Between the Sociology 25 exam tomorrow morning and my final presentation for a seminar Monday afternoon, I’m blatantly disregarding my need to study and research to head off to New York in search of sexy Manhattanites instead.

Wednesday — Upon my evening arrival, I’m attending an erotic reading series hosted by Village Voice sex columnist Rachel Kramer Bussel.

Thursday — An afternoon visit to AM New York’s “The Dating Life” columnist Julia Allison who is interviewing me for CO-ED Magazine.

Friday — Lunch date/gangbang in TriBeCa with the boys of CollegeHumor, for whom I’m selling my soul via a sex column that debuts next month. Perhaps a jaunt to the East Village to say hi to Ryan Iverson (Yale ‘02) who I stayed with over Thanksgiving.

Saturday — Late afternoon joe (the drink, not the man) with Viviane, sex blog mistress and tea party hostess.

Sunday — Back in Boston in time for brunch so I can work on my Monday presentation. Yikes!

In between and late at night, I’m whipping out my little black book of booty calls in the city. Kidding. Maybe. Hey, maybe if I sleep around enough, I won’t even have to look for accommodations! Kidding. Maybe.

Okay, really now. I don’t actually know where the hell I’m sleeping Wednesday. Friday and Saturday I’ll be living in Columbia sex columnist Miriam Datskovsky’s dorm room. Other accommodations yet to be acquired/confirmed, though I should probably get on that considering I’m leaving in 24 hours. Thus, my frantic Facebook status: “Lena is baking cookies for the first NYC gal to offer her a place to stay tomorrow night.” Emphasis on gal. Sex is really not on my immediate agenda.

When I come back on Monday, I’m doing my presentation (ends at 2 pm) and pretty much leaving right after for Philadelphia (getting on the T at 5:30 pm). It’ll be the shortest plane flight ever, unlike the 6.5-hour trips home to Los Angeles, and my longest mid-year trip at eight days. I am staying with the oh-so-sweet Jess Gold, founder of UPenn’s literary erotica magazine, Quake, and hanging with Eric Obenzinger, the cutest student journalist I’ve yet to screw.

I’ll blog in between I’m sure, but it’s adieu to Harvard and all my Boston boys until February 1st. Work hard and play safe without me, kids.

As you can tell from my new banner, the subject line “back” has more than one connotation. I’m pushing the limits of propriety here and believe it or not, the image above is the result of a compromise between my friends and me. It could’ve been worse. Anyway, it’s a temporary fill-in while I search for a more suitable header. Enjoy while it lasts because I’m folding any day now from the disapproval.

So my week-long absence has been due to a lengthy stay in Manhattan. New York was an amazing and very welcome break from life. I was initially planning to stay from Wednesday to Sunday but I ended up extending my trip a few more days at the suggestion of my Saturday night host (Harvard ‘06). I ended up having a full-week vacation, the only proper way to do things when you’re already acting on impulse.

I spent the first half of my trip in the East Village with a Yale ‘02er, whose younger brother (at an acceptable 24) was as adorable as his three-month-old … in different ways, of course. But no, I didn’t hit on the bro nor did I have a sitcom-style mishap with the baby. Surprisingly enough, I left the guy’s apartment intact. Score. On Thanksgiving, Blaser took me upstate for the day and we ventured into the suburbs of southern Jersey for turkey and diabetes-inducing dessert. It was fantastic being around a family in lieu of my own. Beats eating takeout sushi by myself on a random stranger’s couch (i.e. the rest of my evenings).

On Saturday, I trekked it uptown to 63rd where I stayed for the remainder of my trip. Luckily for me, we were right next to a sushi/Chinese place as well as a Verizon Wireless (I left my charger at Blaser’s). I had everything I needed in life within a one-block radius. I was in Upper East Side heaven. Both my hosts were accomodating (one gave me weed, the other paid for dinner!) but they had their own lives to deal with. And so I ran around Manhattan without much direction and managed to spend a lot of money in the process of distracting myself.

Flying solo wasn’t such a bad deal and for someone so unacquainted with solitude, it was surprisingly refreshing. Perhaps it was because solitude came with freedom from constant external pressure — both academic and social. I really needed the time off from dorm-room living, friends, classes, and blogging. All I did in New York was live day-to-day. For once, my iCal was blank and I felt the happiest I’d been since summer. Toward the end of my trip, I started receiving more and more text messages, phone calls, and IMs asking after my whereabouts. I think people became convinced I just wasn’t going to ever return, and trust me, I had thought of extending my trip even further. I pretty much issued a mass “I’m still alive” announcement via a couple friends and put Cambridge on the backburner for the remainder of the trip. I removed myself from communication with Harvard as much as I could, because I was beginning to realize that it was Harvard driving me crazy the past couple of months.

Within the week, I saw most of what I wanted to see in Manhattan and more. On Black Friday, I shopped both Midtown and SoHo, managing to spend atrocious amounts of money between cashmere sweaters from Henri Bendel and vintage accessories from an East Village boutique. I walked through Central Park, stood by both the East River and the Hudson, toured Meg Ryan landmarks (Katz’s Delicatessen in “When Harry Met Sally”, Cafe Lalo in “You’ve Got Mail), witnessed the madness that is Times Square, ran around Gramercy in search of coffee, had a meal and drink at Max Brenner, and even found wireless Internet in Chinatown.

Best of all, I wasn’t completely solo. Before heading to New York, I mass emailed everyone I knew in the city (plenty I’d never met) and shamelessly requested tour guides and accomodations. I ended up grabbing drinks with The Daily Pennsylvanian’s Deputy Editorial Page Editor Eric Obenzinger, getting the Midtown tour from fellow blogger Kat, and hanging out with the photogenic-yet-beautiful-in-person Julia Allison. New friends are always fabulous, especially when they finally make the online-to-real-life transition. Hear that, Jess?

Anyhow, I’ll leave this entry with a picture of a location I became all too familiar with during my visit: