I’m very excited about my new non-leaching water bottle.

It’s tricky to try and be health conscience these days when everything keeps turning around to bite you in the ass. I start buying soymilk to cut down on dairy, oops – turns out soy is bad for you. I try to drink 1-2 liters of water a day, refilling a Nalgene bottle to protect the precious environment – turns out that plastic bottles are leaching chemicals that can fuck up my future babies. I eat fruit instead of cookies – turns out that fruit can cause toe fungus and lockjaw. Okay, I made that part up about the fruit. But the water bottle thing is true; I read it on the Internets. And why would the Internets lie to me?

“Nalgene bottles, made of polycarbonate (#7), are closely linked specifically an ingredient called bisphenol-A (BPA), an endocrine disruptor that mimics estrogen. Drinking water or eating food containing leached BPA may cause chromosomal disruption, miscarriages, birth defects, or obesity.”

So what’s the solution to drinking enough water without giving birth to two-headed babies? Metal. Yesterday I went to the sporting goods store and spent $67 on three non-leaching, metal water bottles. And so far, I love them. They keep me hydrated sans chemicals, AND one of them features an adorable penguin!

Ouch

Sometimes you know that you’re going to hear a certain piece of news. And you know that when you do hear it, it’s going to hurt.

But here’s what baffles me every time: the knowledge that you’re going to hear it and the knowledge that it’s going to hurt doesn’t make hearing it any easier. And it doesn’t make the hurt any less.

Snooze you lose

I’m not a morning person. Anyone who knows me knows this. I even once overheard an old boss say, “Yeah, Audrey’s great. But completely useless until about 10:30am.”

I would be offended if it wasn’t so completely true.

Unfortunately for me, the business world starts earlier than 10:30. I have to be at my desk between 9 and 9:30. Or at least, no later than 10. Due to the fact that I don’t shower in the morning, nor wear any makeup, nor particularly care what I wear as long as it’s not stained or smelly, I can usually make it on time. And with the existence of things like lattes and iced coffees, I can usually show in a reasonably chipper mood. Unless, that is, I get an attack of the snoozes.

Because it’s hard for me to get up in the morning, I always set two (sometimes three) alarms. And I usually hit snooze on each one no less than 5-7 times, finally rolling out of bed on the last snooze around 8:15am. However, there is the occasional morning in which my half-awake self decides that it would make more sense to turn the alarm off rather than hit snooze. This becomes a problem when I then sleep until my body wakes up on it’s own natural rhythm around 10:30am. And it’s an even bigger problem when it happens on a day like yesterday when I was supposed to be in a meeting at 10. Oops.

But the only thing more embarrassing than walking into the office an hour and a half late is walking into the office an hour and a half late with sheet creases across my face and arms. So, just in case it wasn’t already clear to everyone why I was late, they can all obviously see that I was sound asleep in my comfy bed while the rest of the world carried on for hours like normal, professional people.

I’m amazed that I’m ever able to keep a regular job.

Reason #4 to love NY summers: Doggie haircuts

After two weeks of perfect springy July weather, the humidity of August has arrived one week early.

And for New York's shaggiest residents, that means one thing: haircut time. The dogs may be embarrassed, but at least they're cool. (And I mean that in the temperature sense)

My pal, Agnes, models her latest do here:



(Thanks, Julie, for the pic of your sheared pooch)

Tricky Dickie

But what you're not taking into account, oh ye Anonymous Commenter (Audrey retorted 15 hours later), is this: yes, Dickie Greenleaf possessed a rare and an almost magical quality that made him likable to everyone around him. BUT, was he likable to himself?

The traits I listed are characteristics that are more about being the person you would like yourself to be. Not the person that everyone else wants you to be.

Yes, I'd love to be just like Dickie. Who wouldn't? But did Dickie love himself as much as everyone else did? I don't know. I suppose you'd have to ask the Talented Mr. Ripley.

I'm not sure if you're someone that knows me personally and are therefore aware of the fact that I'm intrigued by the concept of Dickie Greenleaf and bring it up often. I study the few Dickie-like folks that I know to try and capture the secret to their appeal. It’s beyond me, which is why I’ve chosen to focus on changing my internal qualities, I can focus on the external ones once I have these five mastered.

Anyway, I've been giving that list of five further thought, and I realized that it’s not entirely realistic. Being kind probably involves not talking about people behind their back, which is something that I don’t think I’m capable of ceasing. It’s just too much fun. And nonjudgemental? C'mon. I judge therefore I am.

So I've decided to replace those two aspirational qualities with really good-looking and drunk. (The two traits I look for in others)

Top five qualities

Here’s a thought-provoking question for a Tuesday afternoon: are you the person you want to be?

I’m not talking about aspects of who you are that are determined by outside factors – where you are in your career, if you’ve met the right person, how many friends you have, where you live, etc. I’m talking about specific character traits that only you can control. Are you behaving like you’d like yourself to behave?

It’s a question that I thought about a lot last week. I decided to list the top five qualities that I would like possess, some of which I feel that I already do have somewhat, and some of which I’ve decided to work on.

It was hard for me to keep off the list the qualities that are decided by other people, like “likable” and “interesting,” emotional qualities that are mostly beyond my control such as “happy”, and physical qualities (I mean, sure, I want to be skinnier, but that didn’t make the list).

Above all things, I would like to be (in random order):

Open
Creative
Loving
Nonjudgmental
Kind

Definitely still working on some of those. What are your five?

Accidental tourist

I was already satisfied with my weekend. It was Sunday evening and in the past 48 hours of heavenly weather, I’d been to the Siren Music Festival in Coney Island, the Bohemian Beer Garden in Astoria, a dance club in Manhattan and a free concert in Central Park. I was ready to return home to Brooklyn from another fun summer weekend in New York.

Matt and I had somehow ended up at the South Street Seaport, so we decided to take a boat across the East river to Brooklyn since it was such a pretty day out. We bought our $5 tickets and boarded the first Water Taxi to arrive. Turns out it was the wrong boat. We saw DUMBO, our expected destination, vanish in the distance behind us as our hour-long sunset tour of New York City commenced.









We never did make it to DUMBO, but it was one of the most amazing sunsets I’ve ever seen. A beautiful reminder of just how much I’ve come to know and love this city in the past year.

Just asking for trouble

I'm wearing my new white pants for the first time today. I'm taking bets on how long I can wear them before spilling something dreadful all over them. So far I've gone an hour and half since I put them on and no stains yet. I'm guessing another two hours.

Anyone else want in on this bet?

Mayhem in Midtown

I’ve often wondered how I would react in an emergency. I’ve watched people on the news in all kinds of catastrophes around the world – people crying, panicking or rushing to help out. What would happen to me if faced with possible disaster? Now I know. My tongue goes numb.

I heard the explosion at 6pm yesterday. Like many people, I thought it was thunder. Thunder had woken me up that morning and it had been rumbling off and on all day, so I didn’t think much of the noise. Then the sirens started, and I thought to myself – it’s kinda freaky working right in midtown Manhattan, next to Grand Central. Should anything happen to New York, I’m really right in the middle of it all. More and more sirens sounded underneath my window, but still I continued to work – after all, I had a deadline to meet. It wasn’t until the Creative Director came running into my office screaming, “Something happened to our building. Everyone get out. Get out NOW!”

That’s when my tongue went numb.

People started running through the halls towards the stairs. I got up and followed. Did I stop to grab my wallet? No. Did I take my house keys? No. Did I bring my phone, my purse, my camera. No. I grabbed the item closest to me – my water bottle. I may have had no phone to call my family, no money to get home, no keys to get inside, but I was not going to go thirsty dammit! The truth is, I mostly figured that this was a false alarm. That we’d walk down 16 flights of stairs, realized that it was nothing and come back up, and did I really want to lug my bag (which also contained my laptop and my gym clothes) all that way? No. Not really.

But once I reached the stairs and I saw the traffic jam of business people racing and pushing down the stairwell, desperate to get out of the building, I realized that I really should have brought my bag. There was no going back for it now.

What were we to think? No one knew what was going on. We could still hear the roar outside, still hear the sirens. Most of these people had lived through 9/11. They knew the kind of disaster that could happen in New York. So why wouldn’t they be scared? Why wouldn’t they assume that the building could come crashing down over our heads at any minute?

The stairwell traffic jam got worse and worse as we descended. Occupants of each of the 16 floors were filing into the stairs. There’s got to be a better emergency procedure, I thought to myself. But I said nothing, quietly taking small sips from my water bottle. Good thing I had that water. If anyone was going to be dehydrated, it sure as hell wouldn’t be me.

I wasn’t expecting the scene outside when we finally reached the exit on 41st street. It was way worse than I was imagining. The first thing I saw was people running, while others stood taking pictures with there cameras and phones. What were they all scared of? I walked into the street and looked to my right. What was it? It was giant, that I could tell. It had an orangish, grayish hue. It was terrifying. Was it a fire? Was it a building that had exploded? Was it a bomb?



It was steam. Steam sounds so innocuous. Vaporized water, how harmful can that be? But when it’s shooting out of the ground to form a cloud as thick as an NY city block and higher than the surrounding skyscrapers, it can be pretty frightening. Especially when it’s about 30 feet from where you’re standing.



Perhaps I’ve seen too many end-of-the-world movies. Specifically, those blockbusters like Independence Day and Deep Impact, where people run through the streets with a title wave or fireball close at their heels, cars flying and trees shooting ten feet in the air. That’s what it felt like. People were running away from the billowing cloud, women ditched their high heels and bolted. Everyone had their cell phones glued to their ears and people were crying. I didn’t know what to do. I wish I had my camera. Or my phone. Or maybe my wallet or my house keys. Or a friend. Or any idea what the hell was going on. But I didn’t have any of those things, so I ran. I ran towards the river because that felt like the safest place to go.



After a few blocks, I deduced that the billowing steam cloud was not going to chase me down. But still, I didn’t know what was in that cloud – poisonous gases? Asbestos? Aliens? (Incidentally, they still don’t know what was in that cloud and I could be inhaling noxious chemicals as I write.) And I was now faced with another disaster – I was stranded in midtown with nothing but the clothes on my back and a bottle of water. So I continued to the river to contemplate my choices. My first goal was to get off this island of disaster. I wanted to go home to Brooklyn. It’s a long way to the Brooklyn Bridge from 41st street, plus I was wearing heels. I thought about the iPod and running shoes upstairs in my bag.

I sat down on a bench by the river and realized that I had not eaten lunch and was actually quite hungry. I was contemplating how I would go about acquiring food without money (could I beg for food? Did I know anyone in the restaurant industry that would give me food?), when the Water Taxi pulled up. I managed to convince the driver to let me on with no money, and got a boat ride over to DUMBO. At this point, I still had no phone or means of communication and was not entirely convinced that the world was not falling apart. But it was sunset and the city looked beautiful from the East River, even with the cloud of steam rising above the midtown skyscrapers. I was thankful to be safe. Thankful that my tiny taste of what September 11th must have been like turned out to be nothing in comparison.



When I got back to Brooklyn, I headed to my nearest friends’ house. But not before accidentally walking through a movie shoot and practically tripping over Ben Kingsley. Could my afternoon get any more surreal? Luckily Julie and Jeff were there to welcome me in, let me use their phone and computer and give me beer. That’s when I finally found out what had actually happened in midtown – a steam pipe exploded underneath the ground near Lexington and 41st (one block from my building). One person died and more than 30 were hurt.



Today, the front pages of the newspapers had no shortage of dramatic headlines: “The ground opened up!” “Mayhem in Midtown!” “Massive explosion rocks Manhattan.” I used to think that the news sensationalized stories. But in this case, that was exactly how it felt.

Here is the coverage in the NY Times (where I got all the photos from).

Reason #3 to love NY summers: Fireflies

Reason #2 to love NY Summers: Petanque Tournament

Once a year, the French Bistros of Brooklyn fill Smith Street, my neighborhood's main drag, with sand and Frenchies. It's Boerum Hill's annual Bastille Day celebration complete with French food, French booze and, of course, the Petanque tournie.

People take these little metal balls very seriously. It's fun to watch.

Dancing on the Hudson

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. New York knows how to do summer. Out of all the free outdoor events I’ve been to in the last month, I think Friday takes the cake in pure wonderment. The music was amazing – the Globesonic DJs plus the Body Temple Drummers. But the crowd… oh the crowd… picture hippy Berkeley moms meets Upper Westside yuppies meets Burning Man. The smell of Channel perfume mixed with Patchouli flooded the warm night air on the Hudson River.

I tried to capture the insanity on video. It’s a little hard to see the gorgeous view and the wacky dancers, but make of it what you will. Shortly after this was taken, I switched from observer to participant, abandoning both my self-consciousness and my dignity to join the crazy mob for a couple hours of arm-flailing, rump-shaking hip-twisting madness. It was glorious.

And yes, those are bubbles you see floating across the screen.



We left shortly after Carolyn turned to me and said, “The guy with the fingerless, elbow-length velvet gloves and the bustier is really hot.”

Clearly, we stayed too long.

hot

If there's one thing I love about New York, it's how really really good looking all the people here are.

All grownsup?

Today I was trying on some slacks and a blouse in the dressing room of Anne Taylor LOFT when the following thought voiced itself in my head, “Don’t buy these, Audrey. They make you look like a grownup.” It was quickly followed with the mental response, “Audrey, you retard. You’re 30. You ARE a grownup.” The first voice was offended by the derogatory use of “retard” and the argument then turned violent, proving that neither voice is as mature as she thinks.

But it got me pondering, what makes someone a grownup? Does wearing a blouse and slacks from the LOFT make me more grown up than the Forever 21 tank tops that I usually buy? Do I have to stop shopping at Forever 21 because I’m 30? When will they create a Forever 31? Anyone? Terrific business opportunity; 31-year-olds have more money.

I used to think that you became a grownup when you had kids of your own. But I know many grownup women that never had kids. Does the fact that I support myself make me a grownup? Does my job make me a grownup? I’m still waiting for people at my office to realize that I don’t know what I’m doing – that I fabricate my competence on a daily basis. But I think everyone thinks that to a certain extent. Does my age make me a grownup?

What proves that I’m not a grownup? Do grownups have tongue pierces? Do grownups dance at rock concerts? Do grownups get so drunk at their own parties that they make out with Robb’s cousin? (that’s an entirely rhetorical question).

I recall the first time I went to a fancy spa. A number of friends had joined together to buy me a massage for my birthday as the $100 was far beyond any of our means at the time. I was probably about 20, and I sat there in the plush bathrobe amidst the other women that were probably ten years to twenty years older than me. I watched them wade in the Jacuzzi and walk in and out of the sauna looking entirely comfortable and mature. And I wondered, when is someone going to figure out that I’m an imposter. That I’m just pretending to be adult with money whose mature enough to sit in a roomful of naked women and not giggle. I enjoyed that feeling, like I was fooling everyone around me into thinking that I belonged.

I get that same feeling sometimes when I’m walking down the streets of Manhattan in my new blouse from Anne Taylor LOFT, my skirt and my heels. I’ve fooled all these people on the streets into thinking I’m a professional. I’m a New Yorker with nice clothes and a job and I know what the hell I’m doing.

As time passes, I’ve walk the streets of Manhattan more often, I’ve lived in New York longer, I’ve gotten older, and I start to believe it myself. That I am a professional. That I DO know what I’m doing. That I am an adult.

And I miss that feeling of having everyone fooled. I wonder if it will ever go away entirely.

I hope not.

Reason #1 to love NY summers: outdoor concerts

Summer in New York is free concert season.

All the income taxes we pay in this insomniac city, all the electricity bills, the water bills, the cable bills, the general cost of living in the most expensive city in the country – this is when the city makes it up to us.

Every night, it’s a struggle to decide which event to go to, movie screenings under the stars, DJ parties on piers or Indie bands playing in the park. In the last week I’ve attend three free outdoor concerts –

Fujiya and Miyagi at the South Street Seaport on Friday.



The setting was gorgeous - a pirate ship in the middle of the city!



Dan Deacon at McCarren Pool on Sunday - quite a hilarious crowd in the giant dance circle.



Spoon in Rockefeller Park on Wednesday. Oh Spoon, how I love thee so.



All three were awesome, partially for the music, partially for the setting, but mostly for the crowd. I’ve never counted so many ironic mustaches as I did on Sunday at MacCarren Pool Park.

I took pics at all these events, but they didn’t come out as well as the ones I found on brooklynvegan.com and flikr. So, uh, these are all stolen. (Credit)

Dear preacher on my subway car this morning,

Jolly and well-meaning though you were, there are specified places that people go to praise Jesus, and the uptown 5 train is not one of them. These places are called churches, and that is where the crowd is happy to sing the glory of their personal lord and savoir. It is not your duty nor your right to stand in the subway car and request that everyone join you in a shout of “Thank you, Jesus” (on the count of three) so as to ward off the devil.

And does it not strike you as the tiniest bit ironic that you’re standing directly behind an Orthodox Jew with his kepah-covered head bent over a reading from the Torah. Perhaps he feels that you should keep your religion to yourself, much like he is doing with his. But his tallis and his peyos do not dissuade you. You continue to carry on about Jesus Christ, even as the Jewish man exits at the next stop to move to a different car.

If there’s one thing I would like to thank Jesus for, it’s the Philips noise-cancelling in-ear headphones I just happened to have purchased last night. Can I get a Hallelujah?

Sincerely,
Audrey

You know you’re having a slow day at work when…

10. You decide to clean out your email inbox.

9. You spend three hours concocting something clever to say to the cute boy across the office.

8. Then you spend 20 minutes in the bathroom, making yourself look good.

7. Then you walk past his office three separate times waiting for him to get off the phone.

6. You finally just give up.

5. You look at online menus to decide what you’re going to order at the restaurant after work (Herbed Goat Cheese Salad). For the next four days (Grilled Salmon, Warm Spinach Salad, Chef’s Sashimi Plate).

4. You take a two-hour lunch break.

3. Twice in one day.

2. You tell other freelancers your life story, starting at age 1.

1. You spend an hour looking at infinitecat.com

RED Neck WHITE Trash BLUE Collar

In honor of the gun-toting, god-fearing, country-loving Americans throughout the flyover states, I am happy to declare our RED Neck WHITE Trash BLUE Collar party a success. This was the Brooklyn style 4th of July party that we threw to commemorate the birth of our nation with our ironically patriotic outfits and lots of cheap domestic beer.



No one got quite as into the theme as the hostesses, but everyone was thrilled to eat the trashy snacks we provided such as:

Cheese Puffs


Tater Tots


And Easy Cheese


And as America Week draws to an end, the war wages on in Iraq and our national debt grows deeper, I give you one question to ponder: why is all trashy American food florescent orange?

I blame Bush.

iConversation

A: So, do you have the iPhone yet? As they said on the Daily Show. The iPhone will do to phones what the iPod did to pods. For some reason, when I think of Mac products, I think of you.

R: That's funny, when I think of boners I think of you. No, I do not have one yet (an iPhone that is), but I did get to play with one this weekend. (still talking about the iPhone).

Kaboom

As rooftop partiers huddled under umbrellas and barbecue charcoals sizzled with each raindrop, I was almost ready to call Fourth of July a bust and head back home. I was going to take the unfortunate weather as a sign that God does not, in fact love America as everyone seems to think. If he/she did, would God make in rain on America’s birthday?

But then, through a remarkable coincidence (divine intervention?) it cleared up right at 9:15pm, just in time for New York’s gorgeous firework display. I guess my theory will have to await further examination.

In the meantime, feel free to enjoy the firework highlights I’ve strung together from my digital camera. The view from the East Village roof was pretty good. And those Saturn-shaped fireworks, unreal.

The opposite of buying new bras

I met this girl at a barbecue last weekend.

She was telling me all about the experience of being photographed topless by Jordan Matter, as part of his Uncovered project. This photography project features pictures of women doing there normal thing in New York – hailing a cab, working on their laptops, talking on their cell phones – without any tops on. Simple really, but it sends a number of messages. You can interpret it in your own way.

Emma, the girl in this photo, was telling me about the experience of taking her top off in the middle of New York. She said it was frightening and embarrassing at first, then ultimately fun and embowering. Sexy and exciting. Freeing.

I can only imagine. I think the pictures are all beautiful, despite the varying ages, sizes and sagginess of the subjects. Looking through them makes me wonder, would I be able to do it? Would I want to?

20 years ago, “topfree” protesters overturned the New York law against females exposing their breasts in public. So, if it gets a little hot for the holiday tomorrow, just keep that in mind, ladies.

The power of a good DJ

I’m not one of those hardcore raver kids that believe the power of house music can change the world. However, there is something to be said for the unity and communal excitement experienced at the PS1 opening summer party on Saturday. And I wasn’t on any drugs. Unless you count Redbull.