holiday party number three

In which our heroine ate an entire brick of gouda and a plate of cupcakes for dinner, then drank herself silly on cheap Tempranillo with the cast of her cabaret reprise.

There was a moment last night when we all realized how drastically our lives have changed since that fateful weekend in November. And we all seem to have emerged the stronger and feistier for it.

Coming in March to a piano bar near you.

christmas, go

Saturday night, I had a bottle of champagne and a mushroom cap for dinner (the first in a series of holiday parties.) Classy, right?

By Sunday, it felt like Christmas. I'm not sure if it was the wine, the cold snap, the return of the peppermint syrup to my neighborhood Starbucks (also: why does this blog read like a Starbucks commercial lately? I should be getting a kick-back here) or the plethora of light-up Santas and snowmen in Astoria.

I will blame the annual tree-trimming party, which, for the past three years running, has been the inaugural moment of my city mouse Christmas cheer. Tis the season, after all, for shrimp cocktail, champagne and chocolate cookies. And there's no place I'd rather spend it than around that twelve foot tree with the gold ribbons, listening to carols in the key of C and sharing a scotch or two. Or three.

Peter Pan and I were inspired to run right home and buy our own tree, which we purchased from a very convivial Canadian fellow in a reindeer sweater outside the Rite Aid on Ditmars.

I can safely say, now that there is a pine tree in my living room, that I am ready for Christmas. There are candles in my windows (I'm such a Yankee), Santas on the sills, old Vespers recordings on the iPod . . . if only I could bake a celebratory batch of cookies. Curse you, contractors.

helmet hair

I almost regret my decision to make my NY State residency permanent and official.

My new driver's license came in the mail last night and . . . holy god in heaven. Disaster.

I look like the bastard child of Donny Osmond and Darth Vader.

When Peter Pan saw it, his only response was, "Your head is nowhere near that round."

il pleut

As bad as it is, the rain in New York can be quite special.

Unexpected sideways downpours (and getting caught in them), the sound of water washing down the street and into the subway, rivulets on a cab window, the flat pound of it on the East River from hundreds of feet above . . .

And then falling asleep to the swirl of it, with the wind howling around my little corner bedroom in Queens. Hardly seasonable for the first week in December, but I'll let that one slide.

december first

Celebrated today with the first of many peppermint mochas.

It's been a slow day. Too much time for web-surfing and self-doubt.

So far the only hour to move faster than the speed of geological change was the lunch hour: genial company, brisk sunlit walk, table by the window . . . and sticking my face into a seven foot Christmas tree.

I don't expect my love affairs to last for long

Maybe it's the holiday lights and the red cups at Starbucks. Maybe it's the trees for sale on the sidewalk, the giant snowflake hoisted over 5th Avenue. Maybe it's the Christmas music I heard a week too early at the DMV. . . but—since Thanksgiving—I've been having something of a love affair with New York. I had almost decided to see other cities, but I think I am ready to commit.

Thanksgiving was almost perfect: the food, the company, the impossibly primo view of the parade, the drunken singalong to follow. Something about hanging out a third story window on a crisp November morning watching float after float, marching band after marching band make its way down Seventh Avenue from the park makes me realize how much this city feels like the center of the universe on occasion. And how lucky I am to live here. Not to mention how lucky I am to have made the friends I have, to be stirring lima bean casserole while holding a glass of champagne, to be presented with a candle-laden carrot cake and a room full of happy birthdays. It really is all in the details.

Those moments, you forget the rest: the commuting, the noise, the ever-elbowing glut of people to fight through... It all disappears and then it's just you and the city and your perfect moment.

Saturday I went on a date—a real one—warranting a dress and eye makeup. And it was lovely. Does it get any better than a charming and intelligent man you hope to get to know better treating you to a Gramercy Tavern tasting menu on your 26th birthday? (Answer: no, it does not. I'm still swooning over the warm Maine crab egg crepe—among other things.)

So yes. I love New York. (This week anyway.) I love coming home to my little neighborhood, even if that does mean walking past the drunken hobos outside the OTB—even if someone did steal my newspaper this week. I love the Sunday morning subway ride. I love having to get to the movie theatre a half an hour early.

Most of all, I love the kind of place this city becomes every December. So who cares if I get dumped come January, come February, come Boxing Day . . . I'm gonna love her today as long as I'm up for the task.

view of the parade

Yes, this is Spiderman's butt.