I am surrounded by love and everything is fine!!

Actually that's a lie, everything is not fine, but I need to practice my affirmations, although I don't think they are working so well!!

Not much doing here, same old, same old mostly work and working out, although I did buy a beautiful - and somewhat expensive at $298 - silk lace dress online, the 'Veiled Alder Dress' in Black from Anthropologie last week which arrived yesterday and is absolutely gorgeous.


Admittedly I did feel quite guilty about the splurge which occurred during a bout of self pity regarding my terminal single status last week and about 10 seconds after hitting the 'place order' button I'd already resolved to return it. That is until I tried it on, and oh good Lord, it's like it was made for me and the neckline isn't as high as it appears online, so it has more sex appeal than the photo above would suggest. I love it and cannot wait to wear it. Naturally all guilt about spending a chunk of change on a frock I shall probably wear only a handful of times has dissolved in light of how flattering it is ha ha!! Actually it's not going to break the bank since I've fully paid off all my credit cards but I have a saving goal for the end of the year so I've been Mrs Frugal of late, although my parents did give me $600 to buy myself something for my 40th, so I've decided that the dress is my birthday gift from them.

Megan had her own spendy day on Monday buying not one, but TWO dresses from Diane Von Furstenberg. Seriously it's very uncharacteristic behavior for her, she is shocked at how much I'll spend on my AG jeans - $160ish. Um, hello, no judgements, I wear each pair two-three times a week to work so on a cost per wear basis they are a bargain - as she never spends more than $50 on jeans from American Eagle, but since she moved in with me - she's between apartments having moved out of the place she was still sharing with her ex-fiance - she's been shopping at DVF and, after dropping close to $700 on two dresses, went and tried on a ton of pairs of jeans in AG, so I think I'm having an influence, albeit a bad one.

As for her influence on me...well after a rocky Friday - I had a wonderful start to my day when I spotted the hottie contractor who is overseeing the refurbishment of the conference room on our floor. Phew, he's VERY attractive and in fact looks a LOT like my crush, Mr. Art Director Creative Cutie who works on the floor above, so similar in fact that they could be brothers. Never let it be said I don't have a type. They both have high cheekbones, are of medium height - like 5' 8" to 5' 10"ish, I'm not a fan of overly tall men being only 5ft 1 myself - with lean toned bodies...could someone fan me please, I'm suddenly feeling quite warm. It was a good start to the day anyway and I was in an energetic mood as a result, but then mere hours later I was upstairs visiting one of my account teams and encountered the real deal, Creative Cutie himself, and well my mood just plummeted. I think I'm just reminded of a missed opportunity when I see him and I can't help but wonder what all the staring was all about last year*. I mean why stare if you have no interest in doing anything about it?

"Perhaps he stared because you remind him of his dead ex-girlfriend," mused Deesha.

Um, thanks for that cheery thought Deesha. Do you think maybe you've read one too many Gothic romance novels?

Anyway after my sighting a black cloud settled over me for the afternoon and I couldn't seem to shake it with happy tunes, not even Swedish House Mafia could lift me from the doldrums, and throwing myself into work wasn't sufficiently distracting, so as a consequence I went home and Googled 'affirmations' in an effort to think more positively.

Affirmations!!! Me, reading affirmations!!! Seriously that hippie clap trap is sooooo not me.

"That's like something I'd do" said Megan when she got home.

I KNOW!!!!!!

Admittedly the affirmations helped, but honestly it's like there's some Freaky Friday shenanigans is going down in my apartment right now with the usually mellow Southern Californian Megan displaying all the traits of a retail obsessed Brit whereas I'm turning into a bloody hippie. If I ever buy a Caftan and prayer beads please shoot me!!

So it was a 3 day weekend for some of us in the US this weekend, being Columbus day and all, so on Sunday Megan and I rented a car and drove up to Beacon, NY - we considered taking some surf lessons in Montauk, but the surf forecast was 0 feet, so not very good and Megan wasn't overly thrilled at the idea of getting up at 6am to drive out there, nor at the idea of surfing in cooler - 60-something degrees - waters since the poor lamb has only ever really surfed in the more tropical climes of Bali, Costa Rica and Hawaii. How awful for her ;-) It was a nice drive upstate anyway, we enjoyed the foliage and visited the Dia: Beacon - although I was less impressed by the art than I was by the building - and enjoyed some scoff at Homespun...


...and some ice cream at the creamery a little later. It was nice to get out, although I was extremely tired having woken up at 4am and was unable to get back to sleep. I dozed in the car on the way back to Manhattan and as the radio was playing songs that are familiar to me from my gym classes I dreamed I was doing star jumps and woke up with a start when my arms and legs flinched to the side as if I was going to do a star jump in my sleep. Do I work out too much do you think? It was very bizarre anyway as I'm rarely asked to do star jumps in class. On Monday I just got out and about and enjoyed the amazing weather - as well as a killer Pilates class taught by a substitute instructor called Iona at the NYSC on Varick Street and then met Megan for an early dinner at Buvette on Grove St in the village, which was excellent, a new favourite.

Yesterday I got a message from an OKCer who wants to "get to know me better." I clicked through to look at his profile and he's 23!! 23!! Also he dresses a bit like Dappy from N-Dubz if his photo is anything to go by, so um, no!!

Dappy himself!! Actually I have a hat like that, but I don't wear mine in public. Mine was handmade by my Quechuan Mommy during my Peruvian home stay.


I don't know, perhaps it's overly judgmental of me, but I don't see myself throwing on my fancy Anthropologie frock to go for dinner at Buvette with Dappy's 23 year old doppelganger. To be honest it's been a bit tumbleweeds of late although I also got an email on Sunday from Will of the West Village - another medical professional like my dog walking date of a couple of Saturdays ago - who sounds altogether more promising, although good on paper tends to be rubbish in real life, but hey ho!!

*He used to come down to the floor I work on to play ping pong with his buddy and when I would pass to run to the loo - I drink a ton of water, so I'm in the ladies every 30-45 minutes - he would stop playing and just stare which made me completely paranoid. I'm not one of those women that thinks 'that guy is staring at me he clearly thinks I'm hot" no siree I'm more the "that guy is staring at me, what's wrong, is my blouse undone am I exposing myself, do I have something on my face, did a bird do a turd on me" and so on. It's paranoia run wild. It wouldn't have been so bad had he smiled, but no, he just stared and said nothing, but goddamn it he is soooooo cute.