Beating the Funk...

A Funk has overtaken me for a time now. It ebbs and flows and generally pisses me off. Funks are no fun and render me lethargic, uninspired and useless.  I will expound more on this in a later post, as I am trying to collect my thoughts regarding said Funk. So for now I will give you a list of some activities that can beat the Funk, and even if they can't beat it, they can certainly give it a run for it's money.

-Buying a new pair of shoes. Yellow flats are espically funk-repellent

-Planting a herb garden in a pail and seeing the seedlings begin to sprout

-Enjoying a toasted marshmellow milkshake (with a toasted marshmellow on top even!) from The Stand (just don't eat their hamburgers)

-Organizing the CRAP out of your apartment. Like under the bathroom sink, in the shoe/coat closet, and the kitchen cabinets.  It's so cathartic.

-Enjoying Drag Queen Cocktails, while wearing Tiara's and watching the finale of RuPauls's Drag Race.

-Eating yoru first ever double cheeseburger from Shake Shack.  **Warning** deep pangs of guilt may follow this indulgence, but that is just the Funk getting to you. Life is short, eat good burgers.

-Eating an amazing salad of kale, beets, peas, wheatberries, feta cheese and other oh-so-nourishing and soul feeding healthy foods, which makes you feel like a grown up who can balance their diet after eating a double cheeseburger, cheese fries, and ice cream.

-Watching LOST (it's getting so good!) with the two main men in your life and drinking Champagne cocktails

-Lots of cuddly, kissy, lovey kitty time.

-Pre-ordering your ticktes to the midnight opening of Sex and the City: 2

-Drinking margaritta's at 2pm on a Friday with your brother while throngs of teenage girls scream outside the restaurant at Channing Tatum who is filming a movie in Astoria, and you realize you are too old and out of touch to know who he is and why people care.

 -Being asked to be an actor in a staged reading of a very cool new play, performing it for a crowd of intelligent theatre-goers and finally feeling like you are doing something creative after months of stagnation. (Thank you Brian!)

-Watching this on YouTube. Incredible.

-Knowing that as you write this blog your husband is in the process of making sauteed pork chops with musrooms, dill and sour cream along with twice baked potatoes.

What activities do you do to beat the Funk?

The Great Walk

I am not entirely sure when the inspiration hit. It could have been while at work, or over dinner, or as I was drifting off to sleep. And since I don't know the true origin of my grand idea, and for the purposes of adding a little drama and flare to the story, I will say it happend while I was up in the air.  30,000 feet and descending, as I headed back to New York from Chicago on January 3rd (our one year wedding anniversary).  It was a clear night and I always find myself rather contemplative while in airplanes (does this happen to anyone else?), and as I looked out the window I could see the entire island of Manhattan illuminated. I found it amusing how you could see the pool of lights surrounded by the flat, black, glass like  river and it formed the shape that was identical to that of the subway map. As if I thought in real life it should look different and completely unlike some cartographers hard worked sketch.  Regardless, I was drawn in to this island, which from the air appears so small. Like you could skip rocks across it, or do a few cartwheels and you would end up on the other side.  I wanted to walk it. From tip to tip, and Jürgen was going to come with me.

Jürgen being the cool cat that he is was totally down with my crazy adventure idea, and we decided as soon as the weather turned pleasant we would set things in motion to traverse the island. It had seemed like a lofty idea until last Thursday when I was awoken to the dulcit tones of Jürgen saying "today is the day."  I hadn't mentally prepared myself for the journey, but I decided it was best not to fight a man decided.  It was a beautiful day, and frankly I needed a bit of adventure and challenge in my life. So we hopped the train and found ourselves all the way at 225th street. The journey began.

I am waxed poetic about my newfound love of walking recently, but this was the ultimate in walks as far as  I was concerned.  According to googlemaps the distance from 225th to Battery Gardens is 13.6 miles (give or take a bit depending on your preferred route), however we did a bit of sightseeing and zigzagging along the way, so while neither of us donned pedometers we think we logged almost fifteen miles of foot traffic.  There are many different paths you could take to complete this journey, but we tended more towards the west side of the island following Broadway and then spending a decent amount of time on 6th ave (which if we ever decided to do this again we would avoid), until we reached Battery Gardens with a view of Lady Liberty in all her glory.  It took about seven hours to complete, and I felt the effects of this half-marathon distance walk for days.

It was an awesome experience, and one that I will truly never forget.  It's amazing to see how the landscape changes, culturally and physically, as you travel through the various neighborhoods. At one point I even proclaimed "it's amazing how 'un-New York', New York feels!" and it was really true, there  were times I almost forgot I was in Manhattan.  This really is an incredible city and I am glad we took the time to really travel through it, with the sun on our faces and the wind at our backs.

We took quite a few pictures along the way, and since I recently learned how to make photo slideshows, I have another one! But first here is a list of the few sites we visited, some planned, and some happy accidents.

The Dyckman Farmhouse Museum
The Cloisters
The Morris Jumel Mansion Museum
Alexander Hamilton's Country Home
General Grant National Memorial
Riverside Church
Cathedral of St. John the Divine
The Cross at Ground Zero

(I am sure there are many more sites we could have seen, however once we hit Columbus Circle, it was less about the journey and more about the destination...at least thats what my feet were telling me!)

A "Tail" of Two Kitties...

A year ago my world changed in a way I could never have forseen. A year ago Jürgen and I became parents to two precious kittens, and life has never been the same.  The amount of joy these two long-haired beings have brought into our lives was unimaginable to me before I met them, but now that I have them I will never let them go!

I have been very lucky to grow up having animals around, and it was always in the plans for Jurg and I to adopt two kittes after we got married.  I love dogs as well, and I am proud not to have to ascribe to being either a "cat person" or a "dog person."  However, when you are a young couple, living unpredictable lives, cats are much more adaptable creatures who require less involvment in their everyday survival.  So while a puppy may be somewhere in the distant future, for now its all about cats. 

Last year Jurgen was working on a production in Milwaukee and the plan always was to adopt once he returned in Mid-May.  However, one afternoon while I stared blurry eyed at the computer screen at work, and email popped up from my good friend Jenn, informing me that a friend of a friend, had a cat who had kittens, just eight weeks old and they were looking for good homes for all of them.  She made a convincing arguement:  by adopting them from a home I would be able to get them younger (younger=smaller), they were already litterbox trained (major plus) and since the two would have been litter mates they already would have bonded (awww little fuzzy bonded kittens...). My interest was piqued! I called Jürg right away, and thus began almost a week of hemming and hawwing about if we should make a move, a little off schedule. 

Then we received some very exciting news, Jürg got a call with an offer to understudy two Broadway shows! A major achievement! A career stepping stone! Oh if only we knew...

In all of our excitment Jurgen said "Blair, you should go get those kittens."  In an effort not to be too rash, I said "how about I just go look at them?" 

Now let's be honest with ourselves for a moment, anyone who thinks they can go look at tiny, adorable, furry, hand-sized creatures and not steal away with a basketful of them is lying to themselves.  Who was I kidding? I was doomed from the start.

Jenn, being the ever supportive and animal crazed friend that she is, accompanied me that Saturday afternoon, to a basement apartment that held three adorable kittens: two little girls which were all black and one little boy with black and white spots.  I sat on the couch and a teeny black kitten crawled up onto my lap, curled her front paws underneath her chest and proceeded to fall asleep on my thighs.  I had been claimed. I was a goner.

Afraid that I wouldn't be able to tell two all black kittens apart, I naturally gravitated towards the spotted little lad with the precious face.  And with that, a family was born.

We named our little man Stanley, after the character Jürgen was to understudy on Broadway.  Our little miss? We call her Toaster. Yep, like a toaster oven.  I take no credit for this, as it has always been Jürgen's plan to have a cat named Toaster, and despite my protests, I lost that battle after a tension-filled game of Rock-Paper-Scissors.

Despite my lost battle, I am quite happy with her name, and more importantly I am thrilled to be a "proud parent" the these two precious creatures. This past year they have grown before our eyes, traveled from Chicago to New York, and provided endless hours of entertainment.  My love for them has surprised and inspired me.  I am forever grateful to have them in our lives, and as a part of our family.

I present a photo-retrospective of Stanley and Toaster's first year. The photo's aren't great, but regardless they bring a smile to my face and warm my heart. May they do the same for you!

Gotta make that cash...

So there has been a bit of silence over here in my little blog space as of late.  Admittedly I have not been doing my part in carving out blogging time, but I also embarked on a little journey out west and I have been catching up a bit since my return.  No I wasn't in search of gold, but rather fufilling my bridesmaidel duties in a Salt Lake City wedding.  2010 may be the year of the Tiger, but for me it just may have to be dubbed "The Year of Weddings."  I have seven which I will be called to attend, and I hope to make it to all, but that remains to be seen. 

Where was Jürgen you might ask? Well he was not with me, no sir he got to fly the skies to Argentina! Buenos Aires to be precise, where he got to stay in this swanky hotel, eat steak and dance upon the same soil from which my favorite grapes are grown! What's up with that?

Actually, his reasons for travel were purely professional (although he got to experience a fair amount of fun as well!), because Jürg booked himself a commercial! Can I get a what-what?? He auditioned in New York, for an Irish Celluar company commercial which filmed in South America.  If you wish to spend time making sense of that, be my guest.

It did get me thinking about how funny and wildly unpredictable life can be from time to time, espically if you choose a profession in the arts. One minute you can be serving burgers and fries at a tourist packed, time square restaurant, and the next minute you are a working actor in Buenos Aires. Well, in Jürgens case anyway.  It also reminded me of the array of various "jobs" I have had over the years in an attempt to cobble together a living.  So let's bring back the blogging with a little sharing, shall we?

-I had my first "real job" when I was 16, where I worked at a small flower shop in Louisville, KY.  I was too short to see over the counter, and was often left alone to my own devices.  The job was relativley harmless except for two incidents which are worth mentioning:

1) I had literally just received my drivers liscense and on my first day of work they sent me out to make a delivery that involved me taking the expressway-a system I was unfamilliar with at the time- and I ended up somewhere way outside of the city limits, at night with no idea where I was.  This also happened to be before the time when we really relied on cell phones (I feel old!), and "car phone" that I did have was totally dead.  Hours later I made my way home and dissolved into a puddle of tears in my kitchen, because I never was able to deliver the flowers and the arangement and been tossed all over the back of my car.  The next morning my mom and I went to a more established flower shop and had them re-do the entire thing and she drove me to the rightful recipients who were very understanding.
2) The owner of the shop was my friends mom, and while she was a lovely, fun, artsitic woman she really had no business being the owner of a business. Oftentimes there were no records of how much a given item cost, which meant during the times I was left to my own devices I was forced to make up the price of things.  Not being well versed in the expenses of horticulture I inevitably charged a very lucky lady a mere seven dollars for a beautiful hanging fern. For the record it should have been around twenty-five.

The little flower shop closed a few years later. I'm just sayin'

-During college I spent a summer working as an intern for the Lookingglass Theatre Company, which paid me nothing, but I did get to work as the assistant to David Schwimmer for a week, which involved videotaping a workshop he ran and getting him coffee. He was very nice and very humble.  However Lookingglass then proceeded to hire me off and on as a "door watcher" (I prefered the title "securty guard but what can you do) where I made a great hourly wage to sit at the front desk while performances were happing in their rehearsal space and make sure no riff-raff strolled in and made off with the office equipment. As if my tiny self could have done anything about it, but I took their money anyway. It was awesome.

- I have only onced worked in a restaurant, as a host, at a Tapas restauarant one summer in Chicago.  I ate a ton of queso de cabra and very quickly decided I never wanted to work in restaurants again, for the mere fact that I found it rather torturous to watch other people enjoying their food and I had to starve. 

-The job to have while attending Theatre School was to be hired as an usher when rental productions would use our space.  It was great pay for maybe 15 minutes of mindless work, after which you could enjoy the show, or engage in epic battles with your flashlight.  Juvenile, but fantastic.

-I have been babysitting since I was twelve, and still do every now and then. The first child I ever babysat is now an adult and on her way to being a huge star, however there is also one baby who I have sat for at least five times and still have yet to meet. Her name is Macy and she goes to sleep at 7pm, and never wakes. She is a gift from above. 

-Once I was hired through my agency to work at the NeoCon trade show at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago.  It's a huge event focusing on office furniture, and my job was to pass out pins and candy to passerby's and encourage them to find their "style ID" on the 8th floor.  Why you need to know your style when it comes to cubicles I will never know.  It was so horrible that I hid in stairways and behind model kitchen units, in an attempt to keep my sanity. Never again.

-Being hired to perform at the Chicago Auto Show is much less annoying.  I sang "Let the Sunshine In" with a group of incredibly talented Chicago actors, for the launch of a new line of KIA cars.  We each wore a different solid colored crewneck sweater from Lands End, and threw our hands in the air with great abandon.  In a word: queer. In another word: amazing.

-For two years I worked as a receptionist at a commercial photography studio that threw incredible parties and didn't mind if I drank alcohol while working. A privledge I never took full advantage of. 

-One day while working at the aformentioned phtography studio, the producer asked to see my hands, which apparently are photograph worthy and whisked me upstairs to feature my digits in a cataloge.  This gave me the courage to call up the print department in my agency to see if I could be seen as a parts model.  My agent said "its a very quick decision and is usually a no, but I will see you."  Luckily, he said yes, and every now and then I literally make money from my hands.

-After I graduated college I spent a couple years working as the front desk manager of a spa, which once I left I swore I would never revisit customer service ever again. Well "never say never" apparently, because once I decided to move to NYC I contacted the New York branch, and five minutes later I was rehired. Lesson learned: its a good thing to keep the bridges you build intact. 

-Finally, this is without a doubt the best job I have ever had (aside from special theatre gigs) only involved twenty minutes of actual work, but was oh so very cool to be a part of.

Have you had any special/scary/random/interesting jobs you have had to do to make ends meet?

Reasons why I need a new camera

Because if you find yourself strolling through Central Park on a lovely sunny Sunday, and you happen upon an ice skating competition, naturally you will want to document it for all time.

And you look at the pretty balloons swaying to the music, of course you will feel compelled to zoom in. 

But you can't. 

Of course there will be times when you peer out of your kitchen window to find the moon glistening from above and clouds hastily painted across the sky. 

But the camera on your phone fails to capture it's beauty.

Then there may come a time when you rationalize to yourself that it is ok to stop in the middle of the street before oncoming traffic to photograph the Empire State Building at dusk.

But was the outcome really worth laying down your life for?

Oh how I want a real camera!  

Stream of Thought...

I was out of the house by 5:30 am this morning, which means I was forced to arise far earlier than anyone should ever have to. Nothing is right at 4:45 am. Nothing. 

So here I am at work, unable to fully concentrate on any one thing because the dull ache of tiredness resides behind my eyes rendering me incapable of thinking on a productive level.  However, I do seem to have a consistent stream of random thoughts, which are not necessarily connected to the other, and in an effort utilize this little blog space of mine to share my thoughts, no matter how irrelevant, I am going to list them here. In no particular order:

-I have a penchant for Moleskin journals off all sizes, and while doing some morning blog reading I came across this one which I now covet.

-I will also continue to covet an in-home inversion table.  The idea of being able to hang from my ankles and strech my spine make the knots in my shoulders relax just thinking about it.

-I find myself desiring to learn how to take pretty pictures of pretty things. I have no idea how to use a camera aisde from pointing, clicking and zooming (and I am a photographers daughter! the shame!) but should I learn on a film camera or a digital? Help...

-I think having two frisky one year old kitties is somewhat akin to having a toddler in the house. The constant need to explore, knock things over and put undesireable objects in their mouth can be trying at times. Except a toddler doesn't look at your with a furry face and no ability to understand what you are saying. But then they get all cuddly on you and you forget you had to yell at Stanley who was chewing on the metal end of a power cord.

-I recently got a burger from the NYC Buger Joint, The Stand which is supposed to have some of the Big Apples Best Burgers, and I am here to totally debunk that theory and tell you it's all lies.  My burger was totally underwhelming, chewy and not seasoned. The fact that it cost $12 only added insult to injury.

-To me, I will know I have succeeded in my life when I can end each day with a glass of good wine and a plate of some nice cheese. I think this goal is attainable.

-I wish I did a better job at keeping up with a day planner, I am sure it would help make me a better person.

-We still haven't done our taxes, crap. Although between the two of us I think we have over ten w-2 forms, which still confuse me despite the number I have had to fill out.

-We recently began making bread in our shiney, new bread machine. However it appears to be flawed in all it's shiney-newness and we have to send it back. Blast.

-The idea of making my own greek yogurt intrigues me, although I wonder if after you spend the money on yogurt and cheesecloth it really saves you any money?

And with that, my time here at work is wrapping up. Isn't being inside my mind wild and fanciful?  Clearly I spend a lot of time thinking about food, which may be something worth looking into. Also I thought I would share with you this little fun fact about my time here in NYC so far,

I have encountered a grand total of five celebrities since I moved to NYC: Goldie Hawn, Mariska Hargatay (she is super nice), Maggie Gyllenhall and Peter Saarsgard, and Emma Roberts (niece of Julia Roberts, and all she did was make out with her boyfriend the whole time. Very uncouth).  I will let you know if I ever encounter the ULTIMATE in celebrity sightings...Sara Jessica Parker. I heart her.

Spring in your Step

There are many things I miss about Chicago, however there is one thing which surprisingly I do not miss one bit: driving.  Yes, it would have been convenient during the monsoon on Saturday do be able to hop into a vehicle and save the life of an umbrella, but for the most part I am quite happy to rely on my two feet and the NY Subway System.  I do love the car that waits patiently for me back in Chi-Town, it's sleek, fuel efficient, I bought it all by myself, and heck I even knocked a brick wall down with it just to see what would happen.  It's a good car, but I am happy to be apart from it, for now anyway.

Most often as I walk through the city I am usually pretty destination focused. Which subway stop will bring me closest to my desired end point? How many avenue blocks must I walk? That kind of thing.  It's a fairly common affliction here in NYC, we are busy people with places to go and people to see.  However, last week when the gods above decided to give us a sampling of spring weather, Jürgen and I accidentally indulged ourselves in a walk with no real destination.  I say "accidentally" because our afternoon didn't start out with "wandering" on the agenda.  We happened to be in the city at Macy's so I could return something, and we suddenly found ourselves with two hours of free time before either of us needed to be at work.   So we started to wander, which I wil admit didn't come naturally to me from the onset.  "What are we doooing? Where are we goooing?" were typical statements from me as we started, but thankfully I took a self prescribed chill pill and began to enjoy the crisp fake-spring air, and vitamin-D enriched sunshine.

We walked past the empire state building, stared up at it and made ourselves dizzy. We gazed into store windows, we even stopped into the NY Public Library and took in a free exhibit on maps. Yes maps. Not thrilling, but informative, and free, can't argue with that. Plus I had not seen the inside of the library before and it really is quite beautiful.  After the library we found our way to Bryant Park, which I of course knew all about (ooohh fashion week...fancy!) but never knew quite where it was.

The trees clearly aren't ready to donn their spring green just yet, but they sure looked stunning with their branches intermingling to form a canopy above the park. We sat at a table below the trees and took in the  scene, and I realized: had we not allowed ourselves to simply walk, with no real agenda, we may not have thought to stop here.

A similar thought crossed my mind a few weeks ago when Jürgen's parents were in town, when we took the subway down to battery park and spent a few hours walking. We saw:

The Statue of Liberty in all her Glory.

We walked into St. Pauls Chapel, an Episcopal (represent!) Church which was crucial to the volunteer effort at Ground Zero.  Inside the church is decorated with all kinds of memorabilia from that time:

Letters from Children offering words of hope.

Healing paper cranes from Japan

A chausble pinned with hundres of badges in honor of those who were lost.

It was incredibly moving, and I had no idea it even existed.

We also walked to water street where we saw some majestic boats,

And finally we weaved our way through the financial district and happened upon a historic federal building which housed all kinds of information about Alexander Hamilton, and this stone:

I am not sure if you can read the inscription, but this is the very piece of stone upon which President George Washington took the oath of office.  

All of this was discovered because we simply put one foot in front of the other.  I know it seems obvious, but if you are looking for free entertainment, try taking yourself on a walk! Even if you don't live in a big city, you can always find unique neighboorhoods, or some pretty trails where you can literally stop and smell the roses. It's an activity you can do solo, if you want some personal time, or you can always find yourself some walking buddies. The possibilities are endless, and so many new expierences await you!

Any other ideas for great (and cheap!) Spring entertainment? I am all ears.