What makes you nostalgic?

Pictures are usually the one thing I can see that bring up the strongest feelings of nostalgia, but this morning, it wasn't pictures. It was dishes. When my husband and I first started dating, he lived in a 400 sq foot studio in NYC. We both went to work during the day, met up at graduate school at night, and usually came home for dinner to his studio (I still had my own place) no earlier than 9:15PM. Our favorite meal was grilled chicken on the George Forman, which he hasn't made in years, a baked potato, and some kind of caffeinated drink to keep us awake to do our homework. We ate on these plain, cream-colored plates with a little blue trim every night. When we'd eat at my place, it was on dishes that weren't as great. When we moved in together, we had the new fortune of two sets (!) of dishes to share. For the last 6 years, I think we've used my dishes once and use his cream/blue trim dishes every night. They were pretty cheap, but in 6 years not one bowl or plate was broken.

Today I gave away those dishes. Now that we're married and finally got our wedding gifts (most of them) from Florida to NYC a year and a half later, we have a new set of dishes to use. They're really pretty, really grown up, and really not our old dishes. I have so many memories of late nights in front of the couch eating on those dishes, eating our wedding cake on our one-year anniversary using those dishes, and even cooking for friends - or should I say 'pretending to cook' - when we have rare company come over to visit.

The dishes are neatly bubble-wrapped and ready to go home with someone else. This posting is an homage to them so I don't have to physically say goodbye to them and look like a crazy person. Then again, dedicating an entire post to dishes makes me crazy as it is.

What makes you nostalgic?

Florida - 80. New York - 25.

It may look like a sports score but it's a temperature battle. I feel so badly for my apartment, my mom, and all of the NYCers who are 'back home' while I'm on Thanksgiving vacation in Florida where it's already 80 degrees in Ft. Lauderdale. I guess even with Black Friday being today, there are droves of insane people in NY for just this holiday who are literally going to shop until their lungs drop from the weather.

This past year was one of the first Thanksgivings in recent memory that

a) I didn't stuff myself

b) regretfully, there was no sliced fake cranberry sauce jelly to eat

c) I didn't unbutton my pants until I got in bed, opposed to doing it at the table

Websites I Love To Stalk

Seeing as I'm at my computer most of the day writing, arranging music or procrastinating (who me?), I have a list of web sites I love to stalk now and then when I get a little bored. Perhaps after I finish writing a book and make millions or grow a penis, whichever is more realistic... these sites would clue into what my next career move should be. None of these are really "I've never heard of them" sites, but it shows what an Internet moron/dork/expert/sponge/addict I am.

1) Gawker I don't read trashy magazines ever, except when waiting in a doctor's office. This is the closest I get to that and revolves mostly around NYC socialites and celebrities making asses out of themselves.

2) Curbed I am obsessed with Manhattan real estate. It doesn't have to be anything I can afford. I love looking at $35 million dollar apartments as much as I love looking at $100,000 ones. Ok it doesn't get that cheap in Manhattan since we're in an insane real estate world. I love floorplans, prices, neighborhoods, learning about new developments, what's getting landmarked, and even googling buildings I find to learn more about them.

3) Google Maps In most of the country, you know where your nearest dry cleaner is or there aren't that many to choose from. For me, when I move soon - I won't know anything in the neighborhood. Something could literally be a block away and I wouldn't know. Type in any address (street and state) then when the map comes up, click "Find Businesses" and you can type in anything: banks, grocery stores, hospitals - and they'll be mapped out from your address.

4) Friendster Seeing as my single friends get sites like JDate and Match.com to stalk profiles, the married folks get things like Friendster, where you can look up people from 4th grade, add them as your friends, never actually e-mail them or try to get in touch with them, but feel somehow cooler. I am up to at least 30 friends. It's the first time I've ever felt like the popular girl. Who am I kidding?

Coming soon - I might actually be ready to reveal to my 1.2 readers (my husband and my dog who can't really read) what my book is going to be about.

A reminder why I love NYC.

I went to dinner tonight with my husband. We walked over a mile, were wearing long-sleeved shirts and jeans (no jackets) and sat al fresco (ooh fancy words for outside, huh) on Broadway and had a great Italian meal. Surprisingly there weren't lots of horns honking, loud-mouthed pedestrians, and we were 4 blocks north of Times Square and 5 blocks south of Columbus Circle; both VERY busy places. My view was down Broadway of all the neon lights, billboards, spinning advertisements and hotel rooms.

Since we were outside there was only one table next to us, we could hear the conversation (opposed to a typical inside restaurant seat in NYC where you're cramped in and can't hear), and the food was just enough to fill you up and give you that sleepy feel without being bloated and overeating.

How many people can do that for a Friday night meal?