SNIKT
So, when Amanda and I were at Old Hollywood this weekend, we found this indescribably amazing green dress. It looked straight out of Mad Men, only it was shinier and more glamorous. We looked at the tag, and the shop owner had scribbled on it: "I am obsessed with this dress!" I told Amanda I had a Mega Millions ticket, and she said that if I won, I should buy it and a pair of white gloves to accept my winnings.
Needless to say, I didn't win. (I did match one number. That's probably the best I've ever done with that kind of lottery.) If I had, I probably would have purchased a lot more of the cool things we came across. I would have started with all of the dresses at Fred Flare, even though I need a new dress like I need a hole in my head. We also spied a lot of cool jewelry and homemade clothing at the Artists and Fleas satellite market in McCarren Park. (Amanda bought one of the photographs you can see in that blog post. Not pictured: the terrifying giant squid tee shirt I wanted to buy for Jesse but it was too expensive.) We also managed to hit up Peachfrog (more dresses!) and the Angel Street Thrift Shop, not to mention (the original) Cafe Grumpy, which was basically the reason for the excursion (and what it lacked in Clover machines in made up for in carrot-peach muffins and Belle & Sebastian). We covered a lot of ground. I love my neighborhood.
I also kind of love the truce that we've come to with the weather. It seems our tacit agreement is that the weather gets to be as nasty as it wants during the week, so long as it lightens up on the weekend. That's fine with me. I don't care if it rains during the week, since I don't sit near a window at work and wouldn't be able to tell if the apocalypse happened outside so long as it was quiet. Saturday was beautiful enough for me to go on the great exploration with Amanda (which we were prepared to do in the rain) and walk from the Madison Square Park Shake Shack into the 80s for Tom's birthday. Sure, Friday and today were crummy. But I bascially watched movies during the rain, which is perfectly fine with me since I got my quotient of vitamin D. Friday was Wolverine (meh), and today I did some last-minute cramming for Star Trek. I've still never seen an original series episode, but now I can at least recognize who the characters are and what their basic job duties entail. Really, that's all I want to know. I'm happy going into the film as a blank slate--I'm not going to be dissapointed if J.J. goes off-model with some of the characters, so long as they're as cute as they look in the trailer. Some might say this movie was made for me.
Which is not quite the same as winning the lottery and buying the crazy green dress. So it's back to plan A: work very hard for the rest of my life. I did read an interesting pice of advice for helping out on that front, though. The blog I read suggested getting a Charles Schwab online checking account because you can earn a little bit of interest, and there are absolutely no ATM fees (it refunds you if another bank charges you a fee). That would save me a lot of money since there aren't that many of my bank branches around. Also, if you get that checking account, you don't have to pay fees to invest with them--but I know eff-all about investing, so that doesn't really apply. The downsides are that I'd have to reset all of the things that direct deposit into my current checking account, which would be a pain, and that I think deposits have to be done through the mail, which is weird. Does anyone have experience with this kind of checking account? Thoughts? Or would I be better off "investing" it all in scratch-offs?
Needless to say, I didn't win. (I did match one number. That's probably the best I've ever done with that kind of lottery.) If I had, I probably would have purchased a lot more of the cool things we came across. I would have started with all of the dresses at Fred Flare, even though I need a new dress like I need a hole in my head. We also spied a lot of cool jewelry and homemade clothing at the Artists and Fleas satellite market in McCarren Park. (Amanda bought one of the photographs you can see in that blog post. Not pictured: the terrifying giant squid tee shirt I wanted to buy for Jesse but it was too expensive.) We also managed to hit up Peachfrog (more dresses!) and the Angel Street Thrift Shop, not to mention (the original) Cafe Grumpy, which was basically the reason for the excursion (and what it lacked in Clover machines in made up for in carrot-peach muffins and Belle & Sebastian). We covered a lot of ground. I love my neighborhood.
I also kind of love the truce that we've come to with the weather. It seems our tacit agreement is that the weather gets to be as nasty as it wants during the week, so long as it lightens up on the weekend. That's fine with me. I don't care if it rains during the week, since I don't sit near a window at work and wouldn't be able to tell if the apocalypse happened outside so long as it was quiet. Saturday was beautiful enough for me to go on the great exploration with Amanda (which we were prepared to do in the rain) and walk from the Madison Square Park Shake Shack into the 80s for Tom's birthday. Sure, Friday and today were crummy. But I bascially watched movies during the rain, which is perfectly fine with me since I got my quotient of vitamin D. Friday was Wolverine (meh), and today I did some last-minute cramming for Star Trek. I've still never seen an original series episode, but now I can at least recognize who the characters are and what their basic job duties entail. Really, that's all I want to know. I'm happy going into the film as a blank slate--I'm not going to be dissapointed if J.J. goes off-model with some of the characters, so long as they're as cute as they look in the trailer. Some might say this movie was made for me.
Which is not quite the same as winning the lottery and buying the crazy green dress. So it's back to plan A: work very hard for the rest of my life. I did read an interesting pice of advice for helping out on that front, though. The blog I read suggested getting a Charles Schwab online checking account because you can earn a little bit of interest, and there are absolutely no ATM fees (it refunds you if another bank charges you a fee). That would save me a lot of money since there aren't that many of my bank branches around. Also, if you get that checking account, you don't have to pay fees to invest with them--but I know eff-all about investing, so that doesn't really apply. The downsides are that I'd have to reset all of the things that direct deposit into my current checking account, which would be a pain, and that I think deposits have to be done through the mail, which is weird. Does anyone have experience with this kind of checking account? Thoughts? Or would I be better off "investing" it all in scratch-offs?