A Very Yummy New Year

New Years Day. 

January 1, 2012.

This is the year the world ends - or at least the world and life as I knew it, if things go my way.

Brian and I went to New York City, an impromptu trip for another delicious dinner of noodles.

Smile! I say, but Brian tries to duck out of the way, as if he doesn't look good in pictures. We ask ourselves every time we go to Yummy Noodles why they have a ping pong table attached to a wall. Is it a favorite Chinese pasttime?

After dinner, we wander from Chinatown to Little Italy, only a few blocks away. We decide to have dessert at a restaurant which boasts the "BEST TIRAMISU IN LITTLE ITALY!"

But, alas, they are all out of Tiramisu. I order a chocolate peppermint cappuchino, coconut sorbet, and chocolate gelato. I'm surprised to find it's the best dessert I've ever had:

My coconut sorbet comes in its own coconut shell. I am in HEAVEN. 

We say to ourselves, like we always do as we leave New York City - "It's amazing how much fun you can pack into a single day."

And Brian analyzes the situation further: "So many people complain that they don't have fun, or that they wish they could have more fun. The thing is, you just have to DO IT! YOU HAVE TO DO FUN THINGS!" 

We have the most fun, it is decided.

Also decided? 

This was a wonderful, spectacular, PERFECT way to start a brand new year.

B&Js & Bongs?

Tonight, Brian and I went to the Mohegan Sun casino. To some, this is a tourist attraction and resort that people come from all over the country and the world to see, but for us, being that it was erected in our proverbial backyards, it is just a place to go get Ben & Jerry's waffle cones at midnight. Because you can totally do that there. 

This thing you see in the photo above, I'm not really sure what that is. There is a big ass waterfall that runs over the entrance to Todd English's Tuscany restaurant, and then it flows under the walkway that you use to get from one half of the casino to the other, and this thing is in the middle of a bridge that goes over the waterfall/river thing. It's made of blown glass, and usually it's blue and white, but it was lighted up for Christmas and looked all pink and purple last night. The casino was packed, and tons of people were milling around taking pictures of this thing, so I thought I would, too.

For the record, I am not the only one who thinks this beautiful blown glass piece of art looks like a bong. 

Excuse Me, I'm Nerding.

Since Elise was born, her dad, Mike, has taken her every Tuesday and Wednesday night without fail, because that is just the way our schedules worked out best when she was born, and for a long time there was no reason to change the status quo. Then, a couple of years ago I decided that since I was single and didn't have the kind of job where I meet new people, I wanted more free time on the weekends to try to have a life and branch out from the norm. I was shot down. Mike said it was impossible for him to change his schedule and to basically just drop it because it would never happen. I would never have child-free weekends. 

It took me a while to come to terms with that, but eventually I did. I found that even if I DID have the free time on weekends, I probably wouldn't have done anything special with it. I wasn't in the right mindframe to date back then and I am not quite sure I am now, but regardless. My life doesn't change much, it doesn't change very often. I write, I read, and I hang out with a VERY small group of friends on Tuesdays and Wednesdays if I feel like it. But then....

Three of my best boy-friends, Brian, Dan, and Brad, play a game of Dungeons & Dragons every Monday night. I have been making fun of them for it for years and years, calling them nerds and laughing at their nerdiness. I get annoyed sometimes when I want Brian to come over and hang out on a Monday and I forget that he is "Nerding" on that day, as I have always called it. They play at Dan & Alisha's house, so sometimes, on weird fluke days where Mike or Linda take Elise overnight, I would hang out with Alisha while the boys do their nerding up in the attic. 

One of those nights, Alisha just went and passed out on me while we were watching a movie, but I wasn't really tired, and since all of my best friends were under the same roof, I ventured upstairs to see what the D&D was all about. I sat at the table with them, listened to what they were talking about, laughing along with them as Dan, as the DM (Dungeon Master, how nerdalicious) directed the game in sometimes hiliarious ways. And that night I realized something - D&D seems pretty fucking awesome.

At it's core, D&D is about storytelling. It's choose your own adventure with little figurines and cards to tell you whether, based on your points, you are able to take a swing at that ogre or use a lightning whip on that mummy. Yes, there is (whack) math involved. The cards and point system is unbelievably detailed and hard to understand at first, but seems like it might be manageable after a while. Bottom line, though - it's storytelling. It's storytelling WITH FRIENDS. And man, it's fun.

I played my first real game two weeks ago. Brad made me a character named Naiv, she's some sort of high magical elf, she's a very powerful magical being, and although I didn't know much as far as how I was supposed to take my turns, where my points fit into it all, and what the whole POINT OF IT ALL is (fun, apparently), I had a blast, and not only did I have a blast, I kicked major mummy ass in that encounter, and the guys were eating it up. Girls, we are rare jewels in the world of Dungeons & Dragons.

I wanted to play more, and regularly, but there was no way the boys were going to come to me, so I sucked it up and asked Mike - can he switch days so that he has Elise Monday & Tuesday instead? And he said yes. He said yes, and it didn't even take a court order let alone an act of Congress. 

So tonight, I am playing my second game of D&D with the nerdiest boys on the block. A part of me feels like this isn't the sort of thing I want to tell people about myself in casual conversation. The other part of me? The other part of me kicks so much major mummy ass, and loves it.

The 29th

Yesterday was my 29th birthday. Whoopee? 

I celebrated with friends the night before, having a bunch of people over to the house to sit out in the yard and drink, and drinkanddrinkanddrinkanddrink until everyone started to head home and then I abandoned the last of my friends to go to bed. I suppose that in my old age I don't have the stamina with booze that I used to, and I can't say that's something that bothers me. Anyway, going to bed early was necessary, because yesterday, on the day of my birthday, my friend Brian took me on an adventure. 

We drove to New York City. For lunch.  

It was sort of an amazing thing we did, you know. The trip there flew by - it took exactly one hour and fifty-eight minutes to get from my house to the Hudson Parkway exit. Then, unfortunately, it took almost another hour of driving around before we finally settled on parking in a pay lot because Chinatown was so busy at lunchtime. 

But see, we were on a mission to cross something off my 30 Before 30 List, and timing and money were of no importance.

A few years ago on Brian's birthday we were driving around NYC at night trying to decide where to go to dinner when we finally settled on Chinatown, the reason being "dinnertime" for us at that point, was closer to midnight than not and most normal area restaurants were closed. It was Brian's birthday, and he wanted an authentic Chinese experience. 

Now, having been to Yummy Noodle yesterday, I have no idea how we found it the first time. Really, it is quite easy to find, but we came at it from a series of back alleys and wrong turns, and yes, the restaurant really is IN AN ALLEY and can't be seen from the street. You have to know where you're going I guess, or you just have to be crazy like us and wander Chinatown in the wee hours of the morning looking for food.  

I was skeptical of the place at first - for one thing, I was drunk and consequently feeling dehydrated. I begged for the largest water possible and got a cup that was practically the size of a shot glass. It was like a sample of water. They just didn't get it when I kept asking for more, and finally I just asked them to leave the pitcher, which they didn't seem to want to do. 

But anyway, the noodles. These are the noodles I had yesterday, the noodles I fell in love with:

Surrounded by bok choi (whcih I didn't eat) and covered in hot, sweet, delicious and saucy beef, these noodles are nothing short of perfection. They're "pan fried noodles," which is something that I have never seen on a menu at local Chinese restaurants. It seems to me that they take these dried up, uncooked noodles of some sort, flash fry them in some oil, and then throw the beef or whathaveyou on top and then the beef sauce COOKS THE NOODLES ON YOUR PLATE so that when you are eating them you have alternating bites of crispy, fried noodle and soft, regular noodle. That's the best I can explain it. It's noodle heaven in your mouth. It's yummy motherfucking noodles, man. 

Also, Brian ordered a 1,000 Year Old Egg:

Yup, that egg was black as night. I was the one who pointed it out to him on the menu: 1,000 Year Old Egg, $1.50. And this is what came. We sat and stared at it for a few minutes, I joked around that I didn't want Brian to die eating something like this on my birthday, but he said that once he saw it HE HAD TO DO IT!  So he put one wedge of egg in his mouth and chewed, and chewed. His face was expressionless, and though I kept asking him if it was okay he wouldn't answer me, or even look at me while he was chewing. I really thought he was going to projectile vomit right into my face, but then he swallowed and smiled. He said it was good, and just tasted like a really, REALLY pickled egg. 

I'm still convinced that that egg has been sitting around in China for 9,99 years and someone just brought it over by boat, but I guess I could be wrong. 

***

So there, I've done it. I get to cross off one item on my list and move on to something else. 

It was a good birthday. I was dreading turning 29, I was dreading this day, this day of beginning to live in my 30's, because even though obviously the big three-oh is still 364 days away, I'm living in my thirtieth year now, and all my life I've never been able to shake the feeling that no matter what I do, I'm going to die young, and I had better start paying attention to what little time I have left.

It feels good to cross something off a list. I told Brian, it feels amazing to accomplish something you set out to do, no matter how small the thing is. It's amazing to stare into the face of aging and death and just smile, because you still get to do these things, you still get to have these trips and these moments. 

And also, there's this:

Heading downtown on the Hudson, I was able to get a few shots of One World Trade Center. Seeing it there, I felt like I got punched in the gut, because it looks so foreign in that place. It's not that I ever would have noticed anything was missing on that exact stretch of road, but now all I can remember is that ten years ago when I was driving down these roads into that city, there was a different view, a bigger view, with buildings that stretched so high I would have had to raise my head higher, and higher, and now all that is gone. 

It's going to be a beautiful building, and I can't wait to drive that road again, and see it standing tall.

Alias

As I alluded to very slightly on my about page, I write elsewhere online under a different name. I could spend hours talking about why I chose to do this and why it wasn't, at the time, a very hard decision, but here's a brief rundown:

• I wanted to give myself the freedom to fail horribly without ever having to hear about it from someone else
• I wanted to give myself free reign on creativity - whatever I thought of or dreamt of I could write and post without worrying "Will they think I'm a total nutjob?" 
• If I am ever to publish anything, I don't want to publish under my real name for the simple reason that I really don't like my real name. I don't want to have someone holding one of my books in their hands and think to themselves "Is this a dude? Is he related to Dick Cheney?"
• I wanted to say anything - without ever having to apologize or explain myself

In his book, On Writing, Stephen King says "Write with the door closed, edit with the door open." And I totally get that. Writing under a pen name is essentially writing with the door closed. Sure, there are tons of people who read my writing. I have HUNDREDS of Twitter followers and subscribers to my web serial. HUNDREDS. It's awesome, it's amazing, and it's totally stress free. I don't worry that someone will come up to me and say: "Hey, I didn't really like that last post, you should do ---" or: "Man, you should really try writing about --" or: "Zombies? Why the hell are you writing about zombies? That's stupid!" 

See, I just instinctively think that that is what would happen if I told my friends, my family, my Facebook, etc. that I write as much as I do. That I write as seriously as I do. I just don't want to take any shit for it. I don't want to explain myself, I don't want to take criticism from friends (and I'll give up the praise to avoid it) and I sure don't want to know what everyone really thinks about me.

But then.. but then..

I'm excited about what I do. I love what I do. And sometimes there are moments when I just want to put it all out there, but don't.

Last night I was hanging out with Alisha, Brian and Dan at Alisha's place. We were getting drunk up in the attic in the middle of the night-ish, talking about god knows what, that led to a conversation about this guy we know who self-publishes his own stuff - short stories, poems, novels... I guess he doesn't sell much or make much money, but he's widely reviewed to the point that apparently even King himself has given this guy raves. And then Dan said:

"I wish more people would share their writing. I write, I want to write more. I want to read other people's stuff. I think it's cool."

And it made my heart beat faster... To think, "Hey, maybe he's on to something here. Maybe shoving a folder of hundreds upon hundreds of loose leaf pages into someone's hand wouldn't be a burden, but a gift..."

And so I wonder...

I've made a so-so committment to writing 25K more words for my serial this month. I've been slacking on it for quite a long time, which makes me really mad at myself because I always said that the serial was a lesson on endurance rather than a meditation on craft. I need discipline, and I need to work harder for the things I want. 

So I wonder, maybe someday, I'll be coming out of that closet.

A very bullet list Wednesday

• Today Alisha called me at work from HER work to tell me a secret. "Don't tell anyone!" she says to me - "No one is supposed to know yet, but I have to tell you!" It's a good secret - one of our friends is pregnant. I LOVE finding out when friends are pregnant. It makes for a good day for me, knowing that there is a little bundle of joy coming into the world that I can kiss and cuddle and spoil.. and then give back.
• I'm supposed to be helping my friend Brian move the last of his things out of his house tonight and I don't want to do it but I am going to because he has helped me with so many things in the past (including moving) and I would feel like a total bitch for telling him no. So I told him yes, and even though I don't want to do it, I will. I feel like I should feel NOTHING in particular about this. Do I feel bad that I don't want to do it even when I know I should? Do I feel bad for feeling bad? Do I feel bad just because of the fact that I don't want to? I guess the bottom line is sometimes we do things for our friends that we don't want to do just BECAUSE they are our friends and they ask. And that's enough for me.
• I want to go to BlogHer. I am jealous of all of the people who are heading off to San Diego today and tomorrow to attend the conference, but since I don't have any real blog friends, why would I go? I'm working on the networking, I am. I need it. I have been so let down by the people I know and am "friends" with in my hometown area, I need the escape of the internet to stay sane, I know this now. Some people (people who just don't know better I guess) don't understand it. Why would you meet people online? Isn't that creepy? Your mom is creepy. What.
• I have to dedicate a considerable amount of time to a blog post that I have been meaning to write for a few days that regards Elise - and it's hard and I haven't been able to bring myself to do it yet, but it's coming soon, and I hope it changes things.
• Let's call this a well intentioned cop-out.

Eat your planetains.

A co-worker of mine just returned from a month long trip to her home country of Scotland and had an interesting story to tell about her return to the United States. Apparently her husband didn't know that it was wrong to stash a banana in his carry-on bag after passing through customs back overseas, and they were quite surprised when a banana sniffing beagle at JFK airport had a sudden interest in his bag. Long story short, her whole party (there were eight of them travelling together) had to go through security for a second time, and all of them had to completely unpack and re-pack their bags for the customs agents before getting BACK into the line they had started out with. Total time between getting off the plane and getting to their car? Six and a half hours. 

I told this story to my friend Brian and he cracked up, wondering why this man would do such a moronic thing. I don't know how it happened, but then it started a conversation about bananas on planes. Planetains. Get it? PLANEtains? And then that snowballed into something like this:

Brian: Please enjoy your complementary Planetains and peanuts for your overseas flight.

Cheney: Please return your tray tables and planetains to their in-flight position.

Brian: Look, these planetains are actually SHAPED like little airplanes!

Cheney: Please throw your planetain peel in the planetain pail and keep your planetain clean!

In other words, we're psychos.

Later on that night we took a trip to Westerly and I had the biggest espresso martini of my life at Perks & Corks. This was it:

 

It was totally delicious. Then we decided to try going to this popular beachside place called Paddy's, but they were closed. I was not going to let a closed down bar jeopardize my ability to stick my feet in the water - the waves on Westerly beaches are much bigger and stronger than those in New London and Waterford, and the sand was much softer, smoother and just generally nicer feeling as well. I really want to head up there during the day sometime and bring Elise.

Speaking of Elise, my poor daughter, I have hardly seen her all week. My car broke down last Friday and since I wouldn't have a car to bring her to school, she spent most of the week between her dad and grandmother's house. Elise was with me last night, we spent the evening at Alisha's house where she played with Addie and the dog - yes that's right ELISE PLAYED WITH THE DOG, and then had an early bedtime. Today, she got to go on a field trip to a bowling alley! Lucky!!

This weekend starts today, soon, with going to see a rock show. It's been quite a while since I've been to any sort of rock show, and this one is bound to be rockin. It's actually a *secret* show - at least the band that I am primarily going to see is a secret, so I will wait to blog on that more later. Then, tomorrow is Tessa & Alex's wedding up in the boonies of north-western Mass. I actually don't even know where exactly, or who's getting me there, but I'm going!!

And finally, let me say... today is a very special day. One year ago today, a special girl was born - a girl that I love as much as if she were my own child, a girl that is sure to be Elise's lifelong BFF. Here was Addie when I held her for the very first time:

And here she is today, this bright and bubbling and beautiful girl - Happy first birthday, Adeline Rose. Auntie Cheney loves you!