Spring

I woke up this morning and stepped out onto my street where all the trees had magically blossomed overnight into beautiful white flowers. And so I was inspired to (internally) recite my favourite spring time poem, which I shall repost for your enjoyment now. I've probably posted it before, but I like it so much it's time to post it again.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

-- Robert Frost

Walking to work, my thoughts drifted to where I've been on April 23 for the past five years. Last year, I was interning at MARK/BBDO in Prague, the year before that, I was enduring life in Miami Beach, the year prior, I was working as an English teacher in Madrid. (I'd arrived there the April before, just as Semana Santa was getting into full swing and all the stores were shuttered just as I needed to buy groceries.) And the year before those two Aprils in Spain, I hadn't even yet begun my job at the teeniest public relations firm in the universe. Funny how if you'd asked me where I'd be in five years during that time, I wouldn't have been able to predict a single one of the adventures; I remember being 23, barely employed (I think I had a temp job at a non-profit in Marin where my lone task was to endless filing), living at my parents, and deep in the throes of a total, inconquerable depression where I believed it all (education, travel, learning, etc.) had all been for naught and that I'd never amount to anything, ever. Today, on this beautiful spring morning, it was reassuring to take solace in the fact that I've come a great distance from those miserable days of spring in 2002, when there seemed to be little hope on the horizon. So, despite the sad poignancy of the Frost poem, with its dismal awareness of fatality, a beautiful, flower-lined street in spring time still gives me that warm awakening of hope, that we continue to live for the reawakening of goldness, season after season.

Overheard in New York

I always enjoy checking out Overheard in New York, the website where people can anonymously contribute those wild and wacky overheard conversations heard in this fair city. I didn't realise til my iPod broke how many truly horrid conversations were going on around me. Thankfully, sometimes they are somewhat amusing. Like this one I heard on my walk to work this morning:

"I've never been nothing but nice to you, so you can blow that out of your ass!"
-- squat, fat, thirtysomething Asian woman to her stocky, pale white boyfriend

She said it loud enough for me to whip around to see what was the ruckus. Then I had to fight the temptation to tell her to watch her mouth, before she began loudly badgering her boyfriend on what a mean guy he was. Pot calling the kettle black, perhaps?

Photo of the Day

I don't know why; I found it and just thought it was funny. Photos from Sarah's birthday dinner at Stanton Social coming soon (seeing as the price of the dinner used up 90% of my monthly funds after rent, bills, and groceries, it'll be the last excitement for a while).

Good Weekend

I've been nicely busy the past week and weekend, nothing particularly dramatic but nice nonetheless. After last weekend's family-intensive Easter events, it was nice to just chill. Friday I met up with my partner from work and headed to Café Charbon in the East Village to hear a fellow from work deejay for the crowd.


Russ, Jenna.


Russ.


Grant, Adam, Christine.


Adam, Christine.


Jenna.


Elizabeth.


Jenna, Adam.

Then we headed to Love on MacDougal Street to attend Secret Night of Science, a monthly drum & bass party. Love is, to be it succinctly, crazy. It was like being transported to an early '90s rave as inspired by Clockwork Orange/Alice in Wonderland -- lots of dayglo and velvet thrown into the mix. But the best part is that their sound system was, as promised, really phenomenal.


Jess.


Jess.


A Venezuelan guy whose name I can't remember.


Rufus, Venezuelan guy.


Rufus, Rachel.


Jess, Rufus.




Ooh, cRaZinEsS.


Speaking of craziness, I took this awesome photo totally by accident.



Saturday I slept for a while and hung out around my apartment, then met Sarah in Chelsea to go to some art galleries.


We saw these really cool cut-out pieces hanging from the ceiling in one.


They reminded me of giant jellyfish swimming in the ocean.


The entrance to Comme des Garçons.






We saw lots of very cool art and also some very pretentious and not-so-cool art. Didn't manage to get a photo of everything I liked, including a white glittery Elvis-esque poster at a show called "Pure" and great illustrations by Amy Cutler.


The last exhibition we went to had buckets of these large, fake roses, a motif throughout a lot of the photographs, which we were encouraged to take.


It turns out that large roses are a great conversation starter, as we found over tapas at Tia Pol on 10th Avenue, where we enjoyed some pretty good food and wine before heading back to the East Side for a mellow night of drinks at Professor Thom's, Blue Owl and, yes, Vol de Nuit. Not to mention a curious pitstop at the Knickerbocker, where we discovered very plain and normal 30-something women flirting with very old men. Probably will not be heading back there ... ever.

Blogger Woe

I updated my Blogger account a few weeks and subsequently found that the new template I was encouraged to use chops off half of my horizontally-oriented photos. Then, in the attempt to fix ths problem, I deleted all the links I'd spent the last few years accumulating. I'm not particularly happy about this turn of events. Not to mention the fact that Blogger is almost impossible to contact via email; your choices are from a pull-down menu of already-asked questions. When there were problems with my account a few weeks ago, I spent nearly a half hour trying to locate an email for trouble-shooting questions, finally found one, and have yet to hear back. Typical of the arrogance of anyone designing/running programs -- if you can't figure out the solution, it must be your problem. After all, all the nerds who spend their days programming this stuff know the answers, right? Anyway, that's just my morning rant against Blogger and its "not evil" owner Google: create and run software that us non-geeks can easily use, and when we have questions, make it easy for us to find the appropriate email to ask questions, and then respond with an easy-to-understand answers.

Photos Photos Photos

Some photos over the past few weeks. I'd write explanations but ... don't feel like it.


A few weeks ago, we went to Crocodile Lounge on a Thursday to drink beer, eat pizza, and play Skeeball. That's Anne, me, Vahbiz, and Dayna.


Shelley, Stephanie, and Jessica.


Shelley demonstrates what she'd look like with a MONOCLE.


I have no idea how to play Skeeball.


We broke into two teams. Team Asia ...


... and Team JENN(e).


We didn't win. But that was OK with at least HALF of the team.


Then a week later it was Vahbiz's birthday, and we all met at Vol de Nuit, where I accidentally wore the exact same sweatshirt I'd worn there the work before.





Then the next night I met with Jenn at Telephone bar, had a few drinks, then ventured off to another bar in th East Village.


I posed with an umbrella.

A couple nights later, Jenn had us join her for drinks before she headed back to Los Angeles.


We all were sad.


Then we took hair tossing photos to maximise our GLAM.










This last week, I went to Sullivan Room to see London Elektricity.








It was an absolutely brilliant set, why can't the NY deejays play like this??

Friday it was Anna's birthday, so after going to a cocktail party in Nolita with Ellie, we joined them at a bar in the East Village.


Anna and Anne.


Anne and Anna.


Me and Ellie.

I need to be better about taking my camera with me for better documented evenings. Hopefully I'll remember that this weekend before I head out. xoxo