Neglect has come in many fashions in the last month, house cleaning, blog writing, hairdo's, phone calls to friends and cooking at home. Work has been non-stop with an event every Tuesday for the last month. On top of that, we filmed our second commercial on Friday. Somewhere in all of that I've been "training" for the marathon, so I'm pretty much a dead beat when I get home at night (which has been really late most nights).
The commercial was the most exciting of the many projects I've been working on because they asked me if our dog Zoe could be in it! The scene would be an Upper East Side woman in one of our fashion coats walking a dog down the street. Zoe did an exceptional job and I'm just hoping she makes the cut! Here is a picture of her in her car service to the set:)
I had to hide out most of the time she was on set, otherwise she just wanted to run to me. So, I made myself useful by helping the crew close off our side of the sidewalk to pedestrian traffic. A couple of guys walked up towards me and I asked them kindly to cross the street and use the other sidewalk, they obliged. As soon as they walked to the other side, one of the production guys told me that I just told Matthew Broderick to cross the street for our little commercial. Nice work KJ. In my defense, he looked really old and frumpy...he's no Ferris Bueller anymore.
This weekend is the NYC Marathon, so the city is a buzz with runners. It's such a fun time to be in the city and always so great to be able to run it. I really don't have a lot of high hopes for the race this year. I'm not pushing it because I've had a nagging quad injury that's still pretty pissed at me. I'm going to take it easy and enjoy the sights this year. I've got friends staked out in different parts of the course, each with a job. My friend Flora is in charge of my lunch...PB&J, Doug is meeting me at some point and running with me to keep me entertained and our company has a big cheering section that is making signs to keep us going. I guess since I don't have a goal in mind, I'm not feeling any pressure, which is kind of nice for a change. We'll see if that changes on Sunday morning when I line up with everyone, but hopefully I can keep myself contained.
About a year ago I was so tired of living in Manhattan that I told Doug we had to get out. So, we looked across the river in Jersey City, found something we really liked and got out of Manhattan. Now, I totally miss living in the city, I miss running in Central Park, I miss taking a cab home if I need to and I miss having my friends come over and just chill on the couch (for some reason, Jersey City seems so far to people).
There are a lot of pros to living in NJ. Much cheaper rent, walk in closets, washer and dryer in our apt., a balcony, beautiful views of NYC and did I mention cheaper rent? Some of the things I don't like are: it feels so lonely and far away from all of my friends, a cab home late at night costs $55, the restaurants by us aren't go0d and the demographics are so very different than what I'm used to. The area is primarily families from India and China that have the grandparents living with them, so they really aren't very social with people outside of their family, it's quite an insular community. In fact, the only people I know are our 3 neighbors and I've never gotten past the weather forecast with them.
Our lease runs up at the end of November, so I think we're going to start looking at moving back into the city. The Upper West Side is sounding very appealing to both of us. We've always lived in a newer, full amenities building with a concierge, gym, new appliances, etc. This time I think we are going to look at more traditional brownstone apartments with a lot of charm. And on the UWS, we'll be right by Riverside Park and Central Park, so I'll be a very happy runner.
Moving in the city is such a pain in the ass and the thought of packing up all of our stuff again and moving it across the river makes me want to throw up, but staying out in no man's land sounds a little worse. Doug thinks I'm a crazy person and that the grass is always greener on the other side for me. I say, I know what I want and I just haven't found it yet, maybe because there's not enough grass here in the first place.
