Hi OAY friends, fans, followers and hopefully not foes! I just wanted to pop in and remind y’all that I’ve up and moved URL’s and can now be found oversharing here:
I’m dipping my toes back into the internet after a busy winter of work and travel and am currently writing my way through my honeymoon in Southeast Asia (don’t worry, there is plenty of poop, food spilling and general social anxiety to keep it spicy), in addition to my usual self indulgent nonsense.
Like…what is the deal with this peacock?
Who ate all this cheese???
And WHATTTTTTTTT are we wearing?!
All that and more!
Still ahead: more on marriage, books, food and other done-to-death topics.
Anyway, I am bad at self promotion but THAT is what’s up and if you’ve liked what you’ve read here in the past and wondered where you might find some more, well, now you know.
And on that note, fellow blogger pals, my reentry into the digital world means catching up on all of YOUR lives so do know I’ve not been ignoring you…intentionally anyway! Sometimes real life is just such a butthead, you know? Like, enough is enough, adulthood. I’m planning some serious catch-up in the next few days but if you DO visit HottSauce (and oh, I hope you might!) please leave a comment or say hello!
Oh my god, hi! It’s been like a million and a half years, I know. I hope you’ve all been surviving. In the past few weeks a number of people – both friends and internet strangers! – told me they were missing my particular brand of internet wit so I can pat myself on the back that at least a handful of folks were missing me. But then last night one of my very best friends told me she hadn’t even noticed I’d stopped blogging sooooo ego: checked.
But I’m getting off track. What I came back today to say was, in fact, goodbye!
Well, not “goodbye,” so much as “see ya later” or “TTFN” as we used say back in our middle school yearbook days.
I, Liz Scobag nee Hobag, will still be alive and kicking and blogging all about it (more on that to come!) but One Awkward Year will be retiring after this post.
Don’t cry. It’s time.
On January 6, 2015, One Awkward Year turned five. FIVE! My, how fast they grow. I remember when she was just a baby and now she’s old enough to go to kindergarten. Oh I hope the other blogs are nice to her!
When I started this blog I was, to quote myself (ELL-OH-ELL, as if I’d quote anyone else!): “a 25-year-old bottom of the totem pole publicist living in NYC. I like cheese, Criminal Minds and wine.”
I am now a 30-year-old middle of the totem pole publicist living in NYC. Still love cheese, so over Criminal Minds and even heavier into the vino than I was in my youth.
My how I’ve grown!
The plan was to write for one awkward year, hence the oh-so-clever name. One year became two became … you know how to count…and before I knew it, five years had passed.
One Awkward Year has been the FUNNEST AND BEST way to commemorate all of these happenings, but by the end of last year, well, I was over it. My creative juices were fermenting, but not into anything yummy and I just wasn’t having fun anymore. I found myself having Thursday night panic attacks about not having enough ridiculous photos to put together a week in review post. When I found myself unable to even muster the enthusiasm to write any more about my wedding, which we all know was/is my favorite subject ever I decided to take a break. And again, something that was to be a short period of time just grew and grew until nearly four months had passed without a word. And I genuinely didn’t care. I missed it, a bit, the attention, of course, but also the creative outlet. But mostly the attention. But I needed to focus on my real life just a little bit before diving back into my virtual one.
As the new year turned, I began to feel reenergize to get back into the game, for lack of a better cliche, but I wanted a change. Like how Michael Jordan retired from basketball the picked up baseball instead. Except I guess he went back to basketball, didn’t he?
Like how Michael Jordan retired from basketball and then played baseball and then went back to basketball and then started making Hanes commercials! YES!
I’m realizing I know like, nothing about Michael Jordan.
All I know is this: I’m back. But I need a fresh start. I’m done shooting hoops and ready to shill tagless boxer briefs.
And so, Goodbye One Awkward Year, Helloooooooooooo Hott Sauce!
What is Hott Sauce, you ask? Why its your new favorite blog! Ok, basically it’s just this same old blog but with a fancy new name. Why is it called Hott Sauce? Because Ho+Scott = Hot & it makes me laugh & I love sauce & I don’t even know why. It just is! Why bother starting a new blog, isn’t this one just perfectly fine? You are just full of questions! Sometimes a lady just needs to shake it up.
At Hott Sauce you’ll encounter essentially the same sort of hardhitting content you’ve come to expect – food stains, gastrointestinal distress, general oversharing – plus exciting bonus content on other things I find interesting like career, books, marriage, superfoods, Taylor Swift, Brooklyn, travel, feminism, Taylor Swift again…basically all the news that’s fit to use. And then some!
I have, and I say this with all the earnestness of an up-and-coming starlet unexpectedly winning an Academy Award, so appreciated every person who has read my goofy stories and commented and laughed and encouraged me to keep on keeping on. I remain amazed that anyone other than my mom actually reads this (extra amazed that my mom hasn’t disowned me after reading this) and hope you might continue to follow along from the new digs.
I would love to cover you in Hott Sauce!!!
Ew…no…I might need to work on that.
I had grand plans for the new blog to be up and running and gorgeous, with widgets and headers and banners and photos, before I unveiled it but once again, life just got in the way and that didn’t happen. And so it remains a work in progress. Much like my life. What a wonderful metaphor!!
My first post will be up Wednesday and eventually I’ll have some kind of posting schedule but it may take me some time to get there. I hope you’ll bear with me!
Ok, I’m acting like I’m shipping off to war, not changing blog platforms. Shut ‘er down, Liz. Move along.
Thanks for reading all these years, pals, and I do hope I’ll still see you around! As they say, the best is yet to come! Or the worst. Hard to tell. Guess you’ll just have to subscribe to HottSauceBlog.com to find out, now won’t you.
Happy Spring, chickens! It’s finally here! I mean, yes it’s still frigid and they’re calling for more snow next week but I am choosing to believe in the power of positive thought and joyfully welcome spring.
Spring! A ling! a ding ding ding!
Cool chant, bro.
I welcomed the new season last night with open arms and plenty o’ tequila. As one does.
In an effort to improve my mental health and self confidence, I’ve been trying hard to focus on things I know I am good at (like running, making salads, quoting Mean Girls) and be proud of myself, instead of dwelling on all of the areas where I feel like a failure (everywhere else!). One asset I’ve always liked about myself is my, for lack of a better term, school spirit. I have been complimented on my enthusiasm in the – I’ve told the story about how my high school soccer coach told me I was more valuable on the bench than on the field, because of my “spirit” (see also: lack of sports skills) and my first boss at my job here told me he hired me because I was so enthusiastic. It was between me and another candidate and I just kept calling until I wore him down with my relentless enthusiasm. No one can hide from me!
Here at work, where I’ve become especially hard on myself of late, I’ve decided to embrace my assets and become the Self Appointed De Facto Social Chair of our department. (Am I using De Facto right? Who cares! No time!) I’ve started doing silly things like the Valentine’s Chip & Dip Romance Extravaganza (this year with champagne!) and bringing in donuts on Fat Tuesday and then sending funny emails to invite everyone to join me in eating said donuts. And last night I hosted the first annual Spring Fling – margarita happy hour at a Mexican restaurant by our offices.
It was so much fun. Tons of people came out and we all got a little smashed and celebrated the new season and I KNOW it is so silly to be like “Good job, Liz, you organized a happy hour”….but I’m sayin’ it. Good job, Liz! You organized a happy hour!
I’ve come to realize that morale is possibly as important, if not more important than a well rounded knowledge of well respected literary journals. Someone has to work to keep the spirit and energy up in this place and by jove, it will be me!
I’m feeling better about myself already.
Except also maybe not all of our morale boosting activities need to involve so much tequila because OUCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I’ve already had two breakfasts and am counting down the seconds until my inevitable hangover hoagie.
First one of the new season!!
Ok enough of this nonsense. I’ve been so like, Oprah Soul Series Self Empowerment lately, I don’t know what’s gotten into me! Let’s cut the schmaltz and take a look at what was keeping it awkward this week.
This Haircut:
Is this a terrible selfie? Sho is! But I have yet to reach the point in my blogging career (LOL “career!”) where I can just have some kind of professional photographer follow me around all day every day, catching casual candids of my beautifully curated life so until I reach that point, we’re just going to have to deal with a LOT of horrible pics snapped in the mirror of the hair salon dressing room.
Monday evening I had a MUCH needed hair appointment. Sometime that morning I realized I had a missed call from Arrojo Studios and a voicemail on my cell phone. I assumed they were calling to re-confirm the appointment but the reality was much more dramatic.
“Hello, this is Arrojo Studio, we’re calling in regards to your appointment this evening. Unfortunately your stylist is no longer with us. Please call us back.”
UM, no longer WITH US? Like, on earth, among the living? Or just, you know, not working at your salon anymore? That’s a very strong turn of phrase.
I called back to get the scoop (and reschedule. Sorry this lady is dead/missing/resigned but I kind of need a new ‘do) and the super flustered receptionist told me that she had no idea what happened to my stylist … the news had “just landed.”
“No longer with us!” “News has just landed!” SUCH an soap opera over there!
I was able to reschedule for the same evening with a different stylist who gave me some more intel – it turns out it was some kind of family issue, and I do hope all’s OK with that, but the whole situation was so cloaked in mystery and drama, loved it. If only all of life could be so scandalous and intense!
PS: I adored this new stylist, if anyone in the NYC regional area is looking for recommendations!
This Dress:
Isn’t is cute? I KNOW! A colleague of mine (who sits next to me and took this photo, hi Glory!) was wearing it one day in navy blue and I was obsessed and she informed me that she got it at Old Navy (More like Old Favy…cuz it’s my favorite? No?) for $20 and they also had it in green and I literally sprinted back to my desk, logged onto Oldnavy.com and the dress was mine.
It’s a two part number, the sheer business you see on top and then a like slip thing underneath, which is attached to inside of the shoulders of the flowered part.
I went to the gym over lunch yesterday (#humblebrag!) and when re-dressing post workout I realize that the dress had somehow managed to twist itself in such a way that the back part of the slip was now in the front and I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to fix it. I could have just worn it backwards and winged it, except that the back turns out to be significantly lower than the front, and about 80% of my bra & boobs were exposed through the sheer overlayer.
I tried and tried and tried to fix the problem, getting myself ever more twisted every time. At one point I had the slip on and the outer part was hanging inside-out in front of me. Another time one arm was through a sleeve of the slip and somehow the other sleeve was like, behind me? It was a hot mess AND of course happening in the locker room where zillions (ok, four) of people could see me causing a scene.
I ended up putting it on backwards, rushing back to work, and shutting myself in my office where I took it off, cut the slip out of the overlayer and got it all on just right.
What a disaster.
PS: Am I pulling off the whole, lighter colored elf booties over tights thing? It’s very hipster but I don’t know if I’m making it work…
This Water Bottle:
I got home from work the other night and had a weird tingly feeling in my leg which I soon learned was not actually tingling but wetness…the lid of my water bottle had broken and I had H2O dripping out from my tote bag and all down the back of my leg.
I’m not sure when this happened, but I may have walked the whole way from the subway with mysterious liquids dripping down my pants. Classy.
PS: I have nothing to say here, I just said PS for the other 2 things so…
This Bouquet:
I love tulips! I also love instagram! Something I am endlessly fascinated by on insta is this trend of like, carefully curated and stylized “lifestyle” photos – a cup of coffee next to a scone all artfully on top of a Sunday times, caption: “love lazy weekends!” or a neatly arranged display of pens, a calendar, a diet coke, some flowers, a note pad, caption: “working from home today!”
And the light is always perfect and there’s nothing weird in the background or over to the corner and it’s all just so stylized with the intent, I guess, to look natural? How much time do you think these people spend arranging their lives just so? I just don’t get it and yet I am sort of obsessed with creeping upon these offenders and speculating about their lives so I am totally complicit in the popularity of these sorts of posts.
Anyhoodle, my point in this whole confession is that yesterday morning I decided I wanted to instagram my beautiful new tulips, in honor of spring, and I wanted the photo to be as beautiful as any instagram star might share but my kitchen table was a mess and the tile in the kitchen makes an ugly backgrond and where can I get some natural light up in here so I ended up carrying them all over the apartment, eventually pulling a dining chair into the bedroom in front of a white wall and snapping this photo which isn’t even that good! It’s really not great and took me probably 10-15 minutes of my day to create.
And for why? Seriously why? I remain mystified by this whole craze and I think my foray into hip insta nonsense ends here.
And THAT, kittens, was my week! How was yours? Weekend plans? If so make sure to photograph…gram it or it didn’t happen!
Pa rum pum pum pum, everyone! Sorry I’m a little late this AM. I was off receiving the gift of my annual gynecological exam.
Merry Christmas, cervix!
Are you guys getting excited for the holidays?! I am SO excited but I also might die of early onset diabetes by next week if I don’t cool it with the Chrismas snax. My bloodstream is basically just refined white sugar, brie cheese, caramel corn and wine at this point. Yiiiiikes!
Today is my last day in-office until 2014, I’m spoiled rotten with much vacation time between the holidays so we’re headed down to PA tomorrow morning for Christmas with my family and then off to Brian’s parents in NJ on the 26th. This is our first Christmas spent together and with each other’s families and, as with Thanksgiving, I’m simultaneously excited and also a little mournful about change and growing up and all that business. LIFE! Moving on, sands through hour glasses, etcetera. Enough mourning, Liz: celebrate!
And with that, let’s take a look at what was keeping it awkward this (Christmasy!) week.
This Gift:
A One Direction Sticker Book for my assistant Margaret (she’s basically the greatest person alive), wrapped in romantic silver and gold hearts, the only wrapping paper I could find laying around my office.
At least I wrapped it?
This Wine:
Ok this actually has nothing to do with Chrismtas but did happen in a bar tricked out with garland and twinkle lights so…it fits.
Last night I had a few drinks with some pals and at the end of the night, the waiter sat down a glass of red wine in front of me, one I hadn’t ordered.
“For you…” he said.
I immediately sat up straighter, smiled and tossed my hair. For ME?!?! Was some gentleman watching me from across the room, so taken by my good looks and sex appeal that he noticed what I was drinking and sent one over to me, hoping we might meet eyes and fall in love/lust?! I have only ever seen this in the movies but have dreamed that some day such a classy, sexy thing might happen to me and IT FINALLY HAS!
I was all ready to flash a smile and my engagement ring, give a smug “flattered by taken!” shrug in the direction of my secret admirer when the waiter finished his sentence.
“…I accidentally entered too many, so you can have this one.”
Insert that screeeech hitting the breaks noise here as I tumble right off my high horse.
The wine was less sensual come-on and more just, you know, waiter error.
UNLESS the whole reason he accidentally ordered the wine in the first place was because he was so taken with my beauty and charm he just couldn’t think straight!
Yeah…let’s go with that one.
These Cards:
I was in charge of writing up some holiday cards on behalf of my department and OBVIOUSLY barely made it 2 seconds without spilling ramen all over them.
As for personal Christmas cards, I managed to get out about 12a vast improvement over last year’s six! But again, if you did not receive a card from me, remember, I DO love you and think of you at the holidays and always, I just still haven’t gotten the hang of the whole mailing cards situation. Maybe someday! Goals!
This Sidewalk:
We’ve had a lot o’ snow around here lately (I like it!) and apparently this is what counts as “shoveling” on my block? Three days after our latest storm I thought it was safe to wear regular shoes, instead of the clunky snowboots I’d been rocking, only to discover that all the sidewalks, while cleared of the fluffy stuff, were still coated with a thin layer of ice.
I slid and scooted along, carefully, oooooohhhh so carefully, inch by inch by inch. It took me 17 minutes to go the 2 blocks to the subway BUT I didn’t fall once.
Victory!
This Ornament:
We spend every Christmas Eve with our very dear friends – this year will be our 27th Christmas together! They have three sons right around the same ages as the three of us and we’ve known each other essentially since we were in utero. Christmas Eve with this gang is my most favorite night of every year, bar none. We are all mildly majorly obsessed with the Muppets Christmas Carol and have, on several occasions, performed our own version of The Christmas Carol (adapted from the movie, obvs) for our parents and it’s always hilarious and amazing and we should probably have won at least 17 Tony Awards by now. We’ve been robbed!
Anyway, their oldest son Robert got married last year to an amazing gal, Jackie, who is a truly spectacular addition to the crew, and this year, Rob & Jackie will spend the holiday with her parents in Louisiana, so our group will be apart for the first year ever. I won’t make you listen to yet another dramatic monologue about growing up and changing and sadness and adulthood and life but will just say that we will miss them very, very, VERY much.
I got the amazing idea in my head to send them a Muppets Christmas Ornament, which turned out to be easier said than done. I could not find one single licensed MCC (Mupptes Christmas Carol, duh) ornaments for sale, even on the interwebs, so I had the brilliant thought to make my own DIY ornament. There are zillions of sites where all you have to do is upload a photo, hit send and voila: your own personalized ornament.
Except I guessss you can’t just upload any old picture you find on Google Images because when I tried this at Zazzle.com, they told me it violated their acceptable content guidelines.
Bah humbug!
I was initially impressed by their excellent legal team, catching this one little order, but then realized I may have tipped them off myself. The gift message with order read:
“Merry Christmas! This is ridiculous and probably violates copyright law, but I wanted to make sure you guys had some Muppets in your holiday this year!”
(Emphasis added.)
I basically handed them this one on a platter. What a terrible criminal I would be! Just walk into a bank with a bunch of counterfeit bills and a note reading “LOL these are fake!!”
So Rob, Jackie, you’re not getting a Muppets Ornament this year. But please know that all of us kids and parents and Rizzo the Rat and the Ghost of Christmas Present (a LARGE absent minded spirit!) and Michael Caine and Charles Dickens (aka Gonzo) and Charles Dickens (the real person, RIP) and the whole gang will miss you terribly and wish you the very merriest of Christmases!
God Bless Us, Everyone!
These Skirts:
Happy Annual Everybody Wear Your Inappropriately Short Festive Skirt To the Office and Pretend it’s a Coincidence Even Though You Totally Planned It Day!
Like, so planned it that we had a calendar reminder and everything.
It’s the little things that keep the holiday spirit alive, you know?
This Tin:
A Christmas bribe!
We’re totally in love with our apartment and desperately want to stay at least one more year, so we’re actively trying to remind our landlady why we’re the very best tenants ever and she so shouldn’t raise the rent on us. We thought that a Christmas gift and card would be nice just in general and also would help demonstrate how invaluable and amazing we are. The plan was cookies and an ornament…except the cookies have now been sitting in this tin since Sunday night and I can’t, for the life of me, find the godforsaken ornament we bought for her. WHERE ARE YOU, ornament?!
She might just end up getting a card reading:
“Merry Christmas! Please enjoy some stale cookies and also we got you an ornament but lost it, whoops, please never raise our rent and Happy New Year! Love, Liz & Brian”
How could she ever kick us out after receiving that?!
And speaking of our landlady, I know you’ve all been dying to see, here is this year’s Christmas decor:
Classy in blue and silver. I actually LOVE this year’s display! Understated and sparkly. I’m into it.
And, of course, the seals make their annual return to the foyer:
Oh those two!
And, finally, because it’s never Christmas without it, let’s all pause and watch…
The Most Awkward Christmas Commercial of All Time:
‘Tis the season for creepy sibling love!
And there you have it, friends. What are you all up to for Christmas? Any trips planned? Cookies baked? Presents under the tree? You’re Jewish and don’t celebrate? My bad! You’re offended that I say Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays? Oh BAH HUMBUG!
Wishing a Happy Merry WHATEVER to everyone near and far. I hope a lily white Santa brings you everything you wished for and more.
Hello World! Please allow me to take a brief moment from our regularly scheduled programming for a small big huge amazing FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC Announcement:
Brian and I are engaged!
Move over, Seth Cohen, there’s a new man in town. And this time, he’s real!
We’re both pretty excited by the whole situation, in case you can’t tell by the mega-watt grins.
Can’t wait to have an eternity of adventures with this guy.
Many (many, many) more details to come (please, have we ever known me to be short-winded?) but first, just wanted to share the good news. Everyone knows that nothing’s official in this world until you tell the whole internet.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go lie down – I’m practically cross-eyed from staring at my left hand all day.
My dudes. Happy Friday! R. Kelly’s deeply poetic mantra “It’s the freakin’ weekend, baby” is speaking to me like never before.
Now is when I’d generally recap the week but I’m too excited to think about anything but the future because, you guys, tomorrow is moving day!
Que sorpresa, right? I won’t give you the whole long, boring story which mostly just involves a lot of instances of me panicking and creating dramatic worst case scenarios only to have everything work out just how I wanted, but my landlady in my current apartment (she of the epic holiday decor) either really loves us or didn’t want to have to be bothered to find a new tenant (I suspect the latter) agreed to lower the rent to a price point that Brian and I can afford so the two of us will be living in my beautiful THREE BEDROOM mansion of an apartment in Brooklyn. Which means I don’t have to move any further than the big bedroom down the hall, we don’t have to pay an exorbitant broker’s fee and we’ll have room to spare, and then some.
Basically, I’m a really lucky B and I should count my blessings a little more.
We’d had it in our heads that Brian would move in this coming weekend, but we’ve both been crazy busy and still haven’t, technically, signed the lease (it’s a long story, don’t ask) so it sort of popped up on us. We just confirmed with the landlady last night that this date is a go and so in approximately 24 hours we will be shacking right on up.
AAH!
I am ridiculously excited and yet, surprisingly blasé. I guess I assumed that somehow the momentous nature of our big move would be more palpable. The earth would shake or fireworks would explode or there would be a plane with skywriting reading “Liz! In 24 Hours Your Whole Life Will Change And You’ll Never Live On Your Own Again, Holy Shit!” but so far, none of that has happened and I’ve mostly just carried on as normal. I just realized that last night was probably my last night ever sleeping in my own bed – tonight I’ll likely go over to Brian’s so I can help him move in the morning. (haha “help him move” aka stand around, be bossy and do no heavy lifting.)
I always thought my last night on my own would be momentous, portentous, dramatic. Instead it was relatively normal. I met a girlfriend for drinks in the neighborhood, came home, ate a tomato for dinner, took a cold shower and read a book in bed. The drinks were fantastic but the actual being at home alone part was, quite frankly, lonely and boring. So maybe it was portentous, then, in that way. By giving me a night as dull and pathetic as they come (you guys: I ate a tomato for dinner. A tomato! That’s it! On my bed, in front of a fan, alone.), my solo life was sending me off reassuring me that excitement lay ahead, that I wouldn’t really miss these drab, tomato nights.
I’m sure I’ll freak out tomorrow, or in a few days or even weeks…don’t you EVEN fret about that. I’ve never navigated a life change without at least one melodramatic breakdown, I certainly don’t see this being an exception.
For now, I’m just curious about one thing. Help me out, fellow cohabitators. What do you do with your stuffed animals? HA! Ridiculous question, I know. You see, I have this friend named Winston. He’s a polar bear I bought at the Coca Cola factory on a trip to Atlanta to visit my cousin when I was in 5th grade. It’s funny, that was my first solo big-girl trip and I came home with toy, ha. Winston used to have a plastic coke bottle in his hand, but it broke when he was stepped on during a dance party at a friend’s sleepover, making him all the snugglier, and since then he has travelled with me to college, to Belgium, to all of my NYC apartments and on nights when I’m sleeping alone, I sleep with him. I know I’m a grown ass lady but it’s comfortable! Tell me I’m not the only one?!
Brian and Winston totally get along (once we were setting up to watch a movie in bed and I went into the kitchen to get a water and when I came back, Brian had the laptop all set up and was sitting up with Winston sitting right beside him, like he, too was joining us for the movie and I died because Brian is so cute and weird and funny) and the poor bear has seen some thingshe can’t unsee if you know what I mean, unless he’s into watching, that dirty bear! But still, it’s just not normal to bring a stuffed animal into your wonen samen bed, is it? It’s not!
But I feel bad just abandoning him in the guest room (or the office! Check me out I have multiple rooms!) (ha I am the worst). I know that most people have long since weaned themselves off of their childhood talismans, leaving them catching dust in parents’ attics or childhood bedrooms, but Winston has been with me for the long haul and putting him away somewhere seems so…final. Like, this is it, you’re a grown-up now. Get on the big girl bus, next stop: menopause.
And now see… I think I AM freaking out about the big move! I’m just projecting all of my anxieties onto sadness over my teddy bear, which, upon further reflection, is mildly insane. But what can you do? We all panic in our own special and unique ways.
So that’s what’s up, friends! Thank you for reading this 83 paragraph essay about my teddy bear, this started as something so much more profound and took a pretty weird turn. In addition to the big changes, I’m coming off the nutsoist week and basically haven’t slept in 10 days. If I don’t shut this down now, who KNOWS where it might go.
The end, for now. This big adventure is actually just beginning! I promise I’ll do my best to make it slightly more interesting next time. Hoping you all have the most magical weekends. Don’t forget to hydrate!
PS here is a cute picture of Winston tucked into my bed. True Life: I Am 28 And Play With Stuffed Animals.
In case the 146 billion degree temps + fireworks + corn on the cob haven’t tipped you off: summer is upon us. It’s here, drink beer, get used to it.
Summer + travel often go hand in hand, hence the term Summer Vacation, so I thought I’d toss out a few fun travel tips to help take your summer trip from zero to hero. These tips are also applicable to fall, winter and spring vacations – timeless travel tips, that’s what I aim for.
But listen. I’m not going to tell you how to dress or how to efficiently pack a suitcase or what to read or eat on a plane or any of that jazz, you already know that and if you don’t, you can flip to the latest and greatest issue of Real Simple and they’ll hook you right up. No, thought I’d share some special, supplemental travel tips that will have you the star and hero of your own vacation, making the most out of any trip whether you’re headed to Little Rock, Arkansas or Paris, France or somewhere in between.
You’re welcome in advance!
Always wear good underwear when flying. You never know what those full body scanners might show up and if, God forbid, your plane crashes and you end up in some kind of Lost island scenario, you’re going to want to be looking and feeling your sexy best.
Speaking of underwear: always have an extra pair in your carry-on and pack three times the amount you think you might need for your trip. You can never be too prepared when it comes to underbusiness.
Don’t bother bringing toiletries when staying with friends, it’s fun to use other people’s stuff.
DO bring toiletries when staying at a hotel, you can never guarantee the quality of the free products. That said, if they are high quality, obviously and no duh, stock up.
If your hotel has a continental breakfast, it is your duty to go back for thirds and fill your bag with leftovers.
When going on a road trip, make your companion drive 93% of the time.
Always bring your exercise clothes. Never use them.
Sneak a razor onto a plane by hiding in the running shoes you’re bringing but not using. Yes, you might get caught and shipped right off to Guantanamo buttttt it’s a risk you have to be willing to take not to have to buy razors at resort prices.
If your travel destination has a special local cocktail, just drink it. No questions asked. And order another round.
Same goes for food – whether it’s chicken fried steak or boiled monkey brains, just try it! As the youths say: YOLO.
To be frugal, pack your lunches.
To experience the best of local culture, eat at all of the finest restaurants.
To get the most bang for the all of your money, do both: pack a lunch, eat it by 11:05 AM and then hit up a fine dining establishment an hour later. By the transubstantiatial property of 2 x 2 = 4, you’ll be four times happier and t is a proven fact that credit card debt doesn’t count when you’re on vacation, so just go for it.
Don’t wear a string bikini in the ocean unless you’re prepared to go accidentally full-frontal at least once.
Pack a lot of bandaids. You never know.
Take 70 billion photographs. Upon your return, print them out and invest in a fancy scrapbook. Keep the photos in a box for 6 + years and eventually just throw the scrapbook out.
Before you travel, watch a movie set wherever you’re going and then reenact scenes all over town. The cheesier the better. (See photo above of a pal & I reenacting a pivotal scene from the Mary Kate & Ashley CLASSIC Passport to Paris in the Luxembourg Gardens, circa 2006.)
Send postcards! It’s cute and makes someone’s day. Write dirty stuff on the back and make the postman’s day, too.
It’s 5 O’clock somewhere
Two Words: Sun Block
Two More Words: Aloe Vera
If you’re travelling by bus, don’t change your entire outfit, including bra and underpants in the bus bathroom while en-route, even if you’re on the way to see your new long-distance boyfriend for the first time and you want to be as fresh and sexy as possible. Just take my word on this one.
And finally, do your best not to be a crazy stress monster even if that is your natural state of being. Your job – that’s back at home. You missed a connecting train? Get drunk at the station bar. Trip not working out exactly as you envisioned it in your brain all these weeks – that’s ok! Slow down, go with the flow and enjoy it as it is. You can get right back on the anxiety bus the second you get home but for now, you’re on vacation. Ain’t nobody got time for that!
And there you have it. Follow these tips and you’re sure to have a top notch vacation at any destination.
Now your turn! What do you think makes a perfect vacation even perfecter? That’s a word now, just roll with it.
Summer is upon us, friends. Do you have any big travel plans? I’ve got a few weddings in the works (always) always and the possibility of a late August camping trip of some kind (sure to be ripe for blog material), but the majority of my summer will be consumed – physically, emotionally and especially financially – by moving. My lease on my beloved apartment in Brooklyn is up July 31 and I’m moving out of one of the best NYC apartments I’ve encountered yet. And why? So I can shack up with a handsome new roommate.
That’s right. We’re taking the plunge. Well, not the big one, but the small modern, sinful step of pre-marital cohabitation. So maybe we’re not at the plunge (yet!), but we’re definitely climbing up the diving board ladder.
I’m excited! Neither of us has ever lived in sin with a significant other before, so it’s a serious step, for both of us. And not one I’m taking lightly. I don’t judge anyone’s decisions to live how or where or with whom they please, but I know for a lot of people, cohabitation is a matter of convenience or a test to see if they’ll work it out for the long term but for me, and for the B-Man (I never call him that. Why did I just call him that?) is more just the next step in our big adventure together. It is important to me that the man I move in with … I can’t just move out from. We know that anything can happen but barring any unknowns, starting August 1, we’ll be eternal roomies.
A prospect both terrifying and exhilarating. Mostly exhilarating.
When I studied abroad in Belgium, which, have I even discussed that here? I should. Most of our stories are NSFB (Not Safe For Blogging), let’s just say we were never ever on our best behavior, but there are probably a few tales I could tell. Anyway, while abroad, we had to take a year long Dutch language class, a language which has come in handy exactly zero point zero times since, maybe until now. In Belgium and a lot of European countries, it’s not unusual for couples to live together for years before getting married, if ever getting married, even having children together. The Dutch have a special verb for this “wonen samen”, which translates into a phrase we don’t necessarily have words for in the English language: an unmarried couple living together.
I love that Dutch term and wish we had one similar. This morning while filling out paperwork with a realtor I had to list how many people would be in the apartment, two, and our relationship. “Boyfriend and Girlfriend” sounds trivial. “Partners” makes me think of those very intensely non traditional, liberal, artistic couples who wear a lot of scarves and live together for years but never marry and more power to ‘em, but calling Brian my partner, though he is, just doesn’t sound right for us. Special Roommates? Bed Buddies?
A problem, I know, that would be solved were we doing this the old fashioned “right” way by marrying first, then moving in, which, again, is a totally legitimate decision, if you choose to make it…but not the one that feels right for us. Or for for nearly half of the American population, so I do think we need some new vocab for the situation.
Any suggestions? As seen above, mine are pretty terrible!
Despite this huge number of pre-marital roomateships, many people still frown heavily upon it and we’re lucky that neither of our parents fall into that camp. I think they’d all wish the rings we’re about to share were for fingers, rather than house keys, but are supportive of our decisions, giving the oh-so-parental responses of “wellll, you’re adults and I guess that’s just how things are done these days.”
Indeed!
And so, here we are, gearing up to make this big step together. Before we can actually cohabitate, we’ll need, you know, a habitat. How’s it going, so far? Not great. We rushed out Sunday morning to make it to an open house…only to learn the landlord thought it was for a different day, and wasn’t able to show. We then rearranged the remainder of our day to meet a broker at 3 PM for a few showings…and he blew us off.
So, yeah, things are off to a bang up start over here. But I remain optimistic. My anxiety is on hyperdrive and my fingernails are chewed to nil, already, but I’m optimistic.
And how could I not be? In just over a month, I’m going to get to wake up next to this face every day.
Barf times one million, but I can’t help myself! I’m pumped. There are practical things that excite me about living together – no more lugging overnight bags to each others’ apartments, no more having to pack multiple lunches for days I won’t be at home to cook or having to split up Saturday mornings to run home and grab that one thing I need before meeting back up again for the day, more cooking for two. So mostly food and fashion related. What else would I care about?
But on the non-practical, overwhelmingly emotional side, I’m just very happy at the thought of sharing and building a home together. Waking up next to each other every morning and then going to sleep together at night. Coming home late nights to each other, cooking together, making decisions as a team.
Barf times one million and two.
Despite a cynical streak a mile wide, it turns out, I’m really kind of a hopeless romantic.
That said, I’m still a little nervous. Er, a lot nervous. I know we’ll have new things to fight about and challenges we never even could have imagined. If anyone out there has any tips on successful cohabitation, I’d LOVE to hear them. Specifically in regards to taking on joint finances when one of you is a responsible, practical math nerd and the other is a fiscal trainwreck with mountains of debt and a penchant for blowing all of their earnings on nail polish and organic nutbutters.
$10 (worth of nail polish) to the first person to correctly guess which one of us is which.
It’s going to be an adventure, without a doubt, but I think it will be a great one.
Hola, lovers! How was everyone’s week? Mine was equal parts amaze-sauce and bananagrams (both real adjectives). I’m going to just start with my very best foot forward right up front and beg forgiveness if I’m a little crazier than usual this next week or two. I’m going from vacation back to a short week into another long weekend into a nutters work week which includes this big (true), fancy (completely false), fun (debatable) publishing conference…I kind of already have no idea what day it is or where I am or really anything. All I know is that I’m currently eating chicken sausage and I really wanted to dip it in mustard, but my mustard bottle is basically empty – there’s mustard up in there, but not enough to squirt (that’s what she said?) (unnecessary, Liz) so I’m just taking little pieces of sausage and sticking them inside the bottle and scooping up whatever remains I can and surprise, surprise, this plan has backfired greatly and now I have sausage stuck in my mustard bottle.
My new book HoBag, Party of One: Etiquette and Manners for the Solo Diner hits stores next month. Preorder a copy today.
Toldja – losing it!
How about we just stop here and take a look at what was keeping it awkward this week.
This Tote Bag:
One of seventy zillion in my possession and also my carry-on for my flight home from Chi-town this weekend. Just casually blow-drying it. Because it was wet. Because I needed to wash out the coffee I spilled inside of it mere minutes before we left for the airport.
My book of travel tips is still seeking a publisher. Any takers?
This Other Tote Bag:
Full of produce. My company (hint hint as to what it is in the first photo) participates in this amazing CSA, an acronym which either stands for Community Supported Agriculture (my sister’s guess) or Crop Share Association (mine) and I don’t want to look it up because I’m pretty sure she’s right, she always is, and I don’t need to be reminded yet again that she’s smarter than me. My brother thinks it stands for Confederate States of America which yes, but also, no.
Oh hey, rambling diversion, good to see you here.
Anyway, whatever CSA stands for, what it does is deliver bags of fresh, locally grown produce to my office for participating members to bring home and cook up and enjoy. I’m pretty into it.
Of course they deliver veggies on Wednesdays and this particular Wednesday I had a semi-fancy event after work, so what did I do? Rolled in with a ginorm bag with leeks and spinach and chives poking out the top.
No regrets.
This Ring Finger:
Ok so it’s kind of hard to see in comparison to the rest of my bony alien fingers, but my left ring finger is decidedly crooked, thanks to a broken knuckle sustained on the soccer field in high school.
I mean, yes, I broke it but just running into a teammate. During practice. But still: sports injury!
I had to wear a ridiculous splint halfway up my arm and it was a whole scene and the doctor helpfully pointed out that my finger would be permanently crooked and might make it hard to put on an engagement ring IF I ever got one.
Want to send a 16-year-old into a tailspin? See above.
Anywhoo, since the break, my knuckle is severely sensitive to weather patterns and I can always tell when it’s going to thunderstorm thanks to a dull, steady ache radiating out from the center of my finger.
I am having serious trouble typing this here post thanks to today’s weather fronts. If my magic finger is telling me anything, we’re in for a surious storm. Hurry up, storm. I’ve gotsta blog!
I’ve also gotsta touch up my manicure, yiiiikes. And, yes, that is the toilet you see in the background. Our bathroom gets the best light! So sue me.
We already did have one storm today. How do I know, aside from me finger?
This Puddle:
It’s a little hard to tell in this professional grade photo but I’m standing in several inches of rainwater which DELIGHTFULLY decided to pool themselves all over the landing on the subway staircase, basically forcing passengers to swim to their trains.
I’ve mentioned my love/hate relationship with New York and I have to say, the needle has fully swung in the direction of the big, fat H this week.
At least I had the foresight to change out of…
These Shoes:
That slice of orange (technically Coral Reef by Sally Hansen, you know you were curious) on the top right is my toe popping out the front of my most beloved pair of Minnetonkas. Oh, how I will mourn them.
Have you heard of Minnetonkas? They’re theeeee most amazing moccasins, essentially slippers that you can wear in public. They are the greatest and I am literally heartbroken that this pair has ripped. LITERALLY not figuratively, grammar Nazis, my heart, like my shoes, is in tatters.
My favy fave outfit to wear is thus: these shoes, my softest black jeggings, a t-shirt and this jersey blazer that I bought from H&M that is a blazer, yes, BUT is also made out of sweatshirt material. Between the moccs and the jeggs and the blaze I have crafted an ensemble that is as close to pajamas as one can get while still wearing all public appropriate apparel. Cha-ching.
But now my shoes AND favorite pajama jeans have both gone the way of the dodo so I don’t know WHAT I’m gonna do. Dress like a grownup professional?
No annnnd NO.
Oh, what did I wear this week?
These Getups:
Initially this week’s sartorial theme was to be “patriotic” due to the impending Memorial Day weekend. I dedicate these outfits to all of those who have sacrificed yourselves for our country. You are SO welcome. I did manage to sneak in red, white and/or blue each day, buttt my outfits mostly turned out apathetic and weather inappropriate. When it was cold, I wore one of my many way-too-short-for-work skirts with bare legs; when it was hot, I wore black jeans and what appears to be a painters smock and some attractive rain boots (still not unpacked suitcase comes bonus with that ensemble) but today I think I knocked it out of the park with this nautical inspired top which a friend once told me looks like part of a children’s pajama outfit.
All pajamas, all the time over here.
Fashion. Plate.
Speaking of pajamas, I just realized that the actual pajamas I slept in all week are actually red, white and blue! Technically those are Christmas bottoms but we can make them Memorial Day for now?
Also that’s what I look like when I wake up in the mornings. Stars, they’re just like us.
And on that note, THE END. Happy Memorial Day, my American friends and lest anyone take my ridiculousness for insensitivity, thank you truly to all who serve in the armed forces and to those families staying strong at home. And to my foreign pals, Happy Whatever Holiday Comes Next On Your Cultural Calendar. Live it up!
One Awkward Year 