one of those love letters (sort of).

dear husband-to-be,

at this point i make a mean cup of coffee, am relatively adept around the kitchen, and my boobs will only stay perky for so long.

hurry up.



xo,
yours

deep laughs and old friends.

this is my friend rob.

we met on our very first day at juilliard. the very same day we had to wear body-skimming clothes for our alexander technique photos (acting school is strange) and when the time for his photo came rob stripped to nothing but tighty whities. 

we've been friends ever since.

(get your head out of the gutter, it wasn't like that).

rob and i haven't seen each other for a while. so last night we made a date for dinner followed by swing-dancing classes at lincoln center (there is so much to do and take advantage of during a new york city summer!).

and when, at that moment during dinner, i pulled out my camera for the cursory pictures he made some peter parker comment (classic) and then proceeded to fire off fifty at a time (usually i have to beg people to take three in a row). he had me laughing so hard that my sometimes-snort crept back in. it's not terribly attractive that snort, nor are the veins now protruding from my forehead. but at least i know i'm laughing, deeply. i'd take real laughs, deep snorts, and pulsing veins any day of the week if it means a life lived fully.

i read this. and it took my breath away.

Give me the strongest cheese, the one that stinks best;

and I want the good wine, the swirl in crystal

surrendering the bruised scent of blackberries,

or cherries, the rich spurt in the back

of the throat, the holding it there before swallowing.

Give me the love who yanks open the door

of his house and presses me to the wall

in the dim hallway, and keeps me there until I'm drenched

and shaking, whose kisses arrive by the boatload

and begin their delicious diaspora

through the cities and small towns of my body.

To hell with the saints, with martyrs

of my childhood meant to instruct me

in the power of endurance and faith,

to hell with the next world and its pallid angels

swooning and sighing like Victorian girls.

I want this world. I want to walk into

the ocean and feel it trying to drag me along

like I'm nothing but a broken bit of scratched glass,

and I want to resist it. I want to go

staggering and flailing my way

through the bars and back rooms,

through the gleaming hotels and weedy

lots of abandoned sunflowers and the parks

where dogs are left off their leashes

in spite of the signs, where they sniff each

other and roll together in the grass, I want to

lie down somewhere and suffer for love until

it nearly kills me, and then I want to get up again

and put on that little black dress and wait

for you, yes you, to come over here

and get down on your knees and tell me

just how fucking good I look

Kim Addonizio


i first read it here.

in place of my own words...

i'm at this interesting point in my life where suddenly things feel too personal--too close to share. (can you even believe i'm writing this?). where things are moving along. or not.  i'm not even sure, but i must keep these things in my small fists, pressed close to my chest--protecting what little i can.

what i can say, is this: a week ago--oh, was it only a week ago?--i went to see noah and the whale in concert. i put on my new, blue sundress, did my makeup, took the long train downtown, found myself a spot on the floor and then danced and cried and stood in utter awe--all by myself.

and so what i know right now--and there are very few things i do know--is this: i'll look back on this period of my life as a time when happiness pooled beneath my feet and noah and whale's last night on earth was the soundtrack to the return of life's sweet joy.

so today, in place of words, i give you this. because for the moment, even months after first hearing it, i have this song on repeat.

it was the window boxes that i couldn't get enough of...

there is a part of me that can't get enough of boston. a part of me utterly taken by the ubiquitous red brick and dark shudders. the cobblestone streets. window box after window overrun by flowers in bloom. it is lush and small. quiet and complex. 

my brother's not so keen on the city. he's a southern boy to the core and finds it difficult to meet people, finds the girls not terribly attractive (i think it's less about the girls and more about the proliferation of parkas and subsequent lacking of pearls and sundresses). but i'm hoping he sticks around there a bit longer so i'll have many more chances to visit. 

after bringing the babysitting phase of my life to a close, enduring a sixteen-day-never-ending-cold, and then three weekends of (1) a mother in ny (2) a bus to connecticut to be with my grandfather and aunt and (3) a short stint in boston i'm breathing a bit easier tonight just glad to be home. glad that for now new york is home. glad to go to the grocer and get my cut of cheese and bouquet of flowers. glad to walk down the hill toward the hudson. glad to feel as though i'm a little more in my skin here than ever before. a little more in a place where anything is possible. even if it's still hard. still terrifying. still deeply upsetting at moments. because more and more it's feeling deeply worthwhile. 

you don't love a person for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear. 

oscar wilde

visiting boston.

i was meant to take the 6:30 am bus saturday morning. the 6:30 am bus to boston. to spend a day-and-a-half with my mother and brother as my mom made her way back from london via a brief few days in beantown.

at 6:40 i woke up in a panic. what day is it? where am i? what's going on?

i was safely in my bed on 181st street. and the bus was just gone. 

i eventually got there. took a later bus. endured the traffic. was rewarded with twenty-four hours in the land where paul revere and every other great patriot once resided.

it wasn't much time and we were all of us tired. but long walks through the back bay area and south side, dinner at a the french restaurant, gaslight, and getting to see my brother taste ben & jerry's for the very first time made it all worth it. 

of course i didn't get home till 1 am last night and i'm now off to an 8:20 dermatologist's appointment. yes, i too am wondering about my ability to manage time and plan for future events. why did i schedule my time as such? who knows? what made me think i could make that 6:30 bus? oh heck if i know.

happy monday. xo. 

the red solo cup.

when i was younger my family had a like cup.

anytime someone used the word "like" inappropriately ten cents when into that little red solo.

you, like, know what i mean don't you?

my mother gave us each two dimes to start with. a little cushion to ease us into the game. i think i used my two dimes and that was it. (such was my prowess and love of the english language).

however, if i remember correctly--and i usually do (such is my cross)--the game actually bankrupted my brother.

but it was my brother who many years later resurrected that red solo cup. and this time the stakes were raised: a dollar for any unsolicited you should...


it's shocking just how often people say you should, or some variation thereof. often the phrase is silent, like the understood you in english grammar. but silent or not there was a holiday season in our house, long after my brother and i'd both moved out, in which dollar after dollar went into that red cup (and most belonged to my mother).

the you should game was genius. on so many levels.  mostly because it always broke the tension of conversations leading to dangerous territory.

in fact, only good came from the red cup. when all was said and done we'd collect the money and buy ourselves pizza. or take in a movie. together, with our mistakes made manifest in the form of green, we'd take the time to invest in family.

i now think twice before speaking like a valley girl...and in a world where people are getting lazier and lazier with their speech and the words they choose (heaven help us) this can not be valued highly enough. and i certainly think twice about dolling out advice (most especially to my brother).


now i can't stop thinking about the word perfect. what does it mean? and why do we use it?

i looked it up in merriam webster and there are all-together eight definitions, two of them obsolete.

for what follows, let's got with this: being entirely without fault or defect. 


but let's all be very clear here. perfect doesn't exist, right? there is no such thing--it is a false goal, a false god of our culture, no?

it was while babysitting i noticed how often i used it. you've got your shoes on? perfect! you had a sip of milk? perfect! most of the time i used it to usher things along--make them move faster.

and then one day, as i listened to myself tossing it so carelessly to a two-year-old-girl, living in america where the attempt at perfect is practically a national pastime, i stopped myself. because what will come of that day when she asks me what it means? how will i respond? and if it's not me she asks, how will that person respond?

then again, she may never ask. there may be no need to. i've been defining it all along just by my use of it.

i've been defining a thing that doesn't actually exist.

there's this beautiful moment in the book thief where a word is defined as a promise. i love that. imagine: a single word, each and every single word, a promise. powerful.

so here i've been parceling out false promises in the form of this elusive, little word: perfect.

so i stopped using it. and just as i stopped i started noticing how often everyone else did.

all the time. that's what i've learned: we all use it. all. the. time.

you're ready for your table? perfect! ready to go? perfect! you want to sign up for this class with me? perfect. 


ah, the plight of perfect.

i was talking to tom about this. tom and i talk about this kind of thing. he's good, that tom. (tom is my therapist). and he said it's like a cuss word. ubiquitous and without any real meaning. overused and under-understood. tom's good that way. smartest person i know, actually.

so i told tom about my plan.

how when i raise children i want to do so in a household absent of the word. perfect will not be part of our daily vocabulary.

and when we introduce the word we will do it justice. pay homage to it's power, actual definition, and inherent falseness.

so for now i've got a little red solo cup on my desk. and every time i slip, i stick a dollar in.  call it my f*** up fund. (love that alliteration).

even if perfect did exist--even if there was such a thing, i don't want my kids chasing after it. i don't want to chase after it. it's just so darn boring.

and life and all it's miraculous, little imperfections should be fun, no?

i'm talking about more than just concealer today...

for anyone who wants to know what a dork i really am

(or how i do my makeup)

go here: the violet online.

(it's really mostly, entirely about how i do my makeup).

{but if i ever manage to get the video up and running than you'll get to see about the dork part.}

millions and millions of years 
would still not give me half enough time 
to describe that tiny instant of all eternity 
when you put your arms around me
and i put my arms around you.

jacques prevert

eat real food.

i've been thinking a lot about food lately.

i know, i know. surprise, surprise.

but come along with me on the rambling journey that will be this post, won't you?

i was at work yesterday when one of the girls came up and started gabbing about an impending vacation  and needing to lose weight because she'd have to wear a bathing suit and on and on. and everyone started throwing out ideas. what worked for them (and there is value in that) and hadn't she had success in the past with cutting carbs?

two quick thoughts: (1) i want to live each day as though i could slip on a bathing suit at any moment. that's what i want to feel like in my clothes. and yes there's some vanity to that. but it is also the knowledge that my bathing-suit-ready-body is a healthy body--and a healthy mind, to boot--a mind that knows i look good in a bathing suit and that how i look has very little to do with how i actually look, but how i feel. am i making sense? and (2) if cutting carbs worked for this person in the past then why are we back here? having this conversation all over again? doesn't that get tedious at some point? all the losing and gaining, losing and gaining? i tell ya, it sure isn't good for the heart.

i kept both these thoughts to myself. and i walked away. now i know, just walk away. time is too short and i don't know these people well enough to dump all of my (ostensibly condescending and judgemental) ideas on them.

{don't you just love the word ostensible?}

but here's the thing, as i walked away, it hit me! here it is, here's what to do...want to look good in a bathing suit? want to lose weight? want to live in your best body? here's the crux of it:

eat. real. food.

eat real food!

that's it! that's all there is to it.

eat real fruit. eat real vegetables. cut out all that stuff that comes hermetically sealed in plastic wrap. or that might just survive the end of the world. (hermetically sealed foods and bed bugs will be all that survive).

wine and cheese grow better with age, yes, but most other foods do not. and all that stuff put in there to keep the foods kickin' (for years and years) will age you, exhaust you, deplete your system, and trick your brain into thinking it's delicious. ah, it's all one great monetary conspiracy by a food industry that has no concern for our health! it boils my blood, i tell you. but i'm gonna let that one go. (for today).

i've finished babysitting now. for the most part. that was the job i let go of. for a whole host of reasons. in large part because there was an increasing sense that i was living someone else's happy life. i want to raise children. but my own. and i have some serious work to do (and some serious money to make) before that will be possible. i don't regret any of the time i spent babysitting since college. some of the most vital and important experiences of the last three years were at the hands of two-year-olds. i learned innumerable things (that's a whole post unto itself).

but for now, i will say this: i noticed that some of my worst eating happened while babysitting. one could look at this statement and ruminate on exhaustion and lack of power and where i am in life and many of those thoughts would be true and right, but really it comes down this: processed foods.

it wasn't that the food i was eating was bad or calorie dense, it was that it was in someway unreal. alphabet cookies, big-bird cheese crackers, elmo mac-and-cheese. all good, all tasty, all non-existant in nature. and all this got me thinking. why? why is processed food like this so prevalent and so overwhelming in the youth market? isn't this a dangerous precedent to set? why can we all agree that children need a good and strong education but we can't all agree to feed them the best possible foods? (hey school districts the country over, i'm talking to you).

thank God for people like jaime oliver, no?

of course i could go on and on about eating real foods. how it's also about eating simple foods. about how this way of life demands a little more work and a little more time, a little more effort (and dare i say, experimentation) in the kitchen.

someone recently said to me that new york city is all about convenience. why go to riverside park when central park is a few blocks away? uh, maybe because you want to see the gardens and get a glimpse of the hudson?! if new york is all about convenience maybe that's why i'm often not keen on it. but i think this thought short-changes the city: new york isn't all about convenience, it's all about whatever you'd like it to be about. but for many people the city is in fact about immediacy, ease, and getting what we want as soon as we want it. convenience. i'm really not so keen on this convenience thing. yes, there's a time and a place for it, but if i live my life and it's dictated by this demand--this convenience, i cut myself off from countless experiences. from the subway ride to riverside park on which i might just meet that elusive love of my life.

convenience. an ugly word. one that might just be making america fat. you want something sweet?! and you want it now? go for it, get a snickers, after all their slogan is in fact why wait?

i spent two weeks in mexico, many years ago, living with a family. oh, how reverently i look back on that time. there was a lot of life in those two weeks. the food, oh the food! the high-quality milk and ergo vanilla ice cream! the bags upon bags of bread--and white bread, at that! yes, i remember the ruins of ancient cultures, the classes and car rides in which the musicality of the language both overwhelmed and inspired, but the food, i tell you!

i have spent the subsequent ten years in search of food like that. because apart from its unbelievable taste (unbelievable, i tell you), i actually lost weight there. in mexico. i lost weight eating more food than i've ever eaten in my life. and yes, i was sixteen. and yes, i was quite small to begin with. but puberty had just begun and i was suddenly struggling with the knowledge that i couldn't eat whatever i wanted (bowl upon bowl of pepperidge farm goldfish and real coca-cola) and remain trim.

just the other night i pulled out some corn tortillas, stuck them right on the burner, let them get some good charred spots and then spooned trader joe's guacamole right on top. it took all of two minutes. i wasn't expecting much, so you can imagine my surprise when i bit in, and thought for the first time since those formative few weeks in cuernavaca: this is it! i am tasting mexico!


and it was then i realized: the food was good in mexico. and it was pretty simple. high quality, real food, and simple.

and not terribly inconvenient. did you catch that part where i mentioned my guac filled tortillas took all of two minute?


two minutes, simple, and real? no plastic wrap in site? take that convenience! take that america! take that processed foods!

it's possible to eat well here.

after all, the experience is what you make of it.

popops turns 88!

this last weekend i spent a day in connecticut with my grandfather and aunt jean celebrating popop's 88th birthday.

when i think of the stories that fill this man and the lineage he has unfurled before him...

there are no words.

and i am humbled by those giants of family who carved out a way of life for us in this country. the legacy is staggering. awe-inspiring.

i tell ya.

i am absolutely gobsmacked by broad shoulders and an expansive back.

that alone is enough to undo me.

a friday night cab ride.

i took a long, lone cab to brooklyn last friday.

i finished work, slipped out of my trusty black heels into a pair of worn flip-flops, untucked my work blouse, pulled my hair into a pony, and with exhaustion in tow, raised my arm and hailed a cab.

i listened to johynny flynn's sweet william, part one the whole way there:

i was born with this story, it's older than i.

as the familiar lights of ninth avenue streaked past and a cool air slipped in the window i could think of nothing but a night nearly seven years ago when i and three girls from school squeezed ourselves into our friday night best, piled into a yellow taxi, and headed into the belly of the beast that  friday night in manhattan invariably becomes when you're young, wide-eyed, and (yes) impressionable.

we hardly knew each other then. hardly knew new york. hardly knew ourselves. and certainly didn't know what was to come.

but i do remember that paused at a stoplight, i thought: i should remember this. this will be one of those nights i'll need to remember. this is the beginning. this is the starting point. 


and that's all i remember of that night.

well, that and the gorgeous garden balcony boasted by the chelsea apartment we finally ended up at.

one of the girls in that cab is married now. to the man she began dating not long before that late september night. another is engaged. many working actresses. all thousands of miles from home. all forging lives and ferreting out truth--or trying to, at least. one girl i haven't spoken to in years. with the others we do what we can but life is hard and time is short and the phone calls have become uneven at best.

i have spent so much time in the seven years sandwiched between those two cab rides wishing it all went differently. wishing the great love of my life proved himself such. wishing i was well. successful, even. wishing it all went a little differently.

but here's the thing. headed to brooklyn last friday, still in my work clothes, speeding down ninth avenue, i felt so...happy. so at peace. so aware that all those seven years and all those things i would've changed led to that moment--to that delirious, little, heaven-sent moment--to that moment in which i was filled by a story older than i, filled by the past, charged by attraction and desire, and thankful i didn't get the guy or the job the first go round.

because i'm still so young. and i've got a little rebellion left. and i'm finding all it takes is a smile to melt a man. they don't care what you're wearing or what you do or even the size of your hips. just a smile and they turn to putty. and it's so damn fun to watch for that moment in which they return the gesture and then wonder if they've done it suavely. and men, i'm gonna level with you: most of the time you haven't. but that makes it all the better. suave is so uninteresting.

and i'd take interesting and flawed any day of the week. whether it's a man. or my life.

i can't think of a better way to start the week:

thank you kylee

for sending it my way!

someday i'll look back on all of this and laugh. i will laugh, yes?

i need someone to explain it to me.

that thing that happens.

when you like someone. from afar.

and suddenly you have never flirted before. never in your life.

never begun a conversation.

never dared to smile.

these things have never happened, not once. or...well, you can't imagine how they might have...ever, because they are certainly not possible now.

you are inept. in every possible way.

a mute.

inexperienced.

bereft of all courage and knowledge.

one might call me a lively conversationalist. and one might be right. i am. (occassionally). given enough time and enough courage, i most definitely am. and i can smile and toss my hair as well as the girl next to me. but in the presence of the smallest inkling of desire i am...

helpless.

and why is this? someone explain this. please, please explain this.

there is more to sex appeal than just measurements.

i don't need a bedroom to prove my womanliness.

i can convey just as much sex appeal, picking apples off

a tree or standing in the rain.

audrey hepburn

my manhattan: the one with my mother in it.

the best thing about having my mother in town are those moments when sailing in a cab up the westside highway she points out the pier where she and my father had their first date. and then launches into the story about how they thought it'd be a small private party but it ended up being six thousand people (six thousand very lush people). or when walking down madison avenue she notices the william greenberg bakery and suddenly she's a kid in a candy shop (or quite literally, bake shop) remembering how when she first married she took a baking class where they worked through mr. greenberg's recipes and the cinnamon buns! she surely remembered the candy that is those cinnamon buns! 

there are other good things too. little things. shared subway rides. lovely meals. a respite on a park bench. 

the problem is....well, when she leaves...or after my father has visited, or when i've spent some time at home in texas, or in coming back from a visit with my brother in boston...

the subway rides feels longer. the bags that i tote around all day feel heavier. work is a bit less important. everything feels just ever so much harder.

but that doesn't mean i'd trade the visits and respites and vacations for anything in the world. 

a little beirut love.

i don't believe i properly expressed just how good the beirut concert was a few weeks back.

or just how much i'm looking forward to the new album.

there seem to be three new songs floating around out there: santa fe, port of call, and east of harlem (the last of which is now available on itunes).

and all three, in my humble and unskilled opinion, are among his best.




this morning, with coffee in hand, and a whole slew of new york photos to look through, i can't stop listening to this.

the fat radish. (and on my manhattan).

in figuring out what to do this go round (with my mom in town) my mind immediately went to the new leaf cafe. 

(let it be known, my love for the new leaf knows no bounds).

but it was my mother who pointed out that we first fell in love with new leaf two years ago when we went in the spirit of trying something new--expanding our own idea of new york.

so with this in mind, we tabled new leaf (after all, i can pop up to fort tryon whenever my heart desires {and my wallet allows}) and went in search of new restaurants. (recommended restaurants).

both peels and the fat radish were suggested by a co-worker and i must say: she done good. they both pleased and tickled my aesthetic sensibilities and rustic palate.

but more than the wooden tables, and farm-to-table food--more than the downtown-chic-beard-wearing-men or the beet chips and butter biscuits--more than any of that, what i really loved was that both restaurants got me to take in parts of manhattan that are foreign--foreign, to me, i should say. parts that i rarely see, rarely explore. but parts that when i do take the time to wander about fill me with a deep, rumbling satisfaction.

the reason i entitled the series in which i show photos of manhattan, my manhattan, is because manhattan is so many different things--so many different things to so many different people. it wears many masks, changes by street and neighborhood. one could live here their whole life and still not know all of it. 

manhattan is experiential. and it is because of this that so many come in search: in search of the city, in search of themselves. it is this that entices and excites--allows new yorkers to overlook the day-to-day grind that makes city living quite difficult. 

so for all my hawing about how much i dislike the city at times (and i do. dislike it. often.) that's on me. because that dislike can be changed, transformed--by simply changing my attitude, my perspective, or walking a city block. by taking a train to a new and foreign neighborhood and finding a new part of myself in what the city offers up in that small nook.

so here's to the rest of the week. and as many new moments i can unearth in this (mostly) concrete jungle. 

without tenderness,
a man is uninteresting.

marlene dietrich 

my manhattan: sunday brunch edition (peels) + surrounding sights