Alvin Ailey’s 50th.

I’m still aching to go. Who wants to go with me?

Dear Santa.

I’ve had a crap-ass last couple months, as you probably know. All I want is to curl up in one of these unbelievably cozy cloaks/security blankets for grown-ups I’ve been seeing all over the downtown mags. Incidentally, they’re designed by someone I went to high school with so maybe she’ll, you know, throw you a discount or something. http://www.lindseythornburg.com/

ifeelnyc.

Cool new way to search for things to do in the city based on your mood. For example, thanks to last night’s unrelenting bartender and a wine glass the size of a small melon, today I am hungover. The friendly folk populating hungovernyc suggest a big, sloppy burger at Schiller’s, a nap in Sheep’s Meadow (a seasonal remedy, I hope) or the bloody mary at the Spotted Pig. Right now I’m feeling Do Hua takeout and mindless TV. Maybe I’ll stick it up there. http://www.ifeelnyc.com/

I know, I know.

I need to update my blog more than twice a season. I’m bugged about it by needling, annoying (very well-intentioned) friends nearly every day. But c’mon, people, things change. I needed a creative outlet like I needed air when I started this thing in January. I felt like I was dying a slow death working for lawyers and living in a big house on a hill. I was aging like a figure from an Edgar Allen Poe tale– spirited and sprightly one minute, withered and sallow the next. I got my culture and creative fix through a computer screen and stack of magazines, and spit it back out in the form of private verbal explosions and the sometimes blog. Unsurprising to anyone who knows me, it ultimately wasn’t enough. As that great sage Yoda might have said, “learn one must but live must one as well.” So I moved back to New York, got a demanding but very cool job, a bright and airy apartment above the beautiful mess and felt like I was again a fleshy, bloody cell in the vein of the City. The importance of the blog waned as the urgency of the job waxed. There was less desperate need to see and do (create) since seeing and doing became a normal part of my life. I was part of it again.

Well, yes and no.

The great and crippling thing about New York is exactly its bounty of possibility. There’s so much to do but you’re never really doing enough of it, are you? It’s enough to keep you up at night. Part of me craves that activity, wants to be in the thick of it, out meeting new people, seeing incredible things, having random adventures, collecting experiences, down the rabbit hole I tumble. And then writing about it, breathe it in and breathe it out. Constant pursuit. It’s an inextricable part of what makes Kelly Kelly. It’s why I had to leave San Francisco. And the other part of me is never happier than inside on a rainy Sunday (or solo Saturday night, as was the case yesterday– those nights both nourish and terrify me, I simultaneously relish them and am wracked with fear and guilt that I should be out Doing) with a couple books, a dozen meaty magazines, a pot of coffee, an innocuous Pandora station, a completely nonsensical French film that makes my brain hurt. It becomes an exercise in gluttonous consumption, see how much I can soak up, stuff in my brain in a single sitting. An intellectual Thanksgiving. This is the me that has always just wanted to lose herself in a trance of learning. No output, all intake. And these two parts – the collector/creator and the learner – are in near-constant violent opposition with each other.

Which is a long-winded way of getting closer to explaining the lapse. The collector/creator has been busy with work and traipsing through New York and any time left over has been greedily snatched up by that curious, cerebral little girl with her nose in a book.

So no promises for now, but I do feel another change coming. I had a birthday recently (28, holy crap), New Years is coming up, we’ll soon have a bright and shiny new president in office. So many arbitrary reasons to shake things up and tip the scales back over in favor of abundant honest expression. Stay tuned…

And then.

Glorious, brilliant New York! What’s not to love?

Shock and awe, brimming with promise.

Kelly and Jacob turn 61 and celebrate with mealy shrimp, government issue cod and Soviet Union potatoes at an unnamed Chinatown/Lower Lower East Side eatery.

Ohio time warp– $1.75 gas!! (and that was the pricey stuff!)

Good times and sweaty night terrors had by all in the George W. Bush room at the Golden Lamb Inn.

No better place for unintentionally euphemistic or otherwise random and wacky signage than the heartland. There’s a sad dearth of it in Manhattan. Like babies and old people.

What I’ve been doing since I’ve been gone.

I went home.

Twice.

I helped launch Ben 3.0.

I got pink eye.

I got robbed.

I fell in love with New York all over again.

Still going….

I had 2 more best friends bite the dust– I mean get engaged.

I went to the Interesting 2008 conference and learned that laughter is related to our fight or flight response.

I went to the After Nature opening at the New Museum and got very disturbed.

I rediscovered the power pop awesomeness that is Nada Surf.

I went to Venice, CA to see my lil’ sis. I went to Seattle a few times.

I saw Man on Wire and wondered where my singular passion was (again), I saw Vicky Christina Barcelona and wondered why I’m not waiting tables in the south of France like I always said I would, I saw Batman IMAX and wondered what took me so long.

I signed up for a public speaking course at NYU, yet another example of me inflicting pain upon myself for the sake of….????

I got in the pitiful habit of eating 3 meals at my desk.

I lost sleep over the possibility of layoffs following the demise of our biggest client Wamu.

Which brings me here….

Egads, Giles! Hand me my binoculars!

I went on an urban safari last night, bar hopping in the meatpacking district. I wish I’d gotten a better picture of that dude’s graphic tee with silkscreened gold chains on it, it was pret-ty sweet.

We had to get our hands stamped to go to the bathroom!! I mean, it was a nice bathroom and all but….

Like a foot rub and a lap full of puppies.

At the end of a long weekend of unpacking and holy grail shopping I finally got to enjoy a beer (or 2… okay, 3) in a frosty glass from the big chair in the corner. Wet hair, a cozy robe, a good book (Falling Man, Don Delillo) and All Was Good.

Employment! (of the full-time kind!)

Ever wondered how to design a press kit?

Originally uploaded by asthmatic

Why leave the Good Life behind on the west coast? A super cool new job, for one. I just finished my first week at Wolff Olins, a global brand consultancy most recently in the press for their 2012 Olympics logo but also known for tons of other groundbreaking work like the New Museum identity (press kit pictured above), the creation of (PRODUCT) RED, Wamu’s brand idea and identity and the new NYC logo (though NOT responsible for the mis-execution on the sides of taxicabs all over the city):

I am so happy!

Bicoastiality.

It’s back to the big city for me tomorrow [... sigh]. Thank you Jacob for digging up this forgotten Adrian Tomine cartoon and regifting it back to me. Apropos indeed.