coffee shop chronicles

maybe one day I can write a book of coffee shop chronicles based on what i've written in this blog sporadically over the years. and now that I'm fulltime freelance, I've seen many a coffeeshop. I've treked miles to get to Astoria coffee shops, where I live. I even went back to my fave WIlliamsburg coffee shop one day. I also spend a good deal of time at coffee shops in Prospect Heights, where Natalie lives and I'm prob moving in October. It was Prospect Heights where today I had a coffee shop first. I made a little girl cry.

It wasn't really my fault. I'm at the Heights,, a coffee shop that is really just an office for freelancers. You walk in and there's a parade of Macs. They also have a messed up system where you can only access their bathroom by a key that is still attached to their wall. So as the woman sitting next to me noted, "there's no way to protect yourself from the inside." So I'm in the bathroom, and someone starts unlocking the door. "Occupied!" I said. The door keeps opening, so I physically push it shut while I'm still on the toilet. I figured the person couldn't hear me.

Turns out it was a girl, who couldn't be more than 6, and clearly hadn't yet learned bathroom etiquette. Not that I have. "Occupied." Is that what you're supposed to say? Hmm. Anyway, girl was DISTRAUGHT. Girl would not stop crying for a full 15 minutes. Her mom had to take her outside, she was so upset. Clearly not really my fault, but I still felt bad.

And since I never want anyone mad at me I decided to buy her love. So I bought her silly bands.Because how can one not love sillybands? For those of you not own with the latest fashion for 6 year olds, they are the most ingenious thing in the world. They're colored rubberbands shaped like different animals and other things. they're fun! And cute! I love silly bands! And girl seems very happy now. All for a $1 investment on my end.

NEW CHAPTER

Wow, I haven't written in a while. And for once not because I feel like nothing's happening. Now I feel like everything's happening. My life is so different from 3 months ago, and is about to be more different. When I go back to write my memoirs, the blank period in this blog will officially be designated the start of NEW CHAPTER: the one with the girlfriend and without the job.

Yes, now at age 25 I'm officially in a real relationship with someone great. And I officially gave notice at my first job that I've had for almost 3 years and am leaving next month to embark on TBD. But both of these moves are a step up in life. Being a freshman in life was better than college and college was better than high school and high school was better than middle school, so I have no reason to think this pattern won't continue.

Maybe I should start a new blog. I'm probably going to have a lot of time to write with my impending unemployment/freelancing (to be shortly followed by a real job, once I enjoy not working for a bit, of course). And I'm really psyched for what's in store.

Update!

I am no longer voiceless! And I'm feeling better. This is a major relief. I pride myself on never being sick (as does my brother, who said of himself, "I'm immune to everything") so being sick shakes my sense of self. It also sucks.

Supposedly it takes 6 years to be a New Yorker, but I think spending 18 years in the suburbs has to count for something. Because I definitely feel like I'm a New Yorker now. When I graduated college, 7 of us from high school were in NY or in Ossining, and we had a book club. Now all but 3 of us left: Others are in Colorado, Japan, Toronto, New Orleans. And I was talking to Laurel (one of the ones who's still here) and I was saying how I don't feel sad like, 'oh, I haven't done anything else.' I feel proud of myself that I've built myself a life here.

Like, even if I leave, and I want to just to experience something else, I can't see not coming back. Yiran (who sometimes reads this, so, hi!) is moving to NY and was asking me apartment-seeking advice, and I felt knowledgeable, like, oh, this is my city. I'm also kind of an outer-borough, I guess "snob" is an oxymoron. But after living in BK and now Astoria, other than convenience (which is a real plus) I don't really understand why someone would live in Manhattan unless they had money for a tree-lined brownstone in the West Village (my ultimate goal, I think).

Also, I just realized I need to start writing the names down of all the restaurants I go to. I never remember what restaurant is what. I can remember stories from when I am 4 years old, but I can't remember where I should eat in the West Village, or where I went to brunch in Astoria, etc. This is obviously very important.

silence

eeek, I lost my voice. I can't even talk. I went from sick Saturday, to meh Sunday to Monday, to Macy Gray to Harvey Fierstein to almost mute. It's really scary, because if you know me, I'm a talker. My phone interviews during the day got progressively more awkward. Finally I stopped talking and answering my phone. People in my office started talking about the Fugees and Lauren Hill and I wanted to join in but couldn't. So painful, since I want to be a part of every conversation. Also painful was that I didn't talk for two hours and no one seemed to notice. How long would I have to not talk for anyone to tell. A metaphor for something

I am blogging because I feel the need to communicate. Also gchatting. Thank god for the internet. Seriously. Oh, but otherwise things are good :)

this is that is that

On Friday I was on the phone with my mom who, as I casually told her all my fun weekend plans, including interviewing Gabby Sidibe from Precious, and she (my mom, not Gabs) was like "I hope you're keeping a journal or something so when you're old you can look back on all the amazing things you've done." And then I looked through my real journal which is mostly like "ugh, I'm fat." "bleh, why can't I bring myself to ever clean my room?" and stuff like that.

I just have lots rattling in my brain . When I went to Israel I brought two journals, one to be like "ugh, I'm fat" and another to highlight all the sights I saw, so I could chronicle both. Not sure where either journal is and I think I ended up combining them, since that became difficult.

And this blog, when I update, is more of an in-between. I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. I just felt like blogging/procrastinating a freelance assignment.

But basically the stuff my mom thinks is cool (as do I) is the meeting famous people part. And it can be fun. Gabby Sidibe was super-nice and asked me if I want to go bowling with her and N'Sync. She was kidding. Basically about the whole thing. But still, would that not be the most amazing thing ever? I like people who just became famous. But if I just met her, I'd just think she was a nice woman, but I wouldn't be like, excited by our conversation. It's weird how fame puts people on a pedestal.


umm, what else.Another thing I was meaning of blogging about for a while is this quote I read. A friend did an art show where she put up quotes of unfamous people she knew and famous people she didn't know. She quoted me saying "You're the star of your life, but in everyone else's you're a supporting character." I've said this for about 5 years, so was so excited that this became an art show.

She also can a quote from Bela Fleck that said, "Because I don't fit in anywhere I can fit in everywhere." And I realized I kind of feel like that. Well, not everywhere. But a lot of places. And whether it's actually true if i analyze it literally for too long, I'm happy I've reached a place where I feel like that about myself.

plain boyfriend

hiiii--can't fall asleep, so shall blog. This weekend was really nice. I went home to Ossining Friday night, and then came back, and didn't take the subway once this weekend. Partially because my roommate read the blog and called me out on my Astoria complaining, and partially because I really do mean it (really Sara!!!) I'll say I feel like I'm finally really living and liking Astoria! Like this weekend I went to a party in the hood, I went to Himalaya Tea Room, BZ Grill. And the snow was just pretty. And last week I joined the Astoria gay marriage group which I'm political geeked out about. Astoria's senator voted against gay marriage. It's like, helllloooo. So there's this small group of people trying to kick him out and elect someone better. And it would be fun and exciting to be the change in my community.

ok, now that we've dealt with the present, here's a story you all will like from my past. Plane boyfriend update!

Four years ago, in the pre-blog era, I became obsessed this dude I met on a plane. I'm not sure how much was real in my head and how much was just because it was fun to talk about, because I so rarely get massive crushes on guys or girls. And psychoanalyzing myself, part of it was a reaction to feeling pigeonholed with coming out. But see the e-mail I sent to my roommates at the time to catch yourself up on the saga (I took out identifying details :

made plane friends w/this my seatmate, which i never do, he's 25 lives in Chicago and his parents are British and he gave me his business card and I couldn't tell if he was flirting with me or not. (His opening line? after the flight attendant said I couldn't listen to music "I think they should let you listen to music going up because I know if I die, I want to be listening to something that makes me happy") I feel like we had a first date. in a good way. we talked the entire flight. Listened to eachother's ipods. Then we had the worst landing ever (like, in the movies where they die, it starts out like it did for us) and he was freaked out (almost vommed but thankfully didn't) and was holding my hand and I THINK started rubbing my leg. Then we exchanged numbers. But he seriously wasn't sketchy, as much as it seems the opposite from this story! If he ever calls me, which i actually rate at a 30%chance of happening, I'm definitely NOT going to tell him i'm gay so we can make out without making it weird bc I definitely have a plane crush on him. I think I just watched too many romantic comedies growing up and this is how I assumed/hoped I'd meet my husband. weirdddd.

Ok, so I was a crazyhead about it. As everyone who knew me then knows, it was all I talked about for a good month. That basically ended when I called him like a month later to try to hang out, like he suggested in our moment of passion, which is very out of character for me and got kindly rejected. Also, I was only 20 which seems so young right now.

And I sort of forgot about him. Well, I forgot about what he looked like and his name, but I remembered this story since he was always really an anectdote as opposed to a person.

But a few weeks ago at dinner w/Josh (who if you read this blog you'd think I hang w/constantly, but I just know he's always reading this so I namedrop him as much as possible) his other friend told a story about a guy she met on a plane, so Josh mentioned my plane boyfriend.

Then I remembered that a friend from work was the same age and went to the same college as plane bf, so I checked on facebook (after having to search my gmail archives "plane boyfriend" to figure out his name). and sure enough. It's not even such a huge shock because I am convinced every person in America who went to one of 30 colleges, lives in one of five cities and is between the ages of 21 and 30, I am only one degree of separation from.

But google tells me he now lives in New York. My heart pattered. But he has a girlfriend. My heart fell.

Still, I have to ask work friend about him. Turns out they hang out. I started to tell work friend this story and I said "plane boyfriend." and he's like, "yeah, totally."

he thought I meant PLAIN boyfriend. Because it turns out everyone thinks "my" dude is really boring.

I then told him the story. "I didn't think he was boring," I protested. That did not fit into my narrative.

"If you actually knew him, you'd think so," he said.

I guess I couldn't really argue with that. It was kind of an anti-climatic end to my fantasyland.

But that was the end of that. I do want to meet him some time, and probably will, knowing the way this city is.

Now it's time for real life.

i'm living the dream

or at least somebody's version of it.

I was at the same party as Madonna. At Monkey Bar, this club that's supposed to be really hip, for the afterparty for the A Single Man premiere. It's like whaaat? I mean, I was working. But in a sense, she was working too, because she's Madonna, so she's always kind of working when she goes.

I was there for NYMag, and I obviously had to try to interview her, because what did I really have to lose? Even if she was disgusted that I bothered her, there's no chance she'd remember me, since they rarely do, except my bff Fran Drescher for whatever reason.

Her body guard shooed me away, but I paparazzid back over to her table with she and her date Bravo's Andy Cohen (who was as superexcited to be there as I was, see his twitter BravoAndy: Just went to the premiere of Tom Ford's "A Single Man". Was I Madonna's date? Yes! Did I get laid? No! It was worth it tho.).

"Can I talk to you for a second for NYMag?" I asked. Madonna looked at me and shook her head. We made eye contact. Very cool. Then her bodyguard told me I was "rude" to do that. oops.

Celebrities are one of the few things I'm truly excited about, so I hope I don't get jaded. I kind of am a little. I saw Irina, the winner from Project Runway on the street in Soho and only cared a little. Enough to text Becca, who cares about celebs even more than I, but not enough to tell anyone else about my sighting. Because, helllooo, I was rejected by Madonna.

But also, this celebrity awe thing is about to stop being cute, so it's kind of good I'm getting over it.

But anyway, night was really fun. And I really liked the movie. A Single Man. I recommend. It's a gay movie where it's not alll about the struggles of being gay, but moreover the struggles of life (in a Mad Men era, which i guess is my favorite). But be forewarned, if for some inexplicable reason you hate Colin Firth, it's his movie, no one else's. Even Julianne Moore is only in 3 scenes. And all these people who had teeny tiny parts were all at least semi-famous. Dana from the L word played a bank teller! The guy who STARRED in Pushing Daisies had one frickin' scene. Weird. I wonder how Tom Ford got them in? I guess for the chance to work with Tom Ford.