NY, NY

I just got back from NYC early this morning, which was a good time.  I ate barbecue twice in the weekend to try new restaurants (Blue Smoke and Dinosaur).  Dinosaur has now taken the crown long held by Brother Jimmy's as the best barbecue place I've eaten at.  Blue Smoke was a gret restaurant, but the ribs were disappointing.



While I was there, I hung out with Dave, Daina, Andrew, Joe, Noah, Maya, Ashley, Diddy and Chris.  On Friday night, I introduced the marrieds (and they know who they are) to the magic of the homemade double-decker taco.  I'll never understand why more people haven't come up with the idea of making them at home...oh well.  I'm glad I could open their eyes to it.  I also had another first: Noah's black Labrador retriever (Lola) growled at me.  That might be the first time in my life that a retriever has expressed hostility towards me.  The thing is, she's a young dog and was alarmed by my presence.  It didn't take her more than 3 minutes before she wanted a stomach rub from me.  What can I say?  The bitches love me.  I also finally managed to give Noah and Maya some small hippo carvings (brought back from Mozambique/South Africa) that I'd been meaning to give them for over a year.



On Friday night I went to Hogs and Heifers (amusing), then to a small party hosted by one of Ash's friends, plus a loft party that was shut down by the cops (it's been years since that happened to a party I went to).  We ended Saturday night with a very disappointing trip to Red Rock West.  The place has gotten so yuppified it's almost sterile.



Between meals, I also did quite a bit of shopping...for myself.  In case you didn't know, New York is probably the best place to buy clothes in the country.  Why?  Because even though NYC is the most expensive city in the States, there is a lot of money (and a lot of competition) in both retail and restaurant businesses.  Since the Apple is a money, culture and fashion hub, everybody is trying to look good.  And since so many eat out all the time, you can find great food for surprisingly little money when eating out. 



AUTHOR'S NOTE: Before you continue, a warning: most of the rest of this post will further prove how much of a girl I am.  You have been warned.



I even made a list of stuff I wanted.  Sweaters was at the top: recently, I've gone Kanye/Common and started wearing collared shirts with french cuffs underneath sweaters, in stark contrast to my previous aversion to collars.  This shift is largely a result of my need to be business casual at work - and thanks to the preppy resurgence begun by Puff and Jay-Z and continued by the aforementioned artists, I feel good about it.  Problem was, I had few lightweight sweaters (and even fewer V-neck sweaters) when I decided to go down this path.  Over the weekend, I acquired 2 more V-necks to bring my total to 4 or 5.  I'm hoping this look will not only keep me looking better-than-average at work - it should also help me to stay warmer when the temperature really plummets this winter.



I also snagged 2 pairs of Jeans That Actually Fit Me (Express was having a jeans sale, so I paid $70 for 2 pairs).  Why did I want new jeans?  Well, over time I had reached the point that I had 5 pairs of jeans.  Which sounds like an above-average number, right?  True, except there was a major problem: I couldn't wear most of them to work.  One pair is too trendy: uber-baggy, loud stiching, and riddled with a couple of noticeable 'fashion holes'.  Another is a pair of Hilfiger carpenters.  A third is a pair of weirdly-patterned, informal jeans from South Africa.  This left me with 2 pairs of jeans that were versatile enough to wear to both work and beyond.  One pair is Guess, the other is Izod.  Both are a Size 40 waist (my waist isn't that big...but I had to buy them that big to create the necessary legroom).  That meant that every Friday, I'd get ready for work and be forced to pull out one of two pairs of jeans to wear on our dress-down day -- and neither of them fit particularly well.  Not good enough.  Now I have 4 to choose from, and the two new ones fit much better.  I'm going to ditch at least one of the older pairs to charity.



At Paragon Sports, I got a replacement pair of my favorite goggles.  Goggles only last about a year or so, and my previous ones were purchased in Spring 2005 (my last pair broke - I've been swimming on my backup pair since October).  I also got quick-dry pants and a quick-dry long-sleeved shirt.  Finally, at H & M I got an off-white scarf and a striped, brown-matching scarf -- bringing the total number of scarfs I own to 6, all purcahsed within the last year and a half.  Why so many scarfs?  Because two of them (solid light grey and solid dark grey) are more formal-looking.  Two more (brown-based/matching stripes and black-matching stripes) are for casual.  The last two (off-white and brown-matching) are more conservative than the first two and thus can be worn with more subdued outfits.  I've found that scarfs not only keep one warm - they also seem to class up just about any outfit.  And at prices ranging from $2.99 to $13, I could afford them. 



So that's the story of my 'triumphant' return to New York after more than a year's absence.  It was fun.  Ny next trip will be much sooner.  There will be less shopping, and hopefully more hanging out - especially with the people I didn't get to see this time like Knoll and Tom. 

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