A New York Minute

I would like to journal, but it's something that never seems to get done. Instead I now bullet point my New York life, one minute at a time (well, kind of)

This week was all about Before and After.

This week I....
At the beginning...

• Took my bookshelf from this:
• To This: 

• Saw my most lovely-of-all people-in-the-history-of-the-world-Acupuncturist who makes me happier than any person with the exception of Santa Claus, The Duchess, Beth Logan and Mary Blair. You can see her too: http://www.yelp.com/biz/tomomi-tanaka-new-york <--This is me giving you a hug wrapped in life balance, wrapped in therapy, wrapped in a rainbow and tigerbalm.
• Survived an Earth Quake. Well, kind of... All this stuff fell on the floor! MY SUNGLASSES! MY MEGAFAT SHARPIE I USE TO WRITE ON CARDBOARD! Let me tell you -- It was an ordeal. I was at work. If you have not seen my work, this is a picture of my work:That's the view from my desk. In essence I work in a NYC box. This winter it will be clear that I work in a snowglobe. Everywhere you look you see NYC. You can sit at your robot animation and see from the Bowery to the Cloisters. You can walk to get a drink of water and see the Statue of Liberty. On your way to lunch you see Macys. That is how we roll at job-job. So it's where we were all sitting when the earthquake happened. I felt the desks shake. I felt the windows shake. I saw the lamps swing. A few things fell. Small kine things. All my coworkers, aka. 'East coasters', having never been debriefed in an earthquake before, rose from their desks and ran to the larger than people windows without a hitch. They craned against them to see WHAT WAS HAPPENING!! It was amazing and... 
• I loved it.
• I read the Outsiders. 
• I watched the Outsiders.
• I openly awwed at several cimematic details. I have my BFA in film so I can say things like 'Oh woah. Patrick Swayze looks SO good' on repeat. It's critique and so I can say it again. In case you were wondering... Patrick Swayze looks SO good in this movie. Matt Dillon's got some pretty sweet acting chops -- who saw that coming?  You were of course destined to love Ralph Maccio forever. Tom Cruise sucks and is a complete over-actor. 
• I formed an odd little club with Miss. Rachel in which we read a book and watch a movie and then blast on the movie. Next up...??
• I shared an amazingly perfect middle eastern dinner at Zaytoons. It is the best. That is not debatable.
• I lost a half a pound.
• I had a crafty skill to the wall night with a bunch of girls. We shellacked plates with this weird epoxy concoction. I have no idea how this is going to turn out. It will probably be a monstrosity. Next week there will be pictures.
• I had a deep and late-into-the-night discussion with my gal Ashley. We just 'get it' because we both understand the pressure of being overly talented strong female leads and future millionaires bajizillionares. Also we are totes humble.
• Then this hurricane came and it was this is this and that is that... 2 points if you know I am using Flounder's voice to relay this story.(Ok that link is not to Flounder's voice but it is to the best voice in the whole perfect thing)
• I tried to buy batteries, but New York went crazy and ran on batteries and water. I realized that I could just take them out of my stereo if I needed them.
• I laughed at NYC's preparation for a natural disaster. Everyone freaked their faces off for something that was as common for me as a snow day was for them growing up. (Incidently snow days still really spazz me out) Awww look the boutique downstairs taped their windows. Presh.
• I was promised that when I woke up on Sunday morning everything would look like this:
• It did not.
• It looked like this:That's another before and after and the thing we're microscoping would be my anticipation.
• After the storm was over the electricity went out
• 'The apartment' had an influx of boys this weekend. 
• Nothing like a storm and some chinese checkers to keep things interesting
• I sat in the dark with the boy and listened to Johnny Cash because NO way in HELL was I butchering my stereo's juice just to have a little bit of flash light
• I made everyone take a minute to appreciate Irene. Was she a hurricane? No. She was a tropical storm with purpose. Did she still accomplish a lot of what she set out to accomplish? Were people scared into shutting down mass transit, evacuating thousands, and crying in the streets? Did my roommate still make enough rattatouli to feed an army? Did I skip a shower and instead bathe in a bath full of freezing cold water on Sunday night that I'd drawn just incase?? Yes. She did it her way. On her terms. That's kind of cool.
• I LOST MY SH*T when the tinsy leak that I thought was fixed (perhaps because I was promised it was fixed after it plagued me for eight months while fighting my landlord to fix it) split open in Irene's wrath (which let's face it, after collecting four inches of rain water INSIDE the theater my house was really minor in comparison to mine).
• In that moment of complete crazy and weakness with water pouring down in my house and Irene shaking the windows I may have been talked in to performing Britney's "I'm a Slave for You". sigh. Here's where you get the benefits of this being my version of a journal... because I'd never admit this otherwise.
• I documented said rainwater. Here we meet yet another before and after:ewww... gross. OK I know what's happening here. I went to Pratt. This is a bowl of clear water from the roof sitting on a yellow chair. So the water looks yellow. It's an illusion. I'll fix this...
   um. yeah.
• I still have this bowl of branch water. I got rid of the others, but I want my landlord to see this with his own macho eyes. I know that a) he will not care and that b) the amount of anguish I have keeping this bowl around is just stupid and I should toss it out but I also know c) that is not how I roll.
• The minute the storm was over I ran to Wyckoff  Street to visit my eighth favorite thing about my neighborhood:
• This mosaic house was one of my chief concerns when the wind was winding. In nicey-nice news the artist's husband was out cleaning branches and such from the tile and we had an 'everything is fine' chat. Irene made off with a few loose tiles and some sprinkled sequins and glitter but that is all. Celebrate.
• I went to brunch with my favorite girl to write-letters-to/consume-calories-with/fantasize-about-kidnapping-a-child-from... JenPal 
• Brunch happened at my favorite place to brunch so double plus. Seriously. Be jealous.
• I went on a looooooooooooong walk with the boy. We saw this: 
• Maybe we added something..
• Ok , OK we added the bike... It left me wondering. Earthquake? or Hurricane?
• I got some pretty bitchin' fabric samples back from spoonflower.
• I finally saw 'The Help'. I pronounced it good. Sometimes this BFA in film plagues me. I wonder if you have similar problems. Is there something you love LOVE love (in my case movies) that you persued higher learning in (be that college or other) that you now enjoy a little less for not being able to enjoy it without intense focus on details or things you would change??
• I watched 'Walk the Line' with my Brooklyn version of Johnny Cash.
• My roommate and I are becoming extremely well versed at using obscure music and movie quotes as a sole means of communicating. 
• I realized that I cannot let these New York Minutes go longer than a week. It's been a week and two days and it took way too long to pull this together. Those extra two days make this post craaazy. So expect something Monday from now on. 

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• Watching: suggest something. I'm out.
• Reading: Excuses be Gone by Wayne Dyer and Grief and High Delight by Brittany Warnock
• Listening to: Britney's Femme Fatal on loop
• Drawing: Penguins
• Eating: In love with pickles at present
• Learning: Italian
• Coveting: this bike in red
• Saving for: a Cintiq and a plane ticket
• Quoting:
  

In the meantime, I'm dying to know, what do you have to say?? How was your week. Spill like a two foot slit in a ceiling.