Swingers

Have I mentioned that I have kind of gotten into swing dancing lately? It's like the early 2000s all over again!! Zoot suit riot!!!!

The story is that since I went to the Midsummer Night Swing event that I blogged about last month, I've been on a bit of a swing kick, along with my coworkers Megan and Carol. We've gone to about one swing event a week, most of which are free, and include an introductory class. It's been pretty fun, although I'd like to keep at it more seriously and actually become decent at it, versus just scratching the surface of the dance moves, like I am now.

Anyway, we went to a "hot jazz" swing event tonight which included a surprisingly useful lesson (these free lessons are definitely hit or miss!) and some of the best swing dancing I've seen in the city. Honestly, it was so good that I really preferred to watch the dancers than try to dance myself!

The only downside tonight was when I got kicked (accidentally) pretty freaking hard by one of the newbie male dancers. He kicked me in the ankle, and my ankle still hurts 4 hours later! At least I'll have a nice bruise to show for my new hobby tomorrow.

Intense discomfort is beauty

So, for whatever reason* I continue to subscribe to the magazine InStyle.  About once or twice an issue, I laugh out loud at some ridiculous recommended purchase (a $2,000 purse) or beauty procedure ($500 facial injections once every two weeks--because why not?!). 

Anyway, I was reading it last night and found one beauty procedure so hilarious that I felt the need to share it here. 

First of all, they have an article telling you how to tone your tummy, without any mention of what foods to eat or any kind of exercise. These tips are solely lotions and creams and procedures you can get done to your stomach. 

I look at the column for people in their 30s because, hey, I'm in my 30s now! Maybe I can learn something useful! 

And the magazine recommends that I DRY BRUSH MY OWN STOMACH. There's a picture of the brush at the bottom there. I am supposed to rake that thing back and forth across my stomach EVERY DAY for..what? Years????? Until I reach 40???

I'd like to say that this article pushed me to take the final step towards canceling my subscription, but...no. I mean, you wouldn't, would you? 

*I enjoy "reading" vapid fashion and beauty articles at the end of the day

Columbia in high summer

I only taught for two hours today

and I really have nothing else to report, except that I watched the film The Clouds of Sils Maria, and failed to understand it.

P.S. The movie did make me really want to visit the actual Sils Maria. It's in Switzerland and it looks like this: 

Image via

OMG

I forgot to post a blog yesterday!

And I didn't realize it for almost a whole day.

Well, in any case, I'm doing much better on this 30-day challenge than on the last!

Yesterday was really nice. Ari and I had a relaxing morning, then later in the afternoon we met our friends Jenny and Matthew for drinks at the rooftop bar of Whole Foods in Gowanus. Then, we went to dinner at Bar Corvo with a few friends and coworkers to celebrate my friend Carol's 30th birthday.

Today, I had brunch with my cousin Graham and his boyfriend Scott, at their adorable apartment in Bushwick. They made us breakfast! Then we came home and I basically napped for two hours, and Ari went to his church gig.

Then I FINISHED the LOTR SERIES! Huzzah! So Ari and I watched the final movie in the series as well. It was a good weekend.

Trials of Transportation

Like most New Yorkers, I use public transportation basically every day. And like most New Yorkers, I have a love-hate relationship with the MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Association). I LOVE not having to drive a car, but sometimes the subway system and bus system in this city really ...suck. 

Today was one of those sucky days. I left for work at Columbia two hours early. While it only takes 45 minutes to get from Brooklyn to Columbia on a good day, it will most likely take an hour to 95 minutes most days. So I take the Q at Parkside, transfer at 42nd street to the 1, and everything's going smoothly. 

At 96th street (THREE stops away from Columbia), the train sits in the station for five minutes. The conductor comes on: "Ladies and Gentlemen, this train is being held in the station. We expect to be moving shortly. We apologize for any inconvenience." This is a standard message you hear a lot - it could mean the train will actually be moving shortly, or it could mean the train will sit here for another 45 minutes. 

I was doing OK on time, so I decided to just wait and see what happened. 

Twenty minutes later, and two identical announcements later, the conductor announces: "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the last stop on this train. Please exit the train." 

Exasperated sighs and exclamations from everyone on the train, including me. I have to walk approximately 20 minutes from 96th to get to Columbia, and I will have to hustle to make it there before my class starts in 40 minutes, because I still have some prep to do. 

So I get off the train, exit the station, and see that the m104 bus is waiting right there, which will get me to Columbia faster. Yay! I run to catch it (as do a lot of other people who got off the train with me), and we just barely make it in time. As we're pulling away from the curb, an angry white dude comes up to the side of the bus and starts yelling at the bus driver to stop, so that he can get on. She waves at him to show that no more people can get on the bus because it's too full already. He punches the window - hard - and breaks the glass on the bus window! 

SO, now the bus driver has to call in the harassment and damage to the bus, and all of the passengers of the bus have to exit, since the bus is now out of service. Hooray!!

I basically jog/walk all the way up the 20 blocks to get to Columbia. And then I spend 10 minutes posting this blog post about my morning (I still have 10 minutes left before class)! 

And that was an example of a more frustrating Friday morning commute. 

It's almost Saturday. BYE! 

Unknown subway stories

Today, on the 30-minute ride home from 34th street to Parkside Avenue, the woman sitting next to me stared at a picture on her phone of a pregnant woman. She repeatedly zoomed in and out on the same picture for the whole ride, as she cried quietly to herself.

Here's what I ate for dinner tonight!

Whenever Ari's gone for dinner, I tend to default to pasta with vegetables or rice with vegetables. Tonight I had pasta. 

And my excuse for posting a more-inane-than-usual update? I got to gchat with Cammy tonight! So she used up my precious blogging time. Muahaha! Blame Cammy. 

Return of the LOTR

I've finished taking my 3-book-long break from reading the LOTR series. During my book "vacation," I read an amusing book of essays by Nora Ephron, a series of depressing short stories (Golden Boy, Emerald Girl), and finally a best-seller from a couple of years ago, called The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. I already quoted that last one on a previous post - I generally enjoyed the book, although the main character was surprisingly unpleasant.

So now I'm back to reading the final book in the trilogy: The Return of the King. I have to admit, even though I enjoy Tolkien's writing style and think that he is pretty darn good at creating interesting characters and worlds, I'm ready to be done with it, and I'm less than halfway through. I will probably feel sad when I finally finish it, though.

Plus, it has this sweet 1990s cover (this is the biggest image I could find):

image via

That's Aragorn wearing a "helm" with wings coming out from either side of his head. Yup.

That was a close one

Today, I had another first of living in this city: I dropped my cell phone onto the subway tracks! 

After living in New York and taking the subway for four years, I don't think I've ever dropped anything onto the tracks more valuable than a scrap of paper. But maybe it was bound to happen eventually. Then again, maybe I am just an idiot who shouldn't have been waving her phone around near the edge of the subway platform. I blame hunger! I was really hungry taking the subway home today, and was holding my Metrocard, a book, and my phone in my hand, so perhaps I dropped it due to my weakened, hungry state. Or maybe I just shouldn't have been carrying three things in one hand! 

In any case, I dropped my cell phone off the side of the platform. There was a brief moment (maybe 15 seconds) when I thought about jumping down to get it. But I looked around me, and literally two people standing next to me on the platform were shaking their heads, like "NO, that is a terrible idea." Then one of the women nearby mentioned that I should push the emergency call button, which was a few feet away. I really felt a little guilty for pushing the button (no one's life was anywhere close to endangered), but it did worked! The nice guy who answered didn't seem angry that I'd "misused" the emergency call, so I guess it was OK to consider losing a cell phone an emergency. 

I had to wait 30 minutes for them to send a guy down to fish out my phone with one of those long sticks with tongs at the end (kind of like an industrial-strength candy grabber), and he got it in about 1 minute. 

Phew! Here's hoping I don't drop my phone onto the tracks for at least another four years!

Quick photo I got of the nice man who got my phone off the tracks. Thank you, sir! 

It was 90 degrees today

So you'd think we wouldn't do much. But we went to the beach!

This is us taking the subway back, because I forgot to take a photo at the actual beach. 

After going home and showering and eating lunch, we went into the city and got delicious full-fat Haagen-Dazs ice cream! And then I went to a movie (The Third Man) at Film Forum while Ari played church. I admit I fell asleep for the first 20 minutes of the film because it felt so good to be a cool, dark, air-conditioned room after the beach. And then we came home and had dinner.

It was a good day. Supposed to be 91 tomorrow!

BTW, I wish I had more "deep thoughts" to post on this blog, but maybe this weather isn't conducive to critical thinking. Or I'm just lazy. 

So MAD

I'm not mad. I'm just MAD about MAD MEN! Hahahahahahahahah! (I'm also not drunk. I just don't feel like starting with a sane opening.) 

Today, Ari and I took the train all the way to Queens to visit the Museum of the Moving Image (MOMI, or "Mommy" as I like to pronounce it) and see the exhibit on the TV show Mad Men, which is there through September. If you talked to me in May, you knew that I was, and am, a die-hard fan of this show. It might be my favorite show ever. (I have yet to see the Sopranos, but I have given Breaking Bad and The Wire a chance. They are good, but they didn't capture my interest the same way that MM has.) 

Ari is also a fan, so we had a pretty good time looking at the notes and costumes and sets for the show. The coolest part was definitely seeing Don Draper's office. Sigh. I am so sad this show is over. 

Covert photo taken when the security guard wasn't looking

On the way back to the train, we stopped at a Venezuelan restaurant and had arepas. Or rather, Ari did. I got the "Venezuelan breakfast" which was DELICIOUS.

                           

Too tired for a full blog post

So I'll just post that YAY it's Friday and I managed to jog all the way around Prospect Park at 10pm this evening. Please note: This exercise occurred after watching Bonnie and Clyde at Film Forum, going to get a veggie burger at Bark, and then eating a slice of Candy Bar Pie (R) at Milk Bar. 

It might have been that last part that finally motivated me to put on my jogging shoes. 

The Utopia of Brooklyn

Tonight, I went with Megan and Carol to see, and dance to, some Latin music in front of the Brooklyn Central Library. I hadn't planned to go (it's been a long week of teaching since Summer C started!), but it was a beautiful evening and the humidity from the last few days finally went away. The air was crisp and a little cool and the sky was totally clear. It seemed like I couldn't waste this nice evening by just going home and watching Netflix. 

So the three of us went to the library and danced a little. 

And I realized that every city should be like Brooklyn. Where else can you see such a mix of races and social classes mixing with an equal amount of joy and abandon? 

OK, OK, the people of Brooklyn don't always mix too easily, and there are definitely still a LOT of problems in this borough. But on nights like this, it's pretty easy to convince yourself that everything's gonna be just fine. 

        

On the way home, I walked through the park and looked at fireflies.

Nick Cave is one of my favorite musicians.  I was really saddened to read that his 15-year-old son died. Shocked and sending my love to his family.

Havana good time*

So my big news that I teased two days ago and then forgot to mention yesterday is....
I'm going to CUBA!

My parents were actually the ones who brought up the idea. They travelled to China right after the country opened its borders in the '70s (I think around that time?), and were able to see people when the main mode of transportation was bicycles, and everyone was wearing Mao jackets. So they thought it would be a good time to get a jump on the tourism industry and try to visit Cuba before EVERYONE is doing it.

So we're gonna pay a little extra cash (a lot extra cash, in my opinion, but it's worth it) to take a guided tour before the country starts to truly take part in the tourism industry. Or at least, that's our reasoning. I think we're not exactly sure what we'll see, but hopefully it will be worth it! I will actually be traveling with my parents and my good friend from undergrad, Alicia (Ari can't go since it's during the school year, and Leah just doesn't have the funds right now, and Cammy just bought a house and is getting married, so...). I'm so happy I'll have a travel buddy! Alicia and I traveled to Costa Rica together back in 2009, so we already know that we get along fine in other (Spanish-speaking!) countries. This tour promises to be a lot less stressful because it's 100% guided, but here's hoping we still get to have some adventures.

I'm not going till the first week of January (January 3-8), so it's a bit of a ways away. But I'm pretty excited!

*I totally googled "Cuba puns" to find that title. 

I just read a description of myself

I just started the book The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. (based upon a recommendation from my good friend Lena Dunham), and am enjoying the 40 pages or so I've read so far.

I also came upon a description of a girl that basically described how I see myself (and how I assume others see me?):

"And while she had a nice body, she was on the tall side and had something of the loose-limbed quality of a comic actor, goofy and self conscious, good-humored but perhaps also a bit asexual" (p. 39).

Weird. But kind of cool.

Plans are crystallizing

...for a big (money-wise) trip next year. The trip itself will be relatively short, but I think the cost will be worth it. 

I'm going to be coy about details until stuff gets finalized, hopefully tomorrow! 

So begins Summer C

Summer at Columbia University is divided into three sessions: A, B, and C. Last Friday was the last day of B (four weeks long), and Monday is the start of C. I'll be working more hours than I ever have as an adjunct: 21 hour per week. (12 hours at Columbia and 9 hours at Pace, which is divided into Summer I and II.) My maximum was 19 before; some adjuncts work more than 25 but I have no idea how they do it!

Anyway, I am preparing as best I can for a very busy Summer C. Thankfully it's only four weeks long (as opposed to the 12 weeks of fall and spring semester), so it will only be crazy for a short period of time before I get a couple weeks off for my actual summer break. Then it's back to school on August 31st for fall semester!

So proud

I just embossed a perfect unicorn. (It's craft night at Liz's on Long Island.) 

Well, that was awkward.

Today, Ari and I had a really nice date night - we saw an early showing of Inside Out (we both really liked it; I might put it in my top two Pixar films of all time, with Finding Nemo), and then went to get Asian takeout to eat in Union Square before it got dark.

Then, right across from the bench where we were eating our dinner, a drunk frat boy started peeing. Ari yelled at him and his friend who was standing nearby, something like "Dude, there's a bathroom over there!" But they pretty much ignored us and walked away. Gross. We kept eating. Then, less than five minutes later they came BACK and the other guy started peeing. Again, right across from us, where we were trying to eat dinner. With other people around, trying to enjoy the evening. We yelled at them to stop it, and they ignored us again, so I got up and threw the remains of my food at the guy who was peeing. I can't really believe that I did it, and I admit it definitely wasn't the most mature thing to do. They ended up calling me a "dick" and then called Ari and me "fags," which was pretty hilarious. Thankfully, they did not try to start any kind of fight. And maybe they'll think twice about peeing in front of people trying to eat their dinner in a public park?

Yayyyyyy I'm one step closer to being a real New Yorker. But to be honest, despite that kerfuffle, Ari and I had a really nice evening!

Caught in the rain

Tonight I went to hear my friend Lindsay play some of her own music and some covers at a bar in the Village called The Bitter End. She was the first performer of the night (she started at 7pm), so I was glad that I, and a handful of other friends, were there to show some support. It felt so nice to listen to relaxing singer/songwriter tunes sung by a friend on a warm summer evening.

Then I totally got caught in the rain coming home. But it was worth it!

You make me feel like dancing

After work today, I met up with my coworkers Megan and Carol (the same friends who I spent the 4th of July with) to attend "Midsummer Night Swing," an event that happens every summer at Lincoln Center, where they have swing dancing (and other styles of dancing, like salsa) on certain nights of the week. It's fun because they have a dance floor, a live band, and a dance class for the first half hour. The only drawback is that it's a little pricey--$20 for 3 hours, if you stay the whole time, which we didn't. 

So we all went for the first time tonight. We took the dance class and learned the Lindy Hop, and then got to wait around awkwardly for people to ask us to dance. (I wanted Ari to come and be my dance partner, but he thought the price was too steep.) Thankfully, we all ended up dancing quite a bit by the end of the night, either with each other, or with random people who invited us to dance. It was a lot of fun! We plan to come back, and just hang out outside the dance floor -- thus essentially getting the same thing for free! 

This older dude was tearing up the dance floor. 

Our exhilarated walk back to the subway at the end of the night. 

Coordinated

As I took the subway home from work this afternoon, I realized that my outfit matched my book! My first thought was: I am SO posting this on Instagram! But then I decided to put it on the blog instead. 

As soon as I came in the door, I made Ari take a picture of my fabulous, accidental coordination. I'm not sure if the picture below captures the true synchronicity of the colors. Also, there's a cat tail throwing off the vibe. 

Here's another shot I took on the subway. Yes, it was kind of awkward photographing my own lap on a crowded train. But this needed to be done! 

I now consider the significance of this event to have been sufficiently discussed and documented.

This post is brought to you by

Allagash White beer and Original Sin Cider.

 It's "Play Your Own Records Night" at Sycamore, a bar near my apartment. 

Here is Sarah displaying one of her musical selections of the night. 

Living in the Cit-ay

Well, I'm (a little) sorry to brag, but I had an amazing Fourth of July Weekend. It included basically everything I'd hoped for:

• Good friends
• Grilling outside
• Grilling vegetarian food outside
• Roasting marshmallows
• Beach (both lying on the sand AND going in the water)
• Ice cream (both from an old-fashioned, family-run ice cream parlour AND from a Mr. Softee truck)
• Fireworks
• Grass
• Patios
• 'Merican music (CCR, Sly and the Family Stone, the Beatles (OK that last one may not truly be so patriotic))

And now I'm back in the city after more than 60 hours in the "country," and let me tell you, I didn't want to come back. I still haven't planned the lesson for my 9am class tomorrow, and that's saying something.

BUT this afternoon, I was reading Nora Ephron's essay about living in her NYC apartment, the Apthorp, and as dissimilar as our experiences of living in the city have been (she essentially lived in a gated community in the Upper West Side), I really connected with her description of finding a community in whichever part of the city she ended up living in. Ari and I have lived in our little apartment here in Brooklyn for almost two years (the longest I've lived anywhere in this city!), and it definitely feels comfortable to me. I'll admit that I don't know most of my neighbors' names, but I recognize the same cashiers at the grocery store, and I see the same people walking their dogs around Prospect Park when I go jogging there. We will probably not be living in this city for much longer (1 - 2 years more at most?), but I really, really love it some days -- especially in the summer. Especially when I look at it with fresh eyes after enjoying a weekend away.

*Also -- YAY U.S. WOMEN'S NATIONAL TEAM!! I'm sad Japan didn't play a little better though; better luck next time Japan! 

It's the 4th of July!

Happy birthday, America!

(Cake made by Megan's mom.)

Love from Medford

Today we went to Cosco (a luxury for us city folk) and then went to the beach and got ice cream at McNulty's (a cute family-run parlor), followed by pizza and wine on the back patio.

Three Day Weekend!

I don't have to work tomorrow (Woo! No pay, but that's OK!), so I have a three-day weekend. The plan is to head to Long Island with a few of my coworkers from Columbia; one of my coworkers, Megan, is from there, and we're all going to stay at her mom's house and basically have a girls weekend. If the weather is nice, we'll go to the beach on Friday and have a barbecue on Sunday. It sounds so American! I can't wait.

I See London!

Our latest foster, London, from a cat's eye view (i.e. I was lying on the floor).