New Dork

 

dork

dôrk/

noun

noun: dork; plural noun: dorks

1. informal

   a dull, slow-witted, or socially inept person.

 

 

I was waiting for the right story to happen, for the right super cool amazing moment to write my first post from the Big Apple, but three weeks have passed and that moment did not seem to hit me right in the middle of my chest and leave me completely NY-baffled - instead I got a sparrow hit me in the forehead. Literally.

 

I truly thought I might be able to actually post cool stuff about places to eat and things to do in NYC but that will have to wait. The city is still coming to terms with me being here as I am coming to terms with being in the city, so before we embrace each other - really hoping that happens - I am back to my daily life catastrophes and other stories.

 

Three weeks in New York and I have finally come to terms with my current alien status: New Dork. This is just like being back in high school, only these time the rest of my classmates are 1.6 super cool and hip manhattanites and me I am just the dork that doesn't know how to queue in Whole Foods. True story.

Just picture yourself as an over-dramatic, self-conscious yet not so self-conscious as to hide her geek side, 28 year-old female and you may understand my feelings that first day...

After 7 and a half hours of flight where people looked at me in a very odd way - the fact that I watched 'Star Trek into the Darkness' while crying my eyes out may have helped - I landed in JFK with my three suitcases and not a freaking 5 dollar bill in my handbag to pay for the (I-hope-it-is-made-of-gold-to-cost-that) trolley and my credit card didn't work either. I could have walked to the customs queue three times with each suit case, and then just push one of them with my forehead while pulling the other two suitcases, but the mere thought of it made me cry, so I decided to trust in mankind's goodness to get my way out of the airport and into a cab to Manhattan.

It took me begging to four different people to get a ten dollar bill in exchange for 10 euros that I might trade for two 5 dollar bills with some other heaven-sent saint until, in my desperation, I asked to the guy that was putting more trolleys in the machine if he could help me get change. He simply took my 10 dollar bill, put it in the machine, gave me my trolley, gave me 5 dollar coins as change and sincerely told me not to feel bad when my eyes filled with tears as I murmured, thank you, I feel like a total idiot (I so wasn't exaggerating with the over-dramatic part).

The ride to my soon to be home was not so pitiful. In fact I couldn't help but playing the first cords of the world wide known classic and topic... chan, chan, chan chan chan, chan, chan, chan chan chan...

[at this point I will, as soon as I can, post a video clip of Mr. Sinatra's eternal hit, but alas I have no access to YouTube from this computer]

After that, things went quite smooth on my first few hours in town, doorman, concierge, suitcases taken upstairs by the same doorman, unpacking, teary phone call to family and boyfriend, and then the inevitable trip to the supermarket...

 

The Boss took me up 7th Ave. from there to Central Park South and then to Columbus Circle [yes, here you will be able to play Wrecking Ball].

Whole Foods photograph by Kate Appleton.

There it was... salvation in the form of organic madness. Whole Foods is known for a very posh supermarket, but I have to confess, when you are new in town you go to the places you know, and that was the only place I knew around that could serve my purpose. I have actually stuck to it for the last three weeks despite the Hufftinton Post, I think it is addictive once you make it through the first day.

 

Still highly emotional, I walked up and down several aisles several times trying to find the usual brands I buy home. None of them exist here, all are substituted by organic-little-farm-very-very-local-we-assure-you stuff. I'm still trying to figure out how they know which type of the gazillion types of apples they sell you are purchasing, but maybe in time I will solve that mystery.

I finished my shopping in that same hazy state and proceeded to queue at the eternal queue that seems to be Whole Foods checkout. Once I was first in my line I saw a number being called and walked to the cashier, only to be stopped by a very angry man telling me that the number was green and not yellow. What?

And then he went back to the lines, pointed at my queue, pointed at the huge yellow arrow at the beginning of the line, then to the three-color screen were a number appeared over one of the three color bands (blue-yellow-green), and then to the light on top of each cashier... I would have rather he just called me dork, because after that embarrassing moment I had to suffer the humiliation of going back in line, and then, when my number was finally called, at least three different hands tapped my shoulder and nicely indicated now it's your turn (I swear in my head that still sounds like a hysterical scream).

 

And then it was over. pwew. There is a lot more to come where this came from. Unfortunatelly.

 

Such is life.

 

 

 

The city that never sleeps...

Make your mark in New York and you are a made man.  Mark Twain

The day is here, and I am leaving for New York. Hope to see you around, I'll keep you updated.

Such is Life

Instaweek, made with Over

I am a super fan of Instagram, but the lack of a decent smartphone makes it quite difficult for me to keep up with this hipsterish app.

I may be able to check all the boxes of the "oh so you think you are cool" quiz but why deny it? I love iPhones and apps that make you feel hipster. I also love empty framed glasses... yeah that's me.

And I so need an iPhone. 

Not having an iPhone is so time consuming that a person with my job cannot afford.

I so need an iPhone!

In the meantime, I spend my time trying to use my iPad 2 wifi as an iPhone, with a little help from my blackberry... which is totally nerve wrecking.

 It works like is:

1.- M sees nice scene which she wants to share.

2.- Click!

3.- email to iPad. M waits until she has a wifi network available. Sometimes it costs her €3.50 - the price of a tall capuccino with skimmed milk at Starbucks (oh so hipster too).

4.- Edit with A Beautiful Mess or Over (super awesome).

5.- Re-edit with Instagram.

6.- Finally share!

Exhausting.

So while my iPhone comes, in a couple of months, I hope... I'll share my week with you, edited by Over.

Are you a blogger? Would you share your next 7 days with us? If you would, post your link in our comments!!

Such is Life!

The dark visitor - murder at 155

I took a life the other day.

Man, I hate to confess my crimes, but my heroism protecting my property deserves it.

I killed a cockroach...



...but I so much wish it was a very large beetle. When you see a roach at home it means that you are no longer allowed to sleep well, when you see a beetle it means it got in from the garden below and that's the end of the story.

So there I am, happy, getting home on Friday after a bad day and a bad week at work. I turn around to turn the lights on and then, just as Doctor Who says, i see it back in the corner of my eye. A dark and ugly shadow, crossing the living room on its way to... please please please don't get in the bedroom or I'll never be able to sleep again... the bathroom.

Good, bathroom is safe, I have to clean it tomorrow anyway so bathroom is the least bad place were the monster could hide.

I followed it with my eyes, disgusted, terrified and... rebellious. How dare you get in to my sanctuary? all the living forms that enter here enter by invitation, you have not been invited in! oh how I hope you were a vampire roach, that way you would have stayed out waiting patiently for me to invite you in. Vampire roaches are totally acceptable, common ones are a curse.

Me being the tiny thingy on the ground and the roach the big white one.

If you ask me, it was as large as my fist. So, how should I get rid of it?

I need a murder weapon.

Why don't we have a 2nd amendment (for roaches only, please do not misunderstand me)??? hummm. All the stuff I keep at home is so pretty I cannot risk to squeeze the freaking gigantic bug with any of them. So sandals are sacrificed. I take one off. I feel empowered with my sandal in my hand, and then, then I realise I have to walk in the bathroom sandal in hand and one bare foot, and I chicken.

Deep breath, deep breath, and there I go, I walk in, look around and find the intruder under the door, moving its antennae. I want to think the bug felt its end was near... and hell it was. Hope it suffered for tresspassing private property.

First strike with the sandal, the bug escapes, I scream. I keep screaming. Strike two, bug lying helpless on its back, tiny legs moving. I scream again, close my eyes and... strike three. The bug is out. A huge mass of legs and white soft stuff all over the floor.

Yes, I am still screaming by then.

I got rid of the corpse as discreetly as I could manage given the huge amounts of organic juices oozing from the dead bug.

Dirty work done, I call mom.

I have not been able to look under my bed yet for fear of finding another uninvited guest.

Such is Life.

Fastart! My weekend in ten doodles

How I needed a little sun and relax, you can not imagine... Trust me you cannot.

Materials: Faber Castle wood pencils and moleskine.

This will be enough to survive the week. Btw, if you have not checked the new video feature in Instagram, go now and so it. Totally addictive! I may share some of my new found film director skills with you if you behave.

Such is Life

and another idea...

as I said, 28 bring it on!

Such is Life

Fastart! Moleskine (R) inspired art and other ramblings

I love complaining, I hope I have learnt over the years to complain in such a refined and elaborated way that makes the complaining less of an annoying defect but more of a character defining feature.

I simply complain, all the time, about the most stupid things. I complain about life's little daily complainable stuff, like getting up early, having a way too demanding job, being unable to lose weight (actually not even trying to), procrastinating, online shopaholism, bad quality washi-tape, people that steal staplers, the wheather (oh what a source of happy complaining), but above all else, I use this blog to complain about my lack of blogging habilities and my muse's long absences.

Over the past year I have discovered a great deal of blogs which, far from inspiring me to blog more, have deviated my attention from this blog and taken me to a far more comfortable reader-status.

And that is the point. Instead of posting more, I am posting less and less, why? oh why?

There was a time when writing a post took more than ten minutes of picture-theft on Pinterest or Tumblr, there was even a time when people wrote on Moleskine notebooks instead of blogging. And there was a time when not everyone declared themselves bloggers and shared with other non-bloggers the interesting stuff that happened to them (it was called coffee over the holiday pictures, for example).

As much as I fight to find interesting/funny/geeky stuff to post about, the more "inspirational blogs" I follow, the less inspired to blog I feel.
Well, just the other day, the tables finally turned. AT LAST.

The guys at Mr. Wonderful  discovered us this guy: Guillaume Kurkdjian, and it all came back (not the hey I'll repin a couple of pictures and come up with a blog post), the good inspiration came back, even if it was not blog-oriented.


Well, Guillaume Kurkdjian helped me go back to basics, and Moleskine my daily life. Yay!

He is a genius at designing animated gifs and other really fun digital stuff, but what I liked most about his website was his Travel Notebook.

Isn't it cool? so happy and colorful and fun. And simple.

And I wanted that on my Moleskine (R), really bad. So this weekend, I made myself a promise, to try and draw the daily stuff and the happy weekend plans and anything that comes to my attention for the next couple of months.

This exercise also reminded me me that I have a design block waiting to be filled, and a great color pencil case... and HUGE plans.

I also think the result of my first attempt at decorating my Molskine (R) was quite good. Of course it is bad that I say so myself, so I will let you praise me if you like. That is, after all the purpose of bloggin'. Telling a story and hoping people like it, and then they tell you they like it and you feel reassured and motivated to keep doing so. And maybe one they you will tell a story that is actually interesting. Who knows!

So now, ladies and gentlemen... your call:

 
 Such is Life.

P.S. Congrats to the newlyweds, loved my giftbolaget, syster, and loved the family time this weekend.