Hello fellow citizens of this planet, and greetings from cold and snowy Queens. How have you been? Are the winter blues hitting you now that it’s February, which is arguably the longest month of the year? I sit amid my piles of slushy snow, looking at pictures of my friends in Florida, and toasting my feet on my radiator as I sift through bankruptcy claims for errors day after day. The toasting is necessary, because I’ve discovered recently that I…
After nearly a year of living in New York, I thought it might be time to maybe do some adult things like changing my driver’s license to my NY address. Armed with determination and not much else, I made the initial foray into the DMV wilderness, only to promptly return home when I saw the lines were longer than the lines on pretzel day, and that I needed not one, but two, proofs of address, which I definitely did not…
I learned that if you want an eternal tube of toothpaste, just buy the worst charcoal toothpaste you can find. It will hardly foam, it will leave your sink and your toothbrush black and weirdly greasy, it won’t freshen your breath by much, and no matter how many months and months you use it, it will never ever run out. Ever. Money saving hack, so you’re welcome for that. I learned I’m not a huge fan of being thought pregnant….
My decade began and ended with a miracle. Around the start of the decade I was living in Honduras, terribly burned out and sad from years of too much loneliness and a few too many griefs. I decided to ask God for the impossible, and asked Him to move us back home in the spring, and not only back to North Carolina, but back to our old house we had left there. This was ridiculous for a variety of reasons….
I didn’t grow up really celebrating Christmas- Thanksgiving was more our thing- so I don’t have a lot of nostalgic traditions around this holiday. However, we had one little tradition which I loved. Nearly every year we would find a free performance of Handel’s “Messiah” and pack ourselves into the balcony. We’d sit there with binoculars, (the homeschooler version of opera glasses, I guess) and pass them about, taking turns watching the faces in the choir and the orchestra with…
I won the lottery. I imagine almost everybody has, at one point or another, fantasized about what they would do if they won the lottery. I certainly have done so, building grand castles in the air of traveling with part of it and investing the rest and living on interest and being able to spend my life doing all the things I actually want to do that don’t make a living. Surely you’ve made plans for the day you’ll win…
When I learn something new that particularly delights me, I want to share it with the whole world, over and over and over. After I started dance lessons a year or two ago I couldn’t shut up about HOW MUCH FUN it was, and how everyone should try it. (I still think that, by the way.) My friends patiently nodded along and probably rolled their eyes behind my back, but I couldn’t really blame them for that, because I ceaselessly…
I have made no secret of the fact that I love birthdays. I mean, I’m one of those annoying people who counts down the days and tells everyone when it comes and marches around collecting all the free drinks from coffee shops and that kind of thing. Ya know? I love to analyze the past year and see where life has taken me and for me it’s also a good mid-year time to make a few new resolutions. Finally, it’s…
Summer has come at last, full swing, and all my questions about what New Yorkers meant when they said that summer is sweltering here and that the whole city smells like garbage are being answered. Today I went from place to place in search of adventure, and following me like a flea was the persistent smell of dog piles. Yes, I checked my shoes, but apparently this is what Queens smells like in the summer. The garbage piles smell like…
Rosie said I don’t post enough pictures. Rosie is usually right. Therefore, here you go. Let us commence with a Sunday afternoon spent roaming downtown Brooklyn. I do a lot of roaming, you see, since I have a lot of time to spend alone and there are only so many things that are fun to do by oneself. Exploring is one of them… And we move on to a sunny Saturday spent exploring Forest Hills, Queens… And to finish it…
…Except I kind of was. I spent the last couple of years poring over articles and pictures of New York City. I read all kinds of guides for making your finances stretch and the best neighborhoods to live in and the hot spots to visit. I read listicles and blogs and books about the city- I mean, I even have a NYC coloring book! I think you could safely say I had done my research. So while these things didn’t surprise…
I sit at the table in the food court in Flushing, unfamiliar yet comforting smells and sounds swirling around me. Directly across from me sits a pretty young woman, earbuds in, absorbed in her reading as she deftly makes her way through her bowl of slippery noodles with her chopsticks. My own deftness is lacking, and I wince internally whenever I drop a particularly large noodle back into my soup, and glance at her surreptitiously to make sure I haven’t…