Birthday Blues

19 days till the big 3-0. I don't know what exactly I expect to happen on this day--head will explode, looks will fade at lightning pace, grim reaper will come to collect?--but I am completely freaked out by this route marker. I've always been a little obsessed with the significance of insignificant things I suppose, but at the same time, 30 is a big deal any way you look at it. I feel that I have very little to show for my three decades here on earth, and that, that is the real heart of the issue. Hence my need to vacate the country for the week of the big day and to be with my rocking family who puts up with my incessant bullshit. Thank God for my family and friends ...

I think I may need to cut back on the alcohol intake/going out, as my mind is literally tabula rasa right now. Pictures are the best I can come up with. Tonight is my first night in in I can't remember how long, and am looking forward to the Six Feet Under rerun. On the other hand, I know in a couple hours I'll be bored again and itching to go out. Sigh. Why can I not sit still these days?

Sleep, Glorious Sleep

Why does insomnia, like allergies, come on late in life? I used to be able to sleep for a solid ten hours a night. Now, I'm lucky if I can cram in 6 or 7 hours. I cannot shut off my brain at night, which has something to do with it. What the other part of the equation is I don't really know. Have cut back on the caffeine, work out religiously, eat right, etc. WTF? I just want my eight hours. Was up till 4:30 last night and out the door this a.m. by 7:30. Now, this would be fine if I actually had a day job, but since I don't, I'm completely useless in the morning. I caught up on e-mail, did some banking, etc. but now am totally crashing and am not a good napper. Must fix this insomnia thing. Help!!! Realize this is the most boring post ever, but my brain is functioning at half capacity, if that. Grrrr.

O Brother Where Art Thou?

Little brother finally returns this weekend and am very excited to have a familial voice of reason back on the island of Manhattan. Though he refuses to live with me and my yappy dog, despite the fact that I would actually move downtown for him.

Bellow my Beating Heart

OK, so I'm reading Saul Bellow's collected stories for the first time. Now I see what all the fuss was about when he passed away. I've got to admit I missed many of the classics. (Hey, I went to public high school--in Florida, OK? Cut me some slack.) I'm about halfway through "What Kind of Day Did You Have" and it sustained me for four miles running on the treadmill yesterday. If I can forget about the fact that I'm on the treadmill, sweating my ass off, running a nine-minute mile, then I know I've found a literary keeper. It really is incredible how great writing transcends time and even history. The relationship in this story is as real and relatable as any of my own and my friends' relationships in 2005. I only hope that one day I can write a mere sentence that accomplishes such a feat. And the best part is that I picked it up for a measly $5 on a street cart outside my corner wine shop.

Ghetto Editing

Friends, Family and Faith

I received a note from my BFF today (pictured above at her obviously raucous bachelorette party), which, upon reading, brought me to tears and made my just-applied mascara run, but also made me appreciate how lucky and absolutely blessed I am to have such awesome, generous and incredible friends and family. Sooo bored and brain dead at "work" right now, that I'm just going to post random pictures of my wonderful family and BFF. Plus, I can't freaking post pictures from my Macintosh! Hellooo? What is up with that?

Calling Out Dos Caminos Philanderer

First of all, please excuse all the random pics. Have just acquired digi cam for the first time and am loving it.
At Dos Caminos Friday night with moms (above) and three friends. I'm being my usual exuberant, animated (and apparently loud) self, whilst dining and catching up on the week's events. A few sangria pitchers are being shuffled around the table as well. Sitting next to us are two men in their mid-thirties or early-forties. I notice them looking over at our table throughout our meal, but nothing out of the ordinary.
At the end of their meal, the older of the two, seated next to me, leans in and says, "I just have to tell you that listening to you talk all-night has been more entertaining than any television show." Oh-kay, I think, and my friends and mom giggle politely. I had noticed that these two men hadn't actually been talking that much during their meal, but had not realized that they'd been eavesdropping on our entire conversation over the duration of a couple of hours.
"Well," I retort, naturally taken aback, "I am a writer, so I suppose that is a compliment. Just don't quote me on anything you overheard tonight."
"Oh, I promise this is off-the-record, heh, heh," he responds lecherously. Eww.
They get up to leave, and my friend J. says, "Steph, you do realize that for most of the meal that guy had his wedding band on his finger but when he started talking to you he removed it?"
Double eww. No, actually, I hadn't realized that.
"Very observant of you J. I never notice stuff like that; I guess I need to be a little more on the lookout for that sort of thing?"
"Yeah," piped in my other friend S. "They were both checking you out the whole night."
I understand a little harmless flirting if you are married, but at least have the decency to be upfront about it. I mean, what, did he think that by removing his wedding band my girls and I would be all up in his stuff? I don't think so. Maybe I'm entirely too naive; but maybe his wife should, like, tattoo on a nice, graphic wedding band. I found the whole encounter very creepy. Cut to Monday eve, when I'm buying my dinner for work at Gourmet Garage and the very same married/not-so-married man was behind me in line, again, trying to flirt with me while I was paying and talking on my cell phone. "Look at this one," he says to the cashier and to me, "An accomplished multi-tasker, paying and talking on the phone." I look at him in horror, roll my eyes and scurry out of there as fast as I can.
WTF? Why is NYC only a small city when it comes to really creepy circumstances such as these?

Mom Rocks, Part Two

Told mom this a.m. that I was having a shitty week and was in need of major retail therapy and this was her response:
"Move over Dr. Phil; it is SHOPPING therapy time!!!  We can do that!  My
color appointment is at noon; haircut at 3pm.  Your haircut is 2:15 pm.
I'm leaving around 8 pm Sunday, so we have all day.  Think about where
we should go, what you need, etc."
Bergdorf's, Barneys and Blandi—just what the doctor ordered.

Awoke this morning to find dog vomit in two separate, yet equally distasteful areas, on my pricey silk duvet cover. I love my little Pomeranian/Poodle mix, Wally, to death. But I do not relish cleaning up after him constantly. Dude is 10 years old, you'd think he'd have his movements under control by now. But no, he's been vomiting up a storm lately. The best I can figure is that in my overzealous effort to rid my house of all traces of food after having spotted a little mouse about a month ago, some bleach must have crept into his bag of Nutro hard food. Hence his persistent vomiting over the past week. The nastiness was caked into the duvet cover, and this was after I'd come home last night at 2 a.m. to find similar type vomit on my rug. Alas, I'd had enough Wally vomit to last me a while. I promptly tossed the duvet cover down the garbage chute, stripped the bed, and headed to Bed, Bath and Beyond. I was in a pissy mood already this afternoon when I awoke, having been unable to order Entourage and Six Feet Under on HBO On Demand when I returned home from work last night. WTF is with HBO On Demand this week? I'm dying to see Six Feet Under!! Is Nate dead or what?? Anywho, I was on a linen-buying rampage today and made some lovely purchases. Moreover, my bedroom area had been out of sorts for weeks anyway, as the maintenance men who installed my new bed had put it in the wrong way, so that the headboard was blocking the TV and my dresser. So, having skipped my daily workout, I decided, upon returning home, to do some manual labor and succeeded in turning around my entire bed so that now the headboard is in the correct place and I can once again peacefully watch TV from the comfort of my newly-outfitted bed. And all this without a man to help--ha! Women rock. The above picture is of my new sleeping area/bed, which hopefully will be sans vomit for a while.