I have two very different things to report today.  First has to do with the happiest place on Earth, Kenneth Cole.  I stopped in briefly yesterday on my way home to cheer myself up since H & M crushed my soul.  I don’t even want to discuss their sizing.  What did I notice on the sale shelf?  The shoes.  I did a double take.  Could they really be on sale?  Oh snap they are, but yesterday was not the day for me to try them on, no I would wait.

So today post work I headed to my favorite Kenneth Cole and tried them on.  The only had 8s.  They were too small.  I was a little gutted, but thought, hey there are 4 other locations.  I started calling around.  The Grand Central had them in 8.5.  I was off.  The fit perfectly and I was going to buy them.  At the register they rang up and surprise they were $30 cheaper than I thought they’d be.  Score.

I had my shoes and was off to the apartment.  I got a place to sit on the subway and read my book.  I walked home on 110 and then down 2nd Ave.  As I got to the corner of 108 I say it was blocked off with police tape and there were several cars.

I was bopping along to Cold War Kids and didn’t bother to stop to ask why the corner was taped off, I just walked around.  I glanced over and saw, wait is that blood?  That’s a lot of blood if that’s blood.  That could totally be juice from the trash bags.  Why are there trash bags in the street?  The splatter goes to the trash bags, it could totally be trash juice.  That’s not trash juice.  It’s blood.

I bet the hipsters got into it over who is cooler.  Oh wait, that’s just what I hope happened.  I know it was probably some of the thugs or drug dealers going to town.  I’ll check the blotter in the morning, because face it: this neighborhood never comes up in the breaking news section.

I guess I’ll be cutting way down on the drinking & coming home messed up.  Sure I can have one more, but it means that you are now responsible for my safety/I’m sleeping at yours.

Yesterday was the day of major travel.  Amanda & Caleb needed to go to the market so we headed to the Bronx.  We went to Little Italy in the Bronx.  Have you been?  It is so much more than the one in Mahattan.  The market was amazing.  Everything fresh and looked amazing.  We were following around a group of firemen who must have been shopping for dinner.  Amanda & Caleb got all sorts of tasty goods and we feasted on cannoli & coffee.

We then headed back to Manhattan to drop off the food at the apartment where they stayed.  Housing swaps are awesome FYI.  We chilled for a little bit and Amanda changed as we had both inadventently sat in wet paint.  Signs people.  Signs!

Then it was off to Williamsburg for pizza. We hit up Fratellis for vodka sauce & spinach pizza and then walked Bedford counting the instances of skinny jeans.  We finished the evening with drinks at Matchless and headed back to Harlem.

All and all a good day.

Amanda & Caleb are in town.  We hit up the Mets game tonight to see the new stadium and enjoy America’s favorite past time (Yankees were away).  We ended up with pretty freaking awesome seats and had a great time.  During the train ride back to Manhattan I ended up next to the kids from Boiler Room.

That’s just a movie you say.  Those people aren’t real you say.  I beg to differ.  I stood on a train and listened to how one of these gentlemen (no older than 24) has become a light weight with consuming 6 beers and 1 cocktail and being drunk!  Then a 10 conversation about the last time in Vegas followed by a discussion about when they were going to hit up AC.  All the while one of them is covered in what looks like spaghetti sauce and making references to fantasy baseball and internships.  The part that sealed the deal for me was when one of them stated, oh when I take the CPA next month I’ll blah blah blah.  They were not going out tonight but rather returning to Long Island or Connecticut or Westchester or whereever they needed to go.

One of my birthday gifts happened to be a gift certificate from a day spa.  This, of course means massage.  I was hoping to have a great massage that the one in Miami or at least a very relaxing one like the one in Thomasville.  You know what I got?  Well I’ll tell you.  I got a rub down.  I don’t know if it even qualifies as an actual massage.  I feel like the guy just stroked my skin for an hour.   It was sort of like a hug with oil.  I’m not sure how I feel about it.

This weeks topic of conversation is hugs. Do you hug? What are the rules for hugging? Do you hug some friends, but not others? Are you an active hugger-do you initiate? Are you receptive to hugs? Is there a hugging curve?

This topic came up because I was hugged unexpectantly.  There are certain relationships that hugs would be left out of, at least I thought so.  This particular instance is the working relationship.  Yes, of course I hugged back when faced with the hug, but it caught me off guard.  I don’t hug my boss or co-workers, yet a vendor hugged me.

At first I thought perhaps it was a generational thing, but then I was reminded that many people of different generations also hug.  Some relationships are just hugging ones.  So really, do you have any thoughts?

Friday was the Dead Milkmen Show.  Yes, the very show that was 15 years in the making for me.  Walking by the Bottleneck and overhearing the set doesn’t quite count, though we I tell it I say I was there.

After wrapping up the filming for my company industrial I had a kickin sunburn and was a bit cranky.  But, it was Milkmen night so I rallied and headed to Greenpoint.  They were playing at the Warsaw.  This means that there was only one type of beer available: Zywiec.

Since I arrived crazy early I got a beer and picked out my spot along the wall to people watch.  Slowly the place filled up with a range of people, but most of them were wearing Chuck Taylors and vintage clothing.  There were a couple of kids with mohawks and a couple of hard-looking punks.  I felt it was if time had stopped in 1994 for these people.

The opening act was GANG.  You know I like anyone who references the Pluto incident in song.  Plus they had coordinated dance moves.

Next up was Corn Mo.  These guys were amazing.  It was probably due to the fact that the drummer was the result of an alternate reality  were UF Matt is a rock star. 

This photo isn’t from the show I saw, but it is  one of the better ones featuring the drummer or Rock Style Matt.

Then it was Milkmen time.  There was a lot of this:

And some of this:

Most importantly there was a giant pit (which I stayed out of) and then a bunch of people who were having a great time (which I was part of).

I ended the night at d.b.a. with a Brooklyn Lager and catching up with friends.

I caught the Flight of the Conchords tonight. It was just like jury duty; I spent the entire time giggling in the back.
I also got the Caracles the requested t-shirt. Apparently they ran out in her neck of the woods.

As you may have noticed there really haven’t been any updates in the past few months.  Did I run of out stuff to say?  Was I attacked by a zombie?  Did it turn out that I’m not that good of ninja?  No.  Stupid wordpress got all mad at me and wouldn’t let me log in.  I don’t know what was up with that, but today, glorious Jury Duty day it let me in.

I have so much to say and not enough wit to cover it all.

Today I went down to magical court land to complete my civic duty.  I had jury duty for the county.  I got up early, arrived early, and sat.  I sat and sat and then a hottie sat next to me.  The head of the jury room gave a little speech that was entertaining.  The hottie next to me and I started joking about, it is jury duty after all.  We got a break for a snack; I headed straight to the cafeteria for a bagel where I ran into the hottie.

One coffee and bagel later I was back in the jury room next to someone else.  The hottie got called first.  Then they started calling people for a supreme court case.  They kept calling and calling and calling.  I was called.  The guy next to me was called.  A guy who really looked like he was in the Russian mob was called.  All told, 75 people were called.

We went up to the 16th floor.  I continued to talk to my Jury Buddy.  In fact we hung out all day.  We sat in the back and snickered about the answers that everyone was giving.  It was great fun.  Around 3pm we were sent back to the jury holding room because they had picked the jury and wouldn’t you know it, I wasn’t even called to answer some questions in a narrative form.

The jury officer guy decided to send us all home and that concluded my jury duty.

Moral of the story sit in back and have fun because it’s a day off work.  And you never know where you’ll meet a new friend.  Jury Buddy & I are totally getting BBQ soon.