I was in New York City last weekend, and it fed my soul and broadened my horizons. I love that town.

I spent the night at the JFK airport. It was actually kind of an adventure, and I met such nice people.

I keep accumulating good jewelry.

I bought two new purses. One silver, one grey. They are perfect.

I ate ridiculously good food in New York, including pizza – THREE times.

I joined an unsuccessful wild asparagus hunt. I feel that wild asparagus should be on Google maps – so much so that I repeatedly tried to find it using Google maps.

I ate lobster ravioli. Which is crazy amazing, but easy to overdose on.

I discovered this ditch with an irrigation canal in it.

I ate sprouted wheat bread that Carlyn made. It’s AMAZING. I particularly like it toasted.

I bought new sheets, pillows, pillow cases, duvet and duvet cover. I’ve never slept so well in my life.

I went to the Provo Farmer’s Market, where Carlyn has her booth. If you’re in town, check it out – 8 am to 2 pm on Saturdays. It’s so cool!

I bought five non-matching lamps from DI and will be painting them white, when I get a chance to breathe.

I misplaced my Nikon. I’m freaking out.

I bought an ice cream maker!

I finally discovered the perfect eyeliner (Maybelline waterproof liquid eyeliner). It does NOT smudge.

I went on the best drive of my life. It was through Mapleton, Utah. You read that correctly – Maptleton. I was grinnning like an idiot the entire time.

I took lots and lots and lots of pictures – with my iphone. (See missing Nikon)

I am going to Oregon and Washington this weekend! I have GOT to find my camera before then. I’ve been waiting my whole life to see the Pacific Northwest and I am GOING to take pictures. (I was born there, my parents moved when I was a week old, and I haven’t been back. It’s time.)

I became slightly obsessed with this song. THAT IS A WOMAN, and she sounds like a man. Awesome.

Rodney Smith photo from this week’s New York Magazine.

Actually, I can see the popsicles just fine as long as they’re within 15 feet and you don’t want me to read the joke lasered onto the side. In the middle of a headache, two days ago, I peeled my contacts off my eyeballs and threw them into the trash. They were my last set, so I need to go buy new ones, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I can’t find my ‘backup’ glasses, and so for the last 48 hours I’ve been in a bit of a haze. My eyes are just good enough that this doesn’t prevent me from doing anything except driving, but honestly, how long can that last? And I can’t go get new contacts until I find my glasses anyway, so I’m stuck in the house, doing my thing, in a haze.

Speaking of haze, I’m psyched for the Beijing Olympics. I hear the opening ceremonies were downright astonishing, so I’m excited to watch the reruns tonight on the good old NBC. It’s been forever since I’ve watched television, (even Iron Chef, can you believe it?). In New York I watched a ton of television, which is weird, because you would think there were better things to do. But I think it has something to do with familiarity. The more comfortable I am in a situation, the less TV I watch. Mythbusters and the Travel Channel are predictable and safe, whereas my high strung and paranoid roommate? You just never knew.

To Delta Airlines, I hate you, and I’ll never fly you again. Here’s why.

In the last 48 hours:

I have gotten three hours of sleep
I have lugged every thing I own across the entire United States
I spent $1200 in travel related fees – including having to buy a $400 one-way ticket that included an overnight stopover
I missed the deadline for checking in my luggage – by TWO MINUTES – because a Delta skycap didn’t speak English well enough to understand that I had already checked in online
I wasted four hours (HOURS) talking to Delta Airline representatives that refused to help me book another flight
I burst into tears and became that woman who drops the entire contents of her purse as everyone else is trying to rush to the security checkpoint
I burst into tears for a second time when four hours later (after having my dad buy me a new ticket) a man walked up to the Delta check-in desk next to me and said, “Hi, I missed my flight.” And the Delta rep helping him said, “No problem sir, we’ll put you on the next flight out – you leave in two hours.” JUST LIKE THAT.
I started laughing hysterically (through tears) when the ticket printer at my counter broke, and it took 30 minutes and several calls to upper management to fix.
I fell asleep at the Todd English restaurant in JFK
My waiter (at the same place) forgot to put my order in for almost an hour – good thing I was asleep for most of that and had four hours before my flight was due to leave
I was forced to fly through Las Vegas – my least favorite city before this trip – and now rougly below Hell on my future desired travel destinations
I lost my Ferragamo toiletries bag with everything in it – also about $400 (this is not part of the $1200)
I sat next to a Danish kleptomaniac who blatantly stole my bottle of water, complimentary biscoff cookies, AND my gum – and come to think of it probably my toiletries bag, since that’s about when it went missing
I spent the night in a dirty, ghetto Worst Western with the rudest concierge I have ever, ever met
I waited an HOUR for a taxi to take me 0.27 miles to the Las Vegas airport
I was chewed out by a Scottish family that thought I was trying to usurp their taxi – at four o’clock in the morning
I was chewed out by my taxi driver for having too much luggage
I accidentally tipped a skycap that couldn’t help me (but nicely carried my luggage inside) a $20 bill
I was selected for special screening and had every nook and cranny of my body and carry-on prodded and beeped at
I exercised self control when the woman poking at my stomach with a metal detector asked me if I had anything metal on me. My (tempted) response: “Only the specially molded gold breastplate, ma’m. I was forced to check my viking helmut and braids.”
I sat next to a drunk/hung-over guy that spent the entire flight vomiting (and taking his shirt on and off because he was too warm)
I spent $18 on a bottle of orange juice and six veggie dumplings in the San Francisco airport

Want to know the very, very, very best part of all this?

I’m STILL NOT THERE YET. I have one more connecting flight to go.

I am such a huge cliche right now. I’m sitting at a little table at my corner Starbucks, in New York City, and I’m blogging. The only way it could be worse is if I were blogging about Brooklyn design or green living, or both. Oh, and if you threw in a couple of cute ceramic owls, or some whimsical gold jewelry that was handcrafted by a crafty girl from Illinois in her garage/studio that she sold on Etsy. That way it would be worse. Actually, that might bump up my readership – ha. But, no, I shall forebear, and hold off on the Brooklyn/eco/owl/Etsy extras in an attempt to not go completely overboard.

Why would a good Mormon girl be sitting in the den of coffee-soaked iniquity that is Starbucks, you ask? I have one simple answer – for the wifi. Also, I’m ashamed to admit that they have a pretty good soundtrack going on right now. No, mother, I am not drinking coffee. But I did just have a rather tasty turkey sandwich.

I’m a week away from California, where I am spending the summer. I’ve been assured by certain people that New York in the summer time is the best time of all, and that I’m a fool to want to escape it. I’ve assured these same people that if they’d seen my hair on a hot humid day they’d understand. The thing is, I can’t handle the heat, and I can’t handle the humidity, and I can’t handle the smell. Which makes me a fake New Yorker, I know, and I am duly ashamed of myself. However, you have not seen what happens to my hair in the humidity. I have no photographic evidence of what my hair looks like because no one wants to be associated with me during such times. I call it the ghost-fro – wherein my hair retains it normal, long, slightly wavy hippie look, but with these little frizzies that curl up several inches all over my head – creating a halo that is anything but angelic. It’s as though I used to have a ‘fro, and I tried to straighten it, but the spirit of the ‘fro refused to give it up. Just. Can’t. Handle. It.

I am sad to be leaving New York City – and even though it’s just for the summer I already know the things that I’m gonna miss. I’m going to miss this, for one, the fact that I can just sit here on my computer for hours on end in the middle of all these people. I’ll miss the amazing freedom of completely anonymity while being surrounded by literally millions of people. I’m gonna miss the fact that the lady sitting over there looks just like Jerry Springer in drag, and that no one seems to care. I’m going to miss the cab drivers that give me advice on life, the old ladies on the bus that squawk at each other (and everyone else) in their thick New York accents, and how I’ll miss the energy. New York has a lifeblood to it that is like no other place I’ve ever lived in before. People ask me what my favorite part of New York is, wanting me to given them a street name, or coordinates of some kind – but I can’t. My favorite moments in New York have been undefineable, fleeting moments of deep-breath-satisfaction – and the only thing that any of them have had in common is that when they occured I was walking along the streets of New York City. I once saw this thing on PBS about spiritual places, vortexes if you will, where the mind, body and spirit seem to be more intuned to each other. You know the feeling I’m talking about – when you are standing on the edge of something tall and grand, or at the edge of some great body of water – it’s a feeling of vastness, openness, and connectedness. You become aware of the earth as a living thing, and you as part of it. New York City is that way for me, in a lot of ways. Not always of course, but in those moments when I’m walking down the street and my spirit soars inexplicably – I am pretty sure that it’s because somehow I am aware of the city as a living thing, and that I feel a part of it. It’s a strange thing to associate such an industrialized, urban thing with nature like that – but for me, it does the trick.

So that’s what I’ll miss – that and the little cafes that I love to spend a Friday afternoon in, just writing. I’ll miss the Met, and my little corner by the naked statues. I’ll miss the bookstores – oh, how I’ll miss the bookstores. The vast, four story ones with EVERYTHING, and the tiny ones that you don’t expect, that have books you’ve never even considered before. I’ll miss Riverside Park, and how it’s really more of a neighborhood park. I’ll miss the amazing restaurants with their cute waiters (at Babbo and Celeste, specifically, although the dude at Rain the other night was not bad either). I’m gonna miss getting dressed up every day – because New York is that kinda town. I’ll miss reading the New York Times’ local section, and knowing what it’s talking about. I’ll miss watching Law & Order and cheering when they’re questioning someone on the Upper West Side. And I will miss the catharsis of walking everywhere – even though I love the catharsis of driving.

But I’ll be back, people. Never you fear.