Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Do I Hear $20,000?

Last night the bf and I went to a swankly lil' event at Sothebys. It was a benefit for Riverkeeper, and we were invited because the bf had a picture in their silent auction. It was all very chi-chi (is that how you spell that word? what about shi-shi? whatever); Martha Stewart was there, and a society photographer, who, amazingly enough, did not take my picture. There were also a lot of rich people who bid on the silent auction pictures and then bid at the live auction, which was headlined by Martin Short. It was sponsored by Grey Goose, which had an ice sculpture on one of the bars (unfortunately, the sculpture was not in the shape of a goose), and all kinds of art mafia people were there, but I didn't know who any of them were. I just admired all the fashiony clothes. We didn't stay for the whole live auction, but of the part we saw, the most thrilling bidding session was for Mark Messier's luxury box for a single Rangers game. The price? A mere $19,000. Anyone want to go to a hockey game with me? Ha ha ha.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

More Tales of the Y

I am like the coy mistress of blogging. Perhaps I'll drop by, say something, chew a few things over, perhaps I won't. But here I am again, with more stories of the Y. I haven't been to the Y for ages, because first I got a cold, then I got a job, and for a while I had a cold AND a job, but now, fortunately, I have shed the cold and only have the job. But anyway, it seems inadvisable to swim in a public pool with a compromised immune system, and then I was settling in at work, so it was just this weekend that I got back to the ol' YMCA. But, not surprisingly, things haven't changed much -- there are still a lot of weird people at the Y. Today's culprit was the Naked Lady in the Locker Room. I am not the first to blog about this ubiquitous trend, but this was by far the most disturbing of the Naked People I have yet seen. She was tall and extremely thin, almost a little malnourished looking, and she first came into my line of sight as I was getting ready to go down to the pool. To and fro she paced, never, apparently, in a search for a towel. Finally she picked one up, but when I looked up as she was walking past, I saw that she was holding said towel loosely in her hand instead of wrapping it around her body. Now, none of this is particularly egregious locker room behavior. But when I caught this glimpse of her, I saw that her totally uncovered crotch was, well, totally uncovered. In every way. In the manner of a newborn babe.

Far be it from me to criticize someone's grooming preferences, but there was just something kind of unpleasant about having a fully unobstructed view of this woman's privatalia, especially since she seemed to be making a double effort at giving me a fully unobstructed view. Because this was not the end of my encounter with Naked Lady in the Locker Room. We met again in the showers, where I was rinsing off before swimming (and therefore not even naked) and she was, in theory, showering, but was instead in fact standing in the middle of the shower area, still naked as a jaybird, or whatever that saying is, doing stretches. Finally, thank God, her water warmed up and she stepped into the shower.

But she left the curtain open.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Feed me!

I am just about ready to prostrate myself before the gods of cooking and implore them, "Why, merciless gods, why do you torture me so? Why do I suck at cooking so, so badly?" And they will laugh and hurtle a takeout pizza at me. You know, I live in New York. It's not like I have to cook. I could get a perfectly delicious meal for five dollars. But it's something I so dearly want to be good at. Or at least competent. I would settle for competent. But here I am, following the recipe EXACTLY, and all of a sudden I've got enough eggplant to feed a family of twelve who really, really love eggplant, and the potatoes are still totally raw, and I don't know how to peel tomatoes, and I burned the spices, and I think I'm going to go order a burrito. I can't take this kind of stress. Lord preserve me.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

New York, NY

Ah, I suck. I am a horrible blogger. But. I'd like to share with you my new favorite internet toy, Gothamist's News Map. It's a Google Maps crime blotter, that plots incidents around the city as they happen. And it's, like, totally awesome. It's like Law & Order, but on my computer, and without having to watch the whole show - I can just get scared that all these things are happening! It's kind of scary, though, realizing that people are getting shot, robbed, bitten, stabbed, crashed into, and falling into water and off of scaffolds all day long. It's enough to make you want to stay inside, except that there are fires, unstable buildings and gas leaks, too. I need to get a helmet.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

PS

Oh, and PS, I am still writing a weekly column for Lost Writers, and the latest installment is up today.

You Can Stay at the YMCA

Thanks, everyone, for your nice comments. Your check's in the mail, except for Paul, who made fun of me. Yesterday I was swimming at the Y, which is what I love to do, and there was some kind of tussle between a middle aged guy in a speedo and a young hipster guy who was standing in the pool. The older guy said, "whatever," as in, "whatever, I do look sexy in this speedo despite my belly," and walked away, and the younger guy just stood at the end of the pool, saying, "I don't want him to leave until the cops get here." Yet there was no blood, no one on the bottom of the pool; just a bunch of guys in swim caps. Anyway, I never did see any cops, much to my disappointment. But I did see a woman swimming in a wetsuit, wearing gloves with frog hands. I love Brooklyn.