetest girl there, a travel writer for AOL who won a shorty! for weirdest tweets! she has a llama that tweets at people to do ridiculous things at their desks. small little tasks that are silly, and probably entertaining for those stuck in a cubicle all day. reggie watts performed and HE IS THE SHIT.

then new york wine and food festival happened. had a steak sponsored afterparty at some random mid-town club. let me tell you, if you ever hear "steak sponsored" and "party" in the same sentence: GO. filet was all over, as much as you could eat. they had a beautiful rose champagne and some pretty awesome music.

finally tried relais de venise, the outpost of the famous french place that i adore. in three words: not as good. the sauce is lacking kick (or salt) and the portion was small. service was spotty and there were a few screaming babies in attendance (due to location, i'd assume). but afterwards we hit rudy's. consumed 1 pitcher of blonde and no hot dogs. then stopped by joseph leonard which pretty much the best place to be at that second because the 2nd place winners in the burger bash, mo koyfman and ben leventhal were there celebrating and their award winning burger was being given out gratis to everyone still in the restaurant. AMAZING. getting the #2 burger without having to pay the $250 burger bash entry fee: priceless.

gabe's jeffrey's grocery opened last week too and i was luckily invited to friends and family there. wine and cheese were in abundance but it was a good chance to catch up with some regulars. met phyllis who immediately seized my arm and dragged me over to meet a cute bartender when she found out i was single. "it's my jewish grandmother's instinct," she said, apologetically.

tater tots, socialites, san diego

2010-09-24T13:06:00.000-04:00

was with a new friend of mine, sarah. i think i'm in love. we were wandering through the west village and while we were on our way to cabrito for guac i thought of daddy-o's. "hey, do you like tater tots? they're the best there." then she says, "can we pick up tater tots so that we can dip them in the guacamole?" um, YES, obviously, that is the only right answer here. she also makes a quick pope/pedophile joke which is something appreciate. she also said she'd sleep with a guy she wasn't attracted to but only if he were covered in cotija cheese. these are all the best ideas ever. i think she and i should get married.

i've started bringing out my scarves and lightweight sweaters. this is really sad because 10 of my favorite dresses went unworn all summer. there's just no excuse for that. the gorgeous teal halter DVF floor length dress, the black jumper, my tophop mini. it's sad. i just did a load of laundry made up entirely of summer dresses that i won't wear again for like 9 months. again, SAD. but, silver linings! i really adore my fall wardrobe. i love leggings and boots and sweaters and scarves. i love wearing leggings as pants! there, i said it. they aren't the most attractive thing but they're so comfy. that's what fall is. fall is comfy. bring it.

The tides are turning... if this site is not in your reader, we can't be friends. it's slowly becoming one of my favorite things on the interwebs.

a bit on turkey that i wrote for huffpo: read, retweet and like that shit!

i saw a girl wearing brown uggs, with white linen pants, through which you could see red underwear. there is so much wrong about that, i don't know where to start. i've thought about it so many times since then that i think i might be mentally scarred. what is wrong with people?!

something i wrote for esquire.

um, i maybe won this! (okay, i totally won this! horray!)

have been amazingly busy lately. helped my good friend sarah (a different one from the one mentioned above) cater a book party for nick bilton. david carr was there and called us beautiful fairies. the infamous (in some circles) julia allison was there, being just as insipid as you'd imagine her to be. foursquare founder dennis crowley was in attendance. i ran into an old acquaintance who maybe runs a website that i enjoy that i may start writing for any second?

somebody called me a socialite today. the whole idea of that kind of boggles my mind because i think of socialites as being from new york and rich. i think he said it because i'm currently living off savings (read: not working) but if he knew what kind of background i have, moving from crappy apt to crappy apt my whole childhood, being the first person in my family to attend college, much less grad school. i've never been misread so badly...

the cuban drummer boy is in town and at the blue note all weekend. go see him if you live in nyc. he's playing with arturo sandoval, who is pretty amazing.

colin has an all-expenses paid work trip to the san diego film festival and i'm totally crashing that. who turns down a free trip on someone else's dime? answer: NOT ME. i'm not fool. any dining suggestions for while i'm there?

linkdump!

2010-09-10T13:08:00.001-04:00

I am obsessed with this...Jeffrey Steingarten: I never get to the Greenmarket in the morning. I think that it's bigoted of farmers to get up so early. I don't think it's necessary; I know farmers in Europe who don't start until 9 a.m. with their market stores. There's no reason for the earliness, it's just machoness. So you get to the Greenmarket, and if you haven't ordered ahead of time, people are sold out? That's wrong! I happen not to be a morning person, but I deserve to eat as much as a morning person deserves to eat. When you prick us, do we not bleed? Seriously.

And this.

fascinating interview on garbage. really, read it.

i'm doing some stuff at huffpo now. please retweet and like this or whatever.

notes on the filibuster from always sensible rick hertzberg and ezra klein.

have something going up on eater.com this week. will post when it drops...

birthday, blue hill, governors island, new yorker

2010-09-02T22:23:00.000-04:00

so, i had a birthday. i turned 30. i'm all kinds of whatever about it. in fact, i've been telling people i'm 30 for months now thinking that saying 29 seems a wee bit clingy to my 20's, which i'm certainly not! me and 20 of my nearest and dearest all took a train out to tarrytown (a train i almost missed because the subways were so completely fucked) and were all treated like royalty at blue hill at stone barns. a private lobby overlooking the gardens where they brought us bellinis and whatever other drinks we wanted and then all these yummy passed canapes. sesame seed crusted baby zucchini, tomato burgers, tomato foam things on tart shells that sound crazy but were INSANELY GOOD, and high class tater tots with pickle slices, polenta tarts, a few more tomato things ('tis the season). we sat down to a gorgeous tomato salad with ricotta and peaches. moved onto pork something (this is where the afternoon starts to get hazy because i'm drinking too much). david gave a lovely speech about how delightful i am. i cried (again, probably, with the alcohol). i gave a rambling speech about being so lucky and grateful for such awesome people in my life. and also that i was thankful for pork. dessert was some gorgeous cake with berries. we moved to the bar and drank some more. blaise maybe stole a tomato off a table. and an egg, which was presented to me as a present, which i presently dropped on the train platform. (grrr, alcohol.) oh, and then, THEN we thought it was a great idea to go to the frying pan and drink a lot of beer.

i know my friends had a good time because one spent all night throwing up, another forgot she'd had sex with her boyfriend that night (she apologized about passing out before sex and he was all, "what do you mean? we had sex" HA).

saturday was the jazz age lawn party at governors island. bill cunningham took a bunch of photos of us but i'd DIE, just absolutely be DEAD if any of them ran in the nytimes. we are here taking a candid shot!

i wrote something for esquire. seriously, try that bloody mary. it's off the hook.

colin has a work weekend in san diego that i was going to hitch a ride on and the new yorker festival is the same weekend! the agony! sit and listen to lectures by fascinating people that i'm obsessed with or just drink and be stupid in the sun on someone else's expense account? god, that doesn't sound the way i'd wanted it to. i think anyone who reads this knows how obsessed i am with the new yorker and the festival, even if it doesn't sound particularly fun. at any rate, i'm torn. truly, honestly, torn.

and i'm maybe going to try being a sales girl for my friend who just started a new company. being a sales girl means getting an ipad and i kind of love it. i hate that i love it because i may not do sales forever and then i'm going to have to give it up, which means i'll have to buy my own if i want to read the times and vanity fair on a full screen from bed in the morning. LIFE IS SO HARD.

i want to be ruth reichl. it's that simple.

digg, colin, yankees, gratis food

2010-08-22T22:42:00.007-04:00

so this digg thing has cracked me up. my favorite comment was in response to a comment i'd left: "This is why I like digg. This bitch wrote the article!!! She wrote the article!!!!!!"

YES. YES I DID.

peter has reminded me, like a true friend, that no matter what happens with this writing thing, he'll still only love me for my boobs.

colin texted: "want my body?" i responded, "it goes without saying."

he sent me this grossness

then sent me this hilariousness

THIS, people, is why i'm obsessed with my friends. they're weirdly amazing.

went to brunch and had a whole meal and 3 bloody marys and 2 glasses of wine and was handed a check for $11. i kid you not. i don't even know how to tip on that anymore so i left $50 on the bar? but then i stopped by another restaurant because i was hoping to catch the chef to talk business and ordered a pasta, but then dessert and then like 6 glasses of dessert wine showed up anyhow. i was handed a check for $20. what?! it's just ridiculous. so i had to leave some crazy money on that and i'm sure i spent 3 times more than had i just paid for what i'd ordered instead of tipping on all the free stuff i didn't, but that's life. it's actually lovely to be loved and appreciated as a regular at some of these places. i genuinely feel loved. it's better to be loved and have lost (the extra $) than to never have been loved at all, or something.

friday evening was a gorgeous night and i hadn't made plans (i've been sick all week and staying in). i went to whole foods, stacked up on groceries and then saw all the yankees jerseys on the train platform. and as if it were something i was fated to do, i thought, "i'm going to drop my food off and then i'm going to go to yankee stadium and get a ticket to the game." that was it. and it was done. i was getting off the train, all these guys were all, "you need a ticket?" and i did. so i said yes. and he whips out this computer printout, totally sketchy looking, but it was an amazing seat. easily worth $100 at season ticket prices. i offered $40. he wanted $60 but then told me i could have it for $40 because i was so beautiful. it was also 20 minutes into the game and he wasn't going to sell this thing to anyone else so whatever! i sit down and the guys are all, "so you bought our ticket!" they'd sold it for $20 but i still got a deal. these guys were hilarious and they bought me beer. when i said i'd just shown up by myself they looked at me like i was an alien. but the coolest alien EVER. they were in awe of a chick who goes out and does things by herself. IMAGINE THAT. when they found out i was single they were all shocked ("but your're so pretty!") and i think feeling bad for my uterus or something. i assured them i wasn't watching my biological clock and they seemed to feel better, but i'm not the hugest fan of people thinking that if you're single that you're somehow broken/lonely/desperate. what if i LIKE being single? what if i enjoy my own company? what if this is a choice?! but most importantly, when i started hollering for my boyfriend Cano, one of the dudes was like, "yeah, i see him hanging out in hoboken all the time." WHAT?! my baby goes out in hoboken?! so he told me what club and so naturally i'm going to stalk him there immediately. the guys in front of me went on a mission to try to beg for beer post 7th inning stretch. I went with them because i was desperate for beer too. no luck. yankees lost kind of miserably.

as i left to the sounds of sinatra's "new york, new york" en masse to the train, i see a lone dude dressed up as spiderman, playing the saxophone. george michael and then billie holiday both came on while my ipod was on shuffle, so, WIN.

whatta town!

So I wrote something...

2010-08-19T22:52:00.000-04:00

for one of my favorite sites on the internets: How I Fought Bedbugs And Won (i basically begged them for weeks and wore them down with my sheer persistence).

but then someone put it on digg, which is fun! and random! so digg it or whatever.

my first post at esquire should be up this week, will link to that too when it shows.

i can't stop watching this. i love it so much. "guess what i wear as a hat? a lentil"

this is the kind of shit i'm talking about. and we're supposed to have civilized dialog across the aisle when the people on the other side are this dense? that's hardcore willful igorance at best and pure trailer-park stupidity at its worst. these people can't be reasoned with, they can only be ignored, which leaves them all the time in the world to run around willy nilly starting new rumors and spreading libelous emails.

when obama came out in favor of the mosque (though he sort of backtracked, not really) i said, "way to be a grownup." that's the RIGHT answer. then morons like dean come out and make things worse. they should be backing a brother up!

and so help me if i hear one more poll about whether losers on the street think X or Y is constitutional without the person reporting the story actually SAYING, "your'e wrong, it is constitutional, there are actual guidelines here, there's this thing called the supreme court, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW IS NOT A MATTER OF PUBLIC OPINION."

in other words: i second alex balk.

just had a fantastic dinner at agua dulce. sat at a sidewalk table and saw now less than three people i knew walking down the street. can i be the unofficial mayor of hell's kitchen? anyway: the restaurant. stay away from their frozen mojitos which are whack (made with creme de menthe instead of real mint) but the food rocks. get the salmon ceviche. and the chef has eyes you just want to gaze into for a long time so do that too.

linkdump, hypocrites, mourning an inanimate object

2010-08-17T20:24:00.000-04:00

bananas.

a column i agree with, by roger simon.

in LOVE, still.

April 2, 2010
Panic about the novel is set to low simmer. The next novel and the non-fiction book proposal aren't flying, they're flunking. Anxiety is causing my fingernails to reverse course and grow inward. What if You Lost Me There is perceived to be a bomb, would it be so bad? Playing around today, I figured out that Michiko Kakutani is an anagram for "Atomic Haiku Kink." Michiko alone becomes, "Hi I Mock."

someone commented that i should be writing about politics more. lately, even thinking about it is infuriating. listening to commentary even on the radio makes me want to pull all my hair out and then cut someone. i literally heard someone say (probably on fox news, which of course went unchallenged), regarding repealing the 14th amendment, "i don't think the founding fathers wanted people who weren't born here to be citizens." really?! you know what the founding fathers were? PEOPLE FROM ENGLAND. and those 14th amendment whackos somehow think that repealing the 14th amt would cause obama to no longer be a citizen because they refuse to acknowledge that he was even born here to begin with. and this WTC mosque that isn't even a mosque but a community center, that had been proposed ages before 9/11 and nobody had a problem with it then AND it's not even in the WTC, it's blocks away, near some dirty video store. and what makes me even crazier are that all these republicans speaking for the "9/11 families" when a lot of 9/11 families actually understand freedom of religion and acceptance of others and that, you know, not ALL muslims are terrorists...that those republicans are the same people that are all, "get out of my business, leave me alone" but "i'll get all up in your business and command the government to get involved in private business decisions when it suits me." so it's all just tremendously hypocritical. republicans are hypocritical. there. i said it. and they make me so angry.

but anger isn't something i'm allowed to feel if i want to be buddhist so i gotta learn to calm the fuck down. i got a good lesson in buddhism the other day. being attached to material things is suffering. so when i lost my $400 sunglasses, i actually felt pain. i was so sick to my stomach that i thought i might faint. and then i proceeded to have nightmares about losing said sunglasses all night. so fine, it's just an object. but the thing is that i don't lose things. ever. i've never lost a purse, a phone, a wallet. if anything, i misplace things within my own bedroom. so it was more stunning than anything else. the sunglasses had been in my bag and then they weren't. i have no idea where they went to, whether someone stole them out of my bag, whether they fell, etc. things like this don't happen to me, that is, until they do.

so yeah, attachment to physical things: suffering. i get it.

met an adorable girl today to makes these awesome raw food wraps and sells them in midtown.

i've got this irritating cough that i'm trying to steam out of my system. made a super spicy ramen. trying to scare the cold away, i suppose.

Common sense....

2010-08-12T13:08:00.001-04:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Deductible Me

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

buddhism, joseph gordon-levitt, sufjan, you lost me there

2010-08-11T10:42:00.001-04:00

they're not accounting for the fact that people become BETTER LOOKING after acquiring said iphone. also, don't those numbers seem a little low? no? maybe?

have been on a few dates with someone who is buddhist and learning more about it is kind of rocking my world. it just makes so much sense, is resonating with me completely. some parts are a bit out there for me but the basic idea that we all should be good to each other, to anticipate each others needs, to be grateful for the life we have to to be thankful for every new day that we wake up in the morning. it's so beautiful. IMAGINE if everyone was buddhist!--i don't know enough about the religion to know what the bad parts of it are (if there are any) so chime in if you've got something to share--but it seems like the world would be such a lovely place if everyone were buddhist. SO PEACEFUL! also, they're supposed to be vegetarians (it's bad if you kill things) but this game is like going down a rabbit hole. even killing a plant kills insects, etc., but the point is that we should all be aware of what we're eating, considerate of where it came from. sounds like a good idea right? might promote more healthy eating.

also: vote, damnit!

a tenet of buddhism is "do no evil" which reminds me of google's mission statement: don't be evil, which reminds me that this deal they've made with verizon regarding net neutrality....doesn't seem awesome. actually seems possibly evil. just sayin'

the love of my life, no, not robinson cano. not jon stewart. no, not sufjan stevens, the other one. joseph gordon-levitt made a short film dealie which i just think is charming beyond belief. the language, OH, the language. i'm in love with a whole new set of words! produced by this thingy: hitrecord.org. anyway, watch it and laze in its awesomeness.

speaking of sufjan! presale tickets when on sale for his november concerts in nyc. i had 4 in my cart and then CHOSE not to buy them! what?! i know! but i can't help thinking that i'll probably be in nicaragua by then. the more i think about the possibility i won't go, the more i hate the idea of not going. so maybe, if no other commitments come up (like having to live in a chicago museum for a month), i'll go from mid september to mid october or mid november.

my friend rosecrans baldwin has published a book that, though i haven't read it, is being gushed over by like every media outlet ever (his press rep deserves some kind of bonus, for sure). so BUY IT. i promise you'll enjoy it. i'm so excited!

i may also be doing some writing. i'll link my posts when they run. i've got two on the burners and have more pitching to do. the stuff i've got so far are interviews which actually require less writing and more a skill for having a conversation with somebody but who cares! i'm all about it!

GAH! so much to be excited about! huzzah!

inspiring summer

2010-08-08T11:36:00.001-04:00

have been having days that i can only describe as, "inspired."

amazing bits of things have been happening in my life and i'm a little bit in awe of just life itself. that sounds crazy. i'm sorry. but it's true.

i had the honor of showing around some friends from home for the past couple days, which is really just an excuse to go to all of my favorite places in a 48 hour time span. they loved my restaurants and my dive bars. we stopped by my ultimate favorite favorite place in the city for a glass of wine and made friends with the bartender, got offered gratis macarons and learned about a super secret supper club from a dude sitting next to us at the bar.

on the way home i had some drycleaning and my purse and i'd sat down next to a girl and my stuff was kind of all over her and as i apologized she looks at me with a pained expression and asks if she can ask me something personal. "sure," i say. she responds, "can you see any hickies on my boob? how about here on my neck? and on the other side of my neck? oh my god, my mom is gonna kill me." i burst out laughing. i hand her some visine which, maybe it's an old wive's tale, but i've been told it disperses blood vessels so i tell her to put some on her welts. the ones on her neck weren't bad but she had her concealer out. what was bad were the scratches all over her back. "but we were only making out! we like didn't even do anything!" she wails. she's 17, she's gay, has told her mother but so far it's not something they've discussed. so while i'm all, "you're 17, high schoolers date! it's fine!" she's all, "but i was making out with a girl! so that's bad! at least for my mom!" sweet thing. she'd just come back from tanzania, so we talked about africa. i said, "the thing about the people in africa is that they were all so poor, they had nothing but they were so," "happy," she says, finishing my sentence. YES. i did my best to try to convince her that there were bigger problems than a hicky in this life and to not freak out completely. such a random, only in new york, thing.

spent the week in fire island with the boys. lots of good cooking was done. mexican spreads, queso fundido, gazpacho, filet with goat cheese and butter sauce, coca cola fried chicken...endlessly amazing.

oh, who knows! stuff.

2010-07-29T13:58:00.000-04:00

Tom had a burger, which he did not give me a bite of, which I think is really mean. I did not ask for one, but by the time I thought it'd be nice to have one it was completely gone. He eats very quickly, which is a very inconsiderate characteristic for a boyfriend to have.

amazing letters to punctuation.

you guys, i'm still just obsessed, add this to your reader! stat!

so the dates have begun. what i'm realizing is that i'm spoiled to have in my life an astounding number of socially graceful people as friends. no weirdos. very few awkwards. so dating is tough for me. it's knowing, 5 minutes in, that there is something "off" about the guy. carefully noting the odd traits, the tics, the condescending statements without uttering even a word in protest because it's not worth the effort because i'll never see the person again. waiting it out, hanging loose until it's over. so fine, the benefit of meeting a guy at a bar as opposed to online is for the pure fact that you know having a conversation with them won't be unnerving.

had a gorgeous brunch with dirk and santos, followed by a lord of the rings marathon (which, i forgot how good those movies are!) and by impromptu pasta and an even more impromptu dessert. dirk and i ran down to the store to see what inspired us. we ended up with peaches that weren't ripe enough, lady fingers and heavy cream. the peaches we diced and cooked in some water/lemon. we drained the juice and reduced it to a syrup. we toasted the lady fingers and made homemade whipped cream. it was really kind of amazing. and effortless and fun and i just don't cook enough.

have a new roommate moving in. current one is moving to texas to some farm where she lives there for free but works 40hrs a week for no money and gets some agriculture certification or something? the new roommate works at betsey johnson and has a sweet chihuahua named "smalls" who is such a little lover. licks for everyone!

i saw inception, mostly because of my irrational obsession with joseph gordon levitt. LOVE LOVE LOVE and in my head we're going to meet at a bar and have some babies. and i thoroughly enjoyed the movie and found myself just adoring the crap out of ellen page. leo is faultless. for those interested, really interesting and super believable theory on the movie here.

someone in my building plays the french horn and i've been listening to some trio practice for a few hours out my window. beautiful.

spending next week with the boys in fire island. a little gift from them to me for some legal work i did in helping them secure a lease when they were trying to get royally screwed out of the one they'd originally signed. being a lawyer comes in handy once in a very long while.

baby times

2010-07-22T16:59:00.000-04:00

Had a lazy, baby spit-up filled, week at home. kate's baby is three times the size she was when i saw her last (which currently puts her at 12 pounds). she smiles often and has this crazy giggle and is generally more fun to play with these days. lots of squeaks and bird noises fly out of her tiny mouth. in short: cuteness.

leaving the house is the biggest production. fifteen totes minimum. strollers, toys, pillows, pacifiers, and on and on and on. going to the grocery store is a production, travel is out of the question. we went to michigan for a couple days, packed into an SUV so tightly that i barely breathed for the 2 hour commute but once there, it was lovely. the cabin was low maintenance. pontoon rides and beers while wading in a too-warm lake. midnight golf cart rides for ice cream cones. apple cider doughnuts and italian sausage on the grill.

kate and ant watch a lot of television. like, they have a tv in the living room, in the breakfast room and in their bedroom. there is always one on. so in the week i was there i managed to watch enough episodes of the following shows to feel invested in them: hells kitchen with gordon ramsay, the bachelorette, wipeout, big brother, so you think you can dance, and Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory. that being said, what typically happens is that i come back to my life in nyc and on a slow day in a few months i'll say, "oh, i wonder who won X show" and then google it. i have to say, though, that i'm totally obsessed with rob dyrdek now. the show is hilarious and that guy's brain works in a way mine never will. just to work on production of that show would be outrageous. "hey, i need a cop car painted with tiger stripes and then i need a faux fur bright orange cover for that designed to look like a huge cat head. thanks" and all his people have to go, "sure! no problem! of course!"

y'all, i want to spend a month in the museum. seriously. i'm applying. and that 10K will get me to nicaragua for 2 months and then to an aryuvedic clinic in india for a few weeks and then to thailand for a month. all the traveling i want to do this year but am not sure how to pay for. THAT's how i'll pay for it. i'm not kidding.

vote for me! please!

2010-07-16T09:53:00.001-04:00

head on over to here.

click "vote now"

log into facebook at the prompt (no registering required!)

then click the "vote now" button again.

you should get a message that says something like, "thanks for voting, come back tomorrow"

after which you should 1.) feel thanked and 2.) vote again tomorrow...

and if you're really feeling kind: share the link on your facebook profile or over twitter!

Denzel and Viola: Fences final performance!

2010-07-11T16:18:00.000-04:00

Pinche Taqueria, 11:30pm

2010-07-10T23:36:00.000-04:00

online dating

2010-07-09T00:02:00.000-04:00

oh y'all. this is a year of change for me. the year that i throw caution to the wind and do crazy things that feel oh-so-very-anti-virgo. that means, naturally, online dating. i date so little that my family thinks i'm a lesbian afraid to bring my partner home. and you know what? i let them think that because it's easier than saying, "new york is hard for meeting people" because it doesn't sound genuine coming from me. i meet people everywhere. i'm the most social of butterflies. but every time my grandma sees me in a photo with a man (which is usually any of my gays) she'll say, "oh, is that your fiance?" because they seriously think that i would date and marry someone without telling them. mostly because i never tell them that i'm dating someone, because i'm never actually dating someone. so you see the ridiculousness that occurs when my grandparents ask if i'm married. NO. I'M NOT MARRIED. I'D TELL YOU BEFORE THE CEREMONY, I PROMISE. IN FACT, I'LL PROBABLY INVITE YOU. IF YOU'RE NICE.

ugh. but to be honest, i haven't met a guy in ages who has told me he's crazy about me, or even remotely interested, or even that i'm beautiful. and you know what? that's insane. i'm ADORABLE! and FUN! and have BOOBS!

my friends (all of whom mean well) think i'm not "putting myself out there" enough. that i'm too judgmental. too closed off. so to prove them wrong, i signed myself up on a dating site. one where it's more about the date than it is about the person. when someone says they'd like to see a magic show and try their hardest to be un-impressed, i'm all, "sure! that sounds fun!" i've proposed dates and let people come to me, and come to me they have. in herds, actually. and because this is the year of "who gives a damn?" i'm going to go out with as many of them as i have time for. sure i have my favorites, but i too often judge a book by its cover. and you know what? some of these guys are cute. or hot even. one of them showed up in my inbox and i thought, "that's the hottest man i've ever seen in my life," and then i died, and then i proceeded to e-mail his picture to all the gals/gays with a message that went something like "OH MY GOD, LOOK AT THIS MAN."

so maybe this will be fun, even if it is completely terrifying. wish me luck ;)

Xylopholks, Columbus Circle station

2010-07-08T18:00:00.000-04:00

Washington Heights summer

2010-07-08T17:35:00.000-04:00

nick howard, blue hill, DC

2010-07-08T14:20:00.001-04:00

saw nick howard at joe's pub this week. i love that space. it's no village vanguard as far as the history that drips from every inch but it's cozy and intimate and that's about the best you can ask for in a concert these days. i remember having seen michael buble in an audience of 40. and gavin degraw with about 10 people hanging around the red lion. of course, when you see these guys, they're in small venues because nobody knows them from adam. sigh. valerie's boyfriend was playing with nick and it's always fun to be a bit of a fangirl for him and the guys he plays with are always quite lovely and this was no exception. he was jason mraz-ish and we agreed he was "dreamy" and his fiancee was cute as a button. he was opening for rachel platten who i wanted to like but just couldn't. her songs were catchy and she has a great voice but her person is just such a turnoff. she looks like mandy moore, sounds like ingrid michaelson but then she's so faux sweet. fake fake fake. and then at one point she gave the whole crowd an backhanded compliment which went something like, "everybody always hates new york and new york crowds, they say they're too loud and don't listen, but, you guys, it's just not true!" um, well, thanks?

really really loving band of horses's new album. not so sure about MIAs.

the sommelier at esca poured me a glass of white which he described as "crunchy" which isn't exactly the best word to hear when describing wine but it fit. green apple in a glass. i've thought about it several times since in this oppressive heat. he's been sending kind of hilarious punny text messages as of late which is the kind of thing i used to scoff at but now they make me chuckle. i'm getting soft in my old age.

we're set for my birthday brunch. i'm taking 25 of my nearest and dearest out to blue hill at stone barns for a big brunch and a tour of the farm. i'm so excited i could pee my pants. though august will be tons of tomato and corn which is fine for me but i'm more of a peas and ramps kind of girl. why couldn't i have a june birthday? next year i'll go in honor of my brother on june 1st. speaking of brother, he's getting my old iphone so he's pretty happy with me right now. it's like the old days when i used to buy him and his friends alcohol.

just when i spent the weekend with some D.C.ers and listened to them talk about the food there (which, i mean, it'll never ever be new york but they seemed happy enough), i get an e-mail from a friend in DC. "dude, you gotta come down here. a billion jobs for lawyers with the feds right now! they've loosened all sorts of restrictions, it's cake, get your ass over here!" sounds great. would love to get on that confusing payscale thing with all the numbers that i just don't understand (at salaries that aren't really half bad) but...god...i'd cry every day from the broken heart i'd have leaving this damn city. i'd read cindy adams and instead of thinking she's crazy i'd MISS being in the same city as her. i'd probably have seizures thinking of missing the next great danny meyer opening. i'd glance longingly at my new yorker magazines thinking, "oh, you. you and i used to come from the same smart witty place." i'd have to give up all dreams of marrying either robinson cano or ben mcgrath because the chances of them falling in love with me in a bar become THAT much more impossible. and FORGET the sartorialist!

i was out with joyce and we saw leslie jordan's one man show (which i'd highly recommend, it's just closed in new york but moves to maybe london next). afterwards i mentioned the watermelon ice at joe allen and begged her to stop in with me for some. it comes with kind of dry coffeecakeish shortbread cookies which i never eat but just having the dish in front of me brings back such visceral memories. the very first time i came to new york was in high school. our drama teacher brought us and hooked us up with tickets to every hard to get show and we'd see a matinee and evening show for several straight days and then get back on the plane. we'd live, eat, and drink theatre and it was glorious, a trip we'd saved up all year for. the first night there, we'd just come from titanic and were all at a huge back table at joe allen when half the cast of the show walked in. our jaws dropped to the table. to us, those were the real celebrities. (not to brag, but we also saw the original broadway cast of rent, HOLLA!) and at that dinner, i finished off my meal with a watermelon ice. the sweetest way to end the sweetest of days. and a decade later they're STILL serving that for dessert. i sit at the bar and order just that and feel 16 and bright-eyed all over again.

in new york, concrete jungles where dreams are made of, there's nothing you can't do...speaking of, the food editor at esquire told me to pitch him like mad. fingers crossed that i can get stuff to stick.

Wash Sq Park: listening to Band of Horses

2010-07-07T23:51:00.000-04:00

Nick Howard at Joe's Pub

2010-07-07T21:50:00.000-04:00

join the facebook group!

2010-07-07T17:26:00.002-04:00

i'm maybe dancing in this video. don't ask how it happened. LONG story.

JOIN: http://www.facebook.com/LeslieJordanDWTS

labyrinth, amos, drowning in babies

2010-07-06T09:22:00.001-04:00

labyrinth, by my request, was the monday night movie at cabrito. it's one of the first movies i remember being entranced by. (the other was west side story, which changed my life.) i used to try to toss kenny around and pretend he was toby and i was the goblin king. and we would sing and dance until we collapsed from exhaustion or until i dropped him and he'd cry and we'd both get in trouble. it makes me look at myself, my application to take the CFE (you guys, i'd be a bank examiner. grizz) and wonder where the hell i got lost, where all that creativity went.

i've been listening to a crap load of amos lee lately which is maybe the source of my melancholy. on the perkier end, colin turned everyone on to florence and the machine and that song "dog days are over," which you'll hear every 5 minutes soon as it's the chosen song for all "eat pray love" commercials, is really freaking catchy. so is that new one by robyn, "i'm giving it my all but i'm not the girl you're taking home / i keep dancing on my own." i dig her girl power.

the cuban drummer boy has been sending loads of text messages about a "surprise" so i google the band and see they've scheduled a new york visit. i have a new brooks brothers blazer sitting out that i feel compelled to hide in the event i decide i can trust that little klepto in my house again.

i've resisted reading peter's steamy blog but on a slow day i clicked over. i'm not sure how many half-asian friends he has, but i kinda want that one to be about me even though i'm pretty sure he has a half-asian fetish and has a collection of them that spans continents. he's the most charming canadian i know, and canadians, as a people, are pretty damn charming.

aj daulerio was editing jezebel for the day. i'm not the most regular reader over there but, again, a slow day. it was awesome. everything from a treatise on bringing back the hand job to this, which i squealed over. so much funny over there, consider me a fan even though i don't see myself adding deadspin to the reader. it's stuffed enough with things i don't have time to read. the commenters over at jezebel are by turns thoughtful and totally insufferable but they really like their .gifs and some of them are hilarious. click through, enjoy.

this is one of those weeks that's fully booked before it starts. nothing too fancy, no evening gowns and probably not even a pair of heels. i'll take it.

one of my best friends from law school is pregnant (like every other fucking woman in my life). she had her first child at 16 and still finished high school and put herself through college and got into a great law school and got married to a partner. i'm so happy for her that she gets to finally have that happy and stress-free pregnancy thing and not the, "holy fuck, i'm 16, what the fuck am i supposed to do" pregnancy thing which had to have been terrifying (not to mention the father was this dummy named lloyd which is pretty much the most deadbeat dad name ever). i'm fairly confident i'll pass the $1500 mark for money spent on babies in one year by the time december rolls around.

on saturday after all the picklebacks we ended up at a lesbian bar listening to whitney's "dollar bill" which is STILL in my head. help!

picklebacks, yankees, CLE, random acts of guilt avoidance

2010-07-05T19:27:00.001-04:00

i've been drinking for pretty much 48 straight hours. that shit isn't healthy, i can say that much. pickebacks at the breslin. (jameson followed by pickle/jalapeno juice, the juice disperses the taste of the whiskey. it's as if the alcohol was never there. dangerous.) we were snuck into a skybox at yankee stadium, which, YES. and then we possibly weren't charged for a single beer. and i maybe got an extra fried pickle with my burger all of which mean I WIN. fireworks from julie's roof where her view was pretty phenomenal and where nobody died from falling off the edge. again, WIN.

i have to renew my bar membership and realized i haven't taken any CLE credits. i'm an idiot. i had 2 years to get 24 credits in and now i'm stuck trying to get them all in the next two months. GAH. procrastination! i found 13 IP seminars that you can download for free so i guess i have at least 8 hours of lectures i have to listen to (assuming i can play them back at 2X in quicktime)...

a strange thing happened in the subway a few days ago. it was late, 1am maybe, and i was waiting for the A train. i saw a blind man kind of aggressively swinging his stick across the ground in a pretty erratic manner. the minute his stick would hit the yellow strip along the platform he'd kind of cower and scoot back, like an abused dog to a raised hand. i saw him headed for a really narrow part of the platform and had a single vision of him falling onto the tracks run through my head before i ran over to grab him. so it wasn't so much out of the goodness of my heart (which you all know is cold and dead) but rather thinking how i'd like to avoid the personal guilt of watching a blind man die on the tracks 3 feet from me. as i walked over to him, beyond his shoulder, i saw this adonis. it was like a mirage. a tall guy with broad shoulders and glasses, a striped button down and he looked straight out of a ralph lauren catalog. stunning. i did a double take before i asked the blind man where he was headed and if he needed help. he said he was going to the first car and asked for my elbow. then he started getting ranty about how nobody offers to help and how they just want to watch him and make fun of him (which, really? do people really do that?) and i countered that maybe a lot of people would resent being treated like a crippled person so maybe they were afraid to offer. he responded, correctly, that the least they could do was ask. lesson learned.

i took him to where the first car would land. he had change he was jingling in his hand, which he promptly dropped on the ground and i see him fall to his hands and knees, swiping the ground with his fingers in little circles. so i have to run over again and tell him to get off the ground and that i'd pick it up for him. he just seemed so angry at the world, and maybe he was. i walk back 20 feet or so and see the adonis standing there, staring in my direction. maybe he's one of those people the blind guy was so angry about. the ones who just watch. i looked down at my magazine and back up and the dude was gone. he'd disappeared out of thin air which seemed appropriate since he seemed to have materialized the same way.

the subway pulls up, i watch as the blind guy gets on and then watch as he proceeds to holler at all the passengers, begging for change, and whacking peoples shins with his stick as he tries to make it to the other end of the car.

mostly a linkdump,

2010-07-03T12:21:00.000-04:00

delayed, but i liked this year's nyer fiction issue. of the bunch, there was only one story that i full on hated. it was about some guy dumping his child in a foreign country. he stuck scenes together without any discernible connection to one another. it wasn't smart. in fact, it seemed he set out to not make any sense whatsoever in an attempt to seem deep. the pieces by josh ferris and jonathan safran foer. i hated that those were my favorites but they were. i'm one of those contrarians that tries to resist the super hyped but, well, there it is.

oh, you guys. oh. oh. oh. it's still possibly too painful to talk about but i'll try to soldier through. one of my life goals is to get stopped by the sartorialist. it's the kind of thing that would validate every single second of my life spent wondering what to wear. every single cent i've spent on clothes. it's not just about fashion though. it's about being in the right part of town at the right time. my first and maybe only encounter i'll ever have with him came a couple weeks ago. i was in the urban outfitters on 6th ave. i first saw the camera. this massive lens protruding a foot off his chest. his chest-level is just about at mine. i'm 5'1" which means he's one of the SHORTEST MEN EVER. it was leprechaun-like. he was with his girlfriend, the incredibly elegant garance dore. she, too, had a camera around her neck. and because this is new york, the #1 rule about living in new york is to NOT LOOK AT FAMOUS PEOPLE. do not gawk, do not stare, do not even acknowledge they exist. acknowledging their existence makes you look touristy and, most importantly, NOT COOL and slightly fangirlish. so i see him. i freeze. i do a 180. i look down and see i'm wearing a totally unspectacular outfit. so unspectacular that i can't even remember now what it was. i think it was a skirt and top with flats. not chic. but in my own defense, it was a monday! who can rally on a monday?! i was waiting in line at the register, keeping an eye on their location, stealthily, making sure my posture was confident and breezy (because i think the key to half the people he photographs isn't all what they're wearing, but how easily they're wearing it). but no dice. i paid and left the store feeling like i'd missed the opportunity of a lifetime. sob.

in cleaning up my life i've been doing a good job in my apartment. i've gathered massive mountains worth of makeup and parfums and whatever else gets passed over to me in gala giftbags. new things wrapped in plastic. jewelry. stuff that i didn't want and might have tossed but then i thought, "what if i try ebay?" and wouldn't you know it? people will buy ANYTHING. i've made some $500 on ebay in the last month which isn't a fortune but it's a lot more than the zero dollars i'd have had if that 2005 chloe perfume was tossed in the dumpster. the funniest was a set of pins i obtained while in vancouver for the olympics. they were free and promotional. i threw them on ebay and somebody paid me $50 for them. people are insane!

new favorite tumblr

i am obsessed with this couple

also obsessed with this couple. SO GREAT.

reason 8023 why i love new york.

pretty amazing.

OH! and i've recently become better looking. plastic surgery? no. weight loss? unfortunately no. I OWN AN IPHONE 4. and it's hot. and i'm hot. and i am still at the point where i just stare at it longingly. however, i don't own a bumper as all the stores sold out and i'm really not a graceful person so i'm very afraid of dropping my precious. maybe i can get one of those baby bjorn wraps so i can strap it to my chest. i facetime chatted with david and the boys out in fire island and felt like i was there with them. it was sweet. and because all my friends have the 4, we'll get to face chat whenever for whatever reason which sounds great but might turn into the thing david foster wallace prophesied in infinite jest which is something i've referenced several times over the past few weeks. that man was brilliant.

i've maybe made a video which i'll possibly link here depending on how mortifying it is. i still shake my head here thinking about how i got wrapped into it at all and the celebrity we were making it with. it's silly. life is silly.

grey gardens, georgia, 86ing locanda, yankees

2010-06-23T00:21:00.002-04:00

i mean, he still looks 20.

i finally read sloane crosley's "i was told there'd be cake" just in time for her second book to come out. i enjoyed the references to all things having to do with my childhood. we have a lot in common and we must be the same age. dolphin earrings diving through your lobes, oregon trail, carmen sandiego, summer camp, suburban living, we were both almost named jennifer (which, no offense, would have been TRAGIC). i did feel like she had to stretch a fair amount to make stories out of some of these vignettes. felt she was trying a bit hard to be clever. however, she's 1000 times funnier than i am and certainly a better writer and likely smarter than i. her second book i'm sure will show some maturity, i'm looking forward to it.

managed to snag seats in the delta skybox last weekend. am now best friends with the bartender there (who conveniently also works at MSG) and me and my girls drank for free the whole damn time. the seats were all cushy and we were so close to the field that i could have yelled at my boyfriend cano and he definitely would have been able to see me. i'm going to hold off on the crazy antics till i'm close enough to shove my number down his pants. anyone here have field seats? robert the florist for all the mario restaurants says he's got primo seats. wondering what baseline they're on...

my favorite maitre'd is no longer at locanda verde. at this point, i know a handful of people who work there. i've heard a few stories about how management doesn't have anyone's back and a few more stories about how it's not the kind of place you'd stay longer than a year anyhow. too many owners, too much snobbery, too sceney, too many priorities in the wrong place. but the food is excellent and they'll always do good business which, i suppose, is why staff may not be the most important concern. there will always be an actor who needs a job. it's why i admire danny meyer so much. people are going to eat at his restaurants and he's going to make money anyhow. he doesn't have to treat his staff like gold but he does. he doesn't have to go above and beyond on the service side but he does. and i know andrew has his name attached to the place but he's probably checked out since he's opening a new restaurant and who the fuck really wants to deal with deniro and his ilk day in and day out? anyway, when ahiram gets a new job, i'm sending every one of my friends to whatever new places he chooses. i have a good 4 dozen well-connected people who go wherever i tell them to food-wise (and proceed to book their dates or corporate dinners there, etc.) and i couldn't live without returning the favor ahiram gave to me. he was a friendly face to a girl who eats out alone, a lot. and now i'm lucky enough to call him a friend. to bigger and better things!

have committed myself to a pub crawl with dave pasternack. it started with him trashing my favorite dive, saying there were much better dives to spend time at and he'd prove it to me. i'd promised to help him at the lobster roll event which he actually had to drop out of. he was going to return the favor by bringing me to the frankies cookbook party but i had to go to the jed foundation gala instead. then i left for georgia so he called yesterday and pinned me down to a day. i'm already feeling drunk thinking about it. i'm not going to be able to keep up. i'll have to secretly order club sodas and pretend there's vodka in them. will be an adventure, regardless.

speaking of restaurant workers, a good friend has been handling a bunch of cases against restaurant owners who are underpaying their staff (mostly the illegal immigrants who don't realize they actually have rights even if they don't have citizenship). they're easy cases, all you need is a few paystubs and people to sign affidavits as to the fact they all aren't making minimum wage and the owners (who pretty much always know they're being shady bitches) settle up and sign contracts saying they won't fire the current staffers unless for cause (a cause being something OTHER than the fact that they sued). seems like a pretty lucrative business and there is an endless number of restaurants in the city not following the rules. might be time to start striking up bussers and delivery men with a calculator in hand when i go out to dinners from now on...

OMG you guys! we totally went and hung out at grey gardens. we were the chicest people there which ended up being a disappointment. you never want to go anywhere and feel like there's nobody there worth ogling at. the food was hideous but the house and grounds were historic and the cater waiters were cute and our favorite dj was playing so it wasn't all bad.

my week in georgia was southern bliss. home cooked meals in peachtree city and ellijay where i met my namesake, a rust colored hen who ted's mom describes as "the feisty one"that prefers to hang out with the rooster rather than her fellow hens (which, btw, is dangerous because roosters like their own space and will kill another bird in his way). i got head nudged by colin the goat which i was told was the goat version of a nuggie. we drove four wheelers around the 25 acre farm and fed lettuce to the ducks and day old doughnuts to the cows and gilbert the donkey. i pulled an egg from under a chicken and then apologized immediately for stealing her baby, which ted's mom thought was ridiculous (she was right). at the wedding we went skeet shooting with rifles which scared the crap out of me. i was terrified to take the safety off because i didn't like even holding something deadly. the noise was loud. there was a certain amount of satisfaction in sliding out an empty shell. it felt very badass to hear the click and see the casing fly out to the side. but after a few shots i called it quits and when i handed off the gun i realized my hands were shaking something fierce.

Gilbert!

but mostly the wedding was an awful lot of drinking and eating chick-fil-a. all my bests were there and we had a sweet cabin with a pool table and hot tub (sautee resorts, i highly recommend it) and we sang and danced and swam in the river by a covered bridge and ate fried and pickled okra. the ceremony was beautiful and we decked the getaway car in loads of glow in the dark bracelets. the brides dad makes his own wine (they have a small vineyard) and limoncello and the BBQ there is fantastic. but it was HOT. i'd call it steamy and disgusting but if you were being optimistic, it would be "sultry."

this is going to be too much information but i had an annual ladyparts visit today, mentioned some period irregularity and was given an ultrasound. it's a strange thing to get an ultrasound when you're not trying to be pregnant. i mean i'm NOT pregnant. no chance in hell. but then she's sticking that wand up there and you think, "hm, hope she doesn't find a heartbeat!" she did not. but my uterus is pointed the wrong way and i have teeny ovaries. all this time i've lived my life without having the slightest idea whether my reproductive organs were even all there and functioning. strange. not that i was ever planning on having children to begin with but strange to think how much i don't know about my own damn body at this point in life.

My babies

2010-06-10T16:53:00.001-04:00

strangers, new york, missed events

2010-06-09T23:30:00.002-04:00

this was clever.

and improv everywhere does it again. awesome.

so just as soon as i was wrangled in to help at a lobster roll competition, my guy had to drop out because the folks at citi field didn't check the schedule before they committed and couldn't do it on a game night. but then, THEN, the chef says, "well the good news is that i've got an even better party for you on thursday! it's a cookbook release party for X and Y (major band) will be playing!" the problem with that: i'm already committed to a gala dinner on thursday with david. i'd agreed to take the place of the boyfriend he's just broken up with.

so yeah. no cookbook party madness for me. and for that, i am SAD. #whitewhine

i had a lovely weekend out in fire island with my gays. lots of lying by the pool. we've figured out accommodations for our field trip out to grey gardens (OMG! WE ARE GOING TO GREY GARDENS!) so many little things to do i can't even think straight. my personal planner looks like a pair of pencils went waltzing across it willy nilly. double and triple bookings 4 nights out of the week.

this is a screenshot of my statcounter the other day. BEST search to find my blog EVER. i like to think of this as being about an engagement to be married, not an engagement the english way which would just mean plans for dinner or whatever. but YES, googling something like that won't get you anywhere productive, hence how they ended up at my blog. AWESOME. i'm getting like 40 hits a day now about robinson cano. YES. I AM HIS GIRLFRIEND. WE ARE IN LOVE. I'M HAVING HIS BABIES. the thing is that i've had my eye on that guy for at least 4 years. i've been talking about how hot he is long before anyone knew who he was. but now, NOW he's a fucking hot shot so everybody is trying to get in on this. they need to BACK OFF. srsly.

i got in the elevator heading up to pilates and a man jumped in as the doors were sliding shut. he goes to push a button and retreats. he's obviously not going to pilates. i see him looking at me, "are you running late to class?" i wasn't. "oh, i didn't want to hold you up! i'd have rode up with you and then taken it back down to my floor." which, honestly, was pretty much the best random act of kindness from a stranger i've had in weeks. this elevator is ancient and takes FOREVER and he was volunteering to bypass his floor so that i could get to pilates on time? unbelievable.

i was on the subway uptown and some woman sits next to me and i can see her staring at me. i'm thinking, "what the F did i do to this woman?" because in new york, when someone is annoying you, you give them dirty looks. so i brush my hair behind my ear and i hear her say, "no! don't do that." i turn to look at her to see whether she's talking to me and she is. "it looks more chic down. don't tuck behind." YES. some woman on the train yelled at me for tucking my hair behind my ears. it's zeki, my old stylist, reincarnated as a small latina woman who looks like she works the perfume counter at bloomingdales. i untucked my hair and she nodded in approval. i thanked her and then we both went back to minding our own business.

only in new york kids, only in new york.

don't ask me what day it is

2010-06-04T16:57:00.001-04:00

life kind of moves by these days and drags me with it. i'm out of town for the next three weekends, a lobster roll throw down, a black tie gala, a wedding in GA. many opportunities to wear the dresses in my closet with tags on them. and also to make myself crazy to find a place to stay for a single night in east hampton #whitepeopleproblems all my days are blending into each other in this strange way when last night i found myself checking my planner, seeing i'd penciled in the cleaners for next thursday but then saying, "no, they came a few days ago" and then realizing it was thursday and that they'd come that very morning. total mindfuck.

met a guy, found out he was a republican which, for me, is a total deal breaker. he wasn't a fiscal conservative either. he gave cagey-ass answers about not thinking humans caused global warming and that he was some big capitalist and wouldn't be able to live with himself if a woman whom he was with ever had an abortion. basically all the WRONG answers. disaster. game over. know what's also wrong? married men hitting on me. it's been happening everywhere i go lately. i'm fairly certain i don't put out the "i will have a torrid affair with you" vibe because 1.) i won't 2.) gross and 3.) i'm not remotely desperate enough to feel any kind of validation from that. so it's probably the boobs. meh.

paid someone to come in and clean my apartment and that woman was scrubbing the corners and washing walls. (who washes walls? do people do that?) and my apt looks amazing. i was cleaning my room and kept finding bottles of designer parfume and lotions and makeup that i collect from various event gift bags so sent her home with a big tote of stuff and lipsticks for her daughters to play with. basically, she's my new best friend.

a friend of a friend has been here illegally for a decade. he was here with asylum but he found out years later that his lawyer never filled out the paperwork correctly at the beginning. he's been married to a lovely woman for 5 years and he just got picked up from his house and brought to a detention center. so i guess this is where my lawyering and politics experience comes in handy because i've helped to put them in touch with their congresswoman and their senator. where the fuck is immigration reform when you need it?

having a weekend with the gays in fire island this weekend. will be a nice break even though it's thunderstormy. i love listening to the ocean and the way my hair feels in the salty air.

tired, mary hk choi brilliance

2010-06-02T08:35:00.001-04:00

a gem from tavi. i can't believe she's still in junior high. i feel so inadequate.

i've generally had an exhausting couple weeks. i'm working with the democratic front runner to be the next governor of new york state. and because he held off declaring he was even running until so late and then wanted everything to be a surprise there have been endless last minute press conferences and running around and chaos and early mornings. there was a point on thursday where i thought my body and brain were just going to say, "peace out!" and leave whatever was left on at the rye hilton dem convention floor. i do like these political events because i see a lot of old friends there. a reunion of sorts! and it's always good to be working for the guy you know is going to win, even if doing so is kind of a sacrifice and even if there's no guarantee of a real job later down the line and even if there is a real job, it'll pay beans.

that being said, it's still great to get out of the law firms for a while.

fleet week was as per usual. grown men throwing themselves at you and whispering all the bad, BAD things they want to do to you in increasingly desperate tones as their 2am curfew approaches. and unfortunately for them, i've rarely been the type (have had my moments) to bring a random guy home whom i've just met. also, i just washed my sheets. they're wasting their time. if they looked like josh hartnett we might have been in business, but just regular old good looking won't cut it, especially as i was sober.

the boys made another video. it's a little shaky but cute all the same.

i mean: YES....To me, happy is the awesomest flavor of awesome. Hands down. And this speaks to my earlier response, but I honestly think the best thing you can do each and every day to get happy is incrementally work toward creative goals that are heart-burstingly fulfilling. No matter how daunting and unlikely the prospect of success. I mean, I've been quasi-skint my whole adult life living in a very expensive city and I've launched a TON of things that died or broke and have taken financial risks—but if not now then when? In fact, in the next two years, I'm launching no less than SIX independently published, creator-owned projects with my brother and his fiancée Sonia Oback, who is a super-sick colorist. And those projects will wobble like newborn foal and munch through our savings but, man, it's so thrilling. I'm not rash and foolhardy enough to buy property or have children, so in the meantime if I can just move forward and leave a trail of creative things that I adored putting together, I think I'll be happy as much as it's in my control to be happy. Basically, I think if everyone learned to live like me and followed my teachings they would rule so much harder than if they just went blindly living how they're inclined to. Oh, and consume other creative's things. All the time. Gorge. And applaud. And be covetous. And tell them you hate them to their faces. And learn.

brilliance from xkcd.

mice, esca, aol, semper fi!

2010-05-28T18:08:00.001-04:00

so the repair people came and patched up some holes and we thought that would fix our mouse problem. we were wrong. i heard noises in my room the other night and woke up to see one scurry out. so i threw a sticky mouse trap where i saw him last. and it was there for a couple weeks. but then it wasn't there when i got home and my roommate hadn't touched it. which means, i think, that a mouse got enough of himself stuck on there to be able to walk somewhere with it which is CRAZY thinking about a mouse with one leg on this trap dragging it around my apartment. and we can't find it. we've looked EVERYWHERE. we have no idea what to do at this point. besides maybe find a cat to bring over and sniff around for it...

the cuteness! oh my god!

why john is sometimes jack.

had a long drunken night at esca again when i'd only meant to have a drink at the bar and maybe some crudo. both robert the florist and dave the chef yelled at me for standing them up. apparently i'd promised to come into the shop for peonies and told dave i'd go on a dive bar tour with him. i don't remember EITHER of these things. that is why i should stop drinking alcohol. oh, but that have that bastianich friulani that i love so much. and vic was behind the bar and i met a ton of lovely people (again) including mike, a sous chef at babbo. lots of shop talk occurred which, really, all the good gossip i get from anywhere i get in confidence and can't ever write about which makes having good gossip much less fun. but finally the carmellini soho spot leaked on eater. i've got some pitches in the works for some food-related writing that i'm really excited about.

julie brought me to an aol 25th anniversary party also this week which was tres chic and for which i'm whipped out a gorgeous DVF dress that i've never worn so i was excited to debut it. it started off at the new museum with a chuck close exhibit, some astounding tequila cucumber mint drinks and the food was rocking: mini lobster rolls, filet mignon, tuna tartare, truffled tater tots, truffled mac and cheese, parmesan cauliflour flan and other yumminess.

OMG: one of my best friends, alex, got engaged and two more of my friends are pregnant. this year, man. makes me feel like i'm really destined to die one of those dog ladies. but mike proposed via this adorable video with google earth pinpointing their first dates and tons of adorable pictures of them. it makes me teary every time i watch. i love it.

it is fleet week! past fleet weeks: here and here and here

the box, swingers, doodles, boobs, ebay

2010-05-20T14:58:00.001-04:00

y'all, today is ROUGH. didn't get in until close to 5am and then had to wake up to do some bullshit CLE's online because theyr'e free and i take anything free these days.

speaking of free: managed to drink my face off last night and only spend $15 which went to charity! i win. some bacardi reps were in the bar giving away pints of mojitos. YES PLEASE! then we went to The Box for some private party with Brazilain sugar barons. when we get to the door the bouncer/manager dude introduces himself to us and then says with some accent i didn't recognize, "you are here to misbehave them?" which, i think, means he was asking whether we were the hired prostitutes. amazing! i probably repeated that phrase another 10 times throughout the night. the party itself was a total meatfest. drunk men getting grabby all over. at one point i'm up in the balcony, leaning over a railing, watching one of the burlesque shows and sitting next to a pretty girl. some ugly ass dude with blond hair (i don't trust blondes) sits on the other side of her and grabs my hand and puts it on her ass. i pull it away because i don't want this girl to be offended by my forced grabbiness. he leaves and i'm like, "sorry! that guy just put my hand on your ass! i don't know him!" and she goes, "oh, that was my husband!"

after the show i meet up with my friends who said, "that couple next to you are swingers!" i told them i'd found that out the hard way. they said i should be flattered because they only hook up with really good looking people. heh. i'll take what i can get...

neil patrick harris was there with the all star survivor cast. i really wanted to go up to him and get gushy about how much i loved him but it's so touristy and un-new yorkish to go up to famous people. i just couldn't.

improv everywhere awesomeness

i cleaned out my closet and found no less than 10 pairs of shoes, size 6. guess what? i'm a 6.5. i went through this stage of buying cute shoes on super sale and then hoping my feet would shrink into them. it never happened! surprise! they're all on ebay with "never worn, unfortunately" tags on them.

peter told me he wrote a word doodle about me years ago. i told him it was cute and he said, "You had showed me a picture of you where you looked riiiiidiculously gorgeous. I figured if I told you that you'd be all annoyingly Jasmine about it, so I wrote that instead." this gchat ensued:

me: annoyingly jasmine.

i actually know EXACTLY what that means.

Peter: exactly

see?

i know you

me: i met a guy last night and tried to tell him i was annoying.

Peter: You're hot, so guys won't care

you could tell them just about anything

me: i want someone to love me for my BRAIN peter.

and because i'm a good democrat

Peter: it's all part of the package, lady.

me: and if they are dating me because of my boobs, that's okay too.

Peter: i'd burn a building because of your boobs

me: you're too kind.

Peter: naw. just blurty

election commentary

2010-05-19T01:13:00.000-04:00

initial thoughts: nice night for the democrats.

we picked up a special election seat in PA-12. and sestak managed to come behind for a win against specter. my thing with specter is 1.) he didn't vote with the dems nearly enough for me to be grateful for him and 2.) he didn't vote with the GOP enough for them to care about him either and 3.) you just got the sense that he wasn't ever true to himself.

i'd rather a person vote where their values are, or even where their constituents are and he just waffled back and forth so much between what he said mattered and the way he voted that he was doing nothing but chasing political wins and trying to tamp down political losses. he had a job that mattered and because he was trying too hard to play the game, he lost the damn job. it wasn't even that he was a centrist (which he may have been) but that he's flat out changed his position 180 degrees so many times that nobody felt they could trust him. it's okay to be with one party to the next depending on the issue but to go back and forth on the same bill? no dice.

rand paul won, which is interesting in the quaint kind of way that i'll be amused at until i feel threatened. he's in the same camp with sarah palin. cute until they give me some reason to need to take them seriously.

anyway, enough weak republicans won that democrats should feel a little more comfortable going into november. and maybe we'll have a couple more GOP gay scandals on the dark horses that won primaries tonight. one can only hope.

LOST, glee, subway stories

2010-05-18T22:44:00.001-04:00

this cracked my shit up.

so i bought that digital converter for my tv and bunny ears and then i couldn't set it up. it seemed kinda flimsy and it was from radioshack (and who buys anything from radioshack?) and thought i got a bum one. well, it's tuesday which means LOST day. i was meant to go to this esquire party but it was rainy and david said it would be a madhouse because nobody was controlling the RSVP count so i ended up at home. so i tried again and GUESS WHAT?! i totally screwed it up the first time. i'm the worst with electronics. so at 9:05 i finally got that shit working. HUZZAH!

the AIDSwalk was this weekend. the day was beautiful. swag handed out along the way: bananas, granola bars, coconut water, popchips, orange juice, stacy's pita chips. rock on. there was a champagne reception after that dirk, my new friend from brunch last weekend) brought me to at the boathouse.

i had lunch with jill, whom i hadn't seen in years. it was a much needed meal with a friend who is so smart that she's always about 3 steps ahead of me. and the minute i started to complain about this third-life crisis thing, this feeling a bit lost and confused about what the F i'm doing with myself, she's put me in my place. i have a whole lot to be grateful for. she also made me feel not so ridiculous about being all over the place as far as what i think i want out of this little life of mine.

and re: lost...holy shit guys. this episode has been EVENTFUL. but i guess there's only so much they have to keep out now that there are only two hours left. TWO HOURS. yikes.

this is what i wrote in my iphone one night while drunk and on the subway home: puffy seams, synthetic. hemmed too short or just naturally tall? black jersey sleeves, stonewash denim. fat woman, no front teeth, darkened eyelids, mcdonalds bag, just off her shift. three young men. braces and nice teeth. strong jaws. reckless. she watches them. wanting to belong without looking like she wants to belong.

speaking of the subway: i was sitting on the train and a group of 6 walks in. a man follows them in with a ukulele. one of them asks him to play something and he starts this little ditty with a chorus that does, "hot tamales they are red hot, yes, she's got 'em for sale" which, after a google search, seems to be this. but the thing is, that the group of 6 and then another 20 people in this train car all started singing the chorus with him. he had like 5 verses and as each one passed, another 4 people joined in. i thought for a second it was an improv everywhere stunt but no, it was just a random act of fun that happens because we're in new york, all squished together, and sometimes we spontaneously enjoy each other's company.

my life is all over the place. korean fried chicken in the park, pilates, glee marathons ("jesse's girl" is fin's best so far and puck's "lady is a tramp"...LOVE and "the boy is mine" was so so so good), swing dancing on the roof with colin's signature cocktails, pilates, a beautiful dinner at perilla, another gorgeous meal at james,

new friends! yipee!

2010-05-11T11:48:00.000-04:00

you guys, i'm totally laura from the glass menagerie. except for that instead of figurines, i collect people. oh, and i'm also not shy and not crippled. but otherwise, we're the SAME PERSON.

it happened again. i was having brunch alone, minding my own business. all the gays are in fire island every other weekend now and this had promised to be a quiet weekend with them gone. i sit down, order a pulled pork sandwich special. the guy next to me was all, "oh, i wanted to order that but i should be good so i got the nicoise salad instead but i'm going to live vicariously through you." the sandwich was awesome. we keep chatting. he's a gay who works at macy's, his friend met up with us and we continued to drink. his boyfriend joined us, more drinking ensued. before i knew it i'd been recruited to go shopping with them and then also invited to dinner with one of their girlfriends. i made a phone call and we were put in the garden at locanda verde (i can't stay away, i know) and had a ridiculously debaucherous dinner. many bottles of wine, many apps and pastas and every single dessert on the menu. and more wine. we were sat outside so it was nice and quiet and perfect for story-telling and drunken bonding. our server was hilarious and didn't hate us, even though we were loud and silly. i didn't feel drunk until i was in the cab home and then had to start doing that split-second planning about how to vomit while in the cab. at what point would i ask him to pull over. would i open the door or throw up out the window? just utterly nauseous.

anyhow: new friends! yay.

i've officially changed out winter clothes for all my pretty summer dresses so of course it was 30 degrees and windy today. and somewhere some asshole is denying global warming.

we did some crazy-ass balancing flying shit at pilates and i have gigantic bruises across my thighs which makes me think i was doing something wrong. not that anybody is looking at my legs anyhow.

this week is nuts. have plans every single night through next wednesday. i'm tired just thinking about it.

when i decide i have agoraphobia, but then get over it because i can't actually live in my apt

2010-05-09T13:02:00.001-04:00

so i get on the A train home. a hipsterish couple sitting across from me; he in a beard, she in a red checkered flannel. they both had wire-rimmed glasses that would knock against each other when they would put their foreheads together cutely. so i'm all, "oh, cute nerd hipster love." and then i see her stick her index finger up her nose. like, really far up her nose, digging. she comes out with something and looks at it and then bites it off with her teeth. I KNOW, YOU GUYS. oh, but she's not done. then she goes up there with a thumb, making round sweeping movements. movements that she's likely done a hundred million times. same thing, looks at her find and eats it. i'm just staring at her in shock really. she doesn't notice i'm looking and doesn't seem to think anything is wrong with this. she goes back and forth between nostrils and back and forth between index finger and thumb for 80 blocks. constantly. and then, AND THEN, bitch grabs onto the subway pole as she leaves. I MEAN, MY GOD. it made me want to go home and never go out in public ever again. THIS is why i don't touch the subway and almost vomit every time i grab onto a pole. this is also why i can't ever have children because children touch things that are gross, which then would make me not want to touch my child. like, ever again.

my management company are assholes. they never do repairs and are pretty much slumlords. i'm not at home often and my rent is cheap enough that i figure i get what i'm paying for. we lose hot water and heat many times during the winter. the roof had all these holes and one of them was in my entrance hallway. every time we'd have a heavy rain, all the plaster and paint would fall right off. then they'd come and repair that hole and every time they did i said, "fix the fucking roof." and then a week ago i got an e-mail from a guy named mike at the mgt office. he said they were installing a WHOLE new roof. and sure enough i hear all the people banging away above me (i'm on the 5th floor). so it rains a lot on sunday evening. 2am monday morning, there's pounding on my door. and there's water all over my apt. leaks from like 10 different places. the pounding is the FDNY, called in by the neighbors whose entire ceilings had collapsed on them with the rain. it turns out the roofers took off our roof and then didn't tarp it and left for the weekend. IDIOTS. the cops were here, my city councilman was here and the local papers showed up. camera crews. insane. the mgt company sends like 20 people over, realize how bad their upkeep as been and what bad press they're getting. HPD shows up. anyway, they're acting like they care and i've had people in my apt all week doing repairs. i've had a staycation of sorts.

so i've gotten lots of random ironing done, some writing, i finally planted some basil, chives, cilanatro and dill with my chia herb garden. i really hope they grow. i don't have much of a green thumb but i'll feel like a total failure if i can't get this shit to work. i'm feeling kind of maternal about it. they're my little babies. i also really like fish as pets. i'm the mommy but i don't have to really put in that much effort. it's a win/win.

and, i'm sorry, but how freaking cute is syar?!

ISO: SWM, mac genius, sense of humor, democrat...and some random food linkage

2010-05-07T10:21:00.000-04:00

i've had some computer problems. i honestly thought i was going to wake up with white hair the next day, i was so freaked out. i made a frantic call to apple care and got a guy in oregon who talked me through a few hard rebooting procedures. he was calming and re-assuring and i found myself wanting to ask him to dinner. i seriously think my next boyfriend is going to be a mac bar genius. there's something about a guy who knows his way around a mac that gets me hot and bothered. and there's nothing like computer problems to make me feel all damsel-in-distressy and completely helpless. anyway, the oregonian made me a genius bar appointment and i was able to get a new hard drive for free because the one i had was known to be a "troubled" hard drive, which would have been nice to know from the beginning because maybe i'd have been more diligent about backing all that shit up in the first place. i hadn't backed up since october. but, thankfully, all my pictures from africa were in my idisk and all my music was downloaded for free from other people's idisks so most of what i lost i was able to get back. c'est la vie.

(randomly, some homeless person started speaking french to me. i responded with what little french i know. that was a mistake. he followed me around for 3 blocks because he thought i was his french soul mate. and on that note: scary!)

remember that amazing clip of david chang going to piece of chicken, getting wasted, then going to frankies? another installment from vice tv. this one with andrew carmellini from locanda verde. luke ostrom is there too. he may be one of the best looking people i've seen in person, next to nigel barker, though i suspect he'd much rather be less pretty so he could avoid the attention. my favorite part is AC talking about how he would have brought cheaper wine had he known they weren't going to open what he'd brought. that happens to me all the time. though, drinking all my good wine by myself at home doesn't sound like that healthy of an alternative. and i relate to not feeling that the job he was doing was good for his soul. in fact i'm looking to leave the legal profession altoghether. is this risky? SURE. is it liberating? YES. am i terrified? CERTAINLY. is it still probably the right thing to do? i hope so. i'll be 30 this year. i deserve to have a job i enjoy. something that feeds my soul. i'll work through my savings and if i run out of money, there's always stripping. kidding! (not really.) oh! and the video mentions 100 layer lasagna. i am so getting george to hook some of that up for me next time i'm at del posto.

the newest song that i keep playing on repeat

food porn. this clip made me die inside because of how badly i want to eat at marea every meal of the day.

i got a lobster roll from the underground lobster pound. those things are really decent. he tells you to text him from a random street corner. he'll text you an exact address and you pick it up from the windowsill of a ground floor apartment. it feels very dangerous and 007. the roll is $14 and it's just huge chunks of tender lobster in some butter and old bay. no mayo. an excellent roll if you happen to be in whichever neighborhood he's selling from.

jellyfish!

beauty from alex balk: But there was something about this photo that, for me at least, captured the absolute perfection of living in New York City, even when it's pouring—especially when it's pouring: the way the lights brighten the corners and the thickness of the air carries with it some strange hint of promise that something surprising and worthwhile will happen to you if manage to brave it out. Everyone has a sense of expectation on the evenings where it is beautiful and there's a smiling face on each passerby, but there's something about an artificially brightened rainy night in New York that offers up an entirely different suggestion of potential for those willing to chase it down

new york weekends

2010-05-04T12:17:00.001-04:00

oh, sigh.

all the weekends are starting to blend into one another. they all have a lot in common, quality gay time, lots of alcohol and so much laughing that my stomach hurts afterwards. i'm so thankful for the type of friends that will burst into song in the street, that quack at dogs, that make silly videos and have costume parties.

one of the gays claims i promised to show him my va-jay-jay when he said he'd never seen one. i was not drunk on the night in question and am certain i never said such a thing because, well, can't he just google that shit? so he went and found some other girl who said she'd show hers and before i knew it, i was out-pussied.

a boozy brunch was had at choptank (where the food is excellent, by the way). also worth noting, the drink special they had the weekend we were there was eliminated a week later, everything cool gets ruined. it was a 2 for 1 special and i am secretly wondering whether we're the reason they got rid of it. we all had several rounds of two drinks, were talking loudly about how diarrhea was a pretty word and that we'd choose that when naming our children. we recounted stories from the night before and on the whole had a very NOT kid-friendly conversation, peppered with expletives which is the only kind of conversation worth having, if you ask me. from brunch we took a walk, ran into one of our favorite trannys who looks so busted during the day that it almost killed our buzz. from there we drank rose on the roof and once the boys had heard i'd missed the "very mary kate" party we went and watched every episode. twice. because you basically can't be friends with us anymore if you can't quote the shit out of all her episodes. we're like that sometimes. we also discovered this guy, who is amazing. we moved to a rodeo bar that had $3 mojitos and went around the table discussing our lowest sexual moments. i started racking my brain, trying to remember the worst and BAM! one hit me square in the forehead. i realize that i'd probably blocked it out for several years. it has to do with gavin degraw. that's all i'll say about that. but then, THEN, we headed to a tranny show to see our favorite: porsche. she is the best-est and she really sings so all other trannies seem so lame and blah next to her. and by the end, the tranny cocktail waitress had grabbed me to slow dance.

colin brought a group of us to a party at the Norwood, a members-only spot that has more charm and less snobbishness than the soho house, so it gets a thumbs up in my book. it was a costume party and the theme was, "evening with the senator" and everyone dressed up in their best madmen era politician chic attire. at colin's suggestion (OMG YOU GUYS. check your macy's catalog. he's probably in there giving fashion tips. there's a cute little black and white photo of him and whatnot. he's famous), i wore a black dress and several strands of pearls. someone played chopin, the "senator" gave a speech that borrowed heavily from inspirational moments in movies, such as the fountain scene from Goonies. we met a couple who brought flasks with them, which meant they HAD to be our friends. her flask was dainty and fit perfectly tucked in my bra, which she then pulled out with her teeth. she's my soulmate! he was aussie and a soccer player. both the coolest.

i don't think new york gets better than this.

in other news, i'm switching professions! i think! well, trying to, anyways! details on that later.

Sultry backyard, the Norwood

2010-04-23T21:39:00.000-04:00

adopt a dog! new friends, fava beans, lame dudes, marry me robbie cano!

2010-04-13T20:30:00.000-04:00

watch this whole thing. please.

went to my favorite brunch spot, a place i always go to alone because it's easier to get a seat and also because they all know me there now and have a decently chatty rapport with me. i started talking to a young couple a few seats down. they were friends with my favorite bartender there. we ended up spending the rest of the day together, napping on the pier, getting cookies from birdbath bakery and then heading to fat cat for shuffleboard. i am actually sort of good at shuffleboard! we played girls against boys and kicked some ass. it was one of those new york kind of days. my new friends actually didn't live in nyc, one was in boston and the other in the navy in DC (soon to be shipped off to afghanistan). he spent the day teaching us words from a language that wasn't farsi, but was similar to it. totally random but really lovely people that i hope to see again soon.

spring veggies are back in restaurants. locanda's fava bean crostini is back. HOORAY. i just love LOVE the fava bean crostini. and ramps are with peas and speck and spaghetti in something that resembles carbonara but really is not anything close to a carbonara because carbonara does not have peas or cream. i'm very serious about this. i'm a carbonara originalist. some small dirty-looking girl walked past me. she was very olsen-girlesque. but it was drew barrymore! who knew she was so tiny!! and she was with justin long and jimmy fallon. then governor paterson's advance person walked in and it was URGENT that the GOVERNOR get a table. the GOVERNOR is standing right there! and then she pointed at him. as if you could miss him. it was all so strange. i mean, i don't know. maybe i'd have been more impressed if he weren't such a lame duck and hadn't screwed shit up so much for himself.

i'm out to brunch with al. we went to extra virgin, home of the dreamy gorgonzola fondue (and the prettiest boy EVER was sitting to us and he rides a motorcycle so i'm fenced about whether he was gay or not). and al is like, "i went out with my friend mike. he wants to date you and told me to mention it to you." did you hear that? that was the sound of my head exploding. because, this was IMPROPER FORM. clearly he meant to write a note about it, fold it into a little football and give it to alex who then was supposed to hand it to me in sixth period social studies. RIGHT?

what mature adult sends a message like that through a friend? i KNOW this guy. he has my e-mail and probably my phone number. in short, it was a pussified move, if i've ever seen one. and people wonder why i don't date. *banging head on desk*

oh my god, you guys, martha stewart tweeted the yankees home opener. these tweets are amazing and i want them framed so i can read them over and over again. i sometimes can't decide whether i'm obsessed with martha stewart or hate her. today's tweets, while hysterical, also sent me into a jealous rage. i'm really super ragey still. and, AND there are no pictures of my baby robinson cano. WHERE IS CANO?! I WANT SOME CANO!

i'm nuts in my head today. have some writing to do. an essay on race to finish that i've started over so many times i really have no idea what i want anymore. disaster. thank god i'm not a real writer as that shit would STRESS me out. i have quaint little e-mail conversations with a new yorker writer who refuses to join twitter, facebook, et. al. says he doesn't need any more nonsense distracting him from his already prone-to-wandering brain and that it's a miracle he gets anything done. i think i'm probably 10 times more wandery. i'm sorry. i can't stop making up words. it's so lazy. gah.

lame follow up

2010-04-09T00:18:00.001-04:00

deciding rightly to forego the afterparty for the F&W event at kenmare

(of course), i made it to my 7am pilates. it was still dark out when i

left but the birds were busily chirping. when i get a dog, i wonder

how i'll find one that likes to sleep in. none of that 6am walk shit.

something i forgot to mention about the food and wine party: sarah

jessica parker was there and she's stunning in person. she's wee and

looks about 45 pounds and was walking around with that dude that hosts

the real housewives aftershows or whatever which seemed weird but i'm

sure he was feeling pretty lucky to have her on his arm. oh, and there

was FOOD there. the sliders from locanda, sturgeon sabayon from daniel

humm at eleven madison, a chic'ed up buffalo chicken with blue cheese

from that hottie voltaggio (the last top chef winner), fois gras with

some green jelly business from paul liebrandt, pork belly from gabe kreuther and hamachi tartare from dan silverman. rock on.

I'm loving the bird and the bee hall and oates tribute album. it's just completely unironic and unabashedly doting an album. it's hall and oates with catchier hooks and a beat underneath that could have been done by pharrell.

should be a quiet weekend. pilates and a brunch or two and i think some serious writing to do. an essay on race for an anthology (which i'll submit but doubt will be accepted) and a piece on vancouver that i'm going to edit to make it suitable for submission for the ny times, which sounds kind of crazy, but it's short and the short stuff doesn't pay so nobody much matters whether it's really that good and the professor suggested i try to edit it and re-submit so he'll let me know whether it ends up in a state good enough to send out to anyone.

we were talking about research in class and colin suggested going to bars and meeting locals and the teacher balked. he was just like, "oh, i can't do that. maybe if i had a pad of paper and pen with me to prove i was a journalist." and colin and i were both thinking, "oh my god! i'd never walk up to someone with a pad and pencil in a bar!" it made me stop to think just how different my life would be if i weren't so outgoing/social/generally fearless around people i don't know. i mean, i know thousands of people in this city and i'm not even the most "popular" of my friends. which got me to thinking that this is why i get along with women and gays so well. because we're more likely to be naturally outgoing. straight men generally don't prefer intimacy and certainly aren't all that chatty (which, tangentially, is probably why they like watching sports so much, they don't have to talk to people for hours at a time). i know i'm making some pretty general assumptions but of the people i know (and i know plenty) i would say that straight men are not typically silly nor do they enjoy just sitting around talking endlessly. when i go home and stay with kate and her husband anthony he'll sometimes just holler out things like, "don't you guys ever get tired of talking!" and you can see that his head is about to explode.

but i digress. writing, blah blah. at any rate, it's nice to have a new hobby. if my stuff gets good i'll think about posting it here. i'm not sure what people would do if things with capital letters that look like they'd been proofread started ending up in this space. it might freak them out too much.

food and wine best new chefs, mangosteens, babies

2010-04-07T00:16:00.000-04:00

oh my god, you guys. food & wine held their annual "best new chef" party at the four seasons tonight and i got to go! i'm still dying inside that i went. dana cowin (editor in chief of the magazine) held this little twitter contest where she'd dole out clues and the tweeps would try to guess who the chefs were. i mostly googled insanely and when i'd get it i'd find out that like 4 other people had it first. some of the clues were easy, some i still don't understand. regardless, some chick from chicago won! and she fucking flew out for this damn party! and i commented something to the effect of, "damn. i spent a LOT of time doing this and it sucks that i lost." and then i found out that i didn't lose at all! tickets were waiting for me at will call. HOLY SHIT. YES. it was at the four seasons which looks pretty much eleven madison park BEFORE it was eleven madison park. high ceilings, lots of 5 foot high flower arrangements (also like del posto, so i'll probably mention it to robert who does the del posto and esca floral arrangements to get his take), 3 staff members per guest and just decadent beyond belief. because i'm the fangirl i am, i recognized every damn person there. i finally met andrew carmellini from locanda verde. i had to say, "yeah, i'm that blogger. sorry." but he was as nice as could be and we had short, lovely little chat. he'd made meatball sliders. i was happy to report that my last dinner there was fantastic and that my friend brought a large work party there afterwards as well and they LOVED it too. "so you're friends with ahiram," he said, which was true. but he didn't know that we were only friends at all BECAUSE i was going to his damn restaurant so often. but anyway, yes, cheers to ahiram who is endlessly charming and a total superstar.

lockhart steele was there. we discussed faustina's review in the nytimes, out tomorrow (but posted tonight) and hinted at by jeffrey tascarella's twitter feed. "but while his kitchen is exciting, faustina is not." is a killer of a sentence. sifton was right that the portions are described as small and then are bigger in person. sometimes much bigger. and i'm a prime example of someone who thought they weren't ordering enough but then ended up with WAY TOO MUCH. (and it's totally better to have more than less but the dishes aren't particularly cheap so some people might not want to over-order.) but his main issue was with the space, which is something that feels unfair to judge a restaurant by when they didn't build it and it's part of a hotel. so, yeah, the bathroom is outside the restaurant and down some stairs. and YES, the place is chic to the point of frigidity. it ends with, "all this would be depressing if the food weren't so good." which is kind of shitty. if the food is that good, it should get two stars, period. this is MANHATTAN. he knows how fucking hard it is to find good space on this island.

but i digress. lockhart introduced us to his good friend sarah simmons, food and wine home cook superstar. she's amazing. she blogs here and she's pretty much just what i need. i'm a single girl who doesn't know how to cook for 1. she does. also, she loves dogs so we're totally going to be friends. sarah then brought us over to dana, the EIC of F&W who is so tiny and lovely. sarah and dana then turned me over to alessandra, a F&W assistant editor and she was also bubbly and charming and wearing a stunning green jewel-toned dress. and the F&W travel editor was wearing a stunning orange dress that (sadness!) was from india so i'll never own anything like it. otherwise, it was super star studded. the gorgeous seamus mullen was there. he has an asian girlfriend! which means, in my head, i have a chance with him in another life. todd english was there, the man famous for his asian fetish. marcus samuelsson looking sooo beautiful in a bright orange scarf. wyle dufresne, tom colicchio, anne burrell, danny meyer, drew nieporent, ad infinitum. we were there to honor the best new chefs and met roy choi who is cool as shit. he called out my half-asian-ness ("it's workin' for you") and told me i had to come visit the restaurant next time i was in L.A. we met an owner of blackbird in chicago who, of course, knew our friend pam. everyone knows pam. and for dessert, just as i was leaving some girl runs up to me and says, "i'm sorry, who makes your dress?" my answer: "h&m" "NO! you look like a million bucks!" she wailed. yes. yes indeed. i mean, i threw on a theory belt and some moderately expensive heels but the dress was a whole $25.00. she was flabbergasted. i was flattered beyond belief. we both win since h&m will likely make the dress again this summer so she knows to keep an eye out for it. but i'll seriously live on that compliment for the next two weeks, at least.

but the best, BEST part? i'm kind of hating work. actually, i'm really hating work. my job sucks and i'm not cut out for it. and lockhart and sarah and alessandra all said, "quit the damn job and start doing something with food because you obviously love it." and it was just such a relief to have real people tell me to do what is floating around in my head as just a whim. and they offered to send my writing (you know, the food/travel stuff i do) to real editors. and my writing teacher has been super supportive and really thinks that i could write about food if i wanted (i do! i do!) so, well, maybe i'll start pitching the shit out of people to see if anything comes of it. colin is a prime example of someone who throws himself into stuff and gets rewarded tenfold. he takes risks, unabashedly, and they pay off. it's inspiring and i think i need to start trying it myself. virgo-risk-averseness be damned.

congrats to the folks at locanda verde. a much deserved best chef and best new restaurant from time out. voted on by people who eat and, collectively, have pretty damn good taste in food. i'm proud to call myself a regular and a groupie. kate krader may be one of the few people to eat there more often than myself and she delivers the news that the fava bean crostini has returned! huzzah!!

also congrats to joseph leonard, another place that i might stop by weekly and totally adore, even though my beloved brussels sprouts are out of season and off the menu. harumph. but, like, they make a fucking KILLER bloody mary so i will continue to send them my business and wait for fall to hit again before the brussels come back into my life.

other exciting food news that i keep forgetting to mention: i finally tried a mangosteen. i've been wanting to stumble across them in chinatown but for all my visits through, haven't seen the thing. it's illegal to import them to the US but not, apparently, to canada, which is where i found them all over the damn place. the skin is easily peelable and they're so much smaller than i'd imagined. i'd thought they'd be the size of an orange. they were the size of a clementine. so tiny! and a lot of work for the small amount of fruit that you actually end up with which tastes like a lychee but then there's this annoying pit in the middle. totally disappointing.

chicago was sleepy and not sleepy at the same time. lots of napping but otherwise MUCH attention to be paid on the eensy baby. i just 100% fell in love with that thing. i didn't expect that. i didn't think i'd ever be one to just want to stare at a baby endlessly, take hundreds of photos and then, later, pull out my phone constantly to show off said pictures. but i've turned into that person. that person who shows off baby pictures. i took a few videos with my phone and have watched them too many times to count. i fed, burped, changed diapers. i could carry her around in my forearm and she loved sleeping on my chest. kate thought the lack of sleep and constant feeding/changing diapers was going to prove to me once and for all that i didn't want children. a few days in and she saw how damn doting i was and thought she'd proved that it meant i DID want to have babies of my own. she was wrong, mostly. i still don't think i'm ever going to do that myself but holy hell do i love the shit out of her little blob. and i'm excited that i can go home to see her but then get to come back to my own mostly carefree and responsibility-free life.

anyway, it's past midnight and i have a 7am pilates class that i really want to make but doubt my body will move when my alarm goes off at 5:30am (the perils of living so far uptown).

Juicy Lucy's: hug a stranger!

2010-04-03T21:15:00.000-04:00

Not happy in the bath...

2010-03-28T20:33:00.000-04:00

Me and Isabella

2010-03-27T00:25:00.000-04:00

free food, pilates, the nose, aunt duty

2010-03-24T22:55:00.002-04:00

so lien came to visit. and she's blogging now! lunch at del posto, dinner at locanda verde. in said post she compares eating dinner with me to eating dinner with bob deniro. the comparison is flattering, honestly! except for that i'm just a nobody who likes to eat and he's a famous person who is part owner of locanda. but yes, we probably get a lot of food bought for us either way. i swear that lien and i and our other guests at these meals got even better treatment than i'd have gotten being by myself. so maybe all the extras are the folks at the restaurant saying, "oh! that girl actually DOES have friends! lets treat them really nice and hopefully she won't keep coming back alone." i have no real explanation. all desserts were gratis (and the ricotta) at locanda and del posto brought over their awesome bellinis AND a moscato d'asti AND a trio of amuses with black truffle. the moscato was all george's fault (the maitre'd) because he told everyone it was liens birthday so then dessert wine came out, as did her plate with "happy birthday" written in so beautifully with chocolate sauce. i mean, it was OUT OF CONTROL. why aren't more people going to del posto for lunch?! i talk about it constantly. i need to start recruiting people there, hard-core, lest they decide that losing all the money for being open for lunch isn't worth the cost. now lien has left thinking that i'm someone to whom this happens all the time. and it doesn't, really. i mean, it happens occasionally at about 6 or so restaurants that i have on rotation. i stick to my favorites, all of which are truly GOOD places to eat. the end. no mayorship needed. but yeah, i came of looking pretty fancy for lien while she was here. i cannot wait for her to repay the favor next time im in in LA. she's a lot like me though; super chatty and inquisitive in a way that isn't annoying because we're cute, small asian girls. people remember us. she had a bartender at joseph leonard who knows me so now i'll have to tell the bartender i know the bone marrow obsessed girl. SEE! this is a small world.

healthcare. OH HEALTHCARE. watching that vote was a moment that you know you'll remember. it is watching the course of history stop and switch tracks going forward. pelosi is pretty fucking amazing. i know obama sat back and i know rahm was telling him to ignore the obviously easiest path but i'm glad enough people got to him, told rahm no, and that he threw himself into this with the time and energy that a president is expected to invest, regardless of how good his people on the ground are. he's supposed to be a leader. and he led. and see what happens?! shit gets done. and what is freaking out the republicans most is that they know this is better for people and they know people will like this bill (polls showed people being against "obamacare" but FOR every single item that obamacare represented. they were just throwing a hissy fit over his name with some palin lingering death panel nonsense and some stupak baby killing thrown in for good measure). GOPers are upset because they are the party of NO action right now. they are the temper tantrum throwers. the cross your arms and stop and call people names party. or, OH MY GOD, the attempted MURDERING PEOPLE AND DESTROYING PROPERTY PARTY. and that is a party of 5 year olds. and, no matter what anyone says, 5 year olds shouldn't be members of congress. so when republicans want to grow up, stop lying on the sunday talk shows, want to actually put forth ideas that work for everyone (not just corporate interests and other rich folks) and then actually vote yes on something....well i'm sure the dems would be welcome to have them. HCR was bipartisan reform. so many parts of that bill were parts that regan and nixon had championed, and that lots of republicans in the past had liked (oh, and now conveniently want to take responsibility for now that it's polling better, grassley, you asshole). but now, obama is so freaking threatening, they won't agree with him about anything just to try to frame him as ineffective. and obama is getting shit done anyhow! imagine that! i mean, it's like trying to work with bibi. stubborn and stuck in a mentality from 4 decades ago. totally lacking any connection to the world as we know it.

so i went to see william kentridge's "the nose" and HOLY HELL was that shit awesome. rocked my world. i see sufjan stevens walking in late to a middle row seat just a few rows a head of mine. i immediately started planning my exit strategy: the one that would finally get me to meet the MAN. all options entailed jumping over swarths of decrepit old folks. i see seth colter walls tweet from the balcony: "Yeah, I'm standing in the balcony @metopera to see The Nose, again. Audience is ... different than usual. Go figure.#YoungsLikeModernism" looking around me, i had no idea what he was talking about. except for the sufjan appeance, of course. the score was gorgeous. the set was perfect. inventive/interesting without being dominating or show-offy (a tendency most opera has). lots of kentridge video reels ran across the back scrim. the subtitles were also displayed largely on the scrim and on the stage. it was nice to see what was going on without having to turn down to the prompter on your seat. so from a pure comfort level, it worked. and it was funny. i laughed out loud close to a dozen times (if not more) which isn't really something i do at the opera. old people laugh at the corny funny parts during the marriage of figaro or whatnot. i do not. but i was so tickled...i feel like that's wholly inadequate a word to describe it, but i felt the strangest sort of joy while watching what was a funny opera about a serious story. i know kentridge's work, so i excpected some of the darkness but it was the light that caught me by surprise. two things distracted me: paulo szot reminded me so much of john hamm. like, several times i thought "john hamm is doing awesome in the opera!" and also, i felt some of the singing was weak. not off, but just not strong enough. but seth said he felt the same way from the orchestra but that the sound was better above. and it always is, so i shouldn't be surprised. but in short: AMAZING. really really. strong acting from the singers was a welcome addition and valery conducting shoshtakovich...it was almost overwhealming. took you just to the point before orgasm. the denouement was silly too. then it ended and the typical rush of natty old people who think their abbreviated trip home is more important than showing your appreciation for the performance they just saw. i saw sufjan's row moving (how'd he get all the natty old folks?!) but the dead man next to me and the old couple on my other side were squatters. the "wait until everyone leaves and we'll carry on out at our own pace" kind of people. FOILED AGAIN. just reminds me to stick to the newer productions (not tosca) because i've seen everything else a hundred times. i've got tickets for renee doing that rossini opera that i can't think of the name of. but it's been years since i've seen her in anything i liked (probably since alcina which was, like, a decade ago).

marina abramovic: i'd just seen hers and tim burton's and kentridge's exhibits at MoMA. she sat at a table, completely motionless. and she does it all day. and passersby can come sit down and join her. i'd assume there are rules about not talking or whatnot but i'm upset now i didn't try. she's just totally fascinating. and also looks DAMN good for her age. i'd just want to beg her to know what she uses on her face at the very least. but the other stuff she's done, traumatizes me though i've never seen it in person. rhythym 0, 1974: sounds horrific and since i've read about it i've thought about it several times. gone over in my head, psychologically what i'd have done had i been there. knowing i'd have been one of those people protecting her, yelling at anyone who wanted to show their masochist tendencies. i want to look into the eyes of a woman who has suffered like this, for the sake of art. to see the kind of person who loses their body to art the way she does.

i'm headed home this weekend to take care of a small baby. she's just hit 5 pounds so she's doing great and eating enough. she is still pretty fussy at night but kate and ant have been taking turns doing night feedings. i'm trying to decide what to pack for a trip that will be almost all cooking, cleaning, and getting spit up on. i mean, i guess i could take some gym clothes. but nothing cute. you can't let cute clothes near babies.

i got my jacket back from the cuban who realizes now that i really was only reaching out to him so i could get back what he snagged from my closet. so there's been some separation anxiety in the form of many calls and texts from him but his english is, well, not awesome and i think phone conversations might get a bit tedious so i never answer.

the weekend was a whirlwind. several birthday party festivities and a wedding shower (where they had momofuku ma peche catered banh mi and tofu sandwiches and also COMPOST COOKIES) tuned into a total debaucherous mess. wigs and kermit capes were worn. walk-offs were had. there is photographic evidence of me crawling around on colins bed like a tiger. and my spanks are showing underneath my dress and all, but i guess that's worse than a series of ass and va-jay-jay shots, no? and then a brunch the next day and more drinking at the beer garden at the standard. and i had to get up early the next morning for pilates. i've committed myself to 5 months of classes with the reformer and wouldn't you know that i just LOVE that machine-a-ma-jig? the reformer makes your body do all the right things without stressing out other parts of your body in the process. it's a bit odd to sometimes feel like you're working against gravity, these bands around your ankles pulling you up on to your shoulder blades, all nutty-looking but i'm really enjoying it. i'll go twice a week until all my coupons run out. i'm feeling taller and straighter already.

my schedule is still batty. random stuff every damn night. justy and i made it to the pent house of the new jean nouvel building which has 360 degree views of manhattan. i think it's on the market for a cool 16 million or somewhere around that. i cannot even begin to comprehend what kind of life that king of money gets you. crazy ass huge pent houses on the water in a celebrity architect designed building i guess? but DAMN. just completely nuts. cute bites courtesy of tipsy parson, who also hosted us as a group at the restaurant later. we were drunk on champagne so mac and cheese and hush puppies were EXACTLY what we needed.

the few friends who read this (one of whom, coughcolincough, fed me an elaborate lie just to get the url, something he could have gotten by googling me) i think find it easier to come here to see what i'm up to than to just communicate with me. it's weird. then they buy the things i've said i've bought or gone and done the things i'd said i'd done. i'd rather get text messages asking what i'm up to or invites out to find out what i'm doing; they know that i would be happy to chat about all of it IRL. instead they visit here several times a day even though i only update once a week at best and then i'll hear that it's been the subject of conversations when i'm not present. for ages i'd send links to college friends who'd be like, "oh, that's nice" without even clicking through. this has always been just a way for me to remember things that i've done. i think my life is pretty nifty and this serves to remind me of all the reasons why. then random readers from across the country started using it as a NYC guide of sorts. i just never figured my friends would use it for the same thing. ODD.

from a waitress at one of my "regular" places when it started to get busy with people other than myself, "everything cool gets ruined." it's true.

many many excellent concerts coming up with all the indie kids who cross-pollinate so i'm sure there will be loads of surprise guest appearances that aren't ever really a surprise. crossing my fingers for sufjan who i just missed at the bell house. FOILED!

Liveblogging lunch: Pulino's affogato

2010-03-15T15:10:00.001-04:00

Liveblogging lunch: Pulino's Porchetta pizza

2010-03-15T14:08:00.000-04:00

Liveblogging lunch: Pulino's cabbage and sunchoke

2010-03-15T13:35:00.001-04:00

Liveblogging lunch: Pulino's!

2010-03-15T13:28:00.001-04:00

andy, peel, 4square, the nose, locanda

2010-03-15T11:01:00.001-04:00

oh my god, YOU GUYS, andy is blogging over at the huffington post! you know, the andy that got me into blogging way back when he was a comedy central intern? to whom i professed my love even though i'd never met him, in his comments section? i think asking his mom for his hand in marriage, actually. but then we hung out and he wrote all my birthday party invites, and then started this five jokes thing that i still enjoy and is still in my reader. so anyway, say you knew him way back when, before he was writing for the daily show or whatever he does next. (seriously, daily show people, hire this shit up.)

got a skin peel at the dermatologist. i have a famously high tolerance for pain. i passed a kidney stone once and just thought it was cramps. i get bikini waxes, regularly. masseurs often tell me that they work harder on me than most men because they know i can handle it. but this face peel? this using a cottonball to swab acid on my face to melt the top layer off (something they affectionately refer to as "frost") hurt like a BITCH. never again.

so almost a year ago, everyone was talking about foursquare. at least, i felt they were. so much so that i'd claimed it had jumped the shark already. i was SO not joining this annoying sounding thing that everyone was obsessed with. i'm too cool for that. well, i'm sometimes WAY ahead of the curve as far as these internetty things go and now is when all the rest of the lay people are finally catching on and a year later it's actually blowing up. the thing is, i AM a regular. at a lot of places. could i be mayor? clearly. but what's the point? the people at these places (that i'm not naming because then it would make it far too easy to stalk me) all know my name, i get free shit and they treat me better than everyone else already! checking in or not, my presence is known. and i'd much rather that than be some person who never says a word to anyone but checks in all the time. sure, they're mayor but who gives a fuck? and what? they'll get a free beer if the owner is even savvy enough to know what 4sq is to start with? i don't know. maybe it's different for people who aren't outgoing. all i know is that i'll go to a place as little as two times and on my third visit they're greeting me by name. who the F needs foursquare when you're actually pretty socially graceful? my friend david, who goes out a lot, said, "i'm the mayor of two places and one of them is my house." so, again, what's the point? unless it's really a contest about how much one goes out? and how/why is that something i'd need to compete with someone for? i go out all the freaking time! note the bags under my eyes. i'd prefer to lose the game if it meant i'd get more fucking sleep.

speaking of internetty things: i passed by ricky van veen on the street today. why is he so cute?

speaking of celebrity sightings: i saw william kentridge leaving MoMA the other day. i'm seeing the nose next week and seth coulter walls has suggested it's even better than he thought it was going to be. i like shostakovich and i like new opera stagings (i mean, how many times can one really see boheme and care about the visuals anymore? i suppose there was that one disastrous staging of bondy's tosca which everyone hated but at least it was INTERESTING) and kentridge is a genius so i'm sure it'll all be grand.

my friend lien is in from LA so on the list of "must do" places was locanda verde (also on the list: balthazar at breakfast, del posto lunch, a dinner at joseph leonard, sunday brunch at cookshop). ted and his boyfriend came too. for as much as i like eating alone, having 4 people means you get to try so much more. and even though i've had everything on the menu, there are certain things (i.e. the roast chicken) that i've only had once. so we got a little bit of everything: the ricotta, the steak tartare, the meatball sliders, gigantone pasta with the sunday meat sauce, scallps with cauliflower and citrus and the chicken. the table next to us were having some sort of family dispute and yelled at each other the whole time, and didn't even eat anything. something about trust funds and we think one of them was a mediator. who knows. i feel bad for the server who was stuck with the dead table for two hours. everyone loved the food and the space and my host came to chat and then sent four desserts over and said they were courtesy of the chef even though AC himself wasn't in the house (he deserves his weekends off). but anyhow, we got the lemon tart (i don't even lemon desserts but karen's tart is awesome) and the semifreddo and a walnut cake? and some budino type thing? we were so stuffed at this point i was having trouble focusing. so, YAY. for a no-fuss, no-attitude plain old GOOD meal.

mcqueen, del posto,

2010-03-09T23:49:00.000-05:00

i've tried her baked goods. i don't recommend it.

GOD are these soooooo soooooo beautiful. royal and wearable with gorgeous lines. i want all the jackets. i mean, it's sad. that this was it. his last.

lunch at del posto again and they gave us even more amuse bouches this time! and i'm not sure other tables got them, we were watching. at least, i'm going to say they didn't so i can feel special. they also maybe knew my name when i walked in the front door but i SWEAR i haven't been there that often. i'm just THAT delightful. also, usually alone and kind of distinctive looking and really just nice which is probably the reason why anyone remembers me at all. oh, and because i go there and spend money. mark ladner was there, large and in charge. (he's so tall!) at lunch david and i discussed the finer points of being ladies of leisure and started planning a bright future wherein he inherits some family money and i marry rich and we run off together regularly on exotic vacations. then i took a look at his newest masterpiece, a lip dub to a lady gaga song by a gaggle of men. i started with the bastianich sauv blanc, the lobster, the duck (i have to stop ordering it but it is so good) and finished with the sfera.

i'll link to this alex pareene bit on rush, but i'm not even going to click through myself because that's how much i hate truncated feeds. gawker doesn't deserve my click. fuck truncated feeds! seriously. nevermind! i'll link ezra instead.

i thought i was good old unemployed this week but got picked up for something starting next tuesday. ughhhhh. so that leaves me only 3 days to take that damn CLE to keep the little thing known as NYS Bar admittance so i can keep putting the esq. after my name. (i'm kidding. i don't use the esq. EVER.) and see the dermatologist to tell me i don't have skin cancer and then maybe a celebratory tan (kidding!) (not really.) amongst a bevy of other crappy errands.