Day 46

Today is Kristin's photoshoot. She is having her friend Stephanie take them. I've seen her portfolio a year ago and I wasn't particularly impressed, unfortunately. She graduated from Bridgewater studying Photography. I do have hope though, because a year is a good time frame for someone to improve exponentially (I cite rowing and skating). Kristin is taking a shoot because she needs shots for modeling. I found an ad the other day for a position that did not require much experience, and it called for a front, back and profile shot.

Throughout the week my mom and her boyfriend said a dozen things that should happen at the shoot. Athletic clothes, since they're looking for an athletic model... jeans and a tank top... flip-flops.. sneakers... heels, but not too tall since she already has some height. It was also discussed between mom's boyfriend and me about the importance of the photographer's ability to share/have the vision of the shoot: to take good (well, duh) photos of Kristin that show off her body well (double duh); including posing and background. Photography is an angles game. It should be the first thing you notice about photographing and photography. Stephanie's portfolio is a bit "meh" in that department. A lot of very straight-ahead, level shots. I wonder though, if her portfolio is strictly school assignments.

I don't really show too much interest in that stuff. I remember in high school the kids that were applying to art schools, a lot of them had... the. same. portfolios. WHY? Because they were all art class assignments. Everybody had the same study in still life (pencil sketches of a sphere, a cube, and one of those posing figurines), three drafts of the same thing, one in pencil, two in colour pencil. They were ALL THE SAME! Nobody really had pieces they did outside of class. And you want to go to ART SCHOOL? Sorry kid, maybe try different mediums. A large pencil drawing on drafting paper and a small pencil drawing on heavier paper... IS STILL A PENCIL DRAWING ON PAPER! Ever heard of oil on canvas? Pastels? WATER COLORS? If I was reviewing portfolios at an art school and all I saw were pencil and marker pieces, I'd just more onto the next person. This person isn't versatile enough. Stick to your bad persepective and even worse shading skills. Ever heard of "one fluid line", not "80 small lines resulting in an awfully awkward (and usually fuzzy) curve"? Sorry for the rant.

Kristin told me later that her shoot took 2 to 3, and it was Stephanie's longest shoot yet. Facepalm. How long are her usual shoots? And also she's never taken pictures of someone who WANTS to have their picture taken? UHHHH.... okay at least she's exercising her first amendment rights... I think. I told Kristin to have Stephanie send me all the raws. 3 hours must mean a lot of shots. And there must be SOME good ones in there. Right? RIGHT?

On Craigslist today I found a Modell's ad. Modell's is a sporting goods store (not my fave... they always have a sickly ambiance and they never seem to have any floor staff...) Apparently they're opening a new location in midtown and is having open interviews in Brooklyn. Interviews are open till 4PM weekdays and its 2:30, enough to shower, get ready and get there. As I'm printing the application... I realize that my suit is at the cleaners! And my interview shoes (remember the blisters?) are packed away SOMEWHERE. So I make an urgent call to my mom. SHE DOESN'T PICK UP! OH NOOO! She calls back 15 min later and doesn't know where my shoes are. Awwww mannnnn.

Turns out she was having some lengthy interview process with corporate at Alice + Olivia. Pretty cool. Mom says she'll help me put together an interview outfit when she comes home. I ended up brewing 2 pots of gunpowder green between the time I realized I couldn't go to the interviews and dinnertime.

I packed for the weekend trip to the Cape and set aside my clothes for tomorrow's practice. I drank a cup of Celestial Seasoning's Vanilla Honey Chamomile with some extra honey to help me go to bed. Long day tomorrow!

+7

Day 45

I wake up and make a pot of gunpowder green. What I do is leave the leaves in the pot (overnight sometimes, it fits only first flush) until I decide to boil the water for the next flush. I wonder if that's bad... I know I definitely don't follow proper etiquette... I don't warm the pot before I brew. And I mostly do "and one for the pot" when I'm dealing with black teas, because I like my black teas strong for when I add milk (half&half.. do people consider it... cream? Chinese bakeries use... *gasp* light cream! No wonder HK style milk tea is SO delicious... which elads me to wonder if heavy cream is ever used... oh my haha. The only use for heavy cream I can think of is for good ol' Southern-style mac and cheese. Though caramel sauce requires one to reduce a simple syrup and then add... er... milk? Half&half? Light cream? Heavy crea?) I haven't been drinking black tea recently because well.. we're out of half&half and my mom hasn't decided to go grocery shopping in some time now.

In the morning I skyped with Kristin to help her with her resume (nicely). I helped her with consistency, grammar and (something I'm ridiculously anal about...) her skill section. She's happy that I was able to help her calmly and I am too.

I stay home all day and work on the website transfer and make another pot of tea. At some point in the morning I call my cousin and ask her about the Landy Stout. She says she got it and she loves it! Phew. She also invites me to her birthday party this Sunday. I tell her I'll ask. This way I can go back down to NYC with Kristin! I'll leave Saturday after crew practice and come back on Monday in time for practice on Tuesday morning.

Mom and her boyfriend come home later at night and he asks:
"Did you go out with your dad?"
"No."
"That sucks!"
Indeed it does.

I get an email reply to my inquiry about a personal assistant position on Craigslist. Apparently its from a guy in Estonia that runs an art store and needs someone to receive packages for him Stateside. I'd also need to do some personal shopping for hi, clothing and other goods. I'll need to receive packages and forward them to him elsewhere. He asks for my address and phone#. I get a fishy feeling about it (my address & # is on my resume) but I send the requested info anywhay. What's the worst that could happen, he has my contact info. So does anybody that is looking for me and knows how to use Google.

+6

Day 44

This morning my dad called me to have dim sum and to meet him at noon in Brooklyn. Kristin sent me her resume to look over and because I was in a hurry, I said some critical things to her without explaining and left on a bad note. I ended up leaving the apartment at noon.

After I got out of the train station and started walking towards the dim sum place, I noticed that basically EVERY Chinese person walks duck-footed! Now, I don't know if I do that because it's kind of like trying to figure out if you pronounce the second 'a' in caramel. BUT it does seem to be mhat I would not be comfortable if I pointed my toes outward. Nevertheless, my feet point forward when I look down. I noticed this mostly because my cousin pushes duck-footed. I commented on it and asked if she normally walks that way and she said yes! Personally I think walking that way is UGLY!

So anyway, we make our way over to dim sum and one of the things we order is some sort of pastry... filled with durian paste! BLEH. Durian is a big spiky fruit with a very distinct smell and with an equally distinct (and acquired, of course) taste. My dad and grandpa enjoyed it. I also know that my two uncles on my dad's side enjoy it too. No idea about my aunt or my cousin,,, so it leaves me to believe that the men on my father's side enjoy durian, and maybe even everybody on my father's side! My mom on the other hand... HATES durian. She hates the taste, the smell, even the IMAGE of it. I don't really like it though I manage to stomach the pastry. I downed 3 cups of tea.

After dim sum, I had my dad rush me back to Manhattan because my mom's boyfriend texted me before I left for dim sum in the morning to get his shorts steam pressed and returned the same day. The dry cleaning lady put in a rush order for me. She is soo nice. She's funny too, she comments that my mom is "Ooooh, so fashionable!" with hand gestures that remind me of some of Gaga's moves from Alejandro.

I'm not needed for coxing tomorrow so I get to sleep in! My dad said he'd call me tomorrow for dimsum again.

+3

Day 43

Today was my first morning coxing! I had to wake up at 4am to wash my face/brush and then changed into my Adidas wind pants and the rain jacket from this year's A10s. I never thought it would come in handy.

Before I headed out the door, my dad told me to grab a flashlight. They made it sound so scary, like some hobo was going to get me and stick me up for all my college funds (pffft yeah right). So I headed up the street and went down into the station. I had to take the 1 all the way up. The train took a little bit of a wait. The train had more people than I expected. And they weren't homeless, or very drunk. The train got stuck at like every station after we got out of the undergrounds. But the sun was rising and I managed to take a really bad picture of it all:

I finally got there and I met the masters head coach. He was a lot younger than I expected (Sorry!) and he had a big black dog named Argos. Argos is cute, I think he's a great dane? No maybe not, his lips aren't saggy enough lol. I also expected him to have a bigger truck. He drives a little red pickup truck. It was funny because he said that the truck handles different with a passenger. I hope he didn't mean that I'm fat!

I coxed the mens 4+ and it was nice. They were used to rowing in a quad and 4- (straight 4) so my bow person kept yelling stuff. It's a tidal course, so the course changes when it's low tide vs when it's high tide. Low tide is scary because you it's like, a 2k head race. And there's a BROKEN BUOY you're supposed to go around that is hard to see for first time coxswains :( Oh, and low tide stinks. Literally. The NYAC's boathouse is just across the lake/river/inlet/outlet/whateveryoucallit. And the equpment was pretty up-to-date! They had the newer coxboxes and the 4+ had the new Vespoli steering. (The side stick thing) It's stupid.

So we were done and some super nice ladies gave me a ride to the Pelham MetroNorth station. Apparently everybody at the rowing club knows Chelsea on my school's team. She's super fameous! Anyway, OH JEEZ THE TRAIN WAS EXPENSIVE. $8.50 for a one way! HOLY COW! So I ended up at Grand Central and took the 6 back to Union Square to take the L home. I caught my mom before she left for work. Goes to show how much crew people do before most "normal" people!

So obviously... I WENT TO SLEEP. Then I woke up and worked a little on my dad's website. We're trying to do a registrar/host transfer and it's a bit of a nightmare. I had 2 pots of gunpowder green. That stuff is so good. It doesn't need anything the texture is so smooth and the aroma is great.

My parents came home later and my dad ate some of my meatloaf from last night and we ordered it again tonight because he thought it was so good! So we had meatloaf again. We got the tomato&cheddar soup and the tomato alphabet soup tonight, but we didn't drink it so we stuck it in the fridge. Staying up late because I took a huge nap in the middle of the day.

+6

Day 42

This morning was the fumigation, so I had to wake up early. Their arrival time was "9am to noon". ARE YOU SERIOUS? You are arriving ANYTIME in a THREE HOUR WINDOW. Slick, fumigation people, SLICK. So I run downstairs to throw the bedding into the washers and go back upstairs to get ready for my day. After I get kicked out by fumigation, I'm supposed to chill out at my mom's work. I get upstairs to drink the Dirty Bird peach tea in the fridge, and the exterminators are in. It's only 9.

There is a stout black woman and tall European man. The lady tells me that they aren't contracted to treat everything in the bags soooooo we have to close them all up, because my parents opened them all up thinking they would fumigate the bags. So we close up everything. We proceed to have the following conversation; she starts:

"Your re-entry time is 4 hours after 1 hour from now."
"You mean.... in 5 hours?"
"Yeah."

Should I really be entrusting them with the apartment? Eh. I get packed and get the crap out.

Of course, as always, I get lost trying to get to my mom's office. It really is stupid how building numbers go on Broadway. REALLY stupid. And it doesn't help that most of them look the same.

So I FINALLY make it there. Mom is busy she's got to run to a meeting. I whip out my laptop, take her Ethernet cord and get connected. She comes back briefly, and I return her internet. I go over to the break room and make myself a cup of tea. They have almost exclusively Bigelow teas. Ehh. Grab 2 English Breakfast bags, throw some hot water in it, 2 Coffee Mates and somewhere between 4-8 packets of sugar. They don't have brown :( I go back to my mom's office and read a book that I brought, Mind Hacks by Tom Stafford and Matt Webb. It's kind of like my neuroscience class all over again. Not dull, but you need to be awake to read it.

Throughout the day mom goes to 4 more meetings, 1 of which lasts for 3 some-odd hours. It's because she just came back from a month-long business trip in Asia and her superior is about to go on a business trip himself, so they need to get up-to-date on their progress. Also, her umbrella company decided to merge like 4 of the other companies, hers being one of them, sooooooo the office is a real shitstorm.

We went to Hale and Hearty for lunch. It's like this soup place, that also has sandwiches and salads. Errrr... think an urban Panera Bread with no... well, pastries. I got the soup/sandwich combo with sweet tomato corn chowder and a BBQ chicken sandwich. I also grabbed some oatmeal raisin cookies. I don't usually like them, but if I see them I might want one. I just really like the oat texture in those. But sometimes they're too nasty :( Anyway, HALE AND HEARTY IS DELICIOUS AND EVERYBODY SHOULD GO THERE! GO! GOOOOO! Ahahahah.... Yeah, so it was good, and I think people should check it out sometime.

Ohohoh. Dove chocolate makes hot chocolate. I know Kristin will be jealous when she reads this. My mom's office has a Flavia machine, and that's like.... K-cups SQUARED. You have the option to make lattes. So I had a Dove hot chocolate Milky Way chocolatte-whatever. You put in the "topping" Milky Way packet in first, then the Dove hot chocolate in when it tells you to.... and TAADAAAAAA yummm. Best. Hot chocolate.. EVER.

When we went home that night, we had no idea what to expect. The house was.... the same. Except that our couch was turned on this back, and the bottom layer was ripped out. And there was a knife lying around. OUR knife. OUR KNIFE THAT WAS IN A DRAWER. THEY TOOK OUR KNIFE AND USED IT TO CUT OUR COUCH OPEN! The nerve of them.... Other than that the apartment seemed to look the same. Maybe slightly less bed-buggy. They have to come back in 2 weeks.

For dinner I ordered the turkey meatloaf from Big Daddy's. I got veggie soup with it, but I didn't really want it since I had soup earlier that day. They had veggie chili but it wasn't an option /: So it came... and it came with mashed potatoes and carrots too! WOW! Yumm. And BY GOLLY PETE, IT WAS SOOOO GOOD. I ate half and gave the rest to my mom.

Crew tomorrow morning, so I gotta go to bed. I was pretty CAPSLOCK-happy today haha.

+3

Day 41

Today my parents went to have breakfast with my dad's friends (from work?). I slept in because I wasn't invited. I ended up not having breakfast and just surfing on the computer. Tomorrow is the fumigation too. I just have laundry to do but I wonder how much stuff my parents have left. I made a pot of tea when my parents came home.

We ordered delivery from Dirty Bird. We got their rotisserie chicken and it was pretty good. I'm not big on chicken so... meh. I ordered their peach iced tea, but I was saving it for last. I didn't end up drinking it because my dad pissed me off by saying that I shouldn't eat more at lunch to make up for breakfast because it stretches my stomach and I'm doubling my calorie intake (I was just having an extra side of mashed potatoes) and I definitely should watch what I eat if I'm looking to stay fit. I tried to sleep it off, but I couldn't go to sleep because he kept talking and the tv was loud, so I went out for a skate on the east side highway.

Went down to Battery City and then headed back. Practiced a little switch pushing. When I went home I brewed up a pot of gunpowder green. My mom and I then went down to the laundry room to finish drying everything else.

IT. WAS. RIDICULOUS. My mom dried my "donut" yarn (a Caron 1 pounder) and it started to unravel and TANGLE! It was horrible and I ended up needing to untangle a giant mess.

THEN she dried THE REST of my yarn and I had a GIANT tangle. I spent an hour untangling everything.

Tomorrow is the fumigation and I need to wake up early to dry all the bedding and get the hell out.

+3

Day 40

The drying and bagging continues. My mom packed away my phone charger yesterday and my phone died last night. It's been surprisingly unproductive for me. This morning was the Mini-Bomb longboard race hosted by Concrete Kings. I wanted Kristin to do it with me, but she had to go home, and Also I had a dentist appointment like RIGHT after, so I wouldn't be able to join the festivities.

We had breakfast at.... you guessed it, Elephant Castle! Hahaha. And I had...... yeah, that too! A pot of English Breakfast hahahaha. Had the Mexican omelette, sans bacon. It was still pretty heavy, and I wasn't too fond of the cheddar in it, it was too sharp. My parents' favorite server Brian was off this week.

After breakfast we went back to the apartment to chill for a little, then my mom and I went to the dentist. On the way there, we stopped at some new (looking) Vietnamese(?) place for some bubble tea. I won't be going back. 1) The staff's children seem to think the entire establishment was a playground, and one little girl even had sandals with squeakers in the sole, so she was squeaking everywhere, 2) service is REALLY slow, and they have one person only designated for drinks, 3) They gave me Vietnamese coffee, with no bubbles. The coffee was decent though. I got a cap for one of my front teeth that got chipped somehow. All my family members and close friends have been bugging me about it. I also got my teeth cleaned. My mom had the appointment right after mine, so she gave me her Blackberry so I could go on Facebook, since my phone was dead.

After the dentist, we walked towards Broadway on Canal and got a phone charger for $5 from a street vendor. I didn't have my phone on me and I was really unsure of the charger I needed, but one of the guys manning the stand was really helpful and knew that the Verizon Voyager was the VX 10000. Weird, but cool. Then we went to some bootleg-ish luggage place on Broadway and Canal. It was bootleg-ish because it had some cheap (and obviously) fake luggage in the front, and in the back they had these expensive $300+ brand name luggage, Samsonite, Burton, North Face... yeeesh. One of the Burtons looked REALLY nice, but I'll probably end up getting something cheap for $30 or so.

THENNN we started walking up Broadway, stopped at places like Muji (very cool minimalist stuff from Japan... I have a watch from them), TopShop (like an English H&M), H&M (had this AMAZING blazer. Very Gaga.), Duane Reade (found the lotion my dermatologist recommended), Rite Aid (Did not have said lotion), Old Navy (very disorienting, to say the least), and a bunch of shoe stores.

We ducked into some side street and went into a jewelery store called Versani... it was really cool. A lot of expensive things. I saw a little dachshund pendant that Kristin would like. :) I'm sure it would be $300+ though. Just for the doggy. Which is the size of my pinky fingernail.

My mom couldn't resist going into any shoe boutique we passed so it did take a little while longer than I hoped to get home. We did stop at a Starbucks to use their facilities though, and a stop at Gray's Papaya for some.. er, "Papaya Drink". I have never figured out what the hell one of those were, but they're still good and refreshing when you've walked from Chinatown back to the West Village on a 90+ day.

Got home, made a pot of tea, and finished drying the last of my clothes. Ughh this bedbug business is crazy.

+7

Day 39

Kristin woke me up early today to get me to help her leave. It took me a while to start up, like a 5 year old pc running Windows XP.

I made an ironpot of gunpowder green. Ironpot is just what I call the teapot we have in the apartment. It's an iron teapot we got in Chinatown last year. It's really heavy and can brew up to 24oz. I've already been using it, but I didn't mention it last post. Oops, sorry.

I gave Kristin my rolling duffel thats a year and a half old, because it's old, we have bedbugs, and my mom wants to buy me a new one. Kristin bagged all her stuff and she'll either get it cleaned when she arrives home or throw it out. Or at least I hope she will.

Kristin and I went over to Murray's bagels to grab some food for the road. Kristin got an almond Odwalla and tuna salad on a sesame bagel. I got my favourite, lox spread on a poppy seed bagel. We had to walk over to 5th ave to hail a taxi because taxis in NYC are bitches and you need to go with the flow of traffic or else you're not getting ANYWHERE. Especially if you've got luggage, they KNOW where you're headed. So we got a taxi and a ride down to Chinatown for the Fung Wah. I got Kristin a ticket and we waited around until a bus pulled up, at which we proceeded to help form the mob that always happens on these "China-busses". I threw on Kristin's luggage onto the bus while she boarded and she was off on her way.

Got a coconut water on the way home. Paid in quarters and the guy was really happy. They're $2.50 each and I can only imagine how much $0.50 in change he needs to give out. When I got home I threw some more of my clothes into the dryer and started to open up the coconut. My mom had a doctor's appointment so she wasn't home.

My mom called when I had 10 min to go to see if I wanted some pizza..... YES! So I finished up the coconut, threw it into a little container and went downstairs to Ray's. We had a cheese slice (crispy, please! You need to order it that way in the daytime because they try to rush the pizza..... not yummy.) each and had the coconut at the end. We did a little shopping at Food Emporium and then I went to tend to my laundry.

Made some more tea after I got home. Kristin got home okay so that was good.

+6

Day 38

My mom took the day off from work, today and tomorrow, so we can prepare the rest of the apartment for fumigation. We live in NYC, bedbugs live in NYC. The bedbugs are unwelcome visitors that have overstayed their (un)welcome... so we're going to gas them. Barbaric, I know. I wish there was a more organic and friendly approach to this but there isn't. We have to wash all clothing, and anything that is already clean needs to be thrown into the dryer for 30min on high to cook EVERYTHING. Over the course of the week Kristin and I have been dropping off garbagebag-fulls of dry cleaning at the cleaners. The total so far is ~$1000, but my mom's company will foot the bill because the office was found to have bedbugs. Non-clothing items like paperwork and... well anything else, needs to be put into giant plastic bags so they can be heat treated.

We decided to open up that mystery tea that my mom got for me from her travels. She said that one of the factory owners overseas gave it to her, so it's gotta be good. She read the label and said they were rolled into little balls or something, so they have to be gunpowder green. I've never had it before. It came in this vacuum packed bag:

It was cool it looked like a hunk of gold. When I cut the bag open, it made this SLUUUUUUUURRRRP sound. The tea had a really nice aroma and texture. The second infusion was definitely (and unsurprisingly) the best and smoothest. The first infusion is a little rough and the third infusion starts to get weak and bitter.

Kristin left in the afternoon to go hang out with her grandma. Her grandma was getting her hair done at some fancy hotel salon. Kristin told me it would take 15 minutes, and I was skeptical. It turned out to be more like 3 hours. Her grandma was getting her hair colored and Kristin got lots of complements on her looks. A lot of New Yorkers love Kristin's... er... exotic looks haha.

When Kristin came home, she decided it was better for her to leave on Friday. Which mean that we could see the midnight showing of Despicable Me. Went on Fandango and bought it for that night's 3D showing.

The rest of the night's events leading up to the movie was slow and aggravating. My mom's boyfriend criticized us for sitting around "doing nothing" and basically not being out. When I asked for some examples, he started talking about going out and "having a sip", and then my mom, Kristin and I all made a comment about doing something that didn't cost money, which then he said "get a job, that's free!" and continued to be obnoxious and sarcastically apologized a couple times ("WELL, SORRY! SOOOOOOORRRR-RYYYYY!") That really ticked me off and put me into a bad mood for the rest of the night. I cooled down a bit when we got a seat in the theater and the movie started.

The movie was cute. It was good, but I didn't think it was amazing. Kristin, on the other hand... she came out of that movie with her life changed. She really enjoyed it. She wants everybody to go see it. So what are you waiting for, go see it!

+6

Day 37

Kristin woke me up early in the morning with a call, James had already left to go back to PA and the magic from last night was on the clothes I sweated in that I was too tired to take off. Kristin was downstairs, so I went to get her, and we went back upstairs and finished sleeping. Then we took showers and it was already like 1pm. We set off into the city to finish the rest of the Tyra Mission. We had Pink and Gap left to hit, and there isn't a Pink in the area, so we only had to go to Gap.

The spa next to Red Mango caught my eye, and Kristin wanted to go inside and check their prices. It was a really nice looking Korean place (waaaaay better than the Indian place) and the staff was VERY friendly, and not at all pushy or offensive. The prices were also a little better, so Kristin called up the Indian place and canceled her appointment and decided to have the dermabrasion. Right there. The "menu" said that the procedure would take 70 minutes, and I just stayed until Kristin finished her paperwork. I walked home and played Skate It for 75 minutes, and went back to the spa. The treatment seemed to take something more around 90 minutes, but when Kristin came out her skin tone was more even and GLOWED! Anyway, she ended up gushing about it for the rest of the day. How she got a mask, and the lady massaged her body and everything was so great and she would really recommend it........... etc etc etc.

We went back to 5th Ave to go to the Gap. The fitting rooms were untidy with clothes left from the previous customer and the staff was pretty much not available, and when they were, they were arguing with eachother over who should be assisting who in the changing rooms.

We went to Red Mango for a little something (haha it's like Em&Kristin's staple-food). Their AC was fixed today too! It wasn't working in random parts of the place, but it was still comfortable. We had pomegranate with mango, mochi and kiwi today. It was ok.

Had a cup of iced tea at home.

 Kristin looking very nice in a blazer. From behind. Gap's fit model is a very flat lady with no hips. Or butt. Or waist. Or boobs. Gap's fit model could very well be a very expensive cardboard box.

+1

Day 36

Tonight is the night for LADY GAGAAAAAAA!

My aunt has been pestering me for a ticket for my cousin, so I went onto Stubhub and luckily, found tickets for the same section in the row behind us. Snatched it up for $250. We researched if cameras were allowed in MSG, and the site said only disposable ones were allowed. That's going to be hard to enforce with all the cameraphones being introduced to the market.

James arrived in the morning, and hung out in the apartment for a little bit while Kristin and I got ready. James got me honey and a teapot/cup set for my birthday, it is adorable and I love it!

The pot nestles onto the cup!

We would have to meet Leah somehow, but she conveniently lost her phone, so I had to setup facebook mobile to forward random things to my phone while we were out.

Then we headed over to Chinatown to meet my aunt, cousins and aunt's friend for lunch. We arrived too early so we ducked into the Starbucks on Canal. It was sweltering and I wanted an iced grande passion tea lemonade, sweetened.. but they were out. Of tea. Or lemonade. Something ridiculous. Kind of like when they run out of frappuccino base and customers go ballistic. But that's okay. Kristin started to crave some Vita Coco but I couldn't think of any corner store in Chinatown.... let alone a corner store that would stock it. I eventually thought of The Coconut Lady, the affectionate term for a lady that sells young coconuts on Canal and opens them up for you, and when you finish, she wields a cleaver to chop it open for you to eat the soft, young coconut flesh. Yum. So we left the shade and cool alcove otherwise known as Starbucks, to begin our trek to The Coconut Lady. Shelled over $7.50 for 3 and we went to the underground shopping center on Elizabeth.

Kristin wanted to go check out the photobooths, because everytime we want to, it's closed. It was open today, and we decided to take some. It ended up taking FOREVER, but it was fun. My aunt & co. was already finished with eating by the time we went over to XO Kitchen after photobooth. I was in charge of ordering; James doesn't eat pork or beef, so it was a little bit challenging. I ordered curry fishballs, scallion pancakes and grilled teriyaki salmon. It wasn't half-bad. The curry sauce was thick but really good. For drinks, James ordered a red bean ice, Kristin got a sesame milk bubble tea, I got a milk bubble tea and my cousin got some weird kiwi ice cream desert thing. Kristin swapped with me because she didn't like the texture of hers. Also had a cup of tea from the establishment, because Chinese places always serve tea haha.

Afterwards we went back to the shopping center and looked around some more. Then we took my cousin along and went back towards my neighborhood. We got out at Union Square because we had banking needs at Bank of America. James went into RiteAid while Kristin, my cousin and I went into some Indian "salon" place. They did threading, and while on the Cape, my aunt was commenting about how my cousin had "Chinese brows". Soooooooo I said that my cousin could get it done there, and Kristin was like "They're Indian. They're good. Do it" hahaha. So she did it. The staff was pretty pushy about their services, trying to get me and Kristin to get our brows done, then suggesting that Kristin get all these treatments they offer, and making (what could be received as, and was) some pretty offensive comments about her face. The prices were right, so Kristin made an appointment for the next day, despite moral conflicts. 

After that business was done, we waited outside on the sidewalk for Leah. She showed up and then we went to Red Mango. Leah went over to Popeye's for some food, and we went over because the AC was broken at Red Mango and Leah would be a paying customer anyway. We started on our way back to the apartment but stopped at the pet store to look at all the animals. It always smells like a public restroom in there. Pretty gross, but it's something you get used to if you stay in there long enough. We also headed over to Rite Aid to buy 2 disposable cameras for the event. My parents didn't give me permission to go into the apartment, so we stayed downstairs in the community room. James took a nap and Leah and my cousin played hackey sack. Kristin and I did... nothing. We eventually got going when there was an hour until showtime. We stopped by Rite Aid again to pick up some energy drinks and earplugs. We had a 20-block trek in muggy New York weather and needed everything we could get.

When we got there and passed the security checkpoint, they barely even did ANYTHING. They just waved us in. We could definitely have brought like 92837410984 (non-disposable) cameras. At the venue, everybody started in a mob, moving through escalators and being sifted by the staff to different escalators at random locations. We eventually got to our seats, and they weren't bad at all. We were to the right of the stage with a really good view; not too high, not too low, and not too close. Any closer and we might not have been able to see everything going on on the stage.

Here's what the stage looked like from our seats before the opening act started :)

The opening act was Semi Precious Weapons. They were in Lady Gaga's Telephone video as some of the dead people in the diner. The lead singer, Justin Tranter seemed really bitter about the fact that Lady Gaga used to open for them, and now they're opening for Lady Gaga. He also pronounced it Gawhhh-Gawhhh. Big emphasis on the "hhh". Think French. The bassist (Cole Whittle) was probably the most exciting part of the band. Justin stripped and had an onstage costume outfit change. The venue's screens didn't show him again after that lol.

Then an hour passed by. And Gaga came out. She started out with Dance In The Dark, James' favorite song, so that was cool. All of her outfits were very awesome. Seen most of them before, but some were uh, interesting, to say the least. But it's Gaga, what are you expecting haha. My favorite outfit was her White-Angel-With-A-Black-Harp-Wearing-An-Odd-Fish-Headpiece costume. I think it was for So Happy I Could Die. The Disco Stick got a revamp. It's like Disco Stick 2.0. It's huge and had a built in floodlight in it now. It is soooo sick! Also The Orbit has like, 40 horsepower in it now. It's no longer attached to her, it's a stationary piece that she stands inside now... probably because the g-forces from it spinning now would most likely transform her into HovershipGaga. The show was amazing. I would definitely want to see it again. It felt more personal than other... well, concerts. This didn't even feel like a concert. Other musical acts are just song after song after song, a little antidote about the other day and they were in the supermarket, and then more songs. I don't know how to describe it, it was just a production. It was like a musical of sorts.

After the show, we got a surprise ride from the local relatives. I made an illegal immigration comment, because we were all stuffed into the back of a minivan sitting on various boxes and the floor. After we got dropped off in front of my apartment ("America!), Leah went west to Cubbyhole to brag about being at the Lady Gaga show. James, Kristin and I went to Ray's for a some pizza. I got EATEN by mosquitos there. But the pizza was good. It's always good.

Mosquito bite on my knee and halfway down my shin. :( It was soooo itchy!

Kristin and James left to go to her grandma's cool westside highway apartment so that James could stay the night. I went home, scratching my leg the entire time and went to bed after a loooong hot day.

+3

Day 35

Kristin and I were invited to have dimsum with my aunt, my cousin and some other (local) family. I declined the invitation because it was just too much confusion trying to hammer out the details last night, DURING MY BIRTHDAY DINNER. Through next message. With my cousin. We agreed on Chinatown back in Cape Cod, so when they kept saying that they would pick us up at some subway station, I told them to just pick us up at the apartment. It took so long for them to finally reveal the fact that dimsum was going to be in Brooklyn. It was already too much hassle.

After they had their dimsum, my cousin and aunt didn't have plans, so Kristin and I got chauffeured to Central Park so that I could take my cousin and Kristin on their first lap. We were lucky and got parking right on Central Park south. It took a while before we got started because we had to find a shady spot for my aunt and the baby. My aunt forgot to bring the baby stroller, so all we had was a baby in a carseat (that probably weighed 6x the baby) to be lugged around.

The lap was okay. My cousin wanted to pick up and walk multiple times. Kristin and I didn't let her. At one point she felt faint and her ears popped and we had to walk over to the shade and take a water break. I brought the Camelbak Kristin bought me. The three of us didn't finish it until the very last stretch. We held hands for most of the downhills. We made it out of there in 2 hours. I hope my cousin practices while I'm not with her.

A longboard pileup when everybody bailed but I kept footbreaking. This is the aftermath/recreation.


We head back to my apartment and find parking right across the street. Everybody seemed to need to go to the bathroom, so we went to Red Mango. We found out the bathrooms were out of order, so we placed our orders and went back to my apartment building. We went downstairs to the community room. Which also had the community bathroom across the hall. We finished our froyo, and then went back out to Chipotle for some fine fast dining. Only Kristin and I planned on going to Chipotle, but my cousin wanted to come along, so my aunt canceled a dinner date with local family members. It was good, as always. Had a cup of iced tea with copious amounts of lemon and sugar there.

We had cake at home that night. We had this chocolate mousse cake from Citarella, the same one we had last year. It's really one of the only chocolate cakes I like, because I'm not a big chocolate, or cake fan. Call me a weird person, but that's just how I am. I was never too big on sweets, but I'll eat it. It's not like I abhor them or anything, but I like other foods more. After dinner, I got my birthday present:

LADY GAGA TICKETS! FOR TOMORROW NIGHT! And I thought my parents were coming with me and Kristin, but actually Kristin got my friends James (coming in all the way from PA) and Leah (known her since freshman year of high school) to come! Very very cooooool.

+2

Day 34

Today was hot. But not nearly as hot as the upcoming week. It's going to be in the 100s this week. Ugh.

Tonight we would celebrate my birthday.

We went to Elephant Castle in the morning for breakfast, my parents, me and Kristin. We went ahead to grab seats while my parents were getting ready. We ate all the bread by the time my parents arrived. They definitely took their time. I ordered a pot of English Breakfast. Kristin thought about getting the bowl of hot chocolate, but ultimately decided on OJ. Not a bad choice. It was freshly squeezed, and pulpy!

After breakfast, we walked over to Magnolia. I had no idea we had one in the area. I only knew of the one in the Upper East Side. The didn't have any red velvet cupcakes (the best!), so we left.

My parents got talking to Kristin about fit modeling... eventually my mom took Kristin's measurements and then we were sent off on what I dubbed the "Tyra Mission": Go to Gap, Banana Republic, J.Crew and Pink to find Kristin's size in t-shirts, shirts (the [button-down] not-as-stretchy-as-a-tshirt kind), blazers, pants and jeans. We stopped at the stationary store first so I could pick up some pocket Moleskines, then we went to Red Mango to share what we call "The Usual" (Pomegranate w/ mochi, mango and blackberries). We went to Banana and J.Crew before it was time to head home to get ready for birthday celebrations.

We went to a place called Steak Frites. The specialty there was--you guessed it--steak! I ordered the rib eye. Rare-rare. When I got it, it seemed more like medium. Next time (if there is one) I'll ask for it raw.

Afterwards, we headed west to try and get stuck on the west side highway, because last year my parents got stuck there and ended up getting the best seats for the fireworks. Didn't work this year, because the police & barricades were prepared. My parents pulled over at a gas station and Kristin and I got out and watched the fireworks. It was nice. It was the closest I've ever seen fireworks.

Some crappy phone pictures of the fireworks. The streetlights are in the way, and my cameraphone has bad timing haha.

+2

Day 33

Today was pretty crazy. My uncle decided early in the morning that the baby was fine and that he would drive my aunt and two cousins down to NY. This didn't really make a difference for me because I was traveling with Kristin, and since my uncle was driving, there wouldn't be room for Kristin. No big deal. I had the chance to make a quart of tea for the road. I didn't. I would come to realize that this was a horrible decision as the day unfolded.

Managed to catch the express to Boston, so I got to South Station early. Kristin still left on schedule since she couldn't really do anything about it. I stood on a long line for the bathroom. Traveling with a longboard, a duffel, and a backpack was more challenging than I thought it would be, but I'm not sure what I thought it would be. I bought tickets for the Fung Wah afterwards and proceeded to wait for Kristin. She texted me to say that she had arrived when in fact the train was just pulling into the platform, and not actually stopped yet, so I thought we would make the next train. We didn't. Oh well. She arrived minutes after the bus left. She stood on the long bathroom line as well. I checked out Kristin's board, because she had just gotten new bushings (after much pestering from me). She put the washer under the bottom bushing and didn't have another bushing on top, so the top bushing actually started to stretch around the nut. We couldn't fix it there, but I told her and she really didn't know that would happen and thought that she put the wrong bushing on top.

What's wrong with this picture?

The workers had us stow our longboards underneath the bus, but I was able to keep it in the overhead compartment on the way up. It was a little annoying, but we did end up getting seats right behind the driver so we could be the first ones out.

The driver was talking on his cellphone for a good amount of the trip. We made a rest stop at a McDonalds on the I-95 I think. We went to the bathroom and bought cracker-cheddar Combos and wild berry LifeSavers.

When we got to Chinatown, my parents said they were coming, but took a while to arrive. My mom handed me a bottle of tea, I don't know what its called in English but in Chinese it is "Haa Gu Cha", on the bottle it said something like "fruit spike drink" which sounds pretty ominous. Shared it with Kristin. We drove through Little Italy and Soho to eventually get back to the apartment. We weren't hungry so we brought our luggage up while my parents went to lunch. I fixed Kristin's bushings with pliers and a skate tool when we got home.

We tried the limeade in the fridge (Simply Limeade or something like that?) and then had a mug of iced tea (Gold Peak ick). They were both a bit too sweet.

Later we skated around the city and went to Hyline Park. It was cool. I'm so tired and dehydrated.

+3

Day 32

Today is my last day in Cape Cod! And my birthday!

The baby was being sick today so my aunt thinks they shouldn't go to NY. So I can't get a ride /:

Aunt was out in the morning so we couldn't go skate.

Uncle came back to take my me and my cousin to Keilar's Bakery, where my friend Marie works. We took the baby with us, because we had to. My uncle dropped me and my cousin off at the bakery and he drove off (to do work? he always thinks that his time is too precious and if he takes time out of his busy schedule he has to make it up by working later.) My cousin has never had a cream puff before, so we got three. She had one and she liked it. I had one too, not bad. Cream was a bit firm. They have a lot of things there for only having 2 glass cases; they had pastries, baked goods and... morning baked goods? hahaha like baked goods being cupcakes and cookies, morning baked goods being bagels and muffins.

I traded 3 crochet cupcakes for an apple turnover, a whoopie pie, a Cape Cod cupcake, a blondie and 3 cream puffs. Not bad. Plus, it was my birthday :)

I had a quart of dragon well when I got home. Nothing much to do. My aunt came home, then my cousin had to go to "work". She volunteers at my uncle's brother-in-law's and the library.

The Goods. ;)

+4

Day 31

Today my aunt was out of the house in the morning, she was in Boston for something. I think she goes to Boston every Thursday and Sunday I'm not sure.

I brewed a quart of tea in the morning. Today wasn't too warm; I was pretty cold that night. The temps have been in the 70s and even lows in the 60s.

Didn't do much today. Played Sims 2 until my aunt came home, because we had to watch the baby. Then my cousin immediately asked to go skate. I was super surprised. I was Skype IMing with Kristin and I said "Maybe I was too aggressive with my stoke" haha.

We went to a new place today, we went to the bike trail near the golf courses. My cousin forgot her helmet (can't believe I didn't catch that) so I made her wear mine. I taught her how to footbreak, sorta. She doesn't really do it because she thinks she'll fall. She needs to practice.

I ended up getting a light sunburn on my face because I didn't have my helmet on. :(

+4

Day 30

Today is a big day! Because it marks the first month of my summer mission! I am horribly behind schedule but I am catching up (kinda) with my whole quarts of tea sort of thing. I think I just need to prepare them all at the same time and have them sitting around so I'll just drink them when I see them. I started the day by making 2 quarts of green tea. I learned yesterday that it's dragon well. Because my aunt read it and said it was "leung jiang" (please excuse my romanization) and well, it literally means dragon well. So yay now I know what I'm drinking haha.

Today my baby cousin had a doctor's appointment in the morning. I'm told he behaved well. Good kid.

My cousin kept asking me to play Gamecube with her, but I told her I wanted to skate with her instead. She said she didn't want to skate.  Eventually we agreed to skate. Since her trucks suck, I've been researching better trucks for her. I asked her if I should buy it because I said I wanted her to put them to good use and commit to the sport. She said not to buy them because she wouldn't. I got upset and told her to just play her games. She said it was because she wouldn't have anybody to skate with. Her mom eventually convinced her and said she would go out with the baby while my cousin skated. My cousin seemed more amenable to skating.

We went to the park and did 2 laps together. I gave her a couple "skate challenges" along the way (skate down the slope and then avoid the manhole, get some good starting pushes and then go up the sidewalk hump, get some good starting pushes and then roll over the cracks but bend your knees so you don't get caught, etc). I told her I wanted her to get one good lap without jumping off her board for some reason (she doesn't stay inside the bolts so the board flips a lot), and I let her take half a lap with my board, and she did it perfectly. She said it felt a lot better and she seems a lot more interested now. I explained a lot of longboarding stuff to her to get her more stoked and she seems to be really stoked.

As we were leaving, an older woman with an older man sitting at a picnic table yelled, "you can't skateboard here".
I looked stunned. I asked "where are the signs?", since I didn't see any. If you can't skate a place there's usually a good sized sign somewhere. I thought I missed it.
She says, "they aren't up yet. they'll be here next week"
"When was this decision made?" It obviously had to be recent.
"A long time ago, they just haven't put up the signs"
"..." Well this made me skeptical. I'm not a local here, so I'm not aware of this ordinance, and my cousin lives here (though she's not a skater) and doesn't know about it either. I'm not calling their bluff or anything, but I just think it's fuckin fishy.
"There's a skate park at Bass River but the kids don't use it. She looks at my board "That one's okay" she looks over at my cousin's board "but that one can jump".
"Right, but these are different. Even though they're still skateboards, these are longboards, and they're mainly used for crui----"
"Yeah we know a guy and his family with boards even longer than yours" She cut me off, that bitch. I hate it when people do that, but when you try to interject, they just keep going. So I just changed the subject. She obviously doesn't want to hear what I have to say.
"There's a skate park? Where?"
"Yeah, over at Bass River...."
"Sports", the guy says.
"Bass River Sports. They don't use it because they don't want to pay $10 and wear all the pads." I think it's weird for the town to charge $10 (per year? or per person per time??). I think free, maybe a waiver and a helmet should be all they need. I wonder what this "skate park" looks like if they're charging people.
"Okay, thanks" I start to walk towards her "What's your name?"
"Debbie"
I shake her hand and smile "Em." My cousin does the same.
"Yeah it's just other kids that skate and tear up the benches" she motions around her
"Right, the grinding."
"Yeah the grinding", The man says.
"What's your name?"
"Jim." I shake his hand too.
"You can skate at the golf course, and on the path, it's really nice" she motions behind her. I think I've been there on a bike before, not too sure.
"Well, thanks for letting me know. It was nice to meet you." I wave and we get going.
The guy calls after us "You can still skate now, but just remember, for next time." We were planning on skating every day for the rest of the week, maybe we should.

I wonder who they were. They were thoroughly surprised that I was courteous. I'm sure she thought I would flip her off and bring the rest of my skate friends to tear the place up. I hope I changed her attitude about skateboarding, even if just a little. I thought it was really rude she didn't let me finish my sentence. That's just something I really HATE about people. Their body language seemed to show that they really thought they were powerful, but I wonder if they were just bluffing. The curbs and benches looked fine, and if the town decided the park wasn't for skating then they should have put signs up a LOOOOONG time ago.

So we skate over to CVS to pick up photos of my cousins for their passport photos and then skate home. We look at decks while we eat lunch and my cousin really likes the Landyachtz Bamboo Stout. We have to go to the post office so my cousins can get their passport paperwork in, and I go to Boarding House, a store that's into board culture. I go in, I ask this ginger kid, "Hey, do you carry longboards??"
"Yeah."
"Do you guys have Landy Stout?"
He's got a baseball cap on and a lisp, "What's that?"
"It's a longboard"
"Oh. What's it look like?" We start walking towards the back of the store.
"It's got a spoon nose, kicktail, pintail shape..." I'm actually wrong, it's flat and doesn't have any of those qualities haha. Except maybe pintail.
"Oh... What brand is it?"
"Landy.... Landyachtz."
"Oh, we don't carry that."
"So what brands do you carry, Sector 9?"
"Yeah, and some Loaded..."
"Do you guys have Rayne?"
"What?"
"Rayne, they make downhills."
He points to like 3 racks, mostly empty "and Palisades".
"Oh, okay."
"Yeah, so take a look and see what you like, if anything is right."
"Okay."
"We used to carry two Landyachts, but they didn't sell, so now we don't."
Yeah dude, I can see why. What the hell is Palisades? They look like Never Summer knockoffs. Maybe they're one of those "cruisers" street board companies are coming out with. Ugh. There was actually a sign that said DO NOT RIDE LONGBOARDS. I wonder if this is why people buy longboards and hate it. Because they can't even try it in the store, and staff is like, never knowledgeable. I looked at their bushing selection, they only had Lucky and Bones. I asked some other guy at the desk if they had other bushings. He asked what I was looking for, I said lower duros, like 80. He asked if I tried Indy's and I said yeah, I also have Bones softs. Then I just left. What a disappointment.

I walked back to the post office and my family was still there. My uncle rips the paperwork out of the postal worker's hands and just says he's leaving and apologies to the guys behind him for taking so long. We walk out of the post office and he's mad. I ask my aunt what the deal is. She starts explaining to me, but then my uncle starts to get rude and tells her to shut up and says how dumb she is in Chinese. My aunt has never sent in for a passport, so she made a copy of the birth certificates because she was afraid they would get lost. My uncle was all furious because the post office didn't take them and that the documents are mailed back along with the passport blah blah blah. He was saying how he didn't want to play this damn game anymore, he was done, but then he told my cousin to go home and fill out the forms all over again (there was nothing even wrong with the forms) and to just do it and not to ask why. My aunt wanted to ask why since he said he didn't want to do it anymore, but since he was being stupid, she just asked "And then what?" and he didn't say anything.

Came home and threw the order in. My cousin called her friend and immediately went over to her house. Seriously. It was that easy. It took ALL of 3 days worth of prodding before she just CALLED her friend, and her friend, THAT DAY, invites her over. She came home an hour and a half later, said she had fun. That's good. She said she hadn't seen her friends in a YEAR. I made 2 more quarts of green tea while she was out.

I hope she keeps hanging out with her friends and skating. Sorry for the long post, guys! It was a lot of dialogue I know haha.

I drank 2 and a half quarts so far today. I HAVE PEED SO MUCH. But it feels pretty good.

+10

Day 29

I have started to make tea in those quart containers take out places give you when you order soup. Yum for big containers of tea that are really hot.

Went crabbing today with one of my aunt's friends and Alex, a Russian guy that lives upstairs that works for my aunt for free rent. We took him along because he's never seen a crab. On Sunday, my cousin agreed to come crabbing with us, but she had a last minute "stomachache".

We arrived at the crabbing spot (A new spot, I've never been there before. They call it "the bridge") with all our stuff, chicken legs, traps, string, stakes, beach chairs and a cooler full of drinks and watermelon........ WE FORGOT TO BRING NETS! Sooooo we set up the traps and threw them in, since we didn't need nets for those. We got a lot of little ones. Alex got a big one. My aunt left for about an hour to go to CVS to buy something for my cousin's stomach and also to get the nets. She forgot her house keys, but she peeked in the window to see my cousin on WoW. Predictable. I tied the rest of the chicken onto the strings on the stakes.

Anyway, my aunt came back with the nets and we started wading into the tall grass (pokemon, much?). Then we stabbed the wet mud with our stakes. We unraveled the string and threw the chicken in. The trick to crabbing is I guess.... "string feel" haha. You need to wait until the string is tugging (its just like fishing). Then you start to reel it in slowly, and if you feel like the chicken feels heavier, then you probably have something on the other end. If you have something that's pulling REALLY hard, you probably got a rock lol. If you have something that randomly pulls REALLY hard on and off, you might have an eel. You need something like an underwater butterfly net for that. We didn't have one of those. If you have something that pulls lightly on and off, then you have a crab, my friend! So you need to pull it in really slow, and eventually it will come into view under the water, as you pull it closer, you will start to see the crab. Try to gauge the depth of the chicken by the color of it, it will ALWAYS look closer than it really is! Wait until the chicken changes from a murky gray/green to a white color, and then you're good to go. Be swift with the net, and dip lower than you think you need to. Water depth is a tricky bitch. With enough luck and patience, you will get some crabs! Usually we separate the big ones and little ones, and we throw the little ones back in at the end of the day, so we don't keep catching the little ones. We also throw the mommies back in. You can tell because they'll have eggs stuck to their underside. You can tell gender from the bottom of the crab. There will be a sort of flap that looks like either a half circle or a triangle. If it's a big half-circle with a little triangle on it, then it's a girl. If it's a triangle, it's a boy. Don't ask me how they have sex, I don't know. YouTube it. Anyway, here's a picture of both, see if you can tell the difference!

The top is the male and the bottom is the female. I hope you got it right.

After we got home, my aunt RIPPED their claws off with pliers and my cousin and I set off to clean them with toothbrushes. Then I took a shower because I was really muddy from wading around in the tall grass looking for pokemon (large crabs). We invited Alex down for some crab. He looked a little uncomfortable eating a traditional meal in a Chinese household but he did well. He used chopsticks and thanked us for the meal.

+4

Day 28

I started crocheting the bottoms of the cupcakes last night and I finished the first bottom this morning.

We went to the beach today. My cousin and I went over to the boat trailer parking lot (less cars) to skate. It's my cousin's second time skating and yesterday we built her a longboard out of a crappy mountain board Ocean Spray sent me. The trucks are crap because the bushing seats are just.... WRONG. They're these horribly casted indy knockoffs that just really fail. But she did well. She got some wheel bite after breaking in orange and white khiros, so I threw in some Bones softs and cranked them down tight. Looks ok. For now.

We went back to the beach area and the wind  was crazy. It was kicking up sand everywhere. It hurt. It was like being in a really sunny sandstorm! We had a little lunch and swam briefly. Then we left.

I sneaked into my cousin's phone when she was helping wash her brother (I know, I'm a horrible cousin /: ) and read her text messages. She deletes her sent, because she only had 3 in there. She had a ton of txts from some kid named "blahbie bloobie blah blah blah" something like that. That's gotta be a WoW guy. He sent texts like "*comes up from behind and puts my arms around you, kissing you softly*" uh, HELLO?! THIS IS A 14 YEAR OLD GIRL, NOT A FANFICTION. Anyway, just lovey dovey crap like "I couldn't sleep last night because I was so worried about you" and "I'm so happy to be able to call you my gf". Bleh. She also sent him a txt saying something along the lines of "my mom made me carry 100lbs of stuff at the beach and my cousin just watched even though she does crew and is stronger and has more muscles than me" LOL KID I'M A COXSWAIN. I ONLY HAVE MORE MUSCLES THAN YOU BECAUSE I GO OUTDOORS. I think he replied "what a bitch move" or something like that hahaha. He should have been all gentlemanly and said "aww i wish i wuz dere 2 help u wit mah big@$$ musclez lol ily" but no. Oh well.

I ended up having 2 cups of tea later in the night, today was okay.

+2

Day 27

Had the rest of Kristin's Eggos for breakfast (last 3) and a cup of greeeeeen tea!

Kristin, Devon and I went out to DW and skated half of it. Last time we went, Elise got maaaad speed wobbles coming down the hill at the end so I was so ready to take it without worrying about a grom skater. We took it, and.... IT WASN'T EVEN THAT FAST! Hahaha I swear it was like 15 or something! Oh well it was cool. Kristin started behind me and ended up overtaking me. It's probably because she's bigger and weighs less than me hahaha. Devon air braked the entire time down so she was lagging. We all made it back in one piece.

Got back to Kristin's house and then ordered her some blue venom barrels. She's been running blue cone top, blue elim on bottom. We're going to see how it goes with the barrels. She's running some Paris 180s on wedges, topmounted. Her setup should be super sick (pumping MONSTER!) when she breaks in those barrels. Also helped Devon order pads from XSportsProtective and Sabre bushings (to pay me back), hardware, speed rings, spacers and a skate tool from LongboardSkater. She also filled out her Ian Tillman sheet for a free helmet. She'll be super ready come Fall '10! Devon looks like she's turning better so the Sabres must have broken in.

My aunt then came to pick me up to take me to Cape Cod. We got talking about my cousin. My cousin earlier that week said that her dad suspended her World of Warcraft account because she got a D and a C on some quizzes so I was like "Oh okay but schools is out its not like you can get a better quiz grade". But my aunt told me something else. Apparently my cousin's been meeting boys online on WoW. She talks to them in the middle of the night on her cell and texts them all the time, running up the bill. Or something like that, her dad figured something was fishy when he saw the bill and saw that there were hundreds of minutes being used in the wee hours. My aunt said that he lived in some place where it must be morning where it's night here. I asked if it was long distance and she said no, so it must be some guy from the west coast or something. Anyway, my aunt said that my cousin speaks to these boys like they've known eachother forever and were dating. She was also talking to two boys at a time. My aunt and uncle always read those stupid news articles about how some kids meet over MySpace and elope and run away and stuff, so my uncle told my cousin that he'd pay airfare for her "boyfriend" to come so they could meet him in person. Then she said that they wouldn't like him because he's Mexican and has tattoos. Um, HELLO?! TATTOOS? My cousin is 14. Idk the laws in other states, but if you have a tattoo--no, TATTOOS at the age of 14, you can't be bad news. So then my cousin called her guy and broke it off, saying that she only wanted to play WoW with him, not be his boyfriend. Then a couple days later they found out she called him back because she missed him or something. And 2 weeks before she was cut off from WoW, she apparently met some other guy. Her parents found her phone in the baby's crib... all this weirdo stuff. Anyway, it sounds like my cousin isn't living a very healthy lifestyle because she doesn't go out. She didn't even want to leave the house to go to the car and enter in Kristin's address into the car's (built in) GPS earlier in the week.

I ended up drinking half a bottle of this NAAASTY tea. Hansen's unsweetened black tea with lemon... DON'T DO IT. I couldn't even bring myself to finish it. IT IS SO AILCJAD;LKSJAIWE DON'T DO IT!!!!

+2

Day 26

I woke up and had 3 eggos and a cup of green tea. Blueberry is my favorite flavor, so I chomped them up.

We waited for Fallon to come pick us up for her and Kristin's pole dancing "fitness" class. I was supposed to film them. Fallon came like half an hour later than she said she would, but they gave themselves a lot of time to get lost, because apparently Fallon doesn't drive a lot. Or doesn't drive in cities a lot. Idk. People that don't live in cities really hate driving in cities. I don't really understand. Boston traffic really isn't that bad. Boston's traffic jams are definitely not New York traffic jams. New York jams don't move. Boston's jams are just slow.

I bought a large green tea(20 oz) at the cafe across the dance studio because we were a couple minutes early. The dance class was ok, I made a tripod out of a cup I found and played Blocked on my iPod for most of it. I watched the first 15 minutes and the last 15 minutes. The class was an hour long, so watching half was pretty okay. The class wasn't very synchronized. It was a go-at-your-own-pace sort of thing. I didn't get it, oh well.

Then we went to Ciara's birthday party. It was okay. The DJ could have been better (i.e. responded to requests). There was a grill fire due to a combination of negligence and cheap hamburgers. I met Kristin's friend Roosevelt. I must have had at least half of the pitcher of iced tea. Let's assume the pitcher was a liter.

After the party I went with Alex, Kassie and Roosevelt to Walmart. I bought 2 crochet hooks and a couple skeins. A white one, a goldenrod one, one with different shades of blue and one with different shades of peach.

+6

Day 25

Phew! Went to Kristin's house today. Woke up early-ish to pack. Got on the 11am Lucky Star, more like 11:14am, but oh well. We made a stop at Burger King in Connecticut, when we were about to pull off, the next Lucky Star pulled up. What is that, they caught up to us! After we got on the road, a Fung Wah passed us! But we passed them. But then they passed us again. But we passed them again. Then a car merged in front of the Fung Wah so we were home free.

Arrived in Boston about the same time Kristin did. We met at the train part. I was super thirsty and the first drink ad I saw was for this lemonade twister thing at Auntie Anne's. Sooooo Kristin orders one in mango and one in pomegranate, but the really Russian cashier thought Kristin ordered two mangoes. We got it straightened out eventually. Anyway, long story short, don't order it, it's not great.

Then we went down into the subway and had to fill up Kristin's Charlie card. She only had a roll of quarters (minus 2 so I had to pitch in) so we had to fill it twice, $5 each, because apparently there's a 20 coin cap on how much you can deposit. The nice station worker informed us of this and thought it was really stupid.

We managed to get to the red line platform during rush hour, so it smelled like sweaty boys down there. Then we took some other train to get to Symphony Hall and.... RED MANGO! We ordered a large to share... The usual: Pomegranate with mangoes, mochi and blackberries. The Boston Red Mango is really weird looking to me. It's just too clean, but like bathroom tile clean... not very eclectic New York City Red Mango. Just different vibes. Service was much slower too. But not as slow as the one on St. Marks Pl. D:

Then we went back to South Station, took the commuter rail to Brockton. On the train we started to make a sim version of me. Kristin's mom picked us up. Kristin bought some Stop&Shop (Nature's Promise) veggie potstickers and I made them in a non-non-stick pan. It was a little challenging. They weren't the usual ones we bought from Trader Joe's; these had cabbage and vermicelli noodles in them. I didn't think they were all that great but we still ate them. We had some green tea (the leaves I sent Kristin from a little while back). I had 2 cups. We continued making me and then started to make a sim-Kristin. Alex and Kassie, Kristin's friends came and took us to Burger King. I got a "super large" sweet tea. It was 32 ounces! It was huuuuuuuge.

+8

Day 24

So today was my (second) official first day at work! We set up post in St. Marks.

It was alright. I didn't make quota today. It was really rough, but I learned a lot. There's not really much you can do except execute what's given to you by the organization. I will have to leave after my 3rd day if I do not make quota within the next 2 days. Stick to the script. Stick in one place. Greet all traffic in one direction. Stick. To. The. Script. Also, you need to pay for transportation and I didn't bring my own lunch. I ended up having a tropical parfait and lemon green tea from Red Mango. I wonder if we get reimbursed. Probably not. Hellooooo unlimited metrocard. Translation: 4x swipes every workday. Let's say there's 22 weekdays in a month. $2.25 a trip. $198 a month for paid metrocard. $90 for a month's unlimited metrocard. I guess it's worth it. It's KIND OF like being reimbursed...

Anyway, I called my mom after work while hobbling over to Starbucks next to her office building. The line was long but I really needed an iced venti passion tea lemonade. If you've been reading the blog, you'll notice that I usually order a grande. Well today it was a vent situation. I was thirsty. I was hungry. I was tired. Mom actually already left the office so I met her a store called Step. We went to Pax next door and got some vodka sauce penne. It was pretty tasty. It had bacon in it! A little pricey though, but it's on the corner of Bryant Park, what can ya do?

Came home and took a shower. I was disgusting from the 92 degree weather today. When I was shaving my legs, the water that dripped off my razor was literally gray from dirt I picked up.

Mom and I then went to the gym to use the hot tub. It was pretty cool. Mom got a headache from the chlorine though. Poor mom.

We went to Chipotle for dinner. We shared a burrito bowl with rice, black beans, peppers&onions, chicken, tomatoes, corn, sour cream, cheese and lettuce. Yummm. I also got a cup for fountain drink and got some iced tea with a lot of lemon and a little sugar.

Mann I'm SO dehydrated.

+7

Day 23

This morning I woke up not-so-early to go to Central Park and skate a lap. My dad called me about 15 minutes before I finished and told me to meet him in Brooklyn. We were planning to go to this Mexican place he liked. I finished up and proceeded to get off one stop before the stop I was supposed to get off. I was supposed to get off at the stop where my old high school was, but I totally forgot which one it was. I looked at a map and just skated in the most obvious direction I could (towards the bridge!). My dad told me to meet him in front of Juniors. I called him and apparently he hit traffic, but he asked me to wait at (diagonally across Juniors) in front of Applebees. I ended up waiting forever for him. But he was actually waiting for me also! Behind some maintainance truck. Man, the city has a LOT of big trucks.

We at at a place called Mexicali. It's across the street from a Trader Joe's. They were ok. They had a good amount of tables with people, and they seemed understaffed. It took us 15 minutes just from ordering the drinks to receiving them. Dad got a burrito. I got the lunch #9, which was a chicken taco, beef tostada and a cheese.... tamale? It was cheese rolled in a tortilla with some tomato sauce over it, and then some more cheese on it. And it came with rice and beans.

We went to chinatown afterwards. I got some.. er.. Pineapple Cake. I swear it's more interesting than it sounds. It's like a Taiwaneese pastry treat. It's really small and comes packaged. It was a dollar a package! I bought one. They're translated into English as Phoenix... something.. pastry. Hahahaha. Then my dad went to the bakery and he bought me an iced milk tea. A bit too sweet. No, it was too sweet.

+2

Day 22

So I had to wake up early(er) today to get ready for my first day working for the Human Rights Campaign. I chugged down the leftover mug of tea I had from yesterday as I was waiting for the bathroom. Today I would be pit against the likes of Focus on the Family and the Christian Coalition. Phew.

Wore some comfy everyday clothes, filled up a waterbottle, packed my paperwork and fished for my passport. Arrived just on time because I managed to catch a local train (been taking the subway all my life, and I still can't say I know exactly how it works, but oh well, who can?) The office was just as hot as yesterday, and I sweat just as much, even though I wasn't wearing my stuffy suit. We were pulled aside one by one to have us recite our raps. I didn't do so great. Once all our paperwork was filled out and everybody recited their raps, we became a human conveyor belt and practiced greeting people. Keep a smile, stay positive, and wave big.

We started with announcements, updates on current campaigns, with cute little messages (apparently you need cup your hands around your mouth and announce "OH WAY OH WAY OH WAYYYYY" [in descending pitch] and we had a "public service announcement" where someone in the room drank a big gulp of water, meaning that we should stay hydrated throughout the day.). Then we broke up into groups according to experience, some people headed out to do canvassing, others stuck around to help the newbies. I got paired up with another newbie David and our rap-training-person was Nicki. David had it down except for a couple word changes. We need to have it down exactly. It's "someone", not "somebody". It's "contribute right now", not "contribute". I started getting it, but then I got pulled aside and I was told that there weren't enough trainers today and that I should come back on Thursday. -sigh- Oh well.

So I went home and finished counting coins. I finally finished and I have about $316 rolled and give or take $7ish for the unrolled stuff. Not bad. I want to treat myself to a new longboard. Get a sickkkk symmetrical drop through board. I've been debating on whether I want flexy or stiff, but I've decided to go with stiff. Though flexy is nice, my current board is pretty stiff and I think they're more versatile. Flexy boards can't do downhill as well, but they can take up to 30mph, and I don't really think I'll be going past that speed... but just in case. It's a tossup between Sayshun Compass and Rayne Vendetta. More hype around Vendetta, I haven't really heard much about Compass, but it looks amazing. They're both really similar except that Vendetta is a little bigger and has more torsional flex.

Soooo I guess I'm going to make some ramen, drink some tea, skate to the bank, feed my bank account and...... I don't know, skate some more, hopefully.

The tea was steeped way too long and was suuuuper bitter. A little brown sugar did just as little to ameliorate the taste. Oh, tannins, why do you invade my cup so?

+3

Day 21

Today is Go Skateboarding Day!

I brewed a pot of Barry's Irish in the morning, but only ended up drinking half a mug. I made a couple phone calls in the morning. Called my aunt in Cape Cod to tell her that I was going to go visit next week because I still don't have a job. Called Kristin to confirm going to her house this weekend. Called Bank of America to see if they accepted loose change deposits. They didn't. Then I called The Fund for Public Interest around 3PM, and I got an impromptu interview at 6PM. I didn't have time to go for a real skate, but I did skate to Bank of America to grab some coin rolls. Skated home and counted $210 worth of quarters. Showered, put on my suit and went to the NY Fund for Public Interest office.

It was one of those really really REALLY old apartment buildings where you went into the door and ascended a looooooooong stairway; it was complete with uneven stairs and a flickering light. Pretty eerie. I had to get to the 3rd floor and I was sweating balls by the time I made it up there. They had 2 window fans going and all the windows open but it was sweltering in that place. 

They are an organization that pairs up with other organizations to do street canvassing for grassroots stuff. It's pretty cool, they are currently doing two projects, one with Environment New York and one with the Human Rights Campaign. Currently, companies want to drill for natural gasses at the New York water shed, where NYC's water supply comes from. NYC has some of the nation's best drinking water and drilling would really risk contaminating that. Haliburton drilled in Pennsylvania, and they spilled all these toxic chemicals into the water and contaminated the water in Pittsburgh(?) for a week and a half. They have some good momentum behind it because of the opposition with drilling right now.

The other thing they're doing is fighting for equality in the workplace. It's legal in 29 states to fire someone for being gay. Obviously, a person's employment should be based on their skills, not gender, race, sexual orientation or sexual identity.

Filled out an initial application and was called second to interview. Interview went well, and I was offered an "Observation Day". I got a packet with W-2 forms and a rap for the Human Rights Campaign, which is the speech thing I need to memorize to give to passersby to educate them and to persuade them to become contributing partners.

...Basically it's like street telemarketing, but the good kind.

+2

Day 20

Today was father's day.

I had a pot (2 cups) of Stash English Breakfast at some breakfast place that was ok.

We went to see Karate Kid in the early evening. I grabbed the half-bottle of Duane Reade Sweet Tea left from yesterday on the way out. The movie was ok. It was a typical kungfu movie, but in mostly English. It had all the stereotypical kungfu effects, the chalk dust, camera angles to fool the audience into thinking someone really got hit... I thought it was like a chick-flick... for boys.

We went to dinner at a Mexican place afterwards and I tried the green habanero sauce by El Yucateco and I downed 3 cups of water and finally extinguished my tongue with a couple smears of sour cream when my entree (finally) came. It wasn't painful, just a lot of heat as soon as I swallowed my water. Luckinly the sour cream neutralized it and I was able to enjoy my dinner. I had flan for dessert and it was good, it had a sort of coconutty flavor.

I think I've developed a sinus infection over the last couple of days.

+3

Day 19

Woke up around noon and made a big pot of Barry's Irish. Had a mug before we went out to breakfast. We went to Elephant Castle and...THEY HAD MY WALLET!!! They said they thought they had it and were surprised it was there for a week and one of the waitstaff that's (extra) friendly with us was talking about how he didnt know where we lived and wanted to bring it back haha the people there are great!! While I was there I ordered green tea. They gave me a pot of Tazo Zen. It was interesting, it was like peppermint green. When we went home the doorman learned that we weren't Japanese, haha. I finished up the second mug of Barry's Irish and then my mom and I went to work out at the 6th Ave gym (we usually go to 13th st). There, my mom got solicited by a personal trainer, and I had a weird feeling so I checked with the front desk if it was under their policy for trainers to do that. It was, and I was just interested because the ones at the other gym are courteous and don't really just say "Hey, I can teach you how to work out right." ...Assuming there's a "wrong" way, other than poor form, which my mother was not guilty of. Oh well. After that we bought a bottle of Duane Reade's brand of sweet tea, I only drank half. The rest is sitting in the fridge.

+7

Day 18

My mom's boyfriend bought this bottled tea from a bodega somewhere and he thinks its "damn good". I resisted drinking any for a long time, but there were 2 half-finished bottles in the fridge this morning, and now I'm working on the second one. The brand is New York Homestyle Iced Tea. I'm drinking the pineapple flavor, but at one time we also had ginseng and honey. It's a good flavor, tangy and tea-y(?), more so than any other packaged tea I've had. Compared to this brand, Arizona and Pom teas are weakk.

Here's their site:
http://www.multivitaminenergy.com/

So they have other drinks and 5 flavors of tea... hmmm. Maybe I'll have to try them all.

With dinner I had half a bottle of Snapple's Pomegranate Raspberry Red Tea. Pretty bad compared to NYHIT.... Snapple tea isn't the best, but the older teas arent too bad. This one just had some juicy and artificial sweetener taste. I like Snapple's lemon tea, peach tea, lime green, and their black and white tea line.

+3

Day 17

Started the day talking to my mom trying to retrace the location of my wallet. We've determined that it's most likely in the apartment. I only looked in the regular places, I haven't scoured yet. My mom left me a metrocard and a little cash for until I find it. I miss it :( My mom ended up calling me later and leaving me a message saying that she took the metrocard to work lol, but gave me some weird instructions on where to find another one.

I finished the mug of leftover tropical green from yesterday, and there is a whole other mug still in the pot that I just poured out. I realized that I was being really lazy and not washing my mug in between cups and there were was lime pulp and a bit of black tea leaf residue (the powdery stuff) on the bottom. Maybe it's a mind game but I have a stomachache now :( Needless to say, I washed the cup before I poured in the next mug.

EDIT: 2:13PM
I forgot to mention about my interview experience yesterday, I got blisters. I took some pictures for you all to see. The walk to Pier 1 is like, 2 blocks away. I go down my block, around the corner, and diagonally across. It took all of 15 minutes to walk there, in short heels. I bought these shoes for my group interview with Apple, and they seemed pretty comfortable. But the second time I wear them, they give me blisters. On BOTH feet. I really started to feel pain on the walk home. It was a warmer day, and earlier in the day, so that could have been factors in it. I skipped my workout and skate because I didn't want my feet to protest and decide to hurt me any more. My parents decided to go to a fancy-ish restaurant for dinner and I couldn't wear flops so I bandaided them up, put some socks over them, and hobbled over to Gene's a block away. I think I probably walked like someone with a hip injury or something. They're looking better today, a little less fluidy. The pictures are from today.

 

The culprits.

 

The heel is already wearing.

 

Right foot. It's that patch of flabby looking skin.

Left foot. Same Spot.

Both feet. Suspicious lumps on my right foot...

+3