Addicted to blogging? Yes.

Yes, it's 3:09am and I'm in Florida and I'm blogging, but just for a sec.

I was thrashed during the flight.  Our supposed 9:30pm flight was pushed back to 10:11pm, natch.  Luckily my peach of a boss let me order a car to Newark instead of figuring out the NJ Transit.  Love that man to pieces.

Also, for the first time since I was, oh I don't know, ten, the flight was really open.  Yes, I got a whole row to myself, and yes, I actually slept a little!

We made it to Caroline's boss's condo and let me just say, it is amazing, to say the least.  Don't worry, I already took a million pics.

Tonight's events include taking photos, a 2am swim, and having nothing to eat but crackers.  (Can't wait to go to Costco tomorrow morning.)

I am loving life right now.

To be continued...

Dear Florida, I couldn't be more excited to see you

Not that it was noteworthy but...

What would a weekend be without Curtis and I going to a show?  We saw Shutter Saturday night.  We didn't really expect it to be anything great, basically it was exactly what we anticipated: jumpy, scary, tense, and cheesy.  It's written by the same people who did The Grudge and The Ring.  It's kinda lame how they've used similar things in all the movies, but still, it was entertainment for an hour or two.  And besides that, it's always a treat to go to a show in Times Square because you get the rowdy audience.  It was really annoying when I first moved here, but now it's comedy.

Saturday

Saturday was errands day.  Have I mentioned how much I hate running errands in the city?  Anyways, after six weeks Curtis and I finally took back his off white jacket I got him for Valentine's because he wasn't sure if he wanted a different size.  It was just slightly too small.  He ended up being between sizes but found this white one he liked that fit great.  There's this random little shop in Grand Central that has mostly weird clothes, but occasionally I find things I know he'll like (I walk past it every day and the window displays always get me.)  They have really amazing deals as well.

I finally hit up the MAC store because I needed to make a container trade.  My new favorite color is Naked Lunch, actually, it's not really new, I've been obsessed with it ever since Aimee recommended it to help with my cat eyes for Halloween.  Anyway, I needed a new one, and I've also been dying to try out their new(ish) mascara.  My Zoom Lash finally ran out (which I LOVE by the way) so I went in to try something new.  It was supposed to be amazing and I first heard about it two months ago right after I bought my last tube of mascara.  So I tried it out Saturday night aaaaaaaand, eh.  I hate it.  I guess maybe it makes my lashes a little more full, but Zoom Lash makes them SO much longer.  Linds, I know what you're going to say, but after this experience I'm not branching out again, unless I can try Bad Gal for free.  I'm so mad I just wasted $11 on mascara.  And can I please just vent for a minute?  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE MAC but their customer service could really use some help.  Every time I go into the store there's never enough employees.  Anytime I need help everyone's too busy doing makeovers.  I have to say, I appreciate the fact that the makeup is now accessible to customers so it's nice to just be able to ask for what I want, but still, sometimes a girl needs some help.  So after I grabbed my beloved Naked Lunch and what I thought was supposed to be great mascara I got in line with only one person in front of me.  After that person was finished a different MAC girl got behind the register and started ringing up the two girls she just walked up with, whom just received makeovers.  Wtf?  Was I not standing in line?  I was totally annoyed.  They seriously took forever.  When they finally finished I walked to the register and there were now two employees standing in front of me.  They both looked at me, confused, and one of them finally said, "Um, sorry, what did you need?"  I was like, "Um....to check out?"  Duh!  Totally annoying.  (This was also at the end of the shopping day so my patience was lacking, and I seriously had a headache.)

The good news is I used my credit at J. Crew for some new suits!  I'm definitely in need for my upcoming trips to Florida and No-Car.

This one's my favorite.  The straps on mine are different, however, they just come straight up along the sides and over my shoulders.

Hopefully I look like this girl in it.....yeahhhhh......
I got this suit except it's baby pink and white striped.

And I also got this suit in blue but after a consensus it's the one being returned (couldn't decide by myself at the store which two were best.)

I also got these white linen pants to throw on at the end of the day for a bbq or something.  I love them.

After shopping my little heart out at the Crew I made my way down to the Flat Iron district (to to go MAC.)  I totally forgot the Shake Shake is there in Madison Square park.  Score!  I treated myself to a nice burger, fries, and peanut butter concreation (shake.)  MMMMM.  It was just what I needed.  I'd had a massive headache all day and realized when it was 5:30pm and I'd only eaten a bowl of Life all day maybe food would help.  It did.

After the park and the unfortunate MAC experience I walked down to Union Square and to my delight found the venders were still there.  There were flowers for sale!  I couldn't help but buy myself some yellow tulips.  I really wanted an Easter Lilly but they weren't in bloom.  The temps are still too cold.

Saturday night Curtis and I schlepped clear up to West 111th St to the famed Harleman Halls where Curtis's friend/business partner Julie was having a party.  It was, interesting.  They had karaokee and I just wasn't in the mood to sing twice in 7 days, so I opted out after much peer pressure.  Curtis did rock out a fabulous rendition of Suspicious Minds by Elvis Presley.  I'm not going to lie, it was totally hot.

Friday night

So Friday night started out very promising.  My buddy Ed organized for a bunch of people to head up to the Lower East Side to go to some random club, I guess you might call it, to go to a poetry slamming.  I don't really know how to describe what it was, but I guess basically people read poetry they've written, and members of the audience judge them.  The atmosphere was really cool, and there were a ton of members that went.  The place was packed.  I was excited to be there because it's just one of those events you don't just hear during water cooler talk at the office, more of you need to know someone who knows about these random places and random activities.

This girl was the emcee and she was hysterical.  It seemed to be pretty cool.

So the first girl went up and was up there for about twenty minutes.  I'll spare everyone from the details and just say it got really awkward.  I've never been one to be offended enough to get up and walk out of a place, but this was beyond ridiculous, and Chels and I couldn't take it anymore.  We ended up getting up and leaving.  It was really awkward because the place was literally PACKED with people, including sitting on the floor.  There was NO room to walk anywhere.  We sat there forever trying to plan out escape route, which wasn't easy considering we were on the opposite side of the room from the door.  We finally realized there was no easy way to get out, and we were just going to have to plow through.  It was really awkward literally walking right in front of the girl performing.  I didn't want to offend her, although, I told myself to get over it because she'd offended me.  I couldn't get over what was coming out of this mouth.

After we got out we hopped in a cab which didn't help much.  The cab driver was crazy (well, they all are) but this one was especially.  He was driving like a mad man, and cussing at other drivers.  This isn't particularly rare, but this guy was pushing it.  I finally t

old him to take it easy.  (I don't usually talk to the cabbies other than to tell them where I'm headed or ask them to close the window when it's freezing.)  When we finally got home our fare was $12.60.  Chels just gave him $13.  If it was a normal ride she'd probably have given him $14 total, so stiffing him a buck wasn't like, a total insult, but he rudely handed her her changed and said, "Keep your 40 cents and buy yourself some candy."  Awkward.

Curtis came met me at my place when we got home (he had to work late) and we went to dinner at one of our usual places, Gold Street Diner.  I love New York and how it's totally acceptable to get dinner at midnight.

Eating with Curtis is quite the experience.  He can eat so much, and loves his condiments, especially Tabasco sauce.  (His first present to me was a huge bottle of Tabasco, for me to keep at my apartment, for when he comes to eat....kinda seems like a present for him, but whatever.)  Anyway, he loves to mix all his food together, and it's really nasty, but I've gotten used to it by now.  Friday night he got breakfast for dinner, and I couldn't help but take a picture of his concoction of potatoes, scrambled eggs, cheese, catsup, Tabasco, and I think maybe bacon was in there too.  This is actually before he stirred it all up.  Bon appetit??

Happy Easter!

Enjoy the peep show!

Duck, Duck, Beach!

It's official kiddies.  I've secured my spot in the annual highly anticipated LDS single-palooza this year, otherwise known as Duck Beach.

The house I'm staying in will look something like this.

Every Memorial Day there's a bunch of beach houses rented out off the coast of North Carolina.  This year there will be two New York houses, and then there's other houses for DC people, etc.  People from all over the country come now, and I've heard it's pretty crazy.  Parties every night and laying out, playing on the beach, and bbqs every day.  I didn't go last year because I was still pretty new and didn't know that much about it.

I haven't decided if I'll stay all week or just make a long weekend of it.  We'll see how it goes.  Should be a good time!

Politics Shmolitics

I don't really know enough about politics to take a really high stand and be a boisterous endorser, however, my brother Jason is pretty smart, and I like what he has to say here.  I try to "find out for myself" for whom I should vote, I really do, but I get so lost in all the political jargon, I have no clue what people are talking about.  I can't say I'm not influenced, however, by the profanities screamed at the tv on the trading floor whenever Hilary's on the tv.

No Country For Old Men

So I was really sort of not wanting to see this movie, but Curtis talked me into it, and I have to admit, it was amazing.  I had my head turned away for a lot of it because I can't handle violence anymore, but the story, writing, and acting were SO GOOD.  Javier Bardem definitely deserved the Academy Award.  He is scarier than Hannible Lector.  It was just such a different kind of movie, but not strange.  It's hard to explain.  It was scary in a way that I've never seen a movie be scary.  There were lots of periods of time where minutes would go by with no dialog and I didn't even notice.  I never once got bored, which happens a lot in movies lately.  Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones were also phenomenal.  If you can handle it, I highly recommend it.

Last weekend

Last weekend was awesome.  Friday after work I did a little shopping.  I got some new work clothes from H&M and some new, very needed, brown shoes from my favorite shoe boutique on 38th and Broadway in the Fashion District.  Kind of shady, but they'll barter with you, and they have totally cute, comfortable shoes.  

That night my girlfriend Erin, my roommate Jaclyn, and I went to the Enrichment Relief Society birthday party at a girl's apartment over in Hell's Kitchen.  There was a 15 question quiz on RS trivia.  I was honestly surprised people could answer any of the questions asked.  I mean really, who knows how long it took to come of with the RS motto?  (3 years, by the way) Or which past General RS president threatened to leave her husband because he had a bar in the house?  (Emma Smith.)  For that one I guessed Sheri Dew, because the girl reading the questions said, "It's someone you would know."  Embarrassingly enough, Sister Dew is the only General RSP I can name.  It wasn't until later I realized, duh, she never married.  Oops.  How long was the longest someone served as General RSP?  29 years.  Yup.  Can't remember who it was.  The point is, they gave out prizes for the top two, and the bottom one.  Yes, I was the big loser with +2.  I won the fabulous bunny ears you see in the Picture of the Week.  

After the get together Erin, Jaclyn, and I headed to dinner at Spotlight Live in Times Square.  I'm not gonna lie, this place was pretty sweet.  It's a karaokee restaurant, and when you sing, you have a live band playing your music, and back up singers!  How cool is that?  I wasn't really in the mood, I'm kinda hit and miss with karaokee, but Jaclyn definitely didn't want to do it, and Erin totally did, so I agreed to a rendition of Oops!  I Did it Again.  While we were eating dinner (the best chicken caesar salad I've had in the city) I realized everyone who was singing wasn't just a random person with a so-so or horrible voice.  Everyone was like, really good.  I kinda got intimidated and nervous, but kept telling myself to just get over it and have fun because I didn't know anyone there.  

Once we got up there I felt a little timid with the backup dancers right behind me, and didn't want to look like the horrible singer with awkward dance moves who actually thought she was good, so I kinda did it half way, and probably looked even worse, oh well.  It was still fun and I felt like I was on American Idol.  You can't really hear your voice and I really have to hand it to performers because I guess it's not as easy as it looks.  Erin decided she wanted to sing again so she rocked out You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman and she was AMAZING!  I had no idea.  (Remember I said we couldn't really hear ourselves.)  I felt even more dumb, but was totally stoked that she could totally work it out.  It was awesome!

Sat I slept in till 1:45pm.  Definitely haven't slept that late in a long time.  I didn't want to because I had a lot of things to do, but made the rest of my day very productive.  I'd been out way too late after karaokee, but will talk about that in the next post.

Since I have my new fabulous bed, I figured I should do some good with my old bed.  I could have paid $5 to have the bed delivery man take my old bed away, but they'd only take the mattress, or I could try to sell it, which is a total pain because who wants to by a random used bed off craigslist, especially when no one has a car to come pick it up?  I gave it to Curtis who's been sleeping on an air mattress for the last 8 months.  Have I mentioned that boy is low maintenance?  

So Sat was the big day we finally got around to moving it.  Let me tell you, if you ever need to move a bed, a long board is a very handy thing to have around.

Here we are, starting the adventure leaving my apartment:

It was a gorgeous day (50s) for the weather we'd been having lately.  Saturdays are extremely busy in my neighborhood.  Since I live by so many attractions the area is always crawling with tourists.  You can't walk down Wall St. without hearing 5 different languages.  Last week as I was leaving for church I walked in front of my building straight into a crowd of asians whose bus had unloaded in front of my building.  I almost got lost.  Anyway....here's Curtis pushing the bed frame down Wall St.  That's the Trinity Church behind him, on Broadway.

Chillin in front of the Stock Exchange.

He's buff.

So am I?

Yes, these are all the tourists watching us.

More tourists.

He's so excited!  Phase one: complete.

Sans makeup.  Please excuse the nastiness.  Hadn't showered yet.

It's not every day you can nap in front of the NYSE.  And yes, I agree, nasty.  Glad I was getting rid of the mattress.

It's complete!  We actually had a lot of fun going back and forth.  When we came through the stock exchange area one time we were both riding the long board and actually got applause.  It was awesome.

So Saturday night I planned a date and took Curtis out.  I wasn't quite ready when he came over.

Ready finally.  Yes, I'm aware this is sort of like a "first day at school" picture.  Curtis made me do it.

My new shoes have hearts on the bottom!

Everyone takes a picture in front of the NYSE with the Wall St. sign.  I've lived across the street for seven months, I figured it's time I take one as well.

We went to dinner at The River Room.  I highly recommend it!  It's way uptown, clear on 145th and Riverside Drive, but worth the schlep.  The food was great, the atmosphere was awesome, the live jazz music was amazing, and the view was spectacular.

He got the steak and I got the mango chicken.

We danced.

Not the best picture, but wanted one in front of the water.  That's the George Washington bridge and New Jersey to the left.

After dinner we headed to Bowlmor to go bowling.  It was an hour wait and I wasn't too sad when Curtis didn't want to wait.  It was $12.50 per person, per game!  Honestly, outrageous.  We ended up just calling it a night.  A fabulous night at that.

Finally, a bed update

I've been meaning to take a picture of my bed forever and post it since I blogged all about the bed buying experience, but I keep forgetting.  This isn't the best picture to show all the bed's assets, however when I took this picture I wasn't thinking about using it for this.  I realize the potentially scandalous nature this picture looks like it presents, seeing as how Curtis is in my bed, and some of my clothes are laying on the corner, however, it's NOT how it looks!  On Sunday after I took a nice nap Curtis and I were going to head up to the UWS for a friend's dessert thing.  I had been in my sweats while I was sleeping, and then Curtis was waiting for me while I was in the bathroom changing, and doing my makeup.  This is how I found him when I came back.  I'd just thrown my sweats (yes Brad, girls wear sweats, get over it) on the corner of the bed, not thinking how it would look, to capture this pic.

Anyway, enough explaining.  Here is the bed in all it's glory.  Honestly, I am obsessed with it.  I needed new sheets to fit it, and ended up splurging on new pillows a cover for my body pillow, and a bed skirt.  It wasn't exactly splurging (well, not that bad) because I got everything at discounted prices at Centrury 21.  (It's kinda like a huge Ross or TJ Max.)  The best part is the sheets.  I am OBSESSED with them!!!!!  I've never been one to spend a lot of money on sheets, but let me tell you, this is something I will never skimp on again.  It is quite the investment, considering you spend so much time in bed.  When I was looking online for what I should get I consulted some older, more established female coworkers on what was acceptable thread count.  I was floored when one of my work bffs, Nicole, told me nothing below 600 was acceptable, and not only that, but that the fitted sheet and the flat sheet probably wouldn't come together!  What?!  I've never heard of such a thing.  Call me white trash, or call me a snob now, I don't care, I firmly standing by my new found beliefs when it comes to bed linens.  

So I went to Century 21 and shopped and shopped, getting really impatient.  I hate having to dig through things to find what I want.  I knew I wanted purple, and I knew I wanted something "sorta" nice.  I ended up (or so I thought) settling on some seafome green sheets, with a decent thread count, that were a good brand, and were cotton sateen, or sateen cotton, whichever it is.  On my way out some sheets happened to catch my eye.  They were purple, came in a box with both sheets, and both pillow cases, and looked really nice.  They were more than I wanted to pay, but they were also half off the original price, so hey, a bargain, right?  So the moral of the story is, I highly highly recommend a high thread count, egyptian cotton sheets.  Your body will thank you every morning.

Lastly, one of the best parts, when I was putting the pillow cases on I realized they're the kind that has one side tuck over the pillow.  SWEET!  I HATE how my pillows are always sliding out and now that is no longer a problem!!

Two weekends ago

So two weekends ago Tamra, a friend of Curtis's came out with two girlfriends to visit New York and they stayed at his place.  We spent the weekend with them and they were seriously the cutest, most fun girls ever.  Seriously darling.

They came on the rainiest weekend but were such troopers.  The first night they got here all they wanted to do was eat at Grimaldi's in Brooklyn so we hopped on the A and went the one stop.

Grimaldi's was one of the first places Curtis and I went to dinner.  We love it.

On Sat we took the girls over to the South Street Seaport which is just two blocks from Curtis's place.  There's a TKTS there and the girls wanted to see if there was anything they wanted to see besides Rent.  The TKTS doesn't have as big of a selection as the one in Times Square, but it's still really nice and convenient.  While we were there it seriously felt like there was a hurricane coming.  The wind and rain were outrageous!!  This pic makes it look like we were just having fun but we were about two seconds from being thrown.  Curtis's huge umbrella even got turned upside down.  I thought of you, Elise.  :)

Some of the best pictures come from rooftops.  :)

I live across the street from Trinity Church and there's a cemetery there.  I know, it sounds weird to say I live across the street from a grave yard, but I don't really even think about it.  It's hundreds of years old, and I have to admit I have had the thought cross my mind a time or two to take a ouji board out there late one night (but obviously never would!)  After walking past it a million times Curtis noticed Alexander Hamilton's grave.  I love this place.

Saturday morning we went to breakfast at my favorite diner, Gold Street Diner.  It's owned by the same people who own Ulysses, which I mention frequently.  This diner is seriously sweet.  It's not ghetto like Denny's and IHOP (although I still love them.)  It's open 24 hours, has good food, and at night there's a deejay who seriously plays the best music and mixed better than anyone I've ever heard.

L to R: Me, Tamra Case, Natalie, Jason and Brian (2 of 3 of Curtis's roommates) and Renee Broburg.  Curtis was taking the pic.

Me, Renee, Natalie, and Tamra on Curtis's roof.

The weekend wouldn't be complete without Curtis and me seeing a movie.  We went to 10,000 BC.  It was alright.  Entertaining.  That's about all I have to say about it.