Big City Living, Miscellaneous

Holi in the City – Dos and Don’ts

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Over the weekend, I went to the Holi party. According to the almighty Wikipedia, Holi also known as the “festival of colors”, is an Indian and Nepali spring festival celebrated all across the Indian subcontinent as well as in countries with large Indian subcontinent diaspora populations. In case you decided to fact-check me and google the holiday yourself, you’d probably find out very quickly that it was actually a month ago, on March 20. However, New Yorkers love any excuse to party, and you can find Holi celebration all the way through May, including a supposedly epic festival on Governor’s Island on May 12. Unfortunately, I have a serious case of first world problems, and I will be in Spain for that one, so I had to celebrate early/late.

In case you got all the way through that first paragraph without actually googling this holiday, you’re probably still lost. Basically, Holi is a playful cultural event and an excuse to throw colored water at friends or strangers in jest. There is religious and cultural significance, as well as many other rituals and traditions, but in New York City, this mostly translates into partying, drinking, dancing and getting very very messy. I like all of those things.

This was my 4th NYC Holi celebration. I am not Indian or Nepali, but I consider myself a bit of an expert at this point. Here’s what I’ve learned, in a quick list of Dos and Don’ts:

  • DO Wear White. The whole point here is to throw color and be colorful. It shows up best when you’re wearing white. Makes sense.
  • Do Get a Fanny Pack. I’m not kidding. I got an awesome metallic one on Amazon for 12 dollars. Worth every penny. I’ve already used it twice. Fanny packs are trending again. You heard it here first (and everywhere else). You’ll need somewhere to stash your stuff, and you won’t want to ruin a good purse.
  • DO Take Photos Before You Arrive. It’s the last time your clothes will be white. (See next bullet below.) It’s fun to compare.
  • DON’T Wear Clothes You Plan to Wear Ever Again. I really mean this. Buy cheap white stuff, and plan to throw it away. Even with bleach, your clothes will most likely have a pinky bluey tinge to them. Another option, keep them for the next year’s Holi party! Designated white(-ish) outfit. Personally, I have a pair of capris I have kept for a few years. They are never going to be white-white again. I also purchased a 3XL tank top at Old Navy this year for $2.97 and ripped it and tied it in the back. Then I got a bralette on sale in black. It still looks black so I think I can wear it again. So fiscally savvy.
  • DO Pregame. I have talked about the almighty powers of the pregame before. It is 100% necessary for Holi for two reasons: 1. It’s way more fun to be messy and not care about being touched and dirtied by strangers when you are slightly inebriated. 2. Drinks are expensive there and I’m poor. A well drink goes for about $11. This year, I hosted my two friends at my place for a pre-party and brunch. I cooked French toast (for the very first time… and it was actually delicious!) and we had cucumber vodka & sodas. By the time we left, I was feeling fab!
    • Additional tip I snuck in there, eat something first! Bread is key to staying strong and fighting through crowds for the color bins.
  • DO Sneak in Booze. Other ways to not pay exorbitant money for booze: BYOB. After our French toast brunch & pregame, we headed to the liquor store to stock up. I hid a few mini bottles in the back pocket of my fanny pack. Warning: make sure to hide these anywhere that is NOT the main pocket. They do check bags and unfortunately a friend of mine got her bottles taken! Other option, drink them in the Uber on the way there and don’t let the driver see.
  • DO Put Your Cell Phone in A Ziploc Bag. You’ll want photos. But you’ll probably also want to use your phone again. Speaking of…
  • DO Take a Million Pics. With everyone you can find.
  • DON’T Think It’s a Good Idea to Make a Snow Angel in Colored Dye.

Or do. It all depends on how long you want your body to be all the colors of the rainbow. I am currently 3 days post-Holi, innumerable minutes in the shower, and my underarms are still blue. You can see this in the photo.

  • DON’T Be Afraid to PUSH PEOPLE TO GET TO THE COLOR BINS. This is like pushing small children aside to get the best view of the Macy’s Parade. It may not be a pleasant experience, but it’s always worth it. The way the color works is, they have people working for the event, and the periodically come out of a side door carrying bins of powdered color. The first thing you MUST do when you arrive is FIND that hidden side door. This must be done even before finding the bar. The bar is unnecessary anyway, since you’ll be packin’ your own booze. Once you find the secret door, set up shop to dance around and wait. Your prep work will pay off. You’ll be the most colorful ones there. It will be PACKED. Do not be discouraged.
  • DO Wear the Sunglasses They Provide. There will be so much color dust. In your ears for days. In your nose for days. On your clothes. In all crevices you didn’t even realize were uncovered. Don’t let it get in your eyes. My friend who went with me had to throw away her contact lenses! Luckily I wear dailies. Shade your eyes.
  • DO Try to Give Your Friends Piggyback Rides, the Do Prepare to Fail. There is a lot of booze involved and the powder is slippery.
  • DO Dance All Day to Bollywood Music. I got over 10,000 steps from dancing! It’s better than the gym.
  • DO Sign Up Again Next Year. Sometimes they have discount codes for return customers! I can’t wait for next year. Now I have a handy checklist to prepare, and you do, too!

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Fitness

SoreLegsLongDistance: The Road to 9+1

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I am in the middle of 9+1. 9+1… what?? You may ask. But no, this is not an adjective, it’s a noun. 9+1 is a right of passage. A task. A goal. A triumph. A calling. Maybe not that last one.

In short, 9+1 is a journey to the TCS NYC Marathon. I have always wanted to run the NYC Marathon. Ok, not always, but for the 8 years I’ve lived in New York. I love Marathon Day. I have written extensively about it on my blog. I love waking up early to watch coverage on TV. I’m currently live-streaming the Boston Marathon at my desk! I lovee to watch and I love being a spectator. I love making signs, I love cheering people on. And I love the idea of running through the 5 boroughs of my city, with the streets closed to traffic, and thousands of my fellow residents cheering each other on in a feat that pushes your body to the brink of disaster. I never wanted to run a marathon. But I always wanted to RUN NEW YORK. Here’s the issue: It’s impossible to get in.

There are a few ways to get into the largest marathon in the world, and there are fewer ways now than there were before. Here are your choices to subject yourself to 26.2 miles of pain and agony.

  1. Lottery! I have tried this for years. 5 to be exact. I never get in. Cue the fb status about losing the lottery, then cue the many people who think they are hilarious in commenting about whether you are really “losing” or “winning” by not getting to run 26.2 miles. There are actually three separate lotteries, depending on where you live. The one for NYC residents is notoriously impossible to win. I considered waiting to run it until I moved out of New York, but that seemed counterintuitive.
  2. 3 strikes and you’re in. If you apply to the lottery and lose 3 years in a row, you get in. This rule was thrown out because too many people were denied entry for many years.
  3. Repeat Runners. Runners who finish their 15th New York City Marathon will continue to be eligible for guaranteed entry in future years. These people are crazy.
  4. Time qualify: For women in my age group, this means finishing a half marathon in 1:32. If you read about my only Half Marathon last year, you’d know I was not even close.
  5. Ask your friends and family for a buttload of money to give to charity, all so you can run. You need to raise at least $2,500, but some charities may require more. I’m not a fan of this. Both the asking, and the giving so that I can do something crazy to my body, possibly injure myself, then blame my friends and family for sponsoring me. Not an option.

That leaves the 6th and final option: Become a member of the New York Road Runners for a full year, complete at least nine NYRR-scored, qualifying races, and volunteer for one. If you really hate volunteering, NYRR gives you an option to donate $1,000 to NYRR’s youth and community services programs instead.

I opted to do the 9+1 volunteer option, because A. I’m poor and B. I’m poor. Also, after running so many NYRR races, I was tempted to check out what it was like from the other, volunteer side. Who are these crazy people standing in the freezing cold, in fluorescent vests, handing me cups of water? Turns out I am one of those people. In fact, I just completed my “+1” over the weekend, and I promise to write a full blog entry about that soon.

But more on the 9 part of the 9+1. I mentioned I was poor (in fact, I think I mentioned it multiple times), but each one of these races cost money. Not to mention, even if you complete the 9+1, you still need to pay for the actual marathon entry, which is about $250. The 9+1 is just to received guaranteed entry. Before I embarked on this journey, I did my research. i.e. I read some blogs about how much this thing would actually cost me. Answer: A lot.

But there was a method to my madness. I did some planning to try and save money, save my muscles, and also save some sweat.

First, I had to become a NYRR member. I have been a member for years, so I renewed my membership for $40. Luckily, each race has a discounted price for members, so I took advantage of that. Also, I tried to be smart about my races by signing up early, and getting in on early bird pricing. Usually, early bird only saves about $5-$10, but when you multiply that by 9, it adds up! Longer races cost more money, which makes sense since they include more support staff, more security, and also sometimes a medal! I tried to cut down on costs by picking SHORT races. I also tried to cut down on blisters and sore muscles that way. I have already signed up for my 9+1 (early bird gets the worm!), here’s my racing schedule, distance, and cost. I set up a handy chart:

Date Race Distance Price
1 2/4/2018 Gridiron 4 miles $23.00
2 2/24/2018 Al Gordon Brooklyn 4 miles $23.00
2 3/4/2018 Washington Heights Salsa, Blues, and Shamrocks 5K $31.00
3 4/8/2018 Boomer’s Cystic Fibrosis Run to Breathe 4 miles $23.00
4 4/22/2018 Run as One 4 miles $23.00
5 4/29/2018 UAE Healthy Kidney 10K $23.00
6 6/3/2018 Italy Run by Ferrero 5 miles $23.00
7 6/9/2018 New York Mini 10K $35.00
8 6/23/2018 Front Runners New York LGBT Pride Run 5 miles $23.00
9 8/25/2018 Percy Sutton Harlem 5K $30.00
 TOTALS  40.6 miles $257.00

So far I am at $257 in race entry fees, and $40 in annual membership fees. And of course that does not even touch on the amount of money spent on sneakers and carb-loading. 3 days of pasta prep are needed for a 3 mile race, right? Isn’t that why we really run?

This may seem like a lot of money to some people, but in New York, a workout class can easily run you $40 a pop. If you divide that total figure by $40, it’s really only 6 classes at Barry’s Bootcamp or SLT. Not bad considering you get a free shirt (or gloves, or other paraphernalia) each time!

I hate running when it is hot outside. therefore, I tried to front-load my races for the year to be during the cooler months. However, I worried about running out of races as the year comes to a close. The races tend to fill up and sell out as the year progresses, mostly due to thousands of 9+1-ers like me. Also, I worried that I would injure myself and not be able to finish off my 9 races. That is how I ended up running 3 races in June. Sweatzilla in full effect. I will definitely be stopping at all fluid stations for those babies. Thank you in advance to the volunteers handing me water!

You may have noticed one of my races on my chart was crossed off. I may have forgotten it was a Saturday race and slept straight through it. When I woke up with my alarm notifying me that the race was starting in 10 minutes, and I was in my bed in Manhattan and the race was in Brooklyn… no amount of hustle would have gotten me there on time. Especially with the state of the MTA on weekends. That was $23 down the drain. I’ll consider it my donation to New York Roadrunners.

Let’s get to the important things: hashtags and social media.

I am lucky enough to know someone who ran the marathon last year, and is very witty with words. Also, her fiancé is great with words. They came up with my hashtag: #SoreLegsLongDistance. If you search on Instagram, you can follow along with my journey! Also, I always add #NewGoalNewHashtag. This may be wayyyy less fun than #30Years30IceCreams, but I will definitely earn my ice cream along the way.

I decided that for photographic consistency purposes, I would run every race in the swag that I get with my race entry. That means that although I own enough lululemon gear to outfit a small army of runners, you will see me every race in my New Balance NYRR shirts! I even ran the last race in the short-sleeved shirt they gave me, despite it being 30 degrees. Clearly NYRR ordered their swag before they checked Mother Nature’s plan to continue the winter all the way into the summer.

I try to take a selfie at the start line before each race, or an ussie if I have a running buddy. Watch on Instagram for all of my selfies with water and apples and bagels at the finish line.

I won’t bore you with step by step recaps of each race; there are a lot of them! However, I’ll post a recap of my races after I’m done with 3, so you can follow along. This means I’m already behind and I better post my first recap soon! 3+1 down, 6 to go!

Check out my hashtag!

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Miscellaneous

Old People Navigating Technology

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It has been EXACTLY one full year, to the day, since I posted by first entry on my blog (annual recap coming soon!). It’s finally time to tell you what my day job is. No, I do not teach fitness classes all day long, although it seems that way sometimes. In fact, all day long I help old people with technology. Yes, that’s right, all I do all the live-long day is sit at a desk for 9 hours and tell people how to reset their passwords and send emails. That is not technically my job description, but in reality, I spend 80% of my day doing this.

It seemed like a topical moment to bring up my career in light of the Mark Zuckerberg Congressional Hearings. Today is his second day before the Senate, and as CNN noted yesterday, he was saved from any and all hard-hitting questions due to one salient fact: old people just don’t get Facebook.

One poignant moment:

Senator: “How do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?”

Zuckerberg: “Senator, we run ads.”

Awk-ward.

We all know the feeling. We’ve seen grandparents post private messages as Facebook statuses, not realizing the world would see it. Or we’ve seen parents try to check in with their kids by posting on their Facebook wall. Esurance even made an infamous commercial about old people not understanding Facebook, and that was 3 years ago! In the commercial, a (slightly less) old person tells the older person, “That’s not how it works! That’s not how any of this works!”

I wasn’t the least bit surprised by the lack of understanding by Congress. After all, this is what I do all day. Am I exaggerating? I WISH.

Let me begin with a quick story about my mom. No offense. When I was growing up, I think I showed her how to insert, save to, and eject, a floppy disk 10+ times. I was in middle school. At the time, I couldn’t believe her ineptitude. I say to my younger self now, “you were the idiot, your mom is a tech genius.” Compared to other old people, that is.

And it’s true. My mom is great with technology now. She texts, she sends photos, she emails from her phone, she even knows how to post on Facebook from her phone. My dad recently got a new iphone from work and now he’s on Instagram. He is constantly showing up as “people you may know” for my friends. But that’s an entirely different problem.

I didn’t realize how great my parents were at technology until I realized how strikingly BAD other people are in comparison. Everything is relative.

Quick REAL story from my job. An old member of our organization called, lamenting that his password didn’t work. He said it was probably because “he was using an ipad” (!!). Of course. We get this call at least 10 times a day, and every time, it’s always our fault that they forgot their password. Or that our website “doesn’t work on a phone.” That is not a thing, by the way.

Anyway, this time, a newer coworker who fielded the call asked him if he could “send her a screenshot.” This is a normal request for a millennial. We all know how to press “print screen,” and send the photo in an email. But 80-year-olds do not understand this concept. However, the 80-year old agreed to send one. The whole office waited anxiously to see what we were going to receive. Was it going to be a hand-drawn sketch? Would he send it in the actual snail mail? Would it come through the fax machine? Does our fax machine even work? So many questions.

Approximately 10 minutes later, my coworker received an email with a photo attached. We were elated. Did he figure it out? Was it possible? Spoiler alert: it was not. He sent a thumbnail photo, with terrible resolution, probably taken from a Nokia flip phone, of a screen. You could ALMOST make out that it was an iPad, but you definitely could not see what was on the screen. Which, of course, was the entire point.

Now imagine trying to explain videoconferencing to the type of person who doesn’t understand a screenshot. It’s an adventure. Once you have finally explained to them that they need to have a camera on their computer, and that the screen itself does not just “see them,” you still need to explain the intricacies. Example taken verbatim from my Facebook status on September 2, 2016:

80-year-old: “I don’t see you! Do you see me? I only see a gray picture of a human. Not a real human.”

Me: “Yes I see you, I don’t have my camera on. I’ll invite my coworker so you can see him.”

80-y-o: “I SEE YOU! Wait, no, it’s a man. A very HANDSOME man but you SOUND like a young lady.”

Me: “Yes, I am still the gray picture of a human. Still don’t have a camera. That is my coworker.”

80-y-o: “Oh thank goodness, ok. I thought I needed new glasses.”

Another quick work story: Yesterday, another coworker asked for a member’s electronic signature. The member was baffled. What is an electronic signature? The coworker explained it is a photo of a signature, to be used in electronic documents, so it appears as if it was signed. The member explained that he works in such a small community, that he just signs everything by hand. Endearing. The world before the internet. Remember the days? Not really.

One more story from work. This one requires a bit of back-story. I work in a semi-open space. There are a few desks in my office “pod,” but one is behind a door that is usually open, and another in behind a cubicle wall. We often talk to each other on gchat, so we can speak to each other without making a sound. This especially comes in handy when we are on the phone. This week, I had a phone call where I was attempting to explain the process of registering to post a job on our website. This is a semi-difficult task for the technologically challenged (aka anyone over the age of 40), so I am used to explaining the process in a slow and clear fashion. This specific guy was really not getting it. All of a sudden, a gchat shows up from a coworker, “who are you speaking to? Are they deaf? Or 80 years old?” I guess I was being very slow. And loud. Oops.

Yet another story from work: We have a member who calls every week. He has no idea what his password is. In our office, we have a stock reset password we use. Let’s call it “123Abc.” This man calls once a week, without fail, and every time it’s because he “forgot his password” or his password “doesn’t work.” Meanwhile, every single member of our staff knows that his password is always “123Abc,” because he doesn’t know how to reset it from our stock password. And yet, every week like clockwork, he calls and asks us to reset his password, and every week we remind him what it is, and tell him we reset it, when really we know it is still the same from last time. Maybe he just likes talking to us.

I do think sometimes that these people call the office only because they are lonely, which is sad. Maybe my mom only calls me under the ruse that her weather widget “disappeared from her home screen of her cell phone,” when she really just misses me. Either way, I’m happy to chat with her and help her reinstall her apps. Every time I read an article, or see someone on TV talk about how millennials are “incompetent” or “not self-sufficient,” I will produce as evidence, this blog. It may be that I can’t change a tire. But I can gchat, video-conference, write a blog, post on Instagram, stream Netflix, AND scroll through twitter simultaneously. And I’m pretty darn good at explaining all of those things to 80-year-olds, as well. Maybe someday when I need to change my tire, there will be an elderly gentleman there to help me and return the favor.

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Big City Living

Complaining About Weather

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Small Talk is easy in New York. That’s because there are two fail-safe things to talk about: the atrocity that is the MTA, and the weather. These two things are unavoidable. It is always necessary to step outside, and it’s pretty much always necessary to take public transportation. (Caveat: yes, there are some people who do not take the subway, but these are not people I find myself small-talking regularly or hobnobbing with.)

If you go to a party, it’s ALWAYS safe to talk about slow subways, or a 10-minute wait for a train during rush hour, and it’s ALWAYS safe to talk about the heat. Or the cold. Or the wind. Or the never-ending snow. If you hit the small-talk-lottery, maybe you have been lucky/unlucky, and on the day of a party you had both easy topics collide in the cosmic joke that is the Dante’s Inferno Subway Car. Heat + Subway trouble = what could be worse(/better to talk about)?

You already know why I’m writing this post today: because it’s April 2nd and yesterday was Easter and it’s SNOWING OUTSIDE. What in the world is this BS?

Am I happy about slopping through puddles of ice-cold water all day since I left all my boots, snow boots and all, at my parents’ house over the weekend? NO.

Am I happy about being splashed with slush/snow this morning by a passing truck? NO.

Am I happy about ruining my hair with falling possible-snow-possibly-something-much-worse? NO.

But am I happy about having something to talk about for another few months? YES. This late-in-the-season snow will provide small talk for months! In July, when we will no doubt be complaining about the heat, and our sweat will be traveling slowly down our backs in slow-rolling beads, we will remember this April snow, and we will have even more to complain about.

As I sit at my desk in my wet socks because I took off my wet shoes, with my wet coat hanging on a chair across the room, I am reminded of why I live in New York. JK, this is yet another thing that is terrible about New York. The good news is, the snow is supposed to stop within the hour, and then the temperature is supposed to go up. This means melting. So. Much. Melting. April Snow Brings April Melting Snow. Isn’t that how the saying goes? I hope you all have your rain boots ready. Good news is, it’ll give us something else to complain about!

See you all in about 6 weeks, when I can start to complain about the heat.

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Fitness

I Hate SoulCycle

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I hate SoulCycle. Hate is a strong word, but it is justified. When I say this to people, they often ask me why, to which I answer, “I could write a whole blog post about it.” Well, here you are.

Full Disclosure: I haven’t been to SoulCycle in a year, so some of these things may have changed, but I highly doubt it.

So why write about it now? I keep seeing the trailer for the movie I Feel Pretty where she falls and gets a concussion during SoulCycle, to which my first reaction was “they were clearly making her spin too fast while standing out of the saddle, which is why she fell. That should never happen.” But at SC it does. In fact, I’m not sure why SoulCycle has been promoting the movie on their own Instagram, given that the whole premise is that they let a participant do something incredibly unsafe on their watch.

Many things that shouldn’t happen, happen at SoulCycle. Here are just a few of the things that shouldn’t happen in a spin class. Not ironically, they are also the reasons I hate SC.

The Music.

Music is the main reason I like group fitness. I love working out while jamming to some great hip hop or singing along to the newest pop. It’s great to have the music blasting with the freedom of not wearing headphones. But at SoulCycle, you’ll never find yourself jamming or singing along. That’s because they only use remixes. Almost exclusively. I once talked to a friend who taught SC (no, I didn’t excommunicate him because he worked there), and he told me they encourage the instructors to use remixes and other obscure versions found on the cloud to give participants an experience they couldn’t replicate on their own. But what’s the fun in listening to a remix I don’t know?? Just when I’m about to jam to the chorus of I Wanna Dance With Somebody, there’s some techno bridge. No thank you. Give me the original any day.

The Bikes.

Guys, I teach for a YMCA. The bikes at my non-profit institution should not be drastically better than the ones where you pay $35/class for the privilege to ride on them. But they are. At the Y, our bikes are on lease, so we get a new version every 12-18 months. At SoulCycle, they just replaced the bikes last year (2017) for the FIRST TIME since they were founded in 2006. 11 years. That is mind-boggling to me. How they were selling 11-year-old technology at $35/class while Peloton has literal ipads and live-streaming on their bikes for less, is baffling. Especially in an age where the bubble of niche fitness is finally popping, and studios are reducing their prices, I couldn’t believe people would pay for that crap. The bikes made a lot of noise and the ride was the opposite of smooth.

Tapbacks.

These are dumb. The end.

Weights.

This has become customary in almost all niche cycling studios, but I still hate it. According to a Business Insider piece about why someone stopped going to SC (I guess I’m not alone!), a writer said SC got “a failing grade for exercise physiology and biomechanics” and that “the whole idea of working one’s upper body while pedaling a stationary bike is not only counterproductive,” he wrote, “it can be physically detrimental over time, according to several experts I talked to.” And from the same article, Jennifer Sage, a master-spinning instructor with a degree in exercise science wrote, “You’re probably going to burn less calories because your power output is going to drop.” I agree wholeheartedly. If you want to lift weights, go to a BodyPump class or to OrangeTheory where there is a dedicated section for weights.

The Color and the Smell.

I know you’re already thinking, “Wow this girl really hates this place. She has something to say about the smell?” But the smell is a thing. In fact, SC loves to open their doors to street and you can smell that grapefruit from a block away. It’s like Subway. Both the gross smell permeating from the subway TRAINS and the crazy bread smell permeating from the Subway SANDWICH spot. SC literally makes their own candle. Although I’m not sure who the hell would want to bottle that and put it in their home.

And the YELLOW. So. Much. Yellow.

 

YELLOW

The Heat.

It’s hot in there. Way. Too. Hot. They cram 65 bikes in a tiny room, and then they hold 45-minute classes back to back to back all day long. If you dare to go to an 8 pm class, that means there have already been 200+ people sweating in that room in the past 3 hours. Picture a locker room that is only 200 square feet, and then imagine 300 people working out in it. And sweating on each other. BARF. It does get you sweaty, I’ll give you that. But is the whole point of a fitness class just to sweat? I could do that in the sauna!

V SWEATY

THE SPEED.

They spin too fast. Plain and simple. I see SC instructors going 150 RPM EASILY in the saddle, or 140 when they are standing. One of the many things I like about Peloton (here I go again…) is that they advise never to go above 120 RPM. This is a safe speed for a sprint, while still maintaining some resistance on the bike. 150 v. 120 is a grave difference.

The Standing.

Why are you out of the saddle for 70-80% percent of the class? It’s a bike. You sit on the seat. You only stand to get more power, like if you are trying to get up the last part of a huge hill. Spinning was created to mimic outdoor rides, to help cyclists train on the off-season. Granted, a lot has changed since then, and people now ride in SC every week but have never set butt on an outdoor bike. And also, I understand there are some drills we now do in fitness classes that you’d never see outside (switchbacks and jumps, anyone?) But standing for 70% of a 45-minute class? Come on. Also, you can’t spin as fast as they say, while you’re standing, and keep a safe body position. In order to achieve the speed they want you to have, you need to have very little resistance on, as I said above. Add the fact that you’re standing and you’re setting yourself up for injury. Or a fall like in I Feel Pretty.

The Vibe.

SoulCycle thinks they are a yoga class. But they’re a spin class. They can’t decide though. One song you are sprinting at 140 RPM standing out of the saddle, and the next moment you are in the saddle, closing your eyes, because “this song is for you to focus on your inner strength.” Excuse me? I’m not closing my damn eyes in a spin class except to prevent sweat from getting in my contact lenses. According to their website, it’s “so much more than just a workout — it’s a powerful mind-body experience.” GTFO.

In my first SC class, when an instructor told us some bizarre saying like, “Breathe into what’s burning right now. Your body will adjust to this pain,” I literally laughed out loud. It was not received well. SC is a cult, you know. I was almost ritually killed by grapefruit-candle torture.

I didn’t realize this was a normal thing in SoulCycle. There are many articles online dedicated to “motivational” sayings from SC. Don’t get me wrong, I say motivational things in my own classes, but it’s more in the style of Robin Arzon from Peloton, “New Day, New Slay.”

Those DAMN CANDLES.

I know what you’re thinking. Candles? I thought we were talking about spinning! Well, there are candles. Two of them on either side of the instructor’s bike on the podium. WHY!?!??? Really though, why? This is not a séance. There is no Ouiji board here. We are not communing with the Gods here. We are sweating on each other in a too-hot room with not enough air conditioning.

But no, SOULCycle thinks that the addition of candles is necessary for our spiritual community. GTFO of here with that. At the end of class, about 3 songs from the end, the instructor moves the candles from the podium, and puts them in front of the first row. At my first SC class, I was in the front row (kill me), and the only thing I could think of was, “OMG I hope my sweat doesn’t drip off my face and onto this candle to put it out.” So of course I did what anyone would do, and adjusted my posture to a full standing position (we were out of the saddle again… OF COURSE), and put extra pressure on my knees and lower back, just to avoid sweating the candle out. I do not recommend this, but I was nervous! How embarrassing if the candle went out.

The only good thing about the candles is, 2 songs from the end, they blow the candles out, which creates a sulfur dioxide smell, which covers the disgusting sweat and locker room smell that permeates the room at this point in class. It’s like lighting a match to cover poop smells. It works. But only because the smell of burned candle wick covers the even worse smell of sweaty hot humidity.

I wish I could wrap up this blog by explaining why people still go to this class. There are 21 studios in the 5 boroughs alone. But I can’t explain it. I don’t get it! Feel free to try it out yourself and let me know what you think. But be prepared for a hot, non-productive 45-minutes, at a pretty-penny cost.

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Big City Living

Spring Has Sprung… sorta

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Spring Has Sprung!!! …Sorta. It’s the first day of Spring!! Tomorrow we are looking at the possibility of more than a foot of snow, and despite what the calendar says, this is our third straight week of nor’easters. One thing New Yorkers love to do is talk about the weather. Or rather, complain about the weather. I have barely had this blog for a year (1-year anniversary recap coming soon!), and I have already complained about Sizzlin’ Hot Summer AND Yellow Snow Winter. It’s only fair that I complain about Spring, too.

But I can’t really complain about Spring because it’s sort of the best. The only thing I can really complain about is that it usually lasts about 7 days here in New York. One thing everyone can agree about here in “the city,” is that people appreciate a good weather day. And for all 7 days of Spring, the city comes alive. Here are a few things New Yorkers do in Spring (assuming it ever comes…)

  • Smile. This is rare for New Yorkers. It mostly only happens the week before Christmas, when you can’t help but feel the magic of the city, and for the 7 days of spring, when we are not trying to warm our freezing numb fingers, and also not sweating through a thin layer of clothing on a sweltering subway. Which brings me to my next thing.
  • Go Outside. The 7 days of spring are when you realize just how many people are living on this tiny, 13-mile-long strip of land. The city comes alive. Central Park is BUZZING.
  • Look at Flowers. As I said above, we don’t get much good weather. A majority of our year is spent looking at dead trees and empty branches. But in spring, the city comes out to literally stop and smell the roses. There is the epic Macy’s Flower Show that fills all of Herald Square, and there are other community gardens throughout the city. When I went to the tulip festival on the Upper West Side last year, it was PACKED.
  • Work Out Outside. This goes together with the one above, but it’s different. New Yorkers are fit. Not as fit as our west-coast counterparts (or Chicago ones in this popular article from the week), but we need to keep it tight to go up and down all of those subway stairs! Spring is the perfect time to take our extremely expensive boutique fitness classes outside. You’ll find people running around Central Park like hamsters on their first hamster wheel. Also, you’re sure to find multiple boot camps on The Great Lawn, where trainers with entrepreneurial spirit charge $20/class for use of a public park.
Working out al fresco!
  • Go to Governor’s Island. This will be my 8th summer in NYC and I have yet to go. Maybe this is the year. Supposedly people love to ride bikes there. I happen to know from some friends’ experience that you need to be extra careful about their open container laws! Beware.
  • Eat Ice Cream! That’s right, The Scooper Bowl is back. Anyone up for #31Years31IceCreams?!
  • Eat Outside a.k.a. Smorgasburg. Think State Fair, but the only attraction is endless booths of food. This is the largest weekly open-air food market in America, attracting 20,000-30,000 people to Brooklyn each weekend to eat from 100 local vendors. And yes, it’s worth braving NYC trains to go to Brooklyn on the weekend for this. At least once. But be prepared to wait in lines, every booth has one.
  • Drink Outside a.k.a. Baseball. New Yorkers love their baseball. But more than the game, I think they just enjoy overpriced beers while getting sunburned. Tickets for Bleacher Creature seats start at around $10 for a bad game. And since no one is there for the game anyway, that’s what I would recommend. Be prepared to be hot, sticky and crowded.
  • Get Free Stuff. Ok, New Yorkers love free stuff all the time, mostly because we are busy paying $5,000/month in rent for a 1-bedroom apartment. Today though, there is lots of free stuff for the first day of Spring! Unfortunately, there is no Firehouse Subs in Manhattan, and only one Dairy Queen (on 14th Street), but for you suburbanites out there, hit up the freebies! Rita’s has some stuff too.

Enjoy your 12-14 inches of snow tomorrow, and fingers crossed that Spring Springs Soon!

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Long Legs and other Personal Problems

True Life: My Uterus Ate My IUD

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Yeah, you read that right. I had many possible titles for this post: My Missing Mirena, or rather, My Misplaced Mirena (because SPOILER ALERT, I found it). I even considered LongLegsBigUterus, but that didn’t really seem justified. I think it’s normal-sized. Things just go missing up there. It’s the Bermuda Triangle of the woman’s world.

As much as I try to keep my blog light, I also try to keep it real. And as they say on The Real World, “this is what happens … when people stop being polite … and start getting real.” This is the story of my last week, which was one of the most emotionally taxing weeks I’ve had in recent history. Quick warning: this blog may be what some people would call TMI, but whatevs, it’s already on Facebook, so what’s the big diff between my private Facebook and the public internet for all to see for all history, right? Plus, I’m doing a public service here, supposedly this is a relatively normal problem. More on that later.

My saga started with a normal doctor’s appointment. Thanks to recent research, women only need to go for normal gynecological exams every 3 years in their 20’s now, and every 5 years in their 30’s. These appointments used to be annual. I tell you this because it is a crucial fact. I had not been there in YEARS. So fast-forward to the very end of the appointment. As the doctor is still doin’ his thing. I’m just hangin’ out in the stirrups (guys, if you don’t know what I mean, google it), and I hear the doctor go, “HUH!” Just like that. With an exclamation mark. Now, you don’t have to be a woman to know that you never want your doctor checkin’ things out inside you and remarking “huh!” like he’s stumped. Doctors are supposed to know ALL THE THINGS.

Then the doc says, “alright, we’re all done. In case you were wondering why I said ‘huh,’ it’s because I can’t seem to locate your IUD.”

Me: “I don’t understand.”

Doc: “Well, it happens sometimes. It could just be the strings are nestled up in your cervix. Or maybe not.”

Me: “Excuse me??”

Doc: “Yes, well either way, you should probably check up on it, in case it has somehow migrated or come out.”

Me (in my head): “WHAT THE F*&^%. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!? I DID NOT KNOW THAT WAS AN OPTION?! HOW COULD IT HAVE COME OUT? I THOUGHT THAT BY GOING THROUGH TERRIBLE PAIN IMPLANTING THAT SH*& IN PLACE THAT IT WOULDN’T JUST FALL OUT?!”

Me: (out loud… trying to be rational): “If it wasn’t in there… wouldn’t I pregnant?” (Sorry Mommy…)

Doc: *shrugs* “Yeah, probably. But we want to be sure.”

Me: “So… I’m scared to ask but, is it possible my IUD has been missing for 3 years?”

Doc: “It’s possible.”

The doctor then wrote me a prescription to go to a radiologist to get an ultrasound to try and “locate” it. Of course it’s just my luck that my doctor does not have a single ultrasound in the office. So I had to go somewhere else, try to get an appointment, pay an additional copay, and the worst part – I had to WAIT.

I immediately left the office and posted on Facebook, as one does when a piece of plastic goes missing inside one’s uterus.

As you can imagine, I received 18 comments. Mostly horrified women not knowing this was an option. Sort of like me. Some comments were from men. Funny comments like “Have you checked your pockets?” LOL. JK I didn’t laugh out loud. I didn’t laugh at all. This was not funny!

Seriously though, this is not a tiny contraption. How could it have disappeared?? This photo is from the Mirena website. It’s not something you’d “accidentally misplace in your body.”

The second I got to work I called the radiology office and tried to schedule an ultrasound. I had no qualms about screaming “transvaginal ultrasound” through the phone while sitting at my desk. All I cared about was finding my missing Mirena.

I scheduled an appointment for two days later, and the receptionist told me to “make sure I had an empty bladder” when I arrived. *eyeroll* *fake barfing sound*

When Friday arrived, I left work early to go to my appointment. I was so nervous, I left work an hour earlier than necessary, by accident. I had found out two days before, at my other doctor, that my file at had been marked with “white coat hypertension” for years, i.e. I freak the F*&^ out when I go to the doctor so my blood pressure skyrockets. They always have to take it multiple times. So of course, getting to the doctor an hour early to freak out even more is exactly what I needed.

I had spent the previous night googling how much this procedure was supposed to hurt. According to google, not too much. *SIGH OF RELIEF* However, as I got deeper into my googling, I became more and more scared. Pierced uteran walls? Migrating IUDs all the way up to the abdominal cavity? Should I have felt pain? Was there bleeding? Not that I was aware of… but maybe sometimes when I’m sore from exercise it was really my plastic IUD piercing through my internal lady-parts. There were blogs on blogs on blogs about this. This should have made me feel better – I wasn’t alone! But no. As one usually does when WebMD is involved, I started to imagine the worst: FIRE, BRIMSTONE, AND DEATH!

As I sat in the waiting room, I tried to practice yoga breathing. I’m no good at yoga breathing. My hands were shaking and I was reading the same paragraph in Hillary’s book about Russian internet trolls over and over again. Finally, the receptionist called me to pay yet another copay:

Receptionist: “You’ve been drinking water, right?”

Me: “Um no? They specifically told me on the phone to have an empty bladder.”

Receptionist: “Oh, because they booked you for the wrong kind of ultrasound. You need to be drinking. I’ll check with the tech.”

Tech: “Yea, you need to have 100-120 ounces of water. I’ll come back in 15 minutes.”

Good thing I was early! I started waterboarding myself. Chugging like an 18-year-old at her first frat party. (Sorry again, mommy.) I drank cold water so quickly that I became freezing. My whole body was covered in goosebumps and my hair was standing on end. I officially gave up on my book and started trying to play along with “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” on the tv to distract myself as I chugged water. (By the way, fear of palindromes = aibohphobia.)

Finally, the tech told me I had drank enough water and called me back. Maybe she took pity on me because she saw me shivering.

Before the ultrasound started, the tech told me that she was going to go look for the IUD. And I said, “well, it has to be up there, right? Like, I’d notice if it came out?” To which she said, “you’d be surprised; it’s happened before where I go looking for an IUD, and instead I find a baby! HAHA”

… excuse me!? NOT HAHA. NOT FUNNY AT ALL.

It was my lucky day, I got to have TWO kinds of ultrasounds! The kind you see on TV where they put gross jelly/lube on your abdomen, AND the kind where they stick a huge dildo-y thing up inside you. For that second one, she let me put it up inside me myself. At least there’s that.

The tech saw me craning my neck to see the screen, so she tilted the screen toward me. I couldn’t see anything. After a few more excruciating minutes of silence, she said “ah, there I think I see it. See those white shadows?” I didn’t see it.

After a few more minutes, she said she was finished. I felt like Rachel in Friends where she started crying because she couldn’t see her baby on the sonogram, and she lied to say she saw it because she didn’t want the doctor to say she was a terrible mother because she couldn’t even see her own baby. (This video… at 2:47).

Of course I told the tech about feeling like Rachel, because I am awkward and weird. To which the tech said “Yea, I remember that, and she thought she’d be an unfit mom because she couldn’t see it. At least you don’t have to worry about the mom part!” GURL PREACH.

I asked the tech if that meant everything was ok, and I was in the clear. She said she was only a tech, and she had to send the photos to the doctor to read them. She said he would “probably” get back to me within a week.

At this point I was pissed. I was like EXCUSE ME? I ALREADY WAITED DAYS.

But of course, there was nothing I could do. I just went home and peed every 10 minutes for 4 hours thanks to the 20 pounds of water I had chugged. And waited. And waited.

Finally, after a very very long, celibate weekend, I texted my doctor on Klara, and he confirmed that the IUD was in place, and it was “working for contraception.” He told me the strings were probably just folded up, and when it came time to replace it, in 2-4 more years, I’d have to see a specialist with an ultrasound.

Saga over. Thank the lord.

I write this as a cautionary tale, not to scare you into going to the doctor every 6 months, but quite the opposite. I just want to let you know that it can happen. And to try to calm your fears about it. According to the world wide web, it’s relatively common.

I love my IUD. It’s no fuss at all. This is the first worry I have had about it in the three years since I’ve had it. It’s so easy that it could have been missing for years, and I wouldn’t even have known! Even with this minor blip, I still would recommend it to anyone. My doctor said that if you don’t plan to have a child in the next year, he recommends it. And it lasts up to 7 years!

If you have any questions, I’m clearly an open book, so feel free to ask! Hopefully this is the last I will be writing about it because I plan to try and forget about it for a few more years.

Signing off,

LongLegsProtectedUterus

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Miscellaneous

Goodreads (Read Across America Day – Part 3)

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I’m a bit late on this third installment (did you catch the first and second installments?), but it’s because I was busy reading! I finally finished all 500 pages of Hillary’s book, cried the whole time, and now I’ve moved on to a much lighter read… about a murder in the woods at a bachelorette party. Want to know the title? Follow me on Goodreads!

Goodreads was launched in 2007, and although I have been reading for years, I only discovered it a year ago, in March 2017. Since then, I have tried to use it consistently. According to their home page, Goodreads is “the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations.” Their mission is “to help people find and share books they love.” Alright. They got me. I’m in.

Again, quoting from their website, here are a few things you can do on Goodreads:

  • See what books your friends are reading.
  • Track the books you’re reading, have read, and want to read.
  • Check out your personalized book recommendations. Their recommendation engine analyzes 20 billion data points to give suggestions tailored to your literary tastes.
  • Find out if a book is a good fit for you from community reviews.

Basically, it’s Facebook combined with Amazon book recommendations, but so much more. On Goodreads, you can create a free account, and then you have three “bookshelves”: Read, Currently-Reading, and To-Read. I currently have 151 on my read list, and 108 on my to-read. I try not to get carried away with my to-read list, but I always fail. It looks like I better continue to enjoy reading for a very very long time. There is so much to rave about, but I will focus my post on my top 3:

  1. Organization/Statistics
  2. Friends, Reviews & Recommendations
  3. Lists

Organization/Statistics

My favorite part of Goodreads is the ability to organize. On my “bookshelves,” I am able to sort by the date I began reading a book, sort by rating, or sort by author or title. I love to be able to keep all of my books in one place. My mom used to send me emails all the time with recommendations. When it came time to take books out of the library, I would have to search my inbox for emails from my mom, like “Mommy + Books” and then sift through months of recommendations and try to remember what I read. Now, when she mentions a book I just add it to my “to-read” shelf on Goodreads. And when I read it, I migrate it to “read.” It’s so easy! They even have app so I can add books on the go!

Also, there are statistics.

If you learned anything from my obsession with Peloton, it’s that I love and am motivated by statistics. Whether that’s “best output” on the stationary bike, or “how many pages I’ve read in 2017,” I’m here for it. Good thing Goodreads loves statistics, too! By clicking “stats,” I can see how many books I read per year, and I can even see the amount of pages. In 2017, I read 33 books, or 10,294 pages. Also, you can click into the year, and find out how you rated the books. It’s awesome. So far in 2018 I’m at 8 books, 3135 pages. Hopefully I can beat last year’s total!

Friends, Reviews & Recommendations

The CEO and Co-Founder of Goodreads said that he was struck by an idea when he was scanning his friend’s bookshelf: when he wanted to know what books to read, he’d rather turn to a friend than any random person or bestseller list. This is true for me, too. I always ask my friends or my mom what they are reading. Goodreads puts Facebook together with the NYT Bestseller Lists, and it’s truly the best.

I add friends from my Facebook or contacts, and then I can see what they are currently reading, how they reviewed books I was thinking of reading, and when they add a new book to their to-read bookshelf. I have friends whose tastes are very similar to mine, whose books I always add to my lists as soon as they add them. I also have friends with more serious/intellectual taste than me, but I still try to pick a few of their books per year to open my eyes to new views or voices.

Goodreads also allows for you to rate the books (1-5 stars) after you finish, and to write reviews. I love to read my friends’ reviews, and therefore I feel it’s the right thing to do to write my own reviews as well! I tend to rate most of my books 3-5, because I wouldn’t read it if I wasn’t interested. But every once in a while, I get a real dud that I rate a 2.

Besides my friends’ recommendations and ratings, I also pick books based on “community” ratings and reviews. Each book has an average rating, and if it’s 3.7 or above, it’ll probably be pretty good. Despite the many troll reviews on Hillary’s book, it’s still rated 4.03! Not bad. Here’s my review for a little taste:

Read. This. Book. I don’t know where to begin. I was a bit worried I wouldn’t fully understand everything in this book because although I was/am a big Hill supporter, I don’t know all of the names of her campaign people or the all of the ins and outs of her tenure as Secretary of State. But she wrote this book for all readers and it was easy to read and clear throughout. There were a few sections that were very dense and poll/number heavy, but overall it was an insightful, interesting, and deeply personal book. I really felt her pain and regrets, and I even cried about 15 times. (It’s a long book!) I feel like this should be mandatory reading for all Americans who were swayed by the media, who didn’t understand the whole picture of the election, who STILL don’t believe in the Russian collusion, and also, for people who argued that Hillary doesn’t have emotions. She’s human, just like us! and she loves her Chardonnay, just like me. I’m still with her. I’d give this 10 stars if I could.

Lists

My favorite way to find books to read is by perusing the Goodreads “lists.” If I love a book, I can go to the page for the book, and scroll down below the summary and reviews, and it tells you which lists the book appears on, like “beach reads of 2016” or “best YA fiction of 2017.” Then you can go to those lists and find other similar books. Also, at the end of the year, they publish “Best Books” lists, where readers can nominate, rank and rate their favorites in different categories for the year. You can also go back 10 years to view the past year favs. I have taken many books from these lists and I can’t wait to read them all!

The real challenge is, how do I read 100 books/year AND keep up with my blog?? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, follow me on Goodreads for more recommendations!

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Big City Living, Miscellaneous

Reading in NYC (Read Across America Day – Part 2)

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Last Friday was Read Across America Day, and in honor of that, I’m in the middle of a short series on my passion for books. A few days ago, I talked about reading in general. Now, I’ll write about the challenges of reading in New York City (there are a lot). And stay tuned for the final segment coming soon about my experience with Goodreads.

Picture this: You’re inside a steel tube, traveling anywhere from 10-55 miles per hour, standing, possibly holding on to a pole nearby, or possibly just bending your knees slightly to keep from falling onto the other 180 passengers in your rush hour car that are smushed like sardines. Now imagine all of that, and add a 500-page book in your hands. What do you do when you need to flip the page? Do you wait until you’re stopped? Is it worse then, because people are pushing past you to try and exit? Do you try and flip the page while in motion and just hope the subway doesn’t screech to a halt at the exact moment you take your hand off of the wall?

Alternative situation: You actually get a seat on the train! MIRACLE! And then you look up from your book because the bass from a portable speaker wakes you from your reading reverie. And you hear the dreaded words, “IT’S SHOWTIME!!” All of a sudden, you can’t see the words on the page because some youngster’s sneakers are dangling in front of your face as he swings from the pole above your head.

These are a few of the perils of reading in NYC. It’s not easy. Yet 8 years later, I consider myself a master.

When I was in law school, I used to read textbooks on the train. This is when I honed my skills. I managed to balance enough to read, highlight, AND make margin notes. I mastered the art of finding a vertical pole, instead of a horizontal one, and hooking my elbow around it, so I could hold the case book open in one hand and make notes with the other. From that point on, I knew if I could do that, I could read anything. If I could understand corporate law, I could easily read a YA novel while in motion.

One essential key to being successful at NYC reading: earbuds. A (non-NYC resident) friend recently remarked that she couldn’t believe I read while I listen to music. It’s less about the music, and more about the blocking of other background noise. For example, the constant barrage of people begging for money. Another example, the other day I was on a train from 72nd to 14th street on a weekend, and there were announcements the entire time about service changes. I couldn’t understand half of the announcements, but the staticky sound is worse than a little background Pentatonix in my ears while I read about Hillary Clinton. Earbuds keep me in the zone. I can tune out everything around me. This may also be why I’m so bad at celebrity-spotting – I’m in my own world!

It should follow that I like audiobooks, but that is not the case. Every once in a while, you do need to take out your earbuds to hear an essential announcement. For example, your train is skipping all stops between 59th street and 125th street. This has happened multiple times. If I’m listening to an audiobook I can miss a crucial part, and it’s not easy to rewind and find the spot! I find myself staring into space, reading the subway ads (doesn’t everyone LOVE the new OKCupid campaign?), and of course, people-watching. I prefer to stick with paper books, so I can see where I left off and find my spot after observing the many colorful people and their various face tattoos.

Speaking of paper books, wouldn’t a Kindle be easier? YES. The answer is invariably, yes. First of all, New Yorkers don’t have cars to leave their stuff in. If you bring anything with you, you will be carrying it all day long. The preference is always “less is more.” A 500-page book is never the first choice. Also, it’s easier to flick to the next page than to balance and deftly page-turn. However, nothing beats the feeling of a real book. Also, it’s easier for me to focus on paper than on a screen, but that is my personal preference. To give my shoulders a rest from heavy bags, I generally switch back and forth between real books and kindle books, depending on which is available from the library. This brings me to my next point – the amazing, fantastic, best library system ever: the New York Public Library System.

The NYPL currently has 92 locations including four research centers and a network of neighborhood libraries throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island. The Library serves 18 million patrons who come through its doors annually; in addition, the Library’s website receives 32 million visits annually from more than 200 countries. WOAH. That needed its own paragraph.

I love the library. How else could I go through 4-5 books/month and still have money to pay astronomical rent?? There is almost nothing in this city that is completely free of charge, but the library is one of those things. Sort of. I tend to rack up overdue fees because I get carried away and check out too many books at a time. I never mind paying overdue fees, though, because I feel like I’m supporting the library, 25 cents at a time! Also, you can pay online with a credit card and get points! Love me some credit card points. The flip side of overdue fees is yet another positive part of the library – eventually you need to return the books. Some may not view this as a positive. If you think this is a negative, you must not live in New York. In 500 square feet or less. Where would I keep all of the books!? It’s great that I can keep 2 or 3 at a time and then swap them out. I feel like Matilda where she brings her books back and forth to the library in her red wagon, except it’s me on the subway.

The best part about the library, besides it being my favorite price, is their hold lists. You can go on the NYPL website, put any book you want on hold and tell them which branch you want to pick it up, and you get an email when it’s there. The book is set aside, at the front of the library, labeled with your library card number, and you are in and out in under a minute. They even have self-checkout kiosks (when they’re working). It’s so easy, I never understand when people tell me they don’t use the library. The number one comment I hear from people is that they don’t use the library because they only use e-readers. Well guess what? They have those, too. Not the actual e-reader, but the e-books! They have Kindle format, overdrive format, 3M format… everything! FO FREE. It’s amazing.

Overall, the best part of reading in NYC is the fact that you can read during your commute. I complained a lot about the subway distractions at the beginning of this post, but I remind myself often that if I drove to work, I’d never be able to read in transit. The fact that I can read, and on good days, SIT and read, while I get to where I’m going, is a luxury I must address. I remember the years of sitting in traffic to commute, trying to distract myself by listening to the corny morning radio host, but nothing beats reading a book while someone else does the driving for you. If it wasn’t for New York, I’d read a lot less. That being said, it can be a challenge, but practice makes perfect.

Stay tuned later this week for my experience using Goodreads, how I use it to find my next books, rate my favorites, and keep track of all of the ones I’ve read – there are a lot!

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Miscellaneous

Reading (Read Across America Day – Part 1)

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Obviously I love to write. Why else would I have this blog that I don’t even get paid for? But even more than I love to write, I LOVE to read. My boss at this gym asked me this week what I was reading, and she said, “Whenever someone tells me that they don’t have time to read, I tell them about you. Because you’re the busiest person I know and yet you always have a book in your bag.” I felt pretty proud of that.

Yesterday was Read Across America Day, and in honor of that, I’m going to do a short series on my passion for books. First, about reading in general. Then, about how I can read in NYC. It’s a challenge. And finally, about Goodreads, which has changed my life and has opened my eyes to many, many, many more books.

Speaking of NYC, my constant reading is now a consequence of my V long subway rides (made longer every day by the nonfunctioning MTA), but it wasn’t always that way. I used to hate reading. In fact, my parents used to BRIBE me to read. With money. Granted it was only a quarter per book (change used to actually buy things back then!), but I used to have a chart in my room where I could put up a sticker every time I read a book. Clearly this led to some childish “cheating,” trying to figure out what the SHORTEST books were. Also, for some reason I loved reading books in series. Maybe it felt like less books because a lot of the characters were the same. The two different book series I remember clearly reading every one of was the Babysitter’s Club and Nancy Drew. I loved Nancy Drew. But never Hardy Boys. EW BOYS. COOTIES. I truly believe my Nancy Drew addiction blossomed into my later-in-life Law and Order SVU addiction. Sort of similar (looking at you, Detective Benson).

A lot has changed since my early days of reading bribery. For example, the store where I got my books doesn’t even exist anymore! RIP Borders. I went through a very long “sick-lit” phase where the only books I read were about people dying. I knew more about cancer and brain tumors than 99% of healthy 12-year-olds. I remember every Monday night, going to Borders for my brother to play chess with the old men in the café (this really happened), and I would scour the back of the store for a new book by Lurlene McDaniel. Literally every single book she wrote, I read. According to her Wikipedia, she has written more than 70. I had favorites. I had favorite diseases. I think I was sick, myself. Mentally. But my mom never complained, she was just happy I was reading without her shelling out a quarter per book for me.

I don’t read exclusively sicklit anymore, but I do have some favorite authors, and some of them do love sicklit. Every author in this paragraph, I’ve read every book by them. And if they have new books coming out soon, I already have a hold on their books at the library. First there’s Lisa Genova, who writes almost exclusively about illness, but in a more neuroscience-y way (graduated valedictorian, summa cum laude from Bates College with a degree in Biopsychology and has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard University… she’s pretty smart). You probably know her book, Still Alice, because it was made into an award-winning movie with Julianne Moore. And then of course another brand of literature I eat up… anything sad and terrible. Enter, Jodi Picoult. She writes about suicide, and school shootings, and racism. It’s too much to handle for some people, but I just love it. I listened to her most recent book, Small Great Things, on audio on my phone, because the wait list for the paper version was too long and I just HAD to hear it right away. There were at least 10 times where I was walking down the street or sitting on the subway with a steady stream of tears down my face. Then there is the new-comer to the scene, Liane Moriarty. You probably also know her because of the HBO series made from her book, Big Little Lies, with Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley and Laura Dern. I mean, come on, to get a cast like that, obviously the book was amazing. That was not even my favorite book of hers. I have many other favorites. I love chicklit in general, and I think 90% of the books I read are written by women. Jennifer Weiner, Lisa Scottoline, you name it, I’ve read them all. This year, I am keeping track of the gender of the authors I read in my bullet journal. I’ll keep you posted. If you follow me on Goodreads, you will be up-to-date with all of the books on my shelves, but more on that later this week.

My newest goal this year is to read more non-fiction. I had a head-start last year with a few comedian memoirs (Amy Schumer, Jessi Klein, Mindy Kaling, Lauren Graham), and then some heavier ones (Forty Million Dollar Slaves, F*cked: Being Sexually Explorative and Self-Confident in a World That’s Screwed). Currently, I am reading the KWEEN, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s book, What Happened, and I love it so much. I have some other great feminist reads lined up like Shrill, Hunger, and Lean In. I can’t wait to read them all. But I’ll probably space them out with chicklit in between. Gotta keep it light. It’s heavy enough just to open Twitter nowadays.

That brings me to my next point… why I like to read. I love stories. I like to tell them, I like to hear them, and I love to read them. They are an escape. I recently started reading Young Adult novels occasionally because they are a great escape. The subject matter is sometimes heavy, but they are quick, easy reads, and they are a good respite from heavier reads like the non-fiction I just wrote about. My absolute favorite YA book from last year is The Hate U Give, about a young girl whose best friend is killed by a police officer. Not a light topic. HIGHLY recommend. It was also the Goodreads 2017 Choice winner for both YA book and debut author.

Books also give you a chance to learn. Especially after finishing school, which took 3 years too long – thanks law school, I feel like books are the main way to learn something new. Whether it’s a word you never heard before, or something about a disease (sicklit!), or a chance to empathize with a character you never knew you could identify with, it is an opportunity to go outside of yourself. After three years of law school, reading mostly school books, cases, and case notes because I didn’t have time to read the full case, it is a breath of fresh air to get to choose the reading material. That is not to say, however, that I never read anything amazing in law school. One book comes to mind, Is There No Place on Earth for Me? by Susan Sheehan, Robert M. Coles. That book was assigned as part of a Mental Health and the Law class, about a teenager who became schizophrenic and spent 17 years in and out of mental institutions. It taught me about history, schizophrenia, New York deinstitutionalization, and about the emotions of a person with mental illness. I would recommend it to anyone.

People often ask me how I find books, or how I decide what to read next. Honestly, I read anything I find interesting. That may change from day to day. I use my mom as my personal librarian. She is an active member of four books clubs. If you think I read a lot, you should talk to her! She has been keeping a journal of her books, with reviews and ratings, for decades. We have similar taste in books, so she is always recommending books to me. I don’t use a paper journal (although I do keep my stats in my bullet journal), but every time she recommends something, I put it on my to-read shelf on Goodreads. More on that later this week. Speaking of Goodreads, that’s another way I find books. Also, social media and the good old New York Times best seller list. Something I am DYING to read is An American Marriage, about the toll a falsely accused husband’s incarceration takes on a young married couple, which debuted on the best seller list. It’s also an Oprah’s Book Club Selection (another way I pick books). I’m on the wait list at the library for it.

I use books for different purposes, and one of them is just to kill time. As I mentioned, I have very long subway rides. It’s the best time to read uninterrupted. Although it’s often interrupted. More on that later this week when I tell you about the challenges of reading in NYC! Stay tuned.

Do you have any favorite authors or books? Leave them in the comments, I’m always looking to add more to my shelves.

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