The world is becoming salad crazy, and because of the obsession for salads and the facade of “healthy eating,” salads are not really a cheap thing to get for lunch or as a dinner side anymore. Depending on where you are buying your lunch, your salad could cost anywhere from seven to twenty five dollars. It sounds kind of ridiculous, but knowing the time it takes to make a really good, well-thought out salad that I actually look forward to eating, I can see why restaurants and businesses think they should be able to charge this much for these items.

Tonight before our show in the theater district, Chris and I went to have dinner at a place in the area, and he was really disappointed in the salad I ordered us. It was a chopped escarole salad with ricotta insalata, pistachios, and a pickled jalapeno vinaigrette, which I was really excited to try since I’ve never had pickled jalapenos, nor had I ever had a vinaigrette that was spicy in a salad before. I really liked the taste of the vinaigrette and the combination of flavors, along with the different types of richness from the cheese and the roasted pistachios, but I did agree that $11 seemed a bit steep for the chopped lettuce we got, as well as the portion. We rarely order salads when dining out, and trying this one out and seeing that it wasn’t fully worth it, we probably won’t be ordering another one again. But at least now I have the idea to replicate this salad on my own at home for far cheaper. 🙂

Tonight, I had drinks and dinner in Astoria with my friend, who brought his friend and a former colleague of mine at my last company. He and I sort of reconnected at my friend’s birthday event a few weeks ago, and while on the train back to Manhattan after dinner tonight, he was telling me about how frustrated he is that he’s turning 30 this year but feels like given the rent he pays to live in the East Village, he has just enough money to pay his rent, live his life here, and “maybe” one vacation to somewhere abroad a year. He said he’d love to travel more, but the rent kills him. His landlord just informed him that his rent is going up by just over 10% this year, so he wants to move, but where? He thinks he should be saving money to eventually buy his own place, but he’s nowhere near it. And he wants to enjoy and travel now while he’s still young.

When I first moved to New York, I read a book about saving and investing that said that you should never spend more than 25 percent of your income on rent. As sad as it is, I’m sure the majority of 20-somethings in New York spend at least double that, if not more. I’ve always been in a fortunate situation with income, rent, and savings, so I can’t relate to this that much. If anything, it’s a reminder to me how different my life is than most people my age. But what I do feel strongly about is that most people don’t plan at all around my age. They fail to plan, and as cliche as it is, failing to plan is planning to fail. You don’t suddenly end up at 30 or 35 with enough money to have your first child if you didn’t plan on saving in the years leading up to it. It’s almost as though living in New York forces people to “live in the now” and ignore the future by spending over 50 percent of their income on rent, going out for endless and ridiculously priced drinks and dinners, and forget that there are things they want in the future that will need planning today.

I spent a bit of time reviewing different photographers’ portfolios in the last couple of days during my free time, and I feel like making a decision of which photographer to choose is too difficult. They are all clearly very talented in their own ways and have their own styles. Some are a bit more romantic and flowery and dreamy, while others are more dramatic, almost saturated in emotions and colors of the day. How do you ultimately make the decision?

Some photographers say they need to “fit” with the couple that they are shooting. As far as I’m concerned, I’m not sure how I wouldn’t “fit” with anyone I’ve spoken with over Skype so far, as all of them seemed incredibly personable yet professional and fun at the same time (we’ve already weeded out photographers who were too exorbitantly priced). All of them have also not given me a straight answer when I ask how they might say “no” to weddings that they may not be a “fit” for. The only close answer is when the couple has indicated a type of photography that they prefer (rosy romance vs. theatrical drama). What makes a photographer so remarkable that you are moved to immediately choose them?

My friend, who is trying online dating, was planning to have a dessert/drinks date with someone new he met online dating tonight, but she flaked out on him at around 4:30pm today and claimed she had some big audition tomorrow that she has to practice for, so she couldn’t make it tonight. Clearly demoralized and frustrated, my friend said online dating has not yielded a single positive result for him. Instead, he’s had a number of people who have just decided to cancel on him last minute.

Ironically enough, today I also listened to a Freaknomics podcast on online dating. While looks are clearly a high priority for anyone who is looking for their future husband/wife/fling online, I found out that weight somehow doesn’t actually matter in the long run based on studies down. A chubby or slightly overweight person who is decent looking has the same chances of scoring a date online as does a person who is decent looking and slim. Maybe the U.S. is just becoming more accepting of overweight people. I guess in some ways we kind of have to be when I’ve been told that just by living in the U.S., I have a 70 percent chance of being overweight. Oh, America.

It’s the first day of spring today, which is the biggest joke at the office because New York is expected to get five to six inches of snow before today ends. The snow is not supposed to continue until tomorrow though, yet the program coordinator at my Saturday mentoring program has cancelled tomorrow morning’s session and has decided to reschedule for Easter weekend.

This made me really annoyed today, not just because I won’t be here Easter weekend, but considering the fact that it will be Easter weekend, didn’t he have the foresight to realize that both mentors and mentees may not be able to make it that weekend? We cancelled this session when it wouldn’t even be snowing on this Saturday, yet our very first session, it was snowing quite heavily on that morning, yet they still held the session. There’s not much rational logic that goes into making these decisions seemingly. I e-mailed him back and told him I thought it was a bad idea to reschedule for the Saturday before Easter given what day it precedes, yet he didn’t respond.

I’ve been experimenting with different recipes and methods of cooking in the last few weeks to not only make more use of the new and shiny slow cooker I bought, but also to incorporate more ways of eating beans, legumes, seeds, and other non-meat forms of protein, especially after a trainer at the gym hinted that I probably need more protein in my diet given what I’m trying to achieve (how often does an American get told s/he needs more protein?!). I also wanted to have more smoothies for breakfast, so after adding in chia seeds for protein, I’ve also been putting in spinach to make my smoothies green. You can’t have too many vegetables in your diet.

Chris didn’t seem to appreciate this idea. When he came back from his trip to Austin for South by Southwest, I had a glass of just blended green smoothie on the counter waiting for him. In it was a mix of orange-peach juice, coconut water, a couple frozen pineapple chunks, pear, tangerines, chia seeds, spinach, and ice. The dominant flavor of the smoothie by far was orange/citrus/pineapple. You can’t taste the spinach at all. But he didn’t seem to agree with me. After one sip, he said he couldn’t have anymore and that this was “too healthy.” He happily ate the pureed black bean soup I made, though.

Well, here’s to trying to convert him. 🙂 My green smoothie post was clearly popular on Instagram, as I think it’s one of my top liked posts ever.

Belonging to a gym in New York City in general is very, very expensive. Unless you are extremely lucky and your company owns a gym that you can either use for free or for a tiny nominal amount, chances are that if you have a membership, you’re paying somewhere between $95-200/month. I’m paying far less than that, but it’s because I pre-paid in advance, and I also get a discount per month through my company’s health insurance company. I was reminded of how exorbitant New York City gym memberships are when I was on the bus going up to Harlem on Saturday, and a woman runs into a man that she is acquainted with as she boards the bus. They are exchanging information about fitness (it looked like she was on the way to the gym given the way she was dressed), and she tells him that she “only” pays about $195/month for her gym membership plus ClassPass, the monthly membership that allows you to go to any specialized fitness studio for an unlimited number of times in a month for $99.

I’m happy for her that she seems highly motivated to keep active and would wake up early on a Saturday morning to hit the gym, but only in New York City would anyone preface $195/month for gym memberships with the word “only.” This city is way too expensive.

My friend and I went to a wedding gown sample sale down in SoHo today, and I knew I was not going to enjoy my time much there when I arrived half an hour before they opened, and I ended up being person #29 there. Yes, 28 people got there before me, and I was half an hour early. The doors were going to open in 31 minutes. It was mostly women in there, of course, with one dopey groom and one man who seemed to be one of the bride’s best friends. It didn’t help when I closed the door behind me, and a woman lightly told me that the end of the line (it looked like a mass crowd to me) was that way.

I tried on three dresses when I was in there, only one of which could have potentially been a dress I’d seriously consider, and the other two were more, “Well, I’m here, so what the hell?” try-ons. Then my friend noticed the damages to these “sample sale” dresses. Even if they were “discounted,” after alterations, they’d probably cost as much a brand new dress. So we left the dresses with the sales assistants, who immediately “released” the dresses to the other bridal vultures.

The wedding industry is really out to get me. Maybe I really should have just bought a dress while I was out in San Francisco. New York may be a worse place to buy a gown because of the insane hoards and the sky-high rent.

It’s always there. And it continues to be there even though I don’t want it to be. Every weekday morning, whether it’s 6:40am or 7:15am, when I am getting out of the 42nd street/Times Square stop along the yellow lines to go to the gym before work, I’m thinking about the workout ahead of me and how productive I’m going to during the day given how early I’ve woken up. And then at the same corner, no fail, that smell wafts towards me — the strong, unmistakable smell of fresh, crisp, fatty bacon, the scent lingering in the air around a tiny food cart set up just a block from the subway station.

I always scowl every time I start smelling that delicious smell. It’s such a tease. It’s like a reminder that yes, I came on an empty stomach to the gym, and no, I did not get to eat any fatty bacon before I got there. No fatty bacon for me — just a healthy workout awaits!

Why can’t the guy who runs that cart realize that he’s parked the freaking cart just across the street from the gym where all of us are just trying to do the right, healthy thing to start their day, and all he is doing is creating a distraction?!