Dispatch From The Blogosphere

I'm writing this from our backyard, which now has a bright mint green table and a wooden chaise lounge that I assembled with my own hands (and some freakishly tiny tools, included). It's about 70 degrees, the sun is setting and I am three Lacroixes deep. I am just housing seltzer these days. It's been over six months since I've had alcohol, my skin is glowing, I don't have any new embarrassing stories, and I am SO much less fun.

I just spent two hours deciding on a fabric for my new sewing project... landed on this peach (eh, pink) chambray that I will hopefully make into a casually chic jacket. And hopefully, like all of my sewing projects so far, I will wear to the office and ask everyone if they like it, then when they grudgingly tell me that they do, I'll tell them I made it, and their eyes will pop out of their heads (they won't) and they'll grudgingly give me the praise that gets me through every day. I love a genuine compliment but I will totally take a coerced one too.

My latest project was a kimono that I ended up really liking. I'm taking a LOT of time to finish these projects, I want to learn how to do it properly, with nice hems and errrything. If I'm going to learn, I want to REALLY learn, but it's making me really strain to gather all of the patience I have. Did you know that sewing requires a ton of ironing? Ugh.

I finally met our neighbor behind us. I was out back wiping down the aforementioned table and I heard a super friendly "hello!" from across the fence. I glanced over and he was on the stairs in his yard (they live on the second floor, but I guess they own the backyard so there is a expertly executed system of partitions and stairs that makes that work) smiling and waving. We both walked over to the fence that was dividing us, at which point we both realized that neither of us were tall enough to see OVER the fence (perspective really shifts things) so we had a chat between the slats.

His name is either Merg or Merv. Or Merk? It definitely sounded like Merg but I am not confident at all. He was extremely nice, and after introducing himself (it has to be Merg...) he passed a plastic bag with two little gray mini donuts in it to me over the fence. He told us to fill a bucket with water and put one of these donuts in it. Mosquitos are drawn to stagnant water, which I knew, and would lay their eggs in the water, which I did not know, and apparently the little circular gift would stop the eggs from hatching. So yeah, they weren't donuts.

He was giving them to all of the neighbors to see if we could minimize the mosquito infestation for the summer.

I have never felt more neighborhoody since leaving East Oreland, Pennsylvania. I assured him that we would do so immediately, then took the baggie inside and forgot about them until this moment. And now I'm adding it as a task in the task management app that I use. I am so so so close to being the hottest mess, I really do rely on technology quite heavily these days to exist. It's objectively devastating.

Last night, I went to see My Fair Lady at Lincoln Center. A friend of mine had won tickets to this whole package deal and was hoping to fly in from California to go, but ended up not being able to make it SO the tickets were generously gifted to me. In addition to the show, it included a swanky dinner at the restaurant next door to the theater and a "talk" by a "Broadway expert."

Luckily, I brought someone who's eyes are always oiled up and ready to roll, because we found ourselves in the midst of a group of people who were all clearly v old and v rich. The Broadway expert was a woman who, while very talented I'm sure, waxed drone-like as she tried to present the themes and core conflicts of the show. The talk was punctuated by her asking the audience if they wanted to hear her sing a bit of one of the songs and then confidently launching into it without waiting for much of a response. That was probably for the best as the only response I could hear was one elderly man who croaked out something that maybe sounded a bit like "yes" but it could have been a burp.

Then we ate THE BEST FOOD I've had in a long time. It was incredible. The setting was so insanely wrong, I made my friend wear a tie, it was a weird cultural experiment for us but absolutely worth any discomfort because this food was next level. It would have been delicious regardless, but that umami note that comes with food being free really took it over the top.

As we left the restaurant to head to the theater, we tried to get our coats from the coat check. An older man who was part of this whole thing told us "oh, you can just keep them here and come back for the cocktail hour afterwards!" at which I point I requested that he return our coats now "just in case we can't make it back."

We did not make it back.

The show itself was fantastic. I mean listen, it's an extremely sexist show and I'm not sure what the final message is supposed to be, but I do love a lot of the music and the cast was on point. And at the end of the day, it was actually fun getting to put on an outfit I rarely wear and do something I normally wouldn't do.

I enjoyed it so much that next weekend I think I will put on some elbow length satin gloves and perform an autopsy.