What do beautiful German men, fireworks, the best looking Polaroids you’ve ever seen, an open bar and three bathrooms all have in common? I gazed on them all at the stroke of midnight marking the first day of 2007. Did I mention I was on a boat?

For the past two years a couple of my friends have been adamant about spending the night of New Year’s Eve on the freezing cold water around Manhattan…and every year I outsmart them and rally everyone to seek warmer, less windy climates. I’m very clever. This year, however, with the whole global warming phenomenon, I realized that now is as good a time as any, and I threw on my new black dress, black heels and pearls for this late-December cruise.

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Counting this past weekend’s ING New York City Marathon, I’ve now completed four of the 26.2-mile beasts and realize that I’ve covered 104.8 miles and 16-plus hours in doing so. It’s a lot of miles and a lot of time and quite frankly looks a little crazy to me on paper. But I have to say that there’s no other place I’d want to run the distance than New York City.

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Last year, two days after my birthday, I got a tattoo. I’d always been intrigued with body art and decided that it was high time I got in the game. Why get a tattoo now and not, say, ten years ago? Because ten years I lived in Minnesota, not New York City, and I figured that if you’re not willing to buck up and take a risk here there’s really no hope.

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Tuesday night I went out to meet up with some friends at a low key bar in Union Square called Galaxy. When I got there it was the usual mischievous loud and annoying shenanigans that seem to surround me where ever I go (poor me) and considering there was only one other group of people at the bar, I didn’t feel too bad for being my usual loud and obnoxious self. After a holla at my friends, they laughingly informed me that they just met Usher - pointing towards the other group of people who were big black men in suits. Assuming my friends were kidding, I laughed out loud and yelled “UUSSHHUUURRR!!” and did a dance which could only be described as my best impression of Usher.

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So, a few days ago, I went to get cash out of a Bodega’s ATM machine. Little did I know, some skinny blonde bandit was eating a tiny salad on a bench, and the whole while, plotting against me. I had my earbuds on (Shure E4C’s, fantastic, you gotta try ‘em) with my 60GB iPod, and I went to take 60 dollars out of my account to buy, surprisingly enough, another electronic toy.

A phone, people! Get your head out of the gutter.

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I’m starting to learn the ways of New Jerseyans. They flock to shore houses. They grow good corn. And they love—as in worship and adore—Bon Jovi. But as one of my born-and-bred Jersey friends pointed out recently, “Nothing brings out Dirty Jersey like a Bon Jovi concert.” Dirty Jersey. I’m new to the phenomenon, but after a recent Bon Jovi show at Giants Stadium I realized that she’s right.

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