things i should have blogged about

i should have wished everyone a very merry christmas. (and sorry jews, i missed the boat on hanukkah a few weeks ago. also, happy kwanzaa.)

i should have mentioned how pleasant the train is. i love train travel.

i should have written about how this year i got a beautiful digital camera, pie-baking accoutrements, the bobby pins i wanted (weird, yes) and other lovely things.

i should have blogged about how on christmas day, we went down to the ellipse opposite the whitehouse and saw the national christmas tree, and the trees from every state, and took silly self-portraits before walking to the national botanical gardens. the gardens have an incredible toy train set up made entirely out of wood and bark and mosses, and inside are wood-bark-moss replicas of all of the monuments and capital hill neighborhoods.

i should have described our wednesday with my mother's family, and today with my father's family, eating and talking and reconnecting with family members. i know every comedian makes jokes about holidays with the family, but since we grew up out west, i never spent a christmas with extended family, which means i still think it is special and fun. (i also will never get mother-in-law jokes, since i get along so well with s's family.)

but i didn't. so there you go. tomorrow i hop on the train back home to new york only to bus to new hampshire with s on sunday. world travelers, that's what we are. ok blog, love you.

hap-happiest season of all

while i have toned down my enthusiasm for the sake of my overtly enthusiastic blog, i am a big fan of christmas. not necessarily as a christian holiday, though i am catholic, and i will go to mass, and i love jesus and everything (though do NOT tell me "he's the reason for the season", because i hate rhymed cliches.) i love christmas as a time of year, as an excuse to put up silly decorations, eat a lot of chocolate (oh boy, do i ever work in a chocolate office), and wander around new york. this is a truly magical time to be here. this is my second winter in new york, and one thing i particularly love are the store windows. i am a frustrated interior designer, i love installations, i love fashion, i love creating unique vignettes, and if i could have found a way to become a window decorator, aside from just deciding to be a window decorator, i would have. christmas time is a perfect time to be a window display fanatic, especially here. i had to go up to rockefeller center to do a little last-minute picking up for others, and while it was crazy around there--oh, the lines to take a picture with the tree!--i used the afternoon as an excuse to go see the store windows. (i have been unable to convince s to come look with me. he flew home to indiana this morning, so i was free to ramble.) the best windows were in bergdorf's, celebrating the recent publishing of a book about tony duquette, a hollywood regency design icon with a thing for coral. (habitually chic has excellent pictures.) the windows utilize duquette pieces and inspirations, with incredible glitz and glamour, centered around the theme of the elements. my favorite was "earth"; i cannot resist a green giraffe. it was not particularly cold, but it did start to spritz a little, and i was wishing i had someone to coo over windows with, so i headed home early.

i leave for d.c. tomorrow, so anticipate some postings from another city soon.

$15 worth of awesome

i promised a weekend update (because i'm magical-newyork and you're not), so here we go.

saturday s and i began with our new tradition of bagels and coffee. (i am easily coaxed out of a warm saturday morning bed with the promise of terrace bagels.) after brunch, we took the train uptown to grand central station to go to the holiday market. this trip was not without adventure. there is no easy way to get to the 6 from the f, so we went above ground to walk to the bleecker street stop. not being familiar with this stop, we got a little confused in the light of day (and had to pull out a map. which i hate. i pretended like i didn't know him when it seemed as though someone might be looking.) it was a pity we had to get off the f, one of my most favorite subway stories happened. a man got on with us, the "mta volunteer santa," and sang us songs like "rockin' around the christmas tree/have a merry christmas now/you'll get some presents/we're having fun/in the sun . . . merry christmas!" he then harassed the man who went to sit next to a woman, saying "you can't sit next to her. she isn't interested in you, she's taken. once women get married, they start wearing pants." (i was wearing jeans. what could this mean?!) then he started talking about how he didn't need a woman since his wife had died nine year earlier. he just went a got a massage once a month and that was all the female contact he needed. he was crazy for sure, but his whole "job" as santa was to bring people together and enjoy themselves on the train, and as i looked around, people were laughing and smiling at each other, and we started talking to the guy next to us. so i guess crazy santa was doing his job. the grand central holiday market was a bit of a bust, kind of expensive and not much variety (i appreciate crafts as much as the next girl, but i still didn't want to pay $50 for a trashcan.) the bryant park market was more fun, although much colder. i found something for my dad and s picked up a gift for his brother, so it was well worth it. we took pictures in front of the tree and marveled that people would stand in line for hours to ice skate. then it was time to head home.

saturday night my friend jay invited me to an ugly christmas sweater party thrown by kat. apparently these are all the rage among hip young things; while shopping for my amazing sweater at burlington coat factory (so much more than great coats), the only other people christmas-sweater-shopping has similar looks of disdain on their mid-twenties faces. i should also note that i had read kat, and therefore knew about her, in a blog way. i am always hesitant to link to blogs i like if i don't know the person (except for clink; everyone feels like they know clink), but now i can add kat, because she's really funny and smart. in person and in writing. my roommate camp came with me and jay (s had to work.) we looked pretty ridiculous (their sweaters even had bells on the zippers.) and it was a lot of fun. we went to a couple of bars in the west village, and i got to meet some new people, and camp and i eventually made our way home in the freezing sleet. it was the most festive thing i have done so far, other than fluff out my small pink tinsel tree.

this week was primarily filled with work and falling asleep while watching movies. today i was teased by my coworkers for looking "french." when i got dressed this morning, i put on tights, cropped pants, flats, a top and a cardigan, and a beret. none of these elements alone looked particularly anything, but when i finally saw myself in a mirror (while shopping on my lunch break with a), i had to admit i looked exceedingly parisien. as m put it, "you look like carrie in those final episodes of sex and the city." which is basically the best compliment ever. so, merci beaucoup. tonight i baked cookies. now we are going to watch project runway. i have a really nice life and i know it.

piano man

i have lots of things to say about my very fun, very festive weekend. but i am at work, and i try not to blog at work, so i will post a big ol' update later. however, i wanted to mention this.

i was on the f train heading into manhattan, and i admit to being a people-watcher, and sort-of a people judger (or at least a people-make-stories-up-about-their-lives-er.) and i was looking at this man in a puffy tan sweatsuit, stained work boots, thick gold chain around his neck. he looked tired, and he was listening to an iPod of some sort. i don't know what i thought he was listening to, but i was thinking about how he probably worked construction and didn't like it, but at least he could buy the things he wanted (like said gold chain and iPod), and he started air-pianoing on the bar he was holding. not a light tap either, a full-on, "i am a maestro rocking out at my baby grand" finger-pound. on the subway pole. it really made me smile. and then i imagined him listening to billy joel, and it made me smile even more.

grown up life

my office had our holiday party this evening at the home of our executive director. she has a lovely apartment in the west 100s, a two and a half bedroom, two and a half bath beauty, with a kitchen you can cook in and an open living and dining room with a wall of windows. it was well-decorated, with pottery from south american travels and pictures of the family at the homestead in greece. the apartment felt chic but welcoming, and i just fell in love with it. it was the kind of new york apartment i dream of, where i could live and entertain and feel was an oasis in this city. (i really need to strike it rich asap. and how.)

the party itself was fun, with latkes aplenty (we are a formerly jewish arts organization.) i sat with the women i work with and we talked and laughed and drank wine, and it reminded me of when my sister and i were little and my parents would have their book club over. we would be relegated to the back bedroom with movies and snacks, already bathed and pajamaed, allowed to stay up past our bedtimes. every now and again, laughter would burst from the living room, and occasionally we would sneak through, on a kitchen pretense, to catch a glimpse of the adults talking and eating and drinking. it seemed like so much fun, that adult world of witty conversation and linzer torte, and tonight i felt like i had finally arrived. i was at a work party for my own office, not the guest of a parent, i was drinking wine with my fellow adults, talking about gala events, occasionally bursting into gales of laughter loud and happy enough to make a child in the next room curious. i had a real adult birthday yesterday, and went to a real adult work party tonight, and it is starting to feel less like i am playing at being a grown up, and more like i am actually growing up. and i like it.

"i worked really hard to be born"

i said that at work today, after we ate cake and someone said "thanks for having a birthday," and they all laughed. i think i'm the lovably wacky little assistant. (i am also famous for "soup and i are splitsville," among other gems.) it has been a very adult birthday. i got a bunch of cards on saturday (all moneyless, one of the sad facts of growing up) and got really excited. then today i had to work, and i thought they forgot about my birthday until i got called into a meeting about chocolate cake from balducci's. then s met me after work. we had planned to ice skate, but i was tired, and i thought outdoor ice skating might be more fun in the daylight, so we may try to go on saturday. we came home to brooklyn and went to an indian restaurant that had been recommended by friends. it was good, although the indian food i grew up with is still a measure by which all other is judged. plus, it was my birthday and i wanted to go some place special, and there were no tablecloths. but the food was good and i like indian food always, and we stopped to buy margarita fixings on the way home (and margaritas always make up for a lack of tablecloths.) i opened my presents from s after we got home (ratatouille on dvd and a purple hooded sweatshirt from american apparel--and yes, i turned 23, not 7) and we fixed drinks and watched last week's project runway. it was interrupted by birthday calls from my parents and old friends. today i have felt very loved. i never go through a day feeling unloved, per se, but today my facebook wall runneth'd over, and my newest friends bought me cake, and my dearest boyfriend was extremely patient when i fussed over a lack of tablecloth. (am i crazy? i wanted to go somewhere with $14 martinis.)

i love birthdays, and not just mine. i love picking out presents, i love finding cards, i love celebrating the people who are close to me with good food and great stories. this was my first birthday in new york (after turning 18 here back in college) and my first birthday as a post-college adult, and it was nice. but next year i want to throw a party.

bill cosby=totally right (minus the jello is for everyone thing)

kids do say the darndest things.

my soundtrack to the morning commute is usually the podcast of this american life. (are you there, ira glass? it's me, magical-newyork. please record me telling pithy life stories to an indie rock background.) anyways, last week i was listening to "kid logic," and it was one of my favorites. i had some crazy kid logic myself. (i thought all liquids turned into orange juice in your stomach, since urine was slightly yellow, and orange juice was the only yellow liquid i knew. and no, i did not think orange juice was urine, nor did i ever try to drink my own pee. i just figured that's what that was.) i work with children on a regular basis, at my community arts program, and last week i was in the elevator with a group of kids and had this exchange.

little girl: i'm the tallest person in my class.
me: are you? i was never the tallest person in my class. i was always the shortest.
little girl, considering this information: well, you do look pretty short.
me: yes, i guess i am. (mind you, she was about seven, and only barely came up past my waist. but i guess if she's used to looking up at adults, she didn't have to look up quite as far.)

and she's right, i am short.

white teeth

i grew up in a very white town. you could probably count the number of black students who graduated in my high school class on two hands. maybe even one. (there were two high schools in town; somehow i ended up at the "rich" one. rich is a relative term there.) because everyone looked like me, and lived like me (it was also a middle-class college town), and thought like me (liberal, too), i never really thought about people who might look or live or think differently. not in an ignorant or xenophobic way, just in a "it never crossed my mind because it didn't need to" way. does this sound terrible? i don't mean for it to. i'm just trying to explain where i came from. the first time i was the only white person in a room, i later told people about it, because it was such a wholly new experience. i had never been in the minority; i wasn't scared or uncomfortable, just really interested in how it felt.

one of the reasons i love new york so much is because so many of the people here don't look or live or think like me. most of them don't even speak my language. i love riding the subway and seeing unique faces, listening to languages i can't identify (but whose rhythm and cadence i can still appreciate). i like knowing that i am different for other people, too, that i'm not like every other girl they see or know, that i speak my own language. (travelers to the land of s and i would really feel in need of a translation dictionary.) this is also one of my most favorite parts of my job. i work at a community arts school on the upper west side, and most of our faculty are foreign-born or bred, and many are multi-lingual. our director and another coordinator also speak multiple languages, and as i sit at my desk, entering data or answering the phone, i get to listen to conversations in hebrew and russian, and the unique english spoken by israelis, germans, russians, poles, koreans, and native new-yorkers. i feel like this makes my office particularly pleasant to be in. we may give piano lessons, but our languages have a music all their own.

oh, and a spasiba to my readers (and commenters.) that's russian for thank you. it makes me glad to know i am not the only one finding the magic. or reading this. how many times can you read your own blog, really?

soda fountain

i think my blog life sounds like all i do is ride the subway to and from work and eat out. which is half-true maybe. i do fun stuff, too. but most of my entertainment (aside from the non-new york, but still quite magical time spent with my s or shopping for christmas presents online) is listening to subway riders (less so now thanks to my ohmyGOSHsocool iPod touch) and going to restaurants. i was starting to worry that i was as boring as they come, so when my darling friend jay invited me out, i took the chance. i should note, i like meeting new people and making new friends, but i am totally intimidated by meeting new people (perhaps latent middle school anxiety), and i happened to know from facebook photos that these people were significantly hipper than i. but i still wanted to meet them. it ended up being a lot of fun. we had drinks, which i like. i feel like a real adult when i get to "go out for drinks" with friends. jay ordered "a really, really dirty martini," and sounded like such a pro that she had all of us fooled (the girl had never had a really, really dirty martini. they taste like olive juice, and that's about it.) soda bar (whoever koku k is must have been there at the same time as us. the dj was fun, but the other room played johnny cash, peggy lee and then some weird angry techno mash-up that was too incongruous to be enjoyed) was a good place to hang out with people who just wanted to drink and talk. i think the other room was for dancing; we mostly sat on the couch drinking and talking. it was pretty empty when we got there at 9:30-ish, but by the time s arrived around midnight, it was so full the bouncer wouldn't let him in. it was a pretty good brooklyn crowd--just scruffy enough, but not so hipster that i felt like i needed a shower (and thus had no street cred for desiring that shower. i'm no baby terrorist.) i would like to go back, especially for what sounds like a pretty good happy hour. next time we'll take a car though; that hour-long walk home in the twenty degrees of one am was a little rough.

in praise of bagels and roommates

you always hear about the famous bagels of new york, but somehow the bagels i had been occasionally eating were not satisfying my new york bagel cravings. (tasteless doughy circles with a smush of cream cheese were not what my little stomach desired.) i have heard the russ and daughters hype, but the LES can be a bit of a trek when you are hungry for brunch on a cold december morning. and so when my roommates discussed their devotion to terrace bagels, i was unconvinced. but today, after a delightful evening last night of wine and games (both on the table and the screen), all six of us piled on the sweatshirts and headed out into the morning. i don't know why there isn't more hype about terrace bagels. i mean, i know the new york times mentioned them in six bagels worth the wait, but i feel like this place is a secret, and one only a block and a half from our house. about.com mentions long lines on the weekend; we were there around 11 am, and waited only a minute or two in each line. (you stand in one line to order, another line to pay at the cash register which an older man pecks at heavily with one finger.) i got my usual, a plain bagel toasted with cream cheese and tomato (when done poorly, gross, when done well, delicious!) and it was fantastic. crunchy on the outside, doughy and chewy on the inside, real cream cheese slightly melty from the heat of toasting, fresh tomatoes with an actual tomato taste. this place is indeed worth it, thanks new york times.

i should also note, in the ongoing saga of brooklyn vs. manhattan, that boyland is better than i ever thought possible. my roommates are great, they cook and clean (in addition to the video games) and watch project runway and silly tv with me and are appreciative of my baked goods. they are very good company, and they seem to enjoy mine as well. for awhile, s was working crazy hours and i only ever saw him at 3am, and so it was nice to get to come home to my other boyfriends. we are going to stay, at least until may when the lease runs out, and then who knows. it's sort of like college all over again, but with better paying jobs.

so come to brooklyn. we'll watch "the office" and i'll buy you a bagel.