"damn girl, you be lookin' fine!"

welcome to the blog post that i should entitle: picture texts from dressing rooms/bathrooms that i send to my sisters to get approval/applause. 

(but really it is about the random boys in manhattan that think i am the cat's pajamas and say so with less correct grammer and more enthusiasm)

this one time i went to a franternity ball

My time in the big apple might be pretty rough at times, but i will give it one thing, new york convinced me that i got something going on in the strutting-my-stuff department.

We all know that my dating life leaves something everything to be desired. That is why the Me tab of my blog reads like it does (which you should read and give feedback) and why i have that other blog about dating. It wasn't until i moved to nyc that i realized what my problem has been:

white mormon boys are not into me.

You would think this might get me down--i mean it does in the sense that i still feel little hope for my dating life once i get back to utah since it is both very mormon and very not ethnic--but right now, in this instance, it makes me feel awesome.

I was recently at a mormon party in the upper west side of manhattan where a boy i had never met was chatting with me. He asked which church building i went to and when i replied that i go the Harlem one he looked at me like i'm crazy and don't know the city well.

"why would you go to that one? The lincoln center building and ward are sooo much better!"

"but no one on the lower west side tells me, 'damn girl, you are lookin fine today!' when i am walking to the lincoln building in a dress and heels."

I don't think we are on the same page.

But seriously, when i need a self esteem boost i head to Canal Street or Harlem in some heels, it has yet to disappoint. Also, it is different than the cat calls from construction workers in the west, these guys don't try to get your number (okay i take that back, the guy at Home Depot tried to get me to take him to lunch and offered to come measure my shower for a remodel...) they just want to let you know that they think you are smokin and then they, and you, move on with your day.

I know that i am not a terrible looking human being, but i also realize that you have to work at things more than a little bit to help what the good Lord gave you. We can all remember my post that contained dozens of blackmail-style photographs chronicling my life. I think we can all agree that when i realized that makeup can be a kind friend, that hair is something that should not be cut to mimic a bowl, and there is clothing out there for every body type, i started looking a whole lot better. Though i like to think that i make most of these things work to my advantage, i have still never been one of those girls that boys flock to or tell how pretty they are. But new york, bless it's soul, has done that.

okay, sometimes it is true, sometime i don't dress cute. luckily i usually leave it in the dressing room...

I will admit that a lot of it is in the outfit. One day when i wore a hot pink dress with teal high heels i had at least 10 guys on one stretch of Canal Street tell me that i was beautiful and even offer me discounts at their stores. But then again, yesterday a guy said 'hey beautiful' right as i passed and i was covered head to toe in bulky clothing because it was 30 degrees (okay i take that back, i was wearing a coat but it was the leopard print MadMen jacket from Banana Republic...).

The best though, was an encounter that happened right before the hurricane.

The feeling of severeness of the hurricane went from 0-10 in the matter of a couple hours. I had a friend visiting from Utah for the weekend and when we woke up we decided to go running in central park (which of course meant that he ran in the park and i ran to William Greenberg's to buy the best black and white cookies in the city...). There were quite a few people out and it seemed like a normal day. Then i got numerous texts about how the city was shutting down the subway at 7pm in anticipation of the storm. Then my friend got a message from Delta that they canceled his flight for the next day...

Suddenly we were in panic mode.

We hurried back to the apartment, showered, packed up our stuff, jumped on the train and headed to the airport to get him on any flight that would take him out of the city. After we succeeded at getting him on a flight to Atlanta--no where near SLC where he wanted to go--i started trying to figure out what i was going with myself during the storm. I had only a few hours until the subway was shutting down and could either stick out the storm at my friend's house or head out to PA to stay with my sister. I opted to stay in new york but the girl i was staying with said they wouldn't let me in the door unless i had sufficient supplies so i headed to Trader Joe's so grab some water and a little food to add to my current stash.

i bought this coat specifically for nyc

I walked in and the store was relatively dead so naturally i took the chance to use their restroom--which are hard to come by in the city. I stepped out of the bathroom only to find that 100 people had flooded the store in those 3 minutes. Being completely overwhelmed by the craziness i quickly decided that PA was my option.

Now i was left with less time and I had to go back uptown to the apartment i was staying at, collect my things, grab some dinner, and make it to Penn Station downton while trains were still running out of the city. Needless to say i was running around like a man woman, my hair in a loose wet braid, no makeup, and i wearing a stylish outfit of jeans and a raincoat. As i flew down the stairs in one of the subways a boy stopped me. I assumed he needed directions since people everywhere looked confused about the subway shutting down.

"are you Russian?"

the raincoat. now imagine wet hair and no makeup.

Apparently he didn't need directions. When I said no he quickly asked if i was Polish. I looked rather puzzled and told him that i grew up in the west. Chuckling he said, "ah yeah, i can tell now from your accent, you are definitely American."

Then he continued, "well anyway, you have this great natural beauty (i think that was the polite way to say that i wasn't wearing makeup or fitted clothes) and well, the hurricane has made me realize that life is short. Do you want to grab coffee after the storm passes?"

and sometimes i just wear outfits/accessories that are just plain cool. right? RIGHT?

That's right ladies and gentlemen, the only date i have been asked out in nyc happened on the subway because someone felt their impending doom because of a looming natural diaster.

Moral of this long tale: he is neither Caucasian or mormon. And in case you are wondering if he followed through on his plan, he did text me during the hurricane and then called me last night to see when we can go out.

Someone find an ethnic boy in utah stat. You have six weeks until i return.

Hurricanation

there's a storm a brewin'

(Before the storm hit i managed to get out of NYC on one of the last subways/trains. I thought it would be a better option to wait out the storm with my sister's family. This turned out to be the best idea since many of the subways did not run for a full week and the apartment I was couch surfing in took in 4 other people that lost power.)

I have never been through a hurricane before. I have been through one natural disaster in my life--a flash flood--which i was in the thick of, completely unprepared. But the difference with that terrible storm, even though all of us that were involved thought at one point or another that this might be the last day the Davis family had ten living children, is that only a small portion of people were involved. The storm passed, phone lines weren't down, no houses washed away, no one was looting, and within a few hours we were warm and dry and doing okay.

you also spend a lot of time doing this. which takes a very long time i might add.

For us Sandy passed relatively quickly and little damage was done. Two trees fell, one knocking out part of the back fence and one doing a little cosmetic damage to the car, and the power went out for a day--but that was it. When it is over and you are unscathed, you think all is well. We couldn't watch tv and our phones couldn't make calls or use data so we had no idea what was going on outside of the community we were in. It wasn't until i would get calls from my family in the west that i heard of cars floating in parking garages of the Financial District (where that apartment i coveted and almost recently moved into is located). It wasn't until i was texted by my boss that i found out that lower Manhattan had no power and she watched water pour down her street, sure it was going to come flooding into her apartment at anytime. And it wasn't until i got back to work a week later that i heard of apartments getting looted, even the baby's clothes were gone. But when you are in an area that wasn't hit very hard, it is easy to have a good time because you have no idea that somewhere else houses are washing away and over a hundred are on fire, until of course you are back in touch with the world and hear of the people that came out so much worse than you.

you spend a lot of time doing this during power outages

what we like to call 'Hurricane-opoly'

The thing that does amaze me though, are the attitudes that i have witnessed in upper Manhattan. These people never lost power and could see the news. They knew that the subway wasn't running because of flooding, they knew that lower Manhattan was out of power. They heard stories of looters. They saw footage of houses burning in Queens. They knew that houses were washing away in the Rockaways.

I heard these people complain that they couldn't get anywhere because of the subway, that they were getting fat from eating so much because they were cooped up inside (with a working fridge and means to cook...), that they wished people staying in their house (because they had lost power/heat) would leave. And then i went to church were someone said that they knew they would be okay even though they didn't prepare at all for the hurricane because God wouldn't let anything bad happen to them.

these are our 'we are sad that the power is out' face. BUT we could still shop at target--as long as you didn't buy any perishables--and play monopoly so all was right with the world. 

Last time i checked the church adamantly preached being prepared.

Not to mention that we are all God's children, are the people that lost everything somehow less so?

I was appalled. 

This week though, that person had a chance to redeem themselves. Instead of having church for the normal 3 hours, we met for 30 minutes in our work clothes and then headed out to the Rockaways to help rip out carpet, tare out drywall, move mounds of soaked belongings, and give hope to people that lost everything. For me, i think it was really good to go. There is a difference between knowing of the destruction and seeing it first hand. 

this is Gloria's house, the one I worked in.

in my family we call these toys Dudes. this broke my heart a little, but seeing family photos litter the street broke my heart a lot

Mormon Helping Hands goes into areas after first responders check the stability of structures and after insurance companies calculate damages. It blew my mind that two weeks after a hurricane hit things like fallen trees and soaked carpet hadn't been removed yet, but i guess that just goes to show how bad things are. We found a women who was trying to figure out how to take care of her 90 year old mother's house. She lived down the street and moved her mom to her house during the storm, which turned out to be the best decision. Her house was not damaged in the living area but her mother's main floor and basement flooded. The main floor was a good 5 stairs up from the street and still water poured in and soaked everything. One step on the carpet and your feet were wet clear though, all this after two weeks.

All of these people are still without power and heat. Many of them also lost their cars, some just up and floated away... If you are in the New York/New Jersey area i would highly recommend finding some time to go out and help. There is no feeling like having a complete stranger let you into their home and then give you the biggest hug--like they have know you for years--when you leave a few short hours later. It makes you realize how lucky you are and how much more grateful you should be for your health and basic necessities.