Looking for fun and feeling groovy...

la la la la la..feeling groovy...that's because I'm home, in Las Vegas, I'm feeling relaxed and well-rested already, I'm sleeping well (i.e. a normal amount - when stressed/unhappy, I tend to either sleep way too much - escapist - or way too little - masochist). When I get stressed out, I also get ugly, so I feel I look better too - my skin loses color, I get blotches (stress marks I call them, it's this skin virus that I have that I got in college...something related to chicken pox the doctor said), my eyes get swollen (lack of sleep) and stay red, etc, you get the idea...I've just been laying around reading (Kate Braverman's Lithium for Medea...she's a beautiful writer, but a lot of metaphors, so if you don't like that sort of poetic writing, you won't appreciate her, but I LOVE it) and watching Audrey Hepburn movies and a little cooking...last night was The Children's Hour and Robin and Marian and lentil stew with spinach...today maybe Two for the Road and a pizza from scratch? A little later, I plan to lay in the sun a bit and then when Mom gets home from work, maybe a little shopping...one of my favorite things to do when I come home is go to Target and Walmart...I don't know why, but I love both places and actually get excited about shopping there - why is that? OOOHH let's go to Target! My blood races at the thought...ha ha ha... well, you gotta gets your kicks where you can, who am I to question what little things make me happy... they have cheap makeup, cheap tshirts, cheap shoes... and for a cheap, broke girl like me, it makes perfect sense... alrighty, so on to the rest of my day... I think I'll go read outside and finish my morning coffee...did I mention it's only 9am and already 95 degrees?

Hi, I'm Happy!

Just a quick post to say just that - hi, and I'm happy...and I'll tell you why...I GET TO GO HOME FOR A WEEK AND GET OUT OF THIS HELLHOLE I CALL MY LIFE!!!! Aw, it's not all that bad, it's just things have gotten OUT OF CONTROL here at work, very stressful, and I can't take it anymore...so I pleaded my case to my boss who was very understanding and nice about the whole thing, and how awful I'm feeling and he agreed... SO... next Tuesday until August 2nd, I will be getting lots of much-needed love and attention from my Da and Mother Swarts (ha ha, that's for you Veronica - or should I have called her Goody Swarts?). I do have to bring my laptop to possibly do some work, but I don't care, I just need to get out of here and away from the city too...last weekend was sort of crappy (yet good at the same time, oddly enough, because I made lemonade out of the lemons so to speak)...I tried to get Shakespeare in the Park tickets - DENIED!! Got sick (from the heat? my bad stomach?) later that evening and couldn't go to a BBQ. The next day I met some friends at the Natural History Museum, where I encountered rude person after rude person...I got into a fight with one couple while watching a beautiful film about ocean life - they were talking through the whole thing and then when I asked them to be quiet, they got pissed off...the man yelled at me "you've got some nerve, we paid for our tickets, we can do as we please..." and he kept muttering "the nerve, the nerve...KIDS"....I guess he thought I was just some mouthy teenybopper... so I just ignored them (they seemed half-drunk or something anyway) and then when we got up to leave, the woman (this crusty, middle-aged bottle-blonde white trash type), said loudly and obnoxiously, "buh-BYE" and I walked a few steps away and then turned back around and said just as bitchily "BUH-BYE!!" with a wave... ASSHOLES!! But the upside/lemonade of the weekend was that I sat in the park for most of the day on Saturday where Lucia and I were entertained by this oh so cute and weirdly precocious little girl named Madison and it was nice to be in the park...and on Sunday, I did enjoy myself at the museum despite all the ticketing issues I ran into, the transportation problems, the yucky people there, etc...At any rate, what I'm trying to say is, I'm burned out, people!!!...I need some quiet time to think and rest and recuperate...so off I go, to the hot Nevada desert...but not til Tuesday (name that song...!) so for now it's back to work, I've got deadlines to meet...blah blah blah...

Drat!

I am wearing a white shirt today. I am drinking coffee today...without giving too much away, what do you think just happened? As I am out the door to go home (about 20 minutes ago), I decided to take one last gulp of my coffee before tossing it and it somehow missed my mouth and dribbled down me (my dad likes to make the funny joke of "how can you miss a target that big? whenever I do this) and so I had to go scrub out the stain so it doesn't set and now I'm sitting here wasting some time reading stuff on the internet until it dries a bit...but damn it, I never wear white and when I do, this is what happens! And I almost made it too, I was done with the day... ah well, it gives me time to get a few things done..

FYI: the previous comments regarding the Pinata and Fugly have been removed...just trying to be careful...Big Brother is watching!!

Hell to the No!!

Okay, I'd like to admit to everyone that I have been watching "Being Bobby Brown" on Bravo this past week and I liked it...liked it because of its awfulness and how its awfulness made me laugh (hey, I'm only human, I like rubbernecking at car crashes like everyone else does), because of how much they've had to edit each show (because of how high/drunk Bobby and Whitney seem to be, I suppose) but my favorite part is Whitney's favorite exclamation: Hell to the no!! I just keep saying it over and over in my head and it makes me smile...so if you see me standing there smiling for no particular reason, now you'll know why...

This weekend consisted of: margaritas and tacos at Panchito's in the village on Friday and then meeting up with Mr. Z. Apollo, Esq. on Saturday to take the train up to Woodbury Common to shop. Some of the nice points of the day: Z.A. brought me a nice fruit smoothie which I thought was awfully sweet of him, because I hadn't had any time to get breakfast other than coffee and when people do kindnesses like that without you having to ask, its always a cool thing; a much desired tan suit was acquired by Z.A. which pleased him a good deal; a yummy cheesy calzone and salad at John's later on; best of all, on the subway to John's, this young woman stepped into the car and started singing, very beautifully, Puccini's "O Mio Bambino Caro" and the whole car went very silent (silent for the subway) and even caused the train guy ( I never know what to call the guy who opens the doors and makes the announcements) to come out of his "cupboard" (I don't know what to call that spot either) and listen to her...this is a good example of a NYC moment, these small, weird (in a good way) random incidents that tend to make you feel better for the moment or make you think about something you hadn't thought of before and only seem to happen to me here - does that make any sense? Anyone else have those moments? Like one time, Veronica and I passed a man wearing a paint bucket on his head. Didn't think twice about it until later. Or the other day, I was sitting on a bench in Tompkins Sq. Park and these two guys were discussing Kabballah and the nature of the universe and all sorts of mystical things...to look at them, you would have generalized that they were discussing the Yankee game...that kind of thing....

That's all for now... I'm off to the veggie/fruit stand...I'm still working on my trying to be super-healthy girl with my eating a ton of fruits and veggies, vitamin taking, ginger tea and astragalus root tonic drinking, getting enough sleep, two tablespoons of flax seeds for my omega3's regime...speaking of which, I got very little sleep last night and I'm surviving on only 1 cup of coffee and 1 mug of green tea...I started watching Adaptation last night at 12:30 and had to finish it because I love that movie and before I knew it, it was 3am and I was still up... so tonight, to bed early! Cindy, if you are reading this post, Adaptation is the movie that I told you to see because there is a character that makes me think of Cajun Carl -you should be able to tell which one he is but I'll give you a clue: he's missing his front two teeth... :-)

Dearest Mervyn...

This is just a special little post for Veronica (my Mervyn)...I bought a copy of a Cocteau Twins dvd, with all their videos on it and some of it is so beautiful, I have to make you a copy of it...I've been dying to buy it, but it only comes up for sale every so often and I finally landed a copy... there is this one a cappella bit that is so absolutely beautiful (if you go to cocteautwins.com and go to media, then video and click on the "Interlude" clip, you can see it) and I know you would love this... so "sheck" it out as you and Cindy used to say... (did you? or did I make that up?)

Happy Fourth Of July!!

this is a not-so spectacular shot of the fireworks here in NYC on the East River last night, but in person they were exactly that - spectacular! Absolutely beautiful!! I met Zeus Apollo at 8pm and we walked over to about 39th and the FDR Drive and sat down and we had an almost perfect view... then to avoid the mass exodus, we walked around for another hour or so and then got some pizza

...then this morning, I got some really good news here at work - Magpie is returning to NYC! So we are all very happy about that...that was enough to change my Disney World mood indicator from "ENRAGED" to "HAPPY"!!

From right to left, here is my cousin Megan, cousin Kalin, and her friend Valerie, on the roof deck of the Met on Saturday. Valerie and Kalin came up to NYC for the day so I met them at the museum and then we got sandwiches and sat in Central Park for a few hours, hanging out, then we headed downtown to the Village, down St.Marks and then sat in Tompkins Square Park for another hour or so listening to these Spanish guys playing really great music - like beautiful old Cuban music (we seemed to have sat a lot on this day)...then we walked back towards the West Village, stopping at Cafe Figaro for dinner and a bottle of wine (Megan and I only, we would never give under agers alcohol, for all you parents reading)

Sunday, Lucia and I went to a street fair in Soho, where a I bought a lovely new obsession, a bohemian glass bead ring...I can't stop looking at it, it looks so nice on my finger... I love rings by the way, I buy them all the time, kind of a collection I have, for those of you who don't know that... then we went to Chinatown and walked around and got a blackbean bun and almond tea at a bakery there and then on to the Village where we had margaritas and chimichangas at Panchito's...I've had this craving for margaritas lately, I want one every day..is that alright? I don't see anything wrong with it...and besides these drinks, I had met Lucia on Friday night for some at Cafe Frida, where I drank 3 lovely pomegrante margaritas...soooo yummy! They were blood red, absolutely delicious...and magically, I did not have a hangover at all...