Hey, I'm in New York

There is something about New York - the smell, the energy, the apartment building with "Teeth Soup" spray painted across the first floor apartment window I'm walking by. Whenever I visit, I feel like a completely different person, and I love it.

My friend and I took a cab from Port Authority to the Lower East Side where our friend's box slash apartment is located. It's a 3-bedroom steal, fully equipped with a bathroom/living room/kitchen "area," and a masturbating hobo who lingers outside their apartment entrance quite frequently. Apparently, they have 911 on speed dial for such occasions.

We decide to hit up a small "hole-in-the-wall" brunch location right around the corner, which turns out to be about 15 blocks away. I guess when you live in New York, you don't use accurate systems of measurement. We finally arrive at The Essex Lounge, at least I think that was what it was called, and it seems the furthest from a hole in the wall. There is a 30 minute wait for a table, a line out the door, and the trendiest outfits you've ever seen on someone at 10:30 a.m. on a Saturday.

My friends and I decide to make our way to the bar, which looks like a mimosa breeding ground. A bartender lines up about 50 champagne glasses and fills them to the top with orange juice and champagne. And as fast as they're poured, they're gone. Who knew you could pay a flat rate of $17 for all you can drink mimosa’s, brioche French toast and potato pancakes! Good thing “teeth soup” wasn’t on the menu.

After some mid-morning libations and a delicious breakfast, my friends and I decide we have a good enough buzz going to do some shopping. Usually when shopping, I’ll drop benjamins like it’s my job. Instead, I came here with one shopping goal in mind, a first for me, and that was to buy a pair of cheap sunglasses.

We hit the famous Canal Street for some knock-off goodies. There are tables everywhere with cardboard signs that read “quality necklaces for quality people!” and “3 dollar sunglasses are cheaper then 5 dollar sunglasses, so buy mine!” It’s destiny.

I drop a 5 spot, put on my faux Ray Ban black shades (that give me that sort of Joaquin Pheonix post mental breakdown look), and we head back to the apartment to make plans for the night.

Making plans for a night in the big City can be more stressful then playing the stock market, especially when everyone wants to do a different thing. Someone yells out a dive bar, another yells out a club, so I jump in and exclaim “Meat Packing district!” I only know about this new and hip area from a few episodes of “Sex and the City” and the “Where the Stars Are” section from US Weekly.

After much deliberation, and convincing on my part, we decide on a bar in the MPD. I’m stoked. I have my camera. I’m ready to get my celeb on.

Did I see any celebrities? Did we wait in line forever at a heavily European-populated bar? Did shots cost a whopping 10 bucks a pop?

“Hey, I’m in New York Part 2” Coming Soon…

The Elaine Benes Phenomenon

It is Saturday night and my friends and I have all gathered at the local watering hole. With adult sodas in hand, we’re ready to paint the townie bar red and toss our ambitions and measly paychecks out the window. Ah, to be young, awesome and in the midst of a financial crisis.

The breathy vocals of the new Britney Spears song start pumping through the sound system and only after one shout of “This is my song!” do we make our way to the dance floor. We are all singing, well, screaming, and pretending that we didn’t already watch Britney’s new video one million times and have already memorized the choreography. My friend Jen sat this one out, as she wanted to finish her 30 ounce margarita that was impossible to actually lift off of the bar.

Jen is a good friend of mine. She has personality, a great sense of humor and is considered to be quite the Babe-raham Lincoln. Being single most of her life, those close to her have always wondered why she rarely landed dates and almost never had boyfriends. Before this starts sounding like an advertisement for E-Harmony or the trailer for the “Sex and the City” movie, let me explain the point of this story. Jen was a victim of a popular new epidemic sweeping the nation I like to refer to as the “Elaine Benes Phenomenon.”

If you have never watched the television show “Seinfeld,” then you do not know who Elaine Benes is. Allow me to paint you a picture. To put it bluntly, Elaine Benes is the worst dancer in the world. Her friends are constantly embarrassed by her moves yet Elaine cannot seem to stop dancing, or take a hint from people cringing at the site of her on a dance floor.

You actually may know some Elaine Benes’ yourself! Have you ever gone to 80’s night at a bar with your friends and thought it would be hilarious to hit the dance floor doing the “Running Man” or “The Carlton” in exchange for some good laughs? This is how my friend Jen dances, on a normal night, with far less hand-eye coordination and far more disturbing cries from onlookers. With flailing arms and gyrations that could only be compared to muscle spasms, Jen looks like Michael Flatley: Lord of Dance, after being tazered. Herein lies The Elaine Benes Phenomenon, or in laymen’s terms, hot girls who are horrific dancers.

After realizing that ordering another margarita may be a bad idea, even though it somehow only cost $4.50 (gotta love townie bars!), Jen decides it is time to hit the floor. She approaches us and our facial expressions go from excited to sour in less then a second. We’ll have to tell her we all just took Tequila shots. Jen begins swiveling her hips to let us know she is feeling the song and is about to unleash the terror.

“Should we tell her she looks like Beyonce after overdosing on a bottle of Valium?” my friend Meghan asks me in sheer embarrassment.

“She looks like she is Electric Sliding right over broken glass and open flames,” my other friend Angi says horrified.

Everyone is watching Jen dance. Everyone is glued to watching her, which only fuels her ambition to keep dancing, now that she has an audience.

“I’m on fire tonight!” Jen exclaims.

Yes, Jen, you are on fire. Like a horrific car accident that has set a car ablaze that no one can turn away from staring at. Whatever she is doing, it needs to stop.

My friends and I do what any other group of terrified onlookers would do, we form a circle around her until the music ends, protecting the eyes of worried patrons. We then shuttle Jen over to the bar to get her so drunk that she’ll be incapable of leaving the bar stool she is now sitting on. Let’s just hope everyone else follows suit so they forget the Horror Movie they were just subjected to for the longest four minutes their life.

Whether the Elaine Benes Phenomenon is a new trend or something that has always been lurking in bars and clubs across America, one thing is for sure, it is repelling single men away from my friend. Unless we can find a guy who enjoys the subtle thumbs up and awkward kick-dancing that Elaine Benes trademarked during “Seinfeld” so well, we need to be serious and proactive about finding a cure.

LOST: My new stimulus package

Every Wednesday night, at exactly 8:59 PM, I sit down in front of my television, flip to the HD channel of FOX, and prepare to get Lost. I sit there, anxiously awaiting for the show to start and ignore the 3 million questions coming from my roommate, because lets face it, trying to explain this television show to someone who hasn’t religiously watched it since day one, is like trying to teach a four year old calculus. I ignore the phone calls from my boyfriend, because lets face it, even if I miss a second of this masterpiece, watching the rest with missing information will be like trying to teach myself calculus. And while some of you may think this is approach is somewhat, alright I’ll say it, crazy, I know a lot of other people who are just as engaged in the weekly antics of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815.

Since my schedule consists of balancing school, work and a 4 a.m. wake up call every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the radio station, I have limited time and an even more limited list of things I actually enjoy/have the time for now. LOST is one of those things. During that hour long television show, I'm relaxed, excited, and my brain is stimulated. Like the Zone Diet, it's the perfect combination.

Because I have such little time now, I pretty much throw all of my energy into this show and like a true LOST fan would do, I theorize. So, I’m about to share with you something that may just blow your mind: my theory as to how the show will end.

Spoiler Alert! If you do not want to know the end of the show, then please do not continue reading. After watching Lost faithfully for five seasons and studying each character and scenario more then studying for Intermediate Spanish II, I think I have figured out just how this island soap opera will end.

If you’ve been watching Season 5, you know that Ben’s main mission has been trying to get everybody back on to the island. However, we don’t know how they are supposed to get back on to the island, we just know that John Locke is determined to get off the island, in order to get the “Oceanic 6” back on the island. Well, imagine this: John Locke successfully gets everyone (who is left on the island in that weird time warp phase) off of the island, only to go back in time and get everyone to take that initial flight that crashed on the island.

Take a deep breathe, and continue soaking it all in...

We find out in the first few seasons that everyone is already somehow connected, and we are starting to find that out more with each new episode. So, imagine if the only way to get everyone back on the island would have already happened – when Oceanic Flight 815 crashed. That is why everyone who was on Flight 815, was meant to be on that flight.

Confusing? Not if you watch Lost. But if you don’t, doing your homework may be more fun then reading this post.

It’s Wednesday, and Lost is slowly approaching. Perhaps I should have waited to post this until after this episode, I hear we are supposed to be learning a lot more information…

The Double-Life of Super-Teacher!

Sometimes I forget that my roommate lives a double life. You’d easily forget, too, after witnessing the two different sides of her.

When you become an adult, with an adult job, this sort of stuff begins to happen. You unknowingly take on another persona, one that filtered and edited - one that is suitable for work and your colleagues.

By day, Ashley Collins is dressed in a button down collared shirt, black dress pants and carrying a tote bag filled with corrected book reports, math tests and lesson plans. By night, she’s in jeans and high heels, stealing the microphone from an unsuspecting stranger at the Karaoke bar, belting out “Love Stinks,” while chasing her tequila shot with her fourth Miller Lite bottle.

Watching Ms. Collins transform is like watching one of those scenes from a Superman movie where Clark Kent, dressed in normal, every day, clothes, jumps into a telephone booth and then emerges as a cape wearing superhero! At the end of the day though, Collins is not a superhero, she's just my best friend and happens to be an Elemantary School teacher. That's what makes it all the more entertaining.

“You have to take that down from Facebook,” Collins says. It’s 6 am and she’s pouring herself a cup of coffee while rubbing her eyes. Collins is getting ready to start her day and at the same time realizing that I just posted this past weekends escapades online. “Let me just see it one more time before I make you delete it” Ashley says. "My kids keep trying to find me on Facebook, so if they somehow end up finding that - I just can't let them see that!" As she walks over to my computer, I silently thank god for digital cameras and how they are now able to capture such masterpieces.

The video my roommate is referring to, was the one taken the weekend prior, following several Scorpian Bowls at a Chinese Food restaurant. Collins said she could tie a cherry stem with her tongue, and demanded I document it on video. Excellent idea, Ms. Collins.





“My kids are so watching a movie today, because ‘Ms. Collins does NOT feel good.’” Collins says. We both have a good laugh and then reality sets in that she is actually on her way out the door to go mold and shape the minds of young elementary students. And just like Collins, who is 24 years old, quite a few of my other friends have taken on the role of the new teacher, as well.

“It’s ironic, you know” Dana Henderson says. Henderson teaches 3rd grade at Greens Farms Academy in Westport, Connecticut. "This past Sunday I was getting a tattoo with my best friend and today I’m telling kids not to run and to use their indoor voices. I’m always asking [my kids] if they are ‘making smart choices’ and then on Friday I was taking pictures of my co-workers making out with strangers at the bar!” Henderson concludes, "It definitely is a double life. Do what I say, not as I do - type of thing. But hey, just because we are teachers does not mean we have to become duds."

Henderson is right. It's just way more funny to reflect back on previous teachers and remember that they too were actual people, with actual lives, and were probably out doing the same stuff that my friends and I are doing now. My third grade teacher, Ms. Eagen was my hero. She was beautiful, she was smart and she always complimented my outfits. Ms. Eagen was also only 26 years old, and only recently did I find out that she asked my father out on a date during one of their parent-teacher conferences.

"What can I say, your father is a stud" Roger DaSilva, yes, my dad, tells me. "You were in 3rd grade, I wasn't going to tell you your teacher had the hots for me."

Imagine if I had found that out back then? That would be like one of Ms. Collins students finding out that she listens to Insane Clown Posse - it just would not be right.

Jessica Moody, a fellow classmate turned Sex Ed. teacher at Medford High School, had quite a bit to say about the topic. “Last week after the Beanpot, I went in to work in the morning and was so hungover that I locked myself in my office and napped on the floor. It’s a little different because my kids are 17, so I think that they kind of have some idea, but I don’t think they know how bad it is. What’s worse is telling the kids to not get drunk and do shit that we did when we were their age yet the entire department left work early last week and went to Hooters for one of our co-workers birthdays.”

Moody also goes on to say that it’s not just teachers that lead this “double life,” it’s really everybody. I suppose it’s just funnier when your dealing with it first hand. I’m sure that teachers go to work hungover everday, and I probably watched quite a few movies with no explanation as to why when I was in elementary school too, but sometimes I just feel as though my roommate's weekend life should be a Saturday Night Live skit.

Being a teacher has always been a dream of Collins and she thoroughly enjoys her job. What becomes comedic is seeing her fill out report cards on a Monday and then dance on stage at "The Burren Pub" on Saturday night. At least the phrase, "If only your kids could see you now..." will never get old.

Hang-Me Hangovers

I couldn't wait for my 21st birthday. I couldn't wait for a year of ordering crazy-named martinis at the bar and not giving my hand a seizure every time I passed a legitimate I.D. over to the bartender. I couldn't wait to pull up to a liquor store and walk by the eighteen year olds soliciting passer-bys to do a "Hey, Mister" and buy booze for them. I couldn't wait to be Jenna DaSilva and not Priscilla Dias, the name my fake I.D. read for two years. 21 was going to be a good year for Jenna DaSilva, a great year.

But as quickly as 21 and all of it’s “Sazernac - straight up” glory came, it left. Thats because of something I like to call the “I’m not 18 anymore hangover.” After a night of hitting the town with my main homeslices, I now wake up feeling like Matthew McConaughey is playing bongos with my brain while having the morning sickness equivlant to that of “Octo-Mom’s.” In other words, 21+ hangover are no bueno.

W…T…F, I ask?!

I remember a time, not so long ago, at the tender age of 18, where after a night of splitting a 12 pack of Natty-Ice with 4 of my friends, (leading to the inevitable black out), I would wake up bright and beaming the next morning. I would get up at 5 am to work the morning shift at my first-job bagel shop with a skip in my step and a smile on my face. Now, one drink at night and I'm out for the count, nay, for the day.

I've thought about contacting Tara Reid and having her explain to me her next day functioning methods, but I've come to realize that this is just one of the small yet unexplainable changes that happens to you after becoming a semi adult, or as a 21+ year old.