My Longlost Friend, Valerie

This weekend turned out okay, considering I had absolutely no hope for it at all whatsoever, with a dismal forecast and no plans.

But, not only did I get to halfway through season 3 of MadMen, but I went out to a student's graduation party in the East Village, went to a rooftop barbecue in the Lower East Side, and had a beautiful picnic in the park on Monday with my friend Pooja.

So that's all fine and good. Last week was also the last week reading with my girl for the school year, and we got to make bookmarks, and I was so proud of mine with the crab and the sand, and in the end she made us exchange bookmarks, so I have hers -____- haha

So on Sunday night when I was leaving the rooftop party, I waltzed into the 2nd Ave F train subway station and overheard a poor bewildered Irish girl asking for directions from the station attendant to Port Authority. Last I checked I speak a fairly unaccented English and I can NEVER understand those station attendants (not always accents, a lot of times it's the bad quality mics and window glass and their completely unmotivated demeanor) but I wanted to tell her just to follow me, but I also didn't want to pressure her to follow some random stranger at 3 in the morning, so I let her get that real American experience and just struggle through it.

Down on the platform, she approached me, still bewildered and needing help to Port Authority, which scared the bejeesus out of her since it included transferring to another train, and she was 3 days in to New York City. Her eyes were red and she stumbled a little, but boy did she talk my ear off after I started helping her, and it's just as well cause I had to concentrate really hard on what she was saying. She was SO NICE though and we rode the train together and as we came to her stop we introduced ourselves before she had to run out onto the platform. I was tempted to run out after her and go get another drink somewhere or just be friends! Poor Valerie, I hope she made it home alive and survives her next months here in New York. Clearly it was a lot for her already. Godspeed!

URGENT: Tom Petty

When I was 16 and driving, I programmed my car's radio stations to a mix of different genres. I will never forget that FM1 #6 was a classic rock station 93.1 at the time, which I found myself listening to a lot. One day, driving around, a song came on that I had never heard before that I thought was awesome. I called my friend Mat, who I thought would know. He didn't pick up, so I opted to leave a voicemail of the song playing and asking him who that was. This was back when you had to sit and wait through all the automated prompts after leaving your message, and when I was instructed to "Press 2 for Urgent Delivery" I thought, yeah this feels pretty urgent. He later called back to tell me it was Breakdown by Tom Petty, and since that time, we always referred to anything Tom Petty was involved in as URGENT.



Well last night a friend of mine had 2 tickets to not only see Tom Petty, but at the Beacon Theatre too! After work we met up at a bar around the corner for drinks and appetizers, and then headed in for some pretty sweet seats on the loge to watch Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers rockkkkk it!

So apparently he's playing like 4-5 nights here, and had played on Monday so he asked the crowd if anyone was here for that show. (Way more people shouted and woo'd than I really believed were there) but he said that was fine because they would be doing some "deeper" songs and a totally different setlist (translation: no hits) haha. It was a grrrrrreat show, and I thought Tom looked fragile but my friend Kevin said he's always been fragile. It was so fun, and he still played plenty of crowd pleasers (sadly, no Breakdown) but it was fun.

Kevin drove me back to Queens (what a treat!) and it was a beautiful warm summer night and we had the windows down and sunroof open and we listened to Tom Petty as we crossed over the Queensborough bridge, the Empire State Building was pink, of all colors, and I figured this wasn't half bad for a Tuesday night.

Alabama Shaken

My weekend went a little something like this:

On Friday after work I met up with Nick for Lucky Burger, 4 rounds of Happy Hour at Therapy, and then a 2 minute SPRINT to the Circle in the Square theatre in Times Square to watch his friend perform a rendition of A Midsummer Night's Dream. That was my very first performance, as you all probably know, so that play holds a special place in my heart and I always enjoy seeing it, and this one was good! It was triple-cast, so with the exception of Puck, everyone played 3 characters: a player, a lover and a fairy, and it was pretty neat to watch it play out. I had to go to the bathroom SO BAD and got to the point where I thought, there's no way I'll last til intermission, and it was bad... so I snuck out, went to the bathroom, snuck back in, sat down, and then the lights went up for intermission. Welp. Can't blame a girl for trying.

After that, Nick and I went around Hells Kitchen bars and clubs, ending at Social where his sister works and benefitting from free tequila shots and Uncle Carl's. (I'm back on the tequila train!) We stopped off for pizza and a black and white cookie before trying to make our ways to the subways with our dry contact eyes. 

(I hate this picture, but Nick kept insisting the blue was pretty. Fine.)

On Saturday morning I got up early and headed to Grand Central Station to meet my coworker to go with her to her parents' house up in Poughkeepsie for the weekend. It was so wonderful! We listened to a lot of the Alabama Shakes in the convertible on the way from the station to their house, so that was sorta the theme for the weekend. Their property was unreal, the lavender and lilacs and wooden post fences and rolling fields and woods and back valleys, an indoor hot tub overlooking that, the back patio, and my best little friend Cleo, their sweet cat. They even had a massage chair I spent a lottttt of time in, haha. It was just a very relaxing weekend outside of the city, not to mention some good homecookin!

Once back in the city, I was eating ice cream in front of the TV because Bridesmaids was on. Old habits die hard.

...And The Knicks Rule All

I have always wanted to go to a Knicks game but it was always so hard to arrange getting people to go with me, be available the same night, buy tickets (which are so expensive!) so then I kinda thought, "well I least need to go to something at Madison Square Garden" ... but nothing ever materialized.

Yesterday I passed my roommate on my way to the apartment from the train and he said that he may have Knicks tickets for tonight if I was interested. He actually has season tickets and sells them for each game, but he was really busy today and hadn't been able to work on selling them, so if no one bought them by 7:45 for the 8:00 game, we could just use them... for free! So I guess you see where this is going.

My first event in Madison Square Garden was a Knicks playoff game against the Pacers, and they even won! It was sooooo fun, and Jason Bateman and Will Arnett were there, I may have spent more time staring at them sitting courtside than watching the game but whaaaatever! Our seats had monitors in front of us that were broadcasting the liveplay and showing instant replays, etc. AND I finally got to put my neon orange tank top to use, I'm not convinced I had ever worn it, ever.

I have always thought that the Knicks rule all, and all because of this clip below (sorry the quality is less than stellar)



I couldn't find the picture, but Kathleen and I also wrote "The Knicks Rule All" at a beach along the Oregon coast back in 2005, and I finally got to say it to their faces live in Madison Square Garden... only eight years later.

Three Years

Today is my three-year anniversary in New York City. Three years! It probably seems like nothing to most people, but in a way they've been the longest and some of the most transformative years of my life, so it feels somewhat significant to me.

I've had three entirely different years and lives in my tenure here, which makes it all the more interesting to look back on.

The Pursuit of Happiness

I spend so much time listening to and absorbing music that I recently took to creating a new kind of music playlist: a happy playlist. And not just any happy playlist, but it had very specific guidelines and qualifications, such as needing to be insanely upbeat, have a ridiculously positive message, and make me feel like dancing no matter where I was, so that I would have no choice but to be happy. I've been trying to corner myself.

It's entitled "haaaaapy" and here's a little sliver of what it looks like:

Anything Could Happen by Ellie Goulding
Pursuit of Happiness by Kid Cudi
Good Time by Owl City
Around The World by Red Hot Chili Peppers
I've Got A Dream from Tangled
Morning Train (9 to 5) by Sheena Easton
How Lucky You Are from Seussical the Musical
The Whole World by Outkast
Boogie Shoes by K.C. and the Sunshine Band
Honky Cat by Elton John
Blame It On The Boogie by Michael Jackson
Good Life by One Republic



Ironically, the only song that isn't upbeat and dancey is The Pursuit of Happiness by Kid Cudi (laughably so) but the message was so good, I couldn't resist.

Try to put on any of those songs and not feel encouraged, inspired, or happy in some way.

Maytime

I've been a bad godmother lately, I haven't seen Olivia in six months! Last weekend I went out to Flushing to spend time with her and Jenny, which was so fun, and we even got to watch Olivia socialize and meet another little girl where we were.

And I got to see The Great Gatsby this past weekend with Ronnie and Betsy, which I did enjoy, but a little disappointed because I thought Baz Luhrmann could have really hit it a little further. Afterwards, we went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant, and noticed this mural behind us, which we decided was the Mexican Great Gatsby and started putting the entire storyline together for them... see the fireworks from the Gatsby party behind them??

Aaaaand yesterday, the Bluth Frozen Banana Stand was on 6th Avenue to promote the upcoming Arrested Development series on May 26th!! I couldn't resist going down there.

I was Mr. Manager!

And I'm wearing a scarf today, in the middle of May, and not one bit pleased about it.

Amish Country

On Friday I hopped a bus to that city the smells like cheesesteaks, but is also full of history... Philadelphia! It was a beautiful day, a smooth bus ride, and I got into the city in time to hang out and talk to Sri, then he gave me a tour of the UPenn campus (before he had a presentation to give!) and then he and I hit up a nice outdoorsy bar for beers and wings until Palak's bus got in.

We probably should have gone out that night, but it was enough just to be together, so we ordered in Thai and had a great time catching up. On Saturday we were still unsure what the heck we wanted to do, but we ended up getting that Zipcar and heading out to Lancaster to visit Amish country! It was really just quite enjoyable to ride out in the Pennsylvanian countryside with our windows down, the music on and tons of green trees and new scenery around us.

We actually learned a lot about them! Did you know they began in Europe as a breakaway from Mennonites and were being persecuted, so William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, invited them to the U.S. to escape that? Many of their persecutors wore flashy belts, big brass buttons and mustaches, so they do not wear any of that out of respect. They do have occasional buttons but they will be as small and discrete as possible. They have no dietary restrictions, and will not receive an education above the 8th grade level. They pay taxes but will not accept any government assistance. The insides of their houses will be painted either green (for nature), blue (for the sky) or white (for heaven). Who knew!

When we got back, we took powernaps, and got ready for a night out with Sri's friends from business school. We ended up pulling out cards and playing slapjack (which was too much fun) and taking lots of pictures before we left Sri's apartment.

We had fun out in the city, and I do remember meeting his friends and barhopping, and somehow coming back to Sri's apartment, but next thing I knew, I was waking up in the morning, all 3 of us dogpiled on Sri's bed with the lights still on. And oh yes, a headache. We got a fabulous brunch, walked back in the sunshine, then napped with a movie on before having to pack up and head out for Palak and I to catch our buses back to our respective cities. It's so sad being away from them, but so nice we're close enough to rendez-vous when we can.

Glow Pop Jiggly Jam Hangout

I was titling that "Google Hangout" and then wanted to change it to "Googly Hangout" and then it just became what it is now, "Glow Pop Jiggly Jam Hangout", which is a Friends reference, can't really take credit for it.

I love Google hangouts! I look forward to them just as much as actual hangouts! Since Sri, Palak and I will be rendezvous'ing in Philadelphia this weekend at Sri's place, we planned a google hangout to talk about and plan our events. We really spent more time using the effects and taking pictures.

I had been taking pictures with my camera to Instagram, when Palak found a feature to screenshot the hangout itself, and she started taking pictures. Well, I was sitting at my kitchen table, and what was right next to me but what every woman needs in a decent photo shoot:

A FAN! I told Palak to wait until I had the fan blowing my hair back to take a picture, to which she refused, so I was stuck trying to pose and take the pictures at the same time. Sri's face really says it all:

Hahaha! Can't wait to get away this weekend, out of the city, and to hangout with Sri, whom I haven't seen since Friendsgiving last November, and Palak, whom I haven't seen since Vegas in March (don't forget it's already MAY!) And our plans were whittled down from... let's go to Amish country! to... let's go to the Hershey factory! to... let's just see what parties are going on with your business school friends, Sri. Whooo cares, I get to hangout with Sri and Palak!