roboppy.net

Yesterday was definitely strange. But not in a bad way. I'd say it was a mixture of good and bad. SO, let's start from the beginning...*dramatic music plays*...

I went to NYC to meet up with Tori. I met her back in April at the Vassar prospectives weekend (for colored people...erp?) and although she decided not to go to Vassar (sniff) we still kept in contact with each other. Luckily, NYC is in semi-close proximity to both of us, and what better place is there to meet?

We met at Grand Central and walked through the market. So much food in one little place! It rocks. We pretty much said "AHH I love that!" to everything and planned to return later. I had my eyes on the cheese.

NYC is a great place, but when it rains, it just sucks. I foolishly did not wear enough clothing, thinking that the weather would be warmer than when I went on Friday. However, it wasn't RAINING on Friday, and it was probably less windy. I think I poked a lot of people with my umbrella. Doh. Anyhoo, I wanted to bring Tori to Bonobo's Restaurant but when we finally arrived there we were met with a "WE'RE CLOSED" sign. Great. :( While I figured a lot of stores would be closed on Sunday, I was hoping restaurants would at least be open. Of course, I should have checked before whether or not it would open (and what a great, information website it has, without listing its opening hours!).

We walked around a JAS Market that was right by it (sells a bunch of Japanese things) and laughed at the awful Engrish (although not awful enough to be on that website) while being amazed overall at what lovely Japanese foods there are. I wouldn't choose to eat any of it, but it all looks nice. All those cute snacks and cakes and mochi...I used to eat it all! Yikes. Tori is super-slim and looks very healthy to me, so I don't think she has to worry about what she eats. :)

Tori suggested that we go to the Pearl River Mart so we took the subway down and walked around that area for a while. We went into random stores on the way (because for a long time we just couldn't find the place!). We went to Urban Outfitters, which I reluctantly say I still like. I don't like everything they have, but a lot of their clothes just looks very comfy without being plain. The problem is that it's a bit homogenizing...I saw a skirt that I liked that was on sale, but decided not to get it; after leaving the store, I saw someone wearing the same skirt on the street! Yikes. Anyhoo, none of their stuff was really cheap enough for me. They had a great selection of miniskirts from reconstructed tees, but if you have a sewing machine you can probably do the same thing. And you don't really need a sewing machine, although it would make things much easier. The skirts were pretty pricey considering that they're made of t-shirts and aren't that big, but if you can't make them, I guess you have to buy them. I'm going to try and make some more stuff before vacation ends.

The Pearl River Mart had the cutest lamps I had ever seen that looked like square shaped animals. If they had a penguin, I would have flipped (speaking of penguin products, look at this). They also had sushi-shaped candles and lots of random snacks, one of which had the ingredient "honeypee" (we couldn't figure out what that was). Fun store, and much nicer than when I went to the one in Chinatown.

We went to the East Village to make our way towards Quintessence to eat lunch. There are so many markets and organic food places there. IT'S WHERE I BELONG, yes? Oh well, someday, maybe. I've pretty much had everything at Quintessence by now, except for everything on their brunch menu, which they were all out of! :( But anyhoo, still yummy food. We shared a mini pizzette with pesto sauce and avocados, and it was delicious. I could taste the pine nuts...mmmm. I had a sunburger for the entree (I love those things) and Tori had the squash pasta. The waiter was very nice and told us that he worked with Bamboo Industries (he was working at the restaurant on the weekends to learn how to prepare raw food...man, I'd like to do that) a clothing label that Tori really likes! :)

And around this time was when something happened. (Well, technically something is always happening...mm, anyhoo.) Two people had came into the restaurant, and you pretty much notice everyone who comes in because the place is really tiny (similar to my dorm room, now that I think about it). One guy looked eerily like Rufus Wainwright...oh duh, because it IS him! Only once in my life had I actually seen a famous person in NYC (Ton Green counts, right?) and this time it happened to be someone I really admired. I had to go to the bathroom, which gave me some time to think about what I would possibly do. In case you don't already know, I'm very introverted and anti-social. I cringe when I have to speak because I'm incredibly inept at forming the right words or gathering my thoughts (so I end up saying the same thing over and over again or taking forever to figure out what I want to say and ultimately sound like a moron...you know, that kind of thing). Even around my best friends I'm like that, so it's just worse around people who aren't my friends. (I can speak better around my own family members.) I've never gone up to musicians I like after concerts because the idea of me having contact with them horrifies me, even the time that I was mere feet away from Even Johansen and debated about whether to approach him, decided that it would be better to flee.

But...I did it (this being one of the most un-Robynish things to do, EVER). This is my proof and will probably haunt me. I knew I'd regret it if I didn't approach him, but I'm still horrified that I went up to him during a time that he just wanted to eat, AND he was with a friend! I guess it wouldn't have been as bad if he was alone...although if he was with more than one person, that would have been worse, possibly. His friend took the photo of us, which was very nice. And Rufus was very nice; I wouldn't have been able to tell if he was annoyed with me or not. I hope he likes the attention. AHH whatever, I'm sure it's nothing. I'm glad I actually did something non-wussy for once, but I don't want to have to do it again. I'm almost afraid to go back to Quintessence! WHAT HAVE I DONE?!

Tori and I wanted to go to Live Live, which was supposed to open at 2, but they changed the sign on their door so it said it would open at 3. Oooh! Evil. :) (I noticed that "live" backwards is "evil", haha.) We roamed around a bit and went to Jubb's Longevity for a really tasty slice of marzipan cake (I think they have better desserts than Quintessence). Live Live was opened when we returned, and we both both a few things. I didn't go all out crazy like I did at HigH Vibe, don't worry! :) High Vibe has better prices, but although Live Live is smaller, they have some products that aren't at High Vibe.

We went back to Grand Central to roam around their shopping area and go to the market, where I got some raw cheese (which means its made from unpasteurized milk, although some of those cheeses are heated while being made, so you have to know which is which...although I don't actually know). Yup, I do like cheese and I haven't decided that it does anything really bad to me. There is a very big difference between good cheese and most of the stuff you find in regular supermarkets, just as there's a huge difference between good and regular chocolate. (I hope I don't sound too food-snobby.) I got two raw cheese: Brin D'Amour and Isle of Mull Cheddar. I tried the Brin D'Amour, but not the cheddar...I want to try it! Eek.

Around this time Tori and I departed. She took the train home and I went to the Port Authority Bus Terminal...I caught my bus JUST in time after taking the shuttle from Grand Central to Times Square. For whatever reason the underground path from the Times Square station to the PABT was closed. Doh.

When I had to drive home from the Ridgewood bus stop, I did an extremely dangerous thing that I had never done before; I nearly drove all the way home without my lights on. And it was raining! And I almost ran over a guy! I'm stupid, yes. The lights on the dashboard were on, but I didn't realize that my headlights were off despite not being able to see the road and thinking, "Gee, this is weird, maybe I'm going blind." Thankfully someone flashed his lights at me and then I realized my lights weren't on. I hope to never do that again, it was freakin' scary.

Today I did nothing because I got sick. I don't know what my sickness is though. I'm glad I got sick because then I had to rest all day and eat less, but the really weird thing is that my brother got the SAME exact thing even though out lifestyles are pretty different. Of course, we live in the same house but we eat completely different things and he spends most of his time in the basement while I...don't. And I went to NYC a few times. The sickness we both got was just having a hard time to breath, kind of like having asthma all day long. I used to have asthma but I've forgotten how awful it is to have such a hard time breathing.

---

I just took a very long hiatus. I got hungry so I ate some various citrus fruits (easy to digest, I hope) and I started making more Poofies while watching LOTR: FOTR (lotter fotter?). Good times. If I can't sell my 15 Poofies (actually 17 because I still have two from the summer I never sold) then...I'm gonna have a LOT of Poofies.

Wanna see a really bad site? And I mean really bad? Just head on over to Pork4Kids where young'ins can learn all about pork and the basic food groups and how to make salads with bacon. The cartoon is priceless. It's just so awful, you wonder if anyone got paid to make it. Hopefully not. Peggy the Pork Chop needs to get a grip on things. And she creeps the hell out of me.