A few weeks ago, we had a two-day long sales conference here in our New York offices when one of our sales leads, who is vegetarian, decided to order all breakfasts and lunches for the two days to be vegetarian and/or vegan. Granted, this made a lot of the team angry, and some revolted by not eating the food and either bringing their own or even going out to grab a slice of pizza. We had team members fly in from LA, San Francisco, and Chicago, and the ones from California were especially eager to get their New York pizza fix.

I asked one of them which pizza place he got his slice from, and he said he had no idea; it was just some random corner place two blocks away. “It doesn’t really matter to me,” he said as he took another big bite of his pie slice. “All the pizza here is better than the pizza we have in LA. You guys have no idea! You just take it for granted living here!”

Hm. Well, I do think there is good pizza to be had in California, especially now that foodie culture has invaded pretty much every major city, but it is true that we probably do take it for granted living here. It’s like with every great thing you have convenient access to; you don’t really know what you have until you don’t have it anymore. I guess that justifies Chris and I having pizza for dinner two weeks in a row, the second being tonight.

One of my colleagues is friends with someone who works at SoulCycle, so she was able to snag our company two free weeks of SoulCycle classes. This was actually really good timing for me because I’ve been wanting to try SoulCycle for months now, but I just couldn’t deal with forking over $34 for a single class (plus $3 for the special spinning shoe rental) when I pay about $65 per month for a full unlimited month’s worth of gym membership (which includes full equipment access, all classes that also has spinning, and full locker rooms, showers, and amenities).

I went after work today to a 6:30pm session on the Upper East Side, and it was kind of everything I expected it to be. The front desk staff was a little uppity when I told them it was my first time. They offered to sell me a $2 bottle of water (no thanks), and when I asked where the locker rooms were, the worker said they had lockers, but no actual room (it’s just a hall with lockers), so if I wanted to change, I needed to use a stall in the restroom. They gave me the awkward spinning shoes that I’d need to clip into my bike (I asked if someone would show me.. I’m clueless), and then I went off to get changed.

The class itself is high intensity, very motivational, and now I can see why some people actually cry during class. We all have our insecurities, things we are trying to hide about ourselves that we’re ashamed of and want to change, and things that we are striving to achieve. This class has an instructor that will chant and yell you through all of these things, about letting go of the negative things in life that drag you down and pushing you to get closer to achieving your goals — for spinning and for life. There are times in the class where she will ask you to close your eyes and visualize escaping all the bad and running closer to the good; it can definitely be an emotional experience. And when I was cycling and trying to escape the negative, I thought about my negative relatives and all the stupid things they’ve done to me that I want to move on from. It’s almost like therapy in an exercise class. I suppose that would be worth paying $34 per class for.

I left class drenched, sweaty, and feeling sore in some good places. I wouldn’t necessarily call it the most effective total body workout, but it was certainly a workout. I never learned how to un-clip my shoes because they told the newbies to leave them on the pedals, though. I’m not sure if I will be back, but it was definitely the most intense evening I’ve had all week this week.

The more I think about my slow cooker, the more sad I am about the magic that it once promised. The more I read recipes that sound very promising for this slow cooker, the more I realize that a whole lot of prep work needs to be done for the most optimally tasting dishes to come out of this six-quart monstrosity. It’s not one of those “dump everything in and watch the magic happen” type of pots as people like to think of them. I’m sure you could do that, but you’d be pretty disappointed in the result.

Today for dinner, I made chicken tikka masala in the slow cooker, but I had to do quite a bit of preparation first. I had to trim all the fat off the chicken thighs and cut them into bite-sized pieces; mince garlic and ginger and dice an onion to then saute with spices and tomato paste; marinate the chicken in yogurt and spices, and also roast tomatoes. I did most of this yesterday to speed up the prep time today, but it was still a good deal of work. It’s no wonder people just resort to delivery and eating out; this takes a lot of time to get a really good home-cooked meal out of a slow cooker.

Tonight, Chris and I attended a film screening that was selected to be part of the Tribeca Film Festival. The collection of short films, Pressure Points, included one short film that my good friend co-produced called Shooting an Elephant based on a George Orwell short story.

My friend invited a number of friends to the event, including a couple of my old colleagues who also attended. I hadn’t seen one of them since he left my old company in the fall of 2012, and of course since then, I’d also left, and my life had taken a different course. A lot happens in three and a half years. Since then, I had gotten engaged and married and left the company we were both at together, and he had changed jobs several times and now has decided to pursue occupational therapy as a career. Right before he left the company, he had eloped with his long-time girlfriend from college, and they had purchased an apartment together. Well, I guess their marriage was short lived, as I discovered tonight that they had broken up and sold that apartment.

We’ve been Friends on Facebook this whole time, but I had no idea about his marriage ending. It’s not always fun to make public difficult life choices on social media channels. When people say that they want to keep up with their acquaintances’ lives via social media, this is an area that we can’t always count on getting updates for.

I feel like as I’ve gotten older, I can’t keep up with all the new hip food trends and restaurant openings like I used to. Instead, I’m finding out about them from my younger colleagues, who are anywhere from three to seven years younger. One of the latest crazes is poke, or raw fish served with rice, quinoa, or in the form of a burrito/wrap, which came by the way of Hawaii and/or California. Poke Works is near my office, and so one of them suggested we go next week. The “sushiritto” thing I learned about from Chris when he was on a work trip to San Francisco. I hate that he found out about a San Francisco food trend before me.

I wanted to see what the hype was about, so after looking it up on Yelp, after work today, I walked over to see if I could potentially get it for dinner tonight. As soon as I got to the place, I was appalled to find out that there was not only a massive line inside the shop, but there was even a roped off area in front where people were queuing up. In total, there were at least 30 people in line, and it was not even 6pm yet on a Thursday. I couldn’t deal with the line, so I left and went home, dejected.

I refuse to wait in a line unless I absolutely have to. Damn trends.