City Wendy

Reading Material

Drew and I leave bright and early tomorrow morning to head back to the midwest for a few days with my family. I figure between the bus ride to the airport, the wait to board the plane and the flight to St. Louis, we've got about a 6 hour commute or so — longer if there's a delay, which there often is. I know most people hate flying, and I'm certainly among them when it comes to any flight over an ocean, but short, continental flights? I kind of love them and there are three reasons why: USWeekly, In Touch, and Life&Style.

What can I say, flying brings out the worst in some of us.

Oh, and Ice Cream!

Things I Will Most Likely Eat in Missouri Next Week:

• Fried Chicken
• Biscuits & Gravy
• A hot dog at the Cardinals game
• Some sort of Entenmann's baked goods
• Gooey butter cake, maybe?
• I hope so!
• Probably Grandma's scrambled eggs
• And maybe her chicken salad
• Beer
• A Denver Omelet
• Corn on the cob
• Mashed potatoes
• I'm aiming to have them at every meal!
• Wow, for a second I couldn't remember if there was an 'e' in potatoes or not
• I kept staring at the way it was typed with an 'e' and thinking, "Is that really right?"
• God, I'm not even there yet and already I'm starting to think like a Republican
• Bacon

The Secret to My Success

As much as I hate to admit it, I think there's something to this whole Secret thing. Well, at least the visualization part. I've been finding that the more I picture things in my mind, the more I see them in real life. When I moved in with Drew, I sort of convinced him the apartment was a little haunted. There was the little yellow topaz stud earring I found under the desk one afternoon, and the way the lights would flicker from time to time, and how the cats would stare off at a spot on the wall or ceiling with ears back and a nose sniffing out something supernatural (or was that just another kind of creepy crawly they sensesd?). And then there were the dimes. I told Drew about my haunted apartment in college and how I'd find dimes all the time and how someone told me that ghosts left dimes as their way of communicating with us. Soon after, Drew began finding dimes all over the apartment. I still think the apartment is a little haunted, but I also think Drew's finding dimes because he's got dimes on his mind and it goes back to the idea that we see and find that which we visualize.

This all brings me to an upcoming 4th of July talent show I'm going to be in. Our friends are throwing a 4th of July BBQ/talent show and in a drunken moment not too long ago when I first heard about this party, I blurted out that I'd like to do a hula hoop routine as my talent. The next thing I knew, the evites were sent out with a promise of a hula hoop dancer and suddenly, it was too late to back out. Of course, being the novice that I am, I can't exactly let my fairly weak hoop skills speak for themselves; I need a spectacle....and some sparkle! To that end, I've decided to not only hula hoop, but to make balloon animals while I hoop! And to wear a great costume! In my mind I was picturing a red sparkly gown...for less than 20 bucks. And then after brunch in Astoria on Sunday with my old college roommate, I stopped by a thirft store in search for a little something for the roof, and I found this red, sparkly dress instead....in just my size...for 15 bucks! Visualization works, you guys! So obviously, now I'm going to start picturing million dollar checks in my name and the naked guy from the Sex and the City movie rubbing suntan oil on my back on the Riviera. Yes, suntan oil because in my visualizations, I don't burn and I don't get skin cancer. The Secret rocks!!

In unrelated news, Drew and I celebrated the summer solstice on Saturday with an early morning yoga session in the middle of Times Square. I read a blurb in Time Out New York last week about the now annual solstice yoga event — which is dubbed Mind over Madness — and the idea being if you can find peace and serenity in the center of chaos, you can find it anywhere. (Show of hands — how many of you think Drew and I found peace and serenity in doing the downward dog in front of the Times Square NYPD station?) Well, I roused Drew early Saturday morning and dragged him down to the commercial center of the world, grateful for once that it's just a 10-minute walk away, for some mindful stretching and meditation. We were two of the last people let inside the barricaded section in the middle of 7th avenue, which was enough to garner us a spot in the very back of the rolled-out green carpet and to score us a gift bag, full of freebies. I can't say we really found peace and serenity in the middle of Times Square (if you raised your hand, you're wrong!), but we did score some pretty good soy joy bars and a bunch of certificates for free yoga sessions at various studios around the city. We've decided to take advantage of the free sessions and try out different studios around town. After all, I'm visualizing Naked Guy doing the warrior and the Laughing Lotus and it's enough to drag me out of bed at 7 am and wear stretch pants in public any morning of the week.

Swingtown

Is anyone else watching Swingtown, the new show about swinging couples in 1976 suburbia that CBS hopes will ressurect it from ratings death? The dialogue is awful, the plot lines corny as hell, and the acting downright cringe-worthy, but like a Spears family headline, I just can't seem to look away from it. To its credit, the show is beautifully shot, the lighting near perfect, and there's something summertime familiar about — something, until last night I couldn't quite put my finger on. And then, skimming reviews of the show online, I learned that it's produced by a former principal director for Six Feet Under, one of my favorite shows ever, a show I'd happily sit in front of the television on a beautiful summer evening to watch. The creators also hoped to inject a bit of Wonder Years feel, another favorite of mine, and though they don't come close to matching the heart of Kevin Arnold's reminisced childhood, they do succeed in creating a hint of it, at least. Combine that with sexy-again 70's sundresses, at least one cute character I wouldn't kick out of bed, and the promise of many more group sex scenes, and it seems Swingtown is suddenly a bit of a guilty pleasure for me this summer. Please tell me I'm not the only one who's spending Thursday nights watching CBS.

Does Your Dick Hurt?

I had a New York rite of passage last week that didn't involve: seeing a man jerk off on the subway, getting spit on by a homeless dude, or finding mice in my apartment. I was in a cab crash! I wish I could tell you all the gory details, but the fact is I was fast asleep and all I remember was being jolted awake as our cab hit the cab in front of us on the corner of 36th and 3rd ave.

We — Drew and I — were coming home from Brooklyn late Thursday night after seeing the legendary Isaac Hayes in Prospect Park and I was so dead tired after a string of sleepless nights, that as soon as I leaned by head against the dirty window in the back seat of the cab, I was out. And anyhow, I've learned the hard way that I can only tolerate riding in cabs by closing my eyes and imagining myself meditating on a mountain top, breathing in fresh high-altitude air through my nose and out through my mouth, so chances are I wouldn't have seen the crash even if I hadn't been asleep.

I do know that our cab crashed into another cab and in a matter of seconds, Drew and I were on the street waiting for a police report and thinking about going to the ER. Our cab was pretty smashed up, but I honestly felt fine and didn't see any reason to waste time sitting in an ER waiting for someone to tell me what I already knew.

"I feel fine," I said to Drew sleepily, "Let's just get in another cab and go home. I mean do you feel okay?"

"I feel okay now," he replied, "But what if we're in pain tomorrow?" he asked. "We need to get a police report to take to the ER so we don't get stuck paying the bill."

"But there's nothing wrong with us!" I argued. It was 1 am and insomnia had kept me awake the last 3 nights and all I wanted was to crawl into bed and sleep for hours and hours and hours. Instead, we waited forever for the stupid police report and then dragged ourselves out of bed early the next morning and went to the ER to "be on the safe side." Drew, responsible citizen that he is, argued that we needed a record for insurance purposes to show we'd been checked out in case we felt any pain later on. I, on the other hand, only had two words on my mind as I accompanied him to the ER: prescription painkillers.

At the ER, I told the triage nurse that my pain was a "5" on a scale of 1-10, thinking 2 wouldn't get me the good stuff, and 6 or 7 might be stretching the truth a bit too much. "Where does it hurt?" she asked. "Hmmm..." I said, "my neck?...and my back?" I added, rubbing my shoulder blade. "And...and I have a headache!"I said, suddenly pleased with myself.
"Wait here while I talk to your boyfriend," the nurse said pointing to a chair in the hall.

Five minutes later, Drew joined me and told me we had to go get checked out by a doctor.
"What did you tell them was your pain level?" I asked as we made our way to the examining room.
"A 4," he said.
"Ah, man,"I repied, "you shoulda said 5."
"I'm not in that much pain," he replied.
"A 4 isn't gonna get us the good stuff," I said, shaking my head disappointedly.

In the examining room, Drew and I changed into hospital gowns as we waited for the doctor.

"I'm worried I could have internal bleeding," Drew said, rubbing is abdomen as I tied my gown behind me.
"Ooh, that's good!" I said, suddenly impressed with his story, "That oughtta get us something!"
"No," he said, "I mean it. What if i have internal bleeding? They say you can't even feel it when you've got internal bleeding. What if I die?"
"Well," I responded, "I guess I won't have to bother calling an ambulance..."

Just then a man in scrubs walked in and said, "So you guys were in a car accident, huh?"
"Yeah," I replied, rubbing my neck, "I think I got really bad whiplash or something. I'm at least a 5 on the pain scale. Maybe even a 6!"
"Hmm..." he said, unimpressed, "I'll check you out in a minute. Let me talk to your boyfriend first."
"Okay," I said, shooting Drew a look that said, "Don't fuck this up!"
The doctor asked Drew to lie down and then he said something I've never ever in all my life heard a medical professional say:
"Did you take a dump today?" he asked Drew.
Seriously! That's what he said! Just like that: "Did you take a dump today?" Like, I don't know, like they were frat brothers who'd had too much to drink the night before and were all bound up and wondering if the other was feeling as uncomfortable.
And then! Then he asked Drew if his balls hurt! His balls! And then, just when I thought it couldn't get any more unprofessional, he said, "What about your dick? Does your dick hurt?"

Oh my god! Forget good painkillers, I suddenly just wanted a good doctor. What if we really did have internal injuries?! What if we really were bleeding to death?! Was this the doctor who'd be able to save our lives? A doctor who asks his patient if his dick hurts?

After he finished examining the both of us, he declared us "banged up."
"I'm going to go get some prescriptions for you and then you'll be free to go home."
"Yes!" I said after he left the room, suddenly re-energized, "We're going to get prescriptions! It was worth it, after all!"
"I guess..." Drew said, obviously still worried about internal bleeding.
"Drew, relax. We're fine. We don't even have any bruises. It was just a minor accident. And now we're going to get good painkillers for the weekend!"

We finished getting dressed and sat in the waiting room. Another 45 minutes later, the doctor finally came back out holding a bunch of paperwork. "Here," he said, handing us each a prescription, "Motrin. Take 2 tablets every 4-6 hours until the pain subsides."
"MOTRIN?!" I said, incredulously, "Motrin?"
"Yeah," he replied, "Motrin."
"But I'm at least a 5 on the pain scale...maybe even a 6!!"
"Take them every 4-6 hours," he replied and then walked away.

"Now my dick hurts!" Drew yelled after him.  "My dick hurts now!"
But it was too late. The doctor was gone, we'd just wasted a whole morning in the ER, and all we had to show for it was some fucking Motrin.

Alphabet: A History (F)

Alphabet, A History (F): Foster Beach

It's May, and I'm 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 and Foster Beach opens up to me like an outstretched palm holding all the secrets of the summer ahead.

It's June and Chad has just finished school for the year. He waits for me on his bike outside my apartment on Winnemac and I rush out, wearing a short black sundress over my bikini; I'm carrying a vintage boho bag Chad found for me at a tag sale in New England a couple summers ago, and I've got sunscreen in it, the latest In Touch, a couple bucks for some ice cream, and a hot pink batik tapestry I use as a beach blanket. Chad has remembered to bring a bottle of water and the transistor radio i gave him for his birthday the year before.

At Foster, we lie on our backs and stare at the blue expanse of sky and lake and inhale the summer deeply. It's 1 PM and we've got the whole rest of the day to do whatever we want.

"Remember the summer we became friends?" I ask still staring at the sky, "And we hung out on your deck every night and I kept trying to get your to kiss me and you just kept moving your furniture around and re-decorating instead?"

"Man," he replies, laughing "I blew it."

"If only I'd been a cute dancer boy or something..." I say,sitting up and grabbing the sunscreen to rub on my nose.

"DAMN!" Chad yells to the sky after a minute, "Wahoooooooooo!!!" He thrusts his arms in the air and throws back his head, bathing his face in sunlight.

I smile, flip on my stomach, bend my knees, bobbing my legs in the air, and pull a magazine from my bag.

Chad turns the dial on the radio and lands on "Spirit in the Sky."

"Goin' up to the spirit in the sky," I sing, "That's where I'm gonna go when I die/When I die and they lay me to rest/Gonna go to the place that's the best."

*********************

It's July. It's Nicki's birthday and Chad and I meet her and Sam on Foster Beach. They're finishing sandwiches from the Thai bakery on Broadway and Nicki holds hers out and asks if I want a bite. "Ew," I say, holding my hand up, "Those things stink! How can you eat them?"

It might just be the only thing we ever argue about — these smelly Thai sandwiches. The summer before, on Nicki's recommendation, I buy  two Thai sandwiches with Drew on one of his earlier visits to Chicago. We keep them in their bag until we park our bikes and find a spot on the beach. And then, eager to taste the delectable treat Nicki raves about, we tear into the bag, only to gag on the stench and rush the sandwiches to a far-off trash can.

"Oh, they're good!" Nicki replies, waving away my criticism and polishing off the last bite, "you don't know what you're missing."

I've brought champagne and plastic cups and we toast to Nicki's birthday. I suddenly wish I'd brought baklava from the Middle Eastern Bakery.

*******************

It's August and Terry is in town with the kids for less than 24-hours en route back to Springfield Mo.

"I drove the wrong way for 2 hours before I realized I was heading north and not south," he says of his detour from Ohio.

"Lucky for us," I reply.

In college, Terry is like an uncle to a bunch of us. Chad introduces me to him that summer he can't stop redecorating his porch, and Terry entertains me with stories of Woodstock and San Francisco in the late 60's and the Merry Pranksters. Sometimes the three of us go swimming in Fellows Lake. Sometimes Terry has us over to his little apartment on Walnut, which is unlike any apartment I've ever seen before. Stickers, album covers, newspaper and magazine clippings, tin foil stars, photos, and old postcards adorn nearly every inch of wall space. Even the ceiling is covered with stuff — with homemade mobiles, paper lanterns, and plants hanging from it lazily, gently swaying whenever a breeze blows through the open window.

A year after I meet them, Terry and his wife Mary move to a house, even closer to campus now. Mary is pregnant, and most of us can't believe Terry is going to be a father. They have a girl in June and name her Terra and a year after that, I move away to Chicago.

On Foster Beach during Terry's detour back to Missouri, we wade to our ankles in Lake Michigan. It's night time and dark and Terry doesn't want the kids going out too far. Terra has a brother now —Jules. He's 6 and has the same thick, wavy chestnut colored hair as his sister and mom, and a wide, mischievous grin and twinkling eyes. Terry and Mary still rent the little apartment on Walnut to escape during fights or when one of them needs space. I wonder if the kids even know about it, if Terra knows lived there once.

The next afternoon, I bike to the beach after work and meet Terry and the kids before they head home. They've been at the beach all afternoon waiting for me and now we have time for two songs and a quick dip in the lake. While Terry strums his guitar and sings, Terra and I bury Jules in the sand up to his neck and then run into the water as he kicks himself free, laughing.

Afterwards, as they pack up their rented 2007 white Maxima, I promise to keep in touch. "Maybe Chad and I will come visit one of these days," I say.
"Oh sure, oh sure," Terry replies, stuffing a bag into the back seat with the kids. They're in a change of clothes, but still sandy from the beach, and look exactly how I imagine their parents looking at their age. "We will" I say, "sooner or later...We can't stay away forever." And it's not until I say it, that I realize how much I mean it.

Four weeks later, when I leave Chicago for New York, I tell my friends I'll be back before they even have time to miss me. "I can't stay away from Foster Beach for too long," I say.

And everyone knows what I really mean is I can't stay away too long from them.

Read the whole Alphabet series here.

Greener Pastures

I didn't miss the internet while we were gone. Or the TV, or even my cell phone. At one point -- maybe our first afternoon in Vermont -- I pulled my phone from my purse to text a friend. "Holy shit," I wrote, "It's so green here!" but when I hit "send," I got an error symbol — there simply wasn't enough reception where we were. So I turned off my phone and didn't pull it out again until our train pulled back into Penn station yesterday afternoon and that was just to check what time it was.

We pulled into our B&B Friday night at 1:30 am after a long train ride from New York and then an hour-long drive from the train station through dark, winding mountain roads that reminded me of the streets I'd learned to drive on years ago in Germany. The inn keeper was still awake when we arrived, she'd started a fire for us in the lobby. I slept the kind of sleep that night of someone who's unplugged from the rest of the world and doesn't have to wake up for anything but breakfast the next morning cooked by someone else. And what a breakfast it was: the most fantastic cheese bread toast, amazing coffee, organic yogurt and fresh blueberries, poached eggs, potatoes, thick slices of bacon, and fresh-squeezed OJ.

Later that day, on our friends' small farm in the valley, I collected eggs from the chicken coop, untangled the goats from their ropes, tried to make friends with the horse, and found not 1 or 2 or even 5, but six 4-leaf clovers, which made our friends' 5-year-old son that much more smitten with me. "One day, Wendy," he said to me as we sat on the porch nursing glasses of fresh lemonade and petting the family cat, Cleo, "I'm going to send you a box full of kittens," sure that with that gesture, he'd win over my heart.

Without the distraction of any type of screen, I read a whole book while we were away and remembered summers when I was a kid, before the internet, before cell phones, before I ever had cable TV, when I read entire books in one evening — sometimes by the light of an alarm clock when my sister I shared a room — and I wondered why my priorities had shifted so much in adulthood.

We walked through woods while we were away and visited an artist-in-residence who worked in an airless one-room log cabin whose main source of light was a single florescent bulb that hung from the ceiling and attracted bugs. The artist was making a sculpture for the historic grounds to be be unveiled and cast in bronze in late September and I imagined spending the next 3 1/2 months in an airless log cabin in the woods of New England making art, and I decided it sounded pretty good. (As long as I had cheesy bread toast.)

We made s'mores one evening in Vermont, and got soft-serve ice cream from a place in New Hampshire that reminded me so much of a place i used to go to in St. Louis. When I was a kid, my family would spend entire summers at my grandparents' in St. Louis and as a special treat, once or twice or maybe even 3 times a week, we'd pile into my grandparents' big Buick, or Lincoln or whatever they were leasing that year, and drive out to Fritz's where we'd indulge in sundaes and concretes and chocolate-dipped cones. In New Hampshire, Drew got ice cream all over himself, making a bigger mess than our friends' kids. "You gotta eat it from the bottom," I said, demonstrating to my 38-year-old boyfriend how to eat an ice cream cone in the heat -- the way I'd learned years and years ago on that hot parking lot outside Fritz's. Is there not a place the city kids learn this in New York?

We sprang for business class seats on the train, thinking it would make our long trip more comfortable, and the ride there was a breeze. We spread out, stretching our legs until our toes touched the seats in front of us, reclining our chairs until we were almost lying down. I bought us beers from the cafe and watched Sex and the City episodes over the shoulder of the girl in front of us who played all of Season 4 on her laptop during the long ride. Coming back to the city was awful, though. About one hour into our six hour trip, the ac in business class broke, and without any available spots on any of the other cars, we sat in our expensive seats and stewed, unable to even open a window for ventilation. I watched the mountains and the river pass by outside, the sky every bit as blue as the sky we left behind in Vermont, and I ached.

When we finally arrived back in the city, and climbed the stairs from the subway onto stinky, crowded 50th street, the heat from the streets blasted us in the face like an oven, nearly knocking me to the ground. My bug bites itched and my back was damp from my heavy pack. That night, I slept the sleep of someone back from vacation who has to wake up and go grocery shopping and do work somehow live through a heat wave that even the most potent AC can't slice through.

This morning, I stopped by the farmer's market and bought five lemons. I'm going to try to make lemonade today -- the way I learned to in Vermont.

They'll Even Have a Bed for Us

The summer hasn't even started yet, and already it's getting away from me. I went to the clinic this morning to get a Hepatitis vaccine, recommended for anyone traveling to China. Next week I'll get my visa, much to the relief of my mother who has been calling and emailing reminders to get one on a near daily basis for the last three months. Next month Drew leaves for China — a full month before I join him there, which leaves us just over six weeks to enjoy summer together stateside, during which time we'll be making a trek to Missouri to visit the family and at least one weekend getaway, which just happens to be this weekend and I couldn't be more excited about it.

We're going to Vermont. Windsor, Vermont, to be exact, home of the longest covered bridge in the United States. Not only are we going to Vermont, which will be my very first visit to the fair state, but we're staying in a B&B, another first for me. I'm such a B&B virgin, actually — as is Drew, apparently — that when he got off the phone after confirming our reservations — which, by the way, had to be done via a check through snail mail no less — and he excitedly informed me that they'll even make us breakfast every morning, I, genius that I am, replied, "Oh my God! That's so awesome," before I realized that, oh yeah, that's sort of implied in the second B, isn't it? Ahem. We're riding a train there!

Is there anything more romantic than traveling by train? It's so much more civilized than plane travel with its cramped seating, stale air, and three dollar bags of nuts. And bus travel? Please! Can you get a sleeper car on the bus? Can you ride right through the middle of single-steeple towns on a bus? Can you sit for hours in the dining car, feet tucked beneath you, book cradled in your palm, a deck of cards and half-eaten sandwich at your side while listening to a pack of traveling companions swap life stories at the table next to you on a bus?! You cannot, and that is why, when Drew informed me we'd spend 14 hours in three days on a train, I didn't whimper, or sigh with dread, or suggest we rent a car for the weekend instead, I threw my arms victoriously in the air and pronounced this whole going to Vermont idea the best I'd ever heard. That is, of course, until I discovered we likely wouldn't have internet access for the three whole days we're there. And then I thought, "Damn, that better be a really good breakfast."

Summer of Ugly Footwear

1967 was the Summer of Love, 1969's summer had Woodstock, and more recently, 1997 was the summer none of us could get the song MMMBop out of our heads. So, what's the summer of 2008 going to be remembered for? The summer of the historical first nomination of a black man for president on the United States? The summer gas prices soared to an unprecedented 5 dollars a gallon? The summer Brangelina gave birth to the world's most attractive twins ever? No!! It's going to be known for its God-awful, UGLY ASS SHOES, that's what!!!!

Oh my god, it's like all the shoe designers had a convention last year and decided they'd all come out with the ugliest, most unflattering shoes they could imagine and then market them as hot, stylish trends for the summer. Good God, I don't remember in all my life seeing so many terrible sandals on the feet of otherwise attractive, well put-together women, from gladiator sandals, to bejewled sandals, to — I swear to God, I actually saw a woman on the subway wearing some the other day — moccasin flip-flops with fringe!!! THE HORROR.

I leave you with the photographic evidence — you decide: are we headed into the worst summer for footwear, or what?

 

Discoveries

For the last five months, we've had huge moving blankets taking up precious space under our bed, bags of confetti and empty champagne bottles leftover from our New Year's party sitting in our closet, and a host of other odd props filling the remaining nooks and crannies of our apartment. Last night we finally got to use all of it when we filmed the grand finale of Drew's latest short film. I won't give it all away, but I'll say the short finale includes boxers, tango dancers, a ballerina, a gymnast, a woman giving birth, hula hoop dancers (including yours truly!), an accordian player, and Drew's head finally exploding in a burst of confetti. I knew I was in for a long night, and I wasn't wrong -- we didn't get out of the borrowed, dusty basement on the Lower East Side until nearly 2 am and poor Drew was there until almost 4, but he later told me, tired as he was after almost 24 hours in there, after everyone left and he was alone with the director sweeping up the confetti, he mostly just felt incredibly happy.

Being there last night and seeing this one scene that Drew's been planning for so long finally come to life was such a great reminder of how powerful and inspiring the creative process is. I get so consumed sometimes in just sheer survival -- the daily tasks that have to be crossed off my to-do list and what I need to take care of right now to be ready for a, b, and c down the road, that it's easy to let my dreams and creative aspirations slip on down to the bottom of the list. One of the things I like best about Drew — and what is, admittedly, as his girlfriend, not always the most convenient thing to accept — is how he's as much a do-er as he is a talk-er. He doesn't let the demands of a full-time job and the obligations he has to his family and me and friends and whatnot stand in the way of taking classes and writing stuff and making films and art and stuff. I mean, I'm fucking glad all that crap isn't taking up space in the apartment anymore, and I'm glad last night's 6 hour shoot is behind us now, but I totally dig Drew's desire and ambition to do the things he loves and I hope if we stick together long enough, some of that drive might rub off on me.

                                                    ********************************

In totally unrelated news, I'm continuing in my effort to get out of the house and take long walks every day, and since we know how much I hate walking south through midtown, and since my trek north through the Upper West Side is getting tired, I decided to walk west today through an area of town that, while relatively uncrowded, I usually skip over because it's sort of ugly and doesn't seem to have much going on. Imagine my delight when I made not one, not two, but three great discoveries! The first was a cute little Italian diner on an empty block that featured one of the best looking menus and pastry displays I've seen in a long time. If I hadn't just eaten lunch, I may have stopped for a bit of something, but as it was, I made a mental note to go back in the next week or so and give it a try.

My second discovery was a tiny little college bookstore that, if I'd have blinked I'd have missed. In the corner, I found a magazine selection next to an empty over-sized chair and a help-yourself coffee pot. Eureka!! One of the simple pleasures I miss most about my neighborhood in Chicago was the quiet Borders within walking distance of my apartment and where on a weekday, I could always find a seat to curl up in with a pile of magazines. Until today, I thought my only option for magazine free-loading at a bookstore were the traps in midtown that are always littered with an obscene amount of tourists, so finding this little nook just a few blocks from my apartment was sweet surprise, indeed.

Finally, on my way back home, I passed a gated community garden in Hell's Kitchen that was filled with beautiful flowers, plants, green lawns, some pagodas and benches. Exactly what I've been wishing for! Central Park is just a few blocks away and it's great and all, but sometimes it's just too much — sometimes I crave the intimacy of a small neighborhood park where I can sit and escape into a good book or my own thoughts and don't get have to feel like I'm constantly part of this huge people-watching circle. I told Drew about the garden when he got home this evening and he said that there's a waiting list for a key — that scoring one is based on some sort of lottery or something, which make me love the garden even more, because hello! Who doesn't just adore exclusivity?! I found the garden's website online and discovered that the keys are given out only two hours in the entire month, and it just so happens that one of those hours is just a few days away. I don't know how this lottery thing works exactly, but you better believe I'm going to be the first person in line with my ID, proof of address, and whatever else it takes to get one of those coveted keys. I feel like one of those parents who will do anything to get her kid into private pre-school, only all I want is the chance to read my Vanity Fair on a bench near some roses and begonias. Oh New York, I do heart you.