Behold the glory of Prospect Park!

This is where I spend my mornings lately.

Be careful what you flush

No more condoms in the toilet, please.

Deep Throat revealed?

BREAKING NEWS at CNN.com:
"Vanity Fair: Ex-FBI official W. Mark Felt says he's Watergate source known as 'Deep Throat.' Details soon."

I don't know ... Vanity Fair? I'll believe it when Woodward, Bernstein, or Bradlee confirm it. Keeping an eye on CNN and Vanity Fair; more soon.

washed away

I got in the shower this morning after my run (yes, I'm still training, congratulate me all you want) and it looked ... different. Things were out of place, bottles left open, general disarray. At first I thought, "what the hell, did someone break in and use my shower while I was away this weekend?"

Then I remembered, I hadn't showered in Brooklyn since I'd done so with the Bachelor Thursday night. And just like that, tidying up went from chore to pleasant memory. Next time, baby, I'll show you the ropes (where I keep them, that is).

circus freaks

For some as yet unexamined reason, Bachelor #2=circus sex. We didn't break anything this time (neither furniture nor body parts), and we managed to stay indoors, but we did sort of flood the apartment. The cat coped with that pretty well.

Then (or maybe first) there was the bizarre drunkenness episode. After work, a few of us got together for a drink. The third round arrived while I was still only half-way through with my second beer, but I let it wait, I wasn't rushing. And though I didn't have dinner last night, I'd had a big lunch. So halfway through beer #2, I go out for a smoke, and I'm slightly wobbly on my feet. Try to shake it off, go back in, finish second and third beer, and am suddenly totally woozy. If I didn't know my companions better, I'd think someone slipped me something.

Luckily the subway was right next to the bar. We got on, I failed at small talk, and soon I was asleep, waking just in time to get off at my stop (hello, GAP!). As soon as I exited the station, I was stone cold sober. Total time of drunkenness, extreme though it was: 40 minutes.

No hangover this morning. And for the record, the reconcilliation with B#2 and the decision to go home together happened well before any wobbliness.

So yes, we're talking again.

not that that's a stretch, by any means.

Also, she is much taller than he is.

"Katie, you is my woman now, you is, you is!"

I'm sorry, I just can't let it go.

This terror thing shouldn't be quite so funny

Gawker has some great additions to this list of ways to beat the terrorists at their own game. My favorite speculation? "Terrorists might pan the new U2 album, throwing all hope of third-world debt relief into disarray."

BUt if Bono's leadership can so easily be undermined, who then can guide us toward victory?
A comparison to help you decide.

Holmes Chastity Edition

Still really queasy about the Katie Holmes/Tom Cruise situation? Me too.

The Art of American Barbecue

"Grilling is a quickie on the kitchen table. Barbecue is tantric."

God I love Slate. Someone get me a job there, quick!

Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn

I am infatuated with Brooklyn, and more specifically, addicted to the Slope. I really love my neighborhood. I went running in Prospect Park this morning at 6 a.m., even. And I think that Manhattanites who snub Brooklyn out of some misguided sense of fabulosity... well, they just don't know what they're missing. Anyway, isn't it sad when you deprive yourself just to project an image?

My desire to share the beauty and perfection of the borough of Kings has been tempered, however, by a fear that once everyone figured out how great it is, it would get overcrowded or too expensive or etcetera, etcetera. You know that New York tragedy. And now it's happening, of course, but I will keep my chin up and just spend more time in the park, while I wait for the inevitable crash.

Gawker stalked my husband!

Apparently, my darling George was at the Union Square W last Friday, and I missed it. Another lost chance to meet my future husband.

tell me that you love me and I'll do the same

As I included in my resolutions, I've been trying to tell my friends that I love them as often as possible, because it's too easy to forget to do that. But lately I've been feeling a bit out of sorts or taken for granted, which have resulted more often in fights than in love fests.

This starts a vicious circle, of course, where I hold back myself. McSweeney's gave me a good reminder today, to return to the good fight.

Thus endeth the touchy feely post.

bhangra, baby, bhangra

Dammit! Vineel and I have been talking about going bhangra dancing for, like, ever. And I've been dying to see the inside of Capitale since it stopped being a bank.

Last night, because I'm so bad about reading my flavorpill NYC e-mails, we missed the perfect opportunity to do both. Sorry, baby!

where is this place anyway?

Intriguing new service HousingMaps combines GoogleMaps and Craig's List. Doesn't matter though. Everyone lies and the market is inflated. Just stay where you are.

Darth Tater

As much as the Coop may now be pissing me off on an almost daily basis, I still believe in the organic rebellion.

chilly reception

"Kitty in the fridge, kitty in the fridge, kitty in the fridge."

This is the absurbity that my morning is reduced to. The cat snuck into the fridge and has camped out. She absolutely refuses to get out, and I am late for work and don't have time to fight with her about it. So I have to keep reminding myself that she's in there, so I don't leave for work with her still holed up in her chilly retreat.

How she does love the cold, though. Born and raised in New York City, but always yearning for the frozen wilderness of her breed's namesake state. Geez -- crazy monkey!

my calling card

So I'm thinking of having calling cards made, since I never carry my business card on me, and I don't want people calling me at work anyway. Should I be bold and use one of these hot silhouette babes, or should I stick to something a little more tasteful? Vote in the comments, please!

The Best Places for Making Out, Part 1

From the fabulous Matt Levy over at nonsensenyc --

In response to the overwhelming (actually, a half-dozen) responses to last week's column (actually, column title), Officially would be delighted to share with you an extraordinarily subjective list of best places to make out in NYC.

The list is organized by the type of couple you and your honeybunny are, and reflects the highly disorganized mind of the author. Keep in mind, many of these also qualify as great places for a picnic. Without further ado, the highly diversified and totally subjective NYC Makeout Hotspots:

Traditionalist: Atop Belvedere Castle in Central Park, overlooking the Great Lawn and the Boat Pond.
Brooklyn Bum: Under the Soaring tower of the Brooklyn Bridge in Brooklyn Bridge Park, DUMBO.
Mentally Unbalanced: Govenors Island's abandoned Octogon: a former mental Ward.
Urban Explorer: The crumbling and soon-to-be renovated Shipyard buildings along Beard St in Red Hook.
Exhibitionist: Father Duffy Square, the tiny triangle in the smack-middle of Times Square.
Nature Freak: Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge marshes.
Aviation Geek: Floyd Bennet Fields collapsing airplane hangers.

He promises to tell us the *number one* spot next week, and I promise to pass it on. (maybe I'll test it out first for you, you never know.)

the ole In-N-Out

If you don't know about the cult of the In-N-Out and their Secret Menu, well, welcome to the fold.

Mink and Bologna

A mink pea-coat as a bathrobe? Fabulous!

God, I'm bored (or as the title claims, restless). Save me from this rut.

Dustup over FLT

There's a typo in this article; they didn't put the superscript in the equation. So I'm looking at

xn+yn=zn

and thinking, have I lost all my mathematical skills? This is totally solvable; what greater mathematical truth am I missing here?

Don't tell me proofreading isn't important. Also, Nova wins again.

I am not in Chicago...

... my grandfather did not die, and I got a full refund on my bereavement/emergency fare plane ticket. Thanks to all of you who were so supportive yesterday while the misguided melodrama was unfolding. I'm back at work; I still need to tell my neighbors that they don't have to feed my cat all week.

My grandfather has been in the hospital the last few days with pneumonia. Yesterday afternoon, we were told that tests had revealed a perforated colon. Without surgery to repair this, he would die of peritonitis within a couple of days. However, surgery itself was very risky for a 90-year-old man with pneumonia and fever. He would probably die in surgery, but he would definitely die without it, so the operation was scheduled for later that night. I booked a flight out of LaGuardia at 6 this morning, and my parents would leave Boston at 2 this afternoon. We were all sure that we wouldn't make it back to Chicago in time to see him alive.

At 11 last night my mother called. The two-hour surgery was over in 45 minutes. What the doctors had misdiagnosed as a perforated colon was actually a stomach ulcer. My grandfather is doing fine; he's expected to recover with no complications. And the family in Chicago has asked us to save our vacation/bereavement days for when we really need it. If I hadn't just seem him six days ago, I would have gone anyway, but as it is, I'll do as I was told.

Yes, there is clearly a huge issue regarding the quality of care that my grandfather is receiving, when his doctors misread an ulcer for a perforated colon in multiple tests. That will be dealt with soon, I hope.

I slept hard last night, and I expect to do so again tonight. Thanks again to all of you for your support. The silver lining of these crises is you get to see how great your friends can be.

The Literary Critic's Shelf of Shame

Hee, I've never actually finished reading Ulysses either, despite my oft-mentioned love of it and my literary pilgrimage to Dublin last year for the 100th Bloomsday. I did, however, listen to the whole thing on CD in my car, twice.

Honestly, were I to play such a game of Humiliations, I might do rather well, as I prefer magazines to books in general, despite my English Lit degree. However, I suspect that most of my friends would rather discuss how many O'Reilly books they've clocked.

Bacon Strips

I don't really think I need these, especially since I'm addicted to the space-age bandages. Still, I giggled.

Is this a date?

Seriously, what is wrong with single people in New York? How many articles about confusion and vagueness in dating do I have to link to? We have lost our communication skills, friends.

For example, Bachelor #1 disappears for weeks at a time, and then shows up out of the blue, expecting me to adore him. When I don't, because he's a self-absorbed absentee freak, he actually seems wounded. But he doesn't talk to me about it; he just disappears again.

Bachelor #2 also got a bit vague after the back-and-furniture-breaking events of last weekend. He's been busy at work and I've been out of town, so I'm cool with that. But last night at 1 a.m., I heard from someone else that B#2 had been raving about our little performance. I mean, I appreciate the props, baby, but if it was good enough for boy talk, you could have told me, too! Girls do like compliments.

So I called him on that, and he laughed. And yet, I'm still waiting for my flattery.

I know, I need a real man, and not a married one. Currently taking applications; feel free to post to the comments.

More Cowbell!

Man, I don't know who I love more, Chris Walken or the BOC. Either way, I love me some cowbell. (Alternate link here.)

7:35 in the morning

God, this is beautiful. And freaky. And I really miss Spain.

In memoriam: the end of dr fact

My fellow Rockstars,

It saddens me greatly that there will be no Night of 50 Questions next Monday, or any other Monday, for that matter. Dr. Fact has passed to his final tequila bar. We have been asked to try to contain our grief, and to go on with our lives.

If you'd like to keep the Rockstar flame burning, let me know. There are countless other trivia nights in this trivial city. If you'd rather lay your rockstar aspirations to rest along with Dr. Fact, it was nice being clever with you.

Hudsonblick -- Life on the river

My friend Charles is blogging in Germany! Though not actually in German.

Windows on the soul

This weekend I finally got the other living room window chiseled open to wash it. It was painted shut way more firmly than the first one, but I persevered. Now it's clean and sparkling, and the spring sun pours into my freshly polished living room.

It wasn't all happy window karma, though. I seriously wrenched my back and right hip while bent backwards out the kitchen window, and now I'm limping. But I (the bendee) got off easy. When the window came loose and fell down on him, I think Bachelor #2 (the bender) might have cracked a rib.