3 spins!

Here we have a picture of a statue in China Town. But before I get to that, we went to the dance studio again. It's been warming up, so I don't have to wear as many layers. I only wore a shirt with a jacket over it, jeans and ballet flats and was totally fine. I'm pretty sure I'm adjusting to the cold.

So we take the subway over to one of these office-looking buildings and take the elevator up.

After changing our shoes and checking our coast, we went out to the dance floor. They have club kinda lights and maybe 200 people? The air was humid it was so hot in there. Everyone was drenched in sweat.

I'm thinking, I hope this isn't like last time. Last time, I kept trying to anticipate the guy's leads and kept making little mistakes and then I'd say "sorry! oops! Sorry again" and almost fall over, etc. And the guys would look annoyed and not ask me to dance again.

But I did much better this time. I'm not sure what clicked, but I decided to pretend it was all a dream -- one of those dreams where you suddenly know how to ballroom dance. Somehow it worked!

I even followed three spins in a row! And I did a low dip...and then another dip! I still have a long way to go, but it's definitely improving.

Then they played a cha-cha song, and before I realized it I was already out on the floor. I once again pretended it was a dream where I knew the cha cha. I somehow followed it, even though I don't really know cha-cha. It's this on-2 variation thing, so is harder than the regular 1-2 cha, cha cha thing.

Aside from that, it's still cold but getting warmer.

I went to Dim Sum this weekend w/ some friends, which was super fun! We took the bus to chinatown. A friend's friend was Chinese and knew what everything was, so picked the good stuff. I had Chinese Broccoli, which was very good and reminded me of spinach. I'm very glad I finally learned to use chopsticks back in college.

Also went to a sushi buffet place this weekend, which was exciting. Great sushi, some other foods and a good desert section. Huge place, so you know it's fresh also.

This weekend I also went to my first NY club -- you know, like a real club, not one of these salsa places or whatever. I met some girls at a networking event and they invited me to a place. I googled it and there were lots of famous models in the gallery pictures, so I wasn't sure if I wanted to go -- I would feel so stupid if some club rejected me. Should I care? Nope. Do I care? Yup. So this girl knew the owner so she said to meet her outside and she'd get us in.

I took a cab over with my EV friend (and she is tall and blonde) and the bouncer asked her something and she said we were waiting for friends. "Wait inside." He said and he didn't charge us cover. So that was fun. The girl I'd met at the event knew one of the owners, who let us have one of those bottle service seats. And the girls all danced on the bench seat thing. I'm not so into dancing on things. So then another owner started hitting on my friend, so he gave us more bottle service drinks and this sake thing.

Then there was random drama.

But we ended up staying out until 4. I was just glad they let me in.

Blue Skies!

I never got what the big deal about spring was. But without a winter, you can't appreciate spring. So a lifetime of summer in Arizona never showed me why grass and blue skys are nice!

I had only seen New York in winter. I'd only seen gray skies, and I liked them. I didn't mind the layer upon layer of clothing and heavy coat. The boots and gloves and scarf, and occasionally hat. The amount of clothing probably weights 10 pounds.

The park, which I live next to, was always empty. It was only me walking through all winter. The benches, empty. The trees, bare. The grass, dead. The basketball courts were always empty and I wondered why they bothered building them, since no one played. Homeless people asking for change were the only people I saw. I got so used to it being gray, quiet, still and cold. It was one of the only silent places in the city, like a library.

Then yesterday, it was sunny. Cold, but not that cold. The sky was blue! A color I'd forgotten existed, like when you watch a black and white show and forget about color. I walked through the park. People crowded onto the benches that used to be bare. The trees had tiny little leaves growing. There was some grass struggling to come back. Three bushes were already green!

And then, every single basketball court was full of loud laughing teenagers wearing "T" shirts, throwing basketballs and frisbees and footballs -- like a recess they waited all year for. Three little boys raced to the fence, the biggest got there first, then the medium and then the tiny short one.

It looked so strange! It was like seeing a marching band in the library. The quiet still, cold park was now bright and loud. It was really strange.

I can see peeople on the roof of a building two away from me, smoking. It's so sunny it almost hurts my eyes, but in a good way.

Sold my second painting!

Woo hoo! Last night I got an email that someone had bought another painting. The person also lives in NY. The last buyer also lived in NY. So luckily my style must be working well here. Also I think it's the fact that my paintings are small, and it's hard to decorate apartments with an enormous silly canvas.

Here are some pics of the ones I just sold, Idealism.

My Fair Lady

Saw a great show, My Fair Lady, with my friend Jeremey. Was an amazing show! The dancing, music and costumes were great. I think it's up there with Beauty And The Beast and The Grinch as one of my favorite shows. We also had great seats only 8 rows from the front.

I also got to see Newark, which was the first I've seen of New Jersey. I was surprised that it looked nice. The opera house was beautiful where they had the show. This big sparkling ball thing looked like an enormous chandelier, and they actually drew it back up towards the ceiling before the show started -- can you imagine lowering and raising that every night?

Then we got to go to the VIP section and they had lots of drinks, wine, cookies, cheese and crackers and delicious double-chocolate brownies. They also took my coat very nicely -- for a second there I thought I was in the play haha (after she loses the Cockney accent of course).

Blood on the Sidewalk

So far on the sidewalk I've seen urine quite often, but that's okay. And I saw four condoms. All right, I can deal. But tonight I was walking along the very populated 1st. avenue in the East Village and I saw blood. First a small pool of drops, maybe less than a foot in diameter. And a few feet later, another pool that wasn't as drippy. A couple in front of me said something to eachother and the girl said "Well it aint fruit punch!" and they laughed loudly.

I walked quickly home, as I thought of the stabbing at the grocery store not long ago. I got really, really angry that people think they can go around stabbing eacother -- or maybe it wasn't a stabbing, but I would imagine that a gunshot would leave a larger pool? I dunno.

I missed yoga because of Day Light Saving

Today I got up with plenty of time to get to yoga. It was only 10:00 am and the wonderful, ideal yoga class that I love started at 11am. Plenty of time. I'm set to leave at 10:45. The clock in the living room shows I'm right on time.

I get a text and notice my cell phone says noon. Silly cell phone. Must be wrong. Somehow I perhaps re-set the clock instead of the alarm? Oh well. I rush out to make it to class by 11.

But as I'm walking I look at my phone again. 12:00. How could I be off by an hour? This means class is already over.

I go back home. My computer clock still says 11:00. The oven clock says 11:00. But my cell says 12:00.

Then it hits me...oh! I google Day Light Saving and yup...we add an extra hour starting today.

Living in the Mountain Time Zone in AZ doesn't prepare you for such strange things as altering time. I don't quite get the concept of changing time just because you want to, but hey, it could be fun. I now proclaim that it is 2am. It will be 2am from now on, and it is also September. Yup, because I said so! No, no, I get the concept of saving oil because of using more natural light, blah blah.

But still, I missed yoga because of day light savings. Makes me wonder where that hour went. Seems like a twilight zone time warp kinda thing.

Glad to be here

I woke up today, looked out the window at tall buildings and all I could think was "I'm so glad to be here." That hasn't changed from day one. And I think it's actually increased. It's like one of those dreams you have as a kid where you get out of bed and there is a carnival in the back yard. In New York, it's always there. That feeling that there's a carnival just around the corner. Everything you've every wanted just around the next corner. Even if the ground is dirty and people want your change, that feeling never goes away. Just around the next corner, the lights are so sparkly and the buildings just get taller. This whole city seems like a giant scratch ticket to me.

The painting of the NY skyline that I'm attaching is something I painted back when I thought it was hopeless to ever get here. And so I figured, might as well paint what I wanted, if it couldn't come true in real life, at least I could cover my apartment in pictures of the city I wanted to go to.

I remember reading once that paintings used to not only be decorative, but they were more of an image of what would come in the future. Like writing a visual to-do list. Or "painting" a picture of your perfect life, etc. And I guess in this case, it did come true. All those skylines I hung all around my apartment, well, I can now see the real thing from my window.

Anyway, so I'd gone to salsa dance at Dance Manhattan and after being completely lost, it was nice to go back to LQ and dance with some beginners. I was actually really, really grateful for the beginning, intermediate and somewhat bad dancers! :) Whenever they did a lead that showed it was clear they were totally lost, I was like "sigh. ah. back to what I'm used to." But going to the more advanced place was good. gives me something to work up to. Eventually I'll learn some shines, figure out where the beat is, and not fall over after 3 turns. At least I finally learned how to spot.

I walked through the park and a bunch of little kids were rolling on the playground ground (on that black pavement stuff). "Keep rolling! See who can roll the longest!" The teacher looked bored, wondering how long she could keep them rolling. I never picked up on things like this when I was a kid. The kids clearly thought rolling was some sort of important life skill they should learn. It made me laugh and then some homeless guy was lookign at me like I might be a good person to ask for change. Gotta be careful about smiling.

A cute little girl was recklessly driving her pretend baby carriage down the street and it was rapidly coming towards me on the busy sidewalk. Out of habit, I gave her that energy that says "move," because I'm used to doing that -- if you don't do that here, you get trampled. Then my friend said she looked up like "oh my god. a big monster." So I need to be careful who I give the death stare to.

They have some cute pillows at Urban Outfitters on sale. One looks like one of those Russian dolls with the smaller dolls in it, except it's that design printed on a pillow. I need to either buy a huge chest of drawers or get rid of a bunch of stuff. New York is too small for possessions.

I had a few really awesome Life Coaching sessions recently and now realize it's the only thing I want to do.

My first rat

I saw my first rat last night, as it slowly walked up the stairs in the subway. I was about 15 feet away, so it didn't bother me. As long as it doesn't make physical contact with me, I'm fine. It's just an animal after all, just like a cat. Except for some reason we like cats better than rats. If you cleaned it off and dressed it up it would look very similar to those little rat dogs that people pay $5000 for. But anyway, it's not a cat or a dog, it's a rat. And people dislike rats.

• The only reason I dislike rats is because they carry diseases. But people carry diseases too. So I'm not sure if a rat is any more dangerous than any of the human subway passengers.


• So, as long as the rat doesn't try to cuddle with me, all should be good. And that's the same rule I have with subway humans as well, so I'm not discriminating here.

SALSA

• Salsa dancing is hard. I thought it was easy, until I went to this Dance Manhattan studio event. They had this enormous and nice floor that soon was so crowded with hundreds of people, you could barely dance. I got stepped on about four times.


• I thought I knew the basics, but everyone there was so advanced that I was seriously thinking I need to take some classes.

APARTMENT

• I love, love, love my new apartment! It has a cute view. It has shiny floors. No rats. The dog is nice to me. The roomates are great. It's so quiet that I can actually sleep! It's amazing. I can't believe how quiet it is. The garbage truck noises are these faint sounds I can barely make out, and I haven't heard a single scream.

NEIGHBORHOOD

• Sadly, I went to get groceries the other day and noticed police tape all around the store. It turned out a 40-something male employee stabbed his 24-year-old ex girlfriend (she died) and another female employee, who lived. Then he fled.


• At the time, I had no idea that had just happened. At first I thought it was construction tape, and then seeing the six police officers outside, I wondered if maybe someone had a heart attack or maybe it was a bomb threat or something. I had taken my time walking over there, stopped by the bank before and ran some errands. And luckily I had missed what had just happened.


• I walked away, annoyed that I had no groceries at all after just moving, having no idea someone had just died inside that grocery store.


• Last night, I walked by the store on the way to salsa and my friend pointed out the flowers and candles that were burning in the corner by the entrance. Inside things were going on as usual. I've been going to another grocery store since.