Speaking of torture, I've been cutting back on chocolate. At the same time my boyfriend is trying to quit smoking. Our house is a gloomy place. There have been fist-fights. Instances of kicking, punching, biting, slapping, clawing at the walls (and each other), killing various living things. I imagine nicotine withdrawal is worse than chocolate restriction, but judging by my moodswings, it can't be by much.

In spite of all the quitting afoot, I enjoyed my long 4th of July weekend immensely, watching no fewer than four different fireworks displays from my friends' New Jersey terrace and sampling three different types of homemade potato salad over the course of the weekend. There was plenty of relaxing at home with my love and our industrious Netflix account (we have no TV!), enjoying Jason's cooking and some good grillin' at my aunt's house and relishing the mild weather. Lucky for me, it doesn't take much more than a 3-day weekend to replenish the ol' joie de vivre.

Today, it's hot. I don't like hot. I have never been particularly fond of hot weather. Warm weather, OK. Hot weather, please skip over whichever region I happen to be living in and move along.

I have to remind myself it's been four years since I endured a real summer. In San Francisco, they start throwing around the word "heatwave" when temperatures climb past 75. That's what I miss most about the city--it's my kind of climate.

Seriously, even when I was a child, I remember feeling miserable on those especially hot summer days (though growing up in Los Angeles often meant a spate of unseasonably hot days in spring and autumn, as well). Aren't most kids mostly immune to the weather? I mean, who hasn't seen little kids playing in the snow, wearing short sleeves? Well, I was that kid at summer camp who dreaded the beach because there was no shade. I couldn't understand why the other kids insisted on running around, playing soccer and ga-ga and softball in the hot sun when there were arts and crafts to be done at picnic tables shaded by huge oak trees. I didn't even mind it when other kids poured glue on bees or stuck popsicle sticks meant for building popsicle-stick houses into their noses, ears and other orifices. I was just happy to be out of the sun. I avoided it obstinately, even as a kid--always sitting on the shady side of the bus so the hot seats wouldn't burn my legs, finding an excuse to be indoors whenever possible, even if it meant helping set up or clean instead of playing. Maybe that's why the other kids were always chasing me with garlic and gigantic crucifixes?

New York City may be a steambath for the next few months but I'm still glad to be back. I just need to remember that when I'm shvitzing like a marathon runner on her 26th mile. Sticky and wet--it's the new black!

Guy: Are you still friends with that Puerto Rican guy?
Girl [laughing]: He's not Puerto Rican, he's just tan!

...on the subway Saturday afternoon (a pretty blonde 20-ish girl, chatting about Broadway musicals with her very gay male friend):

Girl: "Hopelessly Devoted to You" from Grease is, like, the best song ever... it should be, like, an anthem!
Guy: Totally! They should make it, like, our national anthem.
Girl: Oh my god! Totally!

And, as promised, photos from our visit to the NASA Johnson Space Center can be found here.

Guess what I learned, y'all? People down in Texas really do say "y'all!" Constantly. And guess what else? It's actually quite charming, y'all! There's just no equivalent in Yankee country, is there? ("Yo!" doesn't exactly compare.)

Houston was a steambath, which we expected. What I didn't expect was how green and lush everything is. It makes sense, given the magnitude of humidity, but it didn't stop me from staring out our 5th-floor window at a blanket of leafy green as far as I could see.

The other thing I learned is that Texas is similar to L.A., with its miles and miles of tangled freeways, all referred to by number (i.e., "Take the 610 to the 45"). Growing up in L.A., I was accustomed to this manner of direction-giving, but my NYC cousins always found it strange. Living here in NYC, you never hear the BQE referred to as "278" or the Major Deegan called "87."

Fascinating, right?

The wedding of our Jewish friend and his Italian-Mexican bride was fantastic--a great combination of cultures among some of the warmest, most joyful people I've met. We ate, drank, danced and watched the bride and groom play nice with their luscious white raspberry cake.

When it came time for the single women to congregate on the dance floor for the bouquet toss, I attempted to sit out the ritual (as I always do). Jason and I were seated next to the groom's brother and his girlfriend, who also planned to skip the bouquet toss. But, at the prodding of our respective dates, she and I headed out to do battle for the bouquet.

I could not have cared less about catching the thing and was distracted by one woman loudly whining that she deserved to catch it and prematurely claiming victory (something to the effect of "That fucking bouquet is mine!"). You know how there's always one person at a wedding who's dressed completely inappropriately? Well, this was her--tank top, yoga pants and flip-flops. Smudged makeup, stringy hair. Perhaps she'd just come from the pool and happened to stumble upon the ballroom?

Long story short, the bride tosses the bouquet into the air and it sails directly into my arms. As I clutched the delicate white flowers to my chest, Skank Girl (let's just call her that, shall we?) lunged at me from behind, scratching my bare arm with her claws and yanking the bouquet from my hands. Seriously--that bitch yanked like she's never yanked before. Then she did a depraved victory dance while I shrugged and returned to my seat.

Jason didn't see what went down, his view blocked by the women standing behind me. But, moments after SG's vicious thievery, the wedding photographer approached me. "You clearly caught that," he said, showing me the LCD screen on his camera, which proved the flowers were in my hands.

I thanked the photographer and Jason strongly suggested I march right over to SG's table to take what was rightfully mine. But, oddly enough, SG disappeared immediately after her larceny and we never saw her again. Hmm...guilty much?

The best consolation came from our waiter, an elderly Hispanic gentleman with a kindly smile. He approached Jason and I later in the evening and, struggling with English, he said, "You caught it." Then, gesturing to Jason and I with a long, thin finger: "You two are next."

Next, I'll tell y'all about how we geeked out to the max at the NASA Johnson Space Center, y'all!

It's hard to see the detailing in this photo, so here are some facts from Lost Brooklyn (scroll down ito read more or see other photos):

"...Built in 1920, the Studebaker Building is one of the few automobile showrooms remaining on Brooklyn's once thriving Automobile Row....The Studebaker Building still has the original terra-cotta design inscribed with the name 'Studebaker' in black cursive on a diagonal banner across the wheel emblem, an image that was used by the corporation on buildings all over the U.S."

Photo courtesy of Lost Brooklyn.

A second website states that the bottom two floors were converted to apartments in 2000, but it appears to us that people are living on every floor. We're watching to see if someone moves out--we would so relish those enormous, curved windows in the corner units!

A friendly-faced elderly gentleman, clutching two well-worn plastic shopping bags, approached me and asked, "Well, didja stay dry?"

I smiled and replied, "Yes, pretty much."

The old man—sporting khakis, a windbreaker and white tennis shoes and wearing his remaining half-dozen strands of silvery hair in a comb-over fashion reminiscent of Rudy Giuliani—got a bit prickly: "And why ain't ya carrying an umbrella, young lady?"

I quickly withdrew my compact umbrella from my purse and showed him, proudly, that this young lady came prepared today!

We talked about the weather a bit and then, in his charmingly thick, old-school Brooklyn accent, the old man began blabbering away. He was on his way to visit his secretary in the hospital and one of the plastic bags he toted contained a box of her favorite cookies, which her husband had neglected to get for her the day before. He owned a chain of restaurants and was planning to open a 7-11 on 57th Street. He told me how much he adored and appreciated his secretary and how she was being treated for a tumor in her breast, but they didn't know yet if it was malignant. (Yes, it was a long wait for the train that day!)

Short, stocky Mr. Chatty introduced himself as "Pete" and exclaimed over and over that I'm just "bee-yoo-tee-ful." Sweet as he seemed, he startled me a bit by suddenly grabbing my left hand and shouting, "Where's ya ring? Don't tell me you ain't married!" He asked if I had a boyfriend and when I said I did, he exclaimed, "Well, why ain't 'e married ya yet?"

I tried—over his repeated, cheerful compliments—to explain that I'm in no rush to get married and he shouted, "Aw, a bee-yoo-ty like you? I'd-a married ya straight away!" and described how his secretary's husband was in the dog house for not bringing her cookies but that, "See what I nice guy I am? I brings her dese cookies."

This is the point when things took a turn for the awkward (at best), creepy (at worst). Pete exclaimed, "I can't believe a bee-yoo-ty like you ain't married! If you was my girl, I'd keep ya tied to the bed..." (gives unnerving physical demonstration) "...and nevah let you go!" Hmm... scary. I mustered a smile and leaned over to look down the tracks for the train I so needed to arrive at that moment!

In between anecdotes about his secretary, Pete, quite shockingly, reached out to brush a strand of hair away from my face. Now, as a woman who likes to think the majority of humans are compassionate and inherently good, I wanted to believe Pete was just a sweet old man, trying to enliven a dreary day by being sociable with a friendly young woman. But the part of me that has lived 36 years with varying degrees of cynicism and who reads the news every day and knows people can be evil was, understandably, a bit frazzled by Pete's open adulation and a lack of boundaries that was astounding, even by NYC standards. A tip for the future, Pete: kind words for a stranger are welcome. Touching? Not so much.

But, here are some photos of a much nicer day as I walked to my cousin's house for a lovely Mothers' Day brunch.

I took this shot while standing at the entrance to our subway station. This is the path I walk along twice a day, on my way to and from the train:

The Brooklyn Museum, a 10-minute walk from our apartment:

Maybe I'm crazy, but I have a feeling Sue Simmons made a lot of new fans that night.

And speaking of juvenile, one of the highlights of yesterday's NYU graduation ceremony at Yankee Stadium (congrats to my boyfriend, who donned his cap and gown proudly--photos to come) was the spontaneous stunt attempted by this kid.

He made it from far right field almost to home base before being tackled by not one, not two, but SIX security guards. Six burly he-man tackling this gleeful, skinny white kid to the ground. For running across the field, arms in the air. It was excessive, no doubt. But if their goal was to dissuade other happy grads from trying a similar stunt, well, mission accomplished!

Still, it was giddy fun to watch from the stands and the newly-minted NYU grad (assuming they don't revoke his degree!) has a cool story to tell his grandkids.

More on the wild stunt here and here.

And, not to ruin the mood, but I was pleased that the NYU ceremony began with a moment of silence for the victims in Myanmar and China. My heart aches for what they are going through.

Perhaps it is because of this newfound respect for at least one of the Bush progeny (or because Dubya's IRS deposited a nice sum into my bank account last week) that I actually smiled upon seeing the photo in yesterday's news of the proud papa, Laura and their daughters at Jenna's wedding. Whatever your feelings for the Bush clan, it's hard to deny it is a lovely photo of an exceedingly handsome family (and what a gorgeous dress!). Much as I dislike Dubya and just everything he has done (or failed to do) these last 7.5 years, I can't deny he's a handsome man, that his wife--useless though sweet as she seems--is a very pretty lady and their daughters, both beautiful.

While it pains me that Bush can appear so happy and proud and beamng when so many people have suffered as a result of his actions, I found some relief in the amusing fact that the man who officiated the wedding--Bush's religious adviser and friend Reverend Kirbyjon Caldwell--has endorsed Barack Obama. Ha!

Few can argue that Bush has been (to put it kindly) a disappointment since Inauguration Day, 2001. I will be delighted to witness him exiting the presidency that many believe was never rightfully his to begin with.

And yet, I smiled at the photo of him standing proudly (albeit with that trademark blank look on his face) with his beautiful daughter and family on her wedding day.

Am I going soft?

Now, because it's a cloudy, gloomy, rather unpretty Saturday morning and I have been avoiding work by futzing around the apartment since 8:30, I think I'll give it a shot!

On to the rules:

1. Link the person who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules in your blog.
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
4. Tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking them.
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged bloggers' blogs letting them know they've been tagged.

Now for 6 unspectacular quirks (of the many gazillions I have) about me that, hey, you may just find interesting:

1. I have been addicted to crossword puzzles since I was about 18, when my cousin Dalia introduced them to me. Oddly enough, the only thing that has ever been able to break my crossword addiction is a NEW addiction: to cryptograms, introduced to me by my boyfriend, Jason, last year.

2. I "face and fan" all the bills in my wallet. That means they must be in order by denomination (ones, fives, tens, twenties) and they must all be facing forward and upright. If this delicate placement is upset, I'm convinced the world could end.

3. I talk to my cats. All the time. I also sing little nonsense songs to them. They often purr when I do it, but I can't help but imagine that blank stare on their faces indicates complete contempt for me and all humans.

4. I get nauseated from perfume samples in magazines. Sorry, Vanity Fair, but the first thing I do when I get my monthly issue in the mail is rip out all the foul fragrance ads (and, frankly, all the other ads, as well--easily removes 100 unnecessary pages and makes the magazine much easier to shlep around).

5. I get extremely tipsy from one glass of wine. Particularly red wine, which is unfortunate, because I enjoy it so much. But seriously, it's embarrassing. I could hold my liquor much better at 22 than I can at 36!

6. I can't stand it when any digital clock in my house isn't on the right time--that means the DVD player, microwave, alarm clock, etc. must all be set correctly at all times. (I am a very busy girl on spring forward/fall back days.)

There you have it. I am a freak of nature.

Now, to tag 6 of my fellow bloggers:

1. Marney, at The World According to Marney (I know you're a busy newlywed with a new home to unpack, but we miss your blog!)
2. Seth, at The Wind Beneath My Chicken Wings
3. Aaron, at Aaroniously Yours
4. Adam, at Touch My Genius
5. Jackie, at Jackie-Blue
6. Christopher, because he has a website but really should write more

I do enjoy my job (Technical Writer for a large magazine publisher) tremendously and recognize how lucky I am to have found a position that challenges me daily and allows me to dig deep into my well of talents. Throw in some bright, interesting and friendly colleagues and an upbeat, positive environment and you've got one happy working girl.

It strikes me almost every day, in different ways, how much I had missed New York City in my 4 years away. Much as my sojourn to northern California was an extremely positive period in my life, I came to appreciate what I'd gained from living in New York even more while I was away. Now, the comparisons between NYC and San Francisco float around in my head constantly, whether relevant or not.

Living in San Francisco, I relished my 20-minute walk to work each morning--listening to music or NPR, taking in the sights of downtown, doing some people-watching, arriving at work refreshed and alive each day.

But now that I spend 30-40 minutes each morning on the subway, I realize how much I'd missed the best thing about non-automobile commuting: reading time! It took me months to finish a book in San Francisco because I spent so little time taking mass transit. Luckily, I now report to work a bit later in the morning than most, which means I usually get a seat on the train, which means a good half-hour a day of uninterrupted reading time. Delicious.

I've missed New Yorkers. In spite of their reputation as brash, arrogant, rude, loud (which, let's face it, many of them have earned), New Yorkers have a way of interracting with a level of warmth and familiarity I just haven't seen elsewhere. It's in the way the construction workers call each other "Mac" and laugh over a pizza, sitting on the sidewalk, hard hats in their laps. It's in the way store-keepers (and even the bagel cart guy who makes my iced coffee and always adds the perfect amount of Splenda) get to know their customers and call so many of them by name. It's in the way the local kids learn to ride the subway and the bus surrounded by hundreds of people who look and sound nothing like them and the way they grow up understanding that everyone in this world is a minority among certain people, in certain places.

I don't know. I just missed it.

That's not to say New York isn't a hectic, exasperating, frustrating, chaotic mess of a city. It is. It teems with life--some of it revolting--and the sidewalks explode with people and sometimes it takes me 5 minutes just to walk one block because there are just PEOPLE PEOPLE PEOPLE everywhere and I can't breathe and I just want some peace and quiet and for fuck's sake, it's just impossible to find sometimes.

But the city suits me, in its own insane way. Good or bad, it's home. And, in spite of it all, I'm glad to be home.

As we passed a lighting design studio displaying all kinds of different floor, table and hanging lamps in its huge storefront window, one of the tweens pointed at an enormous, gawdy as hell chandelier and shouted, "Check it out! That's dumb pretty!"

Dumb pretty? Say what? "Whatever happened to awesome, rad, tubular?" wondered the aging '80s relic (that would be me) seated behind them.

"It's dumb pretty!" The tween repeated, in case I misheard her use of this newfangled slang that makes old folks like me contort their faces in highly unflattering ways.

Her friend/sister/Doppelganger replied, "It's mad high up, too."

Damn, I feel old.

Stranger: Thank you.
Me: Excuse me?
Stranger: I know you work very hard, so thank you.
Me: You're welcome.

Bizarre, yes, but one of the reasons I moved back to New York City was because strange encounters with every conceivable sort of human being are a part of daily life here. And I'd missed it.

Jason and I live in Brooklyn, not far from where I took my first breaths on Earth, a quick subway ride from Manhattan. Depending on which map you consult, our neighborhood is either Prospect Heights or Crown Heights. Call it what you like--it's a colorful, diverse neighborhood of mostly Caribbean blacks (Haitians, Jamaicans, etc.). Sushi may be hard to come by, but there is plenty of Creole, African and West Indian food. We hear French being spoken a lot (in fact, the cabbie who drove us home from JFK Airport was playing Edith Piaf the entire way).

If that's not diverse enough for you, walk a few blocks east and you're smack dab in the middle of the biggest enclave of orthodox Jews this side of Jerusalem. Seriously, you've never seen so much black wool in your life and there's a synagogue, religious school and dentist's office on every block. We are at the intersection of Jamaica and Jews, as my cousin Otto put it. The cholent capital of Brooklyn, if you ask my cousin Gill.

New York is a city of neighborhoods, as they say, and one of the things I'd missed most in my 4 years away was that genuine sense of community. People take their neighborhoods seriously here and--particularly in areas where people aren't swimming in cash--neighbors tend to lean on one another.

As with any neighborhood, you have your wackos and your assholes (like the portly teenager in my local market yesterday who lovingly told the cashier to "Go fuck your mama and your mama's mama"), but despite the fact that palefaces like me and Jason stick out like sore thumbs around here, we love the diversity and we've found our neighbors and local store owners to be friendly and accommodating; the neighborhood, charming. In fact, all around this area are beautiful brownstones that I'd bet are reasonably priced (by NYC standards, at least), meaning that student loan burden-holders like us might afford to be homeowners before we reach retirement age.

In the meantime, we have a wonderfully sunny fixer-upper apartment that we are happily fixer-upping (as Jason puts it). I have spent more hours at Target and Bed Bath & Beyond than I care to admit, but it's all part of the fun of making our house a home and settling in to our little corner of the melting pot.

So I'm crazed these days with packing. For those who haven't heard, I am preparing to move back to New York City after 4 years of "left-coasting it" (as my friend MTD puts it). As someone who prides herself on keeping her home as minimally cluttered as possible, I'm stunned by how much STUFF I have. Honestly, I don't collect knick-knacks or useless tchochkes and I make a concerted effort not to keep things I don't truly need. But still... So. Much. Stuff.

The worst of it is the books--I can't bear to part with any of them and the hardcovers are just so damn heavy. They fill 7-8 boxes all on their own.

So, I read this article in the news today, about a French village banning residents from dying because there's no more room in the local cemetery. It reminded me of this very sweet movie from about 10 years ago that I loved and no one else saw (except my mom, who saw it with me): For Roseanna. In it, Mercedes Ruehl plays a dying woman in a small Italian village whose husband (the delicious Jean Reno) runs around town, trying to keep other villagers from dying so that his wife can have the last spot in the cemetery. It's funny and touching and a very sweet love story. Seriously--rent it.

Also, while I visited my parents earlier this week, my mom and I rented La Vie en Rose. If you're ever feeling like you have it rough, you must watch this. I knew very little about Edith Piaf, except that my mom had some of her albums. But wow... what a horrible life that woman had. Misfortune just followed her everywhere.

The movie jumped around a lot and skipped some important facts, but Marion Cotillard did a spectacular job. I was completely transfixed by her. And it was fun watching it with my mom, who speaks French and translated the lyrics for me (for some reason, they provide subtitles for the dialogue, but not the songs, which I would have appreciated).

Anyway, rent it. It's devastating. And you will come away with a newfound appreciation for your own life.

As we prepared to take off from JFK, I noticed the woman placing her hand in the man's lap and, putting my peripheral vision to the ultimate test, I watched as the man began giving her a manicure. (Yes, a manicure.)

First, he carefully and lovingly filed each of her nails, followed by a cuticle clipping and thorough buffing. By the time we'd reached our cruising altitude, he was kissing her perfectly buffed fingertips and moving on to her other hand.

Later, the two passed a yellow legal pad between them, furiously jotting down notes and ideas. Planning a wedding, perhaps? Preparing to move? Strategizing a hostile takeover? Who knows? But in spite of the vital importance of whatever it was they were discussing, they still managed to hold hands and stroke each other's arms, hands and faces while engaged in urgent business.

Not long after their feverish brainstorming session, the woman said something to her man that I could not hear but could make out the excited "Guess-what-I-have-for-you?" tone in her voice. Then, much to her man's delight, she produced from her purse a brown paper bag filled with a veritable feast of sugary goodness--Snickers bars, Pepperidge Farm cookies, gummy bears, Jolly Ranchers, etc.--which she spread out across their two tray tables as if emptying her child's Halloween pumpkin after a lucrative night of trick-or-treating. Let the snacking begin!

Later, the two cuddled up (as best two people can cuddle in airplane seats, naturally) and watched a movie on the guy's iPod, laps and tray tables strewn with colorful candy wrappers.

I must say, it was refreshing to see two people so enjoy their six hours of forced couple time in such a way, even if it made my own solo flight seem longer and lonelier than ever. I realized that, of the dozens of flights I take each year, the majority are by myself (last year, I flew once with Jason--otherwise solo). And even though I look forward to the downtime to read, write, listen to music or just relax, I tend to feel much lonelier when in the presence of two people so enjoying their travel time together, sugary as it may be.