City Wendy

Over It

You may have noticed that I failed to post anything on Saturday and then I failed to post anything on Sunday and since I was supposed to be NaBloPoMo'ing this month, I am clearly in violation. It wasn't that I forgot or anything. I was quite aware of it all day on Saturday, actually. My sister has been visiting and during the day of wandering around and sight-seeing and introducing her to karaoke, I kept thinking about what I might post. Then I got home and we started a movie (Grizzly Man) and it was still on my mind, what I should post about. I was tired and not feeling creative or in the mood to write. It'd been a long day of cruising around the city and I just wanted to shut my mind off, drink a beer and watch some dude get eaten by a grizzly bear. I thought about writing a little haiku about it, or making a short list of what we'd done that day, or you know, something equally as interesting and exciting  and entertaining for all of you to read on your Saturday nights and then I thought, "what's the fucking point?" And so I turned off my computer and drank a beer and watched some dude get eaten by a bear instead. In bed as we were drifitng to sleep, I whispered to Drew in the dark, "I didn't post anything on my blog today." And he said, "Good for you. Who fucking cares?" And it felt so good to hear, I drifted to sleep so soundly like a baby and decided to skip posting the next day too!

So in conclusion, NaBloPoMo is not for me. I did enjoy writing more frequently, but like unanswered emails or one more annoying thing on my to-do list, the daily post just made me feel like there was another thing hanging over my head all the time, and really, a hobby shouldn't feel like a chore. You may also guess correctly that I am the kind of person who, if about 25 pages into a book, I'm still not enjoying myself, I close the fucking thing and never think twice about it...no matter how many good reviews its gotten. I'm also not shy abotu walking out on movies that suck. I mean, life's too short and already full enough with boring stuff you have to do, why add boring stuff you don't have to do?

So, with no more further ado, let's now return to previously scheduled programming...that is actually not scheduled at all, but will happen spontaneously and when I have something very, very important to say! Like what I ate for lunch.

Shame on you, Target

Dear Target,

I love your handbags and lounge pants and aisles of inexpensive lotions and potions for my face and skin. Your casual clothing section is even starting to grow on me lately. And you know how I feel about your fabulous sunglasses. But yesterday you did something so stupid, so irresponsible, I'm not sure I can ever shop you again, Target, no matter how cheap your tights and bras and wrapping paper are. And also your beer cozies. Oh, Target, why did you have to go and make it so hard to like you anymore?!

Yesterday at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade you had people on every street corner in my neighborhood passing out "coupon books" for you. And I put "coupon books" in quotes because the book was about 52 pages long and had a grand total of ONE COUPON. Dear Target, ONE COUPON does not a "coupon book" make. I mean, sure okay, $5 off a purchase of $50 or more is a nice gesture and all. I guess. I mean, $10 off would have been more of a gesture, and $15 off would have been awesome--just think of how many eye shadows and hand creams I could have scored with savings like that!--but I digress.

Target, seriously! Was it really necessary to have 51 pages of absolutely nothing--NOTHING, not even little recipe cards or fun trivia or ANYTHING!--in your stupid little "coupon book." I mean, it was Thaksgiving and 60 degrees, which should tell you something about global warming and the environment and all that kinds of stuff we should be concerned about and here you are on every street corner on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade route with your boxes and boxes and boxes of these stupid little completely unnecessary wastes of paper, oh, how could you?! Think about the children of our future, Target. Don't you care about children??

The next time you decide to make a 52-page coupon book, I expect to see 52 coupons in it. And no more of this chintzy $5 off $50 or more business. I want a savings of at least 20%.

Thank you, and I still think your beer cozies are cool even if you are a child-hater.

xoxo,

Wendy

Gobble Gobble

Hope all of you have plenty to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. Enjoy the day with your family, friends, dogs, cats, TiVo, or whomever else you may celebrate with. And for all you non-Americans who don't get the day off or an excuse to stuff yourself silly on potatoes, pie, and wine, well, sucks to be you, I guess.

Here are some Thanksgiving pictures from NYC:

In The Closet

I wonder if this year, the parents of the final two bachelorettes will be giving thanks their daughters both dodged a bullet this season on The Bachelor?

Prep Time

It's busy around here this week. My friend Chad's been visiting since Sunday night, then my sister comes to town for 4 days starting Thursday, and tomorrow morning, right in between the two, I have a VIJI (Very Important Job Interview). I went to a seminar last week on how to interview well and I've been practicing possible questions and delivery and I think I'm pretty ready. I'll be totally prepared if they ask any of the following questions:

1. If you could invite 4 people--dead or alive--to a dinner party, whom would you invite?
2. Who do you think is most likely to win Dancing with the Stars?
3. What do you like about David Duchovny?
4. What is your favorite pie to bake for Thanksgiving?
5. What's your shoe size?
6. What do you take in your coffee?
7. If you were stranded on a desert island, would you like to have David Duchovny with you?
8. Where were you born?
9. Do you think grey is the new black?
10. Would you like to see a picture of my cats?

A Revelation

I decided today that 'soho' is short for 'so horrible.'

I Guess Some People Read it for the News?

It's Sunday, which means I'm going to go buy a copy of The New York Times and partake in what has become my weekly ritual. Every Sunday--for the last, oh, one week--I buy a copy of The New York Times and immediately flip to the wedding annoucement section wherein, Drew and I play a game. It's called "Will they make it or not?" And the title pretty much sums it up. Each of us takes a turn reading an announcement outloud and then we ask, "Will they make it or not?" The couple last week who met on Match.com and broke up when the guy decided he was dating too many women at once and had to get rid of a few before groveling a few months later and begging her back fell into the "not going to make it" category. The couple who spend their Sundays deciding the fate of other couples based on a photo and a 2-paragraph summary? Well, only time will tell.

Hey, some people have Scrabble and Taboo. We have The New York Times wedding annoucements.

Photo Essay

Here are some pics from the last few weeks:

Tredding Lightly

Sometimes I worry that my life is going to move too fast here in NYC, that once I start working fulltime and get caught up in a busy career and creating a new social circle and getting more and more comfortable in the domestic life Drew and I have started building, I'm going to start losing parts of myself. I worry about changing. I worry that I'll let the pace and edge of the city chip away at me so that a year from now, five years from now, maybe 10 years from now, the fabric of who I am will be shaped differently.

This is something that's been on my mind for a long time--since well before I moved here. In fact, it's been my greatest fear about making the move to NYC and one that I addressed pretty frequently in therapy before I left Chicago. I mean, there were different topics: how my relationship will change me, a new social circle, a career change, the possibility of starting a family down the road... But the common theme that connects them all is this fear of change--mainly inside myself. I like who I am. I want to grow and learn, sure, but I don't want to become a different person. I want to stay me, just better.

So, one of my oldest and best friends is coming to visit on Sunday for a few days on his way from Chicago to Connecticut for Thanksgiving and this will be my first test. It'll be the first marker by which I'll be able to measure if and how much I've changed. It's only been 7 weeks, so probably not much, right? But seven weeks, seven weeks is the longest we've gone without seeing each other in over 7 years. Seven weeks is about the longest I've been away from the midwest in over 13 years. A lot can happen in seven weeks. Maybe I'm different now?

It's the same way I felt when I started college back in '94 and I moved to the states for the first time and everything was so new and different and I was young and impressionable and everyday I felt a different emotion. Only now I'm 31 and not so young or impressionable, but I still feel the wave of emotions. It's not as intense in this second month in New York as it was the first, but I still vacillate on a near daily basis between loving it here, feeling cramped and claustrophobic, missing Chicago, and thinking that this is the most exciting place I could be--both physically and mentally--and I can't believe how lucky I am. In so many ways, I still feel like that gawky, insecure 18-year-old who tred on her new life so cautiously, afraid to step too heavily and find it was just a dream. It's like I'm caught between wanting to embrace everything the city has to offer and afraid if I do, I'll break something. It's like wearing a big bag strapped across your shoulders and wandering through a gift shop with little china chotchkes everywhere and holding your breath and crossing your fingers you don't knock anything over as you manuever through the tight and crowded aisles. That's how it is in my new life. I'm looking around and everything is so pretty and new and shouting to be looked at and touched, but I'm still trying to figure out the easiest way to get through without making a mess.

So yeah, basically 18 all over again, but without the great skin and perky ass.

Home is where the rug is

Today is one of those super busy days I have a lot going on, so I'll just leave you with this:

We bought some rugs yesterday. Everyone was happy with our choices and how much homier our apartment immediately looked--especially these two.

And then my heart exploded.