Back from JC. I hung out and read for a little bit at Wendy and Joel's, but the cat was starting to freak me out with it's huge saucer eyes, staring at me like "who are you? what are you doing here?" so I left. Stopped into the Gap at the Pavonia Newport mall on the way to the PATH and got some dumb old brown pants for work. How do dressing rooms make one look so ghastly? Is it the lighting? Are the mirrors cheap? The size of the mirror? The distance from you and the mirror? Every time I leave a dressing room I am just totally depressed. In fact I am going to the gym right after this to try and prevent my thighs from resembling inflatable pool floats any more than they already do. My body is just getting away from me in leaps and bounds and I'm not even 30 yet.

Mine and G's obsession with The Food Network continues. Last night we saw Anthony Bourdain's show "A Cook's Tour," and it was fascinating. He went to St. Petersburg and had blintzies and lots of vodka and reindeer meat. He seems like a prick, but he was a great host and had a great commentary going throughout the show. It made me want to read his books. Also, Rachel Ray's "30-Minute Meals" is incredible: she actually makes this amazing meal in 30 minutes! It's not like she has a plate of marinated chicken cutlets already done and just pulls them out of nowhere like on some shows; she's actually making it all right before your eyes. I think of one G's friends called it "real time cooking." I know it's totally boring to write about TV shows, but the Food Network has sort of taken over lives at the moment. It's one of the only cable channels we get, as we somehow have Basic Cable without paying for it, so every few months we get teased with free channels and then they disappear, which drives me nuts. I'm still pining for CNN and Anderson Cooper, so badly in fact we decided to just go for it and get standard cable service. So I emailed Time Warner Cable and they sent me not one, but two different confirmation numbers and said that somebody would be calling me shortly. Well, this was about three weeks ago and I'm totally annoyed now. It's good in a way that we had time to stop ourselves and say, uh, do we really want to pay for this? But I'm annoyed that it's been really bad customer service. I guess they don't want us as customers. It's a good excuse to get testy at someone and maybe get a discount or something.

Observed today: man singing opera in the subway; man contorted and passed out in a doorway on 6th Ave.; pigeon trying to eat Cheetos (well, that was yesterday).