I Don't Know How to Take it Easy on Myself

So, lots of thoughts swirling through my head, as usual.

I moved Monday. There you have it - that embodies the title of the post right there :-). Yes, why was I moving again, you ask? Because I don't know how to take it easy on myself. No, actually more because of logistics. Although I liked where I was and my roommate enjoyed me as a roommate, she's leave Nov 17 for 4 months and wants a sublettor for that whole time. So I had to vacate. Wasn't fun coming home from a weekend away and having to pack up all my belongs again - ugh. But I tried to focus on the positive - the new place is spacious, in a fabulous neighborhood (Union Square) which is where I wanted to live anyway, and the new roommate seemed like she would give me more privacy. So anyway, I go through the pain of packing things up (I just put a huge dirty clothes bag straight into 1 suitcase :-) - fun). I also went running along the water in the late morning, and tho it was 50 degrees, I went in a t-shirt and shorts. Which was perfect! I thoroughly enjoyed my run, although I wish it wasn't still difficult and made me feel slow. But I made it. Then I biked my bike to my new place (carried it down 2 flights to ride it, then up 3 to my new place). Finally when I was ready, went to my favorite coffee shop in the Village to do some work the rest of the day. Then my friend Mo came to help me move (with car) around 8:30. It was so AWESOME to have his help - wow, it just made it so much easier. Good times. He really liked my new spacious place with books and plants and arabic/african art and blankets everywhere.

So what do I do, but go out walking looking for dinner, feeling a bit lonely. And who do I run into by chance in Union Square? (I know a handful of people here, so it's not too hard to run through the list.). Rishi! He's the Indian guy - friend of Emina's that we hung out with a bit! So good to see him - right when I'm down, some little thing picks me up and shows me the world can be forgiving. Anyway, he invited me to an Indian Divali party this weekend, so I think I'm going to check that out - yippee! And though there are tons of restaurants around my new place (and stores I want to check out), I go to one I've been to (Coffee Bar) and get a Cobb Salad for dinner. And afterwards good friend Christine calls me back after her class, and we have a good chat. It's so nice to have friends who are there for you :-). Another perk me up. So I go back to my new abode, and try to organize a little. I don't know if the heat works there -it's chilly. And I never saw my roommate that night, so I had no sheets yet, so I just slept on the futon with my 1 blanket and 1 I found and using my sweatshirt as a pillow, trying to stay warm with many layers of clothing on. The place is big and quiet. But there's a huge skylight way above me, and I hear rain pattering all night.

So Tuesday - work has been frustrating, but there might've been a breakthrough. More like I can stop waiting for some piece of the project done by someone else. We'll see. Then I have to do laundry after work. So on the way home (brrr cold - a cold front's come in and it's very chilly) I pick up some excellent Thai food - green curry with eggplant :-). Get my laundry ready, and because I've waited 3 weeks, haul the heavy bags bit by bit down the street to the close laundromat. Of course I get there, and it's closing (it's 8:20pm). The close one at my old place closed at 10 so I didn't think about it. So since I need laundry done and I can't carry the heavy bags anymore, I grab a cab and pay $7 for him to take me to a laundromat a couple avenues away that's still open. Ugh. Finally doing the laundry - was pretty painless there. Wish I didn't want like 1/2 my stuff air-dried, and I could just drop it off for them to wash for me! Anyway, done at 10, about ready to grab a cab home and pay the overhead, when the laundromat itself closes and the guy offers me a ride home. Why he has a car while living on 29th and working on 15th is beyond me. Now, mind you, scenes from Law and Order flash through my head: Unknown blonde girl left dead in alley. But I had had such an annoying day so far, and this was a glimmer of help. So I took him up on his ride home, and I'm fine :-). I refused his help to carry stuff up to my apartment - thought that was prudent, but the ride was nice. Glad to have clean clothes and be back in my place and organize a bit! Although wish it were warmer... But my roommate has since made up my bed for me which is nice of her :-).

But something pissed me off - I came home (to get my laundry) and roomie had moved all my suitcases to one corner of the room. Now given I had left them sort of all over, but she had said it was my room to do what I wanted with it, and she woudln't come in at all (even though it's the living room/kitchen). That mornign she had said the exterminator was going to come the next day, and could I move my stuff a bit so he could spray. I said fine, that I'd do it after work. Then I come home and she's moved my stuff!! I'm sorry this perturbs me so, but my last roommate moved my stuff, too, and I HATE it! It's MY stuff - I don't go into your room and move your stuff around. And I can't find anything after they do this. And it's a breach of privacy in my mind... Ugh. In the end it's not a big deal... I cleaned and organized more the rest of the night, but it made me sorta mad. Oh well.

Oh yeah - and the TV doesn't work in my new place, although she said I could plug it in and get basic channels if I wanted. I dont' watch much, and I thought about trying to take a break from TV altogether while I'm there, but it's just too comforting sometimes. And I only get 2 Netflix at a time! Anyway :-). And the lady doesn't eat at home AT ALL! There are sorta cups, and I asked about bowls for cereal, but she pointed to like Chinese rice bowls. We might have a couple utensils. Fun new place :-). But it's all an adventure.

Which brings me to this: I really haven't learned how to take it easy on myself. Don't know exactly when I transitioned, but I feel like I should be challenging myself, taking the harder road, learning, pushing all the time. That's why I don't let myself stop moving. Gotta do all there is to do in New York - enjoy it all and see it all (not really - it's impossible). Gotta try every ethnicity, and visit neighboring cities while I'm here (although I gave myself a break on Niagra). Gotta walk everywhere and not take cabs. Gotta save money. Gotta work out 5-6 times a week. All these gottas. Even my relationship, in retrospect, was a challenge. The whole adage "it should be easy". Maybe? It's not that straight-forward all the time. Feelings are tricky, and all relationships take work. But of course I picked a person to fall in love with who has this challenging personality - this way of communicating that is hard to understand and seems harsh to my personality. Both strong-willed too. Always a challenge. So are me and my expectations for myself. Not sure why I fight so much. Not sure why I insist. I do a lot of travelling, which is usually not the easiest thing in the world (tiring). But you see, a lot of these things have benefit, give happiness back. And that's definitely worth it. But you gotta do the analysis (me being so analytical). Exercise, I feel, gives great payback, so I fight for it. Travel can give great payback, but it gets exhausting. Depends on what it's for. So see - I've realized (and said before) that people matter to me the most. I fight so hard, and I need to reward myself sometimes. And besides through sweets (which have guilt all their own), my happiest reward to myself is through people - feeling love. I traveled to Illinois so much in the past because even though it was disruptive, uprooting, chaotic, and inconvenient, it brought me to the 1 person who could just give me such joy (and seeing auxilary people up in Illinois). That was my reward. And somehow with him I felt I could just totally relax. There's that theme again of being able to relax around people who really know you. Anyway... I think in New York I'm growing more tired of the challenge, because there is less reward. Don't get me wrong - there is reward. I see acts of kindness, especially from the few friends I have, and they mean so much to me! But it's never entirely relaxing, never entirely rewarding. Need more love :-). I can travel to Philadelphia and see the city and love the walking around, and love experiencing history, and get some reward for seeing a new place, trying a new food. But it's not as great as the reward of experiencing it with people I love, and who love me.

ADDITION: But I do have hope. And I am really proud of myself for doing the challenging thing. I feel like I'm a better person for it. I HAVE learned a lot! And experienced a lot. And I'm grateful (greatful?). Go me :-).

So there's my analysis, doc. Anyone have ideas, though, on how else to take it easy on myself? Change my expectations? Right :-). 4 weeks folks...

Weekend in Maryland and Philadelphia

[Posted 2 at once, so look for previous post on Halloween.]

So I had to walk to the subway, then take the subway, then walk again - took longer than I thought. And I went to some random street corner in Chinatown to catch my cheap bus. These ladies were standing there going "You want bus - hurry get on now." Literally just a bus on a corner - I gave them $20 to go to Baltimore, and they ushered me on the bus and told me it was leaving soon. Instead it was pretty full already and it left 15 minutes before I thought it was scheduled to leave. I was really hoping it'd actually stop in Baltimore because it was the bus to DC. So I wrote emails, wrote blog, read a paper, and slept my 3.5 hours away, and suddenly we were in Baltimore and they just dropped us at a random street corner there too! How strange. I waited in a McDonalds for Christine (we were early), and then she was there! It was great talking and catching up with her. We are best friends, and she just KNOWS me and there's so much comfort in that. And as she said "Jenn, we are the same." Twins separated at birth, I said :-). Except her curly hair is dark... Anyway, it was fun to talk. We went home and waiting for her husband Jeff to come home, then went to dinner in very cute downtown Annapolis at Buddy's Ribs and Crabs. Yum - Maryland crab cakes :-). Then on Christine's behest we baked a triple chocolate fudge cake for the following day. We never could figure out the 3rd chocolate (it had chips in it). It was fun :-). Felt very domestic. Then we watched a movie - I took forever to look through their movie collection and pick, but we watched "The Sum of All Fears" which was really good. Christine fell asleep, but I made it :-).

We had a late night that night, and then I had to check on work stuff at the end, so I slept in until 11:30 on Saturday morning. :-). It was great sleep though! Something about suburbia and darkness, and a comfortable spacious room, and warmth, no noise = good sleep. Was nice to do that, although I felt a little bad that it limited what we did for the day. But I finally got ready and we left to get a very delicious Lebanese lunch (which Christine and I love but Jeff doesn't). I got lamb fatteh which has lamb chunks, chick peas, pine nuts, and pita chips all in a yogurt sauce - tasty. And they made their own fresh wheat pitas which were awesome. I enjoyed our chat about Harry Potter and the failures of the 1-3 Star Wars movies. Then we had a great conversation about the perils of grad school on the way to Christine's football game. So Jeff and I watched her play touch football which was really fun! Just hanging out - it was slightly chilly, but the sun was out. We cheered them on, and Christine scored 3 out of their 4 touchdowns! Rock! Fun to encourage the team, and because I had my camera it was requested that I take the group picture too :-). They played well - fun times. And btw, they have some beautiful fall colors on trees around here too! Then we went back to Christine's house to meet up with friends for dinner. Amy and Ryan who had come up to NYC for Wicked came, and Amy's husband. We went out for a nice dinner at "Four Seasons Grill". They had a really good menu where I wanted to try many things. We got this shrimp appetizer with spicy sauce over zucchini which was good. Then I got scallop ginger risotto (almost got veal scallopini instead). It was very tasty, although I've had better risotto. But it was fun to hang out with everybody. It strikes me that I was not in New York. For one, a lot of conversation is about the government and politics and campaigns (Amy's husband does campaigning down here). For another, we drive everywhere - everything is spread out and there's more suburbia and lots of large strip malls. It's what I grew up in, and it is slightly soothing. I think a lot of the way New York is is based on the limited space there, and the premium for space. Things are closer together, shops are smaller, you can walk more places, etc. Different. But anyway - we had a nice dinner, then went back to Christine's and hung out and had cake. Did I mention I ate too many sweets at Christine's? It was too tempting - she had a bag of leftover Halloween candy too :-). But the cake was delicious - I actually liked the white cream cheese frosting better than the chocolate. Christine had frosted it in a checker pattern :-). Fun. Then the friends left. They are really nice people. I kept thinking that I felt really comfortable there - like these are "my kind of people". That's a nice feeling; comforting. I told Christine maybe I should move close to her because it'd be fun. I want to encourage her to do a triathlon and that would be easier if we could train together! But yeah, good times. So we watched another movie - put in Star Trek #6. But this time I quickly fell asleep :-). Christine fell asleep too, though!

So we got an extra hour of sleep - yay! And I actually had to pay attention to daylight savings because I had to catch a 8:48am train to Philadelphia! So I was sad to leave - short visit with Christine, but still a quality one. Always fun. Good friends :-). I wanted her to come to Philly with me, but she had homework to do. So now - off to Philly!

So let me just say - do what I say, not what I do. I don't recommend anyone actually walk around Philly for the whole day with a backpack, purse, coat, and rolly weekend bag (with laptop) to carry the whole time. It's exhausting! But I made it :-). Good adventures. So took Amtrack up to the city, then metro to get to the Independence Hall area. Went and picked up tickets for the Independence Hall tour, then walked over to see a Quaker meeting house and Ben Franklin's grave. Wow, was Ben Franklin a really influential man! I'm impressed by him. Did you know he was basically our first ambassador to France and got us a lot of money from them for the American Revolution? And he also had severe gout? And little education? Awesome :-). Anyway, went through and saw the Liberty Bell. Love it's symbolism - they used it as a symbol against slavery even. But the actual bell is smaller than I thought. Then went to my tour of the building where the Declaration of Independence was written and the Constitution was signed. Crazy that it all started in these small rooms where 13 men came to meet. Saw the tomb of the unknown soldier, saw a court house and the philosopher's house. Saw some old merchant's house and a trading house. Then found the City Tavern - ah, one of my favorites :-). I needed food, and it was a historic relic too! All the waiters were wearing colonial garb, and most of their foods were ala that time - stews and duck and all. I had a cool beer sampler with 4 beers: George Washington Tavern Porter, Thomas Jefferson's 1774 Tavern Ale, Poor Richard's Ale (my favorite - not hoppy and like molasses), and Philadelphia Pale Ale. Then I got a pepperpot soup with beef and taro and greens. And a bread plate - which I loved. The bread was awesome - one piece was made with molasses, and another were little dense circles of bread with nuts that they saw was T Jefferson's recipe for sweet bread or something. Tasty :-).

So after putting some good stuff in my tummy, I sauntered over and saw the water. Then walked up to see Elfrath's Alley where they had preserved 18th Century houses and the narrow street with cobblestones. They were all different colors and very close together and cute. They all had their own sort of symbol or crest posted on them. Quaint! Then I went through Betsy Ross's house - only thing I actually paid for. It was cute and the people were nice. Can't believe she operated in such small quarters! And in secret... Then went through Ben Franklin court where his house used to be and he owned a lot of merchant/rental houses. Then back to Independence Square where I saw the first and second banks of the US, and the Carpenter's Hall which was big back during revolutionary time. So yeah - I covered all the historical buildings pretty much :-). Then decided to head out of historical old downtown and go west. Walked along Market Street until I hit City Hall which is a massive, ornate building in the middle of the city. There was a very beautifully carved Masonic Temple on a corner there, and on another corner was Love Park. That's where - if you've heard of it - a famous sculptor did a "Love" scuplture - just with the word itself. It's famous - looks like:
LO
VE
(with the O tipped). I've seen it on stamps and stuff. So, that was neat. Then I walked over (via some shopping streets) to Rittenhouse Square which a friend had told me was a cute area. It probably would've been except with daylight savings I got there around 5:15 and it was already dark! So not a lot going on in this park, but it was nice. So I had walked basically from almost 0 (the river) to almost 19th - across the whole city! And then I wanted to go get a Philly cheesesteak from this place on 4th street, so I walked down to South Street and over back to 4th! Lots of walking - exhausting :-). But as I got closer to 4th, there were a lot of funky stores along South Street that were fun to see - restaurants and clothing stores and bars and lots of young people :-). I finally made it to my Philly cheesesteak place (Jim's) and thought I could finally rest. Well, I stood in line for like 20 minutes to get a cheesesteak! Place was crowded - locals liked it I heard. But chatted a bit with the people around me (remarkable how a Texas sweatshirt will start conversations) in line. Anyway, finally got my cheesesteak - I chose American cheese NOT Cheese Whiz. Don't know if that's cheating, but who likes Cheese Whiz? It's like plastic! And then I got onions and red peppers and mushrooms - yum :-). Decided just to take it to go and grabbed a cab (finally no walking!) to Chinatown to grab my bus. I just didn't want to wait a whole hour for the next bus to leave - wanted to catch the 7pm bus. Which I made it for, however, it was late and departure was pushed back to 7:30 so it didn't matter. But when I did finally get the bus stuff settled, I wolfed down my Philly cheesesteak and boy was it tasty! Yay :-). Food makes me quite happy. So all in all a great day in Philly! I think I experienced A TON in a small amount of time. I got here around 10:20 am and adventured until 7pm while carrying all my stuff. I'm pretty impressed with myself :-). Now I'm on the 2.5 hour bus ride back to NY and happy to be sitting. Who can beat a $10 bus ride back?!

Ok, this is really long - better sign off. Tomorrow: moving to Union Square area. I'm sad to do this because my roommate and I were becoming friends and I'll miss her, and my neighborhood. Plus moving is never fun, but it'll be my last in NYC! And after that I hope I have a lower key life for awhile! Jenn out.

P.S. I hurt the back of my knee ligament while biking last night - feels strained. Boo :-(. Walking all day didn't particularly help it...

Halloween + play

So, although I didn't feel like it, I went out on Halloween night in Manhattan. How could I not? I live in the Village where most of the celebration happens anyway, and I heard people party all night this particular night (even though it was a Wednesday). There is a parade up 6th Ave which isn't far from where I live. So after I got home from work I slightly dressed up (red Chinese top, boots, chopsticks in my hair, and black lipstick - using Mary's trick of eyeliner), and went out on the town. I got there an hour after the parade actually started, but it didn't seem to matter. My street, Christopher street was blocked off anyway - closed to traffic. And people were already out in force in all sorts of costumes. Wonderwoman was a popular costume. Of course, guys dressing up as beautiful women was plentiful in my neighborhood. Then there were the winged creatures, and the traditional dark figures of Halloween. But boy were people out in force and crazy. There was no way to cross 6th, and cops were swarming around the area anyway doing crowd control. They were doing that on 7th Ave. too. So there was a huge swarm of people actually on 6th when I got there. I did stop at a cart to get a skewer of chicken :-). But wow - people brought carts to stand on so they could see the parade, so as a short individual several rows back it was really hard to see. I wandered around for awhile trying to figure out how to see and looking at people in the process :-). Took some pictures of crazy costumes. Then I finally wiggled into a spot where I could see the parade. I took some pictures - will try to post the best ones, but it was really hard for the pictures to turn out well. It was dark, so I tried flash, but it would illuminate the people's heads in front of me instead of the parade things 30 feet away. But I got some good pictures. There were some fantastic floats - people on stilts and bands and groups with ghosts or birds or some theme held up high on sticks. There were trucks that held a whole bunch of people - or a band playing. One such band was "Witches in Bikinis" - there were like 6 girls in bikinis singing, each had a different color on and a matching wig of hair :-). Of course there were the requisite very skimpily dressed people. Saw several Austin Powers. My favorite was the few groups of people impersonating subway cars :-). Several robots. Saw a really neat peacock person. And some people even had their dogs dressed up walking with them - one was a lion. Saw an atlas, many pope/bishops, Mr. Incredible, a keg, many ladybugs, several people dressed up as a penis, jedi, very cool adam and eve costumes, Gi Joe and a gigantic hand (I wasn't sure about that one), saw lego men which were awesome. There was a good one of George Bush that had a toilet seat around his neck with a sign saying "Sewage W. Bush, after he talks, then you flush". I actually finally got to the barrier that held people away from the street. There was a cop in the street right in front of us making sure people didn't hop the barrier and cross the street. I don't know what the problem with that was - a lot of the parade was just people walking in costumes. So we played tricks on Mr. Cop and snuck people through :-). That was funny. So basically general madness and huge crowds - all out for fun and for dressing up. After awhile (standing there over 2 hours) I decided to bail. I met up with Mo (softball guy) who had a really hard time crossing 6th (he lives on the East side, me on the West). But he finally found me and we walked through the west side to my neighborhood, passing more characters and just huge numbers of people along the way. It was about 10:30 at this point. We hit huge crowds around 7th Ave and had to push our way through to cross. Crazy. We went to my local bar that I really like - The Otheroom. It's small and neighborhoody and has good beer and wine. There of course there were people in costume - saw a penguin (reminded me of the Linux penguin), and a guy walked in who was a shower - literally had metal bars around his head from which hung a white shower curtain. I kept wondering if he had clothes on underneath :-). We had a beer or 2 then decided to bail because we are lame and it was a school night :-). But walking around Hudson at 12:15am there were still huge crowds out, bars were full, the streets were full of people - no change. This city really never sleeps! I heard it'd be crazy. Bars close around 4am and I have no doubt many people stayed out that late that night. Altho surprisingly they didn't keep me up outside my window. Nice. It was a nice Halloween - I'm glad I got to experience the craziness even if I wasn't that into it myself!

Thursday was fun. Ramon, carpool guy, wanted to come home early from work unexpectedly. So we left around 4:15 and got back around 5:30 (traffic - ugh). He was stressed out about work and asked if I wanted to hang out before my show at 8. So I suggested dinner because I'm trying to stay away from too many beer calories. So we went to a favorite restaurant of his - a fish place called Pearl's Oyster Bar (I think). It was a cute little restaurant - really fresh seafood. I like the fact that menus here are little and they have specials written on a chalkboard nearby. So this place was pretty nice, but informal with really good service and good food. We both got a bowl of clam chowder (with smoked bacon - yum). And the tables came already set with oyster crackers which I thought was funny. Then Ramon got grilled bass and I got a lobster roll on his recommendation. I thought I'd just get fish, but I hadn't had this before, and he said this was really common in Maine and this restaurant did it awesomely. He said it used to be that lobster were really cheap so this was really common to get on the street - mostly poor people ate it, and they gave it to prisoners. But it was on a toasted bun, and lumps of lobster perfectly cooked were pilled high on it with light sauce - some mayo perhaps? I don't know, but it was slightly rich and wonderfully delicious :-). Ramon actually offered to pay! Feel bad because he's already driving me to work everyday (altho I buy gas), but was honored for the offer. Nice guy. Fun to have friends from every different realm of life. So we parted and I went to my off-Broadway play at the Acorn Theater!

The play was called "Things We Want" and directed by Ethan Hawke (but unfortunately he wasn't there). There were 3 brothers dealing with their issues in the play, then 1 neighbor girl - that's it. It was a small theater too, so we were close to the stage which was fun. I knew 2 of the guys in it - one is a famous midget and the other is the son in "Little Miss Sunshine" (movie). So basically the play is set in the home the 3 brothers grew up in, but their parents both killed themselves in the house, and the brothers are now grown and dealing with life. 2 are alcoholics, and the 3rd is always dealing with women problems and perpetually heartbroken and wanting to sulk. I like the themes, and tho it was a bit dark, was very funny. I liked the characters, but I felt it could've been better acted. Plus, although the play had some neat themes, it seemed to just end. What's up with that - is that a new popular way to end stories? Because it urks me. I wondered what the point of it was... But I was still glad I saw the play. Pretty fun. Although I think I'll wait awhile to see more plays - you can get an overload, especially if you don't know the quality of the play you are getting. So walked my 3 miles home :-). It was a chilly night, but not too bad.

Got up early today to exercise - went biking at 8:30am! And let me tell you was that a stupid idea. Apparently it's windy EVERY time I want to go biking. I guess it doesn't help that I bike along the river. But it can just bite through you, and it makes my eyes water. I had my fingerless biking gloves on, but then my fingers were freezing, and my toes too. But I did warm up as I go, but my face got more and more chapped. I ended up going up to my old neighborhood again - 95th St., then turned around. The way back was WAY better - fantastic! I booked it and went (I felt) twice as fast as when I was fighting the wind. Or maybe the wind had abated, but it was way more fun and slightly warmer :-). So proud of myself for that. Then I got ready, and went to my favorite neighborhood coffee shop (yay!) that had now perfected their apple-pumpkin bread. Stayed there an hour before I took off to find the bus to ride down to Maryland to visit Christine!