Saturdays

It's Saturday again, and I'm at work. It's ok - I owe it to my company to be here for a number of reasons, and I've got plenty of work to fill my day, but I decided to post a little bit as a break from the paperwork. I've been discovering new photography applications on my iPhone and am using the grainy-quality iPhone camera to snap quick photos and then applying filters in the iPhone - it's like my cheap raw version of having Photoshop and using the Nikon. But I don't care. More, these days, I'm of the mind: if it makes you happy, do it...and so, iPhone hasty photo play gives me the occasional ounce of happy. But this will subside in a few months. It's simply a case of End of Job blues, and I'm in it with a lot of my co-workers, so at least we all have each other, right? Anyway, the image above was snapped this morning when we got out of a cab at 59th and Lex. The 7 train isn't running from Grand Central to Queensboro on weekends right now, so we ate bagels at Bagel Express and cabbed it to the N/W. Turns out, we rode a Q for some reason. The subway. Oh, the subway. I then spent the remainder of the ride toying with the iPhone application called something like fx or photo fx. I used two different layers on this photo, one which made it even grainier than the iPhone camera already yields (I heart my Nikon) and another color gradation one. Then I got to work and slapped on an appropriate lyric from an REM song in the KB Handwriting font my co-worker helped me make a few weeks ago. And there you have it! Recreational graphic design at its most minimal, my happy for the day. I say it's an appropriate lyric because I worry about leaving New York. I worry about it daily, even by the hour I worry over it. I've never felt so at home in my life, not even in Bloomington, where I'd say I felt second most like I was at home. Below, another one from earlier this week.
But, for whatever the reasons may be, leaving New York may happen, and if that event unfolds, I suppose I will search for the right coping mechanisms to handle it. The economy is a mess right now. Companies aren't hiring. Staying here used to be an absolute, but now, we simply must do what it takes to navigate through this financial crisis, even if it means committing to a job transfer. For what it's worth, I've lived here. I mean, not just breathed but lived, loved, laughed, cried (oh, have I done my share of that here), acted smartly, acted stupidly, eaten brilliant foods, learned impressive amounts about cooking, writing, weight loss, construction, elegance, myself...and of course, this is just a brief account of the life I've led here, and I imagine leaving New York will not come easy for me. Alas, I'm at work today and must get back to it, but these small moments for me help to maintain clarity.
Part ii. of my day found me traveling home via the 6 train so that I could make a local stop at 77th Street and browse the skincare/fragrances at Fresh. I've read recently about a sugar lemon (I think) scented body lotion that dooce (I'm a fan) wears, and oftentimes I check her page simply for product suggestions alone. Fresh stores cannot be found everywhere - they are sprinkled throughout the country in elite cities such as mine, so how could I not go into one, at least while I'm here? The store is like a minimalist museum-esque approach to sales, with white-lit shelving lining the perimeter of the store and a simple counter in the center of the store, all walls white, all products lined evenly on the shelves. I love that. And I knew, also, that regardless of whether or not I liked the sugar lemon, I'd want something from here, having traveled to this destination en route from a Saturday work day and, well, just to splurge. So, once again I stimulated the economy by spending far, far too much money on a new eau de parfum. But it blew me away. When I found it, I had collected like 10 of those sniff paper slips in my coat pocket, and my nose was becoming a bit dizzy from me filling it with so many fragrances, but this one spoke to me, immediately. The back story on me with "scents" is that I used to be an avid CK Be girl. CK Be was the gender neutral line that smelled just incredible, and was one of the first things that lured Craig into my wacky web. Well, as all good things come to an end, so did CK Be. Discontinued. So, I threw my hands up in despair and decided that Dove soap would have to suffice. But then, dooce drew me into Escada Into the Blue, which Craig's mom bought for me for Christmas. And I really do love it. But this stuff I bought today at Fresh...I want to wrap a cloak of it around me and bask in the sun or something. With a crisp glass of Sauv Blanc. And tan on my skin, and stars in my eyes. I love love love this fragrance. And the fact that it's called Tobacco and Caramel is the icing on the cake! The tube of mascara shown in the photo is just to further ensure that placing cutely-designed products right by the register will always win me over, and I will buy said product, because I'm that much of an awestricken pushover consumer. I don't even wear mascara!*Craig naps, now home from work, and we had planned to go to a fusion Asian place in the 50's. But we're wiped out, so chances seem more prominent that we might just hit a neighborhood place. I found the fusion place because we each like different kinds of Asian foods better than others (we both like them all, but I can't control my sushi urges where as he can go long spans of time without that, and he longs for Chinese or Thai almost every night!) We're just going to spend a night and tomorrow being sweet kids. Simple, exhausted, brain-numbed yet enthusiastic sweet kids.