Get Me Some Cinnamon and Raisins

I woke up feeling refreshed today! This is a big deal because it's the first time I can say this in all of 2014. Today is July 29th.

It may have had something to do with the fact that I conked out for nearly ten hours after months of under-sleeping and poorly executed emergency catnaps, the moments immediately prior to these naps known as I-am-going-to-fall-over-if-I-don't-put-my-head-down-right-now-shiiiiiiiit episodes. It may also have helped that it was actually cold last night. Like, brrr, the hairs on my legs are standing. What is that all about (to be clear, not that there is hair on my legs, but that the hair is standing)?! When the glorious, chilly breezes flooded my room, I groped around for my blanket and gasped at how cool the sheets felt around me. If I hadn't been so preoccupied with the task of falling back asleep, I would have happy cried at the thought of the autumn ahead. (Damn, it's going to be good this year.)

While I'm in the process of filling you in on the dull happenings of my bedroom last night, allow me to ask: Has anyone suggested to Apple that they employ their technological prowess to automatically dim screen brightness at night? My eyes would thank them. It's bad enough to learn that you only have three more hours of shuteye. It only adds insult to injury when checking the time also shocks your eyes into temporary loss of sight.

Three hours later, I opened my front door to find a card. Angel had written back, with his opening line an apology for the card he was writing on. It was the only one he had, he wrote. I laughed, because the envelope had looked so funny that I couldn't help but think that it took a special kind of man to use stationery like this!

This is what I learned:

Angel is one of those rare beasts who do not like chocolate. (Chocolate chip was not the way to go. Mega fail, Juls. Like, big time.)

He was, however, very popular at his office when he showed up bearing cookies. (Well, that's something at least.)

The dude does enjoy his oatmeal raisin cookies, though. (Roger that!)

And thus my initial gesture of thanks failed, but the universe can suck it because failure is my middle name and I know how to deal with it. I've added cinnamon and raisins to my shopping list. Angel is going to get his cookies, dammit! I may not be able to ship boxes to out-of-state people whom I actually know, but I sure as heck can get things to a stranger whose front door is two feet from mine.

Today My Mother Asked Me If I'm Gay

She was serious. And squirming. I'm pretty sure that she was embarrassed to even be contemplating such a thing about her own daughter. In hindsight, it makes sense. She doesn't know anything about my personal life, so it's not an unreasonable thought. The whole string of back-to-back questions started in Korean but ended in English, a telltale sign that she was dangerously stepping out of her comfort zone. "So you're not ever going to get married?" which turned into "Even if you have a boyfriend, you're not going to get married?" which led to, "You don't have a boyfriend right now, right?" which then led to "Are you doing the lesbian gay thing?"

Wow. Really? Is this really happening?

It would have been so fun to pull her leg a little, but the woman sitting in front of me had had a rough winter; today was not the time for cruel jokes. She never gets jokes, anyway. After I burst her bubble and acknowledged that I am not, true to form, she still took it upon herself to ramble on about how God did not design humans to live alone, that I need a church-going Christian man and should get married and have children. It's amazing how she circles everything back to the paramount importance of getting hitched and popping out kids; that and how nice it would be if I would bring her on vacation to Europe. So I told her the truth: I would be the worst thing to ever happen to this unknowing Christian schmuck who got suckered into dating me and perhaps more significantly, I let my passport expire. Luckily, I don't need it for New York.

My friend's five-year-old made a funny request. She repeatedly asked that I send a picture of myself to her mother's phone. I didn't ask why, as I generally oblige when children politely ask for things, regardless of how random the request may be. Like a good-for-nothing adult, I kept forgetting to send it, so after she brought it up for the third time, I pulled and texted this one, the last picture I took of myself from some time ago earlier this winter. I was trashed from little sleep, on FaceTime messing around with the phone, clearly reacting to something that made me uncomfortable.

I should ask that little girl what she plans to do with this. Kids know how to do all sorts of things on iPhones these days. Will she PhotoShop out my mole? Will she crop my head onto a Disney Princess? She's pretty fond of that Disney Frozen movie. We once watched the same four YouTube movie clips on repeat for an hour straight. That is an hour that I will never get back, but if we're going to talk about return on investment, watching her two-year-old brother belt out the movie's theme song at the most random of times is priceless.

It's been really nice to be around children again. That they are my friends' kids is a double perk. They never fail to energize my spirits. They are wonderful little things, busy being honest and real. As lovely as they are, I have been making a concerted effort to limit my time with them and their parents. They welcome me openly in their home, but I quietly straddle that fine line, wary of that one day when they will surely have had too much of me. As all my friends now have life partners and kids, I try to be sensitive to the family unit dynamic, recognizing that life is busy all the time, and that they only have so much time to spend exclusively together. So, I make appearances regularly enough, but make sure to build in breathing room, too. It's been a few days, which means that I'm due for a live musical rhapsody performed by a certain toddler. I can't wait. It's the sweetest thing in the whole wide world right now.

Go Ahead, Shake Your Head

A part of me still isn't 100% comfortable that I went through with this. Another part of me cringes that I'm willing to tell people about it, but the way I see it, this is still making me laugh days later, which must mean that it'll probably make someone else laugh, and hey, who doesn't need a good laugh?

To begin, do not flip out. I am not pregnant. If I were, I assure you that I'd be writing this in caps and that the entirety of the post would be nothing less than the most eloquent of prose, perhaps something along the lines of, "OH, SHIT."

But this is not my current predicament and so all is well. All I did was buy a shirt from a maternity line. For myself. Who is neither pregnant nor planning on being pregnant any time in the near future.

I didn't realize that I had picked up a maternity shirt until I was leaving the fitting room. When I slowly handed the shirt to the sweet girl managing the room, she asked if she could get me another size. I explained that it fit fine and actually, it was exactly what I was looking for, but I wasn't sure about it because the shirt was from the maternity line. She looked at my stomach. "Maybe you should come back when you start showing." Therein was my hesitation, because I, uh, wasn't pregnant and wasn't trying to get pregnant either, I explained. She laughed and I bit my lip, wondering if I could live with myself knowing that I was wearing a shirt designed to accommodate a belly the size of a large watermelon.

She held up the shirt and looked closely, asking why I thought it was maternity wear, because it didn't look like it. I showed her the label sewn into the back. Surprised, she giggled. It's exactly what I had gone through just moments earlier when I saw the label after trying on the shirt. She insisted that with the cut of the shirt, she couldn't tell, that this was a shirt she herself would wear. And so with that, I headed to the register. Gap, if this was all a ploy to make a sale, it worked.

So there you have it. I now own Gap maternity wear. Truth be told, after wearing said shirt, I wish I had gotten a second one. Or maybe that would have been pushing it a bit too far. Ha. I probably should keep this sort of thing to myself, but really, I hope you see this as an inside glimpse of the real me, of how I live boldly outside the box.

Dad is Fat, by J. Gaffigan

It makes me sad to report that Jim Gaffigan's Dad is Fat was not very funny. I suspect that I feel this way because I'm not a parent myself and the entire book is a compilation of parenting anecdotes. I laughed all of one measly time. Once! And at what? A photo caption, of all things.

The author went on vacation with his family and, as many Manhattan families do, brought along their babysitter. In the book, there's a picture of the whole gang standing in front of Mt. Rushmore, but the sitter's face is blurred out. The caption reads something like, "Our babysitter quit the day we returned to the city."

Woe is the sitter duped into a travel job with five children. No matter how generous the compensation may be, there's a reason why some career nannies will not travel with their families. That reason is called sanity.

I caught Jim Gaffigan at a comedy club many years ago. His standup act was the only clean one the entire evening. In an era when legions of professional comedians make their living by simulating one crude sexual act after another on stage, Gaffigan is a class act. I admired his career that night and I still do. I just hope that I'll enjoy his next book.

From My Bathroom

Are you ready for the biggest first world problem ever?

It is really hard to find a good, competent, cleaning service.

There, I said it.

I never quite understood why people would clam up when friends ask for the contact info of competent people who help with domestic tasks around their homes, like the babysitter or the gardener or the pool boy, but now I'm beginning to get it. Once you let a revolving door of cleaning ladies into your home who don't know that grout between bathroom tiles requires scrubbing and that gas burners need to stay dry, you'd be kind of stupid to share the name of the amazing person from the agency who showed up one day and boom, Monica cleans your home (please watch any episode of Friends if you're lost) and to prove it, places a sticker on your toilet paper. Branding is what I think they call this.

Only, of course, me being a germaphobe, my mind immediately goes to how someone's hands were all over the outside sheets of this roll which I am now to use down there. No, thank you. I tear off the outside layer and toss it straight into the trash. Seems a tad wasteful, but absolutely necessary.

Like I said, first world problems.

Well, What Do We Have Here?

Home baked cookies? Yay! But not so fast. There's more to this story...

Earlier this afternoon, I opened the oven door to find these guys sitting pretty on the top rack. You know, just chilling on a sheet pan minding their own business. No big deal. Only Reader, the last time I used the oven was Sunday. Today is Saturday. I must have returned these to the cool oven while cleaning off the kitchen countertop and then forgotten about them. Oops.

This shouldn't be too surprising. I seem to be doing all sorts of mindless things these days. For example, a few weeks ago, I finally put myself through the torturous process of buying new jeans. It was the most unfun time ever. But I did it! I brought those bad boys home, wore them exactly once, and that's the last I remember of them. I've combed through my closet three times now and still do not know where they are. The best I can guess is that I carelessly tossed them into the donation pile that I dropped off at Good Will the same week that I brought the new pair home. Somebody's probably pulling those jeans off a rack at the 23rd Street store right now as I type this.

I whined about the tragic state of my missing jeans for a week until my sister finally told me to knock it off. Good, solid advice. So I shut my trap and finally braved the retail scene again to procure a replacement pair. When I returned home today from this shopping endeavor and started to prepare lunch was when I opened the oven door and discovered these cookies.

If I'm not careful, one of these days I'm going to walk out of my building without shoes. Or worse yet, pantless and with a week-old cookie hanging out of my mouth.

My Bum Bum

I mentioned on Monday's post that my bottom was quite sore. A tender rump sure is bad news. Here we are four days after the most uneventful incident of all time, of sitting uncomfortably for too long on a hard bench while getting caught up in a book, and my bum has finally recovered. Hooray! I have no place to go with this overshare, besides stating for the record that the ability to sit on a toilet bowl without flinching and whimpering in pain is a sweet, sweet thing.

I saw the Chrysler building earlier this afternoon. It says hi and that it's not miffed that it doesn't get much attention anymore.

Awe, Nuts

I have been known to navigate through pints of Ben and Jerry's ice creams in the most curious of ways. With no shame or regard for the hungry children that suffer from malnutrition across the world, I will eat just the ice cream, working around every solid morsel that requires chewing. It turns out that half of every pint of Chunky Monkey, for example, is comprised of walnuts and dark chocolate. It shouldn't legally be called ice cream if half of it isn't actually ice cream, is all I'm sayin'.

As I feel about food stuffs that infiltrate my creamy dairy confections is how I feel about walnuts. I'd really rather they give me some space. Distance is what I think most adults would call it, in the context of relationships. So what to do when someone generously offers you a helluvalotta them?

You say thank you, but no thank you and gently refuse their offer. But in this case, I had already turned down a bunch of other stuff and if you have any manners, you know that there are only so many no, thank you's someone can utter in the span of a single conversation before coming off as an ungrateful brute. A girl can't repeatedly reject the kind gestures of someone who wishes to share something that they think she would like. It's mean, you know? So I gave in and accepted graciously.

So now you know the story behind the large container of walnuts in my kitchen. And the truth about how I don't mind setting aside things I don't like. And about how I sometimes have trouble saying no to people who have kind intentions.

Changes

Let me tell you exactly what has changed since I took this snapshot in bed two weeks ago: 

1) I drank that pomegranate hyacinth tea lemonade. It was delicious.

2) I read two pages of the book upon which that cup of lemonade is sitting. I have my reservations about Ms. Wharton.

3) There is a sliver of a hair clip just barely noticeable - I dropped it and it broke into three pieces.

4) I tore a hole near the inseam of my most comfortable pair of jeans.

5) I tore another hole right through the inseam of my second most comfortable pair of jeans. 

6) I dozed off while standing in a checkout line at Trader Joe's. A lady way behind me in the other line yelled, "Miss, there are people behind you!" I opened my eyes to see twenty feet of open space in front of me. The ten people that were there before had suddenly turned to two. Surprisingly, no one seemed particularly annoyed at me, even the lady who called out. It's probably a good thing the woman addressed me as miss. Had she used ma'am, who knows what sass might have tumbled out.  

Let me tell you exactly what has not changed since I took this snapshot in bed two weeks ago:

1) The dust on the mirror.

2) My legs. They could use a wax.

3) Aquaphor. I rub a good dollop into my heels every night.

4) Sonograms. Way too many women in my circles are getting knocked up.

I'm writing this right now as a rowdy party is happening on the outside terrace of neighbors who live several floors down. This happens frequently on Friday and Saturday nights, especially when it's nice out, but on work nights, it's a real treat. Drunken screams abound and a catchy Of Monsters and Men tune is currently ripping through the air. Some girl keeps screaming for Ben and dammit, Ben, go to her.  Go to her and shut up her drunken screeching. Might I add that it is nearly eleven o'clock? I, for one, have to go to the office tomorrow morning. 

I hope their beer kegs are tainted and will give all their guests, but ESPECIALLY my neighbors, severe diarrhea that will render them useless and in painful gastric distress for the entire weekend.

Summer Feets

Tonight, I walked in, took my sandals off, and tiptoed to the bathroom. This is a part of the daily, end-of-the-day, summer routine: rinsing off bare feet stained by the city's grime. You get used to it. Darned if I don't gasp when I first catch a glimpse of my blackened heels at the beginning of every summer, though. There's something halting about seeing the undersides of normally very pale feet turned pitch black!

I stepped into the tub and bent over to roll up my tights a few inches before reaching for the faucet. Turning the handle to the left, my gaze fell on the spout as I positioned my right foot underneath it. Only, instead of the spout, the shower head above gushed a steady stream of cold water. I was FULLY CLOTHED. It would seem that a certain someone who shall go unnamed, but I will mention that this blog shares her name, failed to reset the knob that turns off the shower head after her morning shower. She's a real winner, that one.

I hope you're enjoying this slap silly amazing bipolar weather orgasm. It feels like an incredible beginning to my favoritest of favoritests east coast season of all (here's looking at you, fall!). There are simply no words to describe the incredible lightness all around except, perhaps, just maybe... AWESOMEMAZINGTASTIC.

People of Massachusetts, You're A Little Bit Awesome

Do you sometimes forget about the kindness of people? I know I do when I'm feeling blah. It's probably because we've hit the peak of what I call ugly summer syndrome. No explanation is necessary as I'm sure you feel me if you're anywhere near NYC. But trust me when I say that people are amazing anyway...

A customer pulled up at a donut shop and decided to pay for the customer behind her. That customer then paid it forward and did the same for the next customer. Repeat FIFTY-THREE more times. Yes, 53! This is what happened at a donut shop in Massachusetts this past weekend {+}.

I had been to this town outside of Boston once, a long time ago. I remember thinking after one day, Hmm, I'm all right without suburbia. I'm ready to get back to the city now. After hearing about this sweet string of goodness, though, I'm thinking maybe it wouldn't hurt to spend some time out there every now and again. For the donuts, that is. I mean, the people! Totally to be around good, kind people.

Hee hee. :)

Some Summer

I wish you could see this photo spanning the full width of this page.  It looks magnificent splayed across my gigantic home computer screen.  It's a little less dreamy on my office monitor, but still, I can't stop staring at it.  

This is the view of a rather sedate Grand Central from the long weekend.  As it often does on long holiday weekends, the NYC was pleasantly less congested than usual.  Still plenty of traffic and pedestrians and buzz to keep you on your toes, but less enough bodies so that you don't brush against too many sweaty shoulders to get to wherever you're going.  

Then again, there was that one incident walking through that street fair in Chelsea.  A couple's granny cart wheel clipped my bare heel.  The owners, a young couple probably in their mid-twenties, flung up their arms and shook their heads in bored annoyance as to why someone would walk into their cart.  My reaction was similar, dramatically throwing up my hands and giving them a dirty look.  They seemed to have missed the fact that their cart hit my heel, which would mean that they ran into me, not the other way around, because people, even we eclectic ones in New York do not walk backwards through bustling street fairs.  Also, bare skin vs. metal?  Even if it had been my fault, the decent thing to have done would have been to stop and ask if I was all right.  Instead, they kept right on walking and me, like a child, fought the urge to chase after them and yank –hard– the girl's long hair.  I was pissed.  I thought it might bring me some closure, you know?

It was hot.  We were caught in the middle of a steaming street fair soaking in our own sweat.  And boy, was I cranky.  

Hi, summer.  I see that you've arrived.  Welcome.  

Grand Central Terminal.

Friday.  1:27 pm.  5 July.  2013

The Things I Do

Surely, I'm not the only one who opened her front door this morning expecting to see the weekend paper.  Oh, man.  I'm still feeling a little sore about it.

Met rooftop.
27 May.  2013.

Tiny Man

Philadelphia.
8:51 am. 8 June. 2013
What sound does a cow make?
Mooooo!

What sound does a dog make?
Woof woof!

What sound does a cat make?
Meow.

What sound does Michael Jackson make?
Hee heee!

I gotta hand it to your parents. That one was clever.

Defiance Pays

At the Guggenheim.
Friday.  22 March.  2013.

A short, round, elderly lady with a heavy accent scolded me when she saw me raise my phone to take this photo.  But because she didn't make eye contact as she delivered her tired speech in a dull monotone, I went ahead and tapped my phone's screen anyway as I paid her some lip service.  "Oh, I'm allowed from the ground floor only?"  [Click.]  "You got it."

I'm so glad I was in a defiant mood that day because I just opened the picture on my desktop and the first thing I spotted was the couple on the bottom right.  Too cute!  It's the best when I capture silly antics without even knowing it.

Booking It

After hoping for years that I'd be invited to join an established book club by an unknown someone (could have been anyone, really), somewhere (preferably within three subway transfers), and somehow (e-mail, posted letter, singing telegram, I'm not picky), and then pathetically failing at obtaining such an invitation, I caved.  I did the only thing I could do: I pulled a classic nerd move and started my own.  At our first gathering, someone pointed out that the subject line of my e-mail invitation was "Booking It."  Have you ever heard anything so clever?  Our second meeting is scheduled for later this month.

This, this is a good thing.

Ugh.

My sister is so bossy sometimes.

Next to the Chocolate Shop

Sixty dollars for a pound of anything seems absurd, but for certain occasions, a bit of extravagant spending on Belgian chocolate seems fitting.  So does gawking at the handsome fellow manning the counter at the Neuhaus flagship store.  He's, how shall I put it?  Easy on the eyes: beautiful smile; the kindest of demeanors; quite tall, but compared to me, who isn't?  He's probably in his mid-twenties, maybe twenty-five, which is absolutely horrifying because my youngest brother turns twenty-four next month.  Let's move on.

52nd-ish & Madison.  NYC. December.  2012.
Next door to the fancy European chocolatier with the chocolate hunk is an antiques dealership with funny little porcelain statuettes in their windows.  I'm not sure if they're still there, but these creepy figurines were hanging out there in December.  I thought they were cute for about half a nanosecond before they suddenly made me want to hide under the covers.

:D

I can still see your chubby index finger pointing at the cupboard, your blond head tilted just so, while you earnestly asked, "Coooooo-key?"  "Coooo-key?"  Those stinking, pleading, blue eyes would pull me in every time.  I'd come this close to giving you another cookie, before stopping myself knowing full well that your parents would wonder why you were so wired instead of sleeping when they got home.  When you finally learned the difference between pointing at something and bleating "neeeeeed?" and pointing at something and bleating "peeeeez?," well, that was it.  I was done for.  You had your babysitter, a sucker for good manners, wrapped around your little finger.  It's a good thing I'm Asian and know how to draw the line.  Until, of course, you batted those blue eyes at me again.  Damn those eyes.  If I didn't know that it's genetically impossible for my own children to have blue eyes, maybe I wouldn't find them so mesmerizing, eh?

I don't know you anymore, what with the distance and the time that flies and all, but I still have fond memories of reading you stories while you patiently turned the pages, scolding you for sitting on the cat when you were old enough to know that was bad but couldn't talk yet, and how, even before you held the bottle on your own, you drank that milk with more gusto than any kid I knew.  You were a terrific baby.  Do you know that my sister would stop by to say "hello" occasionally?  She didn't even like babies.  You guys made her nervous with all your wiggling and nonverbal-ness, so it took her a while to become a fan.  But you, she took to you pretty quickly.

If you're anything like your parents, I'm sure your Mad Libs antics are straight up witty.  Your drawing looks just like the city.  It is spot on, little dude.

I'm going to stop acting like a weird old woman now.  I just wanted to remind everyone that babies grow fast.  One minute they're hobbling along like drunken sailors and the next minute they're drawing urban skylines and signing their names on thank-you cards.  And do you see the ":D?"  Crazy.