Boxing Day

Today can be a strange day... The day after Christmas... Boxing Day, they call it in England.

After all the holiday festivities have gone by, and you wonder if everything in the last month has lead up to an anti-climactic day of monotonous traveling and redundant oooh's & ahhh's, with a plastered festive grin that is slowly starting to hurt your face.


Ok, don't get me wrong, I LOVE Christmas day... Infact, I'm the Christmas Fairy! Never heard of her? Well, now you have and that's who I am... But the day after Christmas can sometimes make me feel jipped, or at least wanting to rewind the clocks back to December 1st to do it all again...

The Day-After is usually a quiet day for me (unless of course I am delusional enough to attempt gift returns with Mom at mobbed department stores). I take out the leftovers from the fridge, fix my plate of pineapple ham, corn pudding and yams, and set the microwave on reheat. I light a fire, throwing the ever-loving Duraflame log into the fireplace with the wrapper still in tact.

Hurling my pj-clad body onto the couch with my warm meal, I look out at the colorful, gleaming (fake) Christmas tree and array of opened gifts that had once held such promise and peaked curiosity.

I gaze over each item under the tree and almost wish we could wrap them back up and allow them to regain the mystery and festive beauty that speaks of anticipation.

I retreat to my Land to think and reflect on the memories of yesterday:

The old faces, the new presents, the cheerful music that played at every welcoming home...

The traveling I get to do with my Brother every holiday; our one moment to catch up and share our thoughts on our family, our lives...

The text messages I received from far off friends offering warm wishes (even though I still haven't programmed half of their numbers into my new phone and don't really know who they are from)...

The delectable treats I was (am) able to enjoy guilt free (Hey- It's Christmas!)...

The one-of-a-kind, embroidered gift I received from one of my Aunts, who put her thought, effort and love into making it such a special day...

Ok, Ok... So I guess maybe today still counts in the spirit of Christmas! Maybe this Christmas Fairy will NOT feel jipped on Boxing Day, and instead go blast some holiday jingles, press PLAY on 'A Christmas Story,' and go visit those Christmas cookies lurking around the kitchen...

Happy Holidays All!

Random Reflections

Looking back at the moment, on this past year, I think of all that has happened in my life. It was a year filled with uncertainties and doubts, a year I gave to myself to learn and explore, and most of all, a year filled with true independence. I'm not saying that all my choices were stellar, or even well thought through. But the choices I have made for myself were ones that I felt I would learn from, if even in some small way, and ones that would force me to see the world, meet people, and get mixed up with this crazy city of Manhattan.

Thinking of all the experiences I've had over the past 12 months makes it impossible to admit that it all happened in such a short amount of time. Things truly do move at the speed of light in NYC. The second you think you know someone, and have made a new friend, it is easy to wind up never seeing that person again, vaguely remembering the sound of their voice or the smile on their face. In a city so dense and compact, it is amazing to think of how many you have interacted with, have spoken to, have shared special moments with... I guess it is those who truly have impacted you in some way that stick around, lingering in the back of your mind, saturating your thoughts.

I have always thought I was the girl who would see and do it all.. well almost all... before I settled down. Could say I've done this, or recall a time I've done that, like that would help me to be well rounded and have an opinion that was valid and real on life. Now, after really living... Well really living by my standard of such a statement...I am not so sure that these thoughts were correct.

Doing it all and seeing it all are things I've always wanted. I was always ready to take on the world... Always wanted to do EVERYTHING, and ambitious to embrace life. But for some reason there is something in my head telling me that this may not be what I really want. Not my real answer. Maybe what I really want is to find my niche, find my groove, find where I belong... My place... In this world. Find where I can say I am content, and I fit in.

I do not know what 2006 holds for me. Right now it is an endless sea of opportunities and options. Choices for me to make all over the board. But hopefully, I will make these choices based on the faith that I know myself, and know (if even subconsciously) where my true place and serene haven is in this world. Maybe now, after using this past year to explore the many options in my life, I will continue to explore, with a higher sense of self and more secure feeling of who I am, what I am looking for, and where, in the end, I'd like to wind up.

But these are all random thoughts and ramblings... It is 2 days away from Christmas and time to concentrate on my wonderful season of cheer... Off I go to shop for the most perfect presents and put these thoughts of uncertainty on the backburner for another day, such as New Years, where they better belong.

I've Been Tagged: 5 Bad Habbits To Reveal To The World

Thx to City Soul, here are my Top Five Naughties:

1. Hair Twirling

2. Biting My Tongue When Nervous

3. Chocolate Insanity!

4. Unable To Keep Silly Secrets

5. ALWAYS at least 5 minutes late... ALWAYS!


So there it is folks, out in the open for all your reading horror!

I tag: Wootang, Marissa, JJ, CityMan & Jags!

Dirty Blonde

So I took the whole day off from work today. Went to a holiday party last night with a friend at a spicy new club on the west side called 'Pacha'. The true opening is set for tonight, but us hipsters felt super suave n special walking up that red carpet a night early to the thumping techno beats and tempting Christmas-tini's that were being served inside.

After scoping out 3 floors, the co-ed see-through showers and the green VIP room (not to mention 4 rum & diets and 1 Christmas-tini) ....Oh, and a partridge in a pair tree... We were finally all Pacha'ed out and made our way through the double steel doors and out into the fridgit night.

I sleepily awoke this morning to a blairing alarm clock reminding me to get my pounding head and and toasty body out of bed and into a cab to take me downtown to the hair salon. Ok, WHO might I ask, makes a 9 AM appointment to get their hair colored the day after a Christmas party and the morning of Manhattan's very first blizzard of the season?

Apparently only ME, because I was the only client in the joint promptly (and amazingly) at 9.

Another question: Have you ever experienced going to a hair salon, telling your stylist EXACTLY what it is you'd like done, and then having her do the COMPLETE OPPOSITE? OK, well, that pretty much happened to me today. I asked for typical blonde bombshell highlights, you know, Reese Witherspoon style. What do I get? Dirty blonde hair with caramel low lights.. Sweet. I look in the mirror and jump at the sight of it...

This person is so NOT me.

All I can say is...Man am I a Dirty Blonde...(and I don't mean Britney style)

-Blonde is just another name for HOT-
-Life is better BLONDE-
-Blondes have more FUN-

Ravishing Roomies

Pics from this past Saturday night... During the very first snow fall in Manhattan (1am to be exact)! Simply magical! Thats me, S-Roomie & D-Roomie at the first of the holiday soire's! Holiday hunnies are we!

Third Time's The Charm

The first time I lost my cell phone was in the back of a club on the Bowery in the girls bathroom. I didn't even realize it was missing until noon the next day, when I finally lifted my throbbing, achey head off the pillow to call a friend for brunch... Lucky for me a sweetheart of a girl not more than 22 years old found it upon her nose-powdering excursion the night before and held on to it, knowing that if it were her she'd be lost without the precious piece of tech work. Can u believe such people exist in Manhattan? They do.

Getting it back wasn't too much of hassle either. A trip down to Union Square on my lunch break to meet her at the nearest Starbucks where I actually enjoyed a hot beverage with this stunning stranger and learned all about her new life as a student at a city college nearby. Awesome... got my phone back and made a new girlfriend. And you Manhattanite gals know, making a gal pal in this city ain't always quite so easy.

The second time i lost my chrome mini Nokia was in the back of a taxi cab... But it gets even better. I was on my way to the airport. I had stopped off briefly at a midtown building to deliver a portfolio for D-Roomie, making it impossible to be held accountable for all my belongings; her artwork plus all my luggage and a wandering cell phone making its way straight to the floor next to my feet. You'd think I would have learned my lesson from this and started wearing my prized communicator on a leash. But once again, I lucked out by acquiring the kindest taxi driver ever found within the five Burroughs and when I returned from visiting A.Star in Laguna Beach, he promptly drove right up to my apartment building and I came down with a bewildered grin and a $20 bill...

Now seriously, can you believe that fairytale? Not only did I get my phone back but I got it shouffered over the day of my return, door to door, step to step. Now that's what i call Manhattan service.

So you see, after such heart warming experiences associated with the loss of my cell phone, you can understand my dismay last evening when I noticed the item no where to be found on my work desk, purse of jacket. CRAP! Done it again, I thought... But it can't really be gone... Right?

Wrong. This time the neighborhood garbage collector picked it up. You know, the one who walks around aimlessly all day finding interesting objects to add to his hoarded treasures... Well at least that is what I concluded from obvious sources. I actually just left it sitting on a bench on the sidewalk downstairs from my office. Right out in the open for him to feast on... Gone. Finito. Dunzo.

After calling it several times and getting no answer the possibility hit me that it might actually be lost forever. Whoever did find my old school Nokia decided they weren't parting with it so quickly, although Lord knows why. It's not like it was such a high tech gadget that people would be swooning over. I breathed a deep sigh of sorrow, morning the loss of one of my most valued possessions.

The next day I sent out an email to all friends and family, divulging the situation and asking for everyone's digits to put into my new and improved Verizon Motorola. I was returned with letters of joy and shouts of approval. "Thank goodness that damn Nokia had a death wish", they said. "You could never get a signal OR send proper texts." I guess in a way it was a blessing in disguise. True what they say: The third time really is the charm.

"Can you hear me now? Really? Yeah? FINALLY."