as we all knew i would...

(welcome mike; lee frielander rocks, i have a draft about this; the sound of music is a great movie to show in prospect park-appropriate for families and has a cult following for the hipsters, plus you can sing along. i was skeptical but it was great; my back is proof that you can get burnt at the beach on a totally cloudy day)

i called best man boy and left a message. it was stupid and sounded ok in my mind at the time but was probably much more off putting then 'hey bmb its brookburg give me a call' but sometimes i feel better when i self handicap.
could have been better, could have been worse. i shouldn't have called him. he said he would call and didn't. and i don;t want to wonder about if someone is interested in me or going to ditch me. and really i could have walked away from it, but of course i had to go and invest something in it. whatever, we'll see what happens.

the debate is settled

grimaldi's wins hands down. went to lombardi's for the first time last night and really grimaldis puts it to shame, no need for me to go back to lombardi's ever again.

you know what? i do enough

so yesterday i checked out the staff bios of gothamist-probably my fav regular internerd site these days. and i was impressed and surprised in that i shouldn't have been surprised kinda way at 1) how many staff they have (i never look at the bi-lines and for some reason always think its just one person) and 2) how much other full time shit they do in their lives. today with the help of google i found a friend's trying to be pro blog that he's running out of interest and as a way to foment a career shift [so interesting these days how that is done over the web, instead of say interships] and its pretty impressive and obviously takes him a lot of time, esp b/c of the amount of reading he's got to do, which i have to admit is stuff that interests him and that he would do anyway. and i started being like shit, he does so much and oh woe is me what do i do. well you know what i lead a pretty active life, and work a full time job and have been in school part time, and even if i don't have a cool website to show for it (this blog excluded as this is more of a rambling journal then any trying to actually produce anything endeavour) that's ok. i'm cool with it. so as i started out, you know what i do enough and i applaud brandavenue and everyone else for rocking thier personal casbahs.

and the mandatory update: still no call from best man man. that's so lame. still undecided if i will call him again.

anyone read swedish out there?

so my mom is convinced the only way to end my love life woes (ie lack of a love life or anything past a second date) is to be fixed up by one of my friends. she is convinced that i have set so many people up (i can only point to 1 successful couple and not that many other attempts) that they should be getting my back. so there you are dear readers, all 3 of you set me up.

i walked out of ikea in new haven on saturday with a small red book in swedish. it was my intention to see what would happen when i tried to purchase it. i picked a small volume, thinking it would be cheaper, as it was my intention to follow-thru with my ridiculousness and purchase the book if i could [that and i hate philip roth even in swedish] then i forgot about it. but then i remembered at the check out and my architect made me put it back in my bag and keep it. i either would have pissed off the teller b/c people try to purchase the books all the time. or pissed her off b/c no one tries to purchase it b/c obviously its just for display. but then why do they have 50 of the same book on the shelf. if they are trying to make it look realistic they should vary the books, or make them fake. and they do have those big yellow bags (which i'm pretty sure can be purchased) for you to take around the top floor with you to pick up the smaller cuter items along your way....

montero's an excellent bar. loved the juke boxes. loved the $2 bottled rolling rock. seriously why have i never been before? and of course i was all into the nautical theme.

keep your hands on the keeper

had a semi-traumatic keeper falling into the toilet incident last night. but all is now right in that world.

i kinda want to be searched by the nypd so i can refuse and go somewhere else, but then i wonder what the reprocussions are. last year when mollie rose and i were totally lost going to the irish fest and we asked a cop for directions and he asked to see our id's first. we just handed them over and started questioning why later. that was weird.

last night took guate girl and a damliger to see a weird ass performance art peice at the park in front of bam. at least it was a nice night to sit out and look at how nicely the spot light lit up the big tree and the fireflies. i did not get what the eastern religion/culture tie ins were. it reminded me of a much simpler, almost easier to connect with richard foreman (big guy in theater of the absurd) peice but not nearly as involved. lets just say we all get haunted by our dreams sometimes.

happy b'day to WWSD
refuah shlemah to the damliger's mom-in-law/mom

shopping

is evil and great at the same time.
spending money on clothing makes me feel better.
yesterday i started doubting a couple actions of mine FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON (arg) and ended up leaving zara with an UBER cute yet more money than i need to spend green khaki/jean jacket with a removable fur collar. it rocks, and fits, but not if i want to wear anything under it, making it not so usable for actual jacket warmth purposes. trying on jackets with mickey is a dangerous thing.
so of course we rewarded ourselves-my impulse buying, her not buying anything-by going to luna park in union square. wow i don't live that life of jcrew everywhere and all white people all in white drinking $7 bottled beer. but it is nice to drink outside around cool architecture on a hot night with lights strung up over head. glad i did it, i'll stick to gawanus from now on. and a meal from old town hit the spot to finish off the night for me.

another thing from the i love brooklyn weekend

stawberries, white wine and creme freche to go along with a cold pbr on milo's parents stoop after a little evening walk. totally made up for the being banished from the take out margarita place on sat night and the rooftop barbqs being temporarily halted. do you have a roof we can grill on? i need some coal fired love soon!

i'm back

on west coast time and spent all day in a plane. and shit the humidity sucks here, i'd rather go back to being cold like i was yesterday (san fran is a nice city but not so much with the weather)
i still want to comment on the i love brooklyn weekend i had before i left for cali: lopez bakery back in business and open til 8:30 on friday night, bay ridge-how cute, the veterans pier how awesome!, pratt's campus-such good sculpture (esp when compared to the shit that gets displayed at socrates) and such an urban oasis, seriously it would be an oasis even if it was in the middle of park slope and not on the clinton hill bed-sty border, coney island- lemonade and french fries from nathan's and late afternoon sun, seriously what more could i ask for? oh and karrot and the cute cafe where i got the chocolate croissant (which was perfect after my blueberry smoothie) also i don't really like my chocolate crossants heated and certainly not pannini pressed.
ok got to head back to work tomorrow, so sleep now
l8r...

they sure grow these trees tall out here

howdy from just outside yosemtite. i capitualted (to whom i'm not sure, myself, my dad, the idea of dealing with my dad and logistics) and gave up hiking today. my new pipe dream plan is to rent a car on sunday and go down to big sur, but that might mean missing the aquarium which i don't think i want to do. but you know what, even if it is full of people and cars-yosemite valley is fucking gorgeous and incredidible and minus the obnxious children throwing stones at the very cool and blue jays (but not blue jays) mirror lake was incredibly serene and relaxing. the drive from the south entrance to the valley was a little too winedy for me, how do you spell that? windy winndy. whatever. i want to talk to slip and slide buddy but understandably as she is on her honeymoon her phone is not on.
i had a horrible pregnancy dream last night with my shrink revealing to me that i was pregnant and my not being able to tell the father and my mom planning a wedding when she was supposed to be driving me to an abortion clinic. it sucked, but at least no bears attacked me in real life.
how are y'all.
shout out to baby emmit in wyoming and to tilda for finishing her first week of work and to her partner on starting his job hunt.
when should i send out the save the date for my b;day? when should i call best man boy?
does voroan still work at grey dog?
when am i going to go hiking or do everything i want to do this summer.
why are giant seqioias so damn cool!
ok i'm outtie. til later.
oh and my mom's best friend from college (who is coming to meet her in san fran) wants to set me up with her son in laws brother. couple problems there, i will be in ny the night they have dinner plans, he lives on the west coast. oh well.

it wasn't and it was

first off i have a lot to say about brooklyn neighborhoods from last weekend that never got posted. it boiled down to i love brooklyn and pratt has much better sculpture than socrates. there is more but i'll leave it til when i have unlimited internet access in a week. also went to a party with mickey and chill where we knew very few people and it was fun. i love it when that happens.
am in the northern end of napa valley with my parents. didn't miss my flight out an my luggage made it. neither were certain 30 minutes before the flight. made it through one day with out getting super annoyed at my father but not today, i am so not looking forward to going to yosemite with them. when we get to monterrry things will be good.
ate a damn damn fine meal at greystone the culinary institute of america's continuing ed campus out here. went to 3 wineries, ok wine, the glass i had at lunch yesterday was yummy. this morning went to the world's largest petrified forest, but there didn't seem to be so many petrified things to me. also went to an old faithful geyser, waiting around for it to go off and its few gurgles made the place seem like a big tourist trap but the full blown 60 feet in the air eruption was pretty cool.
does anyone beside mickey's family refer to male ejaculation as hot beef injection? mickey, seriously no worries for bringing it up, wasn't pissed, just not a great term.
it is really pretty out here, but i'm glad we are moving on tomorrow even if i do envision my father and i bitching at each other the whole way, and oh yeah we have all definately run out of things to say to each other. i could bring up mickey's adjectives for the best man to my parents but really i don't want to bring that up and even though she had nothing but good adjectives to say about him, somehow i don't feel her into his gestault. want to talk to the levinerman's about their opinions.
ok i should leave the calistoga public library and catch some late day rays, maybe the temp is closer to 88 now.
oh also went to a winery designed by michael graves. great art (huge debuffet sculptures like used to be at the main entrance of the carniegie) great architecture (meditarrean and japansese influcne) shitty wine (they use their caskets 6 six times, most places use them once or twice, so yeah in the consumption reducuction sense they do better, but the make a worse product) and shitty friends (proudly displayed pic of dick cheney at the grounds)
kitsh4 thanks for saying hello.
later.

breaking news in sackler land

my replacement quit today. glad i didn't do too much training of her. my boss needs to get his head out of his ass though and get on hiring someone new. anyone want my job?

if you want to catch the devil and you want to have fun, join the calvery

i like freddy's. it has a nice warm glow to it, its all about the lighting, kinda yellow, kinda dank and old school as well. the music was good, reminded me of being at a trad session in ireland. the washboard was broken out at the end and i was super pleased (and tired) but the walk home wasn't that bad. chb wasn't there, and apparently mollie rose has seen his brother play a bunch of times. the harmonica player kicked ass.
i totally let myself sleep in but still feel wrecked tired, i didn't even drink that much yesterday. post-post work drinks i got to go to an uber fancy grocery store-balducci's and we all know how much i love that. seriouosly its my thing, and this place lived up. there was artisnal water from sweden i think, nope norway, called voss. seriously artisnal water, give me a break. then i got to meet nico, possibly the world's cutest cat. he posed for one picture, it made me happy. then i said fuck it to my detractors and called the best man. i think he sounded excited to hear from me. i am dragging the paco ladies to a party at his place post shakespeare in the parking lot on saturday. this is happy b/c he's quite cute and i think nice and i got schluffed off by another nerve guy. due i'm so damn cool and cute. why don't they get it.
i can't decide if i need to do laundry before i go away or not. maybe i'll do it at the 12th st ladies during dinner tonight....
what i really need is some dry cleaning done. need to go drop that off.
and get some food.

i accesorize

first off let me send a shout out of support to walper in london, what a way to start your 3rd day of work. what a way to send a signal to the G8. makes seattle not look bad at all.
2nd a huge hug of support to mollie rose who is having some stressful times and transitions in her professional, personal and home lives. its a lot, but we love her and she will come out stronger with a better job and more stamps in her passport in the end.

last night i had dinner with a dear friend who i definately do not see enough of. the first time i met her i crashed a party of her's and she was wearing a white t-shirt with the us flag done in yarn on it (was a costume optional party) and had short spiky hair (i think her hair has gone through several transitions) so she told me that she was thinking before she left the house to meet up with me that she should accesorize as she has thought over the past year i have added more bling and accespries to my wardrobe. and its true a side effect of breaking up with chad has been wearing cool shit. i love the beaded bracelets from guate. its awesome!


also holla about the new bid for the atlantic termial railyards. holla no eminent domain. its probaby a more fair price as well.

still waiting for the best man to call....

please explain

why robert novak who is the one who outed valerie plane in print is not getting in trouble and this reporter is going to jail indefinately. seriously what am i missing?

my favorite place in ny/hell yeah the olympics are somewhere else

first of all congrats london. as a new yorker and a pittsburgher i am happy that the olympics are going elsewhere. i do not believe in publicly funded un-mandated stadiums. and all of england will be pitching in to pay for their bid. now all we need to do is get ratner out of brooklyn, even if the ghery buildings will bring a skyline and don't look as obnouxious as his other stuff.

went to coney island last night. except that i was so f'in tired it was awesome. the kid i was meeting up with was late so after hemming and hawing i took myself to the batting cage. 28 pitches, i made contact with the bat 10 times, 3 of which were fould tips, 2 grounding to the pitcher and 5 fouls. it was fun, i want to go all the time. i got the slowest baseball pitches. i think i might go up to medium next time, as my timing wasn't off my bat was just never level with the ball. then we played the ocean course of mini golf. lets not talk about how much over par i was. its not a fancy course, but its not so easy either. i was then starving and we ended up walking down to brighton beach and eating a seaside russian place. it was great. two different worlds. so many people out and about. kinda made me love the boardwalk even more and wish that i had grown up going to the shore. oh ocean and beaches and boardwalks that aren't crowded how i love you!

the recap.

dude it was awesome. that's all there is to say. it was so good to chill with the high school crew and really feel reconnected. debby was radiant, seriously that's the best word i had for it. turning into the point breeze/oakland holiday inn shuttle chaufeur made me feel like a bride's maid. seeing some boston peeps, finally meeting the madison kids. just so much fun. no worries, i will outline it all below with an annotated list of what could have been my titles for this post (also won't be in chronological order)

-my calves are killing me. (high high heels-for me at least)

-i'm vince vaugn in the wedding crashers. (ridiculous amount of alcohol in front of me at the rehearsal dinner. hoya and i getting a bit veclemped and also reverting back to some high school routines)

-blondes are really cute and if the have blue eyes even better, and if they are 3.5 years old even better

-oh fuck it. it was too awesome to go into all the details. and i'm too tired. the ceremony was very nice and everyone looked great. i was grinning ear to ear, she looked awesome and like herself. the reception was mad fun, i spilled wine on her dress (yeah that was me, but hey you don't have to wear it again...) my dad danced really well, i broke my grandmother's antique bracelet, i danced my ass off on the hora. sunday morning i tried to sneak the groom into the hotel to make it seem like he had slept there. people totally saw us but not his parents who were the important ones. monday morning i tried to sneak out of the hotel to make it seem like i hadn't slept there. again people totally saw me, but not the best man's parents who this time were the important ones. my dad called me later in the morning to ask if i had the car or if it had been stolen. i feared going home but they didn't say anything and neither did i. looking forward to a full night's sleep tonight though.

if you want more deets on the wedding you know how to get in touch with me,

quick mazel tov

to tal and dan. rock on with your coupleness!

other shout outs:
pamster for the awesome crew brunch on monday. yummy eggs.
yoni for rocking on with his going to be a phd and my wanting to be his mentor

the toast

First let me thank debby, chris and their families for such a
wonderful affair, max, hillary, barb, doug, and sandy on behalf of all
of us thank you for today and for raising such wonderful kids.

It is my great honor and privilege to be asked to make a toast in
their honor today. I have to just start out by saying debby I love
you, you are my dearest friend, I don't know what I would do without
your support . friendship and confidence. I consider you my sister.

My wonderful memories of time spent with debby and chris are too
numerable to recount. debby is my oldest friend, chris lived at the
other end of my freshman floor at college and from the first time we
met I knew there was something I liked about this guy. You could say
that I was responsible for the two of them meeting, but it was clear
early on when several of us walked to the galleria from the parkmore
and the two of them fell behind singing the lyrics to theme songs from
growing pains and other tv shows, that they had a connection.

I look to them both as people with whom: I can talk things through,
get recommendations for books, discuss the merits of one gentrifying
neighborhood versus another, sing along to classic rock, and comment
on the nytimes style section. my respect and awe for their
intelligence, abilities, willingness to go out of their way for people
they care about including each other is without limit.

The Japanese American artist isamu noguchi said:
Everything is sculpture.
Any material,
any idea without hindrance
born into space,
I consider sculpture.

I consider their union to be sculpture.
Please join me in raising a toast to the beautiful couple and wish
them joy, fulfillment in their lives and that they may continue to
create art together. L'chaim tovim

i never want to run an errand that involves driving ever again

i must have driven back and forth to the hotel 8 times today, one of those trips was at 4:30 in the morning so it doesn't really count.
i could not sleep at all last night once i finally hit my bed at 4:45. the damn birds, they are awesome and everywhere and loud! even giving in and emptying my bladder did not help. at 8 am i couldn't take it anymore and went outside and read the paper. went for a walk with my mom and then from 10 on drove all around ferriying wedding supplies and people places. somehow managed to get my hair curled in the process, not having showered or wearing a good shirt to get off without fucking up my hair. debby's looks awesome. when she doesn't look full of nerves she is seriously radiant. i can't believe they are getting married today. that's ok neither can i.
i drank way too much last night. i'm not in love with myself when drinking. i apparently frenched tilda last night, she wasn't nearly as into it as i was. lets not talk about how many drinks were in front of me at one point at the rehearsal dinner. at the resturant it was at, i ran into someone i went to high school with who was there to celebrate her birthday and found out she has a 5 month old.
chris' little newphew is gorgeous. there is definately something very attractive about blondes.
speaking of which. those kids from wisconsin are tall and blonde. its like when we got to wash u and debby was amazed at how tall and big the boys from iowa were.
also whats up with the pgh accent. have i mentioned it drives me up a wall.
quick nap time before my sponge bath (so as to protect the hair)
l.