My Triumphant Return to the Gym

Just had to write about it because I’m so proud of myself for actually going! I realized this morning, while feeling like a fatty, that I haven’t been to the gym in a looooong time. I hadn’t been since before the hurricane, which at this point, is about a month and a half ago. My suspicions were further confirmed when I was looking for my sports bra this morning and found it buried under a pile of swimsuits, meaning that I probably wore a bikini more recently than gym attire… and I don’t remember the last time I was in a bikini.

This is how gangsta I feel.

But today the gym-drought ended! I belong to the Bedford-Stuyvesant YMCA (literally around the corner from my apartment) and I was feeling so Brooklyn in there, listening to Jay-Z on my Ipod while doing dead-lifts. I resisted singing along since yelling “Can I get a F**k you” in the middle of the Bed-Stuy YMCA is probably going to gain some unwanted attention. The place already looks like a prison gym- full of big, black guys, aggressively pumping iron like their asshole’s innocence depends on it. Usually I just go to the treadmill, barely break a sweat, then go roll around on the mat and complain about having a cramp. But TODAY I ran 4.4 miles on the treadmill, burned over 500 calories, stretched until I got my forehead to touch the ground while in butterfly position, AND even tried to lift some weights!

BAM. Apart from being disgusting and sweaty right now, I feel so good!

Embracing Spinsterhood. An Exposé on What I Did Tonight.

Today I am sick. I’ve had the flu for a couple of days, but the fever has broken and I was eventually driven from the apartment due to a toilet paper shortage and to wash my sheets that I had sweated on all night. 

I also had what my Aussie friend would call “a case of the Sads.” This is where you’re depressed because things that you thought you would have had figured out are not turning out the way you had hoped. Career-wise, that is always the case for me, so I am almost numb to it. This was a boy related case. 

It was made worse because I was sore from the flu and coughing, alone, in my apartment with NYC-standard-issue uneven heating systems and watching marathon 30 Rock episodes with our cat. On a Saturday night. Loneliness rules all.

After getting too cold, I decided that a bath was the only thing that could fix this. I couldn’t get anyone to come out to Brooklyn to give me a massage (let alone ever) and I sure as hell wasn’t leaving the apartment again. Toilet Paper Quest took it out of me. 

However, I remembered that baths are incredibly boring. I brought my laptop in an balanced it on the toilet so I could continue watching, and turned on the bathroom space-heater, which reminded me of old times in college with my roommate. (When we had lived together, she refused to let us turn the heat on until hats had to come out, so I would always do my homework on the bathroom floor since it was the smallest room in the place. )

After setting up my laptop with my sitcoms, drawing a hot bath, and cranking up the heat, I also decided I was hungry. I grabbed the only food I had available- cold taco meat from making taco salads earlier in the week- and a fork and went off to the bathroom.

Sitting in the tub, chowing down on week old taco meat, a number of conflicting thoughts crossed my mind: “You have found a way to coordinate almost all of your favorite things! Warmth, 30 Rock, leftovers, and solitude. Oh, but you have reached a new level of sadness that you didn’t even know you had in you. No wonder you’re single. I wonder if this is something the character Liz Lemon would be doing? You’re taking this show too seriously.… Man, I hope my roommate doesn’t come home and walk in on this one.”

Luckily, she didn’t. Also, my freezing to death problem was solved for the meantime and I am now nice and clean and ready to go to bed on clean sheets. It’s the little things like this that I appreciate. Loneliness overruled!

Brooklyn Bound!

It begins. It’s moving day. This is the weekend I leave my small, disgusting upper west side apartment and move to Brooklyn. It might be my last night sleeping in my bunk bed! I’ve already started the process:

Step 1: Wake up, drink coffee made to the intensity of rocket fuel in underwear with roommate #1.

Step 2:  Stop at the delicious and comforting Absolute Bagels to try to bring about a will to live.

(Last night, after going out to gay clubs with my Aussie friend, I found myself bent over the toilet, vomiting whiskey and sushi around 2 am. I also put at least ten $1 bills into a gay dancer’s G-string. This is the sort of nonsense this girl gets me to do.)

Step 3: Go to the bank and withdraw money needed for paying roommate #1 for the bills, his bed, money order for the security deposit on my apartment, and for paying movers tomorrow. I’ll basically just be hemorrhaging money all weekend.

Step 4: Buy boxes, collect things, and pack them up. Roommate #2 finally gave me back the glass from my picture frame that he’s been borrowing to do lines of cocaine. My laundry is in process at the laundromat, and otherwise I don’t have a whole lot of stuff strewn about the apartment.

Luckily, I haven’t acquired much living here, but I always tend to drag out the entire process of packing. Man. I hate moving.

Just Be Cool

Going to start tweeting again. Decision was made this morning after I finally remembered my login that I made about 2 years ago. I figure I have enough un-related ideas that are not long enough for a blog that I can start letting them seep out on other social media outlets. Follow @Allie_Bowie if you dare.

I was about this cool at breakfast

The way the rest of the night went down with my roommate and his girlfriend was that after enough crying from his end, he finally figured out how to unlock the door and then they were both in there for a while. At 3 am, all I wanted to do was brush my teeth, but luckily I had an emergency toothbrush and travel size toothpaste in my purse just in case. Ironically,  I still got to put them to use that night and brush my teeth over an unfamiliar sink- it’s just it was the one in my kitchen (full of dirty dishes, no less) instead of Potentially Successful Date Guy’s bathroom.

While dodging dishes with my toothpaste spit, my roommate emerged from the bathroom, tear-streaked and naked from the waist down. We stared at each other for a second, then he screamed “Oh my GOD!” and then stumbled to his room. His girlfriend followed, rolling her eyes and carrying his pants. I miss that.

The following morning I went to breakfast with Potentially Successful Date Guy. We had a good time and chatted about upcoming plans and his variety show. I told him I was moving to Brooklyn and he should come visit me when I’m settled in. He said he’d get his passport. I told him how very Manhattan of him that was to say. I tried a bite of his breakfast risotto, and he paid for breakfast. Very date-like, but I still can’t figure out if I’m in the friend zone here or what.  I went for a kiss at the end, which seemed well received, but may have gone a bit better if we weren’t both wearing hats and therefore bumping into each other awkwardly with them.

Lucky Day!

WELL!

What with the way things are going today, I am definitely feeling optimistic on my chances of getting lucky with Unsuccessful Date Guy tonight, who will be referred to as Potentially Successful Date guy from here on out. Here are the reasons that things are going well, and therefore making me believe this streak will continue:

Actual sign that sold me on the apartment.

The big one is- Today I found the apartment I will be moving to! It is in Brooklyn, NY. Clinton Hill/ Bedstuy area (which actually means nothing to me, as in my desperation I didn’t do much homework on the area). What I DO know is that I have hot roommate chemistry with the girl who lives there, we will be on the first floor of a brownstone, I can fit a queen sized bed in my room and we have separate bathrooms! Outrageous for NY. And only one transfer for me to go to work! Also, apparently someone in the neighborhood is giving away free hot dogs, which is clearly a sign from God that it’s meant to be.

Relating it to Potentially Successful Date guy- he apologized for taking forever to get back to me and we have arranged a breakfast date for tomorrow morning. Brilliant! As I am going to the variety show that he and his best friend host tonight, it would be quite easy for me to suggest a sleepover to make breakfast tomorrow that much more convenient AND since the show is downstairs in the same building as his apartment, it’s too easy! (Much like my sad, celibate self in this case)

The only thing that may thwart this plan is my preparedness. Everyone knows that if you go “too ready” everything will be jinxed for sure! Presently, I am wearing hot red lace underwear and a nice bra (not one of the gross nude colored ones with no padding that I typically wear) and I actually shaved my legs and underarms completely. Due to not liking the itchy growback phase with pubic hair, I’m sporting a “soulpatch” of sorts, but it’s still groomed enough that I am probably dooming myself to another night of solitary lameness. The fact that I regularly carry an emergency toothbrush in my purse almost guarantees I will never come into any action. 

Oh well- I can still hope! If I don’t come back to my apartment tonight, things either went really well (went home with Potentially Successful Date Guy) or really, really badly (got kidnapped during some process of commuting to the show). Wish me luck!