StyleWhipped

Rebecca Gordon: Why I Love and Hate Technology

The following text exchange* from this weekend is 100% real and is the perfect demonstration of three things:

1. Why I love the new signs in the subway, particularly at 18^th Street, indicating the time until the next train.
2. Why I don’t love having cell service in some subway stations.
3. My commitment to punctuation even in text and even when I am ready to punch a friend.

 

Nameless (3:09pm) – Where are you now?

Nameless (3:10pm) – Wanted to go run an errand in Chelsea and SoHo

Me (3:10pm) – 18^th Street Subway.

Me (3:10pm) – Can get out and meet you…

Me (3:10pm) – Decide.   Train here.

Nameless (3:11pm) – Stay there

Nameless (3:11pm) – I will leave now

Me (3:11pm) – K. Should we meet Chelsea or soho?

Nameless: (3:12pm) – Will text when I get off subway

Me (3:12pm) – Where???

Nameless (3:13pm) – Well my Chelsea errand will take ten min

Me (3:14pm) – Decide. About to miss second train.

Me (3:15pm) - Meet me in Chelsea.  Missed train. At 18^th.

Nameless (3:16pm) – Wanted to buy shoes in soho

Me (3:16pm) – So where should I meet you. Right now I am in 18^th street station. DECIDE or I am going home.

Me (3:17pm) – I don’t care what you are buying.

Nameless (3:18pm) – Adidas

Me (3:18pm) – Where the eff is it?

Nameless (3:18pm) – Or y-3

Nameless (3:18pm) – Needed new sneakers

Me (3:19pm) – You have five minutes until my next downtown train comes. You are killing me. I am already through the turnstile.

Me (3:19pm) – Where should I go?

Nameless (3:21pm) – Ok

Nameless (3:21pm) – Heading into subway now

Nameless (3:21pm) – Meet me at 18 at station

Nameless (3:22pm) – Meet me on corner of 18 and 8^th ave

Me (3:22pm) – You are killing me.

Me (3:22pm) – See you there.

You can't make this stuff up.  

~ Rebecca

*My friend remains nameless because I want to protect the fragile reputation of this friend. If you know me well enough, you can probably figure out who this is and have probably guesses this friend is a guy. None of the girls I am friends with think/talk this much about a shoe purchase. Nor would any of them leave me in the subway for that long.

 

Rebecca Gordon: Strangers Talking to Me

As I think we have covered, strangers like to talk to me and, let's be honest with each other, I sometimes like to talk to strangers. My experience a few weeks ago was consistent with my stranger interaction, but it was probably the strangest of the stranger conversations.

I was on a train to DC and it sounded like the train hit something. When the train stopped, the man next to me said, 'I hope it was a deer and not a person.'

I said, 'I hope it was a fallen tree.'

Man next to me said, 'You are a better person than I.'

Man next to me was a priest.

~ Rebecca

Rebecca Gordon: Take it Off

In the past year, I have gotten into the habit of taking my clothes off in strange places.  Before I go on, please calm down – this is not like my unnamed friend who is rumored to have (some years ago) left his unmentionables at the homes of a few ladies over the course of a summer.  This is all very
innocent. Okay, now we can continue.

It all started on a summer night when I decided just one evening activity was not quite enough for me. First, I ran everybody’s least favorite road race, the corporate challenge (it is always too crowded, too hot and full of people who don’t really run but want to pretend they do for just one night. I know, that was mean. Rant is over). Second, I met Todd at The Spotted Pig for dinner. I am no stranger to wearing running clothes to Sunday brunch at a restaurant filled with people wearing the latest and greatest from the pages of Vogue, but this particular night was the first time I wore this get-up to dinner and I thought maybe it was poor form to be wearing sweaty running clothes and an unflattering sports bra while surrounded by the beautiful people of the West Village. So I hopped into the less than roomy bathroom and did a little shirt and bra change (and I may have also freshened up some of my make up).  I wasn’t looking great, but at least I was smelling slightly better.

This adventure led to a few more quick changes on those nights (or even days) when I wanted to go right from a run to a social event or if I just wanted to take care of a few errands after a run and wanted to spare the general public from my post-exercise scent.

After a few successful Superman-like quick changes, I took this habit to a new low and some might say I have crossed a line. I have moved my quick changes from the ladies room to the back seats of cars.  The first time I did this was when I got off a plane and had an invitation to go right from the airport to dinner.  The cab driver didn’t seem to notice (care?) when I artfully switched out my shirt without showing much (if any) skin. This event gave me a little confidence so when a drive from New York to DC took a few minutes longer than expected and we were looking at being late for lunch, I told Paul to keep his eyes on the road and I changed from a t-shirt and jeans into a dress. Impressive, I know.  I trust that Paul saw nothing but I can’t say the same for the other drivers on the highway. Good for them, some of them looked like they could us a little excitement on a Friday morning.  My latest escapade took place on the West Coast after a particularly challenging half marathon.  Lissa, Steve and I made the game-time decision to go right from the finish line to our brunch reservation.  Running 13.1 miles doesn’t usually make me instantly hungry, but it does make me insanely thirsty and a good Bloody Mary is typically the only choice. So off to the restaurant we went and I gave my friend of less than two years the same directions I gave my friend of ten years, “Keep your eyes on the road.”

I may not have acted with what is referred to as good judgment, I may not have looked great and I may not have displayed the kind of class few know me to possess, but at least I smelled slightly better and did my part to show people how you really can do it all. Except shower.

~Rebecca

Rebecca Gordon: Forever is a Mighty Long Time, or Two Weeks

My neighbor Fred and I are in a middle school relationship.  We hardly talk to each other or spend time together, but I talk about him to my friends for what seems like hours on end so I can figure out just what to do about my relationship with Fred. We communicate by passing each other short notes written on lined paper with three holes along the side.  This week, I yelled at a mean girl he was hanging out with.  When I can’t seem to get the right message to Fred, I ask someone else to talk to him for me and then report back.  In this moment, our relationship feels incredibly significant to my life, so much so that I am having trouble sleeping because of Fred.

And like middle school, forever last about two weeks.

Some of you may recall that a very long time* ago, Fred had a late night party right outside my bedroom window and this party led to a note exchange between Fred and me in which Fred offered his “sincerest apologies” and promised this would “never happen again”.  Apparently, Fred meant this will never happen for the next two weeks, because he was back at it again Friday night.  When I got home at 10pm** with plans to go to sleep almost right away, Fred’s party was going full force.  I decided that instead of being the mean old lady next door that tells the young partiers to quiet down, I would go to sleep with the window closed and then I could open it if/when I woke up later in the
night. I had, after all, been a young partier not long ago (I think it was three weeks ago) . When I woke up at 3am, I was really hot and wanted to open my window to enjoy part of the reason I live on such a high floor in New York City (I can open my windows and the rush of traffic sounds more like waves on the ocean than taxis speeding down the west side highway). So I opened the window and was hit with the sounds of Fred’s party still going full force. I shut the window and decided I would just sleep on the living room couch. But the noise in there was basically the same. I then did what any sane person would, I went back to my bedroom, turned on the light, opened the window and yelled at the group on the terrace “You have to quiet down, I am so effing*** tired.”  This had no effect and the party continued for another 30 minutes until I decided that I would rather be sleeping than watching DVR-ed Jimmy Fallon. I called down to the doorman and he sent someone up and the party ended and I went to sleep for two hours because I am incapable of sleeping late.

I woke up tired, angry at Fred and even angrier that I was out of coffee in my apartment. When I saw the doorman on my way to get coffee, he told me I could file a noise complaint and then the management company would send a “legal notice” to Fred.  As angry as I was, I just wasn’t ready to take that step with Fred. It felt like I would be reporting him to the Principal and he would only take action like a middle school boy can by picking on me more and I would sleep less.  The doorman, who apparently sees Fred all the time coming home really late at night, said he would tell Fred to knock it off and would also tell him I am the wrong person to make angry (I have a reputation from the apartment flooding fiasco).

The doorman made me feel a little bit better, but not as good as the note I wrote to Fred (written on his original note to me, of course): FRED – We have to figure something out here. This is not working for me. Rebecca

And then I slid it under his door, hoping he was not home. Because like any good middle school girl, I don’t know what I would actually say to him if I had the chance to talk to him.

~Rebecca

*two weeks.

**Don’t judge me, I worked non-stop all week and was exhausted.

***I used the real world.

Rebecca Gordon: Beauty Sleep

So it seems I have gone from Hot Paul to Not-So-Hot Harold. I have seen my new neighbor Harold once, maybe twice. I don’t know him all that well, but I do know that our sleep schedules don’t match all that well. A few times over the past few weeks I have been awoken late night by Harold hanging out on his terrace - sometimes alone and sometimes with a lady friend. As you may know, I am what most call a light sleeper. More relevant to this story is that I am the type to go to sleep at 10pm on a school night – I get up kind of early and a girl like me needs her beauty sleep. So a few of the times when Not-So-Hot Harold has been on his terrace smoking a cigarette and chatting loudly (both of which basically occur in my bedroom given how close his terrace is to my bedroom), I have thought my old-lady habits mean I can’t be annoyed by my neighbor’s normal habits (even if they do wake me up).

This weekend was a different story. On Friday night at 2:45am-ish I was awoken to Not-So-Hot Harold and a lady friend having deep conversation that included topics like “It is soooo great that you have this terrace.” As if this was not bad enough, they were smoking cigarettes and the smoke was wafting into my bedroom. So feeling lame, I fought my temptation to yell out the window “shut the eff up” and decided to start reading my book. I apparently fell asleep while reading my book because next thing I knew, it was 4:30am and Not-So-Hot Harold and his lady friend were having a (loud) adult moment on the terrace. As you might imagine, I did not go back to sleep after this. I did what any
normal person would do and brought my pillow out to the couch and watched the new Halston documentary while I sort of dozed.

As my day went on, I got more and more annoyed that I was exhausted and Not-So-Hot Harold was to blame. The only solution I could come up with was writing a neighborly note letting him know how close his terrace is to my apartment (see picture). And then I went out for the day and wondered what his response might be. Call me cynical, but I assumed he would ignore me or write back some mean note about how he could do whatever he wanted with his terrace. After talking to a few friends, I decided that my best plan of attack when Harold acted up again would be to open up my
window and lean out, cigarette* and drink in hand.

Turns out my clever planning was for nothing. When I got back home, I had a lovely note at my door offering sincere apology and promising the late night disturbance would never happen again. Also, his name is Fred.

~Rebecca

*Not that I have those on hand.

Rebecca Gordon: Third Time is the Charm

I have spent the last three weekends at three weddings and over the course of these three weekends I have had three chances to showcase my unique public speaking skills. As you may have realized by now, I am not so shy when it comes to standing in front of a group of people and speaking into a microphone (real or fake). When two sets of friends ask that I speak at their weddings, I was 100% excited and 0% nervous. When I was given the chance to give a toast at one of the weddings, I was more than 100% excited. I love to brag, but I have figured out the formula to the perfect wedding toast. I can’t tell you exactly what it is (if we end up at the same wedding, I will lose my advantage), but let’s just say I can give an entire speech, covering the bride and groom and the two as a couple, in just 51 syllables*.

All this excitement and confidence might lead you to believe I am incapable of being nervous, but this is apparently not the case**. I am typically most nervous when I am on an airplane during take-off and landing, not when I am set to speak at a wedding/engagement party/office event. Apparently the past few weeks were not typical because the nervousness I experienced at the first wedding where I was set to speak matched the nervousness I assume is experienced by people playing to sold out arenas. I was so nervous before the first reading, that I had those sweaty palms of which others speak. I was so nervous that while I was reading in a church full of people (friends and otherwise), that my knees were knocking together and the only way I made it through was reading the last six lines of my reading directly to the happy couple.

I started worrying that I had lost my touch and would not make it through the next speech or the next reading. Experts might say that preparation is a good antidote to these types of nerves. Experts might be right, but I wouldn’t know. Instead of spending the week writing my speech and practicing the reading, I started my preparation on Friday morning when I wrote my speech for Friday night. I didn’t even get my hands on the reading until Friday afternoon, so advanced preparation was not really an option.

On Friday night, the speech seemed to go reasonably well/my friends were just being polite. This boosted my confidence for the big show, so I spent my Saturday running and hanging out with friends. I did practice the reading a few times, the last being at the hotel bar before we left for the ceremony. And I was a hit (you know, behind all the other important people at the wedding). So it turns out my antidote for nerves is not preparation, it is a combination of confidence and a
pre-ceremony cocktail.

~Rebecca

*If you are mathematically inclined and educated in the finer arts, you may be able to figure out this riddle.

**I know, I was surprised, too.

Rebecca Gordon: The Bartender as Tailor

Throughout history, people have relied on bartenders for many things – a drink, life advice, an introduction to the pretty girl at the other end of the bar, a second drink and, sometimes, a third drink. This weekend, I really pushed the limits of the services offered by a bartender.

I was out of town for a wedding and, as one does when out of town for a wedding, I was staying at a hotel with friends. Because we had a few hours to kill before the wedding and none of us needed more than 15 minutes to get ready (which is not to say we didn’t look amazing. We did), we decided to meet in the hotel bar to spend some time together before we boarded the bus to the ceremony. While sitting with my friends, I noticed a little string hanging down from the hem of my skirt. After
spending all that time getting ready, I was really concerned with looking absolutely perfect…so I started to pull the little string thinking I could tear it. I could not.

Not having a pair of scissors in my bag or in my hotel room (not that I would have walked back to my room anyway since my heels were of the very high variety), I walked over to ask the friendly bartender if he had a pair of scissors. I assumed he would either have a pair of scissors or a small knife that would do the trick. Like any responsible bartender, he asked me why I needed the scissors. When I told him, he said something like “I am on it” and walked around the bar to where I was standing. He bent over to inspect the situation and before I knew it, he had taken out a lighter and burned the little string away.

Problem solved.

~Rebecca

Rebecca Gordon: The Hazzards of Having an Attractive Neighbor

People who live in New York often say they do not know (or even see) their neighbors, not to mention actually talking to the people who live on the other side of their walls. I am apparently not “people” because I have been friends with more than a handful of my neighbors over the years. I mean no offense to the rest of my neighbor/friends, but the highlight for me was the few years when Todd and I became friends* with two other apartments on our floor. When Todd, Lynne, Paul, Morgan, Lynanne, Patrick and I got together, we talked about the usual things friends talk about when they are together…but we had a few other things in common that most friends do not share. We had the other neighbors on our floor to talk about. There was the woman who refused, no matter how hard we tried, to say hello to any of us and then there were the two dogs who barked nonstop if we were home (and their owners were not). The neighbor who got most of the airtime was Hot Paul. We call him this because we needed to differentiate him from the other Paul on the floor and, well, he is hot by most standards (seriously, even the doorman would comment on his appearance). Hot Paul sightings were pretty rare – and when you did see him he was running off to catch a flight to Europe, driving in a fancy sports car through the neighborhood or in the gym pretending to work out but really reading The Economist, only making him that much more attractive.

I have one Hot Paul sighting that I wish I could take back. On a particularly nice night a few summers ago, I got ready for bed – washed my face, brushed my teeth and put on my nightgown which by my standards is small and immodest, but by normal people standards is something close to what your grandmother sleeps in. This nightgown is not the kind of thing I would feel entirely comfortable wearing in front of my friends, so you can imagine it is not the kind of thing I would want Hot Paul seeing me don. Well, that is just what happened. The genius who designed my apartment building made it so that my next door neighbor (in this case, Hot Paul) can see into my bedroom from his terrace without actually trying to look into my bedroom. So when I went to the window to open it just a crack, I was basically standing inches away from Hot Paul in my slinky (but not actually slinky) nightgown. Horrified, I gasped, ran from the window, shut off the light and cried myself to sleep** hoping I would never run into Hot Paul again.

I can’t remember how many more times I ran into Hot Paul, because one particular run-in erased the embarrassment of the window opening incident. On a Friday afternoon after work, I was coming up in the elevator looking straight ahead, thinking about nothing in particular. For the sake of helping you visualize what is about to happen next, please note the genius who designed the Peeping Tom terrace also made it so that the middle elevator opens directly opposite Hot Paul’s apartment. On this Friday, the elevator doors opened at the exact moment when Hot Paul’s girlfriend was standing at his door with her arm up to knock one more time. But the final knock was not needed because at the second the doors opened and Mrs Hot Paul was about to knock again, Hot Paul was opening the door wearing only his underwear trying for some romantic (?) moment with his lady friend. Only this moment was ruined because I was standing directly behind her and also directly in front of him. And he was wearing underwear the size of the bathing suit I imagine Hot Paul might wear on his trips to the beaches of Europe. This time Paul looked horrified. So who’ embarrassed now? To be honest, I still am.

~Rebecca

*I know what you are thinking. I am one of those people who tosses around the term “friend” loosely. Not so – these are good enough friends that I am going to the wedding of one couple next month. So reserve your judgment for someone else.

**Kidding. I didn’t cry over that.

Rebecca Gordon: A Statistics Lesson

Lately, it seems I have been running into a lot of people I have not seen in a long time and was not expecting to see. If I am above 14^th Street, a former colleague taps on the window while I am having lunch with a client, a childhood friend is at the table next to me at the Harvard Club or an old neighbor is walking into the same Chelsea restaurant as I am. If I find myself in Brooklyn, then I see
former college classmates and chances are I haven’t showered and am wearing running clothes – the exact look one hopes to have when seeing people for the first time in a decade. If I am at the airport, then I run into Ben Bernanke, but I am not sure he counts since I don’t technically know him.

The strangest run-in occurred when I was on my way home from my dinner with friends*. While I previously declared I was going to cut back on cab rides, I did find myself in a cab on Friday night. After dropping my friend at her apartment, I told the driver where I live and we were on our way. And then he said to me “I drove you home last night.”** Since cab drivers have previously said some strange things to me (“you smell amazing”, “I know a shortcut to JFK”, “driving cabs is not my main job”), I didn’t immediately believe him. By the time he told me where he had picked me up on Thursday, I remembered being in his cab the night before and being slightly annoyed that he was almost yelling on his phone (such a rare occurrence, how could I have momentarily forgotten him?). Like Bernanke, I am not sure he counts since I don’t technically know him, but it was still strange. So if you live in New York and have been wondering about the chances of having the same cab driver twice, now you have your answer: High if you are in the middle of a trend.

~Rebecca

*LDZ – you asked how you can get a mention. Apparently, all you had to
do was go to dinner with me on Friday and share a cab home.

**You caught me. I have not cut down all that much.

Rebecca Gordon: A Healthy Obsession

Some might describe me as obsessive. Others might say passionate. The rest might just say I know what I like and lean into it. Whatever you call it, once I decide something agrees with me it appears in my life on a regular basis. I love hard boiled eggs and so I eat two of them almost every morning. At one point, a co-worker called me chickpea because well, I eat a lot of chickpeas. I think you get the point.

When I first moved to New York a million years ago, I decided I wanted to be able to run a lap around Central Park without stopping, so every Saturday and sometimes also Sunday I ran in the park. After some number of months*, I was able to run a lap around the park without stopping and so began my obsession/passion for running. I started running races and then I ran a half-marathon and then I decided to run 300 miles in one summer and then I decided (after much convincing by Lissa) to run a half-marathon in every state before I turn 50.

The newest version of my love for running is my habit of running a 9-mile run on a Sunday (usually with Anne and Joe). Sometimes I run up the West Side Highway and run out the piers to add some mileage without feeling like I am getting too far away from my home. Sometimes I run straight up and then right back down. On a rare occasion, I run up and then I take the subway back down again – not the most time-efficient, but good on the days when I lack motivation**.

This morning Anne and I may have taken it to a new level. Anne and I decided a few weeks ago that we really wanted to run all the way to the George Washington Bridge. As some of you may know, I live very far downtown and Anne lives a little bit less downtown, so running to the bridge would be at least 9 miles and would require taking the subway home/to brunch in our running clothes. I have been to the George Washington Bridge many times in my life – mostly on my way to the Catskills while in a bus or car, but never on foot. This run was one of the best I have ever had. It wasn’t the biker that nearly mowed me down or the lack of working water fountains at about 96^th street or the resulting chafe marks on my arms – it was three things: 1. Seeing the bridge from a completely different angle 2. Seeing the Little Red Lighthouse that can only be seen from the water or from under the bridge 3. Having a few extra minutes*** to catch up with Anne and plot our next run(s)…because once that one was finished I was ready for the next. I am, after all, obsessed/passionate.

~Rebecca

*like I said, it was a million years ago

**Sometimes I can run further if I don’t have to turn around and
retrace my steps.

***Few=60