[This summer a dream internship with Lucky magazine moved me from Austin, Texas, where I’ve spent all 21 years of my life, to New York City for the summer. Come along for the ride and follow me through this column as I take on all that the city has in store for me. I’ll share tips I’ve picked up along the way about everything from how to pack (stop, drop and roll people!) to dating to fitting in (or standing out) and so much more.]

When you walk up and down Wall Street, it’s easy to believe that men clad in Thomas Pink attached to their Blackberries run this city. But take a note from Beyoncé and paint the town red (or pink) because girls? Yeah, we run the world and the town.

Tip #33 – Ladies’ Night really does exist. And it’s fabulous.

I was surprised to find out that a good number or bars and restaurants in the city still have ladies’ night drink specials. Sure, the feminist in me felt a little offended but the college girl on a budget (and unpaid internship) couldn’t help but be ecstatic. Ladies’ night isn’t exactly the best place to meet guys seeing as how there really aren’t many around so embrace it and grab your best girls to gossip or vent about work, your boyfriends, your mothers. A simple search on Yelp for “ladies’ night” will yield enough options to try out or check out the guide on Murphguide.com for specials listed by day. Just remember, just because the drinks are cheap doesn’t mean you need to attempt to drink all the liquor they have. Keep it classy ladies…well not too classy!

Tip #34 – Bus tours – not just for old people!

When you’re nursing your Ladies’ Night hangovers but not in the mood to waste the day in the city, get your girls signed up for the perfect way to spend the afternoon without exerting too much energy – a Sex and the City bus tour with On Location tours. I have to admit, before this tour, I totally thought bus tours were for old people and tourists with a camera strap permanently attached to back of their necks. When I got on the bus, however, it looked more like a sorority field trip than that of a nursing home. And the locations? Not geriatric at all. On Location really it hit on the nail with a hilarious (and definitely not cheesy) tour guide, special discounts at participating boutiques (including Fresh and Alexis Bittar) and free Magnolia Bakery cupcakes. Have a cosmo at the bar that went undercover as “Scout” for SATC and make a reservation with a free drink at the restaurant hotspot from the big engagement party scene in the first SATC film. Grab your three best friends for three and half hours and you’ll laugh and best of all, you wont have to track down these spots on your own…by foot.

Tip #35 – Welcome to NYC, land of the cheap mani/pedi combo.

The city is definitely one of the cheapest places to get your nails done up. On my block alone, three nail salons boast a $20 mani/pedi combo. Sure, the ambiance isn’t all that great and you can’t help but avert your eyes from the Good Luck Maneki Neko statues that you could swear at peering into your soul, but your toes will walk out looking better than they did when you came in. Since most of the magazines in these places are pretty outdated, your best asset is a girlfriend. Talk about the crazy things you couldn’t believe you did the night before, the drinks you wished hadn’t downed or plan out the rest of your day. Either way, you cant beat a cheap mani/pedi with a friend.

Get the first 32 tips for living it up in the city right here!

Last Friday night, I decided to have a girl’s night because, let’s face it, living in a one bedroom apartment with a guy can take a toll on one’s femininity. It was so much fun, and it was a great ending to a really crappy week. But after living with my boyfriend I noticed that even girls night has changed.

First of all, sometimes I feel boring and old. All of my friends are sitting there, sipping on beers sharing stories about their latest crushes, their crazy hook ups from last weekend, or the hot guy who bought them a drink at the bar. And me? I’m sitting there thinking, “The most exciting thing to happen to me this week was that Matt found five dollars and bought me a Dr. Pepper with it.” I feel like the mom of the group! It’s lame being the one who talks about the same guy all the time when all your friends are talking about the flavor of the month (or week, in some girls’ cases). Sometimes I feel like my friends think I’m no fun anymore, and while I know I shouldn’t care about what other people think of me as long as I’m happy, deep down it bothers me.

I want to be fun and spontaneous again! I want to have fun stories to share! I want to flirt with the bartender for a few extra shots!

Then there’s the issue of actually having fun. I’m not ashamed to admit that I like to partake in the imbibing of alcohol when I’ve had a rough school week. There, I said it. It isn’t a crime, but my boyfriend is a bit paranoid when it comes to college parties. He HATES them. He’s the type to stay home on a Friday night because he’s afraid of getting an MIP or a DUI or some other 3-letter acronym of the sort, and it’s just not worth it to him. So of course if I want to go out with my girls the first thing on his mind is, “What if she gets arrested and then I have to bail her out? We can’t afford that!” So I save everyone the heartache and I stay in with him. And I love spending time with him, don’t get me wrong, but I know I’m missing out on really big nights (full of really great memories) with my girls.

Nights that they constantly discuss when I am out with them…and have nothing to share.

I don’t resent Matt for these changes – not at all. In fact, I believe his opinion is important and I respect it. I guess this is just one of those tough decisions you have to make when you’re in a relationship in college. No matter what you decide – heading out with the girls or staying in with the guy – you will be missing out on something. It’s all about finding the balance, I guess.

Any other coupled ladies feel the same, or am I doing something wrong?

A very good friend of mine recently had her heart torn into pieces by her ex-bf. Now, in my humble opinion there are two foolproof ways to try and get over this. The first option is to hook up with Jude Law. The second is to have a good old fashion ladies’ night. Since the first option is pretty implausible (though apparently possible if you nanny his children), a few of us decided that a night of female only fun was definitely in order.

I guess maybe I should have been more specific when I said, “Don’t invite any guys. It’s going to be only girls. Just women. People with vaginas. Thanks.” The first friend pulled the, “I hope you don’t mind but I invited this foreign exchange student I just met. He needs more friends!” The second sprung the the, “My boyfriend is in the area so he’s going to meet us” (By ‘meet us’ she meant come hang out for 15 minutes before they both left). The friend we planned the failed extravaganza for…you guessed it, ended up calling her ex to pick her up.

And, I’ll admit, I’m the pot calling the kettle boy-crazy… I spent a large quantity of the night in a corner texting my latest love interest.

What the e-f-f is HAPPENING? Now trust me, I understand that when you like a guy you (duh) like spending time with them. But I swear, I want to kidnap half of my friends and tape their eyes open while forcing them to watch 48 straight hours of Lifetime until they remember the meaning of female solidarity. Whether it’s a boyfriend or a boy friend or just some boy, it seems we have a hard time prying ourselves away from the opposite sex…even for one little night.

Am I allowed to be pissed off? I’m going to say yes, a bit. Mostly because I thought friendships mattered, but it seems for a lot of girls, they’re just a thing you pretend to do while waiting for a boyfriend. I get 30 texts a day from my girl friends, but if there’s a guy in the picture, I get one every two weeks (usually when they’ve fought). My roommate last year went from being one of my best friends to a girl in need of a freaking search party once she got a boyfriend (I’m serious, I didn’t see her for a month straight, and I lived. with. her.). Do boyfriends genuinely take up as much time as an internship at Vogue, or are gals making this choice?

Are your girlfriends just for filler?

Let’s hope not. Friends are a wonderful, wonderful thing…they make you laugh, they call you pretty, and you don’t even have to go down on them! Sure, it’s a delicate balancing act; you don’t want to completely ignore your friends or your significant other. But both friendships and romantic relationships are completely essential. It’s worth mastering the art.

So single or coupled, I urge you to make the effort. Come on, we are better than this! Women can talk on the phone for literally hours about nothing! So call up your favorite friend you’ve been neglecting, and talk about absolutely nothing; just don’t talk about men.

Unfortunately, my life is not very conducive to being hungover, and forces me to inevitably be anywhere but in bed on those days when I swear off drinking for good. If you’ve ever been hungover, chances are you’ve been forced to be somewhere you absolutely did not want to be at the time. I present the short list of the worst places to be while hungover.

5. Class. Ahh college. It offers us so much freedom, so much responsibility (or the option to exercise irresponsibility)! It even allows us to go out and drink on a weeknight. The consequences of this option can be felt the morning after that party that e-v-e-r-yone went to. You promised yourself you wouldn’t drink, you would just go to say hi and then get your scholastic tush home to get some shut eye for your 9 am. But alas, that cute baseball player from econ offered you a Solo of Natty and you just couldn’t refuse. Then came the beer pong tournament, the Vodka Slide race and finally, the sudden death round of Ring of Fire. Fast forward to this morning, drearily listening to your professor lecture while simultaneously cursing yourself and evaluating the quickest escape route should a wave of nausea hit. You are never drinking again! Oh wait–it’s ladies night and 2-4-1 at your favorite bar…

4. Work. This varies in degrees of miserable-ness depending on what you do. I work with children. For me, a day hungover at work (not something I’ve ever experienced or ever hope to) would consist of screaming and crying until snack time, Barney Live, Dora the Explorer and Thomas the Train episodes in rapid succession, then a very much needed nap time. I don’t even know what the kids would be doing that whole time though; they’re so on their own. If you are lucky enough to have a desk job, just zone out whilst typing. If you are unlucky enough to be a roller coaster ride tester, I suggest you avoid the weeknight festivities.

3. A Sporting Event. Being a hungover spectator is no fun; being a hungover participant is downright unbearable. If the game is an ESPN-worthy rivalry match between State U and U State, you can count on being drunk-over (resulting from last night’s massive block party induced-hangover combined with hours of painstaking tailgating). If the game is against your IM rival and you are the team’s star player, you can count on a lot of disappointed fans and angry, unforgiving teammates. Couple this with the way your body will feel after rigorous exercise, and you’ll think twice about ever going out the night before a game again.

2. Your Place of Worship. Be it synogogue, temple, mosque or church (Atheists and Agnostics, be glad this is something you need not worry about) sitting or kneeling for hours upon hours (at least it feels that way), surrounded by those attempting to absorb God’s love is not somewhere you want to be the morning after a hard night of drinking. Not only are you paranoid that the adorable child to your right can smell the tequila oozing from your pores, you’re pretty certain the little old lady to your left is privately condemning you. Of course, today’s topic of discussion will be on the evils of gluttony and drinking, leaving you to shrink into your seat, hope the sermon is not directed at you and pray the big guy (or guys, girls, etc.) upstairs is not about to smite you.

1. In Any Kind of Moving Vehicle. Obviously, this location takes the cake. It doesn’t matter if you wear your biggest, darkest sunglasses. It won’t make a difference if you lay down in the back seat or close your eyes (which I do not recommend if you are the driver). This is not something that gallons of water and any amount of carbohydratyes can cure. Your inner ear is sensing movement and it is going to punish you severely for it. Maybe you’re just running a few errands after a late night. Or perhaps you’ve just woken up after celebrating a week’s worth of studying for/acing all of your finals and are now embarking on the 9 hour drive home. Whatever your endpoint, the moment you buckle yourself into any car, van, bus, train, airplane, or– heaven forbid– boat, you will instantly regret it. All you can do now is sit next to a window or within proximity of a toilet and will yourself to your final destination.

[Thank you to the hungover girl above and Flickr.com for that hot shot]

Aren’t you sick of your man going to Home Depot every weekend (word!) to buy more big-steel-things with levers and springs and stuff (uh-huh!) when he should be taking out the trash (snap, snap)?

Well the time has come, girls: Her Depot is here!

Her Depot – yes, I’m serious; that’s the moniker – is a “sister store” of the popular chain of home improvement stores…with a female twist!

Instead of purchasing important items like snowblowers and aluminum siding you can buy real home essentials like flowers, storage bins, furniture, flowers, super cute kitchen stuff, pottery and flowers.

Ladies love flowers – am I right, ladies?

**~~LaDiES niGhT!!~~**

Why only go to Bed Bath & Beyond, Pottery Barn, Pier 1, Trader Joes, Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, Target, Crate and Barrel, Meier & Frank and Macys when Her Depot can also aid you in your neverending quest for useless trinkets that find their way into the attic after a month?

Whateva, ladies – us fellas will be shopping at Home Depot, drinkin’ brews, watching football and calling our wives “the ol’ ball and chain” as always.

Let the Great Gender War begin.

Well, apparently life hasn’t stopped piling on the sh*t, because last night I was dumped by my LDR. Cool, huh? That’s what I said.

But f*ck it, it’s the weekend! I say forget the life dump and decide to dump your life in favor of a f*cking good time!

So here, I provide you with my Break-Up Survival Kit, so you can get back on your feet and back into the bar!

1)Chamomile Tea Bags- Soak them in some cold water, squeeze them out and place them over your puffy eyes. Do this a few times and your eyes are guaranteed not to look as swollen as they were last night. Plus, the smell is rather soothing as well! Double duty.

2)Your Possee- You need your support system. So call until they pick up and then wail and wail and wail. They will understand that you need them. Then tell them that tomorrow they must drag you out to a bar for a girls night. You might even score a few free drinks! Love the ladies!

4)Your drug of choice- If you feel it coming (like I did, I have great intution) get a little drunk first. Yes, it will make you more emotional and probably more irrational but who the hell isn’t both of things when you’re getting broken up with anyways.

But don’t buy in mass quantities. Go small—like beers or airplane bottles—because you probably won’t want to stop drinking. But you must! I then like to end the night with a few sleeping pills just to round off the whole sh*tty experience. At least you won’t be tossing and turning!

5)Lots of DVD’s of your favorite dramatic TV Show- You’re going to sob a few more times anyways so go ahead and watch a sappy movie or TV show (not a love story though,…stay away from The Notebook) Let those tears flow! Get that sh*t out!

And then when you get around to thinking about the failed relationship, your eyes will be all dried up and you can (maybe? possibly?) be rational about the whole thing.

6)Make plans—lots of plans—for the next week. Fill that calendar up with fun things you like to do. I have a Monday night Girl’s night with my friend MK, plans to go to yoga this week, get my desk out of storage and set my room up (since I have lived here since July). I’m taking, well forcing myself, to recognize the me time I haven’t been making. And now is the time to do it.

So get drunk, have fun, go out with the girls! Download Breakin’ Up by Rilo Kiley because it’s a great, upbeat breakup song!

Appreciate the relationship for what it was and don’t wallow in what could have been, start looking at what will be… You, happy and healthy.

Ladies Night!

At any good bar on any given night, you might see these magical words. Maybe it’s a small sign in the window, maybe it’s scrawled on a sandwich board in chalk, or maybe it’s on that drink ticket the giant bouncer with a head the size of your torso just gave you. Whatever the case, if you go out, you understand the distinct pull of such an announcement.

Unless you’re New York Lawyer Ron Den Hollander. If you’re him, you think it’s a horrible crime.

Last June, Hollander “filed a federal lawsuit alleging that ladies’ nights constitute a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment” and named a bunch of New York’s top clubs in the claim.

According to Hollander, clubs that give women an easier time are totally violating his rights as a man. And lest you think he only has a problem with chicks getting a few dollars off those tequila shots, Ron’s got a “typed forty-one-point list” (which he whipped out for a New Yorker reporter) that charts all sorts of discrimination against men, including “child-custody laws, circumcision,” and “5% of females have borderline personality disorder”.

In addition to trying to take down almost every club in Manhattan, the pushing 50 single guy has a thing for “black and Latin chicks, and Asian chicks” and believes “Feminazis have infiltrated institutions, and there’s been a transfer of rights from guys to girls”.

In his grand vision, Holland sees his case going through, making things a whole lot easier for negative scumbags like himself. “Clubs will reduce the price for guys and increase it for girls” he says, most probably relishing in the daydream, “every guy will have ten or fifteen more dollars in his pocket, which the girls will then manipulate into getting more drinks out of him. If they drink more, they’ll have more fun, and so will us guys. And then when she wakes up in the morning she’ll be able to do what she always does: blame the man.”

In all his list making and “Asian chick” spying, Holland must have become confused as to why Ladies Nights exist in the first place—to get copious amounts of women inside a bar and drinking. What dude wants to stride into a bar that has an overwhelming amount of sweaty, drunk men?

Maybe Ron should move to New Jersey, where the state’s Director of Civil Rights ruled Ladies Night was in violation of male customers’ rights and revoked the practice in 2004.

It’s too bad Holland is such a douchebag, because his argument has the possibility of stimulating some good conversation. His personality, however, would probably make it difficult to carry on any sort of discussion…all the axes grinding in the background, and stuff.