I am, therefore I blog.

This weekend, I lived New York City.

On Thursday night, the city caught me in a moment of vulnerability and turned my should-be 15-minute journey home into an hour long, cold and snowy mess. On Friday morning, I opened my front door to nearly 2 feet of snow piled atop the cars parked along west 91st street, which had been shoveled haphazardly by someone who presumed that, given the amount of snow continuing to fall, their efforts were futile. I begrudgingly plodded to work in a snow-day outfit not suited for the Fashion District.

Friday didn't get better for some time. The cable guy didn't show because, evidently, the idea of working during a snowstorm like the rest of us (or calling to notify me that he wasn't coming) proved too much for him. More enraging still is the fact that I will be without cable for another two weeks - a fact that infuriates me only on principle, as I am gleefully stealing internet at the moment, have the entire series of Sex and the City on DVD, and frankly don't have much of an interest in television these days. Still, the mere notion that I am at the mercy of Time Warner's total absence of customer service gets under my skin more than I should admit.

Fortunately, thanks to a handsome and strapping shoulder to cry on (and one who eagerly ventured to pick up a pizza when delivery was, let's face it, not a likely option), Friday did turn around eventually. A healthy dose of perspective and some spectacular moments thrown in there and, before I knew it, the weekend had been restored.

Saturday, I took a Krav Maga Women's Self Defense Seminar in Chelsea with (and at the recommendation of) my personal New York City guru (and bff), Alyssa Galella. For those of you like myself who thought that Krav Maga was simply the pseudonym of some hippie who gets paid to show women how to kick ass in her Chelsea-based studio, let's turn to wikipedia:

Krav Maga (pronounced /ˌkrɑːv məˈɡɑː/; Hebrew: קרב מגע‎, IPA: [ˈkʁav maˈɡa], lit. "contact combat" or "close combat") is an eclectic hand-to-hand combat system developed in Israel which involves wrestling, grappling and striking techniques. Krav Maga is also known as Israeli jiu jitsu, its philosophy emphasizes threat neutralization, simultaneous defensive and offensive maneuvers, and aggression. Krav Maga is used by the IDF Special Forces units and several closely related variations have been developed and adopted by law enforcement, Mossad, Shin Bet, FBI, SWAT units of the NYPD[5] and United States special operations forces.

If that isn't hardcore enough for you, try to pack as much of this little practice into a 2 hour seminar as possible, including a boot-camp style workout in the top 30 minutes that deemed my decision to go sans-sports bra completely insane. Add to that starting pilates classes this week, joining the gym, and moving into a 5th floor walk-up, and lets just say I'm cursing muscles I didn't even know existed. Still, the seminar provided a tremendous release and sense of empowerment that came perfectly on cue.

Saturday night brought a mind-fuck (in the best possible way) presentation at the Hayden Planetarium entitled Sonic Vision - a 30 minute roller coaster of images and music that makes you wish that LSD were legal, cheap, and had no potentially devastating long-term psychological effects. Until that's the case, I highly recommend this little $15 trip ($12 if you can snag a discount) as a way to kick off a night of stuff that won't be nearly as cool.

Our subsequent 'stuff' was sufficiently cool, though. A concert in Brooklyn, with at least two friends planning on attending, was enough to lure me and the beau to Park Slope - much, MUCH uncharted territory - to a gem of a venue called Union Hall - a bar in one of these converted warehouses that reminds us Manhattanites what breathing room feels like. With two Bocce courts awkwardly/endearingly situated front and center in the main room, and a cozy concert hall nestled in the basement, the place has an identity all its own and I think we were all too charmed by it to worry about the inevitable $40 cab ride back to the Upper West Side.

Sunday was, in short, a dream, and filled as it should be with coffee-drinking and Upper West Side exploring with a very special man, running into a beloved old neighbor on the street, and living fully, on my time, and my terms, without guilt or obligation.

It is this kind of life-filled life that had led to my waning frequency of blog posts as of late. But I'm rededicating myself, because life has never been more worth documenting. And we all know I'm not much for cameras.