04.02.22

for the last few months i've been a big, docile albatross tending a kinder egg instead of an eventual chick: all of the apartment improvements we summoned last year are beginning to arrive at last and i've made more to prepare for their settling, and the nest, she is feathered. i've painted the once-grey bedroom walls blush pink, logged hundreds of manhattan miles collecting and framing new-to-us art, ferried books and clothes to crosby street for donation, found and arranged for drapes' tailoring,* woven a cradle for the tradescantia i propagated and hung in the bathroom we reglazed and are outfitting with a new vanity and sink–and we haven't even had anyone over since the before times! but the cats love draping themselves over the new, fancy sectional's tufted humps, and i fantasize about pitching a home tour to the lifestyle blog i've been not-so-quietly charming with little comment-anecdotes for a year. i want so badly to have strangers tell me my adjectives are winning! and here my poor kidchamp was all along, the cobbler's barefoot child.**

this rejuvenation is absolutely runoff from the umpteen design pieces i've been churning out, and i'm alright with that. a lot of the day-to-day work has been pitched-to-me tours of designers' projects, and interviews aside, the features are rather like the essays i used to write for visual art classes? my mother taught me the rudiments of that analysis when i was in elementary school, and the albatross parts of my brain are very pleased with themselves when they egest bits on perspective and lines of beauty. also, let's be honest, i have excellent taste now. but it is time to swoop at new-to-me outlets, so i spent several hours the other night crafting a pitch based on something i remembered about beethoven from when my best friend and i had to dress up as historical characters in seventh grade. (i was cyrano de bergerac, but that won't come up in the essay, probably.) i'm also working on a really short piece about chopping up mice, so what i'm saying is i guess i could use some gobbet-luck, if you're interested in manifesting on someone else's behalf. this march was my busiest freelance month to date! put that in your crop and regurgitate it.

*i walked uptown with a painted piece of cardboard to see if some velvet curtains i'd seen online would match the bedroom walls' updated color, and when i wandered through the clearance corner en route to fabrics i found four long panels of what i'd planned to eyeball at like 80% off (a return?)! i still haven't repaired the beautiful little sewing machine i don't know how to use, so i took the panels to the great guys at our local dry cleaner and everyone is happy.

**my mom was walking into a store last week and, in hauling the door open with the excessive force that characterizes women of our line, managed to very nearly rip off her big toenail. an urgent-care doctor made an incision to finish the job and stitched her up, and she now has the whole nail, which is a festive pedi-red she'd just painted herself. i can't wait to see what she makes with it! i also wish she would contact the store, as "this little piggy went to ulta" should really have earned her free makeup for life. this was her deep-fried mcdonald's lizard!

06.13.12

i do try to avoid photographing and talking about things here - though the fact that i'm an inveterate, indiscriminate hoarder is obvious and kind of unavoidable, you don't need to hear all about the dominos and plastic animals and moist towelettes and bits of icelandic licorice i carry around the city - but naurnie got me all worked up when she posted about her day-to-day jewelry. mine is very meaningful to me as well, you see, and it would be a great shame if, say, a crocodile ate one or both of my hands and you never saw it (i saw romancing the stone several dozen times in the eighties, so that was my primary concern when we bought my engagement ring, easily the fanciest thing i've ever owned: what if a crocodile makes off with my hand?). and so.

the silver cuff ring at top is from a tibetan shop on union street in san francisco; i bought it to replace a similar ring from a kiosk in the garage in harvard square. the script is a six-syllable mantra associated with the bodhisattva of compassion. it's particularly handy as a hook for the rest of my daily pieces, all of which are removed and set aside on a regular basis (some people sleep in their engagement and wedding rings; i remove mine when i eat chips).

the white gold band perpendicular to the cuff is my wedding ring, part of the late, amazing tobias wong's diamond project; it came in a little plastic bubble from a grocery-store toy machine. i also have one of tobi's diamond-embedded dimes, but i can only wear it once every week or so; i'm allergic to the nickel-copper blend (if we are ever in a superhero battle royale, you can defeat me with costume jewelry).

the platinum solitaire framed in the tobi wong ring is my engagement ring, by henrich & denzel (compliant with UN resolutions 1171, 1173, 1306, and 1343). the modern bezel setting suits me and my interest in playing with cats without putting their eyes out, and the jeweler is really understanding when joe and i come back in to have our rings polished up after feats of strength or especially nasty manual labor.

01.21.11: the dirty dozen {twelve things i plan to do in iceland}

i started envisioning my dream trip to iceland more than eight years ago. i booked that mother eight minutes ago, and we leave for reykjavik on march 23rd.

01 acquire a vegvísir tattoo*
02 gorge on icelandic design
03 see the northern lights
04 visit eyjafjallajökull and rough it up for cara and nye
05 hoard kulur and adorable detritus from bolludagur
06 lurk like a snow monkey in the blue lagoon (pre-tattoo)
07 bathe in a large vat of mud (ditto)
08 visit the national museum of iceland
09 have a bun at bæjarins beztu
10 admire puffins
11 try brennivin
12 organize elves

ever so much more on this in future posts.

*as gracie wisely notes, the ol' viking compass says "metaphysical bookstore patron" in a way i don't appreciate nearly as much as my earlytwentysomething iceland-envisioning counterpart did. working tattoo plan as of now: a wilson bentley snowflake.

04.11.10

our california trip was just about right, i think; we were able to spend a few days in los angeles with my little sister and her fiancé, we spent quality time at the beach and umpteen mexican restaurants, we snuck in a quick road trip, and we came back just when we were starting to miss the cats and our own bed. on said road trip:















we stayed at the interwebs' favorite hotel, the ace in palm springs. buzz was well-deserved: while we forgot to check out the bar and skipped the pool, we had a long, slow, marvelous end of the night on our private patio with room service from the diner, a fireplace, and a turntable (we'd picked up a few records at amoeba when we visited baby jo). earlier that evening, we wandered around the palm springs art museum* and the parker palm springs (where the jonathan adler decor fell just a bit short of justifying the steep drink prices, but the grounds were lovely - i wanted to take photos of our feet as we stargazed in a hammock, but swinging with gusto was too nice). we found five thousand bits of midcentury goodness that would've stopped being bargains if we'd tried to ship them back to new york (bah), had a respectable late breakfast (don't call it brunch), and were back in orange county in time for one last trip to the beach on friday afternoon. also i acquired a big rock. i call her dinah. full photo set here.

imaginary reading group discussion questions

01 did you know thursday was the first night of white party? we sure didn't. (joe: "i feel like meat!")

02 brunch: pro or anti?

03 have you ever been to palm springs? how was it?

04 hipster hotels: pro or anti?

*not so very: the sculpture garden was lousy with chihuly droppings. on the plus side: louise bourgeois upstairs.

01.25.10

our walls have been nude for a long time. we wanted to paint the wall behind the sectional, you see, and we couldn't possibly know what color to use until said sectional actually materialized, grey meaning different things to different people and all. it materialized on friday, thirteen weeks and a day after we gave up and ordered it. (it's no accident, incidentally, that the last piece we settled on was the biggest and squishiest by far; couch-shopping-weariness seeps into your bones and steals your will to live. i was on the verge of napping under a generic yuppie coffee table when we decided to buy this thing.)

the sectional is transit grey, i'd say, for it is the size of a bus.



joe sent me a photo on his blackberry. "it's the david byrne big suit of sectionals," he said. the big suit was an arty statement, though, and the sectional is an "i order furniture drunk" statement. it's not returnable, for grey was one of the sort-of-standard-but-not-standard-enough-to-take-fewer-than-thirteen-weeks color options. i suppose we could try to unload it on craigslist, but i don't have a lot of interest in selling at a serious loss, squiring skeevy craigslist types around in our apartment,* or shopping all over again.

so we slapped ten pictures on the wall in a granny cluster, the theory being that a big vertical gesture might counter a big horizontal one. we also added a scorpion pillow, for scorpions just make things better. it's possible that my design ego is just buffering itself at this point, but i...think i don't hate the sectional quite so much now?

imaginary reading group discussion questions

01 have you ever made a terrible furniture decision? how did you deal with the mistake?

02 how would you un-bus this sectional?

03 {esoteric kidchamp bonus question} one of the ten pictures we slapped up on friday is of tucson; another is chicago, another is oxford, and another is detroit. which is which? (large version here)

*i know we ourselves are skeevy craigslist types; this is my point.

04.23.09: PA redux



alright: philadelphia. as i tweeted (and said about four thousand times, i'm told), it's pinchably cute. we had the good fortune to be in town for dazzling weather - breezy sunshine straight through - and the flowering trees had just started to shed their early spring blossoms, so everything was covered with petals. revolving doors and air conditioned shops would kick up little white eddies. it was like wandering around in a snow globe.

our pre-trip research was far more fruitful than i'd expected it to be: tripadvisor led me to the independent hotel [nb 2016: now the independent philadelphia hotel], a little boutique place in rittenhouse square, and travelzoo hooked us up there; we paid $119 for a room with a pressed tin ceiling in the bath.* design*sponge's city guide did us several solids, too: in fact, most of our random decisions worked out so well that i started to expect a stroke of bad luck just to balance things out. i'm used to special occasion doom, you see.



doomless occasions are so nice, internets. as we sipped pints and peoplewatched by the windows at mcgillin's,** joe's blackberry beeped: an anniversary note from his parents saying how happy they are that i'm their daughter.

imaginary vacation awards

best bar: national mechanics (22 south 3rd st. @ market). i didn't even try to blend like a local when i got a good look at the interior of this place: it was designed so well that i needed at least a dozen pictures immediately. the apothecary jar terraria! the lamps made of pharmaceutical bottles and whippets! the bill cosby pint glasses!*** if you find yourself in philly, find this place immediately.

best use of artichoke: three-way tie, osteria (alla giudia), amada (on flatbread with wild mushrooms, black truffles, and manchego), and tria (in salad with grilled asparagus, white beans, tomato-onion relish and pine nuts). inspired by joe's dad and his all-haggis scottish adventure, i tried to have an all-artichoke weekend. an excellent decision, if i do say so myself.

best use of al gore: this room.

imaginary reading group discussion questions

01 if you were to eat one foodstuff at every meal for a whole trip, what would it be?

02 have you been to philly? how was it?

03 when joe and i finally buy an apartment, should our bathroom have a tin ceiling or a little chandelier?**** (both would be overkill even for me).

*which strikes me as kind of brilliant, as it'd be so much easier to clean than the painted ceilings i've always had (no weird condensation-mold!). note to self: install pressed tin in bathroom.

**cheers for that tip, anonymous commenter!

***i don't have a picture of those, but...ask me about them sometime.

****i was skeptical at first, too, but they're surprisingly pleasing.

04.14.09: the dirty dozen, part III {le vent du metro}

09 heartening spot of the day: via rachel, i discovered the bright side project, a site that spreads the word about designers and rewards clever commenters (rachel won a gold clutch by telling a marvelous story about bread dough and her family's old car). dailycandy explains it well:

These days, it’s pretty tough to find the sunny side of the street.

But stationery designer Tristan Shout Brando is a ray of light during dark times. She has come up with The Bright Side Project, which is dedicated to reminding people that there is still goodness in this crazy world.

Here’s how it works: Every day in March there will be a question posed by an accessory designer (coming months will have different themes). One lucky reader with a creative answer will win a creation from said designer. Easy as that. The queries are intended to get people thinking on the — you guessed it — bright side. (Think, “How do you define internal peace?”)

my bed bugs comment is unlikely to win me a toywatch (a shame, as i've been batting my eyes at them for several months now - we feel strongly about enormous watches at kidchamp HQ), but you never know, right?

10 speaking of the buggers, we're very nearly at yet another finish line: six weeks after we found our first little friends on the mattress, we get to unpack our apartment! on thursday, that is. at present it still looks like this (the giant ziplocs have to stick around for three weeks after the last exterminator visit in case anything decided to linger and hatch - blech). the drama of reimbursement is far from over, however: though our management company promised they would cover our expenses, they ultimately offered credit for half the receipts we forwarded (a thousand-dollar difference). we explained in the friendliest possible terms that we were already lowballing our out-of-pocket costs - in my original letter, i'd tried to demonstrate our good faith by including an extra five pages of receipts for which we weren't asking to be reimbursed - and were told that we'd receive full credit if we signed a new lease (our old one is up in september). internets, my needs are simple: i want to stop imagining that things are crawling on me when i sleep, and i want to repair this giant bug-shaped hole in our bank account without going to housing court. cross your fingers for us!

11 in happier news, we finally got something together for our anniversary this weekend. it's not our wedding date, mind you, but it's ten years since we started dating in oxford; a decade is pretty cool, no? the original plan was to jet back to england for a long weekend in our old stomping grounds, but we're smack in the middle of shipping the june issue here at work - and tickets to london, recession or no, are still pretty outrageous. philadelphia is only an hour away, though, and joe and i have both been itching to go there for awhile now: alors, we shall celebrate in philly! train tickets are a mere $45 or so each way, and i found a good deal on a boutique hotel near rittenhouse square; we've got reservations at osteria (saturday night) and amada (an early dinner on sunday), i'm looking into museums, and i've been studying design*sponge's philadelphia design guide. my trip folder sez epic in loopy rainbow script across its cover; here's hoping, you know? any hidden philly gems we should know about?

12 in bright side and giant plastic bag news, giant inflatable animals made of subway exhaust (or, as joe and i call the footy breeze that whooshes down the platform and curls our hair on the lower east side, le vent du metro)! this footage has been everywhere, but that doesn't keep me from watching it several times a week.

03.09.09: bed bugs, the stimulus package

we turned a corner on bug-related angst this weekend, i think. our (twice-encased and cheaply temp-blanketed) bed is back on the floor, we are back on the bed, and the cats are back to bullying me from my pillow. i celebrated by spending all of yesterday either asleep or reading watchmen (my copy had been quarantined with the rest of the books from our bedroom - sorry, evelyn waugh and tom pynchon - but i decided it could come out of its baggie for supervised visits, since there's no way i'm waiting six weeks to see the movie).

as i lounged, it occurred to me that we've finally gotten to the pleasant part of our pestilence-related spending. new bedding: we needs it (and our management company will probably spring for it). i am very fond of shopping for blankets, sheets, and so on - unsurprising, really, considering how very fond i am of sleeping - but have had no occasion to buy anything for quite some time. here in the wake of verminpalooza (starting from scratch, more or less), it's like my job. i know a few of you are bedding-lookers as well - what's caught your eye lately? what colors or patterns do you guys use in your bedrooms?

01.27.09: frak.

it's been a bit more than a week since we relocated our microwave and toaster oven to the appliance morgue beneath the trash chutes next to our building.* we've done pretty well without the toaster oven, i must say; it might get hectic the next time we need to, like, toast some pine nuts, but we're not big bagel people (read: i love bagels so much that it's safer for everyone to keep them out of the apartment), and i think we could broil something in the oven if we wanted it badly enough. i thought we weren't big microwavers, either, but i was oh so wrong: while we don't zap much frozen food, we do make big sunday night batches of dinnerish stuff (chili, soup, lentils) that need to be coaxed back to the world of the living during the week. i tried playing the tough guy and eating cold chili after work last week and it nearly killed me, man.

so we're in the market for a microwave. in the course of our search, we've learned that microwaves, like americans, are a lot bigger than they were a decade ago; most microwaves are butt ugly; the 29th result for "microwave oven" on amazon.com is an episode from the fourth season of bones; and it's really hard to shop for microwaves online.** you have to be able to slam the door, beep-boop the buttons, all that good stuff.

we know that we want something big enough to fit a dinner plate, probably stainless steel, hopefully not gigantic. futuristic, but in a retro way (a '78 cylon centurion, if you will - not a reimagined one***). have you seen that sort of microwave in your travels, internets? if you like the one you have at home, does it have a sister (that is, would you recommend your model)?

*i'd feel guilty about that, but both of them still worked, technically; if the microwave in particular could make it from an anonymous hallway to our friend tony's place however long ago, and then from tony to us in 2003, i think it will find a new host (in both senses of the word) without trouble. also, let's all ignore how i just told you our microwave came from a hallway.

**harder than shopping for skinny jeans online, and how is that possible?

***translation: NO POPCORN BUTTON.

07.21.08

the dirty dozen, part four: fin

10 new york, she is like a fancy european cheese: her footiness is detectable at low temperatures (fall and winter), but it's when she sits around and has a chance to warm up that you really get a feeling for the funk she can perpetrate. i'm talking about the celebrated smells of summer, mostly, but we're learning that the funk can be palpable, too: poor joe has been waking up with various combinations of sinus headaches and phlegmy coughs since june, and i've been feeling a little foggy in the AM myself. it sucks, but i figured we were doomed to pay the price of superpolluted city living (we're not about to close the bedroom window overnight: it would get way too stuffy in there*). cue the 'duh' moment, when i read a coworker's blog post about the life-altering air purifier she bought to tackle her fiancé's asthma. it worked for him, predictably, but she started waking up feeling like a million bucks. a fancy airway makeover for the non-asthmatic, you say? from a space-saving beetlejuice-esque pod that activates our dorky design receptors? i asked the coworker if her paean to her purifier was sincere and aye, she said, it's been worth every penny - so a little white 'henry' is now on its way to us. here's hoping the splurge is worth it.

11 according to walk score, san francisco is the most walkable large city in the US. to quote the excellent tara ariano,

I don't want to start, like, an East Coast/West Coast rumble, but IN NO WAY is San Francisco a more walkable city than New York. With all those goddamn hills, it's barely a more driveable city than New York! The last time we were there, I swear we drove up a hill that you couldn't walk unless you had a harness and a spotter. Bullshit.

hee. apparently the "walkability" index considers factors like population density and ignores things like elevation (which, as i discovered in san francisco in the months i made regular trips to the nearest supermarket on foot, via lombard street, is rather key). the city by the bay is cuter (and smells a lot better) than new york, but more walkable? i'm unconvinced.

12 so, the nancy pelosi Q&A in harper’s bazaar: like her look in the opener, both powersuitastic (the armani top) and a little Gypsy Queen of Congress (the trailing bill blass skirt). i think she handled the inevitable beauty regimen and shopping questions well, and struck a few nice strong notes (on sexism and how she'd like to be remembered). i’m kind of fixated on this exchange:

HB: In your book [Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters], you write about not cooking.

NP: My daughter Alexandra once told me, “Mother, you’re a pioneer. Now hardly anybody cooks, but you were one of the first to stop.” After 20 years of cooking, I started to appreciate the value of other people’s work. So I would, say, go get a duck in Chinatown. I always had the salad and set the table, but I didn’t have to clean the pots.

a substantive quote about cooking – about not cooking! – from one of the most powerful women in america, and it’s completely inoffensive! really: the little hyperdomestic part of my brain that worries about such things actively tried to be offended by it, and no go. hats off to the pelosi press team: there’s hope for lady dems yet.

imaginary reading group discussion questions

01 do you use a purifier (or a humidifier, or an atmosphere-altering-fill-in-the-blank)?

02 what are the must-haves in a walkability algorithm? should, say, weather be a factor? how about neighborhood safety? hell, how about odor?

03 how much cooking goes on at your place?

*vaguely related: "why i hate summer," a chord-striking essay by rachel shukert. i love her lines about the heat, which "brings a unique blend of fury and lethargy -- I feel like I could murder someone, and be totally indifferent if they killed me back."

04.23.08

the dirty dozen, continued: california roll

04 as i twittered when we first got down to san francisco last tuesday, joe found us the cutest little flophouse in the bay area: hotel tomo, a best western ($110/night!) in japantown that's been given a japanese pop / video game makeover (wii gaming suites and afternoon sake socials! a giant robot SF hoodie vending machine in the lobby!). i don't think we were tomo's target market (japanese tourists, i think: a card in the lobby suggested we check out "undiscovered gems" like...lombard street), but i can't be sure: there was some sort of urban outfitters corporate convention winding up as we checked in. either way, i adored the heisuke kitazawa murals on our walls, the lobby screens that appeared to play spirited away on a constant loop, and dear god, the "do not disturb" signs.



even our stealth portrait was cute.

05 ever seen the episode of seinfeld in which kramer's trying to figure out how to cost-effectively transport recyclable bottles to a state where the redemption value is higher? used clothing from san francisco agitates me that way. there's an impeccably curated vintage tee place in los angeles that charges $35 and more* for the kind of shirts joe and i routinely find for next to nothing at thrift stores in the bay area. those finds are predictable in out-of-the-way places like woodland (a sacramento suburb), where hipster shoppers are few and far between, but they're mystifying on valencia street (the safer and more yuppily populated end of the mission), where it took me fifteen minutes to decide whether or not i really needed an orange windbreaker covered with patches from oklahoma ladies' indoor archery tournaments (the answer is obviously and always yes). then i realized it was only going to cost $3 - we were in a vintage-by-the-pound store - and i had to stifle a maniacal laugh. i should have bought an extra suitcase and filled it right there.

06 at pica's suggestion, we MUNI'ed with her and paul up to the de young museum in golden gate park (still under construction when we lived in town - the museum, not, er, the park). i can see why bajillionaires get married there: art and artifacts aside, it's easily the swankiest mega-gallery i've ever seen (ultra high quality hardwood floors, extremely complicated lighting design, a tower that overlooks the whole city). northern california has a very specific way of doing back-to-basics luxury that new york institutions like the new moma have a hard time out-sassing. it's sort of like how women on the west coast aren't as well dressed as manhattan women are, but they're more basically physically attractive. does that make sense? i think it has something to do with avocado. but the de young also has site-specific commissions from art darlings like andy goldsworthy and gerhard richter, so it's like a nymphet who just found out about comme des garçons. fair? not at all. but i'll ogle it anyway.

*i screamed in rage when i first saw those prices, but we each ended up buying something there.

09.18.06

jen's take on chicago's edition of the renegade craft fair got me thinking about craft and spending. jen sez (in part):

fortunately for my pocketbook, i'm just crafty enough myself that when i go to craft fairs like this i'm prevented from buying things because i keep thinking, "i could make that!" of course, i probably won't ever have the time, but it helps keep the cash in my wallet. so do the prices, actually. i don't begrudge any of the artists their right to make a profit (or at the very least support their crafty habit), but $35 for a t-shirt is sadly out of my price range. for the sake of all DIY designers out there today hopefully not all the shoppers were as poor (and potentially crafty) as i am.

i have analogous reactions to a lot of craft (as many people do - "i can do that!" is the bane of a vendor's existence).* the catch-22 in do-it-yourselfing for profit is its ostensible emphasis on technique rather than innovation; until one's skill level gets wa-ay up there, it's difficult to generate a really singular project with technique alone. that's why, i think, you have to give crafters credit for sheer labor (as jen also notes), and why it's important to award points for design - for, i guess, craft that crosses into that murky 'art' area. learning to generate needlepoint like mine, for example, would take about forty five minutes of practice (an hour if you're clumsy), and my image manipulation techniques are pathetic (ye olde xerox machine's enlarge and darken features - and i use them badly), but i like to think that i deserve a tip of the hat for design as well as for elbow grease (as i recall, the debbie harry portrait took me about six months to finish).**

shelling out to a crafter was one of the really enjoyable aspects of wedding planning; getting married was the perfect excuse to throw around funds i wouldn't normally have at my disposal. i knew that i wanted handmade soy candles for favors at the reception; technically i could have learned to pour them myself and researched a wholesale supplier for materials, but a) unless you're a cyborg bride, taking on more than one or two labor-intensive projects in addition to the rest of your wedding planning is just asking for a nervous breakdown, b) the candlemaker i found on etsy had much more experience and better supplies than i would have had, and c) it just felt good to be that candlemaker's first big order. she asked me afterward if she could use pictures of our order as examples of her work for future clients, and she started actively soliciting bigger projects online; i loved having had a little to do with that.

i have no huge point here, but i do believe that crafters should (when possible) compensate each other for inspiration. when i can afford to say "good on you for making a knitted ms. pac man cuff! here's $20!", i do - and when i can't, i let them know i'm impressed. that won't buy supplies, but it's still worth something.

*on a related note, i find open source art like cory arcangel's super mario clouds really interesting. i can't imagine feeling secure enough in my own originality that i'd want to encourage people to replicate my projects.

**i'm not calling my stuff art, mind you - i simply know more about my own skills (or lack thereof) than i do about others'.

09.11.06

i wasn't prepared for the storm surge of domesticity that attends coming back from one's honeymoon. it started slowly enough - we cleaned like fiends last sunday, did a little grocery shopping, bought some new pillows* - but by ten in the morning on labor day i was making chili for an army, and over this weekend we lofted the bed, painted the bedroom,** cleaned again, and, um, arranged flowers. is this how the yuppie landslide begins? the roses, it must be said, are very satisfying.

i remember my first 9/11 in new york simply because it was my first. the bagpipers in the subway were a bit odd, but the day was otherwise unremarkable. i watched the reading of victims' names at ground zero for the first time in years this morning, on the other hand, and teared up; even as a local, it's easy to forget that the attacks were more than a national disaster for some people, that this is the anniversary of family members' and friends' deaths. i feel a bit ashamed of myself for wishing the survivors' groups would quit bickering over details of the memorials. it can't be fun to be reminded of, say, your husband being killed every time you see a teaser for one of the commemorative tv specials.

*this was actually the first time we've purchased pillows for ourselves; the others just materialized, probably from our parents. if you think about just how long we've been living together, this is pretty gross.

**yes, the incredible hulk green is no more. i was really fond of it - and it did make the room look larger than café-au-lait beige does - but the new walls are definitely more restful, and much easier to decorate.

05.23.06

it's been a giveth and taketh away couple of days in these parts. the boys and i followed the trail of free shit down to design week kickoff events in the meatpacking on saturday, where pretty ladies gave me complimentary sangria and we flinched at the surprisingly hardcore victorian porn films at wonderland beauty parlor's wallpaper exhibit. joe found an amusing ratty old canvas at the local housing works thrift shop; i'll post a picture tomorrow for a rousing game of "outsider art: which way is up?". we also met the indescribably comfortable argo chair at karkula, which is where my money would go if i wanted to drop $4250 on something for my butt.

on saturday night i became the very last wannabe hipster to discover the backroom, a latter-day speakeasy (funded by tim robbins, of all people) hidden behind a mysterious gate on the lower east side. i didn't get the chunky-necklace-and-victorian-shirt memo, so i hid in a corner with my teacup of diet coke and tried to hide my bad pedicure and target flip-flops. is it normal to feel like a square old fart at twenty-seven?

yesterday was a lovely crunch day, as i wrote three wee pieces for the next issue of the magazine and was asked to take over a regular page. i was feeling like a very together young lady right up until i poured a pint of chili into my purse. well played, new york monday. well played.