Apple Juice Living

Lower East Side Tenement Museum

C. and I utilized our day off yesterday and visited the LES Tenement Museum. It was something we added to our ‘To Do’ list (something we started compiling when we started dating), and finally had an open day to do it.

If you have $20 and a free day, definitely go to the Tenement Museum. We took the Moore family tour (the Irish immigrant experience) and happened to have some people from Dublin in our tour group. Our tour guide, Anne, explained to us that the streets of the LES during that time (late 1800’s-early 1900’s) were bustling with activity full of people, pushcarts, horses, and “steaming piles of horse manure.” Talk about creating an image.

I don’t want to give too much information, but I thoroughly enjoyed the tour, found it extremely informative and I LOVED their bookstore.

My favorite historical fact learned: St. Mary’s Church on Grand Street (my neighborhood) is the oldest Roman Catholic church in all of Manhattan.

Game On!!!

I attended this event last night at Carnegie Hall…courtesy of a good friend of mine. I always welcome any opportunity to get dressed up and get free food and drinks!

The panel was moderated by Pete Wentz who impressed me with his humor…the guy is hysterical!….It was extremely interesting to hear the perspective of successful musicians and the actual game developers discuss their views of video game technology fusing with music. There were two areas of the panel that could have been improved upon…1) the music industry voice was missing in the panel…specifically to discuss the licensing/publishing issues that occur with Guitar Hero, etc. and 2) Meghan Asha…I don’t even know why she was booked for this panel because she did not have anything to add to the conversation, and honestly, it’s not her area. Whenever she spoke, there was this awkward silence in the audience…and embarassingly enough, there were snickers coming from the back of the audience. It made me cringe. On one hand, yes…you want to get booked for speaking engagements if that’s your schtick….but you also need to know when to say No, this might not be a good fit for me. Whoever was advising her, they made a bad choice.

The after-party was held at the Nintendo Store where I chased around the trays of yummy amuse bouches, drank lemonade vodkas and kicked ass at Nintendo Wii Bowling. Good night.

Why I love NYC: reason #?

mascarah:

Tonight after a lovely evening at the Bored to Death premiere with Lauren and Erin I finished the 2nd leg of my subway journey and got off at Delancey courtesy of the F train. Almost home and giddy from red wine we drank in mugs.

The past 2 weeks have been hard for me for more reasons than one and I was blasting my current “Everything-is-going-to-be-okay-no-matter-what” anthem (a song I’m ashamed to blog about) anyhow…exiting the subway I turned onto Norfolk toward Rivington and found myself just singing at the top of my lungs, out loud.

I went so far as to stop and have an impromptu Idol audition mid-block - hands in the air, belting out - full force, dancing around, singing screaming the lyrics…convincing myself that by saying them - they’d be true. I would be okay. It would all work out. Life and love and some weird combination of the two would prevail. That I would win the battle on this field that seems to be this wide open expanse that I can’t figure out how to navigate.

The song ended by the time I hit Stanton to turn to go down to my block….And the weirdest thing happened…out of nowhere a stranger came up to me, tapped me on the shoulder (of course for a split second I thought I was getting mugged…again) but then he said “I think that was beautiful.”

It wasn’t. I can’t sing. I’m closer to tone deaf than Idol-worthy.

Turns out he just went through a breakup. He’s still not convinced that “it” (love….that word, in whatever way we all interpret it to be integral to our purpose) will end up happening for him in the way we all hope it will. He, too, is afraid that maybe when it comes his way he won’t recognize her face.

And we talked. And we laughed. And we sang. And we lamented about what almost was, what could possibly be, and what we hope doesn’t pass us by.

And for a moment I had a “NYC moment” with a complete stranger. A moment that might only happen on a random block in this city on a night when I should probably have already been asleep.

Why I love NYC: reason #?

mascarah:

Tonight after a lovely evening at the Bored to Death premiere with Lauren and Erin I finished the 2nd leg of my subway journey and got off at Delancey courtesy of the F train. Almost home and giddy from red wine we drank in mugs.

The past 2 weeks have been hard for me for more reasons than one and I was blasting my current “Everything-is-going-to-be-okay-no-matter-what” anthem (a song I’m ashamed to blog about) anyhow…exiting the subway I turned onto Norfolk toward Rivington and found myself just singing at the top of my lungs, out loud.

I went so far as to stop and have an impromptu Idol audition mid-block - hands in the air, belting out - full force, dancing around, singing screaming the lyrics…convincing myself that by saying them - they’d be true. I would be okay. It would all work out. Life and love and some weird combination of the two would prevail. That I would win the battle on this field that seems to be this wide open expanse that I can’t figure out how to navigate.

The song ended by the time I hit Stanton to turn to go down to my block….And the weirdest thing happened…out of nowhere a stranger came up to me, tapped me on the shoulder (of course for a split second I thought I was getting mugged…again) but then he said “I think that was beautiful.”

It wasn’t. I can’t sing. I’m closer to tone deaf than Idol-worthy.

Turns out he just went through a breakup. He’s still not convinced that “it” (love….that word, in whatever way we all interpret it to be integral to our purpose) will end up happening for him in the way we all hope it will. He, too, is afraid that maybe when it comes his way he won’t recognize her face.

And we talked. And we laughed. And we sang. And we lamented about what almost was, what could possibly be, and what we hope doesn’t pass us by.

And for a moment I had a “NYC moment” with a complete stranger. A moment that might only happen on a random block in this city on a night when I should probably have already been asleep.