I'll Give You A Royal Wedding

I set my alarm early early early so I could finally cap off this sick obsession of Kate Middleton and the whole Royal Wedding shebang. My alarm is the radio, and while I heard it, I was still just sleeping away, half listening, when I heard one of the morning DJ's say "there's her dress!!" because they were watching it live as they broadcasted. That woke me up. I flew out of bed and set up my laptop on the bookmarked link to the official Royal Channel on youtube that was giving live coverage.



It was beautiful. From the abbey to the choir to the dress to the palace. But here's how I'm American (biased perhaps with a twinge of jealousy).

It's all fun and games to watch a monarchy continue from afar, but if I were ACTUALLY a citizen, I'm not so sure that I would buy it. Now that they're simply constitutional monarchs, and don't actually make any decisions or do anything political other than show their damn faces and wave, wouldn't you be pissed if 2-3% of YOUR money (via taxes) went to them? Your money goes straight to a family, for no reason, other than their birth, to support their cushy lifestyles, because... well I haven't figured that out yet. The Brits I have met defend the Queen because she "does good things" and "promotes tourism". Wow. So does Disneyland but I'm not paying for Walt Disney to live in Buckingham Palace.

Should the good fate befall me to meet and woo Prince Harry, I will eat my words, delete this article, and trust all of you to keep your mouths shut if you want an invite to the ceremony. Still, I won't hold my breath, especially because Harry probably plays for the other team-- oops! There I go again, badmouthing my husband.

I'm not an anarchist, since I'm not British and I can watch and like from across the pond, but if I were... who knows. As my long-time confidant Morrissey sings in Irish Blood, English Heart:

I've been dreaming of a time when
The English are sick to death of Labour
And Tories, and spit upon the name of Oliver Cromwell
And denounce this royal line that still salute him
And will salute him forever

I'm secretly glad we can all stop talking about the Royal Wedding now. Life as usual!

thelovebrick.

My internal musings yesterday led me to feel like New York City is a city that you can literally be in love with. It will bring you the highest of highs, and the lowest of lows. This is an exhausting city, and one that I can understand the high turnover rate for. It's a place that will chew you up and spit you out half digested and barely breathing with only a faint pulse... but it will also bring the brightest, most rewarding days of your life that leave you feeling like a Queen who had conquered an Empire and has nothing left to prove. You can walk around feeling like birds are singing and starvation has been cured, even on a gray rainy day. Still, it's a continuing struggle, and overall I think she's faithful... if you put your time and loyalty in, I think she will be kind and rewarding after a time.

Lady Gaga's new song Judas sings this lyric
I've learned love is like a brick
You can build a house
Or sink a dead body

In short, it's powerful, but does not inherently reap goodness: what you choose to do with that power will determine its course and qualities.

In a way I think you could see New York City like that. But it's the only city I've lived in that you can literally fall in love with.

Spring in Verses

I don't mean to look a gift horse in the mouth and complain about nice weather, but it's pretty annoying when all the weather sites I check (and I have to check 2 or 3 because this seems to happen to me consistently) and I left the house with an overcoat and rain boots, only for it to be warm (even hot!) and sunny all day long. So beautiful a day (and I get off early on Mondays) that I raced home to chuck the jacket and change into flats, and emerged from my building a lighter and happier person.

I walked around the neighborhood, did mindless shopping along the sunny avenues and enjoyed the crowds of people all equally satisfied with the sun. Last stop was Starbucks for a chai tea. I took it outside to one of the benches in the center divider of Broadway in front of blooming orange and yellow tulips, and pulled out my book. I sat on the wooden bench on the cobblestone island while taxis and tourists passed by at every changing light. I was so content to be there inbetween the towering, multi-colored brick buildings with their fire escape fronts and read and sip warm chai until the inevitable graying of the sky and winds made my hair whip in front of my face until I couldn't see the pages.

A friend of mine and I take turns sending each other pictures, and it feels like a location game. You have to send one back right away, wherever you are. This happened while I was out there, and since I was sandwiched between others on the benches I was really self conscious taking this picture, this was my non-chalant attempt to not look like I was doing, exactly what I was doing.



In German class in college we read the libretto of an opera, including a very powerful song about Fruehling... aka spring. I didn't pretend to really "get it" then, but I do realize I've never appreciated or understood springtime for what it is revered as... as a saving grace, a renewed power of hope in the northern world. I get it a little more now than I did then. "Spring in Verses, and Verses in Spring" -Violet Gartenlicht

The Twilight Zone

With all the rain on Saturday I did that hardcore spring cleaning that I briefly mentioned earlier. For my quieter cleaning entertainment (loud vacuuming or dishes requires Ke$ha or Lady Gaga on max volume) I turned on my Apple TV and was browsing Netflix and you can guess what I found (thanks to the title)... THE TWILIGHT ZONE. One episode turned into 8 or 9 over the course of the weekend.



What an amazing, timeless show. Everything gives you that punch at the end like whoooooa! And every piece is SO existential I feel like Camus and Sartre couldn't have written them any better. You can still relate to these episodes because their three prevalent themes of mortality, isolation and evil are human universals that will go on forever. Creepy! I am so excited to go home and watch more!

I also took a vitamin this morning but apparently bananas, coffee and yogurt aren't enough food to take in the vitamin. I was on the phone with the Asias Admissions Manager when I just said "let me call you back" turned around and threw up in the trash can to my left, to the silent, wide-eyed horror of my coworkers around me. There was a lot... maybe 5 or 6 good heaves! And the chunky banana mix was still warm from the coffee, and then I had to take out half my breakfast calories on the fitness website lololololol. (Sure hope your family doesn't read my blog aloud around the dinner table right about now)

Happy Feaster ♥

To combat the Thinsgiving of 2010, Ronnie and I proclaimed a FEASTER for 2011, which meant a homemade family brunch with me, Ronnie, Betsy, Casey and Caroline.

I've had such a great weekend, that Feaster was the ultimate way to end it. On Friday, one of our students was throwing himself a goodbye party at the "Triple Crown... the Irish pup downstairs" as the flyers said, so staff and all went down to have drinks with him and celebrate. On Saturday I ran errands in the rain, did some spring cleaning, showered, and went out to a coworker's Easter party in Brooklyn which was incredibly fun and helpful to hang out with everyone outside of the office. Then... Feaster!

All the weather reports were saying rain, but it was a beautiful, gorgeous day in NYC, I mean warm and sunny and hands down the most beautiful day of 2011 so far. I woke up, had coffee, prepared deviled eggs while watching the Grove's Easter sermon online and then loaded myself up with my Feaster eggs, orange juice, champagne and cheesecake!


This was me before heading out, in springy pastels

I could NOT believe what a beautiful day it was, especially when it had been forecasted to rain all day. The trek to Betsy's on the Upper East Side was long and relatively painful, especially carrying things that needed to be kept cool. But I made it, where everyone else was in full preparation of the brunch. We had ciabatta bread French toast with caramelized bananas, toasted mini whole wheat bagels with ham, turkey and cheese, deviled eggs, Whole Foods sausage, and mimosas. After we couldn't take any more, we all took a walk along the East River, to come back and relax with open-window breezes in Betsy's sunny apartment while watching The Real Housewives, and cut into my cheesecake.


Nothing has ever looked so lovely to me as this cheesecake!! (Oh and that last deviled egg you can see... I ate it ten minutes later so I could wash the plate lololololol)

By 6p we headed out, but it was still so balmy and warm that Ronnie and I decided to walk around the neighborhood, window shopping along Lexington, Park and Madison Avenues as we slowly zigzagged to Rockefeller Center to catch orange-lined trains. Unfortunately we got caught in the impending rain, and by the time I got off my train it was pouring, and now it is thundering and coming down pretty hard outside, but we got the best part of the day out of the sunshine.

I know it's not thanksgiving, but holidays make me especially thankful for the rest of my Californian-misplaced family and that we are always able to get together and be around each other for these days. As I was listening to the Grove's sermon today, I was thinking about how it's always the same message. Like for Christmas, it's always about God's humility to come be human, and for Easter, it's always Jesus' resurrection which shows the power of God and the conquering of death and the love of this that was done for us, and I was wondering which one was more important to remember. But-- they're apples and oranges, I don't think one is more important than another, but we celebrate and learn these to remember them and focus on each aspect in its own time. I am thankful for technology and being able to attend my home church still virtually, and be reminded and humbled by the love and victory Jesus portrayed. And of course-- eating.

My Binkie Beedie Belle

Anyone close to me probably knows what a ridiculously avid journaler I am, and because of the shelves-worth of books I have filled up, I save them also. My first journal, and one I still have, is a demolished, wide-ruled and scribble-filled, page-ripped and nail-polished-stained book with a cover of an underwater scene with corals, exotic fish, dolphins and orca whales. What I remember most about what is inside this book is that it contained the first real entry that I wrote that has survived to this day, and that took place on April 22 when my cat Belle had her first litter of kittens and was freaking us all out. It included timed sentenced of the progression, as well as the final tally of four kittens and their names Tiger, Phantom, Sugarcane and Cali. Every April 22 I remember Belle's first litter. (What Earth Day?)



Belle Belle, as seen above, was born in 1992 (?) and is STILL. GOING. STRONG. Everytime something has happened in my life... i.e., going away to college, going away to France, moving to San Diego... I'm always wondering if that will be the last time I see her, but NOPE! She is trucking away, albeit with a dead tail and no hearing. Kathleen sent this picture to me recently, and I love it because I feel like you can just FEEL her fur through the picture. She is my baby and I know the way her fur grows and the way she likes to be held and everything about her, and seeing this makes my hands ache for her shaggy softness and cuddling with her! I love and miss her more than ever.

Cooking Myself Thin?

If anyone remembers, I got a Barnes & Noble gift card from work and used it to buy my Shantaram and Les Miserables books last month. Well, I finished it off recently with a cookbook. Aside from the overall necessity of needing to learn to cook, especially since I'm on my own, I have really started to like cooking, when I know what I'm doing or it's simple enough for me to figure it out. Combine that with my recent calorie counting, and naturally I would buy the below:



What I really like about it is all the info on good substitutes to make meals healthier or with less fat or sugar, etc, and that each recipe comes with the calorie count.

Well, I finally went through it today to mark recipes to start trying, and I ended up really discouraged by the end of it. I'm not sure why. I don't know if it was all the ingredients for even 1 dish (I can keep a pantry full of rice and vegetables and a few other sub-staples like soy sauce and honey, but what a bill I'd rack up going to buy cumin or thyme to just add a pinch). I mean, I've learned a few of my own quick dishes that I love that are easy enough, like steamed vegetables and rice with garlic salt and peanut sauce, but it would be nice to make something I'd be proud of or be able to serve to other people.

Cooking seems like such a task, so expensive, and needing so many things! If I cooked even one complete meal every day for a week, I feel like I would have to spend my whole paycheck just going to buy everything, or keep the supplies handy. And I just felt so lost, like I didn't know how to make anything, and how the smallest dish could contain so much effort! I've learned that cooking may seem overwhelming but it's not as bad as it seems, and just doing it once can be enough to be able to experiment and remember.

I just don't know what it is, but I closed the book feeling like such a culinary failure! If the goal of it is to lose weight, I'll probably do a better job by not cooking at all...

Joffrey Ballet

Last night I finally took my first ballet class, at a studio down in the Village. I won't lie: it was awkward. I didn't know my way around the studio (there weren't even any labels on the doors, but I'm assuming I was in the right class!), I didn't know anyone else, i didn't know their routine or protocol. I was uncomfortable.

To be frank, the class kicked my ass. In theory I knew it all still, it was still there in my head. But with no muscle or ergonomic memory left from years in hiatus, it was a struggle, to say the least.


(a view from the joffrey ballet school)

I miss dancing, and I really love it, and this is something I want to pursue. Dancing, and ballet especially, is something that can be continued almost until death, really. So I want to pick it up and run with it again. But lesson learned: time is not kind to those who wait too long inbetween classes.

Bridge to Williamsburg

I never understood the "hipster" life or or scene until coming to New York. Maybe it was a West Coast thing, but that whole movement came out under the title "emo" and evolved to "scene kids" but out here it's "hipsters". Kathleen even introduced me to the MC Lars song that we used to sing and sing and sing...

She came from Omaha to Williamsburg
She loved Karen O and she had heard
That Brooklyn was the hipster mecca
Packed her bags with her friend Rebecca
Said she had a thing for broke dudes in bands
Who lived by Union or by Grand
So we went down to the Bedford Bar
And bought a six dollar PBR...
I love my L-Train girl it's true, she always goes down on the weekends too

Well I now actually understand this song and live it here. Yesterday was a beautifully clear and warm day. After work Jayna had an appointment on 7th and I went to get a French manicure down on 23rd so we went our separate ways. When i was done I called to see if she was still around Chelsea, and so we met up again and just walked and walked and walked together.

Since we had already explored the Chelsea piers on the West Side not too long ago, we decided to go to the East Side of the island, so we walked along the East River all the way from upper midtown down to the Williamsburg Bridge, and decided to cross it and get dinner where we "landed" down in Williamsburg on Bedford. I actually liked this bridge (for walking) much more than the Brooklyn Bridge. Cars are a level below, and pedestrians and bikers even have their own paths on separated sides. It was dusk and the sun set as we were crossing. It was nice!



My favorite part was that, as soon as we hit the streets, we made a left, and came face to face with Harry Potter-glasses-and-striped-shirt-wearing hipster kids. First things. What a stereotype! We found a really rustic and cute little restaurant called Rabbit Hole where I got a beat/avocado/goat cheese sandwich with spinach salad. It was deeeelish! Walking through to catch the L train home (it's already 9:30pm by this time), the rowdy-youth streets of bars and restaurants reminded me of IV and college, and I kinda missed that for a hot second. However, if I saw one more person wearing a navy blue-and-white horizontally striped shirt I was going to go crazy. It's just ironic that those who make the statement not to conform, in fact conform to each other. Ohhh the irony of life.

It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday...

Bear Legs

It's getting warmer and spring is springing! Never have I been so keen and appreciative to the signs of spring as I have been lately... more sunshine, warmer air, I notice the chipper chirp of birds in the mornings, and though most of the trees are still bare, daffodils are coming up in planters, and grass is slowly growing.

On Saturday I took a walk to Riverside Park on the west side. I think I like this park better than Central Park. It's linear, so no confusing winding roads or meadows to be trapped in, and no carriage lanes or horses to watch out for. Not to mention, it overlooks the Hudson River, so it has beautiful scenery to admire past the stone walls and park benches. And because the slightest signs of spring were making themselves known this Saturday, the park was abuzz with people sunbathing, reading, jogging, walking dogs, kicking soccer balls and playing catch, or just strolling around. It was so relaxing! I took the below picture near the entrance to the park. You can't tell that the entire scenery around was simply bare-boned trees, but they were, and this was the one blooming lifeform around, and in beautifully technicolor tones



And, everyone grew up playing softball or Little League, right? I saw a game going on and remembered my own games back home in Don Lugo (?) park, a simple dip of fields in the middle of a concrete jungle in desert-y Riverside, and what a different experience these kids had on Manhattan on the edge of the Hudson



Lastly, today it is rumored to get up to 75 degrees!! That will feel like a sauna after all this persisting winter weather. It is the first time I have stepped out with bare legs... a dress with no tights or nylons, and coupled with my lightest overcoat (the only thing that matched!) it looked a little off-kilter to have this long jacket with naked legs, but I am going to hold out hope for this warm weather even if it ends up giving me frostbite instead.

However, yes, I understand homophones and I didn't misprint the title. It wasn't until I got on the subway and sat down and realized it had been a few days since shaving my legs. Never did I need to really care either, considering they have been covered up consistently since October! That's when I realized I had both bare and bear legs. Whatevs! If men can have a five o'clock shadow, so can I. Lulz. Shake it off.

The Moonface

This morning I had some issues with my apartment that I tried dealing with myself, but in the end couldn't, so I had to accept that I needed to call the landlord... but I wasn't sure if it was something that I could call him about, or if it was a tenant responsibility.

So I was googling landlord responsibilities and all that jazz, and I came across this landlord forum of different threads with landlords telling their stories and offering advice, and one of them said this:

"...never ever ever ever ever ever ever rent to straight female moonfaces under the age of 30, you'll save yourself a TON of grief. Trust me on this one."

Since I fit the bill otherwise, I had to keep reading, where he specifies what a "moonface" is:

"What is a moonface? Chicks under 27 from the midwest and the west coast who move to the east coast seeking a faaaaaaabulous cosmopolitan life. they are a terror to rent to. they will annoy you and scream and holler about anything and demand you come at 2am on a sunday night to unclog their tampon clogged toilet and that if you dont she will call daddy's lawyer and withhold rent type of a situation."

Lulz. Granted my dad doesn't have a lawyer that I know about, and I'm not here on my dad's dime, but yikes, remember when I called the landlord because I couldn't open the window??

I still went ahead and called the landlord and got everything under control. I've always hated dealing with household problems and landlords, but being forced to deal with it has made it not so scary, and I've become a lot more self sufficient because of it.

Kooky NYC

My recent acquisition of an iPhone has given me the newfound liberty of musical freedom, meaning that, I can listen to more than 108 songs, and actually choose which ones I feel like listening to (as opposed to the method a la Shuffle). Ironically though, I find myself rarely listening to it. I am too engrossed in Shantaram to waste my time on the subway simply sitting there with a soundtrack playing, and very rarely do I feel like drowning out the sounds of the city when I am out and about. I prefer to walk while listening to honking cars, foreign chatter, people hailing taxis, street vendors selling food... the works.

Still... when I do put it on, I have started to try to re-listen to bands, songs, albums, that haven't been played for awhile... enter back into my life THE KOOKS. These British punks played 2 or 3 times in Bordeaux while I was there and I ignored the fanatacism of the Brits I knew going to these shows every time until alas, it was too late, and I finally gave them a good listen when I was back at my California university for my senior year and became obsessed, and didn't get to see a show until the fall of 2008, when Becca and I drove up from San Diego to watch them play in Hollywood. I had since bought their albums and am back to obsessing over them again.



On a separate note, this was me and Ronnie at karaoke the other night before Joshua Tree. I guess we were singing Son of a Preacher Man?

Village Pourhouse Trivia Night

A little while ago Ronnie, Betsy, Caroline, Casey and myself signed up for a trivia league at the Village Pourhouse on Restaurant Row, and last night was the first round! To sign up there was a per-person fee but you get an open bar every trivia night, aka every Wednesday for six weeks. For each round you win you get a free pitcher, and there is a grand prize at the end of the whole season.



Last night our team, the Hoboken No's, put up a good fight, called out the cheaters, and somehow TIED FOR FIRST PLACE for the last round for which we GUESSED EVERY SINGLE QUESTION. How does that happen?! We lost the tie breaker, but the host got us a free pitcher anyway. I love trivia night and now I have a reason to celebrate Wednesdays

Five Miles of Manhattan

I love 80s music. It is arguably my favorite genre. Aside from growing up in the 80s and already listening to the albums my parents had, from Paula Abdul's Straight Up, Madonna's Immaculate, Michael Jackson's Bad and Thriller, to Heart, Oingo Boingo, Echo and the Bunnymen, Genesis, and The Cure, I re-embraced the 80s as a freshman in high school, starting with the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, and still going strong with the double-disc Best of The Smiths I got last Christmas, and Simple Minds' "Alive and Kicking" that I'm listening to now. So how is it possible that I never made it to an 80s bar before?

On Friday night, I left work at 5:30 on the dot (maybe even 5:29), raced home as fast at the subway could take me, and put myself to bed for a power nap, before I dolled myself up and went over to Betsy's on the Upper East Side, where I met up with Casey, Ronnie, Caroline and Nikhail. Vodka-sodas and Jordan almonds started our night before we went out to the karaoke bar Duet for the room we had reserved at 10 o'clock. It was our usual mix of power ballads and guilty pleasures for two hours before we made our way to the pre-determined 80s bar Joshua Tree. (I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it was named after the U2 album of the same name??) And IT. WAS. FABULOUS!



I'm going to say that I've never been happier in my life!!! What on earth is better to listen to with a beer in your hand than The Cutting Crew, Modern English, Prince, and Michael Jackson? And not these awful mutilated club version interspersed with Britney Spears and trance... I mean like the original, full music with the video up on the screen. I could've stayed there ALL NIGHT! (And I think I did!)

On Saturday after sleeping in all morning, I headed downtown to get my eyebrows done at my usual salon Thread. I had plans to meet up with Ronnie at Battery Park, but not for about two hours, so I wandered down Nassau Street and passed by a suspicious limo with a sign in the front reading "MUSIC TRANSPORT: BURTON" and I figured it was for Tim Burton, but why? As I came to the next corner I found myself at Wall St, where a huge movie production was going on. I stopped and watched for awhile. It was pretty boring, but I was LOLLING OUT LOUD watching these "extras" who would simply walk back and forth within the frame of the camera while they were filming. Such hard work that must have been! It's amazing how staged EVERYTHING is in the movie. They even had fake steam for the subway. I moved on shortly after, found myself in a Starbucks and settled in with a caramel macchiato and Shantaram to read the hours away. When it was about time, I walked the seven minutes to Battery Park, and while waiting for Ronnie, took this picture with the Instagram on my phone of the beautiful scenery just outside the park (my phone died right after this so sadly it remains the only remnant of Ronnie and my's time together, and he wasn't even with me at this time, lulz)



Ronnie showed just as the sun was setting, and we walked to the water and watched the light fade over the Statue of Liberty, as the torch lit and started to blaze and the pink hues fell on the sky and the water turned from an uncertain grey to a deep and fearsome black. We then walked. For four hours. Covering roughly five miles of Manhattan. From Battery Park... to Times Square. And it. was. awesome!

Ronnie and I walked the whole west shore of Manhattan from Battery Park up to Pier 40. With absolutely no agenda or time restraint, we lulled and ran, walked up every staircase, tried out the views from every bench, admired every apartment on the way, and watched the slowly-moving Jersey skyline across the Hudson. At Pier 40 we found a football league playing on an artificial field and we went in to watch. It reminded me of college, of the sports fields in the middle of bustle, and all the boys practicing in the evening under the stadium lights. Following that we headed into the city, right smack in the middle of the Village. We paced around hungrily, trying to find a reasonably priced and no-wait restaurant (which at this point was impossible since it was 9 or 9:30 and the Saturday night crowds were coming out) yet somehow I spotted Oyishi Sushi (shouldn't it be Oiishi?) and we got a window-front table and had mixed-green salads, shrimp and vegetable tempura, eel-avocado and spicy yellowtail rolls, and Sapporo beer. It was perfect. We continued the walk up, going into some fun Village shops, getting dessert at a diner-esque donut and coffee shop, snaking up through Chelsea and coming into Times Square around midnight, where we explored some of the shops while navigating the crowds, as thick and active as though it were noontime, and finally separated at 50th Street where I hopped on my uptown train and got home wearied and sore, but so accomplished!

So impressed with ourselves we were, that in the summertime Ronnie and I are going to start earlier and walk the length of the whole island of Manhattan in a day. Hey, it could happen!

Baseball Season!

Yesterday was the opening day of baseball season, and even though the weather here was completely miserable, I could definitely notice the increase in Yankees paraphernalia, bars promoting the opening games, and good natured bantering amongst fans of other teams. New York supports ALL their teams, from the sad little Jets to the Rangers, but nothing comes close to the baseball fiends. I guess nothing says legacy like the Yankees, no matter how much you might hate them. Sadly the Giants didn't do too well against the Dodgers, but I'm still supporting them!



This was me and my dad at the Giants / Padres game in San Diego a year ago now! April 2010.

I really hate April Fool's Day. I don't know why. I like jokes and I don't mind falling for one, but today just really annoys me, and I can never wait for April 2nd to be here, every year this comes around. The only joke I ever remember pulling (which my mom actually pulled off) was when we served my dad "cinnamon and sugar toast" but it was actually salt and pepper. Lulz. If I lived at home I would do that again.