DING DONG! You're old.....

Well it's official. I'm 27. I took the day off work and so far, I got a gigantic Hello Kitty birthday card from Kim (plus kitty socks and a cake!), a phone call from my dad at 6am (3am his time, he set an alarm), a phone call from my mom at 8am (5am her time, she sounded groggy), talked to Crystal, got myself a coffee and a poppy seed bagel with scallion cream cheese, have "All Dressed Up In Love" from the Sex and the City movie and "Love Like This" by Natasha Bedingfield on repeat and am blogging on my blog. What more could I ask for??!!!

I think it's pretty cool that I now have three birthday blogs on here. 25 was with Crystal at Firecracker, 26 was an endless parade of silliness with Crystal and Wes, and 27, well, gee whiz, I'm in New York!

It's beautiful, downright gorgeous, picturesque days like this that make it seem crazy that I decided to move back home to SF. But honestly, ever since I made the decision, all I've felt is relief. I feel like I'm enjoying NY more now that I have an end date. Of course, I've enjoyed my time here but I don't think I ever really felt settled in. Which is surprising and disappointing. This time last year, all I could think about was moving to NY and how great it would be. I truly thought that being in NY would make me happy. I loved everything about the city: the sweltering muggy summers, the buildings, the subway, being surrounded by people all the time. I mean I definitely romanticized it all out of proportion (like Woody Allen) and I think that was part of the problem. I don't want to dwell too much on the negative but basically, I've realized that what I want in life isn't here. A year has passed and my priorities have changed and I got NY out of my system. I can confidently say that I've had a great time and I learned a lot about myself (both good and bad). It's time to learn what life is like as a grown up in SF!

I think I really enjoy having deadlines. I function better when I know things need to be finished at a certain time. Healthy, exercising Nina is out the window and good riddance. My only priority is going to as many happy hours as I can and stuffing my face with pizza. Boy, I will really, really, really miss the pizza.

And how could I not miss it when it looks like this?! This is a Sicilian slice at Di Fara in the Midwood section of Brooklyn. Drenched in olive oil, it still manages to have a crispy crust. This is seriously the BEST slice of pizza I have ever had. Hands down.

Ah. The Sicilian slice was just an appetizer. I should really be a professional pizza eater. This is the regular Di Fara pie with artichokes and I forget what else. Crazy good.

And how could you not love the pizza when each is made specially by this cute little old man, Domenico or Dom as his friends call him. We waited an hour and half for our pie and it was worth it.

The presentation isn't as nice as Di Fara and Artichoke has already made an appearance on the blog but I don't care. I still love it! They made the NY Times too.

I have to love Artichoke because they use this tomato sauce!!!

Another thing I will miss about NY are my best buddies, Woody Allen and Larry David. Here they are across the street from my building filming a scene for Woody Allen's new movie staring Larry. I can definitely leave NY now that I have seen my heroes.

This was Woody the next day filming a scene for his short film for New York, I Love You. He looked sooooo Woody!

Woody walking off toward 1st Ave for a break.

I will also miss watching LOST at Professor Thom's where fellow LOST geeks line up 2 hours before the finale so they can get a good seat.

Professor Thom's is great because they hand out Jello shots when someone dies. When did I forget how to smile?

Funny that I should move back to the land of In-N-Out after finally starting to enjoy Shake Shack.

And the most recent fun thing: free kayaking on the Hudson.

Tusky is headed back to Michigan but she too has become a fan of the locavore movement and is reading up on Alice Waters.

And of course, lovely crowded Central Park.

But I don't want to jump the gun. I'm still here, I'm twenty-freakin-seven and there's two great months of summer to enjoy!

Addendum:

Birthday dinner was at Lil Frankie's in the East Village, my hood for 2007-2008. Everyone is staring skeptically at Anne. LOL.

The food was excellent as was the Chianti.

Left to Right: Anne, Alison, Kim, ME, Des, Ellen, and Sue Jean.

Mustache man who took the above pic.


Lovely cake Kim baked for me.

Here's to 27!

The Return of Softball Nina

I think I have allergies. I've never had allergies before so I'm not sure but I'm very congested and my nose is running and I'm sneezing. I took a couple of airbornes but it didn't help. What's confusing is that my symptoms started on a somewhat nice day but continued well into today which is rainy. I thought allergies had to do with pollen in the air and I just figured pollen can't hang in the air if it's moist. I guess not. It's annoying though because now my ears are a bit stopped up. Boo.

The sporadic nature of my blogs is no good for people who want to know how I'm doing. My mood pretty much changes by the hour. I guess I need to upgrade to live blogging. I also noticed that by the time I sit down to blog my fervent feelings have subsided and I no longer what to blog about it or as in the case of my previous entry, I was soooo keyed up, I probably shoulda taken a moment to work shit out (I think that's a song lyric).

Which is why I like to rely on pictures. They capture the moment quite literally and are, for the most part, objective. I need to be more diligent about my picture taking. For instance, I did not get a picture of:

-Clive Owen at Apple SoHo. Boy was he dashing! And trim! He was there as part of the Tribeca Film Festival and me and Ellen went to go gawk. He's a very good interviewee and I must watch more of his past movies.
-Me eating at Shake Shack. I went yesterday with Rachel because the Shake camera informed me that there was barely a line. I enjoyed it much more this time around, probably because I didn't have to wait 45 minutes.
-Me at the ballet. Anne got free dress rehearsal tickets so we got to see Verdi's The Four Seasons and West Side Story, ballet style. I enjoyed The Four Seasons a lot. It's nice to see something purley visual and auditory (there must be a better word for that).
-Me watching Mansfield Park and The Wire. I took a Facebook quiz to find out which Jane Austen heroine I am most like and it was Fanny Price of Mansfield Park. That's one of the few Austen interpretations I haven't seen so I immediately requested it from the library. It was great and I am sooooo like Fanny! And The Wire. Damn, it is intense. I actually have to take a few days break after watching an episode. Something disastrous just happened to Keema and. . . I can't talk about it. It's too soon.
-Me without Internet and cable from Sunday-Wednesday of last week. Add to that the fact that Kim was in Spain and I really felt like I was on a deserted island. Yeah, I'm exaggerating a little but it does feel weird not to be able to google something and have instant information gratification.
-Me reading The Wisdom of Donkeys. This is one of the books where my job as a reviewer of book reviews actually became useful. I read a review of this book and it sounded really great. Who wouldn't want to travel through the South of France on a sweet, placid little donkey? This guy has read everything that has ever been written about donkeys and there's a lot! I never gave donkeys much thought but they have been transporting humans for a long time. Like Jesus and Muhammed. Next Nina. I really wish I could try out one of these situations. The idea of living in a small village in a cottage somewhere in the English countryside with my chickens and donkeys sounds so great to me but I wonder how long I could really last.

Anyway.

Finally saw the Cai Guo-Qiang exhibit at the Gugg. I would've taken more pics but I didn't want to be kicked out.

My favorite was the one with the wolves running into a glass wall.

OH MY GOD. Artichoke pizza is the new Souplantation. I say that only because I have been here three weeks in a row.

Their specialty is the artichoke pizza which is only $3.50 a slice and is the size of my head. It's basically spinach artichoke dip on dough.

HAHAHAHHA. This was Mr Douche at softball. Who else would wear a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off except a douchebag? The UCLA alumni in NYC started their softball season and this was the first day, last Saturday. Gorgeous beautiful day for softball and me and Rachel had a really good time. I actually had three hits but failed to make it to first base each time. Douche turned out to be not so douchy afterall, just chatty as hell.

HAHAHAHA. This was game night at Sherilyn's in PARK SLOPE. That is in Brooklyn which is probably going to be my new home. This was us playing The New Yorker game. You make captions for New Yorker cartoons. Sorta like Balderdash.

More Brooklyn fun this time at the Brooklyn Flea in Ft. Greene. This was a little disappointing because it's not as cheap and as authentic as everyone keeps raving about.

Just a bunch of white people with money to burn.

I'll stop now because my fingers hurt and I've lost hearing in my right ear.

I Hate Politics

I'm very blue over Bittergate. If you don't know what I'm talking about, what rock have you been hiding under? SIGH. There are so many thoughts rolling around in my head that I hesitate to attempt to articulate any of them. I hate that SF is referred to as the "elitist epicenter". I've never thought of it like that but I guess elitist is just a less nicer way of saying yuppie which I have used in reference to SF before but always in a tongue-in-cheek sorta way. I feel that I should read "What's the Matter with Kansas?" or at least read the reviews on it. Bittergate actually comes at a very significant time for me because lately all I've been thinking about is why I am the way I am and Stuff White People Like has something to do with it and so does living in New York. Why is it that I must buy my food at Trader Joe's? Why do I think everyone should drive hybrids? Why do I love Apple products? And most importantly (ack), how do I feel about all this? Living in NY means living in a very super hyper realized state of everything. You're more aware of the disparity in everything and I feel guilty all the time about what I have and who I am and how I'm seen. New York, especially Manhattan, is nothing like the rest of the country and neither is LA or SF, three large American cities that I've all lived in. I have white people guilt and I'm not even white. I guess it's elitist guilt. And the scariest part is that I'm not sure I like who/what I am anymore or at least I'm beginning to question it all. Not having money is a big part of it. This is gonna sound trite but I've realized that I can get buy without having a lot. I don't buy new clothes anymore. I shop at the 99 cent store. I only buy what's necessary because that's all I can afford. The only thing I'll really shell money out for is food so I guess I'm a food elitist, a foodie... I don't know where any of this is going but I just felt the need to get it out there. BLAH.

So anyway, here's some of what I've been up to more or less.

This is a fried MacNCheese ball at the Chip Shop in Park Slope where Ellen is now settled in. High five for Ellen now being a New Yorker!!! Well in BK anyway. =)

The ball opened.

In the foreground, chicken strips and fries. In the background, fish and chips.

Anne's shepherd pie.

Fried twinkie.

I forget what this was called but it was a melange of berries.

Ah. The most exquisite, elitist bowl of $14 ramen in NY! At Ippudo. This was crazy delicious. It really was like liquid pig.

Cherry blossoms!

Mets vs. Brewers at Shea. We won.

Thai temple in Elmhurst Queens. Yes, we are even in Queens.

Trekked out for Thai New Year and free food.

Thais being Thai.

Anne and the reclining Buddha.

I got a haircut and paid an elitist (ok, I'll stop) amount for it. But it's cute no?

Will have to go back when it's less crowded.

A Recession? I Hope So

The Times take on the recession. I was excited to see a reference to "masters of the universe" which is a reference to Bonfire of the Vanities which I am still reading and still enjoying thoroughly. All I want to know is who the hell is making $240 million a year? That is obscene!

NYMag take on the recession from a few weeks ago.

And it looks like my goal of traveling to London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Barcelona is about to get cheaper and easier! Yippee!!!!

I'm sure the five people who still read this already know about Stuff White People Like aka Stuff Nina Likes but just in case. #76, 68, 64, 61, 46, 44, 40, oh who am I kidding? It's all me, sadly. The one that really hit home was #76, bottles of water. I mean I have FIVE Nalgenes. Granted they are all useful (Halloween one, Christmas one, everyday use pink one, mini pink one, and Good for the Planet Green one) but still ....
And #61. Who doesn't like bicycles and who hasn't fantasized about living in Amsterdam where bikes, danishes, tulips, and weed are plentiful? In the past 8 years, I've bought three bikes and for one reason or another, I had to get rid of them. And now that the warm weather will be here (hopefully) I find myself itching to get another one. The problem though is that I've never found my dream bike and I'm not willing to spend a small fortune on it either. Being white is hard.

As of yesterday, I started on my "get ready for summer" regiment meaning no more beer, no more belgian cheese/chili fries, no more pizza, basically no more fun. I tried on my summer clothes and I could not get my shorts on!!!!! My thighs are devastating. Or they are devastating me. My goal is to be svelte by my birthday. But I think the no more (less) beer is good because apparently me and everyone in NY is a binge drinker. The rule according to wikipedia is 5 drinks. Are you kidding? That is called Thursday.

I also had an idea for a BYOB bar. Is that genius or akin to Kramer's "make your pizza" pizza place? My idea is that people go out to drink to be social and chit chat with friends and to get out of the house but it's damn expensive to do that especially in New York so what if I opened a place that had couches and a nice atmosphere and sold fries and people could just bring their booze and chill and play Scrabble? If there was a place like that, I'd totally go.

Easter pics:
New York has a parade for everything although this "parade" was really just a gathering in front of St. Patrick's to show off your bonnets.

These head gear things made me think of that sing song show in SF where they wear really gigantic replicas of SF things on their heads. What is that called?

Weird.

The crowd leaving St. Patty's.

Used subway Metro cards.

Anyone could try one on.

My favorite were these cats dressed up like they were extras from Mary Poppins.

Easter bunny and his friend.

Ah, and this is the electric fountain sculpture in front of Rockefeller. I really need to go back and see it at night.

Neato.

I tried to go to Macy's Annual Flower show but they were closed on Easter. I peaked in and it looks very extravagant. Indeed!