Holla!

So I'm getting out of the city for the weekend, making thursday my last work day of the week. What a relief. It's funny how when your job becomes more about you surfing the web (which should be fun) you end up sitting at your desk blankly staring ahead and actually hoping for a task (after you finish writing in your web blog, of course). I'm trying to think of interesting things to update you on. Mostly it's the fact that I have become readdicted to Beverly Hills 90210. Who came up with that show? It came out when I was nine or ten and I was never allowed to watch it, so was really glad when I found out i could catch reruns as I got older. and now it turns out i'ts on Soapnet every day for roughly two hours, providing 12 hours a week of Brenda, Brandon, Dylan, Kelly, Andrea (still), Steve, Claire, Donna, David, and Valerie (except we all know it's just Kelly Kapowski with a little extra weight). Since I'm only in their sophmore year of college at CU, Andrea is still on with her husband Jesse and baby Hannah (again surprising given the fact that she's about 40, I mean 19) and Dylan is the latest drug addict/alcoholic. Of course we haven't gotten to Kelly's problem yet and David's about done with his. He's more interested in trying out kinky sex positions than anything else. So that's my latest obsession.

That and trying to get to the Met to see the last of the interesting "Transparency" exhibit on the rooftop. Oh yeah, and buying piano tickets. This definitely is a town where if you have a lot of money, options are limitless for culture and entertainment. Unfortunately I'm not there yet.

It's becoming an Epidemic

Okay, so I know I just posted something about weddings last week, but there have been more changes in the last few days. For one thing, another one of my friends now has a ring floating on her finger and she's floating in air. She's getting m-a-r-r-i-e-d. In like two years according to her. But she's now among the engaged. I heard this rumor from a friend of mine who then said that our mutual friend J would be the next to go. "J?" I said. "No way."

When I got off the phone I told Boyfriend this, expecting a large laugh and agreement from him. Instead he nodded his head slowly and said, "I know." I said, "Know what?" "About J heading towards nuptial land." I was floored. "You do?" I said. "When did this happen?" "J said something about it recently. Not like it's going to happen tomorrow, but at some point." I sat there in silence, thinking that pretty soon all of my friends were going to be taken. And it wasn't going to be pretty. So I'm calling it a recent epidemic. Seriously I'm wondering how much longer we can be expected to deal with all the diamonds being sold throughout the East Coast. Because, contrary to popular belief, it's no longer just a Southern thing. It's all over the place. On top of that, I am currently aware of not one, not two, but three weddings that occurred this weekend involving friends or sorority sisters of mine.

It's weird. In the 80s, the average age of first marriage went up significantly. Then throughout the nineties it remained pretty high. Now, all of a sudden it has dropped back down- the average age for a woman being 25, and the average age for a man being 27. That's the lowest it's been in decades. It makes me wonder how all the women libbers out there would have felt had they known their efforts were going to be for naught, that in the end, it would come back to where it began- wives in the kitchen, spatula in hand. At the ripe old age of 22. I'm interested in this sudden turn.

Don't get me wrong. I definitely want to get married someday. To someone I love and care about and feel I can spend the rest of my life with. But there are other things that need to happen first, for me. One, that I become totally financially independent. Two, that I'm able to go to grad school and develop a career I love. These are important things, too. I think everyone should live on their own before they get married. Just so they know they can do it! If nothing else, so they can feel good about themselves and their work without having tot have another person. Yes, I know I'm one to talk since I'm in pretty serious relationship with Boyfriend, but it's true. If I hadn't met him, I think I would have remained single for a long time. Actually, I had planned to remain single until I met him, and even when we first started dating and it was a casual thing (of course, that was over three years ago). But I'm also one to admit when I have a good thing. And I definitely have a good thing going right now.

A Silver Polish Chicken and Wendy's Medium

I received one of the best emails of my entire life today. It contained a photograph of a friend's chicken. Not just any chicken, but a Silver Polish Chicken named Lucy who enjoys riding around on people's shoulders and goes "visiting". There is no end to what can happen in this world. That practically made my day.

The reason I bring up Wendy's is I went there for lunch today and ordered a combo. IT's not something I do on a regular basis but they've discontinued my favorite salad- Chicken Spinach Salad, and there was a crowd and I was under pressure. So I picked a number and went with it. Whe nthe girl asked me if I wanted a medium drink, I gave her a strange look but said yes. It's always been my understanding that medium drinks are standard with combo meals. Then she hands over 32 oz of soda. I'm not kidding.I walked back to the office iwth a bucket of soda. It was awful. So now I assume that 24oz constitutes a small. It's crazy to think that we have gone from 8 oz (in the 1950s when fast food restaurants really began taking off) to 24 oz SMALLS. I wonder what our 1950s versions would think of it.

I understand that Americans consume more than the norm as far as fast food goes and quantities and such. Entire books have been written on the subject. We know that we consume more calories and food than any other country and provide access to more gyms than any other country while maintaining the highest percentage of overweight and obese people. Not that we've truly made the connection. Otherwise there wouldn't be this issue.

The funny part about it is the reason we receive so much when we order "combo" meals, is that we literally asked for. We demanded to get our money's worth in the moment. No matter that open-heart surgery will cost aheck of a lot more than a burger and fries in the long run. What matters is that we receive as much fried and saturated foods as possible for a mere five or six dollars. I'm sure ther will be an increase of cholesterol problems in my generation coming up. I watched as the man in front of me, roughly 5'10" and probably well over 300 pounds ordered the "extra-large" combo meal. It was absurd to think of him consuming that much food, probably packing on more weight without even realizing it.

What kind of country have we become? That we are willing to ignore all the signs of impending doom in our arteries to be satisfied that we filled up with enough burgers and fries. It's frightening at the least, and difficult to imagine anywhere else but here. I'm not sure it would happen anywhere else but here. For some reason people seem to have significantly fewer self-control buttons than those in other countries. And they definitely eat. You'll never see a Frenchman pass up a baguette for breakfast or an Italian aspargus fritti. But for some reason they are much, much, smaller than we are. And that's what interests me- where did we go wrong? Why aren't we taught healthier ways to eat? Why do we expect so much out of food? It's not just to keep our bodies running. I'm sure we could do that on hafl the calories we consume. But there is some underlying reason we insist fast food places continually increase their production.

A Silver Polish Chicken and Wendy's Medium

I received one of the best emails of my entire life today. It contained a photograph of a friend's chicken. Not just any chicken, but a Silver Polish Chicken named Lucy who enjoys riding around on people's shoulders and goes "visiting". There is no end to what can happen in this world. That practically made my day.

The reason I bring up Wendy's is I went there for lunch today and ordered a combo. IT's not something I do on a regular basis but they've discontinued my favorite salad- Chicken Spinach Salad, and there was a crowd and I was under pressure. So I picked a number and went with it. Whe nthe girl asked me if I wanted a medium drink, I gave her a strange look but said yes. It's always been my understanding that medium drinks are standard with combo meals. Then she hands over 32 oz of soda. I'm not kidding.I walked back to the office iwth a bucket of soda. It was awful. So now I assume that 24oz constitutes a small. It's crazy to think that we have gone from 8 oz (in the 1950s when fast food restaurants really began taking off) to 24 oz SMALLS. I wonder what our 1950s versions would think of it.

I understand that Americans consume more than the norm as far as fast food goes and quantities and such. Entire books have been written on the subject. We know that we consume more calories and food than any other country and provide access to more gyms than any other country while maintaining the highest percentage of overweight and obese people. Not that we've truly made the connection. Otherwise there wouldn't be this issue.

The funny part about it is the reason we receive so much when we order "combo" meals, is that we literally asked for. We demanded to get our money's worth in the moment. No matter that open-heart surgery will cost aheck of a lot more than a burger and fries in the long run. What matters is that we receive as much fried and saturated foods as possible for a mere five or six dollars. I'm sure ther will be an increase of cholesterol problems in my generation coming up. I watched as the man in front of me, roughly 5'10" and probably well over 300 pounds ordered the "extra-large" combo meal. It was absurd to think of him consuming that much food, probably packing on more weight without even realizing it.

What kind of country have we become? That we are willing to ignore all the signs of impending doom in our arteries to be satisfied that we filled up with enough burgers and fries. It's frightening at the least, and difficult to imagine anywhere else but here. I'm not sure it would happen anywhere else but here. For some reason people seem to have significantly fewer self-control buttons than those in other countries. And they definitely eat. You'll never see a Frenchman pass up a baguette for breakfast or an Italian aspargus fritti. But for some reason they are much, much, smaller than we are. And that's what interests me- where did we go wrong? Why aren't we taught healthier ways to eat? Why do we expect so much out of food? It's not just to keep our bodies running. I'm sure we could do that on hafl the calories we consume. But there is some underlying reason we insist fast food places continually increase their production.

Addicted to Weddings

No, 'm not in particular but there is some kind of trend going on. I just want to list weekends I was aware of/invited to people's weddings:

June 17
June 24
July 8
July 15
July 22
July 29
August 12

And that's just who I'm aware of! Never mind who might actually be getting married currently and I haven't heard about them. I'm amazed at how many people are tying the knot. Not in general but in my age group. There's not a single person on here who is over 25. Seriously. I guess things are just so different in a city. Maybe it's because there's more to do or something but that definitely is not happening in New york. Most people wait until they're older, probably 29-33 is the largest age group. And a whole lot of people much older than that!

I have to say i admire my friends who are able to commit themselves so totally to another person right out of college. While I'm committed (no pun intended) I'm certainly not ready to be legally bound to him. It's not about love or family or any of that. It's about retaining some sort of independence, being able to go where I want to go and do what I need to do before I settle down and begin a life with someone. Every girl has twinges of jealousy when it comes to watching her friends get married, but at this point the jealousy has faded into a sort of sadness. It seems like marriage should come when you're fully ready to share your whole life with someone, and if you do that at too young an age you miss the chance to be independent and selfish. I think Selfish is good. Selfish means you can spend some years buying ridiculous clothes and getting manicures and eating whatever you want and doing laundry whenever you feel like it. To me, binding two people together means that from then on they should always consider each other before themselves. And it feels like we're too young to be doign that.

A lot of that has to do with wartime. It's shown again and again that war causes the marriage age to drop and the birth rate to go up. People's instinct tells them to reproduce to protect themselves and their families. It's some kind of natural instinct to dash for rings when bombs are exploding overseas. There's a reason for itt, I'm just trying to figure it out. And since this war seems like it's going to go on for quite a while I imagine we'll continue to see the marriage age drop and the baby rate rise, at least fora few years until people once again realize they can't afford all these children and divorce lawyers.

The optimism it takes to get married right now is astounding. YOu're fighting a less than 50% chance of survival, and hoping for the best when you take those vows. So here's to you.

The One Year Anniversary

passed without much fanfare, I'm sorry to say. It was on Tuesday for my one year since beginning with my company, and Saturday for the one year since I actually made the official move to New York from small town North Carolina. And what a journey it has been! I can't believe how much I've learned in such a short period of time. How cities work. Why public transportation is such an amazing thing. And why I need to plan for my future better.

So I'm doing that now. Working out the details, coming up with various theories of what I would want my life to be like and who I want to include in it. Watching my friends change jobs, go back to school, graduate from school, get married, settle down, get divorced, move forward with their lives. I feel so fortunate to be not just an observer, but a true participant in living up here. I'm able to enjoy my friend's accomplishments, mourn them their losses and know that if the same happens to me I'll be lucky enough to have the same response.

I'm also figuring out what I want to do and don't want to. I'm slowly becoming aware that I'm not really cut out for a 365 days a year, 9-5 job. But working out how to make that into a life that allows me to be independent is a whole other realm. I remember working during the summers when I was in college and being aware that I liked it. Liked having that free time in the evening and morning when I wasn't concerned about what kind of grade I was going to get on a test or finishing a paper or editing my stories. I liked just writing to write, and working to pay the bills, and reading any book I felt like. Now, here i am only a year and a half later, wanting out, wanting to figure out how to pay my bills and reading but also how to move up in the world and do a job that I am going ot be rewarded for doing. It's difficult enough to figure out what you would possibly want to do for twenty or thirty or even forty years, but I'm on the way. I can't believe just ten years ago I was only beginning high school, that I was dancing and doing gymnastics and going to camp. Certainly not worried about paying off credit cards and contributing to an IRA account and saving some money because I would eventually want to own a house. Ten years ago I couldnt' think past how I looked in a two piece and why my boobs weren't as big as one of my friend's.

Thinking about how things hve changed, how I've grown and my friends and I have parted and gone our seperate ways is crazy. It's an amazing world we live in. I couldn't of dreamed of the boyfriend I would have now, or imagined I would manage to work out a relationship that lasted longer than a TV mini-series. But I am doing all of the above. I have my own apartment, my own space, I cook for myself, do my own laundry, clean and watch TV on my own time make decisions about whether to spend my weekends in bed or at a gallery. And it's awesome. Yay for the One Year. It's given me time to realize what I'm capable of and why my life could work out for hte best.

A Good Night's Sleep

I am a sleeper. One of my greatest feats is being able to fall asleep in many different situations, particularly while traveling. One of my friend's all time jokes is that I missed a lot of Europe since I slept through most of it. And I love sleep. I have friends who never seem to sleep. They're out at a club til 2 or 3, up at 7 and do this several times a week. I have to say I'm impressed but that is definitely not what my body's about. The last few days I have definitely not been sleeping as much as I would like to. This is because of various reasons from being out with friends to staying up late reading. For no reason. Oh yeah and watching reruns of Beverly Hills 90210 (I had forgotten how much I loved that show!)

So it's not that big of a surprise that my diet has completely fallen off track. I've been scrounging for food the last few days, trying to figure out how to make it last at least throgh tomorrow (where my food will be covered until Tuesday, thank God). It makes me feel like I'm in college again, eating from paycheck to paycheck to parental deposit. But I can tell i miss sleep and it's going to be a while before I'm back on a consistent schedule.

Generally I try and sleep 9-11 hours. Oh yes, I am dead serious. When I was in college I was up every morning at six to write until around 8 and then go to the gym and then to class, then to work. Yes, it was exhausting. But I did it anyway. And pretty well, I might add. But moving up here, my schedule became busier than ever, and I was excercising a lot more. Therefore I eat more and definitely try to sleep more. I understand why it's so easy to develop all kinds of disorders in such a crazy environment. You're constantly squeezing through people, running to catch trains, walking miles to get to certain stores. I'm not kidding. That's on top of going to the gym, which I still do. If only to keep some weight on my frame, keep the muscle going. I am definitely not considered skinny up here but I would rather not be thought of as large in any sense of the word!

Sleep, however, has always been a priority. During school I rarely if ever went out on school nights, even in college. I wen tto bed by 10, 10:30 because I wanted to! I thought it was dumb to sacrifice sleep to drink beer at He's Not or try and pick up guys at a club. I still do. I mean, if the man is at a club or a bar, it's kind of cheesy right? But now I understand why I sleep so much. It's because when I don't I feel and look like crap. Right now, even as I write this, my skin is pasty, my under-eyes are practically purple, I'm sluggish, have a headache and am drinking caffeine like it's going away tomorrow. Dammit, let me have my ten hours!

Boyfriend's Birthday

I'm very proud of myself about Boyfriend's birthday. First of all, I gave him video games, and you really can't go wrong giving a guy video games. Secondly I planned out a simple birthday dinner that really surprised him and he was super psyched about it. We ate at Cosmic Cantina (13th and 3rd Ave). They have happy hour until 8 there and some of hte best sangria in the city. They are also seriously understaffed. there was ONE WAITRESS for the whole restaurant last night! Awful for her!

So then we came home and watched reruns of family guy and I was again too keyed up to sleep and had to get up at 6 this morning for personal training at 7. After this I only have one more session and really hope I can inspire myself to push as hard as I've been pushed by my trainer. He is fabulous! I highly recommend one, even if it's just to show you how to use the weights and correct form and all that good stuff. I feel better than I have in years.

Now all I want to do is crash at home and SLEEP. Instead I've got to pack for another business trip that I'm leaving for on Thursday morning. I'm in Atlanta through next week. This means I will be even more tired by the time I get back. AHHHH! And I'll definitely have no more food. Anything I do have right now will probably be gone by then, courtesy of the boyfriend- he's staying at my apt. while i'm gone to take care of the cat and fish. It' skind of funny in a sad little way.

Then, in a couple of more weeks I'm off again to look at grad schools and figure out where to go with my life. Yikes! Whoever would have thought that after spending FIVE YEARS, count 'em five, in undergrad I would be so eager to get it going again! I mean, who's to say that the work market will be just as bad after a coupleof years of grad school and it will just be more time spent not working?

But that really has nothing to do with Boyfriend's birthday. We were discussing last night how this year was the fourth summer we'vve celebrated birthdays together- beginning with my 21st oh so long ago. I like that. I like our relationship, how well we know each other, how much we geniunely care for one another. I even like that kind of sad feeling I get when something really funny or dramatic happens and he's not there to witness it by my side. When I'm out with friends at a bar and he's not sitting next to me. Even though he's really quiet, he's still a hugepart of my life, and smart and funny and when he says something people listen. That's one of his best qualities.

Now that this is turning into a "suck-up-to-my boyfriend" ramble, I'm going to stop myself.

The Devil Wears Prada

I think every working girl in Manhattan went and saw that movie. I knwo that if you have worked in any industry related to publishing, advertising, or anything HR-heavy, you have to see it. You will spot people you didn't realize were "characters" in your workplace. Think you're the only one that has to go get your boss' Starbucks in the morning, while you are too poor to afford filters for your coffeemker? She's in there. Running personal errands, walking your boss' dog, it all makes sense now. That's everyone's experience here, apparently. Certainly not to the level that Miranda Priestly works her office up, but it's there. The underlying fear, the teeny tiny paychecks, the ridiculous requests that you would refuse were you living anywhere other than Manhattan.

Anne Hathaway did a great job as well. Sometimes she seems too goody-goody for her own good, except of course in "Brokeback Mountain". Beyond that, she sticks with positive roles. I guess it's good, since in The Devil Wears Prada, a 6 is considered bordering on obese. I also liked that view because it drives me insane that Manhattan is so focused on being absolutely tiny. Anything bigger than a two and you're guaranteed to get some strange stares in certain areas. Yet I promise you that in the rest of the world, being an 8 or 10 or even 12 is not only okay, but embraced as being a "normal" size. This is definitely a concentrated area of wanna-be and true anorexics. Seriously.

Overall, I thought the book was better (though the book isn't fantastic or anything) but I loved the movie rendition. THey cut out the importance of some characters, and made others more important, but most importantly, they stayed true to figuring out the differences in book plots and movie plots. In the book, Andy has an issue with her best friend and roommate developing alcoholism over the course of their living together. In the movie this is completely cut out but I was relieved. Imagine how busy it would have been with both Meryl Streep and a drunken twenty something vying for poor Anne Hathaway's time.

Yes, I agree that hte ending was contrived, that they shot down Gap faster than a hungry hunter, and they have/had the most amazing movie wardrobe I've ever seen, but that doesn't stop me from loving it. Or fantasizing about a Balenciaga bag.

We're definitely getting older, but Wiser?

I was invited to eight weddings this summer. Seriously. Count the invitations. It's crazy to 1) imagine I have that many friends and 2) imagine that all of them are getting married. But since I'm in NYC and broke and hot, i'm only going to one of them, in August. It's near DC, so I'll have to take a train down there, stay in a hotel, and pay for whatever else will be happening during the festivities. Did I mention it's black tie? This wouldn't be a problem except Boyfriend doesn't own a tux and isn't really a fan of going since he doesn't know the girl who's tying the knot.

It's hard to explain why I want him to go. I guess I could say that I spent a lot of years going to weddings alone because I didn't have a boyfriend, or I had one but he was definitely not the type you take to weddings. So now I have one, and he is the type you want to take to weddings- literally tall, dark and handsome with these amazing eyes and gorgeous hands- but he's not as in to the idea. We're poor and it will definitely cost a lot to attend this event. I understand that. But at the same time a bunch of my friends are going to be there, and I want him to meet them, want them to meet him, so when I talk about my wonderful boyfriend they'll have a face to put with the name.

I wonder how long I will go on growing up, going to "grown-up" events, and yet still throwing a fit when my boyfriend doesn't want to spend a fortune on a wedding of strangers. I can assure him all I want- that he will lvoe these people, that there will be an open bar, that he gets to spend a weekend in a hotel. And a nice hotel at that. But it's still complicated. still trying to figure out if I'm mature or if I'm being a whiny brat about the whole thing. And I wonder if this has drawn a rift between us.

Yay for weddings.

Celebrating my Future Escape

I'm trying my best to work out some situation for myself. To figure out where to go from here. I feel like each time I get older, more things happen that I cannot control. It surprises me. When I was younger, I always thought you gained control as you gained age and perspective. Now I'm wondering if it's the complete opposite. In letting my parents control my environment, meals, etc, when I was younger, I could focus on things that were smaller but more important to me. I remember how I kept my porcelain dolls organized, and how carefully things were wrapped when they were stored. I even remember a time when I thought I would always live in my bedroom, just the way I had it decorated (from the age of 11, thanks very much). There comes with that a chance to look ahead. Now that was something I didn't do a whole lot of at that age.

Sometimes i wish we could get back the perspective we had as kids. Remember when each day was individual? You didn't worry about tomorrow, you only focused on what was happening today and how you would deal with it. Yesterday may have been regrettable but you would get over it. There are plenty of ways I wish I could go back and change things. Things that i did or didn't do as a little girl and will never have the chance to do again. But for the most part I'm okay with myself the way I turned out. There are a lot of things I could have done differently, but I wonder if they would have left me in New York.

My friends are beginning their grown-up lives. A huge number of them seem to be marrying their college boyfriends and buying houses and embarking on careers I wonder if they'll like five years down the road. But I'm glad I'm doing my own thing, glad I'm taking the time to stop and examine what this life is about before trying to figure out how to escape from it. I may never get to live in Europe or Asia or Africa, but I can try and be happy right where I am. I just finished reading "Grapes of Wrath" (which I started in high school but couldnt' appreciate until now) and realized how what those characters wanted more than anything in the entire world was to stay where they were. Where they had been born an their parents before them. We take our homes for granted. I can't imagine my parents ever letting go of the farm, selling off our horses and moving into a more urban environment. I think it would hurt my feelings!

It doesn't matter how old you are, or how long you've been away from your parents/guardian's world. Home is still home. Most things in my room haven't even changed that much in twelve years. Prom dresses hanging in the closet, pictures of me as a baby sitting on the same dresser I've had since I was about five. There are a lot of things I got rid of when I left home for boarding school, and then for college, but more has remained the same over the years.

Celebrating Our Independence

The fourth of July is generally a time mostly known for great sales at department stores, flags everywhere and huge barbecues. Oh yeah, and fireworks. It's always impressive to me that we constantly preach peace but in honor of our country's independence we explode small rockets and bombs. I find it really amusing. I've only begun enjoying fireworks in the last few years. When I was little, I hated fireworks, and my hearing is still pretty sensitive but not to that point anymore. Guess it's true that each decade you lose a good amount of hearing. But I can appreciate that there is some artistic merit in really grand displays of fireworks. Mainly when I think about them, I imagine my brother and his friends when they were younger lighting bottle rockets and running backwards.

The ones in New York are not quite as huge as the Boston fireworks, but there is definitely a lot of thought put into them. Various shapes and sizes exploded into the air, including planets, smiley faces and geometric shapes. I told B and C that I thought what would really be brilliant was if someone could coordinate Bloomberg's face entirely in fireworks. That would be entertainment.

We were super duper American yesterday. C baked this AMAZING made from scratch apple pie, we had sandwiches, potato salad, I provided chips and salsa (because arguably almost everyone enjoys and can eat this dish) and we had american soda. Brilliant move to take a picnic out to Gantry State Park and prep ourselves for the display. There were a ton of kids out there (many already dressed in their pj's) and even more people. We all oohed and aahed at the same time, which in itself would be impressive.

I wonder if this year's fireworks display meant any more than other years. Mainly because we are in war, and because this is not what our forefathers envisioned for this country (at least I hope it's not). Maybe every war is meant to be "the war that ends all wars". i liked Judi Dench's line in "Mrs. Henderson Presents", when she says, "I know because my son died in war that he truly died in vain". Why? Because there will always be more wars. There i snothing heroic in sending headstrong, irrational eighteen year old boys into a battlefield. Surely you remember how you were at eighteen? BElieving that immortality was yours, believing that nothing could change you, alter you, much less kill you. When I walked past the quaker church on Saturday I was surprised to find that they had ribbons for everyone who has given their life in Iraq- so far the number hovers around 2300. Looking at the tags, that included ages, there were very few people over the age of 25. That is frightening. That we are killing the best part of ourselves. And then celebrating with explosions.