I’m an awful blogger.

Lots going on, I’ll play catch up tomorrow with all of my going ons with life and rock and running and scholastic endeavors. Le sigh, never enough time.

Here’s a photo of what I did today. Rockity.

the christmas gift i look forward to most…

…has arrived!!!

I must preface this post by saying that if you don’t know already, I don’t expect gifts, especially from our artists (though they all send them to me…), and I also realize that it more of a token of appreciation. It’s always the thought that counts, but when it comes to the M’s, it’s fake. There’s no appreciation towards me and certainly no thought. I’m thankful to even receive a gift, but it’s still fun to mock. Let’s proceed…

Most of you know about the hell I have to endure day in and day out for years. Ok, not hell, but close. I tend not to write about it as much, but I’ve certainly verbalized this nightmares. And strangely enough, most of the worst stories happen in November and December, right around the holidays where they could certainly take the opportunity to thank me since they never do verbally.

Before I get to this year’s gift, let’s take a look at previous Christmasses:

2005: Ralph Lauren bathroom
- This was nice and I still use it. Nevermind the fact that another coworker received the exact same item and that E models for them so I’m sure they have a closet full of bathrooms just waiting to be gifted.

2006: The ugliest bracelet I’ve ever seen with the $5 price tag on it and a (fake) donation to some monk place in Indiana
- This was absolutely horrible. Especially because I had to go out in a snow storm to get gifts from NYC that they wanted to give people. When I gave them everything in person at a photo shoot, they told me I was making a puddle and there was no “thank you” at the hand off. This is also the PRADA year so I assumed they’d remember that year long debacle.

2007: A gaudy picture frame and post its
- Yup, post its. I still have them, they are black and white so they’re a bit prettier than the neon ones, but still. Post its. And I frame I threw away. It was like a gross shiny cheap dollar store frame. Not even a photo of them in it! But yes, post its.

2008: Nothing…but a small Trader Joe’s gift basket was sent to the office
- We enjoyed this in the office, and probably the most thoughtful since we can actually use it. It had coffee, tea, cookies, crackers, and nuts.

Ready for 2009?

Let’s talk about the trek first. FedEx missed me since I was in DE and was supposed to re-deliver on Monday as indicated on the door tag. They never came so I had to trek to the Bronx to the FedEx facility. Thankfully I could take the 6 uptown, but it was still an experience. It was cold. I was yelled at. I had to walk through the projects. A homeless guy kept following me. I didn’t want to pull out my iPhone to check my directions so I got a bit turned around. Oh, and I had a nice walk by a parole office where I was whistled and hollered at. I was cursing the M’s the entire time. Even though it’s not their fault, I still blame them.

This year I received a brown scarf (do any of you ever see me wear brown? ever?) with the price tag on it ($48) from Banana Republic. E. models for Banana so I’m sure this came from the same closet as the bathrobes. And a small red bag that I’m sure I can use somehow, but again, I don’t use red. The only red thing I have, including clothes, are my bathroom walls. A photo is below. So even though I was hoping for an awful gift, these aren’t too bad. I assumed that perhaps this year since I had to carry his guitar all over Manhattan two weeks ago and I got him third row seats to a play he kept changing that perhaps some thought would be put into the gift. Again, it’s not the gift and I’m very appreciative that I get to work with him, and at least I have a comical blog entry. At the very least, that is his handwriting, so that’s nice.

“but it’s just another day…”

I was going to blog about this, but figured the conversation I had with Dan yesterday afternoon summer up my angst quite nicely. Clicky for normal size. Also, my iChat windows aren’t like that…that setting is so all the lines fit on the screen. Pretty annoying, I’m partial to the bubbles.

flashback: equestrian team

Thanks to Facebook, I recently reconnected with a few college friends who were older than I was, so we didn’t enter the MySpace/Facebook virtual space together. And due to all of us finding each other, a facebook group for UD Equestrian Team alumni was formed.

I *loved* the equestrian team and it was one of my favorite aspects of college. In fact, I chose U of DE due to it’s amazing team. Though I was accepted to a few choice universities, regardless where I went I would receive a fine education, but only one had a top notch riding team. UDET were national champions and I received a full scholarship, decision was easy and I started on the team before classes even started.

To be honest, I have no idea how I balanced everything, but I had the time of my life. I had a double major, but thanks to AP classes and taking college classes while in high school, I entered a few credits shy of a sophomore. Because of this, I was able to take extra riding hours in exchange for the one less class I had on my schedule each semester, score. The season lasted all year with a small break during winter session, so there was no real break.

This is what my life was like practically all year:
* Wake up at 5 am, go to the stable, classes from 9 am until around 3 pm, TV station, evening class, homework, sleep for a few hours and do it all over again every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
* I scheduled off days on Tuesdays and Thursdays and spent that time at the stable with proper lessons on Thursday evening. TV station time was allotted during the afternoon.
* Because of this, I spent most nights doing homework and reading, surviving on about 4 hours of sleep a night.
* And on weekends…there was no going out or partying… We left for shows (competitions) at 3:30 am. If we were lucky, we could leave at 4 am. I could never sleep in the van so I had a flashlight and did my work then. We’d often get back around 9 or 10 pm and at that point, we’d crash. And if we flew somewhere, that was the whole weekend.

So obviously I didn’t have the typical college experience, but I wouldn’t have wanted anything more. We had a UDET house and hosted awesome parties when we had off weekends. In fact, that’s where I met Derek. Funny. I also learned how to drink with the UDET girls, booze in the morning because I cried when I flew, and thanks to a horrid party at Amelia’s, I learned a hard lesson in not mixing beer, wine, liquor, etc.

Over time, I did trade in riding for STN, which was mostly due to a life threatening tumble I took. I nearly died, which is a story for another blog entry, and on a plane ride the following weekend I realized that while I loved what I was involved in, I needed to focus on my future. Post college, I wasn’t going to ride professionally, so it wasn’t worth risking my life over during college while trying to form my adult life.

And at this point, I was entering a downward spiral. I worked my ass off as I strived to be perfect and I was slowly losing grasp. I wasn’t sleeping. I was doing my homework in vans and during downtime during tv events. I barely had time for friends that weren’t on the team with me. My boyfriend was cheating on me, which I can’t blame since I was never around. My next boyfriend cheated on me, because I guess I still wasn’t around. I had an eating disorder, I subsided on salads and slim fast and coffee even though I wasn’t even 100 lbs with my riding boots on. I couldn’t live with a roommate because they hated my erratic schedule and assumed I was anti-social because I didn’t drink my face off every Friday night. Everything seemed flawless on the outside, but was the complete opposite on the inside. But I had a wall full of ribbons and trophies and I loved riding more than anything else in my life – my friends, my health, my time, my sanity, so it was worth it. It was all worth it.

I started riding competitively when I was eleven and had horses all the way until four years ago when I figured I wasn’t moving back to Delaware – riding has been more apart of my life than not. I think about the team and that period of my life all the time. My go to shorts for sleeping and hanging around the apt are team shorts. Even my passwords, both new and old are team related. It’s just still very much a part of me despite not getting on or around a horse any time soon! Maybe when I have a house in the suburbs when the next part of my life begins??

While reminiscing via Facebook, I found a few photos… how ancient! These are before digital cameras…when we got film developed!! Click the photo to get the full size, trying something new with the photos here since they take a lot of visual space…

my best friend erin and me after changing into our show clothes in the van

second place after a flat class

at a show

part of the team, some random town

bonnie, me, karin

at the olympic stadium in conyers, ga

the udet nationals team outside our hotel

amelia and me, in some hotel, in some city after we cartwheeled down the hallway

Going going back back to cali cali…!

I hate flying. Hate hate hate. It never gets any easier.

I’m on my way to LAX for a few days of sun and friends . Via Virgin Air, hopefully my impending panic attack will subside… And the trek here was no fun. I supidly got on the wrong E train, then I had to wait forever for the A. Then the A train had a shuttle bus because there was service maintence. Do you know how awesome it is to ride a bus in Brooklyn at 430 in the morning? It’s stellar. And now I’m on the monorail about to run to my terminal…!

Update: I ran through terminal 4 and made it to my gate. Waiting in line for coffee and the chick whose famous for the botched up platic surgery on her face is standing behind me. Jocelyn Wilderstien / cat woman if you want to google.

How odd is it that judy lives walking distance from my cousins. Seriously. Can’t wait to be on the left coast .

birthday month!

For years, jay and i tried to be the first to wish each other happy birthday. I can’t remember how it started but I remember to not forget as midnight approached.

My birthday is on the 13th and I woke up to an IM from chris that he sent around 4 am wishing me a happy birthday-ish. I think he wins this year.

Ha, love it, had to share since at 730 am I found it funny. Now off to a 15 mile run along the seacoast.

phantom power

Today is payday, which means another blog on how to save money.

This week’s installment will be about how to save money on your electric bill. Electric is expensive! I never really thought about it before since it was either included with my rent, or I split it between roommates.

After I moved to Manhattan, I really had to watch my expenses since the city can get pricey. An easy way to cut costs is to cut out phantom power. Phantom power is when devices use electricity when not being used, such as when they’re idly plugged in.

It may seem neurotic of me, but the only thing I leave plugged in all of the time is my refrigerator. Everything else is plugged in only when being used. TVs and cable boxes are culprits of using massive amounts of energy when not in use. So why bother have them plugged in due to convenience. Granted, my cable box/dvr takes about 3 minutes to start up, but I’m never in that much of a rush to watch something on tv.

It helps to plug everything into a power strip so you have less to plug in. My internet, airport extreme, record player, tv, and cable box are all on one strip that gets switched back on when I come home from work. Lamps are left unplugged unless I’m using them, and also equipped with energy saving bulbs. My bedroom electricity is controlled by the switch, so that’s easy. And yes, I do reset my alarm clock every night. I rarely use my microwave so that’s unplugged until I use it…

I got my electric bill down from about $80 bucks a month to about $15 bucks a month before taxes and fees, which is definitely worth the extra effort in plugging and unplugging everything. Plus, I’m saving a little piece of the environment as well.

Queens Half Marathon recap

Four out of the five borough half marathons complete! Yay.

A recap of today’s race…

* I woke up at 3:45 am…after a few hours of barely sleep, sigh. Let me repeat: 3:45 am.
* On the way to the NYRR busses, I passed many people still out from the night before.
* It is very cold at 4:30 am.
* I was a bit warmer after I spilled my HOT COFFEE all down my shirt and shorts. Fail.

* We got to the park around 5:20 am, race started at 7:00 am. So I took a nap on the slide.
* Oh yeah, I forgot my phone at home, whoops. I felt completely naked. Thankfully there were lots of landmarks in the playground near the start and finish so finding everyone wasn’t as problematic as it could have been.

* I felt good despite sleeping for 3 hours and not having my coffee.
* The course was sucky. It was through Queens neighborhoods, narrow roads, lots of ups and downs.
* Aside from the first 3 miles of running shoulder to shoulder with people, they were quick. For most of the race, I was hitting 8ish minute miles, I felt fast but it felt ok.
*Then hills happened at mile 7. And I was sad.
* Saw some hookers probably still on the prowl from Saturday night.
* And my right knee started hurting, but nothing I couldn’t run on.
* Had a slow 10th mile, I was tired.
* AND MILE 13 WAS UPHILL. AND STEEP.
* I said “oh fuck” out loud and the people around me laughed.

* Finished in 1:58:50

Not a GREAT race, but I’ll take it. The weather was PERFECT aside from freezing my butt off at 5 am. Though my struggle with the steep inclinations in the last few miles really proves that I need to up my mileage on my long runs. It’s boot camp time, especially if I want to run a sub 4 hour marathon in Philly in two months…

And this is me after the race to prove that I really was a goon and spilled my coffee all over me. I’m a winner!

payday!

Happy payday! In honor of the glorious payday, every first and fifteenth of the month, expect a money post.

Now, I’m certainly no money expert. I receive a paltry paycheck, live in a super expensive city, and have accumulated a four digit debt figure from “surviving” on my “own”. But I’m getting better! I’m been scrimping and becoming more wise about my purchases so I can be entirely debt free by 2010.

I never made any frivolous purchases, I just bought more than what my paycheck allowed. For example, when I first moved up to NYC four and a half years ago, my pay after taxes was about $800 every two weeks (shut up, it’s really not that much more above that now…but, uh, I love my hob). So that’s $1600ish a month. Necessities include rent which was was $850, utilities were about $150, and a bus pass was $75ish, which leaves $525. Then factor in $75 for groceries, $300 for my car payment, and $100 for car insurance (I didn’t have my car in Hoboken but seeing how I didn’t know how the job would pan out, it was still my responsibility). After all of those expenses, I had $50 left. $50 to spend on socializing, drinking my sorrows away, NYC travel since the bus pass didn’t cover subways, work clothes, concerts, etc. Hello plastic. And luckily there was strength in numbers since this is an epidemic with nearly all twenty somethings in the city.

Then of course I moved out on my own into Manhattan last year and had to buy furniture and everything else that goes with living by yourself. But I’ve finally reached a point where the past few months I haven’t had to rely on fake money and my debt is (slowly) going down. Totally manageable. And after my debt is paid off, this girl is opening an IRA. I don’t have a 401(k) option at work, so I guess I should start looking ahead on my own.

So now you have my financial backstory.

So my tip of this pay period is to BYOC. Bring Your Own Caffeine. I’m partial to Guy & Gallard house blend, which is $1.75 per 16 oz cup. Recently I started bringing my own coffee to work. It’s a cumbersome balancing act between my purse, work bag, and hot coffee travel mug, but I’m saving $8.75 a week/ $35 a month / $455 a year. Which doesn’t seem like much when looking at the weekly savings, but $35 is like an extra week of groceries and if someone handed me a $455 check, I would surely take it. And plus I don’t have to wait in line. Granted, the coffee I make at home isn’t free, but a $9.99 container of TJ’s finest lasts me about 3 months, so I guess all in all, I’m saving about $415 and I’ll still take that.

Plus, my Wawa travel mug reminds me of happiness.

Broadway, Akiva, & Matties

This past Sunday, Tanya and I trekked into NYC for an afternoon of shoe shopping. We didn’t find the rainboots or cute work shoes that we were looking for, but we did pop in and out of stores, dodged the tourists, and bought sidewalk wares on Broadway.

After a few hours and many blocks later, we needed pizza and coffee. Tanya and I popped onto Houston and got sustenance and caffeine then headed to Piano’s to catch Akiva’s set. We met up with Angela, Gia, and Andrew and grabbed a table near the back and ordered a round of drinks. Akiva’s set was great, and the sound was good. Oddly enough, the last time I saw him perform was in the spring – where the hell did all the time go? He busted out a few unreleased songs and emerged with some Onyx at the end with David McMillan. Two white boys with acoustic guitars shouting out “SLAM!! Duh Dah Dah!!!” is a sight to see. I swear, is Akiva’s rock star dreams falter, he always has a rap career to fall back on. He rocked a great LES shirt for the venue that he picked up at the fashion show he performed at a few weeks ago. It meets my rock star fashion approval. Tanya enjoyed David’s set, so we stayed for that as well. I remember hearing his tunes when he contacted Marlon Spike last year, but I hadn’t seen him live before this date. It was also great seeing the Akiva posse out, especially those who I didn’t think would recognize me who haven’t seen me in NYC yet. Hopefully we will all meet up again in December at The Cup.

As Akiva and David were wrapping up their last song, we dodged out so that we (minus Tanya, the show had sold out ) could run up to Irving Plaza for the Matt Nathanson show. While we were waiting for the subway, we ran into Nick & Jesse. You know you’ve been somewhere long enough when you run into friends at the subway station.

At Irving, we managed to catch the start of Matt Wertz’s set and managed to position ourselves in the midst of the anti-Matt Wertz club. We still enjoyed the set and Angela and I both got the songs we enjoyed.

During the set break, we met up with Judy, Ginger, Regina, Dan, and Bonnie and headed to the other side of the stage. We were all kinda concerned that we would be the oldest people there, but strangely enough, we were all pretty equal – nice. I hadn’t seen Matty Nathanson since days of yore at the Point (now closed) in Bryn Mawr. Matt has always been a favorite of mine and he is still one of my favorite lyricists and performers, but I just never desired to him tackle a full out venue. Oh wait – I did see him when he played at UD a few years ago. I guess I was jaded and also didn’t have my Matty N crew with me whenever he was around before. Now I have one in NYC.

But the show was hands down phenomenal. Matt rocks, and it is fabulous that he is selling out venues in light of getting dropped by Universal. They just didn’t know what to do with him and his rabid fan base. He isn’t just another sing-songwriter, and the trends followed him. He never sold out, but he did put out a great album two years ago under that label. We all sang along to every song and it brought back so much to me. Matt Nathanson was pretty much the soundtrack to the solace that I found in rock and roll during college. I’ll always remember this show – thanks girls.

Afterwards we came out into the city streets and it was a hell of a lot colder than it was earlier in the day. I shivered all the way home and made phone calls during my trek since I didn’t have my ipod on me. Everyone got weird and long messages, especially when I saw a hooker getting picked up a few blocks away from my apartment.