Lauren Greenfield's "Thin"

This is really supposed to be about my experiences as a new New Yorker, but since I've been doing that for so long I think it's time to discuss something real. I ran across "Thin" by accident on Sunday afternoon. I was flipping through channels and happened to hit on it. I had heard it mentioned earlier but then it completely slipped my mind that it was beginning in November. So I watched it yesterday and spent nearly the whole time quiet on my bed staring intently at the TV and even more intently at hte girls who were risking their lives trying to make themselves disappear. It helped me understand how far I've come in the past ten or so years. While I completely agree that once you have a disorder or an addiction you are never "free" from it again, I also understand that I am at the healthiest point I have been in years. I eat- a lot. For real. Yes, I still struggle with compulsive excercise and sometimes with purging but for the most part i am able to hold it together.

And I am so glad. Watching some of the patients- many in their twenties and thirties try to piece their lives back together was heart wrenching. There are plenty of pictures of me from high school and college, looking very thin at times, or having fatter cheeks than normal. But I can't imagine going into the hospital for the fourth or fifth time at the age of 25 or 29 or especially in my forties. Yet many of the patients at Renfrew have to deal with just that. They didn't get the help they needed when they started running down the wrong path and by the time someone offered to help them it was just too late to go any other route than expensive in-patient. What makes it worse is that insurance puts stressors on them that they shouldn't have to deal with.

I'm glad that I got some form of help. Maybe it wasn't the best, but it helped me survive my mother until I moved out and was able to assert my needs better. Boyfriend is even more helpful. Before I wasn't willing to talk about what I was afraid of with anyone (including friends nad therapists) but he has helped me see past the disorder, to see that there is such a long road ahead and that things can get better. THe worst part is that most eating disorders are treatable. It's just that people don't know or don't want or ask for help too late.

The Apple Doesn't Want its Picture Taken

So during an interesting visit from my good friend E we went uptown to see the famed Uptown Apple store. I think it opened almost a year ago and is located on 5th Avenue right in front of FAO Schwartz. It's this great glass cube with an apple in it and you actually go downstairs to reach the store. The store is pretty neat, but no more so than most Apple stores. Except it does have the advantage of a 24 hour Genius Bar. So E and I went and talked about Macs and played around on the Macs and didn't buy anything and left. On the way out she said she wanted to take a picture of the cube for this website she works for. I said I would wait around, that was fine.

This particular night they were doing a little construction work but it didn't appear to be anything major or life-altering. Just a little cleaning up around the edges. E took out her camera and prepared to take a photo when suddenly a geeky blond guy showed up right beside us and said "Actually it would be better if you didn't do that."

"What?" E and I both said at the same time, looking at this Mac employee with slight confusion and amusement. It sounded like he had just told her not to take a picture in New York. Which is a very, very rare occurrence, since most of hte city's industry is based on tourism to some degree and -surprise!- tourists take lots of pictures.

"The apple doesn't want to be photographed." We laughed because at first we thought he was kidding. Since the apple is an OBJECT, not PERSON, it's difficult to imagine it being any more offended photographed than prodded at with saws and drills.

"I'm sorry," E said, "Could you repeat yourself?"

Again he told us that he would rather we didn't photograph the Apple tonight, but come bakc in the morning, when all the work was set to be done. E and I said okay, then crossed the streeet where she took a photograph, pointing out that he actually couldn't PREVENT us from taking a photo of the building since there was not an official Apple exec there to stop it and secondly that was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard. I had to agree, but I thought what was most absurd about it was the fact that he had assigned the Apple not only a personality but feelings about having his picture taken. That was crazy. At least it was in my eyes.

It always amuses me how people believe they can tell people what to do in that regard and get away with it. In case you are up here and are taking pictures of buildings (this does not apply to people), you can do that unless the actual owner of the building tells you you cannot. You can take as many pictures as you wish and no one will say a word, most likely. So take a picture of the Apple, even if it is under construction. I promise you won't hurt its feelings.

Apartment Therapy

Last weekend was supposed to be cold and rainy so I picked up a book called Apartment Therapy to deal with it. I thought that maybe by changing around my interior I could somehow also work on my life or something. In a way that was true. I did change some things around in my apartment and it did help significantly. I changed some things around, cleaned out stuff that should have been released long ago, and bought a new showerhead. That's right. A new showerhead. Something small but that would make the apartment more comfortable.

I think i've been nomadic for so long I'm always scared to do a lot of work in a place I'm renting. You never know how long you're going to be there, and you don't want to sink a lot of money into somewhere you'll only be for a couple of years. A lot of places also don't allow change, like painting or redecorating or knocking down things. I moved around a lot through college, rarely staying in one place longer than a year, and I always hated that feeling of packing up and moving again. A lot of the times i moved not by choice, if you get my drift.

Slowly I'm starting to desire a homebase. Somewhere that I can spend a long time trying to fix up and make liveable. Somewhere I can always go. I need a homebase. I'm at an age where my parents house just can't do that for me any longer, and actually often makes it worse because I realize that I need somewhere to call my own. Of course you can try to do that with the space you're in and I definitely do that. When you live in a city like New York it's really important to have somewhere to escape to, and that's part of it. That's part of the reason why New Yorkers are always so obsessed with real estate. Because no matter how much you love this place, you also love escaping to somewhere safe and cozy. If that were not the case, people wouldn't have country homes in Westchester or Connecticutt!

What was great about this book is that it is laid out in a really easy format, has awesome suggestions for other books to read
and is done in a way that just about everyone can do it and without putting that much money into it. It has different graphs for setting up various areas of your home and speaks a lot about letting things go that don't fully complement your life, that don't really improve how you feel about yourself and your life.

I guess the point of this is that I am slowly getting over the nomadic thing. I might be moving around for years and years and years. who knows where I'll land next? But while I'm doing that, I'm going to try and make every home as comfortable as I can.