list #1

List #1: 
(subtitle: Before I found a job in New York, a list of all the things I could do once I was forced to leave and start again - ) 

if i leave new york: 

- photography business w/ caitlin

- write more, often, with less stress

- be in vancouver, hike, run? 

- doula school

- foreign service exam

- india, an ashram

- any foreign country, service project

- follow the whales

- foreign journalist

- move to london

- yoga teacher training

- work on a farm

under our feet

microscope, meet sand.

found here. 

random act of bravery

Today I will attempt to drive a minivan through the streets of Manhattan. A minivan of coworkers.

It strikes me that perhaps taking on tasks wildly beyond my experience and capabilities is not the way to demonstrate my competency at my new job.

P posted these photos, and a call for courage, over on her blog yesterday.

I am not fighting bulls. Good perspective.

More stunning photos here. 

i am thinking

Sometimes in Brooklyn the night sky looks like it has been surprised by a hole punch. The moon is sometimes that round.

I think it is New York. I think we all have something to prove.

random act of bravery

Went to the gym instead of to bed with more pirated True Blood. Took guts!

this is what i think

this is a beautiful photo. 

I could spend some time here:

They sell books. On a boat. 

Ashley will obviously choose either Ben or JP. Ben's haircut may have lost him the race. Don't even bother trying to tell me Constantine is still in it. He's the poor-man's Ben. 

I'm not sure why I spent all day fending off tears. Are you?

This blog is quiet and enjoyable. Sort of like an earl grey tea with more milk and sugar, because you're being kind to yourself, because it tastes better that way.

I would like this skirt:

It would be nice if no one ever changed their plans. It would be nice if we had one plan, from birth. Like a caste system. Erm.

"You must change your life," Rilke said.

I'm very excited to see Crazy Stupid Love. 

I wonder if it is charming or alarming that I truly believe Ryan Gosling and I would absolutely get married if given the chance.

Last night I dreamt I was in a threesome with Robert Downey Jr. (I forget who else was there. Wouldn't you?)

Nelson Mandela said "It always seems impossible until it is done." At least that is what Google tells me. He probably said it in reference to something quite important, like apartheid, but yesterday I thought about how it could apply to my work, to my writing. How it is wholly possible I will reach the end of my time and never have finished the novel that seems impossible to finish, never have published even a string of small words because I am convinced it could never happen. "What do you want your obituary to say," my boss asked me today. She asked me this while I was sorting through the wreckage of her filing cabinet, but I did not say, "Well, I don't want it to say, 'She spent her life filing someone else's files.'" Lately I feel it is becoming difficult to escape how immobilized I have been, how many excuses I have made. I do not want that to be my fabric.

random act of bravery

"New York is a lonely place. But in New York, you're never alone."

I've been working on being okay with solitude. Or is it something else? Independence, maybe.

(My iPhone is so obnoxious, guys. Yawn.)

I bravely trekked out to Governors Island on Friday afternoon - delightful. A scoop of butter pecan in an adirondack chair. Old, tall birches and peeling paint. It's almost like an abandoned college somewhere in South Carolina. I watched the ferry boats. On Saturday I did some solo yoga in Prospect Park. I think people might have been smirking at me. I tried to meditate to a Tara Brach podcast, but then even I was smirking at me.

Saturday night brought a semi-awkward social situation through which I bravely forged with all the alcohol in the world. And then I fell off my stool while arguing with three French men over whether or not they were actually French (they were - but word to the wise, don't name your French kid 'Pierre,' cause that just SOUNDS fake) and then a cabbie made out with my hand before I passed out eating cup o' noodles and trying to superglue my sandal back together. Courage, kittens! Courage.

it worked

As I was mixing the batter for this cake tonight, a cake that is meant to accompany me to the Catskills on my first work retreat this week, to win the hearts and minds of my new coworkers, fretting as the chocolate seemed to curdle and separate, a thin, filmy layer rising to the top, I suddenly remembered the last time I made it, in another humid kitchen, another thick, relentless summer. I may have even been wearing the same tired aqua & white striped boxers - the one item of clothing I didn't give back, or set out on the stoop with the note: "My scummy ex-boyfriend left this stuff behind. FREE."

I remember these boxers. I remember him in them the night I still mark as one of our best, when we made tiny, misshapen salmon hand pies, pinching the dough together with all four hands. It was summer in Vancouver, and we took them down to the beach near my house with a bottle of wine. The neighbours were throwing an opulent party, and they had a band playing on their deck that cuts out over the ocean like a hat perched askew. We got drunk and took advantage, wading thigh-high into the Pacific in our underwear, dancing, goosebumped. He held my waist and tipped me back until my hair swam and made me gasp. I remember watching him, tanned, his body harder than it had ever been from marathon training, of which he was then in the thick. And he was wearing these boxers, and I suddenly felt like he was so far beyond my reach, too perfect to stick.

All of this, in these stupid boxers that I appropriated at some point over the last eight years, and me frantically stirring this ridiculously silky batter that was doing exactly what it wasn't supposed to do, exactly what it had done the last time, when I made it for him in his kitchen, an early birthday celebration, and I forged ahead even then, dripping the globular mess into the pan and then watching in horror as it spit and fizzed in the oven, the butterfat rising to the top of the chocolate and settling there like grease on a puddle. I cried. He valiantly ate two slices. I threw the rest away.

The first time I made this cake - I don't even remember. What I do remember is reading Molly's story and thinking, That could be my life one day. I could live like that, so present, so alive. With friends and pearl earrings and a balcony. I could make things with my hands and feed the people I love and live a life of such honest existence.

I stirred the fucking batter. I stirred it with all I had. My hair stuck to my neck and curled at my temples and I threw the plastic spatula in the sink and grabbed a spoon and folded the batter over and over again, willing it, begging it, to come together, to become gorgeous, to work. To work. For something to work. For something to come together. For something to work. For something to work.

routine

Despite all this activity Churchill’s daily routine changed little during these years. He awoke about 7:30 a.m. and remained in bed for a substantial breakfast and reading of mail and all the national newspapers. For the next couple of hours, still in bed, he worked, dictating to his secretaries.

At 11:00 a.m., he arose, bathed, and perhaps took a walk around the garden, and took a weak whisky and soda to his study.

At 1:00 p.m. he joined guests and family for a three-course lunch. Clementine drank claret, Winston champagne, preferable Pol Roger served at a specific temperature, port brandy and cigars. When lunch ended, about 3:30 p.m. he returned to his study to work, or supervised work on his estate, or played cards or backgammon with Clementine.

At 5:00 p.m., after another weak whisky and soda, he went to be for an hour and a half. He said this siesta, a habit gained in Cuba, allowed him to work 1 1/2 days in every 24 hours. At 6:30 p.m. he awoke, bathed again, and dressed for dinner at 8:00 p.m.

Dinner was the focal-point and highlight of Churchill’s day. Table talk, dominated by Churchill, was as important as the meal. Sometimes, depending on the company, drinks and cigars extended the event well past midnight. The guests retired, Churchill returned to his study for another hour or so of work.

From this lovely little website, Daily Routines

There are few things I like as much as a routine. 

random act of bravery

Took initiative at work. Approached the plate! Confidently seized a new task.

And then blew it. Epic fail. Wild, unqualified disaster.

Chin up, chum.

random act of bravery

I think it might be time for a whole month of bravery. Don't you?

Photo by the wildly talented Elizabeth Weinberg. 

it's not so bad

New York City is amazing. And you know why? Because walking home at night, after crying on the subway because of the love that has left your life, you will inevitably come across a group of barefoot, crazy gypsies, who invite you to a Slavic soul festival, wearing banjos on their backs, who kiss your hand and ask you to marry them, all at once, why not, this is our dog, her name is Lily, I bore her myself, we don't know who the father is, you are beautiful, I think I love you, marry us, marry us please, their hair done up in quilted, thick knots, their skin open to the air that is still heavy and hot, even after the sun has disappeared completely.

summer reading list

I realize this list might be a bit ambitious, especially considering the honking, weighty, intimidating presence of #3 up there, but I find I do my best over-reaching in the summer. I've finished Mitchell and Link (both stellar), and I'm racing my way through the end of Helprin (adore). Then the behemoth.

outside

I make the city bearable by getting outside of it. There is a beauty in the racket of Chinatown at dusk, yes, but it is not the kind of beauty that wears my heart out. I seek the wider spaces. This weekend: forge the city to where it drops off, a beach - a stretch of sand, some dunes, the waves roughing me up, small stones stuck to my skin. And a chocolate milkshake from McDonalds, because a wet bathing suit needs no encouragement. Then to the High Line with cold tea, the wooden planks sturdy and almost truly worn. Evening, we go to Prospect Park with a salad of couscous, basil, and cherries. The fireflies come out. Walking home, knee-deep in white wine, someone has set up telescopes on the sidewalk. "You wanna see?" In one, a paper cut-out that they tell me is Saturn, the rings clearly visible, the whole thing a joke - a cosmic joke, of course, it's real, it's out there, I can't stop laughing. And the moon, which I have to squint to take in full, the dark side hungry and wide, the surface like dust on a windscreen, like a moth in my hands.

left my apron

Since I moved to New York, I've barely spent any time in the kitchen. It's incredibly disorienting, losing that time, that space. I don't think I realized how much I relied on it. I had trouble, in the wake of the mess of last year, figuring out why I was cooking, what it meant. It had come to be a shared activity for me, a moment of care, a time to make tangible my feelings, my desire to comfort and nurture. By golly, that sounds domestic and pathetic, but it is what it is. I wanted to feed others. It's why I grew to love cooking - watching my father - it's how I view my relationship to food - as a source of warmth, of community. 

This kitchen is generic and hot and devoid of character or any signs that anyone values the space. I don't have my pots, my spoons. So I've been making my single-girl dinner a lot (EVOO, toasted pepper, frozen peas, whole wheat pasta, parmparmparm, best served out of the pot with a large glass of wine), or Molly's chickpeas, and I bookmark all the recipes I will try when I finally have my own space again, and can dance around my kitchen to Otis Redding, singing loudly, drinking freely, touching and tasting and feeding someone, anyone, even if it is just me, my brave little body, relentlessly alive, very hungry. 

The photos above are of a strawberry cake I made for an indoor picnic on one of my last nights in DC. It made the kitchen smell like rainbows and kittens. Recipe at Smitten Kitchen, obviously. I might add some lemon zest next time. There will be a next time. 

random act of bravery

I wrote this.

The writing isn't the brave part - although shouldn't it be? I suppose I've never thought of the act of writing (my writing) as an act of bravery. More as an act of self-indulgence. There can be courage in it. I read this Mac McClelland essay this week. I only discovered it through the scrim of backlash she's received. I'll admit to being shocked, and I've been trying to examine my reactions - what was it that put me off? The boldness of exposure - maybe. God knows I'm not brave enough to write something like that. I've been toying with the idea of submitting an essay to Nerve, words that have been simmering in the wake of the couple of weeks I spent with the Buddhist prior to leaving DC, and a subsequent conversation with Emily about the body, and its appreciation, and how we (women?) form our physical impressions - how we manage and experience our understandings of our bodies, and whether or not sex (or men, or a partner in general) is essential to that process. And I'm all, "But ohhhh, what if someone were to SEE it?" I've spent more time thinking about pseudonyms than I have actually writing the thing. And the essay itself would inevitably be fairly benign, nowhere near the level of soul-baring that McClelland, an established journalist with a career that depends on public perception of her ability to tackle loaded sociopolitical issues, demonstrates in this piece. Maybe I do take serious issue with her equating her desire for violent sex to the experiences of women who have no control, no protection, no recourse. But who am I to judge? I'm writing this from my sublet in Park Slope, not from Haiti.

And so what I mean to say: writing can be brave. I'm not sure mine is yet. But I am working on sharing it more, and that, for me, requires more courage than I display in an average year, and so. Go read it, if you'd like. You'll join the ranks of every person my mom and dad have worked with in the last 30 years. I'm trying to convince my parents that 27 is a good cut-off age for parental bragging, but they have yet to adopt this view.

we pack lightly

I will spend most of this summer thinking of where I'd rather be. Not very brave, I suppose. But can you blame me?

Nova Scotia, in the Times. This house is a dream. 

the good batch

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that this weekend I ate the greatest ice cream sandwich in the history of the world, ever.

If I were one of those quirky girls who drew funny photos on MSPaint, I would draw a face with rainbows shooting out of my mouth and lots of spray paint around the head to signify amazement.


The Goodwich Ice Cream Sandwich: crisp oat chocolate chunk cookie with sea salt, Adirondack vanilla ice cream, dark fudge drizzle


My brain-twin and I wandered around the Brooklyn Flea on Saturday afternoon, and after devouring a veggie dog loaded with toasted sesame and peanuts, we hunted down dessert at The Good Batch. And then our lives changed. For $3. (We split one. It feels good. Do it.)

THIS IS AN ENDORSEMENT: Go. Eat. Emerge a new man.

ownership

I like days that feel all mine. Tonight I got myself lost in Chinatown and drank a bubble tea and ate a confusing pastry on a bench. I watched the little worlds. The summer sun at dusk does wild, beautiful things to New York. Then I met the Commie for $10 lobsters. We walked the 4 miles over the Manhattan Bridge and back into Brooklyn. Just before we left dry land I watched a woman hanging her laundry on the roof of her building, almost close enough to touch. The Q screamed and huffed over our shoulders. The moon was half-smirking above the city, all lit up, all heat against heat, the humidity lessened by the earlier rain. I have a feeling I will say this until the day I leave: this city is a trip. I cannot believe I live in it.

Harry

What to do on the day after your family puts your 14-year-old dog to sleep:

Wake up, remember. Go buy yourself a bagel with lox. Smile. Think of how much he loved cream cheese. That's not original or anything. Think of how dearly similar we all are, how even the things we love the most are shared. Walk to Prospect Park, alone. Find a tree where the shade is good, where you can watch the light through the leaves. Take your book out, but put it down again. Watch the sky instead. Feel the grass on your bare legs, the way it itches. Harry used to dive face-first into the grass, push his scruffy face through the soil. The first time he saw fresh snow he did the same, and came up with a beard of pure white. This is the gift: the world is enough. And isn't it? This breeze and these trees and the sun on the arches of your feet? Harry wasn't unapologetic in his love. He held back. He wasn't your typical, undiscerning, slobbery love machine of a dog. He had the soul of an ornery old man under all that puppy energy. But one night, after your first semester away at college, he slept beside you on a small couch, let you hold him all night long. In the morning he struggled up and fell ungracefully off that couch and looked at you, all "What? What's the big deal?" And one day you walked him down the cliffs at Lighthouse Park and he leapt over the barnacled rocks like he was weightless, afraid of nothing, lapping at the salted pools, barking at the gulls, while you stood shin-deep in the ocean and tried to call him to you, a command he never followed, because who would? Who would stop running when there is so much life to see?

You were a good pup, my bunny. You loved and were loved. I wish I could have been there at the end.

SVU for the win

This was basically the three months after my break-up. Well, post-denial, post-goodwill, post-pit of grief. Somewhere in those few weeks I lost between January and March.

from here. painfully-apt website. thanks, lucas.

random act of bravery

A sign that New York is getting under my skin: Yesterday I complained to a waiter for the first time. To be fair, the menu advertised a molten chocolate cake with homemade ganache; we received a slice of store-bought German Chocolate Cake. Girlfriend HATES German Chocolate Cake. German Chocolate Cake night back in our dining hall at college was the WORST. Tell me, does it not look like someone threw up all over the cake? It does. It does.

So when the waiter came over and asked if we'd like our sadly-poked slice of cake boxed up, I explained that we were confused about the GULF OF MEXICO-sized gulf between what was on the menu and what appeared on our plate. He had stupid hair, and he looked at me with this brain-dead expression on his face. Then he went away and told our server that I was "very upset." Which made me throw my head into my hands in shame, flush bright red, and affirm that I would never again complain in a restaurant.

These acts of bravery can misfire. We were clear on that, right?

i know the internet is having a collective orgasm over bon iver, but still.