This actually happened

I start off most mornings in somewhat of a zombie trance: wake up, do some stuff, stumble out the door, buy coffee, chug coffee, make some TV. Repeat.

Yesterday started off like every other.

I woke up, did some stuff, did some stumbling, then proceeded to buy a very large (styrofoam) coffee from Dunkin Donuts. I only buy from DD when I don’t have any cash for the coffee man outside of my office building. This is an important fact because on these DD days, I’m forced to carry my coffee on the train. It is here where things became a problem.

I made my way onto the crowded L train, coffee in hand. (Fun fact for non-L train-morning-riders: sometimes the morning train is so crowded that you have to smash against people around you. There’s been times I’ve been so smashed that I haven’t been able to read my book because I couldn’t even lift up an arm.

Anyway…I made my way onto the crowded train. Magically, there was a seat available when I got on. I sat down and proceeded to zone out per the usual. 2 minutes into the ride, I got the brilliant idea to zip my bag that was on the ground in between my feet. Why is my bag open? My bag shouldn’t be open!

I put the (un-opened, very hot) coffee in between my legs about an inch north of my knees. With one hand on the coffee and one hand on the bag, I zipped. Ziiiip. I got to the end of the zip and then it happened...

As I went to readjust myself from leaning over, my legs tensed up and…THE COFFEE EXPLODED. By exploded I mean- my legs squeezed it so hard the styrofoam flexed and flung all 20 ounces of hot liquid into the air and onto about 8 people around me. I’m talking a volcanic explosion of epic proportions.

I screamed. Another women screamed. There was a giant splash sound as the entire 20 ounces hit the floor. Are you dying? I was dying.

I don’t even know how to end the story except to say: I thought I was straight up about to be stabbed. People have been stabbed on the train for much less. I was in a complete state of shock. People were turning their heads to see who had done it. People were wiping themselves off. I was shaking. The man in front of me was shooting daggers out of his eyes. The woman who had some on her shirt was actually about to attack. I kept feebly shouting out “I’m so sorry everyone!” “I’m so sorry!” I didn't even have a napkin to offer!

Ya… and the worst part is: there was a legit river on the ground where everyone was standing and it kept flowing back in forth as the train moved. I literally watched it reach the complete other side of the train. No one was spared. With one involuntary jerk of the legs, I covered an entire packed train of hipster L riders in my morning caffeine fix.

As I got off the train at the Union Square stop (don’t ask me why I didn’t get off earlier and move to a different car, I don’t know, I was paralyzed), I BOLTED off the train screaming I’M SORRRRY!!

Moral of the story: I took the bus this morning.

Hello, sunshine

Manhattanhendge: Happens twice a year- when the sunset aligns perfectly with the Manhattan gridline.

Awe-inspiring. Traffic-stopping.

Reasons I love New York #10

File this one under: Holy Shit.

Last night a woman/aerialist/daredevil scaled the Williamsburg Bridge and started doing some Cirque du Soleil-style beautiful craziness. She was then arrested on charges of reckless endangerment and criminal trespassing. Full article here. #freewilliamsburg

Rock on twirly girl, that was awesome.

Reasons I love New York #13

Reasons I love New York

I interrupt my normal, mindless, glittery banter because I felt kind of weird posting fashion recaps with the recent events going unmentioned.

So...

I'm not pretending like I know or have any idea. But I walk the same streets that people ran through, I work in an office that was covered in the dust, I live by the fire houses with too many lost brother plaques hung in honor.

I'm not pretending like I know or have any idea. But this city is now a part of me. This is my taxi driver and coffeestand man and coworker and neighbor. I know the people and feel the flow and have become a part of the pulse.

I'm not pretending like I know or have any idea. But I believe this isn’t a time for celebrating in the streets. It’s a time for the country to reflect and honor and show respect for those who died. Like President Obama said moments ago just a few blocks from where I’m sitting, “This is a moment of justice.”

The events of the past are always running through my head, I don’t forget them. So on a day like today, I stand as a (new) New Yorker to reflect and honor and show respect for the justice that was served. Just one of the reasons I love New York.

Reasons I love New York #9

Empire State Building + spring

Lovely warm Easter Sunday spent doing work in the park amidst tulips and easter egg hunts

Happy sparkly high school reunions

New art popping up all around my building. Waiting to see something written up about it to tell me more details

One word for you: Ghostbusters

Random people singing in public

(This picture doesn't do the situation justice at all but I hear this amazing voice while I was waiting for the subway so I went to check it out. This guy was another basic subway station guitar player and I don't know how but this random girl started singing Ain't No Mountain High Enough along with him and she was UNBELIEVABLE. There was the biggest crowded watching her and everyone was singing along then the train pulls up, everyone claps and she gets on as if nothing happened. It was crazy)

Roses from Bodegas that brighten up the streets

Kenny Scharf's Houston St. installation

Brother riding subway with hilariously unflattering posture

It's kind of a funny story...

On Sunday morning I woke up in a (very rare) surge of productivity. Hello sun! Hello morning! I love you! Feeling inspired, I threw on gym clothes, downed a bowl of Rice Krispies and ran out the door to catch an early morning spin class. Normal Weekend Lara doesn't leave her bed until late brunch time so Productive Weekend Lara didn't take into consideration the incredibly adjusted weekend schedule of the L train.

The stupid train put me 15 minutes behind schedule and by the time it pulled into the 8th ave station I had 3 minutes until the class started. So naturally I pushed an elderly man, a pregnant woman and 2 kids out of my way and began sprinting to the exit.

Side note for non-New Yorkers: the 8th ave station is the last stop for the L train. Subway cars kind of sit there empty for a few minutes before beginning to circle back around.

SO...I'm running.... in my big black puffy coat.... sprinting. Then in slow motion I see my iphone fly out of my coat pocket and smack into the side of the idle subway car. Midair- I see my beautiful glitter case separate from the phone and fly in 2 different directions- for a split second it was like glittery fireworks exploding off the side of the subway before climatically dropping down into the gap between the subway car and the platform. My phone was GONE into the dark, smelly, wet subway track abyss.

It's just me and one other guy who see it happen and we both drop down to a semi-squat with our hands out to the sides in slow motion collectively screaming "NOOOOO." We looked at each other horrified:

Me: "what do I do??"
Him: "what do you do??"
Me: "ohmygodohmygodohmygod WHAT DO I DO!!!!!"
Him: "what kind of a phone was it?"
Me "iPhone"
Him: "oh man you're so screwed"

For 5 minutes I ran around like a chicken with it's head cut off looking for an MTA employee. One person told me to talk to another person who told me to talk to another person- finally I was told that the "track team" would be dispatched shortly to do a search and recovery for me.

In all of my screaming and oh my god-ing and running around in circles I quickly realized that I had no idea where on the tracks it actually dropped.

Shit.

So I start searching along the side of the parked subway car. There is a 1-foot gap between the platform and the subway car. Let me just tell you, deep down in that gap were dark, murky atrocities I just didn't want to see. Trash and melted snow and...rodents. Omg. So I start losing hope and start feeling like I'm going to lose my breakfast when there is a glimmer of hope. I see some glitter sparkling 10 feet ahead of me. Let's review what my ridiculous cell phone case looks like:

And like an angel sent from heaven, the glitter of my phone was glowing amidst the trash. No joke, I actually saw that giant gem from like 10 feet away. Then I laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of finding my cell phone because of freaking glitter.

So the track guy comes- he has to stop the train, climb onto the front of the train and onto the tracks- it's all very dramatic. I was holding out hope that my phone would be found near the glitter case because the pieces had separated from each other on the fall. Normally, a black iphone without the case would be like looking for a needle in a hay stack in that dark track abyss BUT....my phone wasn't black...it was blue!!

Behold. My cousin got me this totally awesome Skin-It sticker of my blog masthead that has been on my phone for a few months. Isn't it awesome? Do you want to know what's more awesome? The track dude found my phone in seconds because he saw the turquoise. 25 seconds after my knight in shining armor got on the tracks I had both pieces of my case and my iphone- completely dry, completely intact and completely crack free.

The point here, my dear friends, is that GLITTER ME THIS SAVED MY CELL PHONE.

Bam.

Living in a snowglobe.

Let's just throw it out there...this snow thing is getting old. It's cold! and wet! and those puddles! Puddles, puddles, puddles and more puddles. Oh, you know the puddles? The puddles that are filled with that street salt that leave those white lines of doom on all of my shoes?

I hear all of my favorite shoes calling out from my closet like long lost friends "pleaseeee wear me, I'm so cute!" and I say with a sigh "no cutie shoes, there are still those salt puddles" then I put on my stupid clunky rainboots and clump, haphazardly, around town.

However much I'm sick of the cold! and the wet! and the salt puddles! seeing Manhattan under a fresh 12 inches of white powder was enough to take my breath away. I literally gasped when I left my apartment. The world felt beautiful and fresh and clean. I wish this picture captured it better:

Ironically (and hilariously) the same day as our pretty little blizzard in NYC, the temple where my mom works in San Diego had a "snow day" of their own. They brought in fake snow and in the 75 degree weather dressed the preschool kids up for a blizzard. Please just look at these adorable babies all ready for their snowday:

Our blizzard:

San Diego blizzard:

New York kids:

San Diego kids:

I think you get the point. I bet my parent's don't have to deal with the damn puddles.

I heart NY

I often fantasize about the blog post I will write describing my love for New York. Yes, from time to time, I tease you with silly iphone photos that hastily show the little things I love about this city. But, no no…I’m talking a mother of all posts…a pièce de résistance of Glitter Me This, a pillar of my writing career. This will be a full-blown love letter to NYC that I will then obviously submit to New York Magazine. They’d take one read of the literary work of genius and declare that I must work for them. Tomorrow. Not a day to be wasted. Obviously.

Seriously, this is what I fantasize about…that’s normal.

But unfortunately for you (and the entire roster of New York magazine subscribers?) today is not that day. Instead please enjoy this story I produced back in December as a video love letter to the city during the holidays. I think it’s rather adorable if I do say so myself and I figured I should show it to you...ohhhh before February. As always- if the embedded video’s quality sucks (which it usually does) go to this link to watch it from our video on demand player.

"In a city so quick and so anonymous- there’s a sense we’re in it together. It’s as if we’re all in on the secret…that this is the greatest place on earth."

Award winning post coming soon? Ya ok.

Reasons I love New York #12

It's that tye-dyed kind of evening...

Reasons I love New York #11

Also file this one under: Reasons I love iPhones.

Thanks, Lizzypoo

Reasons I love New York #10ish

You get to go to cool premieres and see cool people like David Cross.

And at the premieres you get to hear cool Q&A's from the makers of The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret. (So hilarious, you have to watch it, big Glitto' thumbs up)

Sometimes you get to witness really really talented subway performers. These middle or high school boys had a whole choreographed routine that was so sick I would have paid money to see it. Instead I just put some in their hat.

Daddy's come and visit. My Dad came for an extended business trip and it was the bombbbb. Breakfast at Clinton St. Baking Co, lunch at Katz's, a super amazing awesome Broadway show, we went shopping, we went on an audio walking tour of the old jewish Lower East Side. All and all it was a super amazing awesome weekend.

Evidence of the awesomeness.

Glee clubs sometimes perform at your apartment complex. This little cutie baby was mesmerized. The best part was when this glee club say MIA- Paper Planes complete with gun noises made by their mouths.

You may accidentally find yourself at sweet concerts. I helped Emily with a music video shoot and got to see Nyle perform (finally!!) and it was super awesome amazing. He's having a show for the release of his single next Tuesday night. Who wants to come with me! $10!

Sometimes your friends might help you make a TV show. Susan lending her beautiful handwriting to Weekly Dose. She's so nice. And super awesome.

You may try to take emo poses in bathtubs? The cool new Eventi hotel has cool new bathtubs and I wanted to take a cool pix. I look creepy but look at my pretty boots!

You get to do cool things in parks with thousands of other people. I did the mp3 experiement with Rada and her friends. Read about it here. Awesome video below. It was soooooo super awesome fun.

Bryant Park was taken over.

Sometimes your waiters are aspiring Broadway performers. At Ellen's Stardust Theatre, one of my favorite guilty pleasures in NYC, they sing and dance and it's so super awesome fun.

Sometimes you get to go to funny concerts. Gil and I went to Mike Posner and it was hilarious. I'd say the general age of the crowd was 15 (funny because 99% of the people there had 21+ bracelets on?) The girls in front of us (who, Gil noted, had backgrounds on their phone that said SENIORS FOREVER) were fighting with the people next to them for about an hour because they were "looking at them" and "touching them." We almost saw a prepubescent smack down. But it was great and hilarious and always fun to happily dance around with Gil.

Posner really really loved his crowd. He told us every couple of minutes. We love you too, Posner.

And sometimes you just need to dance on the street. Beautiful moves by beautiful Rada.