As much as I have come to love Boston and all its Massholes, New York City is — whether it’s because I read the Times daily (sorry, Tim, I just can’t read the Globe!), or because my family is nearby (out beyond the red lego, above), or because the years I spent living in Manhattan just after college are indelible in their penury and excitement — the city I still know and, perhaps, love the best.

I miss little things, little things so brilliantly captured in this Times  piece today.

Are you on Facebook? No? Then you are missing the internet craze of the month, the viral “25 Random Things About Me.” It’s wonderfully self-indulgent.

The instructions: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

My list:

1. Waiting nine years after to college to go to law school — and then going to law school — was the best decision I have ever made.

2. Don’t think I’m crazy: I also loved law school, even when I missed five weeks of classes because I was too nauseous with morning sickness to drive to school.

3. I’m a far, far better (happier) person today than I was 5, 10, 15 years ago. As my mother would say (quoting “The Velveteen Rabbit”) I’ve been “rubbed real.”

4. In high school I wanted to be a U.S. Senator. Now I would like to someday be a speechwriter for a U.S. Senator.

5. This is probably because I have career ADD: I am currently on my 10th job since I graduated from college.

6. My daughter is named after my mother.

7. Speaking of my mother, she is the shining inspiration of my life.

8. I talk on the phone, or email, or both with my mother and my sisters every day.

9. And speaking of my sisters, they are without a doubt my best friends. I wish Erin would move back to Boston already.

10. My husband is one of nine children — he and his twin sister are #s 7 and 8.

11. Here is where I have lived since 1996: New York City; Ketchum, Idaho (Sun Valley); Los Angeles; Paris; Princeton, NJ; Boston.

12. Of the places listed above, I would move back to Ketchum, Paris, or LA in a heartbeat.

13. I am obsessed with interior design — blogs, magazines, etc. I fall asleep at night redecorating the rooms of my apartment in my head.

14. On average (even counting the three months or so I had to give them up while I was pregnant, meaning that there has been many a day when two were consumed), I most likely have had a Starbucks soy chai latte every day since the year 2000. I am, in fact, drinking one right now. (Oh, the money! The calories!)

15. I am a certified yoga instructor.

16. Sundays make me slightly blue, but I love our Sunday family dinners with just Tim, Little Buggy, and me eating spaghetti at meatballs at 5:30 p.m.

17. I don’t drink hard alcohol but make up for it in the amount of red wine I consume.

18. Oh yeah, when I lived in L.A. I worked at a wine store and took classes at UCLA to become a sommelier (did I mention my career ADD?)

19. I have run one marathon and two half-marathons.

20. I used to be a rather intense ashtanga practitioner (every morning at 6 a.m. for 2 years) and almost-vegan.

21. I have been to 29 countries and have: trekked in the Himalayas, visited Ankgor Wat and the Taj Mahal, sailed down the Mekong, seen the wailing wall in Jerusalem and Palmyra in Syria, sunned on the beaches of Rio, hiked the Swiss alps, watched the sun set over the Bosphorus in Istanbul. Those days are long gone, and I’m quite okay with it.

22. That being said, my dream is to live with my family abroad someday, preferably in Paris or London. Do you think they need tax lawyers there?

23. Despite my newest career, I still want to publish a novel. Maybe that will get me back to Paris.

24. I am in absolute awe of the fact that I found my husband, and that we made our incredible child.

25. I truly, truly believe in karma and that everything that happens to you in life — good or bad — leads you to where you are supposed to be.

We’re back from a whirlwind week in NJ, which started with us deciding about noon on a snowy Sunday to take a 4 p.m. Acela to Newark instead of making the drive. Which meant not only a quick turnaround in terms of dinner-party clean-up and packing, but also that a majority of our Christmas loot — including the primo Santa gift, a toy kitchen for the Little Bug — would have to be left behind, as we couldn’t carry it on the train. I’m not sure which is worse: five (or perhaps more) hours with a whining child in the car (but a child who might ultimately be lulled to sleep by the drive) or four hours of walking that child up and down, up and down the cafe car of the train. Fortunately, Tim and I could spell each other, but this child will not sit still for a moment. It was exhausting!

I worked from our New York office early in the Christmas week. Our offices are located just a block from Rockefeller Center. My father worked at 30 Rock, so the tree has a bit of a sentimental place in my Christmas memories.

And, as it turns out, Santa was flexible this year, substituting a loud, clanky piano and a doll for the kitchen.*

And the rest of the week was spent snuggling and relaxing. Actually, poor Little Bug is a bit disoriented now that we’re back in Boston, away from all her peeps. She likes to list off her posse: “Mimi!” (my mom); “HANK!” (said always at a yell, as Henry is a bit deaf and my mom is always yelling his name when she says it, something the baby clearly has picked up on!); “Kaffy!” (Aunt Kathy); “Ahnie” (Aunt Erin, I suppose), “Uncle” (whichever uncle is around, but she is particularly enamored of Uncle Davin; “Enny” (Aunt Jenny). Last night I went into kiss her good night for about the fifth time and she was standing up in her crib going, “Mimi? HANK! Mimi? HANK!! Ahnie?” Like, “Where are you guys?!”

Anyway, more on Christmas a bit later. I’m working today and tomorrow, with Little Bug down in the backup day care, as our babysitter is away through the end of next week (yes, more day care scrambling to come!) It’s nice — busy, but not too busy. And very, very quiet, with most people on my floor out for this week. All in all, we had a wonderful Christmas at my mother’s, which has made me reflective about a lot of things that I need to mull around in my head some more before I write about them (if ever). I love New Year’s and New Year’s resolutions — I like goals and challenges and planning them out, even if ultimately they fade with time. And today is our anniversary, nicely tucked in between the holidays, when the Christmas lights and the festive atmosphere linger enough to make the day seem more special than it might already be. I can easily and honestly say that these have been the most genuinely happy two years of my life.

*The play kitchen has morphed into a sort of New Year’s present, I suppose; and, in retrospect, thank goodness we didn’t start to put it together on Christmas Eve after a few glasses/bottles of wine. That thing is extraordinarily complicated with about 339 screws and 12 “pre-steps” before the 16 regular steps in its assembly. We spent a few hours on it yesterday while Little Buggy was napping and then gave up. Will file that away in Santa lessons learned…

Every US Air shuttle from Boston to New York was cancelled yesterday morning, so five of us — two partners, three associates — headed for South Station to get on the 11:15 Acela.  The associates got to South Station first, and the most senior of us decided that we would be upgrading to First Class on the train so we could kill the hour of wait time we had in the special first-class lounge.  She emailed the partners to let them know, but when the partners got to South Station to try to upgrade, there were no first class seats left.  Of course we offered ours up; of course they didn’t accept.  So the three of us sat in First Class chatting loudly and I’m sure annoying all the other travelers (half of whom we recognized from the US Air gate…).  And yes, we did have the free wine with our (shockingly good) first class lunch.

Our New York offices are just off Rockefeller Center (across the street and one block down from Radio City Music Hall).  I have always associated this part of midtown with corporate law offices — my father spent most of his career across the street at 30 Rock.  I do love being in New York — there’s an energy here that just makes you walk a bit faster, think a bit sharper.  The Halloween party was fun, and then a few of us had a late-night sushi run at Blue Fin in the W in Times Square.  Then off to my king size bed. 

I had an inordinate amount of trouble trying to work remotely from the hotel room — will have to call User Support for a remote access tutorial.  We have all sorts of complicated internet filing sites, which I can barely even figure out when I’m at my desk in Boston, so trying to do it from a hotel with spotty internet access was a nightmare. 

And now I do miss my baby, whom I won’t have put to bed for two nights in a row.  I don’t think that’s ever happened!  Will be very happy to get home tonight.  I suppose that’s always the nice thing about travel — the coming home.

I am going on what is basically my first, real business trip in all these thirty-something years. Just for one night, to New York. Will stay over in a hotel (in a king bed! by myself!) a few blocks from our New York office (can walk to work in 10 minutes! I can sleep until 8:30 if I want — that’s like noon, practically, in the life of a parent…).

So, I roll up to Logan this morning, very professional in my trench coat, laptop bag-that-looks-like-a-stylish-bag, and rolling suitcase (with my liquids packed neatly in an accessible ziploc bag). But then, as the true business-traveler novice I really am, I forget to take my laptop out of my bag before sending it through the scanner, have my face cleanser confiscated for being an ounce too large, and set off the metal detector with my belt, all the while much more professional people in suits pile up behind me, coughing and stamping their feet (or so it seemed to me!).

And then, oh yeah, my flight is cancelled. So I shelled out $7.95 for a Logan internet “day pass” and here I am, drinking coffee that is not Starbucks and waiting for my colleagues who were smart enough to check their Blackberries this morning to see that our flight was, in fact, cancelled.

In any event, it will be a fun little trip — will get to see Law School Lindsey, who works in my firm’s New York office and who is now, after the Connecticut swearing-in ceremony yesterday, officially a lawyer (hooray! Congrats!), as well as my New York colleagues. And the highlight is a big Halloween party tonight, which will take place in a rather expensive and chichi restaurant, so I’d better not mention exactly where on this blog.  (The whole “It was already paid for” argument didn’t make AIG’s executive retreat look any better…)

This is why I love the internet.  And New York.

http://www.gadling.com/2008/02/01/best-prank-ever-stopping-time-at-grand-central-station/