Toothpaste? Seriously!!

Did you know that toothpaste works like a charm at cleaning tarnished silver jewelry?  No?  Me either, but I Googled "how to clean silver jewelry" and using toothpaste came up as a recommendation, along with baking soda.  Skeptical I tried it on these earrings that are cute, but not my favorites.  It's worth mentioning that I'd soaked this pair in a chemical cleaner for more than 12 hours overnight and the result was the earring on the right.  I rubbed toothpaste on the earring on the left and hey presto it looked like new within seconds.  Seconds!!  Sorry the photo's a bit dark I had to use my phone camera which has no flash as I'd run out of batteries for my proper camera.

Admittedly my earrings do have a minty fresh scent, but that's not the worse thing in the world.  Apparently the key ingredient is the baking soda, so gel toothpastes won't work.  I went on a jewelry cleaning frenzy after that.  I have a bunch of silver bangles that I'd bought on my South American travels that I wasn't wearing as they were heavily tarnished, but they look perfect again now!!  I'm so happy!! 

Trifecta!!

Oh how I love those weeks where Friday=Payday=half day before a 3 day weekend!!  I cannot wait, not that I have anything special planned for Labor Day beyond not going into work.  I really should make some plans, so that I don't end up sat on my arse watching TV, which could happen if the current weather continues.  So far it's one of those horrible weeks in New York where it's overly humid, wet and just downright grimy.  I don't know about you but I am ready for autumn!!  I even indulged in a little jacket shopping at Old Navy the other week, I got the charcoal version of this faux-leather jacket with a 25% off new arrivals offer.
  

http://oldnavy.gap.com/browse/product.do?cid=84244&vid=1&pid=250665

Yup, it's pleather!!  Oh the shame, although in charcoal I think you'd be hard pushed to tell the difference and it was $37.45, so I'll suck it up, or take Deesha's advice and play the animal friendly card in my vegan jacket!!  I also ordered it in the brown as so many reviews raved about it in that color, but I don't love it, I think it looks cheap, so I think I will return that one, although part of me is all "hmmmm, for $37.45 perhaps I should just keep it in case it grows on me."  However my gut says "No, you won't wear it, it will just be something else to take to the charity shop next year and a waste of $40!!"  My gut wins.  

I've got full body soreness going on at the moment, due to a combination of surfing, Pilates and making an effort to walk more often.  I walked a good 3 hours on Sunday from the Upper East Side to SoHo to run some errands and then back again.  Me legs, bum and back are all incredibly sore, so I'm dithering whether to go surfing this weekend.  The forecast looks more beginner friendly on Saturday if this forecast from Magic Seaweed is to be trusted - don't ask me what everything means I've yet to work it all out.  Surfing is complicated - but I don't know if I can face the early start this weekend and none of my kook posse are available to come out, so I'd have to motivate myself to schlep out to Rockaway alone, carry my board from the locker to the less crowded beach etc etc.  I just feel so tired that the prospect doesn't appeal right now, but maybe things will look better tomorrow.  Sunday looks bigger and better for experienced surfers, so will likely bring out the short boarding hoards which always makes me feel a bit intimidated and I worry about getting in the way - no-one needs a surfboard to the face.  I try my best to give them their space and find quieter spots, but during the summer you're only allowed to surf the few specific beaches once the lifeguards come on duty at 10am, so we're all clustered together in the same spots, but after Labor Day, the beaches are closed to swimmers and we can surf wherever we like.  Hurrah, I cannot wait. 

Wednesday September 5th looks like it's going to be good if this forecast holds.  It's too big for my level of expertise, but I will check the surf cams online from work and see if it really does look like it's 5ft.  It would be cool to see people surfing bigger waves in NYC!!

So, I took a summer day last Friday and headed out to the beach with Richie, Alex and Jeremy, however I was kind of annoyed by the experience as I feel like I am regressing - my pop up is terrible and I keep pearling - nosediving rather than catching the wave - and all Richie - surfing a total of 1 year, but just back from surf camp - could do was give me unsolicited advice....paddle harder, you popped up too late, the problem with your board is....

Grrrr!!!

I appreciate that he does give me a lift and all, but I'm tired of him giving advice. I know I am not doing well at the moment and I'm feeling a bit disheartened by it, but leave me the eff alone to make my own mistakes.

To be fair I am not the only one he does it to, as at one point he was stood on the beach waving Alex and Jeremy to come further in because they were sat too far on the outside to catch any waves.

"They'll never catch anything sat there," he said, "what are they doing, talking about philosophy?  They need to come further in," and then proceeded to walk down to the shore and wave them to come closer in.

Um...perhaps they are talking about philosophy Richie, perhaps they are enjoying taking a break and don't need you interferring, have you considered that? Seriously the man goes to one surf camp and suddenly thinks he's a surf instructor. If he'd been surfing for years I wouldn't mind, but it's been less than a year!!

Harumph!!

Anyway we shall see, but I'm so tired I'm a bit more inclined to consider booking a last minute massage.

Drinking Too Much And Worrying About The Neighbors

Ha, the title of this post makes it seems like I've been up to shennanigans in front of the neighbors while under the influence.  Nothing so interesting I'm afraid, I'm at a point in my life where the excitement of the week was realizing that the long awaited Whole Foods on 57th St is opening this coming Thursday.  Hurrah!!  It was such a highlight to see the "Opening Thursday August 23rd" when I walked home from the gym last night that I immediately took to text to inform my friend Melissa.  She is excited too, but apparently not as excited as she would be if it were a Trader Joe's opening instead.  So no, no shennanigans in front of the neighbors, I'm trying to cut down on drinking and generally lead a healthier lifestyle these days.  I've pretty much got the food thing down, I eat very well, lots of fresh fruit and veggies and healthy fats and proteins, but alcohol is my downfall.  As far as health guidelines go I definitely drink too much and my consumption has increased in proportion to my day to day work responsibilities over the last couple of years.  Yup, my job is driving me to drink!!  Anyway I've decided that enough is enough and I'm making an effort to cut down, but it's interesting that when I mention this desire to curb my indulgences to other friends in New York, the typical response is "but you don't drink too much, you drink the same amount as me!!"

Uh-huh, and I think that says more about you than it does about me my darling. 

Overall I've cut back a lot, and after a stressful day I was very proud of myself for swerving the wine store on Monday, I even allowed myself to feel just that teensy little bit superior to the woman a few steps ahead of me who suddenly veered into Serendipity Wines having lost the battle with her own will power.  Oooohhhh I was so very smug!!  However I wasn't so lucky yesterday. That saying about pride coming before a fall certainly rang true for me last night as I fell headlong into a bottle of Chardonnay.

Sigh!!

This is not the way to attain my 'feel okay in a bikini' bod for Belize in a month and a bit now is it? The weird thing is I wasn't even bothered about having a drink last night and I coerced myself into it!!! What's that about? I was perfectly content to look forward to my protein rich healthy shake (frozen banana*, 1 tbsp almond butter, 1 cup of skim milk, a tsp agave nectar, 1/4 tsp chocolate powder. Delicious!!) with my salmon burger, but I'd slept so horribly the night before I was worried about repeating the experience - I find insomnia, like waves, comes in sets and once it starts I'll often have a few consecutive nights of disturbed sleep. How ironic is it that one of my clients is a manufacturer of an insomnia drug?? - so in my wisdom I decided that wine - as opposed to say a hot lavendar both, a few relaxing yoga poses plus a couple of Tylenol PM - was the perfect cure. Well let's face it wine is more fun, although the hangover....considerably less so!! Seriously I wish I got the hangover as I was drinking and would therefore be less inclined to continue. Oh well. I'm trying not to beat myself up about it too much. Negativity makes you fat apparently, I think it's because you go "oh f**k it, I'll never lose weight, I may as well not bother and eat cream cakes."

So in other - more important and neighborly- news I am concerned my elderly neighbor may have died. There's been a package outside an apartment door on the 3rd floor since Friday and as I ran up to my place on the 4th floor last night I noticed it was still there and then I twigged it was outside number 15 - I just kept noticing it before, but I wasn't really paying attention to which floor it was on - which is where the sweet elderly lady lives. I sometimes help her with her shopping, if I arrive at the building at the same time as she's trying to climb the 30 steps to her floor.  She must be at least in her 70s and has such a hard time with even the lightest load.  I always ask her if I can drop her shopping outside her door for her while she negotiates the stairs. Anyway I suppose it's possible that she's just on vacation, but now I've realized whose apartment the package is resting outside of I'm concerned. I should have gone down and knocked on her door last night, just in case she's lying helpless on the floor. Oh now I'm really giving myself a guilt trip for sitting home and quaffing wine last night. See, this is a classic example of the Bystander Effect that Deesha was talking about the other week. Part of me definitely thought "Oh I'm sure the people who live opposite her would have noticed if something were amiss" or Tim, who works from home and also helps her with her shopping, but then Tim is on the second floor and would have no reason to walk up to the third floor and notice that the package is still there after 5 days - 6 if it's still there tonight - and would her neighbors really notice?  I'm not entirely sure who exactly lives across from me these days, I got new neighbors about a month ago and i think it's 2 girls, one of whom is blond, but I wouldn't know them if I passed them on the stairs. This is so New York of me not knowing my neighbors. I used to bump into people who lived next door and they were there for years so I knew them to say hello to, but now...not so much. Maybe I'll see if the package is still there tonight and knock on her door if it is. If I don't get a response I'll talk to the landlord when I see him around the building at the weekend. This reminds me of that quote at the beginning of When Harry Met Sally where Meg Ryan's character - duh, Sally - is talking about moving to New York to make it as a writer and Harry responds "suppose nothing happens to you. Suppose you lived out your whole life and nothing happens you never meet anybody you never become anything and finally you die in one of those New York deaths which nobody notices for two weeks until the smell drifts into the hallway."** God I love that film.

Btw I also came across this service on Agency Spy called Huntcha which apparently integrates with Facebook and allows you to chat with your crush anonymously to see if they’re crushing on you too. Given my crushes on the creative men of late and the fact that I have the dating maturity of a 12year old I think I should sign up. The issue is that most of the people I crush on are not my friends on Facebook and I am assuming a requirement would be for your crush to be in your Facebook circle.
  
*I feel like such an innocent, but I never knew you could freeze bananas until about 2months ago. You can just slice 'em up and put 'em in bags and they are fantastic in banana shakes. They work better frozen than fresh in fact as they thicken the shake better!!

**Is it wrong that I paused on the 3rd floor this morning and sniffed for the unpleasant odour of decomposition?  One too many episodes of Law & Order perhaps!! I am sure those sorts of smells would have got the attention of her immediate neighbors.

Update: I worked late today and arrived home around 9pm.  The package had gone from outside #15.  Thank God for that, my neighbor is ALIVE!!  Phew!!

So apparently eating water melon makes your skin glow

S'true, I read it in a women's magazine this weekend, so obviously it's gospel.  Something to do with the lycopene apparently.


I must have eaten a bucket full of watermelon this weekend, so it's a good job I have the glowing skin thing down today as perhaps it will detract from the fact that I burned a good inch and a half chunk off the back of my hair this morning.  Not exactly a good start to the week!!  It's my own fault, I like the hair dryer on the hotter side so that I can flip out the layers of my naturally straight hair and give it more body and bounce.  It hasn't been cooperating in the last few weeks, because the humidity makes it go limp whatever I try to do with it and then my hair dryer conked out last week so I've been making do with a crappy travel dryer, that is until my fancy new Babyliss Pro Porcelain Ceramic 2000-Watt hairdryer arrived from Amazon.  Gotta love a bit of German engineering in a hair dryer. It arrived on Friday, but today was one of the first  less humid days that's made it worthwhile even attempting to style my hair, so I was able to put my new dryer through it's paces.  Hmmmm, I guess the 2000 watts were a little too powerful, especially on the highest heat setting, because it melted the plastic bristles of the styling brush into my hair.  I didn't realize until I ran my fingers through it and encountered what I initially thought was a knot.  I was mortified when a thick chunk of hair came with the knot as I tried to pull it out along with little bits of singed plastic.  Ugh!!  Warm setting only from now on.

Fortunately because my hair is layered anyway I don't think it's that noticeable, but obviously I can't see the back of my head and I didn't have a small enough mirror to hold up behind me to check.  I would have had to lift my full length mirror off the bedroom wall and take it to the bathroom to do that and the full length mirror is not exactly portable, nor my bathroom large enough to easily maneouvre a 5ft long mirror behind me, so I made do with running my hands behind my head to feel for any missing bits and as I said, I think it's not obvious that I am missinga  chunk, but I will ask office mate Amy when she arrives at work.

The journey into work didn't exactly improve my Monday as my subway carriage got to experience the joy of a young guy, clutching a bible, evangelizing loudly - and bilingually - as we travelled downtown.  "God loves you," he shouted, "he will give you back what is missing from your life."

"What about the Rolling Stones?"  retorted a man I couldn't see through the throngs.  "I'd like the Rolling Stones back in my life."  The man then started to sing "Let's Spend The Night Together," so the bible quoting man started preaching louder to compete, deafening the rest of us in the process.  Ahhh the New York City subway, this is exactly why I prefer to walk.  Unfortunately it's impossible to walk any distance of a half a mile or more during the summer without feeling that uncomfortable trickle of perspiration run down your back.  On the plus side we did have crisp 63F mornings this weekend.  Autumn is on it's way, I'll soon be unpacking my woolly jumpers again.  Yay!! 

Weekend wise it was just an okay one.  I was admittedly a bit mopey after discovering that my office crush, the EVP GCD, a man I admittedly only know in passing, but who does a double take every time he spots me in the hallway and makes a point of smiling at me, is married with a small child.

I knew it!!

Seriously, what the hell is he staring at me for if he has a beautiful wife and child at home?  I wouldn't mind so much about the staring and smiling if he wore a wedding ring, at least I'd know where I stood, but no, he's one of those married men that doesn't bother with a ring - immensely annoying for us single girls looking to sort the available wheat from the married chaff!!  It reminds me of when Canadian Jamie - who was on secondment from Toronto to the London office of the pharmaceutical company I briefly worked for - met and fell in love with Australian Fiona to whom he proposed.  As they discussed their upcoming nuptials he happened to mention that he wasn't sure whether he wanted to wear a wedding band, to which Fiona retorted "well you can wear a ring on your finger or you can wear a ring somewhere else, but you will be wearing a ring" ha I love it!!!

Anyway as far as the EVP GCD is concerned I'm irrationally disappointed that he's unavailable, although that's stupid because I really didn't know him, but it felt like there was potential at least and some fun in having a mild office flirtation but now my hopes have been dashed!!

Sigh!!

So the upshot of me finding this out about the EVP GCD was that I Facebooked JJ the Creative Cutie, my crush from my previous job.  Damn damn damn damn damn!!  I've done that a couple of times in the past when we both still worked at the same company, but I've been trying to avoid doing it since I sent him the FB message asking him out and he never responded.  I still beat myself over him a bit though, I know, I know, I shouldn't but I can't help myself; I regret what I feel was a missed an opportunity.  True, I don't exactly know that he was interested, but he did spend a month coming down to the floor I worked on to play ping pong and would stare pointedly whenever I walked by en route to the loo.  He never said anything though and so the staring just freaked me out a bit, plus I wasn't exactly at my most confident at the time having put on a bit more weight than I would have liked - the demon drink and lack of exercise - so instead of thinking "hey this guy might be interested in me" I thought "why is he staring, what's wrong with me?"  I dunno, perhaps he started intently at every woman who walked by.  He stopped after a while, as soon as I started to think "could he be interested?  I should smile and see what happens" although of course by that point it was all a bit awkward.

I never really found out what the deal was with the staring, but when I learned he'd been let go from his job - a couple of months before I was let go - I decided I had nothing to lose, I wasn't going to run into him again and I should just ask him out, which I did, via Facebook very casually.  I think I said something along the lines of "Hey, I just heard you are no longer working at the agency, I'm sorry I won't see you around the office, but if you ever want to grab a drink let me know." and left my phone number.  It was perfect, very low key, no pressure. Of course he never responded, so who knows really, perhaps he was never interested.  

He has a whole pile of photos on FB these days - I'm such a stalker, hangs head in shame, although as Deesha said to me only yesterday "why are you embarrassed about Googling him, everyone does it." This is very true, I just worry about it being a slippery slope.  It's all well and good checking someone's FB profile once every 6-months out of curiosity, but I worry that once I start I'll soon be logging on on a daily basis to check for signs of a girlfriend.  No sign from the photos I saw this weekend so obviously there is still hope ha ha!!  God I am so sad, why can't I let this go?  I'll be honest, I do harbor hopes that he'll pop up as a freelance art director at the agency I'm working at now, but hellooooo Fish, sea all that, I need to keep in mind that there are other men out there.  Single very nice men.  I know fellow NYC ladies, it really doesn't feel that way, but trust me they are out there

I think I might go back on OkCupid in another month.  I can't go on there now, I find it too hot to date in this weather, I really don't want some sweaty man putting their hands on me at the moment, although there are some cuties down at the beach these days.  Goddamn the EVP GCD, I wasn't even particularly interested in dating until I found out he was married, I was happily single and now all of a sudden I'm feeling lonely.  Pshhhh!!  Oh well swings and roundabouts and all that, I'm a firm believer that you can't appreciate the ups without the downs, so I'm sure it will pass!! 

Alone Again....Bliss!!!

So my cousin left on Saturday morning and is safely back in England in the bosom of his family!!

Hurrah!!!

It's so nice to have my apartment back to myself again, although I've definitely released my inner slob as the place is much messier than when I had a visitor keeping me in check.  All in all it was a good visit, but having him stay for two weeks was definitely a week too long.  I don't know how my friend Deesha does it, her parents and in-laws always seem to be either visiting or planning multiple-month long visits from India to stay with her and her husband in their tiny one bedroom Hells Kitchen apartment, or at least they did.  She and her husband recently moved to Kansas City for his high flying job and they're now living in a large 3 bedroom apartment.  They have so much space they don't quite know what to do with it all.  Check out this photo of her living room, you could fit my entire apartment in there twice over and the place probably costs half what I pay in rent!!  That's the thing about NYC living, you pay a premium to live in what would be considered a hovel anywhere else just because it's NYC, but still, I'd rather be here than in Kansas City.  No offense KC, but you are land locked, where would I surf??

Deesha's KC Apartment

Deesha emailed me yesterday - lovely to hear from her, I miss her heaps - and was saying that they anticipate her mother in law to visit for 2-3 weeks in September and after that "my parents will come...sigh...though sometimes its very lonely here, so I might not mind the company. I just don't like the overall home overhaul effort and interference/lack of privacy when family visits."

Ha, I know the feeling, but I suppose now that they live in a massive apartment, the likes of which only billionaires can afford if it were in NYC, they can just have visitors take over a wing of their home and leave them to their own devices ;-)

As I said two weeks was definitely a week too long for me and my experience does make me wonder whether I could ever live with a bloke since I find I'm gritting my teeth and tolerating visitors after a few days.  I once read that the actor Guy Pearce and his wife live in separate houses but next door to each other, which sounds like a perfect marriage to me, although I would be less rigid than Guy and would at least allow my husband to live in a granny flat within the same grounds as the main house ha ha!!  

Speaking of marriage Melissa is jumping around with excitement at the moment because her husband is off on a boys weekend on Friday and this will be the first time she's slept alone in her own bed since she got married!!  She can't wait, whereas lucky me, I get to sleep like a starfish and take up my entire queen sized bed every night should that be my want.  We're going to have a girly weekend while her husband is away, nothing major, just dinner and drinks at a restaurant we've been wanting to try on Saturday night, although it won't be a late one as I am hoping to surf on Sunday.
  
As for blokes well there are a couple of cute ones at the new job - well I say new, I've been here almost 6-months now - which are good eye candy and brighten my day at the office.  One is my traditional type, the senior creative that I've previously alluded to, the EVP GCD.  I don't see him so much now that I've moved out of a cube and into a shared office further away from where he sits, but have noticed that whenever I do get to leave the office at 6.30pm - fairly early for me of late - and pass his office on the way out that he's already left - slacker - but I did get a smile from him last week which was nice.  It was funny because I literally broke off conversation with my account person to smile back, although my account guy is very professional and didn't mention it.  I am determined not to make the same mistakes I made with the lovely Creative Cutie in my last job* should EVP GCD actually be available and interested.  My imagination has been working over time regarding his early departure and I fancy he's having to pick his child up from day care.  He doesn't wear a wedding band, but you never know.  

The other juicy piece of lusty pash is a media planner that sits near my new office and has a bit of the drop dead gorgeous thing going on.  He reminds me a little of Tom, a young 6ft 3 Adonis who used to sit opposite me in my last job.  When Tom first started working in our department hoards of young account women would find excuses to come up to our floor for meetings just to swoon over him.  To Tom's credit he was polite, but unfazed by the attention.  Truth be told looking like he did he was probably used to women falling all over him and assumed that was normal female behavior.  While good looking Media Bloke is not nearly as attractive as Tom, but he's actually better in a way, being older and not in the same department so finding him attractive feels a lot less pervy-incestuous.  Tom started to feel like family, so admiring him for his looks just felt so very very wrong, like fancying my brother or something, however Media Bloke is of a similarly tall and toned stature and I had a couple of enjoyable moments last week where I had to squeeze by him in the tight corridor that leads to the far kitchen.  He's very manly and I'll admit that as I squeezed by I thought "could you just hug me for a second".  Sometimes I feel that starting - or ending - the day with a bear hug from an enormous bloke would make my day feel a whole lot better.  Clearly this is at odds with my having him live in the granny flat, although perhaps I could set up a bell system a la the servants quarters on Downton Abbey and I could ring for my morning bear hug.  I also suspect Manly Media Bloke might be single because sometimes he makes very unfortunate sartorial choices.  He wore baggy off-white pants with a thin blue pinstripe last week - a definite pajama vibe - with green and red shoes and I seriously doubt that woman would let him leave the house in that get up, although he was actually pretty dressed pretty well today in a a deep red shirt and dark jeans - which work for his coloring.  He also coordinates well with me as I am wearing a blue dress with a small dark red pattern, so we would look good if we went on a date, well...aside from the heigh differential.  Height wise we are akin to that new celebrity pairing of Ellen Page (5-ft 1) and Alexander Skarsgard (6-ft 4). 

It's the first time I've worn a dress to work this summer, usually I break out the dresses and expose my pale pins as soon as it gets too hot to walk, but this year I haven't because despite having more of a tan than usual because I've been out at the beach surfing every weekend I've also been a lot more bruised than usual - because of surfing - so I've been keeping my legs under wraps.

*Is it wrong that I still help that the Creative Cutie will show up as a freelance at the new agency I am working at?  I do struggle to let things go sometimes, especially when it comes to men, but this one was quite the hottie, like a young Dennis Quaid.  Sigh!!  Damn me and my missed opportunity.

Jake Bugg - Taste It

"Guests, like fish, begin to smell after 3 days" - Benjamin Franklin

I have my cousin staying with me at the moment, he's enjoying a two week vacation in NYC.  Yup...staying with me for TWO whole weeks in my tiny NYC apartment.  I don't even have my parents stay that long, a fact that's not gone unnoticed by my father, not that my parents would want to put up with ME in my tiny apartment for two weeks either, but still my Dad has amused himself of late by teasing me on this point.

We're 11 days into his visit now, so not long to go.  It's not been *too* bad to be honest, he's pretty mature, respectful and not too untidy for a 24 year old bloke, he also doesn't take to rearranging my kitchen cupboards the way my parents do, so definitely an improvement on that score*, but two weeks is a long time when your apartment feels about as big as a shoebox and you're used to living alone as I am.  It's not been easy, especially on weekends when he wants to hang out after spending the week entertaining himself while I'm at work, I think he feels a bit starved for company, but doesn't seem to realize that I need a bit of downtime too.  I played the host for the first weekend he was in town - taking him for brunch in the village on Saturday, followed by clothes shopping in SoHo - for him, not me.  American Airlines lost his luggage and were taking their time finding it, so we popped into Old Navy for an inexpensive change of clothes - had drinks with some friends of mine who were unexpectedly in town from Kansas City; paid for dinner at Shake Shack and got tickets to the new Batman movie (meh! 7/10) and then sorted him out with a surf lesson on the Sunday morning, while I surfed the next beach down with my kook** posse, then food at the beach and then back to Manhattan and out for drinks that evening with my friend Debs and her Bulldog pup at a local wine bar, which is where we had the man from AA deliver his suitcase.  When all's said and done I think I was a pretty good cousin given he'd descended on my apartment with less than a week's notice, having realized exactly how expensive NYC hotels are, with fair notice that he'd have to occupy himself, as I'd be working, however I think showing him around that first weekend potentially set an expectation that I would do the same for the second weekend, which wasn't really part of *my* plan since I had stuff I needed to do, although it wasn't like I left him entirely to his own devices, hardly at all really.  I took him surfing again on Friday, then out for tacos and cocktails that night - he went out himself for a few more drinks and ended up staying out all night.  Uh-oh!!  I woke up at 5am needing the loo and noticed he wasn't home yet as the kitchen light was still on - I leave the light on so that he's not clattering about finding his way around a less than familiar apartment when he rolls home 3 sheets to the wind - so I was a bit concerned at that point since the bars closed at 4am, he'd only gone out locally and he still wasn't back at 5am.  I did worry that there was a slight chance that he could have been mugged, but no, turns out he'd copped off with some woman named Maureen and spent the night at her place on East 73rd St.

"Don't worry about me" said the text I received at 5.30am.  Hmmm, a bit late for that I think you'll find sonny Jim!!  "I'll meet you and Jeremy at the ferry at noon as planned."  

Sleep was impossible after 30-minutes of worrying whether he was okay, so it was a slightly irritable version of myself that met my cousin and surf buddy Jeremy at the Governor's Island ferry terminal, but all in all it was a pretty good day, we wandered around the island for a few hours admiring the Mark di Suvero sculptures they have on loan from Storm King Art Center and had lunch - $14 for a mahi mahi taco!! - before taking the ferry to Brooklyn and having a couple of cocktails at Clover Club followed by an early dinner at Buttermilk Channel - surprisingly packed at 5.30pm!!  Then on Sunday it was up with the larks again - 5.45am, why do I do this to myself again? - to head out to Rockaway for more surfing - me with Vanessa and Lucy on Beach 68th St and my cousin with the surf school on Beach 69th.

The conditions weren't the best to be honest.  The photo below really doesn't do justice to how  choppy the ocean was on Sunday and it was a fight to paddle to the outside and even then random waves would break on you and throw you off your board.  My triceps and abs got quite the workout and I was exhausted by the time we got back to my apartment around 3pm.

Rockaway Beach, NY, Sunday August 5th 2012

Having a house guest was wearing on me a bit by Sunday afternoon and I was in need of some time to myself.  On the way back from surfing he asked me what my plans were for the rest of the day and I told him I had some stuff I needed to do to get ready for the work week.  I was hoping he'd take the hint and make himself scarce, but I think he was content to just stay home too, so while I was trying to get stuff done yesterday afternoon he parked himself on my sofa, my internet cable plugged into the mini-laptop he'd brought with him, looking all settled in for the rest of day.

Hmmmmm!!

"So what have you got planned for this afternoon? " I called to him from the kitchen, as I prepped the vegetable soup I take for my work week lunches.

Why don't you go out for a few hours and give me some time to myself is what I didn't explicitly say

"I'm not sure!!"

"Why don't you go and see that Total Recall movie" I suggested, feeling bad about kicking him out into the heat and humidity.  At least the cinema would be lovely and air conditioned.

"Erm, yes yes I think I might do that.  Do you want to come?"

"No, no, I can't I've got stuff I need to do."

I left it for 15 minutes or so and then said "so what time does the movie start?"

Seriously are you going out or what?

"Um...how do I find out what time it's showing"

"Well if you type 'movies "new york" "total recall"' into Google it will tell you the times of the shows"

Why was I teaching a 24year old how to use Google?  Shouldn't that be ingrained into the fiber of his being?

"Oh it starts in 15 minutes at the one nearest here, I won't have enough time"

Aaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiii!!!!!!

"Yes but the movie won't start until 15minutes after that, why don't you see if you can catch it.  I can meet you for dinner afterwards"

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE GO OUT!!!!!!

"Or you could see if it's showing somewhere else, or maybe go and check out the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it will be cool in there if it's not closing soon"

"It's showing at Times Square in 3D, but not until 7pm"

7PM!!

Finally I just had to tell him directly that I needed him out from under my feet and would he mind going out for a few hours!!  I felt like a bit of a be-atch, but he seemed fine about it.  Clearly men don't read between the lines well.

I had a few blissful hours to myself and managed to straighten up my apartment a bit and prepare my lunches for the work week before he got back just after 9pm.  He was supposed to see Maureen of East 73rd St tonight ("Do you like her?"  Shrug "Um..she's okay I suppose."  Men!!) but after unsuccessfully trying to reach her he ended up making plans to meet Paula instead, a woman he met at his surf lesson on Sunday.  Clearly my romantic misfortune doesn't run in the family, although I did get a smile from the cute EVP GCD yesterday.  Well I think I did.  I was stood in the hallway talking to a couple of account people about some work after we'd been kicked from the conference room and he came around the corner and smiled at me, or perhaps he was already smiling and i just happened to be in the way.  Perhaps it was meant for someone else, perhaps it was gas, who knows, it still gave my mood a boost as I was definitely having a case of the Mondays yesterday.  With any luck I'll run into him again today as I could do with another smile:  I have cramps, my hairdryer stopped working and then I killed a cockroach with a flip flop this morning.  Ugh...and you know there are more where he came from.  I was in the Duane Reade by work this morning buying roach motels, Advil and tampons.  You could just tell from my shopping basket that I wasn't having a good day and I think the salesperson took pity on me as she was much nicer than Duane Reade staff usually are.

Three more days of playing hostess!!  Deep breaths!!

*It takes me about 2 weeks to fully get my apartment back in order after a parental visit.  They like to torment me by putting things back exactly where they didn't find them.  My cousin on the other hand daren't even open the cupboard door to find a water glass.  "I don't like to go through your stuff," he said when I asked him why not.  Seriously it's just dishes and food, it's not like I have a man tied up and hidden in the cupboards above the sink.



**A kook = a novice surfer

A Short Video About NY Surf School

Since I bought my own board I've not really been taking lessons with Frank Cullen's NY Surf School, I need to practice what I've been taught and get the basics down before moving on to the next stage, but I was still taking lessons when CNN stop by to film this piece.  Thankfully my appearances landed on the cutting room floor, so while I am in the background of a couple of shots there are no close ups of me in the unflattering short wetsuits the women wear in Summer.