1. Yesterday I started training at my new job.

Every day I’ve been glued to craigslist classified ads waiting for something to pop up that appealed to me.  There are hundreds of postings daily in Manhattan for everything from paralegals to translators to housekeepers to egg donors.  There are dozens of posts for things that I CAN do… The trouble is finding something that I WANT to do.  I’ve considered going back into wedding photography (no doubt it would be amazing here in the city) but have been concerned about it conflicting with other plans I have made (but we’ll get to that soon enough).  As you might remember, I took a serving position at a restaurant on St. Mark’s called Paprika, but after two shifts realized that it simply wasn’t a good fit and quit.  Now I’ve begun a NEW serving job at a restaurant called The Smith.  I went to an open call for servers at the restaurant on Wednesday, and it was PACKED.  I arrived right at the beginning of the 2-hour window of time during which the open call was taking place, and I was already the 38th person there.  Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised when the general manager asked me if I could start training the following day.  I went in yesterday I began my first training shift, and came out feeling extremely satisfied with the experience.  I shadowed a lovely girl named Lisa who was helpful, sweet, and good at her job (always a plus).  Everyone who I met was great and seemed to really like each other and work together well.  The menu is rather extensive, but hopefully I’ll pick it up without too much trouble.  I know that waitressing isn’t what I came to New York to do, but it will be good supplementary income (did I mention this place gets insanely packed?) for the time being, and I’m fairly confident that I will be able to continue doing while I take on other projects.

2. Tristan got a new job, too!

Today Tristan begins his new job at Crif Dogs.  As silly as it may sound, this place is pretty legit.  It has an insane cult following, is an East Village institution, and is continuously ranked as having the best hot dogs in all of New York.  Even cooler is the fact that within the silly hot dog restaurant is a discreet phone booth.  If you enter the phone booth and pick up the receiver you will here a voice on the other end asking if you have a reservation.  This voice belongs to the hostess for a unique speakeasy called Please Don’t Tell, or PDT.  Once your reservation is confirmed, you enter the bar through the other side of the phone booth.  For those dining in Crif Dogs who don’t know about PDT, this is a pretty wacky sight: Well-dressed groups of people squeezing into a random phone booth and disappearing into the abyss.  Crif Dogs and PDT are under the same management, and when Tristan went in for his interview, the manager mentioned to him that they were looking for someone to take over as a general manager for both places and that he felt Tristan would be a good fit.  He has yet to meet the owner (who is out of town) who makes the final call, but in the mean time, will begin training on the hot dog side of things.  According to the current employees, just working the register for a night leaves you going home with around $200-300 in tips.  Not too shabby.  If Tristan gets to transition over to PDT or work as a manager for the whole shabang, all the better!  If not, it’s money in hand for now.  Win-win, if you ask me.  Oh yeah… there is the slight down side.  His first training shift begins at 8:00 PM and finishes at 4:00 AM tomorrow….  Such is life.

3.  I’m going to culinary school.

Woot!  I’m pretty pumped about this.  I have officially applied for the Classic Pastry Arts program at the French Culinary Institute.  I first heard about FCI while in high school.  I had mentioned it to my parents as something I wanted to do someday, but they insisted I go to college first (I’ll show them!….I’ll go to college, all right… and get a degree in ART!!  BWAHAHAHA!!)  After I finish the program I will be an expert gourmet pastry chef.  The program is scheduled to begin in the middle of July (that is, if I get into the section I want).  Hopefully I will be able to continue waitressing simultaneously, which I don’t think will be a problem.  School will be 3 days a week in the evenings.  I’m sure I’ll balance something out.  I will keep everyone updated on the tasty treats I’m learning how to bake once that adventure begins this summer!

4.  Kickball is awesome.

Tristan and I have joined an adult kickball league.  It’s amazing.  We had been interested in this kind of activity ever since our dear friends Jesse and Julia Giordano joined at team back in Albuquerque.  Once we moved here, we thought kickball would be a great way to meet people and have a good time, so we did a little research and discovered the New York Social Sports Club.  This organization offers adult leagues for kickball, dodge ball, ultimate frisbee, flag football, and basically any other nostalgic playground game you can fathom.  I mentioned our plans to join a team to Adam Liebman (a middle school friend who I was randomly reunited with on the subway a few months ago) and he said he had been wanting to do the same thing!  So, we joined forces and created the most ultimate kickball team in history: Booze On First.  The team is comprised of Tristan, Adam, Tanner, a bunch of people from Adam’s work, a couple of “free agents” (people randomly assigned to our team because they weren’t part of a larger group), and myself!  Everyone on the team is fun, laid-back, and as it turns out, really good at kickball.  We all go out for a pint or two before the game, proceed to dominate on the blacktop, and then all meet at the sponsor bar, Aces & Eights for a few $10 pitchers.  All in all, GREAT SUCCESS!  Keep it up, Booze On First!

5. I want a dog so bad it hurts.

First of all, I apologize to all of the parents out there who just read that sentence and cringed.  That being said, I want a dog so bad it hurts!  Raising a pet in New York isn’t something that I ever considered feasible until I moved here.  EVERYONE has a dog, and therefore, the city has learned to cater to it.  Most every bar/store/restaurant in the East Village is dog friendly, and there is even a huge, fenced-in dog park right down the street from our apartment.  After doing a LOT of research, we’ve found that possibly the most suitable breed for apartment and city living is the french bulldog.  These cute little guys don’t take up or require much space and are incredibly affectionate and playful.  This isn’t something we foresee in the near future, but it IS a possibility once we have the time and money to raise a pup properly (which won’t be for a fairly long time… so no need to panic just yet).

6.  A new roommate era has begun.

Our current roommates are moving back to Albuquerque.  They decided that New York simply wasn’t for them, and are in the process of packing up their things and making arrangements for a long journey back home.  This means that it’s almost time for the arrival of Dan and Addie!  I am painfully anxious for my dear, dear friends to come spend the summer with us.  Dan is scheduled to arrive mid-May after his upcoming expedition through the vineyards of France and Italy.  We’re shooting to get Ad here around the 1st of June, just after the wedding of a family friend in Albuquerque.  There is no doubt that our adventure cup will overfloweth with the 4 of us living under one roof.

Stay tuned for upcoming tales of interest in the fabulous lives of Tristan and Shannon!

I have recently taken an internship position at the Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art Gallery in Chelsea.  My first day on the job consisted of working at the opening reception for the Mikael Kennedy show entitled Shoot the Moon. The show consists of 500 polaroid photographs taken over the last 10 years of Mikael’s life.  The 500 exhibited images were selected from a series of over 4,000 polaroids (yikes).  The show was installed in room 524 of the Chelsea Hotel.  For those of you who may not know, the Chelsea Hotel is, more or less, a big deal.  The building lies in the heart of Chelsea (gallery central of Manhattan) and upon its transformation into a hotel (before that it was all private apartments) in 1905 (it was built in 1884) it instantly morphed into an epicenter for Chelsea’s artist squatters.  The building’s owners allowed poor artists to stay in the hotel for free in exchange for art.  As a result of decades upon decades of these exchanges, the hotel’s walls throughout the lobby, hallways and stairwells are COVERED, floor to ceiling, in art.  Needless to say, the space is intriguing.  The rooms boast such events as Bob Dylan composing music, Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso engaging in poetry and intellectual exchange, Dylan Thomas poisoning himself to death with booze, and Sid Vicious (allegedly) stabbing his girlfriend to death.  Mikael Kennedy’s choice to have his show installed in one of these legendary rooms was both bold and strategic.  First of all, the rooms are grungy and dilapidated.  Given the offhand, and perhaps even careless feel of a polaroid photo, the space and the work were a perfect fit.  A location any…well… cleaner wouldn’t have lended itself to the mood of the images.  AND, because the reception was in such an iconic building, the press coverage was ample, to say the least.

Hey Addie!  Did you know that you could be selling that grid of polaroids on your dining room wall for $500 a piece??  That’s right!  Your money problems are over.  Just move to New York and get some hipster bloggers to write about the photos taped to your fridge and just like magic, you’ll be a bazillionaire artist!  That’s right, folks.  These babies were selling like hotcakes for a mere $500 a pop.  Mikael told me he was glad because his car really needs a new transmission.

At times there were over 100 people crammed into the TINY space (think hotel room, people) and I got to serve them all free wine!  Hooray!!!  From my tiny table I got to frantically pour ever-shrinking glasses of chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon (both of the two-buck-chuck variety…class-e) to pretentious New York art-folk (I’ve never been so proud).  Don’t get me wrong.  I actually had a really good time.  Christopher Meloni (of Law and Order SVU) and Cyndi Lauper even showed up!  I’m not gonna lie… that made me pretty happy.  Part way through the night a kind gentleman told me that I was working far too hard and inquired as to the location of my tip jar.  I informed him that I didn’t have one (not because I hadn’t considered it… I simply didn’t want to insult my ‘employers’ or the artist) and he responded by picking up an empty wine glass and slamming it back down in front of me stuffed with dollar bills.  By the end of the night I pocketed $50, which wasn’t too bad considering the tip jar didn’t appear until half way through the 2 hour reception, and 75% of the way through the booze.

The rest of my responsibilities for the duration of the internship consist of sitting in a room that is plastered with old photos in the Chelsea Hotel 8 hours a day for a couple of times a week in case anyone comes in wanting to drop $500 on a polaroid.  This may sound terrible, but it’s really not that bad considering that the show comes down on May 2nd.  After that I’m free, and even though I won’t have received any pay (except for yesterday’s tips and the 2-week metro card the gallery owner gave me) I WILL be able to add a New York gallery internship to my resume, and a few New York references as well (something that employers here get pretty pumped about).  If nothing else, it gives me something to do for the next couple of weeks during this…um… down-time.

The Chelsea Hotel

Mikael Kennedy installing the show

Inside the gallery space

Inside the gallery space

Mikael's photo boxes

Weapon of choice

Mikael Kennedy in the gallery space

I cannot wait for the end of May when our dear friend Dan will be joining us for the summer in our soon-to-be-vacant spare room!  Dan will be taking a job as a rep for his family’s company, Columbus Salami, here in New York.  It will be AMAZING to have a like-minded roommate who is as fun, outgoing, and adventurous as Dan.  He was the first friend to come visit Tristan and me out here in La Manzana Grande, and even came back over spring break with Alex and Margaret!  Hurry up, Dan!  We can’t wait to see you!

future roomies

Next mission: Alex Willey and Margaret Raskob

Ideas so far:

1. Culinary School (Pastry Emphasis?)

2. Associate’s Degree from Parsons in Fashion Design or Fashion Marketing

3. Go crawling back to Hunter next semester (last resort)

4. Begin training to be the most bad-ass bartender known to man

5. Tattoo artist apprenticeship (sorry mom and dad)

6. Join a kick ball team (oh, wait!  I just did that… more to come, inevitably)

Feel free to contribute any and all suggestions that come to mind!  The Shantron Empire (thanks, Skyler)  is capable of evolving in infinite directions.  I look forward to hearing from you! (yes… YOU).

Oh, HI EVERYONE!  Sorry I haven’t written anything here  in so long, but now i’m back.  Lucky you!  SOOOO much has transpired since we last touched base, (most of which is detailed on Tristan’s blog, which is largely the reason I’m lazy about doing this) and I don’t even feel like the same person I was a couple of months ago.  The nutshell version consists of:

1. An incredible spring break visit from Alex, Margaret, and Dan

2. The ever-constant breaking-in and filling-out of our humble East Village abode

3. Dog-sitting the most adorable and affectionate Westies known to man

4. Quitting school

5. Drinking wine

OHMYGODSHANNONDIDYOUJUSTSAYTHATYOUAREQUITTINGSCHOOL?!WHATTHEHELLAREYOUTHINKING?!

Yes, I did say that I’m quitting school!  Thank you for asking.  What was I thinking?  This:

Hunter sucks and I don’t have to take it.  So, there…  Not satisfied?  Ok, ok.  I came out to New York completely pumped and ready to begin this incredible new chapter in my life.  I thought that Hunter was going to be the place where I could have my ideal graduate school experience.  Sure, they had been difficult when it came to all of the logistical/administrative/financial/personal gobbledy-gook up until that point, but I remained confidant that once I actually arrived all would be resolved and come together in a beautiful little package with a shiny bow on top.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.  Upon arriving, I was informed that a huge portion of Hunter’s MFA building (the building being a large contributing factor towards why I chose to come here in the first place) was being shut down by the fire department.  Hunter had to either make repairs to the building to bring it up to code, OR give up the building all together.  Guess what they chose?!  Bye-bye MFA building…  Now this is a pretty complicated decision.  Hunter thought that the cost of repairing the building wasn’t worth it, so they now plan on selling it and relocating the entire MFA department to…. somewhere else.  The process of finding a new building that will accommodate the needs of the department (Manhattan-based, 100,000+ sq. feet, potential for studio renovation, etc) is going to take…. a while.  And until the relocation occurs, Hunter refuses to invest any money/repairs into the old building, leaving us with a falling apart, partially shut-down, inferno-waiting-to-happen.  Indefinitely.  Ugh.  Not exactly an environment conducive to creativity or inspired art production.  THEREFORE, (gulp) I have decided to take a leave of absence (see title) from school in order to reassess if graduate school is really what I want to do (at Hunter, or elsewhere).  This may seem drastic, but I remind myself everyday that this is not a dress rehearsal for my life, and if I allow myself to get stuck in a field that I don’t really feel passionate about, I’ll have to live with that decision forever!  Scary stuff, I know.  I’ve spent the last several weeks trying to step back from myself and focus on what I really want (When I figure that out, I’ll let you know…).  Luckily New York is an amazing place, and in the mean time I’m having a ball out here.  Even though Hunter hasn’t worked out the way I’d hoped, I’m thankful to it for being the catalyst that got me here in the first place.

bad day.

Will try again tomorrow.

Death & Co. Westville Times Square

Destination Cafe Mogador Central Park

Klimat Northern Spy Food Co. Washington Square

Common Ground Le Pain Quotidien Rockefeller Center

Terroir Two Boots Union Square

Hurry up!