Catching up

Oh, so much has happened! You're in for a big post.

On Valentine's Day, I feared that I would have to work late, because the Axe job was shipping that night. Fortunately, I was out by 7:30 so Dustin and I went out for dinner at the delicious, romantic and tucked-away restaurant Paul & Jimmy's. We crossed Madison Square Park on the way and passed the snow-filled fountain.
We got there 15 minutes before our reservation, but were still made to wait 45 minutes and watch 2 couples who came in 15 minutes after us go ahead of us. I think they have mob connections. While waiting, we ran into P.S. 260 runner Madeleine, who coincidentally was picking up food for the clients still at the office.
I thought this dude was fighting with his wife, Dustin thinks it's his stepmom. In either case, he left in a huff several times and came back. I think Dustin's probably right because of the fact that he did come back each time.

Dustin had told me that he'd either take me out for a nice dinner or get me this rad belt buckle called the Love Attack I've been dying for. He took me to dinner. I thought that was that. But after I gave him his present, he gave me a lovely card and an explanation that the belt was, in fact, on its way, which I received the next day. Ain't it rad?
Isn't he the sweetest???

Plus P&J's had a fab ladies' room.

A couple of days later was Madeleine's birthday and we gave her a card with darkly humorous well-wishes and some cupcakes.


Saturday Dustin was dying to go see the new Munch exhibit at the MoMA. I offered to take him as my guest, as I'm a member, but when we got there they informed me that my card had "expired" even though it wasn't supposed to until March. Sigh. We didn't feel like waiting in the super-long member services line to complain because it was already 4:30 (closes at 5:30), so we just paid full price and rushed to the Munch exhibit, only to be greeted by this sign:

Aaarrrgghhh! We were so pissed. So Dustin wandered the Spanish Architecture exhibit while I dealt with some afternoon nausea and then we rejoined to check out the photography and paintings permanent collection. I liked these sooo much (despite the reflection).

(detail:)


Then onto the ever-popular gift shop, conveniently open an hour after the museum closes. This little kid was so enthralled:

Random: I saw this dude and his wacky hair on the bus and had to preserve it digitally:

Finally, last night I got out of work early and convinced Nicole to get her H&M shopping fix with me. We both loved this Frenchie-style shirt but both agreed her boobs would look better in it:

She also went for a farm-girl shirt and required socks.

I couldn't decide between a very jenna polka-dot shirt and a very spring-ish overtop.

... so I got them both, plus a hat:

Come on, it was only five bucks.
Peace out.

THE SKY IS ATTACKING US!!!

On Saturday night I went home amongst fast-melting snow/slush. I woke up the next morning to this:



Walls of snow covering nearly every inch of the city. The thing about snow that always surprises me is the silence of it. Everything is suddenly so quiet. Like everybody at a ruckus party suddenly started whispering. Almost all of the cars, trucks, and buses that usually create the ambient noise of New York are absent, and what is left, and the voices of the few people outside, are absorbed and muffled by the pure white all around. Silence in the city is so rare, and, when paired with the beauty of snow just fallen, is incredibly pure (another rarity for the city).
I made my way towards Dustin's for crossword and TiVO. The journey proved difficult but scenic.

Especially the flora and fauna, so beautiful in the harsh cold.



Going through the Park on the bus, I saw that many people were out to enjoy the long-awaited winter. Lots and lots and LOTS of kids on sleds, pulled by their selfless parents.

Everyone seemed dwarfed by the overwhelming mass of snow.

I've realized that one of my favorite things in life is seeing little kids experiencing snow. They're so amazed by it (I know the feeling) and never seem bothered by the cold (I'm getting there).





Check this out: There's a CAR under there! Feel bad for this sucker (and all of the other suckers who have cars in New York).

Long ago, Dustin and I made a bet about the airdate for final episode of "Seinfeld." I lost. I'm not ashamed. Anyway, the point is that the loser had to buy the winner dessert. I thought maybe cake or some fancy thing at a restaurant. But Dustin wanted Haggen Daas. On the snowiest day in New York history. So we went to Duane Reade to get some pints (and they were delicious).

By the next day, much of the snow had been reduced to piles of slush and gray and brown ice on the roads. But at work, I went up to the roof for the first time in a LONG time and was greeted by untainted, almost un-walked-on loveliness, and sunshine to boot:

Happy Winter!!! (finally)

xwords and fiori

Our proudly finished (finished!!) Sunday from 2 weeks ago:


Teamwork! And the crazy giant flowers in the P.S. 260 kitchen and lounge:

Feb. 7 2006

On Wednesday night, Dustin and I attended Restaurant Week, and I hated the meal, saw the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in all of life (unpictured), and enjoyed the bathroom decor, just 'cause I'm like that.


The steak was very disgusting, but the Pistachio Profiterole was to die for:

Friday night the girls and I also went out for Restaurant Week, and Kerri & Jennifer proudly displayed their Christmas necklaces:

And then we posed together.

Saturday, on the way to the movie theatre, I caught an entire band in the subway, with tubas and all (they were representin' Chicago):


And Sunday, with a bad case of wanderlust, I walked up and down 2nd Avenue looking for my soul and instead found this 3-foot-tall old lady searching through the garbage cans:


And for some reason the side of this building just struck me as lovely:

Happy Monday from the best ruffle on the East Coast.

Freaky freaky!

On Friday night, after dinner with Kerri, Dustin and I went to see a strange little movie at Landmark Sunshine Cinema. It's called "Live Freaky! Die Freaky!" and it definitely lives up to the title. It's a retelling of the Charles Manson murders told with stop-animation clay puppets and voiced by punk-rock heros like the dudes from Green Day and Asia Argento. It was the freakiest movie I have ever seen and ever expect to see, with outrageously gory violence, grayed-down color tones, creepy punk music that sounds like it was recorded through blown-out speakers, and dark humor pervading throughout. It was great!! And it drew just the kind of crowd you'd expect... plus us.

Saturday I went a little lighter, and decided to check out the annual Chinatown Flower Market, in honor of the Lunar New Year festival that was to occur that night. It wasn't as cool as I thought it would be, though, as most of the flowers I saw there were silk and my camera pooped out after these two pictures.




So instead, I made the most of the gorgeous 59-degree sunny day and went back to the Upper East Side (heretofore abbreviated as the UES) to try to play basketball (which I couldn't because 50 other people had the same idea) and sit at the pier and read my Vogue magazine. Later that day I finished a canvas I had been working on for a couple of weeks, an abstract that I plan on giving to Kerri because it reminds me of her.


It's pretty big.

One short note about winter that I noticed last night: the thing that really surprised me, and surprisingly disappointed me last year about winter is that when it gets incredibly cold and miserable, you can really only wear one pair of shoes for the duration of the cold weeks or months. I suppose you don't have to if you have enough money to invest in several pairs of good, solid, warm, comfortable shoes, but I am not one of those people. Last year I was so sick of wearing my same old reliable shoes by the end of winter that I bought 3 pairs of strappy sandal high-heels weeks before winter ended just to keep my hopes up for the end of winter.
Anyway... this unusual, warm winter is kind of nice, for many reasons, but for me it's mostly because I still get to wear cool shoes.



Ciao babies... until next time.