I woke up this morning to the chimes, buzzes, and cowbells of all of my electronics trying desperately to notify me that 1134 people and counting think I am special today (and luckily no news of anyone finding that pesky body). Yes adoring fans (or any of you that are still interested in reading my blog after I took what seems like a 12 year binge drinking hiatus) today is my Birthday!!!!!!!!
Now, you may be saying to yourself, “Wow! Sarah sure does have a nice birthday, I mean January 3rd?! Every one of her friends must have tons of money to spend on buying her things, no one is out of town, the weather is always predictable, and no one is hungover from any number of historically epic drinking holidays that came prior to her date of birth! Next year I’m asking Santa if I can be birthed on January 3rd!!!!” Now settle down readers, I know January 3rd is sounding more and more amazing with each word I type, but the really epic date this year is January 4th!!!! “How could that be possible?!?” you say? Well, 10 years ago on January 4th of 2005, this little girl packed up her things, took her $500 of savings from pounding the asian-bistro-pavement of waiting tables at PF Changs China Bistro in Columbia Maryland, and had her dad drive her to her new home, New York City! Which means readers, that tomorrow…January 4th 2015…I can officially call myself a NEW YORKER!!!
I’ve come a long way since my first apartment in that tiny bedroom in Inwood. I’ve achieved some pretty amazing goals like dancing on Broadway, buying (let’s be real…financing) an iPad, performing my first one woman show, and finding the city’s best Mac and Cheese.
So, today on SixtySixdaysofSarah I am going to spread to you 3 readers out there, the wealth of knowledge I’ve obtained in these 32 years on the planet and 10 years living in New York City.
So here it goes…
1. Follow your creativity not your career. Your career will treat you like a bad boyfriend and never call when you want him too, and your creativity will treat you like a lovely older hispanic woman who likes to hug and cook you food if you take the time to join her in the kitchen.~ Amy Poehler, Yes Please.
2. You can’t spell friend without the word end.
3. Swishing coconut oil in your mouth for 20 minutes a day will prevent one from ever having to go to the dentist. (Disclaimer: Don’t try this in the shower the first time…unless you have always been curious to know what water boarding feels like)
4. I will last exactly 4 minutes if water boarded.
5. Don’t spend your time doing things that make you feel sad/sick/stupid/worthless when there’s something that makes you feel happy/healthy/smart/worthy out there. Unless it’s crack. Just don’t ever do crack.
6. You can paint regular nail polish over a gel manicure and nothing bad will happen.
7. A bird can fly through a window into your home. Panic. Try to get out by flying full speed at the same plexiglass window over and over again until it knocks itself unconscious, all the while never noticing the lovely woman in a bathrobe waving a flip-flop towards an open door. Take a breath and look around. Don’t be that bird. ~ Jen Sincero, You’re a Badass.
8. If you hold on to your old Actors Equity Association cards long enough..the color will come back around and you can use their bathrooms without having to pay your dues.
9. The exact age of lifting your 90 lb throbbing head off of your pillow to say “I can’t drink like I used to” is 31 years, 328 days, 4 hours, and 22 minutes.
10. Don’t bring up racism at Christmas.
There you have it. In this new year of 2015 and at the age of 32, I hope to reacquaint myself with this blog, and it’s mission to make life a little more awesome. I hope you’ll join me.
Well, it happened. My gas problem has been fixed! After some very cute construction guys spent a month in my dumbwaiter (don’t ask), we now have gas! If you haven’t been paying attention to my sporadic bimonthly (one post every 13 to 79 days) blog, then poo on you…and here’s a refresher in what you’ve missed at sixtysixdaysofsarah:
we almost blew up.
Yep. After a horrific building explosion in Harlem (one mile away from my apartment) our super-awesome super decided to look into our gas lines, and low and behold…we had tons of deadly gas leaks seeping into the walls of our building! Hooray!
In order to not go bat-shit-crazy and find my “happy place” while being unable to cook, dry clothes, or walk down the hall in a towel without bumping into a construction worker (one of which had the trademark I-killed-a-guy-in-prison-so-now-I-have-this-tear-drop-tattoo-on-my-face-so-don’t-make-eye-contact-with-me-or-I’ll-have-to-kill-you-too thing), I decided that now would be a good time to reflect on one of the many awesome truths of living in New York City….
sharing an apartment.
When I go back home to the suburbs to visit my friends and family, it seems to be rather odd to Non-New-Yorkers that I’m a 31 year old woman who lives with roommates. “You live with another girl and a straight male? Oh, how Three’s Company of you!” is what my parent’s friends say. “OMG, you are just like New Girl, except John is Zoe Deschanel, and you’re Winston. No big deal.” is what I hear from the kids my roommate John and I teach tap to (it’s clear who their favorite is). The truth is, as semi-working-dancer/actors living in New York City you could choose to spend 90% of your income on rent for your own apartment, or you could spend 60% of your income sharing your apartment with others and still have 40% left to blow on extravagant things like boxed wine and health insurance. I know for some people, it’s not easy to live with others, but my roommates and I have figured out a fool proof system to make sharing any apartment awesome.
Sarah, John, and Abby’s Fool Proof Way to Create an Awesome Sauce Apartment Dynamic
1. Wall Dopplegangers
Arts and Crafts are a great way to spend time being creative with your roommates (especially when you drink beer during it!) Take turns tracing each other’s bodies onto brown packing paper. Cut out those bodies, hang them on your walls, and dress them up for holidays and special events.
This is a particularly fun way to decorate your apartment year round, and a fun way to remember your roommate’s faces when they leave you for months at a time to do regional productions of A Chorus Line in Vermont. But when they do leave, the wall dopplegangers are fair game for sexual harassment by third parties.
and speaking of parties…
2. Throw Parties
Throwing parties is a great way to bring all of you and your roommate’s friends together. We recommend BYOB parties because often times your friends go home (or go out for a smoke and we lock the door behind them) and leave extra beer behind! This will create more memorable times for you and your roommates to drink free beer in your apartment in the future (plus it will make your friends think twice about smoking). An apartment that drinks free beer together, stays together.
3. The Magnificent Wunderlist.
Wunderlist is an app that my neighbor Justin told me about that’s totally changed my life! It’s an app that holds all of your lists! Being a member of the list hoarding community, wunderlist is a must. Instead of having to do lists on the “notes” section of your phone, shopping lists on the back of your cable bill, or writing a reminder to pay your cable bill on the back of your hand, wunderlist is an app that holds all of your lists in one place. Some of my personal favorite lists include: Books to Read, Blogs to Follow, Songs to Download, and That dude’s Name You Keep Forgetting. Yes, I literally have a list of descriptions of people who’s names I should totally know but always forget. After I awkwardly run into these people in the city and say things like “Hey…er…lady! Good to see you!” or, “No, YOU look great…uh…champ!” I jot down their physical description on the app. Then, when I go home I look them up on Facebook based on their pictures and facts like: We went to the same college, she did that production of Chicago with my friend Emily, or she’s my-dad’s-friend-from-childhood’s-daughter’s-lesbian-lover who always says “Hi Sarah! How are you, Sarah? Oh my god, Sarah, I love those crotchless chaps” the 2 times a year that I see her.
The reason that I bring wunderlist up as a way to live awesomely with your roommates (which is what this post is supposed to be about Sarah…so stop going off on tangents about how you’re an amnesiatic weirdo who can never remember anyone’s name…oh, and amnesiatic isn’t even a word you moron) is because you can share your lists with other peeps. My roommates and I have one called Apartment Necessities. We add things that we all use like olive oil, toilet paper, recycling bags, etc…and also add tasks like DVR the Tony’s, or Switch the battery in the smoke detector so it won’t ruin the Tony’s, or Too late… Hugh Jackman already ruined the Tony’s…etc. This way, when we go to the store or are drinking our free beers on the couch, we can check the wunderlist and take care of what needs taking care of. Once you’ve taken care of business, you simply check off the item or action you’ve completed and your roommates are alerted. This way, there’s no coming home from Trader Joes only to find that you all have picked up toilet paper and now must find space in your Manhattan sized apartment for 72 extra rolls of toilet paper. It also prevents you from assuming that one of your other roommates has already picked up toilet paper only to come home and realize that you’re now using strips of paper towels in the bathroom which is kind of ok because last month you picked up 10 rolls of paper towels not realizing that your 2 roommates did the same and have 28 more rolls of paper towels than necessary to get through, but kind of not ok, because you’re not supposed to flush paper towels down the toilet which you learned the hard way last month…which is why you needed more paper towels than necessary in the first place. Which leads me to my next way to make your apartment awesome…
4. To the Pooptorium and Beyond!
We’ve already learned that roommates who drink free beer together stay together, but roommates that have a nice place for number 2 are roommates for life! In our bathroom, we not only have ample supplies of magazines and Charmin Ultra Soft, but we also have a…
wall of fun!
In order to create a wall of fun, simply paint the wall closest to the toilet with a magnetic primer (yeah, they make that shit now…we’re living in the future kids) and chalkboard paint. Then buy a few of those magnetic poetry kits (we really enjoy mixing Bacon and Shakespeare) and let the fun begin!
Sharing a bathroom between 3 people is hard. Why not take the time to make your number 2’s more fun for everyone?
5. Hey everyone…come and see how good I look!
What’s the best part about living with 3 actors? Vanity! For the most part, we all look pretty gross while traipsing around our apartment. Lots of glasses, acne cream, and t-shirts with no bras. Plus most of our side jobs include, gym receptionists, waiting tables, teaching kids how to shuffle, fake radio calls, and walking tours in Times Square. None of which we need to look remotely decent for. But occasionally we do get gussied up for an event/date/funeral, and need others to come give us lots of compliments. As actors, we can’t appreciate anything good about ourselves until someone else tells us they like it. This is why we have a standing apartment rule that whenever you feel like you look exceptionally good and need other people to acknowledge it, simply yell this:
“Hey everyone…come and see how good I look!”
Upon yelling, all roommates in the apartment must drop what they are doing, run to the hallway, and come see how good you look. Once in the hallway, you must “ooohh” and “aaaahhh” at the gussied up roommate and give at least 3 compliments…if you can’t think of any, here are some great examples we use in our apartment…
“You look great! Don’t forget your stick…to beat off all of the men and/or women that are going to hit on you tonight!*”
“Nice hair!”
“Oh my god, you look so thin. I almost want to feed you a pie right now…in a good way!”
“Holy package dude! It’s like those pants hired a snake charmer**!”
“Nice shoes!”
“Great dress! You can barely see that price tag tucked into your armpit..Anthropologie will totally take it back tomorrow if you don’t puke on it!”
“Nice armpit fold!”
*It is perfectly ok to giggle when saying “beat off” after this one. We’re not monsters.
**We never say that…I just was trying to figure out what the equivalent of a skinny girl compliment would be for dudes.
And there you have it. 5 great ways to live with roommates in New York City. If after trying all of these you still can’t stand living with roommates, stay tuned for next weeks post titled:
YOLO is an acronym for “you only live once“. Similar to carpe diem or memento mori, it implies that one should enjoy life, even if that entails taking risks. The phrase and acronym are both used in youth culture and music, and were both popularized by the 2011 song “The Motto” by Canadian rapper Drake.
At first, my roommates and I thought maybe the pilot light in our stove was out. The following morning, we found the letter that had been slipped under our door. Our building had a gas leak and the gas would be shut off for a few days until it was repaired. For our convenience, the building owners would be providing us with hot plates. Wow. “I guess they’re really starting to look into this stuff after that building went down,” I thought.
Disclaimer: On March 12th, a building exploded in Harlem on 116th and Park Avenue. 8 people were killed and 70 were injured 1 mile away from where I live. People in my building heard the BOOM.
We went on our merry gass-less way microwaving food and air drying our clothes. It was slightly annoying, but bearable. It wasn’t until I ran into my super a few days later that I realized the magnitude of the situation. “It wasn’t a question of if we were going to blow up…it was a question of when.” Turns out our building had several more leaks than expected and the pipes (that have been in our building since it was built over 79 years ago) were leaking into the walls all the way up to the top floor. We were essentially a ticking time bomb.
What do you do with that information? Feel overwhelmingly guilty that other people had to die so that our building with similar billion year old pipes was looked into? Decide to grab life by the horns and register for naked sky diving lessons? Have 27 one night stands? Liquidize your 401K to finally take a trip to the top 23 places to see before you die that BUZZFEED is always making you look at?
I mean, WE COULD HAVE DIED! But then I suppose, we always could have died. Buildings have gas leaks, bus drivers have blind spots, people have guns, and brains have tumors. We ALL could die at any moment.
But what do you do when youdidn’t?
I don’t think, for me at least, the answer is to do something incredible. I think I’ve been trying for so long to do something incredible i.e. star on Broadway, meet prince charming, host the Oscars, or just write something Nobel Prize worthy. Growing up in the wonderful generation that I have had the privilege to grow up in, we were all told we could be the next President. You can do whatever you put your mind to! I sure took that mantra and ran with it for 30 years. I’ve always aspired to be great. But as I’m getting older and wiser, I’m learning that for me, all that inspiration is too much. It’s misguided me a little bit about what I really want. One of my dreams has been to be the next Ellen Degeneres. I admire how she helps the world feel better with humor. But the trick is, I don’t need to have 10 million viewers and take selfies with Meryl Streep to make the world feel good. I put on a silly voice and play kill the cockroachesevery Saturday morning while teaching 6 year olds in tutus how to frappé. I almost made one of them pee their leotard last week because she was laughing so hard. If our building had exploded after that day, I’d have been content. Instead of pushing and pushing and pushing for what I once thought was something incredible, I’m now realizing that I already have it. So yeah, those 23 places that everyone should have to see before they die sure do look amazing on BUZZFEED, but sitting on my couch in my gas free apartment while looking at pics sent to me of my newborn nephew is what really makes life worth living.
In order to better my 30 year old adult life, I have started organizing. My roommates have advised me that it is no longer kosher for me to use the living room as my office space, and that I’m probably not allowed to use the word kosher as it may or may not be racist. So, it’s time to set up my bedroom as a home office. The first step was to de-clutter my bedroom which I started on Day 18: Everyday I’m shufflin’ (what’s that? You didn’t read Day 18? Well fine, I don’t care what you did on Day 18 of turning your life around either…unless it was really good…oooohhh, did you do something really cool on Day 18? Did you meet Tina Fey? You did?! I hate you….whoever you are…which I’m pretty sure is just a manifestation of my mind…what were we talking about? Oh, right…I de-cluttered) my apartment last week, and yesterday my roomies and I took a huge hall to the salvation army…
That’s my tax write off receipt. Can’t wait for June 27th (that’s when I do my taxes…what?). Then the roomies and I rented a Zip Car and headed out to good ole’ New Jersey (aka “the armpit of America”) to go to…
As most of you (especially New Yorkers) I’m sure know, Ikea is the most amazing place on earth. You can get a bed, shower curtain, or 10 thousand tea lights for like $4.99! I had been excited about this trip all week but when the day finally came, I found myself super anxious and in a terrible mood. After ruling out PMS (which will be in another 2 weeks…mark your calendars) I realized that this almost always happens to me when going on big shopping trips with other people. I’m always fine when I go shopping by myself but for some reason group shopping always makes me want to reach for the xanax (don’t worry, I didn’t pop any pills Mom…jeesh). Instead of just rolling with the bad mood as I usually do, I took a look back into little Sarah’s life and found exactly where the anxiety stems from. As most of you know I’ve been dancing since the age of 5. By the time I hit Middle School I started traveling with the other girls from my studio to dance competitions (did you all know that this blog was written by the former “Miss. Dance of the Mid-Atlantic, 2000”? Which means I was the best girl out of a dozen girls between the ages of 15 and 17 one time. Jealous?). Every November we would go to this competition in Williamsburg VA which was located near a ton of Outlets (shopping not electrical…although there were plenty of electrical outlets too…how else could I plug in my Crimper). Mind you this was way before my “Miss. Dance” title. I was in middle school at the time and these were the days of name brand everything. If you didn’t own Guess Jeans, an oversized Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt and Starter Jacket (throw in a teal pager if you’re a badass…well, less of a badass if the only one that pages you is your mom) you were not one of the cool kids. Our family didn’t have as much money as the other girls and I knew it, but my mother (god bless her) still took me out shopping with my friends and their Moms, made me try on the $60 jeans with the other girls, and bought them even though I tried to stop her by assuring her that I would grow out of them before the year was over (as I knew we couldn’t afford it…plus back then I had dreams of being a tall buxom bombshell…which were squashed after realizing that with a mother of 5’6” and a father of 5’3” the odds were against me). I’m not telling this story for anyone to feel bad for me because we weren’t dirt poor or anything dramatic ( I did after all have a teal pager) but in reaching my goal of becoming a better person I think it’s important to recognize why we get in bad moods or anxious at times for seemingly no reason. I have the most amazing parents who never let my brother and I live without, but somehow I can’t shake the feeling of not having enough money when I’m out shopping with other people, even my dear friends. Anybody else out there feel that way? The truth is, I’m doing ok enough with my finances to spend money on things that will improve my life or even things that won’t (like when I spent $6 renting Bachelorette OnDemand…it sucked), I just have a hard time not feeling guilty about it. So you know what? I’m working on that s*it. I’m going to stop worrying about my money because “Worry is a prayer for Chaos in our lives”…which I just stole from this awesome spiritual coach…
Gabrielle Bernstein!
I know, barf if you want to, but I think she’s super cool. I’ve never actually met her, but she has a bunch of youtube videos if anyone is interested at Spirit Junkie TV. If not, just maybe watch some porn. That puts me in a good mood too…just kidding…kind of. So now that I’ve self therapized myself and gotten rid of my bad shopping juju (I hear people say “bad juju” all of the time and wanted to make sure I was using it in the right context so I looked it up on urbandictionary.com
A Person Who Sleeps Around So Much That They Must Have Several STDs.
Damn, I Must Have Saw That Girl With Four Different Guys At That Party, I Wouldn’t Mess Around With That, She’s Bad JuJu!
…I’m going to go ahead and vote that I’m using the first definition for this circumstance. Stand by for me spending the rest of my life trying to be the girl that they’re talking about in the second).
Back to Ikea! Here we are having dinner. Because you can have dinner at Ikea…’nough said.
I bought some sheets, organizational shelves, and curtains. Side note: This was Abby’s first time at IKEA! Can you believe it? What did she use to furnish her college apartment? Milk cartons, blow up furniture, and Nurtra-Grain bars???? She got a little overwhelmed when we got to the Ikea Self Serve Warehouse…
This is her classic W-O-W face.
How to make the Abby WOW face: Hold 3 fingers up next to each side of your face, and make an “O” with your mouth…what will these kids think of next?
Things were going well until we found that a piece Abby had written down from the show room was mislabeled. I don’t remember what it was…but it’s description had 2 umlauts and 3 swedish meatballs.
So she and John went to find the missing piece (awww….remember that Shel Silverstein book The Missing Piece? I loved that book. There was a poem about a little girl who told her parents that if they didn’t buy her a pony she would die…and then she died because her parents wouldn’t buy her a pony. Come to think of it, that is a terrible poem to put in a children’s book…and may have something to do with my anxieties about money and my parents*)
So while they were gone, I waited…
Finally everything was hunky dory and we made a pit stop at the bathroom before leaving…
Did youse guys know that public bathroom toilet seat covers are as good as using those fancy “oil blotting” papers when it comes to de-shining your face? I’m not a hobo, it’s totally true…I read it in Cosmo.
Alright. Now let’s load this s*it into our Zip Car. Abby, could please hurry up. It’s cold outside and we left our coats in the car…No Abby, you have to round the corners…get away from that giant inconvenient cement pillar.
Ok guys. Now where’s the car? I swear we parked it right outside of Ikea…Oh, crap…we’ve been in New York City for way too long…
After John ran around for 20 minutes clicking the panic button, we finally found the car. Then comes the part where you have to play the “Jenga for your Life” game by figuring out how to arrange an 8ft bookshelf, 5ft dresser, 47cm Muster und Drucke mit Vergangenheit, 2 sets of 144 thread count sheets, and 20 tubes of crab spread…yes, Ikea has crab spread.
You guys are doing a great job…
No seriously, you guys are doing a great job…I swear…no, I can see better from here. Keep it up!
Tadaa!
So ends our trip to IKEA. I’ve learned a lot of life lessons today, the most important one being to remember where you parked your rental car…especially when you opt to leave your coats in said car after the temperature has dropped to 8 degrees. Goodbye New Jersey! See you when we’re in prison!
*the poem is titled A Little Girl Named Abigail and the Beautiful Pony…not from the book The Missing Piece, but the other totally good book A Light in the Attic.
*If any of you would like to subscribe to my blog to get alerted when I write new posts so that you don’t have to rely on Facebook or that batman like shadow that I post in the sky, please do. I think there’s a ‘subscribe’ button somewhere.*
Although I did come upon this fabulous creature while walking down Central Park South on the way to my “Introduction to your new Mac” class! (For any of you non-musical theatre kids out there, a bevel is a position that one can stand in to make one’s physique look taller/thinner/sexier/gay-er. I mean, how sexy is this gay horse? The bevel is a staple of the Radio City Rockettes…
which my stubby 5’4” self will never be…whatever…I’m the perfect height for a lot of things…like being in the front line of group soccer photos…if I ever decided to play group soccer…or needing to ask a tall handsome fella to grab me some pickled beets from the top shelf of the grocery store…which leads to a conversation about the pickling industry…which turns into coffee around the corner where you find out that both of your grandmother’s went to the same elementary school…which leads to a second date…which leads to becoming the 3rd Mrs. Ryan Reynolds… I digress…).
So, in keeping with the theme of my blog which is “doing something to better myself on a daily basis”, I’ve decided to…
…call a truce with technology.
Our war has been going on long enough and it is time that I break down and wave my little white “I give up, you win computer/phone/cable box/microwave/curling iron” flag, and learn one or 2 things about how this stuff works.
Which brings me back to the Apple Store on 5th Avenue. A special thanks to the Japanese family that took this photo and didn’t run away with my cell phone…and didn’t giggle at my two thumbs up as I did not giggle at the peace signs in their photo…I’m lying…I did giggle…but only a little.
I learned a great deal from my Intro to your Mac class…like what the F3 button does, and how to make your screen brighter or duller (which I’m pretty sure most 3 year olds already knew how to do). Being so excited to learn how to do more s*it, I decided to pay (put on my credit card) the $99 for a years worth of “one-to-one” classes. The first step was to transfer the crap from my old computer onto my new computer. Here is a picture of my fantastic helper Shane and his helper in training (who’s name I feel terrible about forgetting…so we will call him Shawn…Shane and Shawn, how adorable) Shawn taking a moment to get acquainted with the oldest living computer on the planet…which is mine.
Puzzled that this was indeed a lap top and not one of the tablets on which the 10 Commandments was written, Shane went in search of some help from a Tech guy from the Genius Bar (No, they don’t serve drinks there, I already asked). After a few minutes of sitting quietly and checking my bank account (trying not to cry…then remembering that I am practicing The Secret method and that someone is going to give me a check for 1 million dollars soon) on my phone, Shane, Shawn, and Tech guy came to me with some answers.
Tech Guy: Your computer is using the 2nd operating system ever invented. It’s the same software that Lincoln used to write the Gettysburg Address (he didn’t really say that…I just wanted to use Lincoln as a reference so I could tag him in this post and maybe get some more hits…Lincoln is doing for 2013 what little people, obesity, and Ke$ha did for 2012…Yes! Now I can tag Ke$ha…)
Me: I have no idea what that means.
Tech Guy: It means that in order to transfer anything from your old computer to your new computer you would have to buy a set of disks to upgrade your operating system. Unfortunately we haven’t made any of those disks since 2 Pac “died” (nailing it with celebrity tags!)
Me: Ok. I have no idea what that means.
Tech Guy: Well, the quotations around the word “died” mean that it is rumored that 2 Pac didn’t really die, he just went into hiding.
Me: Duh. Everyone knows that. What about my computer?
Tech Guy: Right. Well, you just need to buy an external hard drive, transfer each file onto the hard drive, and then transfer the files from the hard drive onto your new computer.
Me: I have no idea what that means.
Tech Guy: I know! I know! You stupid stupid girl. That’s why your paying us $99! So us smart guys can do really simple stuff for dumb girls and take their money.
Me: So, where did you say your grandmother went to Elementary school?
So, now I have to buy (my roommate John will look online, take my credit card, and buy) an external hard drive. My goal: to take a class once a week so that I can become tech savvy and maybe figure out how to do some cool things with my blog here. Oooh, maybe I can make it 3D! But then how could I get those blue and red glasses out to all 10 of my readers (12 readers now that Shane and Shawn are on board…or they just said they would read it so I would buy more stuff. Hmmm…).
A big thanks to Shane, Shawn (I’m so sorry I forgot your real name but you were very nice), and Tech Guy (who was not mean at all. I just wanted to get better ratings. No one rates this).
How many red headed sluts and blue kamikaze shots does one shot girl have to sell to buy an external hard drive? I guess we’ll find out…
Guess what? Tonight I tried to win the Wicked lottery again. And again, I didn’t win.
The End.
Just kidding!
So what did I do instead? On this Friday date night with myself (because all of my friends are stuck in Queens with no way to come play with me)? I did my favorite thing to do in Times Square….
I RODE THE ELEVATORS AT THE…
Now, too understand my love of the elevators at the Marquis (and why I had to ride them again before we all explode…or don’t explode and nothing happens), you must first hear about my very first trip to this city. At the age of 11 (don’t worry, this is not a long story), my parents (after weeks of begging) allowed me to come to New York City for 10 days over the summer with my dance teacher and 2 other girls from the studio for the Dance Masters of America Convention. It was my first time traveling anywhere without Mom and Dad and I was thrilled (I love you John and Susan Hicks)! We hopped in a cab (which was super cool at the time…a little less cool now during Hurricane Sandy when the trains are down and your only option is to battle fellow New Yorkers to the death for a cab downtown…I digress), from Grand Central Station to Times Square and arrived at the Marriott Marquis. Tall men in burgundy suits took our bags (bellhops, not stylish robbers as I had originally thought), escorted us to the front desk where we were given computerized room keys (which was the wave of the future in 1994) and pointed us to the elevators making sure we were aware that our room was on the 44th floor(!). Now, to an 11 year old from Elkridge Maryland, any building that has a 44th floor is unfathomable (I mean, Towson Town Center only had 4 floors and a Rainforest Cafe). Were my ears going to pop? Yes. Was my nose going to bleed? No, nose bleeds have nothing to do with heights. Would I be high enough to shake the hand of God? It depends on who you ask and in what context you are using the word high. We then made our way to the elevators and discovered the most amazing thing…
The elevators were made of glass…just like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (but not really)!
So, to get a full understanding of how cool these elevators are… here’s a picture!
Mind blowing, right?!
No?
Hold on, let me find a better picture….
ahh…here it is…
Look at how magical these elevators are! They always put me in a “I feel like I’m a Jetson,” kind of mood.
So, after I ear-popped myself to the 48th floor, I decided I’d sit and have a cocktail at the revolving lounge. You probably have already noticed that most (all) of my blogs involve cocktails.
And here’s a pic from of the view. Isn’t it incredible?
No?
Hold on, my stupid flash is on the fritz, let me take get a better pic.
Ahh…here it is. And to imagine, no one below 24th street has power right now, and I’m being revolved at 20 megahurts per second (that is probably a lie…I have no idea how to measure the speed of revolsion…revoulution…spinning…oh, whatever) .
Next, with my new found love of whiskey, I ordered a Gentleman Jack. Delicious!
“Oh, and waitress, you can take that other cocktail napking away. I’m going to die alone….I mean, it’s just me for right now.”
“And get rid of that straw, I’m not a sissy!”
“That’s better.”
I had another awesome day doing 3 things that I love: riding glass elevators, having a cocktail, and enjoying New York City.
I was having such a splendid time that I asked a tourist to take a picture.
“Oh sweetie, could you turn the camera the other way? I tend to photograph better in the vertical.”
Tonight is the night that I have ALL YOU CAN EAT SUSHI!!
But before we begin…
Do, you remember when you were in ballet class when you were like 15, and the little 10 year old girls thought you were super cool because you could do tripple pirouettes and you kind of had boobs? No? That’s not how you grew up? Loser. Well, that is exactly how I grew up, and tonight I’m going to write about my friend that I refer to as little Sarah. Sidenote: I’m now realizing that some people may have misinterpreted the title of this blog (I’m not quite sure why sushi is sexual, but it’s not in this case. It’s just delicious….not in a sexual way).
Anywho, at the age of 10, Little Sarah thought I was super cool and super grown up with my triple pirouettes, sexy training bras, armpit hair, and (coincidentally) teen spirit deodorant. Fast forward to 15 years later, and now it is she who is super cool and grown up with giant bazoongas, and it is I who might be the B-cupped loser. Little Sarah works for Fordham University, has health insurance (including Dental) and is toying with the idea of going to gradschool for Ethics! Can you believe it? Ethics? And here I am, an unemployed actress (with a BA in dance, holla PPU!), spending my Saturday nights selling shots out of test tubes (red headed sluts anyone?), and using all of my free time on a bucket list of silly things like ‘all you can eat sushi’ and ‘Grey’s Anatomy marathons’. Now I know that if/when the world ends, none of this matters, and Angels/Martians don’t care about health insurance and bazoongas in Heaven/Black Holes, BUT… if the world goes on… I hope that the “little Sarah’s” of the world will grow and continue to be amazing grown-ups with big boobs, hearts of gold, tolerances of sailors, and become amazing women that we can all look up to and hope to be some day (single apocalyptic tear).
So that is why I brought little Sarah to…ALL YOU CAN EAT SUSHI!
I mean, ALL YOU CAN EAT SUSHI?! How can you go wrong, ESPECIALLY when there is ALL YOU CAN DRINK SAKE involved! (The world doesn’t need to hold onto all that excess sake, dead fish, and sticky-rice, anyway….I mean it all comes out in the wash…gross).
I’ve always wanted to spend an sensible Wednesday night stuffing my face with raw fish, while drinking chilled sake out of a teenie tiny cup until the button on my pants burst. So tonight, it happened, with little Sarah. Enjoy…
Plus….we had all you can eat Sushi and all you can Drink Sake for $26.95 at Hanami Sushi on 9th Ave! I’m hammered!
Hmmm…am I intoxicated enough to try these weird fish slab on a rice pillow things?
Now this sushi looks good and all, but I just can’t help wondering how much cooler I would look with 2 chopsticks so I would resemble a silly walrus?
Don’t worry little Sarah! If you choke on that sake I will just follow the simple steps clearly posted on the wall behind you. Oh wait, nope, written in Japanese. Your s*it out of luck…
Check!
So, I know that we’re all a little riled up about the presidential debate this evening. Some of you are having a hard time deciding who to pick for the next President, but guess what? You don’t have to! After December 22nd, our new leader will be the PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD, Marvin the Martian!
(or nothing is going to happen to us and you should probably research each candidate and find out which one you feel best represents your beliefs on how the Country should be run). But more importantly, I scratched another goal off of my bucket list today! (Woops! Did the title of todays blog lead you to believe that I was going to write more one the debate? :))
Today I…..
WENT TO A MUSEUM…BY MYSELF!
Like many of you fancy people, I have been to a museum. In fact, I’ve been to several (I am very fancy). Most of them were in grade school where chaperones herded 30 of us snot-laden kids from exhibit to exhibit while clutching our brown bag lunches and purple crystal paper weights that we spent seventeen of our parents hard earned dollars on at the gift shop. Then as I got older and started touring with musical theatre, I would go with my castmates to whichever museums or aquariums the town we were in was known for. But every time I found myself in a museum, young or old, I would find myself having the same anxieties….
Was everyone but me bored with this exhibit and ready to move on?
I have to pee but no one else does. Should I just hold it?
Is the stranger next to me done reading this plaque about the *Tanzanian Wallaby and just standing here judging how slow of a reader I am?
So today, I did it! I went to the New York City Museum of Natural History all by myself and it was… AWESOME! I looked at each exhibit for as long as I wanted, went to the bathroom anytime I felt the need to (every twenty-seven minutes, I drink a lot of water), learned that the Amazon is in South America (not Africa), and got lost and ended up reading about the fire exits in the coat check room. All in all… great day!
I should probably let you know that I also ran into a scary exhibit…..
THE MAYANS!…who ever thought they would be there amongst the ancient people?
Here I am with the statue that was made to mark “the end of periods in the Mayan Calendar”. Don’t worry, I spat on the ground and danced around backwards in a circle (otherwise known as “the snow dance” that we did in elementary school to make it snow so we would miss school the next day. I think it still applies).
I also found myself amongst some other pretty cool non-end-of-the-world-predicting exhibits.
Here I am with the ancients Armenians. So, it’s like I’m hanging out with the ancient Kardashians! (well, half of the Kardashians. I think their mom is Italian or something.)
Here are some aztec artifacts. The plaque said they go in this order, from left to right:
1. A woman giving birth. 2. A warrior at the ready. 3. A dreamer thinking of applying to theatre school. 4. Meditation.
And finally, another goal to cross off my list…..I fell in love!
It was a great day at the Museum, but I do need to make it back for the butterfly exhibit prior to the EOW. Somebody’s gotta set em free! (just kidding, I’m not some sort of butterfly evangelist…is that how you use the word evangelist? Anyway, I won’t set them free. Don’t call the police…or PETA).
sixty six days of sarah 