slinking back in, tail between my legs.

so this little blog baby has been neglected for some time, no? apologies all around, but i've been cuh-razy busy this summer, including:

- a get-away to montauk, where we got ENGAGED (!)
(thumbs up for weddings!)

- visits nearly every weekend from family and friends
(eating our way around the city with guests--this was at co)

- major work events (including a promotion and the departure of two of my coworkers)
(the goodbyes are killing me!)

- some wedding planning
(didn't pick this one. duh.)

- trips out of town (upstate new york, d.c.)
(miss you, spitfire lake.)

consider this my (maybe) comeback.

on loving new york

…quite simply, i was in love with new york. i do not mean “love” in any colloquial way, i mean that i was in love with the city, the way you love the first person who ever touches you and you never love anyone quite that way again. i remember walking across sixty-second street one twilight that first spring, or the second spring, they were all alike for a while. i was late to meet someone but i stopped at lexington avenue and bought a peach and stood on the corner eating it and knew that i had come out out of the west and reached the mirage. i could taste the peach and feel the soft air blowing from a subway grating on my legs and i could smell lilac and garbage and expensive perfume and i knew that it would cost something sooner or later—because i did not belong there, did not come from there—but when you are twenty-two or twenty-three, you figure that later you will have a high emotional balance, and be able to pay whatever it costs. i still believed in possibilities then, still had the sense, so peculiar to new york, that something extraordinary would happen any minute, any day, any month.
--joan didion

i grew up loving a new york that i had created out of movies and photographs and my grandparents’ stories about dancing at fordham parties, and when i finally moved here at 17 (a baby age!) it was too different from what i had needed it to be. so i came back older, maybe wiser, at 22 (still a baby age! such babies we were, we are), and grew to love a new new york, both better and harder than the one i had created, but so much more satisfying for it.

but my new york, the one i invented and the one i inhabit, is filled with this sense of possibility. it’s what keeps me here, on my toes, looking around the corner for the next magical opportunity.

in honor of st. valentine

things i am loving about new york right now:

the public transportation. the subway might be grungy and occasionally held up "by an earlier incident" (umm, clarify please), but i love not having to own, pay for, drive or park a car. i can go anywhere, anytime. and it is great.

the food. from a $2 slice to a $100 meal, from the farmers market outside my office on thursdays to the new gourmet market in my neighborhood, from comfort food to exotic cuisine, new york keeps me fat and happy.

the culture. i can't wait for the new cai guo-qiang show at the guggenheim that i got to watch getting installed. (the art historian in me was nerdily over-excited to witness that.) i get to go to the knitting factory monday to see my friend's band play. with a three-day weekend (i am trading sunday for tomorrow), i plan on dragging s to a museum and a movie and maybe an opening.

the people. i realized today that while i really miss my college friends, and i like that i sometimes get to see the people i know who also moved here, i am so glad i chose to strike out on my own. i know a lot of people who are still hanging out with the people they have always hung out with. and while i miss the security of old friends, and i certainly do not begrudge anyone the chance to continue to see each other, i am excited to be making new friends who don't already know the stupid, embarassing things i have done. they just get the joy of discovering all new mortifying moments with me.

the freedom. new york doesn't care who i am, which means i can become exactly who i want to be.

the boy. we had a lovely valentine's day. i made a fancy-schmancy dinner while he chatted with me in the kitchen, we ate out on the ping-pong table (ooh, moving up in the world), we snuggled and watched lost and ate strawberry trifle. he makes this city more bearable when i want to pack it all in, and he makes this life a little brighter when it seems to have lost its glow. i love you, fuss. no, you're the greatest.

i love you too, blog. what do you love?

date night

i know you're totally sick of me talking about what i've gotten to eat recently, but restaurant week ends tonight, so bear with me.

i love my boyfriend. a lot. (so much so that i teared up on the train last night as i headed down to meet him, thinking about how much i love him.) but he works crazy hours and i have a weird weekend, so i don't get to see him as much as i might want to, so i was extra excited when we made plans to go out to dinner at the mercer kitchen last night to celebrate our three year anniversary (technically on monday, but i have a feeling we'll make it through the weekend.) i left work early and stood on the street waiting for him. it still makes me smile to see him walking towards me, makes me smile even larger to see his smile when he sees me. he's a handsome boy, my boy, and we looked good last night. maybe like we even belong in some fancy soho restaurant. mercer kitchen feels special (even without tablecloths, as s teased me.) we sat downstairs, below ground, in a cozy dining room with bricked walls and mirrors and candles and soft conversation and single lillies in vases and wonderful cucumber-mint martinis. we toasted our three years together with speeches and smiles. for dinner (i know you're reading for the food, not the love) we forewent the restaurant week menu and both had the butternut squash soup with black trumpet mushrooms. they bring you a plate with a bowl on it with tiny green onions and mushrooms and cubed squash in still-life and then they pour the pureed soup into your bowl table-side from a silver samovar. soup never felt so special! (also: absurdly delicious. oh my gosh. two great soups this week.) s was a major fan of his roasted chicken and mashed potatoes ("almost as good as grandma's", he pronounced, high-praise from a boy who often talks about his grandma's mashed potatoes) and i enjoyed my thin italian pizza. it was a lovely dinner.

and this is how i know we are perfect for each other: we decided to skip dessert to make it home in time to see the season premiere of lost. it took forevs, between the r train and its bajillion stops on the way to the f (though we got to hear the sweet sounds of the subtations! i love them! and they gave s fist pounds for his girlfriend! who gave them a dollar.) we were invited to various viewing parties, but my wicked cold (thanks, workday fever) kept us in, which led to some last-minute panic. the hd projector, for all its magic, is not attached to any kind of television cable, so we had to take camp's tv out of another roommate's room and using RABBIT EARS (which had to be adjusted and foiled and ohmyGOSH this is 2008 and we have an hd projector and we are watching tv with rabbit ears), we were able to get our picture. and s got dessert in the end (i had prepared these little gems for the occasion, albeit with a few changes.) it was a wonderful night.

i still have the cold, however, and have already sneezed on my blanket, my hands, and my sweatshirt. don't worry, i washed all of them.