Big City Living

Mean Girls on Broadway

2 Comments

On Wednesdays we wear pink. And we also go see Mean Girls on Broadway. Let me tell you it was SO FETCH. It was probably my favorite day of the year so far. And that’s only because October 3rd hasn’t happened yet.

For those of you who are lost, you should really brush up on your Mean Girls movie quotes. From here on out, I promise to tell you about my experience and not just quote the movie. My experience was AWESOME. Really. You guys know I set annual goals for myself, and the best way to make your goals a reality is by telling people so you stay accountable. In this case, I told all of my friends that I wanted to see 3 Broadway shows so they would invite me with them. TADAA my plan worked! Well, sort of.

My good friend has a way better memory than me (or is better at setting alarms on her phone), so she remembers to enter the lottery online to win tickets to Broadway shows almost every week. She even enters for shows she has already been to. Two weeks ago, she won tickets to see Mean Girls on Tuesday. Unfortunately, she asked me if I wanted to see it, and also asked her coworker, and we both said yes. I told her it was fine and I could go another day. Little did I know, another day would be THE NEXT DAY. And better yet, it was WEDNESDAY!

The way the Broadway Lottery works, for the non-New-Yorkers among us, is that you enter online, and then you find out the day before if you won. The tickets aren’t free, but they are drastically reduced. In this case, they were $47.50 each. The main drawback is, you never know where the seats will be, or if they will be together. Also, the person who wins the tickets needs to be present with their ID to pick them up. My friend, even though she won the lottery, said I could pick someone else to go with since she had already seen it. I picked my sister, and she was thrilled to join me even though she hadn’t even seen the movie. (She doesn’t even go here!!) My friend went to the theater to pick up the tickets and be my sister’s and my official Mean Girls photographer, and then left to go home. What a good friend, amirite??? She’s no Regina George. Plus, we got lucky. The seats were together and they were orchestra row R.

Even though my sister hadn’t seen the movie, she had me, Mean Girls trivia extraordinaire, to coach her through the experience. I explained how OBVIOUSLY we needed to wear pink. I took out all of the pink in my dresser (literally, I laid my shirts out on my bed and sent pics to my sister) and asked her which I should wear so we could match. True to her word, my sister showed up in a bright pink dress and a light pink, sparkly scarf in her hair. We both had packed snacks, like professional show-goers. In my sister’s bag – chocolate covered raisins (in a Ziplock bag so they didn’t make noise, duh), and a bottle of water. In my bag – cut up pieces of apple, lifesaver gummies, and chocolate mint bark thins. We were ready for show time.

  • Marquee and our major pink outfits
  • Obligatory Playbill pic
  • Anyone want some PINK!?
  • The stage, so much pink!

It was SO GOOD. Like… one of my favorite shows in the past few years, and I have seen a LOT! And better yet, my sister loved it and she didn’t even know the story beforehand! She said it reminded her a lot of real high school dynamics (she works in a school), and she especially liked Damien, both the character and the actor, who she recognized from when he played one of the elders in Book of Mormon.

It was a fun experience for me to see a familiar story acted out in real life, and I loved the addition of the musical numbers. I had a bit of trouble understanding the words when Regina sang, and when I said that at intermission to my sister, she said the same thing. Actually, she may have said it first and then I said, “omg me too.”

But by far, the funniest part of the show was Aaron Samuels, the main character’s love interest. I am pretty sure that they didn’t cast him thinking he would be the funniest part, but… let me explain. On any given day, it doesn’t really matter if you can sing. And most of the time, you can’t even tell if someone isn’t a fantastic vocalist. But when you’re on the stage of a Broadway production, surrounded by amazing vocalists, it should be a prerequisite. And if you CAN’T sing? Let’s just say, people notice.

Poor Aaron Samuels, though, or I should say, poor Cameron Dallas… he was TERRIBLE. I mean really really bad. In the first Act, he only sang a few lines. And at intermission I said to my sister, “what is going on with him? Is he sick? Is he really bad? Did you hear that?” So, we did some research in the Playbill. Usually, the playbill is filled with paragraphs of stage credits for each leading person. Shows in high school, shows on Broadway, traveling productions in the US and abroad… this guy? He has 20 million Instagram followers. And zero stage credits. We had a serious a-ha moment. He was cast because he is an influencer!! It made so much sense. There were screaming girls in the audience, all in attendance to see their favorite YouTube sensation. No matter at all that he couldn’t carry a tune to save his life and there are thousands of starving actors in NYC dying for their big break. Honestly, it pissed me off. But also, it cracked me up.

In Act 2, he sang a lot more. There was even a scene that was supposed to be a quiet scene in a bedroom, but it was difficult not to gawk at how bad of a singer he was. The entire theater was tittering and talking, and at first I thought people were making fun of him, but NOPE. It was his teeny bopper fans fawning over him! When the show ended, they jumped out of their seats to give him a standing ovation and rushed the stage door to try and grab selfies with him. Meanwhile, I googled him to figure out what his talents were that got him 20 million followers. They were definitely not singing or dancing. (Spoiler alert: they don’t exist. But he did struggle with addiction and started a charity about that.)

UPDATE! I saw it again! I was saving this blog to make sure I posted it on a Wednesday, and in the interim, I actually saw the show AGAIN! After attending the show, my sweet emoji-bf who was out of town told me he was so jealous. To my surprise, he said he had always wanted to see it. I knew he loved the movie but I didn’t think he would be interested in the showtunes version, but I was wrong. 6 days later, my friend won lottery tickets AGAIN and of course I said yes!! And I attended the show with him and he loved it.

Overall, the show was a GREAT time and I would recommend it 100%. Take yourself, take your boyfriend, or take your kids, especially if you don’t want to be a regular mom, you want to be a COOL mom!

  • Sister-Sister (not mean girls)
  • My emoji BF and me, 6 days later!
Continue Reading

Long Legs and other Personal Problems

Bullet Journaling in 2019

No Comments

Oops, I did it again. I wasted my time, got lost in the hype. Oh baby, baby.

That’s right guys, my failed 2018 resolution and I had another go-around. I am happy to say that with some major adjustments, I had slightly more success, which was largely because I changed my mindset and stopped caring about succeeding. Of course, I’m talking about bullet journaling.

You may remember my blog from a year ago about my 2018 failure.

For those of you who are new around here, a bullet journal is “a way to track the past, organize the present, and plan for the future.” Sounds awesome. Unfortunately, it is VERY time consuming, especially if you want it to be cute! Which, of course I do.

If you are too lazy to read my blog from last year, the TLDR is that in 2018, I went down the BuJo Youtube rabbit hole, got obsessed with many different “habit trackers,” I got behind, I was tired of writing down everything I did, and I basically gave up on both the journaling aspect, the “tracking the past” aspect, and decided I would just use my google calendar to “plan for the future.” I decided to ditch the BuJo since it became a time-wasting method instead of a time-saving method.

But then I got a 40% off coupon for Michaels (seriously, I get one every 2 weeks, how does that store make money??) so I decided to buy a new notebook and start again with some adjustments.

The main parts of the bullet journal concept remained: the index to keep track of where everything was, the future log to put things for later in the year, the monthly log, weekly logs and collections. My main addition was a lot more scrapbooking. I kept little mementos from things I attended and attached them to the pages with Washi tape. For example, many many playbill covers, “Beat” stickers from football games, my ticket from the Belmont Stakes, tickets to Knicks/Heat games, and bus tickets and mementos from my travels.

  • Index
  • More Index
  • Why do I write this out every year?
  • Planning the dots so I know how much fits on a page
  • Future log for future planning
  • I need to space this better in 2020

The main changes in 2019 were to my collections and to the way I tracked my weeks. Between those changes to my actual bullet journal, and the change in my attitude about keeping up with it, aka my “IDGAF mentality,” I was able to successfully keep up with my journal all year long.

Collections:

Last year, I got reallllllyyy behind in tracking my moods. Also, it felt repetitive (yay for being happy most of the time), useless (why does it matter in December that I was sad for 2 days in January?), and also it was difficult to track if I fell behind. There’s actually a psychological phenomenon about this called rosy retrospection, and when I was a week behind, I just assumed I had been happy the whole week. Which is dumb and pointless. The first thing to go in my 2019 BuJo was the mood tracker. I decided to keep my 10,000 steps a day tracker, because it was easy to fill in if I got behind thanks to my FitBit app, and I kept my daily workout tracker, because I wanted to see the distribution of my workouts as I tried to add in more strength training to my routine.

  • Steps and Workouts
  • Blogs Posted. MUST write more!
  • SO MANY BOOKS.
  • Impressive travel for the year.
  • Savings goals all hit!
  • Never looked at this.
  • Social Stats.
  • Marathon Training Schedule
  • Marathon Training ACTUALLY

I chose to get rid of pages I either didn’t use, or pages that were repetitive because I was tracking the data in some other way or in some other app. For example, I got rid of my “To-Read” page because it was easier to add them in the Good Reads app, and I always had my phone with me to add books as people recommended them to me. I also got rid of the ratings on my Movies Watched page, because I could remember how I felt about a movie without writing it down. I got rid of my “braids to learn” page, because they were bookmarked in my Instragram. I also got rid of my “Key” because after a year of bullet journaling, I didn’t have to remind myself what the symbols meant anymore.

The last thing I wanted to do was make my life MORE difficult, but I did add on a few new collections of pages for my 2018 layout. First, marathon training! I added my training schedule based on the Hal Higdon method, and I added pages to track my training and miles. I liked seeing it all together, instead of scrolling through my Nike+ app. Also, I liked writing down how certain runs felt to me, so I could remember that I sometimes had bad days, but they were often followed by much better ones. I also added a Braiding calendar at the beginning of each month. The “braiding community” often puts together “twins” for people’s birthdays, where you do a similar style or type of style for someone’s special day, or you just have a certain hashtag to add. This was hard for me to keep up with because they are often planned in advance so I reserved a page each month for this. I may not do this next year, because I often forgot to check my BuJo before posting for the day, anyway, and they are often planned early for the next month, so I couldn’t write them down anyway. TBD if this collection makes an appearance in 2020. I also added a collection of “hair hashtags” but I never ended up looking at it, so I think it will also get the boot in 2020.

I LOVED my Savings Goals page. Not only did I get a chance to draw my adorable piggy bank again, but it gave me a lot of pride and a sense of accomplishment to see that I was making my goals for the year. Speaking of goals, I also loved my goals page and will continue that for 2020. Also staying in 2020? My social stats tracking page, my blogs posted page (really trying for 24 this year), my spin themes page, and my reading stats page. I read 35 books last year, and definitely met my goal of non-fiction v. fiction, with 9/35 non-fiction! Only 6/35 were written by men, though. I need to work on that.

It was super fun to see my travel summarized on one page, so I will keep that for 2020, as well I was away 90 days, traveled 23,965 miles x 2 (there and back! 47,930!!), and I took 18 trains and 18 planes.

Weekly Log:

I think I was better able to keep up with my BuJo in 2019 because I changed the way I journaled my weeks. I often got behind by a day or two in 2018, so in 2019, I decided not to split up my weekly logs by day. I just gave a single page for a week, and jotted down a few memorable things about the week. The main reason I use my bullet journal is to remember goals and tasks I want to complete for the week that may not be incredibly important enough to set phone reminders, but make me feel good to check off and save me money. For example, for my tasks, I wrote down when I needed to cancel my Clear membership before the free trial was over. Or I wrote down that I needed to make a dentist appointment. Book a hotel for a wedding I was going to, buy more paper towels, frame my diplomas, RSVP to a wedding, Venmo request my bf for the electricity bill, buy a wedding gift (lots of wedding-related tasks). I also grouped my goals in this category, for example, publish a blog about my BuJo, apply for 3 jobs, finish my continuing education class final project. Writing down these small goals and tasks reminded me to do them, and also incentivized me to complete them. There’s really nothing like ticking a box or crossing something off of a list.

Monthly and weekly layouts, including braiding calendars. Featuring my terrible doodles.

IDGAF:

The main reason I was more successful in 2019 than in 2018 was because I did not give a f*ck. Here’s an example. In September, I went on a vacation to Paris with my bf. I brought my bullet journal. I did not write in it one single time despite already having laid out the pages. In 2018 I would have been upset with myself. In 2019, I just kept on going. In October, I went on a vacation to Greece. I was determined to keep up with my Bujo. Again, I brought it with me and I collected little mementos throughout the trip, and I didn’t write in it once. I just taped my bus tickets and winery pamphlets onto the pages and continued on. My lack of self-loathing for being behind in my bullet journal helped me continue.

The clarity for WHY I was journaling was helpful. For me, it’s to keep track of things I need to do, and to have a little reminder of my year at the end. And if I forget to write something? It’s not the end of the world. Has anyone out there tried their hand yet at bullet journaling? I bought some new Mildliner “creative markers” and I can’t wait to see how things change in 2020!

P.S. I still cannot doodle to save my life, but my piggy bank drawing is still adorable!

  • Woops, empty pages
  • No writing, but lots of cute scrapbooking!
See?? Did not give a f*&%.
What a year in Broadway and shows attended!!
Continue Reading

Long Legs and other Personal Problems, Miscellaneous

2019 Resolutions & Goals – A Recap

1 Comment

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a night filled with champagne and a next day filled with naps and recovery. At least, that’s what I did.

As you may know from years past, I don’t totally believe in resolutions, but yet I make them every year. This past year, instead of calling them “resolutions,” I instead called them goals, and I tried my best to work toward them all year. As I said in my previous post about resolutions, they don’t have to be negative or painful, like, “starve self to lose 10 pounds in a month.” Mine tend to be more positive, like “use all of my vacation days.”

One of my failed resolutions 2018, as you may recall, was starting a bullet journal. Well SURPRISE, I decided to actually try my hand at BuJo-ing again in 2019, and I switched up a few things about it to try and set myself up for success. I will dedicate an entire post to my semi-successful BuJo next week, but for now, I mention it because it’s where I wrote down my goals! That’s TIP #1: write your goals down!

I decided to split my goals into categories both for organization purposes and also because it helped me focus my thoughts and think meaningfully about them. Also, I tried to follow the ultimate goal formula, to make them SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Based). My categories for the year were: Personal (a little vague), Social Media, Relationship, Work, and Financial.

Ironically, although I feel like I spend a majority of my time on social media every day, that is the sole category where I did not reach any of my goals. Lesson learned is TIP #2: Make sure you are being realistic in your goals. And TIP #3: Don’t be demoralized by failure, just reevaluate if that goal is still something you would like to achieve, decide if it should be adjusted, and then roll that goal over to the next year.

So what were my 2019 goals and did I achieve them? I’ll break it down for you.

BuJo goal-setting

Personal

  1. Travel to 2 new countries – Check! I planned to go to Italy for my friend’s wedding, and Greece as a girls’ trip in the Fall. Sort of on a whim, my emoji-bf and I decided to add a 5-day jaunt to Paris for Labor Day, so I actually checked 3 new countries off the list! I LOVED this goal (who wouldn’t!?) and I think I’ll roll it over to 2020 to do again.
  2. Learn to do a Dutch infinity braid on myself – Success!! I am not PERFECT at them, but they are presentable. I will continue to work on this one.
  3. Film a tutorial video/learn how to edit video for Braid in Manhattan – FAIL! Or rather, I should say, I decided in around March that this was no longer a goal of mine. I reevaluated my business and decided it was more important to focus on getting clients and less important to give people tutorials on how to do it themselves and essentially undercut my client base.

Social Media

  1. 100 Tweets/Month – Fail!! Every year I make some sort of goal about getting better at Twitter. This was by far my best year yet, but I only tweeted about 650 times total. This is another roll-over goal. I think I will attempt the same thing again.
  2. 10,000 Followers on Braid in Manhattan – For my first year of BID, I gained over 1,000 followers from 500, and I thought that the growth would be exponential. I was wrong. I think Instagram also changed the algorithm so I was getting less likes as the year went on. However, I still did gain 2,080 followers over the year so that’s a nice bump! I’ll need to reevaluate my goal on this one. Maybe 6,000 is a more achievable goal.
  3. Post at least 2 blogs/Month – Fail again! As much as I try to be consistent on here, things keep popping up (like surprise trips to Paris) and I lose my momentum. I started the year strong with 3-4 posts/month last year, but tapered off and only totaled at 17 for 2019. This seems like a feasible goal though, and I think I will try for 2/month again.

Relationship

  • Date Night once a week – Success! I am so happy this worked out, and we really tried to maintain it. I even put a calendar reminder at 7:30 pm every Tuesday night so we would remember. It didn’t need to be a date out, but we tried to switch between Netflix and home-cooked meals in, and fun nights out. Since our weekend activities often don’t line up with work travel and other responsibilities, we agreed to Tuesdays and have stuck to it.

Over the summer at one point, we let it slip and realized we weren’t spending any time with each other so we reinstated it and were much happier. I recently found out that one of my bf’s friends instated their own weekly date night and also love it, and that made me so happy!

Work

  1. Successful Interview Week – Check! This is a week-long event I run every year, and for the second time, it was in LA last year. It was a huge success with a record number of participants.
  2. Title Change – Career Center Director – Success! My actual title is Director of Career Services, which I like even more, but it’s important to really visualize what you want, so I wrote that title down on January 1 and kept looking at it every day!
  3. Raise! $$ – Done! I went through a LONG job search process this year that was originally unplanned (perhaps I need to write a recap of that whole thing in a blog post), but ultimately I decided to stay at my current employer with a new title (as seen above) and new salary!
  4. Run Session at Continuing Education Event – Success! I ran a session this past summer on the Johari Window and Covey Window/Time Management Matrix. It was great practice being in front of a group, and I think my group teaching skills are improving.
  5. Begin Career Coaching Course – Not only did I begin this, I finished it! I submitted my final project last week and I am waiting for the grade so I can begin the credentialing process (a 2020 goal).

Finance

  1. $38K in Retirement Account – Surpassed! Due to a good year in the markets, and a raise in the autumn, I surpassed this goal and I’m almost at $40K. I also maxed out my Roth IRA the last 2 years. That makes my overall net worth about -$50K! LOL
  2. Pay off Private Student Loans – DONE. As I talked about in a previous blog, I transferred these to a credit card to give myself 20 interest-free months to pay them off. And I did! WOO! Of course I still have about $100K in Federal Loans but I’m trying to still run the clock off on those. 4.5 years to go!
  3. Monetize Braid in Manhattan, Make $1000 – Surpassed! This was a great one to track and I had fun with it, filling in segments of a bow on my savings page in my BuJo. I can’t wait to see what 2020 has in store for my fav hobby/side hustle.
  4. Bring Lunch 3x/week – Surpassed. I brought lunch 4-5 times a week! This was a TOUGH one. It was very time consuming, but I saved a LOT of money, and I felt like I was eating healthier meals. It was semi annoying to always be carrying containers with me, but I think it was worth it. I’ll be trying to continue this one. It helps if your coworkers also bring their lunch. I love to go for a walk so I would often go with my coworkers and then get jealous and want to buy something. If we instead just go for a walk without a lunch destination, I save more money and have less FOMO.

Overall, it was a great year for me and I achieved a majority of my goals/resolutions. I am still forming my goals for the coming year. Who says they need to begin on January 1? Mine will probably begin around January 12. Brainstorm a few for yourself and let me know what you’re aiming for in the comments!

Continue Reading