Anything is possible.

Okay. I need to preface this entire post with one thing:

I GOT THE JOB AT HARPERCOLLINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh. My. God. I am going buck nutty right now. I just got the call about an hour ago, and have been in a blissful stupor ever since. After all these years, I am going to be working in children's books. I can't believe it!!!! I'm starting Monday. My new boss was so eager to have me, he asked the HR lady, "Can she start on Friday?" EEEEEE! So, the reason for my lack of posts is that I've been spending the week trying not to vomit while waiting for that very call. Now that I am free of puke-inducing anxiety, I can write again. Maybe. Oh, wow.

So I will have to go back to two weekends ago, when our buds Ben and Nat came over. Then, I can tell you all about this past weekend with my folks.

Ben and Nat's Visit
So Saturday afternoon Adam and I trekked to Chinatown to pick the hep cats up from the bus depot. Once we found them, we went back home to drop off their stuff and chill. Since everyone was pretty bushed, Adam went out to pick up some pizza from Not Ray's Pizza on Lafayette in Brooklyn. We spent the evening eating pizza, drinking and playing Cranium. Ben and Adam were amorous with each other, as per usual, and decided they would create a comic strip called "The Indicative Pickle" about all of us and a very odd diner in Montgomery County. It was truly hilarious. The next day, we went back to Chinatown to eat some pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) and then went around Manhattan for a bit before retiring back to the house. Then followed another night of drinking and playing Mario Party. It was just like old times! Sadly, that night at 3AM Nat was up with a splitting headache which made her sort of barf, which was bad. But post-barf, she was better and we all went back to sleep. The next day we had some more Chinese food in the heart of Chinatown (Ben is a big Asia-fan, you see...) before seeing them off to the bus again. All in all, a lovely weekend with friends.

I need not speak much of the week to follow, most of it was spent, for me at least, in a state of constant gastronomica nervousa. Yuck. I had my wonderful second interview at Greenwillow on Wednesday, where I had the privilege of meeting the third part of my new team, and the publisher of Greenwillow, who is a truly lovely person. They all are. *sighs dreamily*

Mom and Dad Jabes' Visit
On Friday night, Adam and I went to Penn station to pick them up, and luckily the rain had stopped and it was a lovely evening. We took the subway home, and ended the night with some hummus and glasses of moscato d'asti, a fabulous sparkling white Italian wine that we bought at Moore Brothers, the coolest wine place in Manhattan. It tasted like a cacophony of tropical fruits. Delicious! Mom and Dad both loved it. We also listened to the soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou? which I bought for my Dad's extremely belated Father's Day Present. Such a great movie, and great music too. The genre, according to my Mom, is "Hillbilly" in case you're trying to find it in Best Buy.

On Saturday we did TONS of stuff, breakfast at Carnegie Deli (most famous in NYC, Mom and I shared the most astronomically good bagel and lox ever), then looking at Times Square and Rockefeller Center, then falafel and gazing at the veg at the Union Square Farmer's Market. I bought some basil peppermint iced tea that everyone hated. Sad.

It was a gorgeous day though, perfect temperature, sunny, the works. We headed home after that to "geez" as my family calls it, and watch Alien (although I gracefully bowed out and my parents went to nap, so...really Adam watched it). Later that night, we went to Little Italy to have dinner at Da Nico, which was absolutely delicious. We had a nice salad and calimari to start, and then pasta (my Dad had pizza, also amazing) for the main dishes. My quatrro fromaggi ziti was to die for. Afterwards, they brought us puffy doughy stuff with powdered sugar for dessert, on the house. Then we all went home and zoned out in a carb-induced daze. Ahh.

Sunday was detox day, so I served nice wheat toast, cheese, olives and fruit for breakfast. Then, we walked around Washington Square for a bit to listen to some live jazz, and then around Greenwich Village to look at things and pick up some lunch before the bus. My Mom ate the best salad she has ever had in her life (or so she says). So that was good. Pretty soon it was time to head back to the bus, and we said our sad goodbyes and they were on their way. They had a great time, so my hostess duties were fulfilled. Huzzah. Mom can't wait to come back. Soon, Ma!

Anyway, that's pretty much it. Now, I'm sitting here in some kind of crazy daze with my hair just cut and looking like some punk 15-year old boy with an attitude. It fits my personality perfectly. Adam is on his way home, and we are going out to dinner to celebrate. Greek food? I say, yes!

Who could ask for more?

Last time, on 3 Spencer Place. Michelle anxiously awaits a call from HarperCollins about a job, while Adam whiles away the hours at home. Will she get the call? Will Adam go stir crazy before his job starts? Will Forrest discover Ariana's affair with Lodge? And who is the mysterious new poolboy? Find out...on this episode of 3 Spencer Place.

I left off last Sunday, which was the day Adam and I decided to go to Brighton Beach. It's really just a hop, skip and a jump from here, about 30 minutes on the Q all the way to the bottom edge of Brooklyn. On the way we saw some really cute houses that sort of reminded me of Pittsburgh, which we decided we should look into one day. Once we got there, we followed the steady stream of flip-flopping beachgoers to the shore. The most interesting thing about Brighton Beach is the astounding number of Russians who live in that area. It's to the point where most of the signs are in Russian. So we found a little spot on the surprisingly soft, white sand, spread out our towels, and lay there goggling about how just half an hour ago we were in the middle of the city. Strange. We tip-toed, oh-ing and ah-ing, into the cold water and floated around for a bit. A large woman barked at me in Russian, gesturing to my head. I think she thought I should dunk myself, so to be less cold. Nice of her.

After some sunbathing, we walked along the boardwalk to find something to eat. We settled on a very Russian cafe, where we ate some meat dumplings and chicken shish kabob (it came with cold peas and red cabbage). Then some more sunbathing, then home and a much-needed nap.

On Wednesday night after work, I met Adam at Washington Square Park so we could go to a place called The Bar Next Door at La Lanterna. It was this little, out of the way spot that you could easily miss on the street, except for the sounds of jazz emitting from it every night. It's a small, candlelit little bar, with only enough chairs for about 15 people. We arrived early to have dinner and drinks, and the jazz trio (drums, string bass and acoustic guitar) started around 8:15. We listened to Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk as the light at the window faded, sipping on the remnants of my martini. The lead guitarist's face was quite incredible, it looked as if every note gave him unexplainable pleasure.

Thursday night, our friend Vicki invited us to join her at a friend's barbecue in Williamsburg, which is north of us in Brooklyn. Adam and I met at the Bedford stop near there and walked together to his apartment. The building looked like a warehouse right on the edge of the river, which we found out was quite accurate: long ago, it was a doll factory. The guy who lived there told us at one point that he's occasionally found little doll eyes pressed into the concrete. I found this creepy.

The place was pretty out of the way and shady looking, but since the neighborhood is so artsy and hip, it turns out that a bunch of young, hip people live there. We climbed the concrete stairs to his apartment and were welcomed in by his girlfriend, Marisa and Vicki. The apartment was an enormous, yawning place with exposed rafters and pipes streaming every which way. You could tell it was not meant for living, but living had been forced upon it, closets and bathrooms constructed, curtains hung, shelves built. A huge abstract painting of a cat and birds, done in greens, blues and yellows, covered one wall. Dante, for that was the host's name, was playing oldies on the CD player. As he was barbecuing, we discovered that he is our neighborhood police officer. How weird is that?

We sat and talked as more people arrived, Vicki's old roommate Natty; AJ and Tiffany, two sketch comedy artists; Nikki and her boyfriend, who worked with Natty in Cameroon for the Peace Corps. They were all lovely. Some of us sat at the kitchen table and picked mint leaves for the mojitos and talked. If you've never had a mojito, they are delicious. Rum, sugar water, lime juice and fresh mint. After we all had our mojitos, we climbed the last flight of stairs and stepped out onto the roof, a blast of cool air reaching us from the East River. The glittering skyline of Manhattan looked back at us, breathtaking in the darkness of 10pm. We stood, drinking and chewing mint, talking about being poor and noble, laughing at AJ and Tiffany's jokes, all while the sounds of the Beastie Boys playing live nearby floated by, mingled with cheers. We drank and laughed, tossing our heads in the wind, and watched the city as if it was ours alone to love and to conquer.

We didn't get home until 1am (damned late night subway silliness), and so Friday I was exhausted. It was my last day at Penguin, and even though it was a half day it was busy. The editors and designers treated us with donuts and coffee, thanking us for all our hard work. The clay figures and colorful scribbles from our Crayola brainstorming meeting on Thursday littered the tables and reminded me why children's publishing was so completely awesome. Around noon, I said my goodbyes and took down numbers and e-mail addresses, and then went to turn in my keycards. Walking out of the building, I checked my cell and noticed two voicemails. One was my Mom, which was expected since my parents were coming to visit this weekend, but what was the other? It was HarperCollins. "Call me," she said. Before I could get to shelter, for it was pouring down rain and turning my umbrella inside out, Adam called.

"Your parents aren't coming!"
"What?"
"Your Dad had a kidney stone!"
"WHAT?"

And so on. I didn't tell him about the call from HarperCollins. Too much was going on all of a sudden. I got to a cafe, sat down and calmly called the number to HarperCollins.


"Hi, Rebecca? This is Michelle. I just got your message."
"Oh, hi Michelle! Yes, well, Tim would like to see you back here for a second interview. How's Wednesday or Thursday?"
"Oh....oh. Yes, Wednesday is great."
"OK. 2pm OK?"
"Yes. Yes."
"OK. You'll be meeting with Virginia, she's the president, Tim and some others."
"Great, yes. Yes."

I hung up, took two breaths, and called my Mom. She was upset, and I consoled her. Next week, next week isn't far away. Dad's OK? Yes. That's good. Don't worry. Oh, and I have good news...

So, my Dad's OK and they're coming next weekend. And lo and behold, Ben and Nat, who were supposed to come then, are coming this weekend instead! How lovely!

It's been quite a week. But aren't they all?

It's Getting Hot in Here...

...But alas, I shall not take off all my clothes, as Nelly might have me do. So, it's been quite a week. We forgot to mention that a couple weekends ago (after the Harry Potter extravaganza) we went to the Cloisters in WAY Upper Manhattan (near the Bronx). The Cloisters is an awesome part of the Met that includes a huge Medieval collection. The place is actually built to look exactly like a Medieval Cloister, so it really gives you the feel of being nowhere near New York City, and nowhere near the 21st century. Pretty awesome. Also, we got to see the real Unicorn Tapestries. (For those of you who have seen The Last Unicorn, they are the ones featured at the beginning of the movie. Classic.) It was a lot of fun, and beautiful, and afterwards we met up with Vicki to have some very doughy lunch nearby. To see some photos, visit our photosite.

Ok, now that we're up to speed...this week was a bit crazy with the interview and all (which, I might add, went amazingly). I have been trying not to think about it too much, because it is so perfect for me that it hurts a little to think there's a chance I won't get it. Anyway, hopefully they will call me sometime this coming week for the second round of interviews. Fingers crossed, people!

Adam and I got to visit the South Street Seaport last Sunday morning (I know, I'm hopping around a bit), which was actually designed by the same guy who did Baltimore's Inner Harbor. It's very weird seeing it, because it's so similar I almost felt like I was back in Maryland. Lucky for us, it started pouring down rain almost as soon as we got there, which was awesome because we had walked 6 or 7 blocks away from the subway station. We ended up running the whole way back, getting ridiculously, utterly, and completely soaked through, and leaking our way into the subway station. It was fun. It always seems to happen to us here.

Last night, we had the great privilege of seeing our friend Matt Katz and his girlfriend Beth, who were in town for the weekend. We met at the Risottoria, a nice little place in SoHo famous for it's gluten-free menu (Beth can't have gluten in her diet). So we all dined on gluten-free pizza, risotto and beer (really! it's made with sorghum, it's delicious). The conversation was great, as always, and makes me realize with some amazement that Katz and I have been close friends for 11 years. He is such an intense, funny, smart and crazy Jew. I love him to death. After that we took them home to our place for some wine, and were flattered by how much they loved it. It really is a lovely building, sometimes I forget how lucky we are to have it.

This morning I went to yoga at Bally's, and when I got home we proudly put up our John Lennon poster (he's wearing a t-shirt that says 'New York City.' Coolness!) in the place of honor above our entertainment center. We had to order two custom frames for the posters that will be flanking him, because they are an odd size. They are movie posters, and they are awesome because they represent Adam and my favorite movies of all time.

Back to the Future and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Holla! Lord, it's going to look awesome.

NOTE: I apologize for my excessive use of 'awesome.' It won't happen again.