Tag: nyc

A Quarter Of A Century Around The Sun

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The best part about having a summer birthday is being able to spend it by some body of water, enjoying the sunshine and beautiful summer weather.

The worst part about having a summer birthday (in the realm of first world problems) is that no one is ever around for the summer, making it difficult to actually have any company around said body of water to enjoy the sunshine with.

But a few of my friends would still be in the city for my birthday this year, so I planned to get a girl gang together to spend the day at Long Beach.

The vision

It would be a “hot girl summer birthday,” as Megan Thee Stallion would probably put it. Me and my friends would be soaking up sun and saltwater, lounging on a clean, pristine beach, while fantasizing that we were in San Tropez instead.

The plan was to make a pitcher of sangria in a half-gallon reusable water bottle and distribute it using mason jars. We would get lunch from one of the fabulous dining establishments that lead up to the beach, and at the end of the afternoon we would walk down the boardwalk for soft serve ice cream, covered in artificially-colored, confectioned sugar, and swirled prettily in waffle cones. We would have the makings of a perfect beach day, having everything but tiny paper umbrellas to stick in our drinks. 

There were several issues with this plan.

First: no alcohol was allowed on the beach.

Second: no glass was allowed on the beach.

Third: it was raining on the beach.

My hot girl summer birthday party was off to a rocky start.

The backup plan was to go to a karaoke bar, get a private room, and scream-sing angry girl music from the 90s while downing a pitcher of margaritas. Once it was obvious that it was going to rain all day, that was the plan we stuck with.

We decided to brave the storm at RPM Underground, a basement-like karaoke bar in Hell’s Kitchen that looks how I imagined it would if a bomb shelter had neon lights. 

My friends arrived one at a time, wind-blown and damp, but ready to sing. 

If the experience taught me anything, it’s that karaoke is one of the best ways to spend a rainy day and one of the best ways to spend a birthday.

RPM Underground didn’t have a pitcher of margaritas, but they did have a bucket of soju and there was plenty of angry girl music to go around.

My go-to karaoke song is “Bitch” by Meredith Brooks, the perfect song to let off steam as a woman. There was also Avril Lavigne, Alanis Morrisette, Taylor Swift, Pierce the Veil, Sade, Chappell Roan, and, at one point, Megan Thee Stallion. Singing in front of other people will make you realize just how talented those artists are.

Everyone had different taste in music, but we could all enjoy an off-key rendition of “Hot n Cold” by Katy Perry. We bopped around the room singing as poorly as we wished, downing the fruity bottles of soju, which are deceptively alcoholic. 

Once the party started to wind down, we cut the cake. I ordered a lavender chocolate mousse cake that I got custom-made with a fun inscription. 

We left the karaoke place after our two hours were up, full of chocolate cake and Korean alcohol, with our voices shot, but having had a fun time. This birthday party was one for the books, since it was spent in good company, cheering our drinks and serenading each other.

The smoothest karaoke song of the night

Once my birthday was behind me, I was ready to feel the lobotomy that apparently happens when you turn 25. Your prefrontal cortex is finished developing and finally you have common sense, or so I am told. 

Unless I am imagining it, I thought that I could feel the chemical change that my brain underwent. In some ways, it was like completing a level in a video game or taking a hit of someone’s ADHD medication: you’re locked in like never before.

Turning one year older feels strange when you’re concerned about the state of the world and I am more concerned with the state of the world than ever before, which is saying something. It makes it hard to understand my future and for the first time in my life, it felt like I couldn’t see my future all that clearly. 

I still don’t know what to make of this other than the fact that this might just be a part of what it means to be 25. 

No matter what, I intend to be hopeful as I enter into my 25th year. Everyone that I have spoken to about it has said that 25 is a great age. You’re close to 20 and you’re close to 30, with a quarter of a century lived, and hopefully, at least two more quarter centuries yet to live. The important thing to remember is that at 25, you’re still just starting out. There is still plenty of time for mistakes, new beginnings, career changes, breakups, breakdowns, and other epic highs and lows. 

And hopefully, many happy returns. 

Thank you to all of my friends who showed up for my birthday and made it truly special! And to everyone else who has a summer birthday like me: happy birthday!

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel

P.S.: Check out my most recent blog post about how I did spend the day at the beach when the weather was permitting. 

12 Quick Pics To Convince You To Go To The Beach This Summer

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I love the heat and I love the beach, so when the weather started to get apocalyptically warm this summer, my cousin Olivia and I decided to spend the day at the nearest one. 

From Moynihan train hall, it takes about 50 minutes by train to get to Long Beach, followed by a 10 minute walk as the crow flies.  

The idea was to get some hard seltzers and sandwiches, purchased at our corner deli, and then spend the day on a clean, pristine beach, unbothered and beautiful. 

A couple of weeks before going with Olivia, I did a dry run. I put together a playlist, some new swimsuits, and a new beach blanket, then hit the beach. I was ready to lay out on the sand all day, looking like an American Bridget Bardot (minus all of her controversies).

The water was numbingly cold, but swimming around made it enjoyable. I spent hours floating in the water and fighting the waves, blissfully losing track of time. 

In the distance were cargo ships, silhouetted blue, and it was weird but cool to see freight being moved a couple of hundred yards away from the place that I was laying. Every few minutes it seemed an airplane flew overhead, flying a banner advertising something. 

Since I went during the middle of the week, the only people with me on the beach were teenagers. There I was with the youth of America, watching them stage wrestling matches in a circle behind the life guard tower, then disperse once they saw the cops coming. 

(Oh to be young).

I knew even then that I wanted more days like that where I could listen to Olivia Dean and read a good book on top of warm sand, forgetting about life for a while.

When we went together, Olivia and I got to relive our childhoods, throughout which we were mermaids swimming in the ocean. We did hand stands in the water, then immediately had to lay out on our sides on our towels to let the water trickle warmly out of our ears. It was the two of us together, excitedly squealing every time a wave rolled towards us and deciding whether to go over or under it at the last possible second. 

Clouds sailed across the sky, which was a perfect robin’s-egg blue. Seaweed brushed against our bodies as we swam out. 

When we weren’t in the water, Olivia and I sat on our towels, playing good music and chatting on what became a perfect Saturday. We both had playlists with about 8 different vibes, mainly containing songs about how the singer is young and will always be young (good luck with that).

After sufficiently tanning and swimming around, there was soft serve ice cream with sprinkles on the boardwalk, and then we called it a day.

By the time we were on the train going back, our bodies were briny, water-logged, and sun-drenched, but we’d had a good time. Being in the sun and the saltwater softened me. Swimming has a way of clearing my head in a way that nothing else does. 

Before the summer’s end, everyone who can should make a pilgrimage to the beach, if for no better reason than to quiet the noise of everyday life. You will get a nauseatingly picturesque day if you go to Long Beach where the water may be chilly but the weather is often beautiful. 

And if you ever need a “beachy and peachy” playlist to play at the beach, feel free to use mine:

Wait A Minute! by WILLOW
Why by Dominic Fike
Meet Me At Our Spot by THE ANXIETY, WILLOW, Tyler Cole
Ciao Ciao by La rappresentante di lista
Closer by The Chainsmokers, Halsey
Watermelon Sugar by Harry Styles
Summertime Sadness by Lana Del Rey
HOT TO GO by Chappell Roan
DtMF by Bad Bunny
Disparate Youth by Santigold
Rollercoaster by Bleachers
Champagne Coast by Blood Orange
Dancing On My Own by Robyn
All My Girls Like To Fight by Hope Tala
The Less I Know The Better by Tame Impala

(And anything by Olivia Dean)

Have a good summer!

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel


P.S.: Check out my previous blog post about all of the books that I have read so far this year

The One Where I Got A Job– Look Out Corporate America

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After much deliberation, I have decided that I am not meant to work for a living. 

I respect the lifestyle, but it’s just not for me. 

A glamorous headshot of me, taken at work

School’s back in session, so I can finally tell you all about the joys of my New York City job, how I was every inch the slick professional in chic pumps, ready to “shake up the game” or something like that. 

A few weeks ago, I completed my summer gig of working as a receptionist at a zillenial fin-tech place, having found the job through a temp agency.

Photographic evidence of me working for a living

My parents told me to apply at a temp agency, something that I believed to be a thing from their New York City days that no longer existed, like subway tokens and paying a buck 85 for your coffee. As it turns out, temp agencies are still alive and well, unlike the other facets of their New York City days, when they could afford a walk-up on practically no budget with a job that they got by checking the want-ads one afternoon.

My mother requested pics of my work clothes everyday. Here they are

Through Taylor Hodson, I got a job as a receptionist at a company that, like most people, doesn’t even have a landline. My job was primarily to greet people and to shred meaningless documents, something that they trusted a 23 year old to do perfectly. 

This was one of my first ever big girl jobs, not a part time internship that paid me minimum wage, gave me one day off a week, and let me roll in at 10 AM. Working a full forty hour work week for above minimum wage felt like graduating past that point in your school career where you get to have naptime.

A hardworking professional, as you can see

Unlike my previous part-time employment, I actually got off work feeling like I’d earned the right to a Friday afternoon happy hour drink as well as the right to yell at tourists walking three abreast on the sidewalk while I hurtled my body into my subway stop in the morning. 

I filled out an I-9, a W-2, and an NDA, before completing a sexual harassment lecture and quiz that asked real head scratchers like, “is commenting on your coworkers breasts while she’s lactating sexual harassment?”

I practiced my route to work the day before in order to ensure that I could get there in a New York Minute. Then, I did some of new-job-pregaming-rituals the night before, like watching Anne Hathaway play a plucky career woman in one of her films (The Devil Wears Prada, The Intern, etc.). She is every woman… but she is a little bit more me than the rest of you. I’m sorry, it’s the big brown eyes and the long brown hair.

I’d wake up every morning and listen to Megan Thee Stallion rap about “holding a glock in her birkin,” two things that I don’t own, before manning a desk for eight hours. 

I’d gotten a taste of rush hour traffic at my old job, but would now get to enjoy a long commute during rush hour in the middle of a heat wave. Every subway car was sardined with people, except for the one half-full car that has no air conditioning, making New Yorkers choose between personal space and heat stroke. We’re all hot and angry, trauma bonded from being jostled into each other’s half-naked bodies while sweat drips down our ass cracks. Nothing quite beats inhaling a wide range of body odors while trying to get to work on time.

This is being presided over by a conductor who was usually just as mad about it as we were and made that apparent by shouting at us to not only “STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS” but to “USE MORE THAN ONE OF THE DOORS” and “WAIT UNTIL THE NEXT TRAIN IF YOU DON’T FIT,” with the same energy as a TSA agent at LaGuardia who will yell at you to stand back if you approach them to ask a question that has already been answered.

I’m not sure whose fault this is, but I’m just going to blame Eric Adams. You can always blame the mayor of New York and then a decade after they’re out of office, they’ll get a couple of buildings named after them. 

Commuting home at the end of the day, unreasonably exhausted from not doing much of anything, and then being responsible for making my own dinner seems cruel and unusual.

I now have a new respect for the people who work all day, come home to kids to raise, make dinner, and then sleep poorly, only to make a paltry sum of money the next day at work. 

Like I said, I have decided that I am not meant to work for a living. 

I’ve just started another year of school, so I won’t have to rejoin the workforce for another year. Corporate America will have to wait with bated breath for my return. 

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel