To Wish Impossible Things

Update Your Bookmarks!

2010-02-23T21:15:00.004-05:00

I have moved my blog over to Wordpress - it can now be found at http://japarsons.wordpress.com/.

Please update your bookmarks, as I will not be posting at this URL anymore.

You can also subscribe to my blog and have my posts automatically e-mailed to you. When you visit the new site, the "subscribe" link is on the top right.

If you enjoy my blog, please share it on Facebook and Twitter. I would love to keep building my reader base and your support makes that happen.

Last but not least, I have a number of talented friends who also write wonderful blogs. I encourage you to check out their blogs - also linked on the right hand side under "Blogroll."

I hope to see you over at the new site!

The Opposite of Loneliness

2010-02-18T19:40:00.005-05:00

"I no longer think being in love is the polar opposite of being alone, however. I say that because I used to want to be in love again as I assumed this was the opposite of loneliness. I think being in love is an opposite of loneliness, but not the opposite. There are other things I now crave when I am lonely, like community, like friendship, like family. I think our society puts too much pressure on romantic love, and that is why so many romances fail. Romance can't possibly carry all that we want it to ... When you live on your own for a long time, however, your personality changes because you go so much into yourself you lose the ability to be social, to understand what is and isn't normal behavior. There is an entire world inside yourself, and if you let yourself, you can get so deep inside it you will forget the way to the surface. Other people keep our souls alive, just like food and water does with our body."

- "Blue Like Jazz"
Donald Miller

I started reading this book a few weeks ago - it has an interesting tagline - "nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality." I am mostly through it and have both liked it at times and subsequently, been annoyed by it at times. I made the error of reading reviews online before I bought it and definitely can say that I agree with the major criticism of the book. That being the author sometimes comes across as too pretentious (or for a more scholarly term, too cool for school). I find myself nodding in agreement with half of what he says, marking paragraphs and truly been given food for thought. Other pages, I really just get bothered by the author, who seems to think that his constant references to pipe smoking make him soooo awesome. After all, everyone knows that Christians don't smoke pipes. Or ride motorcycles. /end sarcasm.

I digress.

The excerpt above is from the most recent chapter I finished, which is entitled "Alone." There was another paragraph before it that I did not quote - one in which he discussed being in that kind of all-encompassing love that everyone has experienced. The kind which is so wonderful because you realize that you forget your own problems and find someone else more important than you.

Therefore, in 1+1=2 mentality, not being in love should mean you are alone ... which really is never the case. Being alone becomes a choice, when you choose to push people away. I thought it was interesting how he made the point that society overemphasizes romantic love - as the answer to, or cause of, everyone's problems.

And that can't be the case.

I am one of those people who is okay doing things by myself. I can see a movie alone, take a vacation alone or go to a concert by myself. It's not to say that I wouldn't prefer doing things with other people ... BUT ... I will never sacrifice wanting to do something simply because no one else is interested that day.

I have also lived alone for a number of years. I have defended it by saying that I love my own space (which is true) and that I can always find someone to spend time with when I don't want to be alone. But it is just as easy, if not easier, to find yourself disappearing within and becoming a victim of your own thoughts and habits. The more you isolate yourself, you lose an appreciation for the company of others. I never thought this could be the case.

And I end this with one of my all-time favorite quotes:
"Jen lives alone. Give her a Wii and some cats and she'll never leave her apartment ... especially if there's any kind of marathon on the ABC Family Channel." - Kristen Pressler

(Maybe I should rethink the alone thing ...)

An Affair to Forget

2010-02-15T18:22:00.003-05:00

Dan: I fell in love with her, Alice.
Alice: Oh, as if you had no choice? There's a moment, there's always a moment, "I can do this, I can give into this, or I can resist it", and I don't know when your moment was, but I bet you there was one.
- "Closer"

During my morning commute I often find myself reading over the person's shoulder who sits next to me. Nine times out of 10, my subway neighbor is reading AMNY or Metro, one of the ubiquitous free newspapers.

Last week, an ad on the back of one of the papers caught my eye - an ad for a company called Ashley Madison. The company, whose slogan is "Life is short. Have an affair," is an online personals site "aimed at facilitating extramarital affairs."

Needless to say, I was disgusted.

Yes, I know that Craiglist definitely delves into shady encounters. I know that plenty of people probably lie both online (and in real life) and that plenty of people surely have affairs. It just bothered me fundamentally that a company would exist for this sole purpose - to help married people cheat.

I remember years ago, seeing the movie "Closer" with my friend Brad. If my memory can be trusted, the movie trailer did not indicate that the film was about cheating. I simply remember that it looked like a unique relationship movie - and the fact that the trailer featured a favorite Damien Rice song didn't hurt, either.

Much like my reaction to the Ashley Madison ad/concept, "Closer" left me feeling not only sick to my stomach, but sad. It was too real.

I felt disenchanted, as if all of my hopes for the future were really futile. I was left thinking that fidelity is an illusion, that people lie to suit their own desires.

I never wanted to believe that this is what people are really about. Conversely, I wanted back my (possibly naive) belief that true, traditional love does exist - and that people work to keep relationships and families together.

And then on my morning commute, I was reminded of the dark side. That people give up. That people are selfish. That people don't consider the consequences of their actions.

The popular argument is that Ashley Madison isn't changing the playing field; it is merely giving people another avenue to find a way to cheat. Perhaps this is the case. But a back page ad advertising this ideology is never want I want to see.

Won't You Be Mine?

2010-02-12T10:46:00.007-05:00

So Sunday is Valentine's Day ... and today is Lincoln's Birthday (and my friend Brian's birthday - happy birthday, Brian!).

Sometimes what you write on a particular topic just can't be trumped - so rather than trying to one-up myself ... I give you last year's tribute to The Olives of Holidays, Valentine's Day.

I'll be waiting for your clever e-card.

The Missing Piece of Fulfillment

2010-01-30T20:44:00.008-05:00

I remember when I was turning 30, that the consolation prize was "feeling secure in your skin." Countless people encouraged me to embrace this new decade, because unlike my 20s, I would feel secure with who and where I was in my life.

Not surprisingly, 30 doesn't feel any less confusing than 29 did ... or 21 did ... or 15 did. Yes, I feel like I have a better handle on my career - for the first time in quite awhile, I am energized by what I am doing and see where it can go. At 21, I had twenty different careers I wanted to pursue. At 15, I thought I could become a fashion designer - with zero eye for fashion and even fewer art skills, if that is possible.

But you realize that your career isn't everything. When I tell people that I work for a non-profit organization, their first reaction is often to ask, "Why?" And with all honesty, I can say that on my worst day of work, the families that I help can so easily remind me why I do what I do. On one side of the coin, working for people who face bigger challenges than you do reminds you how good you really have it. On the other hand, knowing that what you do directly benefits people makes it more than a paycheck. You know that answering that one last e-mail, late at night on your BlackBerry, could have helped a mother who thought she had no options to find help for her child.

Yet even knowing that you help people isn't infinitely fulfilling. When I lived in Charleston, I volunteered at the MUSC Children's Hospital. My responsibilities were simple - I played with the inpatients to give their parents a break inbetween visits and to keep their minds off of what was really happening. You can never underestimate the strength of terminally ill children and their families - it is the only place where what seems to be the worst thing imaginable, never is in their eyes. For every child I had the chance to meet, I wanted to fix his life.

And so we pray. I was raised like most kids of my generation in my neighborhood - a Christmas and Easter Catholic who attended religious education long enough to complete my sacraments. I grew up with Catholic and Jewish kids until I left New York for Georgia. My freshman year left me feeling out of place, surrounded by people who were not only of other faiths, but had been truly raised in the church. I was ripe for the pickings by the cults - you know, the ones who prey upon lonely out-of-state freshmen in the dorms. I remember going to see Phish perform in Atlanta and going home for dinner with a girl who lived on my hall. Her mother asked me what religion I was and replied, "You do know Catholicism is a made up religion, don't you?" And while I obviously knew that it wasn't, I hadn't the slightest clue how to reply.

My senior year, I volunteered at the Catholic Center to teach religious education classes. I was paired up with a girl who became one of my closest friends and together, we taught a small group of fourth graders. I was obviously learning with them. I remember a few key moments - accidentally telling the kids in one breath that I was 20 and then telling them that my Christmas tradition was "going out drinking on Christmas Eve." Another time, we were supposed to discuss a chapter on stewardship ... and it was about recycling. I had no idea how to reconcile the two. So I read it in my best "Jesus voice" and we moved on. I also may have been struck by lightning on the way home.

Either way, I was trying hard to find a place for religion in my life. I started attending church on Sundays at the Catholic Center and for the first time in my life, didn't have to look at the cheat sheet when I recited the Apostle's Creed. I lapsed when I returned to N.Y. (mostly because I really didn't like the particular church I grew up in) but kept the idea of faith in my mind. When I moved to Charleston, I found a Catholic church that I fell in love with. I thoroughly enjoyed my Sunday 5 p.m. masses and listened intently to the priest, whose messages were relevant and thought-provoking.

Again, being in the South I had more friends that considered religion an important, if not the most important part of their lives. I actively wanted to feel what they did - but wasn't sure what the missing piece was. And, unlike other faiths, the one thing I embraced most about Catholicism was forgiveness - I didn't want to practice a faith that involved being saved.

One of my good friends was extremely active in her church - her entire life pretty much revolved around it. I was curious - she seemed happy with a very structured life (due to her denomination) and I envied how "sure" she seemed about all of it. A few years later, she had a crisis of faith and began to question what it all stood for. I watched as she had to dissect her beliefs into minutae - to find out what she really believed in, as opposed to what she was simply told to believe in. She returned to her faith and found that at a particularly challenging time in her life, there is no way she could have lived without it.

I don't think I would be happy embracing a "very Christian life" - as I said, the concept of being saved is not what I believe in. I think at times, my life would feel more fulfilled if I actively included religion in it. Yet I never want it to feel forced. I want it to be something that I discover and impart in my own life.

So what gives you the answers? What makes your life make sense; what makes you feel both comfortable and content being YOU in your own skin? What makes you feel like you are making your mark on the world and really living your life - not just waking up and seeing the hours go by? How do you decide that most of the stuff you dwell on really doesn't matter and devote yourself to figuring out the things that do?

I want to be a better person.
I want to be happy in my career.
I want to find love and give love in return.
I want to have faith.
I want to be steadfast in what I stand for and believe in.
I want to be an example for other people.

How do I find the missing piece to feeling secure, complete and most of all, fulfilled?

"This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose"
- "This is Your Life"
Switchfoot

Face Value

2010-01-27T20:14:00.003-05:00

Surprisingly, I didn't have a clue who Casey Johnson was when I found out that she died. I say surprisingly because I tend to read a lot of random things about celebrities - or should I say "celebrities." Between what I see on the internet and read over people's shoulders on the subway each morning, I am usually pretty up-to-date with the celebrity universe. But when I saw Casey Johnson on the cover of the NY Post after she passed away, I didn't have a clue.

While anyone's passing is a tragic story, all you could think while reading it was "trainwreck." Plain and simple - her celebrity was fabricated and her life was surely completely disastrous and empty. It reminded me of when I watched Britney Spears' documentary on MTV. I tuned in expecting to be entertained, but was left feeling sorry for her. Sorry that she felt she had to spend her life being someone she wasn't. Sorry that for someone who could have (and should have) had everything, she was left with almost nothing, in the grand scheme of things. Shortly after, I read this article in New York magazine.

Although the whole article is worth a read, this is the part that stood out the most to me - "As I knew her, Casey systematically seemed to enhance her already plentiful natural assets until she became almost an anime creature with exaggerated cheeks, lips, and breasts. As if she thought she would never be pretty enough. Or good enough. So she decided to become famous, like her idol, Marilyn Monroe. Because, after all, if you’re famous, everybody loves you, right? They all respect you and want to be you …"

Although this was really about the Britneys and Caseys of the world, it resonated with me for a different reason. It was the concept of thinking that there is always a fix. Always another version of you that is going to be better, another version of you that is going to make you happier within the universe.

There can always be a smarter you, so you can impress the people you strive to match intellectually.

There can always be a prettier you, one that doesn't have the flaws that only you notice.

And once you figure out what you think this version is, will you ever be pretty enough? Smart enough? Or simply put - enough.

Will you end up being one of the Britneys or Caseys - the person who believes that if you pretend to be someone else long enough, that you actually can become that person? Or can you learn to be happy with who you are at face value?

"Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are." - Kurt Cobain

Auld Lang Syne

2009-12-31T14:27:00.006-05:00

I am superstitious about a number of strange things. I believe that bad things will happen if I hear "Black" by Pearl Jam (I finally smartened up and took it off my iPod, hoping to foil the karmic gods of grunge music). I hesitate when the 28th of each month rolls around ... and breathe a sigh of relief when I make it through unscathed. And when it comes to holiday superstitions, I believe that your New Year's Eve will be reflective of the year to come.

So evidently my heat broke in the middle of the night. My last apartment had two operating temperatures - 50 and 95. It was always super hot unless it was windy, in which case the draft through the windows would knock it down to "really freaking cold." Needless to say, I was super excited to live in an apartment with central heat and a thermostat ... until the furnace decided to break. And in the grand scheme of how things work in NYC apartments, my landlord (who speaks Albanian) sent in a "friend" who lives in my building (and speaks Yugoslavian) to fix the heat. It's nearly 3 p.m. and I still don't have working heat. I'm not entirely sure if or when I will.

The first question of superstitions is this: does that one about New Year's Eve apply to the whole day or just the romantic-at midnight part of it? In other words, is my 2010 already doomed or is there still time to salvage it?

Regardless, it brought something else to the front of my mind about resolutions. Year after year, I make a list of generic resolutions - often so many that it would be impossible to actually remember them, let alone make them happen. So this year, I am trying something different.

In 2010:
I am going to learn to take things as they come and try not to let details overwhelm me or stress me out.
I am going to focus on what is good and positive in my life, rather than thinking about what is missing or what would theoretically make it better.
I am going to recognize my own accomplishments for what they are, instead of thinking that I should always be doing more or better than I am.
I am going to set realistic goals for my own success - and realize that making it halfway there isn't a total loss or failure.

And most importantly, I am going to work harder on being present. I have a tendency to live my life either judging in retrospect or looking ahead without a plan. And much like today, I wonder how my life passes me by, where the year has gone.

I remember this day last year like it was yesterday. I remember thinking about everything that wasn't what it supposed to be, yet being too scared to move forward. I spent the next months looking back, rather than focusing on what was happening in real time, and repeated my mistakes. And if I wasn't looking back at something and trying to figure out what could have been different, I was blindly looking ahead - escapism - for the next great thing to happen.

Is this the perfect New Year's Eve? Not so much so far. But you know what, it could definitely be worse. Here comes the reality check: if I had heat yesterday, hopefully I should be able to have heat again. And while it could end up being a completely wicked inconvenience, it's not the end of the world.

I have a roof over my head. (And a pretty awesome place to live, when there is heat ...)

I have a job that allows me to help people who face much bigger challenges than I do and helps keep my pity parties in check.

I have great friends and a wonderful family who remind me what love really means.

And throughout all the mess of this day, someone is still managing to make me smile.

So when the clock strikes twelve, whether it was a good New Year's Eve or a not so good one, superstition be damned. I am going to have a good 2010.

"Wonder whose arms will hold you good and tight
When it's exactly twelve o'clock that night
Welcoming in the New Year, New Year's Eve
Maybe I'm crazy to suppose I'd ever be the one you chose
Out of the thousand invitations you receive
And though I know I'll never stand a chance
Here comes the jackpot question in advance
What are you doin' New Year's, New Year's Eve?"

- "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve"

The Secret to Happiness

2009-12-22T13:59:00.006-05:00

"If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad
If it makes you happy, then why the hell are you so sad?"
- "If It Makes You Happy"
Sheryl Crow

Everyone who spends time with me, especially during the winter months, knows one thing. I am a native New Yorker, but I don't love New York.

There, I said it.

I should feel guilty about that, right? After all, don't people dream of living here? Come here with nothing but a bus ticket and a dream? Or is that a movie plot from Lifetime ...

Either way, it turns out that I'm not the only one who isn't in an "Empire State of Mind" - in a recent state-by-state study of happiness, New Yorkers came in last. Dead last. As this NYT article so eloquently states, "If there were a National Happy League, we’d be the New Jersey Nets. We’re No. 51 out of 51."

Here's a bit of methodology: "One was a survey of 1.3 million Americans done over four years by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which asked people about their health and how satisfied they were with their lives. Those self-assessments ... included state-by-state variances on quality-of-life gauges like climate, taxes, cost of living, commuting times, crime rates and schools ... people knew what they were talking about when they said if they were happy or not. Americans who described themselves as satisfied tended to live in places where the quality of life was good by most standards — where the sun shone a lot, the air was reasonably clear, housing didn’t leave you busted, traffic wasn’t too fierce and so on."

I would love to have answered these questions. Let's see - the East Side air quality isn't so good, so I shouldn't be running outdoors. But a gym membership will knock me back at least $70/month on my already beyond overstretched budget. Climate? 2009 was awesome. It rained the entire month of June and we had a blizzard the other day. Cost of living? Not only insane, but we are conditioned to rationalize that its totally worth $2K in rent for a one bedroom apartment because it has a dishwasher. Commuting times? Well, let see. The MTA's doomsday budget eliminates one of the two trains that I can take into the City, beginning this summer.

Okay. So I am being really Debbie Downer. I get it.

Last week, there was this awesome post on Gawker touting the new issue of New York, which included everyone's favorite annual treat,"Reasons to Love New York." As Gawker so rightfully states, "an exercise in NYC boosterism which we must grudgingly salute, ourselves being sometimes given over to that overwhelmed feeling of 'why the f*ck am I here'—a feeling which is probably most effectively addressed by making just such a list. (Because there are so many reasons!)" My personal favorite is #43 - Because We Keep Digging. Good news, folks, in 2017 there will be an East Side subway line and you will no longer be forced to ride the 6 train at 7 a.m. with your face lodged in a fellow commuter's (or crackhead's) armpit.

And to continue giving credit where credit is due, I love Gawker's take on this study. "Research Question: Why are New Yorkers miserable? Hypothesis: Because New York is not a pleasant place to live." And even better, the last line - "Although this entire line of inquiry is based on the false assumption that New Yorkers give a sh*t about being happy."

I think that about sums up what makes me unhappiest about New York - even more so than the weather, commuting or the rent on my apartment.

It's the attitude that you develop when you're here. Just like that, you don't care anymore. You get irritated every morning in the 59th Street subway station when people surreptitiously "merge" in line for the escalator, rather than waiting in line. You can't walk at a leisurely pace - leisurely here is considered speedwalking in any other place. You hate when people order or pay slowly, even when you have nowhere to be. You forget how to smile. Because quite frankly, smiling at strangers is just flat out creepy. People get away with it in other places. I think I did it in San Diego. I don't think I creeped anyone out. (Maybe.)

So what does it all mean? Who really is happy? According to this study, "People in sunny, outdoorsy states - Louisiana, Hawaii, Florida ..." Louisiana? Seriously? I think they are mostly overweight, too. Hawaii? I can believe that. They also pay about $16 for a gallon of gas. Florida? You have to escape New York to move to a sunnier (and more humid) version of it and suddenly everything is okay?

Everyone who knows me well knows that I always wanted to live in California. Put quite simply, it is my happy place.

Interestingly enough, it ranked 46th in the study. Why?

"Many people think these states would be marvelous places to live in. The problem is that if too many individuals think that way, they move into those states, and the resulting congestion and house prices make it a non-fulfilling prophecy."

So, I-love-New-Yorkers, what makes you happy in a place that does everything in its power to make you miserable? Is it the ability to get food delivered at any hour, even in a blizzard? Is it the fact that anywhere else you go, NY's version of "it" (museum, restaurant, theate) is simply better? Is it the feeling you get when the Yankees won the World Series this year, when you hear "New York, New York" that even when you don't love New York, you're proud of it?

You tell me.

"If I can make it there
I'll make it anywhere"
- "New York, New York"
Frank Sinatra

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

2009-12-14T19:34:00.005-05:00

I remember exactly when my dad told me that there was no such thing as Santa Claus.

Ironically (or maybe a good idea on his part), we were on our way to Santaland in Macy's Herald Square, headed up one of those rickety old wooden escalators that only exist in the upper floors of the store.

Logistically, I knew better. After all, I was the kid who left a letter once asking why Santa and the Easter Bunny had the same handwriting. I once called my parents out for "being cheap" - after all, all of my relatives gave me presents. Santa brought me presents. But not them, no. They must just be cheap.

While all the signs pointed to his nonexistence, I believed simply because I wanted to. The fairytale of the Christmas season began when McDonald's started playing its commercials and the Sears toy catalog arrived in the mail. I remember painstakingly making lists for toys that Dad would have to assemble at midnight with Japanese instructions. I remember my aunt trying to explain that she didn't buy me a Pogo Ball because they weren't safe and it was for my own good. I remember when my parents would let me open one present on Christmas Eve to keep me from waking them up at some ungodly hour the next morning and when we eventually switched over to celebrating on Christmas Eve.

Being in New York City everyday tends to make the holiday season feel commercialized and "unspecial." You get caught walking behind ten times as many clueless tourists and shopping in the stores is an unthinkable option. Hearing that Mariah Carey Christmas song hundreds of times makes me want to go deaf. And there is a part of me that gets caught up in the fact that the holidays can make you feel lonely; they can make you miss people who are no longer with you.

But then there is the part that makes you remember what makes it special.

I love Christmas lights. For some unknown reason, I love garish lighting displays and enormous lit trees.

I love decorating the tree at my parents' house and reminiscing over the 30 plus years of ornaments, including ones they made together before my brother and I were even born. I adore my parents' nativity set (which I believe belonged to my grandma) that, for some reason, has two Jesuses and about seven wise men. Perhaps there was a fire sale that year.

I love my parents' stories of how I was once punished on Christmas morning for drawing a marker moustache on a baby doll I had just been given, and the time they thought it would be funny to give me and my brother coal. Or, when my brother and I took Jesus from the nativity set and rode him on the fire truck we had gotten.

I cherish old family traditions. I remember when my nanny was alive and we celebrated Christmas Eve in a big way. Christmas Eve dinner, eaten after Mass, was an amalgamation of all of our favorite foods - namely: lobster tails, twice baked potatoes, string beans and Carvel ice cream cake.

I look forward to new traditions. This is the second year of celebrating Christmas Eve with my sister-in-law's family - who nobody can rival for a good time. It is a night filled with food, drinks, Secret Santa gift exchanges and a "12 Days of Christmas" singing/acting competition (you have to be there to get this one ...)

I get it, why people get caught up in the commercialization of the holiday, and can't see what there is to love about it. It all just comes down to stepping back and remembering a time when things were simpler and everything seemed like magic. Being grateful for family and friends and all the good things that we truly have. Thinking about someone who makes you smile.

And maybe again, it's time to believe in Santa Claus, instead of adding up all the reasons that you shouldn't.

"It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, won't see another one
And then he sang a song
The Rare Old Mountain Dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you"
- "Fairytale of New York"
The Pogues

Learn Your Lesson, Lest You're Too Late

2009-11-23T15:13:00.002-05:00

Last week was a long one. By the time the weekend rolled around, I was both physically and mentally exhausted and more than ready to decompress.

On Saturday, I joined some friends for a dim sum excursion in Flushing (quite an adventure for a person who eats as plainly as I do) and spent the afternoon in what could only be described as a dim sum coma. In other words, I happily camped out on the couch and pretty much didn't move for the rest of the day. The worst part was that I didn't even feel slightly guilty about it.

I began working my way through my DVR - I watched last week's Glee episode (which will totally make you cry), last week's Gossip Girl (which makes Chuck Bass look like a good guy, once again) and another episode of Gone too Far, featuring a really scary alcoholic girl from Middleofnowhere, Texas. Upon running out of television shows, I moved to movies. I watched The Departed (or more accurately, watched Matt Damon ... the plot was secondary). My next selection was White Oleander.

I read "White Oleander" a number of years ago and to be honest, I barely remembered it when I started watching the movie. The plot is rather dark and kind of sad; to sum it up thematically, it's primarily about abandonment. But there was a quote in the movie which stood out - "Don't attach yourself to anyone who shows you the least bit of attention because you're lonely. Loneliness is the human condition. No one is ever going to fill that space. The best you can do is know yourself ... know what you want."

And that moment, in an otherwise wasted day on the couch provided me with clarity. It reminded me of something that I already knew but often forget.

We all know better. We just try to talk ourselves out of reason. Simply because we can.

And by the next day, it didn't matter if it made sense. I no longer cared why or why not. I just knew that it didn't matter anymore. And that was just fine.

"Go on and it won't be too soon
You're gone, you're gone, are you waiting for somethin?
Go on cause I won't be back soon "
- "So Long"
Guster

The Other Side of the Coin

2009-11-09T15:53:00.004-05:00

I often have an idea for a blog post bouncing around in my head for a few days before I get the chance to write it. If a particularly good idea or sentiment comes to mind, I'll jot notes on my BlackBerry. Rarely have I started out thinking about one thing and then by the time I penned it, been given enough reason to completely disagree with it.

Try to follow this one ...

I have a tendency to think about my life in cycles. In other words, when Halloween rolls around, I reflect upon where I was on that day a year ago. When the weather gets cold, I start thinking about my life in winters past. Yesterday, I was talking with two of my friends about people I had dated in the past year. When I look back on relationships, I am guilty of falling victim to the Pollyanna Syndrome - remembering positive things more readily than negative things.

I thought about how I enjoyed spending winter nights eating takeout sushi on the couch with him. I remembered watching an all-night marathon of "Rob & Big" on MTV and of going to get bagels for breakfast the next day. I smiled thinking about how he would text me "good morning" and "sweet dreams." For a moment, I felt sad - that I was really missing being in that place.

Then the other day, I remembered arguing with him on Thanksgiving Day. I remember being on vacation and wondering where we stood, since he left it open-ended before I left for my trip. I remember sitting next to him, more than once, without a thing to say, because I just didn't think he cared.

On paper, he was everything I was looking for. I'm not going to lie - I can still take out the mental checklist and realize that finding that combination isn't easy. But then you remember a checklist isn't everything - a person isn't a checklist and a good relationship can't be created from a list of options.

This morning. I started thinking about the other side of that coin. In other words, people I have dated who I reference negatively. I thought in particular about an ex from a few years ago who was always kind to me, cared about me and for that period of time, made me happy. Yet whenever I look back at that time in my life, I see only negatives. I see someone who didn't fit any of the options on my checklist and I wonder why I thought it would fit.

To put it in cliche terms - square peg. Round hole.

I remembered this morning what used to make me smile about him. I thought again that maybe, a person can't be judged against a list of options.

One instant message conversation changed my mind.

I remembered why we set certain standards for what we need in a person. While not everything comes down to education-family-job, there is a reason you seek out a "type." And most importantly, there is a reason that some people, while not wrong for someone else, will never be right for you.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

2009-08-25T13:03:00.003-04:00

In my last apartment, where I lived for two years, I could not control the temperature. It was reminiscent of dorm life, except it was significantly more costly, I didn't have a white board on my door and I didn't have 25 types of cereal at my disposal. I swore up and down that once I could spend my night somewhere that wasn't either 54 or 96 degrees that I would be content.

I stumbled upon the proverbial pot of gold when I found my current apartment on Craigslist. For once in my life, I can say the downturn of the economy benefited me, as the apartment would have been out of my price range a few months prior. Due to my previous living situation, I was ready to sign the lease once I saw that the apartment had a thermostat. Central air and heat? Unheard of in New York. In addition, the apartment has brand-new stainless steel appliances (including a dishwasher!), a washer and dryer and a Jacuzzi tub.

I've been pretty damn happy.

When I lived in Long Beach, parking could be somewhat torturous during the summer. After all, I lived across the street from the beach. And the beach I lived across from was not just any beach, but the one that the 1,000+ participant volleyball league took place at four days per week between Memorial Day and Labor Day. If you got home after 7, you would be (at best) relegated to a sand lot where you would be ticketed if you forgot to move your car by midnight. I also got my car stuck in the sand once or twice. The good part about Long Beach was, if you didn't move your car, you could keep that spot forever. This is not the case in Queens.

When searching for the perfect image for this post, I stumbled upon one on the same topic, as this person so cleverly calls it, "the alternate side parking shuffle." I will continue to borrow from this person's post, as her description hits the nail right on the head - "The shuffle is a daily event that spans about an hour and half on streets all across the city. The idea is that cars vacate one side of the street, allowing the street cleaner to come through. It’s also a municipal money making machine. Every person I know who has a car gets more than a handful of street-cleaning tickets a year."

I will start by saying that I am devoted to never getting a $40+ ticket for having my car on the wrong side of the street. I have post-it notes that I alternate on the inside of my door that read "move car at night" and "move car in morning." I use my BlackBerry to remind myself *exactly* where my car is and when it has to be moved, just in case I forget. After two months, I was starting to think that I had the system figured out. In other words: moving your car at night is usually easier than moving your car in the morning. Avoid streets that have many driveways. As I said, I felt like I was beginning to master the system.

Then last night happened.

It took 35 minutes to find a parking spot. My car might as well be parked in Beijing.

While hiking back from my parking spot, I passed one of the many deli-bodega-corner stores in my neighborhood and invested a dollar in the lottery. Tonight, I will win Mega Millions and the first thing I will buy is a parking spot. Because that, is all it will take for me to be happy now.

Freedom Isn't Free

2009-08-19T18:04:00.019-04:00

In July of 2003, 27-year-old Lt. Pete Ober died in a helicopter crash, proudly serving in the United States Navy. Since the war began, 4,332 American soldiers have been mortally wounded in Iraq. Pfc. Matthew E. Baylis was killed just days before his 21st birthday in Baghdad, supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom, in May of 2007. Between July 25 and August 7, 2009, nine U.S. Army soldiers, five Marines and one U.S. Navy sailor were killed in Afghanistan. One of them was 29-year-old Capt. Matthew Freeman - he had been married just weeks before he deployed.

All three of these men dreamed their entire lives of serving their country and made the ultimate sacrifice by giving their lives for our freedom. All three of these soldiers were sons and brothers; two were husbands of my close friends and one was the proud father of a little girl.

I am so proud of the brave men and women who serve our country, yet I ache for the mothers, fathers, husbands, wives and children who have to say goodbye to their loved ones. I admire their selflessness - I could not imagine how hard it is to let someone go, knowing he is putting himself directly in harm's way.

I am at a loss as to how to convey my emotions in this post - I have so much pride and gratitute for those who are giving up everything to serve in the military. Yet I feel so much pain knowing that these families (and the entire world) have lost some of the finest people who will ever walk this Earth.

During Matt's memorial service, one eulogizer rightly said, "The world needs more Matthew Freemans."

And the world does. It needs more Matthew Freemans, more Pete Obers and more Matt Baylises.

Please remember our honorable servicemen and women - and their families, who are braver than we could ever imagine.

Freedom isn't free.

If you have the ability to make a contribution in their memory and honor:

Pete Ober:

Peter Benjamin Ober Memorial Fund

c/o Citadel Foundation

171 Moultrie Street

Charleston, South Carolina 29401

Matt Baylis:

Contributions in his memory to Wounded Warriors (http://www.woundedwarriors.org/), AER (http://www.aerhg.org/) or USO (http://www.uso.org/) are appreciated.

Matt Freeman:

Captain Matthew Freeman Memorial Scholarship

Bryan Bank

PO Box 1299

Richmond Hill, GA 31324

great expectations

2009-08-02T19:14:00.002-04:00

Tom: What happens when you fall in love?
Summer: You believe in that?
Tom: It's love, it's not Santa Claus.
- "500 Days of Summer"

For someone who doesn't often see movies while they are actually in the theater, it is out of the ordinary for me to have seen three movies in roughly three weeks. On Saturday I saw one of the best movies I have seen in a long time - "500 Days of Summer."

The movie begins with some dialogue explaining that, yes, this is a story of boy meets girl, but there is one thing it is not.

And that is a love story.

This is where I beg to differ.

It is, indeed, a love story. But it's not the kind of love story that you usually see in the movies. It wasn't predictable - it made me happy; it made me sad. I felt optimistic and remembered exactly what feels great about being in love. I felt frustrated when I remembered what it feels like to lose that.

Here's your plot - Tom is the guy that every girl wants to meet (or so I think). He is creative, artistic, listens to Brit-pop and wants to find his soulmate. On a chance encounter in his office, he meets Summer, who he immediately falls in love with. Summer insists that she doesn't believe in love, doesn't believe in relationships - they're messy and she hates labels. As the story progresses, you see what looks to be a happy couple, from one side. From the other side, you see what really exists - a person who is too afraid to commit because she can't acknowledge that she's not truly happy. Instead, she hides behind excuses.

I don't want to give away the movie, which is what makes writing this particular post so difficult. The happy moments that Tom and Summer share in the movie remind me of what I am looking for ... or at least what I hope is out there. The sad moments remind me that, well, people can and will break your heart.

But in the end, it's all worth it, isn't it?

Prioritizing

2009-07-28T12:40:00.004-04:00

"Action expresses priorities."
- Mohandas Gandhi

I started spending time with someone who I often have thought-provoking conversations with - the kind of discussions that force you to really understand exactly why you believe what you do. While we have generically discussed many of the topics that you're supposed to avoid while getting to know someone (religion, the concept of marriage and fidelity, kids and families), one of our recent conversations struck a chord with me - while it was initially about relationships, it brought to light ideas about priorities in life.

My stance was that while it is important to have your own set of priorities and to respect the other person's priorities, there is a distinct difference between putting someone second as opposed to fifth or eighth. Here goes nothing - each and every minute of our lives is a competition for what's most important. Hence, prioritizing is something we do 24-7, whether we acknowledge it as such or not.

You know that (for most people), you are going to work five days a week. For most of us, that schedule isn't clearly defined as 9-6, Monday through Friday. We're going to find ourselves at our computers certain late nights, on our BlackBerries Sunday mornings and on conference calls with other countries on holidays. Many of us travel for work and sometimes don't know what that schedule is until a day before. Some people don't work the traditional weekday/day schedule - my ex was a police officer who worked 12-hour night shifts. Eventually, I adjusted to random phone calls at 3 a.m. when his night was slow and that first night he was off when he was barely awake.

Aside from work, we try to balance a litany of responsibilities and activities in a week's worth of time. Whether it is time with our family, going to the gym, catching up with a friend for drinks or enjoying downtime with a book or the DVR, it never seems like there are truly 168 hours in a week. So where does dating, and eventually, being married (and even more eventually, having a family) fit into all of this?

It all comes down to priorities.

In the midst of this conversation, he posed an interesting question - is it selfish to put your job first?

At the time, I responded with what I said earlier. Everyone has a responsibility to his/her career, especially at a time like this when we are all grateful to be employed. The hope is that also many of us are doing work that we find rewarding (whether for financial or other reasons). I felt that beyond that, if you really want to be with someone, you (consciously or subconsciously) shift your remaining priorities. Once again, there is a difference between knowing that you're on the higher end of someone's list, rather than the lower end.

I started thinking about this conversation again this morning - do New Yorkers put too much emphasis on careers? Are we so embedded in the workaholic/competitive/24-7 mindset that we forgot that work shouldn't always come first?

I still have yet to come up with an answer that I am 100% sure about. Much like everything else, it seems to be shades of gray. Can you have a functional relationship/marriage/family if you are someone who always puts work first, or do priorities have to change as your life evolves?

Whatever (Folk Song in C)

2009-07-21T16:02:00.004-04:00

"They come here alone and they leave in twos
Except for you and me who just came to use
If you're all done like you said you'd be
What are you doing hanging out with me

Why you tell me stuff that's so plainly untrue
If you'll be straight with me, I'll be straighter with you
If you're all done like you said you'd be
What are you doing hanging out with me

I've been wanting to do anything for a long time
But whatever you got right now will probably suit me fine
If you're all done like you said you'd be
What are you doing hanging out with me"
- "Whatever (Folk Song in C)"
Eliott Smith

For someone who is as much of an idealist as I am, I surprisingly gravitate towards things that are gritty and real. I enjoy watching "Intervention," because half the time it feels good to root for someone who deserves a second chance at life and the other half, you are reminded how messed up and truly selfish people can be. I mostly read memoirs - the stranger your story, the more epic your struggle, the more likely I am to be compelled.

I've always enjoyed music that lands on the darker end of the spectrum. I am amazed by what songwriters can convey in lyrics, be it love, lost love or emotional pain. I constantly try to interpret songs to figure out what that person was thinking when s/he penned the lyrics to a song.

The song above is by Elliott Smith, who wrote a litany of dark and depressing (yet hauntingly beautiful) songs. Aside from the song posted above, another favorite of mine by him is "Say Yes." His songs are raw, emotional, honest, and in most cases, painful. I was looking online for an interpretation of "Whatever," when I stumbled upon this blog.

I'm not sure why it resonated with me. As the writer said, "To me, the songs were dark but beautiful, haunting yet comforting, stark and lush at the same time." I couldn't agree more. But she was given the opportunity to find out why, to dig deeper. And to learn that sometimes, understanding someone's pain can take away the beauty. Make it too hard to listen to it and less beautiful.

The ending of this blog says it simply - "They say you should never meet your idols. Nor should you get too intimate with their demons. Today, I can’t separate the songs from the story. Each one is a reminder of how cruel life can be -- allowing someone like him, someone with that much talent and heart, to suffer through so much pain for so long."

Rest in peace, Elliott Smith, and all the poets who suffer from pain for which there is no fix.

For Daddy

2009-06-20T15:54:00.000-04:00

I have only one picture in my wallet and this is it. I think I am about three or four years old and I'm riding on my dad's shoulders. He always says that this is why he lost his hair, that I pulled it all out. I inherited many traits from him, one being the inability to smile in posed photos. We both manage to put on the worst of fake smiles if photos aren't taken candidly. I love this picture in particular because we were obviously goofing off before it was taken and I probably hadn't mastered the art of the fake smile yet at that age.

Looking back at pictures when I was a little girl, you can see that I followed my dad everywhere. I wanted to be taller (because I thought that taller = older) so that I could go out with my dad when he went out with his friends or after work. When we were building our house, there are photos of me wandering around the construction site while he worked on it. I wanted to do everything that my dad did.

My dad has always loved horse racing as he and his mom always went to Belmont. My dad would take us to Belmont when I was a kid, but he never got the right results. After about two races, I would whine that I was hot/cold/bored/wanted to go to the playground. In hopes of keeping me still for just one more race he would give me $2 to bet on a horse. To be honest, I don't think I ever won. And when I lost, I would cry until he would give me back the $2 that was never mine in the first place.

Growing up, I always loved board games. I'm sure that he was forced to play a few with me when I was younger, but he crafted a creative excuse to get out of it. Most games have an appropriate age range listed on them, such as "for ages 4-8." According to dad, that was set in stone. Clearly, he was over eight years old, and if he was caught by the "Game Police," there would be nothing but trouble. When I was older, I could usually get him to play Scrabble with me, knowing very well that all of his turns would take FOREVER. We were playing one time when after more than a few minutes of deliberation, he threw down "twinbeast." I think I gave it to him, because even if it wasn't a legit word, it was a pretty cool one.

We were raised as baseball fans in our house. I played all boys little league until I was about 10 and it broke my dad's heart when I quit in favor of girls' soccer (which he referred to as a "Communist sport"). It didn't matter to him that I had a .035 batting average (which my brother figured out and would chant at me when I played) - it mostly mattered to him that I didn't "throw like a girl."

My dad would get us Mets tickets at least once a year and he took us out of school for the tickertape parade when they won the 1986 World Series. He also asked us to write something for school about what we learned. I was seven years old. Even a tickertape parade was supposed to be an educational experience if I missed school. Dad took our grades very seriously and didn't like for us to miss school. Years later, I am not sure if he didn't want us home with him while he was off from work or if he really felt that six hours of school were super important. One thing then that always remains true - dad is a great caretaker when anyone is sick. He has taken care of all of us through colds, fevers, wisdom tooth extractions, mono, surgeries - you name it. When I had mono and couldn't swallow anything, he made sure that I had pastina, milkshakes and ice pops at my fingertips.

For most of my younger years, dad was home with us in the mornings to send us off to school. My brother and I were two of the least alert people before school and dad would often catch us staring blankly out the window while our waffles got cold. He would come in the kitchen, clap his hands and sing, "Pick up the fork and put it in your mouth!" Repeatedly. Dad was also in charge of making sure my hair was combed before I went off to school. He would sit me down and comb my hair every morning, sometimes re-doing my part two or three times to make sure that it was perfectly down the middle. He not-so-successfully tried to master ponytails and braids, but as he once remarked looking at a second grade class photo, "I must have done your hair that day."

Although mom was mostly responsible for teaching me to drive, dad was the one who taught me how to drive stick. I also remember him exclaiming, "Jesus Christ, are you trying to kill me?!" when I pulled into traffic without looking, mostly focused on what gear I was currently in. Dad was the one who did most of the driving when I moved to and from college (15-18 hour roadtrips) and he was also tasked with driving me to the airport when I would fly back to school after holidays. Some of the best conversations that we have had took place during those early morning trips to LaGuardia. Prior to 9-11, it was completely feasible to get to the airport ten minutes before your flight and still board with checked baggage. Dad and I liked to test that theory. Nine times out of ten we would be running late, wondering if the plane was going to leave without me. I remember him slipping a few bucks to someone in the airport to let me jump the line as we ran through the airport. This was in stark contrast to mom, who would have us at the gate three hours before the plane was there. When I was in college, my dad always wanted me to dress up when I flew home. He felt that it was important to look presentable while flying - which was mostly not the case in general college dressing. I know that on more than one occasion in college, I wore either boxer shorts or pajama bottoms to class. My hallmates and friends always knew when I was flying home, because suddenly I was in black pants or a skirt.

As I said before, I inherited a number of traits from my dad. We both like to be the life of the party and we're both storytellers. We love to make people laugh and we can always succeed in making each other laugh. We like to sing in the house when we're home together and we like to dance, any chance we get, since, yes, we do have a choreographed performance.

My dad can fix or build anything, and I grew up taking it for granted that every male was like that. I was sorely mistaken. My dad can explain any part on a car or a dishwasher and tell why it's not working. He built a deck and a shed from scratch and has remodeled most of my parents' house. He just installed a shower curtain rod in my new apartment and is getting ready to make magic happen - he is going to turn a single closet with one bar into a closet that can actually hold things. When I first panicked over having one closet, I shouldn't have. No one else could solve a problem like that as quickly as he could, or as effectively. He is the first person to drop what he is doing to help, even when need a car battery at 9 p.m. or I lock myself out of my apartment.

In the same vein, he has helped move me and my brother no fewer than ten times. One of my favorite stories involves my brother moving from Boston. He had a dresser or a desk that he didn't want to take with him and the city wanted a ridiculous amount of money to dispose of it. Dad simply took out a chainsaw, cut it into many, many small pieces, put it in a Force Flex garbage bag and dropped it down the trash chute. When I was moving out of Charleston and we knew I wasn't bringing home the couch, he wanted to launch it off the third story balcony. After all, why carry it down the stairs? Mom wasn't onboard with that solution, though.

My dad has always helped me, no matter what kind of trouble I had gotten myself into. He has listened to my problems and offered me advice, even if I didn't take it. He taught me how to treat people and to respect people for who they are. I learned from him that hard work is the most important thing - and that you can support a family well by doing so. He has shown me in the way that he loves and takes care of my mom, what a good marriage looks like. He has taught me about cars, music, football and the value of using a level when hanging anything on a wall. Mostly, he has taught me how lucky I am to have him as my dad.

Happy Father's Day, daddy. I love you.

When Reality Becomes Real

2009-06-18T15:56:00.003-04:00

"Never allow anyone to rain on your parade and thus cast a pall of gloom and defeat on the entire day. Remember that no talent, no self-denial, no brains, no character, are required to set up in the fault-finding business. Nothing external can have any power over you unless you permit it ...- Og Mandino

I wrote a post a year or so ago about denial, which begs repeating. Why is it so hard to convince ourselves of things about people that are so obvious and right in front of our faces? Why is it so difficult to tell yourself that, yes, people can be selfish. I've always wanted to be someone who sees the best in people, even when that "best" is clearly something that I've imagined. Obviously, this hurts more than it helps.

Denying reality because you want to hope that someone is better than s/he is never works. Sooner or later, often when it hurts more, you finally realize the truth.

The truth being:
- that not everyone is worth second, third and tenth chances.
- that history does (and will) repeat itself.
- that you can't do the same thing more than once and expect different results (see above).
- that things do get better once you accept things for what they are (not what you want them to be/hope they can be/perceive them to be) and decide to move forward.

... which reminds me of another great quote: "Don't make someone a priority who sees you as an option."

Don't let someone think that you deserve less than you do. Don't let someone convince you that you are worth less than you are. Slowly pulling off a band-aid causes more pain in the end than accepting that it will hurt and letting it all go at once, once and for all.

And now I am done with truisms and metaphors.

Just Say No to Tourists

2009-05-25T12:42:00.005-04:00

"You don't have to go home but you can't stay here."
- "Closing Time"
Semisonic

I have a love-hate relationship with Long Beach, where I live, especially at this time of year.

I love waking up and not hearing horns and sirens outside my window. I love getting home at night when it's dark and humid and the only thing you can smell is the ocean. I love walking on the boardwalk and running on the beach. I love deciding on a minute's notice that I want to walk across the street and camp out on the beach with a book for half an hour and not having to drive to do so.

What ruins my town are the people who don't legitimately live here.

My favorite place I ever lived was Charleston. Sad but true, I grew to acknowledge that tourism was what kept the City alive - and more than once, kept me employed. While it never became any less frustrating to get stuck behind a horse carriage when you were already running late for work, the tourists mostly stayed downtown. In other words, they were somewhat avoidable.

I acknowledge that it's Memorial Day and that it is, indeed, a beautiful day outside (a true rarity these days). My morning started off with a run on the boardwalk - while the boardwalk was slightly crowded, it wasn't problematic. After discovering that I had no milk to make cereal for breakfast, I decided to go food shopping, among other errands.

I went to Starbucks and CVS. I washed my car (which was covered in an entire winter's worth of grime and fresh spring pollen) and headed to Waldbaum's (the one supermarket in Long Beach) to buy food. First, I heard a man asking where they sell "goat" in the store. Last I checked, goat isn't commonly found among chicken and steak - at least not in Long Beach. I tried my best to get through the store as quickly as possible, dodging people and dirty looks from people who stood on their phones with carts blocking the aisles.

Every line was terrible. I chose a line in the u-scan section and tried my best to be patient with the two people ahead of me. The first woman finished scanning - I even stayed patient while she let her sub-10-year-old son run her credit card and press the buttons. Then the next woman began scanning. She had scanned roughly 1/4 of her items when her husband joined her on line with seriously an entire cardboard box full of chicken. Time to switch lines.

I move to the line next to me, which seems to be moving at a decent speed. The people in front of me begin scanning their items, which mostly seem to be those probably less than $1 each containers of generic iced tea. Then, she begins to peel a 30 cent off coupon from each one and try to scan it, unsuccessfully. But no, she will not give up without a fight. After all, there is money to save when you are buying 70 containers of generic iced tea.

To the right of me, there are kids from the City who are proclaiming loudly, "Wow, you know you're not in the City when you can stretch your arms out and not touch both sides of the aisle in the store!" Yes. Waldbaums is like Disney World, isn't it.

I finally leave the supermarket and head home. By this point, all of the decent parking spaces are taken. I see someone getting ready to pull out of a space on the opposite side of the median ... which means you have to hit two lights to get over there. I made the first light and watched the person get ready to pull out of the spot. Then, as I waited at the light, I watched this magnificent cougar in a Mercedes convertible run the light to steal the spot. Nothing like parking a freshly washed car in the sand "parking lot."

Oh, and I forgot to buy milk - the one thing I went to the store for.

My parents invited me out for dinner tonight which seemed like a good plan. Then I remembered I will get stuck in beach traffic driving out there and Hamptons traffic driving back.

FML.

What You Wish For

2009-05-20T14:05:00.003-04:00

I turned 30 exactly one month ago to the day. While I felt the usual frustrations with turning a year older, I was trying not to succumb to the feelings of "what does 30 really mean?" In other words, I told myself that I wasn't going to ruminate about marriage, kids, and the whole concept of a future any more than I had at 29, 25 or 21.

When I first moved back to N.Y. from Charleston in 2005, I told myself that it was a temporary stop, a layover, if you will. After being back a year, I created a new master plan for myself. I would go back to school and get my Master's degree to teach English. While I certainly wouldn't make the money teaching elsewhere that I would teaching here (no, I'm not referring to the City schools), a teaching degree would be versatile. I wouldn't get stuck in New York.

I actually declared a major in education my freshman year of college. By the time I finished my lackluster freshman year, I had vaguely switched over to journalism, unsure of what I really wanted. I dug myself a hole, selecting a degree that all but guaranteed I would have to live near a major city to find a job - N.Y., Chicago or Los Angeles. Going back to teach would allow me to go west, move back to Charleston ... the opportunities seemed endless as long as a position was available.

Fortunately but unfortunately, I gave up the idea of pursuing teaching when my current job came my way, offering money and opportunity. At the time, the plan was to "give New York a fair shot" and then consider transferring to Los Angeles within the organization. Last year when I renewed my lease, I told myself that would be my last year in New York. I was ready to go to California to pursue the life I had always dreamed of, this July.

Over the past six months, I temporarily sidelined my plan to move cross-country. I felt like the current state of the economy made it an irresponsible time to make sweeping changes. After all, I could still move out west in another year. While I wasn't happy pushing my dream aside, I felt like I was making a responsible choice for my future.

I planned to move closer to the City this July when my lease was up. After all, I generally spend a portion of all seven days in the City - commuting was no longer worth the headache. I started looking and found (by N.Y. standards) a dream apartment. The apartment boasted amenities atypical of N.Y-area rentals - central air, a washer/dryer and even better, it was brand new. I was content to pay a broker fee, even at a time when everyone insists I should be getting more for my money. For a moment, I felt okay with my decision to stay in New York.

Then, in typical New York fashion, I inexplicably lost the apartment before I even got to sign the lease or pay the deposit, due to a shady broker. All at once, it reminded me how difficult and unreasonable things are here, such as finding housing. Not only do we pay exorbitant rents that are completely not in line with our salaries, we also accept the idea that we will not have air conditioning, more than one closet or a dishwasher for that price. Why should I pay a fee equivalent to one month's rent to a broker when I find an apartment on Craigslist?

Losing the apartment unearthed a wave of emotions, mostly reminding me how much I didn't want to be here. After all, it hardly seems worth it to get so little for so much work and money when I don't even want to live here in the first place. It reminded me that, at 30, I'm not getting more opportunities - I'm getting fewer. Honestly, it feels like a waste of time to be practical and stay somewhere that I don't want to be because I am "thinking of my future." Really, what am I thinking about? How much I don't want to spend another year here, let alone the rest of my life. Every year that I spend here makes it seem less and less likely that I'll ever leave.

Unfortunately, bad thoughts snowball. You start off feeling negative about one thing in your life and it brings to the surface everything that isn't going how you hoped it would. Before you know it, you're having one of those days where everything sucks.

"Woke up today, to everything grey
And all that I saw, just kept goin' on and on
Sweep all the pieces under the bed
Close all the curtains and cover my head
And what you wish for won't come true
You aren't surprised, love, are you"
- "What You Wish For"
Guster

Spring Cleaning

2009-05-11T09:33:00.003-04:00

I have exactly seven weeks left in my current apartment - aside from finding a new place, getting movers and remembering exactly how many companies I need to submit a change of address form to, the most daunting task ahead is packing and cleaning.

I just discovered (for the sake of this post) that I have moved 15 times in 13 years. I've had ten addresses. Needless to say, I should be an expert at this packing up and moving gig. Here's where I fail, though - I always wait until the last minute to tackle packing and cleaning, at which point I have amassed enough clutter and mess to cause a total meltdown.

In thinking about this, I've realized that the same can apply, metaphorically, to my life.

An apartment is easier to clean and organize when you tackle it one room at a time, before it becomes a total disaster. By letting go of unnecessary things that clutter my living space before they become overwhelming, I surely can cut down on the time I spend trying to correct it.

My friend Beth and I have had a number of discussions about "toxic people" - everyone has them - whether it's the friend who only calls you when he needs a favor, the ex who likes to flirt with you (even though he is with someone else) or the guy who only comes around on weeknights after midnight. Much like house clutter, toxic people don't go away until you choose to rid your life of them. By waiting to take control of people and situations that make your life feel cluttered and out of control, situations only tend to worsen.

It's time to spring clean - to figure out who I really need in my life and who is still there because, much like the plastic box of "sentimental t-shirts" in my closet, I have yet to figure out how to truly let go. I need to re-evaluate what it is that I really want - I think that I know, but then I see myself making decisions that are in complete opposition to those goals. I need to figure out which people and choices are getting me closer to who and where I want to be ... and which ones are pushing me further away.

It's time to re-arrange.

"And if you really want to shake it off
You gotta re-arrange"
- "The Re-Arranger"
Mates of State

30 Years with Mom

2009-05-08T16:07:00.004-04:00

My brother was born in the heat of July, 1976. Although my mom, at nearly 25, looks just as good as any woman who just gave birth to an 8 pound, 10 ounce/slightly late boy, she knew when I came around that those hospital photos would be picture perfect. Fast forward two years and nine months – mom goes into labor with me, decides to style her hair and fix her makeup before I am born. She looks like a supermodel in the photos holding me.

Every time I see a baby or toddler in an uncomfortable itchy lace dress, I am grateful that my mom always let me be comfortable. While she put me in the requisite dresses, tights and Mary Janes for photos and at holidays, she also let me rock a t-shirt with a giant panda on it for the first day of school. To this day, I tease her about forcing me into an Easter bonnet with a massively uncomfortable chin strap when I was probably about seven years old. I thank her for letting me take off my Communion dress less than ten minutes after we got home from church to let me play baseball in the street with my brother and cousin.

I remember as a child, playing hours of games with my mom, countless matches of Rack-O, Memory, Uno and Chinese checkers. I remember laughing until our sides split fast-forwarding the scene in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” when the mother sings that crappy song while doing laundry. I remember my mom making my brother and I absolutely delicious breakfast for dinner, and alongside her many great culinary successes, her entertaining failures. There was the time when she attempted to poach fish for Chris in wine cooler (sort of like wine, but not really … hey, this was the 80s) and foam billowed out of the pan. I remember that microwaves were going to revolutionize convenient dinner-making as we knew it … but the chicken didn’t need to be cooked for an hour. We could have bounced it off the wall and never let her hear the end of it.

Mom and I have always enjoyed shopping together, even when I was younger, and all I wanted to do was wear my brother’s hand-me-downs. While she admits that she couldn’t have handled a prissy girl, I don’t think she asked for a total and utter tomboy who didn’t willingly wear dresses until the 10th grade, either. One of my favorite moments came when she was in a dressing room with me and we were eavesdropping on another mother-daughter pair in the room next to us. The mother and daughter must have not been seeing eye-to-eye about a clothing choice, as the mom yelled, “This isn’t a democracy, it’s a dictatorship!” Mom and I burst into laughter – to this day, it remains one of our favorite quotes and moments. Years later, we realize it is difficult for us to shop with anyone else because we love to make fun of clothes in the store. It’s never quite as funny laughing at a pair of shoes, only to find out that your shopping companion really thinks they’re hot.

My parents worked opposite schedules – my dad was home with us in the morning and mom was home with us after-school, dinnertime and nighttime, for the most part. To this day, I’m not entirely sure if my dad just really believed in mandatory school attendance or he didn’t want to be home with us during his time off (frankly, I don’t blame him either way), but we were almost never allowed to stay home from school. While I credit this to making me a much better worker who has to be at death’s door to take off sick, I remember feeling slighted by senior year that I never got my requisite “cuts” that everyone else was taking. The year was almost over and mom knew I was antsy. Even though she threatened on a daily basis that college would rescind my acceptance, (does anyone know anyone this have ever happened to?) I remember one day that mom chose to make me very happy. It was probably late spring – before I turned 17 and had my full driver’s license. She and my dad were going into the City that day, probably to see a show. She called the school and had me released at 11. I was able to finally enjoy an almost full skip day. Oh, she also let me take off a day at the end of the year to work at my retail job, too. I think she was just tired of arguing with me by then.

My mom is my best friend. The reason it works as well as it does is because she is my parent first and my best friend second. I talk to her every single day, sometimes multiple times a day, and this has always been the case – whether I lived at home or in Georgia. There was only one time in my life that we didn’t get along well, during my senior year of high school. I think this is a hard time for anyone, as I was trying to exert independence at that age and I was mostly just pissing my parents off. My mom was frustrated by the slacker guy I was dating – to the point that she called my brother at school, begging him to come home and knock some sense into me. I was whiny, defiant and difficult – in retrospect, I’m sure I generally sucked to be around. Once I went away to college, everything changed. We both gained the space we needed and I was able to recognize when I needed her for support, advice or just a good figurative smack upside the head.

I couldn’t count the number of times my mom bailed me out of things – an unaffordable phone bill at college, letting me charge a pair of jeans to her my freshman year, paying for groceries when I couldn’t afford decent food. My sophomore year of college, I got the bright idea to try to “touch up” my own hair, since I couldn’t afford highlights at the time. Two days before I was due to attend a formal event with my boyfriend, (photos galore) I turned my hair highlighter yellow. If you’ve ever done something like this, corrective color is not cheap. I called her late at night in hysterics. She called her hairdresser who offered me advice to hold me over until I could get into a hairdresser the next day. My mom then offered to pay to get my hair fixed and never expected a penny back.

My mom is always there to dispense advice, whether I ask for it or not. Although it is always well-intentioned, sometimes it’s not well-received. One example was when she sent me a copy of that oh-so-awesome mid-90’s cult classic book, “The Rules.” Thanks, mom. Nowadays, it tends to be in the form of news clippings and articles from Oprah.com. My mom used to write me letters in college when they didn’t own a computer and people were just beginning to e-mail. I have every single letter or card she ever sent me. My freshman year, I continued to spiral. My grades were total crap and I lacked direction. She wrote me a seven page letter, detailing her hopes and dreams for me (which clearly did not include a 2.3 GPA and hooking up with frat boys). One thing that stood out the most was when she said that she wanted more for me, that she didn’t want me working a “dead-end retail job.” Coincidentally, I happened upon this letter when I was about 24 and I was working in retail. I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or cry at the time.

My mom had major spine surgery the summer after my junior year, which required round-the-clock care. Due to my dad’s work schedule, it made the most sense for me to be home with her during the day and for dad to be home with her at night. The first weeks when she was bedridden, we adopted a fabulous theme of watching movies where people die. I don’t know how I came upon this great idea, but there are many movies that fit it – “Love Story” and “Beaches” were two of our favorites. My dad came home one day to find us sniffling and sobbing in bed – “Enough of the movies where people die!” Once I switched cinematic themes, she did enjoy “Swingers”, though. By the end of the summer, she was well enough to go see The Cure with me at Jones Beach.

Every time my mom and dad take a vacation, my mom would come home, show me photos and recount what I would have enjoyed. Finally, my dad decided that she and I would benefit from a girls’ weekend away – loosely translated, a girls’ weekend equaled an eight-day cruise to Mexico out of California. It was the first and only time that we have spent that much time together, just the two of us, and we had so much fun. I will always remember trying to make towel animals together on the cruise ship (unsuccessfully) and freezing in Cabo during one of the coldest days in its history. The unsuccessful creation of towel animal sculptures reinforced our lack of arts and crafts talents. For as long as I can remember, my mom and I took on a variety of art projects that always looked like they were done by a four-year-old. Yes, I had a Bedazzler.

I look back on 30 years of memories of time spent with my mom. I remember the things we’ve laughed at when they happened and the things we laugh at in retrospect. I think of all the movies we’ve watched, the hours we’ve clocked shopping and the hundreds of thousands of phone conversations we’ve had. I am always grateful for the close relationship we share and know that wouldn’t be possible if she wasn’t exactly the person that she is. I love my mom for her endless patience with me (I know it can’t be easy), her unconditional love and support, her selfless nature and her way of always making me smile. I love the advice she gives me; she can be opinionated but not judgmental.

Mom - I would never be the person I am today without you to learn from. I would never be where I am today without your constant encouragement and help every time I fall. I am so lucky to have you as my mom and cherish all of the time we spend together.

On this Mother’s Day, I thank you.

Veruca Salt Rears Her Ugly Head

2009-04-09T09:27:00.003-04:00

"What do you get when your kid is a brat
Pampered and spoiled like a Siamese cat
Blaming the kids is a lie and a shame
You know exactly who's to blame
The mother and the father ..."
- "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"

I'm turning 30 in less than two weeks and I'm having a bit of, should I say, an existential crisis. Exhibit A - the conversation I witnessed on my morning commute, which reads like a bad "Overhead in New York."

Suburban Mom #1: Last year, she had to have the iPod touch; this year she wants a BlackBerry for her birthday. All the kids are instant messaging. First it was texting, now it's instant messaging.

Suburban Mom #2: Well, you know how high school kids are ...

Suburban Mom #1: High school? She's turning eight!

I almost threw up on my seat. An eight year old needs a BlackBerry? At this moment, I tried to remember what kind of gifts I probably got for my eighth birthday and the list looked something like this: Cabbage Patch Kids, GI Joe "stuff", board games, Legos. When I was nine or ten, I got Debbie Gibson's "Electric Youth" perfume, the Bon Jovi "Slippery When Wet" cassette tape and this totally hot pair of denim shorts with colored pockets.

While I cannot acknowledge that everyone should be happy when they are eight years old, one thing should be a given for kids - life should be simple. I say this from a perspective of a suburban upper-middle class kid - you have your whole life to deal with things being complicated, why not enjoy simplicity when you're eight years old. Enjoy toys, make believe and optimism that is not remotely grounded in fact. Enjoy believing that one day you may be a rock star, a pro baseball player or a fashion designer -- even if you completely lack those skills.

I am grateful that when I went to college, we could wear boxers shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops to class. Class wasn't a fashion show. Abercrombie was a big deal and pretty much no one knew that "designer" jeans existed. I am grateful that when I went to high school, I had a car that I didn't worry about bumping a curb with. A week or so ago, I overheard another conversation similar to the one detailed above, except this mother was explaining that she bought a Land Rover because "wouldn't it be a RIOT for her daughter to roll up in that to school on her 16th birthday?!"

Okay, one. This is New York. We can't even drive to school legally on our 16th birthday. And why, why, why would you give your 16 year old a Land Rover to drive?! I hit a gas pump with my car when I was 17. I got a speeding ticket on Sunrise Highway for doing 88 in a 55 when I was 17. I'm extremely glad I wasn't responsible for a Land Rover or an BMW.

I attended high school in a upper-middle class community. To the best of my recollection, the nicest cars either (a) belonged to kids' parents or (b) were a roughly five-ten year old Jeep or Cabriolet. About ten years after graduating high school, I went back to sub teach at my alma mater. It was like walking on to an episode of "The OC." The parking lot was filled with SUVs, BMWs and Mercedes convertibles. The students were dripping in designer clothes and high-priced accessories.

I look back at my yearbook and smile at our clothes - t-shirts, flannels, Doc Martens. We didn't look like we were trying to get into a club when we were 15 years old.

In two more weeks, I'll be waxing poetic about the cost of a loaf of bread when I was young.

Sigh.

Meet Lauren

2009-03-27T11:21:00.006-04:00

I have always been a philanthropic person - while I don't have much to give financially, I have always been interested in supporting charitable organizations with what little money I have and moreso, my time. When I was younger, I was mostly aware of larger organizations such as Make-a-Wish and St. Jude's (both of which still continue to benefit so many people). I volunteered for a few years at the Medical University of South Carolina Children's Hospital and think its Child Life program is remarkable; I was so blessed to spend time with children and families and hope that anyone who has a sick child will benefit from a program as good as MUSC's.

I stumbled upon Autism Speaks (the organization I work for), knowing virtually nothing about autism. I attended a Walk Now for Autism kick-off event and immediately wanted to become involved - my desire to become a volunteer translated into a full-time job. Seeing the families that are affected by autism has further driven my passion for the cause.

Working for a non-profit organization is a double-edged sword. While most people who work for non-profits are generally philanthropic in nature, you are trained to advocate and fundraise for your cause, primarily. When the economy forces people with already limited needs to have even less, you find it difficult to ask people to support "yet another cause."

I'd have a hard time finding a charity that I don't think is worth supporting. Unfortunately, some of the best charitable organizations are small and don't get the support they deserve. One such is Lauren's First and Goal, a cause that is very dear to me.

I'd like you to meet Lauren, the lucky girl pictured above with Orlando Bloom, who she had the pleasure of meeting recently. Lauren is the recently 12-year-old niece of two of my closest friends; she is also a brain tumor survivor who has been living with a diagnosis of multiple brain and spinal cord tumors, Neurofibramatosis and Evan's Syndrome, since she was nine months old. Read more about Lauren and her story here. Lauren is one of the most sunny, optimistic, unique, loving and courageous people you will ever get the chance to meet. How many 12-year-old girls do you know of that ask for a birthday party themed after "The Office," after all?!

Lauren's First and Goal is a charitable organization created to raise funds to support pediatric brain tumor research, support local pediatric cancer services, provide financial assistance to families living with a pediatric cancer diagnosis and to raise public awareness regarding pediatric brain tumors. The fund is supported primarily by Lauren's First and Goal Football Camp, a non-contact, one day instructional clinic taught by experienced Division I, II and III college coaches. Since the Foundation's inception five years ago, over 5,300 high school players have attended the camp and over half a million dollars has been raised to support research towards a cure for pediatric brain tumors.

Everyone knows that times are tough - but when it comes down to it, we are all luckier than we think we are. Having volunteered at a Children's Hospital taught me how optimistic terminally ill children and their families are - it also reminded me what I can do without to help others.

Take the money you would spend on your morning's Starbucks, that extra pint of beer at happy hour or the cab you took instead of the subway and donate it. I guarantee the benefit you are giving someone else will certainly outweigh what you are giving up.

If you can't donate, help raise awareness. Awareness is the key to fundraising - join the Facebook group for Lauren's First and Goal; link the First and Goal website to your Facebook page.

It's a beautiful Friday here in New York and hearing Lauren's story of meeting Orlando Bloom reminded me that great people DO exist in this world. I'm proud to know so many people who put others first and do what they can to make a difference.

17? Really?!

2009-03-24T12:06:00.003-04:00

Spring began this past Friday - or so the calendar claims. I flew out of JFK to Virginia in snow flurries that day. Although the temperature in Virginia Beach probably didn't top 40, we were determined to properly ring in spring by going out that night in tank tops. It's a wardrobe skill I acquired in New York - it doesn't matter how unseasonal your outfit is ... as long as you're wearing a pashmina or scarf.

A few weeks ago we had our first tease of spring. It was a warm, hazy blue skied Sunday and spring fever was in full effect. The boardwalk in front of my apartment was chock full of walkers, joggers, bicyclists, dogs and strollers - everyone eager to put away their winter jackets in favor of short sleeves. Days like that put a smile on your face. Days like that remind you that winter doesn't last forever; you will get off the treadmill and your sneakers will touch real pavement again. You become determined to forgo the winter clothes in your closet, ignoring turtleneck sweaters and woolen pants.

Spring is here, you think triumphantly!

And then Mother Nature smacks you back down, because deep down, she truly is one sadistic bitch. Just over one week until April and the wind chill was 17 this morning. Seven-friggin-teen.

Easter is just a few weeks away - no one wants to wear winter clothes on Easter morning. Kickball starts the next day; I hate trying to play kickball in ten layers of clothes. Opening day at the new Yankees and Mets stadiums is just over a week away. I cannot fathom sitting in a stadium on a day like today. I think I see why baseball just doesn't cut it in Canada.

Let's make a deal, Mother Nature. I'll stop whining when it rains during my morning commute. I won't even complain if we can get the wind chill above 30.

Really, my standards for weather are getting lower by the day.

Green Was the Demise of My G.P.A.

2009-03-13T13:07:00.005-04:00

Minus the two years that I waited tables in an Irish pub, St. Patrick's Day has always been my favorite day of the year. Having grown up in New York where the holiday is somewhat of an institution, I was disappointed to find that it was a mere blip on the radar when I moved to Georgia for college. There was a bright spot, though, when I discovered the St. Patrick's Day celebration in Savannah, which was just a few hours away. There was always a catch, though. My first two years of school we were on the trimester system and St. Patrick's Day fell swiftly during midterms. Especially my freshman year, midterms were not going to spoil my fun. Unfortunately, no one else seemed to share my slack-adaisical attitude towards skipping class for green beer; I only hope their GPAs exceeded my stellar 2.3 after their freshman year. The last two years, St. Patrick's Day fell during finals, when we were on the semester system. However, because we had the longest semesters in the history of any college in America (UGA never seemed to excel at figuring out anything administrative), we lucked out my senior year. I was able to convince some friends to head to Savannah with me and we celebrated by the river.

My freshman year, I was without a car for the first time in my life since I got my driver's license. You never realize until you don't have a car how appealing everywhere sounds, but where you are. Athens seemed to be a short drive (well, ride, then) to just about everywhere. If someone was taking a roadtrip and there was an open invite, I was willing to go. Class would definitely take a backseat to traveling and seeing all there was to see.

We went to "The World's Largest Cocktail Party" in Jacksonville. We went to Destin for a weekend at the beach - hell, I even tagged along to Talladega once. By far, the most memorable trip my freshman year was to Mardi Gras. The first thing that made it funny was that I actually called my parents and asked them if I could go. Granted, I was only 17 at the time but I did live like a thousand miles away from them. Somehow, I just felt like they should grant me permission. My friend, who was over 21, assured my mom that I would be well taken care of and that she didn't need to worry about me. In typical college travel fashion, there were about 15 of us in one room with two beds. Also, it happened to be colder in New Orleans than it was in Georgia (and New York, which was even more insane.) Needless to say, I came back deathly ill right before midterms.

I was enrolled in this insane World History Before the Dawn of Time class (at least that's what I thought it was about) that I rarely attended and probably didn't pay attention to when I was in there. I think this was one of the rare moments in my collegiate career when an exam took me by surprise. We were handed a blank map of the world and were expected to draw in and label cities and rivers. I couldn't even label actual present countries on a map now. I handed the blank exam back to the teacher with my drop request attached.

That should have been the first sign that my wanton travels were beginning to affect my grades. At 17, I wasn't entirely sure why I was at school. When I got my final grades for the year (again, a remarkable 2.3 overall), my dad echoed the same sentiment.

My travels and escapades had to take a backseat to class over the next three years. I took fewer spur of the moment trips and made sure that my responsibilities at school wouldn't be affected. And if traveling interfered with class, there was always a plan B.

I took an art appreciation class my sophomore year, which had a 5 p.m. Friday discussion group. Day one when I got my syllabus, I realized this wasn't a viable option, since I spent most of my weekends in Charleston then. My master plan evolved -- two words -- teacher's assistant. I quickly learned that a young-20's TA could be swayed to give you an A for a discussion group you never attended. All it took was attending his mediocre art shows and swooning over his pieces.

By the time four years of college were said and done, I graduated with over a 3.0 AND got to finally celebrate St. Patrick's Day in Savannah.

I took next Tuesday off to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and I've been trying to my hardest to convince everyone to do it with me -- and yet again, it feels like freshman year. Except this time we're not leaving at 2 a.m. and getting stuck in Dothan, Alabama, because we ran out of gas.

Won't You Be My Neighbor ... or not

2009-03-02T13:17:00.002-05:00

We're snowed in today in New York. As the picture shows, there is even snow in my apartment. (Actually, what that photo depicts is how poorly sealed my windows and doors are.) Thankfully, I was given the opportunity to avoid the snowy, delay-laden commute to work from my not-so-toasty living room.

My upstairs neighbor is driving me insane.

I wouldn't be complaining if this was an isolated incident, but whoever this person is, s/he has absolutely no etiquette when it comes to common space and downstairs neighbors.

For good reason, I never lived below the top floor of an apartment building since my college dorm until I moved into my current apartment building. Honestly, I don't have many complaints about my neighbors. The girl next to me, who replaced the woman that had extremely loud phone conversations in Spanish, I never see her or hear her. The girl that lives three apartments away from me occasionally has loud parties, but they're not often enough to truly bother me.

I've never in my life complained to any of my neighbors about anything they do. I'm not one of those passive aggressive people who tapes notes to the mailboxes about the volume of someone's TV or three notes on the door about a barking dog. A month or so ago, I was watching my friend's dog when she had to leave town suddenly for a family member's funeral. I knew that when I left the dog, he barked, so I did the best I could to not leave him alone while she was out of town. However, when I had to go back to work that Monday, he must have put on quite a show. I returned home that evening to not one, not two, but three increasingly angry (and detailed) notes from fellow building dwellers that were disrupted. While I felt bad that people were disturbed, the notes were insanely excessive. One person threatened to contact the management company. Really? I've lived here nearly two years and you've never heard a thing before. The funny thing was that not one of the notes was signed.

I have three nominees that I would like to award with "bad neighbor" honors. In third place, guy on the other side of my floor who loves his surround sound television - but seemingly only when watching war movies or playing video games. It's always fun when you feel like you're living "Saving Private Ryan" on a Sunday afternoon.

Second place goes to the girl who lives below me, affectionately known as "F*ck Me Naked," which she was once yelling out to her bed partner at 4 a.m. We have very thin walls in this building - when I play my iPod on the speakers, you can hear it in the hallway. Well, this girl doesn't apply that same logic to her bedroom antics. When I am in bed at 3:30 a.m. and she comes back from the bar, I am always treated an audio performance that rivals amateur porn. Lately, she's been quiet - I guess her social life is slow during winter. There was a time during the summer, though, when she had a partner with the same drive and vocal capacity as she did. I would hear the two of them going at it a good few times a day from when the bars closed until about lunchtime. He, much like her, loved yelling out ridiculous things (see: F**k me naked!), which were totally impossible to tune out while trying to sleep.

And the first place, gold star winner is the person (people) who lives above me. From what I can tell, it is a person and a toddler. It could be two people and a toddler - I'm not entirely sure. Beginning at about 7 a.m. on the weekends, they seem to have parades and foot races. The kid just runs back and forth across the bedroom. Repeatedly. If they could just let the kid run laps in the living room, I wouldn't be woken up at dawn on the weekends. S/he also loves to move furniture. To the best of my knowledge, this person also has a one bedroom apartment. How many different furniture combinations can you really create in an apartment of that size? This person also loves, LOVES to stomp. I'm sure that occasionally, I'm heavy on my feet. I do my best to be cognizant of it, though, and encourage my guests to do the same. I also try to remember to take my shoes off. This person has got to be wearing wooden clogs.

So here I am, today, working from home. The neighbors upstairs has: stomped back and forth across the apartment hundreds of times, allowed the kid to run laps back and forth, drilled something and hammered the floor (are we assembling more furniture to move?), moved MORE furniture (perhaps the new piece we built?) and dropped no fewer than 20 things.

Seriously?

I've gone back and forth in my mind about going upstairs one day and just asking them to be more considerate on weekend mornings. I'm not really in my apartment that much anyhow, and honestly, I should be grateful they chose a weekday afternoon for furniture assembly. I'm quite surprised it wasn't saved for 7 a.m. this Sunday.

The kid is bouncing a ball now.

Awesome.

The Lure of Local News

2009-02-26T12:25:00.006-05:00

I love to read the news. Here's the caveat, though - I'm not well-informed, to say the least. Each morning at work, I peruse the news outlets for articles about autism; I'm very well-informed when it comes to autism. Other than that, I primarily read (skim) CNN.com, Newsday, The New York Post and sections of the New York Times.

I'm a sucker for a sensationalist headline - anything that grabs my attention or has the potential to appear in Reuters "Oddly Enough" section. Pretty much, if it's peculiar or ridiculous enough, I've read it. On the other hand, if it has to do with politics, world issues or anything notable, I probably haven't read it.

Even more interesting is that I went to school for journalism. I can plead ignorance with one saving grace - my concentration is in advertising. Guess what? I really hate commercials. Possibly even more than significant world news.

In my opinion, the best news stories can be found on CNN.com in its "US" section. On the bottom left, the site catalogs stories from around the country, culled from local publications. I also should point out that I have a soft spot in my heart for the mostly atrocious quality of local journalism. Local TV journalism is actually the best - go get an ill-fitting suit and some anchorwoman hair. You now have a license to mispronounce names of politicians, countries and diseases while attempting to appear completely legit.

Yesterday, this was my favorite article. Do you think the writer was just praying his editors would let him keep that headline? Either way, awesome.

Today's winner is not chosen for journalistic prowess, but rather for content. Take the time to appreciate the details in this story (i.e. rental car) because they're all really important. I'd personally like to give this guy some type of award. Bravo.

The Customer is (Sometimes) Always (Maybe) Right

2009-02-17T10:45:00.007-05:00

[Bobby wants plain toast, which isn't on the menu]
Bobby: I'd like an omelet, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce. And a cup of coffee.
Waitress: A #2, chicken salad sand. Hold the butter, the lettuce, the mayonnaise, and a cup of coffee. Anything else?
Bobby: Yeah, now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules.

- "Five Easy Pieces"

My morning began with a craving for home fries, a particular kind of home fries made by a chain cafe near my office. I honestly wanted them enough to venture back out into 20-something degree weather. Here's the catch: they don't sell individual sides on the menu. Once before, I made the attempt to order home fries, bacon and toast (three separate sides), only to be given enough food to feed my entire office. There had to be an easier way.

I looked over the menu and saw an option for "three eggs any style, home fries, bacon and toast" for $5.25. Perfect. I ordered the "#7" and asked her to not include the eggs.

She looked at me blankly.

"I'm allergic to eggs," I replied, "I just want home fries, bacon and toast."

She stares at me, more intently, and then looks down at the register. No verbal acknowledgment.

"I just want the three sides, not the eggs," I repeat, hopefully that would offer some clarity to the situation.

"We can't do that. A number seven is a number seven. They'll get confused in the kitchen." Mind you, there is no one else on line. Business isn't exactly overwhelming at this point.

I then ask her if she can ring the three sides separately. I honestly don't care what it costs. I was more than willing to pay the full amount and not take the eggs. She pauses and starts ringing - I see the first item light up on the register "Platter of bacon" - $4.28.

"No," I interrupt, "I don't need nine pieces of bacon. I'm one person. All I want is a side of bacon, a side of home fries and toast. Can you please just ring the #7 and tell them 'no eggs'?"

Now she is visibly annoyed. Clearly, I've requested a service far outside the boundaries of her job description.

She acquiesces and rolls her eyes at me. I watch (and half listen) as she and the other employees talk trash about me in Spanish. My Spanish skills aren't that strong - I mostly can read ads for divorce attorneys on the subway. I could definitely tell this lady didn't like me, though.

I have had a number of customer service jobs in my lifetime (waitress, hostess, store manager, low level store lackey ...) and have yet to figure out when the concept of polite customer service went by the wayside.

On Saturday, I was walking through Roosevelt Field Mall when I spotted a cute shirt in the window of Hollister. I do realize, before I even relay this story, that perhaps I'm too old for Hollister. Perhaps once you hit size 6, you shouldn't consider buying clothes in Hollister. I swear, there are shorts in that store that could possibly fit my calves (triple-zero, anyone?)

Regardless, I found the shirt and waited behind a gaggle of high school kids to try it on. Upon buttoning the shirt, I realized that the anti-theft sensor was inside the shirt. The inch or so of plastic was pressing against my ribcage and jutting out sideways - just enough to make me question whether or not the shirt was buttoning properly.

I asked the salesgirl if she could remove the sensor - no offense, but I don't fit the profile of "shop thief" at Roosevelt Field Mall. She came back with the shirt and told me that she wasn't allowed to.

I pointed out the location of the sensor to her and asked her if she could at least move the sensor to the outside of the shirt. She, again, walked away with the shirt and returned momentarily with an even more unsatisfactory response.

"My manager said she can't move the sensor. She also said that the shirt probably doesn't fit you and you should just try a bigger size."

Thanks, Hollister staff, for saving me $55.

On a brighter note, the Silo sushi man and I are back on speaking terms ...

The Olives of Holidays

2009-02-13T14:54:00.009-05:00

I have a theory regarding olives - I believe that olives are the only food that people either love or hate. I honestly have never met anyone who is ambivalent about olives. And if you're curious, I count myself among the haters.

Valentine's Day is the olives of holidays. The only other holiday that I see as equally loved and hated would be New Year's Eve. Coincidentally, both holidays are geared to couples, but it's not to say that all couples love either. I think the similarity lies in that both have "expectations."

One of my co-workers adamantly declares Valentine's Day (along with Halloween) as his favorite holiday. My best friend hates Valentine's Day; in her words, "I don't believe in Valentine's Day. If you expect the person you're with to give you flowers, take you to an overpriced restaurant or any of the other jacked up crap associated with that day, then your relationship probably sucks. It's a day like any other day. I like a nice card, and that's it." In defense of her comments, she provided a column by someone who appears to be her Valentine's Day soulmate.

One of my closest friends (who recently got engaged) and I have a five year tradition of sending each other flowers on Valentine's Day. It began when we worked in retail together and we've kept it up ever since, whether we were single or attached. My most memorable Valentine's Day took place my senior year of college. I was newly involved with someone who lived in a different state and we weren't spending the day together. In his absence, he sent me flowers and a card. Surprisingly, what made that particular Valentine's Day memorable was going out for a somewhat fancy dinner with some of my girlfriends. After all, we were impoverished college students who rarely dined at places that favored reservations and dressing up. Needless to say, it's not always whether you're single or attached that makes Valentine's Day what it's worth.

You can go out with your friends, as the oh-so-awesome e-card above suggests, to meet undatable alcoholics. You can go out with your friends and possibly meet the guy or girl of your dreams. You can go out with your friends and simply be grateful that you have such amazing people in your life.

You can go to the movies, walk the streets, take yourself out to dinner, or celebrate "friend n fried" style - as Gawker so humorously suggests.

No matter what, be happy and enjoy Valentine's Day tomorrow, and while you're at it, enjoy a new favorite from the NYT's Modern Love archives.

Karma Chameleon

2009-02-11T21:31:00.002-05:00

"Life is complicated. Remember the good things that you do. Keep thinking about that. Keep building on that and you'll come to an answer." - Mychal Judge

I woke up today on the right side of the bed - or at least it felt like it. While most days I start the day on an even keel, I rarely feel or appear outwardly happy when I leave for work. This morning, for reasons unknown to me, everything felt just a little bit better. In contrast, my week had been mediocre and slightly disappointing at best; I definitely couldn't pin my good mood this morning on some type of external happening.

In trying to explain it to myself (sad but true, I actually was wondering what inspired my content state of mind), I first attributed the weather. It was over 60 degrees in New York today. Any day that I can wear sunglasses and short sleeves, I'm destined to be in better spirits. Blame that seasonal affected disorder, whatever. I'm always calmer and happier when the weather is better.

But it felt good this morning - taking my morning nap on the train, getting an iced caramel macchiato rather than a hot drink at Starbucks and most significantly, not being cold on my walk to work. Even the normal things which really bother me didn't seem to affect me as they usually do - the guy typing on his Blackberry as he bobbed-and-weaved down the sidewalk on 33rd or the woman who inadvertently blew smoke in my face at a crosswalk.

I was talking to a co-worker this morning and I commented that I was in a really pleasant (yet unexplainable) mood. I was also waiting for the other shoe to drop - for something to stress me out, for something to go wrong, for something to make this much better than average morning go awry.

Lo and behold, my work computer knew how to do it. One thing after another seemed to spiral from that and my mood went south. It wasn't a bad day; it was definitely an average day by the time it ended, though. It seemed like bad karma.

I don't know much of anything about karma in the philosophical-spiritual sense. Rather, I think of it in the most simplistic terms that what you put in, you deserve back. When life seems to throw me curveballs or things aren't going exactly how I want them to, I often think about karma. When I look at my life in a "big picture" sense, there is one thing that I ultimately hope my friends and family believe - that I go out of my way to help people and to make people's lives easier and/or better. I find it personally rewarding to help people who need me, especially those who are important to me.

I go through phases of trying to attend church more regularly and I'm not always so successful. Each year, my attendance seems to spike around Lent. There is a gospel reading about helping people that always seems to resonate with me, even when I hear it reflected upon, year after year. The essential message is this: help people when other people don't see you do it. Give money to someone who doesn't know it came from you. Do something small to brighten someone's day who needs you, not because you expect something from that person in return.

Which brings me back to the concept of karma (and brings me full circle to my opening quote) ...

Although I don't expect anything in exchange for helping those close to me, I hope that the world thanks me for it - hence, good karma. I liked that quote when I stumbled upon it in a book because it lent clarity to what many of us feel: life is complicated and messy. There are many days when we have no idea where it's going or the direction it seems to be headed isn't the one we hoped for.

So what can you do? Just like the quote says. Remember the good things you do. Be a better person and not just because you expect something in exchange. The world may not change, but maybe your attitude will. And hopefully then, you'll come to an answer.

Protecting Your Talent

2009-02-06T13:36:00.004-05:00

I wrote half of this post on my Blackberry at 3 in the morning, after waking up from a somewhat strange and surreal dream. The bizarre part wasn’t the dream, but rather what thoughts it inspired. As always, I knew if I didn’t write them down, (or put them in the oft-used “Notes” section of my Blackberry) I wouldn’t remember them this morning.

So here goes the dream: I dreamt that I was swimming laps with a number of people, one being an ex-coworker who was both arrogant and competitive. I remember thinking in the dream that although I was a good swimmer, I wasn’t good enough. I was mentally critiquing my own strokes, expecting that he and others would be doing the same. It wasn’t until later that he asked how I learned to dive, admiring that possibly I could have been better than he was at something.

Here’s what makes the dream interesting: While I can swim well, I’m not a great diver. I swam because my mom didn't let me take dance. Somehow, my intrinsic clumsiness (a.k.a. “bull in the china shop syndrome”) didn’t seem conducive to ballet. With swimming, I was never close to the best but better than many people I knew. I secretly enjoyed knowing that people who could outrun me or do other sports well couldn’t often swim better than I could. I always wanted someone to be in awe of my talent. In anything.

Now for the interpretation: whether you can dive, write or call football plays nine out of 10 times before you see them executed, we all tend to protect our talents for fear of finding out that, well, maybe we're not so unique. Even worse than being common is finding out that perhaps you’re not good at “this” after all, this being what you thought your talent was. For this reason, we tend to end up dating people who aren’t necessarily good at the same things – you want to share interests, but fear that someone could be better than you – and then you won’t be as special anymore.

Since I was a kid, I was always told that I was a good writer. I was used to being complimented by my family, peers and teachers for my creativity and writing ability. Then one day, it was essentially hinted at by someone who is important to me, that maybe I’m not such a great writer. And it stuck. I’ve never been able to reflect upon myself as being as talented anymore and find myself afraid to commiserate with people who are good at the same things as I am.

Some of my best friends are amazing writers, and perhaps, that is one of the pillars that our friendship stands on – a common interest. However, we have a mutual appreciation for each other’s talent and what each of us knows and can bring to the table. There is no inherent fear of competition.

Recently, I dated someone who possessed the complete opposite skill set as me. He was very smart - mechanical, analytical and thought in numbers. On the other hand, he considered himself “functionally illiterate” because he didn’t have the same fluidity with language as I did. His admiration of my talent made me feel special – that I could intellectually bring something to the table that he couldn’t.

After that dream last night, I was reminded that my ability to recognize my own talents is fragile. I will question “if I’m any good” when I compare myself to others, especially others who excel in writing. I’ve never been a competitive person; in some ways, it could be a detriment to me. But just the same, the fear of seeming “less” to someone you want to seem “more” to, will also reign supreme.

Finding What You Need

2009-01-30T15:49:00.004-05:00

"What I am to you you do not need
What I am to you is not what you mean to me
You give me miles and miles of mountains and I'll ask for the sea"
- "Volcano"
Damien Rice

One of the best feelings is having a breakthrough - when you finally comprehend (and truly understand) something that you have been told before. It isn't the kind of understanding where someone tells you something and you can repeat back that, yes, you get it. Rather, it's a feeling that you finally understand how it all comes together.

I was a work-study employee for two years in the graduate psychology department at college where I gleaned the benefit of what I call "free advice." I remember sorting through admissions questionnaires with one of the doctoral students and idly discussing relationships. It turned into an interesting conversation about personal needs and how they ultimately effect relationships. At the time, I'm sure that on a cognitive level, I grasped what he was saying.

It has been a good nine years since I had that job. This morning, while walking to work and thinking about my life, I recalled this conversation and finally understood what it meant.

We have friends, family members and significant others who play different roles in our life. While one person may be perfect for someone else, he may not be perfect for you - the reason being that each of us has different needs. Once you can recognize (and even better, verbalize) what it is that you need, you have better odds of finding someone that really works well with you.

It isn't difficult to get along with people, and to be honest, friendships and relationships can drag out as both people act out their parts. It feels completely different, though, when you realize that someone knows exactly what makes you tick and what you personally require.

This all came about when I realized how much I like to laugh. I can't be fully happy being with someone that I don't laugh with - because I'm not being myself. I am definitely happiest with people who make me laugh and let me be myself, stupid humor and all. I appreciate the person who remembers to tell me "good morning" at the start of my day or "sweet dreams" at the end of it, even if it is just a 10 second phone call or a text. I'm affectionate - not in the creepy PDA sort of way - but can't deny that it makes me smile to hold someone's hand or get a kiss on my forehead. I need someone who challenges me to learn more and do more, but doesn't make me feel inept for not already knowing something about everything. I want to be with someone who wants to get to know me - what's important to me and why. The most important thing encompasses all of these little things - I want to be with someone where I am totally comfortable being me.

The funny thing was that simply laughing for a few hours reminded me how easy it is to forget what you need from another person - what makes you feel like you. Suddenly, what had been cloudy for weeks now made sense and everything felt just a little bit better.

The Order in Disorder

2009-01-26T14:20:00.003-05:00

When I was younger, I remember looking for my missing shoes when my mom asked me if I had looked in the closet for them. I must have given her a totally bewildered look in response; after all, unless someone else put them away, the last place I expected to find them was in the closet. Perhaps they would be on the floor on the landing or under the bed - but most likely not in my closet.

I've never been a neat and organized "type A" by nature - yet to a certain degree, I always felt I existed better in my own version of chaos. I understand my systems and I know (for the most part) the logical place (by my assertation) to find my belongings.

I go through phases - when I have the time, energy and motivation to do a massive "spring cleaning" I exert the effort to keep order in my home. Otherwise, I generally do the bare minimum to keep it up - do the dishes, clean the bathroom, do my laundry and throw away garbage as needed. In other words, my place may not always be totally organized, but it's not dirty.

Mail is my worst enemy when it comes to keeping my place (and life) in order. Most days, I grab the mail on the way in from work when my hands are already full. It is the first thing to land on the table and often stays there for days on end. By the end of the week, the table is half covered in magazines, catalogs, credit card offers and bills.

As much as I hate to admit it, my life feels more together when it is in order. Surprisingly enough, by taking literally two minutes to make my bed in the morning, my room feels more peaceful and conducive to order.

I realized recently that I had let the first weeks of the year go - I was trying to sort through a few things personally and everything else just seemed, well, less important. Then I decided to take charge and put the pieces back in order. The chaos in my home extended to the chaos in my life - I needed a resurrection of routine. I needed to start eating actual meals again - not just a combination of whatever I could "prepare" in the shortest amount of time and with the fewest number of dishes. I needed to not sleep absurd amounts of hours on the weekend. I needed to keep lists of the errands that needed to be accomplished on the weekend and actually see that they were done. I needed to get back on budget and watch where my money was going. I needed to stop watching "The City" on DVR and start going back to the gym regularly.

I am a believer that when you take steps to "try at life," good things come your way. I always feel like when I was living my life the fullest for myself that things (mostly) seemed to be better. We all deserve a few days (or weeks) to fall out of routine and mope about the things that aren't going our way. But then, you need to wake up and think about what it is that you really want.

It might not seem like throwing away the junk mail and cooking a dinner (just for yourself) are the most exciting and life affirming things. But sometimes just making your bed can bring a little more order to an already chaotic day.

The winter of our discontent?

2009-01-19T19:56:00.008-05:00

"For instance, at some point in your year (every year) it seems your life hits a "winter phase" of coldness and darkness with very little growth and fertility - a phase that gets you thinking: 'Oh no. That's it, my life is over. Everything good is gone. The world sucks.' Only to find that ... whaddyaknow ... your winter phase ends and the Spring Law arrives to spring you free into a phase filled with renewal and growth and brightness. Then comes your summer phase, followed by your fall phase, follow by winter, spring, summer, etc ... etc ..."
- how to be HAPPY, dammit
By Karen Salmansohn

The meteorologists say that this is the coldest winter we have experienced in five years - coincidentally the coldest winter we've had since I returned to New York. Not only is the cold bone-chilling, it seems like it snows every single day. I can't remember the last time that it snowed this many days.

I've never understood people who enjoy snow, cold weather and winter in general, being a person who loves to be barefoot and outdoors. I miss the days when I didn't own a winter coat in Charleston, when all I needed was my Patagonia fleece.

I've been sick since last Wednesday with some variant of the cold-flu that everyone in New York is currently harboring. Being sick in the depths of winter essentially transforms you into a "shut-in" - I left my apartment once between Wednesday morning and Friday evening, and that was to go to 7-11 to buy juice and Pop-Tarts. By the time Friday evening rolled around, I was eager to leave the confines of my apartment and to see another face.

Emotionally, winter just feels draining. It feels like everything has just stopped and that time is going to stand still until spring rolls around. Thankfully, we have that hope to hold out to - knowing that sooner or later, change is going to come and life is going to start moving again.

We stand up and brush ourselves off.

We count the days that the sun shines, rather than the days it snows (and hope they outnumber one another!)

We look forward to St. Patrick's Day (my favorite day of the year) which is practically just around the corner.

And we know that things will get better. The Spring Phase of life is coming soon.

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." - Albert Camus

Movies.books.tv

2009-01-05T13:01:00.005-05:00

I once went almost two years without seeing a movie in the theaters after paying $12 to see "Elizabethtown." I should point out that I had just moved back to New York and was unfamiliar with paying more than $6 for a movie (with my roughly five year expired student ID), but it truly says something about a movie when it inspires you to stop going to see them, altogether. I eventually started going back to see movies, but I'm not what one calls an avid moviegoer. I tend to see previews for movies and then add them to my Netflix queue - eventually the movies will make their way to my mailbox. For this reason alone, it was surprising that I saw two "current" movies this past week - "Marley & Me" and "The Reader."

A friend had proposed seeing "Marley & Me" as a New Year's afternoon outing - while it wasn't a movie that I was dying to see, getting out of my apartment and spending the day with friends seemed like a good idea. Now I won't ruin it for you (in case you are planning to see it) but my other friend revealed a KEY DETAIL regarding the movie, the night before we saw it. It then became known as "the movie where (fill in the blank with spoiler)." All in all, a cute movie - nothing cinematically spectacular, but a fun afternoon distraction.

On Friday, my mom and I planned to see "Australia" - although I heard less than spectacular things about it, my love for Baz Luhrmann was enough inspiration to go ("Moulin Rouge" is one of my all-time favorite films). Sad but true, it was already out of the theaters. Determined to still see a movie together, we looked through the listings and chose "The Reader." "The Reader" could also be known as "the movie where Kate Winslet is topless for 80% of it." I swear, every other scene showed Kate without a top. It was a strange movie - at times I liked it, at times it dragged. It was also a little more depressing than what I really needed to be watching.

My Netflix rental this week was a movie that I was very excited about, ever since it premiered at Sundance - "American Teen." While I was quite a fan of "Laguna Beach" (and should subsequently be ashamed to admit that), this documentary probably hits home for more people as to what high school is really like in most of the country. Parts of it must have appealed to the side of me that loved "Freaks and Geeks" - while it is fun to sometimes delve into escapism, a little dose of reality is good every once and again. If you watch it, let me know if you were as disgusted by Megan as I was.

I read a book this past week that I don't recommend and I am partway into a book that I actually like quite a bit. "Hurry Down Sunshine" by Michael Greenberg gets a big thumbs-down. I first read a review of this book in New York and added it to my "to-read" queue - upon reading it, I was nothing except disappointed. I think the book focused too much on the dysfunction of all the adults and their relationships. I also am sort-of intolerant of people who use New Age philosophy as a cover/cure for mental illness.

On the other hand, I just started "The Book of Mychal" by Michael Daly and I am truly enjoying it. This biography is about Father Mychal Judge, the iconic priest who served as the chaplain of the FDNY and died in the Twin Towers collapse. I am only about five chapters deep but it is refreshing to read about someone who pursued the Catholic priesthood knowing that he wanted to be a different kind of priest. Where so much of religion is centered on judgment and "not listening", Father Mychal was determined to bring the exact opposite to Catholicism. The more I read of this book and his life, the more I realize what Catholicism (and religion as a whole) is supposed to stand for.

Firing up the DVR ... "Gossip Girl" is back this week and we've got another episode of "Intervention" tonight (hopefully significantly less disgusting than last week's feeding tube gem). We've got "The City" tonight, which reinforces everything I dislike about New York and could be even worse than "The Hills." Last but not least, "Real World: Brooklyn" starts on Wednesday. I haven't watched the "Real World" since Seattle (1997? maybe?) but I'm curious about this one.

The Last Hours of 2008

2008-12-31T17:13:00.004-05:00

New Year's Eve has traditionally not been one of my favorite holidays; expectations wise, you could probably put it on par with Valentine's Day. Though I can't really remember a New Year's Eve that I absolutely loved (I can remember one Valentine's Day, though), I continue to attempt to celebrate it every year.

Plain and simple - the weather absolutely sucks in New York today. The roads are perilously covered in layers of water, black ice, snow and more ice. The temperature is in the 20s right now and is working its way down to single digits. The wind is blowing in circles (a la the Patriots-Bills game this past weekend) - uprights couldn't stand a chance outside my apartment right now. By morning, the wind chill will probably hit zero, according to the Weather Channel. Yet, I am doing what I do best - choosing an absolutely unseasonable outfit to wear out tonight in hopes of ringing in a better 2009. Nothing says I respect northern winter weather like a sleeveless dress with bare legs and open toed shoes ...

I've mentioned before that I'm mildly superstitious - one of those superstitions relates to New Year's Eve. I wish I could remember when or where I heard it and on days like today, I wish I never had. I once heard that how you spend New Year's Eve reflects what your coming year is going to be like. So being superstitious and already having the cards stacked against my NYE 2008, I am hoping to defeat the odds for 2009.

When I ring in 2009, he who should have been my NYE date will be working (if you're planning to drive after drinking tonight, stay out of East Rockaway ...) and I will be out with one of my best friends, braving the cold (in my oh-so-cute $19 party dress from Nordstrom) and enjoying a flute of champagne. Tomorrow morning starts a new year and Kristen's Facebook status says it best - "Kristen has decided to focus on what's going to make her happy in 2009 after spending the day at the happiest place on earth."

So raise a glass and toast to better times in 2009 - hoping that superstitions don't always come true.

Another top ten list

2008-12-30T15:36:00.004-05:00

About ten years ago, MTV aired one of the greatest countdown specials ever - the top 25 lamest videos of all time. Supposedly, after showing the 25 videos, the reels would be destroyed, never to be shown again. If this is the case, future generations will certainly lose out. While many of the below videos are from that special, I have a few additional favorites.

In no particular order, I give you my top ten best videos of all time.

10. "Oh Sherrie" by Steve Perry
Note that "Sherrie" (his actual girlfriend at the time) is actually in this video, sporting a sexy white dress. Does anyone actually understand the point of the proposed medieval plotline? Be sure to pause right before he comes down the stairs - his jeans really need to be tighter. I also love when he uses a broom as a guitar. Epic.

9. "Rosanna" by Toto
I love her dramatic ponytail flip (~0:30) and the mug on the lead singer. He sings with so much emotion.

8. "Rock Me Tonite" by Billy Squier
Is it his Flashdance get-up? His flouncing in a pink leotard on the floor of his loft? His pole dancing? I do love the way he tosses his laundry about the room.

7. "Separate Ways" by Journey
This video cannot be embedded, but it can be linked. It absolutely must be included in this list. I love this woman, all decked out in her tight leather skirt and high heels, walking around in a lumberyard on a dock. I love Steve Perry's shirt from Chess King. I love the way their instruments materialize, as if from thin air. I love the way Journey materializes from thin air. No one sings with more emotion than Steve Perry - not the seven lead singers from Journey that have followed him or even that guy from Toto. No one.

6. "After the Rain" - by Nelson
I think I owned this cassingle. I always hope that when I get in a fight with my parents, that my bedside Nelson poster will come to life and save me. I also love the dramatic use of Native Americans, feathers and perms in this video.

5. "Escape" by Rupert Holmes
Everyone knows that I love this song. I may love Rupert Holmes even more after seeing this performance. So it's not a traditional "music video" ... but that doesn't make it any less fabulous.

4. "November Rain" by Guns n Roses
God, I loved this song and video when I was in junior high. I even thought that skanky wedding dress was pretty hot. Does anyone really know what really happened in this video? I just love the rain ... the cake ... Slash jamming on the guitar in front of the church.

3. "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham!
Another one that can't be embedded - so sad! Appreciate the "Choose Life" shirts, George Michael's short-shorts and fabulous gloves ... the lighting, the effects, his chunky back-up dancers. Excellent, all around.

2. "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" by Crash Test Dummies
Another non-embed! I think this video was about child abuse, but I can't get past the creepy expressions on his face when he hums. I think they're Canadian, too. Is this what children's theater looks like in the land up North?

1. "Opposites Attract" by Paula Abdul
So I owned this cassette, too. I owned the trifecta at age nine(ish) - Debbie Gibson, Tiffany and Paula Abdul. Then I segued into hair bands. What is with this video? Was the animation supposed to be new and cool? Horrid.

Christmas Magic

2008-12-22T11:27:00.004-05:00

"I wish I could just stop
I know another moment will break my heart
Too many tears
Too many times
Too many years
I've cried for you
It's always the same"
- "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea"
The Cure

I wrote possibly the longest "apology" that I have ever written in my life today; the e-mail was actually 2,452 words. I can guess that only three paragraphs were devoted to the actual apology. I made that last night. The rest of it was everything I had wanted to say before, but either couldn't find the words for, or was to scared to say.

The sad thing is that the more friends I tell the story to, it turns out that I'm not exactly at fault. It's not to say that I didn't do something that was wrong - but I could be putting my efforts somewhere that they don't belong.

I once read that you should never shed tears for someone who you know won't cry over you. I wish my head could overrule my heart. I wish that I could go back 24 hours in time and not make the same mistake again. But I tell myself - people make mistakes. We're not meant to be perfect. The best I can do is apologize and hope to be forgiven.

Unfortunately, we can't control when things go bad. Yet somehow it seems harder to be dealing with fallout right before Christmas. Christmas seems like a time when everything should be perfect ... or as perfect as it could be.

Is it possible to still believe in Christmas magic, even when you're 29 years old?

"It was the hope of all we might have been
That filled me with the hope to wish impossible things
But now the sun shines cold
And all the sky is grey
The stars are dimmed by clouds and tears
And all I wish is gone away"
- "To Wish Impossible Things"
The Cure

Good Luck Jen

2008-12-18T21:24:00.005-05:00

"My entire life, I've been nothing more than a stepping-stone to every relationship I've ever been in. There's always been a next guy who's better than me. For once in my life, I want to be that next guy." - Charlie, "Good Luck Chuck"

I probably would never have seen this movie had I not thought it was written about my life. The only solace I find is that someone else was in the exact same predicament as I am - you'd have to be, to come up with this plotline.

For those of you who haven't seen the movie, here's the IMDB synapsis: "In order to keep the woman of his dreams from falling for another guy, Charlie Logan has to break the curse that has made him wildly popular with single women: Sleep with Charlie once, and the next man you meet will be your true love." Basically substitute "date" for "sleep with," and you've got my life for the past ten years.

Everyone I date marries the girl he dates after me. At first I thought it was a coincidence. Then I chalked it up to growing older. Now I am starting to think it's a curse, as I discovered today that yet another guy I dated is getting married to the girl he began dating after me. For the most part, the guys have been pretty insignificant, and the ones who did matter, I was more or less over by the time I was notified of their pending nuptials.

Today's news came on the tail of a not-so-great week, which is why it may have bothered me more than it should. While I just got back last night from a great vacation out west which involved everything from hiking to drinking to snowboarding, my mind was battling something that was left wide open before I left - and to be honest, it still is.

Every vacation has a soundtrack, songs that you overplay that always remind you of a person and of a place. For this trip it was "The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot." Thanks a lot, XM, for introducing me to this song exactly when I didn't need it.

"I hope you find out what you want
I already know what I am"
- The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot
Brand New

"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?" - "High Fidelity"

Happiest

2008-12-12T12:06:00.003-05:00

"Today is the greatest day
I've ever known
Can't live for tomorrow
Tomorrow's much too long"
- "Today"
Smashing Pumpkins

I was in my car the other day thinking about the last time in my life that I was happiest - not to be confused with "happy" but truly "happiest." The funny thing about remembering your life in retrospect is that you know that life was never perfect. Yet you can remember certain phases of your life as seeming pretty close to it. When you're truly happy, life's ups and downs don't hit you as hard and things that would bother you on other days don't even seem to register.

I will always remember the spring of my sophomore year of college as being "The Greatest Time of My Life." I was 18-19 years old, in love for the first time, making the best grades I had ever made and the future seemed nothing but bright. It was a time of many firsts and I remember feeling like my entire world was ahead of me. It sounds cliche, but it was true. It felt like everything I had waited for in my life was finally there.

The last time in my life that I remember being truly happy for an extended period of time was in early 2004. I was living in Charleston and had just began a new job after a solid year of hunting. I was in the early stages of dating someone that I quickly fell unreasonably head over heels for (one of the moments when you know your heart clearly overruled your head). I was running almost daily and I felt full of energy. My days and nights were always full and life just seemed in its simplest form to be full and complete.

It was easy to see why it didn't stay that way as each of the positives took a turn for the negative. I went through a prolonged and confusing break-up with said boyfriend. The job turned out to be less than expected, leading me to resign at year's end. The next year, I moved back to New York.

It's not to say that I haven't been happy with my life since, or in New York in general. I have a wonderful job and I have good friends who are always fun to be with. Just the same, I look back with a sense of wistfulness for a time like that again.

As you get older, your expectations change. Even though there will be better and stronger loves in your life, there will never be a second "first love." There will never be another "first job out of college" or another 25th birthday. It becomes even harder to feel truly happy when the things you looked forward to about getting older don't seem to be happening - life seems to stand still.

If you have love you don't need to have anything else. If you don't have it it doesn't matter much what else you do have." - J.M. Barrie

Super Me

2008-12-10T12:12:00.003-05:00

David Bailey: All or nothing. Tonight I'll be the super me.
Steve Dunne: What if the super you meets the super her and the super her rejects the super you?
David Bailey: Then it's no problem.
Steve Dunne: Uh-huh. Why?
David Bailey: Because it was never you, it was just an act. I live my life like a French movie, Steve.
- “Singles”

For anyone who knows me, it was a sign of the apocalypse. His criticism was that I don’t talk enough – words I have definitely never heard before. After a month and a half, he felt like he didn’t know me at all and that perhaps we didn’t “click” – we spent too much time in silence and that I didn’t seem to have any real opinions about anything. Basically, he could tell that, at times, there were things I wanted to say to him but that I was more or less looking at him with a “blank stare.”

In trying to be the super me, I had become my own worst enemy – a Stepford Wife: fawning, submissive, quiet and rather un-opinionated. And the super me was rejected.

I was trying too hard. I felt that by being quiet, unassuming, agreeable and interested, I was putting forth the perfect version of myself … except it wasn’t me. At what point do we become afraid to be ourselves - that who we are isn’t enough to offer someone?

I knew I was doing it, but I didn’t realize that it was having the completely wrong effect. I was wrongly trying to let someone who I really liked, get to know someone that wasn’t me at all. Don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t completely pretending to be someone I’m not. I honestly believe that I am a person who cares about others and feels rewarded in knowing that I make those around me happy.

But I’m not a doormat. I’m not quiet. I’m actually kind of obnoxiously talkative. I tend to tell people more about me than they need to know upfront. I have opinions on just about anything, even though I hate to argue. I’m rarely assertive, though, and it takes awhile for me to become truly comfortable being an honest version of myself with others.

Learning to communicate is one of the biggest obstacles that couples face. I regret that I didn’t feel confident enough to be myself – that I was scared it wasn’t enough. While I am hopeful that second chances can be had and that this can be given a viable shot, sometimes all you can gain is experience … and hope not to make a similar mistake in the future.

Siriusly?

2008-12-01T13:30:00.005-05:00

Five days a week, I drive less than a mile per day - to and from the train station. The other days, I don't drive a whole lot more; I run errands, visit friends and occasionally take the trip to my parents' house. I could not live without my XM Radio, though.

When satellite radio first came out, I knew that I had to have it. Anyone who has ridden in the car with me can vouch that I am completely ADD when it comes to the radio. I will flip through my 30 preset stations in search of the perfect song and then do it all over again when the song ends. I love that satellite radio has very little talk, great variety of genres and often plays songs that you wouldn't otherwise hear. Satellite radio also keeps you from being punished by "whatever the local flavor is" - i.e. country and Christian rock in the south, Spanish music in Arizona ... I've been subjected to it all on road trips.

For the past year or so, there were rumblings of a Sirius/XM merger. Anyone who pays for each service adamantly believes s/he has the better satellite radio offering. Months rolled on and everyone wondered how the merger would take place - would one company overtake the other? I was happy with XM the way it was.

Then one morning a few weeks ago, I turned on my car to find that "Ethel" had been replaced with "Alt Nation." "Lucy" had been overtaken by "Lithium" and I suddenly had an entire station dedicated to the Grateful Dead. The companies silently merged the two station offerings, leaving the listener with Sirius/XM - a cornucopia of radio stations.

Presets were supposed to remain the same genre - in other words, Lucy played "alt-90s rock." Sirius' version, Lithium, theoretically plays the same thing. However, I've noticed one thing thus far - Sirius repeats songs. A lot. I didn't notice this as much with XM (with the exception of "Into the Night" by Benny Mendones, "Danny's Song" by Loggins & Messina and "September" by Earth, Wind and Fire). I feel as though I have heard "Wrong Way" by Sublime about 140 times in the last week.

Don't get me wrong - XM is not without its own share of problems. I was highly disappointed when, last month, they pre-empted the ska/hardcore/punk station with a 24-7 AC/DC station. Um, seriously? I didn't even think AC/DC had enough songs to fill a day's worth of programming, let alone an entire permanent station. Ew.

Another issue is in the XM hardware. I think I have one of the oldest radios that XM sold - it runs through the cassette deck in my car. When I inquired about putting in a new radio, they told me that the entire system would have to be rewired - you couldn't simply plug and play.

As of this morning, I think my XM has become possessed. I pressed the "memory" button and it started flipping through stations and refusing to stop on one to listen. Then, after I unplugged it in a moment of fury, it got stuck on Lithium and played the same song by Garbage three times in a row.

Siriusly - what gives?

The Word of the Day ...

2008-11-29T16:10:00.004-05:00

... is meh.

Some days you just don't have it. You're not entirely sure how you want to spend your day and then you get caught up in the malaise, sulking.

I honestly believe that holidays make me anti-social - I'm not entirely sure why.

I woke up before 8 and an hour or so later went back to bed ... the second time I got up was at nearly 1 p.m. While I know I needed the sleep, I couldn't think exactly what I felt like getting out of bed for. It was just one of those days and I knew it. The kind of day where you wake up and you just feel listless and ... meh.

I dragged my butt to the couch to watch an episode of "Rob & Big" on the DVR -- add a fleet of remote control helicoptors to the list of things that show has made me want. I ate a bowl of cereal for breakfast (or can you call it brunch, even though you're in boxer shorts on the couch?) I talked to a friend on the phone, who I am visiting in less than two weeks. I put on my workout clothes and made myself go to the gym ... worked out for an hour and watched my beloved Dawgs destroy any respectable bowl game hopes.

And now I'm home ... still feeling meh and not entirely positive why.

"And why do we like to hurt, so much?
I can't decide what you get when you let your heart win.
That's what you get when you let your heart win.
I drowned out all my sense with the sound of its beating."
- "That's What You Get"
Paramore

If I Were a Boy

2008-11-28T12:00:00.003-05:00

"If I were a boy ....
I'd put myself first
And make the rules as I go"
- "If I Were a Boy"
Beyonce

Between my addiction to early morning Vh1 and satellite radio, I often listen to songs that I wouldn't otherwise play or pay attention to - case in point, "If I Were a Boy" by Beyonce. I was driving home to my parents' house yesterday and heard this song while aimlessly wandering through my presets.

I have an uncanny talent to catch onto lyrics, to learn the words to songs after only hearing them once or twice. Lyrics especially seem to stick when they resonate with you - in other words, sometimes they write the song for you.

And that was my day ...

One is the Loneliest Number

2008-11-25T11:13:00.007-05:00

I accidentally minored in sociology. While reviewing my transcript for the hundredth time with my advisor, she suggested that by taking a few additional classes, I would graduate with a sociology minor. I was wise enough to realize that while this was by no means a marketable degree, I enjoyed the classes enough to do it. Since then, I have always been a geek for statistics and cultural studies.

I read the cover article in New York this week - "The Loneliness Myth" - and was completely fascinated by it. The premise of the article is stated early on: "Manhattan is the capital of people living by themselves. But are New Yorkers lonelier? Far from it, say a new breed of loneliness researchers, who argue that urban alienation is largely a myth."

The article begins with a hard-hitting statistic - of all 3,141 counties in the United States, New York County is the unrivaled leader in single-individual households, at 50.6 percent. Translated from numbers to words, one in two people in New York City proper is living alone. Following, the next most interesting statistic shows that "in Manhattan, 25.6 percent of households are married, whereas the national average is 49.7." While discussing this with my mom, she raised an interesting point of dissension - many people leave the City upon marrying to raise a family in the suburbs.

However, the author uses this stat to prove a valid assumption ... and provides even more statistical ammunition to back it. Having a cadre of single friends (who serve as the urban version of family) kept her from mistakenly marrying young. She then points out that the variety of new experiences available in an urban environment just may be what makes city marriages better - New York State is tied for the fifth-lowest divorce rate in the nation. While one can also argue that (from what I've heard), it's not easy to get divorced in New York.

Regardless ...

The article makes some interesting assumptions, but also reminds me of something that I have long believed. People in urban areas (New York, especially) live differently than the norm - not necessarily better, but differently. Facebook has shown me that nearly every person I attended college with in Georgia owns a house and has a minimum of one child. The majority of similarly aged people I know in New York are unmarried, not home owners and childless.

We can't afford real estate here - it's as simple as that. While everyone in Georgia and South Carolina always argues that we earn more, it is by no means proportional. What I pay for my one bedroom apartment an hour outside of the City (with no temperature control), can basically pay someone's mortgage on a starter house in the south.

Essentially, you could be doomed to rent for the majority of your life, while you wait to purchase in New York. Starter houses, you're looking at what, $400,000 - at least. Two bedroom apartments in Manhattan - do you have a million dollars? So you're stuck renting in a place where all you want is to be able to turn the heat off when your indoor temperature rises above 90, or turn it on when the outdoors are below freezing.

People become "stuck" at 22 - nothing changes - life becomes "Groundhog Day." You go to work, pay rent on an exorbitantly priced apartment and go out at night to meet people. 30 is the new 22. Yet people in other regions of the country can look forward to starting a real life - saving for a house, getting married and starting a family. If you can't imagine ever being able to realistically own something, why think about moving forward.

And so we get stuck.

New Yorkers are forced to become single-minded and career focused. We're forced to work harder and longer hours in hopes of moving up and making enough money to get by. A functional relationship takes time and takes work, so people forgo them in favor of making more money ... and so the cycle continues.

People live together who have no plans to get married. Traditional relationships and the concept of dating to eventually meet someone to start a family with, falls by the wayside. I couldn't count if I tried, the number of people I have met who have no intention of ever marrying or starting a family.

So do we have it figured out here, the more modern way of looking at life and relationships ... or do we have it anything but?

Re-evaluation

2008-11-11T14:41:00.002-05:00

"She’s going out to forget they were together
All that time he was taking her for granted
She wants to see if there’s more
Than he gave she’s looking for"
- "I Don't Wanna Be in Love"
Good Charlotte

Having given myself a four day weekend (I've been off since Saturday), I've had plenty of time to get things done that I simply haven't made time for in the past month. I've cleaned my apartment, got my car inspected (kind of neglected to realize that it expired during October ... oops), ran errands, finished the two movies I had been watching all month and finished one of the three books I was reading.

I love being off on random weekdays while the rest of the world is off doing their everyday things. While it has been relaxing to nap whenever I want (and I have randomly napped at some point each day I have been off), the time and the silence are deadening. I'm not used to not having plans and not having somewhere to be. The worst place for me to be is left alone with my thoughts.

Only two things can semi-successfully clear my head when it is overflowing - running and aimless driving. I went to the gym today and had a solid run. After finishing my run, I decided to stay in my car - roof open, windows down - to enjoy the beautiful weather and to figure out what the nagging voice in my head was saying.

I have always been a people-pleaser, to my own detriment. I've always been the person who puts everyone else's interests and happiness before my own, thinking that if the people around me are happy, I will be, too. Sometimes this is the case; sometimes it is not.

I feel like this is a lesson I should have learned before - that it isn't my responsibility to put everyone else first ... that sometimes I need to put myself first. But as I very well know ... I seem to suck at mastering certain lessons and this just may be another case of it.

What Will Be of 2009?

2008-11-07T14:51:00.002-05:00

I am mid-Google-chat with my friend Elizabeth, who has just typed: "when are we moving to la? I think the warm air will do ri some good."

Most of my life I have dreamed of living in Southern California. While other people romanticized a life in New York City, I fantasized about warm weather Christmases.

My parents were both born and raised in New York. To be quite honest, I doubt they will ever leave. My brother was the first to go when he moved to North Carolina for college. Two years later, I followed suit and moved to Georgia for school at 17. I remember when my mailbox was filled with glossy college brochures which pictured magical lands out west - colleges on cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. (Note: not only was I incapable of fathoming exactly what Pepperdine cost for a four-year education, I was also grossly unaware that it was a semi-crazy right-wing conservative campus. Nope, not for me.) Needless to say, at 17, my parents refused to let me go cross-country for school. Upon graduating, I wanted to go out to California, but my finances didn't allow for it. I moved to Charleston, to Massachusetts, back to Charleston, and then back to New York. But I never made it out to California.

I took a week-long trip to San Diego (Encinitas) and fell in love with La Jolla and Del Mar on my way to the campsite when I was 20 years old. I was sold on the dream. When I moved back to New York, I promised myself that I would give it a fair chance. Although I am far from the "I love New York" poster child that my brother is, I still felt that I owed it to myself to give New York a fighting shot. And so I did.

Last year, I made a pact with myself. I told myself that if nothing changed for better or for worse, I would transfer with my job to LA when my lease was up, in July, 2009. In order to make this happen, I figured that I would have to put my plan in action beginning in the new year. As 2009 creeped closer, I (predictably) felt that nothing was changing and I would be ready to go west. I even started to put the wheels in motion where work was concerned.

I spent a week out there last December and felt like I belonged there - that if I could have never come back to New York, that it would have all been okay. I checked out towns and neighborhoods, started to understand where the freeways went and accepted the fact that you have to valet your car at a $5 wing joint.

Lately, I've started to think about the option if something does change. How do you know if you're ready to leave it behind if there is a possibility of something better where you already are? And if it doesn't work, do you end up with a world of regret?

I tell myself that 2009 wasn't a drop dead date. It doesn't even make it in time to support the "before I'm 30" self-imposed deadline. I just wonder, as 2009 is less than two months away, exactly what I will be ready for.

If You See Something, Say Something

2008-11-03T13:55:00.007-05:00

"If everything could ever feel this real forever

If anything could ever be this good again"

- "Everlong"

Foo Fighters

I've officially confirmed something that I have always suspected - I'm incredibly jaded. I used to think that I had become cynical but had still retained some (blind) optimism. Now I've come to realize that I truly am jaded.

It becomes difficult to enjoy being present when you are afraid of what awaits ten steps ahead of you. While optimism is key, hoping for the best possible outcome, past experience tells you not to get your hopes up. You can see all that is good in what you have but you are essentially terrified of losing it ... because that is what you have come to learn - the good ol' self fulfilling prophecy.

How do you get past what your mind and heart have been conditioned and let yourself believe that something good could actually be happening? And not just that it could be happening, but that it could still be even better the next day or the week after?

How do you tell yourself not to see something negative that isn't even there, just because you assume it has to be there? How do you regain the most fundamental feelings of not necessarily trust, but of having faith in people again?

I'm happy, but I'm scared ... and I've yet to figure out how exactly to reconcile the two.

Of Mad Men and My So Called Life

2008-10-27T14:53:00.003-04:00

Everyone I work with talks about "Mad Men" - last season it was "Heroes" and "Lost" - which is why this article surprised me. It seems that while AMC's Emmy award-winning drama is loved by many, the ratings don't reflect that. What this tells me is that the television taste of people I know must represent a very small subsection of America.

My favorite show of all-time was on for just one short season when I was in the 10th grade, "My S0-Called Life." Much like "Mad Men," the program was critically acclaimed. In my opinion, no program before or since had so accurately captured my 10th grade angst. After just one season, ABC nixed the program, due to poor ratings, leaving viewers to wonder Angela Chase's fate. I often think that if the show was on now, it would have made it longer than a season. After all, shows that seem much worse seem to have much longer shelf lives. On the other hand, "MSCL" was unique - it captured a certain honesty about high school that probably wouldn't cut it in this day's lineup of "Gossip Girl" and the new "90210."

Another similarly critically acclaimed show which met a similar fate was "Freaks and Geeks" - another show that I loved. I didn't watch it when it was on television, but rather on DVD, years later.

Historically, I have always had one favorite show at a time, which usually comes out on top as another jumps the shark. "Saved by the Bell" was the original favorite - then they all went to the same college and it eventually went off the air. "MSCL" followed suit, giving me my favorite season of television ever. I don't recall loving another show until college, where a different one seemed to replace another each year - in rapid progression - "90210", "Party of Five" (until Bailey became an alcoholic and Charlie got cancer), and "Dawson's Creek." By the time "Dawson's Creek" ended and Katie Holmes married Tom Cruise, I had moved onto "The O.C." Once Mischa Barton died and Ryan was a cage-fighter, I had adopted "One Tree Hill."

There was "Laguna Beach" and "Newport Beach" - the second certainly less interesting than the first and later, "The Hills," which God knows why, I still watch. I just discovered, as a matter of fact, that my DVR records nothing in the top 20, which means all of my favorites are subject to cancellation: "One Tree Hill', "Gossip Girl", "Army Wives", "The Hills", "Entourage" and "Rescue Me."

Just don't take "Intervention" from me ...

Anyone have a stray cat?

2008-10-20T17:15:00.003-04:00

"I'm 23. Remember how old 23 seemed when you were little? I thought people would be traveling in air locks and I'd have five kids. Here I am, 23. Things are...They're basically the same. I think time's running out to do something bizarre. Somewhere around 23 bizarre becomes immature." —Bridget Fonda as Janet Livermore in Cameron Crowe's Singles.

Today is my half year birthday. I am officially closer to 20-10 than I am to 29, and that thought is beginning to terrify me.

I should rewind and point out that I don't have this date marked on my calendar. Rather, it has always been my parents' tradition to celebrate our half-year birthdays with a cupcake and some small random gift.

On Friday, I went home for the weekend, as my brother got married. My mom handed me a small box and said, "I was afraid your half-year birthday would get lost in the shuffle this weekend." Appalling. How could they forget my half-year birthday on the weekend of their only son's wedding? Too funny.

Regardless, 30 seems that much closer and I feel as though I have much to accomplish in the next six months. I want something big to happen - something exciting and life changing. I dread getting to the age where it seems that I should have done it all already, that I should have gotten it all out of my system. When I once mentioned wanting to move cross-country, my brother commented that "people don't do that at 30, they do it at 22." So I missed my chance?

So the lesson is ... start filling out my social security forms. Begin collecting stray cats - dozens of them. Happy 29 and a half to me :)

Of Routines and Vh1 in the Morning

2008-10-07T21:27:00.003-04:00

I am a creature of habit - I get ready for work in the exact same order every morning. I walk to work the exact same way each day. I love knowing that you can get the free song on iTunes every Tuesday morning (even when it sucks ... which it often/usually does).

Since college, I have listened to Vh1 in the morning. While I don't watch the videos unless something catches my eye for a particular reason, it serves as decent background noise. In 2003-2004, when I ran in the gym, I used to run to Vh1. For that reason, I will also associate "Hey Ya" with that period of my life.

I consider my taste in music varied and somewhat eclectic. While I am happy to come across a song that few people have heard of, I will just as often fall victim to a tune on iTunes that I heard on XM's 20 on 20 or Vh1, for that matter.

The problem, as of late, is that some of these songs are just terrible. I find myself distracted, listening to a song on Vh1, just thinking, "Who is this artist and why should I be forced to listen to this?" Much like word association, the first three which come to mind (and oh, these songs/artists are truly atrocious) are Chrisette Michel, Thriving Ivory and that Kid Rock song about "summer in Northern Michigan."

Just for fun, let's see what the public thinks is popular these days by checking out Vh1's Top 20 Countdown ...

20. Rihanna - Disturbia: Dear God, this song is awful and the video is downright creepy. It also seems to be the top ringtone in nail salons and malls.

19. Robin Thicke - Magic: Honestly, I don't think I know this one. I'm hoping I tuned it out. I remember his last song ... and that he is a R&B singer whose dad was on "Growing Pains."

18. Adele - Chasing Pavements: This song isn't terrible. HOWEVER, Vh1 hyped her as a "new artist" everytime they played this song and I can probably recite every word, verbatim, of her speech about London and this song.

17. Gavin Rossdale - Love Remains the Same: Actually, I like this one. I even bought it from iTunes.

16. Jennifer Hudson - Spotlight: Again, I don't think I know this specific song. I just don't like her, though. While she did a decent job in the "Sex and the City" movie, I abhor her singing.

15. Staind - Believe: I thought this band disappeared with Creed? No?

14. Little Jackie - The World Should Revolve Around Me: I can't decide if this song is catchy or if I hate it. The guy in the band is creepy looking, though. He's a little slackjawed lookin'.

13. Kid Rock - All Summer Long: Where to begin ... I hate Kid Rock, I hate Michigan, I hate that this video is filled with skanks on boats wearing Confederate flag string bikinis. This song actually has the ability to ruin my morning. I'm hoping that all the kids in Northern Michigan will stop buying it now that their summer is clearly over and it will fall off the charts. Then he can go back to doing what he does best - getting in fights in Waffle House.

12. Natasha Bedingfield - Angel: I liked her first song, way back when. Her next one aka the theme song to "The Hills" became the definition of overplayed. "Pocketful of Sunshine" drove me insane. This one, whatever. It's not as bad as her last one.

11. O.A.R. - Shattered: I was unaware that anyone other than frat boys really liked O.A.R. - but this song is also in the iTunes top 100. Shocking. It is almost as lyrically intense as "Hey Girl."

10. Pink - So What: Okay, Pink is obnoxious and also cheesy as hell. But the sentiment of the video appeals to me - basically she's just out to piss people off and some days, I can relate. Carry on.

9. 3 Doors Down - It's Not My Time: This song won't go away; I swear they've been playing it since January. The video is rather annoying, too.

8. Estelle - American Boy: Another song that I can't tell if I enjoy it or hate it. I think I was just excited when I mastered both parts of the song while sitting in traffic.

7. Lifehouse - Broken: Okay, the secret is out. I'm actually a closet Lifehouse fan. While I don't own any of their albums, I have bought a few on their songs on iTunes, this being one of them. Sadly enough, I think I heard it on "Laguna Beach" or maybe "Newport Beach." Also, Kiefer Sutherland directed this video - wonder how that came about. I just don't see them running in the same circles.

6. Jason Mraz - I'm Yours: Ah, another summertime guilty pleasure ... one of the few songs that actually makes me smile almost every time I hear it. Every other song he has ever written seems to consist of lyrics resembling "skeet bop doo wop skat" and this one keeps that babble to a minimum. Good job, Mraz.

5. Jordin Sparks - One Step at a Time: I despise Jordin Sparks' music. While I have never voted on "American Idol" (I take that back. I voted once last season AGAINST David Archuleta.), I have no idea how this girl became America's Idol with songs like these. This song is seriously one of the most irritating songs ever written. It needs to be in High School Musical or Degrassi High. That is the only place it has any hope.

4. New Kids on the Block - Single: Seriously? I wish I could explain this comeback phenomenon. I am only grateful that I was into hairbands and metal during the first coming of NKOTB.

3. Crush - David Archuleta: Speaking of the devil ... I was so grateful that this weirdo didn't win American Idol last season (although I saw a combined eight minutes of the season). This video actually makes me laugh. It shows him hanging out in a "High School Musical" esque outdoor cafeteria setting (where the athletes hang with the show choir kids) and he is the BMOC. I'm sorry to say, but I doubt anyone at his school was knocking down his door before he was on American Idol. But now, the whole world has a crush on him. Indeed.

2. Leona Lewis - Better in Time: This should be called "Better than My Last Song." I can't even remember what her debut song was, but it would get stuck in my head. Ah, yes, "Keep Bleeding." She's another "talent show" winner, except America isn't responsible for voting this one into stardom.

1. Daughtry - What About Now: This video is annoying. It's another one of those "let's inspire the masses through music video and make the world a better place" attempts. While he doesn't suck quite as much as the other Idol rejects (i.e. Archuleta, Sparks, Hudson, etc.), I can't dignify this song with a number one rating.

So what's good right now ...

Helio Sequence - Lately
The new Ben Folds album, "Way To Normal" - not his best but still fun, if you're a Ben fan
The soundtrack to "Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist", especially the We Are Scientists and Takka Takka songs
The Fratellis - Shameless (total catchy goodness)
Death Cab for Cutie - Cath ... (not new, but I love it this week

119 Cans of Red Bull

2008-10-03T15:16:00.004-04:00

Well, the good news is that it would take a lot more caffeine that I thought to put me down -- 119.44 cans of Red Bull, to be exact.

I'm recovering from mono and to be quite honest, it really sucks.

I'm probably at about 60% back to normal and I would do anything for a daily afternoon nap, a la preschool. I've been trying my hardest to be cautious with my (lack of) energy, but some weeks such as this one, I can't win.

Tuesday night was the Ben Folds concert, which was totally amazing. Going to bed after 1 a.m. and getting up at 6:30 a.m. - not so much. Wednesday was Chef Gala - also fun and also, another six hours of sleep that night. Thursday was just long, stressful and exhaustive. I felt hungover yesterday - with the added bonus of having not drank anything.

I tried to compensate this week with copious amounts of caffeine - which really didn't work. The list was long and varied: Red Bull, Coke, yellow Vitamin Water, Starbucks, Starbucks and more Starbucks. I realized that I'd had too much when I was tapping my foot repeatedly during Chef Gala registration ... and when I thought "If I drink, I'll sleep tonight." I think I learned that from watching too much "Intervention" - only I don't think they were talking about caffeine.

Guilty Pleasure #34

2008-09-30T11:58:00.003-04:00

Guilty pleasures, I have many. To name a few: television shows on the CW, Top 20 on 20 XM, Perez Hilton, iced caramel macchiatos, Sour Patch Kids ... and most recently, Missed Connections on Craigslist.

I, for many years, was a Craigslist rookie. I've never found an apartment on there, I've never (successfully) bought or sold a concert ticket from there and I've never looked for my future life partner in their Personals. I blame Jayme for introducing me to "Best of Craigslist," the section which highlights the most entertaining posts on the site, as nominated by readers. You could read this section for days and it will never get old - case in point: Seeking Adult Drunk Clown for 30th Birthday party.

My new addiction is Missed Connections. Here is the premise: you and I are riding the subway together. Perhaps we exchange some small talk; I get off at Union Square. Upon exiting, I think to myself, "I should have given him my number! I may have missed my chance." In hopes of finding said man from subway, I post a "Missed Connection" on Craigslist. Whether or not this has ever worked for anyone has yet to be seen.

Some of the posts bewilder me, like this one. Hello? Why don't you just go back, introduce yourself and ask her out. It shouldn't be that hard. Others make more sense, like this one. However, if he really did see her twice, he should have gone for it the second time. Some are truly entertaining - I love the last line in this one. Others are downright creepy (although this one is kinda funny ...)

Check it out for yourself - hey, maybe you're that girl who was in line at Whole Foods carrying the pink purse. You just never know.

5:30 a.m. on a Sunday

2008-09-28T21:07:00.005-04:00

I woke up at 5:30 this morning to run. I admit, that is not a phrase I often utter. As a matter of fact, I don't like to get up at 5:30 a.m. for pretty much anything other than vacation ... when I get to sleep on a plane.

I ran in the 7th annual Firefighter Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Run/Walk, which begins in Red Hook and commences by Ground Zero.

Here's Stephen Siller's story: On September 11, 2001 Firefighter Stephen Siller had completed his tour and was heading home to his wife and 5 young children. When Stephen heard on his scanner what had happened, he turned his vehicle around and raced back to his firehouse in Brooklyn to get his gear. When, for security reasons he was prohibited from entering the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, he got out of his vehicle, and, with his gear strapped to his back, he began his heroic run. He was last seen alive at the World Trade Center site where he and so many others gave their lives so that others might live.

To honor his memory and that of the other 342 firefighters who lost their lives on 9-11, his family started this annual run. Today, I ran the race with 16,000 people - it was astounding. The run begins in Red Hook and goes through the tunnel. Upon exiting the tunnel, firefighters hold up picture flags of all 343 fallen firefighters. It was one of the most poignant sights I have ever seen.

Waking up at 5:30 a.m. is never fun - but the run was worth every moment of it (even running most of it in the rain and being subjected to Neil Diamond's "America" more times than I can count). And for those who know me well, the scenery was quite enjoyable, too.

Do yourself a favor and participate next year. It's for a great cause and is an experience you won't ever forget.

Reading on the LIRR

2008-09-24T20:29:00.004-04:00

In the mornings I sleep to pass the ride; on the commute home, I either make the most of my Netflix membership or I read. I have been alternately reading two books that are slowly becoming more overdue by the day (an expensive proposition, as far as the Long Beach Library is concerned) - Angela's Ashes and The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, the latter of which is both physically and content heavy. I eventually stopped bringing that book to work, favoring the McCourt paperback.

The Noonday Demon is definitely an interesting book, but at times it seems to lack emotion. It is simply to easy to drown in the science and statistics - to forget that it was written by a person who suffered numerous psychological breakdowns due to crippling depression and anxiety. It is remiss of feeling.

I was flipping through New York magazine today (Wednesday's commutes are generally reserved for the crossword in the back) and I stumbled upon this beautiful piece by Elizabeth Wurtzel. While I have never read anything by David Foster Wallace, her writing painted such a real picture of his struggle with depression.

I loved this part - not only because of its sentiment, but the eloquent way in which she conveyed her memories of him and her subsequent reflections:

"Looking back, I am just so very sorry he was not less fragile and I was not less crazy. Looking back, I’m not sure which philosophy of life is more sound: the person who is full of regret, or the one who says je ne regrette rien. I am even less sure which mode of thinking finally leads one to say enough is enough, which approach is at long last more tiring.

By appearances, it would have seemed to me that David was doing great, living in Southern California, writing terrific books and pieces, recently married, teaching at a prestigious college. I am not stupid enough to believe that depression does not afflict a person whose life is good, but if he could get by in a hovel in the middle of the Midwest, surely these elements of happy life—love, sunshine, stability—had to be a plus. These things are real, genuine, the stuff depression blocks you from even getting close to."

I don't have a simple or neat way to conclude this; I don't exactly know why Wurtzel's piece struck a chord with me today, especially since I knew nothing of Wallace before this past week. There was just something about it. I hope you'll read it and see in it the beauty that I did.

"Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Cutting the cord

2008-09-23T14:26:00.004-04:00

"So I went from day to day
Though my life was in a rut
'Til I thought of what I'd say
Which connection I should cut"
- "Solsbury Hill"
Peter Gabriel

I knew all week that something had to be said, that things couldn't keep going in the direction they were headed. Confusion breeds more confusion ... eventually snowballing into complications that are difficult to back out of. I told myself that it was different - that there was more. But at the same time, I was only kidding myself. While there was indeed an undeniable connection and chemistry - all roads lead to the same place. It's a place I have been before and told myself not to go back.

It's hard to tell your mind what to do, and even harder to tell your heart what to do.

I have always had trouble removing people from my life, toxic or otherwise. It is almost harder to tell yourself to permanently let go, which infinitely keeps you from moving forward. As I convinced myself to let someone go, I had a random dream about an ex last night. While I know he is married and we have both more than definitely moved on, there was always a certain comfort in not fully letting go. I have been told that you can't move forward until you remove everyone from your past. Whether this means deleting all the numbers from your phone and taking the e-mails out of your address book or never letting a fleeting thought become more than that, I'm not sure.

Today is the day that I will let someone go because I know it's the right thing to do - for him, but more importantly for me.

Lessons Learned ... for September 12

2008-09-12T11:53:00.002-04:00

While I intended to post this yesterday, the day got away from me. However, it actually may represent the sentiment more by not being posted on September 11.

One of my favorite books is Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman. One of his essays poses an interesting question about Americans’ take on patriotism, prior to September 11 occurring. He sent an e-mail to various acquaintances and offered them a choice: if given the choice to date two equally appealing people, with one described as “very patriotic,” who would you choose? Not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of respondents viewed patriotism as a big negative. They associated it with a love for “Ted Nugent,” “Robin Williams’ movies” and a lack of intelligence. Only one person responded to the contrary – his point being that our generation is too focused on being cool, rather than being a generation that accomplishes anything worthwhile or important. In other words, patriotism isn’t viewed as “cool,” so people didn’t view it a positive attribute.

Patriotism certainly didn’t resonate with me at the time; to be honest, it just wasn’t something I thought much about. Rather it was something I took for granted. I, too, would have fallen into the first category. I can blame my years in the South for this stereotype, but the word “patriotism” automatically conjured images of fireworks shows soundtracked by Lee Greenwood and that “I’m proud to be an American” song. After 9-11, patriotism took on a whole new meaning for me.

We need to put aside our political and religious differences; we need to disregard our feelings about the war. We need to be grateful for the brave people who serve in our military, our police departments and our fire departments to protect us on a daily basis. Be as proud of your country, if not more so, than you are of your individual heritage. New Yorkers take so much staunch pride in being Irish, in being Italian, in being from New York – that we forget the big picture. Be proud that you are American and that despite all of our complaints and problems, we have it pretty good here. We have it pretty good, thanks to the people who make sacrifices for us.

While we can do our best to honor the people who chose to put their life on the line to save others on September 11, do not forget the people who signed on for nothing more than an ordinary day - businessmen, fathers, secretaries and janitors who expected nothing more than an average Tuesday. Think of the many people who left their homes without saying goodbye or “I love you” to their spouses and children. Life can be cut short in seconds; be sure to pursue what fulfills you and let people know they matter. Never leave angry; never leave without saying “I love you.”

After September 11, everyone was looking for a way to help. There weren’t enough places to keep the bottled water donations that were rolling in. Why did people stop helping? We are all guilty of falling back into normalcy. We forget how many people need our help on a daily basis. Donate money, or at the very least, give your time. Find something that matters to you and help make a difference in the world. Think of soldiers that are overseas and their families who are here in the States. Use your abundant resources to show them that they matter and you can make a small sacrifice for the one they are making for you.

September 11 is just one day out of the year. Make an effort to put aside your individual beliefs for the common good – it will make a difference. Show people why you’re proud to be an American (and not in the Lee Greenwood “I’m wearing an American flag windbreaker” way) and that we care about other people. Honor people who make sacrifices for your safety and freedom. Live your life in a way that fulfills you; you never know when it will be taken away. Show your grace by helping others who don’t have what you do. You never realize how good you have it until you see what others don’t have. Love and respect others; show your family and friends that they are important to you.

God bless America.

Long Beach Learns to Drive!

2008-09-09T12:28:00.005-04:00

I've decided that it's time for me to run for Mayor of Long Beach. I will be a one-platform candidate, and if elected, I will fully fund a program called "Long Beach Learns to Drive." Unequivocally, Long Beach has the worst drivers of anywhere in the country - if you took a random sample of ten drivers ranging from poor to downright dangerous, nine of them are piloting autos on the streets of Long Beach.

I know what you're thinking - "Absolutely not! (Fill in the blank) has the worst drivers!" And yes, terrible drivers are not unique to Long Beach. Georgia drivers were infamous for leaving half-mile gaps between cars at exits. It's the only place I've ever seen a traffic back-up caused by eight cars. Charleston drivers (mostly tourists) seem to think their cars are akin to tour buses; they will slow down to a veritable crawl to see the sights. And God forbid you get behind a car behind a horse-drawn carriage - there's no such option as passing! Massachusetts - it's no secret why people refer to its drivers as "Massholes."

Red lights and stop signs cannot be taken for granted in Long Beach; their existence does not guarantee that cars will stop at intersections. We're not even talking pause and roll - drivers blatantly plow through them. The road I live on is one-way on each side, with parking spots lining the median on both sides. If you are essentially making a left hand U-turn (visualize it as going from west to east, or opposite), you are supposed to stop at double red lights. If you get lucky, people will stop at one, but rarely both - hence, the ubiquitous "Long Beach lefts." This becomes especially annoying when you see a parking spot on the opposite side of the street - while you know you are competing against the cars going in the opposite direction, the cars behind you shouldn't be able to nab your spot. Oh, but they do. While I wait (im)patiently at the red light, someone opts to take a Long Beach left and steals the parking spot I was eyeing.

Another great thing about my street is that there is a traffic light at every block. People decide that once they hit a red light, that is a green light to use their BlackBerry, make a phone call or fix their makeup. Then, of course, the light changes and there is a five second lag. It's just enough for that person to make the light, but long enough for you to miss that light and the subsequent fifteen lights.

I've never seen a traffic jam caused by people making a left hand turn until I drove to the train station in the morning. People invent lanes, with no rhyme or reason to make a left hand turn. Once they make the left, they are either going to (a) take a sharp right down a side street to park, (b) try to pull up in front of the train station, where there appears to be no open spaces for letting someone out, or (c) turn into the right lane, as they should, to go to the train station. This should be simple enough, but it is cause for a pile-up each and every morning. "I want to make a sharp right, so I'll invent a turning lane all the way to the left!"

"Long Beach Learns to Drive" would start with the basics - green lights mean "go" and not with a five second delay. Red lights and stop signs mean "stop" and they're not optional. Blinkers are on your car for a reason - use them. "No passing" on a one-lane road does not mean "passing is okay if there is a parking spot available" and use your blinker if you're looking for a parking spot. There is no need to arbitrarily slow down to five miles an hour with no obvious intention.

Long Beach - learn to drive!

Rotated tires give you a new lease on life

2008-09-08T16:10:00.004-04:00

After numerous weeks of my dad begging me to get my tires rotated, I finally did it yesterday. Of course, I subsequently wasted half of a beautiful Sunday, without a car in Westbury.

How do you pass two hours without a car, when the only options within walking distance are the Costco your car is being held hostage at, a smallish-not-so-great mall and a Borders? I started off by returning phone calls and trying to catch up with friends who I haven't had time to talk to lately. However, the noise level in Costco quickly rendered that option as unlikely. I walked (slowly) over to The Source - but a mall is a terrible place to be when you're trying not to spend money. I started off with an inexpensive food court lunch at the Green Cactus, which passed about twenty minutes. After that, I ambled through Ann Taylor Loft, reasoning exactly why I didn't need any more cardigans for Fall. I knew better than to go in any other stores - it was time to leave the mall.

I headed back to Borders, assuming that I could find something worth reading (and not buying) to pass the next hour. I found myself sorting longingly through the required summer reading (which I certainly didn't appreciate when I was forced to read these books) and decided that I would re-read "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin. As I headed up the stairs, I passed a shelf of Oprah books and curiously picked up "The Secret."

I'm not going to say that I actually read it, but I did skim through it. Here the brief synapsis for those who are unfamiliar with it: the "Law of Attraction" principle posits that feelings and thoughts can attract events, from the workings of the cosmos to interactions among individuals in their physical, emotional, and professional affairs. While I don't disagree with this concept, (i.e. why you generate more romantic interest when you're in a relationship) parts of this book were just ridiculous. Evidently, by stressing over debt, I am breeding negative thoughts. But if I visualize wealth appearing, my mailbox will suddenly be chock-full of checks. Who is sending these checks? I can barely get my flex savings account to properly reimburse me these days.

Regardless, "reading" this book reminded me of something. Years ago, I was stuck in a rut; I was unhappy with my job and a short-lived but hopeful relationship had fallen through the cracks. One day I woke up and realized that I was tired of moping and that each day, I was going to think of three things that I was happy about. I told myself that no matter how trivial they seemed, I would find three things each day. Within weeks, my mood improved - I was focusing more on what made me happy and the optimistic parts of life, rather than the negative parts that made me feel down. I met someone new and started a new job.

While I don't believe that magical check fairies will be sending money my way, I'd like to see what happens next. Let the power of attraction begin.

Today's three:
1. It is absolutely beautiful outside today.
2. I bought a cute skirt that I am wearing today.
3. I'm not working late today and will be able to make dinner when I get home.

Give it a shot; see how it works for you.

When soul meets ... soul

2008-03-06T21:06:00.000-05:00

“A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we’re two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we’ve found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.” - Richard Bach

I was twenty-five when I met my soulmate - I didn’t realize at the time that this person was, indeed, what I would later come to view as such. We never dated, never kissed, and it’s hard to say if we even had a romantic connection. While I know that I loved him, I doubt I was in love with him. We spent countless hours together, nearly every day until I moved away and left him behind - my other half.

After spending time with him, my mom once commented that she had never met anyone so much like me ... but the funny part is, we were so different. We shared a common love of certain music, writing, and excessive introspect. Long e-mails, otherwise known as “missives” were our preferred method of communicating during those hours that we were apart. We overanalyzed everything about our friendship, our “relationship” and what it all meant - how a move in any direction could change it all, for better or for worse.

There are few people in the world that you can completely be yourself around - most of your closest friends don’t even fit the bill. He knew everything about me and learned things that I didn’t even tell him during the short time we spent together. I was always honest with him, because there were no repercussions to fear. Sometimes our honesty hurt each other. When we first met, we were both in love (more or less) with someone that we each ended a relationship with. That fragility led to a certain unspoken trust, as well as a confusion that took us months to iron out.

I always say that I strive to be the best version of myself. He saw the best in me, even when it wasn’t the part that the rest of the world saw. He always knew it was there, and reminded me when I easily forgot. We brought out the best in each other - and carried each other through the hardest of transitory times. As the quote said, while my world was crumbling around me, he made my world safe. He held me close in our paradise - a world that few outside understood.
I forget sometimes what it was like having him in my life. It often seems that although other friendships and relationships can have a “soulmate-like” feeling, I wonder if I will ever find again, what we shared. Everything changed quickly when I moved away. Our daily phone calls dwindled away; he got married and started a new life.

There are moments that remind me what having a soulmate was like - knowing that when I see a book and forget if I read it, he will know. When either of us hears “23” by Jimmy Eat World, or “Clark Gable” by The Postal Service, we’re both remembering the same thing. It’s sweet memories of watching television on the couch at the beach house, playing Scrabble on the front lawn, learning to throw a football, and most cliche, the laughter and the tears.

“Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.” - Elie Wiesel

The Hope in Impossible Dreaming

2008-01-12T00:02:00.000-05:00

"The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality." - James A. Michener

There are the impossible, unrealistic, far-reaching dreams. One such for me is to own a house overlooking the ocean, on a cliff in Laguna Beach. Nothing says that this is an impossible dream, but the likelihood of it happening is slim to none. It's so far on the "impossible" side of the continuum, that it barely crosses my mind as an eventual possibility. That, in itself, is what makes it a dream.

These types of impossible dreams are fun, as they give us something to strive for. Nonetheless, we do not find ourselves hurt, disappointed, or lacking when they are not a part of our reality.

Certain dreams are nearer to the middle of the spectrum – they are the possible ones, the ones which we can actually envision achieving. Hope further inspires us to make those dreams a reality.

Once a hopeless dream crosses the chasm to hope or even reality, it becomes harder to let go. When you thought you couldn't have it, it didn't register in reality. It was simply a dream. But when it's within possible reach, it becomes reality. You can see how fulfilled you could be and it becomes impossible to let it cross back over, thus inviting the potential for hurt, longing and loss.

Hopeless dreams give us something perfect and untouchable. Reality taints that perfection, especially when reality doesn't have space for the dream, and you have to tell yourself to let go, to put it back in the impossible dreams section. But can you do that once a dream enters the realm of reality?

"Though dreams can be deceiving, like faces are to hearts
They serve for sweet relieving, when fantasy and reality lie too far apart"
- "Slow Like Honey"
Fiona Apple

"Don't come around if you're lost
Until you consider what it will cost
You pull me then push me away
Chasing you's not any fun
Maybe I'm not what you want"
- "What You Want"
Ingram Hill

Wasting Away in Margaritaville

2008-01-07T00:01:00.000-05:00

I have somewhat successfully half-assed my way through life.

That is not to say that I haven't put forth effort in any aspects of it; just that the parts of my life that I have truly expended effort in are the less tangible ones. Really, my friendships and my relationships.

My goal in life was to exist completely stress-free ... or as close to that as possible. Basically, I wanted to live life like a Jimmy Buffett song - somewhere sunny, warm, and completely relaxed.

My senior year of high school, we had two phrases to complete, which would accompany our yearbook photo for eternity. The first began with "Dreams of", the second, "Hopes to". While some people peppered their quote with mentions of marrying his/her high school sweetheart, others had clear and solid goals. Dreams of going to med school ... hopes to become a lawyer. I remember pondering long and hard about what it was that I truly "dreamed of" and "hoped to be".

Here is what I came up with:
"Dreams of using her $4.25 an hour Pacific Sunwear salary to follow the summer like Pat and Wingnut in 'Endless Summer II.' Hopes to get an oceanfront house, married, and two kids to name Summer and Dean."

There was no career objective in there, just a desire to live the life. Live married on the beach with two towheaded surfrat kids. It sounded about as stress-free as humanly possible.

In the twelve years that have passed since I wrote that, there is a major part of me that thinks that would be a pretty damn good life. It was all I thought I needed then, and probably could pass for all that I need now. I think at that point I vaguely thought I'd be writing novels in my beachfront home - I'm not so sure. All I know is that everything that seems so paramount now was not even on the tip of my thoughts. Career. Money. Relationships. And all of the stress that accompanies those major day-to-day realities.

I wish for a day when I didn't have to worry if my job can really be a lifelong career. I wish I didn't have to choose whether I should fill my car with gas, or buy groceries. I wish I didn't worry that maybe, just maybe, I may never end up married if I don't eventually make it work with the right person. And just the same ... I may never end up with those two surfrat kids (who have been renamed over the last 12 years) if all the other pieces don't fit. Thinking about all of these "what-ifs" makes my life more stressful than it should possibly be. Who would have thought that attaining the "perfect stress-free life" I envisioned could result in so much unease?

I try to stop to focus on the smaller things. Always looking at the big picture ten steps out makes absolutely nothing seem simple. Everything just feels impossible and out of focus. Then there are the moments when nothing has actually changed, but something so amazing is happening and everything else around me seems to melt away. When I come back down to reality, the bills are still waiting and the future is still questionable ... but for that moment, someone or something made everything seem purely blissful.

"Anyway, all I'm saying is that there was this time -- maybe it was a day, maybe two days, I can't remember now -- when everything seemed to have come together. And so obviously, it was time to go and screw it all up."- Slam by Nick Hornby

Resolutions from 2000 ...

2007-12-30T23:59:00.000-05:00

I was looking through one of my old journals and found my "resolutions" for 2000, which were more or less short-term and far reaching goals. At twenty, I knew what I needed to do to make my life what it was "supposed to be". Looking back on my set of resolutions, I could definitely benefit from giving these another shot ... and also wondering what life could have been like, had I given these the effort that they deserved back then.

Here they are (were?):

I will finish this semester with high grades and graduate with over a 3.0 (Surprisingly, I did this one. Once I realized, post-freshman year, that attending class definitely helped my grades, my GPA took a turn for the better.)

I won't procrastinate on big school projects. (I doubt I accomplished this one. I could change that to "I won't procrastinate on big work projects" or "I won't procrastinate. I consider extreme procrastination one of my talents, actually.)

I will read more interesting things. (I guess I've done that. I probably should have defined the word "interesting." Something tells me that my intent here was to read more intellectual and worthy books, rather than what I generally read. I guess I can assume I did this, but it's certainly not a consistent success. Can US Weekly be considered "interesting"? Sure.)

I will learn to surf better. (Nope, never happened. I suck as much as I did back then. Maybe a year in Costa Rica would help that ... hey, you can't accomplish goals without the proper equipment.)

I will try new foods and learn to cook new things. (This was before I found out that I was allergic to 85% of foods. I did learn to cook a lot of things ... I just can't eat most of them. I would be remiss to say I'm an adventurous eater, though.)

I will be better with my money. (Yep, it was possible. I actually became considerably worse with my money. This one should actually go to the very top of the '08 resolutions. Definitely.)

I will pay all of my bills when I get them. (Pretty good with this one ... I guess after college I recognized that it wasn't really optional.)

I will keep sending out resumes and cover letters - when I graduate, I either want a good marketing job or to work in Charleston. (I actually pulled off both of these in 2001 - I had the sports marketing job of my dreams ... or so I thought ... in Charleston.)

I will eventually have a good marketing job, hopefully with a sport team or surfing company. (At that point, the dream life was to work for Quiksilver. Two years of mediocre wages and insane hours in baseball brought me back to reality on that one.)

I will write more creative writing. (Argh, this one gets me every time. It is honestly my only true "goal" in life ... yet I never focus enough to do it. Keep this one on the list.)

I will pay off a lot of my credit card debt and not get it high again. (So I didn't do this the first time around - I definitely made it much, much worse. But then I paid off most of it and I'm doing a decent job not doing it again. But again, there's always room for improvement. This one is at the top of the '08 resolutions.)

I will travel more and try different things. (The problem here is that this resolution was in direct conflict with the one above it. Oh, I traveled more. I'm great at traveling ... one of the best you'll ever meet. Unfortunately, I suck at doing it in cost-effective ways. Sadly, this one can't go on the '08 list. I'll keep the "try different things" one, but they'll have to be of the local and cheap variety.)

I will stick to my exercise program and get a flatter stomach. (Yes, I really listed this as a goal, and no, I totally didn't do it. The best exercise program I ever stuck with came in 2003 and 2004. I'll put this one back on the list, though.)

I will try to lose five pounds. (Clearly, I didn't accomplish this at that time. I did weigh like 123 when I waited tables, but that was only because I couldn't afford food and was living on Saltines, because they were the only free thing we could eat at the restaurant. I'll relist this one for '08 and put a "1" in front of that "five".)

I will swim, rollerblade, and surf more. (I just swam laps for the first time since college the other day. It's an actual realistic goal for '08. Rollerblading - did a bunch of that this summer. Surfing? I live across the street from the beach, but I'm too much of a baby to go in the cold NY ocean. I'll put that one back on the list when I move to Hawaii some day.)

I will get more definition in my arms and become stronger. (Seriously, it's no wonder I didn't accomplish these goals. I doubt I could have listed more specific things that would be easier to forget. I also must have been making this list while looking in a mirror. There is no way I could have realized all of the ways my body seemed to suck at the time otherwise.)

I will try to eat less junk food and fast food. (Almost totally gave up fast food. It really has no appeal anymore, and I think its only appeal back then was the convenience and price. Junk food ... eh ... I go through phases on that one. I think this could go on the '08 list.)

I won't go over *** pounds and will continue to eat better. (I'm totally not filling in the blank there. I'm only like five pounds over that, but clearly, if that number horrified me enough to create a resolution around it, I never anticipated this weight.)

I'll try to get past *** and not talk to him anymore. (Again, not filling in the blank, but it was an ex at the time, and clearly, this was the best resolution I could have made. We did stop talking and I think it made every day a little better at the time.)

I'll only give myself to people who want me and have time for me. (This one sounds really depressing. Geez. I think this is one for everyone, though ... there are definitely people out there who deserve you more than others.)

I won't waste my time on people who don't treat me how I deserve to be treated. (This is actually my 1 goal for 2008. It's up there with the money/credit cards thing, but for other reasons.I kind of wish I had figured out how to do this one back in 2000. Better late than never, I guess.)

I will remember what kind of person I like to be, not what kind of person I think people like me to be. (Again, this one is pretty solid. I feel bad that I made this a resolution and couldn't just accept it without trying.)

I won't leave my happiness in the hands of others - it's my responsibility. (If I had a dollar every time I tried to tell myself this, I wouldn't have to worry about how I spent my money. Put it on the '08 list.)

2008 is right around the corner ... and I'm ready for a new year. I'm not sure why the changing of one digit always makes it feel like a fresh start. My expectations for this year are high, but not unreasonable. I'm focusing on the big picture - being healthy, being happy and being the best version of myself that I can be. In doing so, I'm sure I can accomplish (most of) the minutiae I listed back in 2000.

Happy New Year to all ... cheers. I hope your 2008 is the best it can possibly be.

Finding My Happy

2007-12-13T23:58:00.000-05:00

It's snowing outside. Actually, it's not even snowing. It's some type of glorious freezing rain sleet combination that leaves the streets slippery, the air cold, and the sky a dismal shade of gray.

Needless to say, it's a stark comparison to what I left behind in Los Angeles - wearing flip flops, blue skies, sunny days and a dual feeling of calm and happy that I hadn't felt in ages.

When I moved back to New York from Charleston, I thought I would visit monthly; after all, my entire world was there. I quickly realized that as the saying goes, you can't go home. Subtle things had changed, major things had changed. And every time I visited, I felt homesick, like a piece of me still felt that I made the wrong decision.

New York feels like it will never fit, which is funny, considering I have spent more of my life here than anywhere else. I constantly feel stressed and on edge here, which I didn't feel in California.

Of course, one could argue that I was on vacation - I get that. But just the same, I felt a semblance of peace within myself that I haven't felt in ages. I felt like myself - the version of myself that isn't always bitter and stressed. The version of me that can stop to breathe, the one that wants to be out and about experiencing life ... not just watching it pass by.

I miss the sunshine and the warm(er) weather - that goes without saying. But I miss the feeling that I had there - the feeling that I had found my perfect fit and found my "happy."

"Do you believe you're missing out?
That everything good is happening somewhere else"
- "Jesus Christ"
Brand New

The Implications of Positive Memory

2007-11-18T23:57:00.000-05:00

The Pollyanna Principle - people remember positive things more readily than negative things

I first learned this in a psych class in college and it has remained in my consciousness ever since, due to its ever-prevalence in my life.

Going hand in hand with forgive and forget, the Pollyanna Principle is what allows you to selectively remember the good parts of things, and simply overlook the bad in memories. You can remember laying on the couch with him and what movie you watched, or every detail about the night when he first told you that he loved you. Five years later you will still remember what you both wore to that baseball game, but you have to stretch your memory to recall the "bad stuff."

Your brain doesn't want you thinking about how much you cried when you found out that he cheated on you, or how much it hurt when you saw him out with another girl immediately after you broke up. It's too hard for your brain to process those thoughts years later, so everything is seen through rose-colored glasses.

I worked an event yesterday at a college basketball game, and immediately felt a twinge, missing working in sports. I remembered the energy of a game-day, and having that excitement every day at work. I love my job - it is hands down the best job that I have ever had, and I do know that. But there is always a part of me that is going to remember my days in baseball through rose-colored glasses - the excitement of working opening day, and the constant energy and movement. That part of me has to struggle to remember exactly how it felt never having a day off, never having enough money to make ends meet, and always thinking that stopping to breathe would be the start of the end.

The Pollyanna Principle protects us - it allows us to more easily remember what was good about a person or a particular situation. Just the same, there is a benefit to tempering your most romanticized thoughts with a dose of reality to remember why things turned out the way they did.

24 Hours

2007-11-03T23:56:00.000-04:00

I was home sick yesterday. The majority of my day was spent either in bed or on the couch; I watched a movie and two television shows. I can't remember the last time I watched over three hours of concurrent television.

I awoke this morning to grey skies, damp cold, and wind outside my apartment that sounded like the world was ending. Part of me was determined to stay in bed, to shut out the world. After all, what is there to do on a day like today, other than to repeat the uselessness of the day before?

I got out of bed. I ate breakfast and took a shower. I was momentarily sidetracked by an absolutely horrid episode of "Beverly Hills 90210" (the early years) on Soapnet, but after fifteen minutes of humor, got my day back on track.

After months of excuses, I finally got a library card and took out four books. I took one of the books next door to Starbucks and read the first fifty pages with a venti white mocha in hand, stopping only for the occasional people watching experience. I ran errands. I went to five o'clock mass - the first time I've attended church since Easter.

I've felt very ungrounded lately, which is strange, since I've been making mostly decent decisions. Usually I recognize feeling ungrounded when I make a really off-kilter decision; but, as I said, lately I've been making mostly "ok" decisions for myself.

I took a book out of the library today that I have picked up numerous times in the bookstore, but have never bought - Saturday, by Ian McEwan. I've never read anything written by him, but always felt compelled to do so.

Saturday is a heavy read, mostly because McEwan does not write in a very plot driven fashion - he expends pages on descriptions in colorful language, which I often find myself skimming through in other books I read. It's not a book which I had difficulty putting down, but I also would be remiss to say that it's not worth reading. I get the feeling that when I finally finish it. I will view it more as an experience, than as a book that was necessarily "fun."

There were two sections that resonated with me. One reads as follows:
"On a recent Sunday evening Theo came up with an aphorism: the bigger you think, the crappier it looks. Asked to explain he said, 'When we go on about the big things, the political situation, global warming, world poverty, it all looks terrible, with nothing getting better, nothing to look forward to. But when I think small, closer in - you know, a girl I've just met, or this song we're going to do with Chas, or snowboarding next month, then it looks great. So this is going to be my motto - think small."

Another part of the book that I loved was not a section, but rather a quote - "Happiness seemed like a betrayal of principle, but happiness was unavoidable."

At times, happiness feels shallow; it lacks the depth that sadness inevitably does. Your thoughts, when happy, seem shorter and less significant. However, when you're unhappy, you tend to think more, think deeper. When you are happy, you tend to "think small," yet when you're unhappy, you see a bigger picture. More things to fear, more things to worry about, more things to generally feel unhappy about.

While I appreciate the value of deep thought, of evaluating my emotions, sometimes there is a benefit in "thinking small," and not viewing it as a betrayal of principle.

I need to find the balance between being happy and feeling grounded, to find the place where happiness and feeling strong coincide. I need to be a better version of myself, and to feel comfortable in doing so. It's easy to fall into a trap of over self-examination, to not want to get out of bed on a gray, cold, rainy day ... but there is so much of the world outside that is worth experiencing, for better or for worse.

Is it enough to be happy?

2007-09-21T23:55:00.000-04:00

In one of the six million books I have read, I remember reading a section about why you should never say that "being happy" is your goal. This resonated with me, as it is probably the number one response I would give to that question, or any other like it.

The next question is, why? Why can you not say that your goal is to be happy?

Happiness is too fluid. It's not tied to something larger. It can come and go, and the smallest of events can affect it. Happiness can be as minor as being in a good mood, or being involved with something that makes you smile. Another person can make you happy. Another person can make you unhappy.

We want a job that makes us happy. We want a lifestyle that makes us "happy." We all want life to be fun, as stress-free as possible, and ultimately, happy.

I worked from home today, which is quite possibly my favorite type of schedule. I was able to sleep in, and still started my work day earlier than I normally do. I went for a two and a half mile run on the beach this morning, and captured the essence of an absolutely heavenly day, weatherwise. It's Friday, and that needs no explanation for adding to my happiness. I have some fun weekend plans with friends, and I get to spend Monday working at a golf tournament. I drove with the windows down and the roof open today. Life feels good; life is "happy."

But I'm not fulfilled.

That's where difference lies. You can be extremely happy, but know that ultimately, something major is missing and your life is lacking fulfillment at that time. Fulfillment comes in many forms. While I can say that my job is theoretically "fulfilling," it doesn't always go hand in hand with my being happy.

Fulfillment often indicates a purpose; you feel purposeful in your actions and therefore, generally feel happy. Fulfillment is more solid than happiness, less likely to sway with the events of the day.

I can't knock being happy. There are many days that I can't come up with legitimate reasons to be happy. I can think of reasons to be grateful, but gratefulness doesn't have to translate to happiness. And sadly, happiness isn't as good when it's not tempered with fulfillment.

There's something to be said for wanting it all. I suppose that's why we have goals, and a better goal is to be fulfilled, than just happy.

The Onset of Fall

2007-09-16T23:54:00.000-04:00

I discovered this morning that the world actually happens before 9 a.m. on the weekend. I cannot remember the last time I was actually up, moving, and out of the house before 9 in the morning on a Sunday. My first realization when I walked out of my apartment was wow, it's cold. Fall is almost officially here, and I'm definitely not ready for it.

I'm not going to lie - looking out the window, it's a perfectly beautiful day. I should go for a run, or at the very least, throw on a sweatshirt and sit on the beach. I have my windows open, but still, watching the blue sky and feeling the air from indoors shouldn't be enough.

I miss fall in Charleston. Fall in Charleston is mostly days like today. I am defiant against appreciating Fall in New York, because winter has a tendency to sneak up out of nowhere. Once that happens, it's nothing but wearing too many layers of clothes and counting the weeks until I can take vacations elsewhere.

I spend at least eight months of the year waiting for summer here.

It's been an odd couple of weeks in my world...life has been turning upside down on an almost daily basis. Some days, the upside down is a good thing. It's an unexpected surprise, something that makes me happy. Those are the days that I go into work the next morning with a smile on my face, and nothing can bother me. Then there are the days that my world turns over again, and everything feels a little more empty.

Is it worth it to have that transient kind of sudden happiness? The fleeting kind that can and will disappear as soon as you blink? Or not...

This week, I'm voting "not."

"Do you lie awake and wonder why?
Is it always the same thing or is this just a new dream that's keeping you up at night"
- "First Week"
Graham Colton Band

Three more for the list

2007-07-23T23:54:00.000-04:00

While I will not reiterate my "people should have to take a class to use an umbrella in the City" rant, I will add another casualty to the list. I was walking under a scaffold this morning behind this roughly five foot tall garden gnome of a man. The elf in question was carrying an umbrella suitable only for shielding Diddy, or for professional golf. Clearly, neither reason fit his "needs" and he was walking aimlessly with it. He did not realize that the umbrella was, indeed, wider than the passage he was walking through. He managed to stop short, get stuck, and cause me to be impaled by the person behind me. Awesome.

Enough of the umbrella jackasses...we move on. Babytalk in public places. I was two seats away from a girl who spoke babytalk to her boyfriend, almost the whole way home...yes, almost an hour. "Yes, this is your IPod. Do you want your IPod, sweetie?" It was in this grating, nauseating babytalk voice that made me want to assail her with someone's umbrella.

Last but not least, people who live in apartments should not cook food that will cause entire floors to smell. Especially when the smell can not be identified as a food, or even a cuisine, but rather as a "what the hell is that awful smell?!"

I think it's time to call it a day...

An exercise in futility...

2007-07-16T23:53:00.000-04:00

So I could be doing my dishes. I could be unpacking. I could be straightening up my apartment, or getting the mountain of sand off my floor. After all, there is nothing quite like getting out of the shower and then tracking sand off your living room floor to work on the bottoms of your feet.

But guess what? I'm not.

I'm notorious among my friends for liking guys that I shouldn't. Simply put, I am a magnet for all of the people I shouldn't be. I love to torture myself by falling for guys that are totally not right for me.

Now I've done something even worse. I've fallen for someone who is already spoken for by someone else. Coincidentally, I don't know this someone else, but I know that I shouldn't like him, simply because of her existence. Not for any other reason than the fact that he belongs to someone else. I've never been someone who believes in cheating, and I wouldn't want it to go in that direction...but just the same, I wish I could wake up tomorrow and the world would be a different place.

Jayme said it best the other night - "I'm going to give you advice that I know you won't take." I like to learn things the hard way. For some reason, falling on my face is the only way to make lessons resonate in my head.

It's been said before - we don't choose who we fall for. It is so hard to find someone that you truly click with, who always makes you smile...and it's even harder when that someone belongs to someone else.

Things I love about this week

2007-07-07T23:52:00.000-04:00

- Heat waves...90+ degree days like today
- Falling asleep in the sun on the beach
- Drinking Coronas outside
- Rollerblading every day when I get home from work
- Grilling out
- Having internet at home again (and now, DVR on my TV)
- Happy Hour almost every day this week...
- My new apartment is almost completely unpacked/set-up and it's sweeeeet

I'm completely enchanted by the simple things this week....I so love the summertime :)

Good ol' iGoogle

2007-07-03T23:51:00.000-04:00

"Sometimes reality has a way of sneaking up and biting us in the ass. And when the dam bursts, all you can do is swim. The world of pretend is a cage, not a cocoon. We can only lie to ourselves for so long. We are tired, we are scared, denying it doesn't change the truth. Sooner or later we have to put aside our denial and face the world. Head on, guns blazing. De Nile. It's not just a river in Egypt, it's a freakin' ocean. So how do you keep from drowning in it?"

I have a personalized Google homepage, and one of the features on it is a rotating movie/television quote. This would be more interesting, if it didn't constantly rotate the same five movies/shows. It's a small miracle if I now did not know every line from "Napoleon Dynamite", "Rocky", and most recently, "Grey's Anatomy."

The quote above just showed up on my screen - it's from "Grey's Anatomy." I've never really watched the show, but I loved that quote. Everyone knows the power of denial - allowing yourself to believe that something is totally different than you know it is, in reality. And, as the quote says, reality always manages to explode when you are least ready for it. You protect yourself from facing something that you know will eventually hurt so bad...but does the time you waste denying it actually make it hurt any less? Or does it really hurt more?

Of procrastination and astrology

2007-06-24T23:51:00.000-04:00

I credit JR's roommate Ben with one of my favorite quotes, "Procrastination is a lot like masturbation, because in the end you're only fuc*ing yourself."

I am an absolute master at procrastination. I can focus on a task for thirty minutes, tops, before

I find something else that can successfully distract me. It seems like I have been packing for my move for, oh, forever now. I've also concluded that I will have to take a day off from work this week to finish. Oh well.

I actually made significant progress on the packing front today, so I'm not going to totally berate myself. Yet...if I procrastinated less over the last few weekends, I could actually be done. Que sera sera.

Over the last month, I started reading my horoscope online. I don't know why; maybe because it shows up on Google and that's my home page. And although Chris said that you can interpret it to fit anything, it seems as though they have been eerily accurate as of late. Nothing like knowing what your day has in store by reading a few vague lines each morning.

Friday was a bizarre day for me...it's kept me thinking, more than I should. I suppose that is how you react to something completely unexpected happening. Just the same, most of me knows that it's not worth ruminating about. Not everything has actual meaning behind it - sometimes it's all just about a few bottles of wine and some good conversation.

The weekend was quiet - good times with family, and way too much packing. I can't believe tomorrow is Monday already...where does the time off go?

But yeah, my head is full of random odds and ends. It's impossible to quiet my head when so much is going on. But I need to tell myself to quiet the thoughts I don't need to think about. I need to not focus on what isn't going to happen, but rather on what is happening.

Here's to another interesting week...

What we call managing expectations...

2007-06-17T23:50:00.000-04:00

One of my all-time favorite movies is "Say Anything". In this movie, John Cusack has many great lines, but one in particular that often sums up life.

"You probably got it all figured out, Corey. If you start out depressed everything's kind of a pleasant surprise"

I try not to be cynical, to be more of an optimist. But how do you decide what you should truly have faith in, and who you can actually believe in?

The shortfallings of blind faith come in letting someone make everything seem better, knowing that s/he can just as quickly take all of it away. Part of you (maybe even most of you) knows how much pain that certain person can cause you, but just the same, the little moments always seem to count - maybe even more than they should.

Managing expectations - learning not to expect anything from people, and allowing yourself to be surprised. Always better than expecting people to rise above your expectations, and being disappointed.

Dear Creepy Morning Makeout Couple

2007-06-13T23:49:00.000-04:00

On the rare days that my train is on time, I arrive in Penn Station at 8:23 a.m. Regardless, I am generally there by 9 a.m. I also should point out that I sleep on the train, so I'm not all that alert when I am getting off the train. Until my Starbucks is in hand, I'm in my own world, surrounded by whatever music is playing on my iPod.

I recently noticed this couple that takes the same train as me. I don't think they sit in the same car that I do, but then again, I sleep. Aside from the guy who sits next to me, gross snoring man who sits behind us, and the lady I refer to as "Spanish Si Lady" (she speaks Spanish on her cell phone, yet all you ever hear is very loud "Si! Si!"), I couldn't tell you who ten people in my train car are.

Anyhow, this couple gets off the train and stands to the side of the stairs on the platform and they literally swallow each other. This isn't a sweet kiss goodbye; it's straight up "let's get it on". They have their hands seriously all over each other, and this morning, he smacked her on the ass.

Does anyone really need to see this at 8:30 in the morning? What do they do on the train? I'm actually curious. The only reasonable explanation I have is that they're having an affair.

Otherwise, I just don't get it.

It's pretty gross, though.

Rainy Days and Mondays

2007-06-04T23:48:00.000-04:00

...always get me down.

I'm so tired from the weekend, even more tired than when I legitimately go out. It's dark, rainy, and cold outside, the kind of weather where you would rather stay curled up in bed watching reruns of "Dawson's Creek" on television.

I sent in the application for my new apartment today - I'm so excited. I can't wait to spend the entire summer on the beach...provided the weather doesn't stay like this. Sweaters in June = wrong.

Brad's fiancee just sent me a link to their wedding website - I'm glad that this is happening a good two and a half years after I moved back to NY. Time sometimes makes all the difference in the world.

A Tribute to a Hero

2007-06-01T23:45:00.001-04:00

Another person has died in Iraq.

His name is Matt Baylis, he was days from his 21st birthday, and he used to live two doors away from me. While I never knew him well, he was the younger brother of one of my brother's close friends. My brother saw him grow up, join the military, and go on to serve in Iraq.

My dad once told me that one of the hardest things about growing up is accepting that you will know more people who will pass away. The unfortunate fact is that while this is true, I find myself knowing a disproportionate number of people who die in senseless and tragic ways, rather than naturally.

Matt Baylis will be another name in the list of over 3,400 soldiers that have died in Iraq. When I was taking my quasi-grad classes, a professor used to post the list (I believe from the NY Times) of military people that lost their lives in Iraq. The visual effect was shocking.

Every day, we read another article proclaiming that nine people died in Iraq, five people were in a helicopter crash - people become statistics. We forget that these are individual people, who left behind families and friends, to serve as heroes and protect our safety. In today's world, we forget who heroes really are.

We just celebrated Memorial Day, which most of us view as another three day weekend. I spent it with one of my closest friends, whose husband passed away in a tragic helicopter crash just a few years ago. I read an article the other day, which reminded me that Memorial Day shouldn't be just one day - it isn't just a three day weekend, or a day for big sales. We need to better honor those who put their lives on the line for us, like Matt Baylis, for our freedom and well-being.

He was a true hero, and will always be remembered. Rest in peace, Matt.

And a forever tribute to another true hero, Lt. Pete Ober, who I miss more every single day.

Learning the hardest lessons

2007-05-29T23:44:00.000-04:00

"Hope is tomorrow's veneer over today's disappointment." - Evan Esar

People can be disappointing. It's as simple as that. If there is one lesson I should learn, it is that. I put too much faith in people that are undeserving.

I don't put enough trust in my instincts. I give people second chances who possibly never deserved a first chance. I forgive and forget much easier than I should.

Heartbreak sucks, but letting someone do it more than once is even worse. Once is enough.

Some people aren't worth your tears; some people aren't worth your time. Remembering who is truly important and who deserves you is not always as easy as it sounds.

Feeling sorry for yourself is a tiring act. Listening to depressing music only leaves you feeling worse. Especially when you know that things can (and will) be so much better in time.

Bill summed it up best this morning, when he gave me my new mantra for the week - "Well, if that's the best you could do, then your best sucks!"

Amen to that.

Desiderata

2007-05-24T23:40:00.000-04:00

I found this poem yesterday and fell in love with it.

"Desiderata", by Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantmentit is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Aside from the last stanza (? it's been too long since I studied poetry, because I mostly hate poetry), my favorite part is "And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should." Although this sentiment is expressed to me almost daily, it is sometimes hard to believe. It often seems as though life is moving in the wrong direction, and the sequence of events add up to nothing good. Having faith that there is a plan behind it that I cannot see gives me comfort to wait out the rough patches.

Life has been kinda confusing lately, and I've been discouraged at times. But when it comes down to it, it's a beautiful life, and a beautiful world.

Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

And a great weekend this shall be...

Just for today

2007-05-22T23:39:00.000-04:00

I used to be a dedicted journal writer - I penned my thoughts almost every day, starting during my freshman year of college. I'm not entirely sure why I stopped that ritual - it seemed that when my life was quiet (the times when I was settled), that I didn't have much to write about. My thoughts quieted, and I didn't feel the need to write to sort them out or clear my mind.

Looking back on these journals, I sometimes smile at what tragedy was rocking my world at seventeen, or what guy was breaking my heart at nineteen. While I can see countless ways in which I have grown, there are still a great many entries that could be written today and read the same.

In addition to what I wrote, I always pasted my concert ticket stubs in my journals, and I often clipped articles or other things that I read. If something impacted me enough to read it more than once, it had a place in my journal.

I woke up this morning and realized again, that I need to look at each day as one day, each hour as one hour. Life becomes overwhelming when you look at the big picture all the time. While it is necessary to have goals and far-reaching dreams, the individual steps that you take to get there are just as important, if not more important.

Thinking of this reminded me of something I clipped long ago. Ironically, it is from one of the advice columns (which I never read), and I think it is based on 12 step programs (like AA).

Here it is:

JUST FOR TODAY: I will live through this day only. I will not brood about yesterday or obsess about tomorrow. I will not set far-reaching goals or try to overcome all of my problems at once.
I know that I can do something for 24 hours that would overwhelm me if I had to keep it up for a lifetime.

JUST FOR TODAY: I will be happy. I will not dwell on thoughts that depress me. If my mind fills with clouds, I will chase them away and fill it with sunshine.

JUST FOR TODAY: I will accept what is. I will face reality. I will correct those things I can correct, and accept those I cannot.

JUST FOR TODAY: I will improve my mind. I will read something that requires effort, thought and concentration. I will not be a mental loafer.

JUST FOR TODAY: I will make a conscious effort to be agreeable. I will be kind and courteous to those who cross my path, and I'll not speak ill of others. I will improve my appearance, speak softly, and not interrupt when someone else is talking. Just for today: I will refrain from improving anybody but myself.

JUST FOR TODAY: I will do something positive to improve my health. If I'm a smoker, I'll quit. If I am overweight, I will eat healthfully — if only just for today. And not only that, I will get off the couch and take a brisk walk, even if it's only around the block.

JUST FOR TODAY: I will gather the courage to do what is right and take responsibility for my own actions.

Today I will focus on what is happening at this moment in time, and not worry about tomorrow or the next day. I won't dwell on the future that scares me, or the things that bring me down. I will focus only on what is present, important, and makes me happy. I will deal with things as they come, rather than anticipating what's next.

It's a beautiful sunny day here in New York. I walked down the stairs of the subway this morning and got the B train within minutes (a true rarity). I've got my Starbucks and a muffin (since I ate four french fries for dinner last night). I'm going to see the Jesus and Mary Chain tonight at Webster Hall. Aside from the minor hangover I am sporting right now, I feel confident that it can be a good day.

Just for today - I will live through this day only.

Today I am grateful for.

2007-05-19T08:54:00.000-04:00

..the "back" button on my cell phone.

Never text absentmindedly.

I can text better than anyone when I'm drinking. As a matter of fact, my ability to text while drinking seems to increase exponentially with the amount I drink (similar to my ability to dance, play darts, and shoot pool).

Yet I attempt to text sober today and almost send a message to the completely wrong person.

Lesson learned: when texting one person about someone else, don't send the text to the person you are talking about.

God bless the "back" button which saved me at the very last second

Overheard in New York

2007-05-18T23:38:00.000-04:00

There is a website I used to enjoy reading, but rarely read anymore, Overheard in New York.

The site basically repeats snippets of completely absurd conversations, overheard in the streets of the City. Here is a gem from today:

Why They Don't Run FEMA Anymore
Bimbette #1: Wait, but, like... What state is Louisiana in, again?Bimbette #2: I don't know. Like, Arkansas?--56th & Madison

This morning, I honestly felt like submitting a few of my own. I have mentioned it before, and will say it again - I despise tourists. There is some definite irony in that, having grown up in New York (tourist central) and then living in Charleston (dependent on tourists to survive).

However, I think my living situations only escalated my disdain for them.

There is one Starbucks in Penn Station. Once you exit Penn Station, there is one every corner; but in Penn, there is just one. Needless to say the line is usually pretty long during rush hour in the morning. There were two Amtrak employees on line in front of me this morning. The woman, with her giant mountain of curly hair (clipped into poufy bow) turned to the man and drawled in her high pitch voice, "Back hoooome at Myrtle Beach, we've got a donut shop on every corner. You don't wait on no lines like these!" Okay. One, this isn't a donut shop. It's Starbucks. There are about 15 Dunkin Donuts in Penn, if you want a donut shop. There's also a Wings every corner in Myrtle Beach, and it's still trendy to wear that bow in your hair there, too.

Then, I was on the elevator in my building this morning listening to two guys who work for one of the Time Inc. entities on the ninth floor. They were discussing a new employee, who one guy said was his friend from college. The conversation went something like this:

Guy #1: So what do you think of the new guy?
Guy #2: Oh, he's my friend from school. I got him the job, even though we were in a hiring freeze. He had like five interviews, though.
Guy #1: Five interviews, huh. He must have interviewed with some pretty important people, like my dad, to get hired during a freeze.

Good to know nepotism is still alive and well in America.

The Fear You Won't Fall

2007-05-17T23:36:00.002-04:00

I gravitate to certain types of music depending on the mood I am in. My state of mind seems to dictate what gets played on my IPod while I am walking to work, trying to tune out the world around me. When I am happy and life feels full of joy and promise, I tend to enjoy upbeat music - cheesy top 40, 80's music, bad pop. On the other hand, when I'm feeling down, my playlists can't include enough Damien Rice, Chris Isaak, and Elliott Smith.

Last night, while looking through ITunes for some new music, I stumbled upon the Joshua Radin song "The Fear You Won't Fall" and everything fell into place. I downloaded the entire album - it's beautiful. The downside is that after listening to all thirteen songs this morning on my way to work, I was in no mood to start my day on a bright note.

I am pure melancholy.

This is an album, much like "Forever Blue" by Chris Isaak that is written for the other half of a failed relationship, the person who left and took your heart with him (or her). Every song has the same message, little hope, and even less happiness.

The lyrics are beautiful, though.

I desperately need to snap out of the funk I'm in lately. There is much to look forward to in the near future, and I need to focus on that, rather than the negativity that is muddying my thoughts and overtaking my mindset.

No more Joshua Radin for today.

"Digging a hole and the walls are caving in
Behind me air's getting thin but I'm trying I'm breathing in
Come find me
It hasn't felt like this before
It hasn't felt like home before you
And I know it's easy to say but it's harder to feel
This way
And I miss you more than I should
Than I thought
I could
Can't get my mind off of you
I know you're scared that
I'll soon be over it
That's part of it all
Part of the beauty of falling in love with you is the fear you won't fall
It hasn't felt like this before
It hasn't felt like home before you
And I know it's easy to say but it's harder to feel
This way
And I miss you more than I should than I thought I could
Can't get my mind off of you
And I hate the phone
But I wish you'd cal
lThought being alone
Was better than was better than
And I know it's easy to say but it's harder to feel this way
And I miss you more than I should
Than I thought I could
Can't get my mind off of you"
- "The Fear You Won't Fall"
Joshua Radin

Of Security Deposits and Wedding Bells

2007-05-14T14:16:00.000-04:00

I spent a portion of the weekend looking at apartments, for my grand upcoming July 1 move. While I know that I want to live at the beach, my idea has been met with resistance by many, including my brother, who thinks I should live in Queens. His take is that Long Beach is simply filled with "just out of college kids and everyone from Long Island that we hate."

Regardless, over the next month, I need to find a suitable apartment within my means (easier said than done), pack all of my stuff, and put down the requisite first month - last month - security. Not to mention application fees, broker fees, etc. I miss the simplicity of apartment hunting in other states.

I miss my apartment in Charleston, that at its highest cost, was $665 a month. My apartment that was ten minutes to the beach and five minutes to downtown, in a complex with two pools, sand volleyball, tennis courts, basketball courts, and a hot tub. Now, it is a treat to get a dishwasher in a $1400/month apartment that is the size of my old screenporch.

Needless to say, the initial investment is quite large. While paying month to month rent will put a significant dent in the way I like to live, it's certainly feasible. I asked my mom if I could take money from a CD account that I have, a small inheritance that has gone untouched. She had no problem with this, as long as I left enough money in there to keep the account open. I questioned if my dad would have any objection.

She paused.

"Well, he said that he hoped you would keep that money for a wedding one day. That maybe he could loan you the money."

I didn't even know how to reply. Umm...a wedding. When am I having this wedding that I should be keeping this money aside for? Does having money put aside for a wedding sound a little creepy in this day and age? Just curious.

I think next time I am getting serious with someone, I'll throw out that card. "Guess what, I've got an inheritance account that can cover our wedding!"

Yeah.

So yesterday my brother was home and we were in the car together for about ten minutes (when he offered his "opinions" about where I should move). I told him what our dad had said about saving the money for a wedding, expecting that he would agree with me, that it was an insane concept.

His reply?

"Does he realize that wouldn't even cover 10% of a shit wedding nowadays?"

I'm still really not sure what the most disturbing part of this whole "how to spend the money" conversation was.

Always Wanting

2007-05-09T23:33:00.000-04:00

5. Be more and have more

At the core, all of the above ideas can be summed up in a single method: simply convince yourself that you need more than you have at any given moment, and you will be able to maintain a steady feeling of anxiety throughout the day. This can be a feeling of needing to become more than you already are, or needing to have more than you have now (which are actually one and the same), and can be felt more generally as a perpetual sense of lack.

Brad sent me a link to this blog a few months back, which is entitled "5 Ideas for Stressful Living". Although it is intended as a tongue-in-cheek look at the way we intentionally make our lives stressful, I sadly realized that it mirrors the manner in which I live, more than it ought to.

I would be remiss if I said that the statement I posted above is the only one that I saw myself in. Rather, this statement was what really drove the point home, "One of the more absurd aspects of the ego is that it conditions you to actively seek negative results. It makes you think that what you want is peace, when its secret pleasure is always in conflict and negativity."

When do you ever feel that what you have is "enough"?

I can have an entirely "okay" day - in other words, the majority of things go right. But there's something missing, and the entire shift in balance leaves me lacking.

Yesterday was one of those days. In most terms, it was a decent day. Nothing actually bad happened, yet nothing remarkably good happened. And the one thing that could have made it feel like a "good" day didn't happen. In other words, I was (a) wanting more, (b) trying to control my world, and (c) trying to control the actions of another person. Three simple things that add so much more stress to my world.

As funny as that blog sounds when you read it, the reality of it all is less humorous. I think that I take steps to make my life less stressful, when in reality, my actions only make it more so.

I need to stop thinking that I'm on the brink of making my life better, and learn to live in the now. I need to learn to appreciate the one sunny, eighty degree day, rather than being discouraged when the ten day forecast shows nine days of rain following.

It is much more difficult to enjoy the present when you are always thinking that something equal or greater must follow. I need to stop always wanting more.

"Believe me that you're standing on the edge of something good.
And it's the hardest thing you ever had to do.
Truth be told you're begging on your knees
Singing please don't let it, please don't let it be."
- "Please Don't Let It Be
"The Alternate Routes

Today's horoscope

2007-05-04T17:17:00.000-04:00

I love my customized Google page - it has ESPN headlines, People.com headlines, "actual news" headlines, and my daily horoscope (among other things).

Here is my horoscope for today: You may be uneasy and restless now, although normally you can make the best of any situation. Today, however, you can get lost in dreams of your future, even if these fantasies are not supported by the present circumstances. Give yourself permission to explore all possibilities, but don't confuse your ideas with reality.

Pretty interesting, huh. That sounds about right for me...

So I'm glad that I'm not nearly as sick as I was at the beginning of the week. I'm glad that it's Friday. I'm glad that tonight is Happy Hour and tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo. My local minor league baseball team starts their season tonight. Life is pretty good on my end.

I just got a ticket to see one of the few bands that I love, but have never seen in concert, The Jesus and Mary Chain. I just signed up to play kickball again, on Monday nights in Riverside Park. I'm going to Virginia for a weekend in just two weeks.

I've got restless spring energy. I can't wait to go rollerblading, play golf at Robert Moses, lay out for hours on end, and go in the ocean. I can't wait to drink Coronas on the beach at sunset.

I'm so excited that summer is on its way.

Fleeting happiness

2007-04-23T18:22:00.000-04:00

Between Saturday and yesterday, I spent a cool six hours in the Baltimore airport on layovers, which gave me more than enough time to watch a movie, read a book and then ponder until I fell asleep on my flight.

I just finished watching the movie, "The Freedom Writers" and then bought the book in the airport Borders - pretty interesting movie and book, even though the movie is a bit "MTV" at times (they produced it). Primarily, the movie appealed to me for the same reasons that "Coach Carter" did - one of my deepest desires has always been to really change someone's life in a positive way. Seeing movies, or reading stories about people who impact others in a positive and dramatic way always inspires me, but also forces me to look for meaning in all that I do.

As a writer, the topics written about by the students amazed me. While their stories were compelling, their writing style was really impressive for students that supposedly were "nothing" in the system. While you got a good feel for their writing in the movie, the book is the actual writing - and it shows so much more.

There is a part in the book, where the teacher shows them a poem that someone wrote. The person who wrote it attended college with her, and drowned in the San Francisco Bay shortly after writing it. More or less, it focused on the present and the future. After reading the poem, the teacher posed this question to the students - "'If you could live an eternity and not change a thing or exist for the blink of an eye and alter everything, what would you choose?"

We experience days, weeks, months, and even years where it seems that nothing is right. If we could change this, have that, everything would be better. Then, we experience that one fleeting moment where everything is perfect - the moment in time that you wish you could freeze. Yet nothing major has changed; your life simply handed you the moment you had been waiting for.
I'm coming off of a weekend that I could describe as perfect. While I was nothing but happy for a few days, coming back to reality hits that much harder. And the changes that would have to be made to make this more than just a fleeting moment, aren't likely or reasonable right now.

I wonder what it would be like to feel content - to not have the fleeting moments of extreme happiness, but rather a comfortable feeling of contentment. Would that be better that having those moments that leave you wanting more?

The Beauty in Leaving

2007-04-09T20:32:00.001-04:00

"She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes"
- "Wide Open Spaces"
Dixie Chicks

I know there is a word for it, yet I don't know what it is. It's actually probably not a word, per se, but a psychological term or syndrome. Whatever it is – I have it and I'm feeling it.

From the time I was seventeen years old, I've moved as many times as I could count on both hands. The irony is this is that I never moved as a child – until seventeen, I was pretty stationary. I would be lying if I didn't spend the majority of those years counting the minutes until I could get out and start a new life for myself. I fancied escapism since the age I knew it was a viable option.

I wanted to go to college in California or Hawaii, as far away and as divergent from Long Island as humanly possible. My parents rejected that idea outright, and I soon discovered that Georgia was about as far away as they would let me go. Needless to say, reality did not meet up to my ideals and by the end of my first trimester I was ready to leave, to try something new. To be honest, if I hadn't met my college boyfriend at the beginning of my sophomore year, I doubt I would have stayed.

I insisted that I wouldn't return to New York after graduation, and I did, due to lack of opportunity elsewhere. I spent eight months living at home, working in the City, and going out every night in an effort to escape my dissatisfaction with the life I had.

The first opportunity to move again, I took. I packed my belongings and relocated to Charleston. With my dream career on deck and the promise of a bright future, everything was supposed to change. I tried every possible combination over the next few years: coupled, single, career-type job, waiting tables – yet nothing seemed to totally click. I would lie if I said I wasn't comfortable in Charleston; the job situation simply made it impossible to stay there.

So I moved back to New York, once again in search of opportunities and more room to make ever greater mistakes.

I have that feeling again; the feeling that if I don't make a change soon, it will become impossible for me to exist in my own world. Yet I know that it is the wrong time for me to leave – that moving and starting over would only present bigger problems.

Each day I feel as though I lose more of my faith, in things and people. It gets harder to look forward to the possibility that things can change. I feel like I am becoming more jaded, more cynical, and completely negative. It just feels impossible to be optimistic – to believe amongst all the chaos and bullshit that something real does exist.

I'm tired of being disappointed by people that I wrongly put faith in, trusted, or gave credit to. I'm over being hopeful about things that may never happen. It seems like the perfect time to pick up and go, to get away from all of the negativity that surrounds me and the people I need to get away from.

But does it ever really change anything?

"Some things you have to learn them all on your own
You can't rely on anybody else
Or the point of view of a source unknown
If it feels good and sounds nice
Then it's your choice
don't doubt yourself
Don't even think twice
Pull the hair back from your eyes
Let the people see your pretty face
You know they like it when you smile
Find a reason to smile
Try not to focus on yourself
Share that love with someone else
Don't let the bitters bring you down"
- "Sooner or Later"
Michael Tolcher

It Is What It Is

2007-04-02T17:03:00.000-04:00

My friend Joe and I were joking on the way home today about that phrase - "It is what it is." Basically, that needs to become my life's motto - I need to learn to let go of some things (namely what I cannot control) and accept that things "are what they are."

All day long, I have felt more stressed than I have in ages. It just seems like when your work life is making you crazy, if your personal life is reasonably calm, it doesn't seem as bad. And likewise. But when both are out of sync, the result is feeling like your head is going to explode.
That's exactly how I have felt all day today, like my head is going to explode.
I am notoriously a poor relaxer, when it comes to achieving balance. I relax well only when I have nothing else to think about (i.e. on vacation). When I attempt to relax otherwise, I pretty much fail miserably.

I want to quiet my head, to tell myself that most of what is causing me to stress so much is transient - that it will all pass. I try to tell myself that in the grand scheme of things, most of what is bothering me doesn't matter. Finally, I try to tell myself, "it is what it is" - in other words, it sucks that things aren't going right, but I have no power to change most of it.
I need to learn to compartmentalize - to reserve my stress for the things that matter (a.k.a the things worth stressing over) and for the things that I can control. I need to stop focusing on trying to figure out people that I don't understand. I need to trust my instincts more than I generally do.

I just hate feeling "off"...it's one of the worst feelings in the world.

A Lot Like Love

2007-03-27T18:19:00.000-04:00

I love Netflix – it is one of my favorite things. Last week, in a failed effort to entertain myself while commuting, I discovered "Movie Notes", a feature on Netflix which allows you to send your friends remarks about the movies they rate. When I first went on the page, it showed "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", which Jayme rated 5 stars. I posted her a movie note, stating "Eternal piece of garbage." Needless to say, this inspired her ire. Within minutes, I received numerous "Movie Notes" from her, my personal favorite which read. "You've got to be fucking kidding me. This movie was awesome. How could your taste in music be so good and your taste in movies so bad?"

I confess – my taste in movies is often, at best, shameful. The movies I favor can generally be described as insipid, predictable, and generic. Knowing this, you will forgive me for watching (and somewhat enjoying) the movie I am about to reference.

A year or so ago, I stumbled upon "A Lot Like Love", which stars (I use that term loosely) Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet. From memory, they are college students who meet on a cross-country flight. They immediately sense a "connection" and share an amazing day together. Amanda Peet plays the role of the flighty girl – she has no definite plans and likes to live life as it happens. Ashton Kutcher, on the other hand, has every minute of his life planned out. He is going to graduate college, start a company, make millions, purchase a house, and then, get married. In that order. He is so confident in this plan that he gives her his parents' phone number and encourages her to call them in seven years, when all of this will be accomplished.
One can guess – life throws him a curveball. As he starts to accomplish these milestones, she comes back into the picture and he refuses to find a place for her. After all, the girlfriend marriage thing is the last factor in his equation. Until the other steps are complete, there's no sense in even trying.

Slowly, his world starts to crumble. His Internet start up goes bottoms-up, he has to sell his place and ends up moving home with his parents. In other words, life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.

In my younger years, I was the biggest planner. I attempted to break my entire future into specific parameters, arbitrary deadlines, and little black and white boxes that everything was expected to fit into. I was to be married at 24, have my first kid at 26 and my second at 28. Now that I am knocking on 28's proverbial door, with no husband and no kids, I realize that this goal should probably be adjusted. In reality, when I look back on my 24th year, it was better spent that way, than if I had been married. I had no idea when I formulated that milestone, what 24 would really be like.

We all have plans; we all have goals. If we didn't, there would be no reason to get out of bed each day. But what we're often guilty of, is not being flexible enough. Much like the doomed Ashton Kutcher character in "A Lot Like Love", we think that life has a definite path – that B must follow A, and must also precede C. That if life doesn't happen in this fashion, that the outcome will surely be lessened. In other words, if we meet someone when we don't plan to, that our other life plans will suffer. In reality, this is hardly the case – we're often slow to realize that a slight shift in expectations and plans can often result in an even better future than we anticipated.

I have spent many periods of my life, telling myself things like, "This isn't the time for me to be in a relationship, I need to be single." Or "This is the time that I need to focus on work and not be distracted by other things." But life doesn't wait for you – it happens when it wants to. And when all is said and done, it is up to you to have your eyes open to opportunities and possibilities, and not to let them pass you by because it simply wasn't the day you expected them to come.

What are the odds?

2007-03-22T17:36:00.000-04:00

I am a magnet for the uncanny, although I wish it would impact my life in other ways, such as winning the lottery. If I was to think of specific instances where my life seemed to defy the odds of actuality, I could probably create a small list. Certain experiences stand out more than others, of course. One such being years ago when I ran into my ex and his new girlfriend in the supermarket, when I foolishly opted to leave my apartment in the rain, after cleaning all day. Needless to say, I'm sure I made quite a lasting impression. At the time, I thought to myself, "What are the odds?" Of all the supermarkets in town, of all of the days, of all the exact times to crave brownies badly enough to leave my apartment looking the way I did.

When I moved back to New York, Brad and I drove my car; my parents drove the moving truck. Brad and I were almost out of town when my parents called to let us know they were stopping for bagels, the bagel store being next to my apartment complex. We turned the car around, entered the bagel store, just in time to see same ex with girlfriend (by then fiancee') on line. It was almost as if the scenario had been prearranged, just to see one last time the life I knew I was leaving behind, moving ahead from. Again, what were the odds?

I met a guy last month, on Ash Wednesday in a random church on Park Avenue. I was sick, looking possibly as awful as could be, and I chose a seat next to him. The Mass took place on a warm day (well, warm for NYC) and they had the doors open. Not only was the lunchtime Mass exceedingly crowded, but the doors being open did nothing to aid in hearing the words of the Mass. Eventually, I turned to him to see if he could hear anything, or if I was simply deaf that day. He couldn't either. The entire Mass was an entertaining circus; people bumrushed the altar to get their ashes and Communion, there was no music, and you couldn't hear a word they said. We started talking, and exchanged information for a future-to-be-determined-date...possibly for lunch.

While we have talked online for the past handful of weeks, we have never met up. Our schedules have constantly clashed, I went on vacation, he works long hours.

I exited my train this morning in Penn Station, and headed to Starbucks to get my coffee. Yes, I'm extremely ritualistic. Now as a journalist by nature, I wish I had a statistic to back this next point up. I'm going to have to guess "millions" of people walk through Penn Station each day. You rarely see the same faces twice (except for the select homeless who are always in the same spot at the same time of day, every day). In walking to Starbucks, I looked up and there he was, walking in the opposite direction. We exchanged surprised glances, he ended up treating me to coffee, and we walked to work together.

What are the odds?

"Serendipity. It's such a nice sounding word for what it means: a fortunate accident."

Resonation

2007-03-19T05:23:00.002-04:00

Bittersweet: both pleasant and painful or regretful

I awoke this morning to a feeling of bewilderment - mostly due to the fact that I am basically running on empty as of late. My sleep and awake times are all over the place, with no rhyme or reason determining either. I have been travelling constantly, with little time to spend on the little things that make your day run smoothly. I am tired of cold weather, tired of snow; I lost my gloves before I left for Arizona and haven't found five minutes since to look for them.

It's been a complicated week, at least in my own mind. My mind has been battling both my heart and my conscience on a number of issues, and coming to no strong conclusions. The hectic nature of my world has made it difficult to focus on being where I should be in my life right now. I've been making decisions that I'm not sure of lately, acting in a way that isn't consistent with what I really want.

Brad told me last night that he is getting married. I know that I am happy for him, and a year ago, this news would have definitely been harder to accept. While I know that I am grateful to see him happy, it still leaves me feeling contemplative about my own world - my past, my present, my future. Something about other people's lives moving forward always makes me question my own direction.

There is an unavoidable feeling that follows anticipation - I am in that place right now. Vacation is over, my weekend is over...both events I had been anticipating for quite some time. My next weeks appear to be full of stress, with little specifics to look forward to. I miss waking up each day, knowing that something worth waiting for is on the horizon.

I want to be happy, to remove the parts of my life that are causing my mind to feel uneasy. I want to feel energized and excited, optimistic and hopeful. I want to feel confident in my decisions, and both safe and comfortable in my relationships. I want something to look forward to in my world that isn't fleeting.

"Life and love and why
Child, adult, then die
All of your hoping
And all of your searching
For what?
Ask me for what am I living
Or what gives me strength
That I'm willing to die for

Take away from me
This monstrosity
'Cause my futile thinking's
Not gonna solve nothing tonight
Ask me for what am I living
Or what gives me strength
That I'm willing to die for

Could it be this
Could this be bliss
Could it be all that I ever had missed
Could it be true
Can life be new
And can I be used
Can I be used

Give me a reason
For life and for death
A reason for drowning
While I hold my breath
Something to laugh at
A reason to cry
With everyone hopeless
And hoping for something
To hope for
Yeah, with something to hope for"

- "Life And Love And Why"
Switchfoot

Lent and such

2007-02-21T07:00:00.000-05:00

I am more than aware that it is Ash Wednesday. At 12:05, I will attend mass at some random church near my office. It's even on my Outlook calendar.

While I have planned this aspect for over a week, I have not come to a solid conclusion as to what I should give up this year.

I honestly can't remember a time when I succeeded 100% in my Lenten resolutions. I think that goes hand in hand with the fact that I often totally and completely lack willpower.

The problem isn't coming up with something to give up - there are a number of things I could give up. The issue is that I can rationalize not giving any of them up. Does that make me selfish?

Many/most years, my birthday falls during Lent. Spring break fell during Lent every year. St. Patrick's Day falls during Lent this year. I am going on vacation in ten days, clearly during the parameters of Lent.

For that reason, I can't give up drinking. I mean, I could, but I really don't want to. This should make me feel a little guilty.

I thought for a moment that I could give up wine, but that seems like kind of a cop-out, if I am still drinking beer, as I drink wine much less frequently.

I thought about giving up Starbucks, but I already had it today and that's my morning ritual - I'm a little too inflexible to make that change for 40 days - although, I would save roughly $200. Now that's depressing.

I could still give up coffee/espresso drinks (I had cider this morning at Starbucks), but then I'm out my morning caffeine. I'm not so sure I could live until 10 a.m. without it.

The year before last, I tried to sacrifice Red Bull. Again, my afternoons were spent in a cranky haze.

I suppose my realization is this - I'm being far too self centered and totally missing the point - sacrifice isn't supposed to be easy. I'm just feeling kind of unwilling to try.

There are plenty of things in this world I should give up; after all, we all have our vices, most which we wouldn't admit in a church atmosphere anyhow.

So do I take the plunge and give something up that will truly require sacrifice, take it day by day, and just see how I do? Or do I take the cop-out route and choose something that I won't truly miss?

Instinct and premonition

2007-02-11T18:37:00.000-05:00

I walk to work the exact same way every day; not that there are a real variety of ways I could go, but I always take the same street to my office. In doing so, I cross four avenues.

Each morning when I am waiting to cross a certain one, I get a weird feeling that I have never have before. I feel like if I was ever going to get hit by a car, this is where it's going to happen. The stranger part is that I never think this crossing it the opposite way - only heading East. There's no logic behind this thought - it's just one of those strange premonitions we all have that we can't explain.

I am mildly superstitious. I honestly believe that if bad things are going to occur in my life, it will happen on the 28th. I came up with that one after a number of bad experiences seemed to occur on the 28ths of months. Now, unfortunately, as that date approaches each month, I await what will happen and breath a sigh of relief if it passes quietly.

I also have a bad luck song - sometime way back in the throes of adolscent turmoil, I must have been listening to "Ten", too much, as "Black" by Pearl Jam became my bad luck song. Without fail, if I hear that song on the radio, something is bound to go wrong. It's just a matter of waiting to see what it will be.

I pay so much attention to these strange superstitions and premonitions, that I often neglect logic. In telling Jayme my freak premonition that hits every morning crossing Greeley Square, she remarked, "Why don't you take a different path?"

It seems so simple, so logical. But it's so hard to reprogram how we think and what we choose to do.

Your instincts are usually right - that nagging feeling you can't quite explain that tells you something is wrong. You're in the wrong place, you're doing the wrong thing, you're making the wrong decision. Yet why is it so easy to overlook that "gut feeling"?

Not only is it difficult to make changes in a lifestyle that we're used to, there is a certain degree of uncertainly that follows. We do things all the time that we know aren't right for us; yet making the decision to stop is so much harder.

I've been plagued as of late with these thoughts, these uncertaintanties. But even worse, they're not unexplainable like the Greeley Square thing. They're logical...completely logical. Yet I find it impossible to change my ways. Either I'm too stupid...or not brave enough. I haven't decided which one - because neither sounds really good, does it?

A Book You Should Read

2007-02-08T17:45:00.001-05:00

I am somewhat religious; I am somewhat spiritual. I am a total sucker for self-help books, although I never follow their advice.

Years ago, while poring through the books in Urban Outfitters, I stumbled upon a treasure in their collection - a little bright orange book entitled - "How to Be Happy, dammit" (subtitle: a cynic's guide to spiritual happiness).

I bought it because I found the title funny and I liked the layout of the book - it's colorful, pop-arty, and a quick read. It soon became one of my favorite books, and honestly, is one of the best roadmaps for life. I try to read it every few months, but generally find that I read it when I am down, feeling like the answers just aren't there.

Here are some of my favorite parts:
You always have a choice of emotional responses to life.

Happiness is not about what happens to you, but how you choose to respond to what happens.

You must always leave hope that all has happened for good cause.

Never go shopping for kiwis in a shoe store. Some people just don't what you need. So why waste time, banging on their doors, ringing their bells, demanding service?

If you keep doing what you've always been doing, then you'll keep getting what you've always been getting.

Your faith determines your destiny. So you must make sure that your faith remains stronger than your mood.

When you let go of unnecessary attachments, you pick up speed in heading toward your true goals.

Letting go and climbing up to higher life levels, means building new emotional muscles. And just like with all muscle growth, you will always feel the pain before you see the growth.

Love is what you're always looking for in all the things you're looking for.

Some days really suck. That goes without saying. Today in particular was one of those days, when it felt like the whole world was coming down on me. I drudged through the whole day, waiting for it to end.

Then I remembered something important - I have control over that. I just need to wake up and believe that the choices I am making are the best ones (even when they hurt like hell or really seem to suck) and that I am choosing happiness...at least for that moment.

Tomorrow will be a better day.

Lucky you

2007-01-31T16:56:00.001-05:00

"You coulda made a safer bet
but what you break is what you get
you wake up in the bed you make
I think you made a big mistake."
- "Lucky You"
The National

Sadly, admittedly, my favorite TV show is "One Tree Hill". This could be for a number of reasons - one, I watch very little television. Two, I am notorious for getting sucked into insidious teen dramas. Three, there is always amazing music on this show. Four, they start and/or end the show with literary quotes, which I am a total geek for loving.

The quote on my page today is from an episode way back one - probably season one - really insignificant to my point, either way.

T.H. White said: Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically to those who hardly think about us in return.

In the episode prior to that, there is a great dialogue exchange. One character questions, "How did we get so broken?" And the other replies, "We fell in love, and at some point, the people we love forgot to love us back."

(No, I don't remember this all offhand, it is catalogued online) :)

Why is it that the people we try the hardest for, the ones we give our hearts to without even thinking are generally the ones who don't stop to recognize this?

And in some cases, it's (thankfully) not even our hearts - it is our efforts, our time, our confidence and our souls. The intangibles in life.

Either way, it's sad and it sucks.

Wondering...

2007-01-24T19:21:00.000-05:00

What the fuck am I thinking?

I have a total need to escape reality lately.

Thinking that things that bother me will go away if I don't think about them

The easiest place to go is always the one place I don't belong

And I know better

Reality resonates but doesn't click

Some things in life aren't worth fighting for

Some things should come easier

Some things should be more fun

Every once in awhile, someone should meet your expectations.

Other Side of the World

2007-01-21T09:28:00.002-05:00

"The fire fades away
Most of everyday
Is full of tired excuses
But it's to hard to say
I wish it were simple
But we give up easily
You're close enough to see that
You're the other side of the world to me"
- "Other Side of the World"
KT Tunstall

I know life isn't supposed to be easy. I understand the whole concept of "for there to be compassion, there has to be suffering"; I also get that life's rewards are more meaningful when they come after effort and difficulty. I recognize, most of all, that we are responsible for our own decisions.

Some days I think that the world is a decent place - that people are basically good, and that it all seems worthwhile. These are the days that I find hope in the unknown, believing that something amazing can and will happen.

Other days, I find are full of tired excuses. Things don't change, people aren't what you hope or expect they can be. Life feels worn.

It's not necessarily that anything has changed - some days just feel better than others. It's so simple to give up - to believe that you will never have the future you dreamed of, never find the love you deserve, never accomplish all that you hoped to.

Why is it so much easier to put that fire out, than to try to keep it kindling?

"But you are what you love
And not what loves you back
So I guess that's why you keep calling me back
I'm fraudulent, a thief at best
A coward who paints a bullshit canvas
Things that will never happen to me
But at arms length, it's Tim who said I'm good at it, I've mastered it
Avoiding, avoiding everything"
- "You Are What You Love"
Jenny Lewis

Think Again

2007-01-15T15:34:00.001-05:00

"Think again
Don't give in
This isn't what you want "
- "Think Again"
Teddy Thompson

The people who I admire most are the ones who know who they are and what they stand for. They are the people who know what they believe in, what they want out of life, and what they deserve. They are the people who do not compromise themselves out of weakness or to fit a particular situation.

Most of us know what we want from life - from our jobs, our friends, and our relationships. Yet it's so easy to find yourself involved in something that is in direct conflict with what you know, deep down inside, you believe in.

We all know (in theory) what we stand for. It's so easy to tell someone what you believe it, what's important to you. Yet it's equally as easy, if not easier, to sacrifice that.
It seems like life is okay when it's fun and things are "going well". But one hard look at reality paints a different picture. It's fun because it's easy...and it doesn't match the person you truly are. Sometimes it's just easier to go along with it, than to think about who you really are, what you stand for, and what it all means.

I wish I wasn't that person, sometimes.

"This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose"
- "This is Your Life"
Switchfoot