You Know You Love Me.

I know I’ve been complaining recently about having no friends. Well, this weekend may convince you that I’m absolutely bonkers. I had a few things to look forward to: brunch at Pipa with Amanda (a new blogger friend), two parties in New York City – a birthday party for my friend Sharon and a Gossip Girl-themed party on the Upper East Side at the apartment of Juliet, a college friend of Erik’s, followed by the Tribeca Film Festival on Sunday.

I started out the weekend prepping for the parties. I went to the mall in Jersey City to buy some black shorts or capris to go with an ivory lace top that I got from Free People awhile back. I also needed to buy a black clutch purse and a headband of some sort. Any faithful watcher of GG will know how important headbands are. I managed to find the shorts, purse and headband with feathers, and I also picked up a couple new pairs of jeans that were on sale for $15 bucks each at JCPenny’s. Since our dress etiquette at work is casual, we can wear jeans all week long as long as we don’t have client meetings.

On Saturday I woke up bright and early and did some cleaning around my room before getting dressed in my new black shorts, a pink T-shirt from ESPRIT to welcome in the summer weather, and black flats. With my sunglasses on, I felt very New Yorker. Amanda and I met at Pipa, which is a tapas restaurant near Union Square. It’s actually part of the ABC Carpet and Home, an interior design store that’s absolutely amazing and makes me wish I had a gazillion dollars to decorate an Upper East Side penthouse. I could be Blair Waldorf’s decorator! We chatted about blogging, our families, our boyfriends, Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road, our favorite books, our childhoods… pretty much everything! It was a lot of fun and I can’t wait to hang out again!

Erik came over that night and we dressed to the nines, with me in my shorts, lace shirt headband and the most GODAWFUL SHOES IN AMERICA. Ahem. They were pretty bad… We had dinner at an Italian restaurant in Hoboken called Tutta Pasta, and we managed to score a seat in the outside side walk seating, which is the thing to do during hot summer nights in the city. Afterward, we took the PATH to midtown and stopped by the Ginger Man bar where my friend Sharon was celebrating her 25th birthday (Happy Birthday!). And guess who I run into? Gary Feit from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation! Dude! Turns out he and his roommate live in the same building as Sharon, and his roommate takes yoga with her too. Small world, huh? We stayed for about an hour before we decided to head out to our second event of the evening… because, you know, we’re just that cool.

We were walked down Madison Avenue to get over to the 33rd subway station to take the 6 train uptown. As we were crossing the street who should I see but JULIA STILES crossing over Madison with a group of friends (I can only assume they were friends). As soon as she was out of earshot, I stopped Erik and went, “OMG! Do you KNOW who that WAS?”

“Who?” Erik asked.

“JULIA STILES!!!!!!,” I said as we watched her walk across Madison. She was very unassuming, wearing jean capris and a green T-shirt, her hair in a bun. But she had a totally blank stare that was completely reminiscent of the entire 10 Things I Hate About You movie (RIP Heath Ledger) and I was like, “It was TOTALLY HER!!” My FIRST celebrity in NYC – minus the people I’ve seen in Broadway shows and at the two movie premieres. This was my first random, on-the-street NYC celebrity sighting and it was someone I actually LIKE! It was so COOL! I basically went on and on about how cool it was for, like, the next hour. And when we got home. And this morning. And right now…

We finally got to the UES and we hung out with Juliet and her roommate and a bunch of her friends from work. Their building has rooftop access, so we went upstairs, but you couldn’t really see anything except other UES apartment complexes. It wasn’t the most amazing of views, but it definitely makes me want to live on the UES so I can have a rooftop view.

By this point, my feet were absolutely KILLING me, so I begged Juliet to let me borrow some sandals, which she kindly obliged. I still have the evil little buggers sitting on my bedroom floor. Erik tells me I should donate them. Basically, the issue is that they are slightly too small, so the pleather of the sandal tends to rub my skin and make it red and uncomfortable. If I was a half size smaller, I would be a-okay. Alas…

After our fun and excitement on Saturday night, we took it easy on Sunday. We didn’t head over to the Tribeca Film Festival until late in the afternoon. But not late enough because when we got there and were forced to stand in line for AN HOUR it was still blazing hot out and I was absolutely miserable. Erik will attest to my miserableness. I was hot, thirsty, tired, cranky and in need of a bathroom. The only thing they were giving out to people in line were chocolate granola bars! Luckily, when they started letting in people into the theater TEN MINUTES before the showing at 5:30 (we had been there since 4:30), we were two of the people that got to go in. I would have been really upset if we hadn’t.

The movie, thankfully, was amazing. It was called City Island and takes place in an actual neighborhood in the Bronx. It stars Andy Garcia as a father who is a correctional officer in a prison who has a secret passion for acting. When he finds that is long-lost illegitmate son whom he abandoned before his birth has been transfered to his ward, he sponors his son’s probationary release – without telling his son that he’s actually his father! Whoa! Add in a restless wife (played by Julianna Marguilies) speculating about her husbands skittish behavior, and two children who have their own weird habits and obsessions, plus a crazy neighbor, a burned-out acting coach (Alan Arkin FTW!) and an sweet English actress (played by awesome Emily Mortimer) with a secret of her own, well, it was definitely a heartfelt, off-beat comedy that had the audience laughing and me crying (at least part of the time). We likened it to Little Miss Sunshine, as a movie, basically, about people and their foibles and hang-ups and lies and how, in the end, we’re all the same and should have more compassion with each other.

Awww…

This was actually the world premiere of City Island, which is pretty cool, and at the end of the movie we had a few minutes of Q & A with the director, Andy, Juliana and the rest of the cast (Alan Arkin and Emily Mortimer were sadly not there).

It’s a crap picture, but hey, it proves I was there. Director is in the black shirt to the left, Andy Garcia is in the gray suit to the right, and Julianna Margulies is the yellowish top towards the right.

It was a great time, but I’m not sure I would bother waiting out in the hot sun for an hour to do this again. But it was interesting and definitely something to cross of my “NYC Thing I have done” list. It’s a pretty long list, but luckily, with attending the Tribeca Film Festival and seeing Julia Stiles, I’m getting a little bit closer.

As we were walking back to the subway station, I was gushing about how awesome the weekend was and how good blog material it was and Erik and I were joking about how, secretly, my main goal in life is to have a life worthy of envy.

Just kidding!

You know you love me.
XOXO