I could tell yesterday that you weren’t totally blown away by the celebrities I’ve rubbed elbows with, and early this morning, I realized why. I forgot to add the most important ones, the ones I was actually filmed with. And in Meryl’s case, the one that I actually ran into accidentally. So here are the additions to my List of All the Famous People I Can Remember Having Seen Whilst Living in NYC for you to ooh and ahh at:

Meryl Streep, who I filmed scenes with as an extra in the movie Julie and Julia.

Brooke Shields, who I stood 2 centimeters away from while filming scenes as an extra in “Lipstick Jungle“, where I also stood 2 centimeters away from

Andrew McCarthy

and Rosie Perez

and Kim Raver

and Lindsay Price.

Please note that I reserve the right to keeping posting this sort of jazz whenever I remember another one, because nothing else in my life has any meaning.

My friend Sonya, my doctor boyfriend, Kamran, and I took a bus from Kamran’s office in Rockefeller Center to Union Square last Thursday night and then cut down a side street to get to the East Village for dinner. As we were passing by the movie theatre on Broadway, we saw some fancy black cars across the street and flashbulbs going off as someone stepped out of one of them. We continued walking like New Yorkers do but kept our eyes trained on the area in case something was going on that we’d need to brag about to our friends later.

When the person being photographed turned to face us, Sonya said, “Hey, it’s the guy with the big mouth who used to have dreads!” I, of course, had no idea who it was, but Kamran is pretty much an original gangsta and recognized him right away as Busta Rhymes. We crossed the street to get a better look, because while we don’t have any interest in movie stars, we understand that it’s important for our families in Orlando (Sonya), Orange County (Kamran), and OHIO (me) to hear about these sorts of sightings, since they can’t imagine any other advantage to living here.

Out of the next car came Guy Pearce, whose name we couldn’t remember but whom we all knew as “that guy from Memento“. And out of the next car came, most importantly, Don Cheadle, who I totally had a crush on after Crash and totally had a bigger crush on after Hotel Rwanda. So naturally I took out my camera and captured:

Blurry Don Cheadle, who very well might be looking right at me here but we’ll never know for sure so I’ll say he definitely is!

Don Cheadle’s leg beside some lady with a cast!

Don Cheadle in profile!

There were boards with Traitor posters all over them propped behind where the stars were having their photos taken, so they must have been there to premiere the movie, but of course I can’t look it up and have Google start showing “celeb” gossip in my gmail ads. So you should do it for me.

And while I have you here, here’s a List of All the Famous People I Can Remember Having Seen Whilst Living in NYC, complete with highly personal stories, which can now also be found in my sidebar, in case you want to reference it many times in the future.

Clearly I don’t brag about myself enough here, because I never told you that I totally won an extremely important and incredibly lucrative writing contest earlier this year. The contest was sponsored by the Gotham Writers’ Workshop here in NYC, and the idea of it was to submit a memoir made up of only six words.

Their example was a famous one by Hemingway that says,

“For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Ohhhhhhh, it tugs on your heartstrings, doesn’t it? My boyfriend Kamran’s friend Mike told us about the contest and offered up,

“I should have asked her age,”

to which Kamran replied,

“And then I got crabs again,”

and while I thought those were both brilliant, I went a much more serious route and submitted,

“I’ll never know mom’s meatloaf recipe.”

I didn’t actually expect to be chosen, of course, because I thought it was only meaningful to me. This is sort of embarrassing, but I’d been having a deep hankerin’ for meatloaf around that time, and my mom’s was so much better than any I’ve had since, and I’d kill to make it just like she did. But of course she’s been dead eight years now, and of course I can’t remember exactly what she put in it, and of course my dad isn’t any help in the matter. And thinking about the empty hole in my stomach where that meatloaf should be made me think about all the empty holes in me that parts of her should be filling, and so I entered the contest.

Weeks later, I received an e-mail from the Writers’ Workshop that said,

Here’s a writing contest update from the co-editors of the New York Times bestseller Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure.

The “but, this time around” dashed my hopes, but then I realized that this was a mass e-mail and that the but was intended for everyone BUT me! So evidently the judges got the implicit meaning, even if the explicit words themselves were sorta lame.

And my prize? Well, absolutely nothing. But it looks like I’ll be published in the sequel to the original six-word memoir book, and that’s pret-ty rad. Plus, my name is all up in lights on the results page at the Gotham website. Neat, huh?

The interesting thing is that this was the same week I found out I was going to be in an issue of Time Out New York (and more on that here, for posterity) and that I’d gotten a part in an upcoming Meryl Streep/Amy Adams film. I guess good things really do come in threes.

I’ve never been a smoker. Although I think it looks cool when really hot people congregate outside trendy clubs and damn the man for banning smoking indoors while they enjoy their menthols and ultra lights, I think it looks an equal amount of gross when ugly people do it. I hate the idea of vices, too, (though I’m clearly addicted to sugar and sunshine) so the people standing twenty feet from our office building on their cigarette breaks in the dead of winter are really unattractive and pathetic-seeming to me. I hate the way smoke smells on people’s clothing, I hate that anyone’s willing to pay $9 per pack for something they don’t even enjoy but have to have, and I really hate the “Cigarettes take ____ years off my life? Well, they’re the shitty years, anyway” argument. I won an award in 6th grade for my outstanding essay on why I was drug-free for our D.A.R.E. program, although naturally I was too cool to show up to receive it, much like the kids who actually did smoke in junior high.

In fact, when there was the possibility that I’d have to smoke as part of my background role in a forthcoming Meryl Streep film (I know I’m a bit of a showoff, but you’re lucky I don’t mention that every day), Boyfriend Kamran had to take me outside his apartment building and show me the hippest ways to light and hold the things. Even under his instruction, I mostly ended up looking like this:

Please note that this is NOT outside Kamran’s apartment. I don’t want you thinking he lives under an overpass.

Still, for some reason, I loooooooooooooooove the way smoke smells on a man’s breath. Please explain.

I tasted my first bit of blogfame this week when away.com featured my Oyster Bar review in a blog post about food and history. And the best part is that the blurb is exactly what I would have written about myself had it been up to me. And probably even better.

You can–and should–read the rest of the post here.

Comment Here

The morning of the start of my 24-hour culture marathon, Kamran asked me the names of the other two winners of the Time Out New York contest and the reporter who would accompany us on our outing and then kept singing “white people having a good time” to describe the events involving a group of people called Katie, Colin, Brian, and Meghan. My friends had encouraged me to “wear something cute that’s comfortable but also formal enough to fit in at a club, just in case” but I had rejected all of their advice and gone for Chucks, dark jeans, a very apropos baby blue t-shirt of Kamran’s with a drawing of a writer at a desk with his head in his hands, a black cardigan, and my dogbed-looking cape. I wanted to make sure that at all costs, it didn’t look like I was trying.

I rode the bus down to 7th St. in the East Village to Abraço, which is literally a coffee bar: there’s a counter for ordering on one side, and another counter for standing and drinking along the window that makes up the storefront. Wanting to keep my public restroom use to a minimum, I opted out of a drink and just stood at the window, replying to excited well-wishing texts my friends had left me the night before. A steady stream of people stopped in with their dogs and made familiar conversation with the owner, who had the greatest curly gray hair that flopped in his eyes as he brewed each cup individually from fresh ground beans. Had I been a coffee drinker, I would’ve been in heaven.

A little after 8:30, a tall blond guy with the sort of look that immediately strikes you as that of someone who’d never tell you a lie came in and boomed, “Are any of you here with Time Out?” The girl standing against the wall behind me and I both turned and introduced ourselves to him. He was Colin, the reporter, and she was Meghan, the other female winner. I had kind of expected her to be like me–a little less mainstream, a little more geeky–but she was a normal girl. Like, with regular girl straight long hair and regular girl make-up and regular girl boots and a pretty navy blue coat that any regular girl would own. I usually find these girls uninteresting, and they usually find me weird, but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, since we were about to spend 24 hours together. But then the first words out of her mouth were, “We’d better not be going to the Panty Party, ’cause I’m not wearing any panties!” And you can imagine how hard my eyes rolled.

Luckily, the guys were great. Colin had the best room-filling laugh and was one of those people who makes friends with everyone he meets, and Brian–who turned out to be Asian, completely wrecking the “white people having a good time” theme–was wearing a homemade shirt to advertise his blog (which I will also advertise here–peasandnuts.com–despite the fact that he refers to me as “another girl” in the sidebar) and planned to Twitter all of our activities for his friends. Our photographer, Jeff, had gone to school at the University of Michigan, which has the biggest and best rivalry in college football history with my school, THE Ohio State University, and had typical twentysomething good looks but was super-nerdy about how much he loved taking pictures and was therefore likeable.

Colin informed us that our outing was actually a contest to see who could go all 24 hours and that there were plenty of activities planned that were intended to tire us out and get us eliminated, so I got all nervous that we were going to swim the Hudson or participate in a 5k run. But it turned out that our first activity was very much the opposite of that–a sit in the sauna at the Russian & Turkish Baths in the East Village, where hairy old European men in tiny swimsuits barked at us to stop taking pictures and close the door so the heat wouldn’t escape.

I wasn’t totally down with being beaten with oak leaf brushes and starting the day all sweaty, so I kept my sweater on and stayed in the sauna for just a moment, which I’m sure resulted in odd photos, but a girl has to have her priorities, you know, and mine was assuring that my hair didn’t get frizzy. Plus, the place was a little shady-looking

and there was a sign that read, “YOU MUST SHOWER BEFORE ENTERING POOL! Persons with sore of inflamed eyes, a cold, nasal drip, discharges, cuts, boils, or any other evident skin or bodily infections may not enter! No urination, discharge of fecal matter, or blowing nose in the pool!” I didn’t want to take my chances on the discharge of fecal matter part. Colin couldn’t handle the heat, and Jeff didn’t want to wreck his camera equipment, so we sat around the café area talking about music and reading articles hanging on the wall about how upset the men were when women started being allowed into the baths a few years ago and they could no longer walk around naked.

Next we went for dim sum at Jing Fong, which was one of my picks. It’s a huge banquet hall with outrageously flamboyant decor that you can only get to after what seems like a two-mile escalator ride upstairs, and there are stages along every wall filled with high-backed chairs that look like they’re meant to be used when the king is visiting. I’m used to pointing and grabbing when the food carts roll around, but as luck would have it, Brian spoke Cantonese to the waitresses and got us all sorts of weird treats like shark fin dumplings, chicken wings in rice rolls, and almond “pudding” that had the consistency of Jell-o but was strangely delicious.

Colin, Meghan, and Brian, for your reference

We tried our hand at ping-pong next at the New York Table Tennis Foundation, which was in the basement of an ordinary office building and was impossible to find if you weren’t looking for it. Three-quarters of the room was filled with kids getting lessons from really intense teachers, so we stuck to our one table and batted the ball back and forth for an hour,

the guys keeping their skillz in check so we girls could keep up. Because while I was ping-pong champion of my 4th grade 4-H camp, I haven’t really kept up my game since then. And Brian made sure I remembered that with this super-intimidating look:

Meghan was wearing this ultra low-cut shirt that wholly exposed her cleavage, and although she kept it covered with a long scarf for most of the day, she took it off for ping-pong and showed everyone that her bra just couldn’t keep those things wrangled. They were hanging down and falling out, and every time she lunged for the ball, all you could hear was the click-click-click of the photographer’s camera down her shirt. I felt a little embarrassed for her, but she seemed to be fully aware of what was going on, so I assumed that she’s one of those “all press is good press” types and applauded her lack of shame.

Next we went uptown to the Morgan Library, where Colin used all of his journalistic savvy to get us access to a closed event with Ian McEwan, who wasn’t talking about how Atonement the book is way better than Atonement the movie but was having a conversation about conversation with a Harvard professor in which they argued that so much of what we say in the English language is insinuated rather than explicitly spoken. Everyone thought it was cool except Meghan, who also accused me of falling asleep during it.

We took the subway fourteen million stops to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for the Sakura Matsuri, or Cherry Blossom Festival, which was also one of my picks and was more beautiful than I could have imagined.

Trees were literally falling onto the pathway with blooms, and petals floated down from every direction, especially when helped along by children with environment-hating parents.

Lots of Japanese girls were dressed in slutty Harajuku costumes, but my favourite girl was dressed as what reminded me of Little Bo Peep.

And now, to complain more about Meghan–she and I had walked together to the ping-pong place, and I learned that she’s from Laguna Beach, where Kamran’s from. I was telling her that he’s Persian and says that Orange County is full of these really slick, greasy Persians who are very much not like him, and she said that she’s also dating a Persian guy from the area. Even though I assumed that he was one of the greasy ones because she struck me as sort of a greaseball herself, I let it go without a word. She and Colin and I had talked about the dynamics of our respective relationships on the subway to the Garden, and I felt like we had a little more in common than I’d originally imagined, but by the time we were leaving the festival, I was done with her. I’m one of those people who generally thinks it’s polite to make conversation when you’re alone with an acquaintance, but she evidently viewed any time when the guys weren’t around as an opportunity to look at her BlackBerry. And while I’m one of those people who at least offers a smile–maybe even a gurgle of a response–when someone says something to me, she’s one of those people who’ll pretend as if you don’t exist. She paid plenty of attention to the reporter and photographer, though, so I expected the article to be entirely about her. But then it wasn’t. Which makes me think that Colin saw right through her.

We needed to catch a cab to Williamsburg, but there were too many people at the Garden and too few taxis on duty at 4 p.m. on a Saturday, so Colin made fun of Brooklyn and everyone else backed him up, since they all lived in Manhattan. It was so weird being with four people who weren’t at all impressed that I live in Williamsburg, which is a source of awe to pretty much everyone else I know. My location defines my personality, apparently.

Once we got to the bar where we were going to watch the Kentucky Derby–Pete’s Candy Store, where we play trivia on Wednesday nights–we found the place was overpacked with hipsters in wide-brimmed hats and southern-belle-type dresses, so we went instead to Rosemary’s Greenpoint Tavern, which only had a handful of old men inside. I put my fake money on Big Brown just because of his ridiculous name, but one of the guys had actually bet what was apparently a large sum of real money and was practically crying when his horse fell behind. Good times.

We headed back into the city to the Upright Citizens Brigade for an improv show, where we had some comfy velvet seats courtesy of Colin’s string-pulling, and where Colin laughed in my ear SO HARD.

I talked to Colin’s girlfriend all about being from the Midwest–she was from Michigan–and living in New York and how each of us reacts to going home for a week while we wasted time at a bar next door until a spot opened up at El Maguey y La Tuna, where I had what was either the best mole of my life or what tasted like it after a few margaritas, though it looks like chunky death in this photo:

Colin got into the Cinco de Mayo festivities with a sombrero,

but there was only a little cowgirl hat left by the time the waitress got to Brian, and he refused. The staff at the place kept emphasizing to Colin that they were the best Mexican in the Lower East Side, and I sort of believe it, because I also had this crazy jalapeño popper that was the most delicious thing I could imagine (until I got to the shrimp hiding in one end of it, I mean). Kamran doesn’t know that we’re eating every single meal there from now on.

The first of the sleep-inducing activities was a midnight showing of Alien at the Sunshine, but I loaded up on Mountain Dew and two different types of chocolate, so coupled with the fact that I’d never seen the movie before, I had no problem staying awake. Meghan knocked herself out of the competition by leaving for a while for a friend’s birthday party, and Brian kept putting his head in his hands but shielding his eyes so none of us could see them, so I tell myself that he totally fell asleep and that I won the contest.

Next we went to Cake Shop for their 3rd anniversary party, and it was PACKED. I was pumped to listen to cool music, eat some cupcakes, and relax among all the pretty people, but it was so crowded upstairs and down that we ended up losing each other, and I couldn’t see the band, and no one was dancing, and it just felt lame. So I texted Colin with, “I’m not having fun,” and went outside to call Kamran in hopes that he’d tell me to leave early. But he encouraged me to stick it out, and I’m glad I did, because next was

at Sing Sing, which was also my pick. Colin had a bunch of the guys at the bar mancrushing on him for his boyband ballads and his 90s raps, and I got a round of applause for one of my renditions. Even Meghan-who-hated-me returned to the group from her party and stood beside me so she could put her ear to my vocal cords. Which made me like her just a little, but purely in a superior way. A bunch of my friends were at a club down the street and joined us for the last hour or so, which was so awesome, and I tried to convince them to join us for the rest of the marathon, but they had been awake since noon and thought that was a big deal.

I did manage to get my friend/former co-worker Beth to come to Veselka for blintzes and macaroni and cheese, but only because she was visiting from California for the weekend and didn’t want to waste any time sleeping. Just as we ordered, though, our friend who she was staying with called and said that she had locked her keys in her apartment and that Beth had the only extra set. With her gone and with Meghan having left even before breakfast, we decided to skip the morning church service and Staten Island Ferry ride that were supposed to have been enough to put even Brian with his “I stay awake for 24 hours every Saturday” touts to sleep and call it a day.

I took the bus back to Kamran’s and arrived just as the sun was starting to crawl up over Brooklyn and the East River

and then I enjoyed a much-deserved hour of sleep before heading off to brunch. Because I am invincible.And also famous.

Comment Here

My Time Out New York article hit newsstands today! And in case you didn’t recognise that link as corresponding to the article itself, here it is again! And again! No, wait, that wasn’t it. Again!

Interestingly, my blog entry about it–which I posted on Monday but Time Out asked me to remove ten minutes later because the issue wasn’t out yet–was entitled “24-Hour Party People”. So I guess great minds really do think alike. Or at least great minds think of the most obvious title.

I’m totally pleased with the article. Not only did the reporter include the threatening e-mail I wrote him in the first paragraph, but he remembered my singing the Karate Kid song and quoted my hipster-hatin’ right after mentioning that I live in the hipsterest neighborhood in existence. Other than the fact that he calls me a receptionist–I AM THE DIRECTOR OF FIRST IMPRESSIONS!–and will no doubt totally offend my parents with the “avoiding a date with the Lord” bit at the end, I don’t think it could be better.

Comment Here

How kind of all of you–or, you know, two of you–to ask to see the Time Out New York submission that’s going to grant me all the fame I can handle. Because you know I was dying to share it.

Dear TONY,

Have you ever found yourself–a corn-fed farmgirl from smalltown Ohio living in the midwestern enclave that is Williamsburg–avoiding all of the hip joints your white friends recommend because you think Asian culture is where the action is? I have, and that’s why I’m calling my “How long can you go?” entry East Meets Midwest.

***

We’d start out the day at Jing Fong, naturally, and you’d be happy to share pork and vegetable dumplings with me, because you don’t like shrimp in your dim sum, either. We’d talk about how cuttlefish sound totally cute, and you’d spend the rest of the day calling me that as a term of endearment.

Next would be Sakura Matsuri at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, where we’d take a ridiculous number of pictures of ourselves looking innocent–no, coy–beneath the cherry blossoms. We’d stick around for a photo-op with the sushi pillow, and if I’m lucky, you’ll buy us matching ones to take home and remember each other by.

Lunch would be at Sakae Sushi in the Chrysler Building, because not only is fish from a conveyor belt an awesome novelty that I’m not ashamed to love, but they have tempura ice cream and chicken dishes covered in cheese, forgod’ssake.

In the afternoon, we’d make our way to Union Square for the 2 p.m. showing of Jump, and every single person in the audience would be white and midwestern, so I’d feel right at home.

Because you’re too cheap to buy me souvenirs there, we’d head to Pearl River for erasers shaped like fast food, tiny Buddhas in pervy poses, and bags of whole dried fish that you’d happily chow down on while I made squeamish faces.

Dinner would be at Yakitori Torys, where you would eat skewers and skewers of soft knee bone, while I’d take advantage of your cash and fill up on kobe beef tongue. We’d share the steamed vegetables and be amazed at what wasabi mayonnaise can do for carrots.

We’d follow dinner with dessert at Kyotofu, because we’re way above the Pinkberry post-hype. I’d have the Frozen Maple Soy Parfait, and you’d allow me the suggested sake pairing, because we’re close that way.

Next would be drinks underground at Decibel, and I wouldn’t be afraid to keep up with you, because I know you’d never take advantage of me.

Since we’d be inhibition-free at that point, we’d rent out a private room at Sing-Sing (the one on Ave. A, obviously), and I would karaoke more Heart and Pat Benetar than you thought possible. AND YOU WOULD LIKE IT.

We’d go to The Park for a little dancing by the bamboo, if you insisted, but I’m serious about that karaoking, and I could do it alllllllll night long.

Although I’d be willing to stop if you wanted some okonomiyaki from Oh! Taisho, and I’d use my camera to videotape the dried fish skin topping as it contracts in the heat.

***

Oh, TONY, we’d have so much fun together. And we wouldn’t even have to speak with offensive faux-Chinese accents all night if you didn’t want to. I’m all about compromise and making this relationship work.

Love,
Katie

Thank you to Sonya for pointing me to the contest and believing in me, and thank you to JTS for introducing me to the idea of Williamsburg as a midwestern enclave. ‘Cause it totally is. But it’s still hip, so shut up.

You guys! Not only are you officially going to see me in the next Meryl Streep/Amy Adams film, but I got an e-mail this afternoon telling me that out of all the 8 million people in New York City, the ginormous magazine Time Out New York has chosen ME (and two insignificant others) for a 24-hour city-wide adventure THIS SATURDAY!

Naturally, it was the last three words that really caught my eye. IhopetheylikemeIhopetheylikemeIhopetheylikeme!