if the fates allow

good news

I have reclaimed the bed.

It only took a year and a half.

This past Friday night, I celebrated the engagement of one of my closest friends in the city with my other closest friend in the city. She is also engaged. I walked into the restaurant to find a table set for four with another smaller, circular table attached, set for one.

I made them rearrange it.

These things don't bother me, much.

But sometimes they do.

thinking

2011 is going to be remembered as the year I developed a thing for men with prematurely graying hair.

random act of bravery

I am trying to get better about speaking up at work. I've passed the six-month mark at my current job, and as I move into 2012, it's time to start figuring out how/if to get a visa. Because I'm bound by my (totally-amazing, in-no-way-regrettable) Canadian citizenship, I have to put a lot of stock in my current job. Once I commit to a visa, I won't be able to easily leave my position or move to another organization for quite some time. Having never had a job for longer than a few months, it's incredibly daunting to think that I could be locking myself to this particular, not-totally-satisfying one for any real length of time. That being said, it is what I need to do if I want to stay in New York - and for the moment, I absolutely do. (And yay for that realization, by the way.) So I want to focus on making my job the best it can be - the most interesting, the most fulfilling, the most engaging, the most challenging. I want to amass as much knowledge and experience as possible. There is room for me to do that: I simply need to DO it. DOING it is going to be a theme this year. 

So I kicked it off today by chiming in on a strategic planning discussion, something about which I feel quite passionately. It felt good, and also totally bad, in that I was running on two hours of jet-lagged sleep and couldn't feel my limbs, and therefore can no longer actually remember what it was I said that, at the time, seemed very RELEVANT and also very IMPORTANT and probably very SMART, and could have just as easily been me blowing raspberries at my boss for seven minutes. 

oh look, BOOBS!

There is some serious boob-love going on over at east side bride this week. It's really, really lovely, having a gaggle of ladies to alternately bemoan and champion the full-figure, to commiserate about purchasing bras in sizes that don't exist in the modern lexicon. I have been spreading the gospel of the Elle Macpherson Cloud Swing, which may have actually saved my life, or at least my breasts, which I have threatened to have downsized many a time. But these bras, oh, these bras. I am not one to wax rhapsodical about underwear, but SERIOUSLY THESE BRAS.

I won't make a habit of these product placement posts, or of tooting my own horn, but I'll just finish with this: It honestly takes me a good 3 minutes longer to get dressed on a normal day now because I spend those 3 minutes admiring how goddamn sexy I am. I can't think of any stronger endorsement than that. 

holiday reading

"Each morning, the sun barely up, I licked salt off the ship's railings, believing by now that I could distinguish between the taste of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. I dove into the pool and swam frog-like under the surface, tumbled over at the end of a length and returned underwater, testing the limit of my lungs, my two hearts. I witnessed Miss Lasqueti becoming irritated with the thriller she was rushing through, preparing to fling it into whatever sea we were in. And with the others, I drank in the presence of Emily as she sauntered by and talked with us."

- Ondaatje. 

the last gift

A few years ago I instituted a new Christmas tradition. As with most of our familial traditions, this one has been successful only because it is centered around eating. So every Christmas morning, I relish the chance to wake up early, make a mug of green tea, and putter around the empty kitchen, lighting the tree on my way in. By the time the rest of the family - eight of us, give or take one of the cousins - makes their way down, the cinnamon buns are in the oven, and the espresso machine has started to whirr, and the last gifts are being slipped under the tree or into a stocking.

This year I was craving something spicier - it's been a spicy year? (what?) - so I added some citrus and cardamom. They were simple and sticky and we wrapped two up to take to my grandfather and then they were gone.

Orange Cardamom Cinnamon Buns
Adapted from here and here. 

Dough
3c flour
2tbsp sugar
1tbsp baking powder
3/4tsp salt
1/2tsp baking soda
2/3c cold butter, cubed
1 1/4c buttermilk
1 egg

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Whisk dry ingredients. Cut in butter with your parents' pastry blender (so grown up!). In another bowl, beat buttermilk and egg. Pour over dry ingredients, and stir until dough comes together. Panic a little because it won't really come together, and then just get in there with your hands. Knead sticky mess on a floured surface. Roll out into a rectangle.

Filling
1/2c brown sugar
2tsp cardamom
2tsp cinnamon
1/4tsp cloves
good thwack of orange zest
2tbsp melted butter

Mix everything but butter in a small bowl. Marvel at the orange. What kind of orange IS that? It's the most beautiful orange you've ever seen. Stop everything to take a photo.

 

Spread butter over rectangle of dough, then sprinkle with filling. Roll up from long end, or screw up and roll from the short end, like I did, and then just kind of awkwardly pull the roll of dough until it will yield enough buns. Slice rolls into the number of family members + 6. Place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment, and bake for 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Slowly eat orange - the best of your life - while the buns bake.

Glaze
Mix equal parts buttermilk and orange juice with enough powdered sugar to make a thin glaze. Drizzle over slightly cooled buns. Serve to your family members as they tumble downstairs, pyjama'd, sleep-ridden, hands empty, ready to give and receive.

random act of bravery

Kissed a stranger at midnight. Could also be classified as a random act of stupidity, but as I remember it, it was quite bold and a rather sweet way to ring out a year of bravery.

and on another note entirely...

I'd like to resolve to stop making that stupid kissy face in photos. It's not doing me any favours.

big guns

There's this quite brilliant Radiolab about self-sabotage. Perhaps you've heard it? (I feel like there must be a distinct overlap between bloggers and Radiolab listeners. I'm sure if you threw vintage quilts on that list you'd have a perfect Venn diagram.) It is about, among other things, the deals we make with ourselves. I've thought a lot about this since listening to the podcast. I've wondered, for example, what it would take for me to hold myself, firmly, unflinchingly, to my own standards.

And a related confession: I love resolutions. I know in the past I've said I detest them. Well, I was lying. I love them I love them I love them. I love having goals. What breath! What life! A sudden, deep inhale: that is a resolution. There is such a sense of possibility there. And you can make LISTS. Goddamn, I love me a good list.

2011 was a resoundingly difficult year. Almost everyone I've spoken to has agreed on this. There was something funky up in the astral alignment. Who knows. It was a rough, ragged year. But I feel so good about what is coming. An announcement from two beloved friends over the phone from snowbound Montana helped to kick things off. There is so much LOVE in this year already. I can feel it crackling around me. Things are going to happen.

So I made some resolutions. They're over there -->

And here is the big one. I am going to write this year. Every day, for a full year. This can mean anything - a chapter, a sentence, a blog post. But I will show up. There are no more excuses. And the deal I made with myself: If I miss a day - just one day - I can never write again.

That sentence is a hook to the jaw. It feels real. It's bone and gristle.

2012 is going to be a banner year. I am so, so ready.

Apropos of nothing, a photo I took with my old Minolta from my Brooklyn rooftop.
 Doesn't it make you a little hungry, looking at that city? Doesn't it make you want to dive in?