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. 

Met Rooftop - Cloud City

Friday of Memorial Day weekend I met a few friends on the Met Museum's rooftop beer garden/bar. I highly recommend this. We're probably going to go again.



Panorama!


Malaika!


And it's finally summery enough to wear this guy I got at a thrift store in Arkansas last fall for $4.50




Tips: Don't wear a skirt because you can walk in the sculpture but it has a glass floor and don't drink immediately, because they won't let you inside the sculpture if you're getting twisted. 

The Bike Ladies Picnic was Rad

Everyone was really cute, really cool and everyone already rode bikes so it was just a good old, lady biker jam session on a beautiful sunny afternoon. Rad, I tell you!

I'm really tired but I wanted to digest what I feel was a great success and a very nice time - My Bike Month event - the Ladies Brown Bag Bike Brunch Picnic. (Back in the cold of winter, I was invited to a TA bike month planning event and I was compelled to host a little something-something and this was my event.) I had such a nice time and I'm so thrilled with the awesome ladies who turned up. Thank you! We have a wonderful community of stylish ladies on bikes. I'm so proud of us. 

I was really busy talking and listening and eating things so I didn't get the most thorough pics but I stole Malaika's pics, per usual.



Malaika and I were hanging out for a little bit after the event, and I realized how amazingly coordinated she was today - Helmet looks fab with dress. She's the best.


I wanted to have something so the ladies could find me, so I went to Party City and got a dozen balloons. It was fucking insane riding with a dozen balloons. The wind was hearty today and the wind resistance of riding a bicycle made this really exciting in the obnoxious way, but man, they looked cute, and I think they were awesome for my visibility going down the street.



After balloons, I went to pick-up cupcakes. When I came out, Ethan Hawke was on his cell phone in the bike lane. He totally watched me balance a huge bag of cupcakes on the left handlebar and wrangling a dozen balloons kind-of behind me (so I could try to see) with my right hand. Luckily, I wasn't going far in this precarious arrangement. I'm not looking for boys, but I'm pretty sure Ethan Hawke was impressed with what a boss I am.

I loved everyone who came out today and they were all cool ladies who I'd love to see again.


Everyone who attended already had bikes and rode in either Manhattan or Brooklyn or Queens regularly. Some were daily commuters. Some were getting started in commuting. Nobody was a scaredy cat - everyone seemed confident about riding. We talked accessories, cargo and helmet hair.

Oh! I loved how most everyone showed-up in a helmet. Safe chic, baby!

Amanda is such an awesome girl. I've met her before and I enjoy her through many internet outlets, especially the tweeter. She's floral everything and a faux chanel fanny that I'm quite envious of.


Totally unrelated to the topic at hand, but really cool and we were excited was a plane flew over and spelled-out a marriage proposal in smoke letters or whatever-you-call that stuff.

Christine Hall will u marry me? We hope/imagine she said yes. We couldn't readily locate her from our post.

I made it home with just two balloons, a lot of string and shreds. It was all good riding home with just two. That's probably my max.


I want to say again, THANK YOU to everyone who attended. I feel so happy that we have such a nice community of stylish ladies on bicycles- Seriously, everyone looked so stylish. Made me so proud and happy!  We should have organized and had a little photo shoot, but we were so busy talking and talking.

Chantal, Gabrielle, Krista, Jen, Amanda, Adrienne, Malaika, and Gigi, Thanks for making the afternoon so great! 

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.

Brunch & Bike - Date with Katie

Meet Katie!

Since I've got two bikes in my possession right now, I was really happy to make the most of it and invite my friend Katie on a bike & brunch date. Katie is an awesome friend who is also from Arkansas who is also here in NYC trying to live the dream. We both went to the same tiny college and we met through a sorority connection. Katie is younger than me and were not at college at the same time at all, but we always have a lot to talk about.

I had to put the Linus's seat almost all the way down. She's 5'1" I think. The first time I took off on it after this low-seat placement, I had a panic moment thinking my seat was stolen. It was there. Just low-low.



This date was partly a lesson in biking. We took it easy and went up the East Side path to Harlem. Red Rooster was our destination. It's probably my favorite brunch spot. Marcus Samuelson was there. He had on so much cool gear and is a tiny little dude. He is fancy and special. He was the chef of the Obama's first State Dinner and Obama had a fundraiser at Red Rooster. I totally care.

We had drinks, brunch + truffle oil fries + dessert. That is apple cinnamon sorbet.


Then I was like "Can we go to Target?!" And Katie went along with that and kept me straight. I only bought one item astray from my list. We're a good team.



We talked about shoes & outfits that are good for biking, safety concerns, bike accessories, helmets, sunglasses, baskets, carabiners, locks, etc.    
We rode in the street a little bit. We mostly used the river side path.

I recommend people looking to start biking start with small little errands or small, local trips like this, until they're more familiar and comfortable and have their accessory game down pat.

I'm so glad we did this and I'm so glad she agreed to being posted-up on this ol' blog :)



Katie went with around with me on Fashion's Night Out two years ago and we saw Christina H. and we got snapped by a Patrick McMullan photographer. Good night! 

Girls on my commute

My lipstick is MAC Full Fuchsia and it is no coincidence that it matches my shoes.
A lot of people have been finding my blog when searching for the sold-out limited edition MAC Party Parrot lip color and they/you should know Full Fuchsia is very similar.

I was so happy to have two girls, one of which I knew, and the other who I met at a stoplight, on my commute this morning. I get sick of seeing just dudes.


Kim make me feel so un-ambitious in my sensible flats. She has on legit heels, cute skinny jeans and a no-nonsense helmet. Something tells me she handles daylight savings better than most.


These are all good signs that this week is going to be alllright.

Things I Rarely Do

Sunday I did two things I rarely do:
1. I made the conscious choice to wear an all black jacket for a bike ride.
2. I took myself to Brooklyn.


I got hot and had to un-zip my layers.

I usually like a colorful jacket to be extra visible. It was really sunny and I knew I would be home before dark so I did it. Risky behavior! I actually had bad luck in the way of cars being rude to me. Three instances of overt rudeness in a 14mile round-trip event. I was also twice honked at aggressively while I was in big, green, painted bike lanes, so just because the bike lanes are there now, does not mean cars respect you/me/us/anyone.

Why did I bring myself out to Brooklyn on a Sunday? To go to my friend's sale in his apartment. It's not exactly a sample sale and not exactly a yard sale, so I'll say apartment sale.

He makes hats and I'm thrilled to have purchased this straw one from him


This is me and him before I went into the witness protection program.

And here's the hat he made for SJP for the SATC2 movie. It was fun to catch-up with him, hear stories about the items he was selling, and he showed me this amazing film he's working on.

Some pics from my bike ride Sunday







So many people think I must live in Brooklyn, but I do not. I guess it's a compliment that people think I live there because it's the mecca for trendy cool girls, but I chill on the Upper East Side. Even on trains or cabs or cars I rarely go to Brooklyn. It just seems so far when you live uptown Manhattan. It's whiny to say that, but I admit that I bond with people who share this sentiment. 

How to get involved with Planned Parenthood NYC

I volunteer for Planned Parenthood, and often get asked how to get involved. This is the path I took. New round of trainings starts soon and here's the info. 

The PPNYC Activist Council is a great opportunity to make a difference, gain some skills, and build your resume while meeting other fun, like-minded New York City pro-choice activists!

New members are introduced to the Activist Council in 4 trainings. Once trained, members are free to decide what types of projects and issues interest them most. Beyond the monthly meetings, the level of time commitment is up to each person. The training for new members always fill up fast - RSVP Here. 

You have to attend all 4, super-informative, interesting and inspirational trainings. We always had/have Two Boots Pizza for dinner. It's amazing to be around such like-minded, intelligent people. It's mostly young women, peppered with a few guys. The energy of being around such progressive group is invigorating. 

I forgot that I never wrote a post about how awesome it was to march with Planned Parenthood in last summer's Gay Pride Parade. I meant to do a big post because it was such an awesome day and weekend, but I never got around to it. It was just too much, I guess. 

It was extra-specially electric in NYC that weekend, because the Friday before the parade, same-sex marriage became legalized. 

I've been meaning to get a video of Elspeth and me telling the story of how Bill Cunningham took our picture at the parade after I screamed his name right in his face "BILL!!!!" Because I know he's very hard of hearing. 

The picture he took of us would have looked something like this: 

PP went with a Sports theme and our get-ups were like badminton themed and shirts said "Serving up Safe Sex, Pride NYC" something like that. It was fun to wave our racquets of rainbow birdies around while we marched. Elspeth's girlfriend told us that our Planned Parenthood gang was one of the few groups that got cheers from the parade goers. 

We really did hand out high-fives the whole way down the parade route. We felt loved. 

Here are Els. & Allie maxin' and relaxin' after the parade. 

Same-sex marriage got legalized the same day me and Elspeth saw Florence Welch twice in one day. 

Me and Els met at 5am to see Florence on GMA here: 

Then we went back later that night to sit and listen to her concert in the same spot. 

Even Bonnie went! She loves Florence and other red-heads in general. 

Best weekend of Summer, no question. 

Lady Biker Brunch Date

I may be married, but I'm into online dating. I brunch-date bike ladies I meet online. 
Here's my latest catch, Jen Hill. 

Um, yes! We are so fucking hardcore for riding our bikes in 22º feels like 16º weather.

I've been an admirer or Jen Hill's illustrations and ever so impressed that she illustrated Perez Hilton's children's book, The Boy With Pink Hair. That's some seeeerious street-cred.

We had a good time talking about drawing, makin' books, getting hair fixed, and how we do not welcome unsolicited bike advice from strange men - My favorite subjects.

We tried to go to one too-busy place, but were happy to end up at The Smile.

I was very happy to see that they had a whole shelf of bottled water from where me and Bill Clinton are from in Arkansas - Mountain Valley Spring Water with it's great vintage logo bottles.




Riding downtown to meet her, I used the 2nd Ave. bike lane, which is really just some paint. It's not a very official bike lane at all above 23rd or whatever, but it was pretty pleasant. I only flipped one bird at a turd in a Chrysler from New Jersey.


I captured the essence of the weather in this Frozen Mud Hole of Garbage. 

Frozen garbage mud holes are so sad.

My frozen nose and cheeks matched my fuchsia coat at the end.


Being brave in the face of the middle-of-January cold was worth it.
Thanks for a nice afternoon, Jen.