I'm about to go over to... Crunchy Boy's house for dinner, and he is all excited because we are cooking. WE are cooking. Not him cooking for me, no no. We are shopping together for food and everything. I think that he is under the impression that this is a romantic activity, which sadly could not be further from the truth. Every time he asks me what I think we should include in the menu I lose a little bit more lust for him. I asked if I could bring stuffed grape leaves and he assured me that we would make them ourselves. Now why would I live in the greatest take-out city in the world if I wanted to stuff my own grape leaves?

Well, the freaks are out in full force now. At least it seems that way. The subway has taken on a slightly sinister feeling as opposed to its usual entertaining parade of weird sounds, sights and smells. This morning a man sat with a bike in front of him- you usually expect the biker types to be sane, at least- and laughed and laughed to himself. Periodically he would shut up, and then begin again, and everyone would look around to see who the other part of his conversation was and there was no one. A man in a business suit coughed every so often like there was a cat in his throat- just one, hard hack- and the people next to him would jump. And then the bike man would start laughing again. There should be a moratorium on freakish behavior in confined public areas, like the now-defunct one-passenger edict on bridges and tunnels.

Here's what I don't get: foliage. Or rather, the foliage pilgrimage. I mean, of all the nature-related activities you could do, this seems a particularly boring undertaking even for staid New England types. They're trees. The leaves are pretty. That's it. End of story. This makes bird-watching look positively, heart-poundingly exciting in comparison. Is it simply having been raised amongst trees with fiery fall leaves that makes me immune? It can't be, for east coast types are the most rabid of the leaf-peepers. I say, combine foliage with something else. Leaf peeping while bungee jumping, say. Bungee peeping.

[this entry- wherein I experiment with drugs, meet a crack addict and have hallucinogenic sex (not with the addict)- has been deleted due to its overly personal content. It's delightfully racy. Ask me and I might let you read it anyway.]

In an ongoing quest to document every shallow urban trend affecting women between the ages of 22 and 30, me and "Jackie-O" (this per her liking of non-incriminating nicknames for everyone mentioned in the weblog) have discovered that the Gap is becoming the old/new H&M. Gone are the crappy, flaccid, ill-fitting jeans (well, at least they've been relegated to one shelf), and suddenly cute pants abound. Much as I hate shopping, I have to admit I was reeled in by the bright pink. So now, that theory about the Gap being the perfect place to shop for morning-after clothing might actually be effective. Especially since I seem to be having more mornings-after.

I don't know if it's just the nervousness and collective public anxiety, but lately it seems like there is never not a siren or two screaming by. New York was always this loud, though, wasn't it?