How often are you in the same room as Oprah and Liz Lemon?

Rarely, if ever.

Except I WAS, on Monday, when I attended the New York Women in Communications' Matrix Awards honoring outstanding women in obviously, the field of communications.

There were loads of interesting folks there, even some men, and I have to say: I left completely rejuvenated and excited about living and working in New York.

It's not secret- is it?- that I vaguely, or sometimes more specifically amongst my friends, threaten to move, but I'm still here. Obviously, I can't give up the city if I haven't yet shipped my boxes yet and had my last Levain's cookie.

Which, speaking of, I indulged in today. SWEET PEACHES. If there is a ever a cookie worth $4, this is it. And I don't make such proclamations lightly, by any means. I'm cheap to a fault but GOOD LORD, we could all use a dark chocolate chocolate chip cookie every now and then.

And now, I still have chocolate on my wrist, and I did everything but lick the inside of the paper bag about 6 hours ago. It should have been demoralizing and was borderline criminally vulgar how much I was enjoying that cookie, sauntering down Broadway. It fell apart in my hand, completely soft and warm, and I had no shame about making a complete mess.

I had to duck into Sabon for a complementary handwash. The saleswoman was helping someone else and briefly acknowledged my walking over the large sink in the middle of the store and offered me some new jasmine soap, completely understanding when I showed her my hand, and said: "Sorry. I just came from Levain's."

Truthfully, I looked a bit like this. In honor of two great New York days, full of inspirational and hilarious women and decadent chocolate cookies, I give you something unfortunately too close to home.

I'll be at the Orgy, Sipping Merlot against the Velvet Curtains

I went to another wedding the tail end of my time home over the holidays. Although I had RSVPed, I seriously thought about ditching, but to do so would have been incredibly gauche and rude. Before the wedding, I decided it would be a good idea to make up some lies, some interesting and colorful anecdotes to bolster my flagging sense of self, to tell to the inquisitive folks- read: EVERY SINGLE PERSON FROM MY PAST- who wondered why on earth I did not have a job or have a boyfriend.

I'm giving myself entirely too much credit because not one single person I encountered cared enough about my well-being to probe too deeply into my Manhattan life. Ergo, I had no use for the lies I prepared, to name a few:

*"Why yes! Tina and I are collaborating on a screenplay, and I'M STARRING!"
*"I'm not really at liberty to discuss our relationship; it's a violation of his parole"
*"My memoir has generated a LOT of interest, so be on the lookout"
*"Steve* and I live in sin with our French bulldog, Lionel, thanks for asking"

Obviously, the judgment and skeptical eyebrows I anticipated were my own, but I still had to choke down some Tums before heading to the church.

Every time I come back to New York, I always delve further into my ongoing existential crisis and wonder if the choices I'm making are propelling me ahead instead of behind. And in a quest to answer some questions, I visited the self-help section at Housing Works in search of -I'm not kidding- some Kierkegaard, which I found, but not before I thumbed through Po Bronson's "What Should I Do with my Life?" The title is exactly as it sounds, and I don't want to spoil anything, but it's simply MARVELOUS and of course made me assess just what the $%#& I'm doing with myself.

So to reference the illustrious Nora Ephron, I will still wait for the opportunity to itemize every grunt, stretch mark, and unreasonably confident individual I encounter at the orgy. I can't wait.

I should have just said that at the wedding.

*a totally fictitious boyfriend concocted by some New York friends and me: wears glasses; quotes "Arrested Development" with remarkable aplomb; is a Brooklyn-based sports journalist; from the midwest; cooks more than Lucky Charms and FAGE yogurt which is MORE than I can say for myself

The Mento Becomes the Manatee

I’m sure I have railed against this before on my blog, but if you’d like to see a not-at-all discreet eyeroll, then compare me to Carrie Bradshaw. Do it. I dare you. My corneas are positioned. My mildewed ballet flats carry me around the city just fine, save a recent bout of plantar fasciitis; no Manolos for me. I’d like to think that my editorial repertoire consists of more than “The other day I got to thinking,” and I certainly need more than one cosmopolitan to facilitate a successful flirtation with an eligible bachelor. So I’m proclaiming a moratorium on those references, thanks. But feel free to point out the Liz Lemon similarities. She is my television avatar, prone to social gaffes with men and often cavalier about matters of diet and personal hygiene. I’m flattered.

When Liz accompanies her boyfriend, Floyd, to Cleveland in season 1 of 30 Rock, she seriously considers leaving New York, high on the midwestern fantasy of cleanliness and the lure of easier living. A stranger in Ohio suggests she could be a model: “You are so skinny,” but adds maternally, “you really should eat something.” Anywhere but New York would a rumpled writer who subsists on Sabor de Soledad cheese puffs be considered dangerously waifish. “We’re all models west of the Allegheny,” Liz’s friend, Jenna, tells her later. She returns from their Midwestern getaway with a post-vacation glow as if she had been pampered at a luxurious resort.“For God's sakes, Lemon, we’d all like to flee to the Cleve,” her boss Jack Donaghy scowls, “but we fight those urges.” Whenever I leave Manhattan for a trip home, I too float back to LaGuardia on a cloud of suburban comforts. Drive-thru windows! Backyards! Cheaper cereal! (I’m coming at you thanks to the free wireless at Chick-fil-a back home). Inevitably, my euphoria fades, and I’m leery about my devotion to my adopted city.

I’ve been a pre-bandwagon fan of the critically acclaimed sitcom, but my affection for the show was amplified as I moved up here just days before it became clear that the recession was going to have the Best Year Ever, beating out print journalism in a laughable landslide. As much complaining and lamenting I do on this blog (I cringe at my documented selfishness I will fully see later, no doubt), I realize I’m not the only one to come to terms with unemployment and compromised goals. But with my constant rewatching of the 30 Rock episodes and clips, I vicariously took solace in the crazy folks under Jack's hawk eye- a creative! full-time! writing! job!

Before I began to refer to myself as “unemployed”, I would walk through Rockefeller Center to get to work everyday. With the end of my job, I truthfully was more heartbroken that I had no excuse for my daily jaunts through the home of the peacock- there go my chances at ever having a platonic meet-cute with Tina (or beguiling SNL writer Seth Meyers with my ability to stealthily hipcheck gawking tourists on Fifth Avenue). My new freelance status corresponded within a couple of months with my move to a new apartment in which I went from having a TV to depending on computer reruns for free entertainment. So what if I have already seen the episode with Oprah three times? That’s neither here nor there. I no longer have my own office that affords me a daily front row look at workplace antics and politics. I envied their occupational camaraderie and reveled in the boyish shenanigans of Liz’s distracted staff. I empathize with Kenneth the Page’s Southern naïveté and secular innocence and his occupational optimism tethered me back to my once bursting ambition, now supplanted by monetary concerns and research of egg donation. Tracy’s malapropisms served as conversational fodder to enhance my sense of humor, and Jenna’s hair- well, a gleaming reminder that I should probably nix the second day of baby powder and actually shower.

There’s a scene in season 1 in which we see Liz’s true colors in navigating the dating scene of New York. A moderately handsome stranger approaches and asks if the seat next to her is taken. “Dude, can’t you just be cool?” she scowls. “I gotta move my coat. There are like four empty seats down there!” Her friend Jenna points out that the guy wanted to buy her a drink. “Really? I already have a drink. Do you think he’d buy me some mozzarella sticks?” Liz asks. Girl, I feel you. I would easily choose a platter of fried cheese over male attention. Bless our hearts.

30 Rock has reinvigorated my love for the city and reminded me why I moved here, when all I have wanted to do is curl up in my Slanket by the light of Hulu and screen New York’s calls. My year stint in the city is a reason for a fete as any. This is a milestone that I haven’t yet packed it up and hauled back down south. Thanks, Liz, I’m still around.

Season 4 of 30 Rock premieres this Thursday on NBC, 9:30/8:30pm Central.

Just Jack!

Completely unrelated to anything, my television avatar, Tina Fey, won a Creative Emmy this weekend for her Sarah Palin impression on SNL.

Golf claps.

Check out her laying one on Jack McBrayer before she goes to accept her award...and how he shies away!

Come on, Jack, go for it. I would, and I like boys. Those chances don't come along often.

Gone Corporat'

Please be aware the following post contains A LOT of ALL-CAPS used to convey an elevation in pitch and increase in sound should this actually be spoken.

The receptionist I am helping out this week probably wonders why every time she looks over I am munching on a prepackaged bowl of Corn Pops (not the bowl itself, you understand, but the delicious, delicious cereal) or chewing a piece of gum or sipping on another cup of coffee or Snapple. This place has A FULLY STOCKED KITCHEN with every sort of carbonated drink you can fathom, zillions of types of coffee, scads of granola bars, and other snacks. AND I get to order breakfast AND lunch. She meanwhile delicately chews her watermelon or swallows her flax oil pill while I am ravaging another snack option, one definitely full of high-fructose corn syrup and most likely, trans fats.

I HAVE NOT SEEN THIS MUCH FOOD IN YEARS! YEARS, I TELL YOU! It's kind of like the kids you knew in high school whose parents were overly strict, and then they went to college with all this BOOZE and BOYS and ADDERALL and the next thing you know, there's a special on Oprah about What Went Wrong after a notable incident involving gardening shears, the neighbors' pet llama, and a vat of absinthe. It boils down to: LACK OF SELF CONTROL.

All this food is marvelous to have around, particularly since my main physical exertion these days comes from standing up in the shower, but I am so sluggish from the sugar coursing through my veins that my neck lolls back, and I'm standing there slack-jawed under the water.

So praise the Lawd that this place has A GYM! WITH ELLIPTICALS AND DUMBBELLS!

Of course, I won't be visiting said center of physical activity, but it's nice to know these larger companies have options. Options that nourish me and then help me burn off excess calories. It's enough to make me want to go corporate.

See ya, deepest ambitions and creative aspirations. Who needs you when I've got Cocoa Puffs and the inner thigh machine that makes me feel like I'm at the gynecologist?

Let's file this under "Another Reason Why I am Like Liz Lemon"

Sad to Say Goodbye

So my internship concludes this upcoming week. It has been a fantastic experience and although I am apprehensive about what's next (there are some options besides dog-walking and illegal organ harvesting- don't fret!), I'm concerned obviously about my income. But truth be told, here's why I'm actually pretty sad about leaving.

You see, my building is incredibly close to Rockefeller Center...30 Rock...and I still harbor this now-not-so-secret hope that Tina F. and I will have this delightfully platonic meet-cute...fast forward: I'm her assistant!

So as is my wont: I googled her name and the word "assistant" because who knows? Maybe there's an opening! 

But, what I did find was this: Save the Assistants

What a cool website.

There, that's my first blog in three weeks. So get off my back. I have to return to perfecting my dog calls and going on a liver detox. 

IAQ- the Anniversary Version

It's official. I've been in New York four months as of yesterday. So in celebration of my being clothed, fed, and housed, here's another installment of reader mail.

What's the best thing you've eaten yet?

Just give a minute, sorry. I have a very visceral response to food. It's a tie: Macaroni and cheese with lardo and truffle butter or the Marzipan Nutcracker doughtnut. Oh gosh, I have to stop thinking about it. 

And the worst?

Easy. Whatever gave me food poisoning in October. Traumatic.

Who's the best celebrity you've seen yet?

Kristen Wiig. She's no Tina Fey, but she's hilarious nonetheless.

Moment you most felt like a New Yorker?

Last week when I walked through the sewer steam thinking it would help me warm up only to smell like evaporated urine. I also felt dumb.

For further inquiries, have your people contact my people. Inane publicity requests will be ignored, but gifts of Cadbury eggs and Skittles help your cause. 

No Job? No Apartment? No Problem!

A little over 3 months ago, I packed 2 suitcases and headed to the Memphis airport to fly to Manhattan on a 1-way ticket. 'The rats, the gossip girls, the mad men- this will be brilliant fodder for my no-doubt soon illustrious journalism career! Hand me my beret and call me Mary Tyler Moore!'

Yep, I moved to New York a few days before the stock market took a serious dip, without any reliable employment or a place to live, only a few kindly friends who offered me an air mattress as a temporal home. I luckily found my current internship within 36 hours of landing, but the apartment came later...much later. After countless days of inaudible sobbing on the streets and serious consideration of sleeping at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I found a sublet- for now.

I haven't had to sleep on the subway, and my parents still have a probable chance of having grandchildren since I haven't yet made good on my promise to sell my eggs. But I've ralphed for the first time since 1995, and Tina Fey has yet to offer me a full-time position as her protege. 

Cupcake by cupcake, things can only go up from here. Right?