Tessie doesn't even have to wear high heels, ever.

I am tired. The kind of tired that makes me really, really wish that there existed, somewhere, a pillow big enough for me to curl up on. And don't say, "What about your bed?" because that's clearly not the same. If I had a featherbed, I might say, "Oh, you're right, I have this featherbed," but I don't have a featherbed, so it's definitely not like a pillow. I also wish I had a tail so I could cover my nose with it when I sleep for optimum-comfiness, but that, also, is not really possible.

Anyway. Part of my exhaustion stems from my busy schedule, yes, but this weekend was also a doozy. One of my friends from my hometown is getting married in, oh, 11 days or so, and her bachelorette was this weekend. We went to dinner with her family and then went down to lovely New Haven, Connecticut, where we had a hotel room, and went out to a few bars to celebrate her last night out as a single gal impending marriage to a wonderful guy. Abbreviated siderant: I'm actually not a fan at all of the last-night-of-your-life nonsense surrounding America's pre-marriage rituals. That's not the point, guys.

Included in our girls' night out were plastic jewelry, little black dresses, and way too many uncomfortable heels.  We had a long night, and luckily the only one of the group who was really hard hit the next morning was the bride-to-be -- as it should be.  I, myself, felt great, and hopped in the car to drive to Rhode Island for an afternoon with friends.  So, it was a long weekend, but a great one, and in light of that fact I'll try not to complain too much about how gosh-darn tired I am.

Back

I am back in school. Classes started about 2 weeks ago, bringing to a close a very, very hectic summer full of weddings (and their auxiliary events), babies, and the first job I've ever worked that I loved enough to not dick around while on the clock. Hence my general absence from the internets.

But now I'm back in class, with lots of weird little snippets of downtime and a million overlapping activities. And, of course, plenty of time in which I should be doing things I don't feel like doing (not that this is what's going on now. nuh uh, no way, no how). This is my last semester ever (!!!), and it is terrifying and exhilarating and did I mention TERRIFYING? There are basically no jobs out there. But I am trying to distract myself from that frightening reality by making my last semester count. There are the two classes I'm taking:

1. Interpretation & Architecture: This doesn't sound that cool, but the big project for it is developing programming (interpretation) for this property about an hour upstate! Yay hands-on stuff!
2. Social Science Approaches to Analyzing Biographical & Life History Information: Okay, that is the longest title ever, but it's a class in the oral history program here, and it seems really great based on the syllabus. Right now, I am taking a break from a reading about how people become Nazis, and generational identities, and biographical versus systemic historiography and IT'S NERDY BUT COOL, OKAY.

I'm also interning at 2 different museums and working at another, and I am writing my thesis, as well. If I ever get the topic finalized and my proposal approved, sigh. It definitely seems like a good set of classes/activities to round out my educational career -- representative of many of my interests and ideas. So yes, this semester looks to be very, very busy, but I'm hoping it will go by quickly and that one of the museums where I work will find me indispensable and decide to start paying me for my awesomeness.

Here's hoping.

Neighbors and Birthdays and Dogs, Oh My!

Tonight, in celebration of a friend-who-just-moved-into-our-neighborhood's birthday, we went to Manhattan.  That's right, folks, we outer borough folk do head into Manhattan for some entertainment and merrymaking!  Yes, we will continue to try to lure you into our realms ("I'll take you to the Beer Garden" being one of the key baits), but we also head over to the island once in a while.

Anyway, this friend and his roommate, also a friend, recently moved into our neighborhood -- a few short blocks away from our crappy little prewar apartment, in fact! -- which is very exciting because, well, as an outer borough person, most of my friends live in other, fancier outer boroughs, or in Manhattan, or even in New Jersey.  So it can get lonely out here in Queens on occasion.  But now there are people around the corner with whom we can grab lunch in a Greek restaurant, or make friends with the panhandlers on the N or Q into Manhattan, or sit at the Beer Garden and talk about how awesome Queens is, and how smart we are for living here.  I'm stoked.

But yes. Birthday.  So we went into Manhattan, and we took advantage of the absolutely beautiful day by getting a round of drinks at Pier 66 Maritime, which houses an historic barge (now a bar and grill!) and several historic ships, including a fireboat and the Lightship Frying Pan, which was underwater for 3 years before being pulled up and restored.  The weather was absolutely glorious, and it was awesome to be on the Hudson, enjoying a beer, even if the swaying of the barge on the river gave me a touch of the queasies.

Afterwards, we headed down to the High Line, a relatively new park in Manhattan, reclaimed from an old elevated freight train line that was abandoned for about 50 years.  Nature took over, and then landscape architects came in, refined the plants that were already there, built benches, and made it a really beautiful park for strolling above the city streets.  We walked the current length of it, from 20th Street down to about 14th, and I can't wait to see what the next section to open looks like.  It's a really lovely space where urban and natural mix wonderfully, and the breeze and views from that elevation are fantastic.

As the sun was setting and we hadn't eaten yet, we wandered around for a while before ending up at Benny's Burritos, which, sneakily enough, is part of the Blockheads mini-chain of Mexicali food establishments.  After a much shorter than anticipated wait (think 8 minutes instead of 40), we slid into a table in the very noisy dining room and proceeded to gorge ourselves on chips, salsa, guacamole, burritos, and 3 dollar margaritas.  Delicious, cheap, and a hit with everyone involved.

We split up after that, with the birthday guy having a bit more party in him than the rest of us, and E, our other friend and I ended up on a train back out to Astoria.  A man got on with a service dog that must have been in training.  He kept standing up rather than laying beneath the man patiently, and at one point the motion of the train must have got to him, because he vomited in the corner.  I don't think I've ever seen a dog so happy to get off a subway as this dog, who practically opened the door with his nose once they got to their stop.  He was clearly trying very hard, though.  I have a huge place in my heart for service dogs.  They're smart!  They're well-behaved!  They're helpful!  You can't pet them!  Seriously, all I want to do when I see a service dog is give it a giant hug and belly rub.  This urge is probably largely because I know you aren't supposed to distract them from their work with lovin', but it doesn't stop me from wanting to more than anything else in the world at that given moment.

Tonight was no different, because the dog was young, and trainsick, and SO SO CUTE.  If I had any ability to give away cute things, I would totally train puppies to be service dogs, but I wouldn't be able to give them up.  Also, puppies are hard.  They require walks and they puke and pee on the floor and lick you and are kind of smelly.  When my cat pukes, I tend to pretend I don't know what happened until E steps in it on his way to bed and has to clean it up himself*, so I can't handle dog puke, which is obviously much more gross.  Gosh, what will happen when I have children?  I don't want to think about it.

*This may or may not have just happened.  He's a pretty good guy!

A lot of fruit has come into this house.

This summer has been positively flying by. E and I have each been very busy with our summer jobs, and we've also spent many weekends trekking to Connecticut for various events and goings-on.

We've also been perfecting our jam-making skills, as mentioned previously.  My best friend is getting married next weekend (!!!) and I offered to make jam for her favors.  Once they're done and wrapped up looking pretty, I'll take a picture of the jars, which are little and adorable.  In this photo, Tessie is supervising E's strawberry-slicing. 

The bride came down last weekend, and even though our original plans to work together on the jam fell through due to some logistics issues, we finally got to bring her to the Beer Garden, and she agreed that it was magical. Luckily the weather was basically perfect, unlike today, when it is hot and humid and our air conditioner conveniently decided to DIE overnight. I am so upset, and don't anticipate sleeping much over the next few days as the mercury creeps higher...

In other news most people don't care about, I found the most amazing nail polish at CVS the other day!  This photo below, of my nails with Rimmel London Lasting Finish Pro nail polish  on them, was taken a full EIGHT DAYS after I applied it. Minimal damage, despite my marathon jam-making and doing dishes and type-type-typing at work and home!  And for only 3.99?  I'll take it.

Broke AND BORED sometimes maybe.

So, sometimes that whole, "Hey, let's take advantage of all the awesome free stuff to do in NYC," thing doesn't work out. Like, epic catastrophe doesn't work out.  I know, because it's happened to me.  Last Friday, after a crappy weather forecast forced me to cancel outdoorsy plans with a friend, the skies miraculously cleared at the last moment and E convinced me it was a good idea to go to the free New York Philharmonic concert in Prospect Park.  I begrudgingly agreed, even though:

1. We decided to split a PB&J that had been bouncing around in E's work bag all day to avoid having to buy dinner
   
2. IT WAS GODAWFUL HOT AND MUGGY AND OMG.
3. Our work schedules didn't line up and my office building has a strict GET-THE-FUCK-OUT policy on Friday afternoons, so I had to go sit on a bench on a traffic island outside of E's office for 40 minutes. It was hot.
4. Neither of us had ever set foot in Prospect Park!  I know, this is crazy, but honestly, we're rarely in Brooklyn.
5. Because of our work schedules, we were destined to make it to the park around 7:15, a mere 45 minutes before this free concert in the city's most populous borough was set to start.

In the end, he convinced me to go by talking up the fireworks display set for the end of the evening.  However, beginning when I sat outside of his office building for 40 minutes, sweat literally dripping down my legs, hungry and tired, I was cranky.  And it didn't stop when he got out of work, or when we were on an air conditioned subway train, or when I finally had a bottle of cool, delicious water in hand.  While we wandered aimlessly through the massive massiveness of Prospect Park in search of the Long Meadow, I whined.  I whined about the heat, I whined about the fact that we saw about 500 fireworks displays earlier this month, I whined about being tired, and hungry, and about my feet hurting. I refused to take off my cardigan on principle, so I could have something else to whine about, because I was being passive aggressive.  I whined about the crowds and the heat (IT WAS HOT, GOSH) and the impending long ass commute back to Queens.  I was a real terror, and it was not my proudest moment.

But then we found the Long Meadow (after E sent like 6 people off in the wrong direction as if he had a CLUE where we were), and we got seats, and we ate the PB&J and hung out.  And it was still hot, and we didn't have a blanket so the grass was scratchy, and I wasn't able to flag down one of those guys who sells glow-toys at fireworks displays, but it was kind of nice.  The Philharmonic started out with a couple of fun pieces, including some West Side Story stuff, and we started to relax and have fun.  There were cute kids everywhere, and they all seemed to be enjoying themselves, so why not?  Then it was intermission, and more kids bought more glow toys (but I still didn't), and the sun went down so the temperature dropped, like, 3 degrees.

But then. THEN. The Philharmonic came back and played an utterly interminable, very, very slow-and-quiet piece. It was SO. LONG. And we could BARELY. HEAR. IT.  I get it.  The people in front are the people who are donors and ~serious music-y people~ and whatnot. BUT YOU'RE IN A PARK. There are a few thousand people sitting on the grass to hear you play. Melting in the heat. Listening to other people's conversations. Tolerating other people's children and their glow toys. They are obviously dedicated.  PLAY SOMETHING THEY CAN HEAR.  Every time the music stopped (which we mostly marked by the polite applause of people closer to the stage, but not close enough to know you're not supposed to clap between movements or w/e), we watched hopefully for the conductor to turn around. He never did. It was excruciating. At some point it devolved into a giant glow-toy swordfight.

And then it finally ended, and the fireworks started, and... they were kind of crappy. And over in like 3 minutes.  So that was that. And E had to use the restroom for about an hour, and I was getting there myself, so as soon as the "grand finale" (I use the term loosely) had ended, we hightailed it out of there (the perks of not having blankets or luggage or children) to beat the crowds to a restroom. We walked past the port-a-potties in the park and to the nearest food-selling facility, a bakery about a block away.  We bought a god-awful red velvet cupcake so E could use the bathroom, only to find out that the bathroom was out of service. After wandering a bit, we realized that there was nothing else around, and found ourselves heading back to the park. For the port-a-potties.

I hate port-a-potties. HATE. There are few things as revolting to me as a portable pisser. So, on a night when it was still in the 80s hours after the sun went down, when thousands of people had probably relieved their full-to-bursting bladders there, I knew these things were going to be rank. AND OH MY GOD THEY WERE. To think about it now causes one to nearly vomit in one's mouth. Utterly miserable.

Having survived that experience, we dashed to the subway and began the long journey back to Queens. You would never think that Queens and Brooklyn abutt each other on the lovely Long Island based on the ease of public transit between them. It's sort of astounding. But so it goes. We made it home, immediately showered to try to rinse the port-a-potty grime off of us, and I mentally swore never to get suckered into something like that again.

...Until I was. But that's for another time.

I just want to ensure a magical start for my kids.

After reading this interesting tidbit today, I have a new life-goal:

Main Street USA was the scene of the first appearance by one of the Disneyland's most magical guests. During a busy Fourth of July in 1979, Teresa Salcedo became the first baby born at the park, weighing in at 6 pounds, 10 1/2 ounces. Mickey Mouse later presented the baby with "Disneyland Birth Certificate No. 1" in recognition of the event.

A couple sources say she gave birth on a bench near the Plaza restaurant, which also makes me giggle.

So, you're not supposed to fly when you're really pregnant, right?  I guess it'll just have to be an epic car ride down to Florida -- with many pit stops to accommodate a pregnant lady's body/bladder -- in order to secure a Disney World birth certificate for the future MiniGenFab.

Come on, it would be hilarious.

Can't wait for that little rain icon! Our apartment is a boiler right now.

In other news: Oh, hey! I have a blog!

Triumphant return soon.