The city of 8000 stereotypes (and all of them true to the dot).
The New York Times recently published a series of haikus about the city in honour of National Poetry Month. They made me smile and they made me stop for a minute to revisit all the reasons why I chose to move to this city in the first place (Yes, it was for a job, but it was also for a dream I had for a long time).
Some of the haikus are a bit random, of course - 17 syllables are not easy, but overall, they are a delight. You can read them here.
Keeping with the theme, here are some more passionate New York tidbits:
Now that I managed to sappily fall in love with New York all over again, it's time to leave the laptop and go for a walk in Greenwich Village and continue this love affair.
Full disclosure: I am not even close to a triathlete. So please, do not take the title of this post seriously.
1. BIKE:
The perfect springy Sunday. So you decide a bike ride is the best possible way to spend it, although the alternative, sitting on your ass and binge watch Criminal Minds, sounds just as appealing. In the end, you go the classy way, put on your neat helmet and shove the bike in the elevator. Pushing pedals under the cherry trees all the way up to George Washington bridge is nice.
Staaaaaaan!
2. SWIM:
It's Monday and you're STILL totally high on all the goodness Sunday brought. So you make big plans to make it to the pool after work. Only to see your dreams shattered when you find out two of the three experiments you ran on that lovely Monday didn't work and you find yourself stuck in the lab until 10 pm. No pool. And crushed spirits. So you decide that, instead of doing laps, you'll open up a Guinness and order a pizza. Then you decide to open another Guinness and do laundry. Suddenly, it's 2 am and you decide a bikini wax will be an awesome idea. Before you know it, Tuesday rolls around. You feel bloated because of the late night pizza binge. There are very few instances when pizza is NOT a good idea. Midnight being one of those instances. But you manage to escape the lab and get to the pool for a swim. Ole'!
Hometown glory!
Excited.
Swimming doesn't go according to plan, mostly because instead of keeping track of laps you get continuously distracted by how much you want to bang the cutie from the 12th floor. So, you give up laps and switch to sprints and butterfly instead. Because killing your own arms is a good diversion from thinking about cutie's buff arms. Holy biceps!
Sunset in Central Park.
3. RUN:
Thursday is yet another good day. And again, you make it out of work in the daylight. Time for a quickie run through the park. It is still ridiculously beautiful with trees in bloom everywhere. But since you are a crappy runner, you don't give a damn about miles, speed, breathing, interval training and all that jazz. Your run exactly as fast as you like and stop to smell the flowers (literally!) exactly when you like it. Despite all, you manage to do 5-ish miles (or so Google Maps says). Which makes you a little smug. And very likely means that a month or so will pass until your next run.
And that, my dears, is how Jules does cycling, swimming and running.
Now if you'll excuse me while I go stretch my stiffened legs.
And as much as I am aware that pretty much every day is a "something day" and who can fucking keep up with all of that, I believe Earth day SHOULD be acknowledged. Duh!
This planet is so big and the fact it exists is just such a "yeah, how could it not" concept we all take for granted.
But, at least this one day, let us all stop for a second and remember that this giant ball of iron, water and rocks, is our home. Even when we're standing completely still, we spin around and run through space at a speed no one of us can even begin to imagine.
A noon choir and organ recital. The best felafel I've ever had, the Aquarium, ethiopian food for dinner, red wine galore, a guitar, and then gin martinis. And Jameson.
Apparently, Toronto knows all and every single one of the ways to my heart, that I can tell. Oh, you sneaky, sneaky charmer, as if I haven't told you that I belong to New York. That smelly, loud big cousin of yours, you met him, I am sure.
SOTD: Everything is Awesome (The LEGO Movie OST). Duh!
That'd be all, folks. Thanks for keeping up.
Toronto was great, but now it's time to swing back to the real world. File taxes, do laundry, split cells, go for a run, paint nails, fall in love with spring in New York. You know the drill.
Jules
p.s. Many, many, MANY thanks to N for making these past few days beyond memorable. I owe you. BIG TIME.
February is my birthday month and birthdays need to be celebrated. Pretty things in the form of gifts are the first to come to mind. Also, cakes.
This past year if my existence on Earth has been a pretty special one and the one I just started looks promising, too. Which calls for some spoil-myself-rotten action. Serious splurge, yes. But I deem it deserved, since I am a very very good girl.
5...
... 4...
... 3...
... 2...
... 1...
BAM!
Oh, Bayswater. I have been dreaming of thee for soooo long. Thou art a classic, but without the "old lady" feel. Thou art simple and elegant and perfect in every single way. And thou cost me an eye. But worth every single one of those many (many, many) pennies I left in the store.
I went for a classic no-nonsense black natural leather since I honestly plan to carry this bag A LOT and I didn't want it to become one of those outfit puzzle pieces so many statement bags or shoes, no matter how gorgeous, become. Those who know me also know that i love me some loud statement accessories and my new Bays is by no means loud. But it is preeeeeeeeeettyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
In a nutshell, life 's been a bit mad this past week. Basically, I could be found in exactly two locations. One being the lab, the other being my bed. Nothing in between. Crazy, but weirdly gratifying, since long hours in the lab mean tons of experiments done. Booohoohoooo.
SOTD: Alanis Morissette - Not the Doctor. Duh!
Of course, I might be embellishing a teeeeeeny tiny bit. Long hours in the lab might mean tons of experiments done, sure, but they not necessarily bring useful data. Often, shit does not work. But us postdocs love science, so we are willing to push it until our brains turn into something that resembles a jellyfish left on a sandy beach. Welcome to my life...
Running three projects at once. Ordinary business.
Of course, long hours in the lab ALSO mean that certain things, like for example those hardly relevant things such as housekeeping/ironing/groceries/life, are left sadly neglected.
Don't tell my mother! She'll kill me!
What is not neglected is my desk at work. Although most of the hours are spent at the bench or in cell culture, one must get caffeinated regularly. And one must scribble stuff in notebooks etc. Especially when one has a terrible, terrible short-term memory.
This one happened last Sunday while some westerns were washing.
Although I mostly traded daylight for lab glory, I had the chance to peek out the window before leaving the apartment each morning and make an informed decision about what to wear. Yes yes, I am gifted that way.
Last weekend was very generous in terms of weather. Fortunately, it kept behaving reasonably well throughout the week. And why would that be relevant, you may ask.
HERE's my answer: no snow = no salt = dry clean pavement = no need for sturdy saltproof snowproof boots. Enter, pretty shoes!
Pumps. Three days in a row. FINALLY! Top to bottom: Miss Sixty Stuart Weitzman Alice & Olivia
Now excuse me, but I have a nap to take.
Nighty night.
Jules
Bonus entry. Just because. Thank you endlessly, AM!
My month-long visit to Slovenia is coming to a close. I fly back to New York tomorrow. Yay! Since my first flight is at an ungodlily wee hour of the morning, I opted to book a room in a hotel near the airport. A 2.30 AM wake-up call to get to the airport is NOT happening, thankyouverymuch.
So, as I lay in bed all excited to get back to the lab and to my apartment and to Gotham himself (duh!), let's reflect on what's new since I left New York.
1. My pants feel way tighter than they did when I flew in. Bless the holiday binge and my mother's amazing cooking skills. But I should definitely rectify the situation. Eating good food is one of my favourite activities (duh!), but...
I guess my awful spartan housekeeping skills and the crazy life of a postdoc will help get back into those skinnies. Wish me luck!
SOTD: REM - Leaving New York. Because it's the other way around!
2. I donated 400 mL of blood for the 30th time. Which made me quite proud of myself. Due to the law, I am not eligible to donate in the US (I tried, but failed miserably), so donating back in Slovenia felt even more special, and, I admit, sort of payback-y to the weird rules in the US. Not the most noble of me, I admit, but not much I can do about it now. On the flip side, a few people will benefit directly from the donated tissue AND all the evil that got drained out of me this time around will make life easier for the people who are forced to interact with me on a daily basis (insert evil laugh here).
3. My hair is 2 inches shorter in the back and about 1 inch shorter in the front. I am a proud wearer of a cool bob that on a VERY good day looks something like hers (wishful thinking) and allows me to pay even less attention to hair styling. Which is magnificent.
4. Fitness-wise, I'm in the worst shape of my life. I don't like it. And this, too, shall be rectified.
5. My tolerance for ignorance, especially among students, is even lower than before. I firmly believe that in the 21st century, in a developed country with almost 100 % literacy, being ignorant is a choice. And it's a despicable one. Dear students, get your shit together and open your eyes. Slovenia needs you!
7. Friends and family are the coolest and I am freaking spoiled.
8. I'm such a dork for having felt labsick for the past 14 days. Amid all the good things happening to me in Slovenia, and all the cool stuff about New York I could be missing, the lab was firmly in first place. Awful.
9. Europe is great. In the timespan of a few days, I managed to touch down in 5 countries: The Netherlands (layover + first coffee on EU soil), Italy (landing+a few visits), Slovenia (duh!), Austria (drove through) and the Czech Republic (Prague!!!). Each with a distinctive culture and language.
10. Euros are waaaaaaaay prettier than US dollars. AND, they actually have numbers on coins, which is more user friendly than "dime" and "nickel" and whatnot. And paying 1 € for coffee is awesome.
11. I still can handle booze very well. I got shitfaced a lot this past month. It was great, and so so so funny. Obviously, since I'm past my prime in terms of tissue regeneration my liver now needs a wee vacation. But that's details.
I seriously debated whether to include this vignette into one of my "Textless Thursday" posts. I eventually decided not to, as it is just a smidgen too special to be lost in one of those junkshits fillers. Dude, this one is post number one hundred for I Crossed the Atlantic Once. Wow!
Vimrod is gone for the time being, but a lot of his truths are everlasting.
I doubt the truths within this blog will have the same fate, but still.
Happy 100, tiny blog!
Here's to many ocean crossings, funny stuff, scientific mishaps, New York charms and Slovenian quirks!
And thank you, readers from Indonesia, South Korea, Canada, Italy, Ireland, Bulgaria, Guyana, Kazakhstan and everywhere else in between. You do make me feel like one of the cool kids.
A Cup of Jo is one of my favourite blogs. That woman is amazing and she posts the most interesting things. Like THIS one, for example.
My maladroit screenshot of the page in question.
A nifty, enticing quiz that measures the approximate prodigiousness or unprodigiousness of your English vocabulary. PULCHRITUDIONUS!
Yeah, yeah, I am so contemptibly showing off my word nerdiness in this post. Duh! And I so wish something similar would exist for my beloved mother tongue, Slovenian. Which is, honestly, a pretty darn hard language to master. Not that I particularly mind...
An American (brilliant Michael Manske) attempts to master the art of Slovene speaking.
Oh, I love being a nerd. And a smartass. I mean, I scored 20,000 in the quiz, which is up there with native speakers. Boo-yeah. I guess I just need a wand and improved hair and off I go to Hogwarts.
Oh boy, having a social life is exhausting. So are the holidays. So is rain. And so is jet lag. And cookies. Well, maybe not cookies, because cookies are not exhausting per se, but you get the jist. I am munching on them cookies now and they are sublime. Cookies are awesome.
So far, this visit to the home turf has been quite kind to me. I have mostly gotten over the jet lag and the weather is supposed to improve tomorrow. Christmas is over, so half of the madness is in the past already. For which I am quite thankful. As much as I love Christmas strictly as a family holiday, it is stressful. So booyeah that it only comes around once a year. Other than the big holiday being over, let's see what have I been up to since coming back. I have hardly had any time for myself or not-yet-alotted for some reunion/visit/errand/nap. A bit mad, yes, I agree.
The "getting shitfaced with my girl M part" on my first evening back, which was awesome, was already mentioned. Gin tonic was good, not having to get through a hangover was almost as good. I have this superpower, you see, I am hangover-proof or something. My liver might start objecting at some point, but for now my head and my stomach are being great sports if/when I decide that one drink is just not enough.
The next day (Sunday) did not exist. I literally slept through it, woke up around 6 pm and went back to bed a few hours later. Which means I can scratch "sleep deprivation" from my list. Yay!
SOTD: R.E.M. - Daysleeper
On Monday, I went for a very much needed haircut and I love the very subtle, but cool change. Feels awesome. And yes, there are plenty of hair salons in NYC, but I still feel reluctant about changing my hair person yet. Maybe someday, but not just yet. After the pamper session, lunch with mother and roadtrip to Ljubljana to catch up with some lovely friends from there. The reunion, the beer and later the mulled wine on the bank of the river all felt so familiar and good. The day ended with a dinner and a bottle of wine at an old friend's (and I do not mean she is old, it's just our friendship that is a senior citizen already) house.
Tuesday was Christmas Eve, a day meant to be spent bickering with my mother, laughing with my brother, making cookies (duh!), trimming the tree while eating said cookies, having a delicious fishy dinner and having a good time. Oh, and we watched Home Alone for the umpteenth time, all three of us sprawled on the couch. Talk about family time.
Christmas day was spent in the countryside visiting relatives. As usual, it was tipsy, loud and yummy. And there was a visit to the movies later on, since The Hobbit is in town. It was way better than An Unexpected Journey, which felt like a bloated bore, although my man Gollum was in that one (thumbs up for Chapter 1!) and absent from this one (Booooo!). Smaug was a good enough drama queen, but no one beats Gollum at I-do-alone-crazy-in-a-cave-like-a-boss-so-I-am-a-better-crazy-than-you-precioussssssssssssssssssss.
Thursday was another holiday and another rainy day. And another day of meeting good friends. I could easily get used to that. Lively chitchat, catching up with life events and developments, drinking coffee (from an actual cup!!! It still fascinates me how much I missed actual cups!!!) with a view of the sailboats. I did some work in the afternoon, since I had to submit a peer review of a paper. Which also made me fish out the huge stack of papers I brought from New York. Time to start catching up with my reading as well. Oh. I love science. I love science. I love science. I love science. I love science...
Regardless, I miss New York. This one is from 72nd & Madison. UES at it's finest.
There's still a lot of people I want to see and a lot of things I want to do and A LOT of papers I HAVE TO READ, but I am being quite efficient, so I am confident there will be time for a siesta and for doing my nails at some point.
Last Monday, when we got back from Miami, a freezing and foggy New York welcomed us. On Tuesday, it snowed for most of the day, but the snow, fortunately, didn't really stick on the streets. The Park, well, was another story.
Central Park last Wednesday, a mere day after the first real snow of the season
And it's been snowing all freaking day this past Saturday. All. Fucking. Day. This time around, the white frozen water, to my sheer annoyance, stuck. Not to mention that by evening, snow turned into frozen rain, so the freshly deposited white fluffiness, that by the way looked kind of cute from the safety of my blanket-wrapped-hot-cocoa-cup-in-hand vantage point, suddenly turned into a soggy icy slippery mess. Nice.
I have a love-hate relationship with winter. Having grown up on the Mediterranean coast in a sub-mediterranean climate, snow days were few and far in between. Instead, our winters were either foggy and soggy or batshit crazy cold thanks to the burja, but that's another story.
Although I have remarkable thermoregulation, I hate being cold. And I hate cold wet stuff falling from the sky. Sure, snow is awesome on the ski slopes up in the mountains, and yes, forests freshly dusted with snowflakes look pretty, but come on, snow is cold, slippery, impractical, and entertains the habit of turning into ice on the sidewalks and makes you fall on your butt. Not cool.
SOTD: Florence and The Machine - Landscape.
This is my first winter in New York (here's to many MANY more!) and I am mentally prepared to plenty of sore butt instances and frost-bitten fingers. I actually like the sunny days, although they come at a price (= frostbitten fingers). During those freezing days, I like to take a longer lunch and go for a stroll in the park while the sun is still up in the sky. And guess what, every single time I do that, my mind drifts to one particular character from one particular book. Yup, Holden from The Catcher in the Rye.
The Angel of the Waters and a frozen Lake in the background. What's not to love? Oh, yeah, I know, having your toes amputated 'cause they froze!
And in particular, his endless yammering about the ducks in the pond in Central Park, is looping in my brain during those walks. He talks about the ducks that usually hang out at the Pond down at the southern edge of the park, but kind of get chased away once the water freezes over. And poor angsty Holden wonders where they might go.
The Lake and Bow bridge this morning.
Well, Holden, buddy, I found them. They move just a tad north to the Lake. Mystery solved, Holden.
Ducky hangout in a non-frozen pocket of the Lake.
Dear Holden. Here are your ducks. Next time, just walk from one body of water to the next, dude.
All of a sudden, I have this craving for re-opening The Catcher in The Rye. It's been about 8 years since I last read it...
Happy Salinger-ing,
Jules
p.s. These pics were taken on this particular Monday morning on my way to the American Museum of Natural History. After a 60+ work week that ended yesterday around 11 pm, I decided to play hooky for the morning and go check out the whales exhibit. It was amazing. Beautiful. Fun. And heartbreaking. Did you know that the blue whale's aorta is actually big enough for a toddler to crawl in it relatively comfortably. And did you know that sperm whales got their name because early whalers thought the white slimy stuff in their (ginormous) noses was sperm. Turns out, it's semiliquid that helps them do that sonar thing they do to detect prey. Mind? Blown! More than just twice!
It was 1988, Tito was long dead, Yugoslavia was on the verge of an economic and political collapse that would cause a decade-long turmoil and various wars. But one of the most important rites of passage in a young Yugoslavian's life still claimed a lot of attention from teachers, parents and said young Yugoslavian.
I was six and a half years old and in 1st grade, bored out of my mind in school because I already knew how to read and write and reading and writing was basically what I was supposed to be learning at that time. The annoying insufferable knowitall in me was having a smug moment, while my teacher was kind of furious.
Joining the Pionir organization was a huge deal and almost as big a milestone as starting school. It blows my mind how much things have changed since then.
A pretty navy blue pleated skirt, cool red neckerchief, a pin, a solemn oath and delicious cake were involved. Parents were proud and there was no homework that day. It was so cool.
"Danes, ko postajam pionir, dajem častno pionirsko besedo: Da se bom pridno učil in delal, spoštoval starše in učitelje, da bom zvest in iskren tovariš, ki drži svojo obljubo;
Da se bom ravnal po zgledu najboljših pionirjev, da bom spoštoval slavna dejanja partizanov in napredne ljudi sveta, ki žele svobodo in mir;
Da bom ljubil svojo domovino, samoupravno Socialistično Jugoslavijo, njene bratske narode in narodnosti in gradil novo življenje, polno sreče in radost."*
So tonight, I'll briefly celebrate.
Cheers.
Jules
*The Pionir oath. In Slovenian, obviously. The message is actually pretty positive and there's no brain washing. Google translate to learn a piece of our history if you will, my dear non-Slovenian readers.
Lately, there've been HUGE amounts of drama at work. So, the picture above synthesizes my feelings about the situation perfectly. Yup, Tard's wisdom never disappoints. I mean, to some extent it was hilarious to observe smart, grown MEN act like catty teenage plastics, but enough is enough.
SOTD: Winnie the Pooh - Everything is honey.
On a brigter note, I have visitors from home and we opened their stay with medica shots. Nice. It reminded me how much I dislike honey, but also how much I needed booze with my bitches. I'm so glad they're here!
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