I’m always amazed at how small NYC really is. Why is it that you’re a magnet to those you DON’T want to run into?

Last night, I left the office later than I had hoped to meet up with some friends downtown and I hurried off to the subway.

While waiting for the 6 at 68th, I decided that the only way to make it on time to Christopher and Bleeker would be to catch the 1 train. So, I took the 6 to 59th, the R to 42nd, and walked to the 1/2/3 platform downtown.

The platform was PACKED. I could barely move, but I noticed that someone was peeking over the crowd looking at me. I look up and there he was, the guy I JUST sent an email to last week saying that I didn’t want him contacting me anymore. What dumb luck.

I’ve known this guy for a LONG time. We used to work together and he always joked about us dating some day. For years, he’d call just to ask if I had a boyfriend. My answer was ALWAYS yes – no matter what, and the conversation quickly ended. I never wanted him to think that he had a chance. Anyway, he, like many others found out that the man I had plans to spend the rest of my life with passed away last July. Seems that he took this as a window of opportunity and tracked me down. That’s just so tacky and disrespectful. Besides, why would you want to date someone that just lost the love of her life? It’s one thing if you don’t know me, but if you do, you should be smart enough to stay away.

So, this guy started calling my cell, found out my work number (which I did NOT give him – big mistake on his part) and started calling me there, then he started sending emails – all to invite me out for drinks, brunch, whatever. This is my punishment for keeping the same cell # and email address. Finally, one day when he called, I lost it and told him that I HATE being tracked down – especially at work – and asked him to stop calling. He still did here and there, but I just didn’t pick up. Last week, I got another email inviting me out. I replied and simply stated that his persistence and his line crossing left a very bad taste in my mouth and I couldn’t bring myself to see him… ever.

That seemed to work. But of course, I just HAD to run into him last night. I thought about running the other way but I couldn’t, so as I passed him, he stopped me and said hello. It was so awkward. He mentioned the email and I just thanked him for understanding my position and walked away.
I got another email last night telling me that he was happy to run into me and looked forward to talking to me some day.
JEEZ!

If I had JUST left on time…

As some of you may know, the Lunar New Year is this weekend, January 29, to be exact, and there is much fun to be had.

This Friday and Saturday celebrations will be kicked off with Chinatown’s 3rd Annual Lunar New Year Flower Market. Here you can buy “auspicious” flowers such as orange and plum blossoms, narcissus, and chrysanthemums, which are supposed to bring prosperity. According to the Museum of Chinese in the Americas website, there will also be performances and artist demonstrations.

On Sunday there’ll be a Firecracker Ceremony – firecrackers like those strings of little red ones that make you go deaf and cover the streets in bits of red paper – and then a “culture festival.” I’m not sure what the culture festival will be. I’ll let you know what I find out.

Then finally next Sunday, February 5, is the 7th Annual Chinatown Lunar New Year Parade. Lunar New Year parades usually kick ass, with people in all kinds of costumes, lion dancers, and of course the dragon.

And on top of all of that, according to Time Out New York, this year, in honor of the Year of the Dog, the parade will include a march of the pooches. People will be parading their dogs dressed up in traditional Chinese costumes, which you can purchase at Pearl of the Orient, in case you were wondering. Oh yeah, and some dogs will be available for adoption as well.

Lastly, if you want to know what sign you are, click here. Happy Dog Year to all you pups out there!

Saw a Segway on 3rd Avenue tonight. Was I wrong to hope the guy would get into an accident? I didn’t think people actually used these things, or could possibly afford them. I can only guess that they are horrifically expensive cuz I can’t find any prices on the website, where they are obnoxiously referred to HTs, or Human Transporters.

Either way I hate them. I want to create a giant pile of them, along with Hummers and ugg boots, and set them aflame.

If you saw a gal who looks a lot like me heading down 5th Ave to 14th street at around 6 pm, I assure you there is no need for concern. Sure I was bobbing and weaving, tripping over everything, bumping into people and/or dogs, randomly stopping at seemingly inopportune times and ogling ever decently lit object like it was a flying saucer, but I can assure you I am fine. I am neither on drugs (right now) or crazy (well maybe just a bit). I just forgot how damn annoying those pupil dilating drops are. Now I remember why I stopped going to the doctor to get my eyes checked out.

But I think this is the first time I have this done and walked down a populated and well lit street right afterwards. That stretch of 5th is particularly bright, something I’ve never noticed before until every street lamp and every chain store sign was almost literally searing my retinas, emitting this eerie, otherworldly glow. It’s something I think every native New Yorker should see at least once. Maybe this is how tourists feel, overwhelmed and drugged by all the glowing white light, why they lose their orientation and can’t seem to walk straight. Or maybe there was something else in those drops. Either way it’s nice to be able to see again.

With the New Year comes New Year resolutions, and at the top of that list for fat America is to get healthy, get fit, lose weight, and stop being so goddamned fat.

So we’re bombarded with commercials about how we can do this in the easiest, laziest way possible: by popping a pill. There’s Relacore, which is all about “reducing stress” and very specifically “stress-related abdominal fat.” Of course there’s TrimSpa, famously (or infamously?) endorsed by Anna Nicole “TrimSpa Baby!” aka “Like My Body?” aka “Trainwreck in Slo Mo” Smith.

And then my favorite, Zantrex, not because I have a favorite diet pill but because the commercial is like softcore porn with some woman walking towards the camera in black lingerie and then a dancing silhouette against a colorful backdrop that bears a striking resemblance to how the Gotham Uncovered ads used to be.

Then there’s Bally’s. Bally’s Bally’s Bally’s. Going to the gym is better than popping pills, but Bally’s really does suck. (The Bally’s Sucks website is gone now due to trademark infringement – corporate bastards!) When I joined years ago, they basically LIED and said I could quit anytime and didn’t inform me that I was in fact signing a three-year contract. (Shoulda read the fine print, I know, but I was so trusting back then.) So I lied back and said that I had moved more than 25 miles away from the nearest Bally’s – their weird rule – and that I’d tell everyone I knew what lying, conniving jerks they were if they didn’t cancel my membership. They did, but I told eveyrone anyway.

Anyhoo, now that I’m off that only tenuously related tirade, do you know want to know what the trick is to losing weight? You wanna know the big secret? Hold onto your hats now. Are you sitting down?
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I spent the first seventeen minutes of last night’s ‘24’ wooing my DVR to work. (You catch more shows with honey right?) So there I was pouring my sweet sweet verbal honey all over my DVR. “Please don’t do this to me. You know how much I love you.” No response. The cold shoulder. “If I restart you, then you will lose all your memory of our time together,” I pleaded. “And I don’t want that to happen anymore than you do.” She turned and flipped her cords at my face. “You green-eyed, eight-dollars-a-month-more whore!” With that said, I quickly (re)booted her ass. But she wouldn’t turn over. I was stymied. “You won,” I panted in defeat, “You won. I give up”

I called Time Warner Customer Support and found myself on the other end of a most agreeable woman. “I don’t know what to do,” I told her, sweating and dispirited. “Am I gonna have to watch regular TV, ya know, like a regular person?” I exclaimed (more genuinely than I would like to admit). She was empathetically empathetic. “Oh dear do I understand! It happened to me once (hearty chuckle) and I was soo upset. We’ll have to replace your box. Let’s find you the earliest appointment possible.” I got my appointment notice and thanked her for her commitment and her compassion in these troubled times of mine.

So I watched the rest of ‘24’ and its accompanying commercials like a savage, then spent the remainder of the evening wondering aloud why I don’t have any friends.

Never ever attempt to drive above 5 mph in a parking lot anywhere in Queens or Long Island or any suburban area parking lot on a weekday. You have a bunch of Sunday drivers on their cell phones, in their cadillacs, with their blind-as-bat eyeglasses not paying attention to anything but their own existence. They not only disregard the size of their cars, but they only acknowledge the area from their backside to their front. This, to them, is their only visible area.

I almost crashed into 3 cars just now and had to warn everyone not to drive in a parking lot at above 5 mph on a weekday. These old farts and rich wives are lethal!

I’m sorry for making fun of you before I moved away. I used to hate the Bedford stop and all its arty hipsters, and I tried to avoid this neighborhood altogether. But maybe living somewhere else for a while changed me. (Or maybe we’ve both changed a little?)

I hope you’ll forgive me for all those years of mocking, because now I’m so in love with you it’s silly. I thought I’d miss tacos when I left LA, but you have great tacos and great bagels and pizza and sushi and coffee and wine, and it’s all on the short walk between my apartment and the subway. It’s not just the food, though! I love the buckets of flowers outside my deli, and the way all the buildings look against the gray winter sky, and I love that the bar around the corner sometimes serves hot cider with rum. I love the little clothing store where everything I tried on actually fit. I love my friendly landlord and my big apartment and its slanty floor.

I don’t know what I was thinking a few years ago, hating the hipsters. Now, I want to hug them all. This afternoon the arty/indie boys were cuter than ever, walking to the subway in their hoodies in the rain. In my iPod-fueled daydreams they’re checking me out, too, and they’re *this* close to inviting me to their band’s next show.

If someone asked me to dream up the best possible place in the world to live, I think it would sound exactly like this. Oh, Williamsburg!! I have such a crush on you! And I really hope it lasts, because I signed a two-year lease.

Spent our bizarre spring-like Saturday in Prospect Park playing Ultimate Frisbee with friends, while wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Shorts and a t-shirt! In January! I kept getting that spring-fevery feeling and having to remind myself that it is, in fact, winter. One year ago, we were buried in a blizzard. Crazy.

It’s really cool right now to say you like Prospect Park better than Central Park. I guess because all the cool kids live in Brooklyn now. (Dammit, I guess I moved back to Manhattan just before the wave hit.) Ah well. I love Prospect Park. But I love Central Park, too. I would say I love them both in different ways and for different things. Like a parent with two children. Or something.

Prospect Park is nice, in that its wide open green spaces are often less crowded than those in Central Park. Makes for a better sports-playing environment, for sure. But as a runner, I have to say that Central Park is a way better place to run. There’s really no comparison. Longer roads, more variation in terrain, better tracks, paths, etc. It’s a better place for bikers (sorry, cyclists) as well. Hands down.

In terms of activity, well, that’s harder to call. They both have their pluses and minuses. And I find myself trekking out to Brooklyn for things that they don’t do in Central Park—different kinds of music and/or theater performances, for instance. But I find myself spending just as much time in Central Park, whether for music, films, races, etc. They both are “well-programmed” in terms of fun year-round activities.

So for me, it’s a toss up. Though it may not be cool to say so.

[image from the Central Park Conservancy website]

Normally I’m fast walker. I spend a lot of time darting around slow movers like Chicken Little trying to make it to school on time. Of course some slow movers can’t help it, and if there’s room for me to get around you, move backwards in time for all I care. But sometimes I just want to kill them all.

This weekend though the tables were turned. I was walking with my friend who was pushing her kid in a stroller so of course we were slow. On top of that we had both just taken some superstrong cold medicine and so were basically the dawn of the living dead. As we waited for the light to change on 72nd and 3rd, a young woman whizzed around us, muttering, “Jesus Christ!”

Okay. This woman could have easily been me. I HATE being caught behind slow movers, and especially for some reason slow movers with baby carriages, though baby carriages have as much right to be out there as I do. I also hate getting caught behind people who insist on walking 3 or 4 across, and who continue to walk 3 or 4 across, even at a narrow part of the sidewalk (ie, around construction) instead falling behind one another, so that I have to press myself against the wall to let them by.

I hate walking behind people distracted by their cell phone or their book or something shiny so that they veer all around the sidewalk as I’m trying to get by. I hate people who back up – BACK UP! – into a crowded sidewalk without even looking, and then give me a, “Drop dead, bitch” look when I say heads up. And don’t even get me started on umbrellas. Look, lady, if I raise my umbrella as I approach you, do you really think it’s a good idea fo you to raise yours too? What do you expect me to do now, fly?

So this is what I thought about as the woman passed us, muttering her annoyed expletive, and what kept me from muttering back, “So move around us, bitch!” And it’s what I’ll think of the next time I’m caught behind some slow movers, with or without a baby carriage.

Of course I say that now. If you should ever see on the UES several cops pinning down a screaming Asian woman, that might be me having gone too far with my wrath against the slow movers.