Thursday, March 24, 2011

Day 16 - 2011

One of my new year's resolutions in addition to getting my teef out, buying adult furniture, etc. is to travel more. I haven't done much to fulfill that yet, so I decided to be impulsive (or at least my version of impulsive, which is to obsess about something over a couple of days and price it out 12 times before booking) and go to Boston this weekend. I've never been and it seemed so silly that I've lived in NYC for almost 7 years, yet have never made the jaunt over to Beantown. I bought round-trip tickets on Megabus (fingers crossed it doesn't tip over, seriously) for less than $50 and my hotel in the financial district booked through expedia is only $248 including taxes for 2 nights. I'm not sure what I'm going to do there yet, but it is exciting to think about going somewhere I've never been. I've also booked Denver in May and am firming up plans for New Orleans in June. Thinking maybe Philly in April...that's another place I've never made the easy trip to.

As much as NY rocks, it's so freakin' great to get away every once in awhile. Not only great, but really it's absolutely necessary in order to keep myself from going crazy. There's something so comforting about leaving the skyline behind and taking things down a notch. Even relaxing in NYC is something I end up scheduling within an inch of it's life, so in the end it doesn't feel incredibly restorative. Somehow too, it feels less like being lazy when I sleep late in a bed that isn't in my apartment.

Coming back is nice too though. Believe me, as fun and chill as it was to spend this past Christmastime back home in Florida, I still had a meltdown when I thought I was going to be stuck there for 4 days more than anticipated because of the epic blizzard. I do value taking it easy and living life at a more even keel, but there's a heroin-esque quality to this f**ked up little island nation. Yes-- NYC can be suffocating, and it's easier to breathe in other places, but I also find myself craving the fight to fill up my lungs because that makes me feel more alive. It took me awhile to get here...and even longer to not want to leave.

So tomorrow I'm off on a great Megabus adventure! But I'll return soon to where my bunny and my heart lie...

Monday, March 21, 2011

Day 13 - 2011

DISCLAIMER: this post is all about beer and food, no deep thoughts or underlying themes (except that I still have it in me to be an unapologetic fatkid).

My new obsession is untappd, the foursquare for drunks. I'm not sure how long this love affair is going to last though...looking at my "tab" for the past 2 days (13 unique beers consumed) makes me feel like a total booze-hound, and gives profound insight to the question of why my pants don't fit. Although it's fun to see my trail'o'suds, it's way more comforting to have selective memory so I can act surprised that all my money is gone and elastic waistbands feel good.

Let's follow the trail and recap this weekend...
(DISCLAIMER #2: I had beer-obsessed friends visiting this weekend and that's why these activities were so...let's call it "focused.")

First on my untappd tab is Restoration Pale Ale/Abita (#1). I imbibed this, as well as Southern Tier IPA/Southern Tier (#2), Wachusett Blueberry Ale/Wachusett (#3) and Dead Horse IPA/McNeils (#4) at Hop Devil Grill (all before 2PM mind you). Hop Devil has great brunch deal from 11-4PM on Saturdays & Sundays: for $20 you get an entrée and all you can drink domestic craft beer for up to 90 minutes. Luckily, the food is also great-- I had a pulled chicken sandwich that was freakin' awesome. My favorite of the suds was the Restoration Pale Ale, it's citrusy and a little sweet. I generally enjoyed all of the brews, except I will say that while interesting the the Wachusett Blueberry was a little too intense for me.

Next on the tab was a Simcoe Spring Ale/Peak Organic (#5) at Idle Hands, which was good and hoppy. This place is fun and chill, with tons of craft beer (as well as bourbons) to choose from. It's definitely a dangerous place for day drinking because it's below ground and dark, so you can lose track of time easily...especially since you can add a shot of Maker's to any beer for $5.

After that we tried to swing by NYC's oldest saloon, McSorley's, but it was jam-packed. We opted instead to hop boroughs and go on a tour of the Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg. I'm not a huge fan of lines (because they make me want to throw a tantrum and scream "don't you know who I am?!" at people), but my friends really wanted to go so I acquiesced. We spent about 30 minutes waiting outside of the brewery to get in for the last tour at 5PM. After the tour wave was admitted, it got easier to gain entry, so if you don't care about being educated and just want to taste definitely go later to avoid the line. the brewery is undergoing renovations right now, so the mediocre tour is an abbreviated jaunt through their works. The guide shared some cool historical information, and it lasted about 30 minutes including Q&A and an opportunity to take photos.

One thing I did find helpful is a realization about my temperament I had during his talk. I've been noticing within the last few years that I tend to get severely congested after drinking certain beers, usually Belgians. Those (as well as some other types like cask ales) are unfiltered, which means they are served with yeast remaining in the cask, keg, or bottle. While he was talking about this process it dawned on me: I'm pretty sure the culprit of my bouts of congestion can be chalked up to elevated amounts of yeast present in certain beers. Although I must not be allergic to it in small amounts, a bender of hefeweizens can basically shut down my ability to breath. Knowledge being power, I'm going to avoid that from now on by skipping the unfiltereds. That makes me sad, but I'll choose breathing over Belgians any day.

So, after the tour you're turned loose into the warehouse-y consumption area. The beer is doled out via a chip system, one beer per chip and $20 will get you 6 chips. The line for that is long too but moves quickly. I added the Brooklyn Pennant '55 Ale (#6) and the Brooklyn Winter Ale (#7) (both filtered and delicious) to my virtual tab.

After we'd spent our chips, we strolled over to the thrift store across the street. There were some groovy things there, it felt a bit like an Urban Outfitters on steroids though. I found a kick**s bracelet made out of a fork but didn't love it enough to shell out the $25 they were asking.

To finish up our Brooklyn shenanigans, I brought my friends over to d.b.a. Although not quite as happenin' as the one in New Orleans, this bar has a great selection and one of my favorite deals: pretzel & a pint for $8. They'll warm up a freshly baked pretzel for you, then serve it with spicy yellow mustard and your tap selection. YUM! I had a Pietra Winter Ale/Brasserie Pietra (#8) here to complement my twisty snack. They went together like peas and carrots.

Rounding out Saturday (yep, all of this was one day) we met more friends for family-style dinner at Tony's DiNapoli. One of my visiting peeps was running the NYC 1/2 marathon the next day and needed to to carb up, so we figured this was a perfect place to do it. It's also a great restaurant to tab-up with a Peroni Nastro Azzuro/Birra Pieroni (#9). The salad, spaghetti and meatballs, veal parm, and rigatoni in vodka w/ mushrooms were just what I needed too after a long day of soaking my insides in beer. After a few photos of the super moon on the way home,



I was sufficiently worn out from all the excitement and slept like a beer...I mean baby.

Sunday was more low key, I made chili at home and drank Coors Light (#10). For dinner I met friends out at the Brother Jimmy's Bait Shack location for the all you can eat/drink ribs/beer special. The Northern, wet style ribs are my favorite. On Sundays, for $23, you get all the ribs you can house (alternating between styles is permitted), 2 sides, cornbread, and all the Bud/Anheuser-Busch (#12) or Bud Light you can guzzle. I showed up early so I pre-gamed with a #9/Magic Hat Brewing Company (#11) at the bar before my peeps arrived.

After all this, I was going to be able to incite a heart attack simply by looking at any more food or beer...so I just had one more. My nightcap was a Pacific Clara/La Cerveza del Pacifico (#13). After that last tab addition, I went home and fell into a food/hops coma on my couch (have I mentioned that I have a couch now ?!!).

Thanks to untappd, I was able to remember my weekend long happy hour around the city. Pretty impressive (that I'm still alive). And if we count balmy Friday-- I had a pint & split a pitcher at the Studio Square beer garden, then followed it up w/ sliders and 2 more pints at Sunswick. OY! Now you see why this app may have had the opposite of its intended use though. Rather than want to drink more, reflecting on this is enough to inspire me to get on the wagon for a few days...or at least until I get thirsty again.

Cheers! Nom nom nom!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Day 12 - 2011

I MADE CHILI TODAY!

This is only exceptional because I don't cook. Ever. Literally.

BUT, I got inspired and concocted a recipe today. Here's what it takes and how you should go about making Mel's Shut the Front Door! Chili:

1 lb. of ground beef
1 can peeled/diced tomatoes (14.5 oz/basil, garlic & oregano seasoned)
1 can habichuelas coloradas pequeñas (15.5 oz/AKA small red beans)
1/2 red onion
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
1 cubanelle pepper (bought by accident because I thought it was a hot pepper)
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 cup of water
1 packet chili seasoning

Step 1: Go to the store and buy random things that look like they might end up in chili. Read the backs of the cans you're buying for guidance, but mostly make it up as you go along.

Step 2: Dust off your apron. Pose in front of a mirror in your apron for awhile with a spatula prop, pretending to be a naughty chef.

Step 3: Brown the ground beef in skillet, then drain and transfer to a medium pot. Crack a beer.

Step 4: Call your mom and tell her that you're making chili so that she's proud of you for being productive/domestic.

Step 5: Eat leftover pizza while you're dicing the onion and peppers because you realize that the chili isn't going to be ready for a good long while. Crack another beer.

Step 6: Add tomatoes, diced onion, diced peppers, garlic, water and chili seasoning to ground beef.

Step 7: Take mobile upload of the pot'o'goodness, send to all your friends and proclaim "I'M MAKING CHILI!"

Step 8: Cover, simmer on stove. Forever. (approx 3 hours) Crack a few beers.

Step 9: Go do your laundry, come home between cycles to stir the chili before it starts to burn.

Step 10: Open a window. Chili smells delicious, but you don't want to live in a cloud of it.

Step 11: When chili has thickened to your liking, take off heat and allow to cool.

Step 12: Consume ravenously. Freeze what's left over or give to friends/neighbors.

Step 13: Take a nap cuz you're full and drunk.

BOOM. CHILI!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Day 8 - 2011

Although I haven't been status checking or updating mobilely (I may have just made that word up), I've been using my iPhone to connect just as much as ever.

My new favorite is podcasts via the NPR app. One of the things I really do miss about a car (as opposed to the gas and insurance costs) is listening to the radio. NPR lets my ears ingest 'casts about music, science, culture, strangeness, and recipes (I don't really cook so much, but foodporn is a staple of my diet) while I walk/ride to/from my various destinations. HIGHly recommended.

I also freakin' love Angry Birds. I've recently collected awards for slinging over 5K birds, popping over 1K pigs, and playing for over 15 hours. That's insane...I find that Angry Birds brings people together too: on more than 1 occasion (at least 5) I've struck up friendly conversation or banter with a fellow commuter based on AB. One random guy and I spent 3 subway stops hunched/talking strategy over his game trying to defeat those little green pigs because he noticed what world I was currently battling and asked for my help on a level he was working on that I had already beat. I never saw him again, but combining forces to work out your collective post-work anger and energy in the form of a collaborative attack on cartoon piggies is a way cooler way to spend a ride home than the typical avoidance of eye contact and nervous adjusting of your personal space via shifting of your appendages.

The other thing I like to do in the absence of FBing is to read. My literary intellectual staples are TIME magazine (physical, not an app, folded/torn in my bag), NPR news (app, when I'm not listening to it), NY Times (app), and before bed I'll consume for at least 10 minutes whatever book (actual, physical) is on my bedside table. I've been working my way through Love in the Time of Cholera and And the Band Played On for a few months now. Romance and reality are juxtaposed so that my dreams are on an even keel...can't have too much of either if I'm expected to have a healthily varied distribution of nighttime reveries.

I also like to play word games before I fall asleep. Most recently I'll take my turn in Words with Friends (app, a ripoff of Scrabble) as my last act before succumbing to unconsciousness.

I guess really all this points to is the fact that I naturally strive to connect with reality, friends, others, and myself even if I have to seek avenues other than FB to do it. Ease aside, I need people and I still have ways to "be" with them. I may spend much of my time by myself, but because of virtual or literary socialization, I never really feel alone. So cheers to WORDS...with friends, with strangers, about stuff, put to music, and for all that they mean.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Day 7 - 2011

Although I was an early(ish) adopter of both Twitter (member since 5/9/08) and Foursquare (member since 2/20/10), I was definitely late to the game for Facebook (member since 8/13/07). I was still clinging to Myspace (member since 8/30/05) and didn't have a .edu email address when it started to take off in 2004 because that was the year I graduated college. While those others have fallen to the wayside, FB still seems worth being a part of. I've been thinking about why that is.

I don't twitter/tweet much because it's so overwhelming and I don't know how to filter, keep up with or stand out in the constant stream of 140 character outbursts. Foursquare just started to feel weird because people I didn't know from Adam were requesting to follow me. Of course you get to deny their request if you want, but it creeped me out that strangers could pinpoint my location even if they wouldn't know my last name unless I friended them. Myspace just became a dinosaur, good for music but not much else. It's clunky and busy compared to the streamlined interface of FB, which just feels more grown up overall.

Why do I still FB though? Because it's easy and everybody's doing it.

Some hip co-workers at the ad agency I work for (yes, so that means they're ultra hip) convinced me FB was the wave of the future. I like waves, so I drank the Kool-Aid and jumped on. I made my profile very cut & dry (it still basically is, untouched since I made it), thinking even though FB was started out by and for college students, that it was going to become the next big career networking tool for adults...and then someone gave me an egg that hatched into a rabbit.

Soon after a bumper sticker that said "Cowboys butts drive me nuts" followed. Around the time I got a virtual frosty mug of beer on my birthday, I finally realized that for my set/demographic/peeps FB was also a place for adults to act like college kids. That's why I (personally) log into it much more than an actual career networking site like LinkedIn (member since 11/27/07). FB is a big party that people I know from work, that bar I went to last weekend, the Reel Big Fish show, my high-school job, my best friend's brother's wedding, etc. drift in and out of.

So while I started this on Day 1 by acknowledging the global relevance, my opinion also is that the real success of FB is that it has figured out how to hook people all over the map (literally and figuratively) by being able to serve a range of needs: platform for issues, disseminator of information, connector/collector of friendly faces, source of cats to stalk.

Yes, it's a great tool and many important things have been accomplished through FB...but let's not forget-- it's also the place that gave us Farmville.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Day 6 - 2011

YAAAAAY!

Busy weekend. My apartment now looks less like that of a broke-a** coed and more like a gainfully employed twenty-something (30 in 6 months) lives here. The couch still needs to be put together (cover & chaise out of stock) but with any luck by this weekend at least, the love-seat will be assembled and I'll be 90% there. Before & after photos to follow...it's startling. I WAS LIVING LIKE A HOBO!!

I also went on a tossing rampage, throwing away 7 garbage bags of random stuff. The Vanilla Ice book made the cut, sadly my VHS collection did not. Holes in my heart due to the loss of Reservoir Dogs and Rocky Horror Picture Show etc. on glorious tape aside, it feels so good to come home to a less cluttered space. I still have a-ways to go (my kicka** friends/worker-elves dogged me on the stacked shoe-boxes that embody my "filing system") but it can finally be said of my home transformation: it's all happening.

A coworker in the lunchroom today misinterpreted an overheard conversation I was having with another coworker about all the building and purging this weekend and asked "Oh, where are you moving?" Without missing a beat I replied, "Into my thirties." There are undoubtedly other conspiring factors that got me to give myself a kick in the a**, but the fact remains that I keep mentioning it because 30 looming is a huge driving force in my commitment to accomplish all the resolutions I made for myself this year.

Also, for me, as far as I can tell getting older has meant getting better and better at figuring out how to enjoy my life. One of my recent epiphanies has been that I've been saving money and standing still because I wasn't sure what was going to happen next. Well NOW is happening...NOW. And it counts too.

So anyway...this is all leading up to-- I find this time around, giving up FB has been much easier. Maybe it's because I'm having such a good time living in the moment-to-moment of my own life, and haven't felt much compulsion or desire to get lost in what other people are doing...or maybe it's just cuz I'm pure awesome.



I'm going to call it a draw.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Day 3 - 2011

Holy crap.
Maybe not the most appropriate thing to say on a religious penance inspired blog...
But HOLY CRAP!

I'm so excited and tired and happy. Just got back from a trip to Ikea Brooklyn w/ my BFFNYC. We piled up 3 flatbed carts with a whole bunch of awesomeness and tomorrow when it is all delivered I'll have amassed her + more of my kicka** friends to help me break/build Chez Mel into something so much better. After all is said and built we're going to celebrate this epic event with champagne and Swedish meatballs, a Silver Bullet appetizer/motivational course and Swedish Fish to finish.

Which got me thinkin'...I truly believe your best friends are the ones that are with you in the worst times. Although generally this is a rockin' happening, the prep stages will be freakin' awful.

Q: Who wants to travel out of their home borough, break a giant futon down w/ a tiny wrench, carry a bunch of sh*t up and down a flight of stairs, assemble piles of boards into glory, and give up a sweet weekend afternoon to do it all?
A: Your best friends.

This is a pretty mild but real example...pure and simple, the people who are there with you at the times in your life when you're riding cloud 9, and are also there to pick you up off the floor when you hit a new low are the keepers. This is very probably a realization you've had yourself, I only mention because I was just digesting how cool it is.

Admittedly, it's ridiculously hard for me to depend on anyone else. I've been alone for so long and an only child my entire life, so independence can be a defense mechanism in addition to already being my natural default. There have been instances that I find myself near tears only because I haven't had the f**king sense to ask for help...but to depend on anyone is to give up the solitude I've worked so hard to cultivate, and somehow feels like defeat.

Reasoning: if I give anyone the power to make me happy I also give them the power to make me sad.

Twisted, but true. At times, I even find myself almost preferring the company of people who are distant and selfish only because that behavior is entirely predictable. That's stupid (and I'm a smart cookie, so that makes it even stupider). It's something that I obviously realize about myself though, and have been trying hard to give less power because it feels so much better to believe in people.

Ok, so to get this back on track to the positive jam it started out to be and to turn off the "therapeutic exposition" switch...I want to just say that I am embracing the fact that trusting and needing people is what friendship means. It's about accepting their request (see what I did there? BOOM! relevance!) every time they ask- be it to laugh, move sh*t, hold hands, hold you accountable, scream, hug, drink, rock, cry, breathe, talk, celebrate, sit in silence, understand, not ask why, stalk their cat, or simply just be...

And I get that. I'm also happy to report that there are friends in my world that fit this bill and rock my proverbial socks off. Yes, yes they/you do.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Day 2 - 2011

Last night I poured some of this extra time and energy into cleaning up my apartment. I'm turning 30 this year, and this fact seems to have set off in me a series of revelations about life...one of these is that I live in squalor.

I have filled my apartment with falling apart furniture that can't really even be considered "furniture" in a traditional sense. Let's see...a wooden milk carton currently supports a totem of Xbox and Super Nintendo gaming systems so that a certain fuzzy room-mate can't chew the cords.


Awwww!

She may look cute, but she's ruthless when it comes to rubber-bound wires. I adopted this little lady after her first owner gave her up to PetSmart, so I like to imagine that in her past life a cord must have insulted her mother, and now all the cords in our home have to pay the price.

Anyway, rabbit reveries aside- I got this milk carton off the street years ago, before bedbugs made their triumphant return and it was safe to be a hobo. I also keep my clothes in a bookshelf. It's hot. Oh and my DVDs are stacked 2 deep in a shell of a side table I lugged home from the Astoria Salvation Army and took the drawers out of, my cathode ray tube television was then plunked on top. Classy!

I must also mention the futon. The futon rocked back in 1998 when my parents bought it for me and I was in high school. Now it is squishy and lumpy and 2 support beams from the bottom have broken. Did this stop me from using it as a couch? NO! The sagging spot makes it feel like I'm sitting in a futon-pod and I like that. Although, I figure it's all fun and games until the day I'm nestled in my fu-pod eating takeout and another beam goes, trapping me in a venus-fluton trap...

I amassed the rest of these particle board structures I call furniture when I was a poor kid in NYC, just out of college and making hourly wages + a stipend at my movie theatre job and ad agency internship...Oh hey, yeah...that was 6.5 years ago. I'M ALMOST 30(!!!) and although not pulling in stock broker bank, am most definitely working a Real Job and can now whack my Amex for some nice things at Ikea.

So...in anticipation of taking a Brooklyn Ikea pilgrimage at the end of this week, I started cleaning up and dismantling my current furniturish. While unburdening a bookshelf (which actually functions as a bookshelf and holds books rather than t-shirts), that was crumbling because I had stacked books 2 deep and Playbills 3 shoe-boxes high on it, I unearthed some amazing gems:


Cookin' MC's like a pound of bacon!


Notice the chewmarks. Seems I'll have to work up a backstory for scantrons too...


Holy crap, I was always cute!

Given the fact that I moved up to NY from FL in a U-Haul and jettisoned several things from my life there that couldn't fit in the truck, it's pretty ridiculous that these things made the cut. They made me smile though, because I got nostalgic for simpler times. Rather than "like" Vanilla Ice on FB and then stalk him via the internets, I got a book about him...I took tests on paper!...I could hold what I now know as a "mobile upload" in my hand...

Yep, I'm old. Soon I will be an old person with non-hobo furniture. You lose & you win...

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Day 1 - 2011

It's funny how excited I got about this. I actually found myself giddy to free up the time and energy I devote to FB on a regular basis.

BUT (big butt!) the thing I've come to realize is: FB is here to stay. It isn't a fad, if anything it is going to be come more and more relevant in our world. If I hope to communicate and keep up with anyone younger than myself, I have to be open to keeping it a part of my life.

I also happen to think there are healthy vs. obsessive users though, and I know I'm a borderline case (ok, probably more accurately on this scale a I'm borderline obsessive vs. deranged):



It's not that I flood FB feeds with minutia of myself (although we all have that friend...seriously, I don't want to know what you had for breakfast, unless you had this), it's that I effing adore knowing what everyone else is doing so I can applaud, ponder, judge, laugh at, love it...and I check it way too often.

For example: I start by clicking on an upload, then I get lost in that person's albums, suddenly I've been looking at pictures of their cat for half an hour. The kicker is- this is probably someone I don't even remember going to high-school with but friended anyway because based on our friends in common I realized that's why I should recognize them.

Yeah, no bueno.

So as I see it the goal is not to totally give up FB, but simply to begin a quest to find other targets for my time and energy. Hopefully this will help me gain perspective and better habits, or at least give me a few weeks to reflect on pulling back on my random cat stalking...

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Day 0

To those new HI! below you'll find the record of my social experiment circa Lent 2010.

To those old, HI! thanks for coming back.