This is how I feel right now. And it's such a good feeling!
January 31, 2011
January 27, 2011
Downtown From Behind
Schlo said my blog makes her happy and that I should blog more, so this is me, blogging more. Downtown From Behind is an incredible blog I stumbled upon a while back that captures all my favorite things in a series of intimate photographs. Downtown Manhattan, bikes, familiar surroundings, unique personalities. It's a site that showcases notable New Yorkers biking down their favorite streets below Union Square.
Someone asked me recently if I could ever see myself living anywhere else in the world other than New York City. I guess the honest answer to that is no...and yes. I'm a true blue New Yorker, through and through. I grew up on Long Island, but have been spending my weekends here since I was four. Then I went to college at NYU. And now as an adult, not only do I have a great job here in Manhattan, but I've got a comfy apartment with my family to boot. I'm obnoxiously particular about where I get my coffee (Abraco! Holla.), where one can find the best hamburger (Ahem, Shake Shack. Though I may be biased since my friend's the restaurant manager there...), where and when the next sample sale is, and how to be the first to know (NYMag's The Cut keeps me well if not overly-informed). At the same time, New York is really all I've ever known. I'm aware that my entire existence is maddeningly limited to the metropolitan area, but I've also always had everything I needed here. It's true.
Nevertheless, I know I'll eventually make my way over to another city. Here, or in Europe. But it will probably need to be very far away in the future, as there are things I need to take care of before I can officially uproot myself. But it's on my to-do list, for sure! At the end of the day, this is home to me, home to everyone I love and everything I care about. I could move across the ocean, but my crazy heart will always be with this crazy city of mine.
January 26, 2011
Literary Underground
At the risk of sounding really spoiled, sometimes I wish I had a longer commute into the office so that I'd have more time to read on the train everyday. One of my favorite things to do in the morning, headphones plugged into the depths of my ears and still in that just-woke-up-and-partially-comatose state, is to look around the subway car at what people are reading on their way to work. Usually it's the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, but you'll also get the occasional Kindle reader or ragged paperback. Sometimes one next to the other, which is always amusing, of course. But what gets me above all else is when I spot a couple sitting together, sharing the different sections of a newspaper with each other. He'll finish the World News and she'll have skimmed the Sports, and then they'll switch off. And so on and so forth. It's the most ordinary act in the world, but it warms my heart and makes me smile so much. If anyone ever asks me how I define "love," I think that's how I'll answer. Being able to sit with someone on the way to work, and share the paper everyday.
January 21, 2011
Store Fronts
I confessed to someone today that I was the somewhat embarrassed owner of a personal blog. She asked me what I usually write about and I just shrugged. "Anything." Which is the truth, I suppose. Whatever comes across my mind as worth sharing with the general public, be it intimate thoughts or totally rad stuff I find trolling the interwebs (i.e. the disappearing New York store fronts above).
When it comes to personal musings, though, I'm always conflicted about the level of information I should and shouldn't share. I like to think of myself as an open book. Not that "what you see is what you get" bullshit, but that for the most part, I'm relatively transparent about how I feel and what I think. For better or worse, you could say. When it comes to blogging, I try and maintain this transparency and to stay consistent with the core of who I am. The difference, though, is that while you can control who is listening to you when you talk, you can't exactly control who's reading the words on your not-so-very-personal-after-all blog. Inevitably you end up adjusting that transparency to reflect how you want to be perceived by the people that read your writing.
So I guess "anything" isn't exactly truthful, nor does it capture the goal of keeping a personal blog. I've kept this blog for over two years because I enjoy sharing little pieces of myself that I deem worth sharing. But only when I feel like it, which is why I don't actively publicize my blog either. You could say I like the idea of flying under the radar, but still being on a few other radars out there as well.
This blog is my store front. It's flashy and full of pretty things to look at, that's for sure. But if you want something special and different, something you can't find anywhere else, you should probably come inside and talk to the owner in person.
This blog is my store front. It's flashy and full of pretty things to look at, that's for sure. But if you want something special and different, something you can't find anywhere else, you should probably come inside and talk to the owner in person.
January 18, 2011
January 16, 2011
A Cookie A Day
Okay. I know, I know, this whole baking frenzy thing must come off as a little odd. Or, at the very least, totally random. Especially given the fact that most of those who know me well know that I spend about 1/100th of my life in the kitchen (aka NO TIME AT ALL). But I can't explain it, I've just been on this serious baking streak. So serious that people left and right are starting to make cookie requests (gasp!). So I figure I'm going to roll with the doughy punches and continue churning out goodies until someone tells me to stop. Baking makes me happy because it makes everyone around me very happy. And that's all I really want, I think. That, and a cookie of course.
P.S. My favorite were the Samoa Bars.
January 13, 2011
Lovage
January 8, 2011
January 7, 2011
Alone/Single/Both
As transcribed from a note I wrote in my Blackberry while sitting in a cafe recently:
One of the things I struggle with, day in and day out, is learning to be alone in this monster of a city. Or, more specifically, learning to be alone and to not feel lonely. Sitting in a cafe by myself, stifling the compulsion to stick out feelers (texts, calls) to everyone I know, just to remind myself I have friends. Taking walks through parks without stealing jealous glances at couples in their honeymoon phase. Going shopping solo. Flying solo, essentially.
Winter in Manhattan rewards those in a relationship, allowing them to seek refuge in the safety of cozy apartments and warm beds. And then it basically shits on just about everyone else. We're all left to fend for ourselves. I'm almost positive that's why there are more people holed up in Starbuckses during the winter; it's much easier being alone and single as a collective than being alone and single on your own. Which leads me to wonder: is this a feeling I'll be forced to endure so long as I continue living as a single gal in this city? Does it ever go away, and if so, when? I read all these articles in New York Magazine and the Times, detailing the parallels between singledom and loneliness in Manhattan, and they never cease to amaze me. And they never really offer any answers either, just conjectures. Some days I wish one of these cappuccino-sipping, single mofos would just come up to me and teach me his/her ways. The way of the samurai single. Because I'd really like to know how it feels to be utterly alone and perfectly content. Apparently it's a well-kept secret in this damn town.