Thinking about...

Stealing blogging ideas from other sources.

Last tutoring session of the schoolyear was this week, so my subpar chemistry knowledge will be put on hold for the summer (but isn't my student the cutest thing you've ever seen?).
Sometimes I voluntarily practice the piano for an hour and then I want to call my mom because when did that ever happen?
Have you been watching Sherlock? If not, do yourself a favor and watch the first season (three episodes) on Netflix streaming. Then watch the second season on PBS.org. Or just buy the DVDs. You won't be sorry. Remember how I told you to watch Downton Abbey? I didn't lead you astray with that one, did I?
Humidity levels less than 90% would be a welcome change right now.  New life plan: write a wildly successful young adult novel and use the profits to open a bakery.

Live from New York.

A few weeks ago, Karrie and I got to go see Saturday Night Live. Tickets to the show are hard to come by--you either get picked from a lottery (nearly impossible) or sleep out overnight for standby tickets, which don't even guarantee entry to the tapings. Being the hardcore fan she is, Karrie had tried the latter method a couple of times without success. Thankfully, one of my lovely clients was nice enough to get us in to the dress rehearsal, which they run through start-to-finish a few hours before the live show.


After messaging each other pictures of outfit possibilities back and forth, we met up outside 30 Rock and were led upstairs to wait in the hall with a bunch of other ticket holders. Soon, one of the NBC pages came through, pointed at us and a few others, and told us to follow him. We rounded a corner and the page leaned in conspiratorially: "I didn't want to tell you in front of everyone else, but you guys will be sitting on the floor." Obviously our outfit vetting had paid off and we impressed the producers with our stylishness. We were excited and I figured Karrie would probably have a heart attack. Then we passed through a back hallway and Seth Meyers walked right by me and I thought I would probably have a heart attack.


We ended up sitting on the center aisle, about 5 feet from the stage, so that most of the cast passed next to us going to and from the stage. I'm not even a regular viewer of the show, but it was really fun seeing how it all works behind the camera (the studio is relatively tiny and they just build up and break down sets in random corners in a matter of minutes). Zooey Deschanel was hosting, and there were guest appearances from Jean Dujardin and Nicolas Cage which were awesome. Also, Fred Armisen smiled at me which I'm pretty sure means we're BFFs.

After the show we stopped in at a Valentine's party some friends were throwing. We hadn't been there long when some neighbors from an apartment below came to ask us to keep it down. It was 11:30pm on a Saturday night in a New York City apartment. Sorry guys, I can be as curmudgeonly as the next person about noisy neighbors, but even I wouldn't be mad about that. Still, the music was turned off and some people started slowly trickling out. Then, around midnight, a few police officers showed up to tell everyone to leave. I hope the cops had a good laugh after the big group of Mormon kids were gone, leaving behind plates of sugar cookies and empty soda bottles, and they realized they'd just broken up the equivalent of an elementary school birthday party.

No matter! We took the after-party back to Karrie's where we baked (more) cookies, watched the live SNL show, and stayed up way too late. Not a bad way to end a night.

Frigid.

You guys, is it me or has it been January for like three months now? Maybe I'm just extra crabby because this is what I awoke to on Monday morning:

That sun seems awfully pleased with itself for something that's right next to a "-5" don't you think?

I feel like I should get an award for extricating myself from bed that day, is all I'm saying. Thankfully, it's been in the balmy 30s the rest of the week, although that came with a price: the snowiest January on record in New York City.

My street yesterday morning.

I also have become resigned to the fact that I will never in my life have a snow day. Well, at least not one that was mandated by a higher power. Growing up in California obviously didn't afford me that opportunity, and when I went to college in Utah, nobody ever seemed impressed enough by the snow to cancel classes. (The closest I came was one blizzardy day in February when I "didn't feel well" and my roommate and I skipped class and spent the whole day watching episodes of 24 in our pajamas and eating leftover Chinese food.) And now that I live in a city where the majority of people take underground transportation, there's no real excuse not to make it into work.

Most of my social life this month has consisted of friends holing up in each others' apartments to hang out and escape the cold. It's also a great excuse to watch mass amounts of TV and movies. Some of the entertainment has admittedly been a little questionable, but I'm also hooked on Downton Abbey thanks to my mom, aunt, and sisters. If you like period pieces, or British people, or Maggie Smith saying awesome things, you should probably watch the first three episodes online and then watch the season finale on Sunday. Sometimes you just have to make your own snow day, and you may as well have something good to watch.