therapy

Therapy session 1: Sitting in sweatpants, drinking wine and chatting with one of my favorite people on this earth. We were crying and telling one another just how much we loved/valued our friendship in 20 minutes flat. Happily buzzed in 45 (both complete light weights), and elbow deep in our take-out Thai food about an hour after that. Note to self: need weekends like this more often.

Therapy session 2: Holding a sleeping baby. Realize that she is her own kind of perfect, even if the uncertainty of her future sometimes devastates me.

Therapy session 3: Driving into work because I can't find street parking and refuse to get another ticket. Accidentally land myself in the middle of a construction zone, stuck behind a cab driver who is trying to put his car in reverse. One yelling match (complete with waving and dramatic hand gestures) later, I realize that I have managed in that moment to get rid of every stress from the last 3 weeks. Decide to yell at cab drivers more often.

whoops

If anyone needed proof that I am not remotely prepared to be a parent, they needed only listen to my mom's voice mail from last night. "Hey love, this is mom. Just calling to see how your weekend was...if you went to NJ...how the baby is doing. Also, just wanted to make sure that you were ok after your date with Abdul."

Interpretation: Because if you are NOT ok, I will most definitely drive down there in your defense and do things that the Lord himself might disapprove of (full disclosure, my mom is a pastor).

In highschool I went to my senior prom with a boy who was in college. A boy who had played football. About two weeks after the event, I told my dad I was pregnant just to see what his reaction would be. This was my own form of entertainment - watching my dad change from an odd shade of green to straight up pissed. But in this particular instance, it hadn't even crossed my mind that my parents would read this post and wonder if I'd gotten myself into a situation I couldn't handle. In truth, Abdul was a gentleman. A gentleman who winked. A lot.

We go get dinner *wink*...I move, but I come visit *wink*... I get job with city, and then we go somewhere special!! *wink, wink*... I call you, yes? *wink*... ooooooh no, we have to say goodnight? *wink*

As if Abdul didn't make the night interesting enough, we managed to get ourselves into a political debate with the only other diner sitting in the restaurant. We were sitting there chatting about the upcoming election and how pretty Hillary's pant suit looked on this last debate and how Barack is so friggen' great that it warms my politically apathetic heart. Then out of no where, random lady pipes up from across the room that the media is treating Hil "SO unfairly" and being "TOTALLY BIASED towards Barack... because, well, because he's Black and they don't want to appear racist!"

I tried very hard to wipe the "wtf" expression off my face. I suspect that I failed miserably.

Fortunately, this didn't seem to bother her a whit and she proceeded to blather on for a few minutes about her own views before bringing up the last election. At which point, I stated quite nicely that I didn't vote in the last election because I couldn't really support either candidate. I didn't like Bush, but I also couldn't figure out what the hell Kerry stood for except that he was "Not Bush." Random lady stared at me, and then (I shit you not) said "Well, then you're just as responsible as Bush is for sending this country to war.

So, there you have it. I am responsible for inducing heart-failure in my parents (sorry guys), and for sending our great nation to war (REALLY sorry about that one, America).

it was the marriage proposal that gave it away

Par for the course, in terms of my dating life, last night I accidentally wound up on a date with my bodega guy.

For those non New Yorkers, a bodega is a little shop on every street corner. They carry beer, toilet paper, an assortment of cookies, ice cream and Cheez-Whiz. In terms of inventory, it is almost like they tore a page out of my diary. The entry that was so aptly entitled “What Makes Life Worth Living.”

I happen to live directly above one of these little shops, which is soopa-fantastic for multiple reasons. First, it means I have no neighbors downstairs to irritate while doing my kick-boxing videos. Second, it means I can pretend that I might (in some other alternate universe), do kick-boxing videos whenever the spirit moves me rather than simply catching up on episodes of The Hills.

On Sunday mornings, I romp down the steps in my sweatpants and fuzzy slippers, walk all of two feet to the store to pick up The NY Times. Then, I march up the street to get a pumpernickel everything bagel. I do this every single weekend. And so, I see Abdul every single weekend.

Last night, I got home and Abdul was standing outside the store. We chatted for a few minutes about the weather, how quickly this week was going and then, just as I was about to head inside, he asked “want to go get some food?” And I, being an idiot, thought to myself “THAT’S SO NEIGHBORLY!!!”

Turns out that in this particular case, Abdul’s definition of “neighborly”, involved getting to know each other in the biblical sense …I think that perhaps he was referencing a different dictionary than I was.

lightening in the microwave

[the greatest toilet seat known to man]

I spent all weekend (and by "all weekend" I mean non-social daylight hours) finishing up some painting projects around the apartment and enduring a semi-hellish trip to IKEA. I heart IKEA almost as much as I do snacks. But by noon the place was infested with parents and all of their 10+ offspring. I don't care what kind of eye-hand coordination skills you're trying to develop in your kid, it's not cute to hand them a shopping cart and let them navigate the overly crowded aisles. It's just not. If you're a parent reading this, and are guilty of said offense, then I would just like to be the first to inform you that every other person there who didn't haul their kids along for a 5hr shopping trip, probably wanted to throw their Swedish meatballs at your head. Or, maybe that's just me.


Sunday, I looked around the digs and felt like the work had finally paid off. The things about the apartment that initially drove me crazy, I decided I loved. Sparky toilet seat? Best. Toilet. Seat. Ever. Fixtures that had been painted with tacky brass paint? Quirky and adorable. I even danced a little jig to fully express my satisfaction. I danced as only a white, dutch girl can dance. Badly.

Then, this morning I wake up and notice what looks to be char marks on my newly painted walls. Apparently I had an electrical fire and my fire alarm didn't bother to warn me about it. MOREOVER, I now have CHAR marks on my wall. The wall, that I just finished painting.

Oh, the irony.

Once in high school, one of the siblings stuck something with foil on it in the microwave. The whole thing promptly started sparking, and my mom could only point and yell "LIGHTENING! LIGHTENING IN THE MICROWAVE!!!!!!!" Today, when I noticed the burn marks, I whispered "lightening... in my wall."

I get kinda hectic inside

Sometimes between work and life, I forget all the reasons that I love living here. Reasons other than the most obvious one: every kind of cuisine can be delivered. Here's lookin' at you Coco Roco. Because even though I haven't tested you yet or your Chicaron de Calamar, I love that when I do have a hankering for some Peruvian, you've got my back. And so dear friends, in the name of remembering why NY is a city like no other, I give you my favorites from the last 24hrs:

1. Seeing 50+ police cars with their lights all on sitting in a parking lot for no other apparent reason than to provide a) a surprisingly great light show OR b) the appearance of a overly collaborative department of po-pos.
2. Listening to my male dressing room attendant sing every word of Mariah Carey's Fantasy
3. Different store. Different dude attendant singing Beyonce Dangerously in Love.
4. Finding out that Barack Obama carries a picture of me in his wallet and made me a mixtape. Which really, is just all kind of adorable.