Back to work after a fairly active weekend.

1. Went to the Cupcakes Take The Cake Meetup at Baked. Now, Sugar Sweet Sunshine cupcakes are my personal favorites of the many cupcakes to be had in this city so far, but I have to say, Baked comes in at a very close #2. Two words: moistness and frosting. Ok, four more: melt-in-your-mouth. Crazy. Erin from NYU has more (including an adorable picture of Rachel).

Also, I have discovered that Red Hook is a simple bus ride from the Smith & 9th Street station. This could be trouble.

2. They turned the Beard St. Warehouse (ok, part of it) into a Fairway. Now, this is not news, but it’s been a while since I’ve been out there… probably something like two years, when I took reference shots for Dash for WEIRD SISTER. It is crazy how time flies. (These were taken about a month before the others — I remember that day, it was so much fun.)

I guess a crotchety part of me wants to hate the Fairway, but I can’t. It’s huge. It has a faint-worthy produce section. It’s reasonably priced. They didn’t completely destroy the building.

Oh yeah, and I picked up something incredibly dangerous. It’s called S’more trail mix. Hide the children.

3. Brooklyn Book Festival was yesterday. How cool is this? It reminded me of the good ‘ol New York Is Book Country, which I will miss forever and ever. Met Melissa Marr (woo!), marveled at Sharyn’s outfit from afar (those boots, I tell ya!) and just generally had a lovely time talking to book folk. You know what? Books make people happy. They make me happy. This is great.

Also ran into Ayun Halliday, whom I haven’t seen in ages, and she remembered me, which was just so darn nice I can’t even tell you how nice it was. “I can’t stop doing Inky,” she said. “It’s just such a nice break from the books and the other stuff.”

Now, does that, or does that not, set me to thinking? To longing? To stroking my chin and pondering World Fantasy zine makin’ thoughts? The theme is ghosts, after all. Call me a monkey’s uncle, but I think I have a ghost story up my sleeve somewhere.

(”You have comics to finish, young lady.” “Yes, Mom.”)

4. After the bookin’ and the socializin’ was done, we headed on over to our old haunt, Pete’s Waterfront Ale House, for my all-time favorite sammich, the Pete’s Waterfront Ale House Santa Fe Chicken Wrap. A perfect ending.

This whole “being social” and “get out of the house” craziness is kinda nice, I have to admit.

You know this whole NYC-is-crazy-for-cupcakes thing? Totally buying it. It’s my birthday and I have decided — nay, deemed — that I shall have cupcakes. And then, just for good measure, I shall also have cupcakes on days that are not my birthday.

Every time I watch CHOCOLAT (one of my favorite movies, which, come to think of it, I should get for my dad, as I think he’d really dig it, and oh — man phat Alfred Molina love here, by the way), I want to open up a chocolate shop. You know, along with a yarn store and a used bookstore specializing in out-of-print occult and folklore. After five minutes of bakery surfing for that perfect birthday cupcake establishment, I think I can add “pastry chef and cupcake shop owner” to my list of life’s ambitions. Dad always did tell me that owning my own bidness was the best thing, so he might even approve of this train of fantastic thinking.

Ah, I’m getting ahead of myself. Better stay on-task:

All Cupcakes, All the Time: a blog that could get me in a lot of trouble
Sugar Sweet Sunshine, starring OMG!-red-velvet!! cupcakes
International Cupcake Tour: go team!!
Cupcake Cafe: has an outpost right next to Books of Wonder
Baked (I’ll forgive ‘em the ironic hipster aesthetic if the goods taste good — oh wait, it’s in Red Hook so that’s ok)
And, of course, Magnolia

Because it is my birthday, I have created a new category for future blog posts entitled “cupcakes”. Who knows where this could all lead…