Posted on by saraelizabeth419

Shop Less…with Exceptions

So, this year, I plan to shop less and…pay the credit card companies more, hahaha. Subletting in the East Village over this past summer, I made way too many expensive purchases but, I do not regret any one of them. Since I have vowed to curb my addiction this year, why am I still trolling the internet in search of new items pray-tell? Multiple reasons, but really, it’s because old habits die hard.

Right now, among the items that I am coveting at the moment, there is this skirt at the Limited that I absolutely must have (item pictured below). As you can see, the print is bold and, not for everyone. I love the yellow, especially since I don’t really have many yellows in my wardrobe. A full skirt is always nice because, although it doesn’t “show off” certain assets, it does create a nice silhouette. The selling point for me…the matching belt. I don’t know why, but I feel like without it, the skirt would be too much, but with it, it’s perfect!

Now, I know what you’re saying, the Limited?  Is that still around?  It is!  Unfortunately though, synonymous with the name, the store locations are in fact, limited.  There is a location that I visit when I go home to Long Island, but that is not often; I mostly shop their online site, which, has a lot of items.  The Limited is such a great store, especially if you’re looking for some conservative pieces.  I have a bunch of dresses from them.  Even though I have decided to “take a break” from shopping, there still are certain pieces that are a must. Luckily, my mom is buying me this one (along with some other items from the Limited) as a belated Chanukah present☺.

Posted on by saraelizabeth419

The Perfect New York Night

There is nothing like the perfect New York night: great food, drinks, amazing company, the ability to hail a cab at a moment’s notice and, the fact that although it’s winter, the temperature is extremely mild. You forget about the rest of the world and the night feels like it could last forever. Aside from my New Year’s Eve festivities, which don’t count because, everyone was out celebrating that night, I hadn’t had the perfect New York night in a while. That is, until this past friday.

Friday night, I ran home from work, showered, changed, and drove back into the city to meet a friend for dinner. It was my first time driving through the tunnel and, I’m sure that whoever was behind me was cursing me out but, it was a little scary so, I did the speed limit. I wanted to close my eyes but, figured that was a bad idea, so I just looked straight ahead.

We ended up catching a cab and heading downtown to this trendy restaurant in the East Village called, Momofuku. It has an Asian inspired American cuisine and, if that doesn’t confuse you enough, it boasts a menu that certainly will. Luckily, the waiters and waitresses are skilled in aiding your needs. Momofuku is not one of those place that you can just walk into and get seated right away; there’s always a wait. So, we walked over to the bar and waited for them to call our name.

They had some interesting wine choices. I, of course, went with a Pinot Blanc from Alscase, which I stuck with through the rest of our stay there and, my friend started off with a scotch drink (the name of which escapes me) but switched to a red of my choice during dinner. I cannot tell you exactly what we had because, honestly, I don’t know, but everything there was delicious.

After dinner, we hailed a cab and went a little ways uptown to a cute bar for some drinks. That’s sort of what you do in the city; bounce around from one place to the next, always going to multiple places in one night. New York is, after all, the city that never sleeps. We had a couple of drinks there, then called it a night and, I stayed at my friend’s place because I wasn’t about to get back in the car. Of course, with the wine and the not sleeping at my place, I had to wait until the following night for a decent sleep, but that didn’t matter; the perfect New York evening does not consist of a good night’s rest, it’s about every moment leading up to it.

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Back to the Airport…Again

Since June, I have been frequenting JFK airport, although, I have not traveled anywhere myself.  It seems to be that, I am the preferred chauffeur of my family when it comes to their comings and goings.  I have been to JFK so much so that, I think it’s safe to say, I know my way around the maze of terminals and highways…because let’s face it, that is exactly what it is: a maze.  (Okay, I still get lost on occasion☺) 

Tonight I will be once again visiting the airport, to drop off my father while he goes on yet another vacation (he retired last year)…this time, to Puerto Rico with his girlfriend to visit her family. They have been going to Puerto Rico once a year for the past ten years I would say, and I have never once gone with them. I almost was going to join them this time, however, the costs were ridiculous (they’re flying on buddy-passes and could not get a third one), so I will not be partaking in their journey.

I am especially jealous because they will be leaving behind the frigid temperatures of New York and running to temps in the eighties.  I know that things here are supposed to warm up for the weekends, but, oh, how I long for those warm summer days where, I would run away from all of my problems and stresses to the beach; nothing seemed to matter when I was laying out on the beach.  The world seemed to be so far away.  (I had a ridiculous tan☺) 

I would leave my sublet in the East Village those days and, on my four block walk to the subway, I would stop inside a deli and purchase a sandwich and bottle of water for the beach.  These would be kept in my trusty basket, which, although is lined in stripes of different shades of blue (blue is my least favorite color, although I know that it looks really good on me) I love it.  I purchased it at one of my favorite haunts in Huntington.  So, I would sit at the beach with my sandwich and water, and literally spend the whole day there, just doing nothing.  I would bring my ipod and magazines, or a book, but I would never pick any of them up…it was just so relaxing and peaceful.  My jealousy stems from there, lol, because if I were traversing the globe with them, that is exactly what I would be doing☺. 

So tonight, at a very undesirable hour, I will be on my way to the airport.  Of course, before that, I have to meet my father at his place in Brooklyn…and we know how I feel about that.  He is the only reason that I ever venture to those far away parts.  I don’t even remember the last time I was on an airplane, and I love flying…hopefully, at some point this year, I will be headed to the airport as a customer, not a visitor☺.

Posted on by saraelizabeth419

“Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”

It’s funny how a song has the power to bring you back to a moment, or memory that you had long forgotten. For me, this was about a week ago. My friend H and I decided to treat ourselves to a celebratory holiday dinner at this delicious Japanese restaurant out in Great Neck. The service had been a little slow so, we were there for a while. We each had a glass of Pinot Noir and relaxed.

It just so happens that a good friend of mine works at the restaurant across the street from where H and I were dining, so, when we were finished, we decided to drive (not walk it was freezing out) across the street and stop in for a drink. Although this time one drink did not turn into many, it did turn into a long night.

My friend is one of those guys who can be very charming when he wants to be…and that night, he was. H and I ended up staying until closing, when, he offered to drive me home. Since H lives about five minutes from the restaurant and, my friend lives extremely close to me, I took him up on his offer to drive me home. Of course, I knew that I wasn’t going to end up back at my place at a decent hour…that is the downfall of hanging out with him.

After we dropped off one of his coworkers, who lives surprisingly close to my place, he drove right past my block to a neighborhood pub that wasn’t too far away, to meet up with a friend of his that I hadn’t seen in a long time. The pub is literally in walking distance from my apartment and at the corner of the block where my bus drops me off on my way home. At that point it was already pretty late, so I decided to stay out a little longer.

His friend ordered me some weird (but strong) drink, and the three of us were laughing and joking around…I think that aside from us there was maybe one or two other patrons occupying the bar, so, we were the life of it. His friend put some music on and at some point my friend grabbed my hand, dragged me away from the bar and we started dancing to an old Sinatra song. When the song was over, we walked back to our drinks. Then, Frankie Valli”s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” came on, and instantly I was engulfed with memories.

I had gotten the flu once, when I was a teenager. It was a time where my parents had really been into renting movies (or, when everyone had been). I remember they came back home with a few movies, one of them being Conspiracy Theory which starred Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts. Now, I was a huge fan of both (and still am, although I haven’t seen Mel Gibson in a movie for years), but that wasn’t why I liked the movie. There’s one scene where, Mel Gibson’s character is sitting in his car with binoculars pointed up at the window of Julia Roberts’ character’s apartment. She’s running on a treadmill, mouthing words to some song. Mel Gibson plays around with the radio station while watching her mouth move and finally comes across the song. It’s Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” From then on I became obsessed with the movie and, every time my parents would go to the video store, I would insist upon them renting Conspiracy Theory. It got to the point where my dad finally gave up and came home with it for me one day. He had bought it. I still have it too, although it is on VHS, and sadly, I no longer own a functioning VHS player…perhaps I should get it on DVD.

Years later, I had told this to my friend’s mother…or rather, I had told her that I had loved that song. For Christmas that year, I unwrapped a gift from her, and carefully hidden inside what was clearly a shirt box, was a Frankie Valli cd featuring the song “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” I was truly touched by this.

I had completely forgotten both of those moments, and the song, until I was standing in that bar last week. It really is incredible what kind of memories a song can stir up. Needless to say that after I left the bar and walked home that night, I searched my cd collection, found the cd and added the song to my ipod.

Posted on by saraelizabeth419

Okay…It’s Winter

This morning, in the midst of my normal weekday routine, i.e. getting ready for work and tidying my apartment with channel seven news on in the background to find out the weather, I realized two things.

One, I had not dreamed the chill in the early hours of the morning that awoke me from sleep…the number at the bottom of the screen read thirteen degrees, not including the wind-chill, which brought it down to something like zero. It is by far one of the coldest (if not the coldest) days that we’ve had so far this winter, which meant only one thing: dress warm. Time to break out the warm acrylic sweaters and the Uggs…yes, I own a pair of Uggs; okay, I own two pairs. It took me quite a few years to get over the fact that they are not appealing in looks whatsoever, but, once I slipped my feet into them and walked outside on a cold, cold day, it was all over for me. I became an Uggs lover. Unless you have also put your feet in and experienced what it truly means to walk outside on a frigid day and not have potentially frostbitten toes, then you don’t know what you are missing. They will seriously change your life. There is only one person whom I will not wear my Uggs in front of, and that is my uncle for fear that he will disown me…well, he wouldn’t exactly do that, but he could come close to it. One time I wore my Tory Burch flats in front of him and the next day I got some txts saying how I should get rid of them (he called them fugly, lol)…he prefers women to wear pointy stilettos.

On that note, I must venture out to the stores and purchase more warm sweaters.  I have a lot of sweaters; however, most of them are kind of short.  For a while, I went through this phase where I liked everything short and would even shrink things so that they would be short.  This is no more.  I realized, a few winters back, that short equals a way for the cold to seep in underneath your jacket…so, unfortunately many of my sweaters (okay, most☹) must be replaced.  I could just wait it out since it is already January, and in just a few more months I will not need them anymore, but I’m not sure how this winter will be yet, so I probably should buy at least a few… 

The other thing that I realized this morning, was that I really cannot deny the fact that it is winter anymore (although that could also go with the first realization, but I swear it’s different). Every year, as soon as there is an extremely cold day, my subway decides to have signal problems, which makes it very slow and, unfortunately, always means that there is no express train. With the elimination of the express train comes the addition of an extra twenty-odd minutes to my morning commute (at least). This also means that I am less likely to have time to stop off en route to the office and acquire my morning latte.

Seeing as it was oh-so cold this morning, I made a run to grab a latte anyway and breezed into work only a few minutes late (a few really means a few). I was thankful to find my office at a much desired temperature and have been hibernating in it ever since. Funny thing though, about this cold snap we are having, according to the weatherman, it is going to hit almost fifty on Saturday…go figure.

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New Day, New Year

As I’ve said before, if you are hung over after a night out, you did it right. Well, judging by the way I felt yesterday, I had a very successful journey into 2012. Wow, 2012. Just writing it looks weird. I wonder how long it is going to take me to remember that 2011 is gone. Now that the hangover is gone, it’s time for a fresh start.

New Years’ Eve for me, didn’t start off that well. After dealing with my landlord and the boiler guy about the possibility of my walking back into my apartment in the new year with a potential flood, I left my place to catch a bus practically in tears. The only things that saved me were gchatting with my mother, txting with my aunt and bff John and, the fact that I already had my make-up on and really didn’t want to start over.

When I got into the subway, I took out my ipod and started blasting music, then when I got into the city, I went to DD and got an iced caramel latte. By the time I had walked down to Z’s block, my mood was lifting. We broke open a bottle of 2007 Chateauneuf du Pape that I brought over, which was so delicious, turned on a little satc, and set about to plan our night…which, was completely unplanned. Our nights are always like that. We later proved that, even on NYE, we didn’t need a plan…we’re just awesome like that.

After getting ready and grabbing a quick bite, we caught a cab right away and headed over to the Ace Hotel to meet up with some friends who were already standing on line there waiting for us. The Ace Hotel is really an awesome place. It feels like you’re stepping back in time to one of those old American mansions in Long Island; I love the feeling that they engulf you with. So, the Ace Hotel was the perfect place to celebrate the new year.

It was a very long night, with lots of drinking and lots of fun; the best new years’ I’ve had in a long time. I only vaguely remember getting back to Z’s place and crawling under the blankets at nearly six am…but I do remember the awfulness to which I woke up a few hours later. So happy that is over. The day after a hangover I always wake up in such a good mood because I feel infinitely better.

The real success of the evening though, is checking your phone the morning after to assess the damage that might have ensued…aka, drunk dialing/txting. Thankfully, mine only contained one. A txt sent at 523am, a picture of drinks. Innocent enough. The best part was the txt that I got in response to that the next day saying, “omg, were you still drinking at 523am??!!!” I think it is suffice to say that I was.

Posted on by saraelizabeth419

Shades of Grey

“It doesn’t have to be black and white.” These words were uttered to me the other day by a friend of mine, a phrase in which I’ve heard many times before. But what does it mean exactly? Immediately, Billy Joel’s “Shades of Grey” popped into my head and I searched my ipod, of which, I am embarrassed to say, was void of it. Having grown up on Long Island and therefore, an avid Billy Joel fan, I could not fathom this error on my part, so I set about to fix it. Needless to say that I have the song on cd, so I was saved. Some of the lyrics are as follows:

Shades of grey wherever I go
The more I find out the less that I know
Black and white is how it should be
But shades of grey are the colors I see

What does it mean exactly? Cynics would say that it means that there is no certainty to anything in life; optimists would say that there is always a possibility. I like to think of myself as a realist. I’m not sure if this phrase has been repeated to me because people feel that I only think in black and white, or because they want me to see things their way. Either way, whenever I hear this, it always makes me pause and think. The first thing that I do is reflect upon the reasons as to why it is being said. Modern technology today allows you to do that pretty freely; I’m still not sure if this is a good thing or not. There are definitely some things that I would like to forget without having to double-delete first. Alas, this is the way of the world now.

The more I find out the less that I know. As children and then young adults, we cannot wait to grow up; we strive for it. To us, growing up means that we gain an exuberant knowledge that allows us to be able to obtain thoughts on anything that we ever could want to know. Then, of course, as we get older, we realize that this isn’t true at all; that there is just so much knowledge in the world, it would be impossible to ever know everything.

In the first half of our lives, we are taught that things are either right or wrong and that there isn’t any in-between…in other words, everything is either black or white. Perhaps as adolescence, it is felt that we are unable to grasp things another way. Perhaps, having things concrete is the only way that anyone is ever able to learn or grow. But do we really need for things to be concrete in order to grow? If that were the case, why is it that everyone is so confused all of the time? Why doesn’t anyone know what they want?

“It doesn’t have to be black and white.” In the end, everything is either one thing or it’s another, nothing is half and half. Shades of grey exist because people don’t want to choose sides, because people don’t really want to think about what they want, to even know what they want…because people are afraid. People are afraid of what will happen if they give in to something, if they let all restraint go. I’m afraid of that too, but I’m also afraid of what happens if I don’t. What will I miss out on? What experiences could I have had if I just took that chance? The problem is, that unless you do, you’ll never know. Not everything may be worth it in the end, but the memories will be. Sometimes, the beauty is in the attempt.