The Facts are These:

Exactly one year, 62 days and twelve hours ago (give or take a couple hours) I moved to New York City. I made it here in a Penske truck with my mom and sister...and all my stuff.

I moved into an apartment with one Maria Wilson and one Rosemary Demos. Neither was known before the move, but had been found through an LDS Housing list for people moving to the big city and looking for roommates/housing. I met both of them on moving-in day and feel very lucky and blessed to have gotten two roommates that I completely love, enjoy, get along with, laugh with, understand.

Maria dates one Mark Mason, aka Marky Mark. Apart from getting me a job at the Crew, I totally love this guy. Maria and Mark are amazing people and always invite me to do things with them. I can't imagine my New York experience without them; they shared their Thanksgiving with me, celebrated my first away-from-home Christmas with a traditional outing to a movie, kissed me on New Year's Eve, experience "The Godfather" with me, introduced me to Settler's of Cataan, share their gourmet home-cooked meals with me, and talked me into staying in the city when I felt like leaving. They are kind, funny, thoughtful, loving, giving, and truly my best friends in the city.

Rosemary was gracious enough to take me to church and introduce me to people when I first got here. I honestly never would've made it without her and her genuine kindness. We can stay up late talking about anything and she's a great listener. She's owns the most book of any one I know (she's getting her Doctorate in Comparative Literature) and hosts Literary Salons. She also speaks Italian as she served her mission in Italy--one of my favorite places when I went to Europe.

I currently work at the Crew and intern two days a week with the Tribeca Film Institute. I've also worked at Wal-mart in New Jersey (transferred there from Utah but quit after a week), as a temp receptionist at a financial company in the heart of the Financial District (I could see the Statue of Liberty from the main window), as an Office Manager for Guardian Entertainment (which sounds cool, but it was really just me sitting in a windowless office with people who had no real intentions of making movies...and had huge legal problems as a result of some shady bank deal they made), and as a Projection Booth Liaison for the Tribeca Film Festival (which was the best work experience I've ever had in the movie business). Who knows what the future holds...

I attend one of four Single's Wards in Manhattan. My first calling was as a Ward Institute Representative but am now the head of the Compassionate Service Committee. My ward is amazing and full of super talented people; you should hear our congregation when we sing the hymns in sacrament.

So that's my life so far for those new to the blog (my mom and dad were both supposed to give this to aunts, uncles and cousins). If any family members have a blog as well let me know and we can all stay connected!

In Pam's Shoes

I am not a huge fan of Halloween. I'm a fan of candy and such, just not all the dressing up that goes along with it. I dressed up two years ago for my sorority after having a huge desire to wear fairy wings. But before then it had been a really long time since I had donned any sort of outfit for the holiday.


The stake had a Halloween Trick-or-Treat Dance Party at the East Side Chapel this year. I originally wasn't going to go, as I'm not a fan of big crowds of people I don't know, but was talked into it by a few people. I knew I'd be coming straight from the Crew and wouldn't have time for an elaborate costume (not that I would've anyway). My first thought was to get some fairy wings (I had borrowed them from my friend Mary when I wore them two years ago) and reuse my wand and the hair glitter I still had from my previous fairy incarnation. So I went to KMart and Target the day before and looked for fairy wings....to no avail. After working at Wal-mart you think I'd have learned that you never find what you need the day before a big holiday except the lame things nobody wants. This is why I wasn't that surprised to not find anything.

So I decided to go with my backup, something that would be completely simple and require practically no effort: I would go as Pam from "The Office." I had the skirt, the cardigan and the button up shirt. It was almost too perfect. After work all I had to do was change into my striped, pink button-up shirt from my plain white one and don my favorite pink cardigan I even put curlers in my hair to make it look like Pam's (although mine is much shorter than hers and so I looked more like a poodle than Pam). This is the final result:

Since it's no fun to go to a dance by yourself, I met up with Stefanie and Elin at their apartment and went with them. They had much more elaborate costumes; Stefanie was a Toy Solider, complete with a gun fashioned from an umbrella, and Elin was Self-Absorbed, in a dress dotted with sponges and a wicked wig, and subsequently got the most smiles and "How clever," responses when asked what her costume was.



We were the only people in the Subway car and proceeded to have some fun...

I swung around the pole, just for fun.

People didn't really ask me what my costume was, probably assuming I was just coming from work and was not in costume. I feel it could've been elevated with flesh-colored nylons, which Pam wears, but in my rush to be on time to work I left them sitting on my bed. So I made due with my blue tights and pink converse, as I don't have white keds. But what I really needed was a Jim to make my ensemble complete.


Sadly, there were no Jim's there; only a Dwight in a Cornell sweatshirt. The dance was fun though, despite some bad deejaying, and I danced the night away in that hot gym.

Great Salt Lake

When you work at a retail establishment like I do (does anyone reading this not know that I work at J Crew? Well, I do), you tend to hear the same songs over and over, day after day. And after so long the songs just sort of run together and you forget that they're even being played. I must admit, though, that the Crew has a fairly decent playlist, unlike Wal-mart. So we get Jason Mraz, Feist, old-school Madonna, some classic 80's songs like The Promise and Huey Lewis and the News with Private Eyes (clap,clap), and other cool songs that I neither know who sings or what their title is. We're also subjected to some awful songs, too, though, and those are always the ones you seem to hear the most.

A couple weeks ago somebody asked me if I heard the song that says "Great Salt Lake". She tried singing it for me but I was still giving her a look that said, "I have no idea what song you're talking about." Then I happened to randomly be up on the men's floor working one day not long after this conversation, where it's much quieter because, well, men are just better shoppers that women and don't feel the need to just browse around and touch everything; they shop only when they need something, and so the Men's floor is much less busy. Anyway, in the quietness the music became less of background noise and more of listening noise that I heard someone singing "Great Salt Lake" in this great chorus. Was I hearing it right? Was there really a song whose chorus was the words Great Salt Lake?

Yes.

I kept listening for the song every day I worked, and would feel happy when I'd hear it. I found out that it's from a band called Band of Horses. I haven't actually researched them or anything, but I bet they're from Salt Lake. I also found this video they made for the song. It's kind of a dumb video, and I actually prefer the lyric and song to the visual images they put with it, but what are you gonna do. If you want, just click on the video and then browse around on another tab so all you hear is the music and not the video.



And today, not longer after getting off the phone with a person from Utah, this song was played. Kismet.

Happy Birthday Cat!

From thousands of miles away I send Cat Birthday wishes!! We met at the U in our Sign Language class and both agree that the only thing we got out of it was our friendship with each other and Pam. Cat introduced me to Theta and helped me get through some hard times. She's pretty much fabulous, sewing costumes, nursing at the hospital and going to school. She even came out to visit me (and the city) in June, and might possibly be back in May....
Love you!

This is Cat and me at Rockefeller Center, and Pam and Cat at my Going Away Party. Because it's because of Pam that I know Cat.

Pumpkin Blaze

Last Thursday I went with friend and some of her co-workers up to Tarrytown (home to Sleepy Hollow) to see a Pumpkin Blaze, which is 4,000 hand carved pumpkins all lit up on display. I had originally wanted to go to a Pumpkin Festival in New Hampshire with Maria and Marky Mark; it had pumpkins, face-painting, cider and fireworks. I'd pretty much do anything to see fireworks in October, including driving four hours to New Hampshire. Unfortunately this plan fell thru, but thankfully my friend Brook mentioned this to me and I jumped at the chance to tag along.

First of all, we rode up there in car. For those of you who ride in a car everyday, this may not seem exciting, but for someone who has to ride around in the subway all day to get places it is very exciting. There were four of us scrunched in the back seat (I would post the pictures, but they're on someone else's camera and she hasn't sent them to me yet; so check back later for picture posts). This is part of the pumpkin archway we drove under to enter the Manor.


Two, it was crazy to see real darkness...in the country. It's never really dark in the city, there's always lights on. And we could see stars. All of us must've been in the city for too long because we were all amazed by the star, something you can't see in the city with all the lights on.

But it was the most cool for the pumpkins!! They're set up all around Van Cortlandt Manor, which is one of those old, colonial houses you'd see in the movies with wraparound porches, land all around and trees and stone fences. There were pumpkins everywhere! The pictures don't really do it justice, as I had to do it without the flash, which makes the picture sort of fuzzy because my hand isn't exactly steady. But I'll post them anyhow to give you an idea.




This is the manor with pumpkins in every place possible. The color of the manor would change from red to green to blue to orange. Each color change made the pumpkins look so different.




Next was the Dinosaurs. Yes, the Pumpkin Blaze has themes. You might wonder how you can make dinosaurs out of pumpkins. The answer is with lots of them. Again, the pictures don't really convey how totally cool it was. Brook and I spent a lot of time in this area and took a lot of pictures. It was just so cool!




Then there were spiders and a totally cool spider web made out of pumpkins. I don't have a picture of this because my batteries had died, but when I get them from Brook I'll post them. And then there were the snakes.


The next big display was Stonehenge. Again, you think how they can do that with pumpkins. I'm not even sure how they did it (or any of it, really, it was just all so amazing). At the end of the line was an underwater theme followed by a pirate theme with pirates just coming off their ship from the lake.


And then it was time for some hot cider, because it was cold that night. So cold that I couldn't feel my toes for pretty much most of the night. I could see my breath. I had to wear gloves. But man was that cider, and pumpkin spicey thing we ate, so good.


There were no fireworks, but there were pumpkins hanging from the trees, carved as fish, hands, bats, butterflies, skeletons, and even Jack from Nightmare before Christmas. And on the way home we drove through Tarrytown and past the Sleepy Hollow church. No sign of the Headless Horseman, but you could definitely picture him riding through the streets.

A Shout-out to the Crew

Yep, a shout-out from fashion forward Michelle Obama herself. The person who could be our next First Lady shops at J Crew. Seeing as how I work at the Crew I found this to be kinda cool. And so did a lot of other people. We were inundated with tons of calls the day after her interview for people looking for the outfit (it helped that her plug came so effortlessly). I can look at her outfit and know exactly where to find every piece she's wearing in our store, except her shirt underneath the cardigan because we sold out of it last month, and the broach because that's not ours. It was an outfit that none of our personal shoppers said they would've put together themselves but they thought it looked great. And I must admit that although I think a lot of our clothes are not exactly ugly but also not exactly my style, they always look a lot better when I actually see them on people. And Michelle Obama looked pretty good.

By the end of the day all of us had just resorted to calling it the Michelle cardigan.

A Day Ruled by Murphy

You know what Murphy I'm talking about; the one who Murphy's Law was named after, the law that say "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." That pretty much sums up the first part of my day.

I didn't have to work til 12:30 so I thought I'd run a few errands before going to the Crew--post office and the library. But when I got to the Subway entrance at 137th it was blocked off, apparently closed. This was not upsetting; it was a nice day so I'd just walk to the next station. I could go to either 145th or 125th, but since I needed to go downtown thought I would walk to 125th even though it was farther. I get down there and see a sign that says downtown 1 trains are running express from 145th to 96th. So now I have to ride the train uptown to 145th where I can get out and transfer to the other side for a downtown 1. A little frustrating, but I could handle it.

I make it to 66th street and decide that even though I'm a little strapped for time I'll still try to get the post office and library done. I walk to the post office first. All I need to buy is two stamps. I have exactly 84 cents in my pocket ready for the stamp vending machine. There's a long line and I think Suckers! as I make my way to the vending machines. They're closed behind those accordion-like doors they have for overflow in the chapel. I definitely don't have the time to stand in line, and the people at the Automated Postal Centers all seem to be not in a hurry.

I leave, thinking I'll just go the Post Office close to work on my lunch break. I can still at least make it to the library a few blocks away and pick up True Romance (not a love story, but a Tarantino-esque film that a friend has been after me to see for like two years now). After accidentally turning down the wrong street and getting caught in some construction detours, I make it to the library...and realize that it doesn't open til 12:00. It is 11:50. I don't have time to wait as I'll be late for work. Now I'm carrying around the books I had meant to return in my purse all day...and it's heavy.

Lunch finally came and I was excited to get some fruit from the deli down the street. I go up to pay and realize that I don't have my wallet. I part of me was secretly hoping that the guy would tell me I could still have it, that I looked nice enough and hungry enough that this one would be on the house. He didn't say that. I left with nothing.

At least my time at work wasn't awful, too, or that would've been unbearable. It was boring and slow, but that's better than having rude customers or mean bosses. And the day was saved by a celebrity sighting. Felicity herself, Keri Russell, was in the Crew today. I'm a big Felicity fan so I was pretty excited when I was told she was there. I tried to play it cool, purposely putting myself in the area she was browsing in. I stood behind her for a second as she was looking at some socks. I wanted so badly to say something to her, even just ask if I could help her with a size, something I'd do for any customer, but was pretty sure I'd turn into a giddy school girl. So I just watched her from the register, hoping I'd be there when she was ready to check out. She ended up going upstairs and paying for her things there, but it was still a very cool day. Imagine what I'd do if Buffy ever came into the Crew?!