bird by bird

Just watch.

The first semester of grad school that I also taught Composition 101 to college freshmen, I reached an unprecedented level of stress and anxiety. Not only was I having to BS in courses like my Medieval Lit Seminar and schmooze with professors in campus hallways, but I also had to pretend I knew what the EFF I was doing as an instructor. "Use you resources" was the phrase I used with 90% of my students' questions, hoping that I would not be their resource of choice. Then after 12-14 hours of class, office hours, studying, and lecturing, I would go back to my shared rental home, drag myself up the steep stairs, and turn on the shower to as hot as it would go. I would press play on my iPod and for the next nine minutes and 58 seconds, the length of Neil Young's song "Natural Beauty ," I would, for the first time all day, relax. All of the pretending and pretentiousness would vanish. The grammar rules and literary theory, analysis and academia would slough off o

Some days are Sundays when I'm a hermit in leggings and an over-sized sweatshirt. Various cups of half drank tea are scattered throughout my bedroom. Thick socks, too. I nap and laze and think and write and watch episodes of any television drama in between. At 9:00 at night I realize that the only verbal communication I had all day was with the check-out lady at Target. I said to her, "Thank you." This Sunday was one of those days. I smell like Vicks and have no regrets. Today was perfect.

..and it makes me miss jorts.

"Your experiences change you, your personality, your expectations, your beliefs, your desires. This is self-evident, but not at the moment when you're working late at a job you should have outgrown years ago, or crying unexpectedly in public, or listening to your ex-boyfriend say he's marrying someone else. At that moment you're just wondering what happened to the person who used to have your name and how you can be that person, how to get back that freedom, or innocence, or whatever significance that old body contained for you. She's gone for good, that girl, the girl who could give herself completely to a person or an idea, who believed she could handle anything and plunged forward into the unknown as easily and thoughtlessly as she tied her shoes." From the book: Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York

So, the preview of the third season of HBO's GIRLS is out, and obviously I've watched it over 43 times. I've missed my girls and their ability to make me feel better (and sometimes worse) about my current twenty-something, urban-dwelling mess of a life. It looks like Hannah is making some breakthroughs this season; let's hope I do too.

You know that Vince Vaughn/Reece Witherspoon movie Four Christmas, in which they try to spend the holiday with each of their divorced families? Well, my Thanksgiving is kind of like that. Except, I'm not married, or visiting families split by a divorce, and it's not Christmas. Basically the only similarity is that this year I celebrated Four Thanksgivings. And none of them were with my actual family! Let me explain... Thanksgiving #1--Technically dubbed "Friendsgiving," my roommates and their gang celebrate a pre-Thanksgiving every year at someone's apartment with a family sized make-shift table, a professional camera and tripod, and a theme. This year, my roommates and I housed the denim-themed soiree. I played the background music, the L sisters provided table clothes and fresh flowers, and guests brought a dish to share, and wine, so much wine. Before eating, as per tradition, we went around the table and said what we were each thankful for. Then we cleared t

I'm currently reading Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York. Don't get any ideas; I'm not leaving any time soon, but I recently read a review of this book, and what interested me so much about it was that each essay tells the story of someone like me who came to New York City, and who, like me, eventually left. Everyone knows the "coming to NYC" story but I feel like the "leaving NYC" story is one that is rarely told. Moving here is such a decisive event, a declaration like pioneers claiming their territory by driving a stake in the ground like the last scene of Far and Away. But leaving is more vague, less defined. "It's easy to see the beginnings of things and harder to see the ends," says Joan Didion. And I think she's right. I'll share some of my favorite quotes from various essays in the book, because if you didn't already know this about me, I often prefer pieces of things to them as whole. Finding

Because it's pie-making season, and I can't stop listening to Lissie!!! Skip the first minute, and cherish 3:30 because it will make you close your eyes it's so good. I promise. "You can cry, or die, or just make pies all day"

“Caddy got the box and set it on the floor and opened it. It was full of stars. When I was still, they were still. When I moved, they glinted and sparkled. I hushed.” ― William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

To the woman reading this right now, probably sitting in her bed holding up printed pages of my blog even though she has both a laptop and an iPad in her school bag. She's reading through cheap reading glasses with her legs straight out in front of her, crossed, rubbing her feet together. She's probably wearing a red bathrobe, and her lap is being kneaded and walked on by two brother cats named Simon and Garfunkel who never seem to leave her alone. She pretends it annoys her, but she secretly loves the company. She has the 10:00 local news on the TV, and there is probably a pile of unmarked 1st grade worksheets stacked next to her on the bed. She's probably laughing at how accurate this scene is: the robe, the cats, the stack of worksheets. There's a chance she may be smile-crying, too. She's reading my blog (in paper form) and she's missing me, but what she doesn't know is that I'm writing for her. And I'm missing her. And I'm in NYC probably si

Of all the poems in the whole, wide world, this one remains my favorite. W HEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;   When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;   When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;   When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,   How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;          5 Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,   In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,   Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.       --WW

What a metaphor for relationships... AMIRIGHT?! You're just bumbling around, slightly out of control, looking for someone to grab onto, to be steady. There's a lot of bumps and whiplash at first, and it is scary as all hell. Just when you think you're going to float off into space all alone forever, someone holds out their hand and says, "I've got you." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >

I work at a hospital, but it's different from most. In most hospitals, breaks are braced and babies are born. Medications are given that make people feel better , and surgeries to remove things like tonsils and appendixes are routine and generally non-evasive. Patients are admitted with serious injuries and illnesses too, and sometimes those people die, but every day people are also born. My hospital is different from those hospitals; mine is a cancer hospital. No one walks into this hospital after injuries related to game-winning slide into first place or a sunset motorcycle ride turned accident. Patients walk into the doors of this hospital because one morning in the shower they noticed a strange bump, or while walking their dog one night, they felt a sharp pain in a strange area. Then they come here to detect what has been undetected. Often the treatment itself makes them feel worse; it makes them weak, nauseous, bald. Non-essential organs are removed, but so are essential one

In a city of 8 million strangers, you would be shocked at how many of them I see on an almost daily basis during my commute to work, yet I never know their names, where they come from, or where they're going. Almost every single day, I wait on the Clinton-Washington subway platform with a French family consisting of a slender, bearded father, a willowy mother with hair that is tangled in a beautiful french way, and two little girls with buckle shoes and pink backpacks. Their father carries their scooters, one pink and one purple, in one arm, and their violins are strapped across his back. They stay on the train when I get off at the Fulton stop. Between the second and third flights of stairs that I climb during my first subway transfer to the 4/5 train, I walk past a woman standing by a railing shouting at the top of her Caribean accented voice about Jesus, his coming, and what's going to happen to all of us when He comes. It is not good. She hands out peices of paper, and

A good friend of mine, Wade Addison, is turning 25 next month and instead of having a birthday party or accepting gifts, he started a fundraising goal to make $25,000 in 25 days (subsequently making us all look like big assholes on our birthdays... I kid!). The money is going toward The Trevor Project, a nonprofit organization created to stop suicide amongst gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth, and Wade's project is called 25forTrevor (25forTrevor.com). He, along with another good friend (and photographer/videographer) Taylor Ballantyne, made this amazing video to support the cause! I still cringe at all my speaking parts (and the unfortunate state of my bangs), but  it's worth taking a look at. Feel free to share, tweet, re-post, or donate.  Just no making fun of my bangs, please. 

Sometimes I feel a little ridiculous that I'm a 27-year-old babysitter. Many of my 27-year-old friends in the Midwest HIRE babysitters on Saturday nights, and I still AM one! But then I remember where they are and where I am. And I also remember that I make $20 an hour babysitting, and I usually still go out afterward... so, then I don't feel so pathetic. The money is great, but the truth is (and don't tell anyone), I really like babysitting because it makes me feel like I'm a part of a family; it reminds me of home. It's hard to explain, but since moving to the city, I find something so comforting about being in a home, a real home with carpet and a landline and marks on a wall showing how much the kids have all grown in the last 9 years. Homes that are decorated for holidays with drawings on the fridge and concerts, games, and playdates marked on the family calendar. It helps that a lot of the families I babysit for also make me feel like a member of their famil

   

Things by Lisel Mueller What happened is, we grew lonely living among the things, so we gave the clock a face, the chair a back, the table four stout legs which will never suffer fatigue. We fitted our shoes with tongues as smooth as our own and hung tongues inside bells so we could listen to their emotional language, and because we loved graceful profiles the pitcher received a lip, the bottle a long, slender neck. Even what was beyond us was recast in our image; we gave the country a heart, the storm an eye, the cave a mouth so we could pass into safety.

A bird ballet from Neels CASTILLON on Vimeo .

This is from a blog post from a massage therapist in Portland I stumbled upon a few weeks ago and remembered today. I think it's such a real, raw, authentic look at the human body and a refreshing appreciation for the fact that we are all flawed. Or actually, maybe not flawed at all. " Women have cellulite, men have silly buttocks. I’ve been a massage therapist for many years, now. I know what people look like. People have been undressing for me for a long time. I know what you look like: a glance at you, and I can picture pretty well what you’d look like on my table.  Let’s start here with what nobody looks like: nobody looks like the people in magazines or movies. Not even models. Nobody. Lean people have a kind of rawboned, unfinished look about them that is very appealing. But they don’t have plump round breasts and plump round asses. You have plump round breasts and a plump round ass, you have a plump round belly and plump round thighs as well. That’s how it

Last night I babysit an 8-year-old girl with pink glasses and mermaid hair. We held hands as we walked uptown to pick up a pizza for dinner, and I asked her what she was going to be for Halloween. "A police girl," she said, "with magic handcuffs. So I can arrest my daddy." "What will you arrest him for?" I asked. "What's the crime?" "For being the best daddy in the world," she said. "And I'll handcuff him so he can never leave me." Then she added: "Until I'm a grown up; then I'll set him free." And that was that. There we were: two daddy's girls walking on Broadway, one with magical handcuffs and the other whose daddy had been set free.

Seriously, I do the same thing with my neck when listening on my walk to work in the AM. That beat is so rad.

When my South Dakota life and my big city life intersect, I feel more like a whole person. I'm a person whose past, present, and future aren't entirely different novels, but instead chapters of one story with reoccurring characters and relationships. This weekend I felt this way when five college friends came to town to see the city and, in between their sight-seeing and city-touring, little 'ol me. I got to be a version of myself that I hadn't seen in a while. She's fun. I missed her.  Their visit included a lot of what my every day life here involves: spending too much money on food and spending too much time waiting for the subway. But we also got to spend time together, and that's something I don't get every day. On Saturday we visited the 9/11 Memorial, and then we toured the downtown parks: Riverside, Battery, Washington Square. I revealed the great irony that all my favorite places in New York City are the places that remind me most of South Dakot

Friday Night Gallery Opening I'm legitimately proud of this.  Girl after my own heart

Some days are good days. You wake up two minutes before your alarm goes off, and pop out of bed knowing exactly what you'll wear that day. Someone brings bagels into the office. You get praised for your work. You and your boss laugh behind a computer monitor until your sides hurt, and your trains all come on time on your way home. You find a piece of forgotten dark chocolate in the back of your cupboard after dinner. You get a letter in the mail--a real letter, and while grocery shopping, you notice that heirloom tomatoes are on sale. You crawl into freshly washed sheets at the end of the day and fall asleep smiling, thinking, "I am so lucky." And then there are days when all of those same things happen, but you don't notice because you're too busy concentrating on one little bad thing, and you miss out on all the good things. You focus on that email that no one replied to or that favor that no one thanked you for, and you don't realize all the sweet little

This is why I'm never cutting my hair.

“She was smart and terribly determined, this girl-her will was pure steel, through and through-but she was as human as anyone else. She was lonely, too. Lonely in a way that perhaps only single girls fresh from small Midwestern towns know. Homesickness is not always a vague, nostalgic, almost beautiful emotion, although that is somehow the way we always seem to picture it in our mind. It can be a terribly keen blade, not just a sickness in metaphor but in fact as well. It can change the way one looks at the world; the faces one sees in the street look not just indifferent but ugly....perhaps even malignant. Homesickness is a real sickness- the ache of the uprooted plant.” ― Stephen King, The Breathing Method

I wait for the train. I wait for the elevator. I wait for the light to turn green. And each waiting minute floats off into the sky like a birthday balloon gone rogue, never to return. I wish I could grab those minutes with my hands, or pick them carefully off of the sidewalk, and put them securely in my back pocket. I wish I could take those waiting minutes home where I would keep them sealed tightly in a bell jar. Then, preferably on Sunday afternoons after I have bought groceries for the week and put away my clean laundry, I wish that I could open up that jar and let those waiting minutes free. I wish I could look over my shoulder at my alarm clock and see the time go backward, the way that that scoreboards do, when something has happened in the game that's not fair. Waiting minutes aren't fair, and they can't be collected or stored in bell jars. But I really, really wish they could.

[Written in June, posted in August. Thought about all the time] I'm riding my bike on a Sunday night between two blond, free-spirited and open-hearted Brooklyn babes with an iPhone sitting in my bike basket blaring this song as we ride through Brooklyn. We are riding toward the Manhattan skyline with a pink sky illuminating in the background, and SS says the thing my dad always said about this kind of sky: "Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning." I smile. I feel home. I'm in the front seat of LS's red Pontiac Grand Prix with my outdated iPod in hand playing all of our old favorite jams. We are driving though new, yet familiar streets of Kansas City toward a beautiful Catholic church for a beautiful Catholic wedding. Though our seat belts restrict our dancing, our voices are loud and free and slightly off key. Drives and jams were always our thing. I feel home. I'm unpacking my suitcase on a Sunday night and picking

Last night I had a dream that I was riding a bicycle that was meant for two people, but I was riding it alone. It was made of steel and it was so cumbersome and unsteady and so, so hard to ride. The handlebars were too far away and my knees hit the metal basket when I tried to peddle. For a brief second, I dream-thought, "If only I had a partner to ride this bike with, it wouldn't be so hard," but then I immediately dream-realized that having a partner wouldn't solve the problem. The bike wasn't hard to ride because I was riding it alone; it was just a hard bike to ride. I realized that I feel that same way about living in New York.

I love Beyonce. I love this song and that I was re-introduced to it during the BEST work out class this week. I also love Grace Potter. I basically love everything about this video except the stupid Starburst graphic splashed across the bottom. Ignore that. Love the rest.

When I left South Dakota for New York City almost three years ago, I left behind two cats, a packed closet in my mom's basement, and almost every single person I have ever loved. I also left behind Sport, my Jeep Liberty. If things could be best friends, Sport was one of mine. I'm not a car person at all , and Sport was nothing to brag about when making small talk with people at the gas pump. She was a gas guzzler, and she had a crappy CD player that fell out when I hit bumps too hard. But she was mine, and she came into my life at a time when life wasn't feeling particularly kind. Suddenly there was this vehicle in my driveway calling me to drag myself out of bed and into the driver's seat. I could lock the doors and drive as fast as I wanted in whatever direction I wanted to go, and I could sing at the top of my lungs, or wail at the top of my lungs, or both. And I did a lot of both those first 6 months with Sport. Our first winter together was especially cold an

I recently became OBSESSED with the show Orange is the New Black on Netflix, and I watched the whole season in record time. Even though it made me feel uncomfortable on so many levels (as was, I'm sure the point), it was written in a way that was brilliant, honest, subtle, funny, in-your-face, and just so complex. Color is such a theme of the show, but really it revealed how much grey there is in the justice system/life. Really powerful stuff.  I saw the following scene in the second to last episode, and though I can't really explain why, it resonated with me so much. It's a conversation between two inmates, one (Crazy Eyes) who, though semi-mentally unstable, had genuine feelings for the other inmate (Chapman) who did not reciprocate those feelings. They come into contact while both mopping the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. I love this scene and have never identified more with a daft, African American, lesbian inmate in a women's correctional facility.

I hope that I can explain this properly... My friend LJ was recently a bridesmaid in a wedding in California, and she and one of the groomsmen really hit it off. The groomsman had a girlfriend at the time, and he lived on the opposite side of the country as LJ, so their wedding time together was both platonic and short-lived. After the wedding, the groomsman broke up with his girlfriend, and he told a friend of his (the groom) that even though he knew a future with LJ wasn't in the cards, meeting her had made him realize what kind of person he really wanted to be with. Like, he hadn't known that a person with all the qualities he wanted really existed, and then there LJ was, just being her amazing self, and he had this grand realization that the kind of person he is looking for actually exists. Ah-ha! I loved when LJ told me this story (and in such a humble, 'here's what we can take from this' kind of way) because I totally have had that same experience. Thou

And then suddenly, without willing it, he was thinking about Martha. The stresses and fractures, the quick collapse, the two of them buried alive under all that weight. Dense, crushing love. Kneeling, watching the hole, he tried to concentrate on Lee Strunk and the war, all the dangers, but his love was too much for him, he felt paralyzed, he wanted to sleep inside her lungs and breathe her blood and be smothered. He wanted her to be a virgin and not a virgin, all at once. He wanted to know her. Intimate secrets: Why poetry? Why so sad? Why that grayness in her eyes? Why so alone? Not lonely, just alone-- riding her bike across campus or sitting off by herself in the cafeteria--even dancing, she danced alone--and it was the aloneness that filled him with love. He remembered telling her that one evening. How she nodded and looked away. And how, later, when he kissed her, she received the kiss without returning it, her eyes wide open, not afraid, not a virgin's eyes, just flat and un

George Saunders gave the graduation speech at Syracuse University this year, and the New York Times recently published it. They read part of it at my hipster church on Sunday, and then I stumbled upon the exact same excerpt on a blog a friend just shared with me. I think it's fate, and now I'm sharing it with you: "Now, one useful thing you can do with an old person, in addition to borrowing money from them, or asking them to do one of their old-time “dances,” so you can watch, while laughing, is ask: “Looking back, what do you regret?” And they’ll tell you.... Here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it: What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded…sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly. Or, to look at it from the other end of the telescope: Who, in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable

This is a few days late, but here's a video I made for the 1 year anniversary of the day I lost my dad. July 21st, 2008 was a very bad day, but every July 21st since has been sunny and comforting and all a part of the ever-healing process.  It's true, you know: Everything will be alright.

It was a good nine weeks, Alice . You carried my cheap champagne in your basket, got me to and from babysitting jobs in record speed, and made me feel like a real Brooklyn badass.. But now some MEANIE has clipped your lock and stolen you from my block and my heart. Transportation will never be the same without you, sweet girl, and I'll always treasure the colorful language shouted to us by passersby.  I still think they were all just jealous. RIP Alice. It's going to be hard to move on without you. Literally. I'll have to walk now.

I can't really focus today because a really sad thing happened to a family I really love. It's the kind of news that makes me feel ashamed at how annoyed I get at small things like crowded subway trains and dog pee on the sidewalk. I'm ashamed at how much attention I give to what I am sure are early onset wrinkles and the occasional grey hair. I'm ashamed that I get so anxious about what to wear before going to a party or how many calories are in the muffins at work. All of this piddly little insignificant stuff takes up space in my head and my heart and then one day I get a phone call that someone is missing, and then he's just gone. Where there were once concerns about calories and wrinkles and dog pee, my whole heart and mind are now consumed by a hurt that is big and love that is even bigger.

Being broke in Brooklyn was Romantic for a while, like a rite of passage that every 20-something needs to experience before they become rich and successful. My first night in Harlem, my roommate EH and I ate Chinese take-out on the floor and slept on stacks of towels. I love that memory because it sounds like such an adventure. Like camping! But now, I'm ready for that part of the adventure to be over. Now, the charm of scraping together rent and ordering the cheapest thing on the menu is so not charming anymore. I want money in my savings account, and I want a steak. STAT. I'm 26 years old; I should be able to pay for the name brand Cherrios, goddamnit, but I don't think you truly understand how thrifty I am. I am far from my days as a college student, yet I still get care packages mailed from my mom, and I still pay for my groceries using multiple forms of payment so I don't overdraft. Sometimes, I still overdraft. I do everything I can think of to cut corners and sav

“Amelie has no boyfriend. She’s tried once or twice, but the results were a letdown. Instead, she cultivates a taste for small pleasures: dipping her hand into sacks of grain, cracking creme brulee with a teaspoon, and skipping stones at St. Martin’s canal.”

I am a biker now. Or rather, I now own a bike.   I have quickly realized that these two statements are not synonymous. Just because you buy a bike, ride that bike, wear your bike helmet, and lock your bike outside your Brooklyn apartment at night, this does not actually mean you are a biker. To be a real, full-fledged Brooklyn biker, you have to know all the tricks like how to fold your pant legs so they don't get caught in the chain and how to skirt in and out of moving traffic going both directions; you also sort of have to be an asshole. I have yet to master all of those skills. Instead, I'm wobbly when I start out on my bike, and whenever I slow down, and also when I stop. I'm basically wobbly the whole time I'm on the damn thing. I lack confidence and speed, and I'm a hazard to drivers, pedestrians, and myself. I don't have a bell or bike lights or a firm understanding of basic bike traffic laws. Yet, I bought a bike and Imma gonna ride it!  

The gang and I are going on a wine tasting tour in Long Island tomorrow!! While I'm pretty sure I won't get to stop in a giant tub of grapes like Lucy, you can bet that I'll be enjoying the fermented fruit in my own way (even though I'm pretty sure I'm allergic to wine...). If you follow me on Instagram, I apologize in advance for inundating you with filtered pics of this adventure.   

(Sorry about all the F-words, mom) “You think you’re such a fucking free spirit because you shacked up with me for two months? I have been living this life for 25 fucking years. I am going to look 50 when I’m 30! I’m going to be so fucking fat like Nico and you know why? It’s because I’ll be full of experiences. But you—you’ll have only lived with me, that will be the one thing you’ve got.“ --Jessa to Thomas John on GIRLS

EH came to visit for Memorial Day weekend, and Mother Nature decided to be a real BEAST and instead of warming us with her sunshine, she assaulted us with wind and drizzle and cold temps. So we rebelled and went to the movies. Frances Ha is about two good friends in New York City. One leaves to live with her boyfriend and the other one stays and struggles in all aspects of her city life: career, romance, misc. It mirrored life so much that even though the film was in black and white, I saw it in color. It was magic. You just have to see it.

by Richard Wilbur Treetops are not so high Nor I so low That I don't instinctively know How it would be to fly Through gaps that the wind makes, when The leaves arouse And there is a lifting of boughs That settle and lift again. Whatever my kind may be, It is not absurd To confuse myself with a bird For the space of a reverie: My species never flew, But I somehow know It is something that long ago I almost adapted to.

Chelsea Vs. Manchester City May 2013 EH was in town and is a huge Chelsea fan, so when we found out this Expo game was happening, we hunted down tickets on CraigsList and met a guy name Omar at the McDonald's outside Yankees Stadium to make the deal. It was FREEEZING outside, and we lost, but it was my first soccer game and so great to be with EH. Brooklyn Nets March 2013 I went to the newly opened Barclay's Center to watch the newly Br ooklyn Nets with my roommates and some of their friends. Our seats were the epitome of nosebleeds, but the beer was great and so was the m usic. So much Beyonce! New York Mets May 2013 I won free tickets at work and got t o bring two friends, wear free Tshirts,  and go out on the field during the Natio nal A nthem ! The onl y thing better than Tuesday ni ght baseball is FREE Tuesday night baseball! New York Giants December 2012 Although the day of th is game started out with a pretty brutal hangover and I was

Yes, I online date. I mean, I don't actually go on dates, but I am online. In fact, an overwhelming majority of my single NYC crew consists of online daters--though, unlike me, they're the kind that actually go on dates. They get messages from cool guys with cool beards and cool girls with cool jobs, and I get messages from guys with names like "Girlstopplayin" and "Footballfishing" who describe their body types as "jacked" and are looking for a girl with a "nice smile and tight ass." These quote marks aren't a joke, you guys.  Exhibit A: Messages Sometimes I get really flattering messages like one that said, " hey there, you seem like a cool woman. cute smile, funky fashion and a you look really full of life " (Did he just call my fashion sense "funky"??) And sometimes I get messages that get right to the point: " def a cutie ." That is literally all it said. Sometimes guys send me messages that ma

Level 1: On top of covers, curtains open, alarm set Level II: On top of covers with blanket, fan on, bra off, alarm set Level III: Under covers, fan on, curtains closed, contacts out, bra most definitely off, roommates notified, alarm off, phone silenced

SS introduced me to this gem of a band, and a couple Fridays ago, we went to th e Knitting Factory in Williamsburg to listen to them seranade us back to life after a hellish long work week. It was perfect. I thanked her, and now you can thank me.

Today was a beautiful, sunshinny, finally-feels-like-spring kind of day. I went for a walk during my lunch break and bought stamps and Mentos chewing candies, which I sucked on as I meandered around the Upper East Side for 45 minutes. I walked in the direction of the stop lights, crossing streets when approaching green lights and turning corners when approaching red lights. Preferring the sunny side of the street, I walked while listening to the music that I listened to last summer, and my skin felt warm and so did my soul. I lost track of time and was a couple minutes late returning to my desk. My cheeks were flushed and my mind refreshed. I sat down to scheduling requests and prescription follow-ups. Then, like a ominious cloud that passes past the hot sun causing people to look up at the sky with furrowed brows and then reach for their sweaters, the phone rang in the doctor's office next to my desk. I heard as Dr. M answered calmly and gave bad news to a waiting patient about

I write as a means of figuring shit out. It's a way of making sense of the world, of taking experiences and memories and dreams and turning them into words, then stories, then hopefully eventually a concrete understanding of something abstract. At least this is why I used to write, but lately I haven't been writing at all. When I thought about why that is, what has changed in the past 6 months that has caused a cease-fire in the mental battles of my brain between what I understand and what I don't, I think all signs point to TOO MUCH. I live in New York City, and there is just TOO DAMN MUCH. Too much to see and taste and describe and comprehend and appreciate. Too much traffic, too much noise, too much to take in. Instead of cherishing little nuggets of clarity throughout my day, on the subway or at the grocery store, I keep my headphones in and my head down. I don't try to listen or comprehend or appreciate at all because it's all TOO MUCH, and as a result, I do

Here are some pictures of food that I plan on making for Easter Sunday. Since we all know that they won't turn out even remotely similar to these perfected images, let's all just bow our heads and pretend. On the menu: Balls-a-Spinach! Source: firstlookthencook.wordpress.com via Amanda on Pinterest Bunch-A-Veggies! Source: lindawagner.net via Amanda on Pinterest Hunk-a-Ham! Source: parentscanada.com via Amanda on Pinterest Cake-o-Lemon! Source: Amanda on Pinterest Me, in the end. Source: foodlve.com via Natasha on Pinterest