swamp city

new york has been hot and rainy and full of things like thunderstorms and lightning bugs flying down my shirt. (for seriously. not as bad as the time i found a bee in my mouth, though. i am fairly bee-a-phobic*.) which just makes coming home and turning on the ac and sitting in our gloriously unpacked apartment so. much. better.

this weekend was all about the unpacking. we bought a delightful desk-shelf-thingamabob at ikea and spent friday putting it together. (there is comedy monolog gold in the "putting together a piece of veneered-furniture from ikea is like your relationship put to the test"--thankfully we passed with flying colors.) i unpacked everything while s was at work friday night (which is how i like it--then i can put everything where i want it to go) and then saturday we did errands and sat around feeling smugly self-congratulatory about now living in the best apartment in brooklyn.

"really?" you say (you are fairly doubtful.) "see for yourself!" we say.



our pineapple-glazed living room.



the cubbies in all their glory.



the kitchen (i think i managed to crop out the dishes that need doing.)

once we've put away the laundry, i will post pictures of the bedroom (where the magic happens, says mtv cribs), and once we've got a cuter, less-moldy shower curtain, you might get to see our w.c.

saturday we took the path train to new jersey to meet up with the entire extended family of s, gathering to relax for a week in the hamptons (that's me, green with jealousy over there.) s had never been to new jersey, so we pretended we were on a grand adventure. mostly we talked about our jobs and new york city commutes and ate chinese food, but it was fun to see everyone.

all of this domesticity aside, what i really wanted to post about is this: i keep seeing hilarious t-shirts, and i want to share. last week, headed to the grocery store in the slope, i saw a guy waring a shirt that said (in multi-colored, bedazzled letters) "i'm stanky rich." not stinking, or filthy, or anything else i have ever heard before, but stanky. i am stanky rich. (i happen to find the word "stanky" hilarious, so maybe that's just me.) then today a girl got off the train in front of me with, pardon the indecency, the biggest chest i have ever seen. her shirt, stretched taut, said "don't hate me because i'm beautiful ..." and then something else i couldn't see. i thought to myself "wouldn't it be funny if it then said 'hate me because i have ginormous boobs'?" i turned around to look, thinking surely no legitimate clothing company could be as gauche as i, and there i read, in stretched ribbed-cotton letters, "don't hate me because i'm beautiful, hate me because i have huge boobs." then i almost walked into a pole, like the rubber-necker i am.


*apiaphobic, maybe? i should look that up.**

**apiphobia! (do i know my latin or do i know my latin!)***

***i do not in fact really know any latin.

walking on water

i know i am acting like i've just discovered the camera recently, and in part i have rediscovered the camera (thanks due to the wonderful cams i got for christmas), but it's also partially because i have been doing things, you know, like having fun, recently. and then documenting said things in pictures.

yesterday s had to work in the morning, so we had saturday night date night. we've been itching to do more things off the "us map" (not u.s. as in united states, or even as in us weekly, of trashy mag glory, but us as in we) i made back in february, so we met yesterday afternoon at the base of the brooklyn bridge. (actually, tragically, we met in city hall park, and then mistakenly walked south down broadway to the staten island ferry and along the water back up to city hall park and to the base of the bridge.) the brooklyn bridge has a wooden walkway suspended above the traffic, with state-park-style placards along the way, mapping out old new york and the physics of bridges. i walked across the brooklyn bridge when i still attended nyu on the instructions of my father, and it was a pleasant, educational stroll. it's apparently much more popular on hot saturdays in june, and we had to hustle to keep up with the flow of walking traffic, but we still managed to stop in the middle, tourist-style, to take pictures and admire the view. (i took the above photo looking up at one of the piers, or whatever that's called. i obviously don't remember the info i read.)

once off the bridge and back safely in the bk, we headed to brooklyn bridge-fulton ferry state park to look for some dinner. we forewent the block-long line at grimaldis (some other time, i suppose) and had dessert first at the brooklyn ice cream factory, some of the best 'cream i've ever tasted. (super rich though; i couldn't finish my one scoop, and s, usually a champ, was bested by his two-scoop cone.) we ate overlooking the water with a view back at manhattan and the bridge we'd just crossed.

for dinner we trekked to smith street for pacifico and drank margaritas under the lights strung up on the porch. we were both pretty tired from the day (s had worked, i had run errands, we both had gotten lost and found our way back to brooklyn again), but we had a lovely dinner. we got home in time to watch the wire (we're total addicts) and fall asleep before work today. a miraculous date night indeed.

feelin' blue

when s and i decided to live together, i was a little nervous that i would get lonely. not when he was here (duh), but in the evenings when he is at work and i am hanging around the house. (you: then blog more.) to be honest, i love being in the apartment by myself, but i miss having someone one to talk to. i'm a fairly chatty girl, and without a roommate or a boy, i have to let a lot go unsaid. which is why i particularly miss having a pet. i know it makes me sound like a crazy cat lady, but i used to talk to our cat when i was living at home. and now i wish i had a cat (or dog, especially a dog) to talk to. or maybe i just wish i had this little guy:


cute attack!

on a more new york note, i was completely intrigued by a little old man on the train yesterday. he was wearing an electric blue fedora and two hands full of rings, and then some faded t-shirt and white pants. he seemed lost, because he was poring over a subway map, but then he shuffled off at bergen street (which isn't necessarily a tourist attraction.) he was a real character. i liked him.

back for more

so you know what's silly of me? i get upset when the blogs i read don't update. and then i go more than a week without a post? boo, me. boo. and so: again with the pictures.

two weekends ago, i went down to washington d.c. to see my parents.



sup, d.c. still inspiring after all these years.



also inspiring: attending hillary clinton's concession speech with my mother. while i didn't necessarily want to get attached to either candidate this early, i admit to feeling sad. it was hard to listen to a strong, intelligent, brave woman capitulate. it felt important, being there.



then we went to a nationals game. they lost, miserably, to the giants. but it was made much better by the presidents race (big foam-headed presidents teetering along the diamond.)

we also spent an afternoon at the national gallery listening to my neighbor's father give a lecture on his amazing photography (randomly: my father has admired his work for years, we went to the speech, i suddenly had an uncanny sense that he might be his dad, and then he put up a picture i saw in my neighbor's apartment), seeing "sex and the city: the movie" (i will wait until everyone's had a legit chance to see it before i say how i really feel), and packing up a rental car with my boxes of books. monday my mother and i drove back to brooklyn and unpacked and ate at two boots (omg, smoked mozzarella) and went to bed.

early last week was abominably hot, so i forced s to buy and install a bedroom ac (best. purchase. ever.) and we existed primarily on ice and watermelon. last week was also all about work, so i didn't do all that much (although mk and i had a delicious dinner at barrio and then a delicious bottle of wine and some delicious work gossip on thursday night.) this past weekend was all about the apartment, so we spent friday organizing and saturday painting. pineapple grove is a bit bright, but i still love how its warmed up the living room. we also scooped up an excellent find at a stoop sale (who else thinks stoop sales are the best?): 12 fishs eddy dinner plates and 12 side plates in the pantone collection for only $30. they're probably the prettiest thing we own.

we've got a big jar of change that needs some counting. i think this weekend will be all about fun.

playing catch-up

i'm a no-good, terrible, very bad blogger, but i have been too busy to update. a lack of internet makes updation a little trickier as well. but i promised an update about our apartment and the bowl-a-thon, so i'm going to resort to that old lazybones standby and do a picture post.

apartment


living room.


kitchen.


bedroom.

i know it looks a bit like a bomb went off (primarily a book and shoe bomb, i discovered in my unpacking) but can't you see its potential? think of these as before pics; i bet you can't wait until our apartment is posing in its formerly size 0XL pants.

bowling


my fellow charity bowlers (they feature in previous tales of happy hours, lost-watching parties and band concerts.)


we're an expressive bunch.

i didn't get many action shots, but we weren't all that active anyways. my teammates bowled well, i bowled terribly (but i did avoid any further injury), and we all had fun.

too tired to type

on friday, s and i spent 16 hours moving, just us and a cargo van and the sustaining promise of greek food. i know my posts have been all "wah, so tired" but it's true! i don't think i have ever felt every muscle in my body ache at the same time. and after spending the day moving from a third-floor walk-up to a third-floor walk-up (which is insane, btw) i was so tired that i laid down on the ground (not the sidewalk, but almost) just so my ribcage would stop throbbing.

but, BUT, it was all for good! because now we are living in our lovely and wonderful new apartment in park slope, slowly unpacking and putting our lives in order and enjoying living alone. i know we've basically cohabitated for the past three years, camping out in each others dorm rooms and college apartments (and then the glory of boyland), but this is the first time we have really officially lived together. and it is wonderful. i love coming home to s, to our apartment, to our dishes and futon and movie nights. it might be the honeymoon period still, but so far this is pretty much bliss.

i am updating from work (oh, the scandal! but i have been so productive today) only because we don't have internet at home yet. but i promise to update again soon because tonight we bowl! i'll post pictures and a great recap of the night's hilarity. i predict rediculousness indeed.