I forgot to mention one thing about this weekend. At the beginning of the summer, I decided to get my hair highlighted. I had done it once before, about five years ago, and figured since I’d be spending so much time at the beach, it might be a fun thing to do. I didn’t really like it all that much. But, I figured I’d ride it out through the summer and put it back to its natural color in the fall. This past Saturday was the day I decided to do that. Let’s just say that I had a bit of a run in with the box of Clairol — it’s not quite the shade I was going for — it would have been great with my goth look, though. All I can do now is be patient and hope that it fades a little. It’s funny — people aren’t quite sure what’s different. I had two people at work yesterday ask me if I had gotten a haircut. I’ll try to get a picture up here at some point.
Category: Life
-
The Weekend Wrapup
After the Vendys and a whirlwind of a week, I stayed in Friday night. I must have been exhausted because I slept for 12 hours. Saturday I went to the gym, visited the Dosa cart, then headed up to Westchester to spend the afternoon with a group of my high school friends and their kids. It’s quite overwhelming as the one single, childless person the group, but it was great to see everyone. The kids I had met before had gotten huge! I’ve got to tell you though, there’s nothing like spending an afternoon with your friends who are married and/or have kids to make you realize that there’s absolutely no rush to get there. All in due time.
I came back to the city to spend a mellow night with my cousin Sara, who’s a sophomore at Barnard. We went to see Shopgirl (my advice is to wait for the DVD), then had a late night snack at Village Yokocho. Every time I go there I remember how much I love it. Late night yakitori, dumplings, and other Japanese small plate dishes. Mmmm. After that, I finally took my friend Brian up on his offer to come over and sing karaoke at his apartment. Brian, who I met through my work at Gothamist (he represents cookbook authors and was with me the night I was out with the author of The Vodka Cookbook), was recently featured in an article in the NYT real estate section — he’s got a karaoke stage in his apartment. So Sara and I headed over and sang until the wee hours of the night. Can’t wait until next time.
Today I had a delicious brunch at Augie & Lauren’s and had about two minutes to breathe before heading out to Brooklyn for Katie’s mom’s beer stew. Stuffed, I spent some time cleaning my apartment tonight, gave myself a quick mani/pedi, and am heading upstairs to give Augie a little blog tutorial. After that it’s a good night’s sleep before my last session of boot camp. Woo hoo!
-
Non Sequiturs
Those of you in the beach house know I’ve been talking about this all summer — there should be an alarm clock that wakes you up with the smell of bacon. Guess what — my birthday’s coming up.
I was walking home from the subway last night, when I passed by Reservoir. As I approached, a guy stumbled out and said, "can I ask you something?" "Sure – quickly." (I wasn’t slowing down my pace) "Can I have your number?" "No." "I have money," he offered. "Great," I replied over my shoulder. I didn’t stop to find out how much he would have paid. Sigh. At least he got right to the point.
I was asked to be the fire marshall for my floor at work. Apparently this is a very important position which involves jumping into action when I smell smoke or hear a fire alarm — my job is to call a few other key people on my floor. Hopefully I’ll have time to do this before the smoke gets too close to my office. Oh yeah . . . and I get a nifty flashlight.
-
A.W.O.L.
After walking around in agony since Wednesday morning, I made the executive decision to skip boot camp this morning in exchange for more sleep and a Pilates video. I am still so ridiculously sore that I’m moving like an 80-year-old woman — this weekend I’ll attempt some light cardio, go to yoga with Nikki to stretch out all the creakiness, and I believe that a good, solid schvitz is in order. After all that and some decent rest, I think I’ll be ready to re-enlist at 6 a.m. Monday morning.
Wednesday night I had the pleasure of eating at my friend Ron’s new restaurant with Erika and Jeremy. Pair of 8’s, on the Upper West Side, is going to be a huge success — on their second night they were already full and turning people away. They have a fantastic special on Monday nights: $25 prix fixe for two courses and a drink. It might even be enough to make me go uptown more often.
Congrats, Ron! Last night I had the pleasure of attending an awards ceremony where one of the associates at my firm was honored for her inspirational pro bono work on behalf of domestic violence victims for Sanctuary for Families. Yay, Hannah! After that, I had a top secret meeting with a fellow Vendy Award judge to determine our criteria for next week’s event — go buy your tickets!Tonight I’m hosting a wine tasting dinner with Jenn, Vivian, and Melissa. At our last one, we went through six bottles of wine among the four of us, so I’m definitely looking forward to this one! Now, I just need to figure out how I’m going to clean up this pigsty of an apartment and buy dinner (pumpkin ravioli with sage and brown butter) sometime before 8:00 tonight . . .
-
Yeehaw!
Believe it or not, I went square dancing last night. Many thanks to Sean for being up for the adventure. We’re going to recruit a large group next time and make an event out of it, so get ready. We also discovered (thanks to a tip from Nicole), the Leela Lounge, a great new upscale Indian restaurant right nearby. More on that later. And for those of you who asked (Dad), yes, I’m still doing boot camp. It’s not getting any easier and I still come home and crash for another 45 minutes after my shower. I think it’s killing me slowly.
-
The Long Road to Recovery
I can hardly believe that my body is still sore from my boot camp workout Friday morning. I’m really not sure how I’m going to do it three mornings this week and still manage to move, let alone lift my arms up over my head without wincing. I was so wiped out from the morning’s workout that I didn’t make it out on Friday night, but I did make it to Kirsten’s Halloween party last night. Many thanks to Katie, Jen, Rachel, Kim, Nikki, and April for coming over early to get ready. Pictures will be up tomorrow for your Halloween pleasure. . .
-
Clearly, I’ve Lost My Mind
Not only did I wake up and get out of bed before it was light out this morning, but I willingly went out to Washington Square Park for a boot-camp style workout. As I was cleaning out a huge pile of mail, I stumbled across a flyer from Bootcamp Republic, announcing their next session. Assuming it was some sort of message, and inspired by Doug and Leora, enrolled in a similar program in Brooklyn, (they were out during OJ doing squat thrusts and situps with huge water jugs; I was proud enough that I went for a run), I went for my free trial workout. It’s now light out, and I’m not sure my quads are going to support me for the rest of the day, but we’ll see how it goes.
This madness and the Pilates were inspired by the fact that I really want to improve my fitness level before my 35th birthday, which is rapidly approaching, and maintain it thereafter. When I did the AIDS ride and other long-distance rides, I went to spin classes and strength training several times a week, and yoga once a week. Now my workouts are spotty, irregular, and certainly nowhere near as intense as a spin class. I barely went biking this summer, and my flexibility has dwindled to a pathetic level. It’s sad and frustrating, but I know I’m the only one who can do anything about it, and I know I have the capacity to do it. So — wish me luck and think of me as you’re snuggled in your beds every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning at 6am for the next few weeks. And don’t be upset if I can’t go out late with you on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. It’s nothing personal.
-
I’m Tired*
*for best results, just imagine Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles.
You can tell how busy I am by the amount of crap piled up on my dining table, the number of dishes in my sink, and the degree to which my apartment is in a state of general disarray. Thankfully, after tonight (planned night in), the piles on the table are a little smaller, the dishes are washed, I’ve written one out of three things I wanted to write for Gothamist tomorrow, and I’m getting to bed at a reasonable hour. As my friend Katie pointed out, my blog posts are getting shorter and shorter. I’m just tired these days. After returning from OJ, I’ve been going nonstop — work’s been busy, I went to the Human Rights First gala dinner on Monday, and had dinner with Jenn at Joya (yum!) last night. My apologies, dear readers. I don’t mean to be terse. And speaking of readers — I’ve been checking out my stats lately, and I’m dying to know who the reader is from Chicago who did a Yahoo search for "blog by a woman named laren set in new york city." ‘Fess up!
-
Yes, We’re 12.
Any weekend that leaves your abs in pain from laughing hysterically is a good one, at least in my book. Thanks to all for another year of ridiculousness, summed up in a phrase that made me laugh more than anything in a while: while searching for the word "flaccid," John mistakenly uttered the phrase "flatulent penis," and then spent a decent amount of time describing what this would look like, in more detail than I’d ever, EVER, want to imagine. The pictures (of the weekend, not of the flatulent penis) are here.
-
Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
If you start to do something for a while, you might notice a pattern. I think I have a dating pattern. I might date someone for a while, somewhere on the continuum between casually and not-so-casually. It fizzles out for whatever reason, then I go back to some form of internet dating, which I swore off the last time I did it. I do it for about a month, decide it’s basically a waste of time, then go back to my laissez-faire dating scheme, during which I will inevitably meet someone (in person) who interests me. And so on, and so on. Right now I’m in the "why am I wasting my time with something as irritating and unproductive as JDate when I barely have time to see my friends and family I actually want to see?" phase. Next comes laissez-faire. Sigh.
Last night I got to see a whole slew of beach house folks — Katie, Matt, Kim, Nikki, Marla, Chip (I’m sure I missed one or two — I haven’t had coffee yet, please forgive me) — we all went to see Matty Z.’s band, the Old Nationals, which I really liked, although I didn’t get to see their whole set. Also got to catch up with Dens, who stopped by after getting my Dodgeball message. This was quite fortuitous, as Katie and I had just recruited Matt and Nikki to join and they have been having some tech issues. I told them Dens would take care of it for them (he’s the founder/creator of Dodgeball) — I’m sure he loved that.