Last Days of Brooklyn

Queens Comfort with Jacky

Intentionally unfinished Gerhard Richter painting at the Met Breuer (took my classes).

Roxanne Gay reading at the Franklin Park Reading Series

Last day at Columbia, with a "surprise" going away party. (I wasn't sure, but suspected something.)

Photo with my last class at Columbia

Ari eating an edible balloon at the Museum of Ice Cream

Speaking of ice cream - crazy sundaes at Black Tap with Natalie. 

Cedar Beach on Long Island with Megan and a few other coworkers/friends. 

Megan's mom bought us pens!!! Only teachers will understand how thrilling this was. 

Favorite spot to wait for the Q train at Union Square with Captain Baby. 

Sneaky pic of Ari and the boys of the subway. 

Ari waves farewell to his favorite sechwan food at Legend Restaurant. 

One of my favorite views-crossing the Manhattan Bridge on the Q train. 

Various items of mine to give away that I hung in front of our apartment. These were all gone in about 10 minutes. 

Most of our worldly possessions. 

Walking through Washington Square Park in the rain in my last day in the city. 

Drinks at Vol de Nuit on our last night in town (with Megan and Carol).

LAST MEAL: General Tso's!!!!

Shots of summer

Cool wall in the Lower East Side

Cool cemetery (that is normally closed to the public) also in the LES.

Evening views from Liz and Josh's house on Long Island.

Driving back from Liz and Josh's in a car (first time! we usually take a train) with very pregnant Kaylan in the back seat. 

Enjoying frozen custard during the Mermaid Parade in Coney Island. Tabitha was there too!

Seymour looking adorable literally seconds after he attempted to attack Ari's foot. 

Megans nails combined with the cactus lemonade = perfect summer colors (taken at Smorgasburg).

Nice sunset in Queens last night. 

Good Monday

Yesterday Ari and I went to Brooklyn Bridge Park to enjoy the sunshine and visit the carousel that was relocated there from Youngstown, Ohio (Ari's hometown) originally. 

This was my third attempt at riding the carousel. Third time's the charm!

Just realized you can't see our ponies in this picture. :(

After we rode the carousel, we got a "Fudge-ettaboutit" chocolate concrete at Shake Shack and then Ari had to leave for work. I stayed in the park and lay down on the grass to read my book, with this pretty great view.

Just wear black

I immediately noticed, upon moving to New York City, that people really do wear a lot of black here. This article summarizes a few reasons why that might be. But I like the quote at the end most, which the author notes describes both the typical New Yorker and the reason why people might choose to wear black: "Black is modest and arrogant at the same time.... But above all, black says this: ‘I don’t bother you, you don’t bother me.'"

New favorite pin

Anyone remember these Mother's Cookies from their childhood?

In other news, I voted for Hillary today. John Hodgman did a good job of explaining his reasons--a lot of his overlap with mine. 

In other other news, I watched the season finale of Girls yesterday. This article explains some of what I feel about it. 

In other other other news, Ari and I went to see Fun Home tonight, a show I've wanted to see ever since I heard they adapted the graphic novel into a musical. I NEVER expected it could be translated so successfully! Great music. Lots of tears (from me). 

And that is all for today! 

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. 

Spring at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden

One cherry tree in bloom = everyone lined up with their cell phones out. 

On this, the day of (OK, a few days after) my birthday

I meant to write a post on my birthday (6 days ago) reflecting on the past year and making goals for the next year. I didn't do that, obviously. Mainly because eating pizza and gelato took priority after I got home from work on Friday.

I am now 31 and weirdly feel like I should be more of an adult than ever. I am officially out of my twenties. This is the year when there aren't really any more milestones coming up, right? Until...I get to join AARP?

Anyway, these are the things I want to focus on more in the next year of my life. They don't change that much from year to year, but it makes me feel more productive to write them down once in a while. These are listed in a rough order of importance to me.

1. Spend as much time as possible with people I love -- friends and family members.
2. Show the people I love that I love them (remember their birthdays, hug them, say "I love you" to them, etc.)
3. Be compassionate. Try to be nice to everyone. *
4. Try to keep listening to new music (apparently most people stop listening to new music at about age 32...I'm almost there).
5. Keep traveling, but don't feel obligated to make "big" trips. New cities, new states.

Those are the top five. I have a couple more, but I don't think they're quite interesting enough to post (e.g. do my taxes before April). Let's see how this year goes. I am optimistic.

------------------------

*I listened to the Death, Sex, & Money podcast on my birthday and heard the wonderfully frank Lucinda Williams talking about her father's poem, "Compassion."

Compassion

by Miller Williams

Have compassion for everyone you meet,
even if they don’t want it. What seems conceit, 

bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign 

of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on

down there where the spirit meets the bone. 

Snow dump

As many people are probably aware, the east coast got a LOT of snow yesterday. Brooklyn was no exception. 

Ari and I walked around Prospect Park during Peak Blizzard for about 15 minutes before deciding we'd had enough. Then we bought some necessities at the local grocery store (which was surprisingly crowded) and spent the rest of the day indoors, cooking comfort food (tomato soup, challah) and watching movies (Ex Machina and Parks and Rec). 

Snow selfie! (Snelfie)

Ari pretends to hitchhike in the park. 

This morning, Ari had to leave early to play church (a gig he has every Sunday), and had to call Uber to take him to the closest working subway station, since trains aren't running from our closest stop. 

I got to sleep in and wake up to the sound of melting snow dripping on our windowsill. Seymour also enjoyed the pretty view from my pillow. 

This afternoon, I went for another longer walk today in the park. It was so pretty! 

Another snelfie.

I guess we'll all be back to the grind tomorrow, but it's been a pretty magical weekend.

Back from Cuba!

And too tired to post about it right now. BUT in the meantime, while I wait till tomorrow to upload and edit down all of the many photos I took, I am excited about all the membership cards that came in the mail while I was gone (I was out of town from December 13 through January 9). Thanks to my ID NYC, I've gotten free memberships to all these places (and a couple more that don't have cards)! 

If anyone wants to visit me, 2016 would be a good year to do it, since I can probably get you in for free to a lot of stuff! 

Magical Prospect Park

Looking extra magical in the rainy fog this evening.

5k in Prospect Park yesterday

Ran it with my coworkers, Megan, Natalie, and Michele.

Awkward action shot as we started the race. I love Megan's face here! 

Aaand action shot as we finished the race! (Natalie is behind us in this shot.)

271st, baby! Out of about 350! (We DID jog the whole time--just slowly.) Yay!