What Did You Do Last Weekend?

Charlie in Texas Says...

2011-04-05T16:37:00.000-04:00

Nothing exciting happened last weekend worth mentioning other than on Friday some friends and I went "midnight bowling" at Lewisville Lanes. You know, when they turn out the lights and its dark and yet you're held to the same standards of play. I stink up the joint when the lights are on full blast for god’s sake. What twelve year old came up with this idea and aren’t they like forty by now? Close up shop people.

Saturday was very quiet. Laying around with my dog watching movies. I must say that i really liked the new M. Night Shyamalan movie "Devil". Very suspenseful. I bet the book would be even better if it existed. Does it? Wait. Who am I talking to?

So anyway, Sunday I went off. Laundry, carpet cleaning, mowing, edging and spraying weeds filled my entire day. I was basically Hank Hill, sans consuming canned Alamo beer in the alley.

I want the yard to look fantastic this year without weeds, or bare patches, but it’s impossible on the cheap (or even on the moderate) when one bag of weed and feed costs $45.00 and you need eight bags. At least that’s what the price was at the Lowe’s in Flower Mound. So i bought the cheaper “mix-it-yourself” spray stuff. Doesn’t seem as safe to me...lots of chemicals. If i grow a nipple on my leg or something I'll know who to go after. Trust me, I’ll do just that, after I briefly play with the new nipple of course.

Amber in Asbury Park, NJ Says...

2011-04-05T15:14:00.001-04:00

Saturday:
- Arose at 7am; coffee on the front stoop
- Played rugby from 10am-12:30 (scored once)
- Lunched at the Boathouse in Belmar (buffalo wings, sliders, and beer)
- Attempted to nap while watching "Avatar" - not possible
- Got cranky due to soreness and lack of nap
- Browsed at the Gap
- Drank some beers (Fuller's ESB)
- Dined at 10th Ave Burrito in Belmar (grilled shrimp tacos)
- Went to the bowling alley next to Centerfolds strip club on the Rt 35 Circle where I:
- Received a private poetry recital by Billy Ho, an NJ Transit Conductor who also bowls
- Was introduced to bubblegum-flavored vodka by "Black Tony"
- Enjoyed several cherry-vodka-and-cokes
- Purchased a bowling-ball bag with pink flames on it, which I now carry as a handbag

Sunday:
- Arose at 9 am; coffee and the second half of "Avatar"
- Tried for brunch on the Asbury boardwalk, but it was packed; had to go to Rafferty's instead (fruit salad and half a turkey club)
- Wegmans
- Went to the gym (cardio and abs)
- Got takeout at the BBQ place on Steiner in Neptune (got a rack of ribs for 1/2 price 'cause they were closing)
- Had sex with my boyfriend
- Went to bed early

Nicole Says...

2011-04-05T15:08:00.001-04:00

PEOPLE! You MUST watch the premiere of Caitlin, the Urban Grocer, this Sunday at 8pm on The Cooking Channel. She is talented and knowledgeable, and the special takes place in BUENOS AIRES!!!!!! Do. Not. Miss!!!!!!

The Urban Grocer Says...

2011-04-05T15:07:00.000-04:00

friday night was a dinner date at this great bistro in geneva with my fiance. they served this strawberry, cream, and puffed pastry layered dessert that was UNREAL. saturday i spent the day planning for a big old party we had at our apartment to celebrate the premiere of my television show on the cooking channel (er, sunday april 10 at 8pm if you're wondering...). it was an old school party (with blue hawaiians and pina coladas with little straws) and because the weather was cooperative, we even took it up top to our roof terrace. sunday? hung over, eating pizza, chilling by the lake in geneva. great weekend.

Dr. Diane Says...

2011-04-05T15:01:00.000-04:00

On the weekend I've been working with my friend, Simon, to cook for a NYC homeless shelter. He frequently volunteers to stay at the shelter to host the "guests.". And he saw that all they had to eat was cold cuts and bread. He mentioned to me that he wanted me to teach him to cook, and I suggested that why don't we do it together. He purchases the food and I create the menu and organize the cooking process. He helps prep the food for cooking and he cleans up while I do the major cooking and organizing and packing the meal.. Then he or both of us bring it to the shelter just before the guests arrive. This is so they will have a hot and healthy meal. We make things from Italian meals (meatball heroes or lasagna) to stews, chicken and corn bread, and even some gourmet meals we've seen on cooking shows. We have a budget of $50-60 a week, but since Simon pays from his own pocket, we sometiimes try to be more frugal. I suggested to him that we seek out donations from local stores for food vouchers to help us do this, but we have not done that yet. He would have to probably get a letter from the shelter stating that we do this frequently for them.

Laura in the Hamptons Says...

2011-03-28T23:49:00.002-04:00

Fridays in Sag Harbor cannot be beat. Dinner at Beacon, a waterfront restaurant and bar and caught another beautiful sunset. Walked a half block to town to pop into some terrific boutiques and pick up a sexy pair of slinky sandals, change up footing and head over to the American Hotel (packed) for the special-sorbet and tequila-tonight's was raspberry. Two drinks down and head to Grappa for a look see around the bar for men, no luck so move on to dive bar Murphs, some lookers so we stay a while and play ring toss and chill in the outdoor area. Cruise home at a respectable 2:15am.

Saturday friends go to East Hampton Point for frozen mango coladas catch the sunset on their deck and meet some Swedes. We next hit Amagansett-hard. Indian Wells is jammed again and the vibe is upbeat. Drinks, some shots, repeat and chat it up with quite a few city folk. Order food, slip out the back and head to Stephen Talkhouse through the back (thank you Nanette), throwing elbows to get to the outdoor area and realize there is no way we are going to get through another 10 minutes with this crowd. Nanette decides to split home and chill on our deck, I make the call and drive to Saracen in Wainscott to get on the dance floor with Mats from Belgium. Saracen is hopping and they are cranking 70-early 80 dance music and we are having a ball. Three glasses of Veuve and a Stoli Raspberry later we call it quits at 3am.

Sunday I'm up and at em' by 9am. Packing for an all day boat trip. By noon Nanette and I are in Sag Harbor to meet Bob for the boat ride out to area between Sag and Shelter Island for the yearly hook up. All day event with hundreds and hundreds of boats, kayakers, canoes, surf boarders, rafts etc. People eat, drink and jump from boat to boat all day socializing while listening to the sound of three live bands play from the floating dock. We have a primo spot and hook up with six boats (later to be ten total-two of which are filled with local firemen!) This is one of the craziest things to do all summer and everyone is in total party mode! Met tons and tons of people, kayak a bit and manage to not spill my drink as I swam from boat to boat. Our fireman buddies and EH Point pals kept us fed and our boats all stayed tied up until 6:30. We split but I hear the hang was still going until close to 9pm. Awesome and exhausting. Will pass on going to East Hampton Point for Jamaican Sunday...

Charlie in Texas Says...

2011-03-28T23:08:00.001-04:00

Well I’m never going to Dallas ever again. Stupid suck-town.

Friday night I drove into Dallas to see my sisters improve comedy group “Heroine Addiction”. They were hilarious as always.

After the show we usually walk to a local restaurant for dinner and most of the time her friends join us. On the way to eat at a place called Twisted Root we found her friend’s car had been booted. Both the front and back tire had one of those bullshit orange (I find that most things painted orange are bullshit) metal boots clamped onto the wheel. The Butt-Boil Knuckle Dragger working there told her it would cost $105.00 to remove them. All of this because she didn’t park just one more spaces to the left. This spot free, but one more spot over, $105.00 if you forget to put .75c in the box. Ahem.

After dinner we all went our separate ways. It was late and I was exhausted, but I was surprised that the long drive home was going quickly….too quickly. Just ten minutes from home I realized that I left my credit card at the bar and had to turn around and make the thirty minute trip back into downtown. You see where I’m headed with this? Suck-town Baby! Okay the last one was my fault, but I’m positive Dallas made it happen.

Saturday and Sunday were a lovely mix of playing with my new iPhone and cleaning guns, back to the iPhone, oiling a baseball glove and then playing with the iPhone. I freaking love that phone. By Monday morning my hands were a cramped mess from Angry Birds and Haunted Manor: Lord of Mirrors, and I hadn’t showered in two days because I couldn’t get the phone wet. I think when I get the iPhone 5 I’ll take some vacation days and do it right.

The Urban Grocer Says...

2011-03-28T23:04:00.000-04:00

Friday night started out with a drive down to Cliousclat: a small village in France, just south of Valence. My fiance and I stayed at a really sweet small hotel and had a gorgeous dinner of foie gras, scallops, and melted chocolate cake. The next day was an early rise to head out to Provence! We drove down near St Remy and spent the day planning our wedding, which is all set for this summer in a nearby village. Saturday night? We drank way too much champagne with the Parisian owners of this fantastic, bo-ho chic hotel called La Maison du Village. I'm not sure what we talked about as it was all in French but we definitely spent a lot of time on the subject of Barbie....Sunday was a boring drive back to Geneva with a stop for proper croissants, pain au chocolat, and coffee in the morning. A great weekend in the south of France. But then, aren't they always?

Nicole Says...

2011-03-22T23:27:00.005-04:00

My weekend, like to hear it, here it goes:
Friday eve I thought I would try a class at my gym called Yoga Wings. It's been there all along and I approached it, sniffed it, looked at it thru the glass door, but never made it all the way. Carpe Diem people- I LOVED LOVED LOVED it and wish I'd been doing it two years ago when I first heard of it. What was I waiting for? Yoga Wings takes place over, under, and inside a white hammock hanging in a U-shape from the ceiling. You swing in it like a circus performer, hang upside down in it like a monkey, and climb up it with strength you didn't know you had. I laughed out loud during this class. I glowed with pride at being able to backflip and climb high and do various odd poses I was asked to do. I liked it so much I went again on Sunday. Then I cooked a little sup, relaxed, and watched the tribute to deceased favorite comic Greg Giraldo. I miss him so much. The Roast of Donald Trump was not the same without GG. Did you know he was Colombian-Spanish? And a Harvard- educated lawyer? He was the best.
Saturday, I spent some time organizing myself. Most of my energy goes into doing that for others and I needed to focus on my own org needs so I took part of Sat to do it.
Following that, I went con mi companera de clase, Flamenca Josefina, to part two of the flamenco lecture I attended last week, which inspired me to restart this blog. Another fine show, I learned a lot, and it has occurred to me that I might like to tattoo some flamenco letras (lyrics) onto me at some point. I will use this post as the date I said it, and see how long it takes me to do it, if ever. Note: I have zero tattoos at present and no real intention of having any. Sat night I ate Thai with my friend Susan, always hilarious, adorable and great company. She sewed me a curtain for my bathroom that night! Whatta pal! Who does that??
Sunday I had a client who wanted to get rid of a GIANT painting on paper- a copy of a famous Matisse her friend had done and that she no longer had space for. I thought it would be fun to go lay it out on the sidewalk by the subway stop so others could enjoy it and/or take it home, rather than just stick it into a trash can. So we did. We stood around and watched people gape at it, take pics of it and admire it. Then we left. I am waiting to hear her report as to if she came back later that eve and it was gone, which is what we thought would happen. Experience has shown me that people take EVERYTHING off the street.
Then I was at Yoga Wings again, and then I ate a light din and I think did something related to Real Housewives. A satisfying weekend of work and hobbies and friends. Balance.

L.A. Confidential Says...

2011-03-22T21:23:00.000-04:00

Let’s see…Thursday was St. Patrick’s Day, the most Holy of Days. So, we celebrated in traditional Irish fashion by wearing green to a friend’s party and downing Guinness and Baileys. There might have been some corned beef and cabbage there as well, can’t be sure. Friday I played racquetball and lost miserably due to the lingering effects of the night before. Saturday I had a bachelorette party for one of my ex-girlfriends. She’s marrying a man. Half the bridal party is made up of women she’s dated. It was quite a scene. That’s one helluva understanding fiancé.

Queen Diane Says...

2011-03-21T22:28:00.001-04:00

Enjoyed a trip to the Hamptons on Friday. Sag Harbor, where I go every year for a long summer weekend, no longer has a metaphysical store! Can't believe it. Things are hurtin' out there for a few places. Restaurant week in the Hamptons ended Saturday, so I had three courses for $24.95 at Michael's Restaurant on Three Mile Harbor -- osso buco, salad, and creme brulee...yum.

The Czech Center in Manhattan offered the first weekend off a three-weekend lecture/workshop series by FAMU, the Prague film school, with examples of Czech film from the '40's to the present. Future lectures take place in early April and early May. Lectures are FREE, workshops are $50 each. Pretty good price considering FAMU is the premier film school in Central Europe. Came home and watched 3:10 to Yuma that I DVR'd.

Sunday--Second day of FAMU, after a quick trip to Trader Joe's. Got home and quickly cooked up some Orange Chicken for a homeless shelter for dinner.

Sorry, my life is boring. I'm unemployed and over 50. Find me some fun people to hang with and a job and I'll be more fun!

We-R-DNA in Brooklyn Says...

2011-03-21T22:04:00.001-04:00

This was an extended weekend as I took Friday off. Sadly this was so I could put my cat Sibil down. She has had cancer and it spread to her lungs, which were filling up with fluid. I think I toed a line, where she went out without suffering much. The staff at the vet showed great sensitivity. I looked into her eyes and comforted her as the sedative put her to sleep. Her last sight was of me looking into her eyes. She was normally frightened at the vet, fighting to get back inside the carrier, but before she went under I made sure to get close to her and make her feel safe. I will never forget being her last sight and easing her passing. That was morning. I spent the day with my other cat Quijybo, who seemed to notice nothing except that he had me to himself again after 5 years. Friday night I spent with my cousin watching astonishing news of Libya and Japan.

Saturday morning the frame shop called. The picture I bought in Valparaiso, Chile was ready, looking fantastic in a Maple frame. Hanging it and doing some odds and ends about the house helped me cope with the loss of little Sibil, but every time I walked into my bedroom my instinct to visit her in her usual spot to caress her, brought tears. A hollow has opened up that will not soon close.

Sunday a few friends came by who are both talented theater techs. We game together (yes I will be 40 in September and I play D&D) and we are designing a combination kitchen dining and gaming table, which one of them has the tools (and need I add mad skilz too) to build.
The design plan is already elaborate. It’s good to have talented friends. Now technical drawings begin.

To be honest a lot of my weekend seems to have passed me by. Grief is a strange state. Time passes and you become exhausted from the existential labor though you have physically done little.

Adrienne in Kenya Says...

2011-03-20T23:23:00.003-04:00

Well the weekend is almost over in Homa Bay, Kenya. Here is what I did:

I finished writing a proposal to maybe begin a community education component to improve Doctors Without Border's prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV. 1 in 6 people is HIV+ here, but people are very guarded about it. The ladies must get permission to do most everything including take medicine to prevent their children from getting the virus. "Husband" in the local language literally means "owner of my thoughts".....I don't need to go on I think.

I drank wine and danced around my room a bit to Rhianna.

Looked at Lake Victoria and the mountains for about 5 minutes. Then back to work.

What else. Sadly another coworker returned to Japan as his town was hardest hit by the earthquake madness. Crazy that MSF is thinking about doing a mission in JAPAN. With all the nuclear scares, i felt a bit bad about our collective american history and that the japanese are comparing now to WWII.

Watched some episodes of Glee...again. We are talking about getting a tv and cable, so we can watch news and sports and maybe diversify our dinner menu via Food Network.

DJ Rousseau Russo in NJ Says...

2011-03-20T22:56:00.000-04:00

Went to a BBQ joint that also makes pizza and has live blues on Friday night and had to leave when my six yr-old son and his 'girlfriend' were dancing in the middle of the restaurant and kept knocking into people.

Spent a large part of Sunday trying to find out what crawled under my hot tub and died. Could not find it, but did track down the scent of another dead animal under another part of my deck. Now we have to pay for someone to crawl around down there and rip shit up until they find the dead critters.

Adrian in South Slope Says...

2011-03-18T21:12:00.001-04:00

Something that's great about owning a backyard is the ability to compost...
We looked at manufactured compost barrels and rotation units and indoor worm bins etc etc and to be quite honest they all looked like too much hard work. So a little bit of RTFM and the manual read "...to paraphrase a popular bumper sticker, 'compost happens'!"

So last weekend we reserved a section of the garden and started building it up using cheap posts from Home Depot which I was able to get cut for us in 2' lengths. The pieces of wood were from sustainable forests and meant for outdoor/garden use, so there has been no chemicals used in the preservation etc.

I removed about 6 inches of top-soil and then started layering with the leftover manure, a layer of soil etc until the soil I removed was put back.

Now all green kitchen waste (that means uncooked and no proteins) is just layered on the top and we turn it every now and again.

One thing we have been told is that coffee is acceptable including the filter (we used the unbleached kind anyway) and also good to ward off ground animals, so we'll see later if the local raccoons like a cup of morning joe or not!

Charlie in Fleet, England Says....

2011-03-18T09:51:00.000-04:00

Why do I do it to myself?

Friday evening left the office early to travel towards London to support Harlequins play Newcastle in the semi final of the Cup. I went with a friend who supports Newcastle so there was a bit of rivalry between us. We agreed that whoever lost would drive the other to the final next weekend. I was very confident that Harlequins would win so was happy to make the bet. Unfortunately Harlequins lost by one point so not only do I have to go to watch a team I don't support play another team I don't support, I've got to drive my friend there and back as well! Despite the loss I had a great time and ended up drinking far too much beer and got home very late.

Saturday was a really emotional day. Having taken my dog Jensy out for her morning walk I had to take my cat to the vets as she hasn't been eating very much and shes been losing weight. The vets initial thoughts were that she had something wrong with either her liver or gall bladder so it was decided that she should be kept in for some blood tests and a scan. Unfortunately the prognosis was not good and although "Itsy" is too weak to have a biopsy on her liver her bloods and the scan indicate she has the feline equivilent of cirrhosis - I did ask how that was possible as shes not a heavy drinker apart from the odd "White Russian"! So it seems that for the time being she is on meds and vitamins to boost her white blood cells and some other medical stuff that I didn't understand. Fingers crossed for her check up next week.

On a lighter note although I wasn't in the best frame of minds I did manage to watch some of the Italy v France rugby match - A great game and well done Italy! A completely unexpected result and any time the French get beaten is a happy occassion! Well done to the Welsh as well for beating Ireland in a very close match. Saturday night was spent having a "few"drinks at a house warming party for one of my friends from work. For some reason the Spiced Rum was flowing really rather well and apparently l left at about 4am. No wonder I didn't feel 100% when I got up at 9 to take the hound out!!

Sunday was spent in a bit of a daze but I did manage to go to "The Cellar Bar" in Fleet with a few friends to watch England just scrape a win over Scotland. The Cellar Bar is great for watching sport as it has loads of screens and very comfortable sofas and chairs, it's pizzas are also superb. Ideal for a Sunday afternoon if your feeling a little under the weather!!

By 7pm I had had enough and was wondering how I would be able to squeeze in another weekend to recover from the weekend. Needless to say I'm sure that a few days back at work will give me enough time to recover before next weekend...

Nicole Asks...

2011-03-16T17:05:00.002-04:00

QD, what was in the free lunch? Don't you know there's no such thing as a free lunch?
How'd you hear about it, and I want to come along next time!

Queen Diane Says...

2011-03-16T17:03:00.001-04:00

I went out for the first time in months. I finished writing my dissertation and now I'm free for 3 weeks. I had a free lunch at a church, made by Hungarian women. I went out for lunch at Le Pain Quotidien the day before, and read books, and listened to my iPod. Not having been able to do that for 3 months, it felt like I just got out of prison or boot camp.

Carles in Barcelona Says...

2011-03-15T21:17:00.001-04:00

Friday.......I’m in love!

After living 90% of my time during the last five months in sunny Panamá City, I’m landed in Barcelona on a rainy monday. Just watching the landscape of the city over me through my brother’s car, who picked me up at the airport, I realised again how proud I am of the city I live in and how special it is.

Tuesday to friday I was working hard with lots of jet lag, but the moment finally arrived. Friday afternoon!, at five o’clock I had to pick up my babies at school!

Punctually in there, I realised how my daughter had changed in a few months...as always she came running to me and screaming PAPA PAPA, jumped all over me and gave me such a strong hug, there were not less than a hundred kisses in that holding, you can be sure.

We went home, picked my gfriend and went to IKEA. I hate that place, so I returned home while they did their shopping! You know what time you get in but you never know how long your shopping will last inside that place, and I can’t deal with that......

Had a coffee and.........back to school again. At 6 30 my son was leaving school, another big hug, lots of kisses, picking up girls at IKEA and then back home.

I can tell that, I’m a good cooker, booooooo hehe, I do enjoy a lot eating but also working on that so we had hand made pizza for dinner, some tv, school homework and went to bed exhausted.

Having children is, without a doubt the best thing I have ever done in my life. That was my main thinking while going to bed.

Saturday, basketball game but only for the men. The two girls stayed home while I went to the beautiful Sant Pol de Mar, where my 8 years old baby had his game. We lost the match, but there were lots of fun. Imagine ten four feet people chasing a ball during forty minutes....hehehe

Dinner at home, I cook again, spaghetti bolognesa, just like that: put the onions, the pig meat and............hey I’m not telling you my secret recipe until you come here to taste it!!! Booo again!!!!

It’s SIESTA time. Here in spain, after eating your body is trained to sleep. It becomes necessary! I can’t understand why this is not universal yet......Some playstation and chess challenges after, we do needed to eat again, some salad was ok, imagine who made it......a couple of movies on the sofa and went to bed again! What a hard life.

Sunday, golfing time, only for men again.....my daughter never pays attention to golfing and my gfriend is learning yet. My son and I stayed at the range in Castillo de Godmar, an old castle where they arranged the gardens as an pitch & putt course, nice nice place.

My son reached the 100 meters sign ahead with his new club, I’m so proud, he started playing at the age of two and his swing is amazing now.

Time to eat again, another movie and more playstation games, at 7 pm I had to return them to their mother’s house. I was so happy because of sharing my time with them and I can’t wait to see them again in two weekends........

I promise to write again next weekend, so you can see how I deal with my spare time without my children. I think I’m going to ski in Andorra, I’ll let you know!

Charlie in Texas Says...

2011-03-15T21:06:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday was the first time this season that I could go fishing all day without any distractions. I went 35 miles north-west of Dallas to Grapevine Lake which holds one of my favorite spots to fish and not be disturbed. Although the day of the week and season were perfect, the wind was nothing short of miserable. My head was completely wind burned after a few hours and I didn’t catch anything for the first five, but I stuck with it and eventually caught a channel catfish. That night on my way into the shower I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and was horrified. I looked like the drumming puppet from the Muppets…you know the one. He yells a lot.

Sunday I slept in until around eleven, only because that was as late as my dog Shelby would allow. I went downstairs and fired up the French press and made a huge breakfast.

After breakfast it was time to take my truck into get washed and change its oil. The guy at the carwash said that “Leather scent” was on national backorder and I would have to go with “clean car scent” instead. Bastard.

Eli in Buenos Aires Says...

2011-03-15T21:01:00.000-04:00

I'm currently in Mendoza drinking Malbec. I just jumped into an unheated pool and Lady Gaga is bumping on the TV. My feet are really cold and i'm looking forward to dinner.

L.A. Confidential Says...

2011-03-14T17:09:00.001-04:00

After getting some bad news, the lady and I decided to go skiing and cheer ourselves up. On the first run of the day I twisted my knee in the wrong direction and had to be taken down by snow patrol. FML.

I THINK I AM BACK!!!

2011-03-12T23:30:00.002-05:00

Today, Saturday, March 12th, 2011 I decided to cheer myself up by going to a flamenco lecture/show at Lotus Music And Dance, which included the top notch dance stylings of my flamenco teacher, Sol, La Argentinita (the little Argentinian), who I hand-picked from the NYC flamenco scene to train with, and who is beautiful and dynamico. At the moment she completed performing today, I found myself bursting into tears! I was crying during the show. Flamenco is the most beautiful and exciting and impassioned thing in the world. I was so happy with this activity this Saturday, the same day that I saw the first purple crocuses poking out of the ground, that I was inspired, after 3 years away, to relaunch my blog- "What Did You Do This Weekend?" The catch is that YOU contribute to the blog. I send out what I did, and/or a request for you fun people I know to post to me about what you got yourself into and out of over the weekend...you send me your description to nicoleabr@aol.com, I post it, and I post supporting links to persons, places, and things you did in the right-hand column, so others can find the info and do them too! I have gotten posts from around the world on this blog, and in different languages. And it doesn't matter if this weekend you watched paint dry and killed ten flies, I WANT TO KNOW! THE WORLD WANTS TO KNOW!!! Send me your plans and let's give other people a fighting chance to be as cool as you!!!!

Just Friends, People

2008-08-12T18:01:00.003-04:00

Ricardo has a beautiful wife and two gorgeous lovely daughters. I am just his Queen and he is just my King. No big deal. Take it easy.

Nicole

Ricardo in Panama Says...

2008-08-12T18:00:00.001-04:00

My Queen. I was 9 days in Colombia with my daughters and my wife, I was really very happy. I returned to Panama on Sunday and I see them again in December. I am a king very fortunate to have them as my family and to have you as my queen.

Loving Kilgour

2008-08-12T17:58:00.002-04:00

Thanks for your post, man! He is right about Fuerzabruta, I have seen it too and if one were on shrooms one might actually get up there and start swimming or flying around the room. THe program should ccome with a warning.

Kilgour Says...

2008-08-12T17:57:00.000-04:00

My weekend usually starts on Wednesday but I took a rest and started on Thursday night. Simona and I went to see Fuerzabruta in Union Square (same people who did De La Guarda). Amazing mix of dance, world music, acrobatics and all around athleticism. Would probably go GREAT with mushrooms. Then went on to see my buddy Kirk DJ at the “FREAKS & GEEKS” party at Identity. I can deal with ‘freaks’... I can deal with “geeks”... But they forgot to add “Losers” to the title cause that’s all that were there. Actually might as well just drop the freaks part and the geeks part. I went to see “LOSERS” at Identity on Thursday night. Friday was Heavy Metal Happy Hour then ended up back in Brooklyn, taking requests on the acoustic and leading a late night rock-out-sing-along that ended up on the rooftop. No, I’m sorry ma’am... I don’t CARE if you’re sleeping and no we WON’T keep it down. Bitch.

Did You Catch That?

2008-08-12T17:55:00.001-04:00

Our new poster, Adrienne, lives in Lesotho Africa!!!! Three cheers for Adrienne, living over there, working with the government to help teach HIV positive mothers from passing the virus on to their children.

World Cup 2010!!

Adrienne in Lesotho Says...

2008-08-12T17:54:00.000-04:00

I washed the dishes friday night (noteworthy because us wealthy foreigners living in africa have cleaning ladies, but i washed them myself even though she was coming the next morning) than i drank a bottle of wine to celebrate myself washing the dishes.
Then on saturday I rode a horse in the mountains. that was hot and a little frightening.
Then on sunday i went for a latte (a HUGE deal for me here) and listened to the audio version of the economist, which takes 2 hours to download with african speed internet. But its much easier than reading it online.

Amber-Lea Says...

2008-08-12T17:53:00.001-04:00

Saw a Cure cover band at Highline Ballroom drank lots of tequila had Smartfood for breakfast went to the beach grilled corn on the cob made French toast for breakfast laid on the beach swam in the ocean visited Target ($9.99 polo shirt fits great) into NYC for dinner at the Hummus Place on St. Mark's BEST mojito - weak, but extremely minty and blended! - back home fell into bed exhausted.

Lea Lorien Says...

2008-08-12T17:52:00.001-04:00

Well I was on a float for gay pride this weekend singing my single "How Would You Feel!" The rain was pretty fierce so me and a dragqueen named Ericka huddled under our rainbow for cover, considering we both had beat faces and fabulous dresses on lol. It was my first float and I had a blast!

KInkle Says...

2008-08-12T17:50:00.000-04:00

For once I had a really action-packed weekend, probably the most action-packed
weekend I've had since I've become a mom except for when we leave the child with
the grandparents to go out of town. ANYWAY Thursday I went with the hubby to see
Devo in McCarren Park which is the first show I've seen there. The Tom Tom Club
opened which was pretty cool because I have only seen them once before. It
didn't beat the show a few years ago in Central Park but it was good and full of
a nice mix of olds & youngs and surprisingly empty. I'm thinking I'm going to
hit some of those Jelly NYC pool party shows over the summer as well.
After we had some drinks with a friend of mine and I was very hungover the next
day. Consequently we stayed in Friday night and watched La Vie En Rose. Damn
that girl really deserved the Oscar. It was amazing it didn't even seem like the
same person, especially since i had only seen her looking dishy on the red
carpet.
It was a very disjointed movie but her performance was great and now I know all
kinds of stuff about Edith Piaf.
Saturday we couldn't get our shit together (running late, got lost, etc) but we
went out to Long Beach to see a friend who has a beach cottage there and meet
his new baby. Unfortunately by the time we got there it was kind of rainy but i
wasn't exactly dying to put my butt in a bikini so I was fine with that. We
never even touched down on the beach, we just stayed in and had a kind of weird
vegetarian meal and got pretty drunk just hanging out with my friend, his sister
and her friends. We spent a good portion of the evening watching my kid freak
out to this album my husband just produced. He was jumping up and down and
moonwalking and everything, he loves that rock and roll. We didn't get home until
like 2:30 am which is pretty late when you're dragging the kid home at that
hour.
SO Sunday I was invited to a screening of the Joy Division documentary. I've
known one of the guys from New Order since the 80s and he was speaking then
DJing the party after. It was at the New Museum where i had not been before but
the general consensus is the art sucks there so I didn't check it out. We had
some time to kill so we went to Cafe Habana and had a couple of bloody marys and
a ridiculously quick meal because the service is so pokey then saw the film. It
was really well done particularly if you are a Joy Division fan but I'm moving
Control down on the Netflix list because I don't think I can handle seeing the
same story twice.
The Q&A was very funny and it was really nice to see my old friend even though I
didn't get to spend too much time with him. They had an after party in Nolita at
The Randolph which I guess is a hotel but it was a really weird set up...no
speakers in the front of the tiny bar, a bunch of cold burgers and salad with no
forks set up in front of the DJ booth.. weird! It was fun just hanging out
though and the cocktails were free. We stayed til about 11:30-midnight then had
to go home to relieve the sitter but all in all it was a very eventful weekend
for me.

Mom Says...

2008-08-12T17:48:00.001-04:00

Jim bought a bright red 2007 Saturn Sky roadster with 7,000 miles on it. WOW! We traded my 2004 Corolla as part of the deal, and Jim gave me his 2006 Subaru. He is one "old" happy camper. The car is really cool.

Carlo Says...

2008-08-12T17:47:00.000-04:00

Worked on clearing my townhouse out to get it ready for sale, my neck had been seriously bothering me for a week, so as one could imagine a weekend of moving furniture resulted in my next and shoulder muscles feeling like they've been shredded a week full of mind numbing pain so far...
I seriously hope your weekend was more fun than mine.

Hock Says...

2008-07-01T22:46:00.001-04:00

Kendell Chambers is gone, went to her going away party friday. EVERYONE was asking about you.

Lea Lorien Says...

2008-07-01T22:45:00.001-04:00

Kinkle Says...

2008-06-30T21:32:00.000-04:00

For once I had a really action-packed weekend, probably the most action-packed weekend I've had since I've become a mom except for when we leave the child with the grandparents to go out of town. ANYWAY Thursday I went with the hubby to see Devo in McCarren Park which is the first show I've seen there. The Tom Tom Club opened which was pretty cool because I have only seen them once before. It didn't beat the show a few years ago in Central Park but it was good and full of a nice mix of olds & youngs and surprisingly empty. I'm thinking I'm going to hit some of those Jelly NYC pool party shows over the summer as well. After we had some drinks with a friend of mine and I was very hungover the next day. Consequently we stayed in Friday night and watched La Vie En Rose. Damn that girl really deserved the Oscar. It was amazing it didn't even seem like the same person, especially since i had only seen her looking dishy on the red carpet. It was a very disjointed movie but her performance was great and now I know all kinds of stuff about Edith PiafSaturday we couldn't get our shit together (running late, got lost, etc) but we went out to Long Beach to see a friend who has a beach cottage there and meet his new baby. Unfortunately by the time we got there it was kind of rainy but i wasn't exactly dying to put my butt in a bikini so I was fine with that. We never even touched down on the beach, we just stayed in and had a kind of weird vegetarian meal and got pretty drunk just hanging out with my friend, his sister and her friends. We spent a good portion of the evening watching my kid freak out to this album my husband just produced. He was jumping up and down and moonwalking and everything he loves that rock and roll. We didn't get home until like 2:30 am which is pretty late when you're dragging the kid home at that hour. SO Sunday I was invited to a screening of the Joy Division documentary. I've known one of the guys from New Order since the 80s and he was speaking then DJing the party after. It was at the New Museum where i had not been before but the general consensus is the art sucks there so I didn't check it out. We had some time to kill so we went to Cafe Habana and had a couple of bloody marys and a ridiculously quick meal because the service is so pokey then saw the film. It was really well done particularly if you are a Joy Division fan but I'm moving Control down on the Netflix list because I don't think I can handle seeing the same story twice. The Q&A was very funny and it was really nice to see my old friend even though I didn't get to spend too much time with him. They had an after party in Nolita at The Randolph which I guess is a hotel but it was a really weird set up...no speakers in the front of the tiny bar, a bunch of cold burgers and salad with no forks set up in front of the DJ booth.. weird! It was fun just hanging out though and the cocktails were free. We stayed til about 11:30-midnight then had to go home to relieve the sitter but all in all it was a very eventful weekend for me.

Mom Says...

2008-04-08T21:10:00.000-04:00

Last weekend on Sat. I was invited to participate in the 3rd anniversary celebration of Barks and Biscuits, a Cottonwood, Arizona Pet Store. I had a small table outside of the entrance, set up with my new sign, "IMAGINE YOUR PET---painted by Linda," 3 prints of actual watercolor portraits of pets that I did for people, and my business cards. Met lots of pets. Jim brought Willy, our wire-haired dachsund, over for an hour or so. Along with being my ambassador, he got lots of treats from the pet shop owners.

On Sun., it was another exhibit day, when several artist members of the Northern Arizona Watercolor Society held an outdoor exhibit and sale. Yours truly was a participant.

Afterwards, Jim and I took Willy to the dog park.

Lisa Says...

2008-04-07T20:03:00.003-04:00

Saturday night, after selling a balls-load of soap (here, I'm pimping myself out: http://whiteweaselsoaps.etsy.com/) I used some proceeds to take us out to dinner at Blossom. Delicious, although the appetizers are so good that the meals can't really beat it. Then we walked around and went to Counter for dessert. I highly recommend the raw pistachio tart and the chocolate tart- if i didn't already have a sex life, they would easily take the place of it- in fact, I'd rate those desserts higher than half of my former partners in terms of ability to please...

Sunday, my parents came over and brought me a little chocolate cake with marshmallow animals with big eyes all over it (you can say awwwww, its ok.) and we went to a middle eastern restaurant in Montclair, NJ. Then they gave me a wad of cash, some lotion, and a little note saying that my Ferret Nation Cage is in transit. Tomorrow I get to haul all 90lbs of it up the stairs. Yay!

Joolia Says...

2008-04-03T23:58:00.001-04:00

Friday I woke up in Farnham, Surrey (south of London) and it was crap weather. My boyfriend Adrian and I both had colds and the heat hadn’t quite warmed up the guest bedroom at his Mother’s house. We were supposed to “Do London” that day. We lay in bed, hunkered down with body head and sniffles and read our books for an hour or two. His Mum brought us tea to the door…good ole Mum.

Finally we decided it’s now or never and we had to get moving if we were going to see any of London. As we started to drive in around 1pm, the clouds broke and the sun started to shine thanks to the ever changing English weather. In less than an hour we pulled up right next to the London Eye, parked and walked right on, barely a wait. You could see for miles through our egg shaped pod. Big Ben kids, Parliament.

We then walked over a bridge to the afore mentioned clock and gov’mnt building. It really was beautiful. Then we swung by Westminster Abbey as we were heading to Buckingham Palace by way of some really beautiful gardens. By the way, swans are freakin’ everywhere in England. Who knew?

Snap snap, smile smile everywhere, quickly. Just past Prince Charles’ crib there is a changing of the guard ceremony. Then we hop a London black taxi off to Cheyney Walk to see homes where famous people lived and because it was nearby to our Gordon Ramsey dinner extravaganza. I saw where Oscar Wilde used to live. Speaking of Oscars, the name of the restaurant…Foxtrot Oscar…for those who don’t know Gordon’s proclivity to profanity it means F*ck Off. It was one of the best meals I’d ever had. A beautiful bottle of English Rose + Wild boar pâté for apps and lamb in a béchamel sauce = Perfection.

We then took off to the Tower of London where we witnessed a 700 yr old ceremony of the locking of the Tower called “The Ceremony of the Keys”. It has only recently been shown to the public and has been exactly the same for all these years. It was just about one of the coolest things I’ve ever witnessed.

Saturday we got on a plane and came home. *sigh*

Amber-Lea Says...

2008-04-03T23:57:00.000-04:00

I had sex four times, gambled with two Mexicans and played nine games of Big Buck Hunter Pro.

It Runs in the Family

2008-04-01T13:53:00.001-04:00

Kink- your kid is a drummer already?! Get him his own drum set- yeah right like you would stand for that!
Rum pum pum pum!

Nicole

Kinkle Says...

2008-04-01T13:51:00.001-04:00

Usually by Friday I am so fried from the corporate work week that I'm ready to get up to no good and last week was no exception. My husband is working with an Australian band producing their record so we had a big dinner with them at Dumont near the studio in Williamsburg. It's the first time I went there and their back room is great for large person parties.. a nice cozy little nook where you rarely see any other customers. I split the Dumont salad and crab cakes with the hubby, then had ravioli all of which was delicious. I also had two pomegranate martinis and a glass of red wine before the band, managers and assorted friends were ready to go back to the studio and finish. At that point I was like, "I don't want to go home alone!" so my two year old and myself repaired to the studio and hung out with the Aussies. There is nothing I like better than being the only girl in a pack of guys even if you do eventually get ignored. We all talked and drank and talked and drank, and the lead singer played a few songs for me on his guitar then the two year old passed out (from tiredness, not drinking!) but we kept talking and drinking then when the toddler woke up and gave us all a look like "WHAT's GOING ON?" we figured it was a sign to finally go home. I hope he won't have horrible memories of mom and dad being so irresponsible. But you know what? Sometimes you just have to do stuff like that or you would get no socializing done whatsoever.
Saturday I was pretty alcoholically injured and it occurred to me that the guys we were hanging with didn't SEEM like they were in their 20s but they were in fact and that was why they could hang out like that and I no longer can. We stayed in, ordered pizza and I watched the season finale of Nip/Tuck Season 3. I'm totally obsessed with that show and am working my way through the past seasons. It's so over-the-top and ridiculous I love it!
Sunday we went to my husband's brother's place on Long Island for an Easter Egg hunt for the kids. They have three kids, his other brother has two kids and we have one so it was a total kidfest. I was still kind of hurting so i ate the Easter feast (lamb & Greek salad) & had a few glasses of red wine to try and just feel normal again. All the kids had a blast and we left after the baby jammed out on their drumset for an hour or so, ready to do the long, drawn-out work week once again.

Renonono 911

2008-04-01T13:47:00.003-04:00

I saw Reno:911 in the theater and fell asleep immediately, I woke up now and then, saw a big beached whale, and some group wank scenes. Pretty much slept thru the whole t hing though.
Some days later I picked up a newspaper to read a review of the movie to see what I missed, and immediately fell asleep again. Me and this movie were not meant to be.

Nicole

Betty Hollywood Says...

2008-04-01T13:45:00.001-04:00

I went to the movies on Friday solo. At Grauman's Theatre which is rich with history and unbelievably beautiful. Too bad NO ONE goes there. In a theatre that seats 1,000 (where the first Oscars were held), there were maybe 20 people tops in the audience. Sad. The movie, however, was funny. I saw Drillbit Taylor becuase Owen Wilson makes me laugh and I hooked up with the director at a party once so I wanted to see what's what. It's a lot darker than they make it out to be in the commercials and I highly recommend it.
Saturday, I had big plans to get a thai massage and some writing done, however the people downstairs in my 1920's bungalow apartment were making such a racket, I jumped onto craigslist and started trolling for new spaces to live. I lined up five to view and spent a few hours driving around town generally being disappointed at what's out there. Wouldn't you know it, I was happy to come home. Interesting approach to appreciate where you live, yeah? I was feeling sorry for myself having just broken up with my boyfriend so I fell asleep for a couple of hours in the early evening which always makes me feel super icky. I had plans to hit up hottie promoter Jenn Laskey's Bday party at 86, a very cool speakeasy/cabaret located in a basement in hollywood. If you're in L.A., make plans to patronize it. Alas, the ickiness won out and I watched television instead.
I went to bed super early and woke up at 5am on sunday, headed to the gym, grabbed a coffee at the Bean and went home to prepare for my friend's bridal shower in Malibu. I carpooled with some other friends and we spent the next few hours opening gifts and stuffing our faces with homemade cupcakes in the amazing Malibu house. I got in at 6pm and wrote some more for my book. I joined a trial program at Netflix and got Reno 911:Miami as my first flick, popped it in the laptop and watched it in bed falling asleep at 10pm and having strange dreams of being shot in the brain. sexy weekend, huh?

L.A. Confidential Says...

2008-02-28T00:50:00.000-05:00

Ok....I really should start writing these every week so I have some method of remembering how I spent my early 30's. Let's see...I was in San Francisco on Friday for a video game conference. I was there to shoot some interviews on camera but I recently had surgery on my eyes (don't ask) so I have two big shiners where Irish eyes a smilin' used to be. So, that being said, clearly I needed professional help before appearing on camera. And by "professional help" I mean "make-up artist", of course. So, when the clock struck noon and she hadn't showed- I felt a mimosa was in order to make up for the camera ugly. Three hours (and...a...few) mimosas later, it was time to leave the Hotel. Oh - the hotel, by the way, is the W which normally is one of my faves- but they did a terrible re-design and now their motif is Asian Fishbowl. I suggest the St. Regis if you're heading to SF. Anyway- off to the airport to hop a plane to Park City Utah for a weekend of Skiing. I get to Utah after a 2 hour on flight conversation with the elderly Mormon next to me. Russ was a super nice man and I think I convinced him homosexuality is ok- but DEFINITELY not caffeine. I de-plane and drive to my friends house, a few more drinks and off to sleep. On Saturday skiing was a bit too energetic for me so I had my first hot rock massage. Great idea but I have a scorched-in rockburn on my lower back...I guess that's the trade off. Saturday night was girls night (as opposed to any other night???) and 6 of us hit the town. After many hours of good times and a few of the girls convincing me it was a BRILLIANT idea to go in the outdoor jacuzzi - remember it's about two degrees in Utah- I decided it was probably best to head home. Sunday I actually made it to the Mountain. Beautiful conditions and amazing skiing. Then I was persuaded to sit for an hour on a TimeShare tour for $150 cash and 2 free lift tickets. Sold! Sunday night was OSCARS OF COURSE!....then back to Seattle on Monday. Oh- first I did a shoot in Provo Utah on Monday morning but thats not all that exciting. Stay tuned for next weekend.

Jon Friedman Says...

2008-02-28T00:49:00.000-05:00

I ate chinese food twice.

My Past Weekend

2008-02-27T23:52:00.002-05:00

My Past Weekend began midday Friday, just after the snowfall. I went to get Turkish food and to see Cliff, the fellow I traveled to Buenos Aires with last July, who stayed in South America until very recently. This was our first meeting in months and there was a lot to catch up on over Turkish soda. He gave me a fab track jacket from Peru that I asked him to find me when he was down there. It looks like the puma font but it says PERU instead and in place of the leaping puma there is a chillin' llama. It's the second dopest track jacket in the world and I also own the first. So Cliff and I went to his place and bonded over episodes of How I Met Your Mother. I am not a person to watch sitcoms and don't follow much family, mainstream programming, but if you are not checking in on this show you are sleeping. It's HILAR!!!
A little while later my old college chum Patrick showed up in town and Meg came over with beers. The boys hadn't met before but they got on well- they're two old lads with similar crocked senses of humor. Meg peaced out and we went out to Grape and Grains- a cool little spot with a nice beer list and some slammin' margherita pizza- we had three pies. That is because one tiny slice fell off the second plate and they ordered us a new pie to replace it, and then decided they were just going to toss the incomplete pie in the trash so why not give it to us anyhow. Good deal! They get my props- check out the links in the right hand column to get the info on the place. Also the room was occupied by us and a crew of Portuguese from Portugal. Friendly, intelligent, slow speaking, kindly bunch of guys. Cliff and I were all over them, with our love of Latin people, food and drink.
Bonus! The flatscreen high up on the wall was showing The Outsiders. I don't remember C. Thomas Howell being so damn fiery hot! I didn't know who to look at first. Even some of the extra gang members who never got famous were sizzlers. Who are they? Are they my age now? Call me!! Then we hustled ourselves out, walked Senor Cliff home, went back to mine andhit the hay.
Sat. am I awoke and decided to look at the Jackass 24 hour takeover on MTV for about one of the hours. Maybe that was Sunday? I don't know. All I know was that the show was a jumbled mess of unfunny freestyle chat and antics, they showed a Smiths video which was rad, and they shmeared Nair all over one of their homie's hair, didn't let it sit long enough, and then pulled huge chunks of his hair out of the top, causing bloody patches on that part of his head, leaving the sides long like bozo, and then Steve-O ate a clump of it.
So that opened my eyes wide enough to get out of the bed, and then Pat and I goofed around, quizzed him for his spanish midterm he was goingto take Monday (he failed- sorry P!), bought the domain name for my new business website from a host service in Chile (whatever), had some lunch, and got ready to see Manon Lescaut at the Metropolitan Opera house with Amber and Meg. We all met up there, Pat squiring his ladies three, and when it came time to pay Patrick back for purhasing all the tickets, he refused to take our money! He had never even met Amber before, Meg only once, and hadn't been in touch with me for well over a decade! What a guy! A prince among men! Everybody needs to be friends with this guy! And he is thinking of moving here from D.C. so everybody can! Well not everybody, he doesn't like that many people.
Anyway, the opera was lovely! Especially the second act, set in a massive French bedroom suite, with the characters and room dressed in the Dangerous Liaisons look. I love that period. What period is it? If you know, leave a comment, thanks! The singing was marvelous, the audience filled with many younger people which was a surprise, the drama and acting was executed very well, and the subtitles came in spanish and german too! After a while I began to read the subtitles in spanish and see if I knew what was being said. I did pretty well, and also learned some new high drama words and phrases, like: What am I saying, so many tears, I am going crazy, never forget me, etc. I will be certain to incorporate those phrases down at the Spanish restaurant next time I eat there. Afterwards Amber peaced out and P, M and I went to the West Vill to eat more pizza and drink some beers. Two staff members approved our request to go get pizza and bring it inside to eat since the kitchen was closed. 1/3 of the way through my second slice the manager came over and told me it was against policy to do this and I had to go outside in the frio to eat it. Bitches and hos! He didn't react when I told him that I had respectfully asked if we could do this and that his own staff gave us the green light. He took it all out on me. Then later the waitress came over again and never said it was her bad. Sometimes I hate everybody. The place was the Greenwich Village Bistro. Noone go there now, and it doesn't get a link in the right hand column either. We wanted to go to Yama anyway.
Sunday we went shopping on Lafayette Street bc P wanted to acquire some dark jeans. He found a pair of black ones at G-Star Raw and proceeded to buy two pairs of them. The man knows what he wants!
After, we went to Cafe Esquina for corn and chicken tortas. Gat damn delicious. I like the taco stand part better actually but I did enjoy my brunch. I recommend the establishment, even if they do have these huge photos of masked guerillas on all the walls- makes the place look like its being ambushed!
Next I walked P to the subway so he could head to Penn Station. Yes, fancy Pat takes the Acela train when he could feasibly take the Chinatown bus for $35 RT. He won't stand for the aroma of urinalcake and that is that for that. Hell, if I could afford the Acela I suppose I'd take it too. Pat is a baller. Then I went on to Amber's bday party at a dive bar in the East Vill. I am not going to shout it out because 1. they are all the same 2. I don't enjoy a dive bar 3. you all know it anyway and have probably puked there. Even with my left wrist in a brace due to my fracture sustained whilst snowboarding, I managed to do my admirable dart tricks with my other hand and dazzle the crowd. Cliff appeared and we left to go to his apt. and watch more How I Met Your Mother, which from now on I will refer to as HIMYM. Many laffs later (I'm for real! It's totally funny! Trust!) I bounced out of there as I was disinterested in watching any Oscars broadcast. I read my book and melted into slumber, resting up before my casting job this week, auditioning improv actors for a new IFC series. ps- I met Peter Scolari!

Betty Hollywood Says...

2007-10-16T23:49:00.000-04:00

friday, I had a ghetto l.a. bday party on the patio of el cid. ended up getting rained out. and rain, in l.a. ?? oy. everyone took off before the midnite hour. we ended up at justin's recording studio, chillin, drinking and watching the rain. sunni and I got home around 3am and slept until 1pm the next day. we got up on saturday and headed to an l.a. galaxy game where we were invited by shoe designer faryl robin. we got to see very cute fall shoes and drink margaritas in the event suite box with a bundle of beckham sightings. sunday, I headed to fashion week for my front row seat at the sue wong show. it was to bed early for my monday morning call with my "how do I look?" shoot. whew. what a weekend!

Lisa Says...

2007-10-16T15:14:00.000-04:00

Call me a lame-o, I don't care, but I went apple pickin'. And pumpkin pickin'. And I went to pacem interris, the sculpture garden I used to go to in high school when I used to skip school.I highly recommend these 2 farms, only an hour and a half outside of the city:
Pochuck Valley Farms (for the best apple picking) Pennings Farm Market (for the best pumpkins.)
These are in Vernon, NJ and Warwick NY. About 20 minutes from each other. Both of these have nice little stores where you can buy hot mulled cider and donuts and all sorts of pies and yummies. Plus, the foliage up there is great. I grew up in this area, and while I'm glad I don't live there because it would make commuting hell, its nice to go back.There's an awesome walk along the appalachian trail only a couple miles from pochuck farms. The first mile of it is just a simple boardwalk through the corn fields, then you walk through a field full of angry cows (I can send you a youtube link for proof.) If you're driving, a 5 minute drive from pennings is pacem in terris, as I mentioned above- it's a nice little place. Bonus points, if you hang around warwick long enough, across the street from pennings farm is the warwick drive in.
PS- If you bring your young child to pennings, which has some animals, and don't watch your young child while he is kicking the goat in the face, I will yell at your young child. And I love kids, But I also love goats. Luckily, if you're a parent of a young child who kicks goats in the faces, I probably won't be there to yell, since I did this all this weekend.

Charlie Says...

2007-10-15T14:06:00.000-04:00

here's my weekend. i don't think my words speak the amount of frustration that consumed me. Alright so this past weekend. Start off friday night at Nicole's place, had a few beers, a failed attempt at watching Intervention because it was not on, much to Nicole' s devastation, but fun none the less. I leave there with the intention of seeing one friend for one drink around the corner from my house. That one drink somehow turned into seven. So yeah, it made for an unpleasant morning of travel on saturday. I wake up still drunk, great, mom is proud, go outside to wait for the car that is to pick me up then another guy i travel with and then onto jfk. So here's my thoughts on hired cars, if i get in one and you drive one, as a "professional" driver i expect you to know how to get places. So first the car is 15 minutes late, great start, i get in, and then they say "where to," oh great, is there not communication between the people who take the calls for cars and the people who drive them. someone called them and said hey go pick up this guy at this address then the other one at this one then go to jfk. Pen and Paper, memory, check it out. So i find the address we're going to, i tell this to the driver to only get a response of "where is that, do you know how to get there?" and i have no idea how to get there. So far we're twenty minutes into the trip and they were filled by being late to pick me up and not knowing where to go. Oh and i should mention all this hassle is to get me to Buffalo, fucking buffalo, just take a minute to absorb that, BUFFALO. After numerous wrong turns we find this guy's apartment and he gets in. Again with the remembering where we're going thing, he gets in and we get a "ok now where are we going?" Honestly. So anyways, we get to the airport, i feel like the inside of a mcdonald's toilet bowl, and just what i want to learn, my flight to BUFFALO is delayed. The delay sucked but whatever i fell asleep on the floor of the airport and felt better when waking two hours later thinking i missed the flight but only to find out it was still delayed for another hour. I get to Buffalo and we go straight to a bowling alley where we are gonna shoot a video of the comedian i work with bowling with some of the Buffalo Bills. Well only one Bill showed up, but he was a good sport and it was great. So that night we decide to go have some nice local buffalo flavor and go out to dinner. The hotel guy suggests we go to this place down the street that's like 3 floors and is a grill and a brewery. Ok great, how can you screw up grilling and beer. So this place we went to brewed all it's own beer, i've been to places like this before and was excited about it because at least there's good beer or something different. So we start trying the beers and before ask the waitress what she recommends and says everything is great blah blah blah. We try two different beers, and they were awful. Not like "oh this tastes just like cheap 2 dollar beer", no, this tasted, honest to god, like someone filled a glass up with water then tore open a packet, and on the packet it said "beer flavor." It was so so so so bad. And the food didn't help either, everything was awful. I felt bad for the 10 residents of Buffalo, because i thought they were getting duped into thinking what good beer was, and it was just awful. So whatever rest of the weekend unfolded, don't go to buffalo it's horrible. i don't know why it exists, i mean i know there's a history to it, but it's pointless. it's a dead city. So this happened today traveling back from Buffalo. So one of the guys i work with the one in the above story about the car, is kind of not so sharp, well he is smart, he went to Harvard, but when it comes to the outside world, there wasn't a book for him to study. I could go on about little things he does but lets share this one. We get off the plane today at jfk, it's early still, it was a 7am flight, we get off, he checked a bag, i did not, and i'm hungry, i say "hey i'm gonna grab something to eat you go get your bag and i'll meet you at baggage claim." sounds great- he agrees- he's on his way, i get my muffin. I head towards baggage claim, go down the stairs and baggage claim is completely empty, there are just two people there and they looked like they were picking up family. So i look around, i don't see this guy. go back up stairs see if i missed a turn, but i'm now outside the security area so this is pretty much the only place i can go. Go back down, look around some more, don't see him. I look over to one of two luggage carousels and there's one lone bag circling, and i recognize the bag, walk over to it, look at the tag, yup it's this guy's bag i'm with. So i call him, "Hey where are you?" "i'm waiting for my bag" "yeah no you're not i have it" so long story kinda short, somehow he gets lost decides to not follow the signs, ends up in a completely different terminal and goes to that baggage claim. Unbelievable. And all i wanted to do was get back home without any hassle and just be home and get in my own bed and rest. Oh well.

My Weekend

2007-10-15T13:14:00.000-04:00

Friday night I ate dinner, took a nap, and then I went off to work. I am currently casting a tv show for the Lifetime Network (hee hee I love it!) involving matchmaking and we are hitting various locations looking for single men for this project. First thing of note: NO KIDDING HERE, PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THIS BECAUSE IT IS VERY UNUSUAL: My two casting assistants, who I just met, who do not know each other, who were separately recommended to me by people at my office, are named Allison Hope and Alyson Faith!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I mean, how can I NOT do a good job here with Hope and Faith on my team. They are also both singers and are each highly entertaining. We are having zero trouble running up to guys and demanding, "Are you single?" In fact, we were in Sing Sing karaoke bar, and Allison Hope decided to sing "Hell is for Children," and she totally worked the room, walking up to everyone, making little jokes between verses, and then doing this remarkable thing: while on the mic for her song, a hot casting prospect walked in and she went up to him and asked him, amplified, "Are you single?"
A bit of a phenomenon occurred when she did that. I heard her say it, and then I observed a physically visible flinch in the room coming from all the women. It felt like a combination of, like, the women thinking how declasse it is to ask such a vulgar, forward thing, like where is this girl's GAME, to come right out with a desperate sounding question like that, and also like "Can you ask that?", like they all heard the holy grail question aloud and couldn't believe it could be asked, and were stunned and liberated to hear it actually happen, and involuntarily jumping at the notion that maybe they too could cut through all the time wasting and just sort the singles from the doubles! Incredible. It turns out that the guy was not interested in being on the show, mirroring what would probably happen if the ladies worked up the nerve now to just ask that question- the answer would always be no, or not interested. Sigh. Anyway, it was very uplifting to learn that just about everybody around you at any given time is VERY INTERESTING! Each guy we spoke with had traveled and lived lots of places, or was the fifth generation with the same name in a family line of farmers, or spoke 3 languages, or had a really cool job, or had just taken his first ride after a terrible motorcycle accident a year ago, or is a professional hula hooper. My advice to you all is to get talking to the people around you. TOTALLY flying in the face of what I previously believed, the surrounding folks stealing your barstool are actually pretty developed people. So we rounded up a bunch of excellent single male candidates, had a shot of whiskey and headed home.
Saturday night: I went out to dinner with my chums Meg and Lisa, at a hot new NYC resto called Spitzer's Corner, not to be confused with Schiller's, also a hot NYC resto but not new. The decor is really good, I think- it's all big wooden communal tables, large glass windows that tilt out into awnings, long horizontal lines, wood walls that looks like a scandinavian sauna... cozy but more industrial than quaint and you wish they put a boxy fireplace right near your table. But you don't need to worry about a fire because Spitzer's is the restaurant of hot. Every customer, hot, hot, hot. And the beer list is amazing!! Full, long, varied, flavors jumping out at you from the descriptions of the beers...mmmmm and you should go here for drinks even if you don't eat. There were people playing cards at the table, but this place is much more chic hotspot than Knights of Columbus Hall. The food was also great, we all liked our meals, and Meg's potato gratin was a standout even though it was merely a side. Before we got seated, we were waiting for Lisa to come in from Williamsburg, so we were looking around the place and our eyes spied outside the large windows a very exciting prospect! There was a temporary Steve Madden liquidation shop erected just across the street, inside which we could vividly see people going crazy throwing shoes around. Attracted like magnets, Meg and I left our name and sped across the street. NY ladies, this is the type of tip you wish you heard after it's too late so listen up: the shoes are $20 a pair, 2 for $30. This includes boots! WHAT! Yes it's true. Bring a friend if you have one, so if you both only find one pair you like, you can have one of you pay for both and get em for $15 each. The shoes were mostly summery but at these prices you must get them anyway and save them for next spring, or take them on your winter vacation. I got a pair of dark brown wooden platforms with a jade patent leather slingback, and also a pair of electric blue patent all purpose flats that are happily cutting into the back of my heels right now! Worth it!! The sale goes on til end of month I believe so roll on over there! Also, if you are a Sasquatch, they had more selection in the size 10 and 11 dept than anywhere else, so don't worry your big feet about it! After the spree and feed I went off to cast more single men. Another note for you ladies on the hunt out there: all the fellas in the karaoke bars I was looking in are not yet 30. Don't go in there for that reason if you are looking for men over 30. Just go in to SING!!! Always fun. People tear it up too, in the private rooms. I was looking thru the window of each one, hunting down a hottie I saw go downstairs that I thought would be good for the show, and I saw people leaping around on the couches, two girls holding wrists and spinning, lots of arms heads and hair flinging around...its all in the name of hipdom but at least people are abandoned of their normal too cool for schoolness you usually see. In fact they get so buckwild that there is a list on the wall of infractions that you can be heavily fined for! Smoking commands a $200 fine!!! Only you can prevent forest fires!! Where was I? Oh, right....caught up in the spirit of matchmaking, I had a male friend of mine come out to work puposely to meet one of my casting assistants, and they hit it off! No wonder I am kicking booty butt on this job, I am a natural born matchmaker!!
Sunday I slept real late after this bit of working at night. Cleaned up a bit, tried to give clothes to my roommate, she tried to buy some shirts for me, but neither end worked out. Then I went to Kuntry Karaoke at Rodeo Bar to cast some more. There are some good-ass country singers out there. My casting assistant Alyson Faith got up and sang, and the guy who runs the party came up to me afterward to tell me how good she was. I have provided a link to her website in the right hand column if you wanna see her deal. One bowl of texas chili with huge beef chunks went in the belly. Then I found this guy DJ, who turns out to be an opera singer! SCORE! (for the show I mean!) I asked him if he knew about Opera on Tap, and he said that he indeed performs there so I think I am gonna go on down and see him sing one Thursday for free in Freddy's BackRoom Bar- you are ALL invited!! I also met A. Faith's friend Stacy Styles- a prominent DJ whom I had heard of before but never seen. After parting ways with my team, I got into a cab and there were three DJ Stacy Styles stickers plastered on the cab wall. Unbelievable! I had just walked away from her!
Then I got home, fed my Donkey, looked at Dlisted.com, and hit the hizay. Cheers!

Vegan Crabcakes Do Too Exist!

2007-10-15T11:59:00.000-04:00

A reader wrote in to inquire where Lisa Says et up her delicious vegan crabcakes in Maryland. He googled around and could not find them anywhere. Lisa Says was kind enough to supply him with the place to get them. Here it is:

One World Café

And, bien sur, a link has been provided for you in the right hand column to go and see what else is on their menu!

Nicole

Lisa Says...

2007-10-04T17:24:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I ate sweet market-fresh vegetables at “Vegetate” in D.C., along with some half-priced wines. Then the next day, I had vegan Maryland crabcakes in Baltimore. Its true; my life has been reduced to food and ferrets. And I’m ok with that, for now.

Juliana Says...

2007-10-03T19:57:00.000-04:00

This weekend I trekked to San Francisco to visit my girls C & E out there. I stayed with E in her brand spanking new pad that she just bought… Yup, yet another new homeowner! Everyone around me seems to be at the age where they're ready (& able) to make commitments to pets, partners, kids, real estate or a combination therein… yet I can't seem to even decide on a plant! Anyway, I've been to SF a bunch of times already & have seen the sights, so now when I go it’s just to hang out with my girls who I only get to see for major holidays or weddings these days. I headed out from lovely JFK super-early Friday a.m. in order to get more QT with them. (BTW, have you guys noticed how generic JFK feels? It only took them 30+ years to semi-finish it and basically they’ve left it with this whole-generic-airplane-hangar-that-could-be-in-any-city-feel to it…I mean it seriously reminds me of the one in Bs. As! Jeez.)

Didn’t do much Friday besides hang out with my girls and catch up. However, the next day, after we woke up super-early (because I went to sleep like at 10PM night before!!), E & I went for a 3-mile walk around Merritt Lake which is this huge lake in the center of town. It’s lovely – I mean it literally sparkles! Be forewarned, however, like all bodies of water in highly-populated places, it’s filled with geese and their droppings. You had to skip about in the grass not to step in it! Anyway, after we got back and got ready, C met up with us and we headed out to San Fran via the BART (their subway, which compared to New York’s is a luxury) to check out the LOVE FEST.

Leave it to San Fran to have something called the LOVE FEST. Basically, it’s this crazy parade of DJs on floats that all end up in front of City Hall where everyone converges to party & dance... it was pretty wild. No joke, dirty old men were walking around butt-naked with cock-rings, stroking themselves... ugh. It was nasty. I still get ill just remembering... Otherwise, everyone was dressed up in outrageous outfits – some of them cute (guys dressed in bunny costumes with their naked butts showing – gives a new meaning to getting some tail), some not so cute (see dirty old men reference above) – doing a lot of drugs & drinking... in front of City Hall... with the cops looking on. Interestingly, house and trance music seem to still be really big there (there wasn’t anything else) so each DJ float had its own version of it. It was pretty cool to see actually, since everyone there just seems to let it all hang out –- although not always necessarily in a good way -- and not care. At least our freaks here are usually under the radar & semi-discreet. Did I mention that this was IN FRONT OF CITY HALL?? It was sponsored by Heineken & Red Bull so folks were drinking beer and cocktails (myself included), “smoking” up a storm (none for me) and just getting lit (maybe from some 2nd-hand contact high). Anyway, I’m bad at guess-timating numbers of people, but there had to be definitely several thousands – which, you could totally tell from the Porto-Potty usage (good god those things are nasty!)

After several hours of drinking, dancing and chatting with folks (we met up with a couple of the girls’ friends) we headed off to dinner at this cute place in the Mission and then headed home since some of us (not me) were not feeling well at all. Alas, it was another early night for moi, which actually was fine because no joke, all weekend I was nodding off by 10PM (jet lag SUCKS as you get older!) Sunday we just hung around lazily and then headed over to C’s lovely house overlooking the SF Bay (yup, yet another recent homeowner) where she made us one of her spectacular meals (the girl can COOK! I always tell her she should open her own place, but she says she doesn’t enjoy it… with talent like that, who would’ve thunk it??) And then it was back to SFO for an incredibly uncomfortable and seemingly interminable return red-eye flight back to good old NYC. My trips to San Fran are always short weekenders – but I always end up feeling like it’s more than enough time. I’m not that into SF (and granted I stayed in Oakland this time, but even when they used to live in San Fran proper I wasn’t impressed.) Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely city and the people are super-nice (which, honestly, is part of the problem for me – I find the friendliness freaky) but there's something just too chill and laid-back for me… I’m always happy to come home to NYC to its neurotic speed, constant background noise and true grime. I guess I am a NYer after all.

My Weekend

2007-10-03T00:20:00.000-04:00

Friday was my typical night of Intervention, except that it was a repeat of the Laney episode which I had seen at least twice before. I could not watch Laney take pills in an attempted overdose and see how the EMTs were not allowed to help her if she was conscious and told them not to, which she was doing against her own best interest of survival. So I watched some Best Week Ever crap and waited for the next 'Vention, a classic with a screeching gambler whose parents had to sell their house to cover his debts, and an agoraphobe who could only leave her house to meet her shopping addiction, until her agoraphobia took over and she was forced to impulsively buy whatever came up on the Home Shopping Network.
Saturday I got up and out and off to the Oysterfest on Stone Street in lower Manhattan. Now pay close attention- the Oysterfest, attended for the second year in a row by me, is in my TOP TWO fun things to do in ALL OF NYC!!! (The other one is the parties at the Hotel QT, where they have a swimming pool in the lobby, along with a swim-up bar, group sauna and group steam room.) The Oysterfest has a respectable crowd with a smattering of the chic, the freak and the funk. There is live music, all kinds of beers (we drank nothing but Moretti all day), oysters ripped open right in front of ya, clams, oyster stew (the only drawback of the day, with its literally three little oyster chips in there), lobster bisque, crab cakes, bbq chicken sandwiches, mini po-boys, pulled pork sandwiches, and a great deal with a Moretti and a slice of pizza for $6- the pizza part of this deal costing $1!!! We got prime seats at a table the moment we arrived, just steps from the Moretti tent and 3 oyster stands, and never ever left them all day. There were even good bathroom facilites close by- a restaurant ten feet from our table had excellent clean & stocked toilettes all the day, for those of you who care about this sort of detail, and there are many of you, admit it. I ate probably thirty oysters amongst other delicacies from the above list. We made new friends, saw old ones, and stuffed our craws, while engulfed in perfect weather and a setting which mirrored Amsterdam, France, or a German beer fest. Exquisite!!
While wrapping up the night, some drunk dude with an oven stuffer roaster gut grabbed me and started telling me that I was super cute but that I was too short. "Too short. Too short!," he said to me. I said, "Well, you're too fat," and patted him on his belly. This caused no shortage of hilarity to Sarah's friend Jeff, a ball buster himself. He could not even believe I said it. Well, Jeff, I am not that short and I will NOT be called out for it!
Sunday I cleaned my desk area in my home office. I have been doing a lot of professional organizing work lately and it feels remiss to have just finished organizing and filing into binders a huge towering raft of papers for a client and then to see a mess on my own desk. So I TCB'ed that. It looks great and I freed up a lot of drawer space for my myriad projects. Feels great! Looks great! (In fact just before creating this entry, I overhauled my storage closet with my awesome roommate Sarah, a job done handily in just over an hour with the two of us soldiers on it.) After making my desk less pesky, more desky, I split for the gym to take a yoga class with some teacher I had never seen before. One of the poses she had us do indicated that we were to put the heel of our foot right in our perineum. I am not sure half of us knew what that was, but I sure did and opted out. Try sitting with all your weight on your own foot in your ass! After this fiasco, I put my feet nowhere near my ass and walked over to the South Street Seaport to meet Andy with the plan of going dancing and hammock swinging at the outdoor Green Fairy Garden on the grounds of Spiegelworld. When we walked up to the ticket booth I got flustered and could not remember the name of the event, so I mumbled "Whatever it is you've got going on tonight I want tickets for that," to which the boothmaster replied "You want to see Absinthe at 7:30?" Now many of you know that I have been trying for weeks to see this show Absinthe inside the actual Spiegeltent, and planned for it to be the crown jewel in my birthday celebration, but nobody could go, friends had to work, it is kind of expensive, etc. So like a birthday balloon, I let that one go. I believed that Friday night was the final performance anyway, so I did not expect to ever see this highly lauded show. I about fell over when the guy said the show was going on that very night! I explained to Andy what it was and he was down for it, until I told him the price. Then I convinced him to pay it, until we learned it would likely be standing room only. Then we found out that standing room was just over half the price of seats. We went back and forth like this thru all these phases of understanding about the show. Finally I said to Andy that I would be willing to endure all circumstances presented to us for the sake of seeing this show because every now and then in life you have to see a SPECTACLE, and this world-class acrobatic, burlesque, Berlin-esque, bawdy, hilarious musical cabaret was looking to be quite a spectacle indeed. Andy countered with the classic and well -serving "It is better to regret something you have done than something you haven't done," and moments later we had SRO for the spectacle. And it was very much so!!! Nudity! Hot bodies! A charming and decadent host named Gazillionaire who habitually shoved his crotch into the audience members' faces, female and male. Rollerskating acts! A girl inside a HUGE BUBBLE! A William Tell trick! An androgynous singer who looked more like a man but sang like a castrato practically, and who also did a spot-on impression of Janis Joplin! A guy who transformed into a woman during his act and proceeded to mount a pogo stick tricked out to look like a motorcyle with a side mirror, in lucite stiletto heels, and bounce on it staccato fast with no hands because his hands were busy juggling machetes simultaneously, just a yard from the audiences faces! UNREAL!!! All of this, mind you, took place inside a beautiful "tent" made of teak and mirrors and stained glass, and was witnessed by one of the coolest, best-looking and well-dressed crowds I have seen in NYC, land of cool crowds. Andy and I had grins plastered on our faces the whole time, and cried out in delight and whooped with laughter too throughout the highly entertaining show. And as far as our brokebacks hurting from standing, trusty Andy taught me a pigeon-toed, bent-kneed Kung Fu stance that uses different muscles than the ones normally used for standing up in such a situation as this, and each time I appeared uncomfortable in the stance, he would lean over and whisper in my ear, "It's okay grasshopper. Go lower, sink into the Earth!" Very encouraging. After many rounds of applause, we left, Andy thanking me effusively for my always stocked cabinet of fun things to do, and me thanking him for his spontaneity and follow through. When we went outside the tent, we took a better look around than we had when we were rushing into the show. What a sight for brown eyes! (Sometimes I make up my own nonsense phrases) There was a view of all three bridges from Manhat to BK, and a large yellow half moon hanging in the sky underneath the bridges like a sloth. Then there was a red and blue striped big top with mini xmas ornament sized disco balls strung back and forth underneath the top of it, over our heads. There was even furniture inside to take a dance break on. The view to the other side of the tent was a big clipper ship looming over the dock. Quite an unusual juxtaposition. It was as if we had run away to join the circus and the ship was what had sailed us there.
The Melting Pot was having their 5th anniversary, and it appeared they had a loyal and regular following. I have been feeling a bit old lately after my latest birthday, and so I just kind of stood there and tapped my toe to the rhythm, left in the role of observer. But then when some great piece of house business kicked in, much to my surprise, I started throwing down and was stunned by my arsenal of moves, moves I didn't even know I had, or had forgotten about! I was young again! Dancing a fool! So I cut their rug, while gazing out at the gorgeous view of the bridges and the bad moon rising, and clapping my hands, stomping my feet and hootin and hollerin with the multiculti crowd. Again Andy and I were beaming. Things looked good, things sounded good, our bouncy bodies felt good...and then the MC introduced a pair of brother DJs, stepping up to the one and twos, who were at most 15 years old, probably 14 and 15. That window into my youth that opened when the great song came on slammed shut. Old again! So we took a load off on one of the daybeds and drank seltzers (see? OLD!) , and finally decided to get out of there. Damn that was a satisfying scenario. Places and things like this are the reason why I never think the other American cities I visit are as fun. I don't care what you say, Chicago does not have shenanigans like this!

Andy Says...

2007-10-02T21:52:00.000-04:00

Friday night I stayed home and watched HBO's Rome, far and away the best TV EVAH. My cousin downloaded the entire series, but episode 12 is corrupt. Now I have to netflix it. I had a date on Saturday for brunch with an Israeli girl. I went to her nabe (Williamsburg) and ate at a rooftop spot the name of which escapes me. Then I painted the hallway of my new apartment which I love. On Saturday night I studied bong science with my amigo Rusty, and watched a documentary about Jimi Hendrix. The remarkable thing about this movie-watching was that it was via netflix's new streaming video system. He has a laptop with a video out and connected it to his big-ass flatscreen TV. The resolution and quality were most impressive. DVD via mail is a dying delivery system. You've been warned.Sunday I futzed about the house until evening, when the amazing Nicole dragged me out to see Absinthe at Spiegelworld. You missed it, suckas. It rocked my world and now I want to see all burlesque shows in NYC. Afterward we danced to house music at Melting Pot. Good DJs on Pier 17, an amazing spot. Sadly Spiegelworld is closing down as summer's gone. Melting Pot is worth a return visit if they move to a new location.

Finally!

2007-10-02T14:23:00.002-04:00

Someone gets it!! Someone realizes that you don't have to have a fully glamorous weekend to post on this blog! I really just want to know whatever it is that you did- even if that entails cutting your toenails, watching paint dry, and alphabetizing your spice rack. Noone understands! They are all ashamed to send me something unless it is fabulous. FEH I SAY! Do like Jon did and just report what you did!
BTW, this is rather insulting towards me as I suggest that texting with me all night long is not the most special, VIP, glam thing one could do with their free time.

Nicole

Jon Friedman Says...

2007-10-02T14:23:00.001-04:00

I texted with Nicole all night long.

Love Shack!

2007-10-02T14:10:00.001-04:00

Gentle Readers, the place Amber-Lea (which appropriately means golden meadow) was staying this past weekend is called Lazy Meadow. I recommend it highly and in fact recommended it to Amber-Lea. The place is a funky, 50s/60s/70s themed motel with turquoise or pink kitchens in some rooms, and now has themed Airstream trailers too, that is owned by Kate Pierson from the B-52's. The decor was provided by the set designers for the Love Shack video. Half the reason I want to own a B&B in my later years (did you know that about me?) stems from this place. It's so fabulous! The fruit and vegetable market A-L mentions is right across the road, and further down the road is the World's Largest Kaleidoscope- not to be missed! This motel hits the mark on so many levels-charm, kitsch, peacefulness, simplicity, odd amenities, nearby attractions...I can't praise it highly enough! A link has been provided to the right for your viewing pleasure. If you decide to go, let me know- I will come too!

Nicole

Amber-Lea Says...

2007-10-02T14:08:00.000-04:00

The end of the week came on a Thursday this time. I was handed the keys to a PT Cruiser - butter yellow - but it had a CD player, and that and four wheels was all I really needed to take me far away from the city that never sleeps.

A shiny, shiny Airstream trailer set on the bank of a large creek welcomed me with a giant Tiki head on the door, letting me know that things were a little different around those parts. The next four days were an in-between time with no clear boundaries. I sat on a rock in the middle of a stream, listening to the burble. I was ignored totally by bats, deer, rabbits, hawks, and an osprey. I drank tea by the side of the creek and a bottle of Jack Daniels by the fire(s) that took 45 minutes to ignite (the wood was damp from the sporadic rain). I listened to the fruit and vegetable man say something to me about the Mets while I smelled tomatoes and squeezed the zucchini bread. I admired the audacious mustache of Tedd, the caretaker. I did nothing that I would qualify as "work" (unless you count tindering and tending the fire, which, since it was fun, I don't consider work).

Most importantly, I learned that I would not grow bored by myself in the woods.
On Sunday evening, I suffered a fair amount of anxiety-inducing re-entry shock in the East Village and so I drank more Jack Daniels and went to Williamsburg to see the Twilight Sad.

MAZEL!!!

2007-10-02T11:49:00.000-04:00

CONGRATULATIONS to L.A. Confidential on the recent nuptials!!
I cannot think of a better place to spend my honeymoon than at a Justin Timberlake concert!
Did you guys consummate during "My Love?"

Nicole

L.A. Confidential Says...

2007-10-02T11:48:00.000-04:00

Well...first I went to Canada and got married. Yay married. Then I flew to LA and did a lot of nothing but hanging out with the dogs. Then I called in sick to work and went to the JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE concert, second row. Now, let me point out that the tickets I purchased were second row as well. Second row from the back. However, I married a bit of a ticket snob so those seats just weren't going to work out. Anyway- Justin. He is a sexy beast. Then back to Seattle...Now off to LA again. Kisses.

Charlie Says...

2007-09-26T23:07:00.000-04:00

So this weekend I was off to Philadelphia again, but this time it was for work. Nothing crazy happened. We get there and start shooting, things are going smoothly so that's good. Things went way better than the weekend before in Cincinnati. So first thing. We get to the hotel and check in. Really busy hotel, lots going on. So I go up to my room with the dreadlocked camera man, sweet, and open the door and it's a tiny room with one bed. AWESOME. So we go back downstairs and complain and they say sorry place is booked. So then we called the travel person from ESPN and they talked to the hotel and in like a minute we had a new room. Assholes. So that's resolved. Next we go out that night to shoot. I stay behind at first to finish some things up and have some dinner. Then the PA comes to pick me up to take me to the shoot. This guy is one of the most awkward people I have ever met. I have no idea what's going on with his hair, it looks like a wig and all dead, really really weird. So he picks me up, it's only me and him in the car, great conversation, not really. I feel like he is one of those people that say really dumb stuff and not know why they even say it or they're sheltered or something, it's so weird. Like I expect him to say, "Did you know the ocean is blue because my mom loves the ocean and the color blue." It's really weird and makes me really uncomfortable. Oh and he can never wear enough sun block. Dude puts on sun block at like 2am, every damn time I turn around I feel like he's putting on sun-block. Next complaint. So I have to share a room with this dreadlock guy. It's not that bad but it's the first time i've shared a room since freshman year college, and we all know how that turned out. So this guy is nice, kind of annoying, i hate his voice and his hair. He stays up way too late too. Not that I'm a total nerd old man but this schedule for work we have is crazy and sleep is appreciated but he stays up who knows how long with the tv on and clickin on the computer keys- so damn annoying. Oh and he also likes to crank the air conditioning so it's like 20 degrees in our room, not bad for sleeping but when i wake up and start to work in the room i need to wear gloves. Oh oh oh, so this one i really hate. So he uses the bathroom, number 2 style, and then when he's done he shuts the door behind him. Now this sounds like a courteous thing to do, it's a hotel room, sure I'm gonna keep the stink in the bathroom. Oh no my friend. Because when it's time for me to go into the bathroom, the smell has been contained and it's an agonizing experience now to use the bathroom. I'd rather go through the two minutes of gross smell in the bathroom leaking into the room than my whole bathroom experience with me holding my breath. Well those are my complaints. I wish i had better things to tell of the weekend. Although it being my second time in Philadelphia i did enjoy it more. I'd live there if someone offered me a good job or their hand in marriage. So who knows what will happen. Well until next week my anonymous internet friends, and next week is new orleans so i hope something mildly interesting happens there.

High Maintenance

2007-09-12T10:04:00.000-04:00

Caitlin has lost perspective, I see. She believes that seeing Elton John in a piazza in Europe is dull, dull, dull. I think I understand though. Have you read her other posts? She does the most amazing idyllic gourmand Eurothings every weekend, so I guess there is a nano-chance that someone in her position could find elton in a piazza worth less then gum on the bottom of her ballet flat. More power to her!! Keep those standards high girl!!!

Nicole

Caitlin in France Says...

2007-09-12T10:03:00.000-04:00

Nothing but work for me this weekend. it sucked. and an elton john concert but to be honest, it was in a piazza with 20,000 other people and he kind of waddled around the stage for a few hours. and he is not one to enunciate, which also made it kind of difficult to get a grasp of what was happening. the jumping on the piano was a similiarly embarassing stunt. but, anyway, enough raging on the rocket man. that's it! fill in a gap here or there with some brunch, some drinks, and voila, my very boring weekend.

Mommy N' Me

2007-09-11T23:01:00.000-04:00

Friday night, here I go drawing a blank again, hold on, I need to look in my planner....oh wait- let me not forget Thursday night because it was real nice. Mom and R. and I went to Battery Park for an outdoor performance by Ballet Hispanico accompanied by the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra who blew a good note, supported by an impeccable sound system and a mature crowd who didn't yak it up during marvelous solos that blasted, not floated, out onto the warm night air. I took my skippies off and we sat on the picnic blanket, which has seen a lot of mileage this summer, and ate sushi, chicken empanadas and banana chip muffins. Everything felt, sounded, looked, tasted, smelled good. The dancers were as excellent as they could be, swathed in gorgeous dresses and character costumes for the males (sailor, waiter, nerd) and there seemed to be a plot that revolved around there always being one girl too many at the nightclub which resulted in a lot of girlfighting and stealing dance partners away from other gals. Also they choreographed the dramatic element of it so that the guy dancers (ballerinos?) were continually swooning over the female dancers, liek fanning themselves and falling over when they sashayed by. After a while it was beginning to offend me that they were trying to put this ruse over on us. The ballerinos were so obviously gay that I kept expecting them to start pairing off and dancing with each other, and honestly kind of really wanted to see that. They should have left EVERY broad standing off to the side! Noone was buying that and I felt the performance was dated in a way, like let's be real, this is New York City, you don't have to pretend with us that these guys are in love with these girls. Shave the beards, ballerinos!
Anyway we next went over to Stone Street, the oldest street in New Amsterdam, and sat at a table outside on the cobblestone street, making nice work of a bottle of petit syrah. I really really like it over there. I went last fall for both an Oysterfest and an Oktoberfest, and I plan on going again this year. You are ALL invited! My mom LOVEDED this street. It reminded her of time spent in France and Holland. Oddly she asked a bunch of her friends who have lived in NY if they'd heard of the street and noone had. I inquired amongst some of my savvy friends as well and they hadn't heard of it either. Stop sleeping. It's beautiful there, very transcendent, and the Oysterfest was a swingin' time. Roll on down to Stone Street!
Friday I asked my mom if she wanted to see El Cantante ans to my shock she said she did! So we went to Times Square (horrors) to see it and went up four thousand escalators to get to teh theater. When we got in there and waited for things to start, I scientifically observed and then postulated that it was going to be a noisy showing. Folks were rattling in Spanish, singing, on the phone, catching up, talking back to other rows, the whole nueve. Well, when the lights went down, this group fell silent. I am going to chalk it up to Marc Anthony's captivating performance. He was REALLY GREAT!! Sexy, skinny, amazing stage presence as Hector Lavoe, beautiful singing voice, outstanding acting, especially the dramatic scenes of drug use and meltdowns...nominate him, those in charge of these things!! Very unfortunately, the movie was eaten alive by JLo. I am not saying she did a bad job, but she dominated every scene. The story was told from her point of view, and we didn't get a rounded take on Hector. Compared to her Marc didn't say a word! I feel I know JLo's character's quirks and motivations, but got very little character devlopment about Lavoe, aside from the usual reasons for fucking up an awesome career, exactly like Johnny Cash and Ray Charles- dead siblings, mean parents, relentless guilt and feelings of unworthiness. Nonetheless rent this pelicula, especially if you are all about Latin music as I am. I also think the Latinos in the theater knew this was their big chance to see their people represented on the big screen so they didn't want to yap through it and instead hung on every delicious word. The second the lights went up there were bursts of singing along with the credits, and dancing took place in the aisles. Alegrias!!!
Saturday I took my sick cat back to the vet and she is now doing worse, not better. I don't want to talk about it here in the annals of good times. You may ask me privately.
Then Mami and I went to the International Center of Photography with her friend Margie to see various exhibits- one was photographs of Amelia Earhart, who was better looking and chicer than I had ever known. Also there were portraits of sundry great African-Americans- politicians, actors, boxers, activists, etc. and some of the pictures captured some truly poignant and important moments and they all showcased some outstanding people. Afterward we went to Bryant Park to drink coffee and have a rootbeer float and watch rather unfashionable people walk by considering it was the top of Fashion Week. However there was one absolute GEM- an old lady, like older than Pat Field, with red hair and red lipstick, wearing purple crocs, a purple miniskirt, sitting with her legs way open, now and then scratching her crotch, with a huge orange Balenciaga bag at her feet, and rocking a graffiti bubble lettered t-shirt that had the nerve to say "Baby Girl" on it!!!!! WHAT!!!!GORGEOUS!! I stealthily took some shots of her on my mom's camera and if she ever sends them to me I will bless this blog with its first ever photo of Baby Girl herself!!
Sunday we had brunch in the very creatively designed back garden at Loulou in Fort Greene with Mom's friend Jacquie. Jacquie has a lot to say. She is an avid traveler and ski instructor in Vermont and she has got to be 65 years old! So brunch was dedicated to how she does it all. Very enlightening. Then Mamacita and I carried on and went to the theater to see a Flamenco show performed by Pilar Rioja. Homegirl is in her 70s and got up on stage and danced better than anyone you or I know can. She was in incredible shape, had long auburn hair, and was draped in incredible dance dresses that were sewn with full skirts to work with the pivoting moves known to Flamenco. It was a very inspiring performance, showing that you can surely do what you love as well as and as long as you want to. It was enough to convince me to take a flamenco dance lesson at the Open Center next Tuesday which is also my birthday.
Then we got home at 9:05, in time for me to miss Britney on the VMA's. I am going to go youtube that shiz right now, thanks for listening!

Nicole

AAAAAAH! HAHAHAHA!

2007-09-11T22:47:00.000-04:00

Oh how peals of raucous laughter boomed out around the What Did You Do Last Weekend offices when I read about the TADPOLES on Charlie's hotel bathroom floor!! Run don't walk to Charlie Says and find out what I am laughing at!!

Nicole

Charlie Says...

2007-09-11T22:45:00.000-04:00

I didn't do much friday night, went out to my local bar and met my friend Marissa who I haven't seen in about two years. It was fun although I ended up staying out way later than I had planned. I wanted to be in early because this weekend was my first weekend doing this new monday night football thing. So saturday morning I woke up before the sun came up, yes that was fun, and headed to Cincinnati. I've never been to Cincinnati so I was excited, well kinda. I arrive in Cincinnati and meet up with the other members of this team I'm with for this ESPN thing. We're riding to Cincinnati from the airport and we hear about an Oktoberfest in Kentucky, obvious reaction, we have to go. So we get to this Oktoberfest not knowing what to expect, and there was no way to know what to expect. Although when I used to live in Wisconsin I frequented many Oktoberfests and my parents still throw one every year. Lots of great merchandise at this place, wind chimes made out of beer cans, any sort of object with your address painted on it and i think one booth had all of the country's stock of tie-dyed t-shirts. These people were great, never had i seen such a close ratio of number of mouths to number of teeth in those mouths, really great Kentucky, way to go. So we finish shooting and head back to Cincinnati and check into the hotel and blah blah blah, boring work stuff. Finally the game is Monday, we go to shoot all the tailgating. I must say football fans are crazy. I'm not a huge sports fan, I like to watch sports if I'm around them, but I don't really follow teams or stats and stuff like that. We finish shooting and then go into the game. That was cool, I've never been to an NFL game before and it was nice. We had press passes so we got to hang out in the press box and have a ton of free food and it was pretty cool, nothing crazy, just a bunch of journalists with bionoculars and computers, no idea what they were looking at up close. So that was the weekend. I don't know. Not the craziest stuff. I thought it'd be more fun but who knows, it was only the first week of doing this thing. Although, I will tell you this. So I have to share my hotel room with the camera man, whatever, not a big deal. But the guy has dreadlocks. I'm telling you right now, I hate you if you have dreadlocks, so disgusting. I hate them so so so much. So not only do I have to look at these nasty ropes connected to this dudes head, but in the bathroom on the floor it looks like someone sprinkled pubes all over the floor. Not only that but some were all knotted and looked like tadpoles. So disgusting, ugh, stop this dreadlock thing. Well that's it I guess, I wish I had more to say, the airport was kind to me too, usually I run into a handful of undesirables there, but I suppose it was too early for them. Until next weekend.

J. Fruit Says...

2007-09-06T17:41:00.000-04:00

Ah...so I headed back to NYC this weekend. It's a long weekend and one of my friends is moving to London. I manage to survive the bus ride up (which surprisingly lacked the traffic I expected), despite my imaginings of terrorist plots (who the hell is going to bomb a bus load of people coming up from DC?). This south Asian dude with a gimp walk asked to get off the bus at one of the rest stops along the NJ Turnpike. (Yeah, I can be way politically incorrect.) It's not so much that he's south Asian or even that he had some physical limitation but rather pop culture that made me think that some Keyser Sose was targeting the bus I was riding. Of course, I txt some friends to let them know, just in case. That and the fact that I always hate the whiny people who ask to stop. I don't want to spend anymore time with those folks than I absolutely have to. I just want to get to where I want to be. I arrive to my friend Cinnamon's lovely abode and head right out. I join up with A. and G. down in the East Village for a drink at Phoenix. It's gotten a little younger and a lot cuter with the years but it was still boring. A little empty because of the holiday. Bored, we head up to Chelsea bars. There were people there but still a little empty. Nothing exciting happened at all. Though one little (he must've been under 5 feet) boricua (his term not mine; I would've called him a Nuyorican because of his thick NY accent) started chatting with me. I can't remember much of what he said other than I must've been born in the Bronx the way I was chewing my gum. I think it was meant to be a compliment. He also informed me that he'd be at Splash the next night. I didn't make it.
The rest of the weekend was spent with friends who I hadn't seen as often as I would've liked. Lusty Lady and I met for lunch and walked around SOHO, LES and the EVill. Took a nap to recharge for another night out with some more gays, organized by the departing one. But first, I went over to help pack. Well, honestly, I didn't do much more than shred some documents and make drinks. Somewhere in between, we grabbed a bite at Say Cheese in Hell's Kitchen. When we were done, we went over to the Ritz to meet the others saying bon voyage. It was pretty chill. Got a little dancing in. Started flirting with a couple of boys because that's all I'm interested in right now. Oops. I don't think they thought it was anything serious though. Moved on to Barracuda and danced a little more. Ended up at Cafeteria where I ordered the steak with chimichurri.
The next day was a little slower. Had brunch at Rue 57 with J., M., B. and little M. and M.'s parents. It was cool. The waiter was nice and cute. I wasn't the best conversationalist though because I was so tired. Of course, I took the role of manny for a few minutes when necessary. Yeah, that one came to bite me in the ass when I was slow to note that my white jeans were soiled from her little booties. Fortunately, I was too tired to care/go buy a Tide To Go pen. Then, I walked around a bit with J. to Saks and through the Brazilian Independence day celebration. We parted as I went again went to help V.B. with some last minute packing. This time my help consisted of laying on the bed trying to take a nap and accompanying him to have some chips and margaritas. But I did wash the dishes and lug that heavy ass box down to the cab before sending him off to the airport. Headed up to meet J., A., G., and S. and P. for some dinner at Asia-Kan. We could've gotten free drinks by helping to inaugurate the lounge at the restaurant but apparently I hang with high rollers and didn't need to worry about free. S. and P. head back to their baby and the rest of us headed down to the Gym bar, supposedly for the "friendly" gays there. Yeah, the best I could do was have one guy move across the bar after I told him he looked good with salt and pepper hair. I guess I should've let him just stand there and watch the pool game. Extremely tired, I announce that I'm too tired to go on and we call it a night. Cinnamon will be happy to know that I didn't keep everyone out until 5PM in the morn. Labor day plans didn't pan out so I just strolled around thinking I'd grab a burger at the Shake Shack but the line wrapped around the entire bottom of the park. Ugh! I just grabbed a panini from a deli and took a seat on a bench instead. Great weather for it all weekend, so I was glad to be able to just relax and take it in like the sunbathers as the summer ended. I picked up Bram Stoker's Dracula (anyone up for a book club reading?) for the ride. The bus ride down was uneventful though this one girl that I thought was annoying actually was very sweet because she gave me her cup of soda at the Burger King at the rest stop. Yeah, I was grumpy that we stopped then too.

Caitlin in France Says...

2007-09-06T17:40:00.000-04:00

Friday, nothing but dinner with my boyfriend's mother so that is not really "blog worthy." But, Saturday I went hiking with some friends into the Jura, which is a mountain range between France and Switzerland. We spent 6 hours hiking through the mountains and even stopped for a gourmet picnic of roasted eggplant, pesto, and fresh rasberries we found on the way. MMMmmmmm. After many a good hour exercising, we put it all to waste and finished the night with a fondue dinner (the best kind with champagne!)...Sunday I went to a barbeque in a town about an hour north of Geneva, and we sat by the lake all day and had a long picnic. Even cooler, my boyfriend went paragliding off another mountain range in Geneva. At night, a spontaneous dinner with friends and many good bottles of wine. The pictures are extraordinary. Unfortunately, we didn't have off on Monday but we do have off tomorrow (Thursday) for a Geneva holiday called "Jeune Genevoise". The holiday dates back to the late 1500s and has something to do with fasting and religion. All most people know is that it is a day off... Will keep you posted on the upcoming weekend! Tickets to Elton John, for better or worse......

Charlie Says...

2007-09-04T10:57:00.000-04:00

Friday night I went around the corner to the usual bar I go to. I met my friend Meghan for a drink or two. Oh yes, I should mention this weekend was my last weekend of my own. I have this new project with work that is traveling with monday night football so my work week is now saturday through wednesday for at least the next eight weeks. So I meet Meghan, she is there with another friend who i haven't met and some of his friends. She was a bit preoccupied with them, but it didn't matter because I fell in love at the bar. Well not really, but this one girl that goes there often I see her every so often but something about friday was different. We shared some glances and almost a smile. She was with another guy and a girl, which i didn't know if she was "with" the guy or the other girl was. In any case, of course, I didn't talk to her. For those of you out there that don't know, I'm the most socially "challenged" person of this millennium. So I'm sure i'll see her again and I'm sure i'll still say nothing, awesome, looking forward to it. So anyway. I call it an early night and head home because when the sun rose the next morning i was headed to philadelphia. One of my friends in boston has a job and he is doing a project in philadelphia, (side note, i will be typing out philadelphia every time because for some reason I hate "philly," another side note i really really hate the name phil, or philip). Also a different friend from boston is dating another of my friend's girlfriend's friend in philadelphia, still with me on that? So i head to philadelphia, which I've never been there before and I'm gonna see friends so I'm excited. I wake up, pack and leave, it's beautiful weather and I'm feeling good. I walk to the bus stop to head to port authority, still feeling good about life at this point, but how that will all change so suddenly. I'm waiting for the bus and it doesn't come, then i think well i'll get on the G train, but then i think well once i go down into the subway the bus is gonna come so i stick it out. So twenty minutes go by and i figure the bus is gonna come. I'm still waiting. I have a half hour to get to port authority and I'm still standing a block away from my apartment, great. So i get a cab, and of course i get in and look behind me and the bus pulls up right then. Whatever I'll deal. So I get to port authority and there's a line for my bus at least two bus loads deep. This has happened to me before. What the hell is the point in selling tickets to something if you're just going to sell more than you can. The purpose of selling a ticket is to guarantee the reservation of space for your person. It makes no sense the way the bus people do it. "Hey lets sell 200 people tickets to get on a 10am bus to philadelphia, best part is we're only gonna run enough buses to take 100 people, suckers." Honestly, cut the shit, i've got places to be. So back on track now. I get on the bus at eleven and we're off. Oh i definitely was the snoring guy on the bus ride down. I woke myself up because of a loud outburst of snore. Which is funny, but at the same time sad because my body was struggling to breathe. Ok fast forward. I'm in philadelphia. My friend evan picks me up and we head to the Mutter Museum (a Museum of Medical Oddities - ed. note). I've been interested in going to the Mutter for a long time. It was nice, I find early medical practices and history quite interesting and the actual building the museum is in is very pretty. From there we head to South Street, which is like the "hip" cool place. It was ok, just stores and other tourist kinda crap. I did notice a plethora of sex stores, mostly sexual attire and what have you. I thought it to be strange I guess philadelphia just has a really high demand for dental floss undies and handcuffs. Then my friends and i headed to dinner at a mexican place which was very good then we returned to the girl's apartment who my friend is dating. The apartment was amazing. She is paying less money than I am and she has this huge one bedroom apartment with laundry machines and a deck that is two to three times the size of my bedroom. Way to go New York. The rest of the night was filled with dessert and drinks. Sunday morning we were off to Eastern State Penitentiary. This was pretty cool. In the middle of philadelphia stands this huge castle looking thing that is the first ever penitentiary. It was pretty crazy and old and creepy. I thought it would be more creepy, but it was real sunny out, i bet if i were to go back at night i'd probably scare myself. So this thing is massive and old and run down. Some of the cell blocks you could go into, but they were still pretty run down, they basically let you go where ever it was safe and something wasn't gonna collapse on you. It was interesting although it's a prison and it's kinda what you would expect. Although for some reason all i could think about was the size of the cells and the size of my bedroom. So they basically built this prison different from our current prison system. The objective was to isolate prisoners for the entire time they were there. When they were brought in they were hooded and couldn't see anything and no one could see their face. And then they were put into their own cell alone. The cell was about 8x16 feet and then on the back through a door was their "backyard" as i thought of it but it was the outdoor section which was the same size of the cell (all of which is bigger than my living space). They never left their cell. There was a window in the wall which was used to send meals in. The cells were completely closed, all cement and stone. Also a fact i thought was cool was that the guards wore wool socks over their boots so the inmates couldn't hear them walking up and down the cell blocks. Anyways if you're still interested, this system clearly didn't end up working because the prison population grew and prisoners could no longer have their own cells and all that. But it was interesting, the whole goal was that a prisoner would be with himself alone for so long, that the only thing to do was reflect on themselves and learn what they did was wrong. So after the prison we went around philadelphia looking for stuff to do but most stuff was closed and then it was time to decide on dinner plans and then that got all screwed up because everyone wanted to do one thing but then one person didn't and everyone wanted to cater to eachother. Blah blah blah and so the night wasn't that fun we went to one place for drinks and then we decided to go bowling and waited two hours for a lane and still didn't get one then my ride and the friend who i was staying with didn't want to stay anymore so we left to another bar which only i was drinking because he was driving and i just gave up and wanted to go to bed because it just wasn't fun and i wanted to stay at the bowling place but since i didn't have the car or the power i was just along for the ride. Well that was philadelphia, next morning got up early headed to the bus station which was not such a clusterfuck as port authority and made it back to new york early. Did some laundry and relaxed for the rest of day. Although still wanting to go to that bar and hopefully run into that girl and look awkwardly at her and never approach her. Awesome. Well those are my weekends because from here on out i'll be working on the weekend. Although depending on how work goes they may make for interesting stories.

Grandmaster G in Toronto (reporting from Amsterdam this week) Says...

2007-08-30T00:24:00.000-04:00

The conference I was attending in a small city in the Netherlands finished on Saturday at noon, so I made a break for the train station to get back to Amsterdam as quickly as possible. My travel companion had stayed behind in Amsterdam while I went to my conference. This hardly makes him a travel COMPANION, but he's waiting for me to get back. We quickly set out to make the most of our remaining day and a half in this incredible city.
First, some day-time tourism: get lost on the beautiful streets in the canal district, enjoying the architecture, water, bridges, and bicycles.
The low car traffic makes the city surprisingly quiet. Even a crowded street is relatively silent. Or maybe everyone around me is stoned?
Stop for some traditional dutch food - deep fried everything. Far from tasty - and drink a few Grolsch (which is pronounced Chrols! The 'ch' is that flemmy, back-of-your throat sound... like in chutzpah and chanukah). But the Dutch know cheese and don't limit pancakes to breakfast. The cuisine is redeemed!
So what are these coffee shops all about...? It's getting dark, so we wander into the red light district. Surprisingly not sketchy. And now we know why it's called "red light". We discuss at length the many reasons that a legal redlight district would never fly back home. Can't remember what we came up with, but it seemed REALLY intelligent at the time. We stop at another coffee shop.
The next day, we visit Anne Frank's house -a must see- and then travel out of the city to see windmills, dykes, locks, and we marvel at how Holland deals with- dominates, really- water. If they don't like it, they move it! They dig canals through cities, and dreg the sea bottom to "reintroduce land" whenever they need more space. They create dams, dykes, and locks to keep that land dry. And this technology is all wind powered! Amazing.
One more night of bad behaviour before we fly home. Amsterdam gets 2 thumbs up!

Gregorio in Buenos Aires Says... (reporting from Scotland this week)

2007-08-30T00:10:00.000-04:00

Scotland....landed in Edinburgh right during the annual generically-named "International Festival." Really cool though...lots of music and theatrical acts in the streets. Tons of beer being consumed everywhere...and the consistent sound of bagpipes in the distance. Beautiful city too...I really wish my head wasn't pounding the whole time because of jet lag. After that we headed off to the highlands which are right out of Braveheart. Rolling hills and jagged cliffs jutting into the ocean. Very picturesque. The weather, however, was shiiiiite as they call it there. Lots of rain. We rented out an old private hotel for my whole family which was cool. Each one of us had our own room, plus there was a bar downstairs with a pool table, a magnificent dining table (we hired a chef for the week)....and to top it off we were right on the lake. All in all a great trip, great to see my family + all my cousins. I forgot how much fun it can be to be around little kids!

He Said, She Said

2007-08-30T00:05:00.001-04:00

I love how we got two takes on the same story- J. Fruit and Juliana went on vacation together and both wrote about it! A mi me gusta la gente morena!

Nicole

J. Fruit Says...

2007-08-30T00:00:00.000-04:00

This weekend I went down to the Red Neck Riviera, which I chastised my friend who made the arrangements for calling it that--I know better now. (But she was calling it that while we were out in public there! I convinced her to call it RNR so we wouldn't get lynched. We are brown people after all.) It was a great time though because it's always fun hanging out with friends you don't get to see all the time, no? Anyway, the hotel and beach were nice enough but we could've gotten that anywhere between the Jersey Shore down. The big detraction were the people. First of all, it was a little too family friendly, which in-and-of-itself is not so bad. But coupled with BIG dirty south folk it was not a pretty sight. I don't want to get into the saggy-flabby-folds-of-fat-camel-toe descriptions but take my word for it--it was not a pretty sight. Jumping to the night life, it was a little scary when we are transported back in time by the music (there was only 1 song that they played that was from this year!!!). More frightening still was, at some point in the night, these boys swarmed my girlfriends (2) and start to grind up on them like monkeys in heat. Juliana comes close and tells me to stay close because she doesn't want to be accosted--as if I'm going to throw my faggotty ass down for her! But I play along because I feel safer with her near. One of the violated women tells her "guy" that we're going for a drink. To which he responds, "I can't drink." Meaning he's under 21 (they're allowed down there). Anyway, we don't stay much longer but get a good laugh out of it after we leave. On the way back to the hotel, I ask the cabbie where the gay bars are. The next night after dinner, I go on a scouting trip with my friend to check out the bars that the cabbie mentioned, Time Out and Rainbow House. One was even scarier than what I witnessed the night before (you needed to be buzzed in a door to an almost empty bar) and the other was either for girls or girls night. I drag the girls out to the third bar, Club Hushh, that was closest to the hotel. There were all of 10 people there when we arrived at 11PM. It was divey as I could imagine (but they set up the speakers so that you couldn't hear music from the other room if you were in the other). The drag queens chose the wrong songs to perform to but otherwise it was alright. (I'm not super into drag.) The standout moments were the shot guy giving me a lap dance (that he made some other guy pay for) when I told him that I couldn't buy his shots because I'm allergic to pineapple juice and the bar brawl. Oh yeah, and the drug deal that went down in the bathroom. We were a little too nonplussed by it but of course I had to dig for the dirt behind the fight. They seemed to be ex-lovers where one had broken the windshield of the other a couple of weeks prior. Now, give me my "Dawson's Creek" and "One Tree Hill" dirt!!!

Betty Hollywood Says...

2007-08-29T23:58:00.000-04:00

friday night was a jam session in the ghetto. me and S. packed up the bass and headed down in to god knows where in l.a. (funny . he had on red and I had on blue. I figured if any gangs stopped us, we would at least have one color right) b-town has been jamming with a funk band of late and invited S. who took me. so being the good groupie girlfriend I am, I joined the jam. literally, in a small room, I got on that electric piano set to funky church organ sounds and jammed out. it was super fun. we rounded it out 'round midnite then headed to el compadre for chips, margaritas and (pour moi) arroz con pollo. me and S. had gone to a party like 3 months ago and scored a free netflix account. since then we've got maybe two movies of which we ordered upon registration. we decided Saturday was the day we were going to watch that freeking movie. plus, we got it in our heads to fast, so we were going to fast, flush and watch 2001. come ten AM saturday, we were starving and cranky so we went to the movies to keep the fast going. turns out, we ended up at some schmancy pants landmark theatre in bev hills where they serve beer and a whole bunch of other goodies. fuck the fast. I got popcorn and diet coke and he grabbed a beer and rasisinettes. we would not do well in a food recession. rocket science and resurrecting the champ later, we grabbed sushi and headed home to finally watch 2001. I had never seen it. afterwards we had much discussion on time continuum and God. sunday, S. headed to work and I headed to jenny roop's bday brunch at hamburger mary's. its in west hollywood. great gay fun. jenny roop is a lesbo so it was fun to hang with the gay crowd at the ridiculously over the top homo spot. I made friends with some guests but there was a bitchy boy sitting across from me that got me so angry with his asshole attitude that I threw down my napkin and left. thats what happens when you serve me champers before lunch. I finished off the day working on my book and shopping for clothes for my big VH-1 gig this week. next weekend is mine and S.'s six month anniv (can you believe!?). we are going to universal studios for the day. thats where we were on our first date. some would think celebrating six months is crazyville but anyone who knows me knows that if I truly still like someone at six months then thats reason to celebrate! stay tuned...

Juliana Says...

2007-08-29T23:52:00.000-04:00

My weekend actually started last Thursday when I took an early-a.m. flight to Charlotte, North Carolina to visit my college roommate, Mimi. Mimi & I lived together for three years at Rutgers… she graduated a year ahead of me & was like my surrogate-sister there. She’s since married her long-time honey, Brent, and has been living in Charlotte for 12 years now. I've yet to visit her new home or life there… I know I know, I suck.

Anyway, I got there & she picked me up at the airport with her cutie-patootie daughter, Mia, who, unfortunately proceeded to wail her head off upon seeing me… I only mention this because 1) I never quite had that effect on a kid before (usually they love me – really) and 2) it kind of set the mood for the rest of the weekend: anytime I came near the kid, she wailed… we got a little better towards the end, but I certainly couldn’t pick her up without her screaming – which I guess isn’t that bad since it spared my back. hehehe Anyway, to be fair to the kid, Mimi says she’s going through a phase where she cries whenever she sees someone new – even her own granny, which made me feel slightly better considering Granny’s been there since the beginning, but whatever, (Note: I plan to remind the kid of her poor behavior when she’s a teen & wants to crash at her cool Tita Juliana’s place in the big city! But I ain’t bit-tah.) Back to Charlotte, don’t have much to say about the town except that it basically fulfilled all of my expectations: very clean, very bright, very corporate and very suburban. Everything seemed sparsely laid out for some reason… even the traffic. The houses are all lovely and very new looking – even those that are 80-years+. Weird, no? Folks are very big on maintenance. Later that night, after running around all day seeing the sights and such, Mimi, Brent, lil’ Mia & I went to dinner to PF Chang’s, which I think exists in NJ but I've never been to… it’s like a higher-end chain restaurant for Chinese food. I had a medley of bad-for-you-things-that-tasted-yummy [Note: this marked the beginning of my poor eating for the rest of weekend…]

Friday, after waking up relatively on-time (Mia screamed her head off when she & mommy walked into my room & saw me half-asleep; told her I've gotten that reaction before so whatever), we packed the car & headed off with Mia to Myrtle Beach, SC – aka, the Redneck Riviera. [Now, to be fair, I was expecting A LOT worse… you know, Dixie flags, missing teeth, mullets, wife-beaters (both tees & men) etc. Instead, I found the Southern version of the Jersey shore: very family & car-oriented, kind-of-blue-collar but much cleaner. I've got to give it to Southerners, they take better care of their towns than we do.] The drive took nearly 4 hours (yikes) but we treated it like the road trip we never got to do in college – yapping it up, listening to music, gossiping… Once there, we met up with Mimi’s childhood friend Kathy & our fellow alum (& my high school friend) Sira. Mimi & Brent were generous enough to let us all use their timeshare, so hotel was free! (Whoo hoo! I love free.) We stayed in the southern part of Myrtle – I’m told the northern part is the “classier” part… whatever that means.

Anyway, we hung out on the beach for a couple of hours (the water is great – so warm! Like bathwater, albeit clean – or at least as clean as the ocean can be) and then after getting ready, headed off to dinner at this huge complex called “Broadway at the Beach” which basically is a tourist mecca/mini-city unto itself. It houses dozens of restaurants, bars, clubs, kids’ rides & stores where we ate at a Brazilian Churrasceria (yet again pigging out) that piled on the meat – a vegetarian’s worst nightmare. Afterwards, Mimi, Kathy, Sira & I left the manny (Brent) to watch Mia while we went to get our drink on. We eventually ended up in a club that housed three different places in one: a live show & two side clubs that basically alternated the same lame music. Observations: folks like to dance a-la-stripper. Also, there were NO cute folks out. Ok, I know that’s not nice to say but living in NYC you get used to seeing a certain type of beautiful people – it’s actually nauseating after awhile (not to mention exhausting trying to keep up since it becomes such a pricey fashion show), but there we certainly didn’t have to worry about not looking cute enough for the place. Anyway, we closed the place down & grabbed a cab back… [Note: we asked our cabbie where the locals hung out, and he said all the places that we went to… so sad.]

The next morning we had a late breakfast at a local pancake house (where again, the portions were huge – I only mention this because after this weekend, I gained back 5 lbs!) & each headed off to the beach in our own time. I got there at the prime burning hour… normally I’d be more careful, but I've been to the beach a handful of times this summer so I didn’t want to waste any tanning opportunities (I’ll rue the day one day I know). After several hours of just hanging on the beach & swimming, we made our way back to our hotel rooms & rested before going out again. This time we went to a seafood restaurant in that same mega-complex… observation about menus down there: EVERYTHING is fried. Not kidding. Still, managed to find the one dish that was broiled instead of fried, only to discover that they salt the shit out of everything. Mind you, I like me some salt – so much so that friends have threatened to get me a salt stick for Xmas (not that I’d probably mind) – but the food down there was too salty for even me! Crazy!

Anyhoo, afterwards, we decided to check out some of the gay establishments for the evening. We had asked our cabbie from the night before and he had given us the name of three places (yes, that’s right – only three places) and Sira had taken it upon himself to check them out beforehand so we wouldn’t waste time… out of the three places: the first one was lesbian – or at least that night – & useless for our purposes; the second was a “private club” with a (get this) $2 membership fee & $5 all-you-can-drink-fee – Sira peeked in & surprisingly enough, said it looked kind of scary; the third option was called “Hush” (I think it may have had more than one “S” in its name… like a lisp… original, no?). We went with door #3. This establishment had two large rooms, one with the bar area & large lounge/table area that we all decided had potential but needed a serious makeover & to get rid of the florescent lighting, and the other room was it’s complete opposite with dark lighting, a dance floor and long stage area with an aluminum foil covered backdrop. We were obviously the only tourists in there as everyone there seemed to know each other already (*insert Cheers theme song*) and – no joke – had their own little dance that they all seemed to be practiced in (I forget the song, but it goes something like this “You go left left then right right down the stairs down the stairs…”) Sira informed me that all the music played was dirty south whatever that means… However, the highlight of the evening was their drag show. Yup! We got to see a real drag show in good ol’ uptight Myrtle Beach. [Note: Mind you, this is the city that makes it illegal to wear a thong at the beach – I mean, don’t get me wrong, it probably should be illegal & lord knows, you’d certainly never catch me in one on the beach in a 100 years – but good god people! They’ve got time on their hands!] Anyway, there were several performers and while one stood out, the others were frankly scary. Thank god they haven’t brought their acts to NYC because they’d seriously get ripped apart. Poor girls! Seriously, one in particular looked like she was playing dress up with mama’s clothes, down to the white platform mary-janes & blue eyeshadow. It pained me to watch. On the plus side, one fierce lady did that “Umbrella” song in a fabulous emerald green get-up with this huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge green tasseled beach umbrella – she rocked it. Anyway, we stayed there all night because seriously, there wasn’t anywhere else to go. Alas, there were no cute boys there either.

The next morning after having another huge brunch, we each went our separate ways to catch our flights back. Mimi & I drove back to Charlotte where we got caught in this amazing lightning storm – it was pretty scary there for a bit, but pretty amazing to see on such flat spaces. Anyway, caught my flight back to NYC & made it home in one piece despite some rocky going…

Love My Good And Plenty!!

2007-08-29T23:48:00.000-04:00

Welcome, Charlie! Charlie lives in Greenpoint Brooklyn. Welcome him! Does anyone want to go meet Charlie at the Pencil Factory? HAHA- Charlie and the Pencil Factory! I kill me!
Obviously there are a lot of fun little jokes with Charlie's name. I call him Charlie Tuna in my head.

Nicole

Charlie Says...

2007-08-29T23:45:00.000-04:00

Friday I left work early to get home to pack for a weekend in Boston. My friend was driving so I was excited not to have to spend four hours on a cramped bus. One thing she had forgotten to tell me was that her roommate was coming along as well, whom I have dated years before. Which at this point her and I are like oil and water. So i survive the drive up, just sit in the back seat and stare out the window. Finally we arrive in Boston about 2 hours later than I expected, mostly because of traffic and a very annoying "lets sit and relax at Wendy's" type of dinner, which I didn't eat because it was fast food and all i wanted to do was keep driving. So we get there, my friend drops me off at my other friend's apartment where i'm staying and have previously lived years before. We decide to go out in Cambridge near Harvard and my buddy Todd decides he will drive us. We walk around the corner to the car and Todd decides he doesn't want to drive us anymore and goes back into the house. Whatever we just walk to another bar, have a great time, day is over. The next morning is my friend Nick's birthday. The plan is to go to the beach in Gloucester. Now if you don't know me, I never ever ever go to the beach. In fact you may hear me say that I hate the beach. But I'm on this new kick to experience things again for the first time, so I say what the hell I'll go and it's Nick's birthday. So we're at the beach, it's beautiful, i go in the water, this is probably my first time in the ocean in like 7 years. That's the other thing, i hate swimming, whatever i'll try it again. So i get in the water it's freezing but i get used to it and have a great time swimming. Get out of the water, it's sunny and nice. There is a nice breeze coming off the water so you can lay there and not feel like your skin is on fire from the sun. At this point i'll fill you in on another hate of mine. I can't stand the feeling of the sun on my skin. Like prolonged massive body area exposure. So this coupled with my lack of swimming and visits to beaches also means i haven't had my clothes off under the summer sun in years, many many years. So with my virgin pasty skin and a nice cool breeze i don't realize that i'm cooking from the outside in. We have a great time at the beach and head home. We get home and start to clean up because for Nick's birthday dinner, someone decided to have a "fast food pot luck." So it was determined that everyone would go out to any fast food joint and purchase 10 dollars worth of food and then bring it all together for a big dinner. I withheld from this activity for two reasons. First if i had it would have made me so sick and the food was gross. Which after eating many of my friends felt real bad. Second reason is; my skin was on fire. I got home and was completely red. I let my friends go to the dinner and i make my way there eventually after i get some extra strength tylenol and some spray stuff to soothe my skin. After dinner the plan was to go to a bar and then a party at a old coworker of mine's house. While waiting for everyone to get together to go i completely passed out on the couch. Not so much on the couch but over the arm of the couch with the air conditioner blowing cold air on my back. So i missed out on fun saturday night. Well i guess that was the weekend. It was fun though. I now know that i do like the beach and will probably go back and i now wear sun block from head to toe even if i don't leave the house, just as a precaution.

I Can Never Remember

2007-08-27T16:12:00.000-04:00

The first time someone asks me on Monday how my weekend was I draw a total blank, and my initial silence and puzzled look on my face makes whatever I finally remember and describe sound like I actually did nothing all weekend, and am thinking up some lies to tell on the spot to make me seem not a loser. I should rehearse my weekend speech on the train Monday mornings.
Friday night I went to get a little food & drink at Olea which is about a block from my house. SO glad it's so close in proximity to my spot since they have a beer selection that I love (they always have Moretti and Tapetto Volante), and a delicious Mediterranean menu, from which I always order the apps and the small plates, and I ALWAYS WITHOUT FAIL order the falafel-crusted artichoke hearts with eggplant salad. I had that, of course, and perfect boqerones, along with one each of the abovementioned beers.
Then I watched a very very depressing documentary called "Children Underground". It is about homeless children in Romania in the aftermath of Ceaucescu's determination to expand the country's workforce by outlawing contraception and creating lots more future workers. There were so many "extra" children born this way, to dysfunctional and broken homes, that thousands of them wound up runaways from orphanages, or directly homeless without having passed thru an orphanage along the way. Two of the street children, who sleep in the subway and huff Aurolac (paint) are siblings and they are ten and eight years old!!! It was very hard to watch these little kids being wild in the streets, hungry and high and dirty, and to see how they organized into gangs with leaders, which actually seemed to provide little or no security as the members were always fighting, beating each other (which is what the parents of many of these kids did that caused them to take to the streets in the first place), stealing from each other, and getting yelled at and beaten by the leader. I didn't really see the benefit of banding together like that. Anyway, if you can stand to see it, the film was a very vivid depiction of ruined lives with small chance of rehabilitation for more than a few reasons. If you feel like you haven't cared about anything in a while, this will make you feel compassion for others not as well off as you are. Perspective, people.
Saturday I took my cat to the oncologist and learned that her chemotherapy treatment is working well! Good for us! Her lumps and enlarged lymph node have reduced to normal and barely palpable sizes. Afterward I took the 24 inch BMX Cruiser out to Prospect Heights to have a tour of the apartment my friend Andy just bought. Nice place, Andy! It was wiltingly hot but we set out to get some lunch and then to pick out paint samples for the apartment at Pintchik. We ate at Burrito Bar on Flatbush and watched the Little League World Series on ESPN. It was funny to see all these 11-14 year old kids. Today's kids all have names like Brock, Tyler, Taylor and Payton, and Andy and I amused ourselves by determining which of these kids were going to grow up to be the biggest jock douches and get all the girls.
What then? Oh, I saw Superbad. This is not a movie review blog so I am not going to get all into it, but this movie gets 5 stars, 4 golden mics, and 3 thumbs up. I had heard very good things but I didn't really believe it, until I saw the show with mine own eyes and loved every character and joke in the movie. It was pretty perfect. Rush right out!
Sunday I went to brunch at 5 Ninth in their small and lovely garden and ate polenta with sunny side up eggs and chorizo. 2 good 2 be 4 gotten! Then I went to a community garden, Lotus Garden, on top of a parking garage on the upper west side and saw 2 koi (really goldfish, I'd say) ponds and some beautiful flowers and a peach tree and sat there for a while chewing gum.
Afterward my dear Sunday companion and I went to some men's stores so he could purchase a new leather manbag, and he got a great looking one at Kenneth Cole and also tried on a smokin hot leather coat there that was a perfect fit and look but wasn't warm enough for his tastes.
Then I went to pick up my friend Meg at the hair salon where she works, Salon V, and her co-workers and I went to Yuca for Sangria and the like. One girl was drinking this nuts hybrid margarita/sangria drink, that when you sipped thru the straw you could taste the two cocktails separately in the glass one after another! One of her co-workers, a rare straight male stylist, had just moved back to NYC after a 7-year stint doing hair in North Caroliney on "Dawson's Creek" and "One Tree Hill," and he of course had some good- ass insider gossip that he was happy to share. IF you send me a weekend report I will pass it on to you. After catching a buzz, I was still not prepared to go sing "Jesse's Girl" backed by a live band at my friend Alanna's karaoke bday party at the Baggot Inn (co-hosted with Noah from the Big Quiz Thing), which I went ahead and did anyway and sang way too high on the advice of some girl in the bathroom who felt that since it was a man's voice originally I'd better start high and work my way down the octaves. (Meg laughed really hard when she heard I had had a karaoke conference in the ladies room.) Error! I heard myself sing terribly so I made up for it with both rock and hip hop stage moves and high energy. I was congratulated afterward so I guess it wasn't totally hateful. Then I peaced out and went home to bed.

Nicole

Let's Hear About My Weekend Now

2007-08-23T13:38:00.000-04:00

Hi, my turn:

Friday I simply cannot remember, not because I was drunk, just because I don't think I did anything really. I know I took the ferry home from my temp job in Jersey City at Lehman Brothers, and after that I come up blank. I know I wanted to watch Intervention, but remembered that my cable has been out since I returned from Buenos Aires on August 1st, which I am not really complaining about because ever since the tv has been off I've seen a bunch of good DVDs, and otherwise have been alternating between reading The Economist and studying Spanish. So it follows that that is probably what I did on Friday night.
Saturday I went to the Delicious Sandwich Social (DSS), with Alanna, M.C., and Adrienne, held in Prospect Park and orchestrated by Jon Friedman. Here's what you do to go to this thing once a year: You make or get a sandwich (after not much thought, I went with Classic baloney and mustard on white, purchased at the Superior Deli), cut it in half, eat your half at your leisure, label your other half, adding your email to the label, and give it to the DSS Committee, and then eventually you pick a sammy half out of the grab-bag and hopefully you like what you picked and you eat it!! Then you're meant to go around and find who made your sammich and who ate your half. This breakdown of events is what I thought was supposed to happen. I wasn't quite right about how I figured it would go down. It is quite an unusual and creative event and I don't know if I or everyone else knew just what to do...I didn't socialize much too much with those I didn't know and I found out who got the half I provided this way: all the sammiches went into big garbage bags (divided by vegetarian and meat, for those of you who ask questions of the sort I ask), and you had gotten a number when you turned in your sandwich half which was now randomly called, and when you go up you stick your mitt into the bag of your choice and then read to the crowd triumphantly what type of sandwich you pulled out and everyone cheers. So utilizing this process, everyone knows who got their sandwich bc you see someone getting it, eliminating half of the social opportunity to go meet people and seek out your foodmate. Then, when I got my sandwich half (hot roast beef and mozz on a hero) I read off the name of and thanked the guy who'd made it, giving him a chance to get props for the good vittles and also to see who it was. I guess I was trying to find a shortcut to knowing the sandwichmaker rather than actually asking everyone in the party, esp. because I didn't see a lot of that happening. Noone replied. The next day, I emailed him (remember how I said you put your email on the wrapper?) to thank him this way and dude never wrote back!!! How very extremely anti-social!! I'm not saying that it wasn't a nice day in the park and that there weren't free cupcakes, which was generous and they were really good, but I am saying that I am going to spearhead the Logistics Committee next summer bc this event needs some tweaking. If anyone on the committee is even remotely interested in my constructive criticism, they can take a meeting with me. Oh, one other good thing was this guy Tony who would now and again get on our blanket during this party and who for some reason said you can get on the L.I.E. and it will take you right to Belize.
After the DSS, I went to this coffee/chocolate/wine bar in Park Slope so Adrienne could get a latte. I rather admired the place, liked the art on the walls and approved the furnishings and the backyard garden. After my little lookaround, I perched in a windowseat with a tiny ledge behind me that held little votive candles. In the middle of discussing media on which to print photographs Adrienne suddenly shouts "Oh my god!" I gaped at her and then I smelled it. One millisecond later I too shouted "OH MY GOD OH MY GOD" when I realized that the acrid smell was my ponytail singeing away in the fucking candle that these crackheads placed right behind a person's back when they sit in this seat. What I didn't like was that I grabbed my hair with my hands which could have been burned if there were actual flames. This was not a Michael Jackson scenario though bc I think the deal with his hair inferno was that he had a lot of products in his hair. I myself am a natural beauty and use virtually none...so my hair did not go up in flames. Evidently hair just singes. A lot. A chunk came off in my hands as I pulled it around the front to see what was happening. What struck me most about this occurence is twofold. One, Adrienne, when requested that, in future occurrences of such fiascos, she say more words like Oh My God Your Hair Is On Fire or Oh My God Your Hair at least, admitted that she was lame for not saying more or snapping into action and yanking my hair from the candle or the candle from my hair. She is basically excused bc she is my friend, and bc she did have a period of self-reflection where she was befuddled by her inability to find her words or kinetics and be more proactive. At least she knew that her stillness was wrong and didn't think it wasn't her job to get involved, as some of my nameless narcissistic friends would think. Two, NONE of the employees in the shop ran over, none came with a bucket, none even ambled over to see if I was okay after the incident seemed to have peaked. I had to walk past them at the far end of the shop on the way to the bathroom to finger-comb all the crispy ends out of my locks, at which point they inquired what had happened and if I was all right. These people should have done something. Their lack of concern really motivated my thinking that if I had burned my hair off or burned my skin, I would have sued the chocolate out of that place, taken ownership of it and turned it into a god damn Candle Emporium.
After, we went to Habana Outpost in Ft. Greene BK which is always cool but I think I am losing interest. It is always so completely full of all of its elements- soul music, young designer's market, the grilled corn with the queso blanco on it, the too gorgeous multi-culti customer base- that it feels superficial, like all the parts were brought together and the people were cast to create a show called "Habana Outpost". There is no real there there and it is really hard to get a seat. Eh, I probably won't go again on the weekend for a while. Saturday night I stayed home, avoiding a bday party in the last dangerous part left in the LES, and I think I watched "The Last Kiss" with Zach Braff. Did any of you see it and what did you think?
Sunday I woke up early and went to sticky-floored Nevada Smith's to watch Chelsea Vs. Liverpool. It was a tie, 1-1. I saw a bunch of my soccer-watching and -playing friends there who genuinely seemed like they actually noticed I was gone for a month and that they had missed me. Lovely. And the chicken pie was the best I have ever had there, literally 100 times better, they must have gotten a new meatpie distributor. What else? Oh we went over to Central Bar after the game and watched some Latin American soccer and I ate cheesy beans on toast and turned my nose up at the black & white pudding. Noone knew what is in the white pudding part but they knew what made the other part black and I wanted no part of it.
After this merriment I cruised on home to join a party at my apt that was thrown by my roommate Sarah for her female college volleyball team that she coaches as her profession. The place was packed with Amazons and enough food to feed a team of Amazons. I ate seven layer dip and made some charming comments about feeling like I was in the waiting room for auditions for America's Next Top Model (many of them were pretty good looking) and after making them all love me I went into my room to play with my cats and go to bed early.
When I got to work Monday I asked the IT guy how his weekend was. He said, "Great- I was in a drunken stupor all weekend!" I countered with, "Oh yeah? My hair went on fire!" and he said "You've got me beat. Trumped!" Alli esta! (There it is!)

Nicole

Hamburglar

2007-08-21T19:37:00.000-04:00

Fruity, I don't mean to laugh bc iI bet that was scary for a long minute, but that self-burglary story is really funny!! Glad it was you who did it to yourself!

Nicole

J. Fruit Says...

2007-08-21T19:36:00.000-04:00

The weekend got to a slow start when I had to drag some friends out for one of their bdays. I drank a little much and stumbled home. (Dragging people out is never the way to start a celebration.) It led to a late start getting on the road to Richmond. Got there late but we kept our plans to hit VA Beach. It was a nice beach but there wasn't much by way of restaurants or culture. Southern VA loves it some haunted houses though. Shockoe Bottom was a really cute neighborhood that I enjoyed hanging out in (there was a haunted mansion here too). It's all the more impressive when you learn that it was almost 6 ft deep underwater 3 years ago!!! Saturday night I had dinner at Havana 59. Its stylings were impeccable if the food left a little to be desired. Check it out at night and, if you can look beyond the non-Cubans there, you might think you were actually in Havana. Grab a deck of cards on the table and have a great time like we did playing Spit. The next day we had brunch at Cafe Gutenberg (also in Shockoe Bottom). Then we went down to the James River (which cuts through Richmond). It was pretty cool and decently clean. I would've had a swim if I were prepared. Apparently, we could've gone kayaking on it as well. Instead, I dipped my feet in and stared at the finely chiseled guys taking a hanging out on the rocks. After struggling back home through much traffic (though not nearly as bad as the way down), I arrived at home suspecting I had been burglarized. It took awhile to realize that I was very drunk Friday night and flew out on Saturday morning such that I just didn't notice that I threw my mail, clothes, and a large abandoned sketch pad I picked up on the way home on strewn all over the floor. Um...maybe I should give up my boozing.

Back to Lisa

2007-08-21T19:33:00.000-04:00

I liked posting her report because "Lisa Says" is a song by the Velvet Underground. That reminds me, I am now going to go buy some "El Cantante" songs in Itunes. Don't poke fun.

Nicole

EEEEEE!

2007-08-21T19:28:00.000-04:00

Everyone say hello to Eli(as) from Buenos Aires! He is an American working there in Commercial Real Estate and he speaks fluent Spanish and is living quite a nice little life down there, with the job and the hobbies and the binlinguality and the good food and the 2-br apt with a sick view. He is young and has already done this big life thing so he commands my respect and admiration. He was a dynamo to hang out with too, especially when, what was it, Nate Dogg? comes on!!

PROPS!!

Nicole

Eli from Buenos Aires Says...

2007-08-21T19:26:00.000-04:00

I took Wed-Fri off of work to play host to two very good friends who came to visit. We went to 3 clubs - Mynt, Lost and Kika, 2 bars, and (edited out for the sake of the poster).
We took off later to some estancia/retreat to recuperate and also, take the opportunity to kick out an unwanted house guest (she tried to make me change my shirt!). I ate at just about every restaurant that was in Lonely Planet and some that were not. Had to double dip at the favorites. Very little sleep was involved but I'm as happy as I've ever been.

Welcome, Kind New Poster!!

2007-08-21T19:18:00.000-04:00

A large with sugarcone and two toppings welcome to Lisa who totally gets it and has graced the blog with a good weekend report replete with links and descriptive info. Well done! Keep 'em coming!!!
Not a lot of you are into veggie/vegan things but I definitely lean that way a lot of the time so if anyone wants to break on through to the other side and check out Lisa's rec I'd be willing to ambassador them. However I still do not have the foggiest idea what is in vegan ice cream so don't be asking me.

Nicole

Lisa Says...

2007-08-21T19:16:00.000-04:00

This weekend my partner and I drove up to Bloodroot (www.bloodroot.com), a vegetarian/vegan feminist restaurant. There are no waitresses and no cash-registers, but an abundance of yummy veggie and vegan food, the best chocolate ice cream i've ever had (vegan to boot!), and some amazing bread with cruelty-free butter. The women who run the place are friendly and warm, the bookstore is interesting, Andrea and Catharine, the resident kitties, are affectionate and fun, and you can't beat the atmosphere, especially outside on the patio. We spent about 3 hours here and came home with 2 large cookbooks full of their recipes. It was fabulous, and was worth killing my clutch (it was on its way out, anyway) to go up there.

And in case anyone is wondering, my partner was not the only male there. Its a comfortable environment for all. Bloodroot has been around for over 30 years.

J. Fruit Said A Short Time Ago...

2007-08-21T19:14:00.000-04:00

Last weekend was another trip up to the NYC for me (in hopes of moving back for good). I started out meeting up with Vanilla-Bean down in the SOHO and heading to the Boiler Room in the East Village. It was not what it used to be (a good thing) because now it has actual lighting (vs. the black light it used to have). There was a little birthday celebration going on. I met a few people who were all coupled off. 3 actual couples and another half couple (whose other half was touring as Hercules on a cruise ship). Although some of them were "open," the couples experience got boring quick so we headed over to a rooftop gathering in Chelsea hosted by yet another gay couple. The view was awesome even if I left feeling like I needed some Mini Storage. Nothing momentous happened there so we went on to Barracuda. Many people came up to one of our entourage because his other half was out of town and apparently they were checking in on him. That sent me home of course stopping off for some pizza because I was alone. The next day I went to an engagement party. I had previously asked the bride-to-be to set me up w/some of her co-worker friends and thought it was a great time to check in on her progress. She told me that the only gays from work who were coming were a couple. Wah-wah. Well the moral of this weekend is that I do not have the latest in gay accessories--a bf. It makes me think of a time when I was taken but strangely many of my friends were not, including Cinnamon. We were talking about relationships, walked by Tompkins Square Park, and saw these middle-aged homeless men making out by the closed entrance. I turned to Cinnamon and said, "Damn! Even THEY found each other..."

In Case Folks Are Interested..

2007-07-12T21:31:00.000-04:00

Cliff my traveling companion is keeping a blog about his experience on this trip...sometimes I am with him for the stuff he writes about and there are pictures too so if you want to know more about my sojourn to Argentina or get an idea about the place I am currently residing in, take a look here:

http://chico-norte.blogspot.com/

Nicole

Travelin' Band

2007-07-12T21:27:00.000-04:00

I am psyched to hear that so many of you are getting out of town!! It's great isn't it!!!
Argentina beat Mexico 3-0 in the Copa Americana!

Nicole

F U BOBBY!!!

2007-07-12T21:26:00.000-04:00

Please elaborate about Bobby!!

Nicole

Betty Hollywood Says...

2007-07-12T21:25:00.000-04:00

since it was a national holiday last week, what better way to celebrate then to head south of the border! me and S. made our way down into puerto neuvo mexico to a shitty little place called bobby's by the sea. at first it we saw it as a lovely room with fun mexican accoutromonts but then quickly discovered after having construction being done on all sides of our room and over my car, that the owner bobby was a mean mean drunk with a penchant for making his guests feel scared and shitty at the same time. F U BOBBY! we packed up and headed down into ensenada only to get lost by an enourmous mexican flag (really. its like the size of the empire state building). finally, we landed at poco cielo which was a lovely oasis right on the water. we had a patio and our own parking spot. for $80. we ate fresh tortillas, salsa and drank $1 margaritas. S. made a bonfire on the beach and we roasted marshmallows, drank tequila and played my guitar. dinner at la fonda followed and the following morning we woke to yoga and stretching on the beach and reading magazines over huevos and frozen orange juice. heads up, on a mission to relax on the beaches of san diego, we got caught at the mexican border for FIVE HOURS!?!?!?! ay carumba!

Kinkle (In Paris This Weekend) Says...

2007-07-12T21:24:00.000-04:00

So last weekend we were in gay Paree... which is not as gay when you have a 2 year old believe me! After a really crazy episode in the Catacombs the day before (when I learned that my child's shrieks do NOT in fact raise the dead, contrary to popular opinion) we decided to take it easy and shop a bit. July is famous for the sales in Paris, but honestly there was waaay too much clothing that looked like it was designed by the French Ellen Tracy. The hubby tried on some really cool white leather pointy boots with red elastic insets, but felt guilty about spending the dough so he didn't. I have no such qualms, however, and I finally found a cool top by some French designer I've never heard of on sale at La Bon Marche (the more or less Saks Fifth Ave of Paris), so my quota of French fashion, though small, was somewhat quenched. We went to the Eiffel Tower and briefly considered eating at Jules Verne the restaurant there but apparently you have to have reservations a month in advance and it was 150 Euros PER PERSON not including wine. So, obviously that didn't happen. Also, pretty much anytime you get the kid near a monument it's a cue for him to have the terrible two meltdown which kicked in about a week or two ago. In the future, if any reader of this blog thinks they can travel around and sightsee with a two year old just remember my advice. NO, YOU CAN'T. Climbing the 8 million stairs in the tower was pretty much out of the question so we returned to the neighborhood we were staying in, Montparnasse and had a lovely meal at a restaurant that turned out to be a chain but was still good for Frenchy food. The kid even got a giant high chair carved to look like a throne.. how appropo! The next day we went to some flea market I had read about in Time Out's guide to Paris. I should know better, because I certainly take everything they say in NYC with a grain of salt but this purportedly "Mother of All Paris Flea Markets" or so it was touted was actually a piece of crap selling bad rip off hip hop clothes and a few junky ethnic trinkets. It was at the tail end of Monmarte, though which is an awesome charming neighborhood that hosted lots of artists in its day (like Montparnasse) and we made a quick visit to Sacre Coure where I picked up a bronze cross to add to my cross collection. (I'm not really religious per se but I am oddly drawn to religious artifacts, especially catholic ones. I was probably Catholic in another life). We picknicked on the steps and afterwards walked around, conveniently timing a visit to the Dali museum there around naptime for the kid. Then we took a quick stroll through Pigalle (where the Moulin Rouge is and they have lots of sex shops) before the gourmand hubby drove me absolutely nuts walking UP and DOWN the hills looking for the absolutely perfect restaurant which of course we would need a reservation for. We finally ate at a totally servicable bar/restaurant before heading home. Sunday we had plans to go to Versailles, which I have been dreaming about for decades. The time right before the French Revolution is my absolute fave for decor, clothing and well, everything except smallpox and personal hygiene. Provided I could be a member of the upper classes I would go back to that time (at least for a week) in a heartbeat. Well the line was long and the tantrums were in full effect, so much so the hubby left me somewhere before the king's apartments so I could at least see the place in peace. Did i mention he's a gem? He caught up with me again with a subdued child in the Hall of Mirrors and we managed to take a more peaceful tour of the last part of the museum. I was dying to see the gardens but, like the rest of our European soujourn, it started pissing down rain and we had to leave. We grabbed some fries for the kid at the local McDonald's (where yes, they DO sell a Royal with cheese) before taking the train back and eating at another bistro (beef for him, escargot and French onion soup pour moi) before taking our tired, wet bones home. Ah Paree... I want to return again and again!

Matt from the Upper East Side Says...

2007-07-12T21:20:00.000-04:00

Headed down to Atlantic City with my friend Dave W. on 7-7-07, hoping for a little luck (as well as a little beach time in the 85 degree heat). Had no luck with the traffic, getting stuck in 4 hours of stop-and-go on the way down there, but we finally rolled into town at about 2pm, leaving a few hours of beach time ahead of us. We had booked a room at the Holiday Inn on the Boardwalk. Great location, but the place was a dump, and horribly overpriced. On 24 hours notice, it was the best we could do.

However, once we settled in and made our way to the beach, things were definitely looking up. AC has done much to improve its beach in the past several years, and we spent the afternoon swimming, tanning, and listening to the bands at the beach bar they've set up near the boardwalk.

We finally returned to the hotel, showered and changed, and the evening began. The atmosphere in AC was lively, with lots of 7-7-07 promotions and general good cheer. Dave and I started by playing craps at the Tropicana, and after an hour, I was up $250 and he was up $150. Nice! A good start.

We then cabbed our way to the Borgata, where we had made dinner reservations at Seablue. We had a little time to kill before the reservation, so Dave and I took a little stroll around the casino. We passed a bank of slot machines called "Blazing Sevens." Now, I never play slots. Never. I find them boring, and they just suck your money. I'm much more into table games. However....

I couldn't resist. "Blazing Sevens" on 7-7-7? I had to do one spin. So I did: One spin, on a lark, for the humor value if nothing else. One $3 spin, just to say that I had done it.

And the wheels spun. The first wheel... 7. The second wheel... 7. The third wheel... which seemed to turn in slow motion........

7!!!

Time seemed to stand still for a moment. The machine started ringing and whooping, and I stared at it dumbfounded. Yes indeed, with one spin only, I had hit 7-7-7 on "Blazing Sevens" on 7-7-07. Incredible.

Ok, ok, before anyone gets too excited, the jackpot wasn't anything earth-shattering. The payout was $300, which is terrific but I'm not quitting my day job. Still, I had been kissed by Lady Luck, and I was swooning.

Afterward, I floated with Dave toward dinner, and we did dine well, oh yes. Rounded out the evening with some light $1-$2 poker (which gained me another whopping $8) and a few stupid hands at blackjack (lost $50) before calling it a night. We headed back to NYC the next morning, me with a $500 profit in my pocket, and more importantly, a great 7-7-7 story. Dave also posted a $100 gain. Definitely, a good time had by all.

Matt (a/k/a "Lucky Sevens")

Nicole Says...

2007-07-03T20:54:00.000-04:00

Very good Kinkle!! Kinkle's husband is a dedicated foodie and a wizard in the kitchen but Kinkle is not known for an adventurous appetite. I am very impressed and pleased that she is stretching her repertoire when faced with atypical, European menus. Hopefully what happens in Hamburg doesn't stay in Hamburg and she retains this exploratory gustatory spirit. Also I am glad you were nowhere near the Glasgow airport incident.
I myself am about to head out for a traditional Argentinian dinner of lorco, which is a stew of pork and beans and something else, that costs somewhere between ninety cents and four dollars. Delicioso!!

Nicole

Kinkle In Europe Says...

2007-07-03T20:47:00.000-04:00

Last weekend! I spent most of Thursday going from Glasgow to Amsterdam with a three hour layover then from Amsterdam to Hamburg. Trying to kill that much time with a toddler is tough, even if the Amsterdam airport has the single best gift type shops I have seen. I love my local tchotchkes and they've got some of the best but I didn't feel as though I could truly buy any because I didn't see the city. Weird, I know. Anyway Thursday has bearing on my weekend for two reason: One, I didn't leave the apartment on Friday because it was schmuddlevedder (rainy drizzly grey weather) AGAIN and also because after all that hauling the baby & luggage around I was perfectly happy to sit on my ass. Two, how lucky was I to get the f out of Glasgow before they rammed a car into the airport? I briefly considered extending my stay and going to London for a few days and my friend offered to watch the baby but then all flights in/out of Glasgow were cancelled. I would have been in London, my kid in Scotland and my husband in Germany! (Not to mention the dog in New York). It's too much apartness for moi.
ANYWAY so yes Friday was chill. Saturday when the hubby got done we went down to the Reeperbahn which is where the Beatles got their start. In 2007 it's a giant mess of trash boutiques, beer gardens, dive bars, slot machine halls, strip clubs and sex stores. It kind of reminds me of Bourbon Street with more of the sex element thrown, and is filled with everyone from people with kids to old people to tourists to lots and lots of cheesy bachelor and bachelorette parties dressed in goofy costumes which I guess is a tradition here.
We wandered around and it wasn't really jamming yet because it's a late night neighborhood, obviously. I wanted to go into one Sex Superstore but my husband said it would be inappropriate with the baby. Which, I guess it would but how did he get here in the first place? It was like outfits and dildos, not hardcore porn but whatever. We ended up on some little side street (but couldn't find the street that supposedly just allows men) looking for the Beatles venue which we didn't find. I noticed some kinda rockabilly sailor girl looking at me VERY frankly and finally figured out she was a working girl. That's when I noticed them: All around me, vacant-eyed chicks with badly dyed blonde or black hair, wearing short parkas, distressed jeans and fanny packs (presumably to hold condoms). Whatever happened to hot pants and go-go boots? They all had major caked-on makeup, too and none of them look too happy. It must suck laboring in the world's oldest profession in that particular neighborhood.
Anyway, we left that little side street and had a drink in some slightly upscale bar connected to a theater (they show things like Mamma Mia in this area too, it's not all booze n' porn) and then wandered a flea market where some girl sang bad Alanis covers and I ate some random sausage off a grill. My eating is definitely more adventurous over here. We got home about the time the baby crashed so it was an interesting evening, even if I didn't hit any dodgy clubs.
The next night (I chilled at home again) I took my husband to a belated Dad day dinner at this crazy restaurant called The Old Commercial Room in our neighborhood where everyone from Tom Jones to George Clooney and Jackie Chan has dined. It's been around since the late 1600s SUPPOSEDLY but in that space since the late 1700s (Supposedly. It looked fairly new to me) and since the current owner is in his 60s it may not be there forever. It's kinda nautical on the inside, which lots of plaques and pictures and flags and whatnot everywhere and they were nice enough to give the baby coloring materials and a puzzle when we arrived. You can also smoke at all the tables which is cool I guess since there are few places you can do that anymore. The hubby made me try this weird Hamburg appetizer that was like pureed meat with two fried eggs on top, pickles and beets. You mix it all up & eat it and I KNOW it sounded disgusting but it actually was ok. I tried some on bread and as long as it was piping hot, I could totally deal with it.
Then we had a bottle of wine and some fish/potato/spinach/heavy sauce thing for me and roasted fish/potato thing for him. He ordered a strawberry shortcakeesque thing for dessert (something I typically avoid) and then we rolled on home. I heart the Old Commercial Room!

Caitlin in France Says...

2007-06-29T09:24:00.000-04:00

Nothing brilliant really....Friday night was spent with some friends at a wine bar on the River Rhone. It was actually an attempt to hook up two gay male friends, but it was really just a disaster...Saturday redeemed itself with some "Fete de la Musique" which is an all weekend long festival that happens in every spot in Geneva. Some stages are set up and musicians play music from about 12pm until 3am. And there are even spots where people that haven't signed up can go and play whatever they fancy. So, Saturday-- both day and night-- was spent at the festival, in parks, and eating lots of Swiss sausage and beer. Mmmmmm. Sunday? Pretty much the same. So nothing outrageous but a good ol time in Switzerland....This weekend? I have to write a piece for a magazine on vodka and caviar and so I think we know where that is heading...... Okay, will keep you posted!!!

Juliana Says...

2007-06-29T09:19:00.000-04:00

Last Friday I stayed at the office…until 11PM. Now, normally not only would that NEVER happen (ok, maybe I’d stay late, but not that late) but I certainly wouldn’t mention it on a public blog – I mean, really, how pathetic is that?? But that said I’m damn proud of myself. You see, my office has been in a state of perpetual chaos for the past three years. With school & then transitioning into new responsibilities but still doing the old ones while we went through 3 different people to take my old job, my office’s organization was the last thing on my mind. However, I just couldn’t handle it any longer. The entire place was made of piles upon piles of mushrooming papers that needed pushing, that had been pushed or that someday might be pushed. I needed to get my act together. So, after about seven hours (I know – that’s insane right… 7 hours??) I’m happy to say that everything’s in order & has a place to be… so, whoo hoo!

Afterwards, I went home & rewarded myself with two movies: LA PUTA VIDA (which was translated as “The Tricky Life” but for the record, is totally wrong – it’s closer to “a whore’s life” but really is like saying “for f*ck’s sake” – it doesn’t quite make sense but is said for the raw, blunt forcefulness of the curse. Not surprisingly, it’s pretty common in Argentina -- & as I've discovered now, also in Uruguay) and THE CLAIM. Both were pretty good actually. “La Puta Vida” was set in Montevideo, Uruguay about a single mom with two kids that starts working in a brothel to make money to open a salon & then gets trafficked to Barcelona. I think it was supposed to be a drama but it was pretty funny. [When the actors’ first started speaking I totally thought it was set in Argentina from their accents – I thought maybe it was set in one of the outer provinces. Completely forgot that Uruguayan & Argentine Spanish are super close in their accents & expressions (Chile’s up there too).] The other one, “The Claim” starred Wes Brentley (or Bentley?? from “American Beauty”) and let me just state for the record, that boy is handsome with a beard! Funny enough, this movie also had women as working prostitutes in a very matter-of-fact way (but this was 19^th C. WA or CO?? Somewhere west…) Anyway, I wanted to see them before returning them to the library. (As nerdy as this sounds, I recently discovered that the NYPL in my area by work has all these cool movies so I stopped doing Netflix until further notice… I’m only sharing that last part because if Artie reads this he might care as we used to send each other recommendations & reviews on it.

Anyhoo, Saturday I woke up late but not too late… organized my place a bit… made myself a kick-@ss omelet… got my dirty laundry together & my rollerblades, dropped off the former & practiced on the latter. It was a gorgeous day out & perfect for humiliating myself in public. Mind you, I haven’t been on these things in TEN (yes, that’s right, 10) years… what possessed me to get back on them? My BF. He’s been getting into them so I figured it could be something we could try to do together. Fortunately, he wasn’t there to witness my humiliation. A couple of things about roller-blades: 1.) what’s up with only having ONE brake?!? Dude, anytime a human being is on wheels, there should definitely be more than 1 brake involved! 2.) And it’s not quite like riding a bike, but you do remember… or at least I thought so until a carriage driver passed me by and yelled, “Just learning?”… Um, wow Sherlock, I wonder what gave that away? Perhaps the flailing arm motion or was it the “Woas” coming out of my mouth as I tried to brake. In any case, it was pretty silly looking but kind of fun. Fortunately, I have very little shame.

Afterwards, I headed back to my apartment, fixed myself up & headed out to Park Slope for a friend’s b’day who I hadn’t seen in ages at some bar whose name I forget. I haven’t been in Brooklyn in quite some time & forgot how freaking long it takes from my place by subway (1hr & 35 minutes!!). The girl of the hour was looking lovely in red, chatted with some of her very lovely friends & had a less-than-mediocre Bloody Mary (I’m picky though). After a bit, I noticed the hour & realized I had to head back to Manhattan for my dear friend, Andreas’ 40^th b’day at the B Bar where my BF was to meet up with me. We had said 9PM & since I've turned over a new leaf in my old age, I knew I had to jet. Beforehand though I changed into a fresh cute red sundress for the evening festivities in the not-so-cute-or-fresh-bar bathroom… aah, the things a girl does for beauty! Got to the bar (on time) & lo & behold I was the only one there for quite some time… As folks slowly started trickling in fashionably & not-so-fashionably late, I had to wonder what is it about NYers always being late? I mean, I can understand fashionably-30-minutes-late either -- but what’s up with the 1-1½-2 hours late! Did a memo go out that I wasn’t aware of?? The thing is I can't say this out loud to anyone because I've always been late in the past (although I don’t think always that late) so it would be the pot calling the kettle black, but still… I guess I’m getting old & want my bed earlier.

Anyhoo, haven’t been to the B Bar in ages either & was surprised to see that they now have all those tables in the outdoor area for dining only which really kind of sucks actually. After being forced to get our eat on if we wanted to sit at a table, we all then headed back to the limited standing room space there was out back & got our drink on. If you're wondering I've noticed that my drink of choice lately has been vodka tonics with extra lime – feels summery to me for some reason – it could also be because there are no danger of spill stains, its low in carbs [or that’s what I’m telling myself] & are quite refreshing – what effects it may be producing on my liver I do not want to know… After several of them and a couple of witty (& one not so pleasant) drunken conversations (aren’t they always witty though when you're tipsy??) it was time to head home…

Sunday woke up late & hung out with the BF – he watched Bruce Lee movies while I talked on the phone catching up with friends on the west-coast. Eventually, I headed back to my place where I went to my fancy local “gourmet” market to re-stock the fridge (I love that place but I buy like 6 things & end up spending $50!!!) & then just chilled for the remainder of the evening. (I realized later that not only was it Pride weekend, but the Coney Island Mermaid-or-whatever-it’s-called-Festival – I totally missed it!! I think it’s the last year they're doing it now that they're going to develop C.I. no? Anyway, wanted to catch it before it disappeared forever, damn it! Hopefully next year it’ll still be around after-all…)