happy end of the week!

it just past 6:30 in the morning. i slept for little more than four hours--it's one of those days i'm hoping to be home by 6 simply so i can crawl into bed and call it a day.

so for now, my bed may not be made but i leave you with this.

i keep coming back to this video--i'm not even sure i love the song. but the group of people, the setting the little black boots...there's something there.

the room, following the (non) move.

somehow a headboard seemed important before. a crown for the bed--a talisman of something grown-up, adulthood, if you will.

the bed is smooshed against the wall now. no headboard. up and off to the right hangs my framed casablanca poster, placed there because there was already a nail and so, why not? and somehow this somewhat careless arrangement works. seems just as it should.


i wasn't terribly careful arranging this space. i pushed my bed into the one corner, the bookshelf into the other, placed the dresser against the not-to-be-used-french-doors, and stuck my desk just where i knew it would go: between the windows. as for my reading chair? it swims in this space and i wouldn't have it any other way. i pull it this way for mornings and push it that way for late evenings and let it rest between bookshelf and door for much of the rest.

as i sit here typing this a mug sits on the ledge of the window next to my bound leather journal that tells the story of the end of high school into the much of my first year at college. i've been going through it of late. marveling at the pure drivel that is most of it and sending up multitudinous prayers that no one ever finds it. in reading it so much feels familiar, cyclical to life now. this is...humbling, to say the least. because i feel like a different person. am i not? am i the same as i ever was? eighteen all over again?

i don't think so. some thoughts and feelings are bound to reverberate for much of my life, but i feel like i've come out of some period of darkness transformed.

this transformation is its own struggle, or, well, challenge. i feel new. and different. and while at times exhilarating, this newness is also terrifying. here i am, twenty-five forced to reacquaint myself with the world and my surroundings as a changed person.

the thing is, in this new room, it all feels possible. is it possible for something to be more than you ever imagined? is it possible that i know this already? that the space is charged. holy, even. i swing the double doors open, i pull up all the blinds, i open the windows, i watch the river. i press my feet into the patterned wood floor. and this, all of this, makes the A train bearable. the neighbors are slowly learning my name and i am slowly making friends with their dogs. the coffee shop is still on the corner, an irish pub is opening across the street, and the trees are in bloom, pink against the palisades. slowly, i'm coming round to this life in new york. slowly i'm forgiving myself. for feeling like i've not done enough-- come far enough. slowly i'm learning the only person i have to reckon with is myself. slowly i'm persisting, making goals, learning to say yes. inch by inch there is life in this room, in this neighborhood, in the city, in myself.

yes, slowly there is life. and i am in love with it.

just a thought.

you know what i was thinking yesterday?

there is no scent--none in all the world--that i love more than a just-blown-out-birthday-candle.

yeah.
that's all.

anyone can slay a dragon...but try waking up every morning and loving the world all over again. that's what takes a real hero.

brian andreas

dear husband-to-be,

hey!

you!

hurry up. it is spring in new york and suddenly there are good looking men... everywhere.

everywhere! i say.

and i might get distracted.

ah hell, i might just marry such a distraction.

love,
the woman with the eye wandering towards you

i've posted this song before, in a different form. but i couldn't not post it again. because this video might be one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen. i keep coming back to it--the immediacy and tangible quality of the emotions.

so please indulge me.

i remember.

i remember the first moment i saw him. the first flicker of a smile as he brushed past.

i remember the night we sat on opposite ends of the couch as the world ended. and the secret that gave way to sadness.

i don't remember him saying it might all work out. i've read that now, all these many years later, but i don't remember it.

i remember the day he said i'd find my own ella fitzgerald. i'd like to tell him now that i have--in the sounds of the pacific northwest and britsh folk movement.

and i remember the night he passed over my favorite book. wrote it off. and how i missed that clue.

i remember baseball caps and tennis shoes. living room floors and promises left there. single keys passing hands. and single booths at late-night diners.

i don't remember how much was missed--how many pointed glances were not taken in, how many tilts of the head went unnoticed. how often we spoke past the person, our words left hanging around our ankles.

i remember 125th street and an opened book quickly closed again.

but for the life of me i can't remember how my mouth felt as it wrapped itself around his name.

blue hands...warm heart?

dear anonymous,

you were totally right, the toothpaste was enormously helpful in removing the blue egg-dye.

an indebted and grateful clean-handed brunette,
meg

happiness in the form of an iphone (cover).

each time i look at the back of my phone i'm reminded of the life i'm working towards--the life i want to live: a beautiful home with fresh flowers, bright colors, and a man that'll dance with me right there--on the living room rug. 

easter 2011

this easter i attended mass at a church i'd never before been. i sat there in the foreign pews and thought of all the churches before this one. of my catholic upbringing--of how deeply ingrained it is, of its cultural power and pull. i sat in those foreign pews and cried sweet, repentant tears as i marveled at the feelings of deep loneliness and love and uncertainty and utter happiness that existed all at once. the wonder of that--of the complexity and absurdity and absolute loveliness of this life!

easter was  divine. i felt God in my morning service and its accompanying salt-tears. i felt Him in the walk from 175 to 181st. in my chai latte and the clean apartment newly made home. i felt Him in the warmth of my friends' greetings and the communion of old friends meeting new (sometimes i can't believe how many good people i know).  

the egg-dye, egg-hunt, and egg-wars were all just icing on the proverbial cake. 

(and yes, my fingers as i type this are still blue. and might just be for days to come. time will tell. what can i say, i take my art {all art} seriously).

it has always been and ever will be
in the crook of your arm i belong.

happy weekend!

i had the loveliest week here in blog-land. thanks to you all. i'm off to work now but have much of the weekend off. i intend to clean (some sprucing up of my new corner of this castle in the sky is in order), celebrate easter with friends, bake up a storm (shhh, don't tell but the gift for my randomly chosen follower {rebecca, who was informed on tuesday (see, mom?)} will be a rock-hard-solid-loaf-of-soon-to-be-famous banana bread), and then venture out on a little twitter-inspired photo expedition.

i hope you all have a lovely weekend. whether you're celebrating a holiday, just recovering from one, or going about the day-to-day enjoy the earth's renewal in whatever way you choose!

(swooning over the above image from toast's 

catalog--a company with their own ethical manifesto 

{happy earth-day!}).

my manhattan: blue skies and scarves and half-full mugs.

i simply can't get enough of this.

thank goodness for youtube and the fact that it encourages stumble-upon-discoveries.

breaking it.

a lovely, young, german fellow has been staying in the apartment the last few days.

a friend of a friend, we offered him housing for this part of his trip.

he'd been planning to come to the east coast for quite some time and was meant to be accompanied by his girlfriend, but as he said, we broke.

they broke.

they broke it.

i marvel at these words. this language. and wonder if it's ever been so succinctly--so perfectly put. if truer, more piercing words exist to describe the end of...well, whatever it is that ends. because often it's not love. nor the individual. it's the time and the place and the tennuous meeting of...well, of whatever it is that meets.

i think back on all those great loves in my life. and of all the times i broke it. not very many, as it turns out. and of the times it broke before it even began. was i meant to fight for it? to stake a claim? to simply ask?

i don't think so. because i was so close to breaking, myself.

and i did. and i broke. and i needed to break. by myself. alone.

and i'm so glad that i did. because i love how i've managed to put myself back together. my beautiful humpty-dumpty fault lines both hidden and exposed, creating texture and life.

but now i wonder if it's too late to ask? to say yes, i loved you, i love you, and i refuse to let you break this. or if you do, i come bearing super-glue.

i do believe in marriage and i marvel at people's amazement of that--because don't we all? or at least, don't we all want to?

i believe no more courageous of an act exists. the last, great form of rebellion as liz gilbert pointed out her second book, committed. 


i don't know if it's possible. life-long love and commitment--the kind that never breaks. after all, we are human. but know this: i believe that things once broken can be restored. and i wake each morning with a humble thanks for that very fact.

i couldn't not share this. because it's just too good. and too spot on.

(and i know this is gonna blow your mind 

but i'm of the matthew macfadyen darcy

persuasion, as opposed to colin firth)

via letters to dead people.

tina fey's prayer for her daughter/book club selection

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Bea......uty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her

When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels.

What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.

“My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

april was nutty for me. so there was a pass on this month's book club--with easter and passover and moving and the like. but we'll start back up (fear not) in may. and i figured why not read something totally different...so...bossypants it is. i mean, after all, what's not to like about tina fey. and that prayer...isn't it something? a little sampling of the book to wet your appetite. 

loves.

i love the way the headlights traverse the buildings on the opposite side of the hill late at night. scanning and searching--so hitchcock-ian.

i love watching the barges float past. the proximity of the water both soothes and excites. i love the little white caps that poke up in the middle of the river. and the rivulets on the roof of the building across the way. they look suspiciously like the sugar cubes i used to build castles in grade school.

i love empty rooms in old apartments. the transformation of sound in the space. the creak of the floor, the vacuum of air. the holy quality of a charged space in transition.

i love those rare and lucid moments when i know--deep in my core, i know--that everything will be fine.

i love forgotten snippets as told by old journals and the smile that creeps into that moment of remembrance. i love how much i thought i knew at eighteen and how little i know now.

i love owning my mornings. my mug with a little blue m stenciled on. and the music that allows me to believe, for the hour before i begin the day, that i'm in paris roaming and rolling and frolicking and falling in love.

a letter to my readers:

when i graduated from college i never expected that i'd begin a blog. (secret? sometimes i still cringe at the word: blog. it's such an odd word, isn't it?). but here i am. here we are. nearly three years later (nearly, not quite). and i have a blog. and i am a blogger. and the thing is...i love it. unabashedly, i love it.

and i've learned so much. and i'm still just beginning. the story is new but long.

i couldn't have done it without all of you. you who read this thing and send me lovely words of encouragement. you who know just what a girl needs to hear and just when she needs to hear it.

so, thank you.

truly, deeply i offer up my thanks. for reading and responding and lurking and following and filling my story with wonder.

tonight at midnight i will randomly choose one follower to receive a little handmade piece of goodness by mail. if i could send one to each person out there i would, please know that. but money is little and time is short and let's be honest...i'm no oprah. so. there you have it.

my humble gratitude is yours. do with it what you will.




here's to the rest of the story,

meg

dear husband-to-be,

here's the thing: i want the cake smash.

dear God in heaven above, i want the cake smash.

i simply don't understand why it's no longer popular--why not everyone would opt for this little slice of whimsy.

because if you can't have a food fight on the day you pledge your life to someone, well then... what's the point?




love, love,

yours with a sugar tooth and cherry on top

(ps: my parent's did it and they've had a pretty good run. plus, i'm gonna need my own picture like this).

sometimes, late at night, i don't want to go to bed.

because life is too short and life is too sweet and i could cry for all the moments missed.

if you hold onto the handle, she said, it's easier to maintain the illusion of control. but it's more fun if you just let the wind carry you. 


brian andreas

you want to know what i like most about writing?

suddenly everything is art.

and there is scribble everywhere. scrawled on backs of receipts and torn envelopes. on the inside of book covers and discarded note cards.

and much of it is just that: scribble.

but some of it.

well some of it, be it a word or a phrase or a thought that was nearly not mine--fills me. topples me. undoes all i ever claimed to know or be. and it is love. and i am in love. with the world and myself and all that is yet to come.

my manhattan: photos new and old.

preparing to move down the hall has turned my room into something of a disaster. 

why? well...you see, i like to sit and cull through it all--remarking and remembering and smelling old pages. but this culling and smelling and such moves at a snail's pace and isn't terribly effective--so i'm about two seconds from pulling out trash bags and dumping half of everything i own.

but i will say, it has served to get me to look through my college, hand-written journal (please lord don't let anyone ever find it. pure drivel.) as well as my quickly accumulating photos. so for this week's my manhattan i thought i'd show a few new and old (those that for whatever reason never made the cut back in the day, but i love nonetheless).

1. the george washington bridge from my morning walk vantage point. fall 2009.

2. waxing poetic in queens. spring 2011.

3. waiting for the A at 168. spring 2011.

4. outside the bowery ballroom. winter 2011.

5. restaurant decor on 187th. fall 2009.

6. this week's bathroom shot. spring 2011.

7. wandering around downtown. winter 2010.

8. noah and the whale at the bowery. winter 2011. 

the next room.

washington heights apartment, circa 2009-10

i lived in the dorms my first two years at school. in a building connected to juilliard, right there in the heart of lincoln center. my first year space was a lofted bed over a desk with a roommate who studied the violin under itzhack perlman, haled from greece, and didn't believe in bull-shit. i adored her. second year brought a slightly larger room and with it a girl who believed she had been maria callas in a previous life...okay.

in my third year i moved off campus. to an apartment in a renovated brown stone on 104th. i'll never forget that space: the light wood floors, my bedroom's two windows on opposing walls, and the rumble of the subway and the deep call of nearby church bells.

oh the sense of space and promise of freedom that apartment afforded!

but third year was hard. and the apartment became home to a sadness that pressed in on my chest--threatened my very breath. so when another apartment--on the same floor, in the same building--opened up and it had a separate kitchen and a more conventional living room, i emptied my hopes into the space.

and we moved. next door.

and i willed that this would be a place in which life would improve.

i remember very little of that next-door apartment. remember very little of my fourth year, really.

after school ended i put my things in storage, visited home for several weeks, and then spent two months living on the top floor of my aunt and uncle's house in montclair. and i started the slow trudge back to  self.  i gave thanks each morning for the worn floors and slanted ceiling and sense of home.

and after just a few months i returned to the city, lived on 80th--the beating heart of the upper west--sandwiched between parks, surrounded by restaurants. and when spring came that year ushering in april's showers i escaped morning after morning to central park where, with not another soul in sight, i imagined myself on a roman holiday, traversing the gardens at the villa borghese.

and then before long, after realizing i had hardly a cent to my name, i moved north. to washington heights--where the rent was low and the A train was long. and i fell in love. and then out of love. and then in love again.

and so the pattern continued, tumbling on, but allowing me to make a home.

and i lived in one apartment now followed by another.

and another year is done. and i'm still here. sitting in my reading chair, window open, staring into the enclosed courtyard dreaming of the move that's just two days away: same apartment, different room.

and oh how i've lusted after that room for a year now! lusted after its two windows and french doors and view of the hudson. dreamt of placing my desk just so that i might wake in the morning, brew my coffee, sit at my workspace, breathe in the water, and set about writing the next great american novel.

you want to know what i've learned--what i've learned from all the different spaces in all the different years: life hardly ever turns out as you thought it might, hoped it would. but it does get better. and failure proves fertile ground for whatever follows.

i don't know what will unfold in this next space. perhaps nothing. perhaps everything.

but i do know this. i'm no longer emptying my hopes into a new space. not casting out a desperate attempt for change. i'm simply moving my things. just down the hall. and looking forward to the stories its walls will tell.

blue skies.

since returning to new york several weeks ago the sun has come out...twice. (maybe).

it's april 13 and my heater still roars (sputters) to life each morning.

i am. losing .my mind.

but today i officially signed a second lease for my current apartment making this little castle in the sky the longest place i've ever lived in new york city and removing me one step further from vagabond-em (fear not, i'm still pretty close).

so...

blue skies, no?

(deep) breathing.

today is one of those days when the weight of the laundry overpowers. when my wood floor suddenly seems too dirty to walk on. when the proximity of a bank i trust is utterly too far for comfort or ease.

(when i've begun to panic about all the things i probably should have panicked about a week ago.)

that being said, my tickets to see beirut arrived in the mail today. and the young man at the corner store gifted me three tickets to see the yankees this friday. those two things along with salads consisting entirely of arugula, capers, pine nuts and olive oil have me breathing deeply.

so for your continued (deep) breathing i leave you with the following beirut video {one of my favorites}.

(i told you. i really do have a thing for unruly curls).

i simply can't get enough of this brian andreas figure.

she said she usually cried at least once a day not because she 
was sad, but because the world was so beautiful & life was so short. 




brian andreas

it should be noted that when we moved into our apartment a year ago i began calling the bathroom our etruscan tuscan wonderland. yes, yes, i know etruscan and tuscan pretty much mean the same thing. yes, yes i know that makes it repetitive. but i care not. with all the sand colored stone and strange, circular, tiled design  it deserves to be named. twice.

just the other day i found myself taking a shower with the window open and i thought, this is so nice. almost like i'm bathing al fresco. in italy. okay, well not in italy, but al fresco nonetheless. 


it took me a good five minutes to realize that the view i was so enjoying of the blue sky and other apartment windows was not without a cost.  if i could see others milling about through their windows well then they could see me. showering. naked. exposed.

needless to say i will not be showering with the window open again.

a night in sunnyside.

in an effort to prepare myself for the non move this week (we're {two of us} staying in the same apartment but playing musical chairs with rooms) i attempted to organize my room.

it now looks like either (a) i was robbed or (b) a bomb went off. i can't walk but for tripping over organizational containers. and suddenly my lenten resolution to keep a clean room is out the window and i am in a terrible mood. messy rooms, dirty sinks, and never-ending progression of grey skies will do that to a girl. but i digress.

last night i abandoned my messy room, my mile-high-pile of laundry and headed to sunnyside, queens. {for those who don't know new york city is comprised of five boroughs: manhattan, brooklyn, the bronx, queens, and (this is the strangest of them all) staten island. i live in manhattan. way, way up in manhattan. all the cool kids live in brooklyn. and a growing number of young people are moving to queens (where rent is cheep and space is abundant)}.

alisha (of doppelganger fame) and her boyfriend daniel hosted me for a lovely night of gourmet tomato soup and grilled cheese. 

as soon as i walked in the door i became that crazy person that can't even say hello before they marvel at the thing before them...the thing resembling an actual home. i opened every closet door, peered out every window, inspected every surface, sizing up square footage and inquiring about rent--this is what you do in new york when you've lived here long enough and reached a certain age. 

the night was perfect. good food. good discussion. a little baseball on the tele. and really good people. 

because this may just be the most beautiful thing i've ever come across...

this is a giant block of whatever is most difficult for you to carry & trust me on this, you'll carry it more times than you can count until you decide that's exactly what you want to do most & then it won't weigh a thing anymore.

brian andreas

nyc babycakes banana bread recipe.

i've gotten better in the kitchen as of late.

(and if you've been following this blog for any period of time you know this is no small thing).

so when i went home a few weeks ago i was determined to prove my culuinary prowess to my parents, a way of saying, remember that cuisinardt you got me? well look at me now!


so i decided to make my vegan, gluten-free, sugar-free banana bread (it may also be noted, i wanted them to know how good a vegan, gluten-free, sugar-free something could be).

so i packed my xanthan gum for the trip home. (funny--in a plastic zip-lock, in a suit case, it looks remarkably like a number of other things {none of them good}).

and once in texas i headed to the local HEB for the remaining products. agave proved most difficult to find (in part because i forgot about it at the first store) and when the manager at the randall's just up the street had the gall to suggest stevia or truvia instead you can imagine my dismay--i may have responded with something resembling an indignant--even dirty--look.

(there are few things in this world i find as offensive as fake sugar--and yes, i'm calling stevia a fake sugar as well).

but when i eventually had all the necessaries i set to work. and things went swimmingly. until of course they didn't. and the bread wouldn't cook through. and the bread wouldn't rise. and it was suggested that the humidity played a part but i knew--i knew!--it was because i had put to much batter in the pan. a silly mistake. one silly mistake and my culinary prowess was not proved--my culinary powers, flat.

but because it usually works and when it does there's nothing like it, i thought i'd finally share. so without further ado...

NYC BABYCAKES BANANA BREAD RECIPE (by Erin McKenna)

ingredients:


2 cups bob's red mill gluten-free all purpose baking flour (this brand, no other)
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup coconut oil (plus more for the plan)
2/3 cup agave nectar
2/3 cup rice milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (high quality)
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas 




preheat the oven to 325 degrees fahrenheit. lightly grease a 7 x 4 x 3-inch loaf pan with oil. 


in a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, xanthan gum, salt, and cinnamon. add 1/2 cup oil and the agave nectar, rice milk, and vanilla to the dry ingredients. stir until the batter is smooth. using a plastic spatula, gently fold in the bananas until they are evenly distributed throughout the batter. 


fill the prepared pan halfway with batter (this means you're likely to have leftover batter). bake the banana bread on the center rack for 35 minutes, rotating the pan 180 degrees after 20 minutes. the finished loaf will bounce back slightly when pressed , and a toothpick inserted in the center will come out clean.


let the banana bread stand in the pan for 20 minutes. gently run a knife around the edge of the cake, cover the top of the pan with a cutting board, and invert the loaf onto the board. carefully lift the pan away and re-invert the bread onto another cutting board. either cut and serve warm, or wait until completely cool before storing. cover the uncut banana bread with plastic wrap and store at room temperature for up to 3 days. 






(do not attempt to eat before the bread has completely cooled. take it from me, it doesn't taste to terribly good when it's warm. when it's cool...there's nothing like it).


also, according to tom colicchio's forward to the book, know this: follow the recipe exactly. 


and for banana bread with chocolate chips (my personal favorite) simply add in some chips to the batter before cooing. 




and a very happy weekend baking to you...