best weekend ever

long weekends are crazy! but this one was especially crazy because we had lucy’s super fun times going away party. first of all, amanda came in on thursday so we got to spend a couple of days just doing fun things before the troops arrived. a little museum action, etc. then on saturday i stopped at the gross discount supermarket on the way home and bought 6 boxes of jello, three bags of chips, and soda. yeah, i wonder if the checkout girl had any clue what i was doing later?

and yes, you read right, we had six different flavors of jello, and yes i’m going to tell you what they were right now: wild strawberry, watermelon, orange, peach, sugar-free lime, and cranberry. you are SO jealous. and you’re also probably pretty jealous of the awesome turnout we had. and screw the rest of the party, it was just great to have so many people coming down from boston! some people stayed the weekend, some people just stayed the night, but overall, it was a really great time. so thanks everyone. :) pictures to come soon, i promise.

the next day a bunch of us went out to brunch, and then the boys and helen went to the natural history museum, and lucy, melanie and i came back to our place and taught lucy how to tan. she did okay. we took it pretty easy that night (i think it was in all of our best interests), and i ended up at este’s, watching american gangster. i actually missed the first hour or so of it, but what i did see was badass. recommended.

by the time monday rolled around, we decided to do some stereotypical memorial day activities, so we broke out the grill. lucy and i bought a crazy amount of food (yes, there were flav-or-ice pops) while the boys did a mini bike marathon around the city, and when they got back we grilled the crap out of the food we had bought. turkey burgers, regular burgers, veggies, etc. delish. and then we played call of duty and watching indiana jones. get into it.

so now we’re back to the regular week, and maura’s here!!! so i get to put off the real world even longer! she’s here until friday, and then we’re all going to boston together on friday for david’s awesome grunge/going-away party. should be pretty kickass.

pictures later! i have to do some scanning.

soap operas are boring.

a couple of things that have been happening:

first, the jacket/blanket/whatever was saved! hooray! it’s about time! i took this picture about a week ago and it’s still safely on the fire escape!

i also went to an advanced screening of “prince caspian”,

courtesy of steve. racki did a review of the movie… i agree with some aspects. i haven’t actually read the book, but steve did and he told me a lot of the same stuff. regardless, i really enjoyed it.

coming back from the movie, i saw this business:

it was weird! but they do it from time to time. all of a sudden like thirty cop cars will be lined up on all sides of the street. they were still there (or there again?) the next afternoon, but i didn’t have my camera with me to take another shot. but as i was waiting for the bus, they all suddenly pulled out of their parking spots and went flying down the street, sirens wailing. crazy.

and then we did the aids walk! thanks to everyone who donated! to everyone who didn’t donate… there’s still time! they’re always accepting donations, and it doesn’t even have to be on our behalf. you should just do it because aids sucks. anyway, the three of us raised about 500 dollars, and the entire walk raised over 7 million! there were a tooooon of people there.

it was a pretty slow start because there were three paths of people that all had to merge into one, but after a while, we (lucy, megan and i) got our groove going and would just jump onto the sidewalk if we had to. we did it in a little over three hours, and then went immediately to brunch with lucy and megan’s parents, so that was a nice little anecdote to the day. and then it started pouring rain, of course. haha. but overall it was a nice morning, and my calves didn’t hurt at all the next day, and i generally just felt better about myself!

and now for the awesome news… i got hired today! i start in a couple of weeks, and it’s just three days a week, but it will be really nice to have a job in the city again. i worked at assouline publishing (for those of you who don’t know) for a few months, and then did some part-time freelance for them, but since then it’s really just been some freelance for my other studio, schwadesign. they’re in rhode island, and super fun, but it’s hard to get involved in more than like 10 hours a week because i’m not very on-location.

lucy’s going away party is this saturday night so that should be crazy. my parents sent us a bunch of party supplies from their store, so we’re kind of drowning in ugly napkins and polly pocket plates, but they went jello shot cups and streamers, so… needless to say, it’ll be an awesome time. pictures to come.

quit playin’ games with my heart.

got my computer back.

apparently they were GOING to change the display, but when they opened the computer, it was just a cord that needed to be re-seeded.

obviously.

anyway, i’m getting a desktop. not just because i one day will legitimately not recover from the panic attack i’ll endure if i have to go through this again, but also because i LOVE spending my savings.

what’s good for the economy is good for me.

barf.

UPDATE! it’s been one full day since i got the computer back, and it’s still fully functional. hopefully, i didn’t just jinx it.

sad mac. again.

that’s right, folks… i’m computer-less, yet again.

it all started on saturday, when i brought my laptop into the kitchen to show lucy this video:

(adorable, right? my sister found yet another gem.)

so i show her the cuteness, look away, and when i look back, my screen is dark. weird, i think… maybe it fell asleep really quickly. so i touch the mousepad, nothing. hit the spacebar! nothing. so i’m like okay, maybe it’s the brightness. did i hit the key by accident? nope. sure did not. okay so long story short, it keeps flickering black, so i brought it to the apple store later that day, and the genius guy i talked to took it into the back room, reconnected something, and it was fine! miraculous! except the miracle lasted LITERALLY 27 hours.

so cut to yesterday around 7 pm. i’m videochatting with my mom (yes, we’re that awesome), but i only have the lamp on in the living room, so it’s dark. so i set the laptop down on the trunk in front of me, get up to turn the light on, sit back down, and the screen’s black. wtf!? this time it wasn’t even flickering. it’s just straight up black, and not budging.

so the abridged second part of the story: i took it back to 14th street, where i talked to charles, who told me to talk to bernie at the 5th ave store, who had me talk to janel, who told me they’re replacing my display AGAIN, and i can have it back in 5 to 7 days.

so, i’m now officially in the market for a desktop computer, because i can’t take this anymore.

UPDATE! i just remembered that i wasn’t showing lucy that youtube video, i was showing her pot psychology, a sex advice (kind of) videocast that ross told me about. my bad.

on a scale of 1 to 10 (part one)

note: i plan on making this a mini-series, hence the “part one”.

how awful was today?

you tell me! i’ll show you chronologically.

11 am: get home from este’s after realizing i hadn’t designed the tshirt i was supposed to screenprint this afternoon
1145 am: finish designing
1150 am: screen goes black. won’t act normally
1240 pm: leave for domestic construction to screenprint
215 pm: leave early from domestic construction to go to apple appointment
225 pm: wait for a car to pick up lucy because she’s seconds from puking on the street (that’s right, lucy, i said it)
227 pm: have este move back my appointment to 320
245 pm: arrive at L station, only to discover that the train is running in two sections, and the one i have to take does not go to my stop, but ends at union square (aka, 6 avenue blocks from where i need to be)
326 pm: arrive at apple store (after power-walking in flip-flips and 75-degree weather)
345 pm: meet with apple guy, who promptly figures out that my screen cable is unhooked or something AGAIN, but instead of stealing it away from me, takes it in the back and fixes that mother right up
414 pm: realize i haven’t eaten anything besides a tofutti cuti and half a pickle all day
430: eat gross tuna salad at one of the cafeteria things on 34th and broadway
445 pm: leave said “cafeteria” and realize that i’m basically in times square.

SO! i’d give today probably a two? what do you think? i only give today points because my computer is still alive and well and in my lap, and my loved ones and i are still alive and well. but those are the ONLY reasons. ugh.

these boots are made for walkin’

and that’s just what i did. all weekend.

my mom and sister came in on saturday afternoon for a little mothers’ day awesomeness, so i was given the lovely task of trying to think of the least lame touristy things we could do in the city. it don’t think it went very well by real new yorker standards, but they seemed to have a good time. first we went on the subway adventure to their hotel, where we had a view of this from the window:

at first we thought they were dozens and dozens of pillows, but eventually realized that they were probably sand bags holding some sort of tarp onto the roof. but what the hell?? what kind of establishment was that that they would need all that business? weird. anyway, i let the fam get a little settled and then we threw on our sneaks and walked to the park… and then through the park… and then out of the park… and to a delicious spanish restaurant! mmmm tapas. good stuff. if you live in the city, the place was called malaga and it’s on 73rd and 1st. delish.

we walked from there back to the hotel, where mom pretty much passed out immediately. the next morning i cam and picked them up and then came back to my place to drop off their bags and go to brunch. lucy came with, and we all went to lodge, down the street. also delish. we did some walking/shopping in soho and downtown at century 21 (not the real estate agency, calm down), and then headed back to the apartment to eat snacks and get changed because we were going to… broadway! woo!

we went to the ambassador theater on broadway to see “chicago”. it was fabulous. and for the record, i know that only 1/4 of my face is in that picture, but in all of the other tries jaime looks wicked stoned so i thought i’d be nice. but yeah the musical was great; we all loved it.

the next day the weather was GROSS, but we braved it anyway and went to the moma. where the line was out the door and around the corner at the end of the block. ugh. so we hung out in the gift shop across the street for a little bit, hoping that the line would die down, but no dice, so we braved the rain and headed uptown to the museum of natural history. we grabbed lunch at the cafeteria, and did the requisite “hall of biodiversity” tour, and finally it was time to go to the butterfly display thing. crazy! jaime was freaking out that the butterflies might touch her or fly in her face or do weird things, but i was totally cool about it, obvi. anyway, it was crazy to go through this thing. i’m usually pretty adamantly against taking pictures in museums (unless they’re completely empty, which this one was NAWT), but i had to break my own rule and take a couple because this was really phenomenal. an example:

by the time we left the nmh it had finally finished raining (and was now just gale-force windy), so we headed back down to the moma. the line was still long, but finally all of it was inside, so we decided to suck it up. they were changing a couple of exhibits while we were there so some stuff was closed, but overall we got to see some great modern art (as usual), and hang out with all the poseurs and tourists. good times. then it was back to the apartment to change, and then off to noho (i think?) to have dinner. we met up with este and my cousin kyle there, so we were one big happy family at gemma (bowery, between e 2nd and 3rd streets). it was really fun. we also managed to find time during the day to watch a couple of episodes of “planet earth” because now we were on sort of a kick.

mom and jaime left the next day, but were followed (by roughly an hour) by amy and penny quinn! we went into the city, and while amy got her hair did (that’s right), pq and i walked all around and made a lot of people veeeery uncomfortable. but two pregnant women did smile at me! and the woman and jamba juice asked how my baby was… but most other people stared and frowned, and there were a couple of “poor, young, unwed mother” double-takes. we laughed at them.

and then when mommy was gorgeous with her hip new hair, we went up to see her friend lili at the hearst publications building. it’s sort of beautiful and weird at the same time. apparently it used to be only two floors, and then after 9/11 they glammed it up and made it like 40 floors or something. the lobby had fake waterfalls. it was nuts. but we basically just paraded penny around while everyone gushed, and then played on the floor for a while. here’s a sneak peek:

but you’ll have to check the FLICKR PAGE to see the rest!

and i think that does it for me for now, kids! long post, sorry. :)

we’ve got to hooooooooold on

this blanket or jacket or something has been hanging on by a thread for months. MONTHS.

seriously, before we even left for the road trip, it got stuck on that ultra protective wire mesh stuff. it started right under the window, and then slowly made its way over and eventually pretty much off the fire escape. so it was already swingin’ in the wind when we left at the beginning of march. when we got back, it was STILL hanging there, but like two weeks later it was miraculously placed back in a heap right under the window. it’s now been over a month since then, and it’s back.

do these people not care? they have to know, right? and it must be scaring the crap out of the people who lives below them. the first night that i slept in my room here, there was a wire swinging back and forth in front of my windows, and i didn’t have thick enough shades yet so it was making shapes in my room. creepy. anyway, i couldn’t sleep until i had hung a blanket across both of my windows. how do the people there handle it???

they say it’s your birthday.

did i make you nervous? it’s not my birthday. :)

but este’s was yesterday!

check out this awesome picture with at least three things wrong with it! and then go wish him a belated, because i know you forgot!

newyork.craigslist.org/personals/missedconnections

just kidding, not really. but on the serious, something funny and kind of weird happened today. i had two interviews; one in tribeca, and the second on the upper west side. so i spaced them out a little to make sure i had time to get to each, which naturally ended up with me getting to the uws an hour and a half early for the second one. of course.

it was a such a lovely day out that i figured i would sit inside a starbucks for the duration of my wait, since there were about seven in the surrounding area. i get my chai and get situated at the counter at the front window, and no more than three minutes later, an older gentleman sits next to me.

this guy goes on to – with each sip – slurp his coffee and then give a little sigh of satisfaction. gross. and annoying. but i sit there, trying to ignore him, until he leaves about fifteen minutes later. oh, and he was wearing a straw hat. so anyway i leave the starbucks about 45 minutes later and go sit on a bench outside to make a phone call. i FINALLY only had like twenty minutes until the interview, so i went back to the starbucks real quick to use the ladies’ room.

as i am exiting the bathroom, who comes walking towards me to use it? straw-hat-slurping-guy! weird, right?

yes, that’s it. i just felt like sharing. :)

i like to be in america

i was in boston AGAIN this weekend. seriously, i think this is the fourth time since i got back from the road trip? craziness. i’m doing one more trip at the end of the month for david’s going away party, and then i am O-U-T, for at least a month. seriously.

so i don’t actually have any pictures of it, but i went to the concord players theatre in concord, ma, to see este’s brother in a production of “west side story”. he played bernardo, maria’s brother. and he was AWESOME. the show itself was… okay… but he was so great! it was super fun. and lucy and my parents were there (in addition to his parents, of course), so that was good, too.

lu and i got to boston thursday evening, thanks to the lovely mariel and her friend, ladybird8000 (the car). we had a sweet little get together at katie and erin’s apartment for wine and ‘the office’. friday i had a meeting for work in cambridge. lucy came with me so after the meeting we walked from central to harvard square (stopping for indian food along the way, obvi.) partially to see if the square was still on fire, but mostly so we could buy underwear at urban outfitters.

there were no more bursts of flames erupting from the ground, so we headed home safely, and then busted through a bottle of wine and three episodes of ‘what not to wear’. we finally picked ourselves up around 1030 and headed to the publick house to meet up with ross and mariel… we managed to get down a couple of beers and then head back. blah blah blah, saturday.

saturday erin made brunch for the three of us, plus amanda and her boyfriend, john, which was, per usual, phenomenal. then lucy and i headed out with camilo and antonia and gerardo to the decordova museum in lincoln, ma, which was CLOSED! lame! but they let us in for cheap, so we walked around in the sculpture garden in the rain. good times.

and then we had the lovely musical, and i went home with my parents to stay at their place for the night. wonderful breakfast this morning, and i was back on the road with mariel! whew! and on the road she gave me the awesome idea of how to load the road trip videos! click here to go to the road trip blog and check them out (just to keep this all wonderfully consistent). they’re taking a long time to load, so be patient and i’ll try to get all of them up in a timely fashion.