An Ode To My Lunch

What happens when I have to be at work at 7:30am with no time to pack my lunch and I actually have cash on me for once? The HALAL CART on the corner happens, that's what!

Lamb over rice
With sauce
Both hot and white
O Halalelujah

That's what I texted to my coworker anyway. And I meant every word. Om nom nom!

Friendsgiving in Pictures

From New York City to Baltimore, Annapolis, and DC!

Baltimore Penn Station

Bay Bridge to Annapolis

Annapolis, Maryland

Annapolis Starbucks red cups!

Annapolis Starbucks red cups!

Annapolis harbor on Chesapeake Bay

Annapolis Harbor

Chesapeake Bay

Annapolis, Maryland

New York Harbor and Santa Barbara in Annapolis!

Maryland State House in Annapolis, MD

Maryland State House in Annapolis, MD

Palak's apartment! Maryland suburb between Baltimore and DC

Perfect Sri-laugh picture

Don't ever let me find the camera unattended

Pal and Sri hard at work, obviously

Our "missing Priya" faces

Facetiming with California!

Photo op with Pam and Doug

Friendsgiving salad om nom nom

Our Friendsgiving table

Friendsgiving meal with immaculate eyebrows

Palak had insisted that we dress up for the occasion

And our day in DC

And I'm back in New York City now.

Happy Thankskathleensbirthday!!

The wait is over! Kathleen is 21 today! If you agree this is the best news you've received all day, then gather round your table with your family and friends and eat turkey and have a good time!

We are feeling good here in Maryland this morning, with Michael Buble on and about to go shopping (oops) and cook our amazing meal, also making butterbeer and dressing up fancy and trying to convince Palak that Annapolis is not "closed."

Happy Birfday Kittens-san! I would say I owe you a drink but I've also gotten you into 1020 in New York City so many times I think you owe me a drink for your 21st birthday?

Your Eyes Look Like Coming Home

Yesterday I got some really neat news. I've been writing like it's a disease and submitting things here and there, including to an NYC arts collaborative with a pretty impressive literary tradition, and they wrote me yesterday to accept a piece! It will be performed next spring. It's really not that big of a deal at all, just a one-evening thing, but I was really surprised and excited about it.

In a little over 2 hours, I'll be on a bus to DC for Thanksgiving with Palak and Sri! I really, really like DC, like to a degree that doesn't make sense. I always look forward to going there, but mainly I'm excited to be with Pal & Sri for the holiday. We're really lucky to have each other.



Enjoy some Taylor Squints if you needed anything soft and relaxing to listen to today. That, and AZURE RAY. I'm back on Azure Ray and put it on to fall asleep to last night.

New Joisey

Well to recap from the last time I was here, I finished Scarface and the final verdict is: eh. It was alright I guess. I was happier just to finally have seen it. Otherwise, eh.

After Scarface was dinner in the city at an Indian restaurant (as spicy as we could get it!) and what became GiggleFest 2012. I don't know what it was, but my friend and I sat in his car and were making each other laugh so hard we had to roll up all the windows because we were in a busy area of Verdi Square and appeared to really be disturbing people. I had almost calmed down and was just hiccuping and wiping the tears from my eyes when his laughter became giggles and I lost it all over again. When an annoyed lady came and yelled at us for being parked in the bus stop, and our only reaction was to laugh like maniacs, and so with murder gleaming in her eye, we realized it was probably better to just call it a night. But a good night, and that's the point.

On Sunday, I was supposed to take a class all day, but it was unexpectedly canceled, and there I was sitting all pretty with my coffee tumbler around Times Square and not in any mood to just turn around and go right back home. So that's how I ended up in New Jersey for the day, visiting a friend there. I took the bus from the Port Authority and since I was really unfamiliar with where I was going, I sat in the front to watch the street signs and landmarks, and ended up making such good friends with the bus driver! She seemed about my age and we were just chatting it up right nice to the point where I wanted to ask her if she wanted to hang out later! I didn't, but mainly only because I overshot my exit, which I noticed at the last second, and had to run out while yelling that she should take care and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

It is such a shame that Jersey has such a stigma, because it is beautiful. Just look at these streets and houses and, my God, those colors!

How beautiful it that? We even sat in the house attic listening to music and reading The Onion and watching people rake leaves outside. A house! Raking leaves! It felt so foreign to me! I felt like I hadn't been out of the city in years, it was so freshly perfect to be in suburbia in autumn for a little while. There was even dinner on a dollhouse street in an old soda shop and then back to the house to the TV with Godiva hot chocolate. I got driven back and crossing the George Washington Bridge uptown and seeing the Manhattan lights down south is always such a joy.

SCARFACE

Do you know I never in my life have seen Scarface?? I don't know how I got away with it for twenty-six years, eight months, and 3 days, but I've had it in from Netflix for forever but never really had the opportunity to watch it because i knew it was a solid 3 hours, but I'm watching it nowwwww. What fun! Is it just me, or did anyone else feel like Al Pacino fulfilled his life goal in this? I can't get over how good he is in this! And the movie seems good too. I am chatting with a friend as this goes down. He is loving it.

[11/17/12 3:32:19 PM] Kiki: HE BOUGHT HER A TIGER
[11/17/12 3:32:31 PM] Kiki: and omg i love that painting of them they unveil hahaha
[11/17/12 3:32:54 PM] Kiki: WHOA Michelle Pfeiffer just ATE cocaine O_o
[11/17/12 3:33:18 PM] Nico: this is awesome for me
[11/17/12 3:33:26 PM] Nico: to hear your reactions to watching that movie for the first time
[11/17/12 3:33:29 PM] Nico: i wish i was there.

Last night I did a loop on the club scene and it was sooooo much fun! I was out with some of my diving teammates and then my coworker and her friends, so many dancing good times, and then Absolut was at one of the places promoting and I got an Absolut slap bracelet! The song of the day/night was Ke$ha's Die Young.



Okay, back to Scarface and Skype. Michelle Pfeiffer just threw her drink on him at dinner! Scandalous!

Whyyyy Do I Have To Title These?

Last night I was back on the springboard. After a week off from Sandy, and a particularly stressful day inside of my head, I was dreading the 3 meter. But not only was I on the 3 meter for the first rotation, and not only was I the first person off the board on the first rotation, but it was also under the inscrutable eye of the scary coach who makes junior high girls cry. It was The Perfect Storm. I was on the edge of the board preparing for a lineup and feeling anxious when the coach stopped me and asked me to go turn the board wheel down. I was at the edge without the railing and I started baby-stepping backwards and freaking myself out, seeing myself falling over at every inch and the coach yelled up at me "Wah ara yo DOing? Is een yo mynd!" (He's Greek). So that didn't help much.

That first half hour off the 3 meter with him was terrifying, because I was afraid to disappoint him every time I had an approach off the board. However, twice, whatever I did was apparently so amazing, that when I mermaided myself to surface and found his face for a correction, all I got was a kiss he blew to me. I would say that it felt fabulous, cause it did, but within minutes I was back up on the board and terrified of disappointing him again. However, getting on the 1 meter boards after that felt like kiddie boards and I was doing so well that I got promoted to a hurdle approach off the board. It made me so happy and by the time it was 10pm I realized I had had 2 solid hours of just diving and having fun and hadn't thought about absolutely anything from earlier in the day or the week. I wish I would have found this sooner!

Tonight there is a social / club scene with my diving team and the New York Front Runners. I wasn't originally going to go, but my coworker that I share my office with is in the New York Front Runners and she's going, so that worked out well! Kiki needy the weekend.

The Dominican Republic

My geographic and cultural knowledge of the Caribbean has gone up exponentially since coming to New York City. I got a lot of it down and even live with a Caribbeaner (well his family is from Grenada, he might have been born in Brooklyn). Before that all my understanding was basically encompassed in the Puertan Rican Day Parade Seinfeld episode, and maybe a little bit of what Michael Scott brought back from Jamaica on The Office.



Also- Michael: The Jamaicans don't even have a word for "impossible". Jim: Yep. They do. It's, "impossible."

So despite this, the one thing I will just never get used to is the way everyone refers to the Dominican Republic as "D.R." I mean really, it just doesn't work. I've heard it before and was really confused, and I'll hear it again and I'll still be confused. Last night I was in Banana Republic (hahaha I just got the irony of that... I should rephrase... Last night I was in B.R...) and I overheard a woman say "He just got back from D.R." and I had to think long and hard before my informal education came back to me and I realized she meant the Dominican Republic. Is it because when they abbreviate they leave out the "the" ? I don't know. But it just doesn't GO and I want to veto the practice. I mean, it sounds like more of a mouthful to say "D.R." than just spit out "THE DOMINCAN REPUBLIC." Maybe we should just start referring to it as "The Republic" in some freaky Star Wars way.

The below picture is me and Ronnie from Betsy's lethal birthday brunch this past weekend. (Tip: Never try to "get your money's worth" when mimosas are unlimited. Just don't.)

And happy birthday to Cherisse, the newest mum in the fam, all of a quarter of a century old now!

Happy Friday

In all the time that I have lived in New York (not even that long) I think I just experienced the worst commute of all my time this morning. It actually drove me to furiously download a meditation app on my phone to listen to so I wouldn't show up at my office ready to rage on someone (which I can't confirm wasn't the case).

I already left the house a little late... I knew this meant it would be a little more crowded, and I mentally prepared myself, but I couldn't care too much. Last night I went to a happy hour for UCSB alumni at a fun bar on the East Side and made a lot of friends (and joined the NYC Area LA Lakers Fan Club? Sure, why not?)

...and then one of my superbusy roommates was already up and cooking when I stumbled into the kitchen to make my breakfast and pack my lunch so we ended up talking for awhile.

My train stop runs above ground and approaching it, I could already see the platform bridge covered and crowded with people waiting. This was already a red flag. In that huge crowd of people, 2 or 3 trains went by with no one able to get on. It was at that breaking point where, when the doors open, the people have to hold on so they don't spill out onto the platform. I've seen it before, but something was really wrong. Imagine the bottleneck as more and more people came tot he platform and no one was leaving anywhere.

Then they decide to announce that trains wouldn't be running to Times Square due to a stalled train a few stops ahead, so you'll need to continue this just two stops down to transfer at the next and only junction on the way. With each passing full train that I couldn't get into, my temper was rising. Every freezing breeze that blew without another train in site made me want to javelin-throw an icicle. When I finally got on a train, they announced the stalled train had resumed and that our train would be running into Times Square. So the day was turning around.

But then, like 5 stops down, they decided to tell us LOL NM WE WON'T BE GOING INTO TIMES SQUARE and we all needed to exit. Oh man, the mob scene that ensued was just classic. My favorite was the older suit-clad financier with the Wall Street Journal next to me who totally bonded with this grubby, unshaven, hoodie-wearing hipster kid in Converse next to him. "Are you kidding me?!" "I know, man! This is ridiculous!" "Man, you're telling me!" "Don't they do this every day?" "That's what I thought, shouldn't they know how to fix it already?" "Seriously! No one should get off." "Yeah, NO ONE GET OFF THE TRAIN!" So no one got off and even though they still turned the train around, they did it with us in it instead of kicking us all off, ha!

So then we had to go back to the junction. And then I had to wait outdoors again for another train into Times Square. Then I had to wade through the puddles of people everywhere and squeeze myself into another shoulder-to-shoulder crowd uptown and got to work like an hour and a half late. Originally I was so seething angry I was texting my coworker telling her that I officially quit the city and this sucked, blah blah blah but then when I said I CAN'T EVEN TEXT ANYMORE I NEED TO MEDITATE, I really did download a meditation app and the whole thing just felt so stupid I just laughed.

Despite all of that, I am in an inversely good mood today. And it's not even my birthday!

Snow, Snow, Snow!

That title was sung to the tune of Taylor Swift's Stay, Stay, Stay from the new album. Everytime a new album of hers comes out, I get on a shameless kick of all her music. I'd apologize, but I'm not really sorry. I don't even like this song that much, but in my head I kept hearing "snow! snow! snow!" in this melody.



Snow on the windowsill, snow on the trees, snow on the cars, sidewalks and still on the breeze. I couldn't believe there was so much of it last night. I thought that the temperature just dropped cold enough for the rain to turn to snow for a little while, but man did it pile up!

After work I headed south down Amsterdam Avenue to my usual bar haunt. The snow was heavy and swirling, but I think at the moment I got this picture, just across from St John the Divine Cathedral, the wind had kicked up, and let me tell you, that is not nearly as fun.

Inside the warm bar, I couldn't stop staring out the window. It looked like a framed portrait of a moving snowglobe, the snowflakes were so thick and big! The bartender and I ended up sitting on the heater by the window and staring outside for so long that others came over to see what we were looking at, assuming it had to be something more than the snow. (It wasn't). Here's what the weather on my phone looked like.

The slushy walk last night back to my apartment.

 From a friend out in New Jersey, kinda wish I was there.

Sadly, this snow will probably all melt in a day or two and this weekend it's supposed to be back up in the 60s. I guess that's fine considering it's only November and it's not really supposed to get this heavy until January anyway, but it was a nice little break while it lasted. I'll enjoy being able to return to my normal rhythm of walk once the snow is cleared, and not scary tentative steps over the ice and having to artfully manuever my trajectory using algebra and physics everytime I come to the dirty slush and puddles that are piled high and wide at every street corner just hours after the snow starts.

Election Day 2012

Because at some point in the '60s or the '70s Columbia students protested the university insisting that they were disenfranchised, Election Day is a day off for me. I had some idea of the long list of things I wanted to accomplish for the day, but it never really materialized in my head, let alone getting it done. But I did manage to vote.

And I made it to midtown, to the DMV, to Triple Crown, and walked to my train at the Times Square stop, and got mesmerized by the election coverage there

There weren't THAT many people, but the news was everywhere and I ended up being pulled into frame for ABC News with some guy talking, they said his name but who really knows? Then I stuck around for another hour or so, as long as I could stand the frozen air. It was really, really cold. I even made a bunch of friends, both American and foreigners, and it was fun to watch new state results come in and see the maps color and everyone react.

I got too cold to stay much longer, and came back to my warm apartment and immediately set up camp in the living room with one of my roommates as we bounced around all the coverage, from MSNBC to Fox News and everything in-between. Heather and I got to texting and sending pictures because everything was taking foreverrrrrrr. Obama's victory speech didn't even come until around 1:30am! Sometimes it really sucks being on the East Coast (namely for this, and the Super Bowl).

Heather with a Star Wars helmet

Me on my living room couch

Me drinking my coffee from my San Diego mug to commemorate where I was for the last election in 2008. Funny I should end up on the news both nights!

Heather eating Oreos

Me waiting for anything to be decided, i.e., Romney to concede and make a speech.

Needless to say, I'm quite sleepy today! And it's so freaking cold today!! It decided to be in the mid 30s with a chance of snow (excuse me, SLEET) and a nor'easter (since when can no one figure out how to articulate "North Easterner" ?? Is that something else? Am I the dumb one?) and who knows what will happen with this after Sandy and all. Blaaaaaah.

UPDATE 2:42 PM EST: It's snowing! I am just as happy as a clam, I love the cold and the snow. It also reiterates my abhorrence of moving back to California anytime soon. I am just not done with cold snowy winters yet

I know, I know, that picture is so amazing I should be submitting it to America's Next Top Model. Maybe they will do a squinty edition and me and Taylor Swift can duke it out, or tie as Best Blond and Brunette Squinters.