Off the Bucket List

I FINALLY finished reading Anna Karenina! I can officially cross that off my “Bucket List”!

If I Had a Hammer

I attempted to use my left  hand as a hammer.

Not the smartest thing I’ve ever done.

Coffee is the new Black?

Someone I met briefly at work a few months ago saw me on the street tonight and stopped me to say hello.  I marveled at his ability to recognize me out of the context of work and he responded:

“Are you kidding? Blackberry in one hand, green Starbucks travel mug in the other. I’d recognize you ANYWHERE!”

Hmm….there may be such a thing as being TOO predictable.

A Big Day

Today is a big day for my family. It is, of course, Mother’s Day, and it is also my sister’s graduation from college.

Happy Mother’s Day to Mom and Happy Graduation Day to Christine!!!

I’m sorry I can’t be there for you both. I send my love and the cupcakes from Crumbs that arrived earlier. Enjoy!

The Ring Cycle of Retail Therapy

I said goodbye to my favorite pair of jeans today. However, they didn’t go down without a fight.

I am fortunate to work in an industry where I do not need to dress up every day. Jeans, t-shirts and even pajamas are perfectly acceptable work wear. My favorite “go to” jeans were my perfect length, perfect fit, perfect wash pair by Michael Kors. I’ve had them for years and they were like a reliable old friend.

About a month ago, I ripped them. A small-ish hole on my inner right thigh, just low and hidden enough I felt I could get away with putting off replacing them. Sadly, I even threw them in the wash a few days ago, hoping to ignore the hole and keep wearing them, and even wore them to work yesterday. In hindsight that was probably one wear too many.

I found myself near Macys last night, so I decided to take the plunge and see if I could find another pair of jeans to replace my ripped ones. Any woman knows that shopping for pants, especially in the NYC Macys store is the fashion version of Where’s Waldo, except it usually involves rude salespeople, tailors and even some tears.

I armed myself with a stack of potential contenders and headed to the dressing room. As I bent to take off my shoes, I heard a loud riiiiiiiiip. My small-ish hole had exponentially grown northward, rendering the jeans unwearable, even for lax NY standards. Faced now with the potential of either being arrested for indecent exposure, or arrested for suspected theft if I attempted to leave the dressing room sporting a pair of the store’s jeans complete with ill-placed blinking security tag and all, I found a pair of the contenders that I loved, put them on and headed out of the dressing room (minus my shoes, because in that moment I for some reason felt I would look less like a felon without my shoes). I searched for the nearest grandmotherly-type sales person I thought might be most sympathetic to my plight and explained to her my predicament.

She kindly rang up my purchase, helped me remove the oh so attractive size tags stamped on my ass and sent me on my way.

She at least waited until I was (almost) out of earshot before laughing.

I need retail therapy after my retail therapy. Talk about a vicious circle.

For Granted

As I have walked through my parent’s house this week, I have realized how much I have taken this house and my upbringing for granted.

Growing up (and to some extent still now) I resented having everything given to me and provided for me. I’ve always been self reliant and needed to do things for myself, but I also wrestled with the notion of feeling like I “never caught up” to living at the means I was raised in. The bar was set high and it’s hard not to feel like a failure in my tiny NYC apartment with no closet space. The gratification of  being self-made only takes me so far.

I acknowledge that I’m lucky. I acknowledge that my worries are luxuries, but I refuse to let that lessen my belief that my minuscule role in this world is incomplete. There is a fulfillment I am seeking that I have not yet known.

Maybe I’ll get a taste of it in 2009. At the very least I hope I at least get a dishwasher.

Defeated by Steam Heat

I am a college graduate. I have read a myriad of books, traveled to a variety of countries and I read the news daily. I consider myself educated and well-informed. In a prior version of myself I built theatre scenery and I consider myself fairly handy.

So how is it that after four NY winters of complaining that the heat in my bedroom is just too bloody hot that I just now realized there is a knob on my radiator that controls the heat amount?

My discovery has opened up a whole new world to me, flannel sheets and PJs! Sleeping without a fan when it’s 20 degrees outside! Down comforters! I look forward to a lovely slumber tonight huddled under my covers in a nice cool room for the first time in years.