Tales from NYC - I was a fit-model

I didn't think my job in New York City was strange until I moved away from there. I used to get paid to try on clothes and let people pin, measure and photograph me in those clothes. I had a very nice quality of life in that position and I wanted to make a little video about it.

Fit-Model Memories from JPH on Vimeo.

The NYC Apartment - The Cherokee

Now that I don't live there anymore, I am slightly excited to reveal precisely where I lived the past three years in New York City. I think for bicycle commuters, it will be interesting to see what a fantastic bike-friendly address I had at The Cherokee. (The first two years in NYC we pretty much had shit apartments- this is the memorable, beautiful, interesting one.)

Here's an excerpt that explains more about the history and the beautiful architecture of the building:

With film, the physical city is often woven into the drama or story line. A century old act of humanitarianism left New York with a historic and architectural landmark that has been used as a modern day film setting. The former Shively Sanitary Tenements on East 77th St., sponsored by Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt in 1911, was built as low cost housing for recovering tuberculosis patients. Every room has floor to ceiling, triple sash windows, leading out to distinctive wrought iron balconies.

Flooded with light and fresh air, which at the time was the only treatment for TB, these apartments couldn’t have been more different from the typical, dark, dank, overcrowded, and airless tenements of that era. The street level entrances are open-air arcades covered by vaulted arches of intricately patterned Guastavino terra-cotta tiles (think the Oyster Bar in Grand Central). All the apartments are reached by spiral staircases from an open courtyard, with a built-in seat on each landing, so that the afflicted could rest on the way up!

This incredibly ornate Beaux-Arts landmark was used as a location for the 2005 Ewan McGregor film, titled STAY, in which he plays a psychiatrist. The architecture of the building is beautifully incorporated into a key scene in which Mr. McGregor’s character descends the dizzying spiral staircase, experiencing a different hallucination on each landing. A stunning metaphor for his own descent into mental illness.

For people who are interested in tiny NYC apartments, you may enjoy the little video tour I made on the very last day when we were extremely bored in the empty apartment waiting for the new tenants to take over.


At one point, I found this wonderful photograph of a woman standing on a balcony like ours: 


For bike stuff, it was located here at the dot below in this quiet part of the UES with quick access to the East River Path. This is why it was so easy to make little jaunts up to Target in East Harlem. This is also why we took Bonnie, the dog, to Central Park on most sunny Sundays. 


Are we sad we left? No. We paid about $1700 per month for less than 400 square feet. Are we glad we did it? Absolutely! It was a very beautiful building. Our unit was tiny and posed many organizational challenges, especially for me, working in fashion and the garment industry. Too many clothes to live here! This building also had a hum-dinger of a bicycle storage room. 

The Tourist Side

Something is making me feel like walking and riding the subway are more intimate ways to say goodbye to New York City. I'm also walking, wandering and popping into way more places spontaneously and it would majorly suck to have to lock-up my bike so many times.

Here's my tourist look today.


I didn't mean to eat two amazing sandwiches today, but that happened. So did a cookie and a cupcake. Shit is out of control, I know. But this is the farewell tour.

This freaking Luke's Lobster lobster roll, holy lord, y'all.


Then this Cheese steak with jalapenos and onion rings happened a few hours and many stores later.


Saying Goodbye! to the Plaza with a strawberry-lemonade cupcake. They put a food court at the bottom of The Plaza hotel and that's one of best ideas. But I also don't think the tourists have any idea because of what I was over-hearing as I sat at the fountain.


Last week I rounded out the museum bucket list, so now I'm free to shop (buying things I won't have physical or internet access to down south) and apparently eating everything awesome that gets in my way.

Weekend Like Woah

This weekend was like woah.

Friday - Major day with Matt of SoHo shopping. Street food.

Friday evening - Met Malaika for strange bar food and then the wonderful John Waters giving his talk at City Winery. I've seen him speak like this a few times now, so there wasn't much new material in there but I still love him.

Saturday, we went to Mermaid Parade stuff and saw the Brooklyn Peaches synchronized swimmers!

 Last year I walked in the parade with Planned Parenthood.
Watching from a rooftop patio is luxurious.

One thing that makes me sad about moving to Arkansas is that it's not a place where gay people can get married, but hopefully that evolves soon. And we're going to miss our friends!

This evening I took a major nap. 

Schiaparelli & Prada

I had a great day before noon. I got up and walked over to The Met at opening time to avoid crowds, for the Schiaparelli and Prada exhibition. I didn't expect to be so moved by these powerful, intelligent, creative women.


This is the best thing I took away with me. This quote: 
Prada: Women always try to tame themselves as they get older, but the ones who look best are often a bit wilder. Thinking about age all the time is the biggest prison women can make for themselves.

Isn't that so amazing and true? I could have left then, but I kept going. Soaking it in. I know that my eyes are going to be bleeding when I get to Arkansas. I won't see beautiful garments that are pieces of art up-close anymore. I'll have to just see them online and in magazines, which is fine. I appreciated being near them this morning. May be my last time for a while. 

I was just so pleased that a big, attention-getting exhibit was all about two female designers. I was happy that there was so much focus in one exhibition on two ladies. Feminist pride took me over. 

Then I took in some modern art. I jotted some names in my tiny Lisa Frank notebook to look up later of art I was jealous of. I looked at the Ellsworth Kelly plant drawings and decided to look away because it was tainting the lady-vibes from the previous. I got a little resentful that a male artist's simple sketches would get so much square footage. 

I'm going to miss living so close to Museum Mile. I don't even take a bike. It's a short walk. 
I decided to go to a restaurant I saw every day on my bike commute to work. I passed by it tons of times and never had time to stop and always felt a little envious of the people who did have time to partake. It was nice; not amazing, but I'm glad I solved the mystery and took the time to visit. 


I also went by Frank E. Campbell funeral home. I'll miss seeing it on the regular. It's where Joan Crawford's funeral took place (and in the movie Mommie Dearest, which I love.)

No Sleep til' Little Rock

I'm still hot, hot, hot for ape hangers. This is an adult-size bike rocking apes and a 'nanner seat. #Jealous


We are on the road to the Dirty South in two weeks from today. I wish I could post blogs about what's happening in every three hour increments but I just can't right now, because I'm on this eyes-wide-open, full-tilt fun farewell tour of New York City.

I didn't even get to write about Sleep No More!

I can't even begin to talk about the coolness of Fire Island.

Tonight I got to go to a really sweet benefit concert called Night of a Thousand Judys (Garland.) Amazing!



Today I was a huge tourist, except I rode my bike and took myself door to door without error.
I went to the Tenement Museum - Highly recommend this! I did the sweatshop tour. They didn't just work sweat-shop style, they lived in it! Yikes.

Then I did ultra-touristy West Bleecker Street cheap Marc Jacobs shops and Magnolia Bakery- But I just got an iced coffee. But I should have had the cupcake too :(

Not working has thrown my coffee intake schedule for a loop.

I jogged a bunch of miles this morning and biked tons of miles today.

I'm gonna miss you, Jackie O' Reservoir!

Heroes and Granny Panties

I went to bed with my pajama top on inside-out and this is what happened to make the night so unforgettable. 

First- Let me say, Thursday turned out to be my last day of work. I got irritated and slipped out at 4pm. The wind on my bike ride home was a little rough and I knew I needed to drink a lot and celebrate so I made the call to subway/taxi later in the dark of drunken-night. 

Also let me say, I've got a few entertainers that I go to anything I can that they do. I don't care if it's in an abandoned church or some weird restaurant or in their own apartment- I am a devoted fan. 

I set out around 7pm. I took the over-crowded 6 train down to K-Mart at Astor place. The subway stops right under the K-Mart. Glamour. 

I went to find some granny panties, because me and Ann wanted our Hero, Bridget Everett to sign some for us. I got two pair of big, soft pink, silky ones. 

I got my panties and a fresh Sharpie and headed to a celebration happy hour for one of my old and best Pat Field co-workers. It was lovely and fitting that we both had our last days of our jobs on the same day. 

It was nice to meet new PF girls and see some of the ones who have been hanging in there since I jumped ship. I had a Coney Island beer then had to leave them to walk back to Astor to Joe's Pub for the Bridget show. 

I was pretty early because I think I'm always pretty early. For everything. I was sitting on the steps outside of Joe's Pub noticing tons of people on bicycles. Hardly anyone had any lights. Thought about tweeting about that, but who am I to nag people about their lawlessness? 

Ann showed up and we went in after laughing about how she tweeted that she washed her tampon string for this. We had great seats, as always. When the show started we didn't know Ben Stiller and his cute wife were in there, nor did we realize Lili Taylor from Pecker and Say Anything was right behind us. They were all really cute, but who cares because Bridget is the star. 

We got a shout-out from Bridget, because we're her two-wo-man fan-club. 

A bit later in the show, Bridget got a little flustered and had to announce that Patti Lupone had just entered the room. She was at our table! B loves P and P loves B. Big time. Here's a screenshot:

Patti came up and did a number on stage and was the first person up on her feet cheering at the end of the show. I'm not super-into B'way or Patti, but I knew I had some granny panties and sharpies in my tote bag so I asked Patti to sign a pair for Bridget. 

I cream for Bridget

Then we got brave and went to the backstage area and acted fucking cool so nobody would suspect we didn't belong there. Bridget's other super-fan Jeremy came out and we told him about the show at Fire Island this weekend and told him he's got to get on Twitter. 

Eventually B. came out and I gave her the Patti autographed panties and asked her to sign my other pair. She wrote wonderful things on both sides and the crotch. 

You should know... I also have a collection of granny panties decorated by Amy Sedaris. Now I've got this collection. This morning I realized one of my proudest possessions may be my autographed granny panty collection. Definitely. 

Meep! 

We discussed the weekend's Fire Island plans and got semi-invited to the bar where B. and her friends and some of the band were going. I walked to the bar with someone not keen on local entertainer identities or hair-fixing. 

I picked the wrong drink at the bar but it was fun. I semi-interviewed the man who makes all of Bridget's costumes. I like to talk to people about making things. We talked about their process and we talked about his sewing background. I wish I remembered more details. 

The highlight of my month may be that at the veeery end of the night B. put her number in my phone. She put her number in my phone! 

Oh! So then I got in this taxi. He brought me home and I did think about telling him to take me to get something delicious but it was like 1:30am and I don't need to do scandals but I did go to the corner bodega/deli and LET THEM make me a sandwich that I would never ever purchase nor eat from such an establishment in the sober light of day. 

And today I woke up and realized my pajama top was on inside out. 

I love last night! 

Summer Saturdays are for Living

I had a big, Saturday lady-date with Malaika. We met at Minetta Tavern. She's always wanted to go, and I'm doing all this NYC Bucket List stuff since we're leaving in a few weeks.

Minetta Tavern is old and cute. We had big fat, juicy burgers.




I lied- Minetta wasn't exactly on my NYC Bucket List, but I got the idea when Imperial Woodpecker Sno-Balls tweeted that their new, summer 2012 location is across the street from Minetta Tavern, and I was interested because of that Fran Lebowitz: Public Speaking documentary I saw on HBO.

What a convenient, wonderful meal plan? I thought. Malaika signed on without hesitation.

And Sno-Balls came after burgers because we are geniuses.


Half pear - half peaches & cream


Then, we biked up 6th Ave... 

...And got rained on a little. 
But we arrived at our third destination - The Museum of Modern Art, to catch one last intriguing glimpse of the Cindy Sherman retrospective. 

We both left feeling full and inspired. Good Saturday!

Celeb Sighting: SJP

Last night we went to this show, and we had a celebrity sighting worth writing home about.

It's funny that I worked for the lady who dressed the SATC ladies the during time they were working on the SATC movies, but I never saw any of the four main characters up close - I saw some in the street filming but that's it, I think. I saw the clothes up close. Some of the clothes accessories may appear in my nightmares indefinitely.

Last night this changed. We saw her come into the theatre, smiling, looking for her friends.
She sat down right in front of me. She is beyond tiny. The Sex and the City fan in me said "Wow, I can leave NYC now." 
I remember back in 2001 & 2002 in my college apartment, we were one of the few homes that had HBO. People were pretty much sworn to silence to have the privilege of coming over to watch on Sunday night when a new episode premiered. This was before DVR's and everything you saw on TV being online the next day.

Seeing her felt much more casual than it would have ten years ago.


I was wearing this:


And Matt looked like this:


And the show was amazzzzing! 
She clapped enthusiastically throughout - sometimes with her hands held up high over her head.
Had I gotten near her, I would have simply thanked her for supporting Obama how she's doing. Love 4ever. 

Pushit. Pushit Realgood.

Part of the romance of living in New York City, for me, comes from going to stuff like this.
Except for the Bridget performance, we didn't know what we were going to get, but it was all good. The ballet was impressive. I like edgy dance performances.









It was so hot. Neal was working the box fan.

5 Minutes of Nonsense

This video is me rambling about my adventures last Thursday night. The night I met Velouria.

All my cameras were broken so I made this video diary. I felt embarrassed about it, but now the embarrassment has expired and I can post it here.

There are no outrageous squeals or curse words but forgive my sniffles and nose-wiping.

Untitled from JPH on Vimeo.


At the end I talk about the dress I'm wearing to my Bike Month Picnic which matches the flyer.
I didn't do that on purpose. 

Ahh, closure

Those close to me know that near the end of my career at Patricia Field, I was so depressed that I was basically catatonic on the weekends, recovering from the work week and mentally preparing for the next. I was so sad. Before I quit, I had to resolve that I was OK if I never went to another faaabulous party or fashion show ever again. By the end of working there I didn’t even have the energy to go to that stuff anyway.

Feb. 2010, I had worked an extremely long day managing interns to set-up a big event, lost my phone at the party, got a new phone, slept for a little while, and was in a taxi on my way back to break-down the party early the next morning. I was already very ready to snap, and my boss called me, yelled at me, and I yelled back at him, quitting my job, and told the taxi driver to turn around and take me back to where he picked me up from- Home.

I didn’t even go to the office to turn in my key, I just mailed it. I could not stomach walking in there again, and I knew things might get volatile. I sank down in my bed and thought “oh my god, what have I done?” but I also felt better about my self-image immediately. I remembered that I’m pretty and not-fat, and knew I was out of the fast lane of fashion, but I would be OK in civilian life. I turned off my cell phone for 3 days because I was scared of the voicemails that piled up. I never listened to them. I just deleted them.

Now it’s two years later and I did the unthinkable. On Sunday, I went to a Pat Field party and it was fine. I spoke to my old boss, but not Pat herself, and it was a nice exchange. I saw a few old co-workers and that was nice too. Malaika went with me. I’m really happy that we were so dressed-down. Getting dressed for work was really stressful my entire time working there. I didn’t remind Malaika that we were going to drop by this event, because I didn’t want her to worry about her outfit. It felt liberating to be so casual. It’s like I’m not of this world anymore and I feel fine in my Sunday casual get-up in front of you.

The following is one of the first stories I tell people about my time working there. On my first day, I was such a plain, white girl. Some of my co-workers didn’t even look at me, I looked so boring and I knew it- Just like Anne’s character in The Devil Wears Prada. On like, day 3 or 5, I wore a contrived outfit that involved a vintage apron. This outfit was praised by one of the super-stylish people who hadn’t even looked at me all week. I realized that I had to dress to get respect. This is why getting dressed was stressful every day for the duration of working there. Even casual all-black outfits were easy but I would do a full face of make-up.

I’m really thankful I got to work for Patricia Field and the immensely creative people who work for her because it really did help me get the New York experience of my dreams, and I did learn so much - even though I was defeated by it at the end.

I’m happy I went to this event because I think it gave me closure. Me and Malaika had one drink and left. We had to ride our bicycles home. The event took place at 230 5th Avenue, which is the largest rooftop bar in NYC that I am aware of. I'm also really proud that I never let anyone see my cry while I worked there, even though one time I had to hold it in until I got in a taxi. I slammed the door, blurted out my address, hunkered-down and bawled my eyes out.

Week in review

I didn’t post a blog message all week. I’m a little sick, a little busy, and I broke all my compact cameras. I even joined the cool kids club by getting a monster crack across the face of my iPhone. Rock! -Dropped it on a rock in Central Park.

Let me re-cap this work week.

Monday: Blew off an after-work event I wanted to go to to come home and prepare my survivalist backpack for the hair show. I packed kind bars and coconut water and sensible shoes because being dropped off at the Javits Center is like being dropped off in a no-man’s land.

Tuesday: Rise and shine very early. 7am call-time. Hair show was interesting. I liked learning about how important teaching is to the salon owner who I participated with. Here’s a doodle of what the presentation looked like: 

And here’s the most transformative before & after- I love this!
It takes a village of Japanese hair stylists and a makeup artist. 
And this is after the presentation and when I finally got home. Wavy. 


Wednesday: Was feeling very sickly, so I took myself straight home, riding the bicycle very slowly, and put myself to bed at 8:45pm. You can count on me to do that once a week. I schedule “Go Home” on my Google calendar. No events allowed. I also had an “off night” in college where I stayed home or just went to the library and didn’t do any extra curriculars. Not even shopping is allowed. Designated homebody time.

Thursday: Still feeling sickly, misty day, found out Lovely Bicycle was going to this party at Adeline. Exchanged some DM’s over twitter. Had to meet her, so I went to the party. It’s Lovely to meet Lovely Bicycle’s Velouria!

And yes- it's beyond flattering that she had on one of my necklaces. 

Friday: Went straight home. Fixed fat-hell pasta, drank a hot toddy to soothe my throat and took a benadryl and fell asleep at 8pm. Yes- 8pm on a Friday in NYC. I ball so hard.

I have a new pocket camera while my other one will surely be shipped off for ages being assessed and repaired. This weekend I’ll be back to my old tricks.

Spring Lady Biker Tips

It's springtime for real.

Let's have some Spring Lady Biker Tips! I’m slathering myself with a mix of SPF, self-tanner and body lotion before I get dressed in the mornings. I smell a little crazy, a little sweaty and a little self-tannery and a little SPF’y.  I smell like a Lady Biker. The self tanner is going to help me fight the pasty whiteness I rock so hard. See photo above.

To stay behind my sweat threshold, I’m forcing myself to bike at a slower pace. Since I get ready faster- less clothing and no need for winter accessories, I’m getting out of the house faster because I don’t have to gather up gloves, scarves, ear-cover, etc, so biking slower doesn’t impact my arrival time for work.

The baby wipes are back since I’m biking around with so much exposed skin. My lotion potion seems to help grit stick to me so I might need to wipe down my calves or if I get a little grease on me, I can baby wipe myself.

I down own perfume, but I love this fancy Febreeze-type Freshening Spray from The Laundress.
Got that tip from the adorable Erin Perkins. I also notice when I bike, my scarves smell like a tailpipe- totally disgusting, and I think it helps to spritz them with this stuff. It’s a little pricey for a bottle of fancy freshening spray, but I think it’s a miracle worker and like I said, I don’t own perfume and this bottle has lasted a very long time.

Skippy shoes/Skipipies. Flats, slip-ons, slaps, whatever you wish to call them, they are skippies. Slip ‘em on and skip around, get it? I think I’m done with socks until fall. I hate socks.  Someone asked me a hair question and one little tip is RIP your helmet off your head as soon as you arrive before you do anything else and fluff it a little with your fingers. Aerate! So it can start cooling while you lock-up or get in a freight elevator. Sometimes, I spray that fabric freshening spray in my hair if I’m paranoid that it smells like dirty girl hair.

Even though daytime is lasting longer, I always, always, always carry my lights with me. You never know when fun will strike and keep you out past dark so always be prepared.

GW Bridge & Craftacular Times

I've got to thank Malaika for inviting me to ride over the George Washington Bridge to make my Spoked competition map look good. As of tonight, I'm the only competitor who took it to the Dirty Jersey level. 

That's my hot pink line jutting out to the left at the top of the island.

Me and Malaika did not get the memo that everyone on the GW Bridge would be fully decked out in spandex effects. But we still enjoyed the weather and had a nice time. 

We went to this little park on the New Jersey side and sat on historic artifacts. 

We rode back over the bridge, had lunch at the Boat Basin Cafe, which was pleasantly affordable, then almost went to the big make-up tradeshow but it was sold out, so we just headed to the BUST Craftacular.  

We bought some treats and I shopped Brooklyn Charm. 

Then we headed to our own homes for serious afternoon naps. Good Lady Biker times. Thanks for hanging with me!