My fake-sounding (but true) Olympic gold medalist* sighting

My co-worker and I have been discussing various food carts around Midtown, and yesterday we decided to commence our let's-eat-at-every-food-cart-in-Midtown thing (ugh, my brain is fried, I can't think of the proper word)... sort of like when guys (and girls) decide to drive around the U.S. going to every ballpark (like that cool MasterCard commercial that I like so much).

We started off ambitious: we decided to go to the famous halal food cart at 53rd and 6th (FIVE BUCKS for a great [and huge] meal!) and then head down to 51st and 7th to this highly-rated Jamaican Dutchy food cart. The Midtown Lunch blog said something like, "When Usain Bolt is in town this week, he should really stop by!" so my co-worker and I did.

When we get there, the cart is covered with clippings of Usain Bolt and even has a TV connected there with looping footage of him winning one of his many races. While perusing the many delicious-looking** items on the menu, we look up and realize that a Puma-clad*** Usain Bolt has arrived at the cart with some handlers and some gawking New Yorkers.

The funny thing is that Usain actually had an appearance at the show (and wore a Puma jacket). But when I put it in my away message, four people messaged me to ask whether it was true that I saw him at a Jamaican food cart. I mean, it does sound kind of fake, right? It's sort of like claiming you saw Jackie Chan in Chinatown or something. (Although Jackie Chan is from Hong Kong, which brings up all sorts of complications, so maybe my analogy wasn't that great [in fact a little {or very} culturally and politically insensitive] but it was the best sort of analogy that I could think up right now.)

Yummy food cart suggestions welcome.

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* I first put "celebrity" but figured that, as talented as he is, Usain Bolt probably wouldn't be considered one (at least not yet in New York).

** Yeah, we bought Jamaican food right after we bought halal food. So what?

*** His sponsors must LOVE him. Puma and McNuggets!

Embarrassment > frugality

My therapist takes the month of August off. It's a glorious month. I get to sleep in late (since my crazy hours at work require me to meet her in the morning), I don't have to rack my brain thinking of something to discuss at our next session, but most importantly, I save myself several hundred bucks that would undoubtedly equal the monthly rent of a luxury studio in any city but New York.

I've been feeling a lot like my old self lately (i.e., cheap and lazy). The idea of paying a three-digit sum to have someone listen to me talk for 45 minutes (yes, you read that right... our sessions don't even last an hour!) after rousing my amorphous blob of a body out of my ridiculously comfortable bed on a weekly basis (particularly in this time of extreme financial crisis) just seems really absurd. In fact, when my therapist forgot our about session in the first week of this month, I was actually pretty thrilled that I got to "save" some extra cash and practically skipped to my office.

I mean... does she not realize that there are some uncomfortably long silences in our sessions because I have nothing more to say?

Anyway, since I am a coward, I really wasn't looking forward to suggesting that we start meeting every other week. I mean, I still like her a lot, and I think it's helpful to talk to a "neutral" party. Plus I figure that our sessions would probably have more depth since I would have more to discuss if I had two weeks' worth of self-pity to complain about. (Not to mention that my monthly bill would be cut in half.)

When I mentioned this at the end of our last session, she asked, "Why?" I feebly muttered something about the difficulty of getting up in the morning (which, believe me, is not something to be taken lightly, as any one of my former roommates could attest) although honestly I'd rather just save a few bucks. My therapist then said something about therapy being a continuous process and how it wouldn't be a good idea to break up sessions. (Well, of course she thinks that. She just sits and gets paid a ton of money!) I was too embarrassed to just admit that I didn't want to pay extra money, so I just agreed.

I suck.

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Note: I did think briefly of switching to another therapist who would be okay with biweekly sessions. But then I realized that it would probably take like at least three sessions to repeat my life story. And because we were meeting biweekly, it would probably take like an extra month or two for my life story to stick. And that alone would be pretty costly.

Fact: I do have insurance. But the good therapists don't take it.

Conclusion: I should've become a therapist. You get so much money for doing what girls with insecure and whiny friends do all the time for free!