Christmas in New York is like Christmas other places. Just dirtier and with a lot more people.

Oh, and it has a bigger tree.

Christmas in New York? Oh hells yes.

Archie and I are having a quiet little Christmas here in the city. We've put together a Christmassy little living room complete with handmade knit stockings, baked (and eaten) a lot of cookies and cuddled up to watch several Christmas favorites like Celebrity Rehab and The Biggest Loser.

We're meeting some friends tonight for Christmas Eve dinner and then going to midnight mass here. I'm having a blast celebrating with my honeybunch.

Oh, wait, what? You wanted to see our cute faces? Ok, fine.

 

It's hard being this good looking but we make it work.

 Merry Christmas to all!

Christmas tress, glitter and other such nonsense.

Buying a Christmas tree in New York City is quite the experience, I tell you what. The steps are thus:

1. Walk by the Christmas tree place a dozen times over the course of a week. Sniff the air in an unseemly manner as you pass. Hum "Jingle Bells."

2. Take a walk with the boyfriend. Point to the tree and declare it the "cutest tree ever grown!"

3. Once tree is purchased and wrapped, watch boyfriend heft said tree upon his shoulder and set off toward the apartment. Melt a little because, okay, does anyone else have the lumberjack fantasy just a little? I mean, seriously. The man is carrying a tree. How can you not?

4. Prance after him and attempt to take his picture but, by george, he keeps turning his head away from the camera. Continue to prance down the street and prattle away about silly Christmasy things. Sing "Jingle Bells" for good measure.

Congratulations! Now you have a real New York City Christmas tree!

When I moved here from Utah, I got rid of most of my Christmas decorations and ornaments so the boy and I decided to make some for the tree. A batch of salt dough, a little paint and a lot of glitter later we had some fine baubles for the tree. 

And that's what's been going on here. Just kicking it with the two cutest guys on God's green earth.

City Shoes (and feet!)

These are the shoes that took me all the way to Battery Park one day and plopped me right in the sunshine so I could think about things. Because the combination of sunshine and bodies of water is practically an invitation to be pensive, is it not? These shoes were the shoes for my pensive day.

These are the shoes that took me to the Upper West Side for a job interview and then clicked happily down 65th Street to a bench on Columbus Avenue where I sat and watched the traffic and hoped. These were the shoes for my hopeful day.

And these are my unshod feet that paced the bedroom in Morningside Heights while I called and accepted the job offer. And then these feet waltzed me over to the window where I looked out at the city and smiled. Because, gosh, I've got a fancy job and a fancy apartment and a fancy boyfriend--you'd smile too, I bet.


So that's where we are. I'm slowly finding my place here in this big, crazy city. But, you know what, things are looking pretty good.

    

This is called having an awesome life.

Very sorry for telling you a little bit of a life-changing love story and then dropping off the planet for two entire weeks.

It's just that I've been busy being terribly happy and all. 

Saying Goodbye

The final walk though the house was hardest.

The goodbyes weren't bad. A few tears shed, some long hugs, but they weren't too bad. The last day of work was okay too. Even the packing was fine. Taking all my things off the walls wasn't fun, I'll admit. Vast, lonely, blue walls were left where colorful, happy pictures once hung. But, surprisingly, most of the process was okay. I even had a little fun with it as I called out "This is the last time I'll mop this floor!" and "This is the very last time I'll change the toilet paper roll in this house!" at various points during this last week.

But that walk through the emptied rooms was rough. The furniture gone, the walls empty, the floors freshly vacuumed. In the kitchen I smiled at the memories of that one night's citrus fight and all our house parties over the years. The basement reminded me of last Halloween's spontaneous mini-rave (complete with glow sticks!). I laughed at the smudge of blue paint on the ceiling of the bathroom from our late-night bathroom rejuvenation. The bedroom was last, and I paused as my hand hovered over the light switch and looked around the room one last time. So many nights spent here, so many blog posts typed as I sat cross-legged on the bed, so many phone calls made as I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling, so many mornings doing my hair for work, so many spontaneous dance parties, so many memories, so much happiness.

I pulled the front door shut and slid my key into the lock one final time. The lock clicked and I descended the steps to my car. As I pulled away from the house and watched it grow smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror, the tears fell freely. I wended out of the familiar neighborhood and noted how darling this little community is. Has it always been so lovely? But even as I mourn the end of one life, I know that this is no longer my home. My dear townhouse with so many memories isn't home anymore. My home is already with a couple of guys out in New York and I can't wait to get there.

The house on Ellerby stands waiting for new occupants and new memories. But once it held a silly girl with a head full of Bob Dylan songs and a heart full of hope who left that home and found a new one far away. In about five hours this girl's going to point her car east, step on the gas and never look back.

These are the important conversations you have to have when merging two lives, by the way.

me: So do you like toothpaste-paste or toothpaste-gel?

hot hot man of my dreams: Uh, what?

me: Like do you like the kind that's see-through jelly-type gel? Or the kind that's the thick pasty stuff?

hhmomd: I don't know. I use whatever. I couldn't tell you for sure. 

me: Oh....because I only use the pasty kind.

hhmomd: Ok.

me: The gel kind is gross.

hhmomd: Ok.

me: It's kind of a big deal for me.

hhmomd: Ok.

me: Like, if the paste kind is all gone and I have to use the gel kind, it's....awful. Just...awful.

hhmomd: We can have separate toothpastes*, Kim.

me: Yeah, that might be good.



*Turns out he doesn't like people squeezing the tube in the middle! As if there's another way to do it.

This is a true story probably, I think.

So, you know when you make peanut butter toast for breakfast but you use leftover french toast from Sunday for the toast which you heated up in the microwave a little too long so when you put the peanut butter on, it melts and turns into peanut butter soup and you're running out the door so you don't have time to let it cool off and re-solidify so you go and you're driving with your knees as you're trying to get the toast in your mouth without smearing peanut butter soup all over your face and it's really drippy and you're afraid that it will drip on your shirt and it can't drip on your shirt because you have a meeting with your boss' boss and you can't go to a meeting with your boss' boss with peanut butter drips on your shirt so you get all panicked about the peanut butter and all its drippiness so you start to eat the peanut butter off the top to remove the danger but it's all melty so really what you have to do is lick off the melted peanut butter and you're still driving down 7th East at this point but thankfully you're at a stop light and a car pulls up next to you and the driver happens to glance over at you and sees you licking your peanut butter soup off your too-hot leftover french toast and you see them look at you and they see you see them look at you and suddenly it's all you can do not to roll down your window and shout "Ha! You see, I'm just licking off this peanut butter because it's all melty and I don't want it to drip on my shirt because I'm on my way to work and I'm a professional, after all, and it's not like I'm crazy or anything!" because you still have this insatiable need to explain to perfect strangers exactly why you act the way that you do because, deep down, you really just want everyone in the whole world to like you?


Well, I know how you feel. 

Sneaks

Boss's Day is next Monday so I'm sneaking around making plans for a surprise mini-party for my boss.

My last day of work is next Friday so my boss is sneaking around making plans for a surprise* going-away party for me.


And this is why we never get any work done: we're sneaking around making plans in a perpetual state of sneakiness.

---

*As in, it would be a surprise had she not asked me to make the invitations.

Is this is a kissing book?

This is the story of a boy and a girl.

This boy and this girl were dear friends. They spent some fun years together where they laughed a lot and kissed a little. They held hands and shared secrets and were happy.

But life happened as life often does and, well, that's kind of a long story. They kept in touch for a bit but—you know how these things go—after a while they didn't talk or see each other. But deep down in her heart, the girl missed her boy and she still loved him. And you know what else? That boy missed his girl, and loved her back.

A very long time went by and these two kept living and growing and loving other people. They had really happy times and very sad times. They became smarter and stronger and better people. But both of them knew something was missing in their hearts.

And then one day, quite unexpectedly, that boy reached out to his girl and said “Hi. We haven't talked in a while but I would like to be friends again. Also, I miss you.” And that girl, do you know what she did? She said “OH MY GOSH, I MISS YOU TOO SO MUCH AND YES! YES! I WANT TO BE FRIENDS AGAIN!” Because that girl is a little nutty, if I haven't mentioned that before.

And suddenly it was like all those years apart dissolved and they were young again, doing all sorts of laughing and kissing and sharing secrets. Pretty soon that girl realized she didn't just love that boy; she LOVED him. And the boy realized he LOVED that girl right back.

And, guess what! This story gets even better because that boy also has a beautiful, wonderful thing called a son. And that son, oh goodness, he is spectacular. That girl thought her whole heart was filled up with the boy she loved so much but then it turns out her heart grew and stretched and was big enough to fit that son right in. And she loves that son more than she ever knew she could. That boy and that son fill up the girl's heart with so much love she feels like she might burst sometimes because, wow, how is it possible to love people this much?

But that silly boy moved to one side of the country and that girl still lived on the other, and that is what they call “sucky.” That girl lives way too far from that boy and that son she loves so much. They all want to be together, that boy and that girl and that son, and make a little family filled with laughter and love and happiness and lots and lots of kissing.

So this is the part where that girl packs up her life into the trunk of her car and drives and drives until she gets to that boy. And that girl might feel a little sad for the life she's leaving behind but she's also so excited and scared and happy for the life she's going out there to get. And when she finally makes it way out there to that boy, she's going to grab him and kiss him right on the mouth.

And that boy will take his girl by the hand and they'll take that son and the three of them will go build a beautiful life together.

Chicken pot pie and other terribly important things.

I prepare my dinners in advance and portion them out into Tupperware containers for the week. Do you do that? When I get home from work, I pop one in the microwave and I’m set. It’s all very industrial. I even eat right out of the Tupperware because I have this thing about washing dishes and the thing is I don’t like to do it. 

Now, I would like to have chicken pot pie for dinner tonight. Not just any chicken pot pie. I want this chicken pot pie. In my mouth. Tonight.

But I can’t have chicken pot pie for dinner because I already have my Tupperware dinner ready for tonight and it is brown rice and steak and spinach. Brown rice and steak and spinach. But who would want brown rice and steak and spinach when you could have chicken pot pie, I ask you? I would guess nobody.

The thing is, guys, here is the thing: I cannot have chicken pot pie tonight. Not just because I already have brown rice and steak and spinach ready, but because chicken pot pie is about 85% pure butter. And that kind of butter-laden foodstuff has no place in a Tuesday night. Perhaps a Sunday (because do you guys watch what you eat on Sundays? I have always thought that Sunday calories don’t mean anything on account of it being a holy day and all. Please support, if you will.) and I just remembered that Sunday nights are the perfect nights to cook chicken pot pie and also my sister will be in town and I think that calls for a little buttery celebration. Now I am satisfied because I know I will have chicken pot pie soon even if tonight I will only have brown rice and steak and spinach.


And, while we’re on the subject, how good are pancakes? Someday, when I am a gazillionaire, I will hire someone to bring me fresh-off-the-griddle pancakes every hour, on the hour. Not that I will eat them every hour, mind you; I would just like to have the option.