The state of perpetual transition.

I have four more days of taking the Long Island Rail Road to work. For nearly a year, I have let everybody else complain for me that I have to take that hour-long trip into New York City everyday. I feel so humbled when I look up at that giant popsicle-shaped office building and again when tap my keycard on the little metal gate in the lobby. It still amazes me that that gate lets me in with a friendly “bink!” every single day.

Since securing my new home in Astoria, I have been eagerly looking forward to leaving Long Island behind. I drive my car under the Hofstra University unispan every day thinking, “Why am I still here? The door’s been open for so long, why haven’t I walked through it yet?” And then in the last two weeks, I’ve seen the floodgates open, and the campus completely empty out. It was not under the happiest circumstances. It was like everyone was fleeing, but I had to stay. Just a little while longer.

Since everyone in my house has already moved out, and there would be no more house meetings held via facebook message, I deactivated my facebook account. You always read how social media is linked to  negative self-image and anxiety, and for me it came to a fever pitch after the shooting on my college campus.

I was sick. I cried at work. I woke up the night she was killed with a nightmare. I was listening to music in a dream, and the music turned into a girl screaming. I woke up in a cold sweat with a throbbing pulse in my throat. I felt my mortality when my grandmother passed away suddenly last month, and I felt it again when a girl who lived a block and a half from me got killed in her own home. I didn’t want to know how my peers felt about it, but I found out anyway. 

It was then I realized that my relationship with facebook was a masochistic one. It had to go. I’m about to start a brand new life so indescribably brilliant, it would be an insult to waste my time looking at the poorly-worded thoughts of people I vaguely know. 

The internet is not a place nor is it a state of mind. 

Some Things I Love:

• The upcoming reboot of the Powerpuff Girls and Sailor Moon!
• Taking a hot bath while watching the snow fall. Ughh.
• The sound of my dog snoring.
• Oysters.
• Having strange dreams that feel as though they are an excerpt from a nightmare, and always waking up right before something terrifying happens.
• This article about Paris Hilton, and this one about Lindsey Lohan.
• My boyfriend’s new HOUSE.
• Driving around with friends, listening to old school J-Lo. (You should really try it sometime.)
• Being home.

Some Things I Love:

• Yoga breakthroughs! The other day I held a Crow Pose for 30 seconds. Looks like this.
• Also, the YOGAmazing video podcast. The best free yoga class podcast out there. 
• The word “squiffy.”
• Trying to recall my first fully formed memory.
• Brooklyn Brewery! Oh, it was so worth it to brave those blistering winds to have a cup (or four) of delicious BK brew. I have some extra beer tokens from the visit, so I’ll definitely be back again soon!
• Cooking in general. This week I made fas & fas (a tomato sauce-based stew), shrimp scampi, and hard boiled eggs for the first time and felt really accomplished.
• Using my juicer for the first time. It grinds vegetables with such force that it’s almost scary to watch. 
• Fairway supermarket. A beautiful place. The closest thing Long Island will ever have to a Wegmans. 
• Finally having some of dad’s homebrewed beer. About time.

Some Things I Love:

• Dishing out snappy comebacks whenever some stranger feels like calling me an infantile nickname like “sweetheart.” (ex. “Here’s your change, sweetheart.” “Thanks, princess.”)
• Veronica Varlow’s Magic Mondays and How-To Tuesdays. 
• Stroking the velvety plastic texture of my Kindle as I’m reading.
• Jump-roping in my back yard instead of going to the gym.
• Going to coffee shops that resemble Hogwarts common rooms!
• Seeing this Betsey Johnson chat live with Gen!
• Recipe swapping with mom. 
• Living in a house filled with every obscure spice, herb, and ingredient you’ll ever need.
• Staying true to my resolution to make a recipe from Pinterest once a month! This month was spaghetti w/kale & lemon. Recipe here.
• KALE. My new favorite leafy green.
• Seeing 6 out of the 9 Best Picture nominees, and not having any clue as to which film is going to win.

Things I love:

• Seeing Dita von Teese in March at long last!
• Ordering new glasses (they’re purple), a new phone (iPhone 4s), and a case (from Etsy), and the anticipation that ensues.
• Gloria Steinem’s “I Was A Playboy Bunny”.
• Blue mascara. It will change you. Bonus: My mom wore it in the 80’s.
• Chocolate from a cheese grater
• Freshly dyed red hair which turns my yellow gold nail polish into rose gold.
• Being on the line at Alexandra Franzen’s Tele-Coming Out Party. I love her blog, and so it was quite amazing to hear her work her one-on-one counseling magic in real time! We crafted personal introduction statements through a series of introspective questions, and it gave me a lot to think about when it comes to my own career aspirations.
• Birthmarks on celebrities.
• The “fuck yeah, unintentional exercise!” ache that you feel in your legs after a night of dancing.
• Getting mesmerized by finger light gloves at a house party.

Refresh that shit like it's your web browser

Ahh, new month, new month, new month!

Still shaking the dust off of November. What an time that was. The hurricane. The painful aftermath. The hysteria of the election. The realization that one of my roommates is an animal-neglecting psycho. The literal falling apart of my house at its seams. The subsequent moving-out of said roommate. The glorious long weekend that was Thanksgiving holiday. The death of my oldest cousin.

It was a brutal month, and that is why I love a fresh start. It may just be a continuation of the same week, but a new page on the calendar has always been so deeply symbolic for me of starting over. I love starting over. I’ve even come up with a list of resolutions today. I haven’t made resolutions in years! I thought it was stupid to wait until January 1st to make a change, when you can just begin your grand life change today, on the totally nondescript date of December 3rd, 2012. But I’ve made real resolutions this year, and I’m not unleashing them on the world until the new year.

November was the month when the shanty burned, crumbled, and blew away in the wind. December is the month we rebuild. January we toast our hard work and begin to decorate.

What I learned in college:

- Be a freshman, and use this to your advantage. Have meaningful, intellectual deep chats with professors and with delightful upperclassmen. Surprise them with your age. Get personally recommended for higher-level courses and consistant invites to the coolest parties in town.

- Long distance relationships in college can absolutely, 100% work. But not if they make you cry yourself to sleep.

- I don’t do clubs.

- I became best friends with my parents after I moved out of their house.

- Wine is the only thing I will ever have in my liquor cabinet.

- I am no more eloquent or extroverted than I was in high school.

- I hate the word “millennial.” Also the word “orifice.” I’m okay with “moist,” though.

- People will tell you that all of your birthdays past 21 don’t matter. This is a common lie told by cantankerous old farts.

- Live on Long Island for long enough, and you too will turn into an angry New York Driver.

- I have the rest of my life to study abroad. 

- Home is where the Christmas lights are.

- It feels wonderful to have a cause worth fighting (or rallying) for.

- Be wary of people who find too much pleasure in making fun of others.

- Don’t ever go to Nassau University Medical Center.

- Spend money on (sharable) experiences, rather than just stuff.

- It’s all about balance, or finding peace in the imbalance.

- Repairing an old friendship is the best.

- Share your wildest dreams with others who ask you about them. Maybe they can help you achieve them, you never know. 

- The more often you experience flow, the better your life will be. (thank you, positive psych)

- Know your rights. Keep abreast of the changing laws involving the internet and social media (thank you, mass media & the law)

- Be aware of the base world that you inhabit. Be aware of the worlds that the people around you inhabit. (thank you, buddhism)

- Read books slowly. You skip over all the delicious morsels when you skim. (thank you, english lit)

- Always have a creative outlet. 

- As RHCP says, “Choose not the life of limitation.” I went to college with this mantra, then reluctantly left it behind, and then reclaimed it again. And things have never been better.

- Just do what feels good, without hurting yourself or others.

The Yates School of Post-Graduate Studies

This is my very fancy way of announcing that after I graduate (and once life calms down a bit) I am going to compile a list of subjects and begin to seek out as much information about them as I can. And then I will tackle learning about each subject individually, using the library, the internet, and possibly former professors as my resources. 

I’ve realized that in my four years in college, I’ve encountered a lot of subjects that I’ve found fascinating, but haven’t had the time to devote all of my attention to. Just now, as I am faced with only Buddhism and Personal Finance finals left, I suddenly have boatloads of time to gingerly and lovingly soak up all of the information, and I’m learning far more in this manner than I would trying to cramcramcram it all into my brain (my choice study method, ever since high school).

Here is a sneak-peek at the prospective curriculum:

• Greek Mythology
• The Renaissance
• Shakespeare’s Sonnets
• Mediterranean Cooking
• Astrology
• Silent Films
• Beginner’s French and Greek
• The Great Classical Composers

And I will try to revisit Positive Psychology, Women’s Studies, Philosophy and Buddhism, which I took as college courses.

And I will start up a new Summer Reading List as well.

And I will edit the hell out of my first short story, so I can try to send it out for publication come September.

Geez, this is already a very busy summer.