Home Sweet Home

Apartment hunting in NYC is hard as hell. Alex, and two of our good friends from our floor Sofia and Kelsey are getting an apartment together. I think it'll be perfect since we are all mature about certain things, but also immature can have fun with the things that we should be immature about. Basically, we're going to party all of the time, but pay the rent on time and still get all of our work done for school. Who's excited?
All the apartments in the area I wanted to live in are either way too expensive (the place steps away from tompkins square w/ no living space for $5700) or way too disgusting (the "frat house" on ave A). We finally found a place! It's perfect w/ lots of space and natural light and its right in hell's kitchen. We were the first ones to look at the place, so put on a safety deposit on it. Unfortunately...someone went in and took it right out from under us. We were so upset. It was the perfect place & we were going to be perfect in it.
We found another basically perfect place. In Midtown (yuk), but literally a block away grand central (aka the green line aka 1 stop on the express to union square), lots of light, a balcony, kitchen, washer & dryer, all utilities (except electricity) included. Its fantastic. I will unfortunately have the smallest room (wha?!), but I'm sure it makes my parents happy since its $1000 a month. Our realtor Bianka - fantastic and we've stressed her out a lot - told us that a lot of young people live in the same building. Our official move in date is the 15th of May, but hopefully we'll get in there a little earlier. The 4 of us are ecstatic. We've planned a trip to ikea to get the mirror for our hall, our L-shaped couch, what photos we're going to put up on the walls, Margarita Mondays. We're planning our house warming party (we're inviting Bianka and telling her to invite some of the people that she's moved in). We're a little bit too excited, but too much excitement is never a bad thing.
So if everything goes right, we'll sign the lease and I'll have my own apartment in New York. Ah! How crazy is that?

Thursday I saw Uma Thurman. She was just walking down 6th & she looked cold. The celebrities are just like real people! Except for she was probably walking to her great apartment.
Some of my friends from CIT came in on Friday night, and they took me to see "Howard Katz." It really made me miss theater b/c it was so raw & live. okay, duh, theater is live, but its so different when you're there. The tiny cast was really good, but the lighting and sound really made the show. The main character was on stage the whole time, and he would appear to like fall into the next scene, like since the set was all on platforms. I don't know if this makes sense, but it was really awesome. The play is just about this guy who's an asshole & his job takes over his life, and he just looses it. Like it shows him going from when he was on top w/ a family, to when he's all alone on a bridge w/ his father's ashes. Oh yea, it was intense. One of my friends knew someone in the show, so we went out with him to this bar where theater people hang out. My friend pointed out people in the room to me, and one of them was a tony award winner, and another just wrote a musical, and they were all like that. I'm such a huge dork, but I thought it was so cool. They were discussing this new show, and this new talent. Again, I'm a loser, but I thought it was so cool. Anyway, it was so nice seeing my friends from over the summer :) I can't believe Markesha and I have been living in the same city for 4 or 5 months and this was the first time we got together.
Saturday night, Alex & I hung out with 2 girls from our dorm. Surprisingly, Alex & I can have just as good of a time when other people are around than when its just the two of us. We chilled out for a while and then watched requiem for a dream - which is a triiippy movie, but I really liked it. And I honestly think the 4 of us also ate all of the food in the West Village.

Yesterday, Rel & I decided that we needed to start checking things off of our to-do list, so we decided to take a trip uptown. We found out that the Guggenheim was pay what you wish on Fridays after 5.45. jackpot. I've gone to the Guggenheim before (like years ago), and I remember liking it a lot. Since I knew that Alex would like the museum he came along too.
We decided to make a detour on our way up there, and stopped off at the NBC store. All I have to say is wow. You can make a hell of a lot of merchandise and overprice it. But we didn't really care about the $18 Will&Grace mugs when we saw all of the office stuff. They had the world's best boss mug, the Dwight bobble-head, and the Dunder Mifflin T-shirts that "MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE A REAL UNIFORMED EMPLOYEE!" (that was a direct quote from Rel). We bought Jason a mug to replace his broken saxophone mug, and Rel bought a "real" d-m t-shirt, and I of course bought the Micheal Scott mug.

It was a religious experience.


Then we took the metro up to the Guggenheim. When we got off the subway, we had to walk like 2 blocks, no big deal. Umm WRONG. Holy god it was so fucking cold; I thought I was going to die. Josh ended up meeting up with us, which was good that he was actaully social and hanging out with us taking advantage of the city instead of sitting on the phone all night. He probably just came b/c it was free (which he said was the best thing about the museum...which made me really mad...) The exhibit they had up was "Spanish painting from El Greco to Picasso." It was so interesting & I got a lot out of it since I had seen so much Spanish art last summer. They had the works sorted into themes. Like they had a theme of children which had this and then this. & by the way, I could stay at that Picasso for basically all day long. The two hours we had in the museum was the perfect amount of time, and when they put up their next exhibit I hope my friends will want to go again :)
It was a great day b/c we finally got out of our adorable little village & we knocked two things off of our list. YES!













We got back to our building,
ordered food, made hot coco,
and...that's it!

it's the most wonderful time...

Josh, Rel, Alex, and I went to MoMA today because on Friday afternoons/nights its free. I remembered how much I love art and how I should take advantage of the city and all it has to offer. It was nice going through the museum with Alex because he's interested in art and has been there a few times. We went through and analyzed a lot of pieces and gave opinions on everything, including the people there. I'm going to need to spend a few more friday nights at the museum.
We decided to skip out on the 2$ subway ride and walked home. The store windows were decorated for holiday shoppers, and the lights on every kind of tree and on every building really made the city feel so festive. It's going to be such a nice and beautiful build to christmas when I get to see my family and friends again.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!
from my friends in NY

"the spirit of the singer floating in vocalized air"

Today I had my first lesson with my private voice teacher, and I loved it.
When I got to her apartment I buzzed her apartment, and I waited. It was kinda my first time being buzzed up, or whatever the hell the terminology is, so I wasn't sure if I did it right. So I buzz about 3 times, and all I'm thinking is, "dear god, I bet she is wondering why I'm not coming in, or why i'm not talking into the thing, b/c am I suppose to be talking into the speaker thing, or do i just buzz it. Do I hold it down or just press it? wait, I'm pressing the right button? no, its 2G...or was it 2D...E, F...it was F...wait, is the door unlocked now..." So I call Rel. She lives in New York (okay so she lives in a suburb of New York), and I thought that she might know how to work it, but then my teacher comes and says "Hello! Are you Lisa?"
She had this thin curly wild grey hair, and just a bright face. She wasn't wearing any makeup, but still looked really fresh.
She lives 4 blocks away from me in this little apartment that reminds me of my Aunt Heidi's house because she has books and interesting things everywhere. She also has old photos all around her apartment of her performing with people. Its pretty awesome.
She's crazy, but a good totally manageable crazy. She was so supportive just in the first lesson, and gave me these practicing CDs to work with. On the first CD, she talks for a bit, and says this quote that she likes:
"Real singing is the spirit of the singer floating in vocalized air. To this, all hearts and minds listen. The spirits of the singer and listener meet."
& I totally like it to.
She gave me so much to work with that I can't wait to go back and learn more next Friday.

After my lesson I dragged my ass to Sam Ash, which is all the way up town (48th street to be exact) to get one stupid piano book for my piano class (which is a higher level than my theory and piano class...whatever). I kinda love 48th street. Its the music street. There are about 83460923746 music stores and all this different kind of music is playing out of each one. But once you pass them all, its just boring office building after boring corporate building. So, fuck it, take the subway down to the where I live because everything is better there.

Central Park

Today was a beautiful beautiful day so Rel & I decided to go up and check out central park. I forgot how just amazing it was. This might have been because the last time I was there, I was like 8, but I digress. It was full of people, but since Central park is like 450 acres, it didn't make it crowded at all. Usually I see these people with their business suit or looking tired in the morning walking their kid to school, but today they were laying around in the grass with their husband and teaching their son how to ride a bike (I actually saw that last one & it was great!). It was like heaven. I don't mean that as a trite phrase, but whenever I imagine heaven, I see everyone kind of hanging out, but for some reason everyone has great skin and wears white robes that aren't flattering. Well Central Park was just like that. except people wear awesome clothes and some people don't have great skin. and there are crazy homeless people.
Anyway, the park was amazing, really. We walked through half of the park (like the Great Lawn & the South End). We walked through woods which really reminded me of the Nature Center in Ohio (which I haven't been to in eons, but i still can imagine it b/c its a pretty awesome place). And there were paths of people running, riding horses, roller blading, riding bikes, and a few older couples just walking along together. how ADORABLE. Everyone had a dog & they were all wonderful dogs. Not like annoying ones that lay in purses, but the kind that love central park as much as I do. And then there were just like field and fields of people enjoying the sun.
On our million mile walk through the park, we heard this jazz combo and stopped and listened. They weren't all that good. Okay, they were pretty bad, but their outfits were killer, and we knew what tune they were playing, so it was worth out time. There was an ice cream stand close by which specialized in boring generic ice cream. However, it was delicous, and it made the jazz music ever so much better. I loved it. The whole thing just seemed very random and ever so central park-y. Which translates into being AWESOME.
After our the jazz session in the park, we start to hear this dance music playing. Obviously we follow, and we find a crowd watching all of these crazy crazy people skating and dancing around on roller skates/blades in the middle of the park. Little did I know that this was an event provided by the Central Park Dance Skaters Association. THATS RIGHT. Theres a whole association for what I witnessed. Some of them were just amazing. This one guy like bent down and just skated on one skate. Another one balanced a few water bottels on his head. One guy with way cool dreds was such a bad ass skater. That woman in the white shirt was a fucking riot. I couldn't believe I was witnessing these people doing this. I felt like it was a dream because it was so bizaar.
I watched this little boy ride a bike alone for the first time. I felt like I should write a coming of age essay based on this and my wonderfully fabulous day in central park.