Thursday, August 25, 2011

30 Things to Do Before the Hurricane

1.  Go to the store and get water

2.  Go to the store and get food that doesn't require refrigeration

3.  Put down the seven boxes of Cheezits and get some canned beans or soup or something because although you love Cheezits you'll be pissed if that's all you have to eat for a week.  Also, you'll be fat.

4.  Do the dishes that have been sitting in the sink because if the water goes out that'll be gross.

4a.  No, you can't wash dishes in floodwater.

4aa.  Stop saying stupid things.

5.  Take a shower because you gon' be stanky as it is if you can't take a shower for a week.

6.  On that note, get some extra deodorant.

7.  Put a towel under your door because your bedroom is in the basement of your apartment.

8.  Realize that you totally got the short end of the stick.

9.  Pick up things that are important off of the floor.

9a.  Especially all of the shoes you replaced after they got stolen pretty much exactly one year ago.

10.  Charge your computer and phone because if you're disconnected from the world you'll freak out.

10a.  So will your mother.

11.  Charge your camera too because if shit goes down you need to DOCUMENT YOUR SURVIVAL.

11a.  (And blog about it).

12.  Catch up on Internet television watching because you can read a book while the power is out, but you can't watch Hulu when your computer can't get plugged in.

13.  Get matches to light the gas stove if the power goes out.

13a.  Practice lighting gas stove so that you won't hurt yourself.

13b.  Make your roommate do it because no matter what, you'll probably hurt yourself.

14.  Take stock of all alcohol so that if the going gets tough, you have a way to entertain yourself.

15.  Find your wine opener.

16.  OH MY GOD WHERE IS MY WINE OPENER I CAN'T FIND IT THE WORLD IS ENDING!

17.  There it is!  I feel better now.

18.  Have some wine.  You deserve it.

19.  Mail the stuff you've been meaning to mail for weeks now because the postal service will probably be suspended soon.

20.  Take out the trash.  I'm not even really sure if the hurricane will affect you taking out the trash, but you've been meaning to do it for like a week now.

20a.  Get your act together, you're an adult now.

21.  Cancel plans for Saturday because there is no way you're going to Queens and then having the subway shut down on you only to be stranded in Queens.

22.  Think, on the bright side, if the subway is shut down I don't have to spend $104 on a new monthly MetroCard for a couple more days.

23.  Eat the food in your freezer.  Yes, finally an excuse to down that frozen burrito and gallon of ice cream you've felt too guilty to eat!

24.  Damn it, why is my bedroom in the basement???

25.  Sharpen up your live-Tweeting skills.

26.  Freak out a little.

27.  Calm down.  More wine.

28.  Do your hair.  You'll be really pissed if your hair dries wonky and then you can't redo it for like a week.

29.  Write a blog.

30.  Go to the bar with your friends because that's really the best answer to all of your problems.

Loooooove,
Courtney

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Earthquake? Earthquake!!

We just felt the earthquake in Manhattan.  Normal.

I work on the 15th floor, so we were all sitting at our desks after eating Five Guys for lunch from our boss (it's been a really strange day, people) and everything started shaking and kind of bouncing up and down.  I didn't think anything of it at first until my coworker Hannah said, "Do you guys feel that??"  Someone on CNN described it like airplane turbulance - it was a little bit like that.  We all stood up and looked around and were very confused, and everyone ran into the main office asking "did you feel that?  Did you feel that??"  We didn't know if it was an attack or an explosion or an earthquake.

I had my Twitter up because I'm really professional at work, and I tweeted, "NYC did you just feel an earthquake?"  Then I saw that a couple of people had hashtagged #earthquakenyc and I told the office that it was trending on Twitter.  We were able to feel a little bit of relief that it probably wasn't an attack, but I was still shaking.  News of an earthquake in DC appeared on CNN within a minute, and news of feeling it in NYC came up in a few more.

We couldn't believe that the epicenter was in Virginia and we felt it in New York.  After a couple of minutes, the cell service wasn't working anymore.  Too many people were texting and calling each other.  I emailed my parents to let them know what had happened, and they were shocked too.  We noticed that many of the buildings across the street were empty, but the fire safety director did not tell us to evacuate, so we stayed at our desks.

My coworkers are a little more worried than I am, one of them rightfully so, because she is still trying to get ahold of family.  We're all a little shaken up (HAHAHA GET IT GUYS GET IT??)  It's been about an hour since the quake and I think that work is done for the day because all of the news is now going to be about the earthquake.  We're hoping that there won't be any aftershocks.  And we ate some Jolly Ranchers.

I wonder if the Fordham seismic station felt this earthquake?!?!?

I could never live in California.

Love,
Courtney

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Emailing with my mother

I email my mother pretty much all day at work.  So I was telling her about the puppies that were on the Today Show, which led to me telling her that the Pioneer Woman adopted 3 kittens since she lives on a farm, and I wished that I could adopt three kittens, which led to this statement:


I really don't know where these things come from sometimes.

Love,
Courtney

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Just some schtuff

The Pioneer Woman once told me, "when you don't have anything to blog about, just start writing."  Since the Pioneer Woman is the bomb, I will take her advice.

This weekend I spent with my mother doing touristy city things like staying in a hotel, shopping at Macy's, eating at the Brooklyn Diner (overpriced, not the kind of diner food I wanted) and seeing How to Succeed in Business, at which many 14-year-old girls kept me and Daniel Radcliffe apart, hindering our love.  Don't worry, we can both feel it.  It'll happen someday.

We also did not-touristy things, like seeing The Help (SO GOOD!  One of the best book-to-movie adaptations I've seen), eating at Rosa Mexicano, and going to the Pony Bar for dinner.  I took my mother to dinner at a bar.  I'm super classy.  But guess what??  The food there is delicious.  Like, I can't really even handle how good it is.  I would eat there every day if my finance and metabolism would allow it.

When I dropped my mom off at Grand Central, I cried like I used to when my cousins would leave to go back to New Hampshire after visiting for the day. (True story: one time I cried so much that they took me back with them.  No joke)  But seriously, man, I'll admit it, I was that lame-o twenty-one year old college graduate with the biggest backpack on earth and a Macy's bag full of clothes and cupcakes crying on her mom's shoulder in the middle of the terminal.  Listen, dude, real life is hard!  It's confusing!  And weekends are way too short.  So I'll own it.  I cried.  In fact, I went home and cried some more.  And watched 30 Rock.

Spin class.  It sucks.  Don't let anyone tell you different.  Granted, it sucked less than it did when I tried it at the Gold's Gym in Enfield two summers ago (no, I canNOT go up another gear and if you ask me ONE MORE TIME I will get off of this bike and THROW IT AT YOU) and it probably would have been decent if I had remembered to bring my inhaler (can someone please tell me why I am so susceptible to respiratory infections?) and I will probably go next week but still.  I wanted.  To die.

Our apartment gives us headaches, both literally and figuratively.  We finally got a mail key (I SWEAR I didn't lose it.  But I don't know what happened to it) and got our electric bill, awesome, not, but our toilets are still running.  I sometimes forget that it's daytime when I hide out in my basement.  There are centipedes taking over.  The fridge sometimes is REALLY cold and sometimes it just turns off altogether.  It smells like trash in the front because the trash dump is right outside our window.  And I still haven't cleaned my room.  But all in all, it's probably a pretty good first apartment.

I'm contemplating starting another blog.  But I don't blog in this already, and I'm really bad at sticking to blogs about one topic because I just love talking about me and myself and whatever I want to say.  So we'll see.  And it'd be anonymous, so I wouldn't really be able to post it here.  So I guess this paragraph was just all pointless.


When in doubt, have a cupcake.

Love,
Courtney

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Netflix categories and your personality

My dad, brother, and I all share a Netflix account.  Which essentially translates as, my dad got a Netflix account and my brother and I use it.

The last time I used the Netflix streaming was to watch seasons 1-6 of Grey's Anatomy while I should have been studying for finals, studying for midterms, painting stuff, going to the gym, or writing papers, but I haven't really logged in lately (except to find out that How I Met Your Mother was not available for streaming.  Sad).

However, I finished watching seasons 3 and 4 of HIMYM and season 6 of Gilmore Girls (thanks, Travis!), so I went to log on today.  This is what I found:


"Inspiring sports comedies" and "Goofy satires from the 1980s."  The saddest part is that I don't even know whether my father or my brother's "taste preferences" were the ones that inspired these categories.

I totes miss my fam.  But I'm glad they can pop up in the silliest of ways.

Happy almost hump day!
Courtney