.first lady.

"obama condoms, obama condoms. feel like the first lady everytime...."

-broadway in SOHO

.cock pushups.

this is one of those stories that i feel like only happens to me, because i am the real-life liz lemon. sometimes i'm cute, a lot of the times i'm quirky, and more often than not, i'm fairly awkward.

in this new year of 2010, i have taken an interest in my health in trying to lose some pounds rather than put anymore on. i'm not obsessing about it (yet), just trying to eat a bit healthier, like trying not to wolf down burgers for lunch like it's my last meal on earth, and also trying to work out a few times a week. so far, it's been going pretty well, so i have to applaud myself. yay me!

so today's workout began like any others. i opted for the gym instead of yoga to switch things up a bit, and i felt like i had a lot of energy i needed to run out. arrived at the gym armed with my ipod, kick-ass workout playlist and giant container of water. when i go to the treadmill, i notice that ludlow fitness has acquired some new machinery. so new. so clean. so shiny. such big screens. and...a place to connect your ipod so you don't have to hold it. (omfg). so i go to plug in my ipod. plugs in, asks me if i want to save my workout (sure?) and a menu pops up on the big new shiny screen that asks me to find the music. so i'm searching for my awesome new workout playlist i spent the last 20 mins at work creating, and it's not coming up. in fact, the treadmill seems to be stalled. so i push a little harder on the screen. nothing. tap tap tap. TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP. STAB STAB. furiously, i'm stabbing at this touch screen with my index finger trying to find music. i am switching songs, but can't hear anything. volume VOLUME VOLUME. nothing. then i see the screen change. oh great, must mean music is coming on! finally. i ease myself into my workout, turn on the treadmill and start to walk. that's when the song name comes up on the screen...in HUGE letters.

COCK PUSHUPS: TENACIOUS D

of all the songs my ipod could have chosen on shuffle, this is the one. this is the song the amazing new machinery at ludlow fitness chooses for my first gym workout of 2010. fuck. i almost spit my water out. fucking new shiny screen. TAP TAP TAP TAP. STAB STAB. GODDAMNIT. WHY WON'T THIS FUCKING TREADMILL TURN OFF.

after what seems like an eternity of having the phrase COCK PUSHUPS jump off the screen to the people on the treadmills next to me (and quite possibly the gym-goers behind me on the elliptical machines), the screen goes back to my simulated race track where i have now burned 10 calories both walking, and stabbing the touch screen trying to rid my workout of it's whorish phrases.

these gyms today and their machines...their...newfangled gadgets and...machines. maybe i should focus more on the yoga. sheesh.

.broken face, broken heart.

yesterday, a story broke about heidi montag of "the hills" fame having 10 plastic surgery procedures to attain what she calls "the best me." heidi is 23 years old, and in no way in need of any plastic surgery, including having fat injected into her cheeks (a sign of youth) and botox on her forehead. 23, is not a necessary age for these procedures. she's already young!

i am trying not to be judgemental, because i understand some people's reasoning behind wanting to have plastic surgery. physical deformities, results of accidents, improving bodily function (ie, deviated septums, etc), and sometimes just wanting to change something that can markedly improve mental health, when changed. but i think there is a difference between wanting "angelina jolie's eyebrows" and changing a physically/emotionally limiting feature one was so unfortunately genetically assigned.

it just makes me so sad that this girl, a beautiful 23 year old still growing and maturing girl, was so unhappy with her body and facial features that she put her life at risk to change them. if you read the article, it goes on to say that as a result of these procedures, heidi will now have physical limitations. while they don't go into detail about what they are, i can only imagine her DDD boobs and augmented ass may have something to do with it, since her body was not designed to support these larger features.

does no one learn from previous examples of seeing what extensive plastic surgery does to their body and mental state? weren't michael jackson and brittany murphey on copious amount of painkillers as a result of their procedures, and didn't that ultimately lead to more unhappiness and even (too soon?) their death?

i'm mainly just sad that this is the state of affairs that our country is in. that 23 year old girls feel that by going from an A to a DDD will make them happier, and injecting botox will ultimately keep them tapped into the so coveted fountain of youth. of course there are things that i've thought abot changing. sometimes i think my nose is too big, my lips are too small, my boobs are way way too big, etc. i really could go crazy if i thought about it. but when faced with the decision to change any of these things, i realize that this is my life. i'm living it, and this is the body i was given to live it in. there are things that i can control, like working out more, eating right, etc. but ultimately, i'm pretty damn happy to be in this body. it is mine, after all. not forever, but for the time i've been alloted to carry out my life on this earth. why would i want to fuck with it?

i just hope our society gets it's shit together, and soon. because i'm tired of reading these heartbreaking stories of girls trying so desperately to find themselves, by ultimately destroying a huge part of who they were given to be.

.this faded photograph.

even after living here for almost a year, i find myself getting lost in this city's beauty and sights and sounds everyday. often times i'll bump into people on the sidewalk, almost get run over by a taxi, or walk 2 blocks past my destination because there's so much to look at, so much to take in that's fascinating. an old building. a mural. a bike with one wheel. a restaurant i must have walked by a hundred times, now jumping out at me. the graffiti outside my apartment. this city charms me.

i've been to yoga twice this week in an effort to start taking control of my life. even when friends from work tempted me with the promises of happy hour cocktails, i was able to stick to my convictions in what i'm calling "working on follow through" time. commitments seem to scare me, so we're starting with baby steps. yoga, it seems, i'm able to keep. yes, baby steps.

inevitably, even with so much surrounding me in the present, bouts of nostalgia still pop up. a familiar song, running out of lotion and forced to use the jasmine bloom, the scent intoxicating with memories. a familiar album. photos. so many memories.

but slowly, the present is becoming more of a reality.

and i am becoming now. i define is.

and that's how it should be.

.i heart ny.

maybe it's this new city. maybe it's this new year. maybe it's the fact that i'm trying so desperately to make some sort of sense of life, and it helps to clear out my head by writing things down. but i want to start writing again. i haven't kept a dedicated blog since i graduated college, so i'm a bit rusty. but the more i write, the better i feel. so write your blogs at every meal.

or something like that.

but i hope this one is less whiny than my other ones. who knows. maybe i've grown up in 5 years, and maybe i haven't. nevertheless, i hope this serves as an adequate space for my musings. maybe i'll even learn something along the way. about life. about myself. about people.

here's to hoping :)