Lately I feel like all I’ve been doing is making checklists. Wedding stuff, work stuff, life stuff; all of it important, but some of it not so fun. So here’s a list of fun stuff.

• I went to Ottawa for a gorgeous wedding, and also ate my first BeaverTail. Oh-so-yummy maple goodness. I am also the proud new owner of red Olympic mittens, which are amazingly warm and just wonderful.
• I watched the Best Man I know give a terrific speech for his brother and his new bride.
• I talked about Mardi Gras with my pal Jason Boog for MediaBistro’s Morning Media Menu (listen here).
• I got contemplative about taking group tours with Mike Barish over at his very funny blog. Seriously, if you need a pick-me-up, go click on his gallery of SkyRest Tests.  (Mike also wrote quoted me about tours over at Gadling).
• I wrote about Skeeball becoming the urban hipster throwback sport for DC Modern Luxury. (See the story here.)
• I dipped my toe into the real estate market with two features for UrbanTurf.com: One on the lack of housing inventory in D.C. and the other profiling a young buyer in the city.
• I blogged about the very cool website Kickstarter, and my friend Charyn’s impressive Global Citizen Project at Intelligent Travel.
• I swelled with pride as my pal Andrew made his way–by bus–to Antarctica. He did a fantastic job, and he makes my job easy. And now he’s tweeting penguin pics!
• I braved snowpocalypse to mail my save the dates, and put up the wedding website that my brother built for us. Um. I love both so much. And Darren is so obviously talented in so many ways (check out this article on his band and the Long Island music scene.)
• I was asked by the lovely Anne of the amazing Prêt a Voyager blog to write up a Boarding Pass report. I’m so flattered! Need to work on that next. Add it to the checklist!

I took this shot this weekend in New York, pausing to snap it with my iPhone before dashing across the street, ducking into Grand Central, hopping on the six, riding uptown, changing my clothes, grabbing in a cab, eating dinner with a friend in SoHo, then grabbing another cab to the Lower East Side where I went into an unmarked bar–with a list–to celebrate my friend’s birthday. That’s after an already full day (eight hours!) of bridesmaid dress shopping, plus some brunch and beers tossed in. And you know what? As overwhelming as it was, I was completely calm. And this photo absolutely captured it.

When I first moved away from New York, I found that when I came back I’d feel slightly overwhelmed. The buildings were so tall and the streets so dirty compared to D.C. It was as much about the differences between the two places as it was about the shock of not being there, I realize. But now, after being gone for a while, I find myself on autopilot when I’m back. Subways make sense, and my own sensibilities get pushed back to where I’d left them. Yes, it’s still ridiculous to wander through SoHo and see price tags that could cover my rent for two or three months, but it’s also a relief to be able to sit down amongst friends feeling completely overwhelmed and know that you’re in a place where everyone struggles and fights to make a name for themselves. And you can tap back into that collective sense of pride that yes, often manifests itself in the ugly ways, but also makes you feel so lucky to be there, in the midst of it all.

So yeah, I’m feeling a little homesick. And I’m not going to lie, the song Empire State of Mind hasn’t been helping it at all. And just when I want to go and get mad at Alicia Keyes and Jay-Z for making me a nostalgic mess, the kids of P.S. 22 have to go and make my heart burst with longing for home. Oh New York.

Dear Sir,

I don’t want this to come off as ridiculously rude, but goddamnit, stop stealing my Sunday paper.

Ok, actually, step back and let me introduce myself. I’m a journalist, and your neighbor, and while I get the Washington Post delivered on my doorstep every day, I only get the New York Times on Sunday, and when it arrives it gets put in a little basket in the lobby. That’s where you come in. Each Sunday, depending on when I come down to get my paper, I find it, or one of its cousins, rifled through. That is if I find it at all. If I do, I’ve come to accept that you’ve taken its neatly folded pages and peeled them back as if you were making a tissue paper flower, and left your black thumb and fingerprints–evidence!–all over its pages. Occasionally, you attempt to put the sections back in some semblance of order, but you end up leaving the paper looking rumpled, like it’s been caught cheating, lipstick on its collar. This typically drives me nuts.

But this morning,  you were actually there, sitting on the lobby couch, enjoying a leisurely read. “I’m just reading it,” you said nonchalantly, looking up  from the business section as I reached for the basket. You seemed completely unperturbed by the fact that you were caught in the act. And alas, the sticker which typically identifies my paper was missing, and the papers were each stuffed into blue plastic bags. So I grabbed one of the other ones in the basket, and may have yelled something at you as I let the front door of our building slam behind me. I apologize for that, because you deserve to have this said to your face: You suck.

I realize I’m doing the passive aggressive twentysomething internet thing and taking my beef to the web, but frankly the web is exactly the place you could go if you wanted to read the New York Times, for free, every Sunday. It’s a huge problem facing my line of work, and I do small things like subscribe to magazines and newspapers to keep journalism afloat, and to ensure that myself and my coworkers will have jobs to go to in the coming years. So there’s one option for you. The other is for you to subscribe yourself. Obviously there are about five other people in the building who have managed to figure out this byzantine process, and who expect to reap the rewards of their dedication to the printed page by finding it there, untrammeled, on the weekends. There’s also the library (where rumor has it the books are also free), or you might even be able to snag the Style section at the Starbucks nearby if you get there early enough. But let me be clear, our apartment lobby is not your personal reading nook, and you’re lucky I didn’t snatch that paper from your hands.

Oh, and it was also very thoughtful of you to stuff the paper you read back in the blue bag it came in once you were done with it. I’m sure our other neighbors hardly noticed.

Current obsession: My wonderful brother, in his effort to help me design some of my wedding stationary, uncovered a digital treasure trove of old Capital Transit passes. Each pass was issued weekly, and used to ride the trolleys that traveled through D.C. in the 1930s through the 50s. And they’re all fabulously unique. Here are a few from Glen Echo Park, where we’re going to be getting hitched next summer (and one from Christmas, because, hey, it’s that time of year). Aren’t they just the coolest?

My first feature in Traveler came out this week, and believe me, it looks even more spectacular in print.

Be sure to check out all of the online coverage as well, including more of Krista Rossow’s fabulous photos, and Susanne Hackett’s video of Mardi Gras morning.

So I was invited to a lovely ornament exchange party the other day, and I think I ruined it. With full apologies to my dear friend who hosted the party, I shall now retell the tale.

In part because I somehow became convinced it was a White Elephant party, and in part because I obviously don’t know the proper way to make a good impression, I brought an odd choice to the party. All of the other women had wrapped up their ornaments in elaborate boxes, while mine was tiny and thin, and not even in Christmas paper. Needless to say, it was opened next to last, after all the other gorgeous glass balls and angels, birds and little mini-snowmen were opened and stolen back and forth. I end up stealing a shiny disco ball ornament from this pregnant girl, who then had to select my gift from the pile. And then she opened it, and it’s a mustache. A mustache ornament. And it’s furry. And I’m like, um, that’s what happens when you go ornament shopping at Urban Outfitters.

She was mildly amused, while I’m sure everyone else was wondering who brought this girl? Particularly my friend’s mom, who was there, and gave a lovely ornament, and I should mention, also runs cotillions on the side. So yeah, me and my mustache ornament: making a good impression.

But perhaps the once saving grace was that the pregnant girl ended up taking the hook and hanging the mustache from her shirt, so it dangled down and looked like her big belly had a mustache. Which was awesome, and makes me think that there’s a future for Mr. Potato Head style decorations for pregnant ladies. Just sayin.

[The mustache ornament of your dreams]

So despite my current fixation on pretty wedding photo blogs, Tim and I weren’t really planning on having engagement photos taken of ourselves. But then our friend, the fabulous Tim Greenleaf, asked us if we’d like to be his guinea pigs while he worked on building up his portfolio, and I figured why not? And now, I couldn’t be happier. Admittedly, I perhaps liked the whole thing a bit too much, and may have been pretending be a model by the time we were finished. Tim on the other hand noted that his cheeks hurt from smiling for several hours straight. But it was nice to sit and smile for a while and just celebrate our togetherness. A great day, either way.

[Full Photo Set Here]

I’m way behind on blogging lately, and have lots of updating to do. But here are some articles I’ve written recently: a piece on Tel Aviv for New York Magazine (link here), and stories on H Street’s art scene, wine tasting, and storytelling for DC Magazine. Definitely a few of my favorite things.

The November Issue of DC Magazine

And the December Issue of DC Magazine

As a journalist, I don’t typically blink at the opportunity to talk to high-profile types. I’ve done the party reporting thing, and my old gig often meant dealing with the hassle of tracking down disinterested PR-types to wrangle five minutes of their time. But finding out that I could chat with Tom Hanks, and that everything was being arranged without issue? Well that was a gift. And truly, Hanks is as nice as he seems. We spoke for 15 minutes on the phone about Beyond All Boundaries, the film he produced for the new theater at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, which just opened this month. And he was gracious, charming, funny, and passionate about the work he’s done to tell the story of the war. Here’s one excerpt about how he’s visited Normandy and why it’s important to revisit the sites where history happened.

I’ve actually gone through the footsteps of individual battles we brought to life in Band of Brothers, the piece we did for HBO. You walk through a farmer’s field and they say, “we dug a trench here.” And you know what’s there? A trench. It’s still an impression in the farmland—it never goes away. It brings a human dimension to the people who were walking a really long way when they were very tired on a day when their job was to kill people on the other side. That to me just takes it out of any mythical storytelling atmosphere and turns it into a human one. Of human beings doing things one step at a time, one day at a time, one damn thing at a time. That’s the type of connection that it brings to you and that makes me think that’s what 18-, 19-, and 20-year-old kids are doing today in places like Afghanistan.

[Tom Hanks and Beyond All Boundaries]

I’m rather proud to admit that I did two rather audacious things in the past few days. 1) I got up on stage, stood behind a microphone, and told a story about myself for seven minutes. 2) I bought a wedding dress. Which do you think had me freaking out more?

I’m surprised to admit that it was the buying of the dress that really had me somewhat crazed. And it’s funny because that’s not what I was expecting… on either count. You see, if you’re a girl, and you’re buying a wedding dress, that means you’re told over and over again that you’ll know when it’s the one. Like there’s this blissful halo that comes and alights upon your head and angels start singing and you can imagine yourself walking down the aisle and this it IT.

And if you’re a girl and you’re going up on stage to tell a story about a time when you had a Homeland Security job you hated, that means you’re told that it will be hard, and you’ll get nervous, and you might freak out. Perhaps you’ll start sweating.

The surprise was that the storytelling wasn’t hard. I can’t say I did the best job, or that I’m ready to do this full time. But I didn’t forget my lines or stumble. I found it harder to strip down to my skivvies and stand in a mirrored room with a complete stranger and my mom (in my socks, of course) and shimmy into dresses. And to be honest, standing at the mic gives you a bit of a buzz. Not quite a halo really, but close.

So imagine my thought process when I try on “the dress.” Immediate thought: FUN. Then: Ruffles! Then: Oh my god, I love a dress that’s covered in ruffles. And when people ask me what it looks like I have to explain that it’s tiers and tiers of ruffles. And they’re going to imagine me in a horrible mess of a dress, and I’m going to start worrying what people think, and then I’m going to start thinking it’s a horrible mess of a dress. But really, who cares?! Ruffles!

You see where this is going.

I have to admit that a sly smile crept onto my face the moment I put it on. And then a look of horror, as a huge, 15 foot veil, with a large ruffled edge, was attached to my head. This was no halo. It was the dress shop clerk, who, for a giggle, had brought out the matching veil, which she fully admitted was completely ridiculous. It made me look as though I was marrying a conquistador. Not exactly what I had in mind. But she took it off and I started swaying in it, side to side, and then I put on some shoes, and another, better veil, and then there was champagne and suddenly I had a dress.