Nigh two years later, a blog idol comes to live with me

One of the very first blogs I read religiously was Jezebel, starting in August of 2008 when my then-boyf now-ex sent me a link and told me I would probaby love it. He was right - and, as a side note, we proceeded to get into myriad fights about feminism based on posts written on Jez, at which he always balked and claimed I was attacking his manhood, though he would totally deny this now - and I began reading the blog obsessively at work, and even sent in my information numerous  times to try to write for them. I was always rejected, because there was never any money of course. The first writer at Jez that I really latched onto was Tracie Egan, who wrote for a long time under the moniker "Slut Machine" - though the slut got married and is now Tracie Egan Morrissey - and whose personal blog, One D At A Time, I discovered soon after.

I remember staying up late one night just reading reading reading her blog until I passed out. She wrote candidly about her sexual escapades in New York, including her encounter with multiple STDs, her cocaine and alcohol habits, and her unabashed love for a (ahem) well-endowed man. I found her writing so incredibly, um, stimulating because I could tell it was real, and naturally - as a sexually adventurous person - I related to it. I saw something of myself in her, and I had tremendous respect for her balls at putting it all out there. She is also how I got introduced to Rich over at Four Four, her best friend and another one of my blog idols who I had the pleasure of serendipitously encountering on the L train recently.


ANYWAY. Through a really random and mostly boring story centered on my online dating escapades, I got introduced to Nic Rad about six months ago. He's a Brooklyn-based painter whose most recent project, People Matter, is a collection of 100 paintings of Internet and media celebrities. As part of the social experiment aspect of his project, he's giving away for free for absolutely no money whatsoever all 100 paintings to whoever reserves them. And yep, you guessed it, he painted Tracie.

It's so fucking beautiful, isn't it? Naturally I sent him a friendly "remember meeee?" e-mail, to which he responded that he had indeed not forgotten me. He asked me for a couple paragraphs explaining why I wanted the painting of Tracie, and told me that my writing, as well as my blog link and Twitter info, etc. would appear on his site next to the painting. I did as he wished, and he wrote me back today officially reserving the painting for me.


So nearly two years after I discovered her, Tracie will hang in my house. My life tends to work in these incredible serendipitous cycles. Nic's show opens this weekend, so if any of you are in the New York area, go to Rare Gallery on Saturday night. I'll be there trying not to fondle my new - and first legitimate - art possession.

Christmas in La Guardia

As you all know, I flew home for Crimma Friday evening. The halls of my choice New York airport, La Guardia, were definitely decked with boughs of holly and wreaths and all kinds of spirited stuff, but the best Crimma decorations are always the most unexpected. Such as.

The fact that they had to pay someone to design these signs, then pay someone else to print said signs, and then pay yet another person to place them in standing placard holders randomly dispersed throughout the security checkpoint lines - all these things amaze me*.

Santa himself, natch. Bag full o' gifts (possibly) included.

*Almost as much as it does that they feel they have a very legitimate need to produce these signs

A little Christmas (fl)air goes a long way

Christmas is blowing up on my street*, y'all. All my neighbors seem to be very in the Christmas mood - there are lights and wreaths and tinsel decorations everywhere. As I was leaving my apartment one night this weekend, I noticed a popular recurring theme: Christmas balloons. You know, those really big decorations that are kept inflated by a big fan and backlit by some magical Heavenly mechanism. They are the height of tackiness, so naturally I love them. And apparently my neighbors do too, because at least four brownstones on my street currently have big Christmas balloons in front of them.

First on the tour de balloons: Santa riding a rocking horse. Naturally. And yes, it was rocking back and forth, I assume powered by an oscillating fan.

Next, a Santa whose body apparently disappeared inside his beard**. I assume he went all Atkins on us, then became aggressively hungry due to lack of carbs and ate himself. This is my favorite. (Shhh, don't tell the others.)

Third, a polar bear family!  Here, we see a Papa polar bear, a baby polar bear and... Snoopy? Whatevz. There are no rules in the wondrous world of Christmas balloons.

And finally, we come to Santa riding a polar bear. It makes a nice homage to balloons one and three, I think, while still managing to maintain its own sense of individuality.

All of this reminds me of freshman year of college. C and I were dorm neighbors, and for  Christmas we went in together on a balloon snowman to put outside our rooms. We plugged him up and placed him between our two doors, and the fan barely worked - we adopted him from Wal-Mart - so he just kept deflating and toppling over. We would come home and there he would be, face flat on the floor, arms splayed to the sides - nothing but a former version of his puffy snowman self. It became a running joke for several years, our sad little balloon snowman.

This year, I could not afford a sad balloon snowman, but I did purchase some Christmassy stuff and decorate my room. Below is my contribution.

It's a real (albeit dwarf) tree! It smells so good. In New York, people sell Christmas trees on the sidewalks. You'll be walking along- I got mine in Harlem, of course - and all of a sudden you'll find yourself surrounded by trees, in a delicious-smelling Christmas forest. It's amazing. I got some baby ornaments for my baby tree and topped it with a flower pin that I normally wear as an accessory with dresses; the "Meghan Dr." sign is a cheesy souvenir I got from the Empire State Building when my parents visited back in October. (It's really hard for me to find name-based souvenirs because they always spell it "Megan" or "Meagan" or something equally abysmal, so I tend to snatch things up when I see it spelled correctly.)

The greeting card is from my dentist. I guess he sent it because he felt bad for making me miss the Rockefeller tree lighting; it only makes sense for me to make him an integral part of my own personal one.

Happy holidays, world.

*Quite literally, and yes, pun completely intended
**This might also be a snowman

Santa Claus is comin' to... train!

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago I made the statement (and I quote): I fully expect to see Santa on the subway before the month is over. If I don't, I will be seriously disappointed. 

I guess the blogods were listening.

I saw not one but four Santas trolling the NYC subways. I could unfortunately only get a photo of them from behind (TWSS) because my friend J and I had to walk the other direction to make our transfer. Well, that, and Santas move fast. During our walk she said, "Isn't today SantaCon or something like that? All these people dress as Santa and do a pub crawl."

1. Stop acting like these four people I saw in the subway weren't the real Santa. I don't appreciate being lied to.
2. New York is fucking awesome.

(30) Rock around the Christmas tree

As I mentioned yesterday, I finally made it to the tree at Rockefeller Center last week. Like good little capitalists, my friends and I partook of Starbucks hot chocolates, coffees and peppermint mochas - guess which one's mine - then bopped on over to the tree, where we saw lots of adorable bundled up babies (awwww!!!!1), couples in love (shmeh) and a healthy number of very blatant B&Ts (double shmeh). It was a beautiful, beautiful thing.












































I'm in red. My friend Z is the only boy, and the other two are B and J, the latter of whom took the bottom photo. (BTW, she's a pretty brilliant photographer.) We all went to college together. Just a group uh good ol' Suhhhthuhnuhs in the big citay.

Here's some more Christmas-y photos, for your enjoyment, taken with my busted ass iPhone. Please forgive the somewhat lackluster quality.

The Rock tree, from further (farther?) away.





















And up close. Yeah, I totally upskirted the Rock tree. I don't feel bad about it.





















Some trees along the side of the Rock ice skating rink. So pretty.





















Radio City Music Hall with some Crimma lights across the skreet. PS, This is where I will see Gaga in just over a month (!!!!!!!!)
















The same lights, and a bunch of cabs. Pretty typique.
















Back at the beginning of November, I wrote a post saying that if I ever found a place more beautiful than Manhattan in the fall, I would have to move there immediately. Well, I found it. It's Manhattan in December. And I already live here. Life win.

Churches are (not so) secretly my favorite places in Manhattan

I love to sing. I'm sort of notorious amongst my group of friends for singing a lot, and not particularly well. They love to exaggerate how badly I sing, but really I think I have a nice voice and I can carry a tune; it's just that most of the time - and actually, this is true in most areas of my life - I don't really recognize my own limits. I have been known to go for the high note in Mariah Carey's version of O Holy Night, or in that one Minnie Riperton song. You know the one.

Fortunately for me - and somewhat unfortunately for them - I don't really care if they like it or not, because I love singing and I don't plan on stopping. And Christmas - which I have recently dubbed "Crimma" in honor of my love for all things linguistically ludicrous - is the best time of year to sing. In Manhattan especially, Crimma music is everywhere. In Bryant Park at the ice skating rink, in Rockefeller Center near the tree - which, yes, I finally went to see! - and, most appropriately, inside churches all over the city.

It might be important to point something out here. Some of you might be surprised that, although I grew up in Alabama, in the heart of America's Bible Belt, I was not raised in a Christian or religious household. My mom purposefully raised me religion-less, telling me once that she grew up in a really strict religious household where she was not allowed to attend high school dances because it was not considered appropriate, and that she did not want me to come of age in a similar environment. So she just omitted that part of my up-bringing, instead leaving it up to me to choose my own religion. So, basically my mom was a big hippie. And I couldn't love her more for it.

As a result of all this, churches have never really been my thing. Growing up, if I ever went to church for a funeral or a wedding or just to go with my grandparents or something, I felt awkward. The ceremony of it always made me uncomfortable. People always seemed so stiff and dark to me, and the churches themselves seemed sterile. When I heard authority figures speak about God and Jesus and Hell and such, I was never moved by it because they never spoke of it with any movement. Until I got to New York, I always felt this way about churches. Then I visited St. John's.

St. John's is the largest all-stone cathedral in the world. This is made all the more amazing by the fact that its home is pretty much square in the middle of Manhattan, a tiny, bizarre island where people pay $1,000 to live in a space the size of most people's bedrooms. I visited St. John's on my first trip to the city, back in 2004, and I fell in love with it immediately. I've been back several times since then, and to this day I still think of it as my quiet place of peace in a hectic city that never sleeps and never shuts the fuck up. I also think of it as my gateway church.

Were it not for St. John's, I may have never visited the church of St. Paul the Apostle, which is where I found myself this past Saturday night, listening to the Fordham University Choir and Women's Choir sing Christmas songs. (See, this is when I get to my main point, about loving singing, yes?) The church itself was more contemporary than St. John's, a lot smaller and not nearly as beautiful. But the acoustics were amazing and when the lights dimmed and the choir members' voices grew from nothingness to a low vibrating hum to full-on singing, my hairs stood up on end and tears welled in my eyes. That's the thing about beautiful music - it transcends religious beliefs and indiscriminately connects all people to the source of life.

As I was letting the music seep into my skin, I was reminded of my childhood experiences in churches because as I looked around, I realized that most of the people in the audience seemed very stiff. We were in a Catholic church - me and my hodgepodge group of fellow non-religious slash Jewish friends - and we were listening to a Catholic choir singing songs about Jesus. Now, I would think that most of the people listening would also be Christians themselves, and should logically be more moved than I was by what they were hearing. And yet, everyone was - mostly, except for when the program directed that we should sing along - perfectly still and quiet as the choir proceeded through familiar, triumphant songs like Ding Dong! Merrily on High!, For Unto Us a Child is Born, and O Come All Ye Faithful.

Well, not me. I sang under my breath (or louder, LBO) anytime I knew the tune or the words. Once my friend J shot me a look that said, "OMG you cannot hit that note please stop you're hurting me," which was of course followed by me hitting her with my program and us both laughing inappropriately. We actually whisper-chattered and laughed a lot during the show - not to a level that would bother others I don't think, and not disrespectfully - but just enough to make me realize that this is what life is about. Laughter, beauty and people you love.

When the pastor got up to make the invocation, in the middle of the concert, he asked us all to bow our heads and pray. Usually I just ignore this and stare straight ahead, thinking about whatever seems important at the time. But this time, I bowed, and as he spoke of Jesus and faith and religion, I thought of the universe, love and family. While he asked Jesus to help rid the world of hunger, war and sadness, I asked the universe to help me keep my heart open, to show me how to love people as much as I possibly can and to have faith that things do work out for the best. And when he thanked Jesus for the blessings of our lives, I thanked the universe for the blessings in mine.

So I will keep singing, keep loving and keep seeing - or hearing - the beauty in things. Because to live any other way is, dare I say, sacrilegious*.

*You would think that this word is spelled "sacreligious," but in fact it is not. I looked it up. How bizarre.

The most wonderful time of the year, in the most wonderful place in the world

I would be tragically remiss if I didn't write a post (or several, LBO) about how amazing Christmas in New York is. First of all, Christmas is the culmination of my favorite time of year - it's like the cherry on top of a sundae made of gorgeous fall leaves, crisp weather, Halloween and Thanksgiving - and I've always had a childlike love for all the sparkly things that tend to explode at this time of year. And as far as sparkly Christmas decorations go, New York definitely has the sparkliest. I mean, there's a reason hundreds of Christmas movies have been set in the city; because when you walk around New York in December, you actually feel like you're in one.

Sadly, I haven't had a chance to do a whole lot of Christmas stuff yet. J, Z and I went to the Bryant Park ice skating rink the other night, drank $5 hot chocolate and perused the Christmas kiosks they have set up around the perimeter of the rink. Last night was the lighting of the tree at Rockefeller Center, which I would have loved to see, but unfortunately I was at the dentist getting a filling. Yeah, epic planning fail.

The thing about New York is that even if you don't make an effort to do certain things, sometimes replacement things find their way to you. Last night, on the train home from the dentist, numbed and mourning the loss of the tree lighting experience, I looked to my right and saw this.






















That's right! A Christmas tree on the 6 train! This is how people in New York transport their Xmas trees. In the South, it's custom to tie that puppy to the top of your oversized SUV, but in the city, it's a much more eco-friendly process. I was so excited that I got up and took a photo of him from the other side. Oh yeah, I did.






















I don't know why it made me so happy. I guess because I just imagined this guy lugging the tree home to his family, his kids proceeding to jump up and down with pure joy and excitement and all that amazing stuff that comes with being a child at Christmas, and then the whole family spending their evening decorating it, listening to Christmas songs and singing along and talking about what Santa would bring this year.

Speaking of, I fully expect to see Santa on the subway before the month is over. If I don't, I will be seriously disappointed.