City Wendy

Give it Your Vote on Funny or Die!

Drew just started making short films. He posted his first one on Funny or Die. Check it out and give it your vote for 'funny.'

Thirties Take the Cake

In comments for the NaNoBloMyWhat post, Natalee suggested I write about which I like better, my 20's or my 30's and so, in honor of all who have recently reached--or are about to reach--the 30-year milestone, a list:

Things I like so much better in my 30's:

• My taste in guys. I met Drew 4 months before my 30th birthday and he may very well be the first guy I've ever dated who wasn't one of the following: not into me, a big douchebag, boring, not ready for a relationship. Or, a BIG DOUCHEBAG (there seemed to be a lot of those in my 20's).
• My hair! Ever since I cut all my hair off 2 days before my 30th birthday, I've liked it so much more than any style during my 20's. I'm currently wearing it sort of flapper girl-ish and I love it. Take that, mullet of my 20's.
• My wardrobe. Three words: No More Overalls.
• My friendships. Most of them may be in a different city now, but I know I can call my friends day or night and they'll listen to my squeals of excitement, my tears of sadness, and all the ups and downs in between without once putting the phone down to go heat up a microwave burrito. Plus, we can play text message drinking games through The Bachelor and get totally drunk guzzling beer every time someone says, "Connection," "Amazing," or "Here for the right reasons."
• My future. Everything looks a little brighter on this side of 30. At the moment I may be in between jobs, but I still know that eventually I'll find something that fits my skills and talents, mostly because I actually know now what my skills and talents are. (Besides text messaging drinking games through The Bachelor, of course). Plus, see point #1: I'm in a great relationship now. I know it's moving in a good direction. This makes me excited about the future. And this all probably has something to do with not wearing anymore overalls anymore, so see how it's all connected??
• My Bod. Well, sure, maybe my boobs aren't as perky as they were at 20, but after making my health a top priority (you know, after the hair and all), committing to regular exercise, and restricting pig-out sessions to about once a month--well, okay, maybe 3 times a month--I am in better shape now than I was through most of my 20's. And since I'm not wearing those overalls anymore, you can actually tell!
• Four words: H. D. T. V. Sure, maybe it doesn't belong to me, exactly, but my boyfriend's got one and I'm staying with him, and Oh my God, David Duchovny in high def? So much better than anything my 20's may have delivered.
• My tool collection. Both, in the literal and metaphorical sense, I have a lot more tools to wield in this decade than I did in the last one. So watch out, world!

Things that were better in my 20's:

• My skin. But let's not focus on that, M'kay?

Enough about me, what do you like about your decade??

Before and After

Over the weekend Drew told me he can hardly remember what it was like in his apartment without me and the cats.

"I lived here for 13 years before you got here, you're here for a few weeks and it's like I can barely remember how it was before," he said.

I know how he feels. Today marks one month that I moved to New York and I think my life will forever be divided between Before and After. Before I lived in New York, After I moved in with Drew. Before I left Chicago, After I followed my heart to NYC. Before I sold my car and quit my job and put my stuff in storage and said goodbye to my friends, After I unpacked a few suitcases and my cats in Drew's apartment in Manhattan. And somewhere in the rather vulnerable stage when I've certainly moved out of Before, but haven't quite yet firmly planted myself in After, I've wobbled around, slightly disoriented, slightly intoxicated off the newness and novelty and loveliness of living not only in one of the best cities in the world (best--the word hardly captures how great it is, how incredible and exciting and exuberant and everything you might imagine it would be) but being in the best relationship I've ever had and seeing my boyfriend every day and spending a weekend not sitting in an airport for hours and hours and catching trains and buses and taxis just to see each other for a day and a half and then saying a heartbreaking goodbye for the umpteenth time and wishing that this could be the last one, that we could just be done with the goodbyes forever and spend weekends like normal couples--drinking coffee in bed and wandering around neighborhoods in late October in fleece hoodies and quilted vests, sitting on park benches listening to jazz bands, and ducking into coffee shops and bookstores and Cuban Cafes for the best Mojitos ever. (Best--I wish there were a better word, because best just isn't enough.)

My feet aren't firmly planted yet. I still feel a little disoriented and intoxicated. I still feel a pull from Before when life had a degree of certainty and I knew where I'd be on Monday morning and friends were plentiful and the lake always presented a kind of calming touchstone and I could ride my bike until my legs got tired. But there's a shift underway. Drew says it will take at least 7 years before I can really call myself a New Yorker. Someone else told me it might be more like 15 years. But I'm thinking if I wear enough black, own lots of boots, roll my eyes at tourists, walk with fast conviction, name drop with faster conviction and yell profanities at cabbies, I can make it in three.

Oh hell, I think I'll just stick with City Wendy.

NaNoBlowMyWhat?!

November is NaNoWriMo and while I'd like to write a novel someday, I'm not quite ready for such a feat this year. But I can blog everyday for a month, so for all of November that's exactly what I'm going to do--I'm going to NaBloWriMo this here blog all up. There are several reasons for doing this and none of them is to bore you, I promise, though I suspect there's a fairly high chance that's exactly what will happen. Mostly, it's a creative exercise for me to see what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real. I mean when my writing stops being polite and starts getting real. I mean, when it stops being real and starts getting...
Well, I don't know! That's what I want to see, see. I just want to write and see where the writing leads me. I want to write down the bones, I guess.

So anyway, there are 31 days in November. Oh wait, there are 30 days in November. Okay, that's better. Thirty posts in thirty days--I can do that. Does anyone have any suggestions for what to write about? Give me a suggestion or a topic or even just a question you'd like me to answer, and if it isn't too embarrassing or whatever, I'll write about it. And since it's been awhile since I made a list, I'd like to get back into the habit by writing at least one list each week next month. So give me a list topic--it can be anything--just throw something out there and I'll try to make up some sort of list around it. Or! If you have one of those meme things I've always ignored in the past, I'll answer it now--just send it my way.

Oh, who am I kidding. I'll probably end up posting a bunch more pictures of my cats before the month is over. They're cute, right?

So seriously, give me a topic, any topic. Not sex though or when I lost my virginity or anything like that--my parents read this thing. That's why I'm waiting til marriage.

Cat Naps

And now, what you've all been waiting for--a picture of my cats!!!

Doesn't it make your heart melt? It makes mine explode! Perhaps you don't understand the significance of this photo--of how my jaw dropped the second I looked up from searching the online classifieds for anything remotely resembling something that wouldn't make my eyes bleed to see Miles and Simone curled up on Drew's sheet-covered leather chair like two loving litter mates instead of two former strays from different mommas and different states who can barely stand breathing the same recycled air or drinking from the same water dish. And now! Look at them! It's a miracle!

I like to think the move brought them closer together--that flying across the country in their little matching Sherpa bags beneath the seats of a crowded American Airlines flight and then moving into a Midtown Manhattan apartment where there's hardly any closet space, and no dresser drawers to speak of (or sit inside) and the Cher impersonators from the gay club across the street singing "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" until all hours of the night has made them appreciate each other.

Then again, it could have something to do with all the drugs they've been buying from the high school kids down the street.

Sally Sold Seashells

Drew and I went to the shore this weekend--the Jersey Shore. I didn't know anything about the Jersey Shore before we got there and I'm still not sure I quite understand it, but there were beaches and bikes and boardwalks and booze, so I was pretty happy.

We went with two other couples and stayed at the family house of one of the friends. Actually, it's the family summer house, which seems to be the case of most of the homes on the Jersey Shore. For the most part, houses are full from mid-May to mid-September and for the rest of the year, they just sort of sit there, empty. Because of this, the whole area, beautiful as it was right there on the ocean and all with these humongo houses, it just had a air of emptiness. I liked it, though, I think. Or mostly, I guess I liked being away from the city for a day or two and running on the beach and swimming in the ocean and riding bikes down to this little Mom and Pop ice cream shop where all the sprinkles are free all the time. But I think what I liked most of all was missing Manhattan.

Friday night, before we left for the shore, Drew and I had dinner at this little authentic family-owned Italian restaurant and on the way, we passed the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater where we watched a dance class for a few minutes before strolling on. Up until that point, I'd thought I really hated the neighborhood, might never be able to like it. But then I saw these dancers on a Friday night just dancing their hearts out and the night was clear and warm and somewhere I heard someone playing a saxophone on a street corner nearby and Drew and I were starting our 4th consecutive weekend together all of a sudden, everything just felt right. And after dinner, we went to a Karaoke joint and it wasn't the same as Cafe Bong (you even have to pay to sing!), but I sang one of my favorites and I sounded good and people clapped and afterwards, we walked to the movie theater on 5th avenue, past Carnegie Hall and the real Soup Nazi and we watched Lars and the Real Doll. And then we went home and went to sleep and in the morning we went to the shore.

And it was at the shore this curious thing happened--I felt just the tiniest bit homesick and part of it was for Chicago where the beaches have mexican guys pushing ice cream carts, and there are trees and green and I could bike ten minutes and be at my friend's back deck with a cold Corona in hand. But the other part of the homesickness was for New York, where things are a little bit ugly and imperfect and they have character and even the sprinkles aren't given away for nothing.

This is the start of my 4th week here. Things are starting to feel a bit more permanent to me and not like I'm just on a long weekend or vacation or something. Drew and I are getting used to sharing in the mundane things together, like cleaning up cat barf and removing body hair. And even though there's still so much unknown, like where my next paycheck is coming from and if Drew and I will continue living together and what address I'll eventually put on my checks, I know I'm putting down roots here, that I'm on the road to making this my home.

Last night on the way back to the city, Kirstin, who's from Washington and desperate to get back home, asked me where I'd like to live eventually.

"Well, it was kind of a big deal to move here," I said, "So I think I'm going to hang out for awhile."

And then we crossed the Verrazano Bridge from Staten Island and the twinkling Manhattan skyline rose on the night time horizon and I thought, "Wow, I get to live there."

And then we went home.

More Like Taking a Bite out of ME

Is Mercury in retrograde?  I think mercury is in retrograde. Mercury must be in retrograde--really, it's the only logical solution to everything.

Oh, Internet--this is harder than I thought it would be! In my mind, I had it all worked out. I'd been planning this for months, after all. I'd save my money, sell my stuff, apply for jobs before moving to NYC, have one lined up as soon as I got there, take two weeks to acclimate before starting the new job, start the new job and immediately make a tight circle of interesting, well-connected, funny, entertaining  and well-groomed friends! All while spending gobs of time with my boyfriend, enjoying our newfound short-distance relationship and doing things couples who live in the same city do, like go out on the town every single night, take dance classes together and vacation in the Hamptons or wherever it is people with interesting, well-connected, funny, entertaining and well-groomed friends get invited to vacation!!

As it is, I've sent nearly 100 job applications out and aside from one rejection email yesterday, I've been virtually ignored by everyone! Due to some family emergency, Drew hasn't been home in a couple of days and since he didn't have his phone charged before leaving, we haven't been able to even talk on the phone, which wouldn't be any big deal if I had a life! And friends! To do stuff with and keep me occupied! So I don't just get sucked into the mindless hole that is cable on HDTV, oh how I love thee! But the only person I've met so far and know by name is the personal trainer at the gym who's whipping me into shape and probably doesn't care to spend another second with stinky me after watching me sweat 4 hours each week.

Oh! And I was counting on a final paycheck this week from the job I left last month only to realize that the paycheck I got the day after I quit? That was the last one! So, ha, ha, no more money for me! Which means I really need a job now, and did I mention I don't think my email is working? I mean, that has to be the reason NO ONE IS EMAILING ME BACK. Because, people, I should be employable! I can type quickly, I can run errands and crack jokes, and from time to time--once we actually get an oven that works in Drew's apartment--I may even bake brownies--blonde brownies, even...with or without nuts, just depending!!! And what is not employable about that?

On a positive note, I did get an invite from one of Drew's friend's girlfriends to her shore house this weekend. I'm not even sure what a shore house is, but she says it's 90 minutes away and that's 90 minutes farther from the jackhammering going on outside Drew's apartment and the tourists that flock to the neighborhood each weekend, so sign me up! I asked Drew what one does and wears at a 'shore house' and he seems to think one just sits around and enjoys the scenery. Possibly in a bikini. But since it's the middle of October, I'm hoping he's wrong about the bikini part. The girl we're going with is a ballerina and the personal trainer may be kicking my ass, but I'm not ready to display it next to some ballet dancer with a perfect figure.

Just in case, though, I think I'll run out and buy an oversize tunic to cover up with on the shore. Are there any tunic stores in New York that accept monopoly money, do you think?? Or blonde brownies (made in toaster oven, of course)?

Hat Rack

I didn't just move to New York, I moved to Midtown Manhattan, arguably one of the busiest, most commercial and over-populated neighborhoods in the world. I moved from this:
 

to this:
   

And it's been exciting and fun and I love a lot about the new life I'm creating, but it's also disorienting and confusing and almost nothing feels normal or like home.

I moved around a lot growing up--from Japan to Korea, back to Japan, back to Korea, and then to 2 different places in Germany before moving to Southwest Missouri for college. Every two or three years, my life was packed up and shipped to some new country and I learned very quickly how to adapt to change and new environments. One of the tactics I adopted very early on was to unpack, organize and decorate my bedroom as quickly as possible. Usually by the end of moving day when my family was eating pizza delivery amid stacked boxes and crates and my dad was bending the bunny ears on the TV to find the sumo channel or maybe even subtitled American sitcoms, in my bedroom toys were put away, pictures hung on the wall, bookcases set up, rugs laid down, the bed made and clothes hung in the closet and folded neatly in dresser drawers. I may have been a country away from my old school and friends, a continent away from my extended family and nowhere closer to figuring out where home was, but damnit, I was going to have one room in my life that moved seamlessly from place to place to place.

And so that little tactic I picked up as a kid has stuck with me through college and the 10 apartments I've lived in since. If home is where I hang my hat, I put up my hat rack as soon as possible. But the problem is, I'm staying with Drew now and he doesn't have a hat rack and my hat rack is in storage in a suburb of Chicago, so when I've made myself crazy wandering around midtown Manhattan trying to orient myself in a place that even Drew says feels as foreign to him as the day he first moved in 13 years ago, I come home and there's nowhere to hang my hat, and my stuff isn't here and the closet's too small for my clothes and there are no dressers or drawers and all my things are just sitting out and it feels cluttered to me outside and cluttered to me inside and all I want is an ale--the kind of ale you can get at the Hopleaf in my old neighborhood in Chicago where I might meet Chad on a Fallish Saturday afternoon and maybe get a drink on the house courtesy of Omar before making our way to Cafe Bong and Pink Ladies with Ginny--and so I ask Drew if there's anything like that here--if there's any kind of neighborhood bar where I can sit and drink a good beer and maybe learn the bartender's name. But there's not. There's just Times Square and Port Authority and the Trump Tower and Broadway and all these wierd things that don't feel normal or homey or where I want to hang my hat even if I did have a rack.

Well, I had a bad day on Saturday.

But then Sunday came and I still missed my friends and I still wanted a good beer and I still found this neighborhood I live in totally bizarre-o, but then I went to Central Park and Drew and I found a spot at Sheep's Meadow and I  lay down and looked at the sky and remembered it's still there even if I can't see it half the time--I stared at it and watched the clouds float by and everything was better. And Drew and I came home and we started organizing his kitchen and cabinet by cabinet we cleared through clutter that hadn't been cleared through in 13 years and at the end of it we had 6 bags of garbage and the Virgo in me did a little dance of joy.

Someone told me once that if you have nothing in your life that's grounding you, then ground yourself in your body. And so I joined a gym and I jog in Central Park every morning and I started taking pilates class and I walk and walk and walk until my feet are nearly bursting with blisters. And block by block I learn this city and the routes that take me to calmer neighborhoods and where I might find a good beer and maybe learn the bartender's name. Piece by piece I'm building a new hat rack. And, hey! I just bought a new hat to hang on it.

Spiraling

I've been having a lot of very vivid, realistic dreams lately. I won't bore you with the details--really, isn't "I had this really crazy dream last night" the most boredom-inducing phrase in the English language? Second only to "Want to see some pictures of my kids?" But suffice it to say my subconscious is going totally berserk over this whole idea that I've picked up my life and moved it to a new city and nothing's really going to be the same again.

On a conscious level, I'm getting pretty used to the idea. Things are different, but mostly that means "better." Like, it's pretty good seeing Drew all the time now. I keep waiting for one of us to wake up and say, "Oh, you again?" And maybe that will happen eventually, but right now it's still more like, "Oh!! You! Again!" I'm even excited to see him when he comes home on his lunch break and I even sort of arrange my day so I can be around at noon. Like I didn't just see him four hours ago.

I'm also getting used to not working, though I am looking for a job. And what a soul-sucking experience it is. Hey, does anyone know of a good position in NYC for me? Preferably one where I can talk about last night's episode of The Bachelor with my co-workers, make enough money to support my shoe habit, and maybe write something interesting from time to time??

Yes, I'm getting used to not working, though I suspect too much of all this alone time might eventually lead to  feelings of utter isolation and depression. Which, fun as it sounds, may not bode well for continued "Oh! You!! Again!!!" reactions from Drew every morning. That said, for the time being, I am quite enjoying a little time off and getting acclimated to my new surroundings. As soon as I purchase a new USB cord to replace the one I left in my dresser drawer now in storage, I will post some pictures. It still boggles my mind when I walk down the street to get a bagel and am smack in the middle of Times Square. The distance it used to take me to get to the video store in my old neighborhood in Chicago now gets me to Central Park. And I'm not yet so used to it all to quit saying to myself each morning on my jog, "Oh! I'm in Central Park! I'm jogging in Central Park! Oh!" I'm sure eventually it will all become as boring and annoying and tiresome as anything else, but for now I'm relishing the newness. Well, except for the smack in the middle of Times Square business. That's kind of for the birds, to tell you the truth.

Also for the birds is sitting in Yankee Stadium for FIVE FUCKING HOURS only to watch the home team lose. It's no secret I'm not exactly a sports fan, but I'm a fan of Drew and I want to support his interests and what not and those interests pretty much include: talking about the Yankees, watching the Yankees, making little model replicas of his favorite Yankees, etc. He loves him some Yankees, so it was with a heavy heart that we left the stadium last night after they lost their run for the World Series.  Oh, fine, what really sucked more than that was sitting there for FIVE HOURS. I mean, really. Can't we make these games a little shorter? Like, maybe, an hour and a half? That's how long The Bachelor is and that only comes on once a week, so it seems more than fair to me. Also, I was just kidding about Drew making model replicas of  his favorite Yankees. But now that I've given him the idea...

Hey, so guys in NYC are really, really aggressive, huh? I joined a gym yesterday and this guy who gave me the tour of the gym and then signed me up was pulling the whole, "So, are you a model? Or an actress? You definitely look like you're in the industry" bit just like that dude on the corner last week. What is up with that? It's like, "Dude, you and I both know I'm not a model, so can we both quit the fucking bullshit?" I mean, what industry do you think I'm in? The industry of being total loser? (Don't answer that.)

The truth is that 5% of the reason I joined a gym is because Drew's friends' girlfriends are fucking ballerinas and make me feel like a two-ton heffer when I stand, sit, or breathe anywhere next to them, so I guess that makes me a 5% loser. But since I'm unemployed and freeloading off my boyfriend for God knows how long, I guess that sort of bumps that 5% up to something like a 100. So, great. In one blog post, I pretty much went from feeling pretty good and excited about my new life to full-blown isolation, depression and 100% loserdom. Thanks a lot, Internet. (If you send some job leads to me, though, or even some new shoes, or hell, just a USB cord for my camera, I'll totally forgive you).

Little Victories

I'm not much of a cook. I'm easily bored in the kitchen and experimenting with recipes really doesn't interest me, but given the right ingredients and a max of 30 minutes, I can usually whip up something fairly edible, if not at least a little tasty, and I always do dessert really well. Last night, however, I cooked a horribly bland and ugly meal--it was beige and it tasted like wet cardboard and the weight of failing at dinner caused a little mini meltdown that lasted until I googled Trader Joe's and found a location in Union Square about 3 miles from Drew's place.

So today I strapped on my walking shoes and headed west, past Broadway and the Diamond District and Radio City Music Hall and countless corner street vendors selling various incarnations of meat. I could have taken the subway, but in an effort to work off the big fat ass I gained binging in my final weeks in Chicago, as well as to further acclimate myself to my new surroundings, I decided just to walk. I walked all the way to 34th street when I decided I needed to sit for a minute, apply a bandaid to my new blisters, read a bit of my book and eat the Lemon Luna bar I had in my purse.

So, at 34th and 5th., I paused and thought, "There's a park coming up...just a few more blocks," and when I came upon Madison Square park at 26th and 5th with the flat iron building across the street that I was picturing in my mind, I had a sudden sense that I was starting to belong. I'd only passed that way once or twice and I never consciously memorized that intersection or made a note of where that park was, but somehow over my 12 or 13 visits to the city before moving here, I must have subconsciously catalogued what seemed important to me (like the nearest liquor stores, eyebrow threading joints, and Shoegasm, where you can find the cutest. shoes. EVER.).

Fifteen minutes later I was standing in the crowded aisles of Trader Joe's, filling my basket with couscous and hummus and the frozen burritos I can only get from there. Drew told me there wasn't a Trader Joe's grocery store in New York--just a TJ Wine Shop and so I stocked up on my favorite Soy Ginger salad dressing before I left Chicago and I carried it in the zippered section of one of my suitcases all the way to Manhattan, hoping it wouldn't break and shatter and soil my leather gloves and slipper socks sharing a corner of my suitcase.

But it turned out Drew lied--there is a Trader Joe's grocery store in New York! And now I can get all the salad dressing I want. And I can get my favorite frozen burritos and mini quiches and that chicken curry soup I love so much. And I can cook with familiar ingredients again and create meals that don't taste like wet cardboard. And when I need to sit and rest on my way to the store, I know exactly where to go, just like I did today--on the corner of 26th and 5th, in Madison Square Park, across the street from the flat iron building and where you can currently find big stainless steel tree sculptures.

Maybe this doesn't seem like such a big deal--figuring out how to get to the grocery store, for chrissakes, but when you're a new person in a big city far away from friends and family and all the things that feel like home, these small and growing familiarities are like little victories that help buoy you across the loneliness and discomfort (which you accept is just a necessary part of creating a new life) and hopefully, eventually into a state that feels a bit more like normal.

Plus, there's always dessert. I've never had a problem with that.