Yep, that’s right.  That is me, Evie (the main character) and Kiersten hobnobbing at Barnes and Noble last night.  And yes, it’s August here.  And yes, I was wearing a jacket, scarf, tights and boots BECAUSE IT WAS COLD!   I’m not complaining–I love the fall and am glad summer is coming to a close.

Evie’s always thought of herself as a normal teenager, even though she works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, her ex-boyfriend is a faerie, she’s falling for a shape-shifter, and she’s the only person who can see through paranormals’ glamours.

 

But Evie’s about to realize that she may very well be at the center of a dark faerie prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures.

 

So much for normal.

You know how much I love books, right?  So it should come to no surprise that while I was in NYC I wanted to go to this enormous used bookstore,  The Strand.

Doesn’t that just look fantastic?  The Strand boasts 18 miles of used books.  I feel giddy again just thinking about it.  Eighteen Miles!  Swoon!

These leather-bound titles were my favorite.  They had an entire section of them and I wish I could have brought them all home.

I could have stayed here for a solid month and still not have made my way around to all the interesting nooks and corners.  I did not, however, bring a single book home with me.  Even at their “used” prices I felt they were exorbitantly expensive.  Their used prices were about 75% of the cover price, which is a nice discount.  But when I’m used to paying $2 dollars for a hardback book at the Booksale, 25% off seems like highway robbery.  I made a list of titles that looked interesting, and I will keep an eye out for them in Phoenix.

*I’d like to thank Erin and RA for indirectly introducing me to The Strand.  RA organized a fantastic online bookclub last year where Erin led a discussion for “The Secret of Lost Things“, which takes place in The Strand.  I’ve wanted to visit it ever since.

The New York Library

Do you remember that moderately bad movie “The Day After Tomorrow”?  Remember how they hole up in the New York Library until Dennis Quaid comes to rescue them?  Yep, pretty much I’ve wanted to go see that library since I saw that movie.  So while in NYC I dragged my long-suffering friend Josh and a handful of highschool kids* onto the subway and down to the library.  I’m kind of an architecture geek and was hoping to “oooh” and “aaaah” over the building for a while.  This building is amazing!

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Gorgeous, right?  Right.  Sadly, every single architectural detail you see right now–from the molding to the columns to the lions and even the stone steps–was completely ensconced in sheet rock, plastic, and “Construction Underway” signs.  I was crushed.  The inside was still beautiful with most areas open to visitors–but the beautiful outside was hiding.  Which I guess means I’ll have to make another stop next time I’m in NYC.

One of the many lobby-areas in the Library.  I love all the wood paneling, arches and the castle-worthy sconces/candelabra.

I half-expected The Beast or some other fantastical creature–a gargoyle maybe?–to come bounding around one of these corners.  Alas, no such magical creature, disguised prince, or AWOL gargoyle presented itself.  Sigh, such a gorgeous building.

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I spent an hour or so in this reading room with a fascinating volume on the ancient Greeks.  Man, I wish I had more time to read something like that all the time–I need to be done with required school readings, stat.  (This is wishful thinking, my semester started yesterday.)

The Museum of Natural History

I dragged a small group of highschool kids out of bed early one morning (early being, you know, 9:00 am) to go visit the Museum of Natural History.  This is by far the largest museum I’ve ever been to–with levels and floors and extra exhibits in new wings and old wings–it went on forever!  I can’t begin to recount everything we saw–but some of my favorites were the geology and space exhibits depicting different composites that make up the earth and how, exactly, the earth fits into our solar system.  I loved the Japanese exhibits that detailed how to make woodblock prints.  Ditto on the ancient Chinese exhibit.  The museum had Egyptian mummies and Tibetan temples and an entire room of ancient pottery.  I was floored by the sheer volume of artifacts from various African tribes, and how similar and different they were from each other.  There were stuffed animals and cases of small reptiles and rooms of skeletons of Jurassic-era animals.

The dinosaur bones exhibits were perhaps my favorite, they were just so enormous!  I mean, I know T-Rex is huge and all–but it’s different when you are standing next to him and staring at his teeth and claws.  Yowzers!

Wooly mammoth, anyone?  Dumbo?  Buhler?

Yeah, suddenly The Night at the Museum franchise is no stretch to me–this place has EVERYTHING!  Recommended.

*A note about the high school kids: I was a chaperon for a high school tour-of-sorts.  Kind of random, totally awesome.  They were a great bunch of kids and we had some good times.  I’d go on vacation with them again in a minute.

No.  I didn’t go to BlogHer.  It has been two months since I got back from New York City and I am just now getting around to blogging about it.  .  I started keeping a travel-journal this trip, so I wrote down little bits and pieces of my days away from home every night.  The Tony Awards took place while I was in NYC and the buzz around Broadway the week prior was a little intoxicating.  Everyone was talking about whether Alfred Molina or Denzel Washington would with for Best Actor (Denzel).  What would win Best Musical? (Memphis)  And how could “Red” not take home the Tony for Best Play? (It did.)   Needless to say, it was a good week to see six or seven Broadway shows.

Billy Elliot is set in a small town, the story follows Billy as he stumbles out of the boxing ring and into a ballet class, discovering a surprising talent that inspires his family and his whole community. A joyous celebration of one boy’s journey to make his dreams come true.  I have loved this show from afar for several years now and jumped on the chance to see it on Broadway.  The kid who played Billy was fantastic and I loved the general message of “Hey, it’s okay to be different.  It’s okay to follow your own heart.  And really, if you play your cards right, it can bring you and your family/friends/community closer together.”

Fences is the story of Troy Maxson, a man torn between the glory of his past and the uncertainty of his future. Emboldened by pride and embittered by sacrifice, Troy is determined to make life better for future generations, even as he struggles to embrace the dreams of his own son.  Playwright August Wilson wrote 10 plays about the African-American experience in Pittsburg, each tackling a different decade.  Fences, set in the 1950′s, is perhaps the most famous, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1987.  That same year James Earl Jones won the Tony Award for Best Actor and just a few weeks ago Denzel Washington won the same award for the same role and his costar, Viola Davis, won Best Actress.  Also–for the more stiletto-minded, there was a write-up of Fences in the last issue of Vogue. I actually stood in line at the box office to purchase standing-room only tickets to this completely sold out performance, and then I stood at the back of the theater for the entire show.  I absolutely loved this performance, particularly Viola Davis, who plays Washington’s long suffering, patient, humorous, loving wife.  She is a powerhouse.  Her character is rock-solid, unflinching and strong.  She has a monologue near the end of the play where she expresses her own frustrations with marriage but reminds her philandering husband that she can be frustrated and hurt and stressed and still keep her vows.  It was beautiful, it was heart-wrenching, and it brought me to tears.

In the Heights tells the universal story of a vibrant community in Manhattan’s Washington Heights – a place where the coffee from the corner bodega is light and sweet, the windows are always open, and the breeze carries the rhythm of three generations of music. It’s a community on the brink of change, full of hopes, dreams and pressures, where the biggest struggles can be deciding which traditions you take with you, and which ones you leave behind. Winner of a grundle of Tony Awards in 2008 I expected amazing, wonderful things from this show.  And to be honest, I was a little disappointed.  The story was wonderful, the singing and dancing fantastic, and leading man Corbin Bleu was so charming I found myself a little swoony over him.  However, the character I related with the most was the one who was dead-set on moving away from the barrio and making her way in the world, away from the life she had always known.  Coincidentally, this is not the point of this neighborhood-based musical…I felt torn, wanting to love the story but knowing my heart was cheering for this young Latina to move downtown and give herself a fresh start.

Next to Normal concerns a mother who is struggling with her bipolar disorder and the affect it has on her family. It also deals with drugs, suicide, death and grieving a loss.  In 2009 “Next to Normal” won a grundle of Tony Awards and also the Pulitzer Prize for theater.  I think I must have gone in with wonky expectations–it was great, it was really great, but I didn’t love it.  They addressed some very pertinent themes, but I didn’t love it.  People around me were sobbing the entire second half, but I didn’t love it.  I think there were a few acting snafu’s that I just couldn’t overlook–and in the end it was a great show that just didn’t live up to the hype I had in my head.  Which isn’t necessarily the show (or the actors) fault. 

Memphis is kind of a cross between “Dreamgirls” and “Hairspray” and follows the story of one of the first white DJ’s to play “black music” in the 1950′s complete with the racism, hate and amazing soul music that would come along with that plot.  I actually loved this, and I was so pleased when it won the Tony award for “Best Musical.”  I stood in line for student-rush tickets and scored an amazing seat.  The cast was electric, the music was fantastic and I loved the the way the intricacies of such a politically-charged plot were handled.  Nothing was glazed over, but I didn’t feel like I was being beaten over the head with propaganda either. 

Red is a straight-play that reveals the personality and inspiration of Mark Rothko as he prepares a large commissioned work of art for the Four Seasons restaurant.  He interacts with his assistant, Ken, and they discuss art, life, love, death and philosophy.  “Red” was by far the most moving show I saw in New York and also won a pile of Tony Awards.  If you don’t already know who Mark Rothko is, I suggest you take a moment to educate yourself .  If you are too lazy to click the link, then just know he’s a Russian-born abstract painter who I absolutely love.  The entire show takes place in his studio while Rothko and Ken discuss the paintings he is working on, his processes, his inspiration, his views on art and culture and literature and philosophy and people I just sat there and let the words rush over me.  I think a full third of the show is quotable in these beautiful bytes of insight, such as “There is only one thing I fear in life, my friend…that one day the black will swallow the red.”  The basic message from “Red” is that we must live spherically, that we must continue to learn and seek knowledge on a variety of subjects in order to be complete human beings.  One cannot understand painting without also understanding history and religion; one cannot understand live theater without also being versed in literature and politics. 

[Editor's Note:  The rest of this trip, and the others I took this summer, will be posted in rapid-fire succession over the next several days.  You've been warned.]

This morning Shade Clothing, a very popular brand in these parts, announced it was going out of business and everything is marked down (up to 75%!) for their liquidation sale.  The thought of them going out of business was a little bizarre–they are very popular, they just opened a brand new ENORMOUS flagship store.  Almost everyone I know either has Shade items, or Shade knock-offs.  They are kind of a big deal. 

At any rate, I had purchased a few things on Monday, so during my lunch break I went back to see if anything was cheaper for a price-adjustment.  And I was shocked.  Every single item I purchased on Monday (on sale, mind you, because I’m cheap) was priced at twice as much as I paid for it.  That is not a typo–twice as much, 100% more expensive.

Example 1:  I bought this dress on Monday for $14.99.  By any and all standards, that is a really good deal.

Today, this same dress went “on sale” for the liquidation at the bargain price of $30.99 (original price $38.50).

Example 2: I bought a pile of these belts for $3.99 each (inlucding 2 gold ones, worn together over the dress pictured above, which was adorable).

Today these belts are “on sale” for $7.99 each (original price $10.50 each).

Sound fishy? 

No, it sounds smart.  This is a brilliant marketing ploy.  Shade announces a HUGE SALE that no one will ignore (Liquidation!  Everything must go!  Up to 75% Off!)  Everyone who has any interest in Shade clothing makes plans to go to one of their stores, or logs onto their website looking for back-to-school deals.  They see items “on sale” and purchase them in multiples, thinking they are getting a great deal.  Meanwhile, Shade rakes in extra profits on clothing they couldn’t sell at a lower–although less advertised–price.  This is the law of supply and demand.  I will not draw the graph here, but just so you know, there is a graph that explains all this. 

So, let’s recap.  Shade announces they are going out of business and jacks up their prices.  You purchase items you would not have otherwise spent money on, thinking you are getting a bargain.  Shade pockets the extra revenue.

Who wins?  I win.  Because I went shopping on Monday.  And thus endeth your Economics 101 Lesson.  Class dismissed.

Well, that part of my brain lied.

I mean, the semester ended on Sunday, I turned in my last final and cleared away my notebooks, textbooks, and calculator from the dining room table.  I’m supposed to be free!

…Only, I don’t feel that way.  I don’t feel like much (if any) of the stress from the last two months has dissipated.  I have started grinding my teeth at night, or even in the middle of the day when I forget to .  I have lost weight without exercise and with a daily intake of something chocolatey–”No Sugar” diet be damned.  I frequently wake up in the middle of the night panicking about a test or an assignment.  I have been known to organize economic equations in my head and color-code them (is that not the most odd left-brain/right-brain pairing?  Equations and ROY G. BIV?).  I still have some uncomfortably high levels of muscle tension in my neck and shoulders.  Maybe I’m suffering from P.T.S.D., Post-Traumatic Semester Disorder.

Everyone who had the kindness and patience to listen to me whine and complain during the semester told me to just look forward to how good it would feel when finals were over and I had a little break.  Again, lest anyone forget, finals are over.  I have a break.  I feel exactly the same.  Sure, I have devoured a book and a half since Sunday (“The Glass Castle” is one of my new, all-time fave’s.  Highly recommended.), but the thing is I had feelings of guilt for endulging in novelry instead of studying something the interest rate, unemployment statistics, the Federal Reserve, or working up something graphy to show how price and wages are intertwined.  I have two more semesters of this!  I will be a complete unworkable crazy-box if I don’t figure out how to unwind, and quickly.  Which, by the way, only gives me more anxiety.  Must. Unwind. Now!  I have a deadline to learn to relax!  I have to get it done NOW! 

It’s a viscious cycle.

(And before you suggest it, yes, I would love to jump on a plane and spend several days on a beach doing nothing, but my bank account has already put the kabosh on that plan.  So if anyone is willing to fund said beachy vacation, I’d be more than thrilled to accept.)

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No, my new-to-me vehicle is not shiny, or sporty, or particularly zippy, or even cute.  In fact, it’s hardly even photo-worthy.  But this is what it is not:

Mallard has served me well the last several months…actually, that may be a bit of an overstatement.  Mallard served me well for a little while, and then everything began to break.  There was an oil leak, and then the AC went out, and may I remind you the driver’s side window doesn’t roll down…and then the passenger door wouldn’t open so people were literally climbing through the window for the pleasure of allowing me to chauffeur them around town.  And lately the “Check Engine Soon” light has been blinking and it’s been sputtering and shaking to a spectacular degree.  Add to all of that some awesome peeling teal paint, a side-mirror that just won’t stay straight, one missing hubcap, and rust on the inside of the car (I’m convinced the floor will fall out soon).  In short, Mallard is ready to die.

My new-to-me-vehicle is an older black Mazda, but let me tell you all the things about it I already love.

• I love that it is a stick shift–goodness, I forgot how much I missed having a clutch!
• I love that it has power locks AND power windows.  I don’t have to crank down on a handle while leaning half-way across the vehicle (remember the driver’s side window is permanently stuck in the “up” position) in order to get a little breeze!  Parking garages, drive-through banking and the To-Go window at Starbucks are now easy-peasy!!
• I love the smooth ride–no shakes, no sputters, no worrying that the engine will fall right out of the body at the next stoplight.
• I love the air conditioning!  Now that the summer is ending I finally have AC that works–but hey, I’m not complaining!  September and August can still get 90 degree days!
• After a good scrub inside and out, a “New Car” scented air freshener, and removal of a parking sticker from my rival university, this baby will be perfect for me, for now.

I have yet to name the new car–I just picked it up last night and I think I need to settle into it a bit, learn it’s quirks and personality.  Not that I expect it to have real personality, as far as cars go it’s is more Actuary and less Rockstar, more Tax Accountant than Hipster.  Not that there is anything wrong with Actuary’s or Tax Accountants–I love and respect both my Actuary and my Tax Accountant–they are honest, straight-forward, no gimmicks, respectable, conservative and dependable.  Yes, after the wheezing and shaking and near-death experiences of Mallard (who could probably be described as having the personality of a meth addict) I am very much looking forward to something dependable.  And with air conditioning.

Let’s do a little recap, shall we?

Classes Completed:

• Econ 3100: Labor Economics
• Econ 3200: Money & Banking
• Econ 3620: Math for Economists

Now, I’m sure the vast majority of my readership couldn’t give a hoot about economics–I assure you, I only give half-a-hoot.  As soon as I’m actually don the flowy robe and funny hat I won’t think about Economics in any kind of academic sense ever ever again.  (Why am I continuing with this?  Because I’m close to graduating and I’d rather have a degree I don’t use by May 2011 than put in another 3 years to graduate in something else.)

I had a smattering of really, um, ecclectic professors–the native Mongolian who spoke so softly I could hardly hear her from the front row, the dashing Turkish grad student with very European hair and shoes, and the Bangladeshi professor who has a stuttering problem, a pretty significant one.  In all my years of Economics courses at The University I have never had an American-born professor–I’m used to deciphering unfamiliar vocabulary.  But the stutter…people, it was bad.  I don’t know if it wa s a nervous thing or a leftover-from-childhood thing, or something else…but trying to understand the inner workings of monetary policy set forth by the Federal Reserve and the differences between Keynes and Friedman while simultaneously interpreting through a stutter.  Ugh.  It was impossible.

And now it’s over.  And I can breathe.  My next feat will be to fit an entire summer vacation (without actually taking a vacation) into the next 3 weeks before classes start again.

I could fill your heads with promises of regular posting for the next little while, now that the semester is over and I (hypothetically) have time to breathe…but instead I will direct you to Cheeky Monkey, where I have taken over her lovely, European blog with tales of whether or not I prefer to be naked.  Yep, I said it.

Edited To Add:

Before:  My hair was getting scraggly, and shapeless, and darker than I really wanted it to be.  I feel it should be noted that here I am, at age 27 and-a-half, and had never colored my hair.  No highlights, no jello dye, nothing.  It was darker than it has ever been, and I now have strict rules about staying out of the sun, which leads to darker hair.  There’s no summer break to lighten it up a bit.  I miss my white-blonde hair!  I know–it probably still looks crazy-blonde to you, but to me it was getting all ashy and yellow.  I don’t want ashy-yellow, scraggly, shapeless hair.  I wanted something different. Something shiny!

During:  Yep, that’s shiny all right!

After:

Yep, I love it.  That’s all.  I realize that you may not be able to even tell that there are bleached bits–they are there.  They look pretty natural, which I wanted.  I feel like I am going back to my roots–my roots just happen to be platinum.