Like this:

First, I miss and love you.

You also seem to have a friend named Morgan Elizabeth Wu who is the cutest girl ever.  I know this because Facebook attests to as much.

I wish I had something compelling to write about–after all, cancer gets kind of old and if you’re not undergoing a transplant, no one really cares.   But by default, there is always NYC, which never fails to be some kind of ridiculous.  Somehow I’ve skyrocketed into the busiest unemployed person I know, which has been independently verified by several parties.  I even have an intern!  This is both good and bad: good in that I’m doing awesome things like writing urban planning grants,  going to a billion concerts and celebrating National Pie Day in the company of great friends.  Bad in that for what seemed like an eternity, I was subsisting entirely on eggo waffles and water.  I don’t know about you, but there is something remarkably depressing about the latter…although to be fair, it is also equally as hilarious.

I recently made my way to Queens, which I have always looked at as my Seventh Day.  Honestly, I don’t know what people do here but be awesome in Astoria or maybe eat at that amaaazing Thai restaurant in Woodside.   Or patronize the Golden Mall in Flushing.  The 7 train, however, does have the most talented buskers: no delusional freaks proselytizing (4/5/6), no homeless constituents telling dirty jokes (1/2/3) and certainly no hipster dudes in gas masks playing the theme to Back to the Future on accordion (F/V).   I’ve always adored Queens for it sincere temperament, its diversity, its everything Manhattan and Brooklyn never had an interest in.  And if anything, I notice I stop grinding my teeth here.  Maybe Queens is a little like George Michael Bluth: awkward, genuine and absurdly bad at dressing itself.  But just so goddamn likable nevertheless.

Anyway.  I hope you (and Megan.  And Corey.  And Mary.) make it out here from Chicago (er, Montana) some time soon.  I would love more than anything for us to not grind our teethes together, nor base our diets exclusively on enriched wheat flour and filtered tap water.

xoxo – Karen