hot town, summer in the city

After another brief hiatus, I'm back, bitches. Well, "back" to the few of you who noticed my absence. Thanks for stroking my ego and warming the cockles of my heart. Or was that just the heat wave?

I've just returned from a long weekend in New York, which primarily revolved around sweating buckets and guzzling iced teas, but also featured several noteworthy guest appearances by friends accrued throughout various stages of my life.

Observations that are by no means revelatory in any way...

Sangria with this gal might not heal all wounds, but it doesn't hurt. Pret a Manger iced black tea with red fruits is probably one of the best remedies for surviving 100 degree weather. Realizing you've forgotten your book is a bummer-- until you pass the Strand kiosk on the SE corner of Central Park. 9 times out of 10, a dive bar with the right company will trump whatever's trendy-- especially if there's skee ball involved. Everything dies, baby that's a fact, but maybe it is better to bear the news of a deceased childhood pet in the presence of friends, Mexican food, and several midday Margaritas. Sometimes you need the friend who can break your stubbornness by saying trust me that it's too late for you to take the subway back alone, please get in a cab in a stern voice. Harry Potter exhibits are one of very few exceptions to the avoid-Times-Square-like-the-plague rule. The Lobby Bar at the Ace Hotel just might make a person want to spend an entire weekend afternoon studying. Being able to use walking as a means of transportation is a simple pleasure better appreciated after relying on a car for a long period of time-- though probably appreciated even more when the heat index isn't 110 degrees F.

Though I took no photographs, I can offer the following, taken by a friend in a Dingle diner (County Kerry, Ireland). Though I try to avoid behaving like a tourist while actually in the city, clearly I relish the opportunity to act like an NYC tourist in the Emerald Isle?

 

thanks, FregTK, for exposing me as the asshat I really am

picture perfect: a relaxing long weekend at Lake George

We all know that the best laid plans can often go awry... and sometimes the plans that materialize in an act of spontaneity go off without a hitch. My Memorial Day weekend was an instance of the latter, with an invitation late Thursday sending me packing and hightailing it to Philadelphia the following morning to catch my ride to upstate New York for the holiday. My hostess was a friend and former roommate from university, Lauren, and her parents, who have a beautiful house on the northernmost tip of Lake George. Several of our friends had spent a wonderful weekend at the house last summer, which I regretfully missed due to a previous engagement (and by that I mean I was living in South Korea), and I was excited to finally get to see the place that my friends, and more importantly Lauren, always speak so fondly of. Maybe not equally important, but certainly pressing, was the need to unplug for a few days. I had spent far too much time in front of a computer screen during the previous few weeks (which might come as a surprise given the relative dearth of postings) and was eager to leave my laptop behind and turn off my cell phone. I read. I slept. I took in three wonderful days of fresh air. I went for a boat ride. I caught up with my friend and enjoyed the presence of her family in what certainly seems to be their collective happy place. I was spoiled by her mom's cooking. I powered down, slowed down, and caught up on the things I truly needed. And I thought I would be without plans for the Memorial Day weekend.

how not to pack for a long weekend

Despite the fact that I have been in perpetual motion for the past couple years, I am still the worst packer ever.  I struggle to remember one trip in recent memory that didn't begin with a scramble to get everything packed at the last minute-- whether that be a weekend jaunt in nearby Philadelphia or a year-long move to the opposite side of the world.  Often this ends in gross over-packing, frequently in poor sartorial decisions, and time and again in random acts of packing stupidity, as I end up with several pairs of pants and only one shirt for the weekend or completely forget to toss in underwear (which can only somewhat work if you are headed to Mexico and plan on spending most of your time rotating through the bathing suits that you, thankfully, did not forget to pack).

This weekend was no exception, and Friday morning found me struggling to finish a final paper and throw together a weekend bag for New York with highs of 75 and best friends on the horizon.  75 is well and nice, but the excitement over basking in the glory of an early spring day can easily corrupt the reasonable part of the brain that tells you that highs of 50 the following two days really mean that it will get down close to freezing over the weekend-- don't hang up your winter jacket just yet.

Flash forward to Sunday night, as I'm waiting for the bus to take me home, away from the chaos of the city as well as far away from the people I love.  After a night of dancing in heels and retiring yet another sad pair of black opaque tights, I've been schlepping it around the city in a pair of yoga pants and gold Toms.  While I am vaguely embarrassed about my state of being, at least New Yorkers are wonderfully active, and traversing Central Park in workout attire (albeit of the perfectly matched Lululemon variety) is nothing out of the ordinary on a sunny Sunday.  Having just made it in time for my bus back down below the Maison-Dixon line, I'm high on the adrenaline of a close call and not really expecting a long wait out in the cold.  But the buses are backed up, and so nearly forty minutes later, I decide to pull a pair of jeans over top of my pants in hopes that I will stop shivering uncontrollably.  Never mind the awkwardness of shimmying into denim that was not meant to be layered and bending over to fish for the ends of my bunched up yoga pants while surrounded by hundreds of Megabus customers-- I'm certain I am borderline hypothermic at this point, and dammit, I am not going to go into shock just because I can't pack or predict the changing weather worth shit!

My bus ended up boarding a few minutes later, but the damage was done, and I shiver shiver shivered all the way home.  While this should be a lesson in how not to pack, experience tells me that I will continue to get this wrong time and again.  How does one pack for a short weekend with drastic temperature changes and drastically different social situations (a Saturday night out at a swanky lounge vs. lounging on a Sunday morning, for instance)?  Will I ever get it right?!

a self-portrait. the big apple is just sooo much better in the comfort of my yoga pants, yea?  I'm pretty jazzed about the situation, anyway, if you can't tell.