The Body of Evidence

So this post is coming from a lot of different places, but the two sources that are easiest for you to access (and that I highly recommend) are the phenomenally creative and thought provoking novel The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt and the unprecedentedly engaging and entrancing podcast "Serial." These 2 projects came in to my life within a week of each other, just after Thanksgiving. They are...completely different. Like based on every superficial metric they have nothing in common, and I can't even imagine that the audience overlap is significant, but they do share this one important premise: Let's sit down and take everything, all the documents, and half-truths, and records, and opinions and articles and lay it out and see what story emerges, see which story is true. Which, when you think about it, is not so different than the way we live and edit our own lives. So as I've been devouring both of these projects and witnessing the accumulation of crap and subsequent purge that carries us from Christmas and through New Year's, I can't help but wonder...what kind of trace am I leaving? Am I leaving one? What do my objects say about me, and why does whatever they say seem to be so loud?

So. Here we are. Meditations on consumerism, capitalism, and the illusion of self-growth, in short,  the importance of stuff. How we accumulate it. How we let it go. How it becomes important. (Note: I will not answer all of these questions, at least not today. For today, the questions are enough.)

Monday night, actually on my way home from my book club discussion of The Blazing World, I lost my class ring. I have been wearing it on my left index finger, and even there it was a little loose. But I've been wearing it nearly every day since graduation, and especially during my year of underemployment it was a totem, a touchstone, a reminder that I had once been well, and with a little time, I could be well again. I have a, I guess you'd call it a tick, where I twist my ring by dragging my thumb through the space between my middle and pointer fingers. So as i was setting down my stuff on my desk and I was absently mangling my fingers, I quickly realized that my ring was gone.

My mind actually jumped almost immediately to Serial, because in one of the early episodes Sarah discusses our inability to recount details from our day. A pain stabbed my chest and I thought to myself, could I retrace my steps? could I remember exactly which bridges I had crossed and allys I had taken? My instinct was "nearly," but slowly pacing cobblestones in the dark of half midnight was not a proposition that particularly interested me, especially considering the futility of such an undertaking. I called the bar. I told my landlord. I tried to move on.

I tell this story mostly because I was surprised at how upset I was. Having so little going on right now I feel pretty centered, but losing that ring was like a stabbing. And maybe it was because I've been investing less in worldly possessions (emotionally and economically) that the loss of that petite scrap of metal hurt. Before I had cared for everything a little bit, and here I was left with a hole in my heart because I had transferred that interest to a very few objects, without losing any passion in the transfer. But, self criticism aside, everywhere I went and everything I read I was receiving the same message: Stuff matters!
Money might not buy happiness, but it does buy something, lots of things actually, and all those big and little things add up to something significant.

At the British Museum there is a piece entitled "Cradle to Grave" on display near the American tapestries by Susie Freeman, Dr. Liz Lee, and David Critchley, a trio otherwise known as Pharmacopoeia. It's a burlap quilt of sorts, really a blister pack that runs the length of a gallery, fashioned of a loose mesh and protected by a glass box. And upon closer inspection there are actually two streamers, side by side, loaded in a gridded and orderly fashion with pills. A man's and a woman's medical history. On display is not only every pill they've required over the course of their life, for reasons ranging from hay fever to birth control to pre-natal vitamins to heart attacks, but also personal trinkets, including family photos and 3rd place canoeing medals and etc etc. The idea being, there's more to wellness than the medicine, there's the personal stuff too. And to represent that sphere, there are actual objects, which on their own mean very little but hold the wight of very much.

In fact, it's not just this installation. The entire museum, all museums really, are glorified warehouses. We're looking at things, collections of objects that once meant so much that by extension they still meant something today. We don't save the coffins of every culture, partly because so many of them have disappeared or disintegrated, but also because sometimes we don't care. But the sarcophagi hanging out in the British Museum tell a different story. It was an empire with the means to preserve its own history, it was a rise and fall that the British were interested in, that they felt was somehow part of their legacy, and by means of archaeological work did actually become part of Britain's identity. And now tourists from the entire world can come to put finger prints on glass boxes that protect these incredibly old objects.

Now for contrast, cut to my room: desk with a Pisa-esque pile of folders and notebooks; 1-3 item receipts litter my desk; water glasses and half full mugs; a stack of one pound coins; paper flowers falling out of reused wine bottles. Swivel to my book shelf: piles of acquired souvenirs for family and friends, soaps shaped and scented like macrons, prints from boquanistas; books from expats who have already moved on to their next exotic locale; french children's books; my very own Larousse; and the notebooks, both completely empty and completely full, from courses finished and trips completed. And swivel, tight shot on that closet, undoubtedly the fewest pairs of shoes I've lived with since infancy, and I doubt that even as a newborn I had so few articles of clothing in my possession.

So here I am, amid my objects. No placquards or glass cases for tourists to mark with fingerprints. There are some bangles from Jaipur, and a postcard of Georgia O'Keefe on the back of a motor-cycle. There are colored pencils and a brand new pair of brown boots that I'm in love with. And all these things mean nothing. And everything. If the building burned down tonight in a fire, what would I miss? My journal. I could never replace that. But otherwise...

And yet, my sense of permanence is attributed almost fully to this...stuff. My very own piles of papers and projects in progress. That, and getting to fill out my french phone number and address on forms, that's when I feel like "wow, I actually live her. I have a life here." So it all means essentially nothing, but at the same time it means essentially everything. Is it my capitalist upbringing? Do communists feel less defined by their possessions, I wonder? Hard to say. But regardless of how important or impermanent my suitcase sized life is, it's here. And right now, it feels like my Larousse and my Petit Marseillais soap say everything you need to know about me. Oh, well that and my class ring, which in the end was found by a neighbor in the foyer and was graciously returned to my landlady who graciously returned it to an ecstatic American. So, maybe it's ok to be loosely defined by our possessions. To be honest, I don't hate the story my stuff is telling right now. That can't be a bad sign.

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)

A Forgotten Post

I find being miserable exhausting. I spent most of the day in a fitful stupor. After a long weekend full of near misses, I desperately wanted today to be good, but approached it with the expectation that it would be good all on its own, that the world is self correcting, that my bad mood would be rectified by affirmations and explanations...what a joke. However well things may be going in this city there is absolutely no one who is more interested in my well being than I am. So why give myself such a disadvantage, to start a week with cartoon wavy rays of anger emanating from my furrowed brow, crossed arms, hunched shoulders. I don't even want to talk to that person, why would anyone else

It's one thing to not need to be friends with everyone, but quite another to not be friends with anyone. You might need to re-read that. Lots of double negatives.

And often it's just a small change of perspective, most often sparked by the smallest of victories, and sometimes just the absence of failure.

Like not being confused by the clerk at the check out for the first time. And while looks from pâtissiers when I mispronounce éclairé are scalding, they are also just a reminder that to be successful you can't just try hard when you're happy, you have to try hard when it's the last thing you feel like doing.

I find that homesickness comes in waves. It's not so much that it ebbs and flows. By waves I mean that it sucks you under, breathless, drowning, a faint light your only indication of the surface. And even then, as you kick and flutter and flip in an effort to save yourself, another wave crashes, blinding you with white foam. It all feels counter intuitive, like maybe it would be easier to just sink to the bottom and find your way out the other end.
And then in some unseen tumult you are thrust towards the surface and in a spasm of energy, coming from some store kept hidden from even you, you burst out like Ariel, thrilled to live on a planet with breathable oxygen and full of confused joy that you've made it. And you celebrate the victory by yourself. That's how homesickness is like waves. It's like the last week in August on the east coast, when the tides promise hurricane season.
Plus tard...

So I found this draft when I sat down today to offer a new post. A delightful, uplifting piece to be certain. Self-indulgent and temporary and incompatible with any discernable creative arc. But I thought it was worth sharing.

When I started telling everyone that I was moving to Paris for a few months to learn French I remember being surprised, or at least slightly jarred by the most common response I received:

"Wow, you're so brave! That's so brave...etc etc."

When I read these messages and emails and texts I remember thinking "well...not really." I mean, I'm my mind, the financial risk was minimal, I wasn't spending money I didn't have; the geographic risk was non existent, Paris is a major metropolitan area with all the presumed comforts of modernity; the language barrier was kind of the point, I wanted to learn French; and the social risk could be no worse than returning to suburgatory for a year after college, at the very least there would be other people my age.

It became clear that very few people registered those changes the way I did, and in recent weeks it has become clear that these well-wishers seemed to understand something that I didn't. Risk doesn't have to be irreversible to be real. Investing emotionally in a path or a particular version of the future is just as potentially devastating as an emptied bank account or being alone.

And what a lovely way to think of myself, as being brave. Because its not all that easy to wake up every day with the resolve to give 110% to something that I don't really know how it's going to work out. So bravery then just becomes the choice, the decision. I'll take this risk. I'll miss friends and family and peanut butter in a healthy way. I'll walk towards an end that I can't see.

Things My Dad Says

In lieu of Friday's entry I bring you a special Fathers' Day bulletin?

To celebrate this day of dads I have decide to share a few kernels of his wisdom. Let me start by saying that everyone loves my dad. The same reasons that my mom yells at him, essentially for still behaving like a child, are the same things that attract people to his warmth, humor, and genuine happiness. I kind of love him. He's taught me a bunch. So now I present to you selected bits of wisdom from my favorite man in the world:

You Can Drive Your Car with Your Feet, But that Don't Make it a Good Idea (actually Chris Rock)

Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. Nuff said.

Don't Order a Hamburger in a Chinese Restaurant

A narrow metaphor but universally useful piece of advice. You'll have the best experience if you make the most of where you are when you're there and with whoever you're with. Adjust your expectations appropriately. Adjust your behavior appropriately. Make the most of the moment.

Nothing good ever happens after 2 am

I will respectfully disagree with dear papa on this one (maybe if we adjust from old people time we're actually talking like 5 am?) In that case I would remind you that the more alcohol and the less sleep your system is coping with, the less intelligent your decision making will be. This will almost always be a huge mistake. But sometimes a huge mistake (is that what the kids are calling it these days?) is exactly what you need.

In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king

He seriously says this ALL the time. Two part take-away: 1. you should pay attention to people who know more than you. Because they know more than you. 2. Just because someone knows more than you doesn't mean they know everything. Watch out.

Be Quick. Don't Hurry. (this is actually John Wooden)

Safety in numbers! (those numbers specifically being the numbers on the clock indicating time) Be efficient. Don't be reckless. This mantra is as useful when applied to your work ethic as it is when applied to travel.

Don't stuff 10 lb of flour into a 5 lb sack

Thanks Dad! These are the delicately phrased words my father barked at me through childhood warning me to not look like a slut, more specifically a fat one.

Nobody's looking at you

Moving on to adolescence (the full picture of my self-confidence is coming in to focus, I'm sure) this is what my dad kindly reminded me every time I expressed the slightest discontent at my outfit for a bat-mitzvah, Sweet 16, or wedding. Retrospectively, it was a humbling reminder for an active member of the ME generation, but still, the delivery could have been workshopped a bit more. The most useful component of this failure to realize that sometimes I did want people to be looking at me was that it wasn't about me, and it's an important part of life to recognize who it is about and be supportive of them. (Though I maintain that doesn't mean I have to look like shit)

So in closing, thanks for all the advice dad. I hope that the next 22 years loosen some lips and I can find out just how you acquired all your worldly wisdom.
xo your loving daughter

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 Cinderella Fallacy

From among the battery of lies that Disney brainwashed us with in our youth, this is one of the most frustrating. The commitment to happy endings in that animation studio was upsettingly Utopian and these days the simple elegance of the animation and the sweet songs are only just enough to prevent the stories from ringing completely hollow. But despite their irrelevance to reality, the anti-feminist whims of Disney are part of our cultural catalouges and we must, therefore, confront them.

But it is not Cinderella's inability to complete simple tasks without the assistance of rodents, magic, or men that gets my goat. It is the fairytale's governing principal that when the clock strikes twelve, everything will disappear. That in twelve swings of a pendulum everything we have that brings us joy will taken without cause but with great consequence.

I suppose she didn't work for her gown or glass slippers, but Allah knows she deserved them. And Allah knows she enjoyed them, in the most pure and innocent of ways. So, dear fairy godmother, why taunt her with happiness?  You could have just as easily treated her to a tacky dress from the sales rack at macy's and some worn pumps from the Goodwill. But instead you treat her to the lap of luxury, a jarring experience to be sure, just to rip it away. Rude.

I resent the implication that happiness, that relief from the unpleasantries in our lives, is temporary. Who says? Disney? Well he also wanted a housing development with only Aryans so let's take the guy's advice with a grain of salt. Maybe if we pull a Cindy and wait to be saved that's true. But if we work hard and long and hey, I'm not averse to a dash of good luck, then why shouldn't we be able to shake off the step mothers and step sisters and evil cats in our lives?

Part of Cinderella's cautionary tale is that we should work for it; that gifts can be taken as easily as given. But at this volta in my life the more powerful message is that Disney sucks, and fairytales are bullshit, and if I want it to my happiness can last until 12:15, or 3:15 (I know dad, nothing good ever happens after 1 am). It's really not up to an unwelcome elderly woman or a concerningly mysterious prince (seriously, what's his name?) to determine when my fun is over.

And furthermore, a ripped dress, a little pumpkin mush, and and a lost shoe is not a compelling set of reasons to head home. Lock it up Cindy. Rule #76 - No Excuses. Play Like a Champion.

The Uncompromisingly Irreplaceable

Every year on her birthday my mom closes her eyes and wishes for the exact same thing: complete health for my family, my friends, and me. It's really a great wish. The most essential. The least superfluous. I can't quite say that if you have your health you have everything, but if you don't have your health you really have nothing.

Well, yesterday I was similarly reminded of an irreplaceable source of happiness. Friends. Not people or acquaintances or frenemies but honest to god friends. People who are interested in your well being and invested in your happiness and looking out for you when you don't even realize it. There are a million ways to notice a good friend, to realize that they're there for you, but what I've found to be the most effective is to go out and spend a night with perfectly nice, well-intentioned people and discover the absence of any comfort, humor, or conversational spark.

It's really wonderful how easy and effortless your friendships seem afterwards. How easy it is to convey a thought with an eye roll, or know someone well enough to know what they need before they do, or to have someone know what you need and to help you figure it out. And also there's just the comfort of conversation. What better way to spend an evening then nestled in a couch with a glass of wine learning about someone else and learning about yourself. And usually the more people the better, but there is something really lovely about the type of relationship where you can sustain a 4 hour conversation with one person. And there's something even more wonderful about those friendships where silence is truly, genuinely comfortable.

I've been the agnostic equivalent of blessed with the people I have in my life. Both of my parents are only children, so I don't have any aunts, uncles, or cousins, but they valued their friends as their family. It was one of the most important lessons that they didn't consciously teach me: If you love someone, hold on. And I have. I'm still very close with friends from childhood, adolescence, and the teenage years. And that's definitely one of the reasons that I want to spend the next year at home. It's hard being away from them.

Maybe that's part of my discontent with yesterday evening. I don't have a ton of friends from college that I'm dying to hold on to, but I have a small, strong group. And I don't have a blue print for that. I'm afraid that by choosing NY i'll lose everything LA. The friends, the diversity, the food, the person I've become. How do I prevent that? And how do I prevent the worst case scenario, which is Friday nights spent with meaningless relationships for the rest of my life.

I suspect that it's a set of fears that I just have to live irrelevant, prove that it will work and I can have everything I want. Because really, why can't I have everything I want? I have my health. Check. I have friends. Check. Now I just just have to trust the system.

Deep Breath. It's all going to be OK.

The Hardest Thing (and I'm not talking about what she said)

Do you want to know the hardest thing about being a young twenty-something on the epic verge of graduation? When other people are happy.

Seriously, we're all doing fine, commiserating with each other over failures and disappointments and the unlikelihood of our financial independence in the coming calendar year, and then all of a sudden someone gets a job or a fellowship or an apartment or the smallest and least promising of leads and we're de-railed. Snap. Just like that, we're goners.

Because really, how do you expect me to be happy for the competition? Even when they're not my competition, isn't it our duty as the downtrodden of the economy to root for the underdog? To root for the "us," not the "them"? And despite wanting to be happy for friends and acquaintances who are stumbling on success (dare I lend their accomplishments the agency of hard work and achievement) all I can do is add those efforts to my list of failures. No amount of will, passion, or ice cream can sway my emotions toward their favor.

And I don't think I want them to be unhappy. It's not really a "misery loves company" scenario. And I also don't think that getting a job offer or a trust fund would relieve my animosity. So what would? Now that you mention it...nothing. One of the many burdens of the quarter life crisis, I suppose. The perpetual, rippling self doubt associated with any glimmer of success and the insatiable taste for accomplishment seem to be the ying and the yang of my mental state. What a terrible ying and yang.

So what's the solution? How do we make ourselves happy for the people we despise? Fake it till you make it is the obvious solution, and the one I typically adhere to. But I think my new favorite is asking questions that poke holes in the longevity of their success. Like, "What are you doing after your 1 year highly competitive fellowship?" The illusion of interest blended with the satisfaction of masked fury. I think that's as close to a win-win as we get in these situations.

The Age Calculator

A dear and brilliant friend of mine turns 22 today. In a rare lull in our conversation yesterday I asked her, awkwardly and out of obligation, how it felt to be 22? Her response was, as always, wise and true.

Like me, and I assume many of you, she stated that she had never really gotten birthdays because they didn't make her feel any different. What? Now I'm 22? great. It's still only been 1 day since yesterday and nothing besides a bar tender's relative perception of my age according to my ID seems to be different. All the big things have stayed the same. So we began talking about all of the things that do contribute to your age, since numbers are so vividly useless. Things like the number of car crashes you've been in, how many times you've lost your job, how often you've moved, how many funerals you've attended, on and on. I realize now that these are mostly negative things. But it got me thinking...how do I measure how old I feel? How should we measure that? So here are some of my thoughts, and I'd love to hear yours! Please comment with any additions, logical or illogical, strange and/or beautiful. I'd love to hear.

Measure: Car Altercations
My Count: 7
Explanation: Tickets. Accidents. Fender Benders. They cost you money and they ruin your day. This is probably the greatest cause of concrete stress in my life. I'm not even that bad of a driver. I follow the laws of the road. I don't speed too badly. I maintain reasonable distances between vehicles and I obey all posted signs. And yet, some combination of my compromised vision and undiagnosed attention disorder have left me with an impossible high count of 7. I think the stress of these moments alone would put them as the most ageing moments of my life, but then there's residual anxiety too! I really just don't love driving. And that's where we're at.

Measure: Stressful Seemingly Life Altering Decisions
My Count: 3
Explanation: I think this is probably the most obvious thing on the list. But whenever you're asking the question "How will this affect the person I want to become?" you know it's a trying decision process. It ages you, but when you make the right choice it also holds the potential to keep you young. So good luck with those.


Measure: Cavities
My Count: I've lost count. 6 maybe?
Explanation: This is not a reflection of bad oral hygiene. I'm a mouth breather, particularly at night. There's only so much I can do. More than any other reason, cavities are on the list because they make me feel dumb. Like, really? You couldn't even brush your teeth well? And because they make me feel immature, not young, just immature. Which is really just the worst combination.


Measure: Times out of the country
My Count: 6?
Explanation: I didn't say countries visited or new cities seen because I wanted to address the emotional and physical preparation of packing your bags, getting on a plane, and flinging yourself warp speed into the unknown. I'm whole heartedly invested in the benefits of travel, for the psyche and the soul, so while this type of travel does the power to age and de-age, I think it actually has the most positive effect. You feel younger at heart but you get more mature. Travel. Just do it.


Measure: Graduations Attended
My Count: 7

Explanation: This is not just about how many time you've graduated, but about how many times those closest to you have given you the opportunity to endure hours of pomp and circumstance. Not only do you lose life matter by making it through these endless ceremonies and their accompanying events, but graduations are a convenient reminder that as we move forward and accomplish more we up the anty. When we have more there's more to lose, more to live up to. #pressure #dontevenworryaboutit #stressisageing

Measure: Cups of Coffee
My Count: 7,302,418 (estimate)

Explanation: For me a cup of coffee is part of a daily routine but it's also a social centerpiece. Let's go grab coffee anyone? This age marker is an indicator of how much time has passed, just because I'm always drinking coffee, and it suggests how many times I've shared a beautiful conversation, or gone adventuring to find some drip in a foreign country, or cuddled up against a window and been equally stimulated by the words on the pages in front of me as the newly ingested caffeine coursing through my veins. Coffee is my drug, social lubricant, energizer of choice.

Measure: Road Trips
My Count: 5

Explanation: I think road trips make us older and younger all at once. They remind us of the excitement of adventure, the joy of the unknown, and they also provide ample time to get lost inside ourselves and grow and move forward more maturely, older and wiser. I've done a few short trips with my mom when I was visiting colleges and a few family vacations on the eastern sea board, but the bigest and best has yet to come. After graduation I'm driving from Los Angeles to New York with mi hermana. @ weeks. A ton of states. Lots of danger-opportunities. Ageing will abound. But if we have to get older, isn't it nice to do it with someone?

Measure: Funerals Attended
My Count: 2

Explanation: Funerals are a big deal. They're upsetting and unsettling and from my perspective the worst part is that it's impossible to offer any comfort to those who have just experienced the greatest loss. I think funerals remind us that we're moving up the list, and we have to make the most of everything while we're still on this side of the grass. Whatever their effect on you, they're still affecting.

Measure: Weddings Attended
My Count: 4

Explanation: Most of those that I'm listing were before I was 7. This one is actually a shout out to one of my favorite people, who is sharing her vows at the end of the summer. I'm SO excited for her wedding. To share in this exciting moment for her, to spend time with friends, to eat, drink, and be merry, all sounds incredible. And while I suspect that 7 weddings from now my emotions may turn bitter, I maintain that I think weddings are going to populate the next decade of my life and are going to present frequent and easy ways to gauge where I'm at in life. Introspection, in my opinion, has a tendency to slide you towards the old end of the age spectrum.

Measure: Glasses of Wine
My Count: Infinite

Explanation: This is my favorite way to measure my age. Glasses of wine are similar to cups of coffee in that I've had them everywhere, with everyone, and in every emotional state possible. No drink has punctuated the ups and downs of my life so aptly. And with this one I'm really not sure if it makes me feel older or younger, but either way it makes me feel happier, more content, and regardless of how I measure my age, I can't really see that being a bad thing.

The Apartment Period

Here's a puzzle for you:

What do Carrie Bradshaw, Hannah Horvath, and Jane NoLastName from 27 dresses have in common? (Besides, of course, their varying degrees of despairing singularity, their gender, and, incidentally, their geographic location...)

That's right! They all have absurdly fabulous apartments.

As if by magic they have all managed adorable little dwellings in the urban jungle which provide spacious stomping grounds for them to explore their independence, sexuality, and wardrobe. Beyond the utter irrationality of them affording these apartments with their slave labor professions there is an important message about the American (20-something) dream.

Once upon a time it was the expectation that you did or didn't go to school and then you used that time to court a future spouse, nail em down, marry em, and go on living happily ever after (or until divorce was popularized as an alternative to prolonged misery). But now...the 20-something dream has evolved. The vision of perfection includes me-time, self exploration, orienting oneself towards a career, building relationships outside of your future marriage, and what does a young 20 something need to realize these exploratory,experimental dreams? A fabulous apartment of course.

An apartment is no longer a stepping stone to a house in the burbs or a decadent status symbol for the highly cultured elite; it is a cupboard-under-the-stairs sized backdrop to a  period in a young chica's life (or chico's, I suppose, but  then my mind just wants to call it a bachelor pad) when all that matters is finding yourself. But, to be honest, my inner feminist conscious is a little concerned that these intensely valuable exercises in self development are a moderately well veiled attempt to figure our own shit out before moving into the big, final, will-be-the-real-thing relationships. We're trying to make ourselves less of a mess (a challenge that I suspect will be a huge part of my life, for the rest of my life) to make ourselves more desirable.

And I have two huge issues with that:

1. Do it for yourself! The "self" in self improvement isn't just referring to the person doing the work, it's referring to the person reaping the benefits. Improve yourself so that you can do more, be more, feel more. And part of that is opening yourself up to the world and the people in it, but part of that is also opening up new parts of yourself.

2. I want to spend my life with someone who can help me wade through my shit. How will I know if they're up to the task if they don't help me? In the least manipulative way possible, it's the ultimate test.

The apartment era of your life is about finding yourself on your own, but if you're completely on your own it will be pointless. I know for me the hardest form of courage is social courage, or being willing to open myself up and let other in, to trust, to receive, but you have to be learning that for yourself, not for someone else, or you'll risk it meaning nothing at all.

So let's enjoy the apartment period. Especially if it comes after having moved home. Amirite?

Happy Anna Howard Shaw Day

So I know you were probably expecting a vindictive single feminist rant against the commercialization of an imaginary holiday, which, for the record, I could offer you in my sleep. But instead of harping on the implicit exclusion and terrible clashing that are woven into the fabric of Valentine's Day, I'd like to try and give the festivities a bit of their dignity back. (thank me later)

I don't normally need a reason to eat chocolate, or buy flowers, but if you're just throwing reasons at me...
You want more reasons to enjoy this day? Valentine's Day is a reminder to share the love. Love your family. Love your friend. Love yourself. And I know that in this modern state of awareness and relationship building you think that we don't need a day particularly designated for telling people you love them, but we have reminders for so many other mundane things. When my light butter popcorn is done in the microwave it's a solid minute before it stops beeping. I set three alarms to wake up on the daily. So you think a reminder won't come in handy?

Share the love! Don't hate today. Enjoy it. Lean into it. Treat yourself to some appreciation and make sure everyone in your life knows how much they mean to you.

Excuse me while I get down from my pedestal. Off to go enjoy some free candy.

Is This as Good as it Gets?

Short Answer:

God, I hope not.

Long Answer:

Four years ago I thought, College is going to be the shit.

And, in the most abbreviation summation of the past four years, it hasn't been.

College did not compensate for almost two decades of feelings of social inadequacy or exclusion. College has not made me cool or particularly interesting. And I don't want you to think that I haven't taken advantage of opportunities. I have a fully stocked resumes and more accolades than I feel I need...or deserve for that matter. And how terrible it is to constantly be trying to living up to the expectations of an insatiable monster. And how terrible is it to realize that the girl I can never make happy, the wicked witch of the east moved west, is merely an inhabitant of my mirror.

The unfortunate clarity of this realization raises the question, am I ever going to be happy with the objectively delicious meal set in front of me? Or am i destined to be dissatisfied for the rest of my days...

It's truly absurd to think that the best has already happened. I can look at it logically a million different ways and day, "no, I have oodles to look forward to. I'm going to graduate. I am going to have a real apartment with matching dishware. Only 70% of my furniture will be from IKEA." But as soon as I've allowed any logic to spare me from my own cynicism, I feel it. Like a black cat walking across my consciousness. And i think "yea, all that could happen. Or I could end up a destitute dog lady (there's literally no way I will own cats) living in my parents' basement." And somehow the faintest glimmer of fear burns all the beautiful possibilities that I could entertain.

This really has to stop. Because the obvious answer to my title question is "obviously not." The obvious answers are "it's as good as you make it," "the best is yet to come," "the best will always be the very moment you choose to live fully, and that moment should always be right now." But somehow my brain skirts around those obvious answers and instead decided to get lost in alley ways without street signs where even the locals can't really figure out escape routes.

And at these times, when I feel like I'm drowning and the surface of the water is flaming oil, there is a certain comfort in dwelling in the misery I'm certain I'll encounter in the near future. Perhaps because misery is something that I can easily will into existance. But the problem is that whether that reality with the the dogs and the basement comes to life or not, I know it's not what I want. And if I know that, I know that I can choose to be happy. Even if it's simply by avoiding the worst possible fate I've drafted in my mind.

Choosing to be happy. It's really that easy.

And that doesn't mean that I'll never freak out about the inevitability of my failure again. But it does mean that I have to believe that one day it will all be enough. That something will shift, probably within me, and I'll look out on my beautiful life more than three days in a row and feel like yea, this is right. I can make this work. Because if I don't believe that all of that is possible one day, then what's the point?