Unapologetically Mundane » living in new york is neat

You Can’t Handle How New York City I Am

katie ett — Fri, 18 May 2012 20:00:16 +0000

Sometimes I feel like I don’t live New-Yorkily enough. Every time I go straight home after work to catch up on “Law & Order”, a part of me thinks about all of the girls my age who are sitting at swank bars with their swank friends trying to get boys to buy them whatever cocktail matches their swank dress. Every time I go to sleep before midnight because I have to wake up early to go to the gym and then take a shower and then watch the morning news like some geriatric, a part of me thinks of all of the girls my age at the Neon Indian or the Beach House show, staying out until 4 a.m. and then rolling out of bed again a few hours later in the same clothes to go to their start-up jobs in SoHo or DUMBO.

But I realized a minute ago that:

• tonight, I’m going with Kamran and our good friends to a second meal with a pedigreed chef who hosts secret dinners in his home

• tomorrow, I’m going to be an extra in a movie, and it’s not even the first time I’ve done that, either

• the next day, I’m going to the best restaurant in New York City for the third time with Kamran to celebrate his many accomplishments

I’m not saying this to brag. I’m saying this to tell you that I will not be made to feel bad about my life, so quit expecting me to be Carrie Bradshaw. Or Miranda Hobbes. You expect me to be the lesbian, don’t you? DON’T YOU?

Adventure Time with Kat and Kam: The New York Public Library’s Main Branch

katie ett — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:00:13 +0000

The Main Library of the New York Public Library system is located approximately 3.5 steps from Kamran’s front door. A door that he has lived behind for approximately six years. And yet up until a couple of weeks ago, he’d never been there. Truth be told, I’d only been there once to pick something up, was confounded by the long empty marble hallways, ended up in the children’s section in the basement somewhere, ran away, and decided to go back to being illiterate.

But with Kamran in tow, I tried again, because I needed to renew my library card in order to be allowed to download ebooks from the library website so that I can not only continue being cheap and not buying books but also so I can continue being lazy and doing everything from my computer.

In short, Kamran was astounded at how beautiful and interesting the place was, and I was astounded that I don’t own a piece of artwork with a pooping donkey on it.

one of the long, empty, echoing, marble hallways

the map room, haunted by the reflection from my camera’s UV filter

eerily glowing LEGO lion

Kamran, the bronzed glamour boy

NERDS!

reminds me of something out of “Boardwalk Empire”

pooping donkey artwork!

Kamran, thinking he was really cheesing it up for the camera but basically looking like normal person

Kamran’s usual facial expression

Summers in NYC are so stifling (I know it’s bad wherever you are, but we don’t have air-conditioned cars, so can it) that we sometimes find ourselves just wanting to stay indoors for five solid months. Now that we know we love the library, we’re going to spend all of August with our cheeks pressed to the cold marble floor, copies of Don Juan and Dandelion Wine splayed out beside us.

My Weekend in Not-Pictures

katie ett — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:45:48 +0000

On Friday night, Kamran and I went to a restaurant that I spent all day maligning and all night half-maligning and half wanting-to-exclaim-openly-and-not-quietly-about. Only everyone around us was actually doing just that, and it seemed so ungainly to me. It’s funny to see your own awful qualities reflected in other people, right? A few years ago, I would’ve been the one calling out to the chef about how good the food was to earn his favor. I would’ve been trying to crack jokes to make all of the other diners like me like I used to in all of my college classes. I wouldn’t have loudly mistaken the green onion for bok choy, though.

Since the restaurant is across the street from my apartment, Kamran was practically forced to spend the night at my apartment for the first time since I moved in last January. We ate Cadbury Creme Eggs and one of my 1000-calorie Reese’s eggs while watching Boogie Nights, since my roommate had ordered HBO that day, and Kamran finally stopped mentioning the possibility of taking a cab back to his place around 2 a.m. The next morning, we ate banh mi and drank bubble tea and watched The Breakfast Club and played Call of Duty and had the kind of day that people all across Brooklyn were probably having at that exact moment.

That night, we met our friends Nik and Marko and my roommate, Jack, at Yuka for all-you-can-eat sushi on the Upper East Side and ate all we could. Including hand rolls with shiso and plum and fermented soybeans. We walked past the giant building-high white structures the MTA is constructing over 2nd Avenue as they complete the new 2nd Avenue subway line on our way to Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins, where I got a scoop of ice cream called Icing on the Cake that had sprinkles and the consistency and flavor of vanilla frosting. AMAZING. I also got a cream-filled, not custard-filled donut. Those things are hard to find, you know. Which is ridiculous, because cream is obviously superior. We took our treats to a platform over the East River and watched boats drive by without their lights on and then went home to do laundry, because we are responsible.

On Sunday, we went clothes shopping for Kamran and bought matching hoodies even though it’s now regularly 70 degrees or more. We brought Milky Ways and wasabi peas to our park to stare at the haunted house and the puppies and the homeless guy who was very conspicuously hiding a backpack under the stairs to the street overpass. But we didn’t call the cops. We bought French bread and a creamy Reblochon and covered them with honey and watched X-Files and Celebrity Apprentice and couldn’t fall asleep until after midnight.

non-Instagrammed photo by Jack

And then Kim came over last night for Game of Thrones and brought a Cadbury Twisted candy bar for me from the British candy store that of course exists in Manhattan. I found out about this bar when British Mel left me a comment about them but warned that she and all her SPOILED, ROTTEN, UNAPPRECIATIVE (j/k, j/k) friends agree that the creme-to-chocolate ratio is wrong. I can see what they’re saying, because yeah, there’s a LOT more chocolate in the bar than in a Cadbury Creme Egg, and unlike the thin shell on the Egg, the shell of the bar is really thick. And amazing. And I need more. But I could never replace the Eggs with the bar completely.

And if I didn’t have a BlackBerry, I would have Instagrammed all of this.

Fotodump Friday

katie ett — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:30:06 +0000

the wall of Sriracha at Rickshaw Dumpling Bar

a mural in SoHo

outside the subway during my college friend Sarah’s visit in January

the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree during my NYC-turned-SanFran-friend Beth’s visit in December

No “Game of Thrones” Spoilers Contained Within

katie ett — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:00:51 +0000

On Saturday morning, I took a cue from Han + Diana and invited Kamran and our friends Nik and Marco to The Dutch for herbed cocktails, fried chicken, and pie so tall you could use it for a baby’s highchair:

Marko is the thoughtful brother, and Nik is the outrageous brother, and together, they’re a very good time. We spent most of the meal signing each other up for the Draw Something app on our various Apple products, and then I tried Kamran’s tripe and almost threw up in my mouth because it’s cow stomach lining, but then I stopped myself because it’s delicious. And it should be, because it’s made by the same chef who owns Locanda Verde with Robert De Niro. I tell you that so you’ll be dazzled by my brushes with celebrity.

Afterward, I went back to my own apartment and spent the next ten hours marathoning the entire first season of “Game of Thrones” with my friend/roommate/landlord/co-worker, Jack, and my friend Kim, whom I will always refer to as “Kim of Good Hair, Kim Luck”, even though her website has been defunct for almost a year now. As soon as I arrived, Jack handed me a save-the-date postcard for Beth‘s wedding, and Kim acted as if it’s weird that I actually want to attend the nuptials of a person I only know from the Internet, even though there was a time when I only knew Kim from the Internet, and now we’re NYCBFFs.

We ate direwolf cupcakes with grey sprinkles, looked at The Khaleesi’s boobs, and picked and re-picked our favourite characters from 6 p.m. to 4 a.m. and then had a sleepover for all of five hours before I had to get to Kamran’s and Kim had to get to the gym or something ridiculous, and then neither of us watched the premiere of season two. So don’t spoil it for us. A-holes.

Giant Gummy Bears on the Streets of NYC

katie ett — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:00:20 +0000

On one of our weekend walks around the city, Kamran and I ran into an installation called “Bear Forest” by Spanish artist dEmo in the THE LAB gallery in the Roger Smith hotel. Imagine the wonder of rounding a corner and coming face to face with a roomful of these:

Gummy bears! With pectoral muscles! And questionable intentions! (Am I right in thinking that these things could be straight out of a cute-things-turned-deadly horror movie, a la Gremlins?)

Overnight New York, where I got all the information about the exhibit–because of course I was too busy daydreaming about gnawing on some bear bellies to actual take note of what this was–says the exhibit goes away on March 30th, so see it while you can!

The One Time I Didn’t Speak Up on the Bus Pays Off

katie ett — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 16:00:02 +0000

In theory, I love everything about public transportation, but in practice, there are those days when I just plain want to be left alone, when every sound anyone makes annoys me, when friendly conversation going on around me seems as grating as an alarm clock at 6 a.m. One of those days was a couple of months back, when a gaggle of older women were clucking around the front seats of the Select M15 bus, where I like to sit, finding something to say about everything. This one’s hair. That one’s purse. This one’s son. That one’s dog.

And then a lady from Australia or New Zealand (sorry that I can’t tell you apart, Aussies and Kiwis) got on the front of the bus and tried to use her MetroCard with the driver to pay, not knowing that you have to pay outside at the fare collectors on the sidewalk. The bus driver told her to stay on the bus to save time and to get off at the next stop to pay, and that set the ladies off on a race to determine who could say the most negative things about the way the Select Bus Service runs. I’m so used to riding the Select bus and being able to pay outside and enter through all three doors that I get confused as to why everything seems to be running so inefficiently when I find myself on a local, non-Select bus. Why are all of these people entering through the front door? Why are they all stopping by the driver, and why are we sitting for minutes at a time at every stop? Ohhhhh, right.

But after a year and a half of SBS service, apparently these women were still having a hard time coming to grips with the ease of use of the thing and took the opportunity to unload onto this poor, unsuspecting woman who nodded understandingly to all of them in turn and consoled them in her charming accent. I was going to speak up and ask them to pipe down, but I decided not to add to the hullabaloo and just quietly put on my headphones.

Then, just as we were pulling out of the bus stop one night this week, the woman in front of me turned and said, “Your hair is looking really good. I like it that way.” I said, “Oh, you see me on the bus often?” And then I realized that it was one of the ladies. The loudest one, the alpha complainer. I said, “Actually, I recognize you, too.” She asked, “You get on at 23rd Street in the mornings, right?”, and I told her my actual stop. “So you’ve seen me in the mornings?” I asked, adding, “I’ve seen you at night, but I’m always in such a trance in the mornings.” “Oh, please, I’m always still asleep,” she said, “but I sometimes see you, and you seem very nice.”

Read the rest here!

What I Did on My Brooklyn Vacation

katie ett — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 17:00:16 +0000

Kamran’s been in California visiting his parents since February 16th. I stayed at his apartment by myself for a couple of days, because:

1) studio apartments make me feel safe and cozy
2) I can be naked as much as I want to there
3) he left me a refrigerator full of food
4) his DVR is full of 14 episodes of “House Hunters” at a time for me
5) I’m there so much that it feels more familiar than my own apartment

But on that Saturday afternoon after he left, I finally convinced myself I should go hang out with my roommate and enjoy the things my apartment offers that Kamran’s doesn’t. And then I never left. Here’s what I did during those two and a half weeks in Brooklyn:

1) ate at the first Shake Shack in Brooklyn three times: once with just my roommate, once with our friends Eric and Christine, and once with our friends Jeff and Chris

2) made two of the cutest dresses using the easiest tutorial ever, which I’ll share with you once I can convince myself to take the necessary step-by-step pictures

3) shopped at my incredible grocery store with all of its super-gourmet ingredients at non-Manhattan prices

4) chopped vegetables on my immense counter space and actually enjoyed it

5) ordered my first slow-cooker and used it to make some

6) ate pizza three times: at Don Antonio with my friends Henry and Lucy, at Forcella with my friends Meredith and Jordan, and at home by myself with the free pizza Papa John’s gave out after the Super Bowl (yes, I’m a Papa Rewards member and proud of it)

7) took pictures of the sunset off the roof of my building:

8) ate enough bánh mì from Hanco’s to hold me over for the year

9) watched seasons 1 and 2 of “Friday Night Lights” on Netflix with my roommate, who’s seeing it for the first time, and dyyyyyyyyyying all over again at how wonderful it is

10) watched season 2 of “Downton Abbey” and married Mr. Bates fifteen times in my mind

11) stored low-carb ice cream in my full-size freezer and ate it leisurely like a normal person who doesn’t have to use not having a freezer as an excuse to eat a whole pint at a time

12) washed dishes in my dishwasher instead of leaving them in the sink for days and hoping the cockroaches will lick them clean. and then dry them. and put them away for me.

13) showered and pooped whenever I wanted to in my own bathroom that I share with no one

14) went to the Brooklyn Museum with my roommate and our friends Ash and Chris and met up with my friend Dayna, my best friend’s college roommate of four years, who works at the Columbus art museum and was in town to see how the Brooklyn Museum does their free First Saturdays program

this thing was amaaaaaazing, and we got yelled at for taking pictures of it

this piece included a video of a girl lifting these boxes onto the shelves;
they were apparently heavy from the way she struggled with them

is it just me, or are these two poops with legs?

15) had lunch at Angelo Sosa’s Social Eatz with my long-longtime blogfriend, Amy, who was in town for an art conference and talked about how we didn’t understand why everyone hated Beverly on this season of “Top Chef”

16) slept diagonally on my memory foam mattress whenever I felt like it

17) woke up an hour and a half later than usual, because I wasn’t going to the gym and I live one subway stop from my office

18) wore all of the clothes that never see any action since they’re stored at my apartment

19) accidentally farted in bed, quickly looked over to see if Kamran had heard it, realized there was no one there, and let it ride

20) spent hours on the phone with Kamran planning all of the great things we’re going to do when he gets back home

And now he IS back home, and we’re about to kill this city.

Kill it, I say.

Hotels Near Times Square Are Gaudy and Wonderful

katie ett — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:00:09 +0000

Looking down into Times Square from West 55th Street.

The NY Giants Ticker Tape Parade in NYC

katie ett — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:00:19 +0000

Everything else about it sucks, but there are exactly three reasons I love working downtown:

1) the view,
2) my apartment is one subway stop away, and
3) ticker tape parades!

I had originally planned to go down to the street to capture some pictures of the players for anyone who might actually care about sports, but the sidewalks were barricaded by the time I got to work at 9, and the teeming hordes of fans were already infiltrating (don’t these people have jobs?), so my co-worker Roxanne and I took to the balcony on our floor instead to shoot some skyline pictures and talk about which of the team members she’s going to marry someday. Our office is 25 stories up, so the panorama from the balcony is pretty incredible.

The parade began on the Western-most side of lower Manhattan, Battery Park City:

and continued up Broadway to City Hall:

We think this tiny black car held Mr. MVP, Elisha Nelson “Eli” Manning (haha, Elisha).

New Jersey, across the Hudson River.

This office emptied case after case of copier paper out of their windows.

There was plenty of toilet paper flying, too.

Toilet paper in the air over the in-progress One World Trade Center, a.k.a. Freedom Tower.

Football players in NYC sightseeing buses.

Roxanne is actually a sports fan, so this is way less fake than if I had been holding the sign.

And thus concludes my half-hour of caring about football once every four years. Hooray!

Long-Exposure Photos on 42nd Street

katie ett — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:00:27 +0000

My friend Anthony taught me Photoshop before I even had any idea I wanted to know it. He bought a DSLR when mine was only a pipe dream. And lately, he’s been paving yet another path for me: long-exposure night photos.

Last night, I attempted my first ones outside Kamran’s apartment, looking down 42nd Street at the Chrysler Building, the Bank of America building, and Times Square:

And of the flower shop nearby, where little old ladies walking their dogs kept stepping right in front of my camera, but the shutter was open so long it didn’t even catch them:

You just set up your tripod, set your aperture really small, set your ISO really low, open your shutter for a loooong time (preferably with a remote), and wait patiently.

I can’t wait to do more! Too bad I kind of sort of overtightened one of the legs on my tripod last night, broke off the pin, and now have to use it at about waist-high all the time. Low-noise night photos are worth bending over for, right?

Best NYC Store Names #2

plumpdumpling — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:00:55 +0000

On my bus ride to work from Kamran’s apartment, I pass through the outer edge of Chinatown and see a store with the worst/best name ever: New BJ.

please excuse this crappy merged Google Maps image

Apparently it’s a 99¢ store, but the review I found on Yelp is just what I was hoping for:

There’s nothing worse than a used or distressed BJ, amiright?

As-Wordless-As-I-Get Friday

katie ett — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:00:37 +0000

Some random New-York-y pictures I haven’t had any other occasion to post:

a technically crappy picture that I nonetheless enjoy of Kamran in Beekman Place, overlooking the East River

the Chrysler Building on a cloudy day

the gate at the end of a street overlooking FDR Drive and the East River

the Upper West Side at midnight

a little lion someone left behind on the East River Esplanade

The Time I Had a Couple of Freaks from the Internet Come Stay with Me

katie ett — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:00:05 +0000

My longtime blogfriend Ellie found me because my old LiveJournal icon was a still from the movie Grey Gardens. My longtime blogfriend Kinard found me because we both had an unnatural-yet-totally-not-fangirl-ish love of the band Jump, Little Children, and she sat next to me at a concert without introducing herself. They found each other when Ellie moved from Oregon to South Carolina, and I told her to look Kinard up. They became fast friends and left me in the dust.

Until Ellie’s birthday approached, and they decided that the perfect way to celebrate would be to spend a few nights not doing touristy things in NYC with me. We planned extensively and then totally changed our plans. We watched the TKTS discount ticket listings and tried to convince Kinard she didn’t really want to see Mandy Patinkin and Patti LuPone on Broadway. I woke up the Saturday after Thanksgiving in Ohio and clicked repeatedly and extensively on the Momofuku Ko reservations website until I secured us a dinner spot after mentioning to Ellie and Kinard that it’s the most interesting restaurant in NYC and finding out that they knew of it and wanted to go but never thought we’d be able to get in. We tried to figure out a way to eat both truffles and caviar while they were here. I didn’t tell them our living room still doesn’t have blinds after a year and that they’d be sleeping in full view of our nosy neighbors.

My roommate/landlord/co-worker seemed totally fine with their visit until he realized halfway through our workday on Friday that:

1) I had never actually met either of them, and
2) they were alone in his condo.

But they didn’t steal anything that we know of (not that my candy wrapper clutch is interesting to anyone but me), and I met them and my other blogfriend-turned-real-life-friend Kim at Tocqueville for dinner. It’s one of my favourite restaurants ever, despite what our chef at Momofuku Ko said about it being stodgy. HE HAS NEVER ACTUALLY BEEN THERE. HE DOESN’T KNOW.

We ate hearty squash soups and roasted Brussels sprouts over succulent chicken breasts and truffled grits with dunky eggs and were plied with bowls and bowls of ice creams and sorbets on the house until 7:59 p.m., at which time we decided it was time to leave for our 8 p.m. Broadway show, which was Seminar starring Alan Rickman of Harry Potter and Love Actually fame. It was basically what I wanted every one of my college writing seminars to be and made me nostalgic for a time when people thought I had potential and I wrote on actual paper.

via seminaronbroadway.com

Afterward, we unintentionally walked out into Times Square, and while Kinard and Ellie acted like they didn’t care about it, I definitely caught them doing this:

And also this:

And this:

Even Kurmudgeon Kim was having a good time:

But then Pedophile Mickey Mouse showed up

and we had to go.

The next day, we rode the train into Madison Square Park

and ate sloppy Shake Shack burgers

and cheese fries with little wooden forks:

An evil squirrel came within inches of Kinard’s candy cane/hot fudge/marshmallow shake

but there wasn’t a chance that thing was wrestling a bite away from a girl enjoying her dessert this much:

Ellie, meanwhile, was trying to play it cool and succeeding wildly:

We spent the afternoon at MoMA, which I’ll have to recap in a post of its own, and then stopped at a nearby coffee shop to refuel for that evening’s big dinner at Ko. There was nowhere to sit in the coffee shop, so I had the brilliant idea of leading us down a few more blocks to Rockefeller Center, where there are sprawling plazas full of unoccupied benches.

EXCEPT DURING CHRISTMASTIME, OF COURSE. The streets were brimming with families leaving the Rockettes show at Radio City Music Hall. There were barricades at every corner meant to corral traffic that only succeeded in making the sidewalks unpassable. We finally did make it to 30 Rock, only to discover that the “sprawling plaza” was packed with strollers and women yelling, “Someone’s going to get HURT!” It was, to say the least, a mistake.

So we took the train down to the East Village, made a couple of laps from 1st Avenue to 2nd Avenue and back again until it was time to meet Kamran at Momofuku Ko for the girls’ first Michelin-starred-restaurant experience. Dinner was phenomenal: cheese-flavored broth with bone marrow over brioche, snail and chicken sausage on top of hand-torn pasta, the famous frozen shaved foie gras over fresh lychee and Riesling gelee, just to name a few. Plus that first taste of caviar Ellie was looking for, served in a heap next to a smoked egg. Ellie and Kinard were pros; they ate everything without question and said that some things they hadn’t liked so much in the past were made to taste delicious at Ko.

Kamran said I was being a snobby show-off at dinner, and it’s true that I complained to our James-Franco-look-alike chef that when we were in two weeks prior, the guys beside us had an embarrassing lack of knowledge about food, and yes, even James Franco told me to stop being a snob, but he hadn’t even eaten at Tocqueville, so I think my snobbery is deserved. No? Really? Okay, fine. Ellie and Kinard took it in stride, though, because I imagine they expected me to be a total braggart, anyway.

BFFs!

We spent the rest of the night visiting dive bars and pretending like we’re the kinds of girls who do shots. There was, for some reason, a surprising lack of people out anywhere, so I think NYC came off as this nice, serene place where you can just walk into a bar and actually get a seat and/or service from a bartender. Must have been the cold.

The next day, we went to Artichoke for pizza, because:

1) it is delicious.
2) it’s unlike any other NYC pizza.
3) normal NYC pizza is bland and dumb.
4) some people call it the best pizza in NYC (maybe me, too).
4) I wanted them to have an awesome insider pizza-eating experience.

So of course they were naturally like, “This pizza is okay, but we were really looking forward to getting the bland and dumb pizza Ellie’s boss recommended.” And then I died.

Look at that! So cheesy and creamy and thick-crusted! How could they not love it?!

But we followed it up with karaoke, which they were awesome at despite Ellie’s poor choice of Neil Diamond and my even poorer choice of Cat Stevens, and fries from Pommes Frites in the courtyard of St. Mark’s Church and a quarter-ton of frozen yogurt topped with mochi cubes and peanut butter cups and gummy bears from 16 Handles.

And then instead of walking across the Brooklyn Bridge like we had planned, we went back to my apartment and watched Jackass 3 and “The Virgin Diaries“. Like not-tourists.

And then they left the next day without having seen any New York friends other than me. I win I win I win!

Happy birthday, Ellie, and happy four-days-since-meeting-me anniversary, Kinard!

The Practice Thanksgiving

katie ett — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:00:55 +0000

One of the things about living in NYC that I’ve found hardest to adjust to is not hanging out at people’s apartments. We all either live in places too small to hold more than two people at a time or places too out of the way for anyone to want to travel to. If it’s not one, it’s the other.

But this year, my friend Ash was determined to have a practice Thanksgiving at her apartment and went all-out with impressive invitations, a massive menu, and promises that she would hunt us down and stuff us if we didn’t make it worth her while to take up her entire refrigerator with a brining turkey for two days. So we took cabs or spent three hours navigating weekend subway construction to make it to her and her husband, Michael’s, Queens apartment last Saturday night for a pre-Thanksgiving feast our families will have a hard time topping tomorrow.

Michael and Ash got rid of about half of the furniture in their place to make room for this new dining table they bought especially for the occasion. Well worth it, I say.

Ash carved a turkey for the first time and looked smokin’ doing it.

The turkey was about the moistest meat I’ve ever had in my life. The stuffing was fruity, the sweet potatoes spicy, the twice-baked potatoes bacony, the cauliflower casserole creamy, the green beans smoky, the apple pie belly-warming, the lemon cheesecake rich.

There was gravy, too, but I never eat gravy. Am I the only one who thinks it’s tooooooootally weird stuff?

Michael was in high spirits,

Ash was being Betty Sue Homemaker,

Jack was his usual pleasant self,

Jeff was complaining that the ice cream was regular vanilla and not vanilla bean,

Gizmo was pretending to innocently play with a ball under the table while secretly waiting for dropped turkey,

and Penny, the cat we found in the Hamptons, was acting like all of us would be about two minutes after dinner:

Success!

To Not Letting Fall Slip Away

katie ett — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:00:41 +0000

I know Fall isn’t even close to over–especially having spent the weekend in Miami, where it was still 80 degrees–but I’m getting scared for Winter and figured I should post these October pictures before corn and zombies are nonsensical.

I’d like to say that NYC looks this dirty all of the time, but really, Kamran and I were in Union Square after a street fair had just ended. Street fairs here are mostly awful–picture blocks and blocks of stands, only they’re the same smoothie, sunglasses, and bedsheets vendors alternating over and over–but no New Yorker can resist the opportunity to walk down the center of a usually-crowded street.

I love how gothic this building looks against the overcast sky:

The famous magic wand in Union Square is known to stream steam at intervals, but I had never noticed the hand reaching out from above it. Halloween prank or totally-normal-thing-I’d-just-never-noticed?

Lovely corn in the Union Square Greenmarket:

This zombie locked eyes on us from across the park, and we both tried to ignore it until it was clear that he was ambling right for us on his stiff zombie legs. We accepted the haunted house flier he was handing out and admired his costume as he stopped to let me take his picture, but after he started hunting another couple, we realized that we figured him for a Halloween stunt all along and never once considered that he could be an actual lunatic. We’re clearly unprepared for a zombie uprising.

Campbell’s Gets the Last Laugh at the Andy Warhol Monument

katie ett — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:00:07 +0000

While in Union Square the other night, Kamran and I noticed that the Andy Warhol Monument had been defaced:

The question is: was it done out of love (an admirer playing a bit of a practical joke) or out of hate (a fellow artist scorning Andy with the very thing that he’s remembered by most)? Either way, I think it’s brilliant.

Put a Bird On It

katie ett — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 16:00:30 +0000

I love hipster SoHo as much as the next gal, but when I saw this lamppost coming out of the subway the other day,

I couldn’t help but think of the “Put a Bird On It” sketch from “Portlandia”:

NYC: The Really Hot Boyfriend Who Beats Me

katie ett — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:00:08 +0000

The Hamptons feels so far away from New York City that I sometimes forget I’m still in the same time zone. We ride around in cars there and eat pastries on the empty patios of cafés and stock up for the weekend in grocery stores with aisles big enough to fit carts. The town has ten boutiques, and the people who live there make conversation with you for no reason.

But on the drive home, you quickly realize how close to the city you still are. On the road trips I used to make in college to South Carolina and Chicago, I remember stopping for gas at highway exits that had little else. A truck stop, an adult bookstore, and a McDonald’s perched on a hill with nothing but miles and miles of farmland as far as I could see. I always felt like I was on the prairie, even if I was really in the middle of the Appalachians. On the way back from the Hamptons, if you blink your eye, you’re in Queens. The exits all lead to neighborhoods with constantly-busy streets, strollers full of babies of every ethnicity, skateboarding teenagers, shopping bags on every arm.

There’s no rest. I feel my chest tighten as soon as the row houses come into view and a taxi cuts us off. The fact that I hold my breath all day in NYC is only noticeable after a weekend away with nothing but exhalations. It’s like I’m always bracing myself for the worst.

But then we’re on the Brooklyn Bridge, and the city’s skyline is the most exciting one I’ve ever seen, and I tell my friend Jeff, “If I’m this happy to see New York after only a weekend away, imagine how I’d feel after a year.” It’s scary to imagine yourself as a tourist here, older and settled somewhere else and without any more ties to this city than to London or Tokyo. Part of the thing about living in NYC is feeling like you’re in on a special secret that no one else knows about.

Well, no one but the 18 million other people who live here.

To the Hamptons Once More

katie ett — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:00:28 +0000

My friends and I have gone back to our house in the Hamptons one last time this weekend to pretend like summer didn’t end already. I guess if the ocean’s too cold, we’ll just have to spend the time in our heated pool, sipping our alcoholic beverages and peeing in the water at length to keep ourselves warm.

Unapologetically Mundane » living in new york is neat

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