friday night.

on friday night i had a date (don't get your panties in a twist ladies--it was a friend date) with my classmate and one time prom-companion, ben.

we hadn't seen each other in a year. a year, an impossible amount of time!!

but i tell you it felt like mere weeks. i laughed so hard and was coaxed into drinking far more than my usual amount.





the nice thing about going out with ben is you know that what begins as dinner will inevitably turn into an eight hour tour of some of nyc's best haunts.

and that for those eight hours life will be nothing short of really wonderful.

after school. (after juilliard).

i remember at the age of nineteen sitting on the weathered red chairs in the lobby of juilliard when a dear friend in his fourth and final year took a breath, appraised the chair, appraised me and said: it's going to be strange not coming here every day. i'm not sure how i'll do it.


no one tells you how hard the time just after college is. no one prepares you for it.

for the countless hours you traverse the city taking more classes, meeting more people, working never-ending jobs to pay the never-ending bills, all the while wondering what possessed you to get a bachelor of fine arts in the first place? for those nights you find yourself on the bathroom floor because really that red wine did not go down well or really that guy was so-not-the-one, but this feeling, well--goodness, it sure does feel like a broken heart.

(or the nights, like tonight, you find yourself sitting propped against the toilet because the bathroom is the only place you can connect to the internet).

but then again, no one prepares you for how it's better than all that's come before. how it's richer and fuller.

for that first phone call from a girlfriend to tell you she's pregnant--for how much fun it is to watch these people you love marry and grow families. and how you get to choose--yes, choose!--who you surround yourself with. who you love. who you laugh with. who you call in the middle of the night--from the bathroom floor--when that old sadness creeps in.

and no one says how there's nothing so much like love in this life. love of a child. of a friend. love of all those small things that amount to a life.

and lord help me, if there's anything i've learned from naomi over the years, it's how to love the small things.

the thing is, watching as she and josh parent eleanor--as they give selflessly of themselves, i have a feeling that in the coming years i'm going to get a good schooling on the big things, as well.



dear naomi, josh, and little miss e: thank you for a wonderful weekend, your wonderful friendship, and the love you so freely give.




(plus, it's so fun to hang out with people that lug their camera everywhere and take just as many photos as i do {most people don't get it}).

trading in manhattan for the district and old friends. (mostly for the friends).

deep laughs and old friends.

this is my friend rob.

we met on our very first day at juilliard. the very same day we had to wear body-skimming clothes for our alexander technique photos (acting school is strange) and when the time for his photo came rob stripped to nothing but tighty whities. 

we've been friends ever since.

(get your head out of the gutter, it wasn't like that).

rob and i haven't seen each other for a while. so last night we made a date for dinner followed by swing-dancing classes at lincoln center (there is so much to do and take advantage of during a new york city summer!).

and when, at that moment during dinner, i pulled out my camera for the cursory pictures he made some peter parker comment (classic) and then proceeded to fire off fifty at a time (usually i have to beg people to take three in a row). he had me laughing so hard that my sometimes-snort crept back in. it's not terribly attractive that snort, nor are the veins now protruding from my forehead. but at least i know i'm laughing, deeply. i'd take real laughs, deep snorts, and pulsing veins any day of the week if it means a life lived fully.

easter 2011

this easter i attended mass at a church i'd never before been. i sat there in the foreign pews and thought of all the churches before this one. of my catholic upbringing--of how deeply ingrained it is, of its cultural power and pull. i sat in those foreign pews and cried sweet, repentant tears as i marveled at the feelings of deep loneliness and love and uncertainty and utter happiness that existed all at once. the wonder of that--of the complexity and absurdity and absolute loveliness of this life!

easter was  divine. i felt God in my morning service and its accompanying salt-tears. i felt Him in the walk from 175 to 181st. in my chai latte and the clean apartment newly made home. i felt Him in the warmth of my friends' greetings and the communion of old friends meeting new (sometimes i can't believe how many good people i know).  

the egg-dye, egg-hunt, and egg-wars were all just icing on the proverbial cake. 

(and yes, my fingers as i type this are still blue. and might just be for days to come. time will tell. what can i say, i take my art {all art} seriously).

lovely ladies.

i'm so glad to be back here in the city.

truly, i couldn't be happier.

to be in my own bed. to walk the streets that my feet know so well. to watch the sun rise over the hudson.

and yet. i have found that i am homesick. for the lazy days spent in the car with my mother. and the lazier evenings gathered round the living room table, eating simple foods and watching summer re-runs. homesick for my family, really.

so when on this past saturday morning i got the chance to surround myself with strong, independent, courageous, women--all friends, i thought, well these ladies, they're family too. homesickness, be gone!

it was perfection. let it be known, i would like to do this every saturday.

ps: i don't like to brag. but...

i totally spent my saturday with

these blogging superstars:

rockstar naomi (who really is as gorgeous pregnant as you think she is)

natalie of (no) sex and the city fame (who really is as fun as you think she is)

and nat the fat rat (who is nine months pregnant, celebrating a birthday this week, and who i couldn't be happier to welcome to the upper west side)

a little letter.

ben is my friend.

we are both from houston. and we both like mexican food.

we met the summer after our junior year. in chicago. not houston. (go figure).

ben was my prom date. it was 80's themed. he wore a blue t-shirt with a gray blazer. and yes, the collar was popped. i wore a metallic blue dress that i had gotten off of ebay. (and so much eye-shadow that i will never speak of it again).

and then ben and i both went to juilliard.

i've blogged about him before. because he's funny. and he makes me laugh.

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the week before i left for my three-month-summer-sojourn i got to see ben quite a bit. there's something about spending time with a person who's known you for a while. who comes from the same place. and shares the same love of food.

we talked about how i was on a saturday morning flight to houston. and ben on a flight to los angeles that same day. we talked about this several times. (at least three) but never mentioned the time of the flight or from the airport from which we'd be flying.

i was on a terribly early flight--a flight that only i would choose.

i remember being unbelievably afraid that morning. walking out of the apartment. the cab to the airport. my god, what was i doing?

getting through security. rolling my large suitcase. panicked heart-beats.

and arriving at the gate. at something like six in the morning.

and i looked over. and there across the sea of blue seats was ben. head-cocked, looking at me.

and i laughed. because he'd chosen the crack-of-dawn-flight too. and he'd gotten there even earlier than me. kindred spirits we are. yes, he was off to la, but he was catching a connecting flight through houston. go figure.

ben's presence that morning (and the surprise of it) was a little gift of some higher power. to calm my breathing. and remind me that we're given what exactly what is needed, exactly when we need it.

we talked our way into neighboring seats. and as i began the first leg of my journey, i did so with a friend.

ben was off to la because he got this little job. doing a television show. no big deal. he's the lead, but whatever. and it's on nbc following the office, but you know, that's life.

i've seen the pilot. and i must say the show is lovely and funny and so well done. and ben is gorgeous in it. absolute perfection.

i'm most excited for the people-magazine-spread about him that is sure to come. because they always dig up high-school prom photos (and need i remind you that we went to prom together?).

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i suppose this is an open love letter to ben. a thanks for his friendship. (despite kinda ditching him at the dance, despite the hard years of school, despite my hermetic tendencies).

ben, darling, i'm so proud of you.

and sorry ladies, he's taken. and not by me.

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watch ben on outsourced this thursday. 9:30/8:30 central.

(ps: i totally have a crush on the guy playing "man-meat")

saturday night and gatsby.

friday marked my last shift at the restaurant.

just before going in i stopped in the local bakery for a bottle of pellegrino to save me from the unsavory new york heat.

i pointed, asked, and was met with questioning looks.

silence.

backtrack. replay. click-in. oh. i had asked for a bottle of prosecco. freudian slip? (after all, the end of my tenure as glorified restaurant decor is cause for celebration, no?)

so when alisha came over on saturday night i asked her to bring sparkling things. she kindly obliged with a bottle of pellegrino and prosecco. you see why i like her, right?

point of fact: my friendship with alisha is the best thing to have come out of my time working at the restaurant.

friendship is a funny thing. it can take a lot of work. and friends come and go. but every so often you (or, well i do) meet someone and think, i'll keep them for life, please.

when i first met alisha i had been working as the new girl for three months. and i was ready to not be the new girl. but i was not ready for alisha. she was just so damn...sparky. and very short. and from a height of 5'10" both things seemed cause for concern.

i think it was that so much pep could be packaged in such a little body that i found off-putting.

i soon came to learn that this pep was a brilliant ploy to appease management and cover a deeply intelligent and sarcastic sense of humor.

i love how smart alisha is. and i love that every time i suggest a book, she declares that she's read it (chances are years ago...probably dreamt it up before it was even written). and then she goes and does something like flapping her arms all about because she's so darn hot and once she settles into the heat she starts waxing nostalgic about great gatsby and don't you know, she can actually quote the thing.

it was beastly hot on saturday night. and while we laughed the whole way through it, by night's end we had "lapsed despairingly into deep heat with a desolate cry."

all in all, perfection.

breath, panic, girl-time, and ice cream.

this morning i begrudgingly got out of bed.

i trudged over the hill that now separates my apartment from the corner store.

i was halfway up the hill when i realized i wasn't breathing.

no, i don't mean i was breathing heavily.

i mean i was actually holding my breath.

you see, i am leaving new york for three months in exactly two weeks. by the time i return i'll be just about two weeks from turning twenty-five. (oh, the symmetry).

reality is setting in. and breath is leaving my body far too quickly, not to return.

i have an unenviable to-do list to conquer today:

and on and on...

these are things i could (should) have been doing all weekend.

{instead i sat in bed reading. and while sitting in bed reading is the most noble and glorious of all past times, even it has a time and a place. its time and place being somewhere at the end of my to-do list (meaning what i should do once all other things are accomplished)}.

last night though, i paused the panic button and met up with my girlfriend (and something of a soul-mate) alisha (the girl behind the whole doppelgaenger saga) and we pranced around the lower east side, making time for ice cream.

because, let's be honest, there is always time--always--for ice cream.

i got all things bad for me, while alisha actually got fruit in hers. oh man, i will never be the girl that puts fruit in her ice cream. (at home yes, but out on the town? no way).

so (if it's your thing) make some time for ice cream on this holiday.

i will be here at my desk, in my room, meticulously checking off all the things on my never-ending-to-do-list, breathing all the while (i hope).

a picnic along the tribeca waterfront.

my gorgeous (and unbelievably talented) friend, erica lives in tribeca with her clark-kent-of-a-husband, chris. (i blogged about their wedding, here).

oh, tribeca! to live in tribeca where the air is fresh and the crowds are sparse! (and the rent is sky-high).

they live there (at a great price, as luck would have it) in a single bedroom (in a hotel). the catch is..

there's no kitchen.

this would deter most.

not erica.

she cooks. without the kitchen.

and when i say cooks, i mean...really cooks.

erica being brilliant (as she is) has created a kitchen-of-sorts in the bathroom and a blog to go along with it.

today we met up in union square which (while i'm not really a fan of because of the huge crowds) has a massive and versatile greenmarket. and from there we headed home and the cooking began.

what i really love about erica's take on food is that she's adventurous about simplicity. and she believes in educating herself about what it is she's eating and why it's good for her.

i'm starting to think there's nothing like a time outdoors, good food, and girl-talk (intelligent girl-talk, at that!).

to see why i gush about this girl check out her very new and very exciting foray into blogdom.