Daniella's Misadventures
Saturday, February 26, 2005
My Touch is Like Whoa... or the Party Recap

Last night, I peeled myself from my flu bed where I had been languishing melodramatically for nearly a week, to go to the Celebrate Mike Blogger Party that I had helped organize. The reason that my touch is like whoa is that no one should have come within ten feet of me and my germs, but so many kind and wonderful people came out last night to enjoy their memories of our friend.

The first thing I saw when walking into the Overlook Lounge was Mike's face staring back at me in the form of Matthew, Mike's brother, who flew in from Chicago to be with us. While Matthew is very different from Mike, I saw some of the same charm and the same sly wit that I so revered in my friend. It was great to meet Matthew and I hope he got something out of the experience of meeting all of us.

I had an amazing time swapping stories of Mike, sharing a few surreptitious tears with Stephanie, Mike's girlfriend, and generally enjoying the hell out of the night. I reconnected with some old friends and definitely made some new ones. The NYC blogging community is an exceptional almagation of personalities and I can't believe how much I felt like I belonged, something that I think I've had a hard time feeling since I moved up here and year and half ago. That's certainly something that I attribute to Mike, as several of us mentioned last night--he was the hub that held so many disparate groups of people together. It was great to raise a glass to him with so many fabulous people last night.

Now, on to who was there and their links...

First, there were many non-bloggers in attendance who came to pay their tribute to Mike. In addition to Matthew and Stephanie, Mike and Elizabeth M, Jonathan from Computer SI (Mike's office) and Kristen also made the trek out to be with us. Thank you all so much for coming, it was terrific to have you there! And Jonathan, it's time for you to start your own blog, man--you have a lot to say.

The first bloggers that I ran into were Steve Silver and his pretty new girlfriend, Rebekah, making her blogger party debut. They were so cute with their blush of new romance. Great to see you, guys.

I was so glad that Lady Crumpet flew in from Atlanta to be there and it was nice to catch up with her--she's always a charm to be around. Thanks have to go to Brian, the 646 Guy for planning the venue, as we were treated very nicely (a hell of a lot better than last year's miserable experience at the now-defunct, and for good reason, AZ). As always, it was so good to see my friend Paul Frankenstein and the ever-more gorgeous Kambri Crews (girl, why do you look even prettier every time I see you? It's just NOT fair!).

Later on, Ken Goldstein, decided to show up. Ken is in trouble, people, and he needs our help... He has to be out of his apartment, sooner rather than later, as his place is going co-op, and guess what? In typical Donk style, he hasn't looked for an apartment! So, if any of you know a young lady who has a Manhattan apartment and is in need of a greencard, my boy Ken is very willing to get hitched. Please send help.

Even later, Linus made his grand entrance but did not join us for dinner because he was off to go look at some breasts, up close and personal. I suggested that I, too, wanted to look at breasts, but then I just looked down my sweater and was appeased. My girl C, looking newly buff and beautiful, also came by. C is officially in charge of the next party, so look for that in the spring.

Finally, a man came up and introduced himself and talked to me about the night we were supposed to go out and how he recognized me from my pictures. In my cracked-out-on-Sudafed state, I had NO IDEA WHO THE HELL HE WAS. It took me about ten minutes of conversation to figure out the it was Manhattan Transfer! So, MT, if I acted like a retard during the early part of our conversation, that's why. Also, it was an utter pleasure to meet the delightful Miss Anna Thropic in the flesh. It is about DAMN TIME you get a blog, young lady. I insist.

Now for the totally kickin' cool people I met for the first time last night:

The hilarious Laren who, in addition to her own site, writes the food column for Gothamist and KNOWS SCOTT HARRIS (Scott! Harris!). You ROCKED, Laren. The charming Susan Heather, who writes a travel website (the url of which I didn't get!) and is travelling to New Orleans in a few weeks. The lovely Sonja, who was funny and smart and Keith, who was cute and tall and I didn't get his web address. I think I saw Ari as well, but we didn't chat. There were a few more folks there, whose names I didn't catch.

After the party, a bunch of us went to dinner at an Afghani place on St Marks and 2nd Ave. It was a great night and a phenomenal group of folks. Thanks to all of you that came out and I can't wait to see most of you again soon. Kisses!

What... you wanna see some pictures? (Well, I didn't take that many and the ones I did take were taken early in the evening, so those of you who came later are not in them, sorry! I was sick, what can I say?)


Steve Silver and cute girlfriend, Rebekah.


John, Mike and Elizabeth M, Jonathan P


Mike's brother, Matthew and Mike's girlfriend, Stephanie


Brian, the 646 Guy... do you see those red eyes? The devil's in that boy, I tell ya!


Kambri Crews and Keith


Stephanie and Lady Crumpet


Linus


Ken. Ladies, if you have an apartment, he's the husband for you!


another shot of Matthew... doesn't he look just like Mike?


Jonathan P and John


fun with the nametags...


Lady Crumpet and I, the morning after, lazing around with my fat cat, Frank Sinatra, at my place.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
You're so Money, Baby, Part 2 or How The Money Was Spent

1. This fabulous bedding
2. A lovely suit similar to this one (the jacket's a little different)
3. This knife set that we registered for but did not receive, paid for by returning several gifts that we did receive but did not want. (If people aren't going to get you something off your registry, why not just give money to save the hassle of returning stuff!) All presents were very nice, thank you.
4. These fabulous shoes for me in chartreuse and for John in grey.

And the rest went into savings. Because I'm old and boring.
Reminder: Blogger Party Tomorrow to Celebrate Mike

We are holding a Celebrate Mike party TOMORROW at 7 PM at the Overlook Lounge, located 225 East 44th St, between 2nd and 3rd Aves in NYC. You are all welcome, whether you knew Mike "in real life" or only through his blog. A bunch of us will be swapping anecdotes and raising a glass to our friend. This will be night of celebration---because that's what Mike would have wanted us to do. Please join us. If you have any particular anecdotes that you would like to share with his family, please email them to me. I am putting together a book for his parents (on his sister-in-law's suggestion), so that they may find some comfort in it.
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Finally, the St Kitts Trip

I could tell you all about it, but there's nothing I can say that you couldn't get from the pictures. Click here to see the full gallery (that has about 10 hours of my blood, sweat and tears in making it!).

I hope you love the pictures.

P.S. I'm very new to this web gallery thing (I'm still in shock that I managed to get it to work!) so, there are 187 pictures that really make more sense if viewed in order. To scroll through them, use your down arrow on the left side navigation, for some reason the "Next" arrows are hidden. Too bad, as I'm not going to spend another 10 hours trying to figure out how to fix that...
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Wanted: Blog Webmonkey

I am looking for someone who can work with CSS stylesheets, Dreamweaver, Photoshop and can code html. I've had it. I have been playing with the auto web gallery function in Photoshop for like 4 hours now. I can't get it to do what I want (put captions on each picture) and if I do it in Dreamweaver, I have to do each caption separately. My St Kitts gallery has 187 pictures!

Can someone please just come over and help me? I'll pay you in homemade muffins and good rioja and rum. I mean it. I need a webmonkey BAD.

Send help.
Friday, February 18, 2005
You're so money, baby

It's annual bonus time and my checking account is a whole lot bigger. We were supposed to head up to Northhampton, MA to visit friends, but John is sidelined by the Creeping Yuck flu, so we're stuck here all weekend.

Who wants to come help me spend ALL THAT MONEY while my husband is home being sick? C'mon... I'm thinking drugs, sex, booze, rock n roll, the sky's the limit... It really is more money than I've ever had all at one time...

OK, OK, in reality, I'm thinking, a pair of chocolate brown suede boots and a nice suit for work.

The rest is going into savings. {choking on my own words} Oh, dear lord, when did I get so boring?

The OLD me would have totally blown all the money on something frivolous.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Overheard

me: ooh! Honey, come see... I just got spam with the title "Christian Sluts Cumming!"

him: mmm-hm

(a little while later)

me: oh, here's a good one. I got spam from Revitalizing Q. Moderning!

(pause)

him: yeah? Today, at work, I got spam from myself.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Dealing With It...also known as the State of Our Union, Month Four

It's been a hard week. I have no tears left and I am so tired from grieving that my body aches as much as my heart. But the earth still spins on its axis. The stars still twinkle with their mischievous gleam. I have a life to live and Mike would have wanted me to live it. He would be berating me right now for the fog through which I have seen the past week. He would be laughing at me for my sappy sentiments.

So, I will go on. We all will. And for Mike, I am going to attempt to return to regular blogging. Eventually, I hope to be able to return to my light, happy-go-lucky blogging. But it may be a while.

By the way, I want to thank the dozens and dozens of wonderful people who have sent me emails of condolence. I appreciate every one of them and each one brightened up what have been some very dark days. Thank you all from deep in my heart.

The State of Our Union, Month Four

This month, we travelled abroad, enjoyed some great snowed-in togetherness, made a momentous personal decision and lost one of our dearest friends. Throughout all of it, we leaned on each other for support, for guidance and for love. I am constantly amazed at how lucky we are to have found one another.

This month, we marvelled at nature's beauty while climbing into the clouds, 4,000 feet up to the crater's rim of a volcano.

This month, we wept at nature's cruel irony at taking away our friend when his life was going so well.

This month, we loved each other more and held each other just a little closer. This month, we decided to see just what his eyes and my nose might look like together. Maybe this is the year we'll find out. Maybe not, we don't want to rush these things.

So, I guess the state of our union is stronger, but the world around us is no longer as bright without our friend in it.

Please tell those who you love, that you love them. You may never get another chance.

So, John, thank you for being my husband, thank you for being the person whose face I see when I first wake up. Because I love that face and the man attached to it.

Saturday, February 12, 2005
Celebrate Mike Wolf

A bunch of us spent the day with Mike's parents today and shared some of our great Mike memories and stories. To that end, anyone who is interested, we are holding a Celebrate Mike party on Friday, February 25th at 7 PM at the Overlook Lounge, located 225 East 44th St, between 2nd and 3rd Aves in NYC. You are all welcome, whether you knew Mike "in real life" or only through his blog. A bunch of us will be swapping anecdotes and raising a glass to our friend. This will be night of celebration---because that's what Mike would have wanted us to do. Please join us. I would also appreciate it if you could help spread the word. I know that I personally feel a lot better after spending time with some of his other friends today. I think it will help many of you.

Finally, if you would like to make a donation in Mike's name, his parents suggested the March of Dimes. You can click to send a donation here.
Friday, February 11, 2005
Memories of my friend


I met Mike Wolf at my first Big Apple Blogger Bash in January 2004, just over a year ago. I was fresh to the NYC area, homesick and lonely. I didn’t know any other bloggers besides my cousin Jenny in Boston who had been my inspiration for blogging. I had exactly eight readers… my parents, a couple of my friends from home and one other NYC blogger, Dahlia (thanks, Dahlia!). I heard about the party from Dahlia and, nervous as hell, feeling completely self-conscious, I went. I was received graciously and one of the first people I met was Mike. We chatted briefly and he made me laugh. I had to cut the night short because, being nervous about being older and less hip than the rest of the bloggers, I had double booked the evening so I would have an “out” if I was uncomfortable.

A couple of weeks later, I had exchanged some emails back and forth with another blogger, Ken Goldstein, I invited him over for drinks and we had a great time. He blogged about it and about an hour after he published it, I got an email from Mike.

“What, I don’t get invited to hang out with you?” his email asked in his typical tongue-in-cheek manner. So, I invited him over for drinks and dinner. It was only after we had made firm plans that it occurred to me that we lived on the third floor without an elevator. That was the thing with Mike… you forgot about the wheelchair the minute he opened his mouth. It was non-issue to him, so it became a non-issue to anyone who knew him. We made plans to go out to dinner instead.

It was a blast. Mike came over early and we had drinks at a bar near my house waiting for John and Ken to arrive. We just melded so perfectly and the words just tumbled out of both of us. Our friendship was effortless.

Over the last year, Mike and I have had many adventures together. There was that crazy semi-coherent Ethiopian dinner in March when he couldn’t finish his dinner and without thinking I told him that “you better eat that, there are children starving in Ethiopia!” We both dissolved into giggles to the alarm of the other patrons and our waitress. Or the night he spent three hours redesigning my website and I kept trying to hurry him up and we laughed and laughed. Or that time I managed to scam our way into the private room at the Russian Vodka Room by speaking convoluted Russian to the hostess. Or the time he got us front row seats to the Dirty Dozen Brass Band at Joe’s Pub. He joked that “being a crip has to have some advantages.” Mike never ever played the pity game. That was not who he was at all.

I guess the defining thing about my relationship with Mike was the laughter. We made each other laugh. I teased him about being a hipster and a music geek (he was both) and he teased me about being a fashionista and being anal retentive (I’m both). I loved him and I will always love him.

He brought a whole lot to this world and touched everyone he came into contact with in some way. This world is not as bright a place without his wit, his passion and his light.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Goodbye, sweet prince

My dear friend passed away suddenly last night. Mike, I'm so glad I knew you. I'm so glad you were my friend. I can't say anything more. There aren't words.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
When you see da Zulu King... down on St. Claude and Dumaine

Happy Mardi Gras to my wonderful friends and my fabulous family. I hope your celebration was fun, festive and full of good cheer. I missed you all tremendously today!

Laissez le bon temps roule!

St. Kitts write-up (with lots and lots of pictures) coming tomorrow.

(hopefully... I'm culling through the 504 pictures I took and creating an online album for you to enjoy. Plus I've been getting home from work between 7 PM and 9 PM most nights, so you'll just have to be patient with me.)
Sunday, February 06, 2005
Everything they say about the Caribbean is true

Heaven. Sheer heaven. We got back late last night.

If I am industrious today, you'll get a write up and pictures tonight. Or maybe I'll just relax and watch the Stupor Bowl.