marla garla: Suck it, Rachael Ray.

We begin the phestival of photos with the Happy Cat.

I’ve been finding myself in Union Square a crazy-lot lately. Since moving to New York, I’ve fallen into this unintentional trend of hanging out in one particular neighborhood for months at a time. (From 1998-2000, it was Murray Hill and the East Village. From 2000-2003, it was Midtown — completely unintentional. Right now, it’s Union Square.) Sometimes it’s dictated by where I work, even though I’ve never wanted to socialize in the neighborhood of any of my places of employment (it’s too much like having a desk in your bedroom). I’ve never worked in or around the Union Square area, so this is so far, so good.

A few weeks ago, I came upon this in Union Square:

The organizers leave paints and a donation box next to it, and anyone who stumbles by it is free to pick up a brush and leave their mark. The only thing I know how to draw is knees on stick figures (take that, Picasso), so I shot some pictures instead.

My coworker Josh, who is a freelance writer, was working on an article about kosher snacks. He brought a very special array to the office for a late-afternoon taste test.

Most of the offerings have non-kosher equivalents: Lolly Fizz = Pop Rocks; Cheese Curls = puffy Cheetos; Shoobi Doobi = Teddy Grahams; Fluffy Stuff = cotton candy; Bloomeos = Hydrox (these were far too chintzy to be considered Oreo offshoots); Joray Fruit Roll = Fruit Roll-Ups. I must say, Fluffy Stuff was my personal favorite, despite its striking resemblance right out of the package to a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

Oh: If anyone can enlighten me as to what Hot Fries are supposed to be, I sure would appreciate it.

Wearing gummy fangs at Lisa’s Action Dance Dinner Party. Awww, yeahhhh, you want me now.

I finally post a picture of myself on this blog and that’s the one I choose? Oy.

One of the first things I did in Chicago was search for a new hat/gloves/scarf set. If I’d bought this particular set in its entirety, as modeled by my sister Jennifer in Urban Outfitters,

I would look like a penis. A penis wearing a burqa.

So Thursday night, Jen, Stacy and I headed to the Duran Duran show. (That is, after Jen and I spent a half hour watching people come and go in her lobby on channel 18 of her cable system; I wish she'd told me residents could watch the lobby BEFORE I'd made all those lewd gestures to the camera because — I'll say it again — I am 12. Also? FASCINATING.) It was the inaugural performance at the Sears Centre, a new arena located in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. We made great time despite the weather — it’s about 40 minutes outside Chicago — but got stuck for another hour in gridlock right outside the area. No matter, we thought, as we finally made our way into the parking lot. But see, here’s the thing: The lot was full, and there was at least another mile of cars behind us. THEY DIDN’T CREATE ENOUGH PARKING AT A SPORTING/CONCERT VENUE. So the brain donors at the Sears Centre had hundreds of cars weaving through the already-full lot just to direct all of us to the office park about three-quarters of a mile across a field.

See those teeny lights?

Yeah, we parked BEHIND that building. We had to run through the pouring rain to make it to the show. Thanks to all that is holy-moly, all we missed was 30 seconds of “Hungry Like the Wolf,” which is the Simon Le Bon equivalent of about 63 “do-do-do’s.” Seriously, if they’d opened with “Friends of Mine” and I missed the intro, I would have gone berserk.

As always, they were fabulous.

Andy Taylor left the band a few days before the concert, so dreams of yet again seeing the original five were quashed. In the statement released by the remaining members, words like “unworkable gulf” were used to explain Andy’s departure. I thought it unfortunate and untimely that a rift should happen during the Phase 2: We’re Almost 50 incarnation of the band — these things don’t usually happen on the second go-round, after everyone has gone through their crap. Anyway, in good form, I suppose in homage to Andy Taylor’s unworkableness, I went through the entire concert with my zipper down. Snazzy.

The parking folks got their acts together enough by the end of the show and put us on a Duran Duran Party Bus to shuttle us back to our car.

The next day, I went to work with Jen.

She’s a social worker, and every Friday, they have art class for kids. It’s more like art therapy, where they make papier-mâché people to express what they’re feeling that day and they create towns to show what they’d like to see in their own community. (Many of the larger projects in the area are being torn down and row houses are going up in their place, so they create additions to their neighborhood.)

This is a zoo:

They also make animals and paint them all funky.

I was humbled. I made a papier-mâché “me” in fourth grade

and now I can’t even fathom creating something like that without destroying it. I was very intimidated by the idea of helping these kids with their art, so I just stood back and watched them while they asked me questions about how tall I am. They were so cool.

Stacy and I had brunch on Saturday at this health food restaurant run by Krishna-like followers of a guru named Sri Chinmoy. It was a freakishly happy place

with lots of baby blue and light yellow paint and big, big windows, and the guru’s framed artwork on the walls. I found this in the bathroom:

It’s located a few blocks away from these condos, which used to be a pencil factory (note the illustrations on the water tower).

Fall in Chicago. This is absolutely my favorite time of year.

Stacy and I had truffles and tea at a chocolate shop. Really, it was the best idea ever. Peanut butter and jelly truffles? Are you kidding me?

The visit ended with Mark showing me the wonders of the micro function on my camera. What chaos hath he wrought?

Fry Orgy!

This is, basically, ketchup and honey mustard. The tavern bartender came over to our table, saw this shot, and said, “Look out, Diane Arbus.” Snark noted.

The only emotional response I’m in touch with from taking this photo is that I feel, deeply and profoundly, that I should get my eyebrows done.

Please bear in mind that some of this is shadow. I am not Matt Dillon, circa 1983.

Thursday was Alone Time With Mememememe Day, so I headed back to Union Square and got a ticket to see “Babel.” I had some time to kill, and I stumbled across a large crowd between the park and Union Square West. Turns out, Chris Noth and Julianne Nicholson were filming a scene for “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” in which Logan and Wheeler corner a guy dressed as an orthodox Jew, demand he take off his hat, pin him against a van (dirty!) and then search the inside of the vehicle.

Being a complete L&O freak, I was theorizing about the plot with another fan, and we decided that the guy was masquerading as an orthodox Jew to cover his numerous nefarious misdeeds. The makeup job on his beard was just horrendous, and therefore could not have been an intentional makeup job from an actual professional; the character had to have done it himself and it could not look naturally grown. Seriously, it looked like a pedophile’s Halloween costume.

Anyway, here’s Chris Noth’s ass.

“Babel” was exhausting and moving, but with four tragic stories, a bit forced. (I thought the Japan storyline could have been its own movie.) Even so, when the house lights went back up, this cheesy Rachael Ray–looking chick turned and looked at me and yammered, “Ohmygawd wasthatyou? Wereyousobbing? Hahahahahahahahahaha!” I said that yes, I’d been crying, and she and her friend started laughing. Shitty Rachael Ray was all, “Wecriedtoo! Ohmygawd, you totally know a movie is goodwheneverybodyissobbing! Hahahahahahahahaha!” I was so annoyed that I went to DSW and bought shoes.

Friday, out and about in Brooklyn:

This is a neighborhood bar called Freddy’s.

If developer Bruce Ratner has his way with the New Jersey Nets, Freddy’s will be razed to make way for a basketball arena that will also sit on top of this fantastic train yard:

And then there goes the Brooklyn skyline.

Sunday was my favorite day of the year, the NYC marathon. I love what the marathon does to the city, and it’s the most sure sign that I’ll work out at least one day a year because I can’t justify sitting on my lazy ass when there are people who run the marathon who don’t have feet.

And I'm not kidding about that. For instance, this man is amazing:

Every year, he props himself onto a skateboard (his legs are missing below the thigh) and scoots himself along the marathon route using boxing gloves. And I think that's one of the reasons why I love the marathon: You can talk about the triumph of the human spirit, or that the people who run it are crazy, but no matter what, I get the opportunity to see 37,000 people do something I could never do no matter what my physical state might be, and I get to cheer them on. It's exhilarating.

The elite men and women are dazzling to watch — they're all legs and zero body fat. And while I don't recall actually seeing Lance Armstrong, my camera apparently did. In any case, it was fabulous. Good costumes, lots of smiling crazy running people.

I don't know if these two spectators intentionally coordinated their scarves, but they looked so great standing next to each other.

Most runners print their names on their shirts so you can cheer for them. (This is particularly challenging in an international race, especially with the Scandinavian runners whose names are never pronounced the way they're spelled. Thank god for Boaz from South America is all I'm saying. I can pronounce Boaz.) Anyway, this particular runner wrote "Older, Wiser, Sexier" on his.