Man & Wifey:

Quest for Banh Mi Magic

2011-03-05T19:29:00.001-05:00

Sometime late in the fall, when a few leaves still clung to thinning city trees, I became obsessed with finding the perfect Vietnamese sandwich. The Banh Mi is a sandwich delicacy, made up of fresh baked French bread, thinly sliced vegetables, cilantro, and usually some kind of spicy/meat spread and some version of pork and/or other meats (it's a lot to take in, I know. For help, see diagram.)

Baogette, conveniently located across the street from the Curry Hill Armory and location of the Victoria's secret fashion show, was my first foray into Vietnamese sandwich world and had me at hello. Their version of the Sloppy Joe, the "Sloppy Bao," barbecue pork, and catfish options offer a twist on the classic Banh Mi and immediately had me hooked. I quickly dragged Sam to several Chinatown establishments, one of which was located in the back of a jewelry store.

Additionally, Banh Mi Saigon, as it's known, have deli cases full of mysterious Asian drinks, sides, & puddings. Sam and I tried a drink that was full of basil seeds, which was slightly sweet and perfectly tasty, if a little strange texturally.

When our classic banh mi's were finally ready, we had taken inventory on the plethora of colorful décor, from dish tanks to shrines to we're-not-sure-who:

The banh mi itself was the perfect blend of spicy, sweet, and soft bread with just-crispy-enough crust:

Most recently we discovered a Banh Mi place right down the street from our apartment, appropriately called "Banh Mi"--there emphasis was on noodles, sandwiches, and bubble tea, which I had always been intrigued by but never bothered ordering. Like the basil seed drink, it came with giant jelly-ish balls floating in it, and an oversized straw to slurp up all the strange goodness. It's like a distant cousin of tapioca pudding, in drink form:

The banh mi's weren't too shabby either, if a little on the too chewy side.

Get thee to your neighborhood Vietnamese sandwich shop yesterday, friends, and take hold of your culinary destiny.

An afternoon at the Prospect Park Carousel

2010-09-13T12:57:00.000-04:00

Cinematic Moment of the Week: Where the Wild Things Are at Brooklyn Botanical Garden

2010-09-09T22:43:00.001-04:00

This dude who specializes in making giant sculptures out of sticks, Patrick Dougherty, has am amazing installation at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden right now. He builds the structures on site and leaves them for people to explore and enjoy. Standing inside each of the little hut-like pieces, I felt like one of the creatures in Where the Wild Things Are, carving out a home for myself in the woods. This would be the best camp out spot evah!

Fall movie preview: Subway platform ads

2010-09-06T19:37:00.001-04:00

Y'all there is something about the ads on subway platforms that I am kind of obsessed with. While you are waiting for your train to arrive you are sort of forced to stare at these posters over and over again, and you can see the details better than when you drive by a billboard on the interstate. There is even an art to defacing these posters, with some people having a special knack for peeling off parts of posters beneath the current one to reveal new (though unintentional) messages.

This poster for The Town is creepy yet intriguing. I think the first time I saw it I gasped a little. The cast looks very interesting as well. I will be curious how Jon Hamm does in a non Don Draper role.

Well someone has scratched poor Jesse Eisenberg's eyes out on this one and given him red eyeliner, but like the trailer, I think this ad is just brilliant. If you haven't seen the trailer, it features a great version of Creep, sung by some kind of boys choir or something. Director David Fincher may have knocked this one out of the park. I tend to heart everything he does.

I am still shaking my fists at the heaven's that I wasn't able to work a day on this glorious production (I blame my lack of period haircut) which was shot all locally and seemingly took five years to shoot (I think it was more like a little over a year, a long time for one season of tv). I can only imagine what the budget was on this little piece of prohibition era eye candy. Let's cross our fingers for a second season and longer hair for me.

Cinematic Moment of the Week: My life is a Rap Musical

2010-08-21T17:45:00.000-04:00

Recently I was walking to meet Sam and some out-of-towner friends at our favorite sushi joint, when I passed a group of young gentleman standing outside of our neighborhood convalescent home. They looked kind of like this, but with nursing home building features behind them:

This was strange because A) the only groups of people who usually hang out in front of the convalescent home are the convalescents who live there and B) they seemed to be checking out the ladies who were walking past them, and in front of a convalescent home seems a strange place to do such an activity. But maybe I am not up on the trends of men attempting to pick up ladies on the street. (Sidenote: In NYC, there are certain things a lady experiences when walking alone or in the company of another lady, that most of her man friends/spouses never have the good fortune of witnessing. This includes men whistling at you, howling at you, and my personal favorite, making kissing noises at you. (when I say favorite what I really mean is I want to punch these men in the face, because the kissing noise is not cute, is not flattering, and does not make me like you. It's rude and gross.) It happens on a weekly basis and I've been here long enough that if I perceive a potential kissing noise/yelling-awkward-pick-up-lines-at-me-as-I-make-a-bee-line-for-the-corner situation, I will do my best to put my head down and get out of the line of fire as soon as possible. One out of every 50 times a dude says something to you on the street, it is actually kind of cute/funny. But those ain't good odds.)
So I've got my head down, I've sped up and am walking past them very quickly, when I realize they aren't barking pick up lines at ladies, they are making up raps about them on the fly and singing them boyz2men style on the sidewalk. Unfortunately by the time I realized this I was already rounding the corner (otherwise I would have walked slower than usual to enjoy this original rap about myself, duh), but I did make out some fresh beats that were something along the lines of "she's wearing her sunglasses and her dress by burberry" which was hilarious, because A) I was wearing this dress:

And B) I was wearing the prescription glasses I've had for the last five years, and they don't look like sunglasses at any angle. Still, the ditty had me smiling for the rest of my journey to spicy tuna roll land, and for a minute there I felt like I was in a scene from some kind of Spike Lee joint.

Summer in the City - Ways to beat the heat

2010-08-13T19:55:00.000-04:00

Seems like summer started extra early this year (I recall feeling it was too hot to wear pants sometime in early May), so I keep telling Sam, shouldn't it be cooling off early (like now) since summer started so soon? He insists that August is always brutal, and we are in for at least another month of sweaty muggy hot, but I am still hoping for an early fall. Sometimes you have to get creative on super hot days, and New Yorkers have their own methods for staying cool:

Find a sprinkler. They have them at all the playgrounds here, but I recommend borrowing a child you may know and bringing them with you.

Retreat to commercial A/C. Most New Yorkers aren't blessed with central air conditioning, but big commercial spaces, like the Brooklyn Museum, have loads of cool air they blast all summer long. Here I'm cooling off at their cafe, while the man next to me ingests copious amounts of sugar packets and a splash of coffee.

When you can't escape the outdoors, take in something beautiful, like here, at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. This will distract you from the fact that you have sweated through your thin t-shirt and your heavy application of deodorant isn't cutting it as the heat index tips above 90 degrees. Also, they have loads of old beautiful trees which you can escape beneath for a few glorious, if brief moments in the shade.

And when all else fails. Iced coffee. Loads and loads of iced coffee. I cannot think of a time or place when I've ever purchased iced coffee as I frequently and desperately as I have since I've lived here. Seriously. I think it's saved my life at least six times this summer alone.

Spotted on the streets! today in Brooklyn

2010-08-10T12:29:00.000-04:00

Some days living in NYC, you just have your head down and you're mostly focused on getting to the train/bus/taxi before it passes you by. There's a lot of rushing around. Which is unfortunate because when you slow down and have time to wander up and down the streets you discover the most wondrous and strange things. Today as I was standing on the corner I saw this cadre of grown men in boy scout uniforms...I wonder where they were going?

Next I ran across an amazing fruit and vegetable stand. The squash was wrapped up in tissue paper, and arranged in neat rows, like they were little newborn babes waiting to be plucked up by loving parents.

Instead of garage sales, stoop sales are a very popular way to get rid of all the extra junk that's laying around your apartment. I was perusing this older chap's stoop sale goods when I ran across these beauties. Anyone need some old, outdated and useless remotes? Anyone? No? Alrighty then.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

2010-08-09T12:21:00.007-04:00

New York and my world in general has been ate up with Mad Men of late. Recently I got to fulfill my dream of being a human statue for a day outside of Radio City. A couple of days later I spent the evening posing for pictures with the majority of the tourist population at the Mad Men Season 4 premiere in Times Square. I have to say it is a bizarre feeling to either be 1) frozen, and having people take pictures of you like you are a museum exhibit 2) frozen, and having random people jump next to you, snap a picture, and run away, like you are not really real and they are posing with an actual statue but 3) I think it is even stranger still to have people show up to the Mad Men premiere dressed up in 60's attire and want to get in pictures with you, who is getting paid to be dressed up like they are. Then it's just a bunch of strangers dressed in 60's attire, and randomly in a picture together, you know?

I wish I had some examples of me in pictures with these other people who are dressed up, but alas, the only fan photo I have been able to come up with is this one:

The lovely gentleman posing for pictures with me is Josh, a fellow Southerner who just relocated to New York a couple of months ago. Josh and I decided to fulfill our duties as Mad Men human statue people we needed 1960's/alterego people. So I referred to him as Jimmy and he called me Dot all day. Apparently he is really moving up at work and I am his faithful secretary, recently having had a lobotomy and unable to charm everyone around me like I used to, but still able to type with the best of them.
Here we are being stared at by onlookers:

And HERE is a fabulous video from the premiere in Times Square that Cindi spotted with her brilliant eye in which I make a couple of cameos.

And if you haven't heard enough and I haven't completely turned you off of Mad Men for life, I have entered the Mad Men Casting Contest. There's a month of voting left and I am in the #11 spot for Women. The Top 10 move on to the final round where Matt Weiner (exec producer of the show) will pick the winner/runner-ups. So VOTE today (for me), and often!

Whew. I'm exhausted. I need to sit down.

Shopping Carts in the City--kind of like gold on wheels

2010-07-02T00:14:00.006-04:00

After we moved to New York a couple of years ago, I was alarmed the first couple of times we ventured to the grocery store to find the storefront looking like this. I couldn't figure out for a minute why a store would purposefully make their entrance look so...unwelcoming (at least it seemed that way to my untrained southern eye). I thought it must be a mistake or a grocery store chain that had fallen off her rocker, until I visited several more grocery stores that had the same bars covering their storefront. I think Sam finally had to explain to me that the bars were not a poor design choice, but a way of keeping people from STEALING the carts. In a place where few people have cars to transport groceries home, baskets with wheels aka carts are a hot commodity, as it turns out. You see homeless folks carrying around their valuables in them. But I guess other people have been known to snatch a cart or two, if the opportunity presented itself and they had so many bags to be desperate for something to help them get their loot home.

When working in the city on a show a couple of months back, I was assisting with the stocking of dressing rooms and we had to buy copious amounts of bottled water for the likes of Ludacris and Soulja Boy. I was all, "how the crap are we going to get 500 bottles of water back to the dressing rooms?" (which were a good 4 blocks away). Well, in some stores (K Mart in this instance) they will let you borrow the cart on the condition that you leave your driver's license with them. Who knew? A final note on the magic of carts:

it's silly but most Targets in the area are two stories and come with their very own separate escalator for your cart. I love pushing it in there and watching it ratchet up to the second floor, while we ride alongside on the human escalator. It probably makes up for the barred grocery store inconvenience that I experience elsewhere, it's so magical.

And the Award for Sketchiest Pet Shop Ever goes to...

2010-06-14T17:02:00.004-04:00

I have walked past this Brooklyn Pet Shop several times now, and this picture doesn't do justice to how scary this place looks. Every time I approach I slow my walk down to a shuffle in hopes of catching a glimpse of an actual animal inside, mayhap a few of the "exotic fish" one sign says they "now carry"--but always to no avail. I'm a pretty adventurous person when it comes to checking out random things in the neighborhood, but somewhere between the gate, the bars over all windows and doors, and the three cardboard signs insisting this place is a PET SHOP (there's even arrows to help direct you) I lose any nerve I might have to go inside and check the place out. And seeing as someone was just shot a block over from this location a few weeks ago, I may be avoiding this stretch of street for some time now. Until we meet again, Sketchy Pet Shop, I will continue forming conspiracy theories about what kind of operation is really going on in there....

The Highs of Spring

2010-05-16T11:24:00.010-04:00

The past month has been the busiest and wackiest I've had since moving to New York. Some visuals:

Here is the finale of the Cartoon Network Upfronts I worked in April. An upfront is something all the tv people do every Spring to preview what is coming up for them in the next season. It's a good way to attract potential advertisers and also get some press attention for exciting new programming. On stage you can pick out Andrew WK and band, several mascots including a chicken (fake) and ram (real) that were shooting tshirts into the audience, a man wearing a backpack basketball hoop with several other boys trying to shoot baskets, a giant dog from a new show called Adventureland (manned by two guys playing said dog's legs), and a 12 year old boy who was either riding atop the giant dog or running around stage. Also, not pictured (sadly) there was a drummer called the Ice King dressed like a wizard in a cave above stage, surrounded by 400 pounds of dry ice. It was awesome.

The Brooklyn Botanical Gardens are in bloom! Their Cherry Blossoms are legendary, but every year I miss them. This year I got to see one late bloomer, but the rest of them had already wilted. But, have no fear! Their bluebonnets are now in full blossom! Who doesn't love a field of bluebonnets, I ask you?

Our friends Jack and Cindi came to visit us for a few days, and besides lucking out with "VIP" tickets to Dave Letterman on Monday, we also got to see awesome guests Evangeline Lilly, Sam Rockwell, and The Million Dollar Quartet! Ending Monday with a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge at dusk made for pretty much the best New York day any tourist or New Yorker could ask for. I could walk across that bridge a thousand times, I believe, and still discover something new every time.

The Gaga. I worked on Trudie Styler's Rainforest benefit concert last week, and everyone was gaga for Gaga. There's so many stories I could tell, but I only managed to get a couple of snaps, this one of a small snippet of fans waiting for Gaga after the show on the streets. My friend Joe and I were hanging out in the room next door to Gaga's dressing room, and as we surveyed the fans and stalkers outside, many of them started taking pictures of us! (it was dark-ish enough that they may have just hoped/assumed we were someone awesome based on the fact we were looking out the window)--we started to wave at them and they waved back, hoping Gaga would show herself.

I have no idea who this girl is but had to find a subtle way of documenting I was actually there...

Went to the Brooklyn Museum friday--they have a huge section of the museum devoted to recreating rooms from Farmhouses in Connecticut in 1789 and such things. When I rounded a corner I happened across the scariest puppets of all time, life-size with giant heads, and set up to look like they were living inside these historical rooms. I think I will have nightmares for the next week. I mean, yikes.

Scary Humans: Part 2

2009-07-26T22:11:00.003-04:00

Several weeks ago I was working in Times Square and our group was allowed to use the Levi's store's employee bathroom for the day. Arriving at the bathroom I found a bit of a line. There was a girl in front of me, and a guy who had gone in what felt like five years ago and was still taking his sweet time. The Levi's employee girl and I stood silently for a long while, and then out of nowhere, she drops this bomb, "Do you think I'm skinny?" I did a double take to make sure she was talking to me, because, who asks a perfect stranger that sort of question, and what in the world am I supposed to say to that? Appearing to weigh a good 10 or 15 pounds less than me from the best I could tell, I said, "yeah." (meanwhile my mind is racing trying to figure what kind of a person would ever ask another stranger that--is this some sort of trick question?) The girl persists again, "No, really, do you think I'm skinny?" (Apparently the yeah was insufficient--why is the guy still in the bathroom!) Trying to come up with something complimentary for this person I don't know, I expounded, "Yeah, you look small. What are you, like a 2/4?" Big mistake. All at once, the guy leaves the bathroom, the girl practically bursts into tears and yells "No, I'm a zero! You just called me fat!" and runs in the bathroom and locks the door. Wow. Never claim to know a person's clothing size, especially a stranger who asks you if you think they're skinny while waiting on the employee bathroom.

Chikalicious?

2009-06-17T11:20:00.007-04:00

Sam's birthday was last week, and we ventured to this place around the corner from where we ate dinner, "Chikalicious" for dessert. It had come highly recommended and was described to me as "just about perfect." We arrive and are quickly seated at a corner table. The website describes Chikalicious as having a "3-course Prix Fixe menu, described as American desserts, French Presentation and Japanese tasting portions, and includes an amuse, dessert of your choice, and assorted petits-fours."
For those of you who don't watch Top Chef or something similar, an amuse is like a mini-mini course, meant to be eaten in one bite. The menu items are pretty frou-frou-ey, and I feel like I am watching Sam feeling more emasculated with each passing moment. Nonetheless, we decide on the lime soup with lime sorbet and brown sugar biscuit (props to Sam for actually speaking those words aloud) and the coconut panna cotta with kiwi and passion fruit relish. Our amuse arrived first, some kind of rhubarb jell-o type situation with a dollop of "vanilla milk sorbet." It came in a dish you would normally put a couple of squirts of soy sauce in for sushi. The combination of jelly-like substance with cold-creamy sorbet was sort of weird and I didn't particularly like it. And it was so small! But this was the amuse, so ok, it's supposed to be laughably, ridiculously tiny.

Soon after we arrived, a couple who were probably related to Methuselah came in. The only empty table hadn't been cleaned off yet, and the hostess/owner told them she'd seat them as soon as she cleaned the table up. The elderly lady, we'll call her Marge, took one look at the table, rolled her eyes, and said, "Well, I should hope so." Meanwhile the husband looks like he is fighting for every breath. They sit down and order their dessert, along with two cappuccinos. The poor hostess/owner brings their drinks not a minute later, and Marge looks at her like she's insane. I hear hostess/owner say, "we always bring the drinks out first, but I'd be glad to take them back if you want them after your dessert." To which Marge waves her wrinkled purple hands and replies, "Yes, take them away, bring them at the end." Who does that?

Back at our dessert table, our "main course" arrives. The presentation was lovely, but again, this is the smallest plate of panna cotta I have ever laid eyes on. Sam and I enjoy hearing the chef bring out each course (and I use the word "course" very loosely here) and describe it to us with painstaking detail. The lime soup with lime sorbet is actually so delicious, I just wish they'd quadrupled the order. The panna cotta (all three bites of it) is very tasty as well. I can't figure out how they've made brown sugar biscuits the size of croutons. This is like dessert for teeny mice people. Or maybe they actually have mice in the back making all of this stuff, with little tweezers, kind of like Ratatouille. I'm thinking about where they might be hiding the mice chefs, when Marge pipes up again.

"What is taking so long?" she demands of the increasingly exasperated hostess/owner. It takes all of the husband's remaining might to nod his head in agreement. "How old is this dessert?" The hostess explains that everything is made fresh and that she just saw their tarts in the oven and is sure they'll be ready momentarily. Marge huffs and puffs a couple more times about what is taking so long, and her hubby taps his cane on the ground in agreement. Sam and I wonder what they are in such a extreme hurry for. A few theories we role played while waiting on petits-fours:
"I've got to get him home so I can feed him his back pill at 9:30"
"We have to go home and plug in, we're robots and our batteries are almost dead"
"We turn into pumpkins if we don't get home in time, very very old pumpkins"

Our petits-fours arrive. I know you will be shocked to learn that they were extremely small. They consisted of two sugar cube-sized marshmallows covered in seven pieces of coconut each, two chocolate truffles the size of gumdrops, and two of the tiniest pieces of pound cake ever created by humans (or rodents). A scrumptious three bites later, we were out the door, leaving Marge and co. to wait on their second attempt at cappuccino.

Scary Humans: part 1

2009-06-15T23:49:00.002-04:00

I've decided to devote some time on the old blogaroosky to the weird New Yorkers I have interactions with on a daily basis. There is something about living in the city that lends itself to strange conversations with people around you.

Today, I was running 10 blocks uptown to get to a casting I was helping out with (where I would go on to be bored to tears signing in models for a Comcast advertisement casting. 200 girls in their swimsuits, jumping at the chance to play a "beach mom"--some of them didn't even bother bringing bathing suits. scary.) and a man (who was probably homeless)--was trying to sell me fruit roll-ups at $2 a pop (which is horribly expensive for an individual fruit-roll up). I usually tell people who try to hock something on me that I don't have any cash, or that I'm flat out not interested, but every now and then somebody catches me without an excuse. Today I happened to have some cash, and the guy had fruit roll ups, which I didn't even know they still made! He fed me some line about how I was helping basketball playing children in india or the like, and I said, "alright, you got change?" I pull out a twenty dollar bill, and the guy proceeds to try to talk me into paying $20 for 10 fruit roll-ups. "It's for a good cause!" he kept saying. "I'll take 5. Final offer." I said. (even as I agreed to it I was thinking, I can't believe I am paying this much for fruit roll-ups, and I also, what am I going to do with five fruit roll-ups??) He offers me the box of roll-ups, then proceeds to grab a wad of cash from out of his SWEATPANTS and betwixt his nether regions. He counts out ten one dollar bills and hands them to me. "You have a great day, now." he calls, as I shutter and throw the damp money in my purse.

Williamsburg "Advertisements"

2009-05-01T00:34:00.008-04:00

Williamsburg is full of aspiring musicians, artists, and the like, and more than other parts of Brooklyn or Manhattan (or maybe it just seems more concentrated because I live here), you find all kinds of homemade "advertisements" posted on the street--political statements, propaganda, inside jokes or things that seem like inside jokes, and surprisingly beautiful little artistic statements. I remember the first time I noticed one--and I stared at it for five minutes trying to figure out what "product" it was advertising, what was the catch. It was so lovely and professional looking I was sure it was some sort of viral campaign for a product. Really someone just wanted to communicate a sort of "advertisement" (I call them that since there is no official term for them I've heard to date) about an IDEA. With no ulterior motive or intention to make money or profit from it. Just to pass along the knowledge, man. Hmmm. Anywho, I've posted a bunch that I've taken pictures of--most of these are up around the Bedford Avenue area, the sort-of "downtown" area of Williamsburg. Sometimes they are put up on random spots on buildings, and also frequently outside construction sites. I suppose the large wooden panels they put up at construction sites here to keep out the riff-raff make for excellent canvasses for large creative statements. The "lost my shit" ad was on the platform on the subway--but if you look closely, the place where you tear off someone's number along the bottom, contains a web address, lostmyshit.com, which if you visit you'll find doesn't exist! so someone went to the trouble of making this flyer, making photo copies of it, and putting it up around the neighborhood, I guess just as a joke? I don't know, it's kind of bizarre. Some of the quality is lost in the pictures, but I hope the spirit comes across adequately. I'm interested to get your thoughts on them.

New York Mystery #42: Why do New Yorkers always wear black?

2009-04-16T22:31:00.003-04:00

One of my favorite things to do in New York (although, sadly, less and less as I become less of an expatriate and more of a "local" the longer I live here) is take pictures of funny things I see around the city, especially, as I'm sure you have noticed, things on the subway. I always used to wonder when I came to visit friends here why so many people wore black all the time. This picture illustrates the abundance of black as the favorite color choice among city dwellers. Having lived here for a little while, I've noticed you're always sitting/leaning on/holding onto/brushing up against things that are potentially dirty, whether it's on the subway, in cabs, or on the sidewalk. You have a lot less control over coming into contact with grime and grit, and New Yorkers have to be out in the elements more than most--this is one of the reasons why New Yorkers have that steely can-do spirit, too. And also a reason why they wear a lot of black. It shows dirt much less than it's white and light colored counterparts, and New Yorkers don't have time to go home and change in between work and after-work soirees. (This coming from the girl who carries a bright green purse and wears a bright orange coat almost every day.) Oh well. Guess I'm not quite a local yet.

Spotted in Brooklyn...

2009-02-20T12:07:00.004-05:00

One "Student Driver" school bus. I remember when I first learned to drive on a school bus...oh wait. That never happened. I can only assume this is a school bus specific learning experience, and this person already knows how to drive regular vehicles. Brooklyn is already sort of like driving through Beirut, and 16 year olds weilding school buses aren't going to help the situation.

Three Jewish girls wearing skirts, even though it's 15 degrees out. I wonder if they're allowed to wear long johns under the skirts at least.

One perfect dessert, purchased at Diner, a remodeled old diner in a silver trailer.
It was some sort of panna cotta with grapefruit and tangerines on top, with homemade pecan shortbread cookies.

The BIGGEST News of '09?

2009-02-04T11:40:00.004-05:00

So here we are kids. It's a new year, we've got a new President, the economy is in shambles, people are losing their jobs left and right, foreclosures are sky-rocketing, a ridiculous percentage of Americans don't have or can't afford healthcare, and yet some of the biggest news of the year has only JUST surfaced this week. No I'm not referring to LOST and Battlestar Galactica starting their new seasons (though we all know that's probably the MOST important thing to happen this year yet).

Recently, it's come to the attention of the masses that some of celebrities out there are just going bananas. It's a shocker. But what's more shocking to me is how much of this stuff is actually "news". First off, multi-gold medal winning Michael Phelps has been "caught" smoking a bong by some super-sleuth with a cell phone camera. Now if that wasn't bad enough, the bong was loaded with economy crashing, terrorist producing, tv show ending wonder weed and everything we know and love is going to be destroyed when Phelps takes to the seas and covers all the lands in this skunky pestilence from his genetically engineered super lungs. Am I the only one who really doesn't care if Michael Phelps took a hit or two?

The guy is 23 years old. Yes he got a DUI when he was 19. I suppose I'm a better person because at least I waited until two weeks before I turned 21 to get mine. Aqua-boy has made a couple of questionable decisions obviously. Do we really need to devote any more time to this matter? Sadly, it appears we do. Now despite the fact that the gilled giant has apologized for his acting in a "youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner that people have come to expect from [him]" and the fact that he never tested for ANY drug use while he was competing, it's not enough for some of the butt-hurt masses of Phelps fans. The same people who were fist-pumping on their couches in front of their flat-screens when Phelps was bringing home the Olympic cheddah, are the same jerk-weeds who are writing to newspapers and mounting up with the morality police about the fact that this kid had the audacity to go out and inhale from an instrument of marijuana dispensation.

He's young, he's been competing for AMERICA to take people's minds off how crap-tastical things have been for however long, and he let loose. I'm just gonna throw this out there and brace yourselves, folks; IT'S PROBABLY NOT THE FIRST TIME HE'S GONE ALL CYPRESS HILL ON THE DEVIL GRASS! But Sam! He's a celebrity! What about his moral responsibilities to the public and the kids who look up to him? Well, what about our responsibility to tell those kids that sometimes people make mistakes and we shouldn't judge them?

In other "news" Batman can now be heard dropping F-bombs with unbridled british abandon on some crew during the filming of McG's (don't even get me started) Terminator: Salvation. If you haven't heard this MP3 yet, I suggest immediately going out and changing your ringtone to Christian Bale's rant. The facts of this are; Bale blasts Cinematographer Shane Hurlbut during a take when the guy apparently walked through his sight line, Bale goes on for almost 4 minutes and uses such terms as "kick your effin' a$$" and "eff's sake man, you're amateur." It's really quite fantastic. Up there with the David O. Russel / Lily Tomlin FREAK OUT on the set of "I Heart Huckabees." Thanks You-tube! So was the Caped Crusader out of line? I don't know, ya'll. I haven't been on the set of a multi-million dollar blockbuster with multi-million dollar actors and directors who have names that sound like McDonald's sandwiches yet. I think it'd be annoying to have someone fiddling with equipment in front of me while I was trying to do a scene that was/is apparently integral to the development of John Connor, the character that Bale plays in the movie. And yes, there was some trouble last year with Bale apparently getting into a scuffle with his mom when she insulted his wife or some such nonsense but it seems to have gotten brushed under the Tumbler if you will.

There's a distinct possibility though that this Hurlbut guy shouldn't have been doing what he'd been doing. That he should have stayed off the set and out of the scene while they were shooting. We're always real quick to pounce on celebrities because they're so accessible to tear down. For the record I have no problem with Jessica Simpson's weight. Tom Cruise may be one intense Scientologist, but I loved "Jerry MaGuire" and "The Last Samurai" so he's cool in my book.

Maybe Christian Bale is a maniac. Maybe he's just really serious about his work. Maybe Michael Phelps is a devil-worshipping, drunk-driving, pothead. Or maybe, just maybe he's human afterall.

The real thing that bothers me are the d-bags that release this stuff onto the internet machine. The guy at the party where Phelps was who thought he could make a quick buck by tearing dolphin-man down, or the Soundman on Terminator: Salvation who let that clip "get out." Yes I might be talking about you, Nigel Albermaniche. It's at times like this when I remember the wise words of a famous New York city cop who said, "Now, you listen to me...if you're not a part of the solution, you're a part of the problem. Quit being a part of the problem...!

We got real problems to worry about these days, guys and dolls. I for one am gonna make an honest effort to be a bigger part of the solution in '09. And for the record, the jury's still out about that whole Phelps being human thing...

Much Overdue Christmas Break Blog

2009-01-22T22:45:00.008-05:00

It's funny how quickly the mind can readjust to different spaces. Being back in the South over the holidays reminded us how used to the city ways we already are. Our first night back, in Sam's parents' guest bedroom, the silence was literally deafening. None of us could sleep it was so quiet, including the dog! I know, pitiful. All night Ellie would jump up and start barking everytime she heard the paperboy, the dog next door, or any other now strange noise. In the city all the noises kind of blend together into this cacophony (yeah I said it) of white noise that we've become accustomed to. I think I literally slept 3 hours that first night. The next morning, I marched promptly to the basement and found an oscillating fan to install in our room for the weekend. We all slept like babies for the rest of the trip.
Here's Sam wearing his new snowboarding helmet on "Lexington Christmas Morning."**
**was actually December 26th, but we just pretended like it was the day before. Doesn't this make you think of Mike Myers back when he used to eat lots of chocolate and drag that jungle gym down the street?

Here we are covered in Christmas loot.

Another crazy thing about being out of the city was that there seemed to be so much extra space everywhere. It almost seemed criminal. Look at that spare 1/2 acre of land! we would gasp as we drove by. The only open land here are the parks, which are filled with people and dog poop. This unused land seemed to be going to waste when it would house or feed several dozen people where we live now. The first time I saw a Wal-Mart parking lot again I almost fell out.* (*Southern term. When in Rome...) The parking lot, again, seemed like a ridiculous waste of space. I know this is normal to 95% of the people reading this, but I'm telling you it looked very strange from where I was sitting.

Here's a pic from Nashville Christmas* (*Actually on Dec. 31st) of Sam in scary ski mask.

Me concentrating really hard on celebrating New Year's Eve at the Barrett's.

The only thing Sam wanted to do while in Nashville was eat at our favorite sushi place, Sam's Sushi. Sadly, we have not been able to find a suitable equivalent in New York yet, and it's possible we never will.* (*It has to be close to impossible to make a profit when 4 people eat for $20. The same amount of food in NY sushi joints and most places runs over $100).
Here is a picture of Sam just before he enjoyed his spoils. It was just as perfect and Sam (sushi making Sam, that is) was just as grumpy as we remembered.

**it's also possible that all the extra space, hats, and cheap food in the South made Sam temporarily crazy.

On the way back up, we drove through the most beautiful frozen valley in Maryland. There was ice on all the trees, and I felt like I was on the planet Hoth in Star Wars or some similarly named frozen planet. Quite otherwordly indeed.

First Big Snow

2008-12-19T14:14:00.007-05:00

We're in the middle of our first big New York snow of the season as we speak! We've gotten a few inches so far and are supposed to get up to seven. Here are a few pictures from our adventures about the town (so far it seems that life pretty much carries on as usual, and people seem to actually know how to drive in it. There also seems to be plenty of milk and bread in supply, which in the south, for some reason, is the first thing to go as all the locals prepare to hunker down, even if snow is just forecasted and there doesn't end up being any.)

Sam in the snow.

Ellie playing with dog park friends in the snow.

Even trash looks pretty covered in snow.

I was picturing Ellie bounding through the snow with excitement, but her attitude was more one of a disillusioned teenager. You can almost see her giving me the proverbial eye roll.

Iphone self portrait.

Oh, and here's a mediocre shot of our apartment sized christmas tree.

Brooklyn v. Manhattan and other thoughts

2008-11-06T16:02:00.010-05:00

When I tell people I live in New York they are always saying one of two things, "I could never live there! It's sooo crowded!" or "That's soo cool." I think when it comes to NYC many people's experience with this great city is often limited to a long weekend visiting the corner where they tape the Today show, Times Square, and lots of shopping and eating for good measure. Let me assure the aforementioned "I could never live there group" that the places you visited on your long weekend here are not the places where New Yorkers hang out. I could spend every weekend for the next year doing the same things you did on your vacation here (and having a great time), and it would be a vastly different experience than the things I do for fun as a quote unquote local. Namely, and let's get one thing straight, I live in Brooklyn, and specifically, Williamsburg, and my hood is not at all crowded. I do not bump into people on the sidewalk here. Sometimes I don't even see people on the sidewalk. And when I venture into Manhattan from time to time I, like you, feel the sudden rush of shoulders and coats and stroller wheels flapping past me as I try to keep up and not get run over or pushed in front of a cab while crossing the street.

Which brings me to the first big difference between Manhattan and Brooklyn: the crowds. "Why is it so crowded?" you may be asking yourself as you remember the lines you stood in for pizza or how you were almost mauled while boarding the ferry back on your 1998 Spring Break trip. Think about the town you grew up in and when you go back 10 or 15 years later how it seems that the town has spread out and grown arms full of newness for consumers to consume; places that used to be cow pastures are now malls, your favorite old restaruant has been bulldozed in lieu of a luxury condo highrise. You can still pass by undeveloped spots or spots you didn't even know existed that have become a location. Now Manhattan is an island and only eight square miles and ran out of undeveloped spots some time ago, so as the population grows there are only two solutions--to keep developing or gentrifying (read: becoming a place where a white person will move) out in the burroughs (the immediately surrounding areas of Queens, Brooklyn, etc.) or continuing to divide and dubdivide whatever space already exists (and it being an island they're not going to be buying undeveloped land any time soon) and deal with the crowds. It's hilarious how the space issues have played out over time: unlike a lot of the rest of the country, where people are on an upward spiral of obtaining more space as they get older complete with more yard, dog, and kids, when you go into Manhattan you see a completely different mindset altogether. Small dogs are de rigeur, our not-quite 40 pound border collie mix, which is an average size here in Brooklyn, would be like a huge dog to have in the city (although you do see them on occasion and think, where do they put that big dog? In the suburbs this dog would be a normal size and you would not wonder where the owners kept him). Having something like a car in Manhattan is definately a luxury, you pretty much have to pay for a parking garage to keep one there and those often runs upwards of four hundred smackers a month. Here in Brooklyn, we park our car a block away, next to the park. Sure we have to move it every few days for the Street Sweeper Man, but it's free, and still considered something of a luxury.

Manhattan is like the fancy party dress you paid too much for but couldn't live without that you only find a reason to pull out of the closet once a year (notice how I also tend to speak about Manhattan in run-on sentences.) Brooklyn is that vintage jacket jem you found (a steal!) that goes with everything. Manhattan is also kind of like one of those celebrities who's always in the tabloids and is really pretty but hasn't made a good movie in a really long time because she's too busy designing her new line of wool panties or some such thing. Brooklyn is like that actress whose name you can't remember but she was really good in like, three of your favorite movies and probably the reason you can't remember her is because she had so much range that you hardly knew she was the same person from movie to movie and she's never been in US Weekly. Here in Brooklyn small family businesses thrive and even the McDonald's down the street is cash only. You look out on the shore and the twinkling city lights of the big city. They call Brooklyn a horizontal city for that reason while Manhattan is a vertical city. When you're in there maneuvering through that labyrinth of skyscrapers (never so aptly named as here) you lose a sense of which direction you're going; there's no where to look but up. Which can be a wonderful thing, too, for a gal like me, as long as you can find your way back to the horizon every now and again.

Getting on my soapbox...

2008-10-26T22:11:00.002-04:00

I try to keep this a New York experience-related blog, but something has been bothering me lately and I really just needed to get it off my chest. I was at a conference this week in Orlando with my mother-in-law, for this really amazing company called Nikken (which is a whole other blog all together...I have a whole new appreciation for the healing power of magnets!) and I got into this conversation with this older canadian lady (who was really quite adorable) about her son. She started talking about how he and his wife were getting to be in their late thirties and trying to decide about kids because they felt like they were "running out of time" to have them, and then she tells me that they PLANNED on (in the event she even gets pregnant) aborting the baby if they do testing and it has down syndrome. I was floored. Obviously people are not usually that candid about this kind of thing, and I may be opening up a really taboo subject here, and I will also say I'm not here to judge anyone or make any decisions for anyone. But having worked with kids with down syndrome for about six years, I have to tell anyone out there who hasn't had experience with these kids what a gift they are. God made all of us no matter what differences we may have, and I just find it incredibly sad and depressing to think about these special people not having a chance in the world based on people's misunderstandings of who they are. I wonder if many people who make the decision to abort have spent any time around anyone with down syndrome. I guess I think about all the things your child could have to deal with in life that are just as hard or harder than dealing with a down syndrome label--including all the parents out there dealing with kids with autism. I think about all the kids I have known with down syndrome who are loving and so playful and full of great joy and sometimes a bit stubborn. Having come from a special ed./research background, I have to tell you how far we've come with kids with special needs and how much the quality of their lives have improved even from 30 years ago. I have also known some incredibly high functioning people with down syndrome who have pretty broad vocabularies and social skills and ability to live on their own. The numbers are simply shocking these days. Up to 80% of these babies are being aborted by potential parents, which I just find unfathomable. The emphasis on the Palin family and their baby Trig has been portrayed interestingly in the media. At times the media seems to emphasize what a sacrifice they have made by choosing to have these special babies, like they are heroes. I can tell you how many parents of these special kids have told me that they (the parents) are the ones who have been blessed, to have these amazing people in their lives to be examples of love to them, and that it is their children who are the heroes. Obviously looking at the numbers there are a lot of people who don't get that, and I wish the Canadian lady's son had been there so I could talk to him about that.

5 Ways to Lose Money Fast in NYC

2008-10-20T22:41:00.004-04:00

I have a pretty modest budget these days, but there are a few things in the city that I can't seem to get around paying for. Expenses that you don't think about but that tend to sneak up on you when you least expect it. Or, something you are expecting to be able to resist, but you find you have a certain weakness for. Dagnabbit!

One thing is LAST MINUTE CAR FEES. As much as I try to plan and a lot enough time to get from place to place, the train generally takes about twice as long as travelling above ground, and if I don't have enough time to get to an audition or anything of that realm, I have on a couple of occasions broken down and called a car service. While there are plenty of yellow taxis waiting to whisk you away to the destination of your choosing in Manhattan, in Brooklyn it's harder to find them and/or get them to stop, so most of the time you end up calling your local car service. Every neighborhood has its own group of car services, like the ones you call in Williamsburg are different than the ones you call in Park Slope or Crown Heights. Then they charge you, basically whatever they feel like. In my limited experience, the total either seems way under or way over the distance travelled, and additionally, I have this weakness for leaving sizable tips for all these jokers. It probably has something to do with currently doing work that involves tips and wanting to pay it forward, if you will.

Another weakness I have is for SUBWAY MUSICIANS. It's supposed to be illegal for people to get on the subway and beg for money, and a lot of times these people seem awfully well dressed to be needing my help, but come on with your accordion or your travelling puppet show, and it's like my kryptonite. I think it's because I identify with trying to be a paid artist in this crazy world. I know, I know. But you should see their faces light up when I give them all my spare change. I try to resist, but oh. If you saw the puppet show you wouldn't be able to either.

CONVENIENT SNACKS, and the like. You know how sometimes you're driving home and you think, man I'm hungry. Good thing I'll have my choice of food in a few minutes when I pull into my driveway. And you think about maybe pulling in to the grocery store on the way, but it's too much trouble to park and all that jazz so you just hold off. Well in this town they have little carts of nuts and delicacies around every corner, and you don't know how long you have to wait for your train that takes you back to your apartment, and the nuts are right there, yours for a few dollars. People here are opportunists. It's starts raining and all of the sudden there's a man on every corner selling umbrellas. And if you didn't bring your umbrella, and you're tired of getting wet, well, let's just say we've ended up with a few umbrellas that way.

THE SCARY PEOPLE TRYING TO SELL YOU PACKAGE HAIR SALON DEALS AT UNION SQUARE. The problem is they're not exactly scary. They're usually very charming. You try to shake your head and walk away like you do with all the other street merchants and street urchins, but these folks seem to have gone to a special school for persuading you to buy something you don't need. After a few minutes you think, man, this sounds great! $60 and I get all of these things from this hair salon I know nothing about! But they seem to have other jobs besides hocking hair packages on the street and this is just their after-my-day-job, job. And man, even though it seems ridiculous, it starts to seem like a good idea. And I have to tell you, the first two times I wriggled away (I'm meeting a friend! I'm really bald! Look over there!) but the third time this "actor" started talking to me and turning on the ole charm and well, I have two hair packages that need redeeming. I'll let you know if they turn out to be legit.

Lastly, ONLINE GROCERY SHOPPING AND FOOD DELIVERY. Beware of their charms. Something about ordering food from an online grocery store that delivers right to your apartment makes you feel like you'll pay anything, because who wants to lug 40 pounds of dog food up three flights of stairs? And when you're watching it add up on your computer it's almost like it's monopoly money, 'cause this isn't like any grocery store you've ever been to. (that's probably part of their whole scheme!) (shaking fists at the heavens). I have a similar weakness when ordering food from restaurants that deliver. It seems like everyone delivers here! And when you're ordering things off the menu over the phone, you start to think, well hey, they're bringing a main course, might as well bring me an appetizer and dessert too! And then before you know it, you hate yourself. So watch out for that.

An Entertainment Conundrum

2008-10-15T16:29:00.004-04:00

Is it odd to anyone else that Beverly Hills Chihuahua was the number one movie in America a couple of weeks ago? I don't know if that's a sign of people being desperate for entertainment in these dark days or possibly just a sign that our time as a species is rapidly coming to a close. That movie pulled in $30 million in its opening weekend. I guess the folks out in Hollywood are desperate for family entertainment. I'm desperate to keep me, my wife and my unborn children from seeing movies like that for fear that we'll all claw our own eyes out and become some kind of sideshow act called "The Blind Williamsons".

Really what I'm concerned about lately is all the fuss over Zack and Miri Make a Porno. For anyone who doesn't know, this is the new Kevin Smith (Chasing Amy, Dogma) movie about two twenty something roommates who don't have the money to pay their bills so they decide to make an amateur porn flick. It stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks and is coming out on Halloween. There has been a pretty significant backlash against against this movie that isn't even out yet just because of the title and the content. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but it has some nudity. GASP!

Listen folks, we live in a world where kids line up around the block to go see the Saw movies. Because of this fact, Hollywood is pumping out one per Halloween. Thanks Hollywood. Where they didn't just make one Hostel movie, they made two! Where video games like Grand Theft Auto and Halo and Saints Row out sell feature films. What do all these things have in common Samwise? Well my friends, they are violent. Whether it's machine guns blazing, machete wielding or a power drill to the skull, these things are readily accessible to anyone who wants them. Now I'm not advocating pulling all this stuff out of the theaters and off the shelves but I see and hear a bunch of hypocrites out there hoisting their digital picket signs about a movie that is gonna have some footage of some male and female naughty bits.

Now anyone who knows better is free to correct me if I'm wrong but I didn't see a huge uproar over the Grindhouse films or the new GTA. Sure people whine and complain about these things for a while but rarely does anyone do enough to actually get them taken off the shelves or pull the tickets out of the hands of the teeny-boppers who mob the theaters to get in. You know what I think? I don't think people should do anything about it. You choose to go to the movies or buy video games.

Look if you don't want your kid playing this game or going to see that movie then don't let them. Perhaps you should do a little more research when Billy asks for Halo 3 for his 7th birthday and you walk in on him mowing down the Covenant with a pulse rifle and you poop your collective pants. Perhaps your kid shouldn't be playing so many video games. Perhaps you shouldn't take them to see Saw 5 because 12 year olds shouldn't see people getting fed to kitchen-aid mixers (thanks wedding gifts!) or dueling with nail guns and what not.

And why is violence okay but a couple seconds of schlong isn't? Spattering brains? Sure! Jiggling boobs? Hell no! We got bigger problems in the world people than Zack and Miri people. How about a failing economy, a healthcare crisis, and people losing their houses because they can't afford their mortgage payments? Turn off the tv, take your kids to somewhere green and serene and find a solution for some real problems. Or just stick to movies like Beverly Hills Chihuahua, I hear it's great.

PS - The new Ray LaMontagne album "Gossip in the Grain" just came out. Go buy it.

Bus v. Subway

2008-09-27T11:43:00.003-04:00

I've decided that every weekend I'm going to write a "face-off" style blog where I compare two aspects of the city I've observed. In contrasting, I hope we all learn a bit more about our topic, and each other. Just kidding about the last part. Kind of.

As aforementioned in my previous post, I've been riding the bus all week. I learned a new set of mostly unwritten rules. In my opinion it's a bit easier to move through what you do as a new rider on the subway than as a new rider on the bus. On the subway, you have clearly marked stations and announcers tell you where you've stopped (sometimes they yell your location incoherently through the loudspeaker and you're scrambling to figure out where you are). On the bus, the only way you can figure out where you are is if you keep up with what streets you're passing, and that tends to take a lot of work. Of course, to more seasoned riders of both systems, you get to a point where there is a rhythm to where you're going--you know how long to wait and when to get up, like an timer going off when an egg is done boiling.

On the bus the riders are much more in contact with and at the mercy of the driver, even if they never speak to each other. One friend told me recently he was riding the bus and there was an annoying guy on the bus who kept yelling and generally making a ruckus. Eventually people on the bus started complaining, and chanting "Kick him off the bus, kick him off the bus," even the driver! And then when the driver had had enough fun with that, he did, in fact, kick him off. The subway by comparison almost seems like this underground organism that drives itself. You see people in little windows at the front that are supposedly operating the thing, but it mostly runs the same all the time, and lot of the announcements are pre-recorded. The subway operator can't see what's going on inside each car (that's why the people watching is so good!) The bus driver can also decide if he wants to reopen the doors for someone who has just missed the stop, or keep driving. From what I saw, drivers tended to do that more for women, children, and the elderly/handicapped. Another funny thing that bus drivers don't seem to mind is when people can't find their bus tickets. On the subway, if you don't have it, you can't swipe your way through, but on the bus there's more of a "ride now, pay later" sort of attitude. I watched one girl look for her card for about five minutes before she finally swiped it and sat down, and this whole time the bus driver is continuing along his route.

Similarly, passengers on the bus are supposed to "request a stop" by pushing a long piece of tape-covered wire located at various seats (it took me several days to figure out what people were pushing). Then in theory the driver can skip a stop if there is no one waiting and no one has requested to get off. It's very flexible. The subways routes are not flexible, except when they are doing repair work and choose to reroute one line to another. There are express trains in Manhattan that will skip several stops at a time to take you very quickly from one part of town to another, but you have to know which trains they are and where they stop ahead of time.

The bus runs on a schedule. You can see if you've missed one recently and when or if the next one is coming anytime soon. The subway comes whenever it wants. There are a couple of lines that have this nice announcer lady recording that tells you how much longer 'til the train arrives. But mostly you just sit and wait with no idea. Sometimes you feel like you've been waiting for a lifetime. The minutes tick by like hours. You learn to use context clues like how many people are waiting around you, how "regular" the line is and what time of day it is.

The preconceived notions I have about the bus and the subway are very different. Both are an adequate source of public transportation, but while everyone from wall street-ers to artists, blue collar workers and school children ride the subway, there is a narrower class of people riding the bus. I wonder why this is? There was a time in Nashville when I lived pretty close to work and thought about taking the bus. But when I suggested it to people the majority thought it was crazy, downright unsafe, and, I got the feeling, "below me." How did the bus get this sort of reputation but not the subway?

Finally, being underground, the subway is a world all its own. People are momentarily cut off from being able to use cell phones or internet. The temperature is often the opposite of what it is like outside. On the bus people still talk on phones and watch the world go on around them, interacting with pedestrians, cars, and traffic lights. There's nothing like that on the lines of the subway, and they say there are miles of unused tunnels here. You can almost picture this "subway organism" going off and exploring on it's own when all the passengers are home sleeping in their beds at night.

My First Bus Ride/Psychological Adventures with Hasids

2008-09-21T19:55:00.009-04:00

So I am babysitting for this super awesome family this week, the mom is a makeup artist to models and the like. They live in Crown Heights, which is not very far geographically from our place in Williamsburg but I found out today is really hard to get to by train. I have not had to take more than two trains to get anywhere, but to get to their place (which is also in Brooklyn)--I had to take the L into Midtown Manhattan, tranfer to the Q which goes over the Manhattan Bridge and back out to Brooklyn, then transfer trains again in Brooklyn to get to their neighborhood. By the time I got there, I was ready for a nap. The dad, who works behind the scenes on Lipstick Jungle, suggested I take the bus back, as he frequently travels through Williamsburg himself for work. "It takes half the time," he insisted and showed me where to wait. It's very humbling to feel like you've got the subway thing down and the cab thing down, and then you get on the bus and there's an entirely different set of rules and you feel like a foreigner. I basically just took the bus north until the guy kicked me off, then tried to navigate my way back with the map I had with me. The last stop happened to be smack dab in the middle of the Hasidic Jewish neighborhood in Williamburg.

When you first start walking through their neighborhood, you feel like at any moment they all might burst into song and synchronized dancing in the streets, like Fiddler on the Roof. Literally everyone is dressed the same--the men in long jackets and big black hats, the women in long skirts and scarves around their head, and all men and even little boys have the signature curls down the sides of their face, which they do because it is against the rules of their religion to shave their sideburns. It's refreshing in a way to be a minority--I didn't see anyone else who "looked like me" for probably ten minutes--which is funny because as a white woman, I have never experienced being the only person like me on the street. Although, after the reality sunk in that no one was going to burst into song, I started to feel a bit self-conscious. I was wearing red pants and a fairly modest short sleeved shirt, but I noticed the women all wore long sleeved shirts and long skirts in dark colors (indeed, looking at customs of dress on wikipedia, it says they look down on people who wear red--whoops!) and I began to wonder as I passed groups of women if they were gossiping about me and my uncouth wardrobe choices (Judging from HasidicNews.com--"In general, the Hasidic attitude towards non-Jews is one of contempt and disinterest. Children, especially, are taught how 'bad' and sinful non-Jews" are--I would say they were, although we'll never know for sure since they were speaking Yiddish.) The children playing on the sidewalks were speaking Yiddish too! I saw a baby that was sitting out in some sort of cage-like covering over a 4th story window, with no adults around. It was really super strange.

After doing a little more research I found out the following info. on our Williams-
burg neighbors: "It seems that the Jews of South Williamsburg are a sect known as Satmars. They are Hungarian in origin, and the community began just after WWII, comprised mainly of newly-arrived Holocaust survivors. The sect stresses re-population of their decimated ranks... There are about 200,000 Satmar worldwide, and about a third of that number lives in this little area in South Williamsburg. Due to the high birthrate, this community doubles in size every decade." Every decade? The average family here has 7.9 children. That's a lot of babies!

With those stats, it's no surprise the Satmars also seem to have a strong penchant for minivans. And the women (who marry through arranged marriages)aren't allowed to drive, so you see caravans of minivans scooting down the street all being driven by men with long beards and dark hats. Except for the minivans and the occasional Hasid you see on their cell phone (although apparently they don't watch tv), you really feel like you've stepped through a time warp into the 1880's. How did such an old-fashioned group of folks who won't fraternize with outsiders end up creating this large and self-sustaining community that has lasted for generations in the middle of modern New York City?! I kept wondering what it must be like for them to go to another part of the city and see scantily clad women or other non-hasidic type things. Do they have pets? I didn't see any. Who do they vote for in elections, if they vote? Does anyone ever leave? How have they managed to be so xenophobic while sharing a zip code and subways with the Polish, Puerto Ricans, and well, white girls who wear red pants? I may have to do some more research and get back to you.

Best Day Ever.

2008-08-27T23:05:00.003-04:00

Umm, today was the best New York day ever! Sometimes I like to pretend I am a celebrity with no bills or rent to pay, and today was the perfect day to practice this ridiculous fantasty. First, I have a teeny part on this tv show called "Life on Mars" tomorrow and I had a costume fitting today. Costume fittings are dreamy! I went to this Studio in Queens and they found outfits for me that look like 1973, and then I would come out in these circa 1973 dresses and the wardrobe team was all "You look amazing!" and "That dress looks like it was made for you!" I told them that I was going to start coming up to visit them every day just for the self-esteem boost.
Then, I went to a meeting for this startup magazine I am going to be helping out with. And the other people there were all, "Is this a pyramid scheme?" because we had all applied via Craig's List and supposedly made it to the "3rd stage" i.e. the personal interview/orientation, but this online mag may be the real deal. After hearing the owner talk about it, I am excited about upcoming projects. So be looking for some links to articles at an actual up-and-coming "e-zine" over the next couple of months!
Our amazing New York friend, who shall remain unnamed, was able to get us into this party for the opening of Tiger Woods new video game, the Tiger Woods PGA Tour '09! This place was like the best wedding matched with the best christmas and the biggest barmitzvah all rolled into one. We had "gold wristbands" which was apparently special, and Sam and I sipped on cocktails from the free open bar next to Tiger, who has really nice skin. Michael Phelps was supposedly there too, but we just missed him. There were all these video game stations and mounds of sushi and macadamia nuts, which I grabbed a handful of every time I walked by. And also the guy from Transformers was there, the one who is the computer expert who the Australian lady goes to for help, and he eats all the doughnuts and says, "I'm not going to jail for you!" All in all it was magic. And Sam and I each got a copy of the game (I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my copy since we obviously don't need two..)

New Slang

2008-08-06T14:02:00.005-04:00

New Yorkers say awesome things and confusing things. There's just little differences that sometimes make me cock my head and give the "huh" face. I find myself fascinated by the tidbits of dialogue I've been picking up from all these Yanks up here. What's even more fascinating is when I find myself using those words without a second thought like some kind of linguistic chameleon. I figured I'd share a few of my favorites. Bearing in mind that I don't or can't use all of these phrasings, they're still quite rad. Yes I said rad.

1) "What's good?" - As far as I can gather, this is a variation of "What's up?". Sometimes used as a phone greeting, or to ask someone what's going on with something. It can be modified in several ways such as "What's really good?", "What's goody?" or my favorite "What's goodingtons?"

2) "On line" - New Yorkers don't stand "In Line" they stand "On line" apparently. I don't get it either. It makes it extra confusing when you are at Petco trying to buy a squeaky ball for your dog and you're texting your wife. You would classify yourself as "In Line". Then a gal comes up and says "Are you online?" You look at your phone and then wonder why this girl cares about that and you respond "Nope." Then she cuts in front of you and buys her dog food, leaving you to curse about how rude that was. (Later I realized, she meant to ask was I in line. Silly Yanks.)

3) Cross streets - It's no longer valid to just give an address. You have to give the cross streets when you're ordering late night sushi or trying to get a cabbie to get you somewhere. For example, Barrio Chino, a great little hole in the wall restaurant in the Lower East Side is at 253 Broome Street. But someone's gonna ask you what the cross streets are, and you gotta know that it's between Orchard and Ludlow.

4) Strunzo - I believe this is Italian. It means "Piece of shit". So when someone annoys you, you can affectionately refer to them as a "Strunzo" or you can mix it up and modify it. Like "Look what that Strunz did" or "This place is like Stunzylvania today."

5) Official Tissue - I don't know many people who use this one, but I think it's so ridiculous that I had to comment on it. From what I gather, it means "legit, cool, top-notch". Like "The new iPhone is official tissue, son." Or "My flatscreen LCD is official tissue."

6) Pal - If I've adopted any wordage since I've been up here, I've adopted "pal." I find "pal" to be the most hilarious adaptable word yet and I've taken full advantage of it. I never used to use Pal, I'd instead sub "dude, brother, friendo" but now, pal is it.

7) Scumbag - I'm glad this one resurfaced. I don't know that I've ever used "scumbag" before I got up here but it really fits the bill on occasion why you want to insult someone and don't feel like swearing. It also allows you to ration your use of strunzo.

That's all I've got for now. Hopefully next time I'll be full of more new and exciting words to share.

On Nannies.

2008-07-31T19:42:00.007-04:00

New York mommies can be a strange breed (at least strange ie different or out of the norm of what I know in the South). Where Southern counterparts may spend their child-rearing days quitting their jobs to mommy full time 'til their nests someday empty, New York mommies often return to work full-time immediately, weeks after bringing new life into the world, and employing full-time help to do a great bulk of the child-rearing in their absence. We've all heard of the Nanny Diaries, the pseudo-autobiographical tale of a Nanny who looks after a wealthy family's children. What I didn't fully realize was how widespread this Nanny culture was in the city, not only in Manhattan but in other upwardly mobile burroughs like Brooklyn.

In certain neighborhoods you can walk down the street and nearly every stroller you pass is being pushed by a nanny. A southern transplant I know here who recently had a baby told me she has women coming up to her at least once a week offering their full-time nanny services, and asking her, "Why don't you have a nanny?" (her baby is 8 weeks old). Her husband's coworkers want to know why they don't have help and were astonished when he took time off after the baby was born. Not only are nannies a normal thing here, but they feel the same way about people not having nannies as many southerners probably feel about having them! Some have explained that these New York mommies really feel that going back to work full-time is the best thing for their child, because in the long term it offers them more opportunities and benefits monetarily.

On the one hand I can see the logic of that argument but I have to tell you, having daily contact with a variety of nannies around the city, I find some of the trends in the hiring of these nanny populations to be very curious. Now, some elite families are adamant about their child being bi or tri-lingual, so you see a lot of hispanic, chinese, and caribbean style nannies (although I'm not sure what language the caribbean nannies are imparting on their children--some variety of patois, perhaps?) This is all good and well, but having spent six or so years working on behavior and language with language-delayed and autistic children (the same principles apply for typically developing children) I have to wonder what other skills these children may be missing out on. For example, the other day I was watching a child, and a nanny was standing nearby me. The child I was watching took a swing at the nanny's kid and grazed him upside the head. The child began to cry and the nanny (who had been chatting on her cell phone, a popular pastime of nanny's while children are off playing with very minimal supervision) came and scooped up her kid and said, "the next time a kid hits you, you hit them right back!" Great advice, lady! Granted this child was very young and not yet talking in complete sentences. Still, it took everything I had not to go up to this nanny and ask her what in the $%^& she thought she was doing.

You can go round and round about it: if you're going to hire someone to essentially raise your young child and be one of the main examples the child has for how to behave and speak, and if you are really in a position to pay someone to help you full-time, why not hire someone with a college education or higher degree? I mean if you're going to spend the money on something wouldn't you want it to be your child? I may be making generalizations here but it would seem an educated person is more likely to have read or be willing to read up on parenting strategies (which is a lot of what nannying is) and know the importance of one-on-one playtime, and less likely to tell your kid, "when a kid hits you, hit them back" while talking on their cell phone. But all this hiring out of childcare to other parties who seem minimally interested in your child's development (which would be at the top of my list when and if I was ever in the position to hire such a person) begs the question: if no one has the time or inclination, then why are you having children at all?! Does anyone have any insight into this? Is it to carry on the Van der blah blah family name or because you don't fully realize how critical the first few years of life are to development or what?

On a somewhat unrelated sidenote, I applied to a handful of Nanny agencies when I first got to the city. Now I'm not saying I'm the cat's meow or anything, but I can take care of some children. Although, I'm not fluent in Spanish. And to this day I have yet to receive a reply from any of the agencies I submitted to. Am I overqualified or do I lack the right qualifications? I guess it depends on where you live.

Not Your Average Dog-Walking Day

2008-07-20T13:14:00.008-04:00

I have found that since moving to the big city, even the most dull days seem exciting to people, like walking the dog: "You're walking the dog--in New York! AWESOME!" And I suppose, in a way, they're right. Walking the dog through the streets of New York does offer one different sights and sounds than letting a dog out in your backyard. But, it's still walking the dog. There are some days though, every now and then, that feel like honest-to-goodness "New York Days", filled with real adventure. Yesterday was the first, full "New York Day" I have had since arriving a month ago.

I started the morning out trying to get to a train I had never been to before and treking through a Puerto Rican neighborhood where I was on the receiving end of several men shouting "Have a nice day at the beach!" (I was wearing a bathing suit top under my shirt, I will explain later) or "Gorgeous!" or "Hi there!" or the like. I haven't found the appropriate response to these men. I've heard stories of local women responding with angry gestures or exclamations, and really what are these men trying to accomplish? Have they ever had a women start talking with them as a result of one of their cat calls? I usually just smile and start walking faster. It's really awkward when they're standing there and you don't respond and then they keep eyeing you all the way down the block. The really persistent ones will plead with you to stop, "let me take your picture" etc. Anyway I digress. I was late getting to the train and so late meeting Jessamine for brunch in the East Village.

I arrived at the Flea Market Cafe and dined on Caramelized Apple Pancake while wondering what Jessamine had up her sleeve. We have been friends since high school and she moved up here right after college so she knows about all the cool New York secret stuff. All she had told me was to meet her at this cafe and bring my bathing suit. I imagined her taking me to a rarely-visited gem of a public pool in the basement of a museum, or whisking me to a labyrinthine system of sprinklers in the corner of a forgotten park. I had seen a family who had gotten off the train at the same time as me wearing bathing suits, and I thought, could there be some sort of indoor water park I didn't know about? I was intrigued.

After brunch we walked around, and did some casual brousing in an antique store, and then, out of nowhere, Jessamine stops on the sidewalk and says, "Do you know where we're going?" "I have no idea!" I said. I love surprises but am rarely surprised in my normal dog-walking life so this guessing and maybe not even getting close was fantastic. She points up to reveal a sign that reads: "Turkish and Russian Baths". Jess explains, "I've been wanting to go here forever, and now I've tricked you to come with me! There might be naked men inside!" I was simultaneously mortified at the thought of large sweaty naked men and further intrigued by this mysterious locale. "Great!" I said. We ran inside.

The place, was, in fact, authentically Russian. Think the sauna in Eastern Promises without the knife fights. We put our "valuables" in a safe deposit box and then were given another set of keys for our "locker" from a man who spoke with a Russian accent and seemed to be a fan of gold jewelry. In the locker room we put on our suits and shorts and flip flops and I noticed a sign that read, "On co-ed days you must wear shorts, if you don't you must leave." We went downstairs to the "baths". There were six different rooms to try, each one was hot and offered a different experience. The redwood room smelled of pine and offered a crisp, dry heat, while the aromatherapy room spat out hot smelly steam which stung your nostrils when you breathed. After sitting in one for a few minutes (there were also signs outside each room that said "Sitting in this room for more than 30 minutes can be seriously harmful to your health") you walk out to a small pool and plunge yourself for as long as you can stand it--the water is absolutely freezing. The effect is supposedly cleansing, relieving your body of toxins, and after getting out of the freezing pool you do feel quite refreshed, though wading through it is so cold it's mildly torturous.

The strangest room was called the Russian room. Here the look was reminiscent of a prison from medieval times. There were stone walls and wooden benches to sit on. In the middle of the room there was a well-looking structure with buckets. People would go over, dip the buckets in the well, and pour cold water over their heads when the heat became too oppressive. (And indeed this one was the hardest to sit in, it took labored effort to even move over to the buckets). Another funny thing, the place offered "spa treatments," and the five or so people trying to hock the treatments would come in and ask you every few minutes if you wanted a mud bath or an oak leaf massage, more in the style of street vendors trying to sell you a rolex than spa employees, and each time more earnest than the next. In the corner of the Russian room one of the street vendor guys was giving a man the oak leaf massage, which consists of him thrashing your back with a large clump of oak leaves. It looked terrible. After it was over street vendor guy literally had to drag the red-faced man out of the Russian room. Then he gave him some sort of pep talk and patted his cheeks and left the man sitting there, looking half-dead. If anyone ever offers you an oak leaf massage, I would think twice about it if I were you. I'm just saying.

The clientelle was actually a lot of young people, and a lot of women. They were also shooting some sort of "independent movie" while we were there and there were these "actresses" running around with scripts while a cameraman and a light man followed them, dragging cords through the standing water all over the floor. Fearing electrocution, we retreated to the sundeck to dry out, and left feeling 10 pounds lighter, like we'd just done three hours of hot yoga. And I was very happy not to have seen any large naked men.

Jessamine and I parted ways on the subway and I headed to a babysitting job near the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Their apartment literally overlooks a field of trees and in the spring, Cherry Blossoms. The mom was a really cool single mom who gave me guest passes to venture over to the Botanical Gardens with her son, Quill (Quill? I don't know, either) while I was gone. She warned me he had barely slept the night before and didn't know what was keeping him up. After she left, the little guy (he's 2) pleaded with me, "Outside, outside!" so we schlepped his stroller downstairs and across the street. Literally two seconds after I put him in the stroller he fell fast asleep. It was 5 o'clock in the afternoon and not the best time for a nap, but we were already inside the Botanical Gardens and I didn't want to turn around. The place was fantastic. For Nashvillians or those who went to my wedding it is a lot like Cheekwood, but maybe a tad bigger. There was a wedding going on though I have to say, Cheekwood has them beat in the event space department. It was super peaceful and beautiful there and you might forget you're in the city while sitting by the fountains and listening to the jazz music that was coming from the Brooklyn Museum, next door. The kid slept the whole time and I felt transported to another place in time.

After babysitting I met up with Sam, Tony, and Teri for a concert in Brooklyn. The concert didn't start 'til midnight so we hung out for a while, then found a good spot for the show. The band is called Apes and Androids and they have a Killers meets Journey meets Queen kind of sound. The show was a lot of confetti being dropped from the ceiling, and lights shining so bright in your face that you have to close your eyes and move your head back and forth--a kind of forced dancing. Other highlights included a glow-in-the-dark segment where they threw glowsticks and inflatable balls with glowsticks into the crowd and everyone was spinning and throwing these glowing things. It was what I pictured a rave to be like, if I had ever been to one.
They also had this tribe of glowing people come out in masks and island wear and spears and carrying a woman attached to a stick up on stage. Then they all did a funky dance in their glowy masks. It was pretty funky.

We ate a late night snack at Anytime Cafe down the street, and a lot of people from the Apes and Androids show were there too, still wearing their glowsticks. They played Queen (an odd coincidence) and everyone sang along loudly to the lyrics while munching on their cheesesticks and tater tots.

My feet are sore and swolen today from all of yesterdays travels, but my mind is racing with thoughts of cherry blossoms, glowing dancers, and new possibilities.

Subway Magic

2008-07-06T23:01:00.017-04:00

It's official: I am totally in love with the New York Subway System. Firstly, I am beside myself to get a break from driving, paying for gas and car expenses, etc. etc. $80 a month for unlimited rides all the time sounds like the deal of the century from where I'm sitting. While other locals pass the time on the train listening to their favorite new tunes on their ipods (in fact I have been shocked with the diverse population of avid ipod users, from blue collar workers to elementary schoolers) or immersing themselves in a book or magazine, I pass the time by watching them. Not in a scary stalker way (I hope) I just see stories all around and I don't want to miss any of them (plus I have found on the occasion or two that I have started some reading I have ended up missing my stop).

When my mom was in town a couple of men trudged onto the subway, one fairly well dressed sort of dragging the other pretty bedraggled looking one along. The bedraggled one, we'll call him Paulo, was just barely hanging on, and he seemed to have a really sad look on his face. The spiffier one, we'll call Jefe, kept trying to reassure him and looked up a couple of times and just kind of smiled and shrugged over the state of his friend. I became dismayed because Paulo was sort of swaying right over my mom's infamous curly hair and I was convinced for several minutes that he was going to wretch all over her. He eventually grabbed on to another handle on the other side of the car, his friend (or lover?) all the while trying to console him. Mom and I both studied him the better part of the ride and neither one of us could figure out if something utterly horrible had just happened to him or if he had had one (or seven) too many. I invented the story that they had been at a dinner party, and while they were there he had gotten a call that his favorite grandmother was deathly ill in the hospital and probably wouldn't recover. Mom thought maybe Jefe had just broken up with Paulo, or at least someone had just broken his heart mightily. Sigh. I guess we will never know the truth.

Another thing worth mentioning (I'm just getting warmed up) are the wonderful art installations. I had no idea how many glorious creations they had been putting up in stations around the city for the past 23 years (the city started a program in 1985 to help fund these artists endeavors and have been slowly adding more every year)! I have literally stopped in my tracks upon rounding the corner and "discovering" (at least it feels as if you are) some of them. One of the first ones I saw is two stops up from us in Williamburg. The title of the series is "Signs of Life" by Jackie Chang.

Another one that I see a lot is the "Life Underground" series by Tom O'Herness. These are scattered all throughout the Union Square/14th St. stop on the L line, which is the train that takes us from Williamsburg to Manhattan. I can't say that these are my favorite, there's something about them that are a bit perverse. Some of the women creatures look topless to me and others look like they're up to no good. Sort of like lemmings. But metal.

Am I wrong? Do they not seem a bit nefarious?
One of the ones that impressed me most is at the Bryant Park stop, literally right beneath Bryant Park (for those of you who are familiar with Project Runway, I was amused to walk through one day, and the park was bursting with people, and also a huge group of business people, still in the work clothes, doing yoga together on the lawn)...Anyway this installation is so expansive, you have to take several long hallways to get to your train and the mosaic just keeps going and going, these pictures really do not do it justice.

Artist Sam Kunce aptly titled it "Under Bryant Park."
The most surprising one I've seen so far is at the Penn Station stop, only because it is so not what you would expect to find around the subway (if one were to have an expectation about subway art in the first place). It's called "Garden of Circus Delights" by Eric Fishl. Again the pictures do not really do justice to the detail and color that hits you in several different spots.

You really just need to come up and visit and see for yourself.

Our Apartment (part 1)

2008-06-23T10:12:00.019-04:00

A lot of you have been asking to see pictures of the new apartment. We still don't have a couch, which makes for interesting evenings when we try to lounge, and we're missing a special something for Sam's 5,000 dvds, but I'll go ahead and post some pics of the rooms a few days after we moved in and the ones that are more finished. Let's start the virtual tour, shall we?

ENTRYWAY

When you first walk in you have this lovely mudroom/hallway area. The big yellow thing you see is the Air Bazooka I gave Sam for his bday--it can blow a blast of air at your face from up to 50 feet away! I know! Also this is where we keep our games, bathing suits, coats, hats, and I created some drawers under the shoe shelf for Ellie's stuff and extra utility stuff. The rug is made out of recycled bicycle tires and the chair is straight off the set of that show Cashmere Mafia. Our friend Alison worked on it and they gave away everything after the show was cancelled. So we have quite a few Cashmere Mafia pieces at the moment. :)

BATHROOM

To the right of the Entryway is our lovely Bathroom. My favorite decorative touch is the bathmat shaped like a frying egg! Ah man, who doesn't love that. You can't see very well but all of Sam's music prints that I gave him are in here, as well as a few of his favorite action figures. Let's go take a peak at the kitchen! Come on!

KITCHEN
Some of you know about my dream of having a kitchen like Amelie's (from the movie) and it is really coming together now that I have space to put everything and no bugs taking up residence in all my appliances! The kitchen is about 3 times the size of our old kitchen. That's because we live in Brooklyn. What you don't see here is the set of table and chairs we scored from the previous rentee, in the lower right hand corner, which I will include in the next installment after I hang my plate arrangement on that wall.

Here's also a very scary picture of our kitchen the weekend we moved in:

BEDROOM
So the day after we moved in the Landlord, a younger guy who is Polish, came with some paint samples and told us to pick out a color. He also added, "Either you paint, or we paint for you." Sam and I looked at each other--free Paint job? sweet! So he brings this other Polish guy who speaks no English to help paint and when they are finished, we notice they have also painted all of the molding around the doors and windows. I have never seen that approach before.

You can see our view of the neighboring buildings, and there in the window are some plants and I am trying to grow a pine tree. Oh, and that's the quilt me mum just made me out of all the dresses she has made me growing up--including pieces from the bridesmaid dresses she just made.

That shelf is a real pain to hang. Sam's contribution was the clone troopers placed on the top middle shelves. On the wall to the left of the shelf are my grandmother and sam's grandfather, and on the right, sam's maternal grandmother with her family and my maternal grandfather. You'll also notice the fan, which we keep going at all times. Central a/c, man. Thank your lucky stars for your central a/c. Those were the days...

TERRACE

We have this bangin terrace that's almost like another room. I haven't seen any other balconies like this anywhere in Manhattan or Brooklyn. Usually if there are balconies on a building they are teeny tiny, like only enough room for you to walk out and wave at pedestrians while standing. Anyhoo, it's a nice space.

Here's another view of our street. They are building a schmancy overpriced new building next door (we hopped the roof and snuck a peak--very small bedrooms and small everything for high prices) so the jackhammering and roadwork is impeding our enjoyment of the nabe a bit, but it should be nice when it's finished in a month or so. In the distance on the right corner is a laundromat/cafe (you can also drop your laundry there and they will do it for you), past that is the street we take up a block to the park/dog run, and past that another bodega that boasts a great ice cream selection and mysterious meats.

Stay tuned in a couple of weeks for part 2--Living Room/Office! Bye for now!

City Living 101 (a few things that happen here you don't see anywhere else)

2008-06-22T15:23:00.004-04:00

1) A corner store or convenience store, here in the city is called a "Bodega" no matter who owns it or the quality of goods. I have found that most stores I have been
in, even if they look kind of shady, carry a wide variety of organic and vegetarian options. This is true of restaurants as well. It's interesting to me in a city where it seems like it would be more difficult to traffic goods in and out, the concern for organics and vegetarian options is still so high. I guess it has something to do with there not being a ton of regular grocery stores around, and so these "bodegas" help bridge the gap between your run-of-the mill MAPCO and your Kroger or Harris Teeter.

2)People make out in the street here like it's no big deal!
You never see this in the suburbs. But three times since I've arrived (that's more than once a week on average) I've stumbled upon couples unashamedly and unabashedly making out knowing full well people are watching. One girl we saw in Central park was even sitting spread eagle in this guys lap (Sam insisted they were European but I don't know...) And it's not like they were in some shadowy corner and you 'caught' them. I think I've discovered some new breed of couple that enjoys or is so oblivious to the world around them that they continue behaving like they are in the privacy of their own bedroom. I wonder if people with this kind of personality are drawn to the city or if the city makes you that way.

3)Trannies. Fierce Trannies.

4)Forget Craig's List--in our neighborhood you just put something on the curb and put a sign on it that says "free" and it's gone within 24 hours. The first time I witnessed somebody doing this I thought it was crazy! But I've seen it happen on three different occasions now (this actually may not be true in every city neighborhood, so you just gotta use your best judgment). Last night I actually put a bag of stuff on the curb in a gift bag with winnie the pooh on it--I had thought of taking it to goodwill, but then I remembered what I had seen before and gave it a try. Sure enough it was gone this morning. On my way back from walking the dog, I passed a man on the sidewalk carrying the same bag. I found this hilarious.

Just Your Typical Wednesday Morning Police Chase

2008-06-16T00:16:00.002-04:00

God I love New York. I'm here for five days and I feel like I'm on an episode of NYPD Blue. So I'm walking to work Wednesday morning, just minding my business, bopping through the Union Square Subway Station on my way to catch the 6 Uptown (see how cool I sound already?). And everyone's pretty much doing the same thing, listening to their iPods, drinking iced lattes and what not and all the sudden I see a blur of motion go past me.

Now mind you this is a pretty normal thing. I think to myself, "That guy REALLY needs to get to his train..." He's bombin'-ass down the stairs towards the platform like it's nobody's business and people aren't really thinking anything of it. Literally like 9 seconds later, a GANG of New Yorks Finest go barrelling past. I'm talking like a half dozen cops in uniform and another easy half dozen in plain-clothes. These guys are yelling "Get out the way!" "NYPD" "EVERYONE MOVE" and that sort of thing. I'm totally waiting for the camera crew to go hustling past. So the cops follow this dude down the stairs and the guy is ahead of them by a bit. I wasn't ready for what happened next.

This crazy son-of-a-bee JUMPS off the platform INTO the subway tunnel and goes haulin' biscuits up the track. Mind you, he's running towards the direction the GIANT subway train will be coming from. Not that the train is coming. The cops are all yelling and talking into radios and they start JUMPING into the tunnel as well. I don't know what happened to the guy, don't know what he did, don't know if he got away. The trains were running slow, a bunch of New Yorkers were real pissed off about it, yet everyone basically seemed to go about their business. This was perhaps the craziest thing I've seen in quite some time.

To be fair, I recounted this story to some friends of mine who've been up here about a year now and they all admitted they hadn't seen ANYTHING close to that nuts since they've been up here. So I feel special and that regard. Like I really got to witness something crazy and delightful.

So then New York, I know we don't know eachother that well yet, but I think I'm already starting to fall in love with you. You crazy broad...

Start Spreading the News...

2008-06-11T16:24:00.023-04:00

Well, we made it. We're here in New York and almost out of boxes. The journey to our new Brooklyn home took a week from start to finish, including a wonderful stay with Sam's family in Lexington. Here are a few scenes from our 16 hour road trip North:

TENNESSEE

In Nash right before we pulled out of the parking lot at our old apartment.

KENTUCKY

We nestled Ellie's dog bed in between our seats. When we first started out, she was a little uneasy about the whole thing and kept resting one paw on Sam's leg for reassurance.

WEST VIRGINIA

What's the deal with West Virginia? All I really know about this state is that scary movie Deliverance takes place there and the Dancing Outlaw is from there. And a lot of people we saw were missing teeth. I also learned there are a lot of bridges. Like this one.

We made a wrong turn and wound up driving past the capitol. It seemed so out of place, this guilded building on a hill in a state renowned for it's poverty. Right after this we stopped and bought our first full tank of gas, for $140 people! This man getting gas next to us watched us fill up and was like, "How much was it?" He felt bad for us. On a related note, see Who Killed the Electric Car and you will be even more outraged about the gas crisis.

I really wanted to stop for dinner at Biscuit World, but when I mentioned it to Sam he said, "it's not any good," without batting an eyelash. Apparently Biscuit World is a West Virginia chain and he'd stopped at one on a ski trip once. He said the biscuits were terrible.

MARYLAND
It was dark. I was hoping to see a crab cake. I didn't see that or much of anything. Maybe next time.

PENNSYLVANIA

We were trying to get to New Jersey but we hit Hershey, PA around 2AM and delirium had set it. I was excited about Hershey though. I like chocolate. I was hoping to see a giant chocolate bar with maybe a man inside waving to us as we pulled in at the Comfort Inn but we didn't see any chocolate whatsoever. We did sneak Ellie into our room and all night she was barking at the slightest noise and we were shushing her. We didn't sleep so well. The next morning as we were gassing up I saw a frightful number of dead bugs on the front of the Uhaul.

NEW JERSEY
The home of Springsteen. By the time we got to Jersey we were getting really antsy. Sam had scheduled our movers to meet us at our place around 12:30. He called around 11:00 and asked if we could push it back to 1:30. They said no. So, we were basically racing to get there, cause you have to pay them whether you show up with the stuff on time or not. My heart leapt with excitement when I saw the first sign for the city!

New Jersey also has a lot of tolls cause they're cheap bleep bleeps. We paid one and right before we got up to the Holland Tunnel we rounded a bend and there was the Manhattan skyline! I almost cried with joy! I took another pic 'cause I thought our journey was almost over:

But then we got up to the Holland Tunnel toll booth and the guy was like "You're not taking that UHaul through there?" And we were like "Yeah?" And he was like, "Nope. No trucks in the tunnel." So then, I almost cried from desperation when we had to turn around, go back through Jersey, and drive through several more tolls. Around the sixth or seventh one (I lost track) we ran out of cash and they don't take cards and we basically begged the lady to let us through. She said something about charging the fee to UHaul and we were like, "do what you gotta do," and she let us pass.

NEW YORK
We ended up getting off the Insterstate way too soon 'cause we saw a sign for another tunnel and thought be might get stuck. Our mapquest directions had, of course, gone out the window when the mean man made us turn around, so with much difficulty we navigated the outlying neighborhoods, past the hasidic jews, and to our new home in Williamsburg. There we met the movers, who had been waiting on us for two hours.

Postscript: The movers felt bad about screwing us over so we actually managed to unload everything off the truck in an hour (that was all the time we had left), which was quite a feat considering it took close to seven to get it loaded. The movers were from Georgia (the country, not the state) and if they caught me carrying any box over 5 pounds they'd be all, "don't carry that heavy thing, here carry this pillow." So if you're looking to go with international movers I recommend the Georgians.

2,190 Days

2008-05-23T10:14:00.002-04:00

By the time Sam and I pull out onto the highway in our UHaul next week, I will have been a Nashville, Tennessee resident for 6 years almost to the day. That's 2,190 days here or 52,560 hours. I've called Clearview Drive, Central Avenue, Brownlee, and White Brige Road home. I've had only three roommates (plus Sam). I've had four jobs but only interviewed for one of them. I've had one other job interview since I've been here and it involved getting pseudo-kidnapped and taken to Kentucky (I later turned down their offer). I've been through five cell phones. Four of them have been Nokias, and one Motorola. True Story. I've had one car totaled by a sweet lady WWII veteran, and sold another on Craig's List. I've been introduced to Korean food. I've had three dogs and two cats (some for longer than others).

I've been to seven bachelorette parties (really only two in Nashville) and three (only three?) baby showers. I've lost track of how many weddings, but I have travelled to eight different states to attend them.

I've written a feature screenplay and pitched it to a big whig. Discovered my heart swells with excitement whenever I am on set. Acted in a dozen films, ranging from 10-minute student shorts to 50 million dollar disney pictures. Done therapy with close to 50 children, and I hope helped most of them.

I've loved a lot and had my heart broken. I may have unwittingly broken a few as well. I met my husband and had a beautiful wedding. I leave this town with some friendships that have stood the test of time and are even stronger than they were six years ago. Lost some friends and don't know why.

I've learned a lot about myself and about life. I may never like olives, and I have stopped trying. I hope to never return to 9 to 5. The dentist is expensive. So is insurance. People STILL don't get how good the music in Nashville is. Some brilliant ideas that should be making someone piles of money are not, and a lot of stupid ones are making plenty of people rich.

Now that I'm re-reading this it's reminiscent of a chain letter. Which leaves me with only one way to end it....
Pass this letter on if u luv your friendz!
That's something else I've learned about myself. Always trying to make jokes when I start getting sad.
Here's to the next 2,000 days.

Ellie Roosevelt Williamson

2008-05-20T21:02:00.008-04:00

I came back from a baby shower a couple of weeks ago and found Sam pouring over the Humane Society website with a mischievous grin on his face. "I've been to the humane society..." he started. "I fell in love with this dog. I almost brought her home but that's not how the Williamsons do things. I hope you say it's ok to get her." The next day we went back and checked her out again. I have to say the people at the Humane Society LOVED her. Every time we would start talking to an employee they'd say in a half-whisper "You know Ellie is the best dog here." She is 10 months old, and fully housebroken. Apparently when she first arrived as a pup she was WILD so that won her a ticket into the PPUPS program, a doggie school in the women's prison here that trains dogs as part of the women's rehabilitation. She spent four months there before returning to the Humane Society, and knows a long list of commands (I'm still trying to memorize them all).

At first I was a little disappointed at the prospect of having a fully trained dog. Being that my work background involves behavior modification, I've been relishing the thought of molding a young pup into a well-behaved furball. But, as I've gotten to know her, I'm seeing there's still things to work on. She's rather skiddish at night and especially wary of bushes (yes, bushes). She gets separation anxiety whenever Sam and I leave for any period of time (which is a real doggie ailment that involves whining, and pacing the house with anxiety). She also loves other dogs and wants to play with them whenever we see one in the neighborhood. She is what I would describe to friends as a "boy dog," ie, she's a little too big to be a lap dog (although she tries anyway) but she can run really really fast and jump really really high (characteristics which I've always found that boys appreciate in dogs more than girls).

A few other things Ellie loves:
Chasing Bunnies
Riding in the Car
Going for Walks
Throwing dog toys up in the air and catching them
Birds
Running like a cheetah

A couple of years ago, I started really wanting a dog. I came up with an imaginary name for her: Eleanor Roosevelt. The fact that her name was already Ellie was funny to Sam and I and of course, as she already answers to it, we'll keep it as is.

On Putting Down Roots

2008-05-18T21:24:00.004-04:00

I can't tell you how elated I am at the prospect of being somewhere more than temporarily. I suppose in the grand scheme of things it's all temporary, really, but I can't remember the last time I had all my boxes unpacked and all my pictures up on the walls (I can, actually, it was circa July 2006 in a sweet little house on Central Ave. Mary and I had pooled all our stuff into one charming abode. Since then I have lived at my parent's house, where most of my stuff sat in the basement for about a year, and at Dunham's Station, where our dining room has served as a holding place for our boxes for the better part of six months).

It's weird, I feel like I haven't gotten a chance to have a "home" for Sam and I since we've been married. We've been in this holding pattern of waiting to move and/or putting up with less than spectacular aspects of our apartment (see haikus below) and I can't wait to be somewhere and get settled in. Not to mention being somewhere that not a soul has ever lived in before! A brand new balcony, oven, windows, doorknobs, of our very own!

I really enjoy creating an inviting atmospehere, cooking for friends, and generally opening my crib up to others to enjoy. I feel like Sam hasn't even seen that side of me as a wife yet. It's been a strange an interesting time--giving away or selling a good part of our belongings. Finding out I really haven't missed any of it. It's refreshing, in a way, to not have a bunch of stuff bogging you down, especially as we get ready to start a new chapter of our lives.

Stay tuned as we pack up what's left of what we own in the next couple of weeks and head north! Hang on! It's going to be wild!

Dunham Station Haiku #6

2008-04-22T09:57:00.001-04:00

On newly hatched birds that live in the corner of our living room wall

Nest of baby birds
Why must you squawk all day long
Go find a nice tree.

Dunham Station Haiku #5

2008-04-03T11:13:00.003-04:00

In honor of our last month at our apartment, I will be writing a series of haiku's that detail some of the Dunham Station's most interesting characteristics. There is a retro charm to the place not found in most modern apartment buildings, and it's small enough that Sam and I have nicknames for many of the inhabitants here ("Firefly girl," "crazy guy," and "redneck dad" just to name a few)...it is a bittersweet parting...but mostly just sweet.

Neighbors

Laughter from below
Cigarette smell seeps through walls
Late night lovers' quarrel

Dunham Station Haiku #4

2008-04-02T02:46:00.002-04:00

Crazy Guy

Always arranging
Mountains of stuff in your car
While shouting strange things

Dunham Station Haiku #3

2008-04-02T02:43:00.001-04:00

Levi

Your dad yells a lot
You smile, wave to me outside
You need a mother

Dunham Station Haiku #2

2008-04-02T02:39:00.001-04:00

Birds

Live in our building
Make nests in our window pane
Sound like dinosaurs

Dunham Station Haiku #1

2008-04-01T21:10:00.004-04:00

Laundry Room

fat cat sits by door
a dollar fifty per load
corner smells like pee

Happy Early Easter!

2008-03-19T11:48:00.003-04:00

In honor of Easter and the Cadbury egg (my favorite Easter treat) I thought I'd post this for anyone who hasn't seen it. Because it's awesome. http://www.aglassandahalffullproductions.com/

An evening in the Big Blue Twilight Zone

2008-03-19T11:00:00.008-04:00

I enjoy the passion with which my husband's family roots for their team. As a transplant Texan in a town where you could be a fan of any number of winning or losing teams (here, VOLS, Commodores, Rebels, and sundry superfans live together in one mega-melting pot of fandom) I can appreciate that in Lexington, Kentucky, there is only one team you watch and one team you root for. There is a simplicity and dependability in this not found in most facets of life. This past weekend we went up to hang with husband's fam, and I couldn't help but be, to borrow my grandmother's phrase-ology--tickled, at the turn of events.

Background: It's the SEC men's basketball tournament in Atlanta, and Kentucky is supposed to play, but due to tornadoes whipping through the area the game has been postponed and everyone's just kind of standing around eating nachos. There's a lot of talk about getting people in and out safely, if the bad weather that's already come through will return, etc. etc. This goes on for hours, and they finally decide to put the game off until the next afternoon. The camera crews literally go around interviewing the same three people for two hours, and they keep saying the same thing. I find this hilarious, but no one else in the room seems to notice the hilarity. They seem to be watching silently a) in reverence to the team b) in hopes that they will catch a snippet of pulitzer prize winning journalism on this subject c) their brains were stolen by aliens while I was in the bathroom.

When it gets interesting: When it's all said and done the 11 o'clock news has become the 12:00 am news, and I'm thinking to myself, finally, some other topics of discussion! There's only so much you can say about a game that never happened and a storm that has done some damage, mostly in other parts of Atlanta. But then a few minutes into the news I realize something: every area of news is revolving around Kentucky basketball. Again I look around to see if anyone is noticing the hilarity, but everyone is just glued to the tv. The news went a little something like this:
Lindy Binderton:"Our top story tonight is on the tornadoes that whipped through Atlanta postponing the game indefinately. Fans are pissed! We're pissed here at the newsdesk! Let's get a look at the weather..."
Weatherman Thompson:"Thanks, Lindy. You can see the path of the storm as it moved through the metropolitan Atlanta area hours ago. There could be more storms hitting the outskirts later on this hour. If that happens it could affect where the Cats play tomorrow. Back to you, Bob" (notice how the weather in the actual city where we are, Lexington, never comes up!)
Bob: "Let's head over to the streets of downtown Lexington, where Lot Smiley has seen how the fans are reacting. Lot?"
Lot: "Bob, you can see the streets of downtown behind me, are not in their usual bustling state (it is a well known fact that the downtown streets of Lexington are never bustling.) When fans in the bars downtown found out the game had been postponed until tomorrow, I witnessed them stare at the television. They couldn't believe it. Some of them were surprised (PS, this would only be news if you are a fan, heard the news, and set yourself on fire or jumped out a nearby window. Continuing to watch the program you were watching is not news.) Back to you Lindy!"
Lindy: "Let's go to a commercial break"
*All of the local commercials feature Kentucky's Basketball coach, holding a sandwich, standing in front of a car, and kissing babies. It's sort of eerie, like that movie where John Ritter is stuck in the tv and stars in every show that's on? You know the one. He (Billy, not John) must make a boatload in promo/endorsement money.*
Lindy: "Now let's go to the director of the tournament, who's standing by..."And on and on for the rest of the newscast.

Postscript: The Cats went on to lose to UGA the following day in a heartwrenching overtime. UGA would win the tournament,
but Kentucky's fans, and the team, will be back. And when they are, you can bet Lexington we'll be covering it, round the clock, in it's entirety, with only kentucky basketball coach (tell em billy sent ya!) approved commercial breaks. That's how they do it up there.

My Friend, Don't Be A Jerk...

2008-03-18T16:42:00.004-04:00

My wife and I are nice people. Believe it or not, we don't suplex people for not turning their phone on vibrate in the movies (though we should) or slap a fool for jumping in line on the ski lift or anything ridiculous like that. I'm a firm believer in the good cop approach. But I'll tell ya' it always helps to have that ONE friend who loves to be the bad cop. I don't understand the people out there who refuse to be cool. It's like Desperado, they have to settle the score with someone, anyone, EVERYONE. Which brings me to my current confessional. I have always worked in a business somehow closely related with the very people I'm speaking of. I'll be nice to anyone. I'll try to help you. I'll get you what you want, even if it's incredibly annoying. Are you the diner who wants water, no ice, extra lemons, three straws, plenty of Splenda, and all the free chips and salsa you can eat? No problem! Coming right up! Are you allergic to everything to the point where you really shouldn't have left your protective sweet-ass human sized bubble and venture out but you just HAD to have that specialty dish your way? Hey, it's not on the menu buddy, but I'm gonna make that happen because you're special. And don't kid yourself killer, I'll be happy to talk to UPS because they didn't get your microphone to your movie set in time (even though you gave me the wrong address).
But don't be a dick about it. It's not my fault that the figurative you happen to be high maintenance individuals. I'm a problem solver baby. After kickin' it 40 hours a week, you might be surprised to learn that I don't work a second job because I think it rocks. I have a good time with restaurant folk though and we're a hearty bunch. If you, the diner play your cards right, we're gonna have some drinks, some snacks, and get through this together, having a relatively fun time while we do it. In case anyone was wondering, my sweet wife doesn't slog around at her second job after changing autistic kid's lives so you can be annoying and ugly to her while she makes an hourly wage.
I think people forget what it's like to just be cool. That the working class (and I mean ANYONE who works) is gonna be way quicker to help you the customer out if you're just nice and you smile and don't freak out about little problems that crop up. I read somewhere that it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile. I don't know if that's true. But just remember it's way easier for me to help the nice, relaxed person before I go the extra mile for the jerk off. But if you insist to being THAT guy (or girl) then roll for Initiative, pal. Because I came here to do two things; kick ass and eat Gummy Bears...

Where the *&$%@ Did They Go?

2008-03-13T17:03:00.004-04:00

I make no apologies for my nostalgia. Which is why after my last post (and my unwillingness to admit that legally I'm an adult) I thought of a few more things have just flat disappeared. These aren't in any particular order of time, nearness to my heart, or preference, I'm just wondering what where they went.

1) You Can't Do THAT On Television - Buckets of slime dropping from the sky, kids popping out of lockers, a younger less bitter Alanis Morissette. Why isn't this show on DVD and why did it even go off the air?
2) Colorforms - Somehow, putting reusable stickers on the same background board was hours of endless fun. Cheap, wholesome fun. I will gladly give my remaining 6 1/2 Garbage Pale Kid's cards to the person that finds the fascist that took Colorforms off the market and punches them in the neck.
3) Casey's Countdown - Back when pop music really used to mean something... There's nothing better than Shaggy telling you to "Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.
4) Music Videos - For all you whippersnappers, MTV used to actually play videos. Full videos. I know. Wacky.
5) Craig Kilborn - Mark in Old School? Hello? If you see this guy, tell him to call me. I want to know where he is and what he's doing.
6) Double Dare - There's a recurring theme here. Nickelodeon and Slime. But this was family fun. Now we're subjected to My Dad's Better Than Your Dad. Thanks Studio Execs!
7) Big Wheels - The legit Big Wheel has gone the way of the Dodo. Try to find one with a handbrake.
8) Network Sign Offs - I don't want to buy your shit from 2am til 6am if I happen to be up. Just give me an F-15 and the Star Spangled Banner. We'll call it even.
9) Tears For Fears - (Thanks to Rob for reminding me of this) A mini tour in 2007 was the last we heard of these guys after almost 20 frakkin' years! Inconceivable!
10) High Dives - Public Pools don't have 'em anymore. There's no excuse for this. Now if I wanna do something extreme, I have screw up my courage and knock off a bank.

Thoughts? Discoveries? Emotionally-charged Responses?

The Good Old Days

2008-03-04T11:37:00.006-05:00

It makes me sad that things that used to be so very awesome when I was just a squirt are nowhere near as cool, or delicious, or fun now that I'm "all grown up". I'm wondering, is it me? Generally being a glass half full kind of guy however, I've found there's still quite a few things that are just as badass as they were when we were younger. But the bad news first;
First off is Cereal. Several blasphemers recently tried to convince me that Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch was the real McCoy of breakfast delights when they were kids. This was apparently the best dessert cereal that God gave to man. I was always a sugar cereal fan when I was a kid, and I was a HUGE fan of the OG Cap'n Crunch. I figured maybe the PB version was worth checking out. I did, it sucks, stick with the red box, you'll thank me later (if you the cereal makers can't even shape your peanut butter wannabe puff like the standard Crunch pillow, we have nothing to discuss in the breakfast department).
It pains me to say that next on the list is Saturday Morning Cartoons. Namely because landmark programs like GI Joe, Transformers, Looney Toons and Gem aren't on anymore. And don't think that I don't check often to make sure. Shows like He-Man aren't the cream of the crop anymore, but we still get valuable lessons at the end of every episode like "Skeletor lost because he was a fascist". Where'd the values go? Bring back the shows that made us procrastinate doing our weekend chores!
Driving is also on the list. Remember just counting the days til you got your license? And how awesome it felt to grab the keys to the Mazda 626 and hit the road? Well those days are over. Somehow between 1996 and today, EVERYONE forgot how to merge, learned how to text on the road, and bought Hummers. Lindsey and I are counting the days til we sell our cars and hit the Subway in NYC!
So is this just because I'm getting older you ask? HELLS NO! I have irrefutable proof that I can still appreciate some good stuff from our youth;
Like Pudding Pops (when you can find them). Pudding Pops are still the most excellent of frozen treats. You can argue, but I'll sic Bill Cosby on your ass. Caprisun is awesome, just ask my wife. She loves the astronaut drink pouches! The Rocketeer is still a movie that makes me feel magical. I saw it as a kid, bought it as an adult and it holds up. Even now I want to get a rocket pack and kick some Nazi butt. Lego's are just as awesome as you remember (but now they have Batman, Starwars, and Indiana Jones sets). And regular Nintendo will still bring a smile to the most sour of faces (until I smoke their ass in Tecmo Bowl--hut hut hut hut hut hut hut!)
I'm not jaded or overly cynical. Sometimes I just miss those days when everything was equally awesome under the less harmful sun in a cell phone free world where my Knight Rider big wheel was gettin' 40 miles to the gallon of grape Kool Aid. Oh yeah!

Flowbee stylee or, how to give your hubby a haircut

2008-02-22T16:24:00.014-05:00

Sam refuses to pay good money for a haircut (we'd rather spend it on stuffing ourselves with sushi whenever and wherever possible) and since his mum isn't around the corner anymore to work coiffing magic with her Flowbee, it was time for me to step up to the plate. I have to admit, I was kind of avoiding his haircutting pleas for a while there. Shaggy as he thought his hair was getting, I was terrified, that, like the scuba-diving incident (see honeymoon blog for details), I might unwittingly do something to put his life in danger or seriously and irrevocably maim him. I couldn't live with myself if I maimed him or his hair irrevocably. Even if I didn't maim him what if I did a general piss poor job and he had to walk around with bad hair for several weeks? Oh the horror. The horror!

He sat a chair down in front of the bathroom mirror recently and said, "It's time." I gulped. But, I knew I couldn't run away from my conjugal duties forever. I opened a new package of scissors and swore I'd give it my all. I covered the bathroom floor in plastic trash bags. I pulled up my sleeves and touched his tender follicles one last time. After a quick tutorial on how to use his trimming gadget, we were off to the races! I was a little tentative at first (the aforementioned intense fear of maiming), but after Sam reassured me about 25 times (I wasn't sure if I should believe him the first 24 or so) that there was a safety on his trimming contraption that prevented me from killing him or even having the ability to cut him, I was free as a bird! I really like this haircutting gig, it's a lot like painting. In the end, I gave him a stand up haircut. I think he was even surprisingly impressed with how well it turned out. Maybe I should add barber to my ever-expanding list of part-time jobs! For now, I suppose I will continue cutting his hair free of charge.

One more note: Look how elated Sam looks in the picture! He has wild, happy, love-my-new-haircut eyes. That one piece in front looks a little wonky, but I assure you in real life he was an absolute vision!

Ode to the BC

2008-02-06T17:22:00.000-05:00

I don't know if there's anything that defies logic quite as much as eating a little pink pill that prevents you from having babies. For the first couple of months after Sam and I tied the knot I was convinced that I had a rare disease that would prevent Birth Control from having any effect on me. I seriously thought I was pregnant for like three weeks based on my huge levels of paranoia and several pregnancy signs that seemed to have grabbed me. It's also possible that some of these things happen to me from time to time anyway and I just was paying a lot closer attention. Like boobs hurting. Which never happens to me. Unless I'm pregnant. Or think I am in my imagination. And for a couple of weeks there, my boobs hurt for no apparent reason other than there was a little human growing inside me. Turns out they were just hurting.

I can't tell you the kind of silent horror that goes on inside your mind for those couple of weeks that you've convinced yourself there's an embryo in you. I couldn't decide whether to let Sam in on my fear, but then if I was wrong I'd really feel ridiculous for making him worry. So I just whinced every time I had a boob pain, and obsessively checked google for early pregnancy signs "Excessively tired. Am I excessively tired? I'm tired. I wouldn't say excessively. I had a nap yesterday. What does that mean?" and on and on.

You hear those stories about people who were supposedly taking birth control, and accidentally got pregnant, or people who were taking antibiotics with their birth control and they cancelled each other out. You wonder if these people really did get supremely unlucky or were very negligent. I almost hope it was the latter so something like this never happens.

It's so strange 'cause I love children and hope to have lots. It's just the idea of this enormous thing happening to that you weren't ready for or hadn't planned for. Like tornados. Or housefires. Or other natural disasters.

I'm much better now about not obsessing over my imaginary pregnancy. I mostly trust that the little pink pill is going to work as long as used correctly. At least, they say it does 98.99999% if the time.

Girlfriend in my pocket

2008-02-01T00:18:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I wish I had a girlfriend (a friend who is a girl) to pull out of my pocket or beam onto the couch with me. Most of the time Sam and I think the same things are important, get just as excited about LOST premieres (finally!), just as upset about bad actors and unpaid writers and daft leaders, just as tickled about Dane Cook and Craig Ferguson's jokes. And there are lots of great things about living with boys, like they're really strong and can open jars and packaging. They're really good at fixing stuff that leaks or breaks, and also can kill bugs and other vermin without batting an eyelash. And boys are super talented at setting up stuff I can't live without now even though I never knew these things existed as a single person, like surround sound. It sounds like those horses/machine guns/waterfalls are really in the room with you! But every now and then, I must confess, I get really excited about ridiculous girly things, like Eva Longoria's hair is fabulous! and I've decided what shoes I'm going to wear on David Letterman! (no there's no scheduled appearance at this juncture, but it's a probable theoretical) and when I make these kinds of declarations, I usually get a "hmm," or an "ok." Not that it would make much sense for him to get excited talking about some of these topics, but I need someone to commiserate with here. A lady friend to pull out of my pocket who will also get very excited about this probable theoretical David Letterman appearance and the shoes that I will wear.

Outtakes in Wedding Portraiture

2008-01-24T21:17:00.000-05:00

Our photographer from the big day finally has all our pictures up on his website. I was relieved to find they capture the occasion perfectly. I was a little worried since our brilliant photographer claimed to have food poisoning and spent the better part of the evening on the floor, literally, writhing on the ground. I think we were all a little worried. But, somewhere between the writhing he got a lot of great shots. Instead of putting the most picture perfect selections up, I wanted to share some that are a bit more off the beaten path:
Here are two of my beautiful bridesmaids at the wedding rehearsal. Are they sad because the rehearsal is a bit chaotic? Their hunger is about to get the best of them? They've lost the group and can't find their way back through the wilderness to their car? I love this because whatever they're pretending, it's actually not a face I ever see them make. So I feel like I'm getting to see another moment of the weekend I otherwise would have missed out on.

Here bridesmaid Cindi and I are on the wedding day. I love this because it almost looks like two separate pictures that got photoshopped together. I look like I'm about to kiss her and she looks like she just ate some bad tuna, but we still both look glowy and fab. So it's an oxymoronic wedding moment.

Mary and Drew the graphic designers! They look very dapper first of all, and also like they're about to take off into outerspace. The effect of seeing them clearly and everything else is a swooshy blur is mucho fantastico. Plus everyone else in the background looks especially ghostly, which is fitting since the whole wedding thing becomes another fleeting moment before you know it.

I am dying to know what was happening in this picture. My Mom and Will the curly haired brother are both making faces like "This is so bizarre," and Hunter the brother on the right looks like he is trying to laugh something off but he thinks it's strange too. This was right before they walked down the aisle. I have to know what caused these facial expressions.

My new husband is licking the cake off my thumb. You never get to practice for that kind of stuff. Cutting a cake and feeding it to someone with dozens of onlookers. It's weird that my thumb's in his mouth, but I think we kind of make it work.

This picture proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that my mother is a diva, and a rock star.

I'm so happy Rory got this picture. I keep hearing about how Sam's brother was in rare form, dancing, and enjoying his birthday and our wedding, which happened to be on the same day. All the women around him are clapping their hands and looking gleefully at him as if to say, "more! don't stop there!" It looks like he's just in between dance moves. I hope they got him dancing on video.

This was an out of body moment. Walking to the car with everyone waving and making noise. I couldn't stop smiling or waving, like I'd just seen all my favorite characters at Disney World. I love this pic because it looks like Sam and I are a museum exhibit, caught frozen and smiling behing the glass. You can see someone is waving back at me in the window reflection (probably because I had been incessantly waving at them).

Adventures in Part-time Jobbery

2008-01-21T12:56:00.001-05:00

**About this picture: This Nashville woman on Craig's List will let you have her desk, but you must take her printer, baby food chopper, and other bag of crap, or no deal. People kill me!**

For the past couple of months, I have split my time between doing therapy with autistic children, working at a high end retail store, and looking for potential writing and/or acting gigs in New York. One nice thing about having a couple of different jobs is you're not at any one place for long enough that you can really loathe it with as much passion as a full-time position affords. By the by, there are some wacky goings on in the world of part-time jobs...

Exhibit 1. Craig's List run-ins. Since my schedule is different all the time, I'm often around during the day and gone afternoon/night, which makes me the ideal candidate for meeting up with potential craig's list buyers. Our first official buyer came last week to grab an extra table we had. I'd ignored some of the first few responses, based on the fact that they seemed possibly crazy and/or they wrote like this: Wud u tk 30 for it. I lke fxn stuff. tks... Since when did long words like "you" and "thanks" become too tedious for middle america to type out? So this one lady seemed really nice and we planned a rendez-vous at our apartment. After we'd set up a meeting time, she wrote back one more email that said, "Do you have any side tables?" What is this, Wal-mart? I don't think so. I was really nervous before she showed up the next morning. What if she tried to pull the "I only brought 30 dollars with me?" scam, or she was a lunatic posing as a normal person. She finally showed up, we chatted for a few minutes, and then she launches into her life story:
"It's kind of funny how I have a daughter," she starts. "Oh yeah?" I ask, innocently. "I had a son that I gave up for adoption but I was still allowed to see pictures of him until he turned 5, but then we he was about to turn 5 I got really sad. So I decided to have another baby!" Which, naturally, would be most normal people's response to that kind of situation. WHAT? And then, "I didn't like the guy who got me pregnant though, so I had to get rid of him." Good move. But wait, there's more: "But then I met my first husband at the hospital. See, I'm diagnosed with bipolar. And he's schizophrenic. I knew it wasn't a good idea so I tried to wait but then I married him anyway. But it turns out he was no good so I had to get rid of him too." Zoinks! We've got a live one! She ended with her goals for the year: "I'm still technically married to him cause I couldn't afford a divorce, so I'm hoping for a real good tax refund this year so I can pay for a divorce and marry my boyfriend, who's in jail." Oh my. The thing was, she was so genuinely grateful to have furniture. She said, "This is so much better than paying 9 dollars a month to rent a center" (I'm not sure why people use that by the way. Can't you just get a temporary one from a garage sale or something? sheesh) and didn't try to give me less money or anything. I decided that sometimes the kooks are the best for doing business with.

Finding Simplicity

2008-01-08T19:04:00.000-05:00

The Samster and I are settling in for the coldest winter months ahead (err, it's 70 degrees outside right now) and lately he's been reminding me how to relish in simple things. My personality is one that tends to try to complicate, add on, and reinvent, which can be a good thing too, under the right circumstances. But Sam reminds me that sometimes there's nothing better than an everything bagel with plain cream cheese, no fancy fixins or makeovers, just the bagel and the cream cheese and your mouth. And pillows: he's right, not every piece of furniture needs an extra three or ten throw pillows. I'm willing to confess that some chairs work better and sit more comfortably without any extra cushions at all. Just chair. I just like to throw cute graphic, sparkly or sometimes witty pillows around because I'm a girl and sometimes girls like to do things in the name of aesthetics that may seem silly or complicated to the average hetero male. I wonder how long this compulsion to make things "pretty" has existed in woman: was there ever a time in history when she wasn't adding flowers to the corner of the room, or hanging a piece of art on the wall? Or adding too many throw pillows to the sofa? Like I said there's something both camps of thought can bring to the table, but I'm glad Sam's around to show me how he savors a bowl of plain ole mac n' cheese hot off the stove (notice how all my food examples involve mucho carbs, that's because I've got the SAD, man. I'm like a carb monster in the wintertime) I've tried to jazz mac n' cheese up with extra spices (rosemary! dill! a dash of paprika perhaps!) sausages, and a myriad of veggies, though I have to say that after all of that, plain ole mac n' cheese tastes the most delicious all by itself. I'm not the kind of person to make new year's resolutions like "I'm gonna lose 85 pounds this year," or "I'm going to walk over hot coals while beating my chest" or "I'm going to run 800 miles every day" but enjoying things at a more minimalistic (if that's a word) level is something, with the husband's help, that I hope to strive for in the coming months.

First Married Christmas

2007-12-22T21:36:00.000-05:00

So Sam and I are up in Lexington for our first married christmas. It's funny and weird to realize after watching your mom do stuff like make christmas cookies and wrap gifts and cook for armies for twenty some odd years that there are other moms everywhere doing the same things. Sam's mom is just finishing up making muffins and two kinds of soup and chocolate caramel turtles and these italian cookies called Pizelle. How do moms do it all? It's kind of a mind boggle considering I could be in this so-called mom camp someday, and yet moms are always doing stuff that seems superhuman. Like there is literally no room in the fridge for all these piles of food, but Sam's mom will come up with a way to make it all fit perfectly. My thought was, why not eat some of the food that's in the way? No one else in the family seems to be into the idea, based on the looks I got when double fisting some cookies in the name of making more room in the hydrator. Back to this superhuman mom thing, I feel like I have a lot to live up to when and if I become a mom someday. Like there are secret mom things that I feel like you can never be truly indoctrinated into until you have wee ones of your own. Such as, how moms always seem to know how to get stains out of things, or the perfect amount of time for cooking everything so that it's golden brown on top but still a little squishy in the middle. And as a mom, you can set the tone for some of the holiday traditions you have with your family, along with your husband, I suppose. Like, if you want to go around wearing paper bags on your feet and talking in Australian accents on Christmas eve, it'll be a good eighteen to twenty years before your kids know that's not what everyone else does, and even then, there seems to be a certain affinity for things experienced around the holidays in your youth. Like how I think Amy Grant is the definitive singer of Christmas music, and then when I put it in for Sam to enjoy, specifically her first album, I was informed that some of the tracks were "awful," (meanwhile he is planning on playing John Denver and the Muppets christmas for me, his definitive christmas album as a kid) and I have to admit that a few of the heavy synthesizer tracks are starting to show their age a bit, but even so, as a child, this was Christmas. And therefore, I will defend it staunchly for years to come, even if that means wearing paper bags on my feet.

A Late Night Exchange

2007-12-13T01:03:00.000-05:00

Recently, Sam and I arrived home from our second jobs at about the same time. It was later in the evening. We hadn't seen each other all day and we were elated to lay eyes on one another. It went kinda like this:
Me: (hugs him tight. sniffs.) You smell like chip.
Sam: (squeezes me back. sniffs.) You smell like candle.
(both giggle. sniff each other again to confirm.)
If that ain't romance, I don't know what is.

Nuggets and Critters and Rugrats! Oh my!

2007-12-10T11:58:00.001-05:00

There's recently been a number of people in my life who have spawned. It's crazy to see people that you literally crawled out of bars with, now as parents. It's even crazier to see what cute little kiddykens those same people can create and that all that alcohol didn't leave them with three-eyed, nine-toed, monkey genes. So aside from witnessing secondhand, the general craziness of bringing 'bitty humans into this wacky uncertain world, I've been privy to conversations with these new mommies and daddies. This has started me thinking about some issues though. Not the least of which being that Lindsey and I are new and proud God-parents. This ultimately means that if my best friend and his wife are randomly sucked into a blackhole along with everyone with blood ties to them, who are more responsible than us, we'd be responsible for a little girl! Parenting is obviously a responsibility of epic proportion so I was glad to know that these new parents are already thinking about some of these relevant issues.
There are a number of things these people are going to have to do for and explain to their kids. This goes beyond the birds and the bees, why you shouldn't eat Chef Boyardee for every meal (you'll get scurvy) and the intricacies of UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, B, A, Start. More than just "Hey little Johnnie, it turns out smacking Tyson in the face with that t-ball bat was funny, but not very nice" and "You know Suzy, you shouldn't exchange sexual favors for intravenous drugs" but the real McCoy. Things that could really affect these little impressionable minds for the rest of their days.
Thinking back on my own childhood, I find myself remembering the seminal experiences and memories that I have and where they actually came from. Specific things stand out like the scar I got on the back of my head from a priest or my fairly horrid first french kiss (and no, those things didn't coincide in ANY way, shape or form). Many of these memories are contained in this kind of nebulous brain mush that I get to slog around in when I hear a certain song or see certain movies.
For these new parents, the gauntlet has been thrown down. They are charged with making sure their kids get a wholesome and well-rounded education of culture so they don't end up being latte-drinking-top 40 listening-SUV driving-Myspace addicted zombies that the world wants them to be. This is a huge deal! There are a lot of choices out there for new parents. For instance, now that we have six Star Wars movies out there, spanning almost 30 years of cinematic technological improvements, what order is the new generation going to watch the Holy Trilogies in? A lot people may think, "I should show my kids these movies from The Phantom Menace to Return of the Jedi because that's how they're numbered." While this will be the parent's prerogative, 1-6 is a monumentally BAD idea and any parent caught subjecting their innocent young ones to such an abomination should be beaten with a tube sock filled wood screws!
Those kids will think the new trilogy is great because it LOOKS better than the original and this is a valid argument for uninformed, undeveloped minds. They won't have a problem with sappy dialogue, and poor character development and they may even grow up thinking Jar Jar Binks is cooler than Han Solo. This will inevitably lead to relentless taunting when those kids whose parents had the foresight to screen the movies in the right order (how WE all saw them, 4-6, then 1-3 if you're fuzzy about numbers) find out little Billy likes to dress as a floppy eared, bumbling jackass and speak in gibberish around the end of every October. Those new trilogy kids will most likely grow up to be bad tippers, know-it-alls, or people who think Crash really did deserve an Oscar and you know whose fault it's gonna be? The parents.
The point is that there are things kids need to experience as kids. They need to be properly grounded in music appreciating The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and the John Denver and the Muppets Christmas (go ahead and laugh communist) to understand where things came from. They're gonna need to watch The Goonies before the age of 10, go camping with the family, ride rollercoasters and get their knees scraped because that's the stuff that goes into being a kid. All us well rounded folk are gonna be fine parents cause we'll remember the cool stuff that we did when we were wee ones. We'll know that some of that cool stuff was done because our parents had the mental mileage accumulated to know that that's what we should be doing. As for my unborn little ones, I quote a friend of mine who said, "My kid's always gonna be the coolest person I know, even if he can't say the same for me." But I know we're gonna have a lot of fun together. So to all all you new parents out there, Good night and Good luck. I gotta go start making some lists...

My Dr. Jekyll Moment

2007-12-09T16:30:00.000-05:00

Sam's been off snowboarding with his brother this weekend, and last night marked the second time I had slept by myself since Sam and I got married in October. The first time almost doesn't count because I slept in my old room at my parent's house. Usually, Sam will tell you I am prone to falling asleep mid sentence and/or as soon as I hit the pillow. Though I don't always directly connect this to his being there, something clearly switches on in my brain when he isn't there and I become this morbid, paranoid person for a few hours. I can't stop obsessively thinking about all the fictitious villains who are on their way to get me--lately it's Chigurh from No Country For Old Men--dude was beyond freaky! I know what you're thinking--villains from the movies aren't real, Lindsey. I know that, or at least the rational part of my brain knows, but when the irrational part takes over, which seems to happen when Sam goes out of town, boy howdy, there's nothing too ridiculous for me to become convinced will happen at any second. There's also a few episodes from Unsolved Mysteries that I saw in the late 80's and still haunt my dreams, so those tend to replay themselves in me mind's eye as well (along with Robert Stack's creepy creeperson voice, describing each horrible moment--ah, noooo). My only strategy for combatting the irrational thoughts is making a game plan for what I will do when the evil doer/rapist/ne'erdowell breaks in. Last night it was, "I'll text Sam and quickly explain the situation" (as if he can do anything from 200 miles away). When that doesn't allay my fears, I'll start thinking about horrible situations in the news and what the survivors of them did to stay alive. Like, at Virginia Tech, how some people got down on the ground and played dead. I thought about convincing ways to play dead for about ten minutes. Yeah, I have a diagnosable problem. If you have any better tips for me to use next time, please send them my way. As for bedtime tonight, the hubby is back and I'll most likely be back to my narcoleptic ways.

How to Cut Corners

2007-12-06T19:54:00.000-05:00

Sam and I are aspiring writers/film people, or possibly circus performers if the aformentioned doesn't work out, but as we have yet to get our big break (it should be arriving in the mail any day now) there are a few things we've been trying out to save that extra 8 G's, I mean 8 cents every month. A few you may find ridiculous, but I call them wacky newlywed fun!
1) Living on the top floor of an apartment building = free heat. You know how they always used to say, heat rises. Well, our apartment stays a balmy 65-70 degrees (depending on how cold it is outside) without the heat on! Sometimes we'll turn the heat off and see how far we can get with the heat rising through the floorboards of the apartment below. Anywhere from a few days to a week or so. Once my teeth start chattering, I'll cave and switch the sucker back on. It's like a great energy saving science project.

2) Bottle o water in the toilet. Speaking of energy saving, we don't actually have to pay for water right now, but I heard putting a bottle of water and/or sand in your toilet tank can help cut down on your monthly water bill costs, since the full bottle takes up space where new water would go. We've been doing it, just to try to cut down on our carbon footprint a wee bit more. Try it and tell me how much your water bill goes down. Seriously. I have to know.

3) Invent new food combinations. Since Sam won't eat my Fritos (see Chili blog for more information) and I don't want them to go to waste, I've been putting them on all sorts of things and getting shockingly delicious results! My new mantra is Fritos go with everything! I put them with cashews for a kind of funky redneck trail mix effect, and don't throw up, but I put them on my french silk ice cream last night, and for anyone who's ever enjoyed the salty sweet goodness of chocolate covered potato chips (it's considered a delicacy in some regions) or french fries in your wendy's frosty, I'm telling you, this was just as good. Please don't judge me.

4) Get rid of all that stuff you have to drag around. Since Sam and I are trying to move to a much bigger city where there will probably live in a really nice box on the street or an apartment that closely approximates the size of a box, we've been trying to get rid of our extra stuff. If I can't remember the last time I wore something, it goes in the giveaway pile. We've given probably six trash bags full of stuff to Goodwill, but we've also had good results with a couple of second hand stores in town that will give you money in exchange for your stuff, if it qualifies. And next up we're putting some other things, most of which have never been opened, up for sale on the ole ebay. We'll let you know how much Sam's figurines, err, action figure collectibles go for. Sam's trying to get rid of some of our new potterybarn springwood entertaining pieces, but I have thrown my body in front of the mingling plates once and I will do it again! If the mingling plates and the chip and dip serving set go, by god, I'm going down with them. He'll thank me when we throw the best party the cardboard box neighborhood has ever seen!

The Dear God! Phenomenon, or why goodwill sells a lot of cheese plates

2007-12-03T13:02:00.000-05:00

There's a rite of passage that comes with getting married. Even if you register at every store in town for things that you like, there is no escaping it. A well-meaning but misguided aunt or someone who secretly hates you could be the culprit. I call it the Dear God! phenomenon. This is when you open a wedding gift so hideous and so far from your general good tastes as a human that it forces you to call upon the maker of all things and say, either to yourself, or perhaps out loud to your spouse, "Dear God!" often followed by, "Why?" or "I don't get it."

The presents that qualify fall into a range of categories. Lots of figurines qualify, especially if it involves animals of any kind. I love animals, just not in figurine form. Generally. I'd rather just interact with a real one. Certain items made of crystal may qualify. We received a crystal picture frame so enormous, it could not hold itself up. Even if you had a really big house with really big pieces of furniture, which we do not, I can't imagine where or how you would display such a thing. Gifts that may or may not have been used, but you suspect have been used qualify. What am I to think when someone I thought of as a good friend gives me a gift that appears to have been used? Was our friendship a farce? Have you secretly despised me all of these years, and you've been waiting for just such an occasion as my nuptuals to really give me the proverbial middle finger with this dish you appear to have been using in your kitchen until just last week when you decided to wrap it up and tie a bow on it? Did you think I wouldn't notice? The final category worth noting is the "I don't know what this is" gift. This is a present that you literally can't describe to anyone by name. It's a glass oval with a neck, that could be a light fixture but there's no way to screw it on a light and can't be a vase cause when you put anything in it it falls over. True story.

I just can't fathom why in some circles, the concept of using the registry still hasn't become acceptable. You know, the registry, that list of gifts the couple has hand selected as items they want or need to add to their househould. Unless you are a close dear friend of the couple, intimately acquainted with their likes and dislikes and able to hand select an item that you know they would like and don't already have, why would you buy something not on the registry? I for one would be mortified if I gave you something like a cheese plate that I saw somewhere or had sitting in my closet and then, it turns out, not only had you already registered for a cheese plate, which some wise old soul had the good sense to purchase, but, in addition, seven more people had the idea to send you a cheese plate that they saw somewhere or had in their closet, and now, for the love of all things holy, you have nine cheese plates. No one needs that many cheese plates people, I don't care who you are. That's the beauty of the registry. Even if, say, there's a mix up and two people each give you the same cheese plate off your registry, you know where it's from. You can return it. Get store credit. It's beautiful. When it's stuck in a random box, I don't know where to take it. It goes in the Goodwill box. They must sell a lot of cheese plates at the Goodwill.

Ode to the Breathing Apparatus

2007-11-29T12:57:00.000-05:00

Sam and I stayed at this amazing resort in St. Lucia on our honeymoon called Ti Kaye Village. We loved the feel of a smaller resort (people there know your name and say nice to see you, sam and lindsey. what can I get you to drink, sam and lindsey, though not necessarily both of us at once all the time, that would be creepy). We got a package that included several excursions around the island, and we picked scuba diving as one to try. Granted neither one of us had been scuba diving, but this was an intro course that included an actual 30 foot dive on our resort's gorgeous reef.

And it sounded like an adventure! full of potential intrigue! danger! giant man-eating sea monsters! (or some nice coral at the very least.) The morning of the dive we signed some papers promising to do and not to do some important stuff, and then we got to watch a very informative video on scuba diving that included my favorite, underwater hand signals.

Then we put on wetsuits and fifty pound oxygen tanks, grabbed our flippers, and headed to the open water. Our group was me, Sam, Jem (Truly Outrageous!) the wonder instructor, and a 12 year old girl who was a certified diver. First we had to get in the water, and with fifty pounds of oxygen on your back this is a feat in and of itself. Jem warned us that the "last couple of steps" down were extra slippery since they were underwater. Not wanting anything to befall me before even getting started I carefully walked down, holding on tightly to both rails. Unfortunately, the stars were not aligned in the non-injury department and when I hit the first step underwater, I lost my footing and fell the rest of the way down into the ocean. I blame genetics that tend toward clammy extremities. I looked up and Sam had this look of supreme horror on his face. Jem the wonder instructor was mortified as well, and although my wounds upon later inspection would include a bruise from my ankle to my knee, a gash on my arm that still has a scar, and mangled toes, my embarrassment outweighed the pain and I refused to admit defeat. "I'm fine" I insisted. Now Jem the wonder instructor was convinced I was the goofus of the group and was keeping her scuba eye on me, and I was going to have do extra hand signals to prove my scubadiverness to her.

You have to show instructors you can expell water from your breathing apparatus thingy and clear your mask of water before they'll let you do an actual dive so, the 12 year old and Sam go underwater and are waiting on me to join them, but every time I start to go under my mask fills with water. I can feel the 12 year old's impatient eyes on me. Finally Jem wiggles over, probably thinking, this girl is a train wreck in the water. "I'm doing everything you say and my mask fills with water as soon as I try to go under." I demonstrated. She smiled a little and said, "You're smiling too much. It's creating a crease in your mask thats allowing water to rush in. Don't smile." After several attempts I got the serious scuba face down and joined the group. The test went off without a hitch and Jem gave us all underwater hand signal handshakes, which are the best! Now we were ready for the real deal!

After I got over the initial panic of breathing into a mask thirty feet down (my body didn't think I should be doing that and at first it seemed to be boycotting the idea)--it was really neat down there! I was so glad I had made it that I swam like Ariel. Flippin your fins you don't get too far...Apparently I was a little too much like Ariel because when Jem the wonder instructor turned around she made a "stop" underwater hand signal, pointed directly at me, and hand signaled me not to swim with my arms (use your imagination). Don't swim with your arms, ok, I thought, but apparently my body didn't listen cause 5 minutes later she turned around and scolded me again. What's the big deal! I thought. So I'm using my arms! Around this time, I also noticed, I had no peripheral vision and Sam was no where to be found. No matter, I enjoyed my 30 minutes on the ocean floor, just me and the octopuses and squidses and fishies, and occasionally Jem swimming by to make sure I wasn't inadvertantly doing anything lethal to myself. Everything had it's own quiet rhythm down there. The surroundings themselves are so calming, but it's also exhilirating since humans don't normally get to hang out underwater like that.

We emerged and I thought, that was unbelievable! Sam pulls off his mask, and I'm waiting for him to tell me the same thing, and the first thing out of his mouth is, "You almost killed me, twice." "WHAT?" I said, confused. "Yeah," he said. "When you were swimming wildly with your arms, you knocked my breathing apparatus out. Twice. That's why Jem was signaling you." I felt really terrible that I'd almost killed my new husband, but also really glad that it was him having to retrieve his air apparatus for real like we'd practiced and not me, because if that had happened to me I probably would have self destructed from anxiety. All in all, though, it turned out to be a pretty grand adventure. Oh Scuba, I wish I knew how to quit you.

How We Found Our Inner Crackhead

2007-11-27T10:30:00.000-05:00

I'm just going to go ahead and say it. I have an addiction. There comes a point in everyone's life when you just have to go ahead and 'fess up. So I'm letting you in, dear Reader, about the my dirty little secret. I've come to terms with my problem, I've accepted it and frankly come to enjoy it. At first I felt a little odd, walking around the house with that dazed, vacant look in my eyes. I'd explain to people at work that I had the "shakes" just cause I was cold or tired. The truth of the matter, is that I'm a junkie. TV on DVD is my drug of choice and I just can't seem to kick the habit. And my wife is just as bad as me.
I knew we were both in for it when we first started dating and she confessed that there was a time when she'd come home from work on her lunch break to jones on episodes of Felicity. Sensing that our relationship was a "safe place" to talk about such things, I proudly explained that I burned through the 14 (sigh) episodes of Firefly in two days when I first got them. Then I furthered her J.J. Abrams problems when she got her wisdom teeth out and I left her with Lost: Season 1. Well that crazy fox burned through it with a frightful tv-pseudo-coma-like-craziness that only a gal hopped up pain killers and pudding pops can muster. God I love my wife.
And now it's like we try to out do each other in the best way! We saddle up on our crappy couch and inhale The Office like a couple of gunfighters playing cards, daring the other to "just watch one more" as the 22 minute segments fly by. It's sick, it's twisted, and it's commercial free! Nothing annoys me more than watching BSG (Battlestar Galactica for all you haters out there) and having my peeps interrupted by shameless advertising. Don't all these commercial-slinging pimps know that these people are FIGHTING TO SAVE THE HUMAN RACE FROM EXTINCTION? For the love of all that is Holy people, I don't need that kind of drama interrupted by ads for cereal, tires, or the dreaded reality show! Actually, I'll note that there is a Children's Hospital commercial and Applebee's commercial out there that make me get a little misty eyed but that's for another time.
I'm not promoting addiction. And I'm not promoting tv. However, I may be promoting TV on DVD addiction. It seems relatively harmless, you can take it at your own pace, and it's loads of fun for the whole family! I mean if you've got to have a problem, it's best to have someone to share it with right? I'm not going to judge my wife when I occasionally come home from work and she's crouched on top of the coffee table, caressing My So Called Life, gutturally uttering "Myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy preciousssssssss..." And in turn, she accepts the fact that I'm not above accidentally trampling someone's grandmother at the store so we can get home and check out a fistful of Scrubs episodes. And that's just a Tuesday night. You should see us on the weekends...

The Jig Is Up

2007-11-27T00:44:00.000-05:00

A mere two months ago, I had eschewed all desserts and sugary beverages in my best attempt to stay the right size for my wedding dress. A few too many bon bons and that sucker was not gonna zip. But once Sam and I arrived at our luxurious resort in St. Lucia, appetizers, fruity drinks and desserts became de rigeur. I made up for what I had gone months without in a mere ten days.
Since our return, not much has changed. Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream is my friend; watching back-to-back episodes of the Office til my eyeballs hurt and snuggling with my honey continue to sound so much more appealing than venturing into the nippy out of doors. I really identify with the concept of hibernation. And then today, a reality check from the most unlikely of places. I have a part time job doing therapy with kids with autism, and as I was leaving a little girl's house today, her older eight-year-old sister was trying to get my attention. "Hey, hey, hey. Hey! hey," she called persistently. I introduced myself (this was the first time we'd met) and chatted with her about Thanksgiving, her new talking dog toy. Then she busts out with "Have you had any babies yet?" I smiled at the mom, and at said eight-year-old girl, thinking, how charming, kids at this age and their lack of filter, she's seen my sparkly new wedding ring, has put two and two together, and wants to know about my family. "No I haven't, not yet," I smiled widely at the delightful conversation I thought was about to unfold. "Oh," she says, "Cause you're really getting kind of fat." WONDERFUL! I watched her mother's eyes grow wide with terror, and she goes on and on about how rude that was and that I wasn't fat at all. I was one part amused and two parts horrified. I found myself actually trying to reason with her, to help her realize she'd made a mistake. "I'm wearing a really big sweater," I explained. She stared back at me blankly. "I probably have gained a little weight since my honeymoon," I heard myself tell her, while vowing to myself to take more walks and start yoga up again this week, for real this time. So thank you, eight year old girl who shall remain nameless, for saying what most friends would not. I look forward to our next interaction, when you may comment on the slightly outdated cut of my pant leg, or my shaggy unkempt brow.

The Chili Fixin' Debate

2007-11-25T19:12:00.000-05:00

So Sam and I have been married just over a month, and though our tastes in music, movies, food, and rugs seem to mesh rather perfectly, a couple of incidents have come up that made me realize we don't do absolutely everything the same way. This realization was a little alarming at first -- you mean there are things I don't know about this person I've vowed to spend the rest of my life with? Case in point: chili accoutrements. On Halloween, as the chilly (ho!) weather was first starting to roll in, we decided to make a big pot of the good stuff and have a scary movie marathon. (Gremlins, anyone?) When it came time to serve it up, we grated some cheddar cheese and pulled out the sour cream, but Sam still had one question: Where's the macaroni? And I was like, what do you need macaroni for? Meanwhile I pulled out a giant bag of Fritos and began to sprinkle them on the sides of my bowl. Sam looked at me with some disgust. "Fritos, gross!" I looked at him with equal disgust as he began to boil water for his macaroni, which is, apparently, how he grew up eating chili. (I have since learned that spaghetti is a popular addition to this dish around the Cincinatti area, while only 200 miles south, in Nashville, Fritos reign supreme). I added some macaroni to my chili and he added some Fritos to his, but I think we both still dig what we've grown up on. The Fritos add a salty crunchy to the spicy mush of chili, but what do noodles add? I still don't know. All the same, it was a good exercise in appreciating our differences, albeit small ones, and should help as we enter Christmas tree season. (He's grown up on fake ones, my family has always gone to tree farms.) I offered to compromise by going really fake, sparkly, and fabulous (see photo) --but so far, he isn't going for it. Stay tuned fair readers.