New Year’s Things

I just did 5 yoga classes in 3 days. I am sore and took today, Friday, off. I’m going in for one more class before the final holiday of the year tomorrow morning, which should kill me. My knee is acting up but I think it’s strained from overdoing it in King Arthur pose on Wednesday night so I’ll have to go easier.

I was thinking about New Year’s resolutions and I didn’t know what they should be. J said that because I’m doing yoga teacher training, and that’s a big commitment, that I should basically be absolved from making other ones, but I still wanted to think of something. Here’s what I came up with:

1. Volunteer more – this will likely be in the realm of volunteering with cats, something I’m already doing, but let’s do it some more, shall we?
2. Go on Facebook less – like 15 minutes a day or less. If I have a question about something, I’ll just have to Google it or reach out to actual human people I know. Facebook is a super fucking waste of time and it makes people depressed, so let’s cut it out. 
3. Read – I read 14 or 15 books this year. Let’s do it again in 2017. Or make it 20. Why not.
4. Be healthier – Cook more, eat out less. Get back to drinking once or twice a week and no more. Basically try to feel good. 
5. Make a vision board – I keep meaning to and then I’m like, “Ooh, NVM, let’s watch My Cat From Hell…”
6. Figure out what I want to do – I don’t think a 9-5 desk job is for me (unfortunately) so I need to figure out WTF I want to do instead. 
7. Rock teacher training – Duh. Maybe I’ll be able to master a headstand, too, finally. But hey, just because someone can do a handstand doesn’t mean they’re a good teacher.
8. Watch less Netflix – This goes for HBO Go and Amazon Prime too. I want to watch less TV so I can read more. 
9. Be more patient – with my partner, my friends, family, and especially strangers. I currently have no patience, so cultivating any patience would be a miracle. 
10. Be less judgmental – I would like to look at someone that I’ve never met and not make 10 assumptions about them based on what they look like or what they’re doing. 
11. Travel Somewhere New: One new city in America (we’re planning on Denver, at the very least) and three new cities in Europe (ideas that have been thrown around: Reykjavik, Dublin, Edinburgh, London, Budapest, Bucharest, or wherever they film the Bond movies in Croatia).

I think that’s good for now. What are your resolutions? 

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Sugar (Plum) Lips

I flip flop between lip glasses/lipsticks/lipstuffs all the time. Sometimes I’m all about the lipstick and then others, I’m all, “my lips are chapped, it’s cold out, gimme that balm." 

I’ve never been a huge fan of LUSH, not because there’s anything wrong with them, but just because I don’t take a lot of baths because my bathtub is pretty small so I don’t have much of a reason to darken their doorstep. BUT a couple of weeks ago, I went in to buy their lip scrub and I ended up walking out with both the lip scrub and a tinted lip balm. 

These are both the best lip things ever. 

The lip scrub was a miracle because some reason my lips have decided to become gross this winter season so this is a life saver. 

And the tinted lip balm? Okay, first of all I was super skeptical of the color. The outside of the tube looks purple and I don’t wear purple on my lips because I don’t aspire to look like a corpse. But I’m glad I gave it a try because it’s the perfect color for me. It actually looks more magenta/dark pink than purple. 

So, it’s pretty and moisturizing and the perfect color and has a bit of sparkle. You could say that I’m a happy camper that I dropped into LUSH that day.

$19.89 Tickets to American Psycho

I’ve been sort of excited to see American Psycho ever since I saw the video of their press preview. The music sounds different, the choreography looks fun, and who doesn’t love Benjamin Walker? I sure do. So, when it was sort of quietly announced that they were selling tickets for $19.89 (for the year 1989 when the play takes place) for six preview performances, I was instantly interested in heading down on a Saturday morning. I’d mentioned it to Matt a couple of days prior at Eclipsed and he said sure, let’s do it. 

We met up at 9:30am on Saturday morning to a line that went down 45th Street to 7th Avenue and turned towards 44th Street. We got on the line right as it turned onto 7th so we figured there were probably 100 people in front of us and it shouldn’t be too bad of a wait since the box office was opening in 30 minutes.

Did we ever misjudge the situation. The line took FOREVER. We didn’t buy our tickets until 12:45pm. Also: it was freezing. It was something like 32* out and I was wearing really inappropriate shoes. We took turns hopping into Junior’s and the Booth Theatre’s lobby to keep warm because I’m not lying when I say it was really fucking cold.

They’d really made shitty usage of the box office. I honestly don’t think they were expecting this many people to show up. They could’ve fit probably two dozen people in it but with the way they chose to wrap the line, there were 5 people inside of it at a time. When we finally were standing under the marquee, when it was fairly obvious what we were waiting for, I started telling passerby that we were waiting in line for tickets to a Trump rally. They believed us, no questions asked, and we died laughing.

We purchased our orchestra seats for the preview performance on April 5th and happily made our way to our respective homes and warmed up. It was worth it this time, but I will never do this again in the winter. 

I went through one of my wardrobes this week to see what I’ve worn and what I haven’t since I did that whole turning-your-hangers-the-wrong-way experiment a couple of months ago. I was happy and surprised to see that I’ve worn over half of my wardrobe in the last few months (worn stuff is on the left, and unworn stuff is on the right – you can kind of see the divide). 

I knew exactly what I probably haven’t worn: Cardigans. Wraps. Things you wear over tank tops and t-shirts. I’m not wearing ANY of that during winter because all I want to wear when it’s cold are sweaters. Those couple of plaid shirts hiding? I’m probably never going to wear those either. I always intend to wear them because they look super cute on other people but then I’m always like: “eh, sweater.” Because it’s still cold. Really, really fucking cold.

I’m definitely feeling the need to go all Marie Kondo Method again to get rid of even more clothing. Specifically my jean collection. I believe I’ve worn all of two, possibly three, pairs of jeans since I started this experiment. I even found (and immediately discarded) a pair of skinny jeans from probably 6 years ago with a huge hole on the inner thigh of one of the legs (chaffing from when I was 40lbs heavier). I think I’ve worn my black skinny jeans, my blue skinny jeans, and maybe a regular pair of flare jeans. Maybe. (Though probably not, let’s be honest.)

So, I’m feeling the need to purge again. I’ll probably do it this weekend. I wore a sweater from the right side of the closet today and it was actually kind of cute, but it was super itchy, too. 

I’ll just file this under “First World Problems” and call it a day.

Drama-Free Valentine’s Day

I’m happy to say Valentine’s Day was drama free. I wasn’t expecting any drama (my dude and I are both pretty chill) but after hearing some friend’s stories, I was extra grateful. We went to a friend’s party in Brooklyn – walking way too far in the frigid cold from Barclays after the F train was refusing to appear. The party was lots of fun and we we were diabetic after from ingesting way too much sugar, as expected. We stopped at Sugar Shoppe on the way home, and Fat Daddy Taco (we needed to eat food that wasn’t 95% sugar).

We started Sunday off with a leisurely brunch at The Hamilton before showering and attempting our plans of milkshakes and The Boy. Upon arriving at Black Tap in the Meatpacking District, we witnessed the most ridiculous wrapping line plus a bouncer in 10* weather and immediately abandoned ship. Starving, we stopped at The Diner on 14th and 9th for some delicious (albeit overpriced) comfort food. We hopped on the train to 42nd Street to attempt an earlier showing of The Boy. It’s been out for weeks, so how could there be a problem? It turns out that EVERYONE wants to go to the movies when it’s Arctic outside so our movie was sold out plus the theatre was mobbed because the machines to buy tickets were down.

the scene outside Black Tap Burger. guys, they’re just milkshakes. 

Our plans were just not meant to be, I guess. We ended up making dinner at my apartment and settling in for a double-header of Frozen (that was better than I expected, said Justin) and a movie called Dark Skies (it’s a thriller about aliens with Kerry Russell and I totally enjoyed it).

And we ate more candy. So much candy. Because: Valentine’s Day. 

A Run in Riverside

You know how I always say running sucks? Well, it’s still true: running sucks. It sucks even more in the freezing cold. It was hard to get out of bed on Saturday morning, but my boyfriend and I had signed up for the Hot Cocoa 5k a month or so ago and since it was starting just two blocks away from my apartment, so why not. But the morning of: he was not happy. To be quite honest, I’d have loved to stay in bed, too. 

The course was rough: lots of hills. But we did it. We both finished in 32 minutes. They were giving out free hot chocolate (hence the name) and bagels after at the race, but we didn’t want to wait on line, so I ordered hot chocolate at the local diner instead.

I’m glad we did it but eff running outside in the winter from now on. 

City in the Snow

The East Coast is getting pummeled this weekend with a massive storm. Unfortunately the forecasts are only predicting 6 inches of snow for the New York City area this weekend, but 6 inches is better than nothing (that’s what she said?).  I love the snow. I have no idea why as I’m not a particularly outdoorsy person. I think it’s probably because everything is so peaceful and pretty when it snows. The calm after the storm after everyone is at home, and watching the snow fall. It’s almost meditative.

The benefits of storms in the city, especially when you live uptown, is that the power almost never goes out (now it probably will, but it hasn’t in the last 8 years I’ve lived uptown) and nothing closes. Maybe the neighborhood bar will close at midnight or 2am instead of 4am, but the corner market is always open, and the diner is always open. They don’t call this the city that never sleeps for nothing.

The subways never shut down either. So you know what’s happening if they’re wrong and the storm is massively bad? We’re putting on our boots, hopping on the train, and playing the lottery for Hamilton.  When tourists and people who live outside the city are unable to come in to do things like play lotteries, you hop on the subway and you make the most of it. Freezing snow and ice be damned.

Since 300 people will likely have the same idea, we will probably end up snowed in at my apartment drinking tea and coffee and hot chocolate, or braving the storm for a block and a half and grabbing a hot toddy at Amity Hall or The Hamilton.

Bring it on, snow. Bring it on.

New York Times’ Turkey Chili

Last Saturday, after yoga, I went to Trader Joe’s and then headed home and immediately began to make turkey chili, for the first time. For some reason I’d always thought that chili seemed like a lot of work, but that night I just said fuck it and hunkered down with Netflix and made it.

As the weather is getting colder (kind of, sort of, sometimes), I turned to my book on Ayurveda and knew I had to change my diet, somewhat. When the weather gets colder, it’s recommended that you eat warmer foods that are easier to digest since your system slows down (we haven’t really evolved completely past the days of hibernating cave men). So that meant no more cold yogurts and salads for me and many more soups and stews.

After chopping up an insane amount of vegetables, I sautéed them, added some broth and tomatoes, let it simmer, and then it was done. Seriously, it was so easy. My life will never be the same again – neither will my diet. In the recipe it was served with sour cream and cheese, but to be honest, I don’t really like sour cream on my chili. It makes it very watery. Ew.

This recipe is so easy and it makes, like, at least a half-dozen servings. Cook it, seriously.