View from the middle

I went up to my roof to get to thinking a few nights ago and I discovered my favorite places have more in common than I thought. A relief, really, to bend the laws of time and space to go somewhere your heart wants to be.

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At Bakeri

I have been living, pretty much exclusively, for the lavender shortbread cookies at a cafe called Bakeri. It's a small place, always full of suspiciously clean people sporting that sort of new rumpled elegance that has grasped Brooklyn and won't let go. The girls behind the counter wear blue coveralls and vintage scarves to keep their hair out of their face. There are only 4 proper tables and getting one is harder than getting into Harvard. 

So when you get one, you stay. As long as you can. As long as you can get away with it, an hour at least. Bring a book, bring a friend (preferably one who puts up with fretting). Drink more coffee than you need to just so you don't have to give up the little table. Cling to the little table for dear life. It's a jungle out there so you might as well take your time.

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Dead Horse Bay

There was a day last week so shockingly sunny and windy that it left my cheeks slightly burnt and my lips hopelessly chapped. Some truly spectacular girls were in from out of town and to celebrate the meeting of the minds we went to Dead Horse Bay to do some overdue bottle digging.  

The girls were (of course) my favorites Alice and Francesca, the bottles were (of course) totally filthy and free for the taking. When the plastic bags were full, we went to Coney Island and gorged on the year's first hot dogs with onions and peppers. I forgot to wash my hands first but I survived. Quite happily, too.

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Visiting the Met

Generally relegated to my annual trip above 59th street or as a backdrop for sweet but awkward dates, the Met is my one that got away. I've lived here for 9 years now and I'm sure I haven't been in as many times. Since my 9-5 life faded to black in September, I've been wanting to go for an afternoon but nothing is as easy to put off as 3 hours of getting lost in thought uptown. I finally went in search of inspiration of the floral variety, found some, ate a macaroon and pondered the peculiars of solo museum scouting.

Changing out of one's slobby real-life clothes is a necessity. The Met is packed with out-of-towners, so a little extra eccentric goes a long way in keeping you and the camera clobbering masses apart, never mind the fact that you are also camera clobbering and just as prone to wearing ripped jeans.  A lady doesn't pay the full suggested admission but she doesn't pay a quarter, either. While you're at it, if you're going to be walking on fancy floors, you might as well wear fancy shoes. A hat works wonders as does wandering aimlessly. I stayed until a handsome security guard needed to escort me out of the visual storage section and then stumbled to the subway through central park, eyes glazed over in an unmistakable painting coma. It was delicious.

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Wreath Making Workshop

I am really happy to announce I'll be teaching a wreath making workshop with Grace from design*sponge at the Brooklyn Flea this coming Sunday!

When Grace asked me if I'd be interested in leading the class I was really over the moon. Holiday wreaths are often maligned and ignored, but oh lord, there is nothing better than a good, wild natural wreath. The smell alone will boost your serotonin levels ten-fold.

To get in gear, I went down to Maryland to forage in the woods for greens to bring back to Brooklyn for the class. It was cold. Like damn cold. This is how much I love you, friends. Micha and I gathered for 2 hours while the temperature hovered around 25 degrees.

We have boatloads and boatloads of gorgeous things for the class, we both were completely giddy once we thawed inside and got to start playing with everything. It was, seriously, the best day we've had in a long time. Who knew wreath making was so fun and easy? Even my dad got really into it.

The class is this Sunday the 19th at 10am. The workshop costs $40, including all of the wreath materials, clippers and floral wire. (Um, cheap at even twice the price!)

I'm so so looking forward to Sunday and I really hope some of you New York locals sign up, we have a few spots left and I can't think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

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Pumpkin ice cream

Do you guys remember this post from a little over a year ago? Probably not. It's a prerequisite for the one I'm writing now, so go and take a minute to get caught up to speed. I'll be here when you get back.

No seriously, go back and read it.

When spring rolled around this past year, my beloved Ralph's never opened for the season. I was crushed. There is now an awfully unnecessary late night deli (which might officially be called "late night deli" or something equally banal) in the old Ralph's corner location. It only took one summer for the war of Graham street to be over and for Uncle Louie G's to push out my dear italian ice spot. Boo. Hiss.

I swear with you as my witness, never once did I purchase ice cream from Uncle Louie G's while Ralph's was in business, pumpkin ice cream or no. I was stayed loyal till the end.

Of course the upside of all of this is that I can now eat pumpkin ice cream whenever I want and today being the first day of fall, I did just that. Nevertheless, rest in peace sweet Ralph's. Gone but not soon forgotten.

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Victorian photo collaging

For those not in possession of feet that can easily walk to the Met on the first springlike day of the year, allow me to personally escort you via dreamland for the next 5 minutes.

Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage really hit me hard. Grace suggested I go and I was completely entranced. I was that girl who devours every inch of written word on the walls and lingers too long with her nose pressed to each and every piece. Behavior which I tend to find sanctimonious in others but don't generally hesitate in doling out myself when the time is right.

The show focused on a trend of the mid 19th century- aristocratic women painting vignettes and the pasting photographs of the disembodied heads of their friends and family into the scene. The resulting albums are wildly clever and now my conception of victorian stuffiness is totally skewed.

Not to mention these rich ladies were charming painters, in and of themselves.

Just another reason why I should have been to born to Victorian aristocracy. Instead, I got yoga doing hippie parents in 1984. Not complaining..... Only a little.

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I am fully aware of the futility of saying things like "Sorry I've been an absent blogger lately" and "I swear I'll be better". Most of the time when I read things that that on other blogs, I'm not even aware that they've been posting any less than usual. As much as it pains me to say, a lack of posting generally means I'm happy and busy with, you know, things not involving a computer. My interest and commitment to internet has been waning. Real life can be so.... enticing? Distracting? Exhausting?

Also, a few weeks back I found of that there is a certain subset of grown men who are obsessed with amputee girls (no matter how small the um.. loss?). The swarming hive found me and it's sort of turned me off blogging for a bit. All's rectified, the point of entry had been taken down, but it still makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Talking about it makes it more bemusing/bizarre and less terrifying. Sorry Dad. Just needed to get that off my chest.

We're on to blizzard number 2 in Brooklyn and I've been making soup like it's my job. I finally bought a shovel to dig out my car and I'd probably still be spinning my tires if I hadn't gotten a 20 minute coaching session from a older Russian man who, through my rolled down window, gave me his philosophy on driving in the snow. When a man with a beard and a Russian accent tells you about snow, you listen.

My neighborhood is charming. Full of characters- hipsters and grandparents and tony soprano types. We all share one thing in common and one thing only. Vinyl siding. Sometime in the 1960s, everyone got together and decided to cover every house on every block with it. My house is 100 years old and it has it. So does everyone else's.

But the snow makes even vinyl siding look delicious. It turns a neighborhood with a face only a mother could love into a John Hughes movie set, but with more cultural diversity and higher rents. Girls with snowflakes and pinks cheeks are helped out by boys wielding shovels. Snow gets pushed into mountains and I get an excuse to sit in bed on a Saturday night. Cynics will be cynics, but I refuse to stop loving the snow.

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Williamsburg has its charms.

A Mister Mistoffelees, for all the Cats fans who felt slighted at my last post.

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Farmhouse washroom

Do I even need to say that this is the best bathroom ever?

Just in case, I'm saying it now, on the record.

THE BEST BATHROOM EVER.

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