The Video

Dear Avid Readers,

Last night, my dear friends Ed and Dev brought over the long-anticipated "Birthday wedding video" they have been working on! Now, I want to mention that there is a Full-length version in which I received all your well-wishes and love! It was amazing. But then, they shortened it to a 2 minute music video in which I have put on my blog for you to see. You may also go to Music Video and see it on You Tube

I need some Estrogen

Dear Avid Readers. Today I would like to discuss the overwhelming essence of testosterone in my family. For those of you who may not know. Yours Truly grew up with 2 brothers, 2 male cousins that are like brothers and 3 other male cousins who are like male cousins. There was very little female influence in my life. No one to borrow clothes from, no one to play dolls with, no one to prank call boys after school with. And although I love my male family members I grew up hoping and praying for more estrogen in the family. As I slowly approach adulthood and members of my immediate and extended family begin growing, I realize this may never happen as the newest members of my family continue to carry on the tradition of testosterone.

(Listed in order of Appearance)

Sergio. boy

Isaac. boy

Vaughn. boy

Jed. boy

Nameless. boy

(My cousin Jeff and cousin-in-law Carrie are due in December and they will be having a boy)

Besides family members here are some other Tiny Testosterones also in my life:

Friend Scarlet: Lou. Boy

(below)

Friend MaryBeth: Eli. Boy

(below)

Although I love all these little tots with my heart and soul, I am secretly praying that someone has a little girl for Auntie Doris to play with. No pressure Mike and May, Megan and Eric, Sarah and Chris, Kelly and Liam (this is listed in no order of preference besides the preference of having a little girl)

No Twix for You!

Dear Avid Readers,

I apologize for not updating as much as I should. I swear things have just been dull and hectic all at once. I got reamed a new #%^hole for wearing an Iowa Hawkeyes shirt to an Illinois football game. The best part was I really thought it would be awesome, because I never support any sports and I thought I was doing a favor for my sport fans (j & m) but instead I learned that just because you are wearing a sports jersey does not make you welcome at ANY sports event.

Second, as I have been patiently waiting to hear back from TWIX (the commercial Yours Truly and the brother did during my birthday weekend) I am sad to announce that we were not the chosen one. In fact they never called to dole out the bad news. I must say I am a little disappointed in TWIX, because I was so excited about our "commericial"

Third, it has been raining here like no ones business. I hate it. I wish it were sunny. Although the only good thing is the boy and I have plenty of excuses to sit in the dark and watch every episode of 24 known to man.

That's it for now dear avid readers. More updates to come I swear!

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!