This picture of me with Rebecca Mead? It’s the best picture of me I’ve ever seen. You can’t tell that my face is 90% gums and ears, and that I usually lose my upper lip completely when I smile. I’m going to post it every single day until it gains sentience and walks among us.
So, as you may know, I went to NYC for less than 24 hours, entirely for the purpose of doing this conversation at the Strand about Middlemarch and My Life in Middlemarch with Rebecca Mead, and to meet a bunch of Toasties in a bar.
IT WAS THE BEST.
Let me break this down for you:
I split a four-person order of jamón ibérico with one other person. I was nervous about speaking in front of a crowd, so I also ate fried sardines and brussels sprouts and endive salad and burrata with Spanish anchovies and toast with tomatoes on it and grilled mushrooms and chicken liver on more toast and croquettes made of bacala and bone marrow with almonds and a quince paste and chocolate with crème fraîche and sea salt and 16oz of white wine, which, incidentally, is one more ounce than they are allowed to serve you in a Utah restaurant.
Then I changed into THAT DRESS in the restaurant bathroom, walked to the Strand, met Rebecca in person for the first time, hastily scribbled some questions on a pink Post-It, and then had literally the most fun conversation with an author you could imagine, and I didn’t drop my microphone or anything, and a bunch of people came (Emily Gould! Katie Heaney!), even people who hadn’t read the book, for which I am very grateful.
And then I walked over to the meetup, and met all of you! I met Michelle Markowitz of Hey Ladies! and I met Jolie Kerr, and I met Kathryn Funkhouser who wrote the Sherlock piece about musicals, and I met John Leavitt, and I met Laura Sook Duncombe, and I met Jenna Leigh Evans, and I met Jaya Saxena and Matt Lubchansky, and I met Abigail Welhouse, and I met Jazmine Hughes, and I met literally a thousand other people and many Toast writers I have not listed here, and hugged all of them and did 31 pushups (one more than I did in San Francisco, and very awkwardly in a short skirt), and then I was still in bed by ten pm. I got two presents! Thanks, Erin! Thanks, John!
And then the next morning my flight was out of JFK’s Terminal Four, so I got Shake Shack at 6:15am, and because there was no wifi on the plane I watched Gravity and 20 Feet From Stardom and CRIED HYSTERICALLY during both of them, because, I mean, have you seen 20 Feet From Stardom yet? It’s the greatest movie you could imagine! And I was not responsible for the conduct of a single toddler, and then I got home and my husband told me there was something living in the wall directly behind our bed that keeps trying to get out, and it was incredibly loud and large-sounding, and then I read the new Chris Kimball thing by Mallory and became worried it was actually a girl made entirely out of nails who will fling me into a furnace of death.
tl;dr I got to experience Reaganing for one day, and I’m very happy and grateful, and thank you for letting me obnoxiously relate my wonderful 24hrs to you and for reading the site and making it a success. Meeting so many Toasties was really special for me, and I love you guys and hope we keep doing this forever.
Tags: great dresses, ham, joy, meetups, meta, middlemarch, movies, nyc, reaganing, rebecca mead, trips, triumphs
DAMN NICOLE, that DRESS.
Looooove the dress!
Your dress is banging.
Nicole I WANT YOUR LIFE.
It’s an excellent life, and I have great contempt for people with excellent lives who attempt to pretend their lives are secretly difficult and complex.
I want your life AND I love how accepting you are of how excellent your life is. NO REGRETS YOLO/etc/whatever/not actually sure if I’m using YOLO correctly there, whatever.
You have an excellent life, and I have an excellent life, and I need to print out this comment of yours in, like, 250-point font and hang it permanently in front of my eyes as a reminder how excellent my life is whenever I start to whine about ANYTHING.
So does the girl made out of nails. You’ll have to get in line. The line starts inside the wall.
PERFECTION!!!!
Love the dress and I humbly request you keep us posted on the Thing Living In Your Wall.
It slept last night! We are grateful it appears to be diurnal. What we know so far:
It has fingernails/claws.
It sounds like it’s raccoon-sized, but is probably a squirrel.
It doesn’t want to be living behind my bedroom wall.
Steve can hear it too, so I’m not Yellow-Wallpaper-ing.
It quiets down during House of Cards.
It livens up during Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Now is probably not the best time to tell my story about the squirrel that died in my bedroom wall :/
The Thing Living in My Wall demands:
My own Tumblr
My own Twitter account
A weekly column
Or I fling you into the Furnace of Doom
A weekly column seems…a little long-term. 🙁
Ah I wish I went!
Also that dress is awesome but I can’t believe you walked outside in it yesterday with no tights on! Props.
Sounds like fine ham abounded last night.
Seriously though, I so wish I could’ve been there – so many lovely people gathered together! Also your dress is fantastic and you’re absolutely right about that picture of you.
I love that dress, Nicole!
I love the dress! I also love hearing about the meetups. I keep my fingers crossed for a Western Canada meetup one of these days.
Meeeeee tooooooooooooo! Just sayin’.
SO JEALOUS I wish I was in NYC with y’all!!!!
Nicole! I got my copies of Middlemarch and My Life in Middlemarch yesterday, and I’m so excited to read them! Rebecca Mead wrote me a nice note, and I totally recognized her in that picture (which IS a great picture), and everything is great.
Nice job on the Reaganing.
Yes, my copies came early this week. I was so impressed, first with the speed with which they arrived and then to discover the nice note Ms. Mead left! It was a lovely treat!
Toasties, if you ever get tired of not dying of heat exhaustion, come down to SAV in July 😉
comin atcha in two weeks!
girl that’s right I forgot! totally email me or something! iceberg dot hairpin at gmail.com
I wish!! Savannah is one of the most lovely places in the US I’ve been (and not just because you can get a to go cup of gin gimlets at a bar and then stroll around the pretty houses drinking quietly).
Clearly I need to return to Savannah now that I am of legal drinking age (last visit was when I was…twelve?)
It’s GORGEOUS and yes, the to go cups are wonderful, and SCAD is there so you can check out the art museum and there’s tons of fun shopping and you can go to the beach at Tybee Island and it’s marvelous. I was only there for a couple days (I stayed in a youth hostel that was, yes, super run down but in what could have been a really pretty house and I had a private room, so) and I was right by Forsyth park and it was April and sunny and wonderful and I bought vintage glasses and a tiny jar of fancy honey and I really want to go back.
Tybee was where my family stayed! Such a really lovely place, all of it. Since then I have gotten myself an advanced degree in old buildings so obviously I need to go back to drink and drool over the architecture.
Um yes, and we can all visit and you can give us a TOAST TOUR tm and we can drink while slowly gliding around the town wearing caftans and carrying parasols.
I’m in Charleston! We should get together 🙂
You are just so pretty, and also own at least one smashing dress, and I live in hopes that one day you will come to Minnesota so that you and I might have a pushup contest. You will win, because I can do like ten before my spine snaps in two.
Any chance Boston is on the meetup list?
I really, really hate Boston, but not the Toasties who live there, and I’m currently trying to wheedle Mallory into spending the night at the Lizzie Borden B&B with me, which would involve flying into Logan, so, it may happen.
Redeeming features of Boston: craft beer. Oysters. The Barbara Lynch Restaurant Group. The Salty Pig. Harvard Square food crawls. (We did this for our engagement party. Now I want to do it every weekend.)
I’d add Much Historical Shit to that list because I love Historical shit. Also, LOBSTAH.
So much craft beer! Also, our anarchists are the friendliest nicest anarchists I’ve ever met.
Now I’m having pipe dreams of a Toastie takeover of the Lizzie Borden B&B, wherein we eat lots of awesome takeout and drink wine, tell ghost stories, watch scary movies and braid each other’s hair.
Boston, I would love to hop a train down from Maine for a meet-up if the timing works out. (And if Nicole & Mallory would be there, I would make the timing work out.)
If you are just asking about general Boston meetups and not ones featuring Nicole you should join our Facebook group! https://www.facebook.com/groups/491140164297275/
This is heartwarming! Congratulations on your Reaganing; may you always wear a tux after 6.
I wish I knew what “Reaganing” was . . . sounds fun.
30 Rock reference!
“Making it through a full 24-hours without a single misstep is called Reaganing. The only other people who have ever done it: Lee Iacocca, Jack Welch, and, no judgement, Saddam Hussein.” – Jack Donaghy
Be enlightened!!
http://youtu.be/ONlQd949Rmc
OMFG I remember that bit! Yes! Reaganing!
“It’s the best picture of me I’ve ever seen. You can’t tell that my face is 90% gums and ears, and that I usually lose my upper lip completely when I smile.”
I love you Nicole.
Where did you eat all that fantastic-sounding food? I want to go to there.
CASA MONO.
Ah! I’ve walked by it a hundred times, but never gone in. THANK YOU. I will put in on my list!
It’s great! Don’t go with picky people, bc everything is a little weird, and ask your server if you’ve ordered enough food. Then order three more things.
I too am cursed with a tiny upper lip and I once spend 20 minutes in the mirror practicing my smile so that I would look like I had a normal mouth for my family’s Christmas photos. It worked, but now I have exactly one face that I can use in every photo which is a little alarming when you line different pictures up side by side.
PS Nicole you (and you’re smile) look amazing and your dress was fab.
I am a fellow tiny-upper-lip-haver! And I will also fully admit to practicing smiles in the mirror to hide that fact. I’m glad I’m in good company.
I am SO MAD I was on the other side of the bar when the pushups happened!!! I remember hearing cheering and being so confused! Otherwise it was a spectacular night and thank you for letting myself and @chrysopoeia help organize the meetup! I loved getting to meet so many other toasties and I got very drunk and had Jolie sign my book (which is great by the way, I have so many new cleaning projects planned for this weekend)!
I AM SO MAD I only saw Jolie for a MINUTE. That’s not on her, there were many people between us, I blame THEM.
It was a grand tragedy, truly. But you needed to BE AMONG YOUR PEOPLE.
I had a wonderful time, thank you to the organizers!
This is embarrassing but I totally awkwardly hovered near and around her for like 30 minutes before finding a way to weasel myself through the crowd and get up the courage to speak to her. It was SO WORTH IT.
I have discovered I was put on this fragile earth purely to moderate discussions about books about George Eliot novels, which is…heartening, but I also fear it will come up once more for the paperback release, and then my genius will go un-used ever after.
Unless – and I’m just spitballing here – you start a Toast imprint focusing on books about George Eliot novels, or possibly on books about books about George Eliot novels.
It was great to meet you for one second the other night – I found that scene quite overwhelming as a bystander and you did an amazing job as the center of so much enthusiastic lady attention!
Let me tell you about that dress. It is by Trina Turk. I got it at The New York Look two years ago. You can wear a normal massive beige bra with thick straps underneath it. It is shift-y, but not shapeless, and it doesn’t really hug your stomach, so you can eat Tapas Designed for Nine People But Split Among Four People, Including a Vegetarian and a Jew Avoiding Ham to your heart’s content and no one will be the wiser.
The ability to wear a normal massive beige bra with thick straps is like, my #1 requirement for a dress. (Seriously, though, that’s a great one and it looks awesome on you!)
That is the best kind of dress. All dresses should be like this.
That sounds MAGICAL, I would like one in every color I look good in, please and thank you. But does it have pockets??
OH, and people said nice things like “do you find this overwhelming?” and I was all “NOPE, when you are not-famous but once a year get to spend an evening with a bunch of people who want to tell you they like you and your blogging, it’s an unmitigated delight, and I wish only that I had the chance to hug MORE hepped-up young female flatterers in sexy glasses.”
I was seeeeeriously amazed at your ability to be so nice and ON and hilarious! That amount of flying would have made me a reclusive grumpypants, but apparently you are made of some resilient-ass stuff. Hope you get to stay longer next time!
Come to Alexandria VA! Talk about books in our many large bookstores. I will have a man make drinks and cook for you
Sweet! I am enlivened by your report & delighted that you had so many types of joy packed into a brief, fantastic time.
Because my brother and his hot nerd-wife live in Chapel Hill, at some point I will do a Toast Meetup there, I think. Why did you not tell me how great Chapel Hill is? It was so temperate in December, and SOUTHERN SEASON was the greatest grocery store I’ve ever seen. I ate fried green tomatoes at their restaurant!
Woo! A Chapel Hill meetup would be the best.
Oh my god, Southern Season is life changing.
YES!!! I don’t even live in CH anymore but would absolutely come back for this. And Southern Season has a great cooking school space in the back, which you could use to teach us more about the wonders of skin-on chicken breasts.
Ah! So exciting! Southern Season is indeed amazing. It is a freaking madhouse during the holiday season though.
Everyone was so intelligent and friendly! And I got to see the pushups. And Rebecca Mead could totally play Virginia Woolf in the movies.
WHAT IS BACALA YOU ATE LIKE A BARON I’m driving to your house this weekend
COD. Ughhhhh we’re going to have the best time.
My mind is still reeling by how unbelievably smart, kind and (I won’t lie) exceptionally beautiful the New York Toasties are in person. Ophelia, Liz, Tiru, Erin, and the Scorpio in the cardigan, it was truly lovely to meet you. And Nicole’s rousing speech from atop the bar! Heavenly.
Likewise! <3
Nicole!!! I wish I hadn’t scheduled my vacation for LA right when you were arriving in New York! I waved at the city when I left, did you see me? Obviously you must come by New York again.
This post is SO LOVELY because you deserve all this praise and affection and more! I can’t imagine that’s your best picture ever, you’re far too gorgeous for that to be so. Also, as far as I’m concerned, you’ve been Reaganing non-stop with this site! Well, maybe more like Clintoning? And you are so great and this piece is so great and I was just thinking of asking you about NY so it’s also timely! YAY NICOLE!
This article was so sweet and you seem so happy, I am so happy for you!!
I met Nicole and she gave me this huge hug and she is so soft!
So soft yet so strong; science couldn’t design a more perfect hugger.
15oz of wine… in one serving? or overall?
The last time I was in Utah I just didn’t drink because it all seemed so complicated.
SO SAD I MISSED THIS
This was such a fantastic event, and Nicole, I’m so glad I got to meet you, even under shouting-to-be-heard circumstances! (Also I’m regretting now that I didn’t get a chance to thank you for pointing to that amazing Sherlock fanfic in the List of Demands post. But, hey, that’s what comment threads are for!)
PLEASE COME BACK TO THE BAY AREA AND HAVE A TOASTIE MEETUP ON A WEEKEND! We can talk about raising baby girls and dresses that hide amazing giant bras.
Nothing warms my heart as well as this stream of pure delight and joy, written in a tumble of immediate memory, because now I know you’ll be able to look back on it – on the tastes and hugs and friends the whole beautiful ball of urgent joy – anytime you want forever. We should all be so lucky!
I can’t even be jealous, no, not even though Mr. Leavitt was there AND I WANT TO SEE HIM AGAIN FOR CRISSAKE JOHN I DIDN’T EVEN GET A BEER LAST TIME WE HAVE TO GO BACK
Nicole, if ever I meet you in person, I fear how hard I might hug you. It could get unseemly. Feel free to extricate yourself.
EVERYONE WAS SO FUNNY AND SMART AND CHARMING.
Plus I got an excuse to wear my vintage tie collection.
WOOOO.
It was an excellent tie. A+ man-fashion.
Hooray! Love and Toast. I hope you keep doing this forever as well.
Everyone also had amazing hair. I was sitting in the back at the Strand and kept getting distracted by all the great hair in front of me. GOOD JOB EVERYONE.
YOU ATE JAMON IBERICO?
please. expound. did you have to sell your child for it?
I sure as shit would.
i know you weren’t asking me…but let me vomit my iberian knowledge into this conversation. i work at a tapas restaurant and i eat so much jamon iberico that i sweat it out of my pores! its mostly just rich acorn flavored pig fat. tapas is honestly mostly fancy pig fat in as many ways as you can imagine with fancy condiments and toast, its ridic, also foi gras and sea salt. i’ve gained like 20 lbs since i started working at a tapas restaurant, and my job requires me to be on my feet and constantly moving for 8 hours a day, so just try and imagine how much pig fat i’ve been eating. delicious pig fat. anyways, there are different varieties of iberico, they are priced based on how much of their diet consists of wild acorns. the more wild acorns that the iberian pig eats, the more expensive its jamon. there are some pigs that wander freely through forests of wild acorns and eat absolutely nothing else and they are the priciest. i think most places even this fanciest of jamon will cost you under $30 for a portion, and its so rich that a small portion is most definitely enough.
Boston, I would love to hop a train down from Maine for a meet-up if the timing works out. (And if Nicole & Mallory would be there, I would make the timing work out.)
You have an excellent life, and I have an excellent life, and I need to print out this comment of yours in, like, 250-point font and hang it permanently in front of my eyes as a reminder how excellent my life is whenever I start to whine about ANYTHING.
Now I'm having pipe dreams of a Toastie takeover of the Lizzie Borden B&B, wherein we eat lots of awesome takeout and drink wine, tell ghost stories, watch scary movies and braid each other's hair.