Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

 Wow I have had this blog a loooong time. Here's a recap of what I have been doing at the beginning of November for the past 15 years: November Blog post in 2008 :  finding shit on the street   over on 28th by the 1 train where my great grandpa had a heart attack and died. May that add cheer to your day. November Blog post in 2009 : a halloween party where everyone dressed up in costumes and it was really fun.  November Blog in 2010: going to a Lower East Side absinthe bar on Halloween that has long since closed November Blog in 2011: Swedish Club party , right after the most gigantic 11|11|11 corduroy club party that apparently I never actually wrote about, which is sad. November Blog in 2012: Pop telling stories about growing up in the Bronx November Blog in 2013: The pre-pandemic situation when I had lots of back to back meetings in Mid-Town and needed to find places to work for short stretches in between them. November Blog in 2014 : Terribly embarrassing myself at a con

  A stock photo of a family party with a similar vibe to the one I'm gonna tell you a little story about The Precursor to Why I got invited to the family Party A few years ago when my grandma was alive, I went to visit her at her house in Pennsylvania where she had ultimately wound up. Grammy grew up in the Bronx, got married there and lived in the 'hood until my dad was a teenager .  Ton of cousins and pretty much everyone else who immigrated from the "old country" lived in the Bronx at that time. As my grandma used to say, they came in on boats to Ellis Island by the truckload.   As we sat at her kitchen table, Grammy mused, "If only I could find out what happened to my cousins? If only someone (she stares at me meaningfully) knew how to work the internets?" So subtle. I took to the internets and like T-minus five minutes later, I tracked down one of the cousins. I tell my grandma she is now living on the Upper West Side. Grammy replies with her eyebrows r

The conference was at capacity is a key point. I was at a conference sitting near the back watching a continuous string of dustups in the sixth row.  The auditorium was packed and there were almost no more chairs remaining. In the aforementioned sixth row, an older man, like late 70's probably, had sat himself one-in from the aisle. The seat next to him, right on the aisle, was empty. But he had jammed his rolley-bag (because he took a rolley bag to a conference) in front of the chair, thus blocking the entire row and also making it impossible to sit in the empty seat next to him. Nonetheless, multiple people attempted to sit in the empty seat I guess not seeing the rolley bag or thinking they could straddle it or something. The guy growled at them like a feral cat. They all backed off with their hands slightly raised.  Fast forward thirty minutes and a woman has a medical emergency almost right next to where I was observing the goings on from near the back of the room. It was kind

In NYC, the tables are very very close together! On Thursday, we went out to dinner and discovered (after walking the whole way up there) that Joy Love Club is closed (bummer). So we went over to the Thai place on 19th. We were seated at a two-top about two inches from the tables next to us.  May the eavesdropping commence. To our left were a couple, a young man and woman who may(?) have been on a date. As we got settled in our seats, the man was midway through an explanation of his trials and travails with his GI tract. The woman broke in about some hospital visit of her own. Then the guy starts in about his dry eye problem. Turns out he sleeps with his eyes partially open! After about twenty minutes of "let's compare our medical problems", the woman muses, "I wonder if our parents had these same problems, but they just kind of powered through them?"  I guess the question was rhetorical because there was no forthcoming answer. I can say this confidently because

Admittedly I'm sandbagging with these NaBloPoMo blog posts. It's due to my perfectionist compulsion to maximize my chances of "one post a day for a whole month" success and the reality of my incredibly overwhelmed life right about now.  I saw this Andrew Lloyd Webber revival on Broadway a month ago and I'm being clear about that so no one thinks I'm out of the loop re: what everybody is talking about in Chelsea. "The gays love Sunset Boulevard" and that is a direct quote.  I went to the show with my middle-aged ladies book club. Ok fine, in the moment, my cool factor was minimal at best but I'm not about to bring that up in this blog post.  So, I swanned into the performance with my posse and we took our seats that were. Not great. We were way up in a balcony.  Plopped in the seat to my left was a 20-something guy and seated in the row in front of him was his.. friend? boyfriend? Unclear and irrelevant. I guess they couldn't get seats next to

  I've created a brand new ancient tradition - the bonsai jade plant Look, when Tom's Mom's partner's brother passed away probably 20 years ago, I got his large and luscious jade plant. I did not make off with it during the funeral luncheon at the house, in case you were wondering. I was properly gifted the plant when no one else wanted it. Anyway, with these jade plants, it's a cycle of life scenario. The big bits die but of course you can pick off the tops and replant them and then they grow into new little plants. Lots of new little plants. The thing is, throwing out a perfectly alive new little plant, in this house, is as reprehensible as like, idk, swimming in jeans. Even if you have 400 new little plants. For the record, not all new little jade plants are showpieces. Some of them are downright unattractive because they get tall and floppy.  Enter my amazing new hobby! the bonsai jade!  If I twist all these plants all around each other they will (crossing finge

  Got super engaged in a long conversation right before lunch at a recent conference. By the time Sydney and I got to the buffet, every single sandwich was gone. Gone!! Every single sandwich!  Sidney said, I can order Doordash and have it delivered? I said, hell to the yeah. It was kind of hilarious having bahn mi and a really fancy asian fusion taco at a little side table while everybody else was in their seats watching the next session. I know, so bad ass.

Bruce got the tickets for the Marriage of Figaro show at Little Island weeks and weeks ago. He asked if we wanted to come and I said yes immediately. There was no investigations or research. Nothing was looked into. I had a vague notion it was an opera... which made sense since Nardo is a big fan of the opera.  Nonetheless, I ran out of time and failed to deploy my Opera Best Practices checklist. This is where I read about said opera in advance. Otherwise, as I have discovered the hard way, most operas are completely incomprehensible. Even if they were in English, I'd still be tragically lost.  Which feels even more tragic when it's hour two into a three or four hour show and very likely the heroine is out in the garden or up in the attic or out of a boat impersonating the other heroine while meanwhile the villain is in the mix and the hero is going to misunderstand the whole scene and probably there will be a duel in which either the wrong person will die or someone will becom

First random thing transpired while we were whipping up Hudson Street in surprising very little traffic considering the rush hour situation. Tom and I had just had a good laugh listening to Casey Newton on the Hard Fork podcast. I think Casey is so fucking funny.  Kevin Roose had been recounting that after he did a story where he tried to befriend AI Chatbots and turn them evil, the chatbots had apparently started to dislike him and give uncharitable descriptions of him, such as responding that Kevin is "unethical" when compared to most reporters. Kevin enlisted some firm to fix his AI reputation and they gave him a line of code,  he put it on his website and somewhat later, the AI Chatbots were glowing in their assessments. Casey said it kind of sounded like Kevin had bought a spell from some witches. Like a chatbot love spell. I thought it was hilarious. While I was cackling, a guy in his car comes whipping out of a side street and turns left going the wrong direction down

  We had great seats for the baseball game. The third section up (300 level seats) were unexpectedly excellent. For his birthday, my pop wanted the whole fambo to go see a baseball game. I had more fun than I thought I was going to have, honestly. The weather was great, it was nice to see pop in his element and the whole experience was not nearly as exasperating and arduous as I had expected.  Don't get me wrong, the traffic in Philadelphia always sucks no matter when you go. But the stadium itself was very efficient and we got in and got out and the game was 2.5 hours, which is shorter than I remember. They have these countdown clocks now so the pitcher has like 30 seconds to pitch the ball and etc. No dicking around anymore is the bottomline and I'm there for it. We had decided to stay in center city and just kinda take the opportunity to spend the next day banging around downtown Philly, etc. I used to live there, afterall, and rarely go back... so everytime I do it's a

Let's hear it for NYC. David was talking about how excited he was to move to San Diego when he retired (granted from Miami, he's never lived here) and Bruce is all about Spain and Helen and Matt are looking to cruise in the Caribbean for a couple years and rent out their place in Harlem. Sometimes (ok, often) this town is a rough place to be, to work, to just deal with.  And then you have a week like I just had. Maria was in from Stockholm and we took this city by storm.  For example, on Thursday evening, on the way to the train, I took this golden photo and that's kind of when my whole OMG I will never leave this place kicked in full gear: Not even sure what caption to write. This view shows the site of where the WTC used to be if you weren't aware. I mean, literally two hours earlier: Hanging in the park by the river watching the sunset and Leela James and objects are much closer than they appear in the viewfinder, I just feel the need to mention. This is after seeing

So we're hiking this trail along the Oregon coast. When we set off, I decide my new thing is going to be to document a "Fern Life List" because Helen has a Bird Life List and I'm intrigued by the list but not by the birds. So I begin to take photos of all the ferns I see.  I will do this until I have seen all the ferns in the world!!! Some Ferns Some more ferns which at a certain point I realize are the same kind of ferns. My full attention on ferns lasts until we hit the views of the coast, which are undeniably spectacular! I also realize we are very high up and the trail edges a cliff that is a straight shot into the sea: Approximately right then, some guy hiking the opposite direction with his wife/girlfriend does a weird backward step just as he comes abreast of us and he topples off the side of the precipice. He falls backwards and luckily gets tangled up in a bush and therefore does not immediately plunge to his death. Time halts as we all stand there staring at

 We stopped on the drive to the Oregon coast to pick up a can of fireworks, because yeah. Ever since Matt originally procured such a can  a couple years ago, we've been all in.  So we got our can of fireworks, but then the problem became where to light it, because the rental agreement of the place we're renting had some pretty strict "please don't blow up the house" clauses and also the dune grass surrounding the place looked pretty flammable and you know, we'd hate to lose our rental deposit. Therefore, someone came up with the pretty great idea to light up the Fireworks Can on the beach. Except: hmmm, this could be a decision-making factor re: our plan to light up a can of fireworks on the beach. On July 3rd at dinner, we asked our waiter if people were lawless enough to set off fireworks on the beach despite the clear signage. He kind of smirked and said oh no, absolutely not. Hindsight revealed the extent of his sarcasm. Spoiler alert. Helen mused about th

Incident #1: We went to see Home on Broadway with Casey who had gotten tickets at an exteremely affordable price. She's excellent when it comes to getting tickets at an extremely affordable price. Usually the deal involves making yourself available with correspondingly extremely short notice... like the tickets are for a show that starts in three hours. But yeah. That's why I heart living in NYC. Anyway, Tom and I go to the show. It's good! Casey goes to lots of shows and has a clear plan for how to properly commemorate the event: Casey's photos of Home on Broadway In contrast, here's the photo I took: Photo I took to commemorate the evening   Clearly one of us is better at commemorating Broadway performances we have seen.  You be the judge. Here's the main point of all this: During the curtain call, I notice that the older gentleman in the row in front of us crying real tears. He's wiping his face. And my heart went out to him because I could see how the pe

 Tom and I are watching Hacks. We're not done with Season 1, and I'm happy to report I'm not bored yet. I get bored extremely fast. So I guess this is quite the recommendation in my world. It's a pretty good show! Anyhoo, at one point the young writer and I forget what her name is... so... maybe this recommendation of mine bears taking with some salt. But the young writer drunk-dials the boss and leaves a dumbass voicemail message.  Ok now I'm rethinking this whole recommendation thing and contemplating some additional decision-making factors. Is it believable, the whole young writer leaving a voice mail message (or two)?  The young writer is twenty five. Would she even know how to talk on the phone? I guess FaceTiming requires talking but all I've ever been privy to Gen Z doing anything but texting. In fact, I hear they make fun of you if you even voice dictate your texts, which frankly I do all the time. *In my defense*, so do many of my fellow New York City G

  Happy Hour with some hip cognoscenti. For one of the first times since the pandemic, I went to a happy hour in the West Village. It was at one of those subterranean joints that is 900 decibels and shadowy, as the underground often is.  I sat down next to a guy from Japan. I had been told he was "the one to talk to for insight into topics of interest." Topics of interest to whom I remained unclear on. It should be noted he had practically no spoken English.  Look, I empathize. To not be a native speaker on top of too loud music and ambient screaming is really hard. I tried desperately to understand him and visa versa and I think we both mostly failed.  We finished up our exchange that may or may not have been a conversation by standing up and executing an extended series of bows. We bowed at each other really fast multiple times. But not really bowing because who bows at a happy hour in the West Village? Also I really really don't know anything about bowing culture other

  the image google returns when you search for "sofa in a small salon waiting room" I go to the salon on 20th Street the other day. I sit myself in a chair in the waiting area nook. The only other seating is a small sofa. I say this to highlight there is room for three, max. (This might make your brain quake as much as mine because the photo above is of two sofas. This photo is therefore not representative of the actual situation. But I'm way too lazy to find a more accurate representation. So. Yeah. Here we are.) Right after I sit down, a young woman plops herself into the sofa across from me and casually tosses a large metallic silver weekend bag on the other end of said sofa. Hopefully no one else needs to sit down because the angle of the toss effectively takes up the entire other end of the sofa. Intentional? Not intentional? We shall never know. One of the salon assistants comes over and places a cup of hot tea on a saucer in front of the woman. He says, "here&

Honestly I missed the whole thing. I was literally in the closet -- picking out a pair of pants. Maybe because the closet is small and everything is packed in there like the softer side of expert level Tetris, it was the safest place in Manhattan in the critical 4.8 Quake moment. However, the reason I was scoping out a set of trousers was because I had an appointment in midtown. It only occurred to me while I was sitting in the subway train uptown that possibly taking the subway thirty minutes after an earthquake might not be the smartest idea I've ever had. But, ya know, I was already on the train so at that point, might as well go for broke and continue my travels, as planned to Bryant Park. Eight minutes after I got off the subway, I had the exact same mental dialogue. Except this time I was in the elevator riding up to the 33rd floor of a skyscraper. My entire morning could be entitled : Safety First? Wait what? Anyway.  Tom felt the earthquake. First he blamed the upstairs nei

We dropped by Savannah when we were down south attending my nephew's Marine boot camp graduation ceremony. Savannah is surprisingly close to Parris Island so it made sense to make it a long weekend. We got upgraded to a suite at the hotel.  the suite! bless my heart! Savannah is on the tiny side... I guess I say that as a New Yorker so keep this perspective in mind. It's a very walkable place and they have this amazing free bus that goes around in a big circle. You can hop on/hop off and manage to get yourself in places that you probably shouldn't have bothered with.  We successfully located this Alley Cat Lounge  fancy cocktail establishment which Scott had highly recommended. We went by at like the crack of 4pm or something on a Thursday -- which turned out to be maybe the only time we would have ever gotten in without a reservation. We sat at the bar and had an lovely time chatting up the bartender, who turned out to be the bar master and an expert in Japanese Whiskey an

Have you seen this thing with Flaco the Owl who escaped from the Central Park zoo going on a year ago? If you haven't you obviously don't live in New York City. At least in Manhattan, this owl has become our crowdsourced pet.  When I just wrote "crowdsourced pet" it reminded me of an embarrassing error I made once while reading a Swedish article. The article, written in Swedish, talked about a guy who crammed, what I read to be "the crowd's cat" in his pocket. I thought it was an article about animal cruelty or something. I mean, he jammed a cat in his pocket?  But when I mentioned this whole cat shenanigan to a Swedish friend of mine, I found out the hard way (ie when she laughed uproariously at me) that it was an article about a guy embezzling tax dollars. IN MY DEFENSE, the Swedish word for tax is "skatt" and the word for cat is "katt" so if you put the word for "crowd" in front, you can very easily see how you'd go f

  my nephew graduated from the Marines 80% of the fambo flew down to Parris Island to see the nephew graduate from Marines boot camp. It was touching really to see my nephew leave as very much a kid and come back a soldier. He got whipped into shape physically and also mentally... which I hope serves him well long term. We shall see. But that's not what this post is about. This post is about Family Day. The very very first thing my nephew wanted to do was go to the fancy commissary and buy... cologne. He wanted the brand of cologne that his drill sergeant recommended because his drill sergeant knows a lot about cologne. The drill sergeant is 26 years old and an expert in the olfactory arts. Believe me, we heard a lot about it. Let me tell you, these boys smelled good. Even from a distance. Moderation of smell is clearly not part of their training. It took me a while maybe to figure out that everything about their whole life is regimented and completely impersonal. You look at these