C'est la vie? C'est MA vie

GAWD I hate this whiny bitch. I mean, it could be because the writing isn't that good (let's call it repetitive in an uninspired way and uninspired in a repetitive way) or it could be because technically I haven't been 23 for 27 days or it could be that I very actively made life choices to avoid living my way into these cliches. (Fear is an excellent motivator.) But the part that really gets me is the cheesiness at the end. Seriously? Neither you nor your audience deserve this coddling, and you haven't for nearly two decades. Get your shit together. Or at least take on your shit with a fresh approach.

Speaking of dealing with metaphysical angst in new and exciting ways, the Picasso Museum reopened here in Paris after an (unexpectedly long) five year renovation. (Now that's what I call a transition.) Picasso,"the insider who was always an outsider," lived in Paris for most of his adult life and though I've never seen a curator call him Parisian, he was certainly in conversation with these enclaves of otherness that populated the city of lights (all the way from gas to electric) in the 20th century. And it's kind of funny that we associate artists like Picasso and Hemingway and Stein with this City when their experience was probably closer to an occupation than an immersion. They hung out with other expats and did expaty things and sure, they patronized local businesses, but cafe creme and vin rouge do not a Parisian make.

And I'm really no different. There is a constant struggle...struggle is the wrong word, it implies that my life is hard...a constant tug between blending in and embracing the aspects of my otherness that make Paris all the more exciting. When I see a picturesque alley curving into a softly lit corner, can I take a picture? Do I want a picture? Should I pretend that this is normal, or feed my own aesthetic delight? At the end of the day there are no wrong answers, and the choice is really mine to make what I want of the experience.

And here's the secret: that is not a condition particular to Parisian photo ops. As a member of the universe's most coddled generation I feel like, much to my disappointment, it might be necessary to remind my peers that 23 (and 22 and 24 and all the way up, as high as you care to go) is not an incurable disease. Your early 20s are not an illness or temporary psychosis or punishment. This epoch of our lives is a boundless realm of opportunities, which can either be squandered whining and watching netflix or experienced at the hands of the world that exists beyond the triple locked doors of our tiny apartments. (Note: there is in fact room for both, it may even be a necessity, I'm not ruling it out)

Well you make it sound so easy...like I have complete control over my own destiny, like I'm the only one to blame if shit's not going the way I want it to...Well...yea! A little extreme, but hate to break it to you sunshine, all the excuses people have been making for you are now being showered upon the next generation of over/under achievers. So put on some Sara Bareilles, and then some Beyonce, dust yourself off, and be honest with yourself about your life. Acknowledge the things that make you happy. Revel in them. Change the things that don't. Yes, CHANGE! You can do it. Relatively young dogs learn new tricks all the time. ALL the time. And once you accept this challenge the frightening yet empowering truth comes out, which is that your life is not a circumstance of the universe or voo doo or your neighbors who have really loud sex while you're trying to sleep. It's just you. So make the most of it.

Netflix in moderation. Responsibility in gross. It's called growing up.

Save Room for Apple Pie

So...how's it been? I know, I know, I just kind of disappeared there. But I've got excuses and then some. Like my phone got stolen from a poorly made hostel bed while I ducked into the bathroom. Rude. And I usually write weekly at my Shut Up and Write gatherings, but I was busy and away and then busy writing about being away...so here we are.

A month and OH SO MUCH has happened. For serious, I finished my trop intensive beginner french class and consequently jumped to intermediate, which has indeed felt like I skipped elementary, which is what I did. I guess part of that is the adjustment to the new professor, and part of that is the level, and part of that is my classmates who like to shout out answers because apparently they want to prove to us struggling plebs that they know more than us? We get it buddy. You're not coming off as intelligent now, just as an ass-hole. Is that hyphenated? Oh English grammar, where have you gone...

I can feel my brain making room for the genders of nouns and irregular verb endings and cultural laws and the olfactory identification of cheese. But what am I forgetting? What is being repressed or pushed irretrievably into the oblivion? It's easy to know some of the things that I'm losing: names of elementary school classmates, celebrity factoids, triscuit flavors. But I sense there is a larger body of information that I'm losing unknowingly, perhaps frames of reference that have just completely shifted. How bizarre are traffic signs going to look if/when I return stateside? Will I still be able to operate a coffee maker 87% asleep? How much do a half dozen eggs cost in U.S. Dollars? I have no idea...

So, you see cher reader, it's kind of bizarre. I have a passion for Manhattan, but now I'm infinitely more familiar with the streets and metros of Paris. And I've always loved bread, but damn, I fear the day that I won't be able to choose from 3 equally but distinctly fantastic baguettes. And though I'm convinced that eclairs are the DL nectar of the gods, my Parisian sensibilities curb my appetite to a maximum of one a week.

This is all a colorful and very food centric way of saying that I've changed, and after 4 short months it feels like Paris is a part of me that I won't ever be able to get rid of. And I guess I'm just not exactly sure how that happens. How do novelties turn in to routines? How do things you've done a bajillion times still feel fresh? Not just pleasant, but genuinely thrilling?

I...don't really know. I guess just chock it up to the magic of Paris. Because the most surprising thing that has somehow been pushed aside by an encyclopedic categorization of Parisian pastries and the mostly illogical streets of the Latin quartier is a longing for the good 'ol US of A. I'm not saying that I could stay here forever, but I am saying that if the people (whom I miss dearly) came to visit me, I don't know that I'd have a compelling reason to go back...which is kind of scary and liberating and...i don't know, I guess exciting.

Here's to one way tickets and clear head space.
(and to the very unclear head space of one way tickets)

Enchanté Paris

As romantic as sending bits of my journey to friends and family one line at a time sounds, I do not think that I'm presently capable of such inefficiency. So...comment se dice en français quarter for your thoughts? Don't expect epic soliloquoys or life affirming lessons. Think more along the lines of anecdotes and misadventures.

But to kick off the reboot, I have arrived in Paris. I've been here for just over 36 hours. With the help of every form of transportation known to man and 3 kindly strangers I made it my b&b. I have spent the past almost 36 hours registering for my French classes, scheduling an appointment to view a potential apartment, and walking everywhere within walking distance of where I'm staying. I do have a local SIM card, but I don't have a blow dryer. Some errands will just have to wait. I made it through the day in a white dress with zero stains and only 2 marilynn Monroe moments (by which I obviously mean that subway grates blew my dress up and potentially exposed my underwear to the throngs of plebs on the sidewalk, NOT that I had a sexy, flirty, charming moment on the streets of Paris).

I've basically been hitting up the gardens of Paris. I still have a week until classes start, so I'm trying to save the big museums that I didn't get to hit last time until I run out of free things to do. The weather is beautiful, so it's not all that demanding to walk around the city for hours on end.

It is almost eleven and there is still some day light in the sky. What a strange place I've come to.

On The Run

So remember that time I ran away from my life and went on vacation to Hawaii and drove across the country to relocate to my childhood home slash state and completely neglected my e-mail, facebook, and blog? No? Well maybe you didn't realize that's what's been happening for the past 3 weeks,but hazzah! Mystery solved.

Now that my life is an open and aimless book (quite officially) I am lending it some structure. I'll go over this laundry list at some point in the future, but the relevant notification for y'all is that I will be delivering my post pubescent musings and angst thrice weekly: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Watch Out! There's a low flying plane! Just kidding. I meant to watch out for my blog posts.

Some things to look forward to...Why do people (ie adults) think they have it all figured out to the point where they can offer endless advice on life? Let me return the favor... QLC: old name for a new problem... And introducing some hard hitting journalism:Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? (Because seriously, why haven't we figured it out? Get it together.)

So, for those of you who haven't checked your calendars, you can begin the 48 hour countdown to my return to the blogosphere. Get pumped. ( you don't have to, it was just a suggestion...)

What the Fuck Do I Want

This question has been plaguing me for the better part of 96 hours, since a meeting with a professor sent me spiraling into self doubt and uncertainty about my future. A fringe benefit of paralyzing terror regarding the future is some brief clarity regarding what you do want, and hopefully you can turn these things into some sort of cogent answer to the black hole ahead.

1. I want to-do lists to become check lists full of red xs and tally marks. I want to see places and do things that make other people jealous

2. I want to live in other cities and become citizens of other countries and finally belong nowhere at all because my heart is in too many places

3. I want to be a citizen of the world. If ever I meet a person who is bi-lingual I always want to know one of their languages. I don't want to be told what people are saying in films by condescending sub titles, I want to translate for myself. I want to know words in other languages that lack translations and use them to perfectly describe my thrilling life

4. I don't want to lose people. This one is doomed for failure in the same way that we are all inevitably ambling towards headstones but it doesn't make it any less true for me. I don't want to lose friends to petty fights or inconvenience. I want to be the friend that keeps in touch, even across the globe.

5. I want to fall in love. And even if it doesn't work out I want to know that I was capable of loving someone and that he was capable of loving me

6. I want to work with people and listen to their wrong opinions and the poetry of their right answers and clever solutions

7. I want to question myself and challenge myself and improve myself

8. I want two homes. I want an urban oasis with large windows and minimalism and chrome and hard wood where we can only store 4 roles of toilet paper at a time. I want a country escape where I can be reminded of the world before humans got smart and greedy and  built glimmering idols, 97 stories tall, to prove their prowess and competency.

9. I want ice cream. I'd love a better body, and I continue to work for it, but I hope to never be so diet-crazed or food conscious or so ill that I can not enjoy some ice cream.

10. I want no regrets. Whatever choices or mistakes I make, whatever crimes I commit, whatever recognition I receive or whatever trade-offs I make, I want them to be in honest enough pursuits that I can look back and smile, not wince, on my formative years.

and a bonus...

11. I want to be young forever. I don't mean that I want my boobs to stay perky or that I want to be able to do tequila shots without a hangover. I just mean that I hope I am able to continue looking forward, at all that has yet to happen and at all the possibilities in each new stage of my life. And I hope I stay resistant to the idea of stages, and feel free to draw in the lines myself.

The Circle Game

Over the past few weeks I've had several conversations with different people about the idea of graduating college and ending up exactly where we started.

I just want to say that that cycle of thinking is not only destructive but flat out wrong. Really? Even if you had lived in a cardboard box, shut off from the rest of the world, you would still emerge paler and more socially awkward. People change in 4 years. That is the nature of time and air pollution. So consequently, even if we're in the same relative position that we were in 4 years ago (the bottom) it's impossible for us to be in the actual same position. We know more, about ourselves and about the world. We have access to opportunities that we couldn't have dreamed of four years ago. We understand the world differently.

And even if we return to the same geography that we grew up in, It doesn't mean that we suddenly and immediately regress. On some fronts, sure. But you would switch opinions on some things if you went anywhere. The necessity of a winter coat, the appropriateness of taco meat on your pizza, EDM, for just a few examples. We change our minds, and it's ok if we change them back on some of the small things. But I maintain, moving back home does not mean that you become your 18 year old self. Because seriously, if the 18 year old version of yourself is better than your current version in any way besides maybe being more hopeful then my recommendation to you is not to go home but to spend a year in the Australian outback reevaluating how you make life choices. Seriously, just go now. Because moving home is only going to work if you feel comfortable with the person you've become. And you feel comfortable seeking out new opportunities and outlets in your original neck of the woods.

But something that's extremely important to remember is that you do have to change. The next 4 years of your life are not any more static than the last. New experiences and opportunities are going to throw us, and to try to hang on to the exact version of yourself that existed the moment you accept your degree is a dangerous but effective way to prevent yourself from experiencing anything or growing at all. Be open to the newness of the next stage, especially in places we've been before.

Sleepaway

Today I'm missing Camp, as I often do when I'm overwhelmed. So, to tide you over until my next real post, here is a speech I delivered at one of the final camp gatherings of the summer (and of my time there, 8 years as a camper and 5 years as staff). Whether or not you had the pleasure of going to camp, I hope you find something familiar in this ode that helps explain your relationship to the people and places that have helped you grow up and become all the things that you like about yourself. I introduced it as a love letter, and read verbatim from there:

Dear Camp,

Let’s start at the end.

As a Golan camper I felt the end of camper days drawing oppressively near. It was in the dining hall on the last day of camp. I was wearing my “I heart brussel sprouts” t-shirt and standing between Paige and Blaire and across from Shauna and our whole bunk was standing between the salad bar and our table singing at the top of our lungs. This was before ‘home away from home’ and our dining hall revelry usually consisted of build me up buttercup, wonderwall, and the circle game, so I can only assume that’s what we were singing. But I remember it perfectly otherwise. I remember that I stood there grinning ear to ear, overwhelmed by the magic of camp spirit and friendship and by the idea that if someone had offered postponing the rest of my life indefinitely to live in that single moment forever I would have done it in a heart beat. And I remember crying, tears streaming as I sang, because I knew that as much as I wished it so, that moment, like my summer, and like camp, would have to come to an end.

It wouldn’t be fair to say that every valuable experience I’ve had has been at camp. I skipped TAC 2 to spend 5 weeks working on an archeological dig in Israel. I carved out the middle three weeks of TAC 1 to volunteer for the National Parks of the Galapagos Islands. I decided to go to school 3,000 miles from home in Los Angeles and then decided to go even further, to an iconicly tumultuous European country to study abroad for a semester. All of these adventures helped me discover parts of myself that I never would have know if I hadn’t leapt off the edge of my comfort zone. But what I can say with absolute steadfast certainty is that it was my time with you, camp, that prepared me for each of these experiences.

Camp, you are the place that taught me how to be a good friend, how to be a good listener. You taught me to be adventurous, open, understanding, and accepting of difference. You affirmed and encouraged my independence while I built lifelong friendships with the girls around me. You taught me skills ranging from box stitch to shot put and taught that it was ok to try and fail as long as you sincerely tried. You taught me what it felt like to love and to be loved and be appreciated and be valued. You taught me the meaning of community. You taught me that home isn’t your return address it’s wherever there’s somewhere waiting for you to return. You taught me that if you love yourself everything else will fall into place. And that if you have the courage to try that the support will always follow. You taught me the moving power of friendship. Camp friendship is not just about having someone to laugh with or having someone to call, it’s about the unique experience of feeling truly connected to the world. Camp is the place you can never be alone. And for better or worse that means that camp is the one place and one experience where I have felt the most connected, the most comfortable, and the most loved.

I can’t say with certainty that I’ll never feel this way at any other point in time or with any other group of people, but I can say that what was once 10 for 2 (waiting ten months for 2 at camp) has evolved into 2 for 10 (spending 2 months at camp to give me the confidence, support, and energy I need to go out and live my life).

One day very soon this is going to evolve into a 13 for life situation. And by that I mean that one day soon I’m going to have to say goodbye, and the lessons I’ve learned over the 24 months I’ve been here are going to have to be enough. Camp, you have prepared me to succeed in every realm of life. You’ve taught me how to work hard, how to make the best of any situation, how to make new friends, keep old ones, and treat people well. You’ve taught me how to push myself and trust myself. And the time is fast approaching that I’ll have to put that preparation to good use.

I agree with the words of my camp bible, “Sleepaway”: Camp is more than a place, it’s a feeling. But in the same way that I don’t only feel loved on Valentine’s day or only feel full on Thanksgiving, I don’t only feel camp when I’m at camp. Whenever I feel myself getting closer to a new friend or taking a risk or challenging myself or saying the camp hamotzi at Friday night dinner with my family or singing along to wonderwall on the radio I feel you camp. I get goose bumps and I smile and my eyes burn and my stomach turns and my chest tightens because while everything reminds me of this summer splendor, nothing ever quite compares. You are always with me, but there is a constant nagging pain that I can’t always be with you.

I’m writing you this letter to thank you more than anything else. You have given me everything. I am certain of so few things in this world. I am certain that beauty can be found anywhere. I am certain that the universe is unpredictably chaotic. And I am certain that meaning in life comes from the people we share it with. I thank you and I love you for bringing meaning to my life. You won’t always be with me, but my camp friends will, and I know that whenever we’re together and we talk about our lives we will always return to the days we spent together here, under your canopy of trees, with your lake breeze, and we’ll smile and sigh at the magic that brought us together and made us into the women we will become. And for that magic, a million thank yous will never suffice.

Love, forever and always

Goodnight, Room

In a series of incredible decisions, I elected to let my parents repaint my childhood bedroom during my last semester of college. I'll share some details to give you a better concept of the gravity of this decision.

First, I take full responsibility. I did it to avoid the emotional trauma of taking down 13 years worth of inspirational Keds ads, class pictures, ticket stubs, and other such paraphernalia of a Manhattan-adjacent adolescence.

And yet, shocker, it turns out that is still quite emotional.

Back to those enlightening details I promised you...I am a loner by nature. I'm actually very social by nature, but that sociability is dependent on a set period of me-time within given time frames. Week. Day. What have you. But in my suburban paradise that place was my room. I loved my room. I spent a shit ton of time there. I read books in bed and did projects on my floor and in the winter I would read books for school next to my space heater and nod off as a combined result of exhaustion and fumes from the aforementioned space heater.

It used to be a heinous pink, because when we moved into the house either my mother or I was operating under the assumption that I was a girl and would therefore love pink. I have disdained pink ever since. But after several years of pleading, when I finally wet away to camp for the summer, I returned to a room that was befittingly wild. A royal blue carpet let loose six different wall shades which were capped with a cerulean ceiling. Lime Green. Sunshine Yellow. Salmon. Deep blue. Aqua. Rose. But the colors became irrelevant as my mind moved at break neck speeds over the next few years to cover my walls with collages, playbills, bands, posters, projects, and pictures from every trip and experience I had. Handmade cups and game boards became homes for pens and my grandmother's old jewelry. I acquired books and t-shirts and hand bags and books and by the time I graduated high school my room was a perfect candidate for that MTV game show. It captured perfectly who I was.

I actually haven't spent more than 4 consecutive weeks at home since graduating high school, and I haven't spent a summer there since before 11th grade. So as I prepare to relocate back to the east coast in my post-graduation spiral, I am made especially nostalgic by the idea of being back in my own room. And I am irrationally undone at the thought of it no longer being mine. I know we all have to grow up and parents move out of houses, and we donate clothes and books and bras...but what I haven't shared (at least not explicitly) is that at the forefront of my irrationality is my sentimentality. I've gotten better at ending things and leaving things, but sometimes a wrench gets thrown in, and the change makes you as miserable as ever.

I suppose it's possible and you're probably insistent that my nostalgia for my multi-colored tornado of a collage that I call my bedroom is merely a metaphor for the waves of change my life has already begun to undergo. But this time, I think it might actually just be my room. Not "just," I mean it's solely about my room. It's about the person I was allowed to be there, the person it set me up to become, and all the less desirable versions of myself that died between phone conversations and replays of Rent and journal pages and America's Next Top Model marathons. It's about having the choice, and looking back and feeling you've made some right ones.

And no place, whether it remains the same color or not, will ever witness such evolution in my life.
So let us bow our heads for a moment in memory of what was, and raise a glass to what might be.

Let me tell you, this time around, there will be coasters for wine glasses.

And by "Crisis" I mean...

OK. So maybe crisis is a little strong. Let's be honest, being a twenty something is nice tall glass of lemonade a solid 85% of the time. But for that 15% of the time when it's a sour sack of rotting lemons, I'm here. So when I say QLC (my fun new acronym for 1/4 life crisis), you can substitute the definition that is most useful to you:

1. Uncertainty

What overwhelms me and gives that fun and interesting new feeling somewhere between an asthma attack and a stroke is the complete blankness of all potential future landscapes. I have no idea what continent, much less what city, I'll  be living in in 12 months. I could be in the peace corps, I could be in a publishing house, I could be in grad school. Or I could be in my childhood bedroom trolling monster.com.
The point is not knowing the where means I don't know who i'll be spending time with, what I'll be doing, when I'll be doing it, or why (why I've ended up there, why they've gone against their better judgement and hired me...the why is a big one). And that degree of uncertainty is terrifying. Not butterflies in your stomach nervousness or loss of appetite anxiety but genuine, paralyzing terror that you have no idea what is coming next. It's like we're being forced to put our faces in a cannon barrel during a civil war reenactment training. Terror.

2. Confusion

So when you say "unpaid internship," could you please explain how that's different from slave labor? And when you say "well we never decided it was an open relationship," could you explain how that's not cheating? What do you mean books are no longer printed?
The world is an ever-changing, multi-layered metaphor of organizations and individuals designed to throw you off your A-game.
It's ok. It's at times like these that I repeat my mantra:

Be at one with the chaos of the universe

Trust that it will all work out. But, before you get to this point of clarity, you will obviously find yourself crying in a target aisle because you can't choose the right fabric softener scent. Just pretend that it's all part of the process.

3. Self Doubt

Confusion's partner in crime. If your parents tell you a million times that you should go to law school, and your teachers tell you, and friends tell you, and even strangers share their opinion every once in a while, you will at one point or another have a  moment of weakness when you start to believe them. Even though you know you don't want to be a lawyer. Even though you KNOW that you'll hate law school. You'll stop and wonder one day...are they right?

No. You're just experiencing one of the cornerstones of maturity: panic. Gravitating towards things that get referenced a lot in books and movies and that people tell you you'd be good at isn't the same as pursuing something safe or reasonable. It's just pursuing something that you don't want.

4. Fear

Fear. Fear of the unknown. Of commitment. Of actually going for your big dreams and falling short. Fear that all the good things have already happened? The sources are endless. The manifestations are rapidly multiplying. It's like rabbits. Now I bite my nails? Cool.

This completely false yet intense inclination that our pursuit of gainful employment slash financial independence slash sex and the city status social lives slash having-it-all-ness will either result in euphoria or homelessness is absurd. Accepting reality is not the same as settling.


I hope you found some of these alternate definitions useful, or at least I hope that they made you feel a little less alone. Now raise your box of Franzia to being one step closer to the rest of our lives. At least you made it through today.

A Penny Doesn't Get You as Far as it Used To

I, the modernist, am a young twenty something on the verge of one of the handful of terrifying precipices that face us young twenty somethings in this glorious decade that bridges teendom and genuine adulthood (which I'm defining here as the final rejection of Target furniture and mismatched dishware). Anyway, the dangerous ledge to which I refer is college graduation. Cue the cheesy but effectively eerie Vampire movie:

Bum bum BUUUM.

So, as any responsible young lass would do, I've started a blog. Job search? Study for the GRE? Two words: Yea. Right. In some ways this blog is a creative release from all of the academic work I have 13 weeks left to complete. In some ways it's a scrapbook of the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning, or the first days of the rest of my life blah blah blah. Whatever this era is, I want some documentation. But most overtly this is an outlet for the quarter life crisis that I suspect more than one of my readers has dealt with in one form or another over the past few years.

The quarter life crisis. An admittedly fictional social and psychological malady that manifests itself as anxiety, binge-drinking, and over sharing as a response to the mysterious and threatening future. Sometimes it leads you to exciting new places, like Morocco. And sometimes it leads you to the worst possible scenario, like a layover at an airport chili's in Ohio. But the crisis over the future is not the same as the future. The future will inevitably work out. Probably for the best. But Pt A to Pt B is a winding and dangerous road, filled with wild things (Maurice Sendak status) and pot holes and probably some pot. The journey is dangerous, made more so by our irreconcilable anxiety about what is coming next. But in reality it's like the field test in Men in Black. The things that look the most suspicious are the most reliable, and the things that seem the most innocent are pure evil.

Before I delve into this journey I should mention that I did not seek a degree or any alternative certification in psychology, sociology, anthropology, or feminist theory. I'm an English major, history minor. I love literature, world history, museums, and old music and my only qualifications to speak on the quarter life crisis is that I live my life in an intensely observant way and I'm experiencing the QLC on the daily. On both counts, I can only hope that something I share might help you, if not at least entertain or distract you for a while.

So whether you're joining this blogging adventure because you take pity on me, or you like what I have to say, or you like how I say it, or you find this to be a useful outlet for your newly risen angst against societal expectations, you are equally welcome. (though, full disclosure: anyone who is here primarily because they like my writing is my new favorite). I'm excited to get through this together. See what this year becomes. What this blog becomes. Because, after all, "I just want to bake a cake out of rainbows and smiles and all eat it and be happy. I have a lot of feelings." Indulge me.

XOXO Gossip Squirrel