my favorite place in mid-town

This is Deno's Party House/Colon Hydrotherapy, at 30th and 8th. Apparently they have jello shots served by bikini clad waitresses downstairs and all natural enemas upstairs. What more could a girl want?

I'm reading A Tale of Two Cities for the first time, and as much as I hate the super-trite overly used "best of times, worst of times" line, it might sum up this week pretty well. (also that Dickens guy, turns out, can write!)

Bad was getting into a big sad fight with my best friend. Bad/embarrassing was throwing up after spending all of Saturday afternoon perfecting my bloody mary mix. Bad turned Fun/Embarrassing was locking myself and all of my guests outside while brunch was cooking away on the stove inside. Luckily the stoop was sunny, by some miracle the bloody mary mix was locked outside with us (though I declined to partake), and the ranchero sauce was happily simmering away when we finally broke back in an hour later.

Pure excitement is getting ready for my Ghana trip (though randomly losing my passport also falls into the BAD category, mostly). I'm planning to stay in the NYU dorms for a week, rent an apartment in Accra for a month, then spend the rest of my time travelling (hopefully). I'm thinking of trying to travel north to Burkina Faso and Mali (turns out Timbuktu is in Mali, who knew?) which means I need to inoculate the bejeesus out of myself with shots for yellow fever, meningitis, typhoid, hepatitis and on and on. Should be a blast. Let me know if you have a particular hankering for a postcard from anywhere.

Other great things include finding my favorite scarf and $1400 I forgot I had. Not sure which I'm more excited about.

I am hopeful today will land firmly on the "best of times" side. (which means, if you have any bad news for me, prob better to wait until tomorrow). Sad fight is over, going out for a long run in a bit, then fun drinking with some new friends later.

So that's my self-centered update. Comment away;)

i heart the subway

I am among the minority of people who do not listen to some sort of ipod or other music player on the subway, and instead I usually just sort of people watch. After more than 7 months of regular ridership I can definitely say I'm only more enamored of the people and events of the New York Subway. In fact, although I rarely even have conversations with the people on the subway, it's rare that I go 2 days without falling in love with a fellow passenger. Here are a sampling of stories from the couple of weeks. (perhaps the next post will be about taxis and the cab driver who fed me guava)

1. Gang Warfare of the anti-inflammatory variety.
Bed-Stuy is a pretty rough place, and right now there's an underground war as fierce as crips/bloods or biggie/tupac ever was. It's apparently a war of the headache medicines. The makers of Tylenol have plastered the Franklin Ave stop (my stop) with giant posters advertising their particular brand of pain reliever. Not to be outdone, some hooligan or young scamp has defaced each and every poster, scribbling out TYLENOL and writing over it in big black marker: BAYER!
This kind of escalation can only lead to something bad. Next thing you know somebody will be in front of our elementary schools slinging Advil (sugar-coated!) Luckily my "Rite-Aid Acetaminophen" was hidden carefully in my purse or who knows what might have gone down.

2. Like Retarded Retarded. (and $4 to anyone who can name the movie reference).
Today, I was riding the train as it pulled up to Jay Street and I saw a man waiting to get on who clearly had down syndrome. He was unaccompanied and looked just like all the other riders, jacket, backpack, headphones. For some reason I was struck by his confidence and self-assurance, striding onto the train, taking the good seat, getting out his headphones to start listening to music. My mind started wandering and I thought "huh. I wonder if this is normal or if he's just particularly advanced." I remembered Corky's girlfriend on Life Goes On (yeah I'm an asshole) had a drivers license so maybe this type of independence is totally normal and I'm just out of the loop. Then I realized that his headphones were tangled up. He sat there and slowly and methodically tried to untangle the cord but just kept getting them more tangled. This went on for many many torturous minutes and once in awhile he'd sigh loudly, put the headphones down, and just hold his face in his hands for a few seconds. Then, he'd start up again. He worked on the headphones from Jay street all the way to Spring street, a good 14 minutes of subway riding. I was in agony. I wanted to rip them out of his hands, fix them (it was easy to tell how they could be untangled), hand them back, and be done with the mess. You could tell he was in agony too. Eventually I noticed I wasn't the only one watching, there were at least 3-4 of us on the edge of our seats, trying to decide whether to help, hoping he'd finally just fix the damn things. We all wanted to cry.

Then... Success! suddenly, the knots magically untangled. The man put the headphones on and instantly his face went from deep concentration and frustration to pure joy.

3. Last week I got my leg caught in the train door. It took 4 people to pry the door open to free me. That's all you get.

go do this thing. because i said so.

Hi there folks-

So, I know many of you might know this already but-

One of my dearest friends has just published a comic book, and it's pretty damn good, and you should all give up the two grande latte's this week and buy it for yourselves.

You can look at the comics and order the book at www.ifpthendirt.com. To buy it just click on the little button that says "store".

So you might be saying "uh, crystal. wtf are you doing reading comics (or comix if you are uber hip)?" And don't worry. I haven't gone crazy. But this book is actually pretty great. Each copy is hand made and really nicely put together and chock full of comics that, one way or another, will leave you in tears. Also they are each hand numbered and look pretty bad-ass on your "shelf of bad-ass shit".
Seriously though, it's good stuff. Half of you will read it and subsequently change your opinions on censorship, but the rest of you will want your own copy.

So...have at it. I promise I don't get a commission.

xoxoxo.

springtime in new york

Why hello there blog! Apologies once again for the long hiatus, it's been a busy month (and a half) for me. Perhaps this blog will be more of an update than an attempt at decent writing and then if I can start posting regularly I'll do more interesting stories, topics of discussion etc.

Anyhow--February was the usual roller coaster. I gave myself until the end of the month (thank you leap year) to figure out a set of things. Although I think I did pretty well over all, and came in just under the wire on a few clutch decisions, life has somehow figured out a way to dribble over into March. So, although I'd like to report that I've got it all figured out and all my shit is together, well...that might take until the middle of next week.

Here's what I've got so far-

1. I quit my job. Sort of. I'll be leaving the ol' movement at the end of May. Luckily it doesn't actually take any sort of acknowledgment or response from one's boss in order to officially quit. Otherwise it would just be my little one hand clapping or solo tree falling into the forest into eternity here in NYC and they would keep paying me. (that last part would be okay I guess)

2. I'm spending a good part of the summer in Ghana (maybe all of it!). At least I'm about 90% sure it will be Ghana. (In case you are wondering and don't have a map handy, Ghana is in West Africa, at the bottom of that chunk that sticks out on the top left part of the continent. It's on the coast and supposedly the people are really nice despite not having much water or healthcare) It could also be Ecuador or it could be Ghana AND Ecuador. Either way it will be a blast and don't worry, I'll get all my vaccinations. And I promise to bring you all back cool shit with vaguely racist or patronizing overtones like carved african masks or voodoo dolls and you can pretend to be grateful but will be slightly too embarrassed to display them in your home.

3. I'm staying in my apartment next year. I heart bed-stuy and I heart the idea of living in the same place for more than 12 months, something I haven't done since high school. I'm pretty sure eloise hearts the idea too, as much as she has loved all of her road/plane trips and foster parents. Anyway, what this really means is: More Visitors Please. You shall come and we shall stoop sit and drink cold beer in the sunshine and chat with PJ about his jeweleries and it shall be glorious.

4. Hmm. I might not have a 4. Or maybe I do and it rules but I'm just keeping it a secret. You'll have to come see me to find out.

Okay Drew, happy now? You better comment on this sucker.