well, it's time to change my "about me," as i have recently been employed. oh frabjous day, calloo callay. it couldn't have come a moment too soon. plus, it is a very good job, and i refused to settle for previous not-so-very-good jobs, and it has finally payed off, and i am happy and it is fine if you think something needs to burst my little bubble, because something already has. we need a place to live.
this may not be the most magical of all posts, but bear with me.
s currently lives in boyland. there are four of them total, they don't have a tv because they have an hd projector screen and every video game player known to man, they drink most nights, and they are very, very nice. i like them a lot. i also feel that i am intruding every time i stay over. and now that i am done splitting my time between boyland and parentville as the result of my EMPLOYMENT! (i did mention this, right?), i am in brooklyn to stay. but i want to remain friends with these boys, and i feel the best way to do so is to move out sooner rather than later. i mean, i would still be friends with that cool girlfriend who baked cookies and cleaned the bathroom and never complained about all-night gaming, but i wouldn't want that girlfriend there for longer than a month. she'd just be messing with the boyland je ne sais quoi. so this leads us to the deliciousness that is finding an apartment (and yes that is serious, i love me some real estate), which of course leads us to:
BROOKLYN vs. MANHATTAN
in round one, brooklyn takes it. we like affordability, the cuteness factor of brownstones and gas lamps (but the village!, i say. but the rent!, s says), the night-time quiet, the whole block-to-prospect-park thing, the fact that a lot of our friends live in the slope and near-by, the fact that when we were walking around in windsor terrace s said "wouldn't it be nice to own one of those" (brownstones) which got me thinking "he wants to stay in new york! he wants to be rich! he wants to have adorable children we can give adorable names!" our only negative is that i am a wimp when it comes to a commute. mainly, i would like it to be a half-hour or less. i just don't love the idea of standing on a packed a train and then a packed platform and then a packed f train for over an hour just to get to work and back.
and so in round two, manhattan takes it. "but s, we could live two blocks away from my job. i could walk to work! or we could live downtown. you could walk to work! i could just get on one train for 20 minutes!" i wouldn't have necessarily been doing this thinking already had two things not happened. one, i got really excited and found a million adorable manhattan apartments online, most in our price-range and in neighborhoods i could find on google-maps and then sort-of remember. and two, s called me saturday night at 11:30 pm. he had just gotten off work and walked to his usual f stop, and it was blocked off, no trains running. so i looked up the next-nearest stop and sent him there, and he called me again when the train wasn't running from there either. (the service notice was given through a hand-written sign, too, which of course sent my brain running towards "terrorists! it's terrorists! and we'll only know to get to safety because of the bravery of an mta employee with bad penmanship!") i had to direct him to another stop where he could get the 6 and eventually the f, and he got home at 1:30 am. that's a two-hour commute, people. when he called me at 2:30 to say he was going to bed (after an hour of video games; he is still in boyland), i mentioned that wouldn't it be nice to live in manhattan, he could've just walked home! now, as far as i have known, this one doesn't want to move to manhattan; he wants to live no further than a block from boyland, which originally even i liked the sound of. but he agreed with me on the whole magical-manhattan idea. which of course got me thinking "he wants to stay in new york! he wants to be rich! he wants to have adorable children we can give adorable names but never afford to feed, clothe or send to school!"
so we're tied. round three, who knows. what do you think?
oh, and also, who knows why the f train was so wonky on saturday night?
Monday, October 29, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
more subway love
i have a love/hate relationship with the new york city subway. on the one hand, it is incredibly convenient (you can get everywhere, and i say this having lived in cities where public transportation did not take you everywhere), the fare's pretty darn cheap, and some of the best people-watching takes place underground. in terms of hate, it smells like pee and i'm pretty sure it's the next terror target. (at least i can ride it now without getting panic attacks.) anyways, we're focusing on the love.
i think the best thing about the subway is the buskers. and i am not talking about the candy bar kids or that guy selling spinning tops. a few weeks ago, s and i were on the 4 heading downtown and three guys got on. two of them were incredible acrobats, doing flips in place in the cramped aisles (literally, one guy did six back flips in a row in place, he was like one of those tin toy monkeys that flips over and over), hanging off the bars and twisting themselves around without once bumping anyone seated below them. (the third was eating nerds, and we debated whether or not he was involved. it turned out he was in charge of carrying the boom box. and eating nerds apparently.) i gave them a dollar; i was in awe. once they were done flipping, however, the chatty one started talking about how much he loves doing this, and we got quite the life lesson (a dollar well-spent, indeed). it makes him happy, and he is happy to make other people happy. and subway acrobatics are the only thing he wants to do. he went to college and it just wasn't for him. he is thinking about joining the armed services, but only the navy. (apparently you don't get benefits in the army.) but he won't join up until bush is out of office, because he hates bush. i was laughing, because honestly, to go from back flips to bush in only 3 stops is pretty entertaining.
i also love the musicians. (i didn't tip the mariachis on my f train the other afternoon, but in my defense i was hungry and cranky, and they weren't wearing costumes. i like a little effort.) yesterday i got an excellent barbershop quartet, who charmed the baby sitting catty-corner from me. it was too cute, them serenading the little boy, him looking up at them with wonder and delight. and all day today i've had "too young to fall in love" stuck in my head after listening to the sweet sounds of the subtations as i made my way uptown. they got seventy-five cents. not because they didn't deserve more. i was just saving up for coffee.
i think the best thing about the subway is the buskers. and i am not talking about the candy bar kids or that guy selling spinning tops. a few weeks ago, s and i were on the 4 heading downtown and three guys got on. two of them were incredible acrobats, doing flips in place in the cramped aisles (literally, one guy did six back flips in a row in place, he was like one of those tin toy monkeys that flips over and over), hanging off the bars and twisting themselves around without once bumping anyone seated below them. (the third was eating nerds, and we debated whether or not he was involved. it turned out he was in charge of carrying the boom box. and eating nerds apparently.) i gave them a dollar; i was in awe. once they were done flipping, however, the chatty one started talking about how much he loves doing this, and we got quite the life lesson (a dollar well-spent, indeed). it makes him happy, and he is happy to make other people happy. and subway acrobatics are the only thing he wants to do. he went to college and it just wasn't for him. he is thinking about joining the armed services, but only the navy. (apparently you don't get benefits in the army.) but he won't join up until bush is out of office, because he hates bush. i was laughing, because honestly, to go from back flips to bush in only 3 stops is pretty entertaining.
i also love the musicians. (i didn't tip the mariachis on my f train the other afternoon, but in my defense i was hungry and cranky, and they weren't wearing costumes. i like a little effort.) yesterday i got an excellent barbershop quartet, who charmed the baby sitting catty-corner from me. it was too cute, them serenading the little boy, him looking up at them with wonder and delight. and all day today i've had "too young to fall in love" stuck in my head after listening to the sweet sounds of the subtations as i made my way uptown. they got seventy-five cents. not because they didn't deserve more. i was just saving up for coffee.
Monday, October 22, 2007
park posts
i know, i know, i never post, i'm so lazy, blah blah blah. here you go, reader. (just reader, correct? i don't think anyone but me reads this. and s when i remind him.)
i grew up in greenery, and there were multiple parks within walking, biking and bus-ing distance of my house throughout my childhood, so sometimes i miss me some trees. manhattan parks are certainly not the same lush wilderness we used to create grass tunnels in when i was still allergy-free, but in the last month i have "discovered" two new parks i adore beyond belief. for entirely different reasons. (when i say discovered, i mean new to me. reader will not believe i had never been before.)
new favorite urban park: bryant park. while it was a day in central park, in unbelievably perfect weather, that inspired this blog in the first place, bryant park has taken up a permanent residence in my heart. as an original and fervent project runway fan (back nov 14th, thank the gods), i had of course oft heard of fabled bryant park, but i had never actually been. s and i had time to kill (i know, these posts make it sound like we live a life of leisure, but really we live a life of unemployment and internship) and it was a lovely afternoon, so we walked to bryant park. he had been, and knowing me, knew i would love it. i did. first of all, i love a park with its own food kiosks (especially those of top chef's - another bravo fave - own tom collichio's 'wichcraft) and flower stalls and classy european-style chairs and tables. the lawn is a beautiful emerald green, and it is bounded by a new york mix of sleek new and funky old architecture. (who can tell me what that crazy black and gold building is? please? i want to live in it. or on it.) there were children toddling across the grass and a supercute dog at the table next to us, and a man even asked if we were jewish. (and there is nothing i like more than being mistaken for jewish. he wanted to bless us. it was a holiday.) bryant park felt special. in a fabulous way. does that make sense? it makes sense to me. i fall in love with parks on sunny days.
new favorite borough park: prospect park. slightly edging out bryant park for most favorite of all with its a) extreme proximity to the apartment, b) "cool things" factor (botanical garden, ZOO! - i love a zoo, a later post indeed - , boat tours), and c) dog heaven. i must explain. we are dog people, s and i. i come from a family of dog people (though my father might be a cat person), and we treat dogs as family members. the loss of a pet is terrible (our precious pup, alice the schmalice, died last christmas) and we always give the griever a copy of "dog heaven." (dog heaven you need to buy yourself a copy.) anyways, dog heaven features, among other things, rolling green hills filled with dogs of all shapes and sizes and plenty of balls and sticks and laughing children to chase. as it turns out, dog heaven exists on earth, and it is in prospect park. we first came upon the dog beach, which made me happy, as there dogs can leap with fuzzy abandon into the water, paddling out to sticks and balls and returning triumphant, smiling their doggy smiles around slick prey. after further park exploration (we were prospect newbies, s and i) we found dog heaven. and we just sat on the park bench and watched the dogs play. and it made me that bittersweet mix of happy and sad. i really miss my dog.
i also love prospect park for the audobon boat house business by the water. i love weddings, and wedding planning, and often view every new place i visit as a possible wedding venue. (this is not even a new thing. i fall in love with spaces, and then i envision them decorated while strands of love songs waft through my head. i get it, i'm a weirdo.) anyways, i love the boat house. i saw the front room filled with tables, the window-doors flung open to a cool spring evening breeze, and steps down to the water lit by luminaria. how famous do you think i have to be before i can ask new york city if i can get married in prospect park?
i grew up in greenery, and there were multiple parks within walking, biking and bus-ing distance of my house throughout my childhood, so sometimes i miss me some trees. manhattan parks are certainly not the same lush wilderness we used to create grass tunnels in when i was still allergy-free, but in the last month i have "discovered" two new parks i adore beyond belief. for entirely different reasons. (when i say discovered, i mean new to me. reader will not believe i had never been before.)
new favorite urban park: bryant park. while it was a day in central park, in unbelievably perfect weather, that inspired this blog in the first place, bryant park has taken up a permanent residence in my heart. as an original and fervent project runway fan (back nov 14th, thank the gods), i had of course oft heard of fabled bryant park, but i had never actually been. s and i had time to kill (i know, these posts make it sound like we live a life of leisure, but really we live a life of unemployment and internship) and it was a lovely afternoon, so we walked to bryant park. he had been, and knowing me, knew i would love it. i did. first of all, i love a park with its own food kiosks (especially those of top chef's - another bravo fave - own tom collichio's 'wichcraft) and flower stalls and classy european-style chairs and tables. the lawn is a beautiful emerald green, and it is bounded by a new york mix of sleek new and funky old architecture. (who can tell me what that crazy black and gold building is? please? i want to live in it. or on it.) there were children toddling across the grass and a supercute dog at the table next to us, and a man even asked if we were jewish. (and there is nothing i like more than being mistaken for jewish. he wanted to bless us. it was a holiday.) bryant park felt special. in a fabulous way. does that make sense? it makes sense to me. i fall in love with parks on sunny days.
new favorite borough park: prospect park. slightly edging out bryant park for most favorite of all with its a) extreme proximity to the apartment, b) "cool things" factor (botanical garden, ZOO! - i love a zoo, a later post indeed - , boat tours), and c) dog heaven. i must explain. we are dog people, s and i. i come from a family of dog people (though my father might be a cat person), and we treat dogs as family members. the loss of a pet is terrible (our precious pup, alice the schmalice, died last christmas) and we always give the griever a copy of "dog heaven." (dog heaven you need to buy yourself a copy.) anyways, dog heaven features, among other things, rolling green hills filled with dogs of all shapes and sizes and plenty of balls and sticks and laughing children to chase. as it turns out, dog heaven exists on earth, and it is in prospect park. we first came upon the dog beach, which made me happy, as there dogs can leap with fuzzy abandon into the water, paddling out to sticks and balls and returning triumphant, smiling their doggy smiles around slick prey. after further park exploration (we were prospect newbies, s and i) we found dog heaven. and we just sat on the park bench and watched the dogs play. and it made me that bittersweet mix of happy and sad. i really miss my dog.
i also love prospect park for the audobon boat house business by the water. i love weddings, and wedding planning, and often view every new place i visit as a possible wedding venue. (this is not even a new thing. i fall in love with spaces, and then i envision them decorated while strands of love songs waft through my head. i get it, i'm a weirdo.) anyways, i love the boat house. i saw the front room filled with tables, the window-doors flung open to a cool spring evening breeze, and steps down to the water lit by luminaria. how famous do you think i have to be before i can ask new york city if i can get married in prospect park?
Monday, October 8, 2007
a rose is a rose
i love surprises. i love people surprises.
tonight on the d train a woman was wearing a rose in her hair. i was sitting in that uncomfortable spot on the inside of the L the seats make, so i was close enough to tell that it was real. and it was gorgeous. deep, deep red and sort of velvety, the size of a small fist. it was really lush. and i really wanted to touch it. (i am tactilely inappropriate--i always want to touch things i shouldn't, like sculpture in museums and roses in the hair of a random woman on the subway.) more than that, i really wanted to know why she was wearing it. she was not remarkably dressed, in gray slacks, faded black shoes and a t-shirt that read "save the (i don't know what, it was covered by her tabloid)" over a pink short-sleeved sweater. she was middle-aged and asian, wearing glasses and seemed sort of tired. the rose was not casually tucked behind her ear either, but secured with a long silver bobby pin, a rose-specific pin. it was purposeful. the rose seemed like a remnant of a more festive afternoon. it made her mysterious. and it really made me smile.
tonight on the d train a woman was wearing a rose in her hair. i was sitting in that uncomfortable spot on the inside of the L the seats make, so i was close enough to tell that it was real. and it was gorgeous. deep, deep red and sort of velvety, the size of a small fist. it was really lush. and i really wanted to touch it. (i am tactilely inappropriate--i always want to touch things i shouldn't, like sculpture in museums and roses in the hair of a random woman on the subway.) more than that, i really wanted to know why she was wearing it. she was not remarkably dressed, in gray slacks, faded black shoes and a t-shirt that read "save the (i don't know what, it was covered by her tabloid)" over a pink short-sleeved sweater. she was middle-aged and asian, wearing glasses and seemed sort of tired. the rose was not casually tucked behind her ear either, but secured with a long silver bobby pin, a rose-specific pin. it was purposeful. the rose seemed like a remnant of a more festive afternoon. it made her mysterious. and it really made me smile.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
friends and funnies
there is something to be said for laughter.
s and i were walking through times square and someone asked if we liked stand-up comedy. normally i ignore those poor hawkers, but for some reason we stopped. he talked us into purchasing four tickets on the cheap (we were promised jim gaffigan and a taping for comedy central), and since we had no plans, we decided to go monday night. we headed up town to the broadway comedy club around 9 pm for the show. we got to sit in the front (and were pretty excited about the prospect on being on television.) it turned out to be the new york underground comedy festival's under 25 night and we had such a fun time. (margaritas definitely helped some of the comics, but most of them were great.) we saw a lot of very talented young comics and it was a great night. i laughed more than anyone else in the room, i'm sure.
tuesday night our dear friend z came out to brooklyn to hang out. we ate magnolia cupcakes (which i'm sure deserve their very own post; i delight in introducing them to unsuspecting people) and then headed out to skinflutes. (this is not actually it's name, but that's what s and i call it.) it's such a neighborhood bar. when we walked in, 3 fdnys were sitting at the bar while the bartender told a story about a girl getting drunk off the grenadine in a shirley temple. the three of us sat at a table and drank and talked. and laughed. and it was great. it was what i've been missing in this post-college world.
s and i were walking through times square and someone asked if we liked stand-up comedy. normally i ignore those poor hawkers, but for some reason we stopped. he talked us into purchasing four tickets on the cheap (we were promised jim gaffigan and a taping for comedy central), and since we had no plans, we decided to go monday night. we headed up town to the broadway comedy club around 9 pm for the show. we got to sit in the front (and were pretty excited about the prospect on being on television.) it turned out to be the new york underground comedy festival's under 25 night and we had such a fun time. (margaritas definitely helped some of the comics, but most of them were great.) we saw a lot of very talented young comics and it was a great night. i laughed more than anyone else in the room, i'm sure.
tuesday night our dear friend z came out to brooklyn to hang out. we ate magnolia cupcakes (which i'm sure deserve their very own post; i delight in introducing them to unsuspecting people) and then headed out to skinflutes. (this is not actually it's name, but that's what s and i call it.) it's such a neighborhood bar. when we walked in, 3 fdnys were sitting at the bar while the bartender told a story about a girl getting drunk off the grenadine in a shirley temple. the three of us sat at a table and drank and talked. and laughed. and it was great. it was what i've been missing in this post-college world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
