might be time for professional help

my addiction is in full force and it might be time to seek professional help.  this week i bought tickets to five events.  bought tickets to three events on the same day within about 2 hours of each other.  even voluntarily went to two theaters in times square.  (if you are new to my blog - i detest and loathe times square above almost all locales in nyc)  what is happening?  i have no self control.  netter now affectionately refers to me as her "ticket broker".

don't believe me that i have an addiction?  let me spell out what events i have tickets for and when they occur.  the following is in chronological order.

monday, june 11th - ed sheeran @ bowery ballroom

friday, june 16th - keane @ beacon theater

wednesday, june 20th - peter and the starcatcher @ brooks atkinson theater

tuesday, july 31st - newsies @ nederlander theater (this is my birthday so is a total freebie from my addiction diagnosis)

saturday, september 8th - us open for men's semifinal action

friday, september 21st - ed sheeran @ terminal 5

saturday, october 26th - alfie boe @ berkeley center in BOSTON!

i also have my eye on some new york pops concert tickets and want to see a bunch of plays on broadway before they close like other desert cities.  

this wouldn't be such a huge problem if i didn't also love to travel and have recently bought a plane ticket with my family to florida and am plotting my vacation to spain in november.  the combo of tickets to shows/concert and tickets to travel is why i still eat kraft macaroni and cheese every sunday and had left over papa john's pizza for lunch EVERY day this week.

i have started the process of researching a good therapist to help me get to the root of this addiction.  will gladly take recommendations.  you can even provide them anonymously.  i won't judge.

attack of the pegged pants

i was going to mention this little moment from yesterday in this week's simple moments post but decided i couldn't wait to share.  so here is my quick run down of the attack of the pegged pants...

yesterday afternoon around 3pm i was waiting for an elevator in my office building to take me to the 20th floor.  elevator came, so i proceeded inside.  then just before the doors closed a masculine forearm appeared between the closing door and the wall.  the doors proceeded to go back into their open position so a group of 5 men could enter my previously solo journey to the upper floors of my office building.  

i moved to the side to allow them in and kept my headphones in my ears to enjoy more tunes by my current rotation of ingrid michaelson, ed sheeran, cary brothers or (as always) linkin park.  my eyes veered towards the floor as i let the tunes take me to my happy place.  that's when i noticed this mob of men all had PEGGED THEIR PANTS!  

what the biz?  did my elevator suddenly turn into a time machine taking me back to 1987 when i wore side ponytails and desperately wanted a hyper color t-shirt and espirit bag?   if you don't know what pegging your pants means please raise your hand.  read the below to learn about the finer points of pants pegging.  if you do know about pegging pants or t-shirts or shorts, then you can skip the next paragraph to find out what happened next...

(...pants pegging was a fashion fad in the 1980s.  you would take the cuff of your pants and wind it around your ankle/calf so that you were left with the excess material.  then you place it around the cuff which is lying close to your skin and roll up.  then you roll the cuff up again until you have achieved the pants peg.  see step by step pictures at the end of the blog posts for pegging pants.  a thank you to my coworker receptionist for being my pants pegging model...)

the attack of the pegged pants didn't stop with my elevator ride.  no sir-ee.  instead it continued as i left work for the day.  i was on the escalator and lo and behold the man about 8 steps in front of me going down on the escalator also had pegged pants.  no joke.  for reals y'all.  i couldn't grab my iPhone quick enough to snap a picture for photographic evidence before he exited the escalator and moved too far away. 

trust me the attack of the pegged pants is coming.  first it was the bright pinks and neon greens showing up in my local ann taylor store and now the 80s are taking young men hostage one-by-one by forcing them to peg their pants.  we must remain strong and fight off the urge to grab a can of hair spray to cement our waterfall bangs hairstyle and no spending hours making friendship bracelets with string or grabbing that pair of L.A. gear hightop sneakers complete with multiple pairs of laces in the very back, dark corner of your closet.  resist my friends.  resist i implore you.  resist!

and now, a step-by-step picture guide to pants pegging as provided by moi et receptionist...

a real retail guarantee + snow patrol

i've bought and sold tickets on stub hub a couple of times.  when netter and i couldn't score tickets from ticketmaster to a snow patrol concert in mid-april i wasn't concerned because we could always stub hub it.  i tracked the price of the tickets until about a day before the show so that we could get the best possible price.  bought online and met at the venue.  and that's when things went wrong.

i gave netter one print out ticket and i took the other.  i got through security first to hand my ticket to the ticket scanner lady.  i got through just fine and waited for netter.  the scanner lady took netter's ticket and tried to scan multiple times.  the ugly red light came up each and every time denying netter access.  ugggh!  then the security guard and scanner lady noticed the name of the original purchaser on the ticket and told us they recognized the name as he had done this type of fraud before.  so netter wasn't able to see the concert because they wouldn't let us switch tickets since i had already gone through and there was no re-entry.  so i went into the concert solo while netter went home.  (sad face)

the whole time i was at the concert i just wanted netter there because it was such a great concert.  so once i paid my cab driver and got inside i called stub hub because they have fan protect guarantee that all of their tickets sold online are guaranteed to work.  got on the phone with a nice man about what had happened.  he sent me to his supervisor because he wanted to escalate the issue.  

the customer service was amazing!

they gave me a refund for the one ticket that didn't work and ALSO gave me two tickets for snow patrol's concert the next night!  hello!  netter and i were actually going to see the snow patrol and ed sheeran concert together!  we had an amazing view and rocked out to the awesome tunes of some favorite british rockers.

my time with the fabulous stub hub customer service didn't end with my evening conversation.  i got a call a couple of days later from another manager of stub hub who gave me a credit for the cost of my original ticket.  basically i got to see snow patrol twice for FREE!  woot woot.

i will continue to purchase tickets from stub hub because i believe them when they say ever ticket purchased on their site is backed by a guarantee.  something about the word "guarantee" that just makes things feel better.

and now a couple of pictures of my home boys, snow patrol...

it's all about time

apparently when the sun shine increases the outdoor temperature to over 60 degrees my time spent blogging about the awesomeness that is NYC takes a pretty big hit.  it also didn't help that i had good friends in town for a week so was out and about with them, went to a few plays, a few concerts and rented a car to spend lots and lots of money over memorial day weekend.  plus i'm still in a leadership role in church, trying to get my book club up and running and attempting to get into swimsuit shape.  therefore, the blog suffers. 

so now i'm back with hopefully better time management so that i can continue to blog and give you an inside view of what it's like to be me.