From the Desk of the CEO - Figuratively Speaking

Yesterday, I started blushing like a school girl when my boss asked our Co-CEO if she and I had met ... and, much to my surprise, our Co-CEO replied to my boss that she was my biggest fan. Our Co-CEO looked over her shoulder to where I was waiting to hand my boss a stack of reports and smiled, "You knew that, right?"

I hope this is a good sign that our Co-CEO has forgotten my rambling response and subsequent open-mouthed stare during our first conversation and a subsequent elevator fumble - neither of which could have made remotely impressive, lasting impressions.

A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today: No post

Friday [Un-]Funnies

If only my roommate and I could find a microwave small enough to fit in our kitchen.

A coworker emailed me a link to this today and said we should try it in the office. After watching the online video of popcorn kernels seemingly being popped by cellular electromagnetic radiation, I was overcome by the euphoria of having freshly popped popcorn at home with the roomie.

Unfortunately, Snopes.com killed my dreams of consuming cellular-radiated popcorn in my Hell's Kitchen apartment sans microwave: http://www.snopes.com/science/cookegg.asp

And that is not funny.

A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today: Crossroads of the World

The Anatomy of Beauty

There is a high fashion photo shoot going on right now on the corner of 56th and 8th. I walked by it on the way back from jogging in Central Park a few minutes ago. Pedestrians and passengers alike were rubbernecking to get a look at the sleek, big-haired, made-up model. All the expensive photo shoot equipment aside, I probably would have noticed her anyway. Even from behind, she was stunning. Waiting for the light to change at the intersection, drenched in sweat and my thighs sticking together under my shorts, I glanced at her long, slender legs posted on 5" stilettos and haloed by a short raincoat. Her back was to those standing at the intersection while a make-up artist ran brushes over her cheeks. A woman near me said, I wish she'd turn around so we could see her face. But her tone was less of one who was genuinely curious and more of one who was hoping to see that the model was not as pretty as her retouched pictures would surely turn out.

Yesterday I was sharing pizza with some of the other executive assistants at work, discussing the Olympics and someone said, I just wish Michael Phelps was nicer to look at. Another nodded in agreement: Yea, his gums are bigger than his teeth. I was quiet during the conversation, running my tongue along the inside of my own teeth, feeling the inside of my bite, made nearly perfect by braces and a procedure I've kept secret from anyone who came to know me after I was 16. Even now, those who know me well and read my blog will be learning of it for the first time. My shallower friends may feel deceived. Others will claim that the hidden truth would not have made a difference; unfortunately, I won't believe all of them.

There is a preoccupation with beauty in almost every human society that is never more intensely felt than by those who aren't beautiful. I know because I felt it throughout most of my youth. Just before puberty hit, it started to become noticeable that my lower jaw was growing beyond my upper one, and my protruding underbite would subject me to the mental anguish of cruel childish ridicule well into my teens. I spent hours locked in the bathroom, viewing myself in profile between the mirror on the wall and another held at an angle in one hand, trying to imagine what I would look like if I had a regular bite and wondering what it would feel like to be noticed for being beautiful. It would seem ironic almost 15 years later when Super Bowl Champ would shout at me over the music in Tenjune that I have a pretty profile. Huh? I would yell back. You know, he would reply, Some girls look good from the front but not from the side.

I dreaded going to classes in middle school and my first two years of high school. There is a fundamental difference between simply undergoing the awkward stages of puberty and being legitimately unattractive. When I hear others discuss the trials of their youth, they often make generic references to gangly limbs, baby fat, bad hair or braces. As amusing as their stories are, few can recount their own instances of the intense, daily derision that I felt. The mean boys taunted me and the mean girls passive-aggressively reminded me that my lower jaw was longer than normal. The boys I had crushes on never knew my name. I don't know which hurt more, to be noticed because of a dramatic flaw or to not be noticed at all. The latter stung less so throughout middle school, I gravitated toward general hallway and classroom isolation, team sports because the athletic girls didn't seem to care as long as you pulled your weight, and the class clowns because the funniest people tend to be too absorbed in their own personal problems to notice yours.

I've had orthognathic surgery twice; once during the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school and again in 2006 to correct some discomfort caused by the slight regrowth associated with having the first surgery at too early of an age. Immediately after the first surgery in 1996, my father incidentally retired from the Navy and we moved to Asheville, North Carolina. With a new face and a new life at age 16, I never mentioned the first, and more dramatic, surgery to anyone I ever met thereafter.

I've dealt with ugly duckling syndrome, learning how to accept compliments from those who assume that I have always looked this way. The surgery didn't turn me into God's gift or supermodel material, but maybe I never fully accept compliments because I feel like I am falsely packaged. As if who they see isn't really me. By my senior year of high school in 1998, I had lots of friends, was on Homecoming Court, tied in nominations for Most Friendly in the Senior Superlatives, and dating the guy who was voted Most Attractive. My life was a complete 180 from my middle school, freshmen and sophomore years. When I was later elected to Homecoming Court in college, too, I wondered all the way across the football field if any of these people would be cheering for me if I looked how I used to look. Even now, Michael Phelps' Olympic gold medals do not save him from the mockery of abnormality.

This past July, I received a message on Facebook from a high school classmate in freshmen algebra, a boy who sat right in front of me in class for an entire year but never spoke to me beyond asking to borrow a pencil. He wrote: Hey Katie. Everytime I look at your profile, I'm just like, "Damn! I used to go to high school with this girl. She is so beautiful that it doesn't make any sense! Her boyfriend is blessed." I hope that makes you smile. As an added bonus, you have some fine ass friends too. Me and [eradicated] were talking about you about 2 weeks ago. Anyways, I hope all is well with you.

But who am I really? Am I shaped by personal experience or by the saturation of societal standards? Am I caught up in the preoccupation of beauty because I know how it feels to be justifiably ugly or am I preoccupied with beauty because I am the product of a preoccupied society? Or am I driven by the ultimate revenge of subtly flaunting my New York life in front of anyone who was mean to me in middle school and high school, where I now jog by high fashion models without shrinking in envy and discuss the Olympics with coworkers on a top floor of a Manhattan high rise?

A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today: Corporate Monday

Worlds Apart

A few weeks ago, my colleague Sam went to a client event on a roofdeck in Midtown and returned the next morning raving about the location at 620 Fifth Avenue. He emailed me this photo, which is not an actual image from the client event, but was the same venue set up for a ceremony and cocktail reception.

It reminded me that there is this entire world of Manhattan elite, living in an entirely different New York from the rest of us, existing above us in the summits of the city. Gossip Girl comes to mind, which coincidently is currently filming on Sam's block in Brooklyn, and is a segway to a memory of a recent scene I saw in a Crate & Barrel on the Upper East Side, when Terrence was helping me shop for synthetic hydrangeas (because I've killed everything I've tried to grow in my apartment and on the fire escape).

I witnessed an extremely heated discussion between a mother, clearly of foreign decent, and her late-teen/early-20s Americanized daughter, while the American father and his other child stood quietly to the side. Paraphrasizing their conversation, the daughter's side started out a little something like this: Mom! Are we, or are we not, here to shop for my apartment?! Did you not open the the links I sent you and look at the color pallete I want?!

Terrence's comment to me later: I wonder how far my sister would fly before hitting the ground if she talked to my mom like that.

Maybe if you've only known a world as ostentatious as the peaks of New York City, it's easy to lose sight of the realities that exist below, like the palm of your mother's hand.

A Year Ago Today: City Walk #11 - Nolita ("North of Little Italy")

Two Years Ago Today: No post

Breaking Local News

Gasps of horror are erupting all over the office. What's causing these horrified responses?

Our Fashion & Luxury Director just walked by and announced along our row of cubicles: "Matthew Broderick cheated on Sarah Jessica Parker."

Did he not learn anything while filming Election?

Returning to New York City

My New York girlfriends partied two nights in a row with a few of the Wayans brothers while I spent the weekend in Western North Carolina doing this and had another 7-hour delay in the Cincinnati airport on Sunday.

In happier local news, a coworker got engaged on a mountaintop in Montana over her weekend. Before our weekly ad sales meeting today, my colleagues discussed her exciting news.

Amie: Well, we just got a dog so engagement seemed like the next logical step.
Me: I just don't know if I agree with marriage just because of the arrival of a dog.
Sam: But studies show that it's better for the dog in the long run.
Me: Be that as it may, I just don't think it's a good idea to follow one mistake with another.

And my cubicle neighbor - another of the executive assistants in the row of white cubicles lining the glass offices behind us - just sent me this.

Incredibly, Warren Wilson College, in Asheville, NC - where I recently witnessed an unwelcome reaction to a gay rights parade during Bele Chere that had me ready to rejoin modern civilization in New York - was ranked the Most Socially Liberal College by MSN Encarta.

1. Warren Wilson College (Asheville, N.C.)
The typical WWC undergrad "likes good organic wholesome food, a good local brew and bluegrass on a starry night, is health conscious but smokes hand-rolled cigarettes, dresses in work clothes but accessorizes, recycles, doesn't watch TV and knows some botanical-ornithological basics." To put it more simply: "This place is a haven for hippies and very left-wing people." Other types pepper the student body, including "surfers, farmers and punks, some people with dreadlocks, others with dyed hair. A small portion of the population has facial piercings and tattoos."

Students who considered Warren Wilson also looked at Earlham College and The Evergreen State College.

To be fair, Asheville is one of the more socially progressive cities in the South, and I am generally proud to have lived there in my late teens. New York City, however, is for my late twenties.

And beyond.

A Year Ago Today:
New Tag: Search-Term Saturdays
The Morning After Jet Blue
Another Charlotte No-Go
Interesting Things I Saw in JFK Before I Did NOT Fly to Charlotte
Two Years Ago Today: Top 10 Favorite Asheville Memories

Likelihoods - Celeb Rendezvous

In New York, you're more likely to have a roommate dating an A-List comedian/former SNL cast member (we met him at a club on Friday night, they went on a date Saturday and then picked me up afterward for drinks and dancing at a West Side hotel lounge) and a coworker who lives in the same building in Brooklyn as Linda Lopez.

My coworker asked me this morning about my weekend.

"It was alright," I replied. To which he said over his steaming mug of coffee, "Oh come on, tell me something interesting."

"Oh ... well, my roommate went on a date with [censored]." I said. His eyes widened and he began to laugh as I told him the details of the chance encounter, the date that followed, and we reminisced about his skits on "Saturday Night Live".

"So tell me about your weekend." I said as he continued to sip coffee next to my cubicle.

His response: "'Well, I was talking with a neighbor, who recently had a baby [he and his wife also have a young baby], and we were chatting about another pregnant woman who is new on the hall and how there will soon be lots of children in the building. So my neighbor says to me, 'You know who that is, right? It's Linda Lopez, Jennifer Lopez's sister.'"

"Wow, so J.Lo and Marc Anthony might be stopping by often for family dinners and such." I said.

"Yea," he replied between sips of coffee, "I'm pretty excited about it."

A Year Ago Today: Phone Photo Op - Skyline From Soho
Two Years Ago Today: Countdown: 10 Days

Hold the Doors At Your Own Risk

I have been under the impression that the subway trains could not move unless all the doors were shut and locked; however, my cubicle neighbor Sarah relayed a terrifying experience she had on the subway this morning.

Over the white partitions that separate our work spaces, she recounted witnessing a twenty-something professional on the F train subway platform at 14th and 6th, whose hands were stuck in the closing doors of the last car around 8:15am. As the train began to move, he was forced to jog alongside the train and was screaming as the passengers inside pounded on the doors and tried to pry them open. From where my coworker sat in absolute shock, she saw him begin to cry as the train picked up speed and other commuters on the platform looked on in horror. The man's hands were eventually freed from the doors before the train left the station.

I bet he'll always just wait for the next train from now on.

And a quotable subway encounter from The New York Times, May 19, 2008:
"If one foot wasn’t on a sure step, I would have fallen in, and I would have been eaten up by the escalator."
LISA CHIOU, who was injured when a Manhattan subway escalator broke apart last year.

The lesson here? Commute in New York at your own risk.

One Year Ago Today: The Differences by The Hours
Phone Photo Ops - The South and Back
Two Years Age Today: Insomnia

Cuisine-ical Diversity

In New York, you're more likely to hear a coworker two cubicles down say over the phone, "There's this new Lebanese place down the street that looks super cool. We're going to go check it out this weekend."

I think I'll go to the Afghan Kebab place by my apartment this weekend. Just because I can.

One Way to Shoot Your Own Corporate Foot

Smart professionals advise everyone to have their 30-second elevator pitch ready just in case they are ever stuck in close quarters with a big wig in their company ... say a recently named Co-CEO.

Our newly promoted Co-CEO and I have been on a first-name basis since the small amount of recognition I received last December, and we've developed a casual, friendly rapport. Which is why I may have become too comfortable when descending the elevator with her at the end of the day and said, "Congratulations on the whole Co-thing."

As soon as I said it, I wanted to punch myself in the face. I immediately began to imagine her life-long corporate ambitions and realized that a role like this one is probably something she has been working toward throughout her entire professional career ... and then some 20-something executive assistant stands next to her on an elevator and calls it a Co-thing. I could feel myself mentally shrinking into my dark, internal institution, rocking in a corner, eating my checkerboard pieces and repeating "Congratulations on the whole Co-thing" over and over to a plant. This is where one goes emotionally when something stupid comes out of their mouth and the person to whom their comment was directed replies, "Thanks ... well ... it's going to be a lot of work."

Oh my God. She had to point out to me that this Co-thing is going to be a lot of work, as if I didn't already know ... which is what my senseless, down-playing remark basically implied. I tried to redeem myself by talking about a recent article in Advertising Age regarding the flat-lined advertising budgets of most companies in Q1 and mentioned how great it was that we had paced above our sales goal in the first quarter of the year. Like I wasn't telling her anything she didn't already know.

Has the little voice in your head ever pleaded for you to shut up, but yet you just kept right on talking?

I walked nine blocks and three avenues, replaying my comment over and over in my head and thinking of all the more eloquent things I could have said to a woman who was just promoted to the highest ranks of our company. And I'm starting to choke on my checkers.

Summer Fridays

Right now, I'm sitting in my cubicle outside of my boss's glass office listening to Counting Crows performing live some 20-odd floors below. Arriving to work a bit early this morning, I noticed "Good Morning America" prepping for the first Summer Concert Series of 2008 in Bryant Park.

Upstairs, I went into my boss's office and opened her large window overlooking the park. The sounds of the concert below are currently drifting onto our floor and the other executive assistants are bobbing their heads in the row of cubicles alongside mine.

"We might work in the best building in New York," my coworkers and I agreed as we peered down into Bryant Park and enjoyed the light breeze through my boss's open window, "Michael Kors and Valentino sample sales and live concerts on Friday mornings."

"It's summer in New York ..." someone said as they walked back to their desk. Why did just those five words make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

Colleague Convo - Shoe-In Kitchens

Print ad reads:
I don't cook. So I made my eat-in kitchen a fabulous walk-in closet.

My coworker Kirsten came across the ad in a magazine and commented, "In Manhattan, we do this because we don't cook and we don't have any closet space."

She went on to tell me that one of her friends sublets an apartment from a girl who stored her extra shoes in the oven.

"Things I Love" Thursdays - WeeWorld

My boss is obsessed with the AIM WeeMee. Yes, the 40-year old Senior Vice President. Her WeeMee dances in a disco. So is our Director of Advertising Operations. His WeeMee is underwater and when he types "shark," a shark swims up and bites off his head. Our Digital Brand Manager's WeeMee has on a sunhat and is holding a chocolate bar, a red bag and a "Hillary" sign. The WeeMee of our Digital Advertising Director in Chicago is naked with three little leaves in all the right places, wearing a gold dollar-sign chain and carrying a pina colada and a sword. Mine is in outer space, wearing a basketball jersey (#23 for Terrence) and holding a "Vote for Colbert 2008" sign and carrying an "I am not a Plastic Bag" grocery bag. All the things I love in the WeeWorld. If I type "alien," an alien tears out of her little tummy, she shrieks and then dies for a second.

I [re-]designed it yesterday after weeks of my boss telling me that I needed to update my WeeMee, who was decked out in (RED) gear and standing on a city block next to a fire hydrant. "Update that shit!" she would say whenever she walked by my desk. You have to picture a sophisticated corporate New York woman, who favors Melanie Griffith and whose voice even sounds just like Griffith's in Working Girl (but not the same hairstyle; thank God).

On the way to our division's informal cocktail hour event the other evening, we were walking along 42nd Street to catch the D train down to the East Village, and my boss was discussing the complexities of creating a Wee Mee: "There are just so many options for tops and pants and dresses. And your legs are so short, you just can't tell how shit's going to look." I love working in corporate advertising.

Yesterday, on IM with Terrence, I encouraged him to make his own WeeMee. He's a 6'9" professional basketball player overseas; he didn't really seem interested. Today, I IMed him the link and told him to just check it out.

In between processing expense reports at my desk in Midtown Manhattan - and him sitting in his living room on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the following conversations ensued:

Me (11:29:38 AM): are you making a WeeMee?
Him (11:30:08 AM): yeah, its hard finding a hair type like mine
Me (11:30:40 AM): LOL
Him (11:40:43 AM): and they dont have black hair so its gotta be brown
Me (11:30:43 AM): you can just put a hat on
Him (11:30:49 AM): i will
Him (11:35:59 AM): i aint gonna lie, this shit is kinda fun
Me (11:37:12 AM): it totally is

Him (11:49:32 AM): im thinkin about puttin mine in the gorilla body suit
Him (11:49:36 AM): should i?
Me (11:49:45 AM): yes
Him (11:54:33 AM): great
Him (11:57:01 AM): microphone or a gold chain?
Him (11:57:08 AM): i really like the gold chain
Me (11:57:12 AM): gold chain

Him (12:35:14 PM): im making a room for my weemee
Him (12:35:22 PM): sad
Me (12:39:15 PM): LOL
Him(12:39:40 PM): did u make a room for yours?
Me (12:40:05 PM): yes
Me (12:40:09 PM): ahem
Him (12:40:30 PM): LOL
Him (12:40:41 PM): LMAO
Him (12:41:35 PM): oh god that was funny
Me (12:42:24 PM): really?
Me (12:42:28 PM): that funny, huh?
Him (12:42:32 PM): yes
Him (12:42:41 PM): we are a bunch of big kids
Him (12:43:33 PM): nah, it was so funny cuz i remember seeing it yesterday and being like, yea yea, whatever
Him (12:43:34 PM): lol
Him (12:43:51 PM): then you sent me the link and i was like....ok ok, i'll take a look at it
Him (12:44:25 PM): 30 minutes later this lil dude has his own environment n shit, fitted up in the flyest gear and im wanting to do more
Him (12:44:46 PM): dont knock it til you try it
Him (12:44:50 PM): prime example

"Things I Love" Thursdays are inspired by "I Love New York" (BNY, February 14, 2007).

Good Things From The Work Day

Michael Kors sample sale in their corporate office with bags and shoes, worth hundreds of dollars, starting at $15 and up (for employees in our building only), catered lunch meeting (sandwiches and salads from Dishes), free make-up and other beauty goodies split among the executive assistants (one of our bosses had received a nice gift bag from a client meeting and didn't want it), boxes and boxes containing bags of Hershey's miniature chocolates (arrived from an advertising client and distributed at approximately 2-3 bags a piece among our division), and hilarious corporate stories ...

One of our high-level executives had once recorded a temporary outgoing message for her office voicemail before leaving for Ireland. Excerpt below:

"This is [name removed]. Please ..... aww fuck ........ You have reached the voicemail of [name removed]. I am out of the office through [date]. Please leave a message and ..."

She had "added to" the message instead of "deleting and rerecording." Awesome.

Look to the Cookie, Elaine

In our team's weekly meeting today, my boss reported that there were a lot of intoxicated Irish and Irish-for-a-day types wandering the cross streets of midtown by noon: "One woman was so drunk she could barely cross 42nd and Madison."

There may be few cities in the United States that take St. Patrick's Day as seriously as New York does (or like White people do). It feels as prevalent in the streets as Christmas. Ok. Maybe not Christmas. It's like the spring version of Thanksgiving and beer is the turkey.

Last year, I was Irish twice. Once in Hoboken in early March and a second time in Manhattan on the 17th. The bars of the surrounding boroughs can't compete with Manhattan's alcohol establishments on the nationally-recognized St. Patrick's Day so the only solution is to have multiple St. Patrick's Days within a 25-mile radius of the city. It's quite nice.

Today everyone and everything was Irish, even the classic Black and White Cookie. "The cookie that says 'New York'" was saying, "Eat me. I'm Irish" today.


Phone Photo Op - The Green and White Cookie in the window of The Breadstix Cafe on 8th Avenue at 23rd Street. On a day when 99.9% of New York City was looking to the beer, Breadstix reminded us that we can still - we can always - look to the cookie. Because "if we can't look to the cookie, where can we look?"

"The thing about eating the Black and White cookie, Elaine, is you want to get some black and some white in each bite. Nothing mixes better than vanilla and chocolate. And yet somehow racial harmony eludes us. If people would only look to the cookie all our problems would be solved."
- Jerry Seinfeld, Seinfeld episode no. 74, "The Dinner Party"

Endings on Repeat

The news of Heath Ledger's death spread like wildfire in our office just moments ago. Already, his death date has been updated on Wikipedia. The speed of information technology is amazing.

My coworkers perused TMZ, MSNBC and other celeb/news sites for the latest breaking news. I was not so much shook by the fact that a young (my age, in fact) Oscar-nominated celebrity had died, but that he died in an apartment downtown. Suddenly it made New York seem really small knowing that someone I've noticed in films since 10 Things I Hate About You had died just hours ago and only a few miles from where I currently work at my desk.

I vaguely overheard one of my coworkers say something along the lines of, "Apparently Michelle [Williams] is completely inconsolable. But she had kicked him out for excessive drug use. Why would you be that torn up over losing a drug addict that you weren't even with anymore?"

I just turned away while the chatter continued and went back to my desk. I didn't say anything, but I do know why.

Eternal Battles of the Insatiable Appetite

To further embrace the healthier lifestyle I have been more-fully adopting since August 2007, I substituted whole grain over the “everything” for my Friday morning bagel with Lox cream cheese after I left the gym. And I chose an orange over the Friday morning nonfat café latte from Starbucks, which my wallet appreciated, and proceeded to the office.

And then moments ago, Sam appeared outside my cubicle: “There is pizza in the kitchen.”

Damnit …

Winter Temps Revisiting Retirement

The warm weather is back ... in my second January in New York City (last year's January 5th colleague reactions).

The ads for the Scottsdale Take Pitty on Me! Contest, which currently line the wall adjacent the Times Square shuttle to Grand Central, tend to lose their appeal in this warm wintery weather.

From the contest website:
"Tired of shoveling snow? [No.] Ready to wave bye-bye to wind chill? [Could always do without, but haven't had to deal much.] Done with frozen nose hairs and snotsicles? [Meh. I always look forward to those.] As temperatures plummet in the north this winter [or once or twice in January], Scottsdale will be enjoying sunny blue skies and warm winter days. Enter the Take Pity On Me Contest and you could win a trip to thaw out in Scottsdale! Just submit photos or a video of yourself suffering in the worst winter weather conditions [can I Photoshop myself into an Antarctica scene?] and you could win a trip to sunny Scottsdale!"

Visit http://www.pleasepityme.com/ for more information*

*Unpaid advertising opportunity under the pretext of editorial content.

“Things I Love" Thursdays – What I Love About New York

“What I love about New York is …”

Over the past year and a half, I have heard that sentiment - in varying grammatical structures - initiated without my prompting and completed in dozens of different ways.

Last night, my coworker David and his boyfriend Christopher hosted a holiday party in their gorgeous Upper West Side apartment. This was the fourth or fifth holiday party I've attended this month, and it was my favorite for two reasons: 1) I received a set of four Williams-Sonoma All-Purpose Balloon Wineglasses in the gift exchange, and 2) the party was at David and Christopher's. Their one-bedroom, for which they pay well over $2000 a month, is my favorite of all of my friends and coworkers in Manhattan. It probably doesn’t hurt that it has the exquisite decorative touches of a not-too-trendy, fashion-forward gay couple. But the layout is just right for two people with all of the quintessential New York effects: exposed brick on opposite walls, tiny kitchen off of the shared living and dining space, bricked in fireplace, and the faint outline of the black fire escape through transparent curtains.

While you wait to be buzzed into the building at the top of five stone steps, you can look west to Broadway and east to Amsterdam on a tree-lined street sprinkled with restaurants, cafes and neighborhood bars. Then you enter a tiny foyer with a large, ornamental mirror and proceed beyond a row of embedded, steel mailboxes. Because I know they are looking to buy something on the Upper West Side, I’ve told David and Christopher on many occasions that if I have a live-in boyfriend or a husband (or am in any situation creating dual income) by the time they move out, I would love to take over their lease.

As I stood at the party balancing my glass of Cabernet and a plate of veggies and dip, gourmet crackers with brie cheese, spring rolls and dumplings, I was somewhat absentmindedly listening to a conversation between Christopher and my boss. I don’t immediately recall what they were talking about, but I distinctly remember Christopher saying, “That is what I love about New York.”

When their discussion had ended shortly thereafter, I said to my boss, “I love that there are people all over the city at any given time saying, ‘That is what I love about New York.’”

They’re at holiday parties; they’re in restaurants, bars or cafes; they’re in parks, walking on sidewalks or waiting for trains; they’re sitting in the backs of cabs; they’re meeting friends for happy hour or shopping or at the gym; they’re in night clubs or lounging in tiny apartments (or larger ones if they’re lucky) on couches, futons or even bean bag chairs; they're visiting museums, gallery openings or going to the theater; they're listening to live music, laughing at local comedians and not caring about how many celebrities they pass on the street or spot in Duane Reade (or at least pretending). They’re in any given place in this city and at any given time they are saying, “What I love about New York is …”

This week, my boss’s issue of New York Magazine arrived in the office. The featured cover story: Reasons to Love New York Right Now. This morning, I flipped to the table of contents and read the prologue to the article:

Reasons to Love New York Page 33
Literate 4-year-olds. Illegal immigrants who won’t be handed over to Mitt Romney. A massage-therapy student who hit it big thanks to her smooth, beautiful feet. These are just a few of the reasons that, for the third straight December, New York has come out at the top of our list of the best cities on Earth (better luck next year, Boston). Within, we look at 48 more, from the high-minded (a bike-loving transportation commissioner and other great achievements in urban planning) to the romantic (four couples who met on the subway) to the enterprisingly decadent (a truck that parks on Astor Place to serve waffles). Plus, for the first time, we’ve solicited ideas from our readers. (For even more public commentary, and the contributions of a smart-mouthed blogger who panned our list last year, check nymag.com.) So, for a somewhat-democratic and by-no-means-comprehensive reminder why you’re paying top dollar to cram into a city whose weather is currently doing its best imitation of winter on the Baltic Sea, read on.

And, of course, the camera phone photo op.



"Things I Love" Thursdays are inspired by "I Love New York" (BNY, February 14, 2007).

Morning-After Text Messages

Supporting evidence regarding the unspecified hilarious affairs of our company's holiday party:

"so much fun last nite i woke up this am with a pound of glitter on my face :-)"
- Text message received at 10:15 a.m. from my endearingly gay, male colleague