Good
-five-day weekends
-sleeping in

Not as good
-14-hour drives

Belvidere here I come!

And the answer is ...
Every one who guessed that I saw Lindsey Johnson was right. Rob got the second half right, too. I didn't see Lindsey's finance/husband, but I did see Cici.

As for the weirdest thing, the consensus seems to be D. I don't really know if there is a right answer. This city can be bizarre sometimes.

If I looked like a 13-year-old British boy, you guys would tell me, right?
Friday night, I was walking home at about 1:30 in the morning. There's a dance club frequented by greasy New Jersey types right around the corner from my apartment. A large crowd was outside smoking, and as I walked passed a guy looked at me and yelled "Harry Potter!" at the top of his lungs. I was baffled. Was it the glasses? The short brown hair? The scarf? The lightning blot scar on my forehead?

Twice on the pipes if the answer is no
My apartment still doesn't have heat. This could become more problematic because it's supposed to be in the 30s tomorrow. That's chilly. There's been a lot of banging on pipes going on since I got home, though, so maybe that's a good sign. I hope so.

Let there be heat!
Or at least hot water. I just took the first hot shower in my own bathroom since Wednesday morning. It was the best. In a close second was the shower I took Thursday night during a hotel party. (Thanks, Nina!) It was shorter but much funnier. I would thank my landlord, but I think the return of our hot water had less to do with my comfort and more to do with the $1000 fine the company got on Friday. Way to enforce tenants' rights, NYC!

The best
-the aforementioned shower
-the pizza I had in Brooklyn last night
-brownies
-a free flu shot
-knowing that the St. Mark's Chipotle is now open
-knowing that I'll get to see Colin Firth on the big screen tonight

Ice Cold!
My apartment is.

Ice Cold!
My shower tomorrow will be.

M.F.
As of 9 a.m. tomorrow (technically today) there will be no heat or hot water in my building because they are replacing the boiler. There will be no heat or hot water until Friday night or Saturday morning. So when do I get to start begging friends and co-workers to let me borrow their showers?

What the fuck?
What do you think was the weirdest thing I saw today? Vote below.
a) A taxi driving on the sidewalk.
b) A man using a hammer to smash in the back passenger window of a blue station wagon with the engine running and then unlocking the door.
c) Two of Scott's ex-FIGlets (well, technically one was in the Twain FIG). Bonus points if you can guess who.
d) A man masterbating in front of a large map in a crowded subway station.

Love
I saw John Stirratt of Wilco play with his other band, The Autumn Defense, at a small bar on the Lower East Side tonight. It was rockin', in a mellow, pensive kind of way. He's the "cute" Wilco member. (I believe there's footage in the documentary of him signing some woman's breast.) He's even dreamier in person, in a rumpled kind of way. And the man has fabulous forearms. But do I love him more than Jeff? Such a tough decision.

A brush with fame
Wednesday night I met Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. I went to a meeting of NYC Edwards supporters with my brother. There were only about 40 other people there, but they were all really passionate about the campaign. It was kind of inspiring to hear from people who believe so strongly in what this guy could do for our country that they spend their weekends going up to New Hampshire to help campaign door-to-door. Edwards stopped by for a while to talk. The man is a really great speaker. He didn't make up my mind in those three minutes he talked, but I definitely want to find out more. Oh, and he's really cute, too, in a JFK kind of way.

Does this make me a true New Yorker?
I've puked in the back of a cab. And when the cabbie yelled at me about it, I yelled back.

Boys
Maybe not so bad after all.

Boys
Bah.

That's all.

Maybe things are starting to look up after all
Old publisher: British
New publisher: Irish
Bonus points: He wants to start having monthly meetings that would involve going to the nearest Irish pub at the end, drinks on him. Sounds like my kind of meeting.

Responsibility
You know how when you pick out the movie, you feel sort of responsible for everyone actually enjoying the film and you feel bad if they don't? The same applies to picking out bands. I guess not every one loves Ireland as much as me.

Wacky
Apparently, two priests almost came over to my apartment to drink last night.

Awkward
-Having a phone conversation with someone who was fired the day before and doesn't know it yet.
-Having to lie when she asks if you know why your editor was trying to get in touch with her the day before.

Politics, etc.
Tuesday I shook hands with city council candidate A. Gifford Miller's father on the way to the subway. Then on my way to vote I shook hands with A. Gifford Miller himself.

The voting booths were the best part of election day, though. I've always voted absentee (so I can vote in important Belvidere mayoral races and the like), so this was a first. But I think that New York voting booths are especially entertaining. There's a giant red lever that comes up to about your waist. You push it all the way to the right, and then you turn a switch next to the name of the person you want to vote for. It looks kind of like you're controlling some sort of boiler or furnace. Then when you're done you push the giant red lever all the way back to the left. I felt like I was in a Looney Toons Cartoon and a trap door was going to open or a giant anvil was going to drop from the ceiling.

Bright lights, small city
I went to an Ed2010 Speed Networking (think speed dating) event on Tuesday. I met two people who used to work with my cousin, and I'm pretty sure one of them is good friends with her. Wacky.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to work ...
Three people (or one-fifth of our staff including ad, art and editorial) got "terminated" today. I was not one of them. But I was friends with all of them. I ate lunch almost every day with one of them (who started work two weeks after me). And one of them was our research editor, and now that she's gone I'll get to do her job and my job. Good times.

On a more positive note ...

I heart the New York City Marathon
The marathon went almost right by my apartment on Sunday. I just had to walk a block over the First Avenue. I got there right before the elite women ran by, and I got a really good spot. The top women were pretty evenly split between Kenya and Russia. The men came by about half an hour later. There was a huge pack up front. It was all Kenyans and this one random Italian guy. It reminded me of high school cross country when one team would run in a pack as a sort of strategy. It was just so exciting to watch them run by.

About 45 minutes later the main pack started and lasted for about an hour or more. I was at the top of a hill and could see down First Avenue to somewhere in the 60s, and the street was just packed with people as far as you could see. It an amazing sight. And the crowd was so fun. People has their names written on their shirts, and we would yell for every random stranger that ran by. Some people slapped hands with us as they ran by. A huge group of Dutch people were stationed across the street and went absolutely nuts when any one from Holland ran by.

I did see P. Diddy run by. I thought I might miss him in the crowd because I heard that he just wanted to run like everyone else. But he was the only runner I saw escorted by a golf cart full of TV cameras and being interviewed by a reporter in NBC running gear jogging along side him. P. Diddy did inspire some great slogans on other runners' shirts, though. "I'm way ahead of P. Diddy." "P. Diddy isn't going to finish the race." (That one was on the back of a shirt. I can only hope the guy was lined up near him.) A father-son running duo with "P. Daddy" and "P. Sonny" shirts.

Other great things about the marathon
- the wheelchair racers and blind runners
- everyone on Team Ireland
- all the people in costume: Sponge Bob, a giant pumpkin, an angel, two guys in drag, a London cop (a bobbie?), a three guys running together as Batman, Robin and Superman

Trick or Treat NYC
I didn't know this city was so into Halloween. There's a costume shop down the street from my office, and Thursday and Friday there was a line stretching around the block just to get into the store. Crazy.

The costume
Old homecoming dress + cheap horns = devil with a blue dress on. Thanks for the idea, Paul.

The Parade
The crowds at the annual Village Halloween Parade were overwhelming. The parade itself was sort of underwhelming. There were some really awesome skeleton puppets and stuff at the beginning, but most of the parade was just regular people in costume. Some pretty elaborate (a stop light that lit up). Some pretty standard (school girls and vampires, etc.).

The parade had something to learn from the Midwest. No one was throwing candy. Metal pumpkin buttons (couldn't someone poke an eye out?) and the occassional bag of potato chips, but no candy. One guy standing near us was actually throwing candy to the parade. So wrong.

A word of advice to my male readers
When dancing with a girl you just met, don't start spanking her. Chicks don't dig that.