lovely weekend

it's a constant struggle for me to find balance in my life, to get better at saying no and accomplishing/doing all the things i really want to do. instead, i find myself in one of two predicaments:

1. being so busy during the week with work, gymming and social outings that i'm too exhausted to do or want to do anything besides veg out

2. being so busy on the weekends with appointments, chores, and catching up with friends that i am too tired and unmotivated to do anything during the work week

this week, it's #2. i had an unexpected dinner with british dave at my place. both exercise-aholics, we both squeezed in workouts before an impromptu meal of chili, meatballs and red wine at my place. i have the notion that british dave is too polite to tell me he really wasn't too fond of the meal as he ate only one bowl of chili and one meatball but continued to devour the loaf of multigrain bread!! nonetheless, it was wonderful to catch up.

saturday i met up with celestial in chinatown where i had my first visit with dr D. i've been trying to find a good doctor in nyc for ages, and was happy celestial recommended hers. the experience was undoubtedly odd! on bowery, just steps away from my favorite banh mi store, you step into a commercial building. the two sets of elevators are readily spotted by a swarm of chinese people trying to enter/exit. in the elevator, there are two doors which are adjacent to one other but only one opens depending on which floor you are on. since dr D had gotten in late, appointments were over an hour behind schedule. celestial and i decided to kill time and go grocery shopping. by the time we got back, it was only another 15 minutes of waiting before it was my time to go in.

dr D was a nice, middle aged chinese woman with the kind of straightforward talk that only a middle aged chinese woman could get away with. over the course of the visit, she told me i had an "old person's name", fat people put talcum powder "down there" but that's bad because it may be linked to cancer, and that women used to grow their arm hair out and that was OK.

after the visit, celestial and i headed back to LIC and watched vicky, christina, barcelona. then celestial made a delicious feast of okonomiyaki, tofu with edamame, and stir fried squid. we listened to some music and got dressed for dancing. in the end, we skipped the birthday parties and went to la caverna to dance. hours later (forgot how much i love to dance) and even making a new friend, we went to schillers for a quick snack and evening recap before splitting around 3AM.

sunday was a more relaxed day. i met up with dandy at prune for brunch. a southwest bloody mary and butter crumbled poached eggs with spicy stewed chickpeas for me and a green lake bloody mary and soft scrambled eggs for him. the food is as well thought out and executed as i remembered. really, one of my favorite restaurants in nyc. after brunch we went to spa belles where we got manicures and i was so relaxed i could have fallen asleep. we walked back to union square, stopping by trader joe's for a bit before parting ways.