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Trying to say something, New York Times? [July 10th 2008|08:34a] And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him. - Matthew 5:1 5|♠

[July 1st 2008|12:08a] Five weeks until we touch down in Casablanca. Then mountains, then Marrakesh, then Spain. It's completely unfair to let people travel the world only to tell them to stop when they come home. More mountains need climbing, more cities need conquering, more trains (trains!) need riding, more air needs breathing, more water needs finger-trickling. I can't wait. ♠

[May 14th 2008|02:13p] I've always fancied myself a Manhattan girl, but I've been having just a lovely day moving into Kevin's apartment in Brooklyn: a) We had to double park, which means my dad had to stay by the car. I couldn't carry everything up by myself, so one of the guys that works at the rim shop on the corner helped us out for a $20. b) The guy, whose name is Daniel, used to move furniture, which meant that he carried all my stuff upstairs on his shoulders in exactly five minutes flat. This would have taken my dad and I at least a half hour, for sure. c) A tiny, tiny, old, old man in a blue plaid shirt kept staring at me in the drugstore, and then asked for the toothpick I was chewing on. I had to laugh, and apologized saying that I was still using it, but it's still making me laugh. d) The cashier complimented my dress, and we chatted about how excited we were for summer. When have you ever met a nice drugstore employee? Seriously? e) A UPS truck drove across 4th Ave and the driver yelled "Heyyyyyyy!" to one of the old-timers (in a brown tweed blazer and fedora, naturally) who was standing on the corner. The old-timer yelled, "Heyyyyyyyy!" back, and then muttered loudly, "Crazy bastard." f) It's GORGEOUS out. Ignatius is standing on his hind legs with his paws in my lap and sniffing the breeze. I might steal him for a walk after I unpack a little more. Mmm, it's going to be a lovely summer! 1|♠

[February 14th 2008|07:38p] ♠

I promise I’ll actually write (!) something soon. [December 26th 2007|11:19a] ( Rome is burning! ) 4|♠

Adventures in Europe, part deux! [December 22nd 2007|10:23p] Warning: Lots of images, and very boring if you don't like art and churches-- and you like people. Also, I'm too lazy to caption things; if anything isn't terribly obvious, just ask. Actually, in general I'm not crazy about my Paris pics, but I've forgiven myself because experiencing Paris through a camera lens is just not cool, folks. That being said, I give you... ( PARIS ) Rome, Florence, & Venice coming soon. 6|♠

PSA [December 19th 2007|05:52p] So, uh, yeah... I went to Europe for 4 months and now I'm back. Pictures from Paris, Rome, Florence, and Venice coming soon. Good Lord, it's good to be back in New York. 4|♠

[October 19th 2007|01:24p] Lovely, lovely day yesterday. Despite being in London for six or seven weeks now, I've still managed to miss some of the major sights. So walking through Regents Park with my architecture class was absolutely lovely. After the class ended, I decided not to go home and meandered through Hyde Park for a couple hours as the sun slowly descended behind the trees. Walking along the water, I spotted couple after couple, all enjoying this perfect spot in this perfect lazy late afternoon sun. After finally getting over to the Matthew Barney exhibit at the Serpentine Gallery, which was predictably wacky/profound/fun, and then met up with Dalal to see "Rhinoceros," an Ionesco play which was unpredictably wacky/profound/fun. I'm going to miss the London theatre scene so much after this semester. It completely blows New York out of the water, with beautiful theatres dedicated themselves to everything from the classical to the painfully avant-garde, while New York is permanently stuck between overhyped and overpriced Broadway productions and tiny hole-in-the-wall studios who deserve more funding but haven't figured out a way to get it. Even with the exchange rate, London theatre is unbelievably affordable and I'm finally understanding why my journalism professor, as well as many of his fellow arts critics, are New York expats who have settled down here. ( On to the photos! ) Okay, I admit it. I love all of London. It's beautiful and fabulous and just lovely everywhere. This is going to sound quite conceited and distinctly un-bloggerish (what! no whining, no drama?!), but sometimes I'm amazed at how much I genuinely enjoy my life. I have no idea what I did in a past life to be so blessed with the opportunity to do this. Not only am I seeing some of the oldest and most beautiful places in the world, when it's all over I get to go home to my favorite city in the world. Even better, I get to come home to a man who I love wholly and deeply and genuinely, and who's somehow found even more room in his gigantic heart for me too. Blah blah mushy crap blah blah. The point is, I'm going to enjoy the fuck out my life until the gods figure out that they royally screwed up with their karmic distribution, and that's just that. 11|♠

More pictures? Seriously? [October 14th 2007|08:13p] After sitting on my ass for most of the morning-- although I'm terribly excited to announce that I slept in until 10:30, amazing!-- I headed over to East London to check out the Spitalfields Market and a gallery. Spitalfields was fun, but a place that definitely requires a couple of girlfriends and a couple of hours to spend browsing the endless stalls of handmade and knockoff handbags, and I had gotten there relatively soon before closing. I did, however, completely fall in love with Brick Lane for its New York-y grittiness, inevitably giving way to its New York-y hipness. Indian restaurants galore, of course, but also bizarre little street vendors with bizarre little trinkets, a chick with smudged makeup and a cigarette banging on some metal thingy that made surpringly pretty sounds. And of course, impossibly fashionable hipsters in every direction possible. New York is all about shape and structure-- in black, of course. But London girls seem to have an extreme eye for detail and texture. This can and often does backfire, but when they get it right, it's so right. I wish I had the balls to go up to people and ask to photograph them to show you what I mean. Anyway, on to the sights. My favorite favorite church in the whole wide world, Christ Church Spitalfields, by my new hero, Nicholas Hawksmoor. Seriously. Don't let me have kids, because I might actually name one of them Hawksmoor. ( I swear, the novelty of having a camera again will die off soon. ) 2|♠

It's official. [October 12th 2007|10:35a] Seven years ago, the majority of US citizens wanted a future Nobel Peace Prize winner to be our president. Thanks, America! 4|♠

[October 12th 2007|02:29a] I should know myself better by now. I should know that I can never truly love a city unless I love it alone. Just when London started to look the same in each direction, I took a walk by myself before class. Wandering down the Strand, it happened-- I fell madly in love with London. All its contradictions, its juxtapositions, its suited men and women with bad dye jobs, its ubiquitous cigarettes, its premade sandwich chains. London is a city so much older than New York-- and yet, it's so much younger in its mindset, more naive. Keeping up this pretense of celebrating its heritage while ignoring the heritage of so many of its habitants. Half of London is stuck in the past, and half of it surges forward with no real direction. And that's nice right now. ( etc etc etc ) 4|♠

Picture update! [October 10th 2007|05:09p] I conveniently forgot to bring my camera's USB cable with me, and then even more conveniently forgot to buy a new one for the past six weeks. But I have finally purchased one, and although these pictures are now over a month old, they're the only ones I've got at the moment. Those of you on facebook can check out various pictures of me in various places taken by Emily, but here's the official LJ version. So. Here we go. St. Paul's, views of and from: ( Gimme gimme more. ) More soon, now that I have a fully functional camera. 5|♠

"How did we get back to the train station last night?" [September 30th 2007|11:18a] AAAAAAAH. Clearly, Amsterdam has been good to us. Actually, Emily and I have been in about 17 countries in the last two days and my head is very much aware of that fact. Taking the Eurostar into Brussels was quite fun; a little girl kept coming up to me, stealing my pen, and drawing all over my notebook. She then proceeded to take my hand and stab my palm with the pen as well, which vaguely hurt but was too funny to stop. So that took us through England, France, and Belgium. Emily's family friend Jess picked us up from Brussels Midi. She's an adorable Midwestern gal who's out here with her husband, a military guy who trains dogs. They have two beautiful German Shepherds, who are both currently trying to get my attention. Mind you, they're both about 95 pounds each and it's very hard to ignore them. Oh God, one of them is whining at the phone and it's too cute. I could never be a dog owner; I need pets that understand I CANNOT LOVE YOU ALL THE TIME I AM SORRY DODGE GO AWAY. We spent all of Friday in Cologne and completely geeked out over the cathedral, which is stunning and amazing and dark and gorgeous and beautifully Gothic and I love it. It's incredibly tall; something you just can't understand by looking at a slide. It's one of the places that makes you feel completely humbled as one person when standing next to it. The kind of place that makes you want to fall to your knees in total ignorance of how simple humans without modern science, technology, anything can create something so beautiful. I don't know much about German architecture outside of the Gothic era, but they really got that one down. We circled around it, meandering through the pretty little graveyard behind the apse, and then inside and stared up at vaulting and stained glass and gilded angels, oh my! Also in Cologne: the Lindt chocolate factory. Bought some white chocolate with rose petals in it and it may be the most amazing thing I've ever tasted. Yesterday was Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Amsterdam, and my head is still feeling it now. We spent the first half of the day as reasonable, cultural tourists doing things like the Anne Frank House and the Van Gogh museum, both very wonderful and striking. We walked around, poking in little boutiques and the like and both fell completely in love with the city. You know the phrase "so cute I could kick it"? Pretty much sums up what I think about Amsterdam. It was somewhere between a mist and a drizzle the entire day, and somehow that made the old buildings along the canal more romantic and picturesque. Also, yesterday was the first time since I've been in Europe that I've actually felt like I was somewhere very different. Ugh, just beautiful. Emily and I are already thinking about coming back for spring break next year, when all the tulips are budding. Aaaaaaand then we descended rapidly into debauchery. Had a very long, long, long sumptuous dinner, walked around the red light district and tried to get used to the sight of bikini-clad women standing in windows at street level. After living in New York for a couple of years, it's not easy to be surprised by anything-- I mean, if you've seen a towncar full of sleazy guys from Jersey trying to pick up a butch transgender hooker in a three dollar blonde wig or three in the meatpacking district, you'd think seeing a young, pretty, very female prostitute who happens to be in a window would be a step down. Alas, no. Also-- seeing groups of middle-aged Asian tourists waiting to get into a sex show: funniest goddamn thing EVER. Ever.  Within in a ridiculously short period of time, we were completely blazed on a couple of joints the size of baseball bats and decided to leave a whole lot of time to get back to the train station. That walk was probably the hardest thing I've ever done, heh. How hard? Well, once Emily figured out where we were, it took me another five minutes to realize that we were actually in Amsterdam-- I could have sworn we were in Berlin. The only way we made it back was by linking arms and marching-- yes, marching, just picture it-- back to the station. Emily doesn't remember anything between being about 100 yards from the station and being two stops from home, during which I was trying so hard to stay awake because everytime my eyes closed, I got completely lost and terrified in my own head. It was awesome. Today we're planning on going to some little artsy town in Germany where there's a cool glassblowing studio. Which may sound kinda tame, but you have no idea how good tame sounds right now. Aaaaaaaaah what the fuck. 16|♠

[September 13th 2007|11:55p] By the way, The Bacchae was fantastic, and I can now confirm that Alan Cumming's arse in the promotional photo was indeed very airbrushed. Also, I love having a real kitchen. For a midnight snack, I just fried up some eggplant slices in olive oil and stacked them with some crumbled feta cheese, and it was deee-lish! 4|♠

Transatlantic updates. [September 13th 2007|12:31a] Okay, so, I'm, like, totally in London. It's pretty fabulous. New York and London are similar enough that I haven't been doused with an overwhelming sense of culture shock-- although feeling like a freak for walking around past 11 pm is completely bizarre. It's a beautiful city, with incredibly distinct neighborhoods and fantastic tiny details that manage to elude your eye unless you're looking carefully. Each bridge, each corner of a building, each backwards alley has its own particular charm that I adore. London architecture is something that continually impresses me. The city is incredibly unique in that it unfailingly keeps its older buildings pristine while practically attacking any available space with massive spiraling glass and steel homages to modernity. Or something. It's incredibly impressive to see a 400 year old munipical building decorating with an authentic crest sitting next to a contemporary office building which has crystalline porticos floating 15 stories up. I'm not sure how much my architecture course is going to touch on the modern building in the city, but I can't imagine it won't come up during the course of our walking tours. Unfortunately, I left my camera's USB cord at home or somewhere, and therefore haven't been able to upload any photos, and therefore haven't really been taking any, but as soon as I buy a new cord, I promise many, many pictures of all these things and more. On Tuesday night, my Shakespeare class saw Love's Labour's Lost at the Globe. The play itself was wonderful-- including many Monty Python references and one very naked flabby old man ass (& testicles!)-- but even more spectacular was the discovery that the Globe is completely within walking distance of my flat. The short walk over the Thames is one of the most beautiful I've done in a while, and the return trip is even better. Standing on the south bank, St. Paul's looms over the shore, illuminated and brilliant, forever establishing itself as an irreplaceable part of the London skyline. Standing on the Blackfriars Bridge at night is possibly one of the most romantic spots I've seen in a long time. Beautiful, serene, just perfect. Most of my classes are really getting me out into the city, and I'm seeing a slew of what are sure to be amazing performances, including Ian McKellan as King Lear, Patrick Stewart as Macbeth, and tomorrow night is Alan Cumming playing Dionysus in Euripides' The Bacchae. I assumed that the play would mostly be about Alan Cumming running around in women's clothing, and when I saw the David LaChappelle photo of him on the cover of the program, my thoughts were quite validated: Apparently he got in quite the tizzy after the photo studios airbrushed the hell out of his arse, and for that I love him even more. Should be a fantastic show! More later. 15|♠

Chopin Liszt [August 27th 2007|12:30p] Since I'm home and don't have Emily to share this morning's shopping with, you will have to do. Anyway, I just bought these pants from Gap, and they are the most amazing, most comfortable pants I've ever had. So happy wide-leg pants are becoming trendy again! I want to run around in them all day - and most of you know how much I don't like wearing pants if I can help it. Even though I don't usually wear black coats (a girl's gotta stand out a little), I found a perfect black knee-length trench at H&M which I adore. After poking through racks of designer trenches that didn't fit well and cost a couple hundred dollars or more, I'm absolutely in love with this one, which cost a mindblowing $60 and flares perfectly and I feel like a glam 40s film star in it. With those, two new pairs of jeans, a cute gray pin-striped blazer, and some last minute panties (the girl boxers from VS - so comfy! so cute!), I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to a) pack everything by 5pm tonight, b) fit it all into two bags, and c) not go completely over the weight limit. Regardless, I'm quite happy. Bad news is I have this completely debilitating cough which is going to make the plane ride miserable if it doesn't go away by tomorrow night. Whatever. London, here I come! 8|♠

And a couple weeks ago, some guy thought I was his hooker. [August 18th 2007|12:44a] Man, New Yorkers really are freaks. I was walking home from work today when it started raining. I didn't have an umbrella, so I hugged my bag across my chest in an attempt to keep my clothes from getting completely soaked, and silently cursed myself for wearing my super cheap but super comfy flip flops that are impossible to walk in when they're wet. I hustled down Hudson and turned onto Worth, and decided to stop in a Starbucks until the rain passed over. A block away from Starbucks, I was hurrying to make the light, feeling cold, wet, and pissed that I didn't check the weather report this morning. As I passed the last building on the block, the doorman, a tall, thin white guy (and very dry, mind you) leaned in and started whispering in my ear, "Nice t-." Already braced for a comment from him ten feet before I had reached him, my first thought was, Yeah, yeah, jackass. Nothing I haven't heard before. After all, when you're a chick hauling a pair like mine around Manhattan, "Nice tits" is one of the most polite comments you're going to get. But to my utter and complete surprise, he didn't end "Nice t-" with "-its," but with "-oes." I was still finishing my first thought when it registered with me what he had actually said, and I halfway considered turning around and asking if he was serious. But the light was about to change, so I quickly crossed the street, shaking my head in disbelief. Walking down the rest of the block to the Starbucks, I tried to figure out why "Nice toes" was such a jarring comment. After all, is it really any more offensive than comments about one's more obvious body parts? On some level, I did find his attention to detail a bit unnerving, but after all, haven't most women noticed another woman's pedicure at some point? After a few moments of reflection, I decided that it was really less the actual statement that was disquieting, but rather that he conciously leaned in to whisper in my ear, as if completely aware that what he was about to say was odd and perhaps slightly deviant. Now, I'm sure this guy is a perfectly normal person who happens to have a bit of a fetish. And as much as I (ineffectually) protest to having my body mentally dissected into new possible sex organs by men on the street, I've got to give him props for originality. 17|♠

[August 8th 2007|01:12a] Kev and I are going to Philly this weekend! Neither of us have been since we were kids, and hooray for impromptu romantic weekend getaways! Any suggestions as to where to go? We've already got the main stuff down-- Mutter Museum, South Street, Pat's, etc etc. 1|♠

[July 26th 2007|08:29a] So between my usual persual of celebrity-related blogs and the entertainment industry news I have to be up on for my job, I've long been aware that Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig were in a movie together called "The Invasion." I didn't give much thought to the movie, figuring it was just another sci-fi political psychological thriller type flick that Nicole Kidman seems to be fond of between worthier projects. But then I saw this poster for the movie, and realized that "The Invasion" is a remake of the classic 1956 film. Now, "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is the sole movie to ever have given me nightmares-- granted, I was about seven or eight when I saw it, but still. Nevertheless, I highly, highly object to it being fucked with. Seriously. WHY? 6|♠

Dream diary, sort of. [July 22nd 2007|08:18a] Just had the most involved, bizarre dream ever, in which: I had four interviews at a bunch of high profile law firms, including the NY Attorney General's office, which was in the "Presidential Suites" of some huge building downtown. When I got in the elevator, there were only buttons for floors 11 and 18. Since I didn't know which floor the Presidential Suites were on, I chose 11 on a whim. When I got off on the 11th floor, I was back outside on the street level. I walked in the nearest structure, which ended up being filled with people from my high school; apparently we were on a class trip. I ran into my first and second grade teachers in a floral shop, where a Ruth Fisher-esque character was putting together a bouquet entirely of bright pink flowers of all different shapes. I then found myself with my parents and the high school people. We were all assigned a costume, because apparently the class trip involved putting a who-dunnit type of play involving the entire class. On horseback. The stables were in this huge multi-story building; some floors were gray-white and steely and were set up as a big shopping mall, but the 6th floor was really rich and luxurious, with a ton of rooms that Norah (who was with me) and I kept getting lost in. We ended up getting so lost that we missed the play (darn), but then everyone was at a dance in the same building afterwards. All my old classmates just sat or lay down on the floor for the entire time, but I was dancing all night with Willie Nelson, who cannot do the hustle. I woke up ten minutes ago very, very confused. I usually go back through the dreams that I can remember and isolate what parts of my life they originate in. For example, Emily works at a law firm, so that's that. Why the Attorney General? Because I've got a huge crush on Eliot Spitzer-- although, I think even in my dream I thought that I should apply for a job in the Governor's (which Spitzer is now) office instead. First and second grade teachers are self explanatory, and I've recently finished watching the entirely of "Six Feet Under," so a Ruth Fisher-type cameo is not unreasonable. But I'll be damned if I can figure out why in the world my mind conjured up a pasodoble with Willie Nelson. And he didn't even know how to pasodoble; we just did a really lame tango instead. Okay, it was actually pretty fun. Yeah, just had to get that out. 2|♠

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