Well-Traveled Tequila

Two weekends ago, I went to Montauk. I brought a bottle of wine as a host gift. Someone else - and I really don't know who - brought a 1 L bottle of Jose Cuervo. Actually, two someones brought such bottles, as one was left over when I left at the tail end of the weekend.

This bottle of Jose had most likely been purchased in Manhattan or Brooklyn by someone who came out to the beach for the weekend. From NYC to Long Island, it was carried over hill and over dale to the beach - only to be ferried back to Manhattan by me.

...Until a week later when I sent it back to Long Island for a post-kayaking barbecue. I made sure that the bottle was opened, to prevent further tequila wanderlust. Save for the small bit that returned to Manhattan in my stomach, I believe it is safely settled in Rockville Center for the rest of its alcoholic life.

But I Thought Everyone Did That...

After a long weekend of fun and sun, I decided to spend my Monday evening on the couch. After going to the gym, I plopped myself down - still sweaty, mind you - with a bag of Trader Joe's flax chips in front of a movie. Before long, one of my many, many roommates came blustering in the door. Apparently, her cell phone was broken.

"The condensation from my water glass at the restaurant leaked into it. Can you believe that?"

Indeed, I could not. I'm not sure how she managed to have her phone that close to the glass, but whatever. Still, because her phone was stolen at a club last year, she has insurance on the darn thing. It shouldn't be a problem. I reminded her.

"Yeah, but there's a little dot by the battery that turns red if you get the phone wet. Sometimes they don't replace it if you drop it in a puddle or sink. So I think I'm going to "lose" my phone again."

She took off her battery cover and showed me her red dot (that sounds dirty). She happens to have the same phone that I do, so I removed my battery cover as well. I tend to go easy on my electronics and my phone works well enough - I've certainly never dropped it in water. But oddly enough, my dot was red, too. How peculiar! I looked at the phone, looked at my roommate, and then looked back at the phone. Suddenly, I remembered the cause.

"Oh, that must be from the steam from when I talk on the phone in the shower."

Silence.

Silence.

"Wait, you do *what*?"

"You know, not when I'm washing my hair, but after the gym when I'm just rinsing off. I keep the phone out of the water, of course."

Silence.

"It's not like I've been drinking."

Laughter.

"Dude, no one else does that. Do people you're talking to know that you're in the shower?"

"Dunno."

"Weird."

Apparently.

Beat the Beach

I used to hate the beach. And with just cause - I only knew it through The Family Vacation.

From as far back as I can remember up through college, I consented to week-long car trips to the likes of Cape Cod, Cape May, and Rhode Island with my family. My parents, my two younger siblings and myself would pile into a four-door sedan (we only acquired the seven-seater minivan when I was in 8th grade) and drive four hours or so to a freezing, often rocky, Atlantic beach. My sister would inevitably have to use the bathroom once an hour and my brother would try to pick fights with her for kicks. I like to think I just tried to read my book, as I can read in cars without getting sick - but who knows what sort of trouble I caused.

We'd usually take these trips at the end of August, after various camp programs had ended, so the weather was usually awful. It was cloudy, the wind blew, it rained: autumn was in the air. Not exactly sunbathing weather. We'd spend the first day or so inside the hotel room (it was only when I was in high school that my mother got smart and started renting cottages instead of hotel rooms). The second day might be spent going to the grocery and shopping at Ocean State Job Lot, a New England discount chain. Finally, we'd make it out to the beach in the blustery cold wind. Sand would blow in my eyes and get in whatever book I was trying to read. I'd usually give up and go sit in the car - since these hotels and houses were never directly on the beach.

At some point, either on that blustery day or the next, the sun would burn through the clouds. I'd have on sunblock, but since it was the "one good beach day," my mother would insist on staying at the beach all day. She got the beach chair. My father would burrow into the ground and put up the umbrella (it wouldn't stay up in the previous day's wind) and then cover himself with all of the towels. I do like swimming in the ocean (when it was there - if we stayed on the bay side of Cape Cod, the tide would go out for hours at a time), so I would jump right in. I'd have sunblock slathered all over my body, including my forehead. It would usually drip in my eye and burn. I'd have to get out of the water and poke at it with a wet towel that wasn't usually the cleanest thing. Eventually, I'd get back in the water and then sit on the beach, sheltered partially by the umbrella and partially by a towel.

Without fail, the friction of the waves would wash my sunblock off and I'd get a terrible burn - even in New England, even in late August. From that point onward, my vacation - such as it was - was ruined. That, in turn, meant that my mother was annoyed that I didn't want to leave the hotel room/beach house for the rest of the week. And so it goes.

However, in recent years, I've made to various beaches with various groups of friends. I've taken trains and ferries and gone earlier in the summer. Sure, I've slept on floors, but I've also had a couple of drinks. Most importantly, I've only gone for weekends and not entire weeks. I just returned from this year's beach adventure and I can now say it with confidence: I officially *like* the beach.

Except for the whole "sunblock in your eye" bit. I can do with out that.

Hiatus Over

I went to Montauk this past weekend - yes, that Montauk trip, if you happen to have read about another one in related online sources. It was delightful - delightful enough to keep me away from my phone and my laptop for several days. But I'm back and I promise that I have MUCH to say about everything irrelevant.

Craaazy iPod Lady

Dear Craaazy Ipod Lady on the R train this morning,

I am sitting down on a plastic orange seat near one subway door. You are standing the vestibule, across the train car from me - one door down. You seem innocuous enough: business casual clothing, fly-under-the-radar looks. And you must be having a fabulous morning. But how do I know that?

Because I can hear you listening to Van Halen's "Jump" all the way over in my part of the train. How... energetic.

Oh, I'm sure you think that no one will know that it's you, feeding your ears with David Lee Roth at deafening levels. The two suits next to me, the old lady and her grandchild across the way, and that hipster chick on the aisle - they *all* have headphones on. Surely, one of them must be listening to "Jump," and not you, mild-mannered khaki lady.

And you're right - at least, you would be right if you didn't feel the need to have synthesizers massage your eardrums at 9 am, or if you didn't keep restarting the song. I see your fingers doing the walking 'round the iPod wheel. No one else is fidgeting. Come to think of it, I'm probably the only one who can *hear* your music, because I'm the only one reading without headphones on this crazy train.

Long walk off a short pier, Craaazy iPod Lady. You know what I mean.

Love and Kisses,

Audrey.

Things I Love Right Now: A Top 10 List

1. That hotel in midtown with the steam room, sauna, pool and swim up bar. Yes.

2. My roommate who knows all the people that get us into clubs for free.

3. NYC parks and their associated events.

4. 4 am.

5. 5 am.

6. The beach.

7. Restaurant week.

8. Water.

9. Free food.

10. The internet.

Yes, the timestamp is accurate on this post.

For Serious

Attention business institutions of New York City:

Why are your lights on at night and why are your doors open during the day?

When some of the hottest days of summer are upon us - when Con Ed ads paper the subways, counseling us to conserve our energy usage. When even our Republican government is searching for alternative energy sources - when hybrid cars are fashionable and "I'm not a Plastic Bag" is carried with couture - why are so many buildings in Manhattan blatantly wasting electricity?

I'm not going to name names, but you know the culprits. Storefronts across the city have their doors flung open, beckoning customers to come in to their sweet, sweet air conditioning. It may be pleasant, but it's not practical. Maybe they wouldn't need to attract so many customers if their electric bills weren't so high.

At night, many of these stores leave on all of their lights for security. I understand a few surveillance lights, but not every single one that illuminates the store during the day. I don't care if they're fluorescent; it's still ridiculous. I have a feeling that many office buildings leave on many of their lights as well. Again, it's not just environmentally friendly - it's also business savvy. Save some money.

A related NYTimes article can be found for free here.

Information on environmentally sound office building design can be found here and here.

I'll catch you later, I'm off to grouse and bake in my apartment because I refuse to turn the air conditioning on.

Things I Do Not Understand

There are many ways in which I am out of touch with modern life. Many of them are cultural - for example, I do not own - nor have I ever regularly used - an automobile. Still, I can count much of New York City's population - particularly those who grew up here - as my fellow carless companions.

Stranger still, I do not own a digital camera or an iPod. But, I've just been cheap and lazy; I'll probably get both within a year. Although I'm not sure I should walk around the streets of New York with headphones on. I already spend most of my time not watching where I'm going. If I didn't listen for approaching cars, I'd probably get run over.

But I don't have a car because of where I live, and I don't have a camera or an iPod yet because they're expensive. What I do have is a cell phone with an unlimited number of evening minutes and a (soon-to-be) unlimited number of text messages. And I do use it - but there is one thing that I never do:

I do not drunk dial people, nor do people drunk dial me.


I know. I am not part of a mass cultural phenomena that has been going on since the invention of the telephone and has done nothing but pick up speed with the mass popularity of the cell phone. Check my pulse to see if I'm really alive.


It's not as if I don't have a few drinks with friends from time to time. Afterwards, I simply lose interest in my cell phone. I am more likely to miss a call than I am to make a dozen.

But of course, I can control my own actions. I cannot control those of others. Thus, the really funny thing about this phenomena is that I am rarely, if ever, the recipient of a drunk dial.

Apparently, when my friends toss a few back, they happily do not call me to make noise in my ear. Better still, none of my ex-boyfriends feel the need to whine at me while under the influence.


Sometimes I feel left out, but in general, I believe that I am a lucky, lucky soul.

Unpleasant Surprise

On July 3, I was invited to a pre-Fourth of July party. Being a good guest, I like to bring a six pack of beer or a bottle of wine along with me. Now, I happened to have my own shindig a few weeks ago and I was happily left with several bottles of wine. My friends not only brought drinks to the party, they funded my house party habits for the rest of the summer. Really, quite perfect.

One of the bottles brought into my apartment by some friend or another happened to be a white zinfandel. I'm certainly not a wine snob, but I'll admit the white zinfandel was kind of funny. It's sort of the bastard stepchild of wine, for whatever reason. But what does it matter? It's just a bottle of wine for a party, right?

I grabbed the White Zinfandel from my bookshelf to toss into the fridge for a few hours before I left. I happened to look at the label - it was pretty funny. "Chateau Diana," it read, with a far-too-pretentious impressionist painting of a horse-drawn carriage in a garden.

Then my eyes drifted further down the text. And that's when I saw it.

"Wine Product."

Oh, ew.

"Wine Product" means that I was holding a mixture of table wine, water, sugar and "natural flavors" in my hands - packaged as if it were actual wine. I've seen this stuff before. They sell it at Gristedes for about $5. Decent wines can be had for that price at Trader Joe's, so I can only imagine that it was someone's last ditch effort at bringing something to the party, when no other store was open or nearby. In that case, I salute you, intrepid party guest.

But be certain that if I knew which one of my friends you were, you the wine product would be making its way to your door very soon.

Why Did I Have Nothing To Share Yesterday?

Because I was watching blender videos at WillItBlend.com. And I am a better person for them.

I swear this guy is going to get some kind of poisoning from inhaling the fumes created by crushing lightbulbs, camcorders, ipods, and anything else that creates smoke when he opens the pitcher.

My personal favorite - glow sticks: