Happy Halloween!

Please admire my self-created Halloween nails (made from $1.99 glitter from Michaels)!

Also, I just noticed this is post #1,001 on this blog. Crazy, right? 

Aura Reading

Ever since one of my celebrity crushes Tavi Gevinson posted about having her aura read in Chinatown, I've been meaning to try it out myself. I finally happened to be in the neighborhood with extra time today. I stopped in to "Magic Jewelry" on 238 Canal Street only to find that every other white female hipster millennial had the same idea as me. Le sigh. Sometimes I fit the profile a little too well....

Anyway, here's what it looked like when I walked in (there WAS one black guy adding to the diversity, as you can see on the far right.): 

The actual process of photographing my aura, or more technically my "Bio feedback field photography," took about one minute. I sat in front of a camera and rested my hands on some metal sensors on either side of me, which were hooked up to the camera. Then a woman working there took my photo and it came out instantly, like a Polaroid. 

After waiting for the group of four girls ahead of me (they were doing the reading as part of a bachelorette party), I got to sit down with one of the women there, who analyzed the colors in my picture according to the chakras (as seen in the chart being held below). 

My aura has lots of... yellow? I was also kind of disappointed you can't even see ME in this picture. I hope they didn't mix up my picture with anyone else's. 

So here's the gist of what I was told: 

1. Yellow is really good. Like, it means I'm lucky and I have positive energy and I do well in my work, and people generally like me. Yay! 

2. The red at the center bottom means that I'm really tired. She said I need to rest more, and go to bed early. 

3. The blue on the lower right side apparently reflects money? I can't remember that part as well, but she said that money will be a concern for me in the future (the right side of the picture is the future), but apparently that color doesn't mean that I won't HAVE money, it just means I"ll need to be careful with my money in the next few weeks. 

This whole experience cost $20. I'm glad I did it, even though I believe about 15% of this aura stuff. But it was actually pretty fun. 

In other news, the real reason I was in Chinatown was to go back to the fancy nail place (where I got the cats done for my birthday). I wanted to go there one more time before I leave NYC at the end of August* and treated myself to their "weekly special" in which the customer picks the colors and they pick the design. I got bright orange and silver for SUMMER! 

*Yup, I'm moving back to the great home state of California at the end of August, with Ari. Please wish us luck! Neither of us has a job lined up yet, and we'll be crashing with my parents for the first part of the visit, but... here's hoping everything works out. :) 

Perfect rainy Tuesday

I'm on vacation till next Tuesday, when summer school starts in earnest. 

I got back from an 8-day trip to Mexico City on Friday the 13th (more on that later), to spend lots of time with Ari's family, since his brother and sister-in-law had a baby boy while I was abroad. Ari's an uncle for the first time!

Things finally slowed down a bit today, so I'm looking forward to this: 

I.e. girly books from the library, fake nails (I bite mine, so it's fun to wear cheap fake ones every now and then), and candy. And maybe some blogging. 

Important Life Happenings

That title is kind of a joke, except - I really did get my nails done at the fanciest nail salon I've ever been to (or will most likely ever visit again).

Let me explain. My friend and coworker Natalie gets her nails done once a month, and she always gets really cool, fancy stuff done, like cute pink Valentine's Day owls done in February, or little American flags for the 4th of July.

For my birthday present to myself, I wanted to go with her and get some fancy nails done too. But in February, I had bitten my nails down too far for it to be worth it. So I postponed for a month and used my best willpower to not bite my nails.

March 22 was the big day. I met Natalie on Grand Street in Chinatown to go to Vanity Projects nail salon, which doesn't even have an official sign. It just has this awesome sign next to the stairwell entrance: 

When we went in, we were offered a choice of still water, Perrier, or espresso while we waited. Did I mention this place was fancy?

Then, I met my manicurist, Mimi, who hails from Japan and has lived in NYC for about two years. She painted on the awesome cat nail design I've been admiring on my Pinterest board for a while now. 

Painting the cat's eyes

Meanwhile, Natalie (who I never actually got a picture of!) was getting the super fancy nails of her dreams done. She decided to go with an Alice in Wonderland theme for March, and almost every nail had a different picture on it. 

Also, as you can see, her manicurist's nails are RIDICULOUS. This girl (Yumi, I think, also from Japan) has fake nails that are like...5 inches long? Maybe longer? And she's had them for at least a month! Natalie and I have no idea how she does it. 

CRAZY

Anyway, my nails were done in about 80 minutes. And I love them. I wish I could stop them from growing out. 

I had to leave before Natalie's nails were completely finished (hers took 3 hours!!) but this is what they ended up looking like: 

Pretty cool, right? 

And I'm not even going to tell you how much my nails cost because it is embarrassingly expensive. Once in a lifetime, I tell ya! 

In the meantime, I have to make sure as many people as possible "oooh" and "aaah" over them.