walking slow

'walking slow down the avenue through my old neighborhood
don't know why i'm happy - i got no reason to feel this good
maybe it's b/c i'm all alone and i've got no place to go
and everywhere i look i see another person i'll never know'
- jackson browne 'walking slow'

as i've mentioned i work at chelsea market - an indoor food/baked goods/shopping market in the place that used to be the nabisco factory. there are a couple of things i really enjoy about working here:

• every day as i'm leaving work there's a chalkboard sign outside the butcher that says 'the roast chickens are ready!' for some reason that makes me happy. yesterday it said 'righteous roasts R ready.' that made me happy too.
  

• there's frequently a string quartet or a guitarist or a flute player playing music in the corridor when i leave the office
  

today the merger of my company and the new company was complete so there were all sorts of festivities and special things going on for the occasion. some observations:

• color: the new color scheme of the company is this hideous purple and turquoise color, that (perhaps not) coincidentally is very similar to a vera bradley spring 2011 pattern.

• logo: they got rid of the peacock and made up a font that we've been calling '1987'. the best comment though was from an article about the changes: 'hey [company] - kappa kappa gamma called - they want their font back.'

last night hearn and i were hanging out after having some sushi watching the squash game at grand central. every year they literally set up a squash court in this side area of grand central and play exhibition squash matches, complete with bleachers and announcers and everything. while we were standing there watching a guy came up to us and randomly (slash sketchily) gave us two $100 tickets to the game (aka seats). we weren't sure if they were legit, nor did we know anything about squash, so when a guy we know showed up randomly we gave him the tickets. turned out to be great seats and i'm sure he enjoyed it more than we would have (we left to go drink). incidentally, was also gtalking with will while watching who was also watching the game in oregon on espn. again not knowing anything about squash, it was super useful to have him narrating the game and telling us when to clap.

i finally met someone in my building; not my floor mind you, my building. had a nice chat with a woman in the entry way. she has a king charles spaniel, as does this other guy in the building (can't tell if they're together), so we chatted while she waited for him to come in and it was one of those really nice, happy conversations. i just reread 'how to win friends and influence people' and i swear it's making me be nicer to everyone. i guess that's the idea. but before i completely go off tangent i would like to note that i've lived here for almost three months and today was the first day i met someone in the building.

there's more to say but le computer is being tres finicky so i will have to leave you with this - i forgot how much i like steve miller band.

over and out

blog cloud - take 2

ceppos sent me an article a few days ago about being able to tell what your personality is based on the language you use - with blogs being a prime example because they're generally composed over a period of time and aren't censored (much). alex blogged about it in relation to his blog over at 'a commanding lead into the unknown', which prompted me to suggest he try creating a word cloud of his blog to see which words he uses the most in a quick visual.

i did this with sd4life back in 2006 - you can see the original blog cloud on the blog here - and then did it again today (the image to the right). interesting to see how it's changed in five years, but i'm glad to see that 'love, life, music, people, think and booze' are still the main themes of the blog, even after all these years. :)

last night i didn't get to sleep at all

i can recall two times in 2010 that i stayed up until the sun came up: RWVermont and the five year reunion. i love love love the late night hang out - to me there's always something mischievous about staying out that late - you just never know what's going to go down or who you're going to encounter (or who you're going to go down with!). had some fabulous late nights at dartmouth, but they were few and far between - i always seemed to pass out too early. but when i made it out that late - it was great. and there's something about watching the sunrise after a night of partying.

kevin is now interning in the west coast office of my company during his senior spring of law school so we're technically coworkers! and we've been emailing over interoffice email, along with my brother, who will cease to be on the same email system next week when the merger is complete. i'm getting a huge kick out of this (it's the little things people).

did karaoke last night with the old coworkers and rowena and i did 'intergalactic' by the beastie boys and totally rocked it. that's right. two girls rapping and killing it. it's our new party trick. of course as a byproduct of karaoke i have already lost my voice, which does not bode well for #rwvermont 2011.

as you may have heard, verizon is coming out with the iphone. after months and months of debating about switching to at&t and mixed feelings about losing my number (it has lots of 7's and 4's!), feeling jealous of others when they spent entire nights interacting with their iphones instead of with me (i'm not bitter really), and cursing the complete inability of my phone to do what i wanted when i wanted it, the wait is over. which means i hope to post more pictures to the blog in the future. and don't get me wrong - i know the iphone has its problems - but i don't care. as soon as i have one my life will be magically different.

mtv buzz blog is my new favorite place to pick up new music. currently liking;

- 'camera' - matt & kim 'no time for cameras, we'll use our eyes instead'
- sleazy - ke$ha - i like the remixes much better though - check out the andre 300 version
- 'party rock anthem' - lmfao 'sorry for party rocking'
- 'what the hell' - avril lavigne 'all my life i've been good, but now, oh i'm thinking what the hell'
- 'want u bad' - ke$ha with travis mccoy

driving up to vermont tonight with dana and hopper's little sis to join in the #rwvermont debauchery. you can follow the antics on twitter @rwvermont. yes we are a bunch of social media nerds.

check that off the bucket list

i know i've been a delinquent on the posting front. had a bit of a crazy week and a very crazy weekend down in dc with lingley, so forgive me?

last year over mlk the party went to linsalata. this year the party went to lingley. sat afternoon lingley and i went shopping in an area of virgina where we were afraid for our lives. we decided to have lunch at the olive garden and discovered there was a woman passed out drunk at the table next to us. this was at 1 pm in the afternoon. #youcan'tmakethisstuffup.

sunday afternoon i went to the museum of american history in dc. i love this museum - looking and reading and learning about our country's history give me chills (yes i am a dork). i saw a really cool exhibit on the wars the US has been in and then the first ladies exhibit. i also love that they refer to the museum as 'your museum.' good work government - i guess even a broken clock is right twice a day.

even though i was devastated by the patriots' loss on sunday, i have to say that someecards has had some hilarious cards lately including: 'i bet mlk would have approved of the patriots' non-violent resistance this weekend.'

spent some time on sunday contemplating what would go in a 'money shot' shot, as surprisingly, it doesn't already exist. it's got to be white obvi, and frothy if possible. i was thinking maybe bailey's shaken in a shaker over ice with a splash of goldschlager? any other ideas? may have to ask dana to concoct something.

speaking of money - some money quotes from the weekend: 'he lost his one-legged virginity to you?', 'you decided to bring out the puppies tonight huh?' and 'those sound like all the ingredients for a one-night-stand.' i'll let you decide who said them and what they meant and when i read this again in a year i hope i remember as well.

i'm playing on a flag football team this winter with some of the kickball kids and we had our kickoff party on thursday. ended up running a beruit table with my new columbia '03 friend until the wee hours. can only make one of the games, as they're on saturday, and i'm out of town a lot, but it's fun to make new friends and i'm looking forward to participating in a more sport-like activity than kickball.

was laughing about this website - seacaptaindate.com - last week. can't really tell if it's real or a joke, but if it's a joke it's very well done, especially the promo video. was discussing this with several people last week when i had an epiphany - LAURAK IS A SEA CAPTAIN! so shot her off an email asking her to investigate when she gets back from sailing in the south pacific. heard back from her - she's exploring the islands and eating crepes at food trucks before heading out on a few trips. she'll be back stateside in march

headed up to hopper's farm in vermont this weekend for #rw: vermont 2011. we've got more people and less dignity - this should be interesting. other trips on the table include new haven for harbour/dartmouth-yale hockey, hanover for winter carnival and charleston to see my grandparents.

off to dinner with mulley in the hood!

hazy shade of winter

'i look around, leaves are brown now
and the sky is a hazy shade of winter
look around, leaves are brown
there's a patch of snow on the ground...
- simon & garfunkel

'hazy shade of winter' is a simon & garfunkel song about the depression of winter. not entirely depressed, but it seems to apply to these clear cold days. on nights like this i like to take a moment to appreciate the fact i have a warm, safe place to sleep, esp when you live in a city and the less fortunate people are easy to spot.

just went to a gym class with rowena called 'urban rebound'. it involved jumping on individual trampolines to music (aka dancing). was surprisingly fun, while also making me think of foot-fire and suicides from my basketball days. 90% sure i won't be able to walk tomorrow.

following the forecasts for this next winter storm that's supposed to hit nyc tomorrow night into wednesday morning. i know snow causes all kinds of problems and travel issues, but there's something fun and magical about it. if only nyc had snowball fights in central park. sigh.

heading down to dc for the long mlk weekend to hang out with lingley. nothing in particular planned beyond the jets-patriots game on sunday - it'll be good to be with massholes and down easters for the occasion.

played pong with ceppos at hearn's apt on friday night. i am pleased to say that we beat hearn and olverson three games in a row. and this was superior pong and come-from-behind half-cup wins. good to know we've still got it.

saturday night was the third kick ball - aka the kickball formal. watched the football games, played flip cup, experimented with a shake weight, watched 'zombie strippers' (not my cup of tea), made out with a ref and went to bed at 4:30. good times.

jimmy buffett plays paris in september 2011. still holding out for tahiti, but may have to give serious consideration to a paris trip. after all, 'paris is always a good idea' (sabrina).

current favorite song is 'top of the world' by the cataracts (aka the 'like a g6' 'getting slizard' group). the song has the line 'your daddy must have been a drug dealer. why? b/c you dope'. also liking 'patron tequila' by paradiso girls, also for its line 'by the end of the night imma have you drunk and throwing up, by the end of the night imma have you SO FUCKED UP.' getting a kick out of both.

that's the word from these parts. stay classy.

tidbits/twitter tidbits

have you ever heard of 'oreo cows' or 'belties'? they're both nicknames for a breed of cow called 'belted galloway'. we saw a bunch on our drive home from vermont, and my grandfather had just gotten a picture framed, so i looked them up. turns out they are a vastly superior cow, as they forage on their own, are gentle and docile, give great milk and good meat. they are, hands down, my new favorite cow. the name is just SO CUTE! the running camp i went to in vermont the summer before my soph year of high school advertised that each run went by a different type of cow. not knowing too much about cows i can't attest to whether this is true but there certainly are a lot of cows in vt!

the room rowena and i were sleeping in during our vermont trip was the old room of the son of her friend's coworker's parents and was covered and i mean COVERED in those stick-on, glow in the dark stars. these things were everywhere. no wonder they didn't bother to take them down - it was not a small project.

we went into to burlington on saturday night for dinner and to party like UVM kids for a night. the place we went to dinner - 'the farm house tap & grill' - i not only recommend, but they had a sign stating 'happy new beers!' on the chalkboard. :)

skiied on friday at smuggler's notch - two thoughts: smugs is rated '#1 family resort'. not sure why this is, but i did realize i swear too much to be hanging out at family-oriented types of places (aka the upper west side). i also realized that 'snowbunny-damsel-in-distress' is a good look for me.

on the way home from vt we stopped in winsooki, vt to eat at 'sneakers diner' - rated one of the 59 best breakfast places by esquire magazine. it lived up to the hype, esp with the amazing maple syrup latte i had.

talked to laurak earlier this week. she took off for tahiti and her next work sailing trip yesterday. she'll be sailing back from the south pacific to hawaii - she'll be back in action around mid-march. i looked up tahiti on wikipedia to learn something about where she was going and discovered that tahiti is in the same time zone as hawaii and is much closer than i thought (once you get to cali that is). must file this info away for future use. and fingers crossed laurak discovers 'that one particular harbour' on her trip.

been an influx of music lately:
1. 'on and on' - agnes - i like the moonwalker remix. on repeat.
2. 'i could be dancing (dj)' - alphabeat - 'i need something i can dance to on and on something i can count on spin my world like a record now'
3. 'only prettier' and 'more like her' - miranda lambert. not always the biggest ML fan, but i like these two songs. the first is kind of cute, the second is good for breaking up.
4. 'rhythm of love' - plain white t's. laurak recommended and i like!
5. 'country strong' - gwyneth palrow. title track from her movie but i actually like the song too.

stopping by woods on a snowy afternoon

had a wonderful, low key new years weekend in vermont with good friends, cheap drinks, beautiful scenery and lots of laughs. we were planning to go out to the local bar to ring in the new year, but it was a long, dark trip back to the ski area, so we ditched that plan - literally - as in the process of turning around the car to go back home it got driven into the snow in a ditch.

this was the third time this had happened, so by then we were old hat, and got out the snow shovels and wood for traction and used teamwork to get it out and back up the driveway. then we put our sweatpants back on, gathered around the tv, and counted down with times square - all of us glad to be miles away from our home city.

january 1st was spent in blissful relaxation. lazed about on the couch with a woodstove and read 'interview with the vampire' (not worth reading) and chatted. i also went out for a walk by myself to enjoy the landscape and have some quiet reflection and found myself thinking of the robert frost poem, as the imagery was much the same:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

hope everyone had a wonderful holiday as well. :)