In the New

Welcome back, me!

2010-01-06T23:35:00.003-05:00

Happy New Year! I've missed you too!
I will have blogged about all 32 new things I'm doing before turning 32 by the time I turn 32. I promise.
In the meantime, enjoy this video of me doing New Thing 6 of 32:

PS- I think this blog was featured or mentioned somewhere. A lot of you have arrived here by very specific Google search. Can anyone fill me in so I know who to thank (or blame, as the case may be)? Thanks!

Model Citizens

2009-09-15T09:47:00.000-05:00

Last week was Fashion Week in New York, a time for 99.99% of the city to go on with life as usual, while the other .01% (possibly less than that; I'm still waiting on a final statistic from the, uh, Fashion... Board) crams under tents in Bryant Park to watch the brilliant works of sartorial art head down very long runways. This weekend, I (very briefly) joined this tiny cross-section of New York culture and I went to a fashion show. The artiste was an Israeli lingerie designer, who went with a Bollywood theme, and whose show included four models and as many looks, and was over in maybe twice as many minutes. Now, this was my first fashion show, so I could be wrong here, but I always thought that these things were supposed to last as least as long as it takes to finish a cocktail, and include maybe 8-12 looks (because, come on, how else are we supposed to know what to wear), but perhaps minimalism is in this year. It was at least fun to get dressed up for it, and my companions and I capped off the night with milkshakes and onion rings at a nearby diner. Just like Yves Saint Laurent!
Models.
Me. I am very different from models.

Hello, Dalai!

2009-09-05T15:17:00.003-05:00

I've been a theatre geek my entire life, and I sometimes think I've seen it all: Nudity, scenery mishaps, drag shows, old-lady dancing, awards shows, theatre in the round, aerial stuntwork, improvised Shakespeare, one-person plays, tv show tapings, a 6-year-old playing Nixon, Broadway, Off-Broadway, So Very Very NOT Broadway, and a play starring a cat. But this is New York, and there's always something new to see. So leave it to a troupe from Minnesota to introduce me to yet another totally new theatre experince: An outdoor walking play. Friend Alan, who lives here but makes a pilgrimage to Minneapolis every few years to star as the Dalai Lama in the utterly enchanting The Buddha Prince, has the lead role as spiritual leader/narrator in this show, which meets its audience on a sidewalk outside Central Park, then guides them through the park from stage to stage while they reenact the life of the 14th Dalai Lama through song, dance, puppetry, poetry, physical comedy and mime. The formula of outdoor stages+a super talented cast+themes of peace, love and compassion-pretension and a stifling theatre was an absolutely winning one. Can we make all shows be like this? Outdoor walking Glengarry Glen Ross, anyone?
Resolute Tibetans defend their sacred land

K and I met up with the Dalai Lama who, in some interpretations of the story, is a white dude.

Batgirl!

2009-08-30T16:16:00.000-05:00

Back in March, I signed up for the 92nd Street Y Tribeca Softball League. In April, I completely forgot about it. In May, K reminded me that we'd done this, and we went shopping for gloves. At the end of May, our season began and I found myself ensconced in "Deep Right," playing "Extra Outfielder," the position I played most often, with "Uh, Don't Worry About it This Inning" running a close second. In June, I decided not to play the next season, but to stick out the current one. In July, I finally began making regular contact with the ball, and (very) occasionally getting on base. In August, I started getting fewer comments like "way to keep your eyes open" or "way to let Joe catch the ball" and more comments like "way to make contact" and "way to hustle," and once or twice, "nice real hit!" or "good job not swinging at absolutely everything long enough to get walked!" In short, it was a rough season for nonathletic, female minority me. Our team did, however, make it to the playoffs and win our first game, and at the end of August, I had officially played a complete season of softball. I'm now only 98% sure (as opposed to in June, when I was 100% sure) that I won't be playing next year, but I will be helping K work on his pitching (which will be stellar by then) and I'll find a blanket with our team colors to crash on under a tree while I watch K pitch, and the rest of our team win more games. But it was overall a positive experience, and I have an adorable red 92Y Tribeca Softball jersey (and by jersey I mean "t-shirt with the neck crudely cut out") to remind me of my simultaneous rookie and senior season as a real league softball player.

Compute Adorable

2009-08-21T11:02:00.003-05:00

New thing 2 of 32 New Things
Instead of settling for a machine that had some of the stuff he wanted, or a bunch of stuff he didn't want, K just ordered the specific components he was looking for, and decided to build it himself. I got to help! I installed the motherboard and the memory card (both of which look like a Google Map of a planet in Star Wars), and my bony fingers came in handy when he needed help tightening some screws and snapping things into small places. K took over most of the attaching of wires, and testing of networks, and cursing of stuff that wasn't working, and re-ordering of replacement parts. I was just happy neither one of us electrocuted ourselves. He had to constantly remind me to discharge my hands before touching anything, which was very nice of him. I don't look good with big hair.
Also, something else new I did this week, but which I'm not counting as my 32nd b-day countdown: I joined Twitter! Follow on!

In the New, 32!

2009-08-14T17:07:00.005-05:00

I turn 32 in 32 weeks from today. I think it would be fun to try 32 new things in those weeks. Unlike the time I did this every day for a year, where at 11:55 I ended up doing random stuff like brushing my teeth in an elevator or dyeing my foot purple, these New Things will all be thought out and planned in advance, and as many of them as possible will be things I've wanted to do for a while.
To kick it off, this week I posed for an old-timey photo shoot, complete with a handmade cloche hat, my favorite coat, and a ready-made "set" in Greenwich Village. Drama geek that I am, I have a thing for costumes, old Hollywood, old New York, glamour and retro fashion. This shoot combined them all, and genius photog Anya Garrett was awesomely supportive and did such a great job capturing the exact essence I had in mind.

MidSummer New Things

2009-07-21T11:16:00.004-05:00

It's been a while! While the blog has been silent, my summer has been full and crazy, with plenty of New Things to fill my sunny days, and many more to come. Below, some of the highlights, complete with beaches, weddings, diving helmets, and The Real Housewives of New Jersey.
May:
Went to St. Pete Beach, FL and saw, sat near and stood in the Gulf of Mexico. It was my very first Gulf! My foot really enjoyed it, especially since this particular gulf is framed by the whitest, finest sand it's ever had the pleasure to walk on. I have yet to see for myself whether the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Aden are surrounded by such loveliness. Now the word gulf sounds weird. Gulf gulf gulf.

Went to Tarpan Springs, FL, home of the world's largest population of natural sea sponges. Those, as well as super cheesy tourist tochochkes, are the main trade in this charming Greek fishing village. It is the site of childhood memories for both Kevin and my dad, and thanks to the area's timeless charm, their memories aren't all that different!

June:
Gave a speech at a wedding.
Somehow, though I've been in six weddings and served as MOH twice, I'd only ever given very brief toasts about how the couple "is perfect for each other, and um, yeah, I hope you two are very happy, and ... cake. Yeah!" but at my sister's lavish, extremely structured wedding, I was actually given a time slot, a microphone, and the center of the dance floor. So I had to make it good. I spent a few days beforehand compiling a list of words, phrases, grunts and inflections which make up Kathleenese, a rare language spoken by an extremely small percent of the world's population. But in hopes of doubling the speakership, I gave her husband a crash-course so he'd know what the heck his beloved is saying on any given occasion. (Sampler: "Boodoo" is 3-year-old Kathleen's version of insults like "meanie" or "poopyhead." At the time, she thought it was a terribly vile thing to say. She still says it to be retro.)

Rowed boats on the Lake in Central Park. Well, not so much "rowed" as "was rowed by lovely friend Keyren's cool boyfriend" as part of what turned out to be a completely heartwarming reunion with dear old friend Meghan, who was in town from Chicago. The boat rowing was plan B after we tried and failed to get tickets for Twelfth Night at Shakespeare in the Park, as was a trip to the zoo and afternoon snacks with yet another wonderful old friend, who brought along her baby and husband.

July:

In what was perhaps the most out-of-left field New Thing I've done since the year-long project, I went to a taping of Regis and Kelly, with fill-in host Jerry O'Connell and guests The Real Housewives of New Jersey But Not Danielle. I was in the company of three very rabid RHONJ fans, Katina, Michael and Margot, who waved at the ladies during commercial breaks and wordlessly adored them from our front-and-center VIP seats. Michael, especially, has a unique bond with the H-wives, as he keeps a video blog where he dramatically reads excerpts of Cop Without a Badge, which is apparently so hard to find that after the show, Jerry O came tearing down the hall after us to ask us to take a photo of him reading it, so he could send it to his wife, Rebecca Romijn. It seemed perfectly natural to me, as fill-in hosts seem to be my thing. Plus, with friends like mine, nothing ever seems all that weird.

In the New: The Movie! Sort of!

2009-05-31T13:20:00.001-05:00

More than a year after the year of New Things ended, ten months after the August of New Things ended, and two months after the 31 New Things I did before I turned 31, a super talented filmmaker/editor/artist/graphic designer/professor friend sent an email asking if I'd be interested in being the subject of a multi-media video project detailing every New Thing I did before I turned 30.
Um...
YES!?
So in preparation for my New Things to be drawn, animated, videoized and generally made a whole lot cooler, I met Filmmaker Lady and two of her crazy-talented students in New Jersey for a six-hour photo shoot. We re-created a lot of stuff, and I got to run around FL's fancy apartment building wearing, among other things, a full ballerina costume, yoga clothes and a bikini. It was an exhausting blast, and I can't wait to see the finished project. Release date is TBA, but below are some exclusive photos:

NT 31/31: Mini ME!

2009-03-26T18:52:00.001-05:00

Birthday! In honor of turning 31, I decided to combine several of my favorite things: doing new stuff, shopping at Nordstrom, retro-futuristic autos and That Guy, so That Guy and I rented a Mini Cooper and drove to the Nordstrom in White Plains. I absolutely love the design of the Mini- like the Pixar film The Incredibles, the design seems largely based on a vision of the future as conceived in the 1950s. Lots of white, chrome and orange, with curvy knobs and spaceish controls and dials. The radio was so groovily indecipherable that it took almost fifteen minutes for two smart adults with three degrees between us to figure out how to adjust the volume or change the station. For the hour-long ride, I alternated between being baffled by the console and being terrified that we would be crushed like bugs in this stylish little tin can if anyone's vehicle decided to misbehave in the light rain. Obviously, we reached all of our destinations just fine. And my spree at Nordstrom was a hit, thanks to some generous parental financing, light crowds and a boyfriend who doesn't mind watching me try stuff on.

NT 30/31: Places I've got to see

2009-03-25T14:30:00.000-05:00

This is something that was on the list last year, and didn't happen, and so I rolled it over to this year's list, and it still almost didn't happen. And it's not because it's so hard to come by or elusive or guarded by dragons. It's perhaps one of the easiest, most prolific things that someone who knows the peple I know could have picked, but it was so easy that I needed to up the ante a bit and only do it under fantastic circumstances. I played Guitar Hero, but I didn't just "play guitar hero," in somebody's living room. I played Freebird, which I'm told is one of the most difficult GH songs, in an art studio while standing in front of a greenscreen, which will later to become any conceivable location where my inner rock star would like to play (I've narrowed it down to a 1950s hat store, the main entrance of the Met, or Dali's Persistence of Memory), thanks to this awesome video project. I've delayed writing this post in hopes that I could turn up a picture (they're either stubbornly ensconced as videos in Kevin's phone, or eluding a card reader), but I'm sure you all have an imagination- just imagine me standing in front of a greenscreen, a fancy video camera pointed at me, and a look of abject terror on my face as I try to learn to be a genius while doing.
In other words, imagine this is a lady and that lady is me and me is much more uncomfortable:

NT 29/31: Watching the dandelions grow

2009-03-24T23:46:00.000-05:00

This is one of those long-term new things that will be good for me on several levels, but won't produce any results for a while: I signed up for a softball league. I'm actually pretty excited about this! I'll get exercise, learn some new skills and meet people who can tan. KMD and I both put our names down after a friend mentioned it on his Facebook profile, which makes more sense for both of them than for me. K will probably be really good. I run kind of fast. Now all they have to do is teach me to hit, catch, throw, not duck when being thrown to, and, unless I've matured more since fifth grade P.E. than I think I have, not search the outfield for four-leaf clovers while the other team is at bat.

NT 28/31: Fakenant

2009-03-23T15:19:00.000-05:00

Today I walked around wearing a fake pregnancy belly! Friend Stephanie came over and we went to brunch and took a walk around my hood. It's amazing how differently people, even New Yorkers, treat a lady with a bean in her belly! At the diner near my apartment (from which I ordered a hamburger just last week and picked it up while sporting a completely flat tummy), we were seated sooner than a non-childbearing couple, offered water faster and allowed to move to a bigger booth when the kids near us (there with their super pregnant mom) started driving us nuts. The couple across the aisle smiled sympathetically as my giant torso and I slid into a new booth. I was absolutely desperate for some coffee, but went without for the sake of authenticity. I caved to the craving on the way home, and ordered some from the bodega guy who sees me almost every day, yet took no visible notice of my suddenly enormous midsection. The lady paying next to me, however, baldly gawked at me, perhaps shocked that I was ordering coffee, or in disbelief that I was skinny everywhere else and freakin' huge in the belly. (I later told Stephanie that had anyone asked, I would have said I was at 36 weeks. She said I looked more like 47 weeks.)
In the days leading up to this, I poked around costume shops and theatre message boards to see if anyone knew where I could buy or borrow a good PG belly, and came up with nothing. As of this morning, I still had no idea what I was going to use, and a trip to Duane Reade for something "round, but flexible, and with maybe a flat part?" was a bust. BUT when I headed over to Gristedes, the first thing I saw when I walked in the door was a box these vile, gelatinous inflatable spiky ball things (there is no graceful way to describe them) thrown in amongst other garish Easter gift miscellany. I grabbed one, jetted back home, wrapped it in a pillowcase to flatten the undulating spikes and used a Butter sash to secure it underneath my loose-fitting Butter shirt.

I later gave birth to a beautiful, healthy Whatthecrap!

NT 27/31: Send out the clowns

2009-03-22T21:39:00.000-05:00

If you're one of those people who hates clowns, you'll like this. I punched a clown. It wasn't as violent or angry as it sounds; this particular clown, Bozo 2, has gone willingly into the punch-me-I'm-a-clown profession, so we can only assume that he wanted me to punch him. I was happy to help fulfill his destiny, and happy to have been connected, if ever so slightly, to this. Take that, you crazy-faced nightmare-inducing bag of air owned by really awesome people!

NT 26/31: I got rhythm!

2009-03-21T23:21:00.000-05:00

I've been a singer my whole life—I've done classical, musical theatre, opera, rock and standards. And my significant other is a jazz musician, so I've learned a little about the sounds and rhythms therein, but it's still a totally different beast. I can't play any of its associated instruments (yet), but today I learned to make a 3:4 rhythm. In layman's (and my) terms it means that one hand (or drumstick, or bag of flour) is going 1-2-3, while the other hand is going 1-2-3-4. Your hands fall at the same time on certain beats, but otherwise are hitting at different times. It's tricky and I haven't mastered it yet, but I'm close:

NT 25/31: Do you believe in Magic?

2009-03-20T20:32:00.000-05:00

Last year, Yes-Man Kirk suggested that I pull a rabbit out of a hat as a new thing. I thought it was a completely amazing idea and knew I had to do it. But circumstances being what they are, me not living in a woodland, the country or my ten-year-old self's vision of Paradise, I never located a rabbit so it never happened. And while that is still sort of true, creativity trumped reality and today, thanks to lovely friend Rosie, her coworker Erica, some quick planning and an improvisational spirit, I pulled a Bunny out of a hat.
Enjoy (with a grain of salt):

NT 24/31: Astaire Case

2009-03-19T23:45:00.000-05:00

I love movie musicals. I love the songs, the spontaneous dancing and the talent, especially the dance talent. I can sing, but I've always been a clunky dancer. But I've noticed that inanimate objects don't really care about that. So because of that, and also as a tribute to those musicals I love, I danced with my hat rack. I wouldn't even pretend to do this the way Fred Astaire did it. And I don't just mean the astounding dancing. I mean the keeping the hat rack in tact, not annoying his downstairs neighbors, not having to worry about tripping over fallen pegs, having music that's loud enough— nitpicky stuff like that. I should mention that I try to keep all the media in this blog, especially videos, as raw as possible to make sure the Newness is authentic. I don't edit the videos, and I don't do more than one take unless something distracting happened during the first one, like I fell off the windowsill, or the dog started attacking my shoe. Both of those actually happened. This video certainly isn't free of mistakes, but it is one of the funnest New Thing videos I've ever had the pleasure of making. Enjoy!

(oh, and about the foot pads.... don't buy them. The pads were green and grungy when I took them off the next day, but this apparently is the result of metals in the pads that are designed to do that, and not from any poison exorcism that the pads claim to perform.)

NT 23/31: Would Not, Could Not

2009-03-17T23:57:00.002-05:00

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I made green eggs and ham. In honor of Dr. Seuss, I could not eat them and KMD would not eat them. I could not because I have never been able to stomach the taste of egg, and the smell of them, combined with the violent shade of green they turned thanks to my over-coloring, gave me dry heaves. Kevin would not eat them because he didn't want to get cancer from the veritable tidal wave of food coloring I accidentally dumped in there. So we had burritos and leftover Greek chicken for dinner instead. But I still did what I set out to do, and that's all that matters! I also scrambled eggs for the first time ever, something I should learn to do in preparation for possibly having to make them for small people one day. Any chance I can train them to want scrambled apples for breakfast?

NT 22/31: Foot Ball

2009-03-16T23:14:00.003-05:00

Today's New Thing is an overnighter; I'll add an update tomorrow to tell you how it turned out. As I write this, I am sort of immobilized for the night, unless I want to walk on my heels to the kitchen for a glass of juice. I'm trying detoxifying foot pads. The Kinoki brand claims to *Aid Natural Cleansing, *Absorb Impurities and *Work While I Sleep. I'm not completely confident that when I wake up tomorrow I'll be met with a scummy brown pad and a squeaky-clean system, but don't knock it till you tried it, right? As a non-smoker and a once-every-two-months wine drinker, I'm not expecting that my body really has so many toxins to expunge, but who knows? I still breathe in sludgy New York air every day, and I do love me some steak pretty regularly. So there's gotta be something in there. But I'm going to be very disappointed if these things end up sucking out my soul. Oh wait, no- that's cat on your face, not pads on your feet. I am forever messing those two up.

NT 21/31: Olive New York

2009-03-15T23:43:00.002-05:00

Reason #5,784 to love New York: I can walk into a newsstand in midtown and buy a newspaper from virtually any country, in any language, geared toward people of any nationality. But since I'm straight-up American, and have no close ancestral ties to any non English-speaking country, I never have. But I have ample opportunity to read a newspaper from Anywhere, so today I read a Greek newspaper (fittingly, on the birthday of my favorite Greek high school friend). With the exception of certain advertisements and un-Greekable section headers, the entire thing was in Greek. And it was tough to tell what the stories were about- I'm thinking mostly Greek politics, Greek news and Greek sports, since I didn't see much in the way of Greek gossip or Greek celebrity scandals. Mostly it was pictures of imposing olive-complected men and crowds of people in sunny places. In college, that would have just been a fraternity, but in a Greek newspaper purchased in New York, it's culture! Hopa!

NT 20/31: Jokers to the right, here I am

2009-03-14T12:15:00.001-05:00

Growing up in San Diego, I always had this fascination with flat states, Midwestern towns and general non-coastal American Middleness. I remember hearing about the town of Centreville, Ohio and being curious about the people, the look and the strange mystique about a place whose name basically meant "right smack in the middle of a bunch of other stuff." And though it's not in the middle of America, or quite as centrally located as its name suggests, I went to Downtown Middletown. There are Middletowns in Missouri, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Rhode Island, Virginia, Delaware, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, California, Kentucky, Michigan, Vermont and Indiana. And I'm not going to tell you which one I went to. KMD and I remarked, while standing on Main Street in Downtown Middletown, that we really could have been anywhere in America, and the scenery here could have passed for almost any of those states.

NT 19/31: Dear Sir or Madam

2009-03-13T12:10:00.002-05:00

I didn't think I'd get around to doing this until I had my own book to do it with, but I'm glad that the opportunity came early. I autographed a book, and I don't mean that I just wrote an inscription on the inside cover of a book in the graphic novel series that Lynn and I exchange on birthdays, or that I pretended to be John Adams reaching out from the grave to wish my dad a Merry Christmas in the pages of his biography. No, this was my own handwriting on a page filled with my own words. The book I contributed an essay to last year is out, coinciding with the 30th b-days of many friends and two relatives. What better way to help them ring in the decade than with a little loving self-promotion?

NT 18/31: I found my thrill

2009-03-12T23:22:00.005-05:00

I'm not a terribly materialistic person. I have a meat-and-potatoes DVD player, an old iPod and rarely pay full price for clothes. But for the last two years, I've been toting around this silly little Samsung phone that looks like a toy and runs like it's powered by a hamster wheel. Now that I'm almost 31, I decided it's high time for a grown-up phone. So as an early birthday present to myself, I got a Blackberry! I'm still setting it up, and will transfer the SIM card from the caveman phone as soon as leg one of my weekend trip is completed, and I don't have to worry about risking missed trains and pickups because of a phone I don't know how to use. But when I do set it up- oh the internet! The on-the-go email! The crazy games! The pretty shiny phone! Which, really, is the important part.

My old baloney phone, my digital thermometer and my new phone, in order of awesomeness:

NT 17/31: This woman took the 1 train

2009-03-11T00:38:00.004-05:00

I got this suggestion last year form several people, but being saddled with a day job and all its implications meant I never really made the time for it. But now, being all laid-off and freelancery, I was able to do this at my leisure, without taking an abnormally long lunch or pretending I had to leave early to pick up my poodle from the groomer's. I rode an entire subway line. I picked the 1 train because it's not obscenely long, like the A, or cop-out short, like the J. It took an hour and four minutes from the start, at the South Ferry station in Lower Manhattan, to the finish, at 242nd Street in the Bronx. I like this line because parts of it, like the stretch from 116th and 135th, and from Dyckman on, go above ground and I can actually see something besides graffiti and dark. I didn't really bring anything to do; I realized early on that one of the pads on my Bose headphones was missing, rendering them useless, and I didn't go out of my way to find a magazine or remember to bring a book. But I don't really mind just sitting there with my thoughts, because sometimes there are a lot of them.
The start:

The finish:

NT 16/31: Idle Hands

2009-03-10T23:40:00.002-05:00

My new "career" as a freelancer has also yielded a "career" as a compulsive TV watcher which, for me, simply means that I keep up with stuff and use my DVR like an IV drip that feeds me all the pop culture I missed out on as a working stiff. In the months since "transitioning" out of my day job, I have made the acquaintance of a handful of shows that never would have turned my head before, when I had no time for or interest in Appointment Television. My newest "friend" has been American Idol. I've been mildly interested in the overall phenomenon since season 4, but I don't really get invested until there are fewer than 10 people. This year, thanks to both the DVR and the extra time on my hands, I have been all over it since episode 1. And tonight I voted for someone in American Idol. And I got through on the first call! I guess the trick is to wait about ten minutes after it ends, then slip your vote in before they close the lines. The Robot Man who "answered" said my vote had been counted, so I have officially made a difference in the life of a future pop star.

American Idol logo registered trademark by the people who made it, except for the part where I wrote my name.

NT 15/31: My Only Sunshine

2009-03-09T22:06:00.002-05:00

I wish this more instant than it actually is, for both immediate gratification and cartoon-like adorableness. I planted a sunflower! And thanks to a thoughtful gift from someone nice, I don't have to till a field somewhere or clear out a corner of the garden I don't have or illegally plant one in the lobby and hope the landlord never notices. No, a mini Sunflower garden has apparently been designed with the New York apartment in mind. All I do is assemble the kit, stick it on my sunny windowsill (which I actually have) until this:

turns into this:

Bugs Bunny could have done it in four seconds. Not that I'm complaining.