The Day My Quality of Life Improved

Let the record state that today I received my first air conditioning unit in New York City. It was delivered just as I was on the way out for my dance class, which was a shame, and Alex and I met up for sushi and a little East Village stroll after my class, so it wasn't until we got back around 10pm that I got to set it up (and by that time, the absolute last thing I felt like doing was reading instructions, fussing over screws and pieces, and holding an AC unit steady half way out the window)... but we managed.



Within a few minutes, my room went down 2 degrees (and it had been 85 in my room according to the unit). Man, I feel all grown up. Now when I lay in bed, sore from ballet and mourning my Belle, at least I can be cool.

Kristin Lately

I'm really upset lately. Aside from ballet, I don't do much. I guess that's why it's so good ballet takes up so much time, but it's also tiring. I'm still just really sad about Belle. I can't believe she's not around, and it still hurts to think about her gone. Everything makes me think of her, makes me miss her, makes me love her more.



And I read this below and I cried, just thinking about Belle.



It's been hard to work. And the worst part is that I've rediscovered The Smiths' "I Know It's Over" off the album "The Queen is Dead", which I prefer to the Jeff Buckley remake, although I appreciate both.

Summer has a bit of a dark cloud hovering over it lately. That and a ballet studio inbetween me being able to rest and recover.

Ice Cubes to Cocoa

Last night I was so miserably hot I was beyond irritable and cranky. I kept having to get ice cubes wrapped in cool washcloths to lay on my head, before I finally threw caution to the wind, dunked my entire shirt in cold water and went to sleep in it like that.

Today at lunch break it was overcast and cool, for a welcome change. Can you believe I started to shiver? And then the rain came down, and it's been pouring. Since it's cold indoors and I usually have an afternoon coffee or tea to beat the 3pm slump, yet today I find myself with cocoa. What is that?

I just keep remembering, in my first week in NYC someone asked me why I moved here. I said "Do I need a reason?" and she said "Well, no one moves here for the weather." Ugh, still so true.



And I still miss Belle.

Even At Prom

I never did anything without Belle if I could help it. I remember when I started driving, whenever my car would be pulling into the driveway, she would come running across the lawn and wait patiently for me to get out of the car and then scoop her up and lavish her with attention. She knew the sound of my car. When I would pack a suitcase for a weekend (or a year to France) she spent all night sleeping on it, as if she was trying to keep me from opening it and packing more, or to keep me from leaving.

Every free exposure on the disposable cameras (even though 2/3 of it was spent on her anyways) I would take pictures with her. I found this one I had forgotten about. It was around 2 in the morning I think, in-between prom, and going to a prom after-party.



I know I was lucky to have her as long as I did (I've never personally known anyone with an older cat) but it still hurts... there would never be a good time to lose her.

Sleep, Shop, Ballet... Repeat.

All I can do is just try not to think about it. I can accept that she's gone, but it hurts too much to think about it. If I think about it, I cry, and if I cry, it hurts more. I feel so stupid that it's over a cat, when there are so many worse things in the world, but it's just honesty that I feel this way, and that it hurts so much. I have very, very few memories of life before Belle. That means that she has been a companion to me my entire life.



I've been distracting myself by sleeping, shopping, and ballet. My ballet instructor even asked me to join another class of his on Sundays, so I'll be in dance again tomorrow, hopefully not thinking about her.

Hot. Too Hot.

I feel depressed, alone, sad, tired, fatigued, and heartbroken... and the heat is not doing a damn thing to help. It just amplifies everything else. Last night at midnight I was walking around with Ronnie, Becca and Josh, and it really felt so hot I couldn't even breathe. But maybe my heart is just weighed down too. It's just HOT. TOO HOT.



(I know the quality is AWFUL but it was the only clip I could find that included that quote! Skip to 0:56 to get the joke)

I haven't stopped thinking about Belle. She was born to the neighbors' cat Gizmo, and I was the one that found them in our doghouse on the day the litter was born.

For Heather's 9th birthday, we each got a kitten, Heather got jetblack Midnight, and I carefully picked out one of the two white kittens (just the mere notion that I could have picked the other and never had Belle sends me reeling with grief). I remember trying to think of a name, and I even remember considering Snowflake and Milkshake, or Snow White.

I don't remember officially crowning her "Belle", but I can believe that the line from the opening song "Bonjour" from Beauty and the Beast had something to do with it... "Well it's no wonder that her name means Beauty, her looks have got no parallel." (I am also convinced I had no idea what "parallel" meant at that age either.) I could never look at Belle without thinking that she was just the most beautiful cat I had ever seen, and was elated when her tan coloring started to show, I just couldn't get over how beautiful she was. It's probably why I myself dressed as Belle that year for Halloween too.



...Just a couple of kittens.

Belle ♥

There's not much to say. I feel really sick inside. I thought I had prepared myself that this day was coming, but now I'm realizing that more of me really thought that she was immortal.



What do you say about a 19 year old cat that you took to Show and Tell in first grade?

I just wish that I was there yesterday. I miss her.



Just a couple of kittens.

How Do YOU Walk to the MoMA?

Last night was dinner with Rebecca's family on Restaurant Row. We went to a great little place called Sangria 46, a Spanish restaurant where Josh, Becca's brother, ordered most everyone's meals for them, including paella and carne dishes. We also had two pitchers of sangria between the five of us (and the coconuts kept knocking together...)

Leaving at a quarter to midnight in the hot air, and freshly energized by the sangria, Becca and Josh shared with us an inside joke they made up earlier that day when going to the MoMA. On their walk there, Becca morphed into a ridiculous slinky and slunky walk that involved knees up and claws in the air, (which she elaborated from The Grinch), and told Josh "this is how I walk to the MoMA", after which she asked Josh, "how do YOU walk to the MoMA?" where he created some ridiculous monkey-stepping run. So then Becca and Josh asked the rest of us "how do YOU walk to the MoMA?"

So there on West 46th Street, in the hot hot night, despite all the tourists and passer-bys, we recorded and cackled over everyone's individual walk to the MoMA, followed by ballet-inspired picture poses, which I hope I can share soon! My walk to the MoMA was a pirouette-and-jazz-hand looking creation that was inspired by Molly Shannon's Sally O'Malley SNL skit, but taken from Cheri Oteri's character as she dramatically exits the dance auditions. (See below, and pay attention to 2:30 to see what I'm referring to!)



So now I ask... how do YOU walk to the MoMA? (Go ahead, record it and share!)

On The Wagon.

Anyone that remembers that I had been on a calorie-watching website, and going to ballet regularly, might have noticed I haven't mentioned it in awhile. That's mainly because I fell off the wagon, rolled down the hill onto the road and into the sunset like a tumbleweed. Well, no longer. I found my way back to the prairie schooner and I am officially back on the wagon.

My intensive ballet course started yesterday, which was a great motivation to me to get back into healthy eating habits and a regular work out routine. (Squeezing into a skintight leotard may have had something to do with it too). It feels so good to be back in a studio and dancing, a little part of me always belonged there.



I'm actually even secretly happy that the classes will be on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons too. I feel completely invested in it. For the next three weeks I have absolutely no excuses.

Cedric Needs Us!

This is the weird name of my friend's band who was playing a show near Times Square last night. It was my other friend Josh's birthday, and with my college roommate Rebecca in town, I invited her and her brother to join us there.

Seeing Becca again was like being reunited with a long lost kid or something... we were inseparable and I felt bad for all my other friends there, because all I was doing was talking and drinking and laughing with Becca and her brother. We ended up going pretty solid until 5am, relocating to another bar after the show, then a poolhall uptown until it closed at 4, and then birthday boy Josh's apartment until 5. It was SO FUN being with Becca and catching up and hanging out.



I admire her and look up to her in so many ways, and learned a lot from her. We are so greatly compatible as friends and roommates... she was my favorite living companion in college, hands down. She is here with her family for a whole week so I look forward to spending more time with her again soon!

The East River and the Full Moon

I wasn't in the best mood yesterday, but a phone call to Alice and meeting up with Ronnie was a great start for a remedy, and I felt pretty well recovered with what turned out to be a perfect summer night, with a full moon and walk along the East River. We were near Sutton Place, so we weren't at the boardwalk, but there were all these little patio-type docks, that Ronnie said were like walking into different rooms at a party, since we were walking into different crowds of people.

Look how beautiful this view was!


And of course, Ronnie trying to be super cool


I love bridges, and the sight of them at night too are even better

The Morning Papers Culture

One thing I have missed about being walking distance from work (and yes it's possible to have a downside) is the morning paper read on the subway during the commute. I am house/cat-sitting for Betsy again on the Upper East Side, so I've been commuting up to work this week. (I get to play with three kitties!! Maeby is my favorite!)



There are two (free!) morning papers in New York City, and I guess it's the competition between the two (?) that explains why they have people stationed in and out of EVERY subway stop handing them out to busy passer-bys (even though they are also stacked on newspaper-dispensers inside and out as well). However, 99% of these people are SO friendly, and funny, and I love having a morning start with them. The guy I passed today at the NRQ trains stop was so energetic, dancing around. When one girl didn't take a copy he said "I'll getcha tomorrow! If you don't take one today, I'll get you to take one tomorrow!" and when I grabbed one he said "Hey! Where's that smile? Let's see that smile and have a great day!"

The positive energy is such a great start to the day. Not to mention, I love reading the New York-centric news in the morning.

Master of... Disguise?

Without a doubt, the best perk of my new job is the part where you get to take classes for free. But more than taking classes, I wanted to be enrolled in one of the schools, and pursue a masters degree. So I applied... and recently got accepted.



Below is the statement of purpose essay I wrote for the application. I thought I'd share.

The purpose of my life dates back to MCMXCVII. It was The Year of the Spice Girls. My circle of best friends and I spent recess-time singing and dancing in emulation of the British pop sensation… and I was secretly hot with jealousy of my fellow eleven-year-old band mates.

A group of five girls all growing up together in a hot Californian town, I should have fit right in, but I felt excluded. Why? Every other one of them grew up perfectly bilingual, and they would laugh as they translated “Spice Up Your Life” into Vietnamese, and Polish, and Romanian, and Spanish. I lied and said I spoke Irish Gaelic and spewed out complete gibberish that all centered around the phrase “Erin go Braugh.” It never left my consciousness or view of my own self-worth that I was nothing but an English speaker. The value of language took hold in my subconscious, and to this day I continue to research the science of languages, and pick up the most uncommon phrasebooks (Maltese, anyone?) to compensate for my lowly feelings as a monolingual and outcast Spice Girl.

Despite this traumatic time, it wasn’t until I was graduating from university and repeatedly asked why I had pursued linguistics that I made the connection between my childhood friends and my chosen scholastic path. Language drove me from the first times I heard the syllables of a Vietnamese rendition of “Wannabe” and was told that these sounds actually contain grammatical and lexical content. Just like when I heard “2 Become 1” sung in a slurry of Polish consonant clusters and learned it meant the same thing that I heard in English. It fascinated me and I wanted to swallow up every bit of every language that I possibly could, to get to the root of mankind’s abilities, comprehensions and uses of language entirely. I was consumed by the fact that something that sounded like onomatopoeias to me was actually a sophisticated and intelligent combination of phonemes and morphemes that communicated complex ideas and imagery to those who could decode it with their knowledge of their mother tongue. I declared my major to the department in my freshman year.

Since attaining my bachelor’s degree, I have happily found a career within Higher Education, and am more than thrilled to be on staff with Columbia University, with a wide range of academia doors all around me. And still that linguist and that scholar in me is waiting to be used, to learn more and more about languages and linguistics, because I know there is much more beyond what I know. I am determined to continue learning, and continue researching. In a perfect world I will master historical- comparative linguistics and field research, perhaps even becoming a world renowned literary translator… but I will still translate a Spice Girl song or two for good measure, because you never forget where you came from, and why your life began.

Honestly, being a student again intimidates me. But considering I work full time so I can only really take evening classes, so it will be a slow process... but a free one. If nothing else, I'm excited to be learning again.

Neighbors.

On move in day, the woman right across the hall from me was on her way out to a tea as me and my moving crew (aka friends I bribed with Dinosaur BBQ) were schlepping my things in and out of the apartment. She wanted to know who was moving in, introduced herself to me, and her husband, and proclaimed herself to be my new neighbor to everyone as she walked down the hall.

Since then, Elizabeth has likely been the most welcoming person I've met in NYC. (I'll admit some runners-up include Daniel Rojas for taking me out for a drink on my first night in the city, and Jayna for the electric guitar spatula when I moved into my studio). When I see Elizabeth out front, she says hi and asks how I'm doing and chitchats with me. When I was taking out the trash on Sunday after the party, she asks me if Alex and I had a good time, invites me in and introduces me to her goddaughter.

Alex bought a desk online and it was supposed to arrive last week. FedEx finally announces that it will arrive Monday, which is unfortunate because Alex had a studio shoot that day, so he wouldn't be home to receive it. When i got home, FedEx left a note saying that "Neighbor across the hall accepted". How nice was that?? Elizabeth accepted the package for us and brought it over in the evening for Alex.

I met Elizabeth within my first few hours in the new place and she has been kind and welcoming. I spent a year in my last studio and never exchanged a word to anyone once, whenever I happened to pass them on the stairs. I love the community I've entered into here in Harlem.

Our Haus Hath Been Warmed

Maybe that's why I had problems getting to sleep??

On Saturday, Alex and I slept in, got ready, and spent the afternoon running errands and shopping for our housewarming party. Snacks and drinks, and a special trip to Fairway Market (it truly is unlike any other grocery store!!!) and then we came back to "rearrange" (read: move the coffee table to the wall) and set everything up. I also baked cookies to add something sweet into our mix of salty snacks.



We had a great time, and waaaay too much to eat and drink when everyone coming ended up bring a bottle and food too. It went until the wee hours of the morning, with the windows open and all fans on deck. Everyone was so great, and Jenny even brought me an additional housewarming present of this Asian-like fan shaped out of yellow ducks she bought in Koreatown, and a huuuuge jar of kimchi!!! We had so much room we even had a session of Zumba and dancing going on.

The next day we slept in late, cleaned the place up leisurely, then I went to Betsy's the take care of the cats, met up with Ronnie for Bloomingdale's frozen yogurt, then we trekked to the Village for church before smoothies (it was hot!) and we came back. I had trouble sleeping last night because of how hot it was, despite all the open windows and fan blowing. By early morning it was comfortably cool enough to sleep, and it reminded me of home again, the way you can stay up until 4a in the heat, and then fall asleep nicely by 5a, and sleep in until about 11a while the air is still warming to bake. But, when you don't have the summers off to sleep in, it really becomes irksome. Next paycheck, I may or may not be springing for that AC unit.

Shantaram and Living On

Yesterday it got depressingly overcast, and then miserably rainy. It was Friday, and I was exhausted from a week of work, it made for the perfect storm of me feeling downcast and saddened. Alex and I went and picked up a coffee table off Craigslist for our place (which goes perfect with the jungle theme and overall decor) and then I went to bed, no music or Seinfeld to see me off to sleep, just the darkness of the room, the breeze of the fan and the sounds of the street below.

I woke up in the morning around 9:30, made coffee and came back to my room (I love having a room again with a door that closes and is separate from the living room!) and felt incredibly homesick. But maybe more nostalgic? The people and places I miss still exist, but of course not in the same capacity they used to. It's all better in your head, when things work out the way you want them too. Were I back home, the chances of me seeing these people and places regularly are so slim. Life is busy and everyone moves on and up, gets married and has little time for single friends.

On my bed with my coffee in hand, I opened up Shantaram and finished the last pages, officially completing the 933-page book! I completely recommend it to anyone, it's so well written, beautiful, insightful, and entertaining. One of the quotes, that completely stuck with me, I remembered as I closed the book and was reflecting on it:

"Most loves are like that ... Your heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and independence. After a while, you start throwing people out - your friends, everyone you used to know. And it's still not enough. The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it's going to take you down with it. I've seen that happen to a lot of girls here. That's why I'm sick of love."

That quote is not at all an accurate depiction of the book in its entirety, or even the boldest excerpt or any representation of the work as a whole, but it's one I liked and one I remembered, and wanted to share.

Tonight Alex and I are throwing a housewarming party, so I do have to prepare (mostly buy food and alcohol... there's not much to clean!) so I think it will be a great remedy to my homesickness today, to remind myself of the great adventure I'm on, of all the wonderful people I've met and continue to get to know, and those that make NYC home for me. As Shantaram says...

For this is what we do. Put one foot forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love: the passionate search for truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. God help us. God forgive us. We live on.



And of course... Happy Birthday, Ryan. Twelve years I've known you and continue to know you! Cheers.

Golden State

One of the most daring things a West Coast American can do is move East Coast... and guess what East Coasters find daring? Yep, trekking to the West Coast. Everyone in New York City has a crazy fascination with California, whether they prefer to live in NYC or make it out there one day. Those moving to California are glowing and excited for what is considered some sort of Ultimate Goal. The excited response I get from telling people I am homegrown Californian makes me gloat just a little bit... even though I've always been proud of my West Coast ways.

When I saw this necklace I thought it was overpriced but I couldn't resist. The necklace is complete with a California-shaped charm which says "CALIFORNIA" inside of it. It came in gold or silver but duh, had to get it in gold for my principles.



No matter where I move to or live, the idea of home is always in those hot little Riverside streets with the orange groves and crowded freeways to the beach, the way I perceived reality and the way my world was shaped in development all stems from growing up in (Southern!) California. Though I'm currently happier where I am now, I'm still nostalgic and miss it at times. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

Hudson River Films

I get off work at 5pm. At 4:50, I breakaway to the bathrooms and change into a swimsuit under my dress, slip out of some gold flats in exchange for brown sandals. I come back to my desk, close up shop, and head out, saying goodbye to coworkers as I pass on my way to the door. I walk quickly along the main campus walk to Broadway, duck into market to grab iced tea, blueberries and some ready-made sesame pork before catching the subway downtown, emerging in Chelsea, and meeting Jayna at the Pier 63 field along the Hudson River to lay out, tan, and save our spot for the open-air, under-the-stars film showing.

I knew about these things last summer, but never went, and I really regret it now! In the warm summertime, along the river, including free popcorn (and Starbucks was even passing out free iced coffee!), there are free showings of movies twice a week in July and August, and last night was The Social Network, which neither Jayna nor I had seen. We claimed spots up by the screen and held down the fort for ourselves, and our friends Vanessa and Greg who joined us too.

It still feels a little surreal to be doing all of these things in the middle of NYC, and I'm reminded of it when I see the Empire State Building hovering in the skyline


This is a good showing of the crowd that turned out, although it still filled up even more


Here is the inflatable screen they put up to project the movie onto, overlooking the river and little lights of the New Jersey side


Is it not so beautiful?? Before the movie started, we were enjoying the warm air, the breeze, the river, and loud music playing, including Michael Jackson and Paul Simon. I was SOOOO in the zen.


I couldn't get over how great it was, and how this was where I lived and got to enjoy all of these activities.


When the movie started, Jayna and I lay down on our blanket and towels, made pillows of our purses, and watched the movie warmly out under the stars, and let the booming sound of the video project over us into the field for the hundreds in the audience. I really felt for the first time that NYC was home. The whole activity felt like something I would have done in Riverside (why-- I don't know, maybe just the heat) and getting out and enjoying it made me happy. Nothing is better in NYC than the summertime!! That's probably all I'll talk about until September, so if you can accept that now, you may continue to read this bloggity blog.

The Moon is Down

It's summertime in the city. The population disperses over long weekends, the air conditioning is turned on in the subway cars, and I had trouble sleeping last night for the first time because of the heat.

All in all, it is not nearly as unbearable as it was last summer in my stifling little studio... I now have large, street-side windows and a better fan which makes for a great (albeit, hot) breeze. I am faced once again with wondering if I should buy an air conditioning unit and suck up the electricity bill, or try to beat it out again. I really think I have it in me to go another summer sans the AC, but do I really want to? Something tells me the summer may pass while I try to figure that one out.

Summertime is also when I revive all my old music that took place in summers before. It just gives me the feeling of summer all over again. Lately it's the Deftones' White Pony album, No Doubt's Return of Saturn (both from the summer of 2000), and Further Seems Forever's The Moon is Down from the summer of 2003.



What a fabulous album that was, I'm wondering what's taken me so long to get back into it.

Tonight is a free outdoor movie at the Chelsea Piers! They're showing The Social Network and I'm meeting up with Jayna after work to go tan and save our space until it starts at dusk.

Fourth of July

I LOVE the 4th of July holiday. I think what I love most about it is summertime, and how it's just sort of the epitome of everything that summertime stands for. Originally I didn't have any plans really other than to relax and try to get in the sun, and maybe take my bike out. (I bought a beach cruiser off craigslist from a guy in Staten Island and took the ferry out there Friday afternoon when I had a half day and it was a perfectly beautiful warm, sunny and breezy day and I was excited to ride the bike in weather like that around Central Park!) But at the last minute, my old worker Joe invited me and Jayna and Jamie out to the Hamptons to his friends place. Ummm... yes please??

An early train ride out from Penn Station to the Bridgehampton stop, Joe picked us up at the platform, and took us to our Hamptons abode. Unbelievable. More than being so beautiful and lush, I'm not sure I've ever been in a place so serene, quiet, and still... like, meditation style.


This was part of the backyard, the pool, and you can see the top of the tennis net in the distance.


Jayna tanning poolside

Talk about being in heaven! This place had everything you could ever want. And add in that all of Joe's friends were pretty awesome and cool, and the weekend was magical. Over the course of the weekend it was an endless stream of beers and burgers and hot dogs. We had music going 24/7 outside under the veranda and entertained ourselves by swimming in the pool, playing tennis, whiffleball, badminton, and trips to the beach. We went to a residents-only beach in East Hampton, so it wasn't even too crowded. We stayed up until the sunrise, either in the basement shooting pool, playing the drum set or pinball machine, having a dance party in the one of the living rooms, or nightswimming in the pool. There was this awesome disco ball for the pool we threw in and had all the rest of the lights off that created a pretty awesome ambience.



I couldn't get over how relaxing it was!! We hung out and grilled burgers and ate until we were too hot and then we jumped in the pool and swimmed up to the deck and drank our beers, dried off by playing tennis, lit some fireworks and repeated. My favorite part of the weekend I think was the nightswimming. It was like 2 in the morning, perfectly warm summer night, the disco ball going, music blasting to the likes of Modest Mouse and Weezer, and I even caught a shooting star at one point, although no one believed me.

Sleeping in, waking up to everyone making breakfast and brewing coffee, and then taking it all outside to tan and read... this is the life







Lord knows I'll probably never make it out to the Hamptons again, like, ever, so I'm happy to say that I really took advantage of it all on my trip out there. Jamie and I took the train back together and caught firework shows in the distance as we hummed along Long Island back to the city.



Perfect Fourth of July!