In the New

Never in ten years! Until now!

2011-12-22T23:26:00.000-05:00

In late August, I hit my ten-year mark as a New Yorker. I think I had been here about five years when I thought I had seen it all, but another year or two after that, I realized that you really can't see it all. Not here, at least. Maybe one can see it all in Billings, Montana. I should go there and find out. Anyway. Several times in the last month, I have found myself starting sentences with "in my ten years in New York, I've never..." and finishing them with "...until now!" One of those sentences told the tale of a crazy guy on the subway and an unfortunate episode involving his pants, but I won't go into further detail about that. But the non-crazy guy highlights have been:
1. Being in a retail store on Black Friday. I work in the advertising department for one of the largest stores in the country, and our corporate offices are built on top of the flagship store. As the new person, I didn't have the luxury of taking the day off, so I was thrust into the chaos, even if it was just for a few minutes to get my coffee at the Starbucks on 5 before heading to the office. It was packed beyond reason, but while I had imagined the crowds to act like the Muppets in times of panic or celebration (screaming, throwing chickens, set pieces falling down and Janice talking about nudity during a lull), they were surprisingly well-mannered, and no chickens were injured.
2. Being on a subway train when a rider pulled the emergency brake. I mean, come on, it's right there, vulnerable and unencased and just begging for someone to pull that little red handle and bring the train to a screeching halt during morning rush hour. Or, there really was a hideous emergency and it was somebody's only choice. I don't know because the MTA doesn't like us to be aware of the reasons for delays beyond the bare facts: "Ladies and gentlemen, this train is delayed because it isn't moving right now." or "Ladies and gentlemen, due to an event at a location, things are happening. We will begin moving in a time. If you see something, say something, but not right now." So I delved into Angry Birds and let the MTA Secret Service do its work.
3. The best of the three! Riding an old-timey subway train! I've heard rumors of this wonder the entire time I've lived here, but it's on a line I've never ridden regularly, and only on Sundays in December, and randomly. It just sort of appears. Below is a photo of the outside, because my pictures of the inside didn't do justice to the charm: 50s-era print ads, including one for the upcoming Miss Subways pageant, red seats, and ceiling fans, you guys! I mean, yeah, modern subways are all air conditioned and whatnot, but I'd kinda like them to bring back the ceiling fans, if for no other reason that to make the flip in the Show Time hip-hop act a little more interesting*.

*nobody who doesn't ride the New York City subway on a regular basis has any idea what this means. I apologize, and invite you to come find out.

A new thing: I craft!

2011-10-28T20:20:00.001-05:00

While I have no immediate plans for a new New Thing project, I will be making more of an effort to take note of new things, appreciate them and write about them when I can. This year alone has seen a new phase of my life, a new writing job and several pairs of new pants, and most recently, a new short-term project. Among the perks of my new awesome job are nearly bi-monthly parties, celebrating everything from birthdays to publishing deadlines to someone figuring out a new way to sneeze. This week we had a massive Halloween party, complete with a by-now legendary pumpkin-decorating contest. The only rule is that the bad boys can't be carved; after that, it's game on! Not having any frame of reference for this particular company's traditions, I went with something that spoke to the company's fashion side, and ended up being comparatively conservative. Still, finishing my Missoni-inspired velvet pumpkin was no small feat, taking several hours over several days, and resulting in four visible hand wounds and much frustration. But I did it! And if you were a reader of my blog during my year-long project, you know that crafting scares me and that outside of performing, I really don't consider myself an artist. Whether it's because my DH's artistic skills have rubbed off on me, or I'm inspired by my new work environment, something clicked that never clicked before, and I was somehow able to pull of this:

Missoni for Pumpkins, made of a pumpkin, velvet ribbon, and straight pins.
Next up: I recreate Whistler's Mother using cheese and shoelaces.

I'd been in NYC for 12 days.

2011-09-11T08:56:00.012-05:00

I was in the shower and I heard the phone ring. I had just set up my landline the day before, and the only person who had my number was my mom. It was 6 am in California, so I was like, shit, who died? My roommate, Janet, answered the phone and went, “oh no… oh, that's terrible... I’ll have her call you.” Who died? I got out of the shower and threw some clothes on. Janet was eating cereal and watching tv. Two planes had hit the World Trade Center. We were four blocks away and somehow hadn’t heard it. We grabbed my camera and went up to the roof. I took three pictures, then we came back downstairs to our 9th floor apartment. My mom called again. I told her we didn’t have to evacuate. When I hung up, the building shook so hard I thought the windows would shatter. According to CNN, one of the towers had collapsed. My mom called again immediately, and I told her we were getting out of the building. We grabbed our, bags and t-shirts to cover our faces. The power was out, so we had to go down nine flights of stairs. By the 5th floor, the stairwell was full of dust and we couldn’t see. When we got to the lobby, the doorman desk was deserted, one of the swinging doors was shattered and the revolving door was stuck in a foot of rubble. Outside, you couldn’t tell it was daytime. A guy from our building and his neighbor and her dog were behind us. I grabbed Janet’s arm, she grabbed the guy’s arm, and the guy grabbed the neighbor’s arm. We had to cover our faces to avoid getting hit by shrapnel. Something lodged inside my eyelid and made it bleed. The guy indicated that we should go toward the east river, away from the towers. We headed east, then up through Chinatown. We stopped at a bodega and the guy, Jim, bought us all water. We would take a sip, spit out black sludge, and repeat until our throats appeared to be clear. I poured a capful of water in a stranger’s eyes, which were pasted shut by dust and tears. Jim caught a woman as she passed out. Somebody knelt down to kiss the neighbor’s dog. We heard screams, and looked up as the second tower collapsed. We were too far away and too exhausted already to run. We continued up through Chinatown, stopping to listen to radios and figure out what the hell was going on. I was certain the ground was going to blow up under my feet. It took us an hour to get to Dojo on West 4th. Jim bought us lunch and Janet and I got in line at a payphone. Nobody said so, but you weren’t supposed to stay on longer than to say “I’d like to make a collect call… Hi.. I’m safe, I love you, I'll call you later.” I called my mom. We left Dojo and headed toward the west village, where Jim had friends. We spend the next several hours connecting with his friends at restaurants, none of which were serving anything more than water and chips. Janet got in touch with her brother’s fiancee’s brother and I got in touch with my cousin’s fiancée. We would stay with the brother that night, and I would go up to my cousin’s apartment the next day. I managed to reach Angela on my CA-based cell phone, and called home again from payphones that night. My parents had gotten dozens of phone calls and had stayed glued to the tv all day. At the brother’s apartment, we watched CNN, then Comedy Central, then CNN again, and went to bed. I spent a week with my cousin, then two weeks in a hotel before I could go back to my apartment.

I Wish They All Could Be

2011-08-09T16:44:00.003-05:00

Jenny,
I'm really glad I became your friend. Have a really bitchen summer
Love,
Alex

Alex,
I was paranoid for months after this that my mom would see the word 'bitchen' and I would get in trouble. Years later, my mom would tell me that her cousin actually did get in trouble for "letting" someone write 'bitchen' in her yearbook. And that was in the '60s! I didn't even know they had 'bitchen' back then! So I was paranoid for naught---my mom is nothing if not a champion for the unfairly punished child whose yearbook is defiled against her will.
Jen

oooh! also...

2011-08-03T15:17:00.000-05:00

I have a new column at G.L.O.C.! I interview high-profile comedy ladies about what their first time was like. Wink.

Our Last Summer

2011-08-02T07:47:00.000-05:00

Jen,
Oh- my Pocahontis[sic]-your[sic] a wonderful person who is incedibly [sic] funny I Love you!
Love,
Jessie

Jessie,
GAH! I have thought and thought and thought on this and I cannot remember where the Pocahontas thing came from. I know we and our merry band of theatre geeks had tons of inside jokes, but I can't think of anything that could have possibly been relevant to the shows we did together—The Tempest, Weird Romance, The Wall (what in 1940s Warsaw could have inspired this?), You Can't Take It With You. And I believe you wrote this before we even did some of those shows. So was it an improv thing? Did I let out a racist war whoop during amoeba tag? Did I come to school in braids at some point before my dreadful 1995 chin-bob? Was one of my unrequited crushes named John Smith? Baffled.

But let's not let my confusion overshadow the upshot of this delightful note. Yes, I am incedibly, incredibly funny. And thank you for having been one of the first people to call me Jen. I can't remember whether you inspired my split decision to drop the -ny when I got to college, but let's say you did! And I love YOU and I'm so glad we're still in touch and that you and one of my favorite people from college were able to become what looks like good buddies out in L.A. One day we'll all have to get together and talk about that club we're both in*.
love,
Jen
*inside joke! inside joke!

High Flying, Adored

2011-08-01T00:13:00.003-05:00

Jenny:
Hi. I'll miss you over the summer. You are always fun to be with.
[heart] Jaime
P.S. Stay short

Jaime,
Ooh... I don't know how to tell you this... I grew. Like, a lot. Like, more than a foot between 7th grade and now. The 4'8" peanut I was in 7th grade has um... blossomed(?*) into an angular, occasionally awkward lass of 5'9ish". Which is probably still shorter than you must be by now- my combination of perception and memory may throw off my prediction a bit, but seeing as how I had to fully tilt my head back to look at you, I estimate you were at least 5'6" back then. If you kept growing, you probably hit 6' by age 18, which is awesome. Rock that height!
Jen

Jenny-
You're short, grow some! It's nice knowing you I'll probably see you over the summer. Stay cool!
You're[sic] friend,
R

R,
You got it! If we ever meet again, you just might discover that I have in fact surpassed you in height. In addition to being completely nice and fun and total non-jerk (save for when you impulsively punched J in the face at my 13th birthday pool party), you were a bit on the non-tall side. Which is totally fine. And I can't feel guilty about having gotten taller than you- YOU TOLD ME TO!
Jen

*can you use "blossom" as a verb if you're not Judy Blume writing a book about female puberty?

Nowhere Man

2011-07-25T16:20:00.000-05:00

Jenny,
I am really glad I got to know you this year. I hope you don’t have bad dreams about this class. I’ll see you next year, SENIOR. Have a great summer.
Your friend, Brandon

Brandon,
I’m glad we got to know each other that year, too! I am less glad that I totally don’t remember who you are or what the class was. It’s possible that you were one of two people whose names I don’t remember: the meek sophomore in my physics class who dressed like a skater, spoke like a poet and blushed like a schoolgirl, or the big blonde football player who sat behind me in AP U.S. History and had legs so long I could see his feet under my chair. I’m not sure either one of those guys was even named Brandon, but for some reason they both popped into my head with equal vividness when I read the name Brandon.
I didn’t have bad dreams about either physics or AP U.S. History, but OH MAN did I have a whopper of a nightmare once about my philosophy class freshman year of college! We had just watched the animated movie version of ‘The Allegory of the Cave,’ in which slaves are kept chained in a cave while shadows are projected on the wall in front of them. It had some existential theme, relating to the perception of reality or the comfort of perception, or something esoteric like that. Anyway, that gave me this horrible nightmare about being chained in the philosophy classroom with a knife to my throat, and whenever I moved, an innocent person died. Other than the bit about the chains, there was really no connection to the movie. And I’d actually seen it before, during the Existentialism unit in 10th grade honors English. We had to read a lot of Camus and Kafka and Sartre and basically lose sleep at night thinking about the pointlessness of existence and meaningless of life. I’m happy to say that the panicky fear I felt during that unit has disappeared entirely, and not just because the next unit was the Russian literature unit and I was too busy reading Anna Karenina to wonder why I was on the planet. It made me crave pirogis, like all the time. These days, I'm quite happy with life and less susceptible to existential crises.
Your capitalization of SENIOR made me feel important and fun.
Your friend Jen
P.S. Your comma placement after "your friend" implies, stylistically, that you were my only friend. I grew up to become a magazine editor, so I felt obligated to point that out.

Dear Prudence

2011-07-22T15:12:00.001-05:00

My, this blog has gotten dusty. I had an extremely busy first part of the year, then a few weeks of downtime, and things are about to get nutso again. While weekly/daily Thing Doing isn't entirely practical right now, I would like to keep this blog cobweb-free and somewhat interesting. So I'm going to return to one of my all-time favorite blog projects: High-School Yearbook Signature Replies. It's exactly what it sounds like: I reply to stuff people wrote in my yearbooks in high school. I had such fun writing grown-up replies to all the "dude! Have a bitchen summer"s and "C U @ the beach"es that I decided to do it again. Behold:

Jenny-
Sing until your brains bust
-Erin

Erin,
While I am quite sure that no part of my brain, singular or plural, ever literally busted as a result of melodic refrains, I do often sing in the elevators in my client's building and at home. We're on a high floor, so sometimes my ears pop. That's the best I got.
Jen

Jenny,
Have a neato summer and I'll see you next year. Maybe in the same class.
Michael C [arrow to name] save. will be worth millions.

Michael,
Are you implying that we were both going to fail whatever class we had together? Thanks a lot! Your self-esteem issues are your own, buddy. Don't go dragging me down with you just because you want company! And how could the signature of someone who failed classes in 9th grade possibly be worth so much? Please tell me I'm jumping to conclusions. I remember you as being fairly smart, so every assumption I've made in the last four lines is probably wrong. (How did I not fail that class?) But I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt. So please excuse the brevity of this letter, as I have clicked over to eBay to sell your signature.
Jen

Yeah about that...

2011-04-02T00:46:00.001-05:00

Now that I seem to have almost gotten back on track with this thing, I should add that I'm bad at awesome April Fool's day jokes. I don't even like AFD that much. It's silly and mean, and after the year I changed the autocorrect in someone's MS Word so that every time they typed "the" it autocorrected to "butt," I really haven't been able to come up with anything as sickeningly satisfying. (Seriously. They were writing a term paper and we didn't really like each other and they called the campus help desk for help with the "virus" that was causing this. And they restarted the computer like six times. It was awesome.)
So, yeah, that snap of me looking preggers is not only fake, but recycled from this gem of a few years back. I will likely have authentic pictures of such a thing soon, but not today. Those of you who only check this blog to glimpse details about that and similar situations are just going to have to check back another time.

I've been so tardy!

2011-04-01T07:29:00.000-05:00

Hi friends!
Sorry for the lack of posting lately. I have definitely been doing new things lately, and have been busy. I'm about to get even busier:

Guitarty

2011-02-14T09:34:00.003-05:00

Coming up this week in badness:
I am bad at playing guitar. Which is a shame, because someone awesome gave me a really nice one for Christmas, and I tend to regard it the way men in rom-coms regard babies: stare at it from across the room, make some adorable jokes about and next to it, boast that I know exactly what to do with it, and then let someone else take care of it. And I need to not. So this is the week that I trim my nails, memorize some chords and play "Eleanor Rigby" ad nauseum. Here's what happened once when I claimed to be playing guitar:

Ants in My Dance Part 2

2011-01-18T11:10:00.001-05:00

To further spurn me on this week: the nicest thing another dancer has ever said about me.

Ants in My Dance

2011-01-17T23:11:00.005-05:00

I'm bad at dancing.
It's a shame, too, because when you're tall and thin and have a neck like a flag pole, people tend to automatically think you're great at ballet. And I am, up to a point (pointe? hee hee, french dance humor!). If I'm standing still, I'm a wonderful dancer. I know where to position my leg, how to point my foot, and thanks to Center Stage, know to lift my arms from the base instead of from the top. But once I hear my music cue and I actually have to start moving? It's like a National Geographic special when a herd of lions takes down a giraffe, except the lions are invisible so it's just me, the tragic giraffe, flailing around trying to avoid a violent death. Seriously.
So this week will be devoted to dancing. Friend Megan has a dance blog tailored for people who don't usually dance (like actors, singers and carpenters), and I've picked up enough tips there so far to feel almost confident enough to approach the outside of the building where dance classes are held. It's only Monday- by Friday I will have speed-conquered my fear of being around other dancers, and I WILL take a ballet class at Broadway Dance Center!
For proof of how non-dancery my dancing is, check this out (to see it in its full widescreen glory, double-click on the video while I go find out what's wrong with my blog template):

Happy New Year!

2011-01-09T20:35:00.000-05:00

While I gather my thoughts in preparation for doing and sharing more things I'm bad at, please enjoy this video.

Cooking Monster

2010-12-30T14:45:00.003-05:00

As promised, the focus of this blog will be shifting ever so slightly, and instead of doing totally new things every day, I am going to try things I'm bad at with some regularity. Like all blog projecty things, an in accordance with my own advice in a recent book, I am starting small and within my comfort zone. (Does that make it sound like I'm comfortable being bad at stuff? Good! Cause everybody's bad at something! Now I'll become comfortable with getting better at it!)
I'm bad at cooking.
So I've been doing it as often as possible. Mr. and I were in CA for two weeks at Christmastime, so I've been a bit rusty for the past couple of days, but I did spend the better part of December broiling, sauteeing and marinating, with increasingly edible results.
Earlier this year, in the midst of rehearsals, traveling and generally enjoying life almost entirely out of the kitchen, I fell out of the tiny groove that I had begun to establish. I had a small stable of reliably easy meals in my wheelhouse: vegetarian tacos, shiitake spaghetti, portabello burgers, and seitan piccata. Then I exploded one of Mr.'s plates and all confidence was shot to hell. (Note to fellow non-cooks who cook: Always check to make sure that the burner you turned on for the asparagus is actually under the asparagus and not under your transfer plate. This might seem like common sense, but I tend to be neither common nor sensical).
Somewhere in late fall, I decided to conquer my semi-valid fear of the broiler, and ended up making some surprisingly delicious rosemary-garlic chicken. It went off without a hitch (and in my case, 'hitch' has also meant 'setting fire to a knife,' so this is an especially good thing) and I made it again. And again. And again. And.... a lot. But it always went well and resulted in a satisfying round of "yummy noises" from across the table. Side dishes included steamed kale with toasted garlic, steamed kale with toasted garlic and almonds, steamed kale with toasted garlic and toasted almonds, and a similarly repetitive collection of quinoa dishes. So now I'm branching out. I've been better at keeping repeats, fiery utensils and exploding ceramics to a minimum. I've come to realize that recipes are in most cases guidelines, and no longer fear poisoning or rains of toads should I replace lemon juice with vinegar, or add garbanzos instead of cannelloni.
Coming up: musical badness, sartorial badness and revisiting a standardized test.

greetings, new friends!

2010-12-27T00:18:00.002-05:00

I love when I notice a new link minutes after it's been posted. Hi, Reddit people! If any of you are thinking of starting a new-thing-a-day project, post your links here and I'll follow you. I also highly recommend Noah Scalin's book about daily creativity. It's a great guide, and can help you get unstuck; I got stuck a lot and wished I'd had something like this!
Happy New Thinging!

New, bad and awesome

2010-12-15T11:12:00.007-05:00

Hi friends!
The Stuff I'm Bad At portion of this blog is set to kick off very soon, but first I wanted to fill in some of the New Things blanks that I left this year. There's a doozy that my nearest and dearest already know about, but here's some of the other awesome stuff I did in the later parts of the year:

July: Sat on a jury. Despite the horrible timing (I was starting an in-house freelance gig the same day the trial started), I actually really enjoyed this. I grew up in a house full of The Law, so I actually understand how the justice system works (or how it should), and I've never tried to get out of jury duty by pretending to be racist, or crazy, or by singing softly to an invisible sheep. The only thing that really kind of sucked was that I was an alternate, meaning I got to hear the entire case, but at the end didn't get to deliberate. But it did give me great courtroom insight, as well as the right to huff and mutter "oh please..." every time I watch Law & Order.

October: Saw (or at least tried to see) the Village Halloween Parade. I'm not a big parade-goer, and tend to avoid crowds the way other people avoid dairy or lepers. But since I was able to adjust my Robert Palmer Girl costume to be a cold-weather getup (just tie the red ribbon around a black jacket, keep the slicked back hair and scarily stark makeup and bam! Simply irresistible), I decided to give it a go. The friends I went with and I were stuck a good four layers of people behind the barriers on 6th Ave, and we totally missed the baritone army that we'd come to see in the first place. We instead kept ourselves entertained by ogling all the fabulous costumes, underdressed undergrads and negligent parents that lined the streets.

Inside, with Snookie, and not at a parade.

November: Saw the Radio City Christmas Show. Like, REALLY saw it. I was front row center, thanks to a friend's Rockette friend who was able to score sweet free second-night tickets. The dancing! The songs! The confetti! The smelling-distance of camels! This is quite a spectacular show, and after having seen the goopy tv ads for nine years, it was nice to finally see the thing for real in all its bombastic glory.

Also November: Saw a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. Earlier this year, I had a fun, crazy little principal role in Fiddler on the Roof with the Village Light Opera. Primarily a Gilbert & Sullivan company, VLOG produces one Broadway-type show and one G&S operetta every year. I skipped the audition for Iolanthe, but still got to delight in several friends tripping hither and thither as purple faeries whose exploits charmingly upset British parliament. Ah, politics!

December: Visited a brand-new baby in the hospital. With all the newbies shooting out of practically every woman I know this year, baby W, son of friend A, was the first I've had the opportunity to meet right away. It's a moment you want to savor forever- the velvety head, the tiny hands, the half-dozen nurses standing by to make sure you don't hold him wrong or scare him or sneeze on him. It took about ten seconds for me to fall madly in love with this little bundle of awesome.

Look! A Book!

2010-11-17T01:42:00.002-05:00

The wickedly creative Noah Scalin who made a skull every day the same year I did something new every day, graciously asked me earlier this year (in an email at midnight on my birthday, fittingly and unbeknownst to him) to contribute to his second book, 365: A Daily Creativity Journal. The book is now available for purchase on Amazon, and is also probably lurking somewhere in your local independent bookstore. It's got art project ideas, recipes, advice and general inspiration for anyone who wants to commit a year of their life to creating or accomplishing anything at all. There's a big picture of me clipping a bonsai tree. I remember that.

A new kind of new

2010-11-10T10:39:00.001-05:00

I realized recently that this blog has lost a bit of steam. With some major life changes on the horizon, the notion of doing one new thing a day has seemed, oddly, both overwhelming and underinteresting. It was absolutely the perfect thing to do between my 29th and 30th birthdays. I learned so much, and somehow managed to carry on with it, despite all the complications of life.
But now, at 32 and moving more rapidly into a distinctly adult life, and with such a satisfying challenge already behind me, I've decided to tweak the purpose of the blog a bit. I've been mulling it over for a couple of weeks. Should I do a mundane household task in a new way? No. As awesome as I'm sure the videos would be of me brushing my teeth in a handstand, or cooking while riding a pony, this doesn't jibe so well with the whole adult life thing. (Mostly, I'm mad I didn't think of this before I was 28. Because it might have been awesome.) I also thought of maybe making something new every day. But I'm not much of a Maker, and with a potential residential move coming up, it would be better not to crowd my home with a bunch of Stuff.
But today it came to me. It won't be daily, and it might not always be new, and I have no time frame in mind, but it will definitely be a challenge, and something I can grow from.
Starting sometime in December, every week I will try something I think I'm bad at. General ideas include cooking something complicated, playing a new instrument, joining in a new sport. I did some (or now that I think about it, All) of these things in my year of new things, but not for the purpose of getting better at them or learning anything lasting. With all my willingness to risk-take, I still have a definite Comfort Zone, and it might be nice to try to move further out of it. Added benefit: I might find out that I'm really good at something I thought I sucked at! I'm making my list and open to suggestions, especially from people who know me. You all know what I do and what I'm best at, so challenge me to do the opposite!

Sled it snow!

2010-08-17T18:43:00.003-05:00

While not all of the New Things I did in the vicinity of the big 3-2 were sport-related, the ones that were ended up being the most interesting (at least to me), so I might just blog about them all in one big sporty heap. And yes, it's because I'm not super athletic that I count sledding in Central Park as a sport. What's even more—what, funny? pathetic? nerdy?-is that this happened during the Winter Olympics. While Bode Miller was breaking medal records for skiing, I was awkwardly sliding down a .005% grade hill on my booty while awesome friend Heather's dog barked as if to say, "grow a pair, lady!"
How it looked to him:

How it looked to me:

Tempus Fugit!

2010-07-19T21:54:00.003-05:00

Ok, so remember how in January I said I was gonna blog all the New Things I'd been doing (if you don't, scroll down like two inches)? And remember how maybe you were interested (if you weren't, what are you doing here? Never mind. Don't answer that.)? And then remember how I didn't (apparently not even I remember that.)?
Well, forget all that. Cause here I am, back and blogging and not flaking out this time, and all ready to hit you with semi-weekly updates of all the New Things I did by, on, around, in honor of, slightly after, super long after, and in spite of my 32nd birthday.
New Thing Number whatever, because life is too short for over-organization: I high-fived runners during the New York City Marathon. I had four friends and a relative running in this mid-fall traditional ode to how lazy the rest of us are. I saw three of them, hugged two of them, screamed at one of them, and completely missed the relative and one of the friends. I also cheered on dozens of strangers, as sampled in this video. I was positioned at roughly the 23-mile marker, so anyone who passed me was nearly finished, probably did finish and is automatically cooler than I'll ever be (as most people are).

Model Citizens

2009-09-15T09:47:00.000-05:00

Last week was Fashion Week in New York, a time for 99.99% of the city to go on with life as usual, while the other .01% (possibly less than that; I'm still waiting on a final statistic from the, uh, Fashion... Board) crams under tents in Bryant Park to watch the brilliant works of sartorial art head down very long runways. This weekend, I (very briefly) joined this tiny cross-section of New York culture and I went to a fashion show. The artiste was an Israeli lingerie designer, who went with a Bollywood theme, and whose show included four models and as many looks, and was over in maybe twice as many minutes. Now, this was my first fashion show, so I could be wrong here, but I always thought that these things were supposed to last as least as long as it takes to finish a cocktail, and include maybe 8-12 looks (because, come on, how else are we supposed to know what to wear), but perhaps minimalism is in this year. It was at least fun to get dressed up for it, and my companions and I capped off the night with milkshakes and onion rings at a nearby diner. Just like Yves Saint Laurent!
Models.
Me. I am very different from models.

Hello, Dalai!

2009-09-05T15:17:00.003-05:00

I've been a theatre geek my entire life, and I sometimes think I've seen it all: Nudity, scenery mishaps, drag shows, old-lady dancing, awards shows, theatre in the round, aerial stuntwork, improvised Shakespeare, one-person plays, tv show tapings, a 6-year-old playing Nixon, Broadway, Off-Broadway, So Very Very NOT Broadway, and a play starring a cat. But this is New York, and there's always something new to see. So leave it to a troupe from Minnesota to introduce me to yet another totally new theatre experince: An outdoor walking play. Friend Alan, who lives here but makes a pilgrimage to Minneapolis every few years to star as the Dalai Lama in the utterly enchanting The Buddha Prince, has the lead role as spiritual leader/narrator in this show, which meets its audience on a sidewalk outside Central Park, then guides them through the park from stage to stage while they reenact the life of the 14th Dalai Lama through song, dance, puppetry, poetry, physical comedy and mime. The formula of outdoor stages+a super talented cast+themes of peace, love and compassion-pretension and a stifling theatre was an absolutely winning one. Can we make all shows be like this? Outdoor walking Glengarry Glen Ross, anyone?
Resolute Tibetans defend their sacred land

K and I met up with the Dalai Lama who, in some interpretations of the story, is a white dude.

Batgirl!

2009-08-30T16:16:00.000-05:00

Back in March, I signed up for the 92nd Street Y Tribeca Softball League. In April, I completely forgot about it. In May, K reminded me that we'd done this, and we went shopping for gloves. At the end of May, our season began and I found myself ensconced in "Deep Right," playing "Extra Outfielder," the position I played most often, with "Uh, Don't Worry About it This Inning" running a close second. In June, I decided not to play the next season, but to stick out the current one. In July, I finally began making regular contact with the ball, and (very) occasionally getting on base. In August, I started getting fewer comments like "way to keep your eyes open" or "way to let Joe catch the ball" and more comments like "way to make contact" and "way to hustle," and once or twice, "nice real hit!" or "good job not swinging at absolutely everything long enough to get walked!" In short, it was a rough season for nonathletic, female minority me. Our team did, however, make it to the playoffs and win our first game, and at the end of August, I had officially played a complete season of softball. I'm now only 98% sure (as opposed to in June, when I was 100% sure) that I won't be playing next year, but I will be helping K work on his pitching (which will be stellar by then) and I'll find a blanket with our team colors to crash on under a tree while I watch K pitch, and the rest of our team win more games. But it was overall a positive experience, and I have an adorable red 92Y Tribeca Softball jersey (and by jersey I mean "t-shirt with the neck crudely cut out") to remind me of my simultaneous rookie and senior season as a real league softball player.

Compute Adorable

2009-08-21T11:02:00.003-05:00

New thing 2 of 32 New Things
Instead of settling for a machine that had some of the stuff he wanted, or a bunch of stuff he didn't want, K just ordered the specific components he was looking for, and decided to build it himself. I got to help! I installed the motherboard and the memory card (both of which look like a Google Map of a planet in Star Wars), and my bony fingers came in handy when he needed help tightening some screws and snapping things into small places. K took over most of the attaching of wires, and testing of networks, and cursing of stuff that wasn't working, and re-ordering of replacement parts. I was just happy neither one of us electrocuted ourselves. He had to constantly remind me to discharge my hands before touching anything, which was very nice of him. I don't look good with big hair.
Also, something else new I did this week, but which I'm not counting as my 32nd b-day countdown: I joined Twitter! Follow on!

In the New, 32!

2009-08-14T17:07:00.005-05:00

I turn 32 in 32 weeks from today. I think it would be fun to try 32 new things in those weeks. Unlike the time I did this every day for a year, where at 11:55 I ended up doing random stuff like brushing my teeth in an elevator or dyeing my foot purple, these New Things will all be thought out and planned in advance, and as many of them as possible will be things I've wanted to do for a while.
To kick it off, this week I posed for an old-timey photo shoot, complete with a handmade cloche hat, my favorite coat, and a ready-made "set" in Greenwich Village. Drama geek that I am, I have a thing for costumes, old Hollywood, old New York, glamour and retro fashion. This shoot combined them all, and genius photog Anya Garrett was awesomely supportive and did such a great job capturing the exact essence I had in mind.

MidSummer New Things

2009-07-21T11:16:00.004-05:00

It's been a while! While the blog has been silent, my summer has been full and crazy, with plenty of New Things to fill my sunny days, and many more to come. Below, some of the highlights, complete with beaches, weddings, diving helmets, and The Real Housewives of New Jersey.
May:
Went to St. Pete Beach, FL and saw, sat near and stood in the Gulf of Mexico. It was my very first Gulf! My foot really enjoyed it, especially since this particular gulf is framed by the whitest, finest sand it's ever had the pleasure to walk on. I have yet to see for myself whether the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Aden are surrounded by such loveliness. Now the word gulf sounds weird. Gulf gulf gulf.

Went to Tarpan Springs, FL, home of the world's largest population of natural sea sponges. Those, as well as super cheesy tourist tochochkes, are the main trade in this charming Greek fishing village. It is the site of childhood memories for both Kevin and my dad, and thanks to the area's timeless charm, their memories aren't all that different!

June:
Gave a speech at a wedding.
Somehow, though I've been in six weddings and served as MOH twice, I'd only ever given very brief toasts about how the couple "is perfect for each other, and um, yeah, I hope you two are very happy, and ... cake. Yeah!" but at my sister's lavish, extremely structured wedding, I was actually given a time slot, a microphone, and the center of the dance floor. So I had to make it good. I spent a few days beforehand compiling a list of words, phrases, grunts and inflections which make up Kathleenese, a rare language spoken by an extremely small percent of the world's population. But in hopes of doubling the speakership, I gave her husband a crash-course so he'd know what the heck his beloved is saying on any given occasion. (Sampler: "Boodoo" is 3-year-old Kathleen's version of insults like "meanie" or "poopyhead." At the time, she thought it was a terribly vile thing to say. She still says it to be retro.)

Rowed boats on the Lake in Central Park. Well, not so much "rowed" as "was rowed by lovely friend Keyren's cool boyfriend" as part of what turned out to be a completely heartwarming reunion with dear old friend Meghan, who was in town from Chicago. The boat rowing was plan B after we tried and failed to get tickets for Twelfth Night at Shakespeare in the Park, as was a trip to the zoo and afternoon snacks with yet another wonderful old friend, who brought along her baby and husband.

July:

In what was perhaps the most out-of-left field New Thing I've done since the year-long project, I went to a taping of Regis and Kelly, with fill-in host Jerry O'Connell and guests The Real Housewives of New Jersey But Not Danielle. I was in the company of three very rabid RHONJ fans, Katina, Michael and Margot, who waved at the ladies during commercial breaks and wordlessly adored them from our front-and-center VIP seats. Michael, especially, has a unique bond with the H-wives, as he keeps a video blog where he dramatically reads excerpts of Cop Without a Badge, which is apparently so hard to find that after the show, Jerry O came tearing down the hall after us to ask us to take a photo of him reading it, so he could send it to his wife, Rebecca Romijn. It seemed perfectly natural to me, as fill-in hosts seem to be my thing. Plus, with friends like mine, nothing ever seems all that weird.

In the New: The Movie! Sort of!

2009-05-31T13:20:00.001-05:00

More than a year after the year of New Things ended, ten months after the August of New Things ended, and two months after the 31 New Things I did before I turned 31, a super talented filmmaker/editor/artist/graphic designer/professor friend sent an email asking if I'd be interested in being the subject of a multi-media video project detailing every New Thing I did before I turned 30.
Um...
YES!?
So in preparation for my New Things to be drawn, animated, videoized and generally made a whole lot cooler, I met Filmmaker Lady and two of her crazy-talented students in New Jersey for a six-hour photo shoot. We re-created a lot of stuff, and I got to run around FL's fancy apartment building wearing, among other things, a full ballerina costume, yoga clothes and a bikini. It was an exhausting blast, and I can't wait to see the finished project. Release date is TBA, but below are some exclusive photos:

NT 31/31: Mini ME!

2009-03-26T18:52:00.001-05:00

Birthday! In honor of turning 31, I decided to combine several of my favorite things: doing new stuff, shopping at Nordstrom, retro-futuristic autos and That Guy, so That Guy and I rented a Mini Cooper and drove to the Nordstrom in White Plains. I absolutely love the design of the Mini- like the Pixar film The Incredibles, the design seems largely based on a vision of the future as conceived in the 1950s. Lots of white, chrome and orange, with curvy knobs and spaceish controls and dials. The radio was so groovily indecipherable that it took almost fifteen minutes for two smart adults with three degrees between us to figure out how to adjust the volume or change the station. For the hour-long ride, I alternated between being baffled by the console and being terrified that we would be crushed like bugs in this stylish little tin can if anyone's vehicle decided to misbehave in the light rain. Obviously, we reached all of our destinations just fine. And my spree at Nordstrom was a hit, thanks to some generous parental financing, light crowds and a boyfriend who doesn't mind watching me try stuff on.

NT 30/31: Places I've got to see

2009-03-25T14:30:00.000-05:00

This is something that was on the list last year, and didn't happen, and so I rolled it over to this year's list, and it still almost didn't happen. And it's not because it's so hard to come by or elusive or guarded by dragons. It's perhaps one of the easiest, most prolific things that someone who knows the peple I know could have picked, but it was so easy that I needed to up the ante a bit and only do it under fantastic circumstances. I played Guitar Hero, but I didn't just "play guitar hero," in somebody's living room. I played Freebird, which I'm told is one of the most difficult GH songs, in an art studio while standing in front of a greenscreen, which will later to become any conceivable location where my inner rock star would like to play (I've narrowed it down to a 1950s hat store, the main entrance of the Met, or Dali's Persistence of Memory), thanks to this awesome video project. I've delayed writing this post in hopes that I could turn up a picture (they're either stubbornly ensconced as videos in Kevin's phone, or eluding a card reader), but I'm sure you all have an imagination- just imagine me standing in front of a greenscreen, a fancy video camera pointed at me, and a look of abject terror on my face as I try to learn to be a genius while doing.
In other words, imagine this is a lady and that lady is me and me is much more uncomfortable:

NT 29/31: Watching the dandelions grow

2009-03-24T23:46:00.000-05:00

This is one of those long-term new things that will be good for me on several levels, but won't produce any results for a while: I signed up for a softball league. I'm actually pretty excited about this! I'll get exercise, learn some new skills and meet people who can tan. KMD and I both put our names down after a friend mentioned it on his Facebook profile, which makes more sense for both of them than for me. K will probably be really good. I run kind of fast. Now all they have to do is teach me to hit, catch, throw, not duck when being thrown to, and, unless I've matured more since fifth grade P.E. than I think I have, not search the outfield for four-leaf clovers while the other team is at bat.

NT 28/31: Fakenant

2009-03-23T15:19:00.000-05:00

Today I walked around wearing a fake pregnancy belly! Friend Stephanie came over and we went to brunch and took a walk around my hood. It's amazing how differently people, even New Yorkers, treat a lady with a bean in her belly! At the diner near my apartment (from which I ordered a hamburger just last week and picked it up while sporting a completely flat tummy), we were seated sooner than a non-childbearing couple, offered water faster and allowed to move to a bigger booth when the kids near us (there with their super pregnant mom) started driving us nuts. The couple across the aisle smiled sympathetically as my giant torso and I slid into a new booth. I was absolutely desperate for some coffee, but went without for the sake of authenticity. I caved to the craving on the way home, and ordered some from the bodega guy who sees me almost every day, yet took no visible notice of my suddenly enormous midsection. The lady paying next to me, however, baldly gawked at me, perhaps shocked that I was ordering coffee, or in disbelief that I was skinny everywhere else and freakin' huge in the belly. (I later told Stephanie that had anyone asked, I would have said I was at 36 weeks. She said I looked more like 47 weeks.)
In the days leading up to this, I poked around costume shops and theatre message boards to see if anyone knew where I could buy or borrow a good PG belly, and came up with nothing. As of this morning, I still had no idea what I was going to use, and a trip to Duane Reade for something "round, but flexible, and with maybe a flat part?" was a bust. BUT when I headed over to Gristedes, the first thing I saw when I walked in the door was a box these vile, gelatinous inflatable spiky ball things (there is no graceful way to describe them) thrown in amongst other garish Easter gift miscellany. I grabbed one, jetted back home, wrapped it in a pillowcase to flatten the undulating spikes and used a Butter sash to secure it underneath my loose-fitting Butter shirt.

I later gave birth to a beautiful, healthy Whatthecrap!

NT 27/31: Send out the clowns

2009-03-22T21:39:00.000-05:00

If you're one of those people who hates clowns, you'll like this. I punched a clown. It wasn't as violent or angry as it sounds; this particular clown, Bozo 2, has gone willingly into the punch-me-I'm-a-clown profession, so we can only assume that he wanted me to punch him. I was happy to help fulfill his destiny, and happy to have been connected, if ever so slightly, to this. Take that, you crazy-faced nightmare-inducing bag of air owned by really awesome people!

NT 26/31: I got rhythm!

2009-03-21T23:21:00.000-05:00

I've been a singer my whole life—I've done classical, musical theatre, opera, rock and standards. And my significant other is a jazz musician, so I've learned a little about the sounds and rhythms therein, but it's still a totally different beast. I can't play any of its associated instruments (yet), but today I learned to make a 3:4 rhythm. In layman's (and my) terms it means that one hand (or drumstick, or bag of flour) is going 1-2-3, while the other hand is going 1-2-3-4. Your hands fall at the same time on certain beats, but otherwise are hitting at different times. It's tricky and I haven't mastered it yet, but I'm close:

NT 25/31: Do you believe in Magic?

2009-03-20T20:32:00.000-05:00

Last year, Yes-Man Kirk suggested that I pull a rabbit out of a hat as a new thing. I thought it was a completely amazing idea and knew I had to do it. But circumstances being what they are, me not living in a woodland, the country or my ten-year-old self's vision of Paradise, I never located a rabbit so it never happened. And while that is still sort of true, creativity trumped reality and today, thanks to lovely friend Rosie, her coworker Erica, some quick planning and an improvisational spirit, I pulled a Bunny out of a hat.
Enjoy (with a grain of salt):

NT 24/31: Astaire Case

2009-03-19T23:45:00.000-05:00

I love movie musicals. I love the songs, the spontaneous dancing and the talent, especially the dance talent. I can sing, but I've always been a clunky dancer. But I've noticed that inanimate objects don't really care about that. So because of that, and also as a tribute to those musicals I love, I danced with my hat rack. I wouldn't even pretend to do this the way Fred Astaire did it. And I don't just mean the astounding dancing. I mean the keeping the hat rack in tact, not annoying his downstairs neighbors, not having to worry about tripping over fallen pegs, having music that's loud enough— nitpicky stuff like that. I should mention that I try to keep all the media in this blog, especially videos, as raw as possible to make sure the Newness is authentic. I don't edit the videos, and I don't do more than one take unless something distracting happened during the first one, like I fell off the windowsill, or the dog started attacking my shoe. Both of those actually happened. This video certainly isn't free of mistakes, but it is one of the funnest New Thing videos I've ever had the pleasure of making. Enjoy!

(oh, and about the foot pads.... don't buy them. The pads were green and grungy when I took them off the next day, but this apparently is the result of metals in the pads that are designed to do that, and not from any poison exorcism that the pads claim to perform.)

NT 23/31: Would Not, Could Not

2009-03-17T23:57:00.002-05:00

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I made green eggs and ham. In honor of Dr. Seuss, I could not eat them and KMD would not eat them. I could not because I have never been able to stomach the taste of egg, and the smell of them, combined with the violent shade of green they turned thanks to my over-coloring, gave me dry heaves. Kevin would not eat them because he didn't want to get cancer from the veritable tidal wave of food coloring I accidentally dumped in there. So we had burritos and leftover Greek chicken for dinner instead. But I still did what I set out to do, and that's all that matters! I also scrambled eggs for the first time ever, something I should learn to do in preparation for possibly having to make them for small people one day. Any chance I can train them to want scrambled apples for breakfast?

NT 22/31: Foot Ball

2009-03-16T23:14:00.003-05:00

Today's New Thing is an overnighter; I'll add an update tomorrow to tell you how it turned out. As I write this, I am sort of immobilized for the night, unless I want to walk on my heels to the kitchen for a glass of juice. I'm trying detoxifying foot pads. The Kinoki brand claims to *Aid Natural Cleansing, *Absorb Impurities and *Work While I Sleep. I'm not completely confident that when I wake up tomorrow I'll be met with a scummy brown pad and a squeaky-clean system, but don't knock it till you tried it, right? As a non-smoker and a once-every-two-months wine drinker, I'm not expecting that my body really has so many toxins to expunge, but who knows? I still breathe in sludgy New York air every day, and I do love me some steak pretty regularly. So there's gotta be something in there. But I'm going to be very disappointed if these things end up sucking out my soul. Oh wait, no- that's cat on your face, not pads on your feet. I am forever messing those two up.

NT 21/31: Olive New York

2009-03-15T23:43:00.002-05:00

Reason #5,784 to love New York: I can walk into a newsstand in midtown and buy a newspaper from virtually any country, in any language, geared toward people of any nationality. But since I'm straight-up American, and have no close ancestral ties to any non English-speaking country, I never have. But I have ample opportunity to read a newspaper from Anywhere, so today I read a Greek newspaper (fittingly, on the birthday of my favorite Greek high school friend). With the exception of certain advertisements and un-Greekable section headers, the entire thing was in Greek. And it was tough to tell what the stories were about- I'm thinking mostly Greek politics, Greek news and Greek sports, since I didn't see much in the way of Greek gossip or Greek celebrity scandals. Mostly it was pictures of imposing olive-complected men and crowds of people in sunny places. In college, that would have just been a fraternity, but in a Greek newspaper purchased in New York, it's culture! Hopa!

NT 20/31: Jokers to the right, here I am

2009-03-14T12:15:00.001-05:00

Growing up in San Diego, I always had this fascination with flat states, Midwestern towns and general non-coastal American Middleness. I remember hearing about the town of Centreville, Ohio and being curious about the people, the look and the strange mystique about a place whose name basically meant "right smack in the middle of a bunch of other stuff." And though it's not in the middle of America, or quite as centrally located as its name suggests, I went to Downtown Middletown. There are Middletowns in Missouri, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Rhode Island, Virginia, Delaware, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, California, Kentucky, Michigan, Vermont and Indiana. And I'm not going to tell you which one I went to. KMD and I remarked, while standing on Main Street in Downtown Middletown, that we really could have been anywhere in America, and the scenery here could have passed for almost any of those states.

NT 19/31: Dear Sir or Madam

2009-03-13T12:10:00.002-05:00

I didn't think I'd get around to doing this until I had my own book to do it with, but I'm glad that the opportunity came early. I autographed a book, and I don't mean that I just wrote an inscription on the inside cover of a book in the graphic novel series that Lynn and I exchange on birthdays, or that I pretended to be John Adams reaching out from the grave to wish my dad a Merry Christmas in the pages of his biography. No, this was my own handwriting on a page filled with my own words. The book I contributed an essay to last year is out, coinciding with the 30th b-days of many friends and two relatives. What better way to help them ring in the decade than with a little loving self-promotion?

NT 18/31: I found my thrill

2009-03-12T23:22:00.005-05:00

I'm not a terribly materialistic person. I have a meat-and-potatoes DVD player, an old iPod and rarely pay full price for clothes. But for the last two years, I've been toting around this silly little Samsung phone that looks like a toy and runs like it's powered by a hamster wheel. Now that I'm almost 31, I decided it's high time for a grown-up phone. So as an early birthday present to myself, I got a Blackberry! I'm still setting it up, and will transfer the SIM card from the caveman phone as soon as leg one of my weekend trip is completed, and I don't have to worry about risking missed trains and pickups because of a phone I don't know how to use. But when I do set it up- oh the internet! The on-the-go email! The crazy games! The pretty shiny phone! Which, really, is the important part.

My old baloney phone, my digital thermometer and my new phone, in order of awesomeness:

NT 17/31: This woman took the 1 train

2009-03-11T00:38:00.004-05:00

I got this suggestion last year form several people, but being saddled with a day job and all its implications meant I never really made the time for it. But now, being all laid-off and freelancery, I was able to do this at my leisure, without taking an abnormally long lunch or pretending I had to leave early to pick up my poodle from the groomer's. I rode an entire subway line. I picked the 1 train because it's not obscenely long, like the A, or cop-out short, like the J. It took an hour and four minutes from the start, at the South Ferry station in Lower Manhattan, to the finish, at 242nd Street in the Bronx. I like this line because parts of it, like the stretch from 116th and 135th, and from Dyckman on, go above ground and I can actually see something besides graffiti and dark. I didn't really bring anything to do; I realized early on that one of the pads on my Bose headphones was missing, rendering them useless, and I didn't go out of my way to find a magazine or remember to bring a book. But I don't really mind just sitting there with my thoughts, because sometimes there are a lot of them.
The start:

The finish:

NT 16/31: Idle Hands

2009-03-10T23:40:00.002-05:00

My new "career" as a freelancer has also yielded a "career" as a compulsive TV watcher which, for me, simply means that I keep up with stuff and use my DVR like an IV drip that feeds me all the pop culture I missed out on as a working stiff. In the months since "transitioning" out of my day job, I have made the acquaintance of a handful of shows that never would have turned my head before, when I had no time for or interest in Appointment Television. My newest "friend" has been American Idol. I've been mildly interested in the overall phenomenon since season 4, but I don't really get invested until there are fewer than 10 people. This year, thanks to both the DVR and the extra time on my hands, I have been all over it since episode 1. And tonight I voted for someone in American Idol. And I got through on the first call! I guess the trick is to wait about ten minutes after it ends, then slip your vote in before they close the lines. The Robot Man who "answered" said my vote had been counted, so I have officially made a difference in the life of a future pop star.

American Idol logo registered trademark by the people who made it, except for the part where I wrote my name.

NT 15/31: My Only Sunshine

2009-03-09T22:06:00.002-05:00

I wish this more instant than it actually is, for both immediate gratification and cartoon-like adorableness. I planted a sunflower! And thanks to a thoughtful gift from someone nice, I don't have to till a field somewhere or clear out a corner of the garden I don't have or illegally plant one in the lobby and hope the landlord never notices. No, a mini Sunflower garden has apparently been designed with the New York apartment in mind. All I do is assemble the kit, stick it on my sunny windowsill (which I actually have) until this:

turns into this:

Bugs Bunny could have done it in four seconds. Not that I'm complaining.

NT 14/31: Compared to the clouds as they roll by

2009-03-08T16:42:00.012-05:00

Some of my favorite New Things are the ones that combine things I've done before, thereby creating a totally new experience. Today I rollerbladed with a dog! I haven't worn a pair of roller blades since 1989, and the dog I had then was a half-blind, terribly unbright (albeit gentle and lovable) Cocker Spaniel. Friend Heather has a bigger, smarter, more athletic (and just as gentle and lovable, but with good eyesight) Shepard mix named Sebastian, whom she was happy to loan out for a short ride in Central Park. My twenty years of rust didn't just fall right off; Heather had to remind me how to break, and she was all ready with a full set of Hey-Jen-don't-die safety gear. I'm happy to say I did not die, though I did get a little nervous when Sebastian began to run full-speed at his mommy, who was holding the camera:

NT 12/31: Stack in Business

2009-03-07T19:14:00.002-05:00

I don't know how long this sport has been around, why it's such a phenomenon, or how people get really good at it. But I decided to try my hand at Cup Stacking, because you never know when you might turn out to be a genius at something. And GUESS WHAT? I... am totally not a genius at Cup Stacking. I am fairly talented at Cup Knocking Down, Cup Looking At, and I mastered Cup Drinking at the tender age of 18 months. But this Stacking thing is going to take some practice (as well as the proper cups and some instruction on how to do it correctly) if I want to get this good.
Instead, I am this good:

NT 11/31: Dream Maker

2009-03-06T22:24:00.001-05:00

This is something I've had in mind since the day after the annual project ended, partly because I'd done something with the same theme. And also? I do love the Audrey. I like taking fashion cues from her in the summer—capri pants, ballet flats, circle skirts, shirtdresses—since in the winter I tend to look like I take my fashion cues from Nanook of the North. Today wasn't quite warm enough to bust out the Roman Holiday regalia, but it was warm enough to open the window, so I sat in my open window with my guitar and played "Moon River" onto the fire escape. If the lady in one of the backyards below noticed, she was kind enough not to make any noise. She's the one I keep looking at.

NT 10/31: Nobody nose

2009-03-05T20:10:00.005-05:00

I've had a cold for almost a week now, and while the General Ick phase is basically over, my throat is clearer and I've stopped sounding so much like Kathleen Turner, the congestion has stubbornly taken up residence in my head. I described this and other lovely illness-related details to friend Amanda, and she mentioned her favorite method of nasal relief, something I'd never really heard of. So I flushed out my nasal passages using a Neti Pot. As I was reading the instructions to KMD before I tried it, I realized that it sounded vaguely like torture: you stick the long part of a plastic teapot up your nose, then pour the contents (warm water mixed with medicated powder) from that side to the other. I imagined much stinging and sputtering, and thought I'd stop if it got too uncomfortable. But really, it feels no worse than getting water up your nose while swimming. It hurt a lot less than the time I snarfed milk through my nose, and had much more medicinal merit.

NT 9/31: The Cover of Rolling Stone

2009-03-04T23:40:00.003-05:00

If you're on the FaceBook, you have friends who have been tagged in what appears to not be picture of them, but instead a picture of something completely random with a combination of seemingly nonsensical words, phrases or names overlaid on top. This is the Random Album Cover meme, or viral tagging loop, or whatever you choose to call it. I've been mesmerized by this from afar, not making my own because (embarassingly) I have no art program on my Mac. But I randomly came across a web-based photo editing program which at least let me put words on a picture, if it was a bit stingy with the fonts. So I made a bunch of random album covers, following these rules:
1 - Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random... Read More”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

NT 8/31: Beyond the sea

2009-03-03T19:10:00.007-05:00

I'm writing this in an only vaguely coherent, floaty, blissed-out state. No, I didn't do drugs. I had a seaweed body wrap. When lovely cousin Cat emailed last week to ask if I wanted to accompany her on a spa day at Oasis (oh, twist my arm!), I searched their site for some weird treatment I'd never had. Massages, pedicures, manicures, hot-stone treatments—done 'em. But on the list of "Spa Body Therapy" treatments was a "seaweed wrap," an indulgent-sounding but inexpensive skin treatment I'd never even thought to try before.
Oh my goodness, what a wonderfully weird experience! After a brisk rub-down with an exfoliating glove, the therapist piled on the seaweed-lavender body masque (which turned out to be clear, derailing my hopes of being covered in Krakken-from-the-sea colored miracle muck) and wrapped me up to my neck in a giant sheet of mylar. Then she piled on hot towels and left the room. I, dressed like a baked potato, faded in and out of consciousness for about twenty-five minutes while the concoction worked its wonders on my weather-worn skin. At the end, therapist lady hosed me off with a multi-nozzled shower contraption.
I can't say that being covered in mysterious goo, hot mylar, and several layers of thick towels while lying alone in a giant shallow bathtub is for everyone, but it didn't bother me (the therapist asked me a litany of questions before we began, making sure I was free of allergies, pregnancies, and claustrophobia). Plus, I am completely convinced that Sunday's sushi adventure was the driving force behind my decision to try this.

NT 7/31: Snow can wait

2009-03-02T17:05:00.004-05:00

I didn't grow up on the East Coast, so I never experienced many wintertime childhood rituals (well, some I did). Drawing inspiration from my beloved Calvin and Hobbes, as well as from the six inches of snow we had this morning, I made a snowball and put it in the freezer. I'm hoping it will keep; I don't have the world's coldest freezer, but as long as it at least keeps some discernible snowball shape, I should be able to accomplish my eventual goal of throwing a snowball in the summer.

Here's where I got the snow:

Here's where the snowball will live until June:

NT 6/31: Domo arigato

2009-03-01T23:30:00.004-05:00

I'm not much of a cook, but I'm getting better. A couple of weeks ago, I made these killer vegetarian tacos and Spanish rice. The next week I burned a bagel. Baby steps. But tonight I found a new culinary skill, and discovered one more thing I actually like making, that doesn't make cooking seem like much of a chore. I made sushi! We unearthed an old sushi mat, and the rest was as easy as hunting down some nori paper in a health food store, modifying a standard rice recipe to make it sticky, and choosing simple ingredients (radish, carrot and salmon). It turned out really well, and we rounded out the meal with some terriyaki chicken and bowls of norki maki and edamame. But I do not think I'm turning Japanese. Not that I wouldn't like to someday.

NT 5/31: Kiss the Forehead

2009-02-28T22:56:00.001-05:00

I have a large forehead. When I was ten, some kid in my fifth grade class noticed and announced it to everybody. When I was ten and a half, I got bangs to cover it. I've worn bangs on and off in the 20 years since (currently "on"), but truth be told, I could care less whether I have a large forehead or a tiny forehead or two foreheads. But I am curious about just how big it is, so today I measured my forehead. Photo courtesy of my awesome new Canon PowerShot SD 880 IS!

Width (temple to temple): 7 1/3"
Length (eyebrow to hairline): 3 3/4"

NT 4/31: Put that magic jump on me

2009-02-27T20:32:00.000-05:00

During my last pre-birthday New Things spree, friend Hal made a suggestion that somehow never made it to my master list, but I'm glad he mentioned it again during this last call for new suggestions. This flu/cold/plague/whatever had rendered me temporarily antisocial, and I needed something to do today that didn't involve going places, expending a lot of energy, breathing on people or wearing something other than sweatpants. So I made and charged a magical sigil. I had to read the instructions a few times before I really got it, and I'm still not sure I did it right. The website Hal pointed me to says (among a lot of other witchy, magicy, new-agey things) this about sigils:
The sigil takes a magical desire or intent- let's say IT IS MY DESIRE TO VISIT RWANDA (you can, of course, put any desire you want in there)- and folds it down, creating a highly charged symbol. The desire is then forgotten. Only the symbol remains and can be charged to full potency when the magician chooses.

Okay, sure! I'm in!
I must not have charged it to full full potency, because I remember that my desire was to "get a great job." There are other things that might be nice right now, but this is one of the more pressing desires in my life. According to the website, you're supposed to whittle the words in your desire down to non-repeating consonants, then "play with the letters until only an appropriately witchy-looking glyph is left."
I came up with this:
Then you're supposed to meditate and expel all thoughts from your head, concentrating only on the symbol. Then you cast it out into the world and your desire will come true.
I'm ironing my work clothes as I write this!

NT 3/31: Deep as an Ocean

2009-02-26T23:04:00.002-05:00

This is a placeholder post until I can get the pictures to you (thanks, sad unworking camera!). But until I can reveal this first weird thing in its full glory (hopefully by tomorrow afternoon) I will give you a few teasers:
-It's something I will probably have to do later in my life, but wanted to experience at 30
-It's good for travel
-Some people associate this with astronauts

Edit:
My camera issues won't be resolved soon, and I'm saddled with some flu/cold thing, so I can't get out to replace it today. So I'll just tell you. I wore Depends. I also went out. I'm not sure if I want to say whether I was wearing them during my friends' rock show, so I won't. But I will say that the makers of these things sure know what they're doing! You don't have to be wearing mom jeans to make the perceived lumpiness almost undetectable. I should also say that I didn't "use" them the way they are intended to be "used." I'm really only mildly adventurous.

NT 2/31: Whole Lotta History

2009-02-25T22:46:00.009-05:00

I've lived in New York for nearly eight years, and in those years, combined with the handful of times I visited the city before moving here, I thought I had seen and done just about everything there was to see and do, but there was always one glaring omission. Today I went to the American Museum of Natural History. That place is pretty fantastic. We saw as much as we could in one afternoon- dinosaurs, cave people, Pacific redwoods, the giant blue whale, gems, jewelry, and the civilizations of most major continents. Being a big museum nerd, I should be embarrassed that I'd never been to this one, but who has the time to be embarrassed? It's the cultivators of the African and Asian Peoples exhibits who should be embarrassed- anyone happen to know why a traditional tribal leader is wearing modern black shoes with laces, when all his fellow tribespeople are barefoot? And why a 3rd Century Chinese coat has buttons on it that say CCCP 1938? Call me a slave to details, but...

Me and my transparent triplet sisters trying to fool the dinosaurs.

Me and my twin triceratops trying to fool the tourists.

Tribal guy's anachronistic feet.

NT 1/31: Honey Pie

2009-02-24T07:52:00.002-05:00

Welcome back, New Things! I've missed you!
In honor of the economy sucking, I'm kicking off my 31 New Things in the 31 days before I turn 31 with a stimulating new venture: I opened an online t-shirt store.
The year my younger sister left for college, I hijacked her computer while I was home on summer vacation, and left a few "easter eggs" for her to find later. Except I was so excited about them I ended up showing her about after five seconds. Among the adorable and random Word and MS Paint documents I created and saved all over her computer was a picture of twin bees. In all my years of being a mediocre artist, I have never been able to quit while I'm ahead, so I decided the bees just had to be saying something. I kept it simple. One bee says, "I'm Steve." The other says, "me too." And thus were born two bees named Steve:They're fraternal. And if you'd like to wear them on your front, back, baby or dog, please do!

(Thanks to KMD, who encouraged and facilitated the Steves' leap from my sister's 1999 Dell to whatever computer you're using to read this.)

New Daily Updates Coming Soon!

2009-02-15T11:53:00.005-05:00

I've been thinking about it all year, and I have decided that I will welcome my next birthday with New. It's obviously a little late to do a year's worth of stuff, so instead I will do 31 Things Before 31. I have a few things on my list that either didn't make the cut last year, or that I just thought of in the last few days. As always, I will be taking suggestions (post them to this thread, otherwise they'll get lost).
Start date: February 24 (Mardi Gras!)
End date: March 26, my birthday

New Gentelmen of Verona

2009-01-25T13:28:00.003-05:00

After receiving an email from my favorite Improv theatre announcing new classes, I took a Shakespearean Improv class. I signed up somewhat impulsively last Wednesday for a class held yesterday, and a couple of minutes later was asking myself, "What did I just DO?" I haven't improvised in two and a half years, and I haven't taken an improv class in four years, so I was a bit nervous about jumping back into it in a room full of 23-year-old talented upstarts. But not only did my scenework go swimmingly (thanks in no small part to competent scene partners), the Shakespearean stuff was an absolute blast. Teacher Blaine drilled us in rhyming couplets, thee vs thou, exit speeches, prologues, emotional reaction and Elizabethan characterizations before letting us loose to do the Henry form. In my two back-to-back scenes in the form, I played a pregnant commoner whose husband roams the countryside eating fermented apples, and whose coworker in the castle kitchen has been boffing the husband but can't get pregnant. For all the reluctance and dread and apprehension I felt before I got there, the class really couldn't have gone better. I left actually wanting to do it again (as opposed to my last few improv outings in 2006, when I sort of wanted to die). I say, well played, good sirs! And madams!

Jan-New-ary!

2009-01-21T02:02:00.004-05:00

I've been on a Holiday New Thing hiatus- and now I'm back!
Here's a bit of what I've been doing, trying and watching in the last month:

I ate hot Cheetos. Um, have you tried these things? Some friends brought a bag to a Day After Christmas Party I go to every year in CA, inspired by a sound clip from L.A.'s Kevin and Bean show. Apparently, these red-hot wonders are banned in some schools. Which is ridiculous. If I were a teacher in one of these schools, I would welcome these addictive taste treats with open arms. Then I would steal them and eat them all myself. Buy a bag and thank me later. By sending me the bag.

I went to a Bowl game. A family friend kid recently started his freshman year at TCU, and wanted to celebrate his new collegiateness, as well as the football team's apparently great season, by inviting all of us to the game. Stuffed with pre-game carne asada, I joined my family, family friend kid and his family and a bunch of people and their families in Qualcomm (nee Jack Murphy) Stadium to watch TCU beat OSU by one point. I understood none of it and at one point started trying to write a novel on my phone, but nonetheless appreciated the atmosphere, the excitement, the win, and all those families.

I watched Barack Obama's inauguration. This one would be a lot more exciting to write about had I actually gone, but it was awesome anyway. Kevin (who is not associated with the aforementioned Bean) nearly missed the beginning of it- I had to wake him out of a dead sleep at 11:35, but we got to the couch in time and were part of the biggest viewing audience in the History of Anything. This was by far the best New Thing, and one of the many kick-ass kick-offs of 2009.

Names, planes and automobiles

2008-12-21T13:27:00.000-05:00

This is definitely a new experience, even if it wasn't something I actively sought out to do. And I don't have a picture of it, for several reasons*. But after my plane (finally, after a six hour flight preceded by four hours of captive delays) landed in San Diego around 1 a.m., I had a chauffer holding a sign with my name on it waiting for me. I had told my parents before the plane took off (for reals, after about 672 fake-outs) that if it was going to be really late, I would just take a cab home; they had to be up early the next day. Instead, when I landed, I got a text from my dad saying he'd sent the local car service. So though I didn't get a warm hug like I usually do when I land here, I did get a ride home in a sweet black SUV with tinted windows, tv monitors and bottled water. I did not get to keep the sign with my name on it.

*it would have been weird, I didn't have enough time, and the guy had a big scar on his face and I wouldn't have wanted him to think that my taking a picture of him was also me being all, "LOOK AT THIS GUY'S SCAR." Especially because I didn't notice it right away.

Chat's a wrap (dress)

2008-12-09T12:50:00.003-05:00

I wish I could say that today's professional-sounding thing was as mature and productive as it seems, but it really wasn't. Having already been interviewed via satellite and video conferenced, I completed the unofficial techie communication trifecta (or one of them, at least) and I iChatted. Friend Amanda and I had spent the morning at the Diane Von Furstenberg sample sale, and didn't have a chance to show each other what we'd bought once we were back out in the 20-degree air, so we each went home and I showed her my stuff from the comfort of our own apartments. I changed off-screen, though; it wasn't THAT kind of iChatting.

Thanks, winter!

2008-12-03T18:20:00.003-05:00

Well, almost winter. I find it amusing that I can have a Thanksgiving with 2 feet of snow and winter is still technically a month away. But whatever season it is- late fall, early winter, Finter- it's fun, and rife with new opportunities for a So Cal transplant like me. I gotta get this stuff while I still can. During the weekend, I..

Helped make a snow fort!

Went to an island in Canada on a boat! With a dog!

Made snow angels!

Wii are (not yet) the champions

2008-11-24T11:21:00.006-05:00

A dude in cool 70s threads and sporting a giant afro walks along a dark city street. He is singing disco to himself. He happens upon a throng of orphaned kittens. He summons them. They follow him. They fall into a synchronized disco dance routine, and they follow him into a discotheque. Now the kittens are apparently in mortal danger. If I don't succeed at certain challenges, like balancing a broom on my virtual hand, or helping a marionette deflect watermelons, or sawing a barrel half, THEY WILL DIE.
This was the apparent premise of a game I played when I played Wii for the first time. See, I'm not much of a video gamer. My parents refused (rightfully, I now realize) to buy Nintendo, Sega, Atari, X Box or anything more sophisticated than Legos when I was growing up. So now I tend to regard video games either like a cat (where I stare at certain objects and get all riled up when they move around) or an aboriginal bushchild (where I gaze, bewildered, at things I've never seen before and sometimes resist the urge to poke them). Lovely Amanda was kind enough to hand over her Wii control, knowing full well that with my lack of gaming knowledge, I might either eat it or bat it under the couch. Lucky for many of us, I did neither. I also didn't save those poor kittens; every time I dropped an apple from the elephant's nose, identified the wrong missing doll head or failed to direct a guy in a speedo into the correct bathing house, a kitten disappeared.....until their were none.

Premium Roast

2008-11-22T14:51:00.000-05:00

In honor of a longtime friend who decided to have an unconventional birthday celebration, I attended a roast. Pal Ernie got his friend and theatre owner Alex to act as roastmaster at a night of improv dedicated to making fun of Ernie. The performers took jabs at Ernie's weight, penchant for wearing skirts, seedy interest in Thailand and trademark line delivery (curiously, nobody mentioned Ernie's love of manicures). That was just the first act- the second was a surprise (to me, at least) burlesque show starring several uninhibited lovelies whose acts included themes like superheroes, suicide, Star Trek and jumping rope (hint: OW).
Angela, Ernie and me, post-show (I have a snap of Ernie with the ladies but, uh, this is a family blog...)

I haz a ball!

2008-11-15T20:12:00.004-05:00

The year I was 10, my sister and I asked for hamsters for Christmas on a whim. We figured it couldn't hurt. We already had a dog and a bunch of lizard-type slimy things (though those mainly infested my brother's room), so we wouldn't have been too hurt if it didn't happen. But as it was, Santa smiled and we woke up Christmas morning to a blonde and an auburn hamster, to be named Snowball and Taffy (who was eaten by said dog a few months later and replaced with longhaired Wicket). We loved those ridiculous little balls of fluff, and often received hamster accoutrement for birthdays. We had leashes, wheels, fancy water bottles, tubes, the works. But the one thing we were never allowed to give our beloved rodents was the Hamster Ball. I could never be sure why, and when I played with a hamster ball filled with a friend's gerbil, I couldn't see that he was having anything other than the time of his life. Plus, for his owners, it's a chance to let the little bugger run free in an apartment without worrying he might get lost, squashed, eaten, forgotten, scooped up by a dustpan or fly out the window.
Note to owner: What's the dood's name? I forgot. k thx bai.

Baracking in the free world

2008-10-28T22:12:00.004-05:00

In an effort to make a difference, I decided to help other people make a difference. I volunteered at a phone bank for the Obama-Biden campaign for change. I had a room to myself in what appeared to be a former salon, a list of names of undecided voters in PA, and a script. Probably 75% of the numbers had been disconnected (as probably had their owners' bodies with their souls, since the list said many were 85+), but the cases where they weren't were... interesting. One lady refused to tell me who she was voting for, so I said "as long as you voted with your heart, that's all that matters." Another woman suspiciously asked "....whyyyy??" after everything I said, even if it wasn't a question. A guy whose age was listed as 55 said he was voting Obama, and so was his wife, and they were trying to "talk sense" to their son. And unfortunately we weren't supposed to leave messages with people who weren't home, so a "captive audience" thing was out of the question. I was also disappointed that I didn't get the opportunity to get to speak with a die-hard McCainer. I'm certain I would have been able to change their minds. But I guess it's a good sign I didn't get anybody like that. One 83-year-old woman, the second I said I was calling on behalf of Barack Obama, said triumphantly, "I voted absentee already. For HIM!" I thanked her, then skipped the next step on the script and didn't ask if she'd like to volunteer- I got the feeling that if she was able to, she was already doing it.

Paperback Writer

2008-10-24T16:01:00.003-05:00

I'm in a book! Look for my essay on conquering a fear in 30 Things to Do When You Turn 30. It does not have anything to do with my ocean phobia, or my unwillingness to touch chalk.

You ask, I answer!

2008-10-22T19:16:00.003-05:00

Kathy G. writes,
" I'd like to hear more about the mouse in the airport!"
And I'd like to tell her!
On Friday, Kevin and I were on our way to Denver, CO. The Delta terminal at JFK is super tiny, so there were no seats and we had to sit on the floor. We'd been sitting for about five minutes when I saw a flash of gray out of the corner of my eye (and over the top of my Time Out New York). I looked up and saw nothing, so I thought it had been somebody's pant leg, or a ball of dust, or a silver faerie. Seconds later, K looked where I had been looking, and at the same time we saw a tiny mouse dart out of and back into a hole at the bottom of the podium near where we were sitting. He seemed to want to go somewhere (probably not Denver, though we would have been happy to take him), but couldn't quite work up the courage. So he kept venturing a few feet away from the hole, then hauling ass back once he got a look at all those big, scary people and their feet.
A cleaning lady saw me taking pictures of the hole, and came over and looked at me quizzically. At first I just stared at her with a guilty smile, but after I few seconds I explained that there was a mouse under the podium- but he's super cute so please don't hurt him! She struck me as the type who would name him, then wait around during the night shift to feed him pastry crumbs. As it was, K kept tossing him bits of Odwalla bar, and she seemed to think that was fine. Then we got on the plane and with the mouse we parted ways forever.

Random, lovely, new

2008-10-20T20:23:00.003-05:00

I've been away! I know! I'm sorry!
It's been a strange fall, but not without newness. Some recent highlights:
I rode in a Hybrid!
I played with a mouse in an airport!
I went to Denver!
I sight-read a Bach cantata!
I started editing a video about pizza!
I kidnapped someone to a day spa!
Walked over the FDR!
There will be more things, and some of them might have pictures.
Happy mid-October!

Good enough for me

2008-09-24T17:31:00.001-05:00

While on a mini-vacation after a wedding weekend, I ended up with some much-relished time on my hands, an opportunity to rent a car, and a lifelong desire to visit one of my all-time favorite movie locations. I went to Goonies beach! Better known as Cannon Beach, it's near Seaside, Oregon, and is about an hour and a half from Portland. After a beautiful drive through trees and green and forest, I arrived at the coast, met by Haystack Rock (and the key to the map), looming impressively out of the ocean. Closer up, I could tell that the rock is too treacherous to climb, and is better suited as a foreground for pirate ships, a background for misfits running to meet their parents, and a context for one of the greatest adventure movies ever.

Assorted responses to the text "I'm at Goonies Beach!"
Amanda: Yeah, I believe in you One-Eyed Willy
Mike: Cool! Do the truffle shuffle!
Maddy: This was my wish my dream and it didn't come true so i'm taking it back i'm taking them all back
Kathleen: Do you see pirate ships?
Kristina: Goonies Beach? Beach? Battling evil with yo yos?
Cat: Cool!
Kirk: Goonies never say die!
Kevin: Did you Goonie?
Lynn: I'm at office heck

NEW new game plan

2008-09-22T17:45:00.004-05:00

Now that August is over, and the 25 New Things I wanted to do are done, I will simply blog every time I do a New Thing. Because I'm sort of addicted. And since I've never been a smoker, a gambler or a fetishist, I figure this is one addiction I can indulge in without guilt. I won't be updating daily, but I will let you know whenever I do something new, even if it's weird, random or seemingly inconsequential. Because it's all about the experience, my dears. And I encourage you do get your New on, however you see fit. Life's too short to do the same thing all the time!

NEW new thing #25: Write right

2008-08-25T19:57:00.002-05:00

This isn't something I would have done if I didn't think I was supposed to. I wrote on a bathroom wall. I'm so serious- I had really never done that! I've certainly seen enough of it- phone numbers, political messages, adorable couples' initials, chicken recipes- but had never taken part. My dad has this great story about being in a restroom on the campus at Harvard and seeing that someone had written, "Harvey is a dirty neoclassicist." Since the restroom I chose to grace was in a place slightly less cerebral than Harvard (though probably just as loquacious), I chose a simple, direct message to stand out from all the proclamations like "so and so 4 Eva" and "Your mom is a [farm animal]."
Eat pie!

NEW new thing #24: Plane Jen

2008-08-24T23:20:00.000-05:00

Ah summer. You and your barbecues, beach outings and old-timey upstate plane shows. Never having had the chance to partake in that last one, I joined Kevin and some friends and went up to Rhinebeck and I watched old-timey planes fly around. I used to live in the flight path of a naval base in San Diego, so to have the dull roar of killer war planes replaced by the comparatively soft hum of um, old killer war planes was both historically enriching and oddly comforting. Plus, there was an anachronistic Ferrari display nearby and a fantastic stunt involving an old guy pretending to be a plane-unsavvy farmer. And oops- the pilot of the plane had to jump out to fix something and oops, the old guy flew off and oops, started doing loop-de-loops in the sky! Luckily, he landed safely, even after snagging a clothesline on the tail of the plane and even after losing his farmer hat. Yes, I am a jaded New Yorker. It probably sounds like I wasn't impressed by this, but I totally was. Because planes is cool! Especially old-timey ones. And I still regret not having taken a byplane ride around the fairgrounds.

NEW new thing #23: Doot n doo doo

2008-08-23T13:44:00.000-05:00

Being a west coaster and having made countless trips to beaches to watch the sunset, it is still rather mythical and strange to me that the sun could rise over the ocean. Because in my SoCal mind, oceans are for setting. So I watched the sun rise over the ocean. This picture was taken a while after that happened. I was busy drinking my coffee and singing at full volume as I walked along the beach. And you know what ? You just can't do that in California.

NEW new thing #22: Safe cracker

2008-08-22T12:11:00.000-05:00

I love staying in hotels, and until recently have been sort of blindly trusting of the people who clean the rooms. Which is a really dumb idea. Especially now that I take my laptop along so I can write on the road, what's stopping anybody from messing with my stuff? A pink uniform and a plastic nametag do not an honest person make, so on this trip to the Jersey shore, I used a hotel safe. My dad swore by these things when we all used to travel together, but I never really saw fit to use them. But I also don't see fit to get my stuff ripped off. So I followed the rather fool-proof instructions, locked up my Mac and some other stuff, and headed to the beach, worry free.

NEW new thing #21: Fly Dry

2008-08-21T22:59:00.002-05:00

I used dry shampoo. I've managed to deal with the FAA liquid laws on planes rather well, but I anticipate flying quite a bit in the next year, mostly for short, wedding-length trips out of state. I don't want to be bothered with having to check a big bag for a 72-hour trip, and I also can't leave behind my shampoo, or stretch out one measly 3-oz bottle for three days. So I made a stop to Lush, home of the most awesome-smelling, environmentally friendliest, and most surreptitiously naughty bath products this side of Miss Mona's. They have quite a variety of solid shampoos, which escape all FAA standards for "liquid" and "gel," but also turn to foam when you want them to. They clean as well as anything from a bottle and smell even better. But SHH! Don't tell the terrorists.

NEW new thing #20: Word to My Nerd

2008-08-20T22:46:00.003-05:00

I played a role-playing game. Having been just that side of nerdy in high school, I was keen to hang out in fairy wings but never got in with the whole D 'n' D set. The closest I came to that whole scene was showing up in costume at what was supposed to be a Drama Club murder mystery party, but ended up as a karaoke gossip fest. It was rad.
So anyway, pal Kirk, fresh from returning from something called Dragon Con, asked me and several members of his Scooby Doo-esque improv team The Ghosty Teens to get together to help him test drive an RPG he wrote based on a best-selling format called Dread. We each played a specific archetype of mystery-solving teen (I was The Forgeign Exchange Student) and had to help The Geek's stepdad (Shaquille O'Neal) rid his museum of a sinister ghost that was haunting the place. After about three hours, two near-fatalities, one snake attack and a gunfight, we finally solved the mystery, rescued Shaq from being buried alive, and got our ten-year-old sidekick home before curfew. There weren't any costumes or anything, but there were accents, maps, character quirks, strategies and arguments. All par for the course for the crusading Ghosty Teens.

NEW new thing #19: Roofish

2008-08-19T16:00:00.000-05:00

In my seven years in New York and my three as a member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I have somehow never made it up to the roof (this may be because the roof is seasonal, and I tend to stay away from the Met during the summer). So while on a Staycation of sorts, I went to the roof of the Met. It strikes me as the sort of place that gets super scene-y after dark; there's a bar, and not much art. The sculptures that they do have up there, however, are totally amazing; giant balloon animals in captivating colors that sort of frame the trees of central park. I made balloon animals last year as part of this project- How come they never looked like that? I have three answers, and one of them includes the absence of psychedelic drugs.

NEW new thing #18: Superbook!

2008-08-18T21:36:00.001-05:00

A few months ago, I began emailing Kevin's childhood friend Marc, a seasoned author whose books include titles like Green Berets in Action and Giving Things to Your Children Without Ruining Their Lives, to get advice for my own writing. When I finally got to meet the guy in person, I got my own autographed copy of a book as well. The release of his new baby, Men of Steel: The Creators of Superman, coincided with a showing of Superman at Bryant Park, so he had a table set up to greet the more literary nerd who showed up for the screening. I hope he did well- he's super nice and apprently quite talented. I would expect nothing less from a guy who apparently spent his formative years doodling his way through math class. Glad to know I wasn't the only one!

NEW new thing #17: Wiiiings!

2008-08-17T21:22:00.001-05:00

I hang out with a lot of very hyper people, and some of them will openly admit that their hyperactivity comes partly from a can. I know several performers who down a Red Bull before a performance, rehearsal, practice, class or, hell, watching TV. I have so far stayed off that particular juice, having convinced myself that it would make my heart explode. But, throwing caution to the wind, I drank a Red Bull. I thought about downing the bottle before a Blue Man show, to see if it might enhance my tube performance, but decided to test it in the safety of m own home.
Which was good.

NEW new thing #16: Buildy McBuilder

2008-08-16T22:32:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to redo certain elements of my bathroom for some time, so I went to BB&B and got some elaborate 4-piece bathroom collection thingy, complete with an over-the-toilet piece that promises to reduce all the girly clutter. I have yet to do the big one, but I've put together the door rack, the magazine holder and the towel tower. And I built them without looking at the instructions. I think I saw someone forced to do this the one time I ever watched Amazing Race, and it seemed completely cruel, especially to someone who, until last year, had never even put together Ikea furniture. But since this bathroom stuff isn't so different, and because I thought it would be fun, I hid the directions from myself and navigated all the poles, caps and hangers with nothing but intuition and logic as my compass. Well guided, intuition and logic!

NEW new thing #15: Puppy Love

2008-08-15T14:17:00.002-05:00

Hanging out with small dogs is endlessly entertaining. I have dog-sat several times for a dachshund named Blue, and lately have been hanging out with Chihuahua Luca. Since Blue tends to be a bit of a loner, preferring quick dashes to the curb and short, frantic walks through Riverside park, I've never taken it upon myself to try to socialize him Besides, he's not mine. But Luca loves to share the love, so I went into a dog run. I always pass by them to gaze longingly at other people's puppies, but have never had cause to actually go into one. It's like spastic, four-legged kindergarten, with all the exploratory friend-making, digging in the sand and nervous parent types trying to prove that their kid is the best behaved. I'm proud to say that Luca was very well-behaved, and that the incident with the Boston terrier probably wasn't his doing.

NEW new thing #14: Parish

2008-08-14T14:04:00.001-05:00

When you live in New York, you see a lot of different types of people. Unfortunately, there is an overwhelming amount of cliche types; you got your neurotic joggers, 25-year-old sexist Wall Street sharks, mean store clerks, celeb wannabes. It's that last group that cracks me up the most. A lot of them manifest their need to feel famous by taking on the characteristics, if not income level or job description of, "ladies" like Paris and Lindsay. You know what I mean- the hair, the clothes, the fancy bags, the tiny dogs. It may all be a bit annoying, but being a big proponent of "don't knock it till ya try it," I walked around with a fancy bag and a tiny dog. Friend Kate was kind enough to entrust her docile Chihuahua Luca to my care for a couple of New new things, and Luca accompanied me today to brunch in SoHo, where I tried to ignore the discomfort of stepping so entirely out of myself, however fleeting the feeling may have been.

NEW new thing #13: You really ga mi

2008-08-13T18:55:00.001-05:00

I must have gone to a secretly progressive elementary school or something, because unless it's been involuntarily suppressed, I have absolutely no memory of ever having made origami. So I made origami. Somebody wonderful, who knew I never got around to doing this during the year-long project, gave me an origami pack for my birthday. I busted it out and made a penguin, a cicada, a helmet, and several mutant penguins and cicadas, as well as a few colorful wads of paper, and the ever-traditional Square of Paper With a Knee Print In It.

NEW new thing #12: Case Study

2008-08-12T15:26:00.001-05:00

One of my all-time favorite books, not just from childhood, but from ever, is From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. It's a wonderful, odd story about two kids who run away to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I re-read it last fall, after I got stuck trying to recall some of the details. It starts with tween Claudia's elaborate plan to get herself and her brother out of Greenwich and into the city, part of which involves leaving on music day so they can stuff their instrument cases with clothes. Inspired by their clever scheme, I packed my violin case with clothes and went to the Met. I drew the line at hiding in the bathrooms long enough for security to leave, and I definitely didn't start sleeping in the big blue bed or taking baths in the fountain. That's for tomorrow.

NEW new thing #11: Men at Work

2008-08-11T22:53:00.000-05:00

I've been very good at staying away from New Things that I'm not supposed to be doing, things that are illegal, dangerous, unhealthy, or involve quicksand. So guess I was feeling risky or daring or something and I walked through a high-rise construction site. Without a hard hat. In open-toed shoes. I didn't really mean to- I was trying to take a sidewalk detour when I veered off the path a little bit and realized that I was standing in what looked like a lobby-to-be, with no discernible walls or ceilings, and lots of dust and scary machinery. I walked parallel to the path in case some burly construction guy came through, but nobody did. Eventually I went back to the path, and nobody ever seemed to notice. Also, they were playing some sweet 80s music.

NEW new thing #10: Piano Woman

2008-08-10T15:58:00.000-05:00

There are better photos of this that I'll post later, but I sat on a grand piano while wearing a red dress and white gloves. The singer/dramatist/drag queen in me has needed to do this for quite some time> though I don't have a video, there was some singing involved, and my audience of zero (and camera crew of two) were more than happy to act like I wasn't crazy for asking to do this.

NEW new thing #9: Oh Rudy

2008-08-09T11:04:00.000-05:00

My sophomore year of college, one of my friends wanted to go to IHOP for her birthday and order the Rootie Tootie Fresh and Fruity breakfast. We'd all become strangely enamored with the commercials, and thought a birthday was a good excuse to order such a tantalizingly dumb sounding meal. Alas, I got sick the morning we were supposed to go, and my friends had to Rootie Toot without me. I meant to go get my own RTFnFB during my year of new things, and somehow never did. But finally, ten years after my first attempt to be Rootie and Tootie and Fresh and Fruity, I ordered the Rootie Tootie Fresh and Fruity Breakfast at IHOP. Kevin ate the eggs, I ate everything else. It was delish.

NEW new thing #8: You were the first one

2008-08-08T23:41:00.001-05:00

photo by Keith Huang

This is sort of not new; this year marked the fifth that I have performed in Terry Jinn's Enormous Television, an annual birthday cover concert thrown by the eponymous guitar god. But it was the first time that I performed at Kenny's Castaways. This place has seen early work from some of the greatest names in rock, including Bruce Springsteen, Phish, The Ramones and Aerosmith (two of whom were covered in this show). This year I sang Video Killed the Radio Star (past selections included Beat It, You Oughta Know and MmmmBop, and there was one year when I did backup on about 67 songs), and between that and the 17 other songs, at least one of us is destined for rock legend. Either that, or we will just own a pet rock.

NEW new thing #7: Vee R Impressed

2008-08-07T20:25:00.001-05:00

I recently upgraded the cable here to include more movie channels. As I was hanging up with Cable Lady, she asked if there was anything else she could help me with. I somewhat impulsively blurted out, "can I have DVR?" She said no. Kidding. She said of course, told me the extra monthly charge, and made an appointment to have installation set up. I had previously rejected the idea of needing to record anything, since I don't really watch that much tv, but I do like the idea of being able to watch whatever I want when I do feel like sitting down and zoning out for a while. So I DVRed stuff! The first pick was Soapdish, one of my favorite all-time movies that I don't have on DVD. It was on at 4am, and I went to bed around 11, but I slept oh so soundly knowing that Kevin Kline and Whoopi would be waiting for me whenever I wanted them.

NEW new thing #6: Especially Tantalizing

2008-08-06T10:52:00.001-05:00

This from the Weird Things I Never Did When I Was a Kid files:
I buried myself in stuffed animals.
This was equal parts nod to E.T., belated childhood desire and completely pointless guilty pleasure.

NEW new thing #5: Dr. Spacebag

2008-08-05T23:04:00.006-05:00

Ah, back to New York. It's apparently still August here, and after having gotten used to the idealistically comfortable weather in San Diego, I didn't adapt back to the sticky hot weather so well. The first adjustment I made was getting rid of the down comforter on the bed. Well, not rid rid; I just needed to move it. And Lord knows it's hard to store something so bulky and fluffy, so to make things easier, I used a space bag. I sort of wish this had anything to do with Space space; that would imply that I am an astronaut or perhaps a Martian. But they don't and I'm not (hmpf). But they are awesome and I am quite happy with them; provided you own a vacuum with a hose, you can be too. Just load, suck, and store. Then shove your otherwise unwieldy down comforter nearly under the bed. (Insider tip: tape the top and the duct shut and air will be less likely to creep in).
Before:

After:
It doesn't end up being quite as neat and tidy as on the commercials, but my comforter still takes up less space, and it's weirdly fun to watch an otherwise normal bag of stuff morph into something resembling a cotton gremlin. (I once heard a warning that it's risky to use these things on plush down, but the down has become considerably less plush over the years. I should still be okay come winter.)

NEW new thing #4: Mom is great!

2008-08-04T10:52:00.000-05:00

When I'm visiting my family, one of their favorite pasttimes is to feed me. And one of my favorite pasttimes is to eat whatever the heck they give me. So when my mom, inspired by a Bill Cosby routine in which he deftly justifies feeding children dessert as a meal asked if I'd ever had chocolate cake for breakfast, I said no, then I said YES and I had chocolate cake for breakfast. The Cos is totally right- it's milk, it's eggs, it's wholesome, and it's YUMMY!

NEW new thing #3: Scratchmaker, scratchmaker

2008-08-03T13:50:00.003-05:00

I fiddled on the roof.
Sounds crazy, no?
But here, in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof. Trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn't easy. You may ask, why do we stay up there if it's so dangerous? Well, we stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word!
Tradition!

NEW new thing #2: Earth mover

2008-08-02T14:06:00.000-05:00

My parents recently decided to completely overhaul their backyard- partly for aesthetic reasons, but also because they nearly lost the house to fires last year and it's in their better interest to get rid of anything that court disaster- so they're replacing the eucalyptus trees with liquid amber, the pine trees with succulents and so forth. But for the time being, the back of their house looks like it did when we moved in nearly 20 years ago, complete with a Pot-A-Let in the driveway and Bobcats in the back. The second I saw those babies, I knew I had to do something with them, so I got behind the wheel of a Bobcat. Two of them! For liability reasons, and because they're not total idiots, the construction guys didn't leave the keys and I had to resort to making "vroom vroom" noises from the driver's seat. But still, such fun!

NEW new thing #1: No Plate Like Home

2008-08-01T23:33:00.003-05:00

I've never been the hugest sports fan, but I like me some baseball. So while I was home in CA this week, I said yes to some Padres tickets at Petco Park, and I sat behind home plate. It was also my first time in that ballpark- it didn't exist when I was last a full-time San Diego resident, so my last Padres game was at what I like to call Jack Murphy stadium, even though the team and the corporation that took it over call it Qualcomm. Petco is more like a baseball resort- very new and beautiful with waterfalls and in-seat drink service and padded chairs and ponies. My parents, long-time friend Andrea and I had a great view of the game, not to mention the umpire's booty, from our seats about nine rows back. The Pads were down something like 7-4 at the bottom of the 9th, so I put on my rally cap in hopes that they could pull it out. But they didn't, because my rally cap was from New York*. Oops.

*University, not Yankees. But still. (At least I didn't wear my Red Sox hat!)

Teaser!

2008-07-29T00:22:00.005-05:00

This is fun! Slow video, but fun- it's an update of the CNN piece I did in October last year. My hair looks weird. I talk about doing new things for a month in August. Enjoy.
(I just realized there's no sound. I'll fix it later. I'm sleepy.)

Updated again- on this one the sound just sucks. But the old interview is here.