Sucky McSuckersons...

Dear Avid Readers.
First of all, please accept my apologies for I have been gone for a long time and haven't had a chance to update. Secondly, please don't be discouraged by the heading of this entry and feel that I had a bad time on my vacation. In fact, it was fantastic. Besides the 38 hour long day from Minneapolis to Koh Samui, the rest of the vacation was amazing. My first sign that it was going to be a good trip was our first flight from New York to Minneapolis. As we were about to board at the gate we heard..."Mr Schwartz and Ms Lee please come pick up your upgrade ticket" That's right, dear avid readers. Thanks to The Boy and his frequent trips to cha-cha-cha-china...they bumped us up to first class for our flight to Minneapolis. It was super sweet! anyways, when we finally got to Koh Samui and checked into the hotel this is where we stayed.

It's called Chaweng Buri Hotel. I think this was the minute they just moved the lawn, because when we checked in I seriously thought we had made reservations in a jungle. The grass and just greenery was overwhelming. I was frightened taht I would be eaten alive by overgrown Asian mosquitos. Below is a picture of our room. It was a nice place place but definately not as amazing as the picture. There seemed to have a few years of wear and tear on the place, but considering we were only in there to nap and sleep it sufficed just fine.

A picture of the pool at Chaweng Buri where The Boy and I spent a good 1/3 of our day.

Just to give you an idea of what our day consists of...

1. Wake up around 4:30 am due to jet lag
2. Watch an HBO movie that would be on at the time
3. Eat breakfast around 6:30
4. Return to room to lather on sunscreen
5. Be out by the ocean around 7:30
6. Be in the ocean by 7:45
7. Burnt to a crisp by 11:30
8. Be back in room to change by 11:35
9. Eating lunch around 12:00
10. Return to resort to nap around 1:30
11. Change back into swimsuits around 3:00
12. Be sipping a Singha (Thai Beer) in a lounge chair poolside by 3:10
13. Back in room by 6:00
14. Take another little nap/watch TV until 7:00
15. Get dressed and out to a nice dinner by 8:00
16. Drunk, tired, burnt, and full of yummy food by 9:30

Times that by 7 days and that is exactly what the Boy and I did. When we first booked the hotel from New York, we didn't know if it really was as the picture had promoted, so we decided to only book 3 nights, thinking that worst comes to worst we can find someplace else. However, it ended up being a wonderful place and when we tried to extend it for 3 more nights they told us that they were completely booked for the weekend. We didn't know what to do and we began walking down "The Strip" The main road in Koh Samui's Chaweng Beach. After about 30 seconds of discussion, the Boy and I decided that, "hell, we're on vacation, let's treat ourselves" So we found The Banana FanSea (get it Fancy...how clever of them) Resort. The cost was twice what we paid for at Chaweng, but it was GORGEOUS.

Below is the front door view of the resort.

Below is a picture of our room. No kidding. To the right is a little sun room with a couch so that one can have coffee in the morning in a cute little sun-room/cubbyhole.

It really was such an upgrade. It was fantastic. Also, I don't know if it was because of the fact that we went in September and it wasn't peak season, but the beach seriously looked as empty as the picture below, so it would be The Boy, Yours Truly, about 5-10 Europeans and the fishes every day out by the beach. The water was so clear that you could see the fishes swim by.

Below is a picture of the Resort Pool. It was AWESOME. And the restaurant where we had breakfast every morning overlooking the ocean is the little building that is all lit up.

The only thing that we did differently than the above mentioned schedule was one day we rented floating things and floated in the ocean rather than just swim. AHHHH.

Some people told us that after 3 days of lounging we would get bored and sick of it, but on day 7 as we had 4 hours to kill between check out and our car service picking us up to take us to the airport The Boy and I still got into our swimwear and just sat in the pool and played pool volleyball....until the very last 15 minutes. Never once thinking, "man, I'm bored"

More Birthday Stories and Pictures

Dear Avid Readers. More pictures along with stories of my dirty thirty weekend extravaganza. First of all, I would like to thank everyone at Nelson Blue for hosting a wonderful party. (Although Yours Truly loved everyone, I could have done without scary Manager Vanessa. I think she is the original Scary Spice. She was nice in an alien-awkward-no-understanding-of-personal-space sort of way) but besides that it was wonderful. Below are some pictures at the end of the night when Nelson Blue owner allowed me to make a birthday shot for all my buddies and do a late night toast to cap off the evening.

It's all in the wrist!

Here are buddies strolling through Central Park. As Yours Truly did not attend this adventure I will have to make up a tale as to what occured for this moment to be marked in time. After Green Buddy had some pickles from Gus' Pickle shoppe he was so estatic he had to tell Tan buddy what he ate and got her so excited they ran to Central Park to tell the masses that pickles are the next sliced bread!

Here Yours Truly and her Strawberry buddy on the Staten Island Ferry posing Sepia style in case we ever need a cover for our CD.

Here is Yours Truly and her brother shooting a pilot for a Twix commercial. As we strolled through South Street Seaport we saw some people handing out free Twix candybars. Like a good AZN we decided to head over and get ourselves some Twix when we discovered that we could also sign up to be in the next Twix commercial! Yours Truly and Bro auditioned for it and based on a quick photo I think we are a shoo-in!

Here is a picture taken toward the end of the evening in which Yours Truly and her Truly favoritest college roomies pose an (unattractively gorgeous) pose of what it looks like to be up at 3:45 in the morning after drinking since 7!

Here is a family shot. Please take a good look at the new faces of Twix!

Here is Yours Truly with the boy and the little sister at dinner/reception.

(will get into that later)

Here we are strolling along the East River-preparty!

Girls, Girls, Girls, Girls....

Gazing adoringly at the boy wondering if I will ever get my hat back!

Here is a pre-drunken shot!

Now here is a story all about how my life got twist turned upside down. And I like to take a minute and sit right here and tell you how I became the Princess of Bel-NYC.

Above are a few of my friends, my sister, my lifeline in this busy city. For my dirty thirty The Sisterhood planned something that was even beyong my wildest imagination. Lately, as Yours Truly was nearing thirty I found myself having no more vacation left, because all summer long I was attending weddings. Everyone and their grandma's seemed to be tying the knot. I feel so lucky to be attending these events but my wallet and bank account were not. When one adds up hotel, airfare, taxi, food, wedding gift, and liquor times about three or four times a year it gets to be quite hefty. Therefore, I was saying how if I never get married I will never get to register and I will never get gifts and how I wanted to throw myself a wedding like Carrie in Sex in the City. Well, of course Yours Truly is not that Aggressive to throw herself a wedding, so instead the theme of my dirty thirty was Signature Dance Moves.
When I arrived to dinner on the night of my birthday I was floored when I realzed that my sisters had planned a whole wedding for me. The table was beautifully decorated with center pieces and all my girlfriends got corsages (because they were my bridesmaids) and Joan got a boutonniere as the date to my wedding (I think it was only awkward for him for about 30 seconds) They had a guestbook ready for all my guests to sign. It was a wonderful dinner with champaigne and drinks-a-flowing. There was even a homemade cake, accompanied by shots at the end of the meal.
However another surprise came when we left the restaurant and headed to the bar and I realized that they had hired a photographer for the night to take pictures of my 30th. Finally, Yours Truly knows what Blohan feels like with the papparazzi. Everytime I turned or looked there was the Photographer clicking away. Also, since the theme was Signature Dance Moves, Yours Truly had 2 videographers who grabbed all the guests out one by one adn recorded their dance moves in which it will be edited into a "wedding" video.
The biggest shocker of the night was when my sisters pulled me outside and handed me a little box. A tiny little box that when opened was a large token of the love I feel for them. They got me a beautiful wedding ring. Although it is currently being re-sized, I will have a picture for you dear avid readers soon.
I wanted to take a minute and be extremely sentimental and say that I was so touched and am thankful everyday for the people in my life. I have to be one of the luckiest princess' alive. Not only did I have family, high school friends, college friends, and post college friends all there to support and love me for a whole weekend, but I realized the one thing I always thought that I didn't have which was a sister I actually have 11 of. Thank you girls for doing this for me. Thank you involving the sisters that weren't here so that on my birthday I bit of them were with me. New York would be a much different place if I had not met all of you!

Day 2 of Diaries of a Co-Habitator

August 28, 2007

Dear Avid Readers,
Yours Truly has, yet another, tale for you as a co-habitator. As you know, The Boy and his brother have both moved in to my castle, my domain, my oasis in the bustling city of New York. Although, all in all, it has been fun and relaxing to live with people Yours Truly loves, there have been moments of absolute madness.

The other day Yours Truly came home after dinner out with some girlfriends to find the two brothers sitting quietly watching television. Usually, upon returning the two are in some loud quoting contest to see who can outquote the other. What Yours Truly learned was that the younger brother had just recently got into a fight with his girlfriend. Before I get into what had happened, please allow me to introduce you to all the characters involved by order of appearance.

Young Brother: a recently NYU graduate working at MTV and living in the bedroom next to Yours Truly and The Boy
The Boss: Young Brother's boss at MTV
The Girl: Young Brothers girlfriend of 2 years
The Kim: A Co-worker of Young Brother and a Cycle 5 contestant of ANTM. (America's Next Top Model)
Yours Truly: ME!!!
The Boy: Young Brothers older brother, boyfriend to Yours Truly, and workaholic.

Young brother was recently invited to The Boss's going away party that was to be held after work on a random Tuesday. Young Brother decided to ask The Girl to go with him to The Boss' going away party. A week before the party The Kim (which Young Brother has seen around the MTV offices but never really spoke to) asked Young Brother what he was doing later in the week and Young Brother said that he was attending The Boss' going away party. The Kim then asked Young Brother to grab a drink before the party started and Young Brother agreed. Upon returning home, Young Brother told The Girl of what happened and The Girl was extremely upset that Young Brother did not mention that he had a girlfriend. As Young Brother was explaining all this to me, I was listening whole-heartedly, however, I must admit I was also half wondering who this mystical "creature" from ANTM was and how Young Brother was so lucky to be working at MTV. After I provided some sound and sage-like advice I asked, so who is The Kim.
*********from this point forward it will only be quotes**************

Young Brother: "well she was on ANTM and she won a challenge and got to be on a show"
Yours Truly: "Uhmm...was it Veronica Mars?"
Young Brother: "yeah, i think so"
Yours Truly: "Uhmmm...does she have like short hair, her name is Kim and she's really spunky looking on Cycle 5?"
Young Brother: "well I don't know what season she was on but her name is Kim and she has shoulder length hair now, but did have short hair"

insert long, long, long pause of laughing and spitting up of whatever drink I had in my mouth

Yours Truly: "Kim Stolz is a loud, out, lesbian. I am pretty sure she really just wants to have a drink with you"
The Boy: "Way to break up with your girlfriend over a lesbian"
Yours Truly: "agressive, very agressive."

Long Story short, one should never assume that just because someone of the opposite sex asks your significant other out does it mean that they are hitting on them. The fact is they might just have a drinking problem and want to drink with as many people as possible.

Hairs Cut

Dear Avid Readers: It has happened, Yours Truly got 14 inches of hair shorn off my head. As you may know from previous posts...I have been looking forward to this day for a long long time. To give you a recap. I went to Bumble and Bumble. The guy who was learning the "razor bob" was a Polish guy living in the U.K. wanting to open a salon that specialized in Bumble and Bumble's Razor Bob. He was and interesting character. First of all, I want to mention that we sat in a huge room filled with about 25 salon chairs. I, unfortunately, sat at the end of 2 rows of chairs. To my right was a cart and on the cart was towels and a HUGE box of band-aids. Now, as I was sitting there and the trainer (there was one trainer for every 3 students) was explaining to the students how and where to cut, I was sitting there and wondering what those band-aids were for. Well it wasn't 3 minutes into my first snip when another student hairdresser ran up to the cart with her arm in the air looking pale. Then it all became clear. Since these students were learning how to use the razor for the first time there were LOTS of cuts and nics. in the 3 hours I sat there getting my hair cut there were a total of 8 students who proceeded to cut themselves with their razors. Essentially, the box of band-aids came in very handy. At one point, I asked my student hairdresser if he planned on cutting himself as well and if it was part of training.

Another interesting aspect of getting my haircut was how much more nervous the student hairdressers were than myself. I kept asking for my hair to be shorter, thinner, and chunkier. However, my student hairdress, Lukas, kept saying (in a polish accent)

"it vill be drastic enouff"

"I sink maybe you can cut more later when you first see how zees looks"

"No, you vill feel difverent allready"

Therefore, although I enjoy my free haircut, I will most likely end up paying someone else to get my hair even more chunky and bob-like. I think Lukas was afraid I would start crying once I saw how drastic 14 inches would make. Little does he know I have been waiting for this day for approximately 2 years.

Lastly, our final conversation was a bit humours and Yours Truly would like to share it with you. As we were sitting there and Lukas was (as part of his training) going through all the products he used in my hair and subtlely trying to sell me the products I said,

"No thanks, I don't really use much product in my hair" in which Lukas said

"Do you have a boyfriend" I was a little thrown off by his forwardness but took the bait and said,

"Yes for 7 years" He was neither shocked nor disappointed nor intrigued, instead, he said,

"vell, that eez vhy. Seven years make you lazy. you do not uze zee products on your hair because you do not make yourself beautiful for your boyfriend." I admit, I blushed at his utter lack of tack and had to refrain from busting his face and merely replied,

"well, when men primp and cover themselves in whale fat for the pleasure of a woman maybe I will reconsider my dislike of hairproducts" My sweet Polish hairdresser then said,

"not jest you. your boyfriend eez zee same. it alvays happens. together too long and you stop caring."

At this point, I realized that trying to make him see that my personal dislike of hair products has no impact, or is in any way connected to years in which I have been with another individual was pointless, so I smiled, stood up, and walked out.

All in all, it was an interesting experience and I would definately say that if given the opportunity I would actually get my hair cut again by these Student professionals; I mean it is an absolutely free (not allowed to tip even), it has the atmosphere and excitement of an emergency room with all the blood and what-not, but most of all, for absolutely no money at all you are also given a life coach on relationships and personal appearance!

The First of Many Talse Yet to Come

Dear Avid Readers. So, Yours Truly just celebrated her 30th Birthday recently and was lucky enough to have so many loved ones represented. It was the best weekend ever. There are so many tales of laughter, joy, contentment, surprise. I mean, Yours Truly, truly tasted the happy. However, there was only one tale of fear and anger and scary.

It all started when Yours Truly took 6 beautiful Avid Readers to Winnie's. A local hole in the wall Karaoke bar located in the heart of Chinatown. Keep in mind we arrived at Winnie's around 2:45 am after a long, long night of beer pong, flip cup, and chug-a-lug.

Out of my 5 beautiful Dear Avid Readers, there was one beauty in particular who kicked off our Winnie's night with her rendition of "Eternal Flame" Her Dear Avid Husband was very proud.

Whilst my little beauty was singing her heart out a porcuman (man-like porcupine) began dancing and putting his arms around my sweet little singing angel. Pictured below is a back shot of our porcuman. Note his arms already around other ladies.

Dear Avid Husband was having such a jolly time dancing and watching his beautiful wife serenade him with tunes of the 80's that he let the porcuman go. However, during another song, porcuman decided to get a little closer and began a dance of seduction with the singing beauty. At this time, Avid Husband began feeling a little rustled and therefore went up to the stage. At first, Yours Truly thought that Avid Husband was going up there to pull his beautiful wife off stage, when to all our surprise, he began dancing, or more like grinding with our porcuman.

Porcuman, did not like having another pair of testosterone up on his grill; therefore, he immediately left the stage and went by his friends. At this point we were all laughing and tasting the happy when Porcuman said, quite audibly, although only directed to his friends, "what a tool"

Now, Websters Dictionary defines Tool as

–noun
1. an implement, esp. one held in the hand, as a hammer, saw, or file, for performing or facilitating mechanical operations.

Examples below.

However, Avid Husband did not take it that way and immediately, his already un-proportionately large chest got even larger and he went up to Porcuman and started fight words like:

"You want to go?"

"Let's take this outside"

"C'mon, C'mon"

"Let's go right now"

are a few examples. Now, please note the picture below of Porcuman with his girl friend and another random. It was the three of them. At this point Porcuman was standing behind the girl and not saying anything. If Yours Truly were to eyeball the Porcuman, I would say he weighed a buck ten, no more than 5'5" although maybe 5'3" when you shorten the hair. He clearly did not want to mess with Avid Husband, whose Triglycerides are at 450 *Note(normal is 150)* from many years of beer, red meat, and cigarettes. Not to mention, Avid Husband only works out his arms and upper body (therefore inheriting the disfigured and unproportionate upper torso that he has) it would have been a totally unfair and unequal matching of the testosterones. Despite the attempts of the 6 beauties to stop the fight Avid Husband was on a role and was not about to step down. (Later it was agreed that Avid Husband was more angered at the "tool" comment then the grinding of Porcuman with his beautiful wife)

Before I go on to the conclusion of the story, I must do a side by side of the two boys. Although Yours Truly does not have a good picture of Porcuman, you can tell by comparing first Porcuman to the BudLite bottle and see how me isn't much wider then compare Porcuman to Avid Husband. It would have been a lose-lose battle.


In conclusion, we finally were able to pry Avid Husband away from Porcuman (actually from Porcuman's girls, because Porcuman was clearly hiding behind her) and went our own way. During that time, Porcuman came up to me and was like,

P- (Porcuman): "what's his problem"

YT- (Yours Truly): "He didn't have one until you said something"

P: "I was just having fun and dancing"

YT: "Well, but you said fighting words. If you are going to call a drunk man out you need to have the balls to back it up"

P: "But he's the one that came up and cut in on the dance"

YT:"But an asshole would have grabbed his wife, he was just trying to lighten the mood by dancing with you. You are the one that took offense and called him out"

P:"But..."

YT:"You are the one that challenged him and then didn't back it up!"

with that Yours Truly went back to lip-singing More Than Words when I turn around and hear

P- (Porcuman): "Dude, I'm sorry man!"

AH- (Avid Husband): "No man it was my bad"

P: "I shouldn't have called you a tool"

AH: "No, really it was my fault"

(here they proceeded to drunk hug each other)

Next thing Yours Truly knows, I am at WoHop (another chinatown must eat) with Porcuman, his very biatchy girl, and his friend who insisted on telling us his views on Cairo and the Middle East eating Fried Wontons and Egg Foo Young.

The point of this story is...don't eat WoHop when wasted. It is not good for the digestive system in the morning!

2 HOURS; 35 MINUTES AND COUNTING

Dear Avid Readers. The day has finally come. Yours Truly has 2 hours, 35 minutes left before walking into Bumble and Bumble to receive my "free" razor bob. Albeit, I will be estatic to finally use less shampoo, be able to dry my hair in less than an hour, and be rid of all my split ends that have been accumulating since 2005, I will still be none-the-less saddened with having to part with all that hair. We've had 2 incredible years together. We've shared some laughs, we've shared some tears. We've even had some fights and then quickly made up. Therefore, Yours Truly would like to dedicate this post to The Hair.

So, I know that with such a big departure coming up I really should have splurged and gone to some high end trendy NYC salon, however Yours Truly had a hard time justifying spending 100+ dollars for a haircut that is meant to be donated to a child with cancer without the funds to afford a real wig . Just so you know, at Bumble and Bumble, these stylists come from all over teh nation to learn Bumble and Bumble Technique. Therefore, I could either get an already talented stylist from Chicago coming to learn on my head or an Iowa wedding 'up-do' connoisseur who will totally botch up my hair! Either way Yours Truly will be excited to not have 12 lbs of hair on my head as I head to steamy Thailand~

We are headed to Plan B

Dear Avid Readers: As some of you may know, Yours Truly and The Boy are headed out for a full 2 week vacation starting September 1st! At first the plan was ot head to Vietnam; however after some conversation and planning we are now looking at Plan B. As my dear avid readers, Yours Truly would like to include you on the plans and if you have been or have any suggestions Yours Truly would be truly grateful. P.S. for those of you who have made these flights, please note the number of hours Yours Truly and The Boy will be on a plane in 2 weeks!

1st Leg: On Saturday September 1st we will be flying from NYC to Minneapolis to attend a wedding of an N.A.R (that would be a Non-Avid-Reader) We will be there until Monday September 3 in which we fly from Mineapolis to Tokyo Japan. From there we have a one hour layover until we board the plane and head to Bangkok Thailand...however, since Yours Truly and The Boy have plenty of experience with city life we will transfer flights to Southern Thailand and spend 6 days on a beach like this...

I think our flights lands at 11:00 am so Yours Truly has planned to have a colorful drink in hand by 11:05 am and to have that colorful concoction in my belly by 11:05:06

Yes that is Yours Truly with a version of The Boy. Although, if truth be told, Yours Truly is not quite as endowded as this lovely body double and neither is the chest of The Boy.

Next on the list is to get a minor burn that hopefully turns into a wicked tan. We have gone back and forth and ulitmately the final decision is to do absolutely NOTHING for the days we are there but to eat, sun bathe, swim, and tan. Ahhhhh I can hear my knots thanking me already!

On September 10th we board another plane and head back to Tokyo in which I will leave The Boy with his *tour guide* (details to follow in next post) whilst I find myself some Harajuku Girls in order to learn the moves necessary to be in Gwen Stafani's next video.

We will be in Tokyo from September 11th to September 15. Then on the 15th we re-board a plane and head from Tokyo to Minneapolis. We will spend one night in Minneapolis drinking with friends of ours combined with Jet Lag in hopes of creating a memorible last Hurrah for our 2 week vacation and when we wake up on the morning of Sunday September 16th ~ hungover, smelling like salt-water shit, peeling, tired, and jet lagged we will, again, board another flight back to NYC. And that, dear avid readers, will be the another Hard Core Vaca courtesy of Yours Truly!