Latest obsession:

I just had the Broccoli Cheddar and Mashed Potato soup from Hale and Hearty Soups (various locations in Manhattan)- amazing! I mean mashed potatoes in a soup?? Heaven in a bite. AND the best part is you can order online for delivery- so you don't have to speak to any of those counter idiots and you don't have to get up from your desk. Total bonus. I'd be the happiest person if everything in life could be ordered online.

Finishing up drinks:

Mary: I have to be up tomorrow.
Me: Yeah me too.
Mary: (confused) Really you do? What time?
Me: Oh no, not early. I just meant I do have to get up- at some point.
Mary: I hate you.

In the cab:

Brit: This cab smells like my ex.
Me: Gross. It smells like straight up B.O. in here!

On being Nina:

Where should I begin? It is now Tuesday and I had been drinking since last Wednesday. I've also been wearing the same outfit since Saturday with a couple of showers in between. I don't remember getting home Thursday night but clearly I made it home since I woke up in my bedroom (which also functions as a landfill) on Friday morning. I had an 11am appointment at H&R Block to get my taxes did- still laying in bed at 10:30am wondering how I could make the room stop spinning. I couldn't solve that issue so I called the Block at 10:48am with my raspy man voice to cancel. What a waste I am.

So fast forward to last night. I was home in Jersey visiting the woman who created me when my girlfriend C called to tell me she was in NYC. It's been too long since I've seen her, especially on my turf, so I hopped the next train back to NYC. We met at my bar for a few martinis and then headed to Johnny Utah's to show her the reason why I often wake up in the wrong city, get no sleep, taste like tequila, and basically resemble a crack whore without ever actually dabbling in the habit. Ah yes, well mission accomplished. We were just going to have "one blue moon" there and "show her the place" but a couple of hours (or a few minutes, I have no idea) later and we were confirmed drunkards. We made it back to the fancy Waldorf where her company had put her up and were seriously tipped over on the class scale. I stumbled into the elevator and one guy gave me the "Wow you're a hot mess" look and I nodded confirming that I am fully aware of what I mess I was and added a "Yeah, fuck you," with the finger. Then I got off the elevator and body checked some guy who was walking next to me in to the wall- just because I felt like it.

Back at the room- after drunk dialing her boyfriend and removing our pants (not sure why)- we decided to order $70 worth of room service (which only included 1 Cheesesteak and 1 pizza) and raided the bar. Ah the indulgence. By the way does anyone know just how terribly uncomfortable it is to sleep in a bed full of potato chip crumbs? Try eating an entire can of Pringles and then sleeping in the bed after. Those little crumbs pierce your legs and ass like shards of glass! I had a moment of delusion when I thought it would be a good idea to try to go back out but I took one look at myself in the mirror and thankfully could still see straight enough to see just how hid-e-odous I looked and that made me decide to stay put. While C wasn't the partner I had hoped to share a bed at the Waldorf with I sure do love staying in hotels. Until I woke up at 6am -my mouth feeling like I've just swallowed a fistful of sand- realizing I need to make it back to Hoboken for my rescheduled tax prep appointment at 10am. Why have I not learned my lesson to stop booking anything before my functioning hour of 1pm? But how was I to know I was going to go on yet another drinking binge on a Monday? Well, alas, and quite impressively, I made it to the appt and am getting a pretty nice return from The Man. Hollerrr!

Overheard at Wet Bar:

Guy to his friends: Yeah these bartenders aren't even that hot. By New York standards- they should be much hotter.
A minute later..
Bartender to me and Brit: Do you girls need a drink?
Me: No, we're just staring at you to figure out whether we think you're hot or not.

I've been discovered!

I get this line all the time: "Excuse me miss? Do you model? No? Wow, you really should. You're really beautiful." And no, I don't get this all the time because I'm actually beautiful enough to be a model. Guys really do believe that this line would work on a girl. Like I'm this girl who's always thought she was pretty but no one's ever really appreciated or noticed just how pretty I really am...that I'd be so flattered that someone thinks I could model, really model...Sorry buddy, I'm just not insecure enough for your lines.

The best part was this guy, Eddie, really took it to another level. Telling me he's a photographer and that I've really got something and that I'm so beautiful and that I should give him a call to set up a photo shoot with him and so on. (I'm stuck on the E train with him if you're wondering why I let this conversation go on for so long). So not only does he give me his number but he also writes a little note with an asterisk at the bottom: "Practice and count 200 poses in the mirror." He said if I did this I would "get it". I dunno- I got up to about 58 poses and gave up. I guess modeling is not in my future.

How do you like it?

Bald man: What are you drinking?
Me: A dirty martini.
Bald man: How dirty is it? Is it really dirty?
Me: It's filthy. Like my panties.

God's little jokes...

It always makes my day when I come across something like this...(A vitamin water pile-up at TONY)

The best compliment I've had in a long time:

"You have all the checks. When someone meets you it's like check check check check check check check."

I'm gonna make a t-shirt outta that.

On dating- Book nerd standards:

The article, It's Not You, It's Your Books, in the Times this Sunday talking about how people's choice in books could be a dating deal breaker was pretty on point.

From the article:
“Manhattan dating is a highly competitive, ruthlessly selective sport,” Augusten Burroughs, the author of “Running With Scissors” and other vivid memoirs, said. “Generally, if a guy had read a book in the last year, or ever, that was good enough.” The author recalled a date with one Michael, a “robust blond from Germany.” As he walked to meet him outside Dean & DeLuca, “I saw, to my horror, an artfully worn, older-than-me copy of ‘Proust’ by Samuel Beckett.” That, Burroughs claims, was a deal breaker. “If there existed a more hackneyed, achingly obvious method of telegraphing one’s education, literary standards and general intelligence, I couldn’t imagine it.”

I agree with Burroughs- if a guy reads he's definitely got my attention (so I guess my standards are pretty low at this point). So far, I haven't had book deal breakers- aside from guys who say, "Uh, I hate reading, it's so boring," or something along those lines. Barf. Why don't you just tell me you eat glue for fun and walk away.

Dear MTV:

I watched a rerun of True Life: I'm a Jersey Shore Girl this morning while eating and almost lost my breakfast as a result of watching your poorly researched and completely inaccurate depiction of a true "jersey shore girl." It should have been called "True Life: I'm a BENNY"! Or to be even more accurate, "True Life: I'm a stupid neon tube top- platform flip flop- shirts that say Drama Queen and Princess-too much eye makeup wearing, midriff bearing, fake tanning, acrylic nails, no class, slutty ass, fist pumping, flat ironing, summer house renting, think I'm hot cause I have a belly ring ho from NORTH JERSEY. Now that would be more accurate. Thank you, half-wits, for giving the real shore girls a bad name.

Overheard:

Coworker 1: I'm taking my lunch.
Coworker 2: What are you having?
Coworker 1: Sex.

The "All Sex, No Lunch Diet".

It's Official- I'm Crazy

This morning when I was walking to work I came to the realization I was talking to myself and had been for quite some time. I was even talking back to myself.
Me: What did I need to do today?
Me: Transcribe interview, call some stores, organize credit info...
Me: No, didn't you already do that?
Me: No, idiot, why would you think I already did that?
and so on...I had caught myself but then being the person who always has to have the last word- I needed to finish the conversation- even if it was with myself.

TMI?

A reblog from Julia Allison's reblog:

Guy: i might check out your blog
Lena: hmm. okay. can't stop you ;)
Guy: well, if you think i might get the wrong (or a skewed) idea of you by reading the blog, maybe i should stay away from it altogether.
Lena: thanks. if you can't help yourself, i'll forgive you. but i'd like for you get to know me first.
Guy: well, the important thing is that i understand conceptually what the blog(s) mean for your life.
Lena: haha conceptually? the blog means i smile and nod when perfect strangers ask me about my love life in public. it means i started having panic attacks over the holidays. it means every time my mother calls me, i am terrified she's found out. it also means i know for sure that i want to write, and that i know what it feels like to be able to really resonate with people, to make someone half a world away not feel alone because i expressed some feeling they couldn't put into words themselves. i think the most important thing is that i learned those who love me will continue to love me no matter what, but the blog will prevent a lot of people from ever getting to know me well enough to appreciate me beyond what's online. and i guess that's why i don't really want you to read it. yet.

I only found out about a month ago what TMI stood for (Too Much Information for those who are also not in the know) and that was only because someone was telling me that I was sharing TMI. I was surprised especially since I did not consider the story I was telling to be anything out of the ordinary. I tell many stories that start with, "One time...." or "Oh god, last night..." or "If you think that's bad, listen to this..."- without really thinking twice about it. It's what I do- I tell stories and being a narcissist, they're mostly about me. But also being a self-deprecating narcissist they're usually ridiculously embarrassing or incriminating stories about myself. Last year I started my blog that's pretty much about anything and everything. I typically don't give out my blog to people I've just met, especially people I'm dating, for the same reasons as Lena. People would pre-judge and draw conclusions about me. In this day and age when everyone can be googled there's no mystery anymore. Don't get me wrong,I'm guilty of it as well- I go straight home to google people after I meet them. It's just too tempting-like an unattended phone (ha), too easy- Especially how fast paced my life is- I don't have that much time, so sometimes when I meet someone I want all their stats in front of me to see if it's even worth my time. But the other end of this spectrum- it can be really nice to slowly get to know someone- to learn something new about them each time you hang out- as long as you're not finding out on the third date that they're married or a registered sex-offender.

Nobody wants to be pre-judged- you don't want someone finding out something about you-without knowing the story behind it. But in the end though, I wouldn't want someone who couldn't handle the details disclosed by my blog. I mean, if you stuck around you would eventually have to find out who the real me is anyway. I wouldn't want to have to pretend I'm something that I'm not. So here it is people, I'm fucking nuts- now love me.

Last night's dream- The Mousacre!

So in this dream, borderline nightmare, I was in my bedroom, a certified disaster zone, and these little teeny tiny pinky size brown mice would just scurry across the floor. And then another, and then another...So then I started stomping then out like you would a cockroach and I would have mouse guts all over my floor. But they kept coming. And then the mother of all rats came out, the size of a Chihuahua, and I tried to stomp it out like the baby mice, but it was too big. That's really it. A littleanti-climatic but definitely disturbing. I searched online dream dictionaries and nothing came up for mini mice invasion/mouse
massacre/attack of the dog sized rat. Any ideas?