Dancing through life

Every now and then, I stumble upon an unique New York moment...usually when I'm not looking for it at all. Such was the case this afternoon. I was out for a run in Central Park when I saw a group of people dancing in a circle near Turtle Pond. Intrigued, I got closer to figure out what exactly was going on. I thought perhaps I was intruding on a Greek wedding, but when I didn't find any shards of smashed plates, I ruled that option out.



Upon further evaluation, I discovered this sign:


That's right, ladies and gentlemen - I discovered free, singles International Folk Dancing in Central Park. Now let me first say that I did not jump in to participate, although in retrospect, I wish I had. I just found it so lovely that this group of people, most of them in their 60's or 70's I would guess, had found each other...that someone somewhere said one day, "You know what? This city needs more international folk dancing, so let's plan something. How's Sunday afternoon?" It could very well be my imagination running away with itself, but I like to think that these folks have been meeting at the pavilion near Turtle Pond for years, decades even. That they used to be strangers but now they're friends. That the man with the long gray ponytail and the woman in the denim jumper met here one Sunday and declared it love at first sight and have been blissfully married ever since. (They of course did the circle dance at their wedding.)

I stood and watched the International Folk Dancers for 10 minutes or so, thoroughly fascinated and entertained. Despite my best investigative journalism/staring, though, I couldn't for the life of me figure out who was leading the group. Surely there must be a coordinator, someone who sets up the boom box, brings the cassette tape filled with polka music, and leads the free-for-all of community dancers in the circle dance...sort of a folk-dancing senior citizen aerobic instructor if you will. Regardless of the leader or lack thereof, though, everyone seemed to be doing just fine, following one another, moving as a circular unit, joyfully smiling as they hopped and bopped around.

Because that's what community is all about, right? Holding hands together, moving in the same direction with one another, laughing together, opening your arms to anyone and everyone, and creating memories to last a lifetime. It's not one person being out front telling everyone else what to do and how to do it; instead, it's coming alongside each other and dancing through life's journey together.

If polka can do that for the Central Park International Folk Dancers, then I feel confident that there's hope for us all.
:)

Glory, glory to ole Georgia

I am in mourning today because the UGA/Ole Miss game is not televised. Now I'm not saying ESPN should take a Game Day trip to Athens or anything like that; Ole Miss has one of the worst football programs in the SEC, and Georgia has won the last seven years. But last week, Ole Miss almost beat the reigning National Champions, Florida (my how I wish that had happened!), making this week a heck of a lot scarier than it should have been. Georgia fans across the country are on pins and needles to watch the game, but no...we cannot. ESPN.com did inform me that it will be airing on XM satellite radio channel 231, though, so if you read this is the next two hours, subscribe to XM, and live in New York, let me know.

In honor of my seemingly non-existent game day today, I would like to reflect on Georgia legend Larry Munson's words that will echo over Sanford Stadium this afternoon...words that still send chills up my spine and quite often bring a tear to my eye (I can hear the trumpet playing Glory now...):

"Glory, glory to ole Georgia. Heroes have graced the field before you. Men with hearts, bodies and minds for which the entire Bulldog Nation can be justifiably proud. The tradition of unbridled excellence demonstrated by these individuals and many others spans more than a full century. And now a new breed of Bulldog stands ready to take the field of battle. To assume the reigns of their Georgia forbearers and continue that tradition. Understanding that there is no tradition more worthy of envy. No institution worthy of such loyalty as The University of Georgia. As we prepare for another meeting between the hedges let all the Bulldog faithful rally behind the men who now wear the red and black with two words. Two simple words which express the sentiments of the entire Bulldog Nation - GO DAWGS!"

Go Dawgs indeed!!

It's Wedding Season, kid!

I have recently had the privilege of being in several dear friends' weddings. Jen got married on Aug 2 in Atlanta, followed by Emily on Aug 18 in Nashville, followed by Erin on Sept 22 in Peachtree City. I had such a wonderful time being a part of each of these friends' special days!

Below are a few pictures from the events. Enjoy!














Jeremy: What do you like better, Christmas or Wedding Season?
John: Mr. Grey?
Jeremy: Yes. The answer would be, um, Wedding Season?
John: Bingo!

Wedding Crashers

Soap stars and Bachelors and McDoctors, oh my!

This week is one of the most anticipated weeks of the year (at least for someone like me who works in entertainment) - network television premiere week. During this lovely, over-stimulating, sometimes-stressful, but all-around enjoyable week, viewers across America crowd around their television sets with anticipation to watch their favorite returning shows or the much-buzzed-about new ones.

To prepare for the fall launch, I made a strategic plan, co-sponsored by my DVR. Before I went to bed on Sunday night, I mapped out the week's TV, making sure that no primetime time slot had more than two shows at a time. (Annoyingly enough, Grey's Anatomy was scheduled from 9-10:01p, with that extra :60 seconds prohibiting me from recording my new favorite cable show, "Tim Gunn's Guide to Style." Luckily, though, Tim's show encores at midnight, so my problem was solved. I know you are relieved.)

This week's DVR line-up looked something like this:
(*Disclaimer: There are no CBS shows on this list because I have already seen all of the pilots.)
Every day: Regis & Kelly, Oprah
Monday: Dancing with the Stars (ABC), Chuck (NBC), The Bachelor (ABC), The Hills (MTV)
Tuesday: Dancing with the Stars (ABC)
Wednesday: Dancing with the Stars (ABC), Back to You (Fox), Private Practice (ABC), Gossip Girl (CW), Dirty Sexy Money (ABC)
Thursday: The Office (NBC), Grey's Anatomy (ABC), Tim Gunn's Guide to Style (Bravo)
Friday: Nashville (Fox), The Soup (E!)

Please allow me remind you that television is my job. So if, for example, you are an investment banker, you read the Wall Street Journal, or if you are a doctor, you...um, watch Grey's Anatomy. I advertise television, so my research involves a filled-to-capacity DVR and memorized TV Guide listings schedule. Seriously.

SOOooo...what's my point? I'm glad you asked. Sure, I would love to hear what's on your DVR. I would love to know your favorite new and returning shows this season. I would even like to know your thoughts on Heidi and Spencer. But, come on - I have my priorities in order. I want to know who YOU, the TV viewers of America, think is the hottest guy on TV this fall, because for the life of me, i cannot decide. (Guys, voting is anonymous, so own your masculinity and cast your ballot now.)

 Who is the hottest guy on TV this fall?

• 
  
  Cameron Mathison - Dancing with the Stars


• 
  
  Albert Reed - Dancing with the Stars


• 
  
  Zachary Levi, aka Chuck Bartowski - Chuck


• 
  
  Brad Womack, aka The Bachelor - The Bachelor


• 
  
  John Krasinski, aka Jim Halpert - The Office


• 
  
  Patrick Dempsey, aka Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd - Grey's Anatomy


• 
  
  Eric Dane, aka Mark "McSteamy" Sloan - Grey's Anatomy

view results
Free vote poll

Hi, I'm Putt-Putt Face

I am currently reading the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Eat, Pray, Love is a non-fictional account of a New York City author who suddenly decides in hear early-30's that her life doesn't look exactly like what she had in mind. She picks up one day and sets out to travel the world, eating in Italy, praying in India, and (I can only assume, but I'm not there yet) loving in Indonesia.

There are a lot of fascinating insights and stories in this narrative, but my favorite passage so far is the author talking about herself and her travel skills. I read the following paragraph and immediately thought, "OMG, she's writing about me!", so much so that I copied and pasted it into my "About Me" on Facebook...the first update in about two years:

"I have a shortage of personal coolness. I have never learned how to arrange my face into that blank expression of competent invisibility...You know - that super-relaxed, totally-in-charge expression which makes you look like you belong there, anywhere, everywhere...Oh, no. When I don't know what I'm doing, I look like I don't know what I'm doing. When I'm excited or nervous, I look excited or nervous. And when I'm lost, which is frequently, I look lost. My face is a transparent transmitter of every thought. As David once put it, 'You have the opposite of a poker face. You have, like...miniature golf face.'"

I've always known that I wasn't good at poker because of my inability to lie and/or mask my every emotion. Now I just know that I'm not alone!
:)

111 Across: L-O-V-E

Today I am starting a new initiative, 30 blogs in 30 days. Lately I have been putting too much pressure on myself to be witty, creative and brilliant...essentially the next Nora Ephron or Angie Orth. (Aside: If you have been keeping up with my blogs and think me none of the above, then clearly my self-imposed pressure is entirely futile. And hey, I'm okay with that.) So, to break free of this recent pattern, I am going to go for more of a stream-of-consciousness blog for the next month instead of pretending like I'm writing for New York magazine.

To kick this project/experiment/bout of laziness, I would like to share with you the following article that I read in the Boston Globe. Okay I'm lying, I saw it on Regis and Kelly and Googled it. Regardless of the media that delivered the story to me, though, I must say that this might be my dream proposal. Just in case you're brainstorming.


Crossword puzzle solved with a hitch
September 24, 2007

BOSTON --It was the crossword puzzle fan's version of getting his marriage proposal plastered on a stadium Jumbotron.

Aric Egmont and Jennie Bass were working on a puzzle titled "Popping the question" in the latest issue of The Boston Globe Sunday magazine. Bass spotted her sister's name and her best friend's name, but initially thought it was just a coincidence.

Then they got to 111 across: "Generic proposal" (Jen + Aric generic). The answer: "Will you marry me?"

"We get to the `Will you marry me?' clue, and I said, `Will you marry me, Jenny?' I got up, got the ring, and got down on one knee and she screamed, and hugged me. It took her a minute to say yes," Egmont told the Globe.

Egmont, 29, of Cambridge, contacted the magazine this summer to ask if the people who create the crossword puzzles would write a special puzzle for him.

Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, a married puzzle-writing team who have been writing Globe magazine crossword puzzles for years, agreed. Their puzzle included several variations on proposals; for example, "Macrame artist's proposal" was "Let's tie the knot."

The tricky part was writing an entire puzzle that would be clear to the happy couple, but not obscure to all the other readers who do the puzzles.

Bass, 29, said there was no reason for her to suspect anything when they started doing the puzzle.

"Then he got up and came back with a box and it was pure elation," she said.

This is my town

Being from the South, I have out-of-town visitors regularly visit me in New York. While most everyone has a wonderful time when they come up, and some even come over and over again, there is one sentiment that I almost always get - "New York is great to visit, but I would never want to live here."

Let me be the first to say that I understand. Well actually, perhaps I don't, since somewhere deep inside of me I knew I would live here since the first time I step foot in the city when I was 12. But I do understand the lack of New York City's day-to-day appeal when visitors come and do the typical tourist fare...Times Square, Macy's, Broadway...I get claustrophobic just thinking about it. I completely empathize with anyone who cannot fathom wanting to live in the midst of Bubba Gump Shrimp, flashing tickers out your window at 3am, and 15 people per square foot just standing in the middle of the sidewalk, looking straight up (at the buildings...the sky...who knows?).

The tourist New York, though, is not my New York. The hotels and the maps and the unbearable crowds are not what drew me to the city. Yes, the neon lights and marquees can be glamorous and exciting, and yes, it is the City That Never Sleeps, but those are not the reasons that one falls in love with New York. Oddly enough, I have instead learned the opposite...that those of us who love the city deep down to the core love it because it's our town.

It may seem like a stretch to you, but in a lot of ways I think that New York is more like small town America than where I grew up in Atlanta. For starters, Manhattan, or "The City" as it's often referred to, is a mere 23 square miles - roughly half the size of Athens-Clarke County, Georgia and 15 times smaller than Cobb County. Add to that the fact that most of my friends live on the Upper East Side within a 5-block radius of my apartment, and the result is that I run into friends and acquaintances all the time. At first I thought it uncanny, seeing so many people so often in the largest city in the United States, but now it's just the norm. Take Saturday, for example. I stopped in Starbucks to get some coffee before heading to the gym. While there, I ran into my friend Naomi. Naomi introduced me to her friend Jenny, who was on her way to Boom Fitness, my gym, too. After exchanging numbers with Jenny, I ran into my friend Noah, who I ran into a few weeks prior in the subway, and a few weeks before that at the airport, and a few weeks before that just walking down the street with his wife, Jessica. By the time I got to the gym, where I saw my friend Lauren, I was starting to seriously regret the fact that I had deemed make-up an unnecessary requirement for a Saturday morning at the gym.

In addition to the fact that I bump into friends day in and day out, New York is also unique because I don't drive a car. And by "don't drive," I mean "don't own, am not insured, and don't think I remember how to drive." The no-car aspect of New York living makes the city feel even more like a small town. When I want to buy groceries, I walk a block and buy a few bags at a time. When I run out of shampoo, I hop over to the corner drug store and am back in five minutes. I walk to restaurants, I walk to the movie theater, and some days I even walk to work. I remember a very interesting and eye-opening conversation I had once with couple while in line for a movie. They lived in the city when they were first married, but when they had kids, they headed for suburban Connecticut. After living there for seven years, they felt like something was missing in their kids' lives...instead of riding their bikes to their friends' houses, they had to be driven. Instead of being allowed to walk to a park, they were confined to a cul-de-sac. And instead of being more healthy because they could play in the yard, they were actually less in-shape because they never really walked. Because of this, the couple moved with their children back into the city, where the kids are now allowed to walk, play and go to school on their own. Sounds like a 1950's Pleasantville town to me, but no - it's just the Upper East Side of New York City.

There are so many other things that I love about New York that feel more like a small town than a huge city...the parks are full of families and strollers, the streets of my uptown neighborhood are surprisingly quiet at night, and small, independent restaurants thrive even better than the big chains. More importantly, though, it's the sense of community among New Yorkers. Sure, people may walk fast and talk quickly and not offer you a seat on the subway, but from my Southern perspective, New Yorkers get a bad rap on the friendliness scale. I tripped on my heel walking down steps the other day, and three people stopped to help me up. I passed a sleeping homeless man on Saturday who had a box of Dunkin Donuts waiting for him when he woke up. And I've made friends with a woman I ride the bus with every day, my coffee cart guy, and my office building's doormen. New Yorkers may be harsh, but they come together for one another and for their city when the need is there.

How could anyone not want to live in a town like that?


"I've a cozy little flat
In what is known as old Manhattan.
We'll settle down
Right here in town.

We'll have Manhattan,
The Bronx and Staten Island, too.
It's lovely going through the zoo.

It's very fancy
On old Delancey Street, you know.
The subway charms us so
When balmy breezes blow to and fro.

And tell me what street
Compares with Mott Street in July?
Sweet pushcarts gently gliding by.

The great big city's a wondrous toy
Just made for a girl and boy.
We'll turn Manhattan
Into an isle of joy."

Lorenz Hart

Goodbye summer

"September is glorious in Manhattan, and this year was no exception. The temperature was a perfect seventy-five degrees, the humidity low, and the sky a cloudless blue. Coming back to the city from a restless summer, the weather is always a reminder that spectacular things can happen and that greatness is just around the corner. The air buzzes with excitement, and in one day, the city goes from sleepy to frenzied."
Candace Bushnell, Lipstick Jungle


Although September 22 will mark the official last day of summer this year, it is a truth universally acknowledged that Labor Day is the start of fall. After Labor Day, school starts back, pools close, the air begins to chill, and white becomes passé (or does it? I suppose this is up for debate, especially in New York, where anything goes as long as you strut down the sidewalk with confidence). More importantly, though, the vibe in the city begins to shift. Gone are the days of Summer Fridays, trips to the beach, and afternoons lounging in the park with Mister Softee in one hand and US Weekly in the other. Instead, the eternally-lingering Back to School mindset kicks in – new calendars are purchased, schedules become more routine, and we start counting down the days until Thanksgiving break.

Knowing that my days of summer fun were numbered, I decided to go out with a bang this week and leave nothing to be desired for my second summer in the city. I started with Opening Night of the US Open on Monday evening. Courtesy of the UGA Alumni Association, some pals and I purchased nosebleed seats and headed out to Flushing Meadows. Although I was excited, I had no idea how much fun we would have. We saw a great Opening Ceremony, complete with a performance by Aretha Franklin and a speech by Phylicia Rashad, aka Claire Huxtable. We also had many star sightings via the Jumbotron, including Star Jones, Christie Brinkley, and Janet Jackson. Of course, the tennis was spectacular, too, with back-to-back matches with Venus and then Serena Williams.

Tuesday night, Lauren and I resourcefully boarded a bus at Port Authority and headed out to the Continental Airlines Arena to see the American Idol Tour. How did we get the tickets, you may ask? It went something like this:
(scene: in our boardroom at work)
Megan: “Does anyone like American Idol?”
Jamie and Lauren (immediately jumping up): “WE DO!”
Megan: “TV Guide has two tickets for the show on Tuesday. First come, first served.”
Jamie (picking up the phone): “What’s the number?”
…and about five seconds later, we were in.
The show was great, minus the obvious disaster that was Sanjaya. Chris Richardson and Blake Lewis were total dreamboats, Jordin Sparks and Melinda Doolittle sang like rock stars, and Lauren and I had the pleasure of being the only people in the arena who were over the age of nine.

On Thursday, this time courtesy of CMT, some work friends and I got tickets to the Kenny Chesney, Sugarland and Pat Green concert at the Garden. Although I’ve seen both Kenny and Pat several times each, I must say that this was one of their best shows yet. We stood and sang at the top of our lungs for almost four hours straight, loving every minute of a sold out Southern country concert in the middle of Manhattan. Being on row J didn’t hurt either… :)

My office was closed for the holiday on Friday, and once again, thanks to the wonderful folks I work with, I was able to head back out to the US Open all day. It was a gorgeous day, and we saw some great matches…and I may or may not be in love with Mardy Fish. We wandered around the tennis center, spent, like, a gazillion dollars on sandwiches, and made friends with a tennis coach while watching “Knowlsie and Nestie.” Unfortunately, though, we did not run into Andy Roddick coming off the Practice Courts, but hey, c’est la vie.

Friday night I had the pleasure of spending time with two wonderful sets of people. First, I met up with Angie and her little (by age, but certainly not by stature) brother and sister, who were visiting for the weekend. After hearing so many stories, it was really a blast to hang out with the infamous Hodgie and Quijibo...and fit in a little karaoke, too. Afterwards, I met up with my Aunt Nita and her friends who were in town for the Open. We had a wonderful dinner at Joe Allen’s, and I think I may have finally met my greatest blog fans! We had a great time catching up and talking all about life in the city. It really was a treat to have family and new friends in New York, bringing a taste of home to the city.

Saturday was (drum roll, please) the first game of the UGA football season. I headed down to the Village Pourhouse, where all the Georgia fans in NYC watch the games. We donned our red and black, called the Dawgs, yelled and screamed, and even met an ex-football player in town for the weekend. It’s always tough not being in Athens on game day, but I have to believe that the Village Pourhouse is the second-most spirited group of fans anywhere outside of Sanford Stadium itself.

And, the next thing I know, I’m sitting here on Labor Day Monday, looking ahead to a busy September work week. No more concerts or trips to the Open for me…after all, summer’s over now. It’s been a great one, though, and I can’t complain. Time to start looking ahead to a new month, a new season, and a new year.

And maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll round up some tickets to Fashion Week. After all, who says the fun has to end now?




p.s. I will most certainly not round up any tickets to Fashion Week. My job has perks, but let’s be real! :)