NYC loves NASHVILLE

How cool is this?!?! I know people say it all the time but it really is a small world. I receive an email from a best friend and old co-worker which came to her through one of our other mutual friends and business counterparts in Nashville. He happened to be in touch with a lady who lives and works in NYC and was arranging a benefit concert to support flood relief in Nashville. And they're charity of choice...the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee who I also happen to work with on a weekly and sometimes daily basis! Wow.

I am so excited about this project. I mean...I was in Nashville and experienced the flood first hand. I would consider it my true home yet here I was in my new home, NYC, meeting people who had also lived there and wanted to do something to support a city from their past. And I met these people, not because I lived in NYC, but because of my friends from Nashville. Talk about full circle.

So here are the details about the event in case any of my fellow NYC readers (anyone out there?) want to attend...

“NYC LOVES NASHVILLE” BENEFIT CONCERT ANNOUNCED

LE POISSON ROUGE

TUESDAY – JULY 27, 2010 AT 8:00PM

FEATURING TONY AWARD® WINNER MICHAEL CERVERIS, LAURA CANTRELL, CALEB HAWLEY, JENNINGS, MILTON AND STUEDABAKERBROWN

**ALL PROCEEDS AFTER BREAK-EVEN DONATED TO THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE IN SUPPORT OF FLOOD RECOVERY**

(New York, NY – July 27, 2010) Former Nashville residents announce the “NYC Loves Nashville” Benefit Concert at Le Poisson Rouge on July 27th. Doors open at 7:30pm with the show beginning at 8:00pm and tickets are $20 at Le Poisson Rouge’s website (www.lprnyc.com). The concert will feature a diverse group of artists coming together to raise funds and awareness for the relief efforts in Nashville, Tennessee after unrelenting rainstorms in early May caused severe flood damage all across Music City. Participants include Tony Award® winner Michael Cerveris, Nashville’s own Laura Cantrell, Stuedabakerbrown, Caleb Hawley, Jennings and Milton. These artists have also generously donated tracks – some unreleased – that can be downloaded for free for a limited time with the purchase of a ticket online. Be sure to visit www.nyclovesnashville.com for the most up to date information or to make a donation at any time.

In addition to ticket sales, money will also be raised through door prizes and auctions of fantastic donated items from sympathetic musical artists and businesses in both New York and Tennessee. Among these many coveted prizes are autographed items from Alan Jackson, 3 Doors Down and Counting Crows along with coupons for free ice cream at Dylan’s Candy Bar, Magnolia Bakery cupcakes, free bowling at The Gutter and Brooklyn Bowl, assorted baskets from various bakeries and gift certificates from businesses including American Apparel, Southern Hospitality BBQ, Brooklyn Brewery and many more.

Proceeds from “NYC Loves Nashville” benefit The Community Foundation’s flood recovery funds which ensure that one gift can impact the widest range of charitable needs in times of disaster. The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee makes grants from flood recovery funds to Middle Tennessee nonprofits and/or government agencies on the front lines of immediate and long-term flood relief and recovery. The Foundation’s flood relief funds strategically address needs as they emerge and evolve throughout the rebuilding and recovery process. For detailed information on The Community Foundation’s flood recovery efforts, visit www.cfmt.org.

For more information, media inquiries or interview requests, please contact Drew Farrar at nyclovesnashville@gmail.com.

For more information on the participating artists, please visit their websites below:

Michael Cerveris – http://www.cerveris.com/
Laura Cantrell – http://www.lauracantrell.com
Caleb Hawley – http://calebhawley.com/
Jennings – http://www.jennings-music.com/
Milton – http://www.miltonmusic.com/
Stuedabakerbrown – http://stuedabakerbrown.com/

Jenny vs. The Window Air conditioner

As I see this turning into a saga that is sure to continue into the months of the year that people in New York consider "hot" months, I figured I better start writing about it now. Let me preface this by saying that I realize that plenty of people all over the world survive just fine in their everyday life without the luxury of central heating and air or for that matter, without the luxury of window air conditioners. I, however, am officially a central air girl. Actually, I might just change the name of this blog to http://www.centralairgirl.com/. I think it has a nice ring.

In coming to NYC, I understood that most places that I could ever conceive of affording would be without central air. I know, I know...Old houses, it's only hot for a couple weeks out of the year, blah, blah, blah. I got it. It's a LIE. It is now officially the middle of July and quite possibly hotter here than in the south where it supposedly gets "dirty" hot. Seriously folks...the time has come to stop playing the hot-only-2-weeks-in-August card.

Now we are very fortunate and have not one, but TWO window air conditioning units. We're living life large in NYC. The problem is that I have no experience either cooling a house with one of these or paying a bill where one of these is used. I have a very intense (and pretty realistic) fear that our next bill will be $500.00. I do have a price to be comfortable and cool and it's slightly less than that. So now we play the game or what I like to call Jenny vs. the window air conditioner. Here are just a few of the situations that I'm either up against in defeating this beast or have to consider when going to battle:

1. Do you section off the apartment to speed up the cooling process by filtering the air into only one room?


2. If you do this, do you leave the windows open in all other rooms even though it's 100 degrees outside or are you somehow only damaging your cooling mission by doing that?


3. How do you work the sleep scenario? If you leave it on and fall asleep, you risk running it for the next 6 hours and adding mucho dinero to the bill.


4. If you only run it for the hour before you fall asleep, you're bound to wake up 2 hours later looking like you just went for a work out.


5. When you wake up 2 hours later, do you just turn it back on and go to sleep (therefore reverting back to #3)?


6. Or do you just open the window when you wake up? It's still not going to get really cool but at least you're saving money.


7. Does the economy setting really do anything? The air is still cold and it's still blowing out.


8. Realistically, what is this doing to my bill? Comfortable and cool definitely have a price cap for me. I have a feeling that I'm going to be over it when I see the next bill.

We tend to section off the bathroom/pantry/kitchen side of our place since the air conditioner is in the living room, thus cooling down that one room pretty quick since it's only technically meant to cool one room. With that being said, I was having a conversation with my mom the other day and told her that I'm now officially one step closer to knowing what it feels like to use the bathroom in an outhouse...I had just come back from using ours and it was at least 95 degrees in there! Stay tuned...

Bikram Balls

I'll get into the details of this insane work out experience later but in the meantime, I didn't want to deprive you of this gem of a story...

I get home from my third day of doing this grueling, awesome, relaxing, strenuous, intense workout that they call Bikram Yoga. For those of you not familiar, it's set up to constantly be 95 degrees in the room using heaters that are mounted in the corners and blow heat throughout the 90 minute class. The only rule that they have is that once you start class, you can't leave. Yes, you heard me right. Why would anyone do this workout and keep going back for more? Your guess is as good as mine.

So anyway, home from my third class. I'm on the couch and telling Nat how it went. It was a tough class. It was Friday evening and it just seemed like everyone was beat. This is the type of class too where you feed off of everyone else and kind of push each other to get through. If you need to take a break, they instruct you to sit down with your legs bent underneath you and focus forward at the mirror, keep your focus and work on steadying and maintaining your breathing.

About 45 minutes into the class, I desperately need a break. I move into "break" position and am looking forward to focus my eyes. I couldn't have picked a worse time for this break. As I look up, the man in front of me, who is wearing only a speedo (and I really don't blame him because you want as little clothes on as possible for this class), is bending over and grabbing his ankles. I immediately realize that focusing my eyes and breathing is absolutely not going to happen because all I can see is the massive amount of sweat dripping from this man's private region and more specifically, balls.

You might think that Nat would be disturbed by this story. Perhaps grossed out. Perhaps disinterested in hearing about another man's sweaty balls. However, you would be wrong. Literally the first words that come out of his mouth are "You have to blog about that!". So there you have it.

Tip of the day: Avoid speedos in a 95 degree yoga class at all costs.

It's official: 2 years in the books!

Yes, that's right. Nat and I just celebrated our 2 year anniversary on March 19. I can't believe how fast time flies! I mean, I know we haven't been together (in the same city) for 75% of it but still, it's flying by! It felt even more crazy when I talked to my best friend Caitlin and she pointed out that after 2 years of dating Ryan, they were married!!

We planned to have a very low key celebration and instead of giving gifts, we booked a week long trip to Florida with a couple of our other best friends in June. Little did we know then that Nat would get offered a theater gig and book a play that is running during the same time as the trip! This in turn leaves me flying solo on our anniversary vacation...at least it's with friends that are used to me being minus my + one! :-) The perks of dating an actor with a never fixed schedule! Oh well though...I'm pretty sure we'll make up for it after he's done with the play (*cough**cough* Nat).

I'm getting off the subject though. I wanted to share with you guys what I would like to call my week of anniversary-ness:

DAY 1:

While not suspecting anything at all since it was only Monday and our anniversary was Friday, these lovely guys made their way into my life announcing themselves as the first day of our anniversary week flowers. And the crowd goes "awwwww."

DAY 2:

These little gems, my favorite aside from Godiva truffles, make their way into my life announcing themselves as day 2 of our anniversary week chocolates. Who doesn't love chocolate and peanut butter. Yummmy!

DAY 3:

As these 3 roses make their way into my life on day 3 of our anniversary week, I find out that the plan all along was to do flowers each day but by the time he got home on Tuesday night from his meeting in Philadelphia, all of the flower shops were closed. Ummm, you're not hearing any disappointment from me! As you can see, all of the flowers had to bunk up in the same vase because I'm not a girl who has ever had a need for more than one flower vase at a time!!

DAY 4:

Last but not least, day 4 anniversary week flowers! As you can tell, I didn't take the picture quite as quickly as I should have but they started out as the prettiest ones of the entire week. Now all three of my flower bunches are bunking up together in one vase! We tried but there just wasn't enough water to go around! ;-)

For the official anniversary night, I purchased a Groupon (if you don't know what that is...send me a message...immediately!) for $75.00 of French cuisine at a restaurant in NYC called Picnic for only $35.00! Always one to look for a deal. :-) Coming out of the awesome week of anniversary gifts (and not participating myself) I decided to splurge and instead of splitting the coupon with Nat, I covered the whole thing. What a girlfriend! haha.

So here's to 2 years. It wouldn't be right to celebrate without extending my HUGE gratitude and thanks to everyone that helped us get to this point. I know there were times when it wasn't an easy ride for us to be that far apart and you have all played a part whether it was being a cheerleader, shacking buddy, plus one, road trip companion, ear to listen, happy hour partner, canoe buddy, party planner, evite composer, travel agent and so many more things. You are always appreciated. And YOU, Nat McIntyre, are the best anniversary week (or anytime really) boyfriend I've ever had!!

Guest Blogger: Nat McIntyre

Followers of Southern Apple Girl, it is my great pleasure to be the first guest blogger in the illustrious history of SAG. For those of you who do not know me, I am the reason that your beloved Jenny Moss is braving the windiest, snowiest, and coldest New York winter in years. I am her boyfriend, Nat McIntyre. Jenny moved here because she loves me (or is punishing herself for some horrible crime she committed in her past, but I choose to believe she loves me). And because she loves me, she wanted me to be able to pursue my career in theatre, film, and television. I wanted to give you a taste of what life is like for a first year NY actor. Many of you would probably think that after I finished my 3 years at one of the top acting conservatories in the country I would move to NYC and start auditioning and performing in plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Mamet, and Churchill. And movies with actors like Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, and Tom Hanks. Well, year number one has been a bit more humorous than that (although I cannot complain). Here is a list of some of the roles I have gone in for in film and television-

Royal Guard
Douchey British Guy
Working Class Boyfriend/ Murder Suspect
Dangerous Hick
Stupid Hick
Neglectful Dad
Chauffeur
Stupid Bouncer
Drunk Irishmen
Irish Cop
Irish Thug
Irish Friend
Irish Thug
Journalist
Cop (4 times)
Russian Gangster
Russian Wrestler
Helmsman of Pirate Hunting Yacht
Mover
Construction Worker
Sheriff

PRETTY GLAMOROUS, HUH!?

It has not all been for nought, however. I was indeed cast as the Irish Thug, Cop, Helmsman of Pirate Hunting Yacht, and mover in a commercial for the Tribeca Film Festival. It is this last one that Jenny thought you all would like to hear about. It was between that and the audition for a Russian Wrestler in Angelina Jolie’s “Salt” where they told me I had to act like I was holding my newborn baby for the first time and then pretend I found out my new baby was dead. All without any prep, baby, or lines. But as bizarre as that was, it wasn’t nearly as bizarre as my two days on the set for the Tribeca Film Festival Commercial…

Day one started at 6am - I was playing the part of a mover who was literally moving Tribeca (which is a neighborhood in NYC) to people’s living rooms so they could watch the festival remotely. Sounded funny. It wasn’t funny at 7am when they had me and another guy out in 20 degree weather shooting our first shot of the day which consisted of the two of us lifting a 140 pound man on top of a 90 pound cast iron bench and carrying it about 50 yards…12 times! The rest of the day consisted of chasing a mime down the street, moving a cab wrapped in bubble wrap, carrying a 350 pound Hasidic Jewish man, moving a model, garbage, a steam pipe, numerous boxes, a walk sign, a stop light, and a horse… Ah yes, the horse. I was in charge of walking the horse down the street. I had been practicing with the horse and its rider for a while and we were all feeling very comfortable. That was when they decided to put a humongous moving box that had been built special for the horse on top of my new friend Brutus. Well he was a little skittish from the start, when out of nowhere a small van turned down the road and spooked the horse. Oh man, Brutus went crazy. Kicked through the box and started bucking backwards down the street. The rider barely stayed on, but the horse ran into a car. No worries, Brutus was fine, but when you see the spot, there will be no horse. The day ended at 6pm after 12 hours of moving everything in sight and I thought that was it.
However, they called me back the following Monday to shoot a final scene…. With Robert Deniro. Quite a couple of days!

So, ladies and gentleman, there is a taste of the life of this first year New York actor, who is incredibly thankful for your friend Jenny Moss and all the support you are giving both of us.

My incident with the car

So apparently everyone who has lived in NYC for any given amount of time, has had an “experience” almost or actually getting hit by a car/taxi/bus/bike/etc. I guess it was only a matter of time until my time came…

Nat was working another conference, although this time it was in New York which meant an awesome hotel (The Intercontinental) right down the road from home. So of course, this also meant that I would be joining him for a mini-vacay and date night in the city. Hey, gotta make the most of every opportunity!

I meet him at the hotel after I get done working and we head out to find a dinner spot. We have a great dinner at a Thai/Sushi place that we stumbled upon and then head out to find a Pinkberry for dessert. We get Pinkberry to go since it’s such a nice night out and decide to walk back to the hotel and eat our dessert. It’s such a beautiful night. I just had an awesome dinner with my boyfriend. We’re heading back to our beautiful (and free!) hotel. I couldn’t be happier.

We’re waiting at the crosswalk and all cars have passed so we proceed to cross the street. There had been a taxi and car that had just passed in front of us and stopped just in front of the crosswalk to make a right hand turn. We head across the street, walking behind the stopped, right-turning car and taxi. I’m not paying a ton of attention because there’s honestly not much to pay attention to when all of a sudden the couple behind us start yelling at me to get out of the way! I look up and the car that had previously been sitting, stopped, waiting to make a turn is now backing into my leg! I make a diving-ish awkward leap to throw my body out of the way while Nat attempts to pull me and get in between me and the car. The couple behind us is literally yelling at the guy in the car for backing up into a cross walk without looking! The whole thing lasts about 5 seconds and no real harm was done. Everyone asks me if I’m ok, which I completely am. At this point, I’m just a bit shaken and doing that awkward laugh that I do when I don’t know what else to do.

Here’s hoping I can cross this one off the list and that it counts as my NYC encounter with a moving vehicle.

Props to Nat

Props are given when props are due and it's definitely something that I don't do enough when it comes to my partner in crime. He's completely adjusted to living with an apparently OCD (I'm just discovering this whether you've known it all along or not) individual who loves a non-cluttered house, bad reality tv, celebrity gossip, wine by the cases and food that is not healthy for you to say the least. He's been great and that's an understatement.

Having said that, I decided to throw a true test at him the other day: Decorative towels. My mom got me/us this awesome set of towels for Christmas with the letter "M" embroidered on them. I promise you, it wasn't until THIS Christmas present that I even realized that both of our last names started with the same initial and that IF we were to plunge into the union they call marriage, my initials wouldn't even change. So yeah, I thought it was cool that I can hang towels with an "M" on it and it applies to both of us!

One night when he wasn't' home, I decided to hang these decorative towels. I knew going in that educating Nat on the correct protocol for using, or rather NOT using, decorative towels would be a challenge. I even went into it thinking that I would probably fail and not really, truly caring if he ever grasps the non-usage of decorative towels because really, who understands decorative towels. So he comes home and I gently broach the topic. I take him into the bathroom and show him my new display. He loves it of course...what the hell else is he going to say.

Then I go into my whole spill about the "new" place for his towel. We explore the rack on the back of the door and he says cool. That's that. No questions about not using them or the idiocy behind displaying towels in the most convenient place in the bathroom that you're not even allowed to use. Nothing. At this point, I'm waiting for the towel display wreckage to occur. Each day passes by and with each shower, comes Nat's towel being hung on the back of the door. Not a single wrinkle, crinkle, lump, etc. shows up in the decorative towels. Now I realize that this might seem like a small step, but for a girl who knew she was living with a very boy-ish boy and for a boy who had one suitcase to his name moving into this place, trust me, it's a very big step. I love him so much for so many big things that I wanted to make sure to recognize the small, simple things too! And for those of you wondering, a picture of the grand decorative towel display...

Pizza by the slice

It hit me the other day as I was rushing to meet Nat at Ikea to pick up a couple things, I have never in my life ate as much pizza by the slice as I do in New York! I ran into our local joint to grab a slice, got it to-go, paid my $2.25 and was on my way to the Subway. I get on the train and start partaking in the goodness of a huge piece of cheese pizza by the slice. This must be a New York thing.

Where I'm from, I only, and I mean ONLY, got pizza by the slice when we were at the mall and there was a Sabarro's in the food court. And don't get me wrong, it was an awesome treat then. Being able to purchase a slice of pizza that was the equivalent of 3 slices from Domino's and twice as greasy...who doesn't love that!

I finally came to a conclusion the other day. Pizza by the slice is the northeastern equivalent of fast food in the South! It's EVERYWHERE here. It's your go-to, on the run, cheap lunch or dinner. Each could, and at some point probably has, given someone a heart attack. I'm guessing that neither one has a single bit of nutritional value and both taste amazing. They even have a dollar menu version of pizza by the slice...it's a $0.99 stand and you have to scout them out when you're in the city.

Germ Guardian to the rescue!

So it's been too long. Let's get that out of the way. Now onto the amazingness that I would like to call "Germ Guardian" (it's what is printed on the front)!

Below is a picture of our new best friend. Since about the time that I made the move here, I have been an extremely itchy girl. And I don't just mean a casual patch of dry skin. I mean, full-on, my entire body itches and NO amount of the most deep moisturizing lotion can heal it. I literally got to the point where I was putting lotion on my entire body 3 times a day and after showers and nothing was helping. I would wake up in the middle of the night itching myself like a crazy person. Now a person who is from the northeast or who has lived here for an extended time (other than my boyfriend who is oblivious to this kind of knowledge), would automatically tell you that it's dry skin. A person who is from the south where humidity is a curse and not a blessing, would first assume otherwise. I went through my mental check list:

1. Haven't changed detergents - CHECK

2. Haven't changed soap - CHECK

3. Not using a crazy new lotion - CHECK

4. Maybe my clothes were dusty from the move, so I decided to wash my most frequently worn - CHECK

5. Cleaned the house to rid it of anything potentially harmful to my skin -CHECK

So at this point, I'm beginning to develop a rash on my chest and back. I assume it's from some crazy product or medicine that I've introduced into my life. Now there's probably half of you that would have immediately came to the dry skin conclusion and another half of you that would have taken my steps. You don't have to reveal where you stand. So now that I have the rash to deal with, I start talking about it to some of our NY pals. This is when the discovery is made.

Drumroll please...it's because of the steam heat and its drying effects on your skin. Ok, so new agenda. I set a pot of water in the bedroom to add moisture. Bam. Not a week later, the pot is dry. Ok, so this is working. We're now getting ready for the holidays and I figure that things will drastically improve once I am in the great, humid state of Tennessee. As expected, they do. This startling revelation led us to the point we're at now. We needed a humidifier. Yes, my southern friends who strive at every turn to rid themselves of the horrible thing we call humidity. We have now used our hard earned money to pump humidity INTO our home!! Last night was the first night with it. It's portable, so it's basically finding a home in whatever room I'm in. It also has a "soft glow" for night time use and a really calming sound. I LOVE IT! I'M ADDICTED! And I thought it would be a great post to kick off the new year and the posting drought. Lots more to come!