Last week, I got a haircut at The Beach on Christopher Street. I am so cool! I live in the West Village!

Anyway, my illustrious stylist Thom ran across the street during my appointment to get these cheesy, bready “puffs” he kept talking about. “It’s like bread… and oil… and spices… oh, and obviously cheese!” he kept sputtering. Obviously. Curious as all hell but also in shock that there existed a trend in snacking of which I was not yet aware, I just glared at him and asked what he was talking about. It was a combination of shame and intense interest. I must have had an “Enlighten me. Now. I’m hungry.” death stare going on because when I looked up, he was gone.

We have a cute relationship like that. Last time, I bought him a peanut butter-chocolate bar from the Polka Dot Cake Studio after he opined, mid-foil, that there was nothing in the world better than a Reese’s. Until I discovered this bar, I might have agreed with him (as evidenced by my favorite poster), but I couldn’t let him go on living in a massive delusion and so delivered a bar to him promptly. His bringning me a cheesy puff must have been payback for that.

The puffs came from Pai Pao, across the street from the salon. Here’s a pic from inside:

Thom declared the puff ‘’this year’s Magnolia cupcake” and I already agree. Plus, the store staff doesn’t try to intimidate you with What the fuck are you doing in our bakery? looks, so that’s a perk. The puffs are small in stature so it’s like you’re eating less; plus, you get to feel like a giant. Wait, I already feel like a giant. Hmm. Then, a really thin and beautiful giant, with amazing hair, who’s stuffing fried cheese into her mouth because it’s suddenly trendy. Hooray.

Five puffs cost only $3.50. You could make them a meal, unless you’re really hungry, a big pig, or me. Here’s a cross-section of the NY Cheddar. It looks sort of disgusting, which is why I don’t get how it can be so good. Then again, a big platter of nacho soup (when there aren’t any more chips and the main course has yet to arrive) looks really gross, too, and clearly it’s amazing.

I was eating my puffs on the Christopher Street pier, and within eyeshot was this incredibly lame photo shoot:

What was this for? My guess is the J. Crew catalogue or some high-society magazine. WASP Weekly, perhaps. I still don’t get why they wanted the Hoboken skyline in the background or why they couldn’t have waited for a sunny day. I was intrigued by what sort of fake food could have been in their picnic basket, but I didn’t have the courage to ask. Models are so much cooler than me!

Loving: 99-cent 2-liters of Coke Zero
Hating: entire Thai food lunch special that I just knocked onto the floor

My sister (who’s really good at looking tough) visited this weekend for a big Easter Extravaganza, during which the closest we came to acknowledging the holiday was picking out four lovely pastel Magnolia cupcakes. Oh, and while drunk, Meghan also wished the entire staff of Papaya Dog and about 30 W. 4th Street loiterers a “Happy Eeeeeeeaster!!!!” That was fun. And if I wanted to stretch it, we also ate some He is Risen Reese’s Eggs and some damn fine Peter Cottontail Nachos Supreme. We also heard some church bells. That friggin’ woke us up.

Anyway, about these cupcakes. There’s a lot of hype about the Magnolia Bakery on Bleecker because it was featured on Sex and the City, blah blah blah. I think the cupcakes are really good, but I’m a complete sugar hound and sometimes eat only dessert items all day, so I’m probably biased. I checked out some of the customer reviews on Citysearch — 9 out of 10 of them are negative, and more than half complain about the “hipper-than-thou” staff. It’s really funny though, because despite all these disappointed customers, there is always a line around the corner. I like to laugh at this line as I jog by in my spandex shorts and jogbra.

“Is that true?”
“Yes. Everything except the jogging part.”
(name the movie)

No, I don’t run by the bakery. I do go there a lot and get cupcakes. I’m sorry, I think they’re good. I treat them like ice cream cones, slowly licking (or fingering, for added kink) around the buttercream perimeter until I eat half the frosting; then I finally bite into the cake, which I could give or take.

The complainers are right about the cake part - it’s dry and often tasteless. But I really don’t see the point in slamming the staff. Last time I checked, there was no reason to be afraid of a girl in a bandana or a guy with a nose ring. They work in a bakery, remember? Their jobs probably suck. Get over yourselves, because not everyone in food service is going to act delighted to serve loud tourists in large groups. In fact, I sort of admire their honesty. They know they can act as disinterested and unhelpful as they want, because people will invariably keep coming back. That’s pretty funny.

If I didn’t like the icing so much, I’d call it obnoxious instead of funny, because I’d have to keep taking visitors to a place I didn’t appreciate. As it is, I don’t care if the chick behind the counter is a bitch as long as I get out of there with a box o’ four. I’d say it’s a pretty fair tradeoff.

Of course, if they were mean to me, I’d probably complain too. I just don’t see why they would be. I’m sooooo West Village-chic. Totally.

And now for a new monthly installment called “If I worked at the Magnolia Bakery…”

I just realized how sick I am of the word “cupcake,” after reading all those reviews. If I worked at the Magnolia bakery, I’d become especially sick of it. The cashiers have to ask the customers what’s in their boxes, and the answer is almost always “cupcakes.” I’d want to kill myself. I’m sure they do, too, partly because they’re sick of the word and partly because they’re really frustrated that this arguably mediocre product is the only thing people ever buy. I’d seriously consider an operation to block out the word “cupcake” from my hearing and understanding. I guess I wouldn’t really be a good employee then, but it seems none of them are anyway, so I’d probably fit right in. I have lots of bandanas. Hmmm. Why don’t they just make a policy that people have to hold open their boxes so the cashiers can take inventory themselves? This would prevent a) lying, b) any dangerous verbal interaction between the tragically hip and the commoner, and c) the spoken word “cupcake.” It’d be perfect.

This Friday, I took yet another step towards Becoming a Real New Yorker: I enjoyed dinner for two in a quaint, packed little restaurant that smells deliciously exclusive from the street. I know all about that street part. I don’t dine out often, so much of the time I spend walking around my neighborhood involves glaring jealously at the people in the piping hot, cute, and TINY restaurants before ducking into Burritoville for some mediocre takeout.

But, oh! Ms. Meghan Barrett decided to make a whirlwind trip into the city to see that Gates thing in Central Park (don’t ask me anything about them, as I don’t really “get” them but also don’t really care), and her presence seemed a fabulous excuse to try our hands at Village-Dining Snobbery (VDS) for a few hours.

VDS is a tricky little bastard. Get hooked and you’ll crave it every night, but disregard it completely and you’re missing out on a huge part of Village lifestyle. You see, you’re supposed to envy the diners you see in the window. They need you there to be walking by so they can feel superior, and they will gladly do the same for you at times that are convenient for them. Neither the outsider nor insider is allowed to blatantly stare, but passersby are strongly encouraged to evoke a slight sense of jealously.

A small “Too bad I’m outside” or “That place looks really cool” head tilt works best. A darting “I wish I was in there eating that trendy food with those really stylish people sitting right by the window trying to see if I notice them” glance can also work, although some variation on the former action is more subtle, and the diners in the second example don’t really deserve your attention. It’s a subtle balance - this system of Village-Dining Snobbery - but, with everyone’s help, it manages to maintain equilibrium.

Friday, it was my turn to switch teams, shake up that balance. After an extensive research session at work, the snobttoria of choice became Da Andrea on Hudson St.

This is not an expensive place. It’s not even a beautiful place. The staff seems perpetually annoyed, but I’m guessing that’s because they keep trying to silently will the restaurant to expand beyond a width of 2.5 body lenghts. But the perks are obvious: great-tasting food, hot location, and originality. Kind of.

We entered the restaurant to find that the two-square-foot “waiting area” was already jam-packed with two whole people. So we had to duck behind the curtain separating the door/street (and all the dirty outsiders) and the glamorous interior that housed The Chosen. My sister labeled this curtain “really annoying.”

I stared nervously. Meghan’s eyes grew wide with hunger and an impatient longing to become Chosen. She was disappointed in me. I wasn’t Manhattan Savvy enough for her. She didn’t drive a painful 90 minutes just to stand in some shitty blue-curtained enclave. Come ON! Deep breath, Annie. Embrace your inherent VDS. You can do this.

After seven excruciating minutes of bumping into the interior standers and being crunched by the door as people came and went, we finally muscled our way into plain sight. Then it happened. A glistening two-top beckoned from a distance. (Okay, from five feet away. I could have pulled the chair out with my Amazonian boot.) I’m not sure if it was because we were so tall and lovely or because the people “ahead” of us actually didn’t want to sit down, but the heavily accented big swinging dick of a host plucked us from the doorway of perpetual burden and waltzed us down the aisle. Did I say big swinging dick? I meant knight in shining armor… for we had been Chosen.

I should have been overcome with joy/self-righteousness/achievement of VDS but instead I just felt dirty. I glanced out the window at the freezing pedestrians who were possibly headed to Burritoville or (gasp!) something even worse and wondered if the transition from outside with dignity to inside with false entitlement had been worth it. Then the menus arrived, we ordered wine, and I flicked my tallest finger to the cold, harsh streets. F-you, streets! I had been Chosen. I’d never go back.

Wishful thinking. I went back the next day. I ate BSP and Ben’s Pizza for my two meals and bought cans of corn “niblets” on sale at Gristedes. They taste even better if you pour on more salt.

Even so, my foray into false entitlement proved quite fruitful. Even when those three huge scoops of peach, strawberry, and chocolate homemade gelato merged rather uncomforably in my wincing stomach and I wanted to cry, I could still gaze around and feel genuinely better than everyone else. It really was quite lovely. DR strongly endorses VDS and encourages you to give it a try if you’re in the area. And if you’re lucky, some nerd with a digital camera will be there with you to catch you in all your VDS glory.

Sometimes I wish I lived in Chicago and could be a Trixie. Only for a few minutes.

But let’s focus on New York. On Saturday, I went running for my obligatory monthly workout. On my way back, there were these ridiculous preteen hoodlums blocking the Hudson River pathway for anyone who ran by. As my shitty luck would have it, one kid sprinted up and literally played basketball defense against me as I ran for about five seconds.

I considered blowing my whistle (yes Dad, I had my whistle) and calling him out on the five-second rule, but he didn’t seem like he’d be that into organized sports. I had to actually shove him away (while thinking he might have a gun) with my iPod-wielding forearm (extra threatening!) so I could get by, and spat out a resounding “WTF” in the complete-word variety while doing so.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the kid seemed to really dig this reaction. He backed off and shouted triumphantly to his friends, “What the fuck! She said what the fuck!” It was as if his other little greasy partners-in-crime were recording a log of people’s reactions to their antics. I guess that would be better than playing with guns.

40 steps later, another one of them crept out from behind the bushes like one of those huge Washington Square Park rats who dart out from under the benches and ran towards me. But this time I warned him ahead of time with a simple imperative: “Get out of my face.” I said it calmly and in statement-like form so that things would be more clear. This kid actually backed off right away. Yeah. That’s right.

So what’s the protocol here? They were seriously under 13. At what point are children forgivable, and at what point is it okay to wish you were the one with the gun?

I guess at the very least, this particular could-only-happen-to-Annie experience can serve as a valid excuse to not go running in the near future (read: until April).

Thanks, kids.

Hello … hello again! (totally ’80s guitar riff) I have Internet again! The Time Warner Man defied my expectations completely and showed up. Now I have no excuse for not obsessively updating my blog while obsessively not updating DR.

After entering The Room, Time Warner Man walked up to the TV and said, “Is this the TV?” I assumed that after doing a double-check over the rest of my living space, he’d become more confident in his guess - so I didn’t respond. Indeed, it was the TV, but why should I have given away the answer? But then the man actually turned around and waited for a reaction. I considered shrugging helplessly. But then I just nodded.
The new apartment kicks ass! But there is one glaring problem. The paint color turned out to lean towards the “rosey” side of the “nice rosey orange” spectrum. I never looked at the paint after I bought it, so this is my fault. (Your runny nose, Larry having a blog, and the overwhelming April-May profits of the 23rd St. Nuts for Nuts cart are also my fault.) The painting occurred while I was romping around the Midwest, so I wasn’t there to stop it. But I wouldn’t have anyway. It’s not that bad. It’ll be like a test of character! Uh, you lose.

So much for my brilliant plan to offset the dark brick wall (wouldn’t any color have done that?). Or maybe I’m overreacting. Here’s a low-quality preview of the paint:

Notice that the orange is just dying to come out. But it can’t. It’s being suffocated by the parasitic pink, rendering a hue that can generously be classified as “coral.” But we all know it’s really “pink.” Below is an alternative:

Okay, that was intended as a joke but it seems my “joke” looks better than my reality, so I’m not even going to attempt other colors. I would probably stay up all night and waste time on the computer if I did that. Oh wait.

It’s really not that bad. I have a lot of stuff to throw on the walls, and the color does kind of remind me of a Matisse painting. (I’m not one of those people who name-drop painters, BTW. Matisse is the only artist I know. Are there, like, others?) Plus, anything’s better than white. Plus:

Check out this cute sweet shop across the street. It actually says “ice cream artisans.” I am pumped. I’ll have the pink kind!

I’ll post silly pics of last weekend soon. Amazingly, I’m tired before 5.

Another eventful time at Rose’s Turn.

Zach and I display our $2 street-bought gay gear. Yay Pride!

Michael Dionne gave us free shots! We love Michael Dionne!

This is Guillaume, from France. He thought we wouldn’t get it, but we do. It’s William in French. Go Guillaume!

Alex belts it out. Summertime. You go, grrrrrl.

Michael Dionne is under the sea. We love him and his funky props.

Zach just got hit on by two 50-year-olds. Hooray for Rose’s Turn!

Today I signed the lease on a studio apartment in the West Village for July 1. I am PUMPED. Granted, the apartment has roughly the same square footage of all of the mice I have caught and killed in my current apartment (if you laid their glue traps side by side on the floor). Oh wait. That’s actually pretty big.

Here I am, larger than life in my new neighborhood:

The Wendy’s homestyle chicken strips are hit or miss. Tonight’s taste amazing, but maybe that’s because I paired them with a “spring mix” salad. With fries and a small Frosty they sort of lose their glamour.