ARTSY FARTSY

Things I Love Thursday

2011-10-27T19:43:00.001-05:00

The vase is a family heirloom and the tiny teddy bear was handmade by my friend Kat. Note the very well-worn guide to Disney World and the beloved Bossypants. Concerns about the Twilight books can be directed to this post.

I love: black tights; watercolor and ink; large cloth flower brooches; epaulettes; "the charmed life"; brown paper bag filled with a fat bouquet and a baguette; silhouette artwork; ballet flats; multicolored macarons; Kate Spade; peacoat and scarf; wallpaper; glossy nail polish; pitcher as a vase; horizontal stripes; topiaries; playing in the snow; champagne; rainbow order; poise; Ladurée; phrenology diagrams; seafoam green; quilted cushioned headboards; The Girls with Glasses Show; cigarette pants; lilac scented candles; warm apple crisp; diners; button-down blouses; bows; Brussels sprouts; fisherman sweaters; Jonathan Adler; calm; vanilla bean; salt air; français; nicely organized bookshelves (see above!); red lipstick; a dozen assorted donuts; cats; a glass of wine at the end of the day; salted caramel; classic Disney movies; outdoor concerts; takeout; messy hair; Disney World queues; correct punctuation; water with lemon; white porcelain; rainy afternoons; cookie cutters; Sculpy Clay; colorful rhinestones; assorted anything; ruffles; apothecary-style packaging on beauty products; dimples; ballet-inspired clothing; bunches of balloons; cashmere; fancy dinner parties; rain boots; a bowl of cold cereal as a midnight snack; pears in interior design; tiny tree lights; bubble tea; candlelight; sprinkles of all sorts; popovers and strawberry butter; rosemary; high heels; paper lanterns; really early in the morning; the first snow of the season; rooms with a view; peppermint; Ferris wheels; owls; patterns with flamingoes; feeling lighter after a haircut; farmers markets; Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle; pumpkin patches; cinnamon; sweater weather; origami.

Sometimes I go crazy and forget that I have friends.

2011-10-22T21:10:00.000-05:00

But I do.

And they are pretty great.

#9 Learn to Curl My Hair

2011-10-20T22:25:00.003-05:00

Ever since the eighth grade, I have had a complicated love-hate relationship with my hair. It dries differently every time I get it wet. Sometimes, my hair dries into neat little unfrizzy waves. Other times, I blow-dry it and it turns out like this:

Note the black-and-white frowny face. I was pretending to be in an infomercial.

Yes, friends. I am a regular Mia Thermopolis.* Except her hair looks a bit more manageable than mine. (Can I just take this opportunity to say that I adore Anne Hathaway and would choose her to play me in the future movie based on my life?)

* From The Princess Diaries, of course. If you've only seen the movie (which is one of my favorites, obviously), I highly, highly recommend the book series. Mia is totally whip-smart and neurotic and multidimensional. I wish she were my best friend in real life. We would eat vegetarian dumplings and watch Lifetime movies and share funny stories about our grumpy-lovable cats. But I digress.

Suffice it to say, my straightening iron and I go way back. And while I'm still working toward turning my love-hate relationship with my hair into a love-love one (see #23 Get a Low Maintenance Haircut), I'm not quite there yet, so I thought it was time to start branching out from my usual flattened 'do.

I borrowed my sister's curling iron and figured it out as I went. Twenty-five minutes, a few minor burns, and a lot of elbow grease later, I found myself looking like this:

Super-dark hair makes it hard to see the curls well on camera, but, trust me, I looked adorable.

Smiling and in color! Something must be good! But, really, hair-curling is not as hard as I thought it would be. Mostly just time-consuming. I'm on board.

Have you ever tried a daunting hairstyle?

40 things to do this year

2011-09-11T18:27:00.012-05:00

[image source]

Just a little update on my life right now: taking a little "gap year" before venturing to L.A., doing boatloads of therapy for my ever-lingering social anxiety and working in data entry like it's my job (which it is). I thought I'd make this little list to keep the relaxation exercises and spreadsheets and diaphramatic breathing and alphabetizing from driving me bonkers. It's in no particular order. (Actually, it's in order by sentence length because I thought it'd look prettier that way.) Stay tuned for updates...

Also, please, please consider donating here. It would mean a lot to me.

01. Run a race.

02. Write a poem.

03. Forgive myself.

04. Enter a contest.

05. Learn to crochet.

06. Start a web comic.

07. Make Shrinky Dinks.

08. Order a pizza by self.

09. ~~Learn to curl my hair.~~

10. Master the smoky eye.

11. Make French macarons.

12. Bake a pie from scratch.

13. Fill in gaps in wardrobe.

14. Organize iTunes library.

15. Revise feature film script.

16. Go to the beach in a bikini.

17. ~~Send a secret to Postsecret.~~

18. ~~Mail a package to a pen pal.~~
19. Make a serious piece of art.

20. Do a random act of kindness.

21. Learn some basic photoshop.

22. Celebrate an obscure holiday.

23. Get a low-maintenance haircut.

24. Complete an exercise challenge.

25. Paint bathroom walls a pretty color.

26. Blow bubbles in public for no reason.

27. Spend a day in heels without slouching.

28. Have a fancypants wine tasting at home.

29. Make a quilt out of old nostalgic t-shirts.

30. Spend a day writing at a coffee shop, alone.

31. Order a silly alcoholic drink at a restaurant.

32. Replace granny panties with cute underwear.

33. Write a fan letter to someone not super famous.

34. Drive somewhere far away without freaking out.

35. Write a draft of a graphic memoir for NaNoWriMo.

36. Complete the Dr. Richards social anxiety audio series.

37. Watch all best picture nominees before the Oscars air.

38. Watch the 50 Matchbook Girl films (or some of them).

39. Reread a book I was too stressed to enjoy in high school.

40. Make a recipe from a cookbook that's been gathering dust.

Here goes nothing!

Finished!

2011-05-31T18:35:00.013-05:00

Below is the finished draft of my creative nonfiction essay. I'm really proud of how it turned out, if I do say so myself. Definitely worth the thumb pain from all that inking. Hopefully I'll be able to do more posts like this from now on.

Oh, also, this is the last of the dead mom stuff for a bit. (Finally, I know.) Of course I reserve the right to write sad stuff when I'm sad, but you can expect some cheerier posts in the near future.

♥

Tearing Up

2011-05-19T09:47:00.004-05:00

[image source]

Two days before my mom died, I saw her face, bald, jaundiced, swollen like a balloon from all the steroids, and I literally could not stop laughing. I am not an unkind person, I promise. “What’s wrong with Mom’s face?” I asked my sisters, trying to catch my breath. They laughed too. It was funny, the whole thing. None of it made any sense.

The day my mother got home from the doctor’s office where she’d just been diagnosed with ovarian cancer at the depressingly young age of forty seven, she immediately got on her laptop and started researching hats. Sun hats and berets. Not wigs. Wigs were, definitively, creepy, she told us, and she would never wear one. (She said this in her characteristic manner of stating opinion as fact. “Cheesecake is nauseating.” “The Price is Right is quality television.” “Those Olsen twins look like little monkeys.”) Having seen a few episodes of Scrubs and thus thinking this was the standard thing to do, my sisters and I asked her if we should shave our heads, too. You know, to keep Mommy company as the chemotherapy ravaged her scalp (among other body parts).

“No!” she cried in response. I laughed, though I’ll admit, the horrified look on her face as she struggled to imagine her three daughters no longer framed by piles of too-thick Semitic fur made me a little bit self-conscious. But, anyway. We kept our hair.

A few days later, she was back from another doctor’s appointment. This time, she’d learned exactly what stage her cancer was in. Four. For reference, stage three is where the success stories start getting sparse. For further reference, there is no stage five. My mom was crying. I didn’t know my mom could cry. I’d never seen it in my life. Her dark eyes looked so childlike, brimming over like that. The five of us filled the room with a symphony of tears. After a while, everyone else left and I stayed there, laying next to my mom in her bed, and she rubbed my back with her impossibly soft hand, reassuringly, even though she was the one who was dying.

And, though next eight months were filled with a kind of sadness so powerful it pounded a dull, constant ache somewhere beneath the ribs, there were little moments that were different.

There was the time I lazily flipped through old Marry, Date, or Dump cards and read them off to my parents. “Paul, John, Ringo,” I read. “Oprah, Ellen, Ricki Lake.” “Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore.” My dad would marry Britney, he said. “Guess he just likes bald women!” my mom chirped, grinning. And then she winked. (She was the best at winking. Her winks were always playful, never creepy. I have not inherited this talent.)

There were hours spent watching What Not To Wear and ridiculing contestants’ ideas of “business casual” while we sat in our unmatching pajamas, stopping only to answer the door for yet another friendly neighbor bearing yet another enormous aluminum pan of lasagna that would not fit in the refrigerator.

The way the nurses always ended her shots by covering the pinprick on her belly with an upside-down Looney Tunes bandaid so she could see it when she looked down.

The sign in the hallway of the hospital we frequented that said, “Laughing at the wrong times is still good for you.” We obeyed this like it was the law.

And then she died and the sadness became a monster that ravaged every innocent pause in thought: a daydream during class, a warm shower, the space between getting in bed and falling asleep. But still there were moments.

My grandparents, dad, and aunt sitting outside arguing over the exact wording of the obituary -- “loving mother and devoted wife” or “devoted mother and loving wife”? And then my little sister, pacing, on the phone with the funeral director, correcting his punctuation.

Letting the cat lick salty tears off my face with her sandpaper tongue and admiring her almost psychic ability to find me whenever I’m sad.

Spraying my mom’s perfume on one of her old shirts and hugging it like I’m in some kind of Lifetime movie.

Making too-soon jokes because how else can you possibly deal? Honestly, how?

I’ve inherited my chronic-worrier nature from my dad, and, growing up, whenever I was nervous about something, my mom would always say, “You know, nervousness and excitement are really the same thing. Just pretend you’re excited instead.” I think it’s the same thing with laughing and crying. I don’t know if I can tell the difference anymore.

Mother's Day

2011-05-09T11:58:00.004-05:00

[final draft]

When your stomach starts to convulse in pain, go to the hospital immediately. You don’t have to be brave. Go to the hospital, and, if they tell you everything’s fine, that it’s just a benign ovarian cyst, take a second to regroup, but then keep inquiring. I know you think you’re always lucky, and, it’s true, you usually are. If you had been in the car with Dad and the girls that time the car flipped over... Well. And, not to mention the time you insisted on going on that ride by yourself, the one that suspended you upside down a billion stories in the air. I know you blew kisses down at us, but who knows what could have happened?

But you won’t ask for a biopsy, because why would you ever need a biopsy? You are, if nothing else, an optimist. You will take the pain medication and go on with your life. You’ll overwork yourself, packing our whole house into boxes for the big move that you’ve been eagerly anticipating and we’ve been dreading. Once we finally pull up to our new house, with its reddish tiled roof identical to all its neighbors, you will get out of the car and breathe in the sweet Florida air, filled with tropical flowers and salt and humidity, and sigh with relief. Your new life is about to begin.

You’ll overwork yourself again, unpacking all the boxes and flitting around the house, making sure everything looks perfect, because if it’s your house, it needs to be. You’ll help the girls pick out scads of polo shirts and long plaid shorts to fit the dress code at their new private school. You will move me into my first dorm room. You will promise to finally start baking and send me cookies like June Cleaver, but there will never be enough time. You’re too busy starting your first calligraphy business. When I’m home for breaks, I’ll watch your hand, endlessly steady, glide the pen over the card stock.

Life in Florida will be everything you wanted it to be. You will start loosening up. You finally live in the state of your favorite dessert -- key lime pie is on the menu of practically every restaurant here. The sun stays out all day. There’s a pool in the backyard. But it won’t last. Soon, you will start to complain of stomach pains and bloating. We will all stupidly assume it’s just a product of stress. Dad will bring you to doctor after doctor and no one will be able to agree on anything until finally an oncologist calls. An oncologist? But those are for other families, not the Feder family. Our problems are things like unruly eyebrows or burning the marshmallows on the sweet potato casserole. Cancer doesn’t make any sense at all.

Soon you’ll come home from the doctor’s office, crying like a child. This will be the first time we have ever seen you cry. You will say the cancer is stage four, “the kind you don’t want to get.” We’ll join you in crying. The house will barely be able to contain the sadness inside. I will timidly ask you the question we’re all thinking, “Did they give you a prognosis?” “Several years,” you’ll say, putting the emphasis on several. Long after everyone else has gone off, I will stay on your bed with you, tears trickling down my face while you rub my back reassuringly, even though you’re the one who’s dying.

Starting immediately, you will gradually turn into someone who’s not you. I’ll remember your calligraphy when the neuropathy gets so bad you can’t hold a pen anymore. I’ll remember how you used to force me onto thrill rides by calling me a wimp while we wheel you around Disney World in a wheelchair. I’ll remember how beautiful you looked all dressed up for shul, in a black suit and heels and lipstick, when you wear pajamas all day, inside-out so the fabric doesn’t irritate your newly sensitive skin. I’ll remember how only you could ever really understand me when your eyes go blank and your thoughts cloud.

You will lose most of your appetite and all of your hair. You’ll grow thin and weak and jaundiced. The cancer will spread to your brain. It will happen while I’m away at school, so I’ll only catch glimpses. I will hear that you forgot Cody’s name, that you’re saying things out of character. You’ll be in and out of the hospital so often we’ll start to think of Sarasota Memorial as our home base, with its white board on the oncology floor that says, “Laughing at the wrong times is still good for you.” We will all abide by this rule, as much as it will bother Dad. We’ll talk about “going to chemo” as easily as “going to the movies.”

And then, suddenly, this one time in the hospital will become the last one. The platelet transfusions won’t take. You’ll ask me to sleep over. You will be so loopy from the cancer and the medication that you’re not my mom anymore. You’ll ask me to help you put on your underwear, to help your weak, wobbly body to the bathroom, two feet from the bed, and you’ll nearly collapse. The nurses will look at me, at our family, with those sad smiles that never seem to go away. The doctor will tell us there’s nothing left for him to do. The hospice nurse will sit us down. They’ll put you on morphine.

Dad and Spinny will want to be in the room with you when it happens. Cody won’t. I won’t be able to decide. I’ll sit, nervously, with Cody in the “family break room,” with its familiar stench of stale coffee grounds, and then I’ll remember I left something in the hospital room. I’ll go back to get it and while I’m there, you’ll take your last breath. I’ll see it. It will be almost anti-climactic, just one quiet, wheezing breath, and then silence. “Was that it?” we’ll ask. “That was it,” the nurse will answer as she gently closes your eyes. And, that’s it.

Years later, I’ll find your spicy-sweet perfume, Jovan Musk, at the drug store, and I’ll spray it around and pretend you’re in the room with me. We’ll make key lime pie on your birthday and eat it on the beach. Spinny will write songs about you Dad will eventually stop crying in public. I’ll put on a smile, even if it hurts, just like you always taught me.

This is what I will think of while everyone else is celebrating Mother’s Day.

Rough rough rough draft

2011-04-29T11:50:00.003-05:00

[as you can see, I was thrilled to be a big sister]

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” you’ll say when you find out my mom died when she was forty-seven and I was nineteen. Raised on a diet of soap operas and sad movies, you might think you know all about it, all about her. But here’s what you don’t know:

You don’t know that my mom insisted on carefully shaving her legs before rushing to the hospital to give birth to me because her legs would be the first thing I’d see.

You don’t know that she attributed all her successes in motherhood to the fictitious “mom school” or how she called staying up all night to sew us Halloween costumes or pack our carry-ons for our family vacation or make English toffee bars for a sukkah party “being an elf,” like the children’s story The Shoemaker and the Elves.

You don’t know about her tendency to chant 1970s commercial jingles in the car on road trips or the way she’d suddenly catch on to a popular pop song like Britney Spears’ “Toxic” even though her musical tastes veered mostly toward James Taylor and Carly Simon.

You don’t know about her impeccable impression of Jan Brady’s terrible cheerleading audition routine with mop handles instead of pompoms all while singing the completely instrumental music herself.

You don’t know about my mom’s obsession with nicely groomed eyebrows, and how she was never satisfied with my own tweezing job, so she’d make me lay down with my head in her lap while she did it herself.

You don’t know about her mastery of the art of winking.

You don’t know that she was a thrill ride junky and that she once wanted to go on an amusement park ride called “The Mighty Axe” which involved being suspended upside down eighty feet in the air, and, when no one else in the family could gather nearly enough courage to go with her, she went by herself, and blew us kisses from the tip top while we watched in horror. Or how she would later call me a wimp until I’d agree to join her on such thrill rides, and how, while we waited in line, she’d calm my nerves by repeating, “When mommy’s around, nothing bad can happen.”

You don’t know about her quiet confidence, or how her hands looked, always elegant even between manicures, gripping a calligraphy pen too tightly to effortlessly churn out stacks of wedding invitations in typefaces she named after her loved ones or hammering a nail into a piece of Ikea furniture she easily put together without any help from anyone.

You don’t know about the time she watched a few moments of that old Nickelodeon cartoon Rocko’s Modern Life with me and literally fell off the couch laughing at a scene involving a large piece of spinach stuck in between the lead character’s teeth.

You don’t know her favorite color (periwinkle) or sport (softball) or TV show (Cash Cab, or maybe House Hunters) or dessert (key lime pie) or cereal (Lucky Charms, because of the gelatin in the marshmallows that made it forbidden in her kosher home growing up).

You don’t know how she’d wake me up before school in sixth grade, gently squeaking open the door, climbing into my warm bed, snuggling for a few minutes, and then kicking me out so she could enjoy the luxurious comforter while I grumpily brushed my teeth.

You don’t know the scent of her spicy-sweet perfume, Jovan Musk, five dollars at the drug store, that she sprayed on before going to shul for the high holidays, dressed in a black suit and heels and lipstick, looking so beautiful it was all I could ever hope to be.

You don’t know how, despite this, she was never happy with her appearance, was always on a diet. How she put the family on a diet, too, when we were all little kids, gave us body image issues and eating disorders. How she had the power to make me cry by telling me to suck in my stomach when I was trying on a new dress.

You don’t know how she didn’t cry. Not during sad movies, not ever, until the day she revealed to the family that she had been diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer, choked out the words, “it’s the kind you don’t want to have.” And yet she still rubbed my back as I wept, even though she was the one with three years to live (which turned out to be less than one).

You don’t know how the complications from chemotherapy took away everything that made her who she was. She lost the all-important eyebrows. She got neuropathy that was so bad she couldn’t even hold a pen, let alone practice calligraphy. She had to walk with a walker.

You don’t know how, when the cancer spread to her brain, she accidentally called my sister, Cody, “Coraline,” and now my other sister refuses to watch the movie Coraline because it makes her too sad.

You don’t know the horror of watching the most important person in your life shrivel into something you don’t know anymore. Of having to explain to your little sister what an oncologist is. Of dreading every phone call from home because it might be the worst news. Or how calm it is to see someone take her last breath. How it really is just that, one breath, and then silence. You just don’t know. But, how could you?

Guys who have crushes on Natalie Portman

2011-04-21T16:38:00.000-05:00

It doesn't hurt if they have thick eyebrows and dress like cute English teachers/Joseph Gordon-Levitt circa (500) Days of Summer.

Avocado

2011-04-20T15:45:00.000-05:00

My preferred matzo topping.

Origami

2011-04-19T15:46:00.000-05:00

Last year, my New Year's resolution was to learn to fold a paper crane. After several grueling hours, I succeeded. I still mess up most of the time.

Pets with long, complicated names

2011-04-18T15:34:00.000-05:00

I keep a really, really long list of things that make me happy. Now, I'm drawing some of them.

* Side note about the bird: the name Hector Peppy Noodle Hoffman was the name of the pet parrot my mom's family had when she was little. They couldn't agree on a name, so they just used all of them. My aunt wanted Hector because that was the bird's name at the pet store. My mom wanted Peppy because that was the name of her friend's bird. My uncle wanted Noodle because he liked noodles.

Things I Love Three (and a half) Months

2011-04-12T20:09:00.013-05:00

[image via The Neotraditionalist via Matchbook Magazine]

Remember me, Blogosphere? It's been a while. I promise I didn't mean to leave you hanging! Last quarter, I had to write an entire feature length film for my screenwriting class (more on this in a later post) and, clearly, time got away from me. Please let this super-fun post be a consolation prize for waiting so patiently.

I don't know about you, but my 2011 has been way stressful. It hit me (hard) that I'm graduating from college in a few months, I've started to totally freak out. I've never before been at a point in my life where I have so little planned in advance, and it's terrifying. I know that things will have to work out eventually, but, in the meantime, I've been self-medicating with these here sites and videos:

♥ Matchbook Magazine is a new online magazine that's just... oh, it's delightful. Subtitled "a field guide to the charmed life," Matchbook focuses on Grace-Kelly-classic style with a whimsical, magical twist. A new issue comes out each month and I devour it immediately. This magazine has totally inspired me to re-make my personal style. But don't sit here listening to me. Go read it yourself.

♥ Simple Disney Things is a tumblr dedicated to the little wonderful things about Disney World and Disneyland. I wish I could relate more to the Disneyland ones (I've never been), but, still, the site has the ability to make me tear up out of nostalgia. Even better, they just added a music page with tons of (free) downloads of music played at the parks. Cheery and lyric-less (usually), they're the perfect study music.

♥ Eat the Damn Cake, a blog about body image and feminism and cake, is just the best. I never finish reading an entry without feeling better about myself in some way. She ends each post with an "un-roast," a little statement of love to some part of her appearance. And her banner is a large picture of chocolate cake. I mean, come on.

♥ Kat Doodles is an adorable blog run by my adorable friend, Kat, who I met in art class. She also designs greeting cards that you can buy on her Etsy store. My personal favorite is an old one involving a giant pile of cheese (I see you're not surprised). And she let me do a guest post once. :)

And some quickies:

♥ Cupcake's Clothes dresses like it's her birthday everyday!

♥ My singing, songwriting sister is going to be famous one day.

♥ Like Elle and Blair need more publicity, but still.

♥ Something in the Water by Brooke Fraser. So catchy.

♥ TV writing dreams aside, I kind of want to be The Pioneer Woman when I grow up.

Hope you're having a good week, lovelies. It feels good to be back.

2011

2010-12-31T21:12:00.002-06:00

[image via weheartit]

Happy New Year, everyone! I'm sprawled on the couch with my little sister and sleeping kitty, nibbling on fancy mini cheesecakes and sipping champagne while half-watching Elf. Bliss. Anyway, I thought I'd do a little wrap-up of my 4 simple goals project and tell you about my new year's resolutions for 2011.

Overall, 4 simple goals was a great experience. For the most part, I found myself incorporating them into my life. I started to have more fun with clothes and makeup, completed couch to 5k, savored the little things, and got outside of my comfort zone more. All in all, great success. Thumbs up! I encourage all of you to try it sometime.

Now, for my new year's resolutions. For 2011, I'm keeping things simple:

1. Find balance. (between regular exercise and relaxation; nutritious, whole food and indulgences; getting outside of my comfort zone and accepting myself for who I am, etc.)

2. Find inner peace. (incorporating more calm into my daily life: yoga, scented candles, knitting and crocheting, a cozy aesthetic)

3. Bake a tarte tatin.

That's all. Happy 2011!

Heavy boots

2010-12-27T14:21:00.000-06:00

[image via weheartit]

What is it with me and school breaks and death? My mom died 2 days into my sophomore year spring break, and this year, 2 days after getting home for winter break (those 2 days filled with intense family therapy at Renfrew), I was once again jetsetting to icy Chicago for a funeral.

Let me tell you, there is nothing (NOTHING) like going to your beloved Grandpa's funeral at the exact same funeral home and cemetery location as your mom's, just a year and a half after it. Talk about ripping the wound open again. I was never particularly chummy with my grandpa, but I always felt really close to him. He was quiet and sarcastic and a lover of old movies and experimenting in the kitchen. He made my mom my mom. He was in slow decline for several years, and, for a while, I felt like his death wouldn't affect me. I had a few small tears during the ceremony, but, nothing major. However, when we got to the cemetery, and, together, with my sisters and cousins, we lifted his casket to the stand above the plot, I saw my mom's stone on one's side and my great-grandma's stone (the one I'm named for, my homegirl) on the other side. That's when I lost it.

My sister huddled next to me and whispered, "Did something just hit you?" Oh yes. Something did just hit me. I cried for my mom and my grandpa and the fact that the three people to whom I feel the most visceral connection were gone forever. I cried because my mom's death finally felt real. It was scary and gut-wrenching and sort of liberating, as crying in front of lots of people tends to be. My grandma (on the other side) kept throwing blankets over us and lots of cousins tried to rub my back, which I didn't totally appreciate.

The week-long shiva was filled with concerned looks and awkward hugs from strangers and many, many deli platters. It ended with the customary walk around the block and another flight back to Sarasota, which is where I am right now, but only for a few more days before I head back to Chicago for New Years and then my last winter quarter ever (!!!).

I'm a mess, an absolute mess. I'm terrified about graduating and trying to find a new life while holding this giant burden of social anxiety. I'm sick of people close to me dying. I miss my mom SO MUCH. Someone please tell me it's going to be okay.

4 simple goals (before 2011) update!

2010-10-09T15:14:00.003-05:00

[image via weheartit]

Well, folks, it's been almost 4 weeks, and I've successfully stuck to my 4 goals. Here's how it's been going:

1. Treat my body with love.

As of today I am on week 7 of the 9-week Couch to 5K program. I ran for 25 minutes straight, you guys! I have never been athletic. The first week, it was hard for me to run for 1 minute at a time. I am beyond proud -- I've never stuck to a fitness goal before. Exercise has become something I do because it's fun and challenging, not because I feel like I need to. Also, yesterday I finally signed up for a bi-weekly CSA box! Every other Friday, I'll be delivered a box of assorted seasonal, local fresh produce. I am super giddy to use the fruits and vegetables in recipes.

2. Fill my life with beauty.

When I got back to my apartment this year, I rearranged my room and started redecorating. I'd still like to get candles, plants, and those homemade clouds I talked about. We're getting there. Also, in the past month, I've refined my wardrobe, gotten a major haircut (8 inches for Locks of Love, you guys!), and started wearing makeup on a regular basis. I finally feel like I'm wearing outfits instead of just old jeans and a v-neck every day. And thanks to my lovely cousin, I now have a Mickey Mouse waffle iron that I've been using to inject a little cozy into my day-to-day life.

3. Make routines.

For the most part, I've been getting my homework done the day before it's due. I can't get over how much it reduces my stress. It feels good to know I'm working hard to be organized and it's paying off. My room has been staying relatively clean and I've done all my laundry. Side note: Helvetica Neue in "ultralight" is the best, most zen font for a to-do list.

4. Get scared.

Guess who's not going to fail her participation grades this quarter? Me-eee! Also, getting my hair cut was a huge breakthrough because it's a long one-on-one situation and getting my hair cut used to be a thing I always always did with my mom. But I did it! And now a little kid with cancer is getting a wig made of my hair. :)

Sooo basically these goals are the best thing I've done for myself in a while. I highly recommend you try it. Be well. ♥

4 simple goals (before 2011)

2010-09-11T13:09:00.003-05:00

[images via weheartit, compiled by me]

One of my favorite artsy bloggers, Elsie (lovely name!) of A Beautiful Mess, started a movement called "4 Simple Goals," that focuses on making our lives richer, happier, and more beautiful before the calendar year is up. Rules are found here. Of course, with my love for lists and goals, I'm jumping on the bandwagon!

Here goes:

1. Treat my body with love.

This includes all forms of self-care, both physically and mentally. Just over two weeks ago, I started the Couch to 5k program and I can already feel my endurance increasing. The program is 3 days a week, and I'd like to add a few days of yoga to supplement it. I'm also working on eating a nutritious, ethical diet, doing less fat talk, and pampering myself with cozy beauty products.

2. Surround myself with beauty.

I pledge to spend more time in places that inspire me. I'm going to do a mini decorating makeover in my room with artwork, plants (I'm thinking of getting a bamboo plant or a little terrarium), and these delightful homemade clouds. I'm also going to refine my wardrobe, removing the pieces that don't make me feel fabulous, and spend more time outside, especially during twilight, my favorite time of day.

3. Make routines.

I'm sick of finishing assignments at the last minute. I need to have routines so I don't need to expend so much energy trying to create a new way to budget my time every morning. Having a routine to fall back on will cut down on a lot of unnecessary stress. I'd also like to start packing food for when I'm out at class all day to save money on fast food-y, prepackaged things and water bottles.

4. Get scared.

Like I've said before, I have social anxiety. This goes beyond the traditional "shyness" to something deeper and more emotional. I'm seeing a wonderful therapist who's instructed me to take baby steps in overcoming my struggles. She wants me to do something that scares me every day -- basically putting myself in more social situations. could be talking to a cashier at the bookstore or calling someone instead of e-mailing. It's really really hard but it's getting easier.

So that's it! I'll be checking in periodically to let you all know how I'm doing. Be well. ♥

Style icons

2010-08-24T13:11:00.007-05:00

Okay, so I'm not the most stylish girl. I'm still trying to get over the if-it-fits-buy-it-in-4-colors bug I caught from my mom years ago. Once I finally beat my Target binge disorder, though, here are the famous females whose styles I'd totally want to emulate:

Kate Nash

[image via some google image search]

I love her bangs and her messy hair and her freckles (although I'm sadly lacking in that department). Her vintage-y dresses, loud thrift store sweaters, tights, and colorful heels are awesome. She wears bright red lipstick and sparkly purple eye shadow with so much confidence. Kate Nash is one kickass lady. Plus her cover of The Arctic Monkeys' "Fluorescent Adolescent" is outrageously catchy.

Kirsten Dunst

[image via weheartit]

All those tabloids that keep putting her in the worst dressed category are so wrong. Creativity is beautiful. Kirsten Dunst can make a white v-neck and cutoff jean shorts look so effortlessly chic. Sometimes she does a fabulous modern day Annie Hall-type menswear thing. I love her pastels and Victorian influences and even that silly feathery dress that got so hated on by the paparazzi. It was super cool.

Taylor Swift

[image via weheartit]

I've already professed my love for Taylor Swift, but let it once again be known that I love this girl. Her music is catchy, yes, but she also radiates the most beautiful kindness and integrity I've ever seen in a teen idol. Personality aside, the girl's got style, you guys. Even though she's a country singer, she dresses in this cheery, Urban Outfitters-y way that I just adore, not to mention she's one of very few celebrities to flaunt her real-life curly hair. Such an inspiration.

♥ Plus the obvious ones, like Zooey Deschanel, Alexa Chung, and Sienna Miller.

/frivolity

Actually, what am I saying? The frivolity will totally continue in future posts.

Yea and Nay 5

2010-08-05T22:00:00.005-05:00

[awesome Hey Arnold image via yerawizardharry]

Oh, hi there my non-existent blog readers! It appears my finals/summer travels-induced hiatus has come to a close, and so I'm back with another great installment of Yea and Nay.

Yea:

♥ Yoga! Glorious stretching plus hardcore strength training set to calming music and inspirational chatter? How have I never gotten into this before? Thumbs way up.

♥ I found my mom's old wedding and engagement ring settings buried into the garage and haven't taken them off since. I also found her old going-to-shul perfume.

♥ Pretzel M&Ms. On the way back from San Francisco, my sister and I searched every Hudson News for a bag. SFO had none and neither did Denver, where we had our layover. It wasn't until a trip to trusty old Target back home that we finally found them. Totally worth the effort.

♥ Inception. Another tale of ridiculous effort here. Whether a sushi dinner that took too long or a case of the sold-out blues, it took my sister and me FIVE tries to see this movie. We were not disappointed. I'm still thinking about it days later. SO gosh darn high-concept you guys. Christopher Nolan is an expert at burying exposition. Also I really like the name Ariadne.

♥ A Very Potter Sequel is up! Hooray hoorah!

Nay:

♥ Ugh, you guys. My dad has prostate cancer. It's way way way (emphasis on the way) less serious than what my mom had. There's a 95% cure rate and it's so slow-growing that the doctor said he'll definitely not die from it, but seriously, deities? Is this a joke?

♥ Boo cancer.

♥ I hate you so much.

In other, less depressing, news, I got an article published at the new productivity and life management site Untemplater. Check it out here!

Yea and Nay 4

2010-05-28T20:53:00.004-05:00

[image via weheartit]

What have we been loving and hating this week, lovelies? Hosted by self portrait-drawing Wall-E (adorable!).

Yea:

♥ Burt's Bees tinted lip balm in "fig." Okay, so I bought this mostly because I think figs are one of the most beautiful fruits. This lip balm is moisturizing and minty and it has the prettiest purple-y reddish color.

♥ Black and white horizontal stripes. I can't help it. I know horizontal stripes are supposed to make you look wider, but I just think they're so pretty and chic and français. I bought this dress from Old Navy, and with pointy-toed flats, it's super cute.

♥ It's springtime, you guys! And springtime at Northwestern means that there are lilacs everywhere! I love lilacs. They remind me of my mom.

♥ Dillo Day tomorrow! Regina Spektor and Guster and Nelly, all live!

Nay:

♥ Whoever said it was okay to do LOUD construction every day before eight in the morning? Grrr.

♥ I usually love workshopping in my writing classes. It's a good opportunity to hear what other people have to say about my work. I generally get a few compliments and a lot of helpful suggestions. However, in my English class this week, we workshopped my short story and I got almost all negative criticism. It was really hard to hear, especially because the girl who went right after me was just showered with compliments. And then I got a B- on my draft, basically the worst grade ever. It was depressing, you guys.

♥ There are FOUR flipping servings in one little bag of honey mustard and onion pretzels. That's 600 calories. But they're sooo delicious. Quite the conundrum.

♥ It's gettin' a little schvitzy outside. I shudder to think of the weather in Florida...

Faire du bon week-end, mes amies!

Yea and Nay 3

2010-05-21T16:16:00.005-05:00

[image via weheartit]

What are we (always the royal we) loving and hating this week? Hosted by a peace sign made out of daisies (hoorah!).

Yea:

♥ Asian food, you guys. Smitten Kitchen has not failed me yet. This week I made cold sesame peanut noodles, vegetable dumplings, and a random fried rice recipe I made up. Turns out I lovelove hoisin sauce. Try it instead of ketchup, you guys -- it's delicious!

♥ I started a "Mr. Feeny for NU commencement speaker 2011" facebook group a few days ago, and it's already up to over 250 members! I hope it works. He would give the best commencement speech ever.

♥ Omg I saw the real Conan O'Brien, you guys!! I saw the Chicago stop of his Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour, and it well surpassed my expectations. This included not only my red-haired love, but also Andy Richter, most of the band (I love La Bamba and Pender so much!), and guest appearances by John C. Reilly and Brian Urlacher! Wonderful, wonderful night. Plus I got this shirt.

♥ Why did nobody tell me Daria is so awesome and witty? And who's going to buy the complete series on DVD for me?

Nay:

♥ Saw a hilarious, hilarious Jerry Lewis film in one of my classes (The Ladies Man, in case you're wondering), so I immediately googled and IMDB'd him. Turns out, he's the jerkface who said that women can't be funny.

♥ One of my favorite ridiculous and complicated (à la Lost) TV shows, FlashForward, is getting canceled! Boo hiss!

♥ Speaking of Lost, Lost is going to be over in a few days! Whatever will I do with my Tuesday evenings? Work, you say? Well...

♥ Essays and workshops and screenplays, oh my!

Bon week-end! (Is week-end feminine or masculine? Please correct me.)

Curious Tuesday

2010-05-18T18:13:00.003-05:00

[kitty that looks like my Josephine via weheartit]

Today's post is inspired by one of my favorite bloggers, Gala Darling. Every Tuesday, she posts a set of questions, answers them, and has her readers answer as well. Ready? Let's begin.

1. Who is your #1 crush?
Ooh lots. Bill Hader comes to mind.

2. Have you ever tried online dating? How did it go?
I made an okcupid profile last year, but wasn't really serious about it. I made it mostly because I like writing about myself (oh, hey).

3. Are you sentimental?
Oh lord, yes. I'm crazy sentimental. I get weepy on the last day of classes I dread. I keep every movie ticket and greeting card. I don't let go easily.

4. As a child, what were your primary interests?
I was an artsy child. I loved drawing and painting and playing with play-doh. I used to want to be a fashion designer because dresses were my favorite thing to draw. I also took every kind of dance class: tap, jazz, and mostly ballet. And, obviously, I was a Disney fanatic.

5. What are your top 3 guilty pleasures?
Like I've said, I don't believe in guilty pleasures, but if you mean pleasures upon which an elitist snob might look down, I love: Taylor Swift music, teen magazines by the truckload, and food and drink in trendy packaging.

What about you?

Yea and Nay 2

2010-05-14T20:06:00.006-05:00

[image via weheartit]

What have we been loving and hating this week? Hosted by a stand of flamingos (that's the collective noun, you guys -- like a gaggle of geese or whatever).

Yea:
♥ This is actually from last week, but Betty White on SNL was fantastic! Just looking at her makes me break out into spasms of delight.

♥ Supersize vs Superskinny, a British television show that makes a critically underweight and critically overweight person switch diets for a few days, is a bit of a train wreck but I can't look away.

♥ John Francis Daley, aka the adorable Sam Weir from Freaks and Geeks, is now on the hit show Bones, and guess what, you guys? He has a band! It's called Dayplayer, and their song "Neverending Summer" is super catchy. It's been in my head all week.

Nay:
♥ Went to a Cubs game the other day and we lost. Sad face.

♥ Mother's Day and e-mail newsletters where the subject line is "CALL YOUR MOTHER." Seriously, you guys? Sad face times infinity.

♥ Still hatin' the B+. And the B.

Happy weekend, everybody!

Best comfort food

2010-05-13T18:56:00.001-05:00

[image via weheartit]

I am a huge fan of comfort food. Who isn't, really? It's easy, cheap, and way healthier than drugs and other such dangerous forms of stress-relief. At the same time, I'm a vegetarian and have been trying to eat a less processed diet because it makes me feel better physically and feel better about myself.

So, I now present to you, the best semi-nutritious comfort food for when you're having a totally sucky week, like me.

If you want something warm and cozy...
♥ Make this quick, easy cocoa brownie recipe and lick the bowl. (You can use a microwave for the first step.)
♥ Grill a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a peanut butter and banana sandwich like you would a grilled cheese. Or get fancy with almond butter or Nutella or fancy jam.
♥ Share this super buttery homemade poptart recipe with a bunch of friends while watching a cheesy romantic comedy. I used a blackberry jam filling, and it was scrumptious.
♥ Mix cinnamon or maple instant oatmeal with diced apple, a spoonful of peanut butter, and a bit of granola.

If you want something cool and refreshing...
♥ Dip strawberries in all-natural peanut butter (where the only ingredient is peanuts) and then in granulated sugar.
♥ Serve this crazy delicious Mediterranean salad with a chunk of fresh bread.
♥ Fill a tortilla with hummus, tomato, red onion, cucumber, basil leaves, and creamy mashed avocado.
♥ Serve these cold peanut sesame noodles in a colorful bowl, and have the leftovers for dinner for the next few days.

Or how about...
♥ Sour cream and onion Pop Chips. (They're popped like popcorn!)
♥ Cinnamon sugar pita chips.
♥ Warm milk with vanilla extract, cinnamon, and sugar mixed in.
♥ Toasted whole grain bread with ricotta and black pepper. Such a yummy breakfast.
♥ Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Because sometimes your food needs to be fluorescent orange for it to hit the spot.
♥ Oh, dear lord, have you guys tried Carol's Cookies? They're enormous and ridiculously indulgent, but everything in moderation, yeah? The Toffee Crunch and Chocolate Peanut Butter flavors each made me go into a joy coma afterwards.

Looking over this post, I'm realizing that I have an obsession with peanut butter. And the Smitten Kitchen. But I already knew that.

What are your favorite comfort foods?

Inspire and Be Inspired

2010-05-12T23:50:00.005-05:00

[image via weheartit]

"It's never too late to be who you might have been." - George Eliot

Il n'est jamais trop tard, you guys. Il n'est jamais trop tard.

Playlist for a B+

2010-05-11T16:59:00.008-05:00

[image via weheartit]

Ah, the B+. The "so close yet so far" grade. It's "above average," but not "excellent." In a word, it sucks.

I'm an okay student, you guys. I cram before tests and write papers the night before they're due, but I also put my heart into my writing, do extra credit, and take ridiculous amounts of notes. I was teacher's pet in elementary and did pretty well in high school, but not well enough to win a single award at senior night. Now, in college, my grades hover around the B+/A- mark. Even though the two grades are only a few points apart, they feel so, so different.

When I get an A-, all is right with the world. Everything is sunshine and rainbows, and little animated birds land on my shoulders. When I get a B+, the teacher thinks I'm an idiot who never ever tries hard enough, someone who should sit in the corner with a giant paper dunce hat. Which is ridiculous, you guys! There's so much more to life than the distinctions between red-ink marks.

However, if you do ever find yourself in the B+ blues, here is a playlist for you. It's mostly cheeseball self-medication, but there's a smidge bit of self-pity thrown in there, too. Download these songs, listen to them (preferably curled in bed while sipping a delicious beverage out of a cute mug), and let the icky B+ sludge melt off of you. You're going to be okay. You're already okay.

Bad Day ♥ Daniel Powter (obvs.)
I Have Nothing ♥ Noah and the Whale
All This Beauty ♥ The Weepies
Tomorrow ♥ Lillix
Flawz ♥ Caitlin Crosby
It's Only Life ♥ Kate Voegele
Bowl of Oranges ♥ Bright Eyes
The Climb♥ Miley Cyrus (oh yes)
Stay ♥ Dave Matthews Band
Ok, It's Alright with Me ♥ Eric Hutchinson
We're All in the Dance ♥ Feist
Float On ♥ Modest Mouse
All We Are ♥ Matt Nathanson
Lost ♥ Michael Bublé
Unsung ♥ Natasha Bedingfield
Bring it All Back ♥ S Club 7

What songs would you add to this list?

Grumble grumble grumble...

2010-05-10T22:57:00.002-05:00

[image via weheartit]

It was a rough week, you guys. I got two Bs, pulled an almost all-nighter, and had to fake-smile my way through Mother's Day. As much as I love to ramble on about the things I love, I think it's time for a little venting sesh. So, without further ado, I present to you the first in a series of weekly (?) grumbles.

♥ Construction. I love progress and all, but does it need to happen at eight every morning?

♥ Badly-behaved dogs, what with all the barking and the slobbering and the sniffing... ew.

♥ Burning your tongue, especially because it was totally your fault. Stupid you, always wanting to sip your chai latte or taste your homemade pop tart the few minutes before it's cool enough to nosh. How embarrassing.

♥ Laundry day. Sure it's great to have a steaming pile of freshly laundered clothes, and being able to put together an outfit that actually matches is kind of cool, but one measly load means setting aside 90 minutes of waiting, plus more for folding and hangering, three round trips down the three flights of stairs to the laundry room, and the boatload of guilt that I waited this long to finally do some washin'.

♥ Raisins in cookies and other baked goods. They're disgusting! Why does anyone ever bake with them? Boo.

What's got you grumbling? (Be nice.)

Mother's Day

2010-05-09T15:15:00.003-05:00

Happy Mother's Day, Maw. I miss you so much it hurts. ♥

Yea and Nay

2010-05-07T20:55:00.001-05:00

[image source unknown]

What have we (the royal 'we,' of course) been loving and hating this week? Hosted by the cutest bunny ever.

Yea:

♥ Bo Burnham. So witty. SO witty, you guys. I can't deal. Plus, you know, he looks like a teen pop star. It's a win-win.

♥ Jesus H. Christ, you guys! Why did nobody tell me the macaroni and cheese at Panera is so flipping tasty? On an unnecessarily chilly May evening, accompanied by a hot chai latte and The Best American Non-Required Reading, 'twas perfect. I may have subconsciously started moaning.

♥ The fact that my local movie theater is hosting a $5 midnight showing of Back to the Future tonight. It's like they can read minds. Although, if they could actually read minds, they probably wouldn't normally charge $8.50 a ticket, even with the student discount. And they would also sell vegetarian gummies.

♥ MacGruber! Saw an advanced screening this week (again, high-five, local movie theater!) and it was absolutely the best it could have been, given the fact that, it's, you know, a movie based on an SNL sketch about MacGyver.

Nay:

♥ This week's episode of Lost. I won't give anything away for you fools who haven't seen it yet, but SERIOUSLY, you guys. Thumbs way, way down.

♥ Seven and a half hours of class in a row after a night filled with 90% writing and 10% sleeping.

♥ The fact that sour gummies, objectively the best movie snack, are made with the bones of cuddly little animals.

♥ Burning your tongue on your chai latte.

Bonne week-end, y'all!

Happy No-Diet Day!

2010-05-06T23:57:00.000-05:00

[image via weheartit]

Today was International No Diet Day, the one day a year when we're supposed to love our bodies and nourish them accordingly (which should really be every day). INDD is not about eating "junk" foods without guilt because it transcends the idea of ranking foods by morality. INDD is about listening to our bodies and eating exactly what we want to eat, whether it is from the top or the bottom of the food pyramid.

Today I celebrated with a vegan Chipotle burrito with tons of guacamole (mmm) followed by bittersweet chocolate chips straight from the bag. My tummy is smiling.

What are you doing to celebrate International No Diet Day?

Why I love... America's Next Top Model

2010-05-05T16:02:00.000-05:00

[image via weheartit]

When it comes to reality shows, I have very specific tastes. I don't like The Hills or Keeping with the Kardashians or other faux "this is my life!" stuff (except for Heidi-Bridget-Kendra-era Girls Next Door). I don't like Dancing with the Stars or American Idol. But, give me a non-Star-Search competition show where people are legitimately good at what they do, and I am so there.

I will happily watch Top Chef for days on end, and, guys, I effing love America's Next Top Model. Here's why:

1. Tyra is a crazy fool.
I mean, come on. Let's just get this one out of the way immediately, because it's the most obvious. Tyra Banks is a crazy lady. She's beautiful and successful and a talented model, yes, but that's not why we watch her. We watch her because of situations like this. Her narcissism is high-larious, you guys.

2. The terminology.
Fierce. Weave. Stomp to the death. ANTM is full of words we don't hear anywhere else in our daily lives. During the earlier seasons, the words were things that were maybe actually used in the fashion world (I wouldn't know). Now, though, the producers are hardcore trying to promote some new jargon they made up themselves. "Smize" means "smile with your eyes," a phrase TBanks throws around a lot. It basically means "squint and open your mouth a little bit like some kind of baby animal in the sunlight." Modeling "H2T" is a totally unnecessary abbreviation for modeling "head to toe." "Dreckitude," I think, just means "ugly clothes." But you'll have to ask André Leon Talley about that.

3. The fashion, dahling.
You probably wouldn't guess it from my jeans+sweater, 95% from Target wardrobe, but I, uh, quite like fashion. On ANTM, not only is there the edgy, artistic, and oftentimes weird runway fashion, but there's also a healthy dose of off-duty model style, one of my favorites. Seeing what these girls wear when they're jet-setting or sitting in the makeup chair is super fun and inspiring.

4. The names.
My family is known to keep a plentiful stash of baby naming books on hand even though none of us are having children any time soon, and I am always on the lookout for more names that I like. I don't know if they do this on purpose or not, but ANTM casts so many girls with weird names, and I love it! Here is a selection: Kahlen, Annaleigh, Naïma, Raina, Kesse, Melrose, Xiomara, Yoanna, Norelle, Yaya, Lluvy, Keenyah, Nnenna, Furonda, CariDee, Jael, Marvita, Katarzyna, Isis, Nijah, Fo, and Anslee.

5. They're actually making art!
Okay, a lot of the stuff they do on the show is stupid, admittedly. I don't really think doing a photo shoot blind (Actually blind! Like, wearing white-out contact lenses!) is going to help these girls get a job. However, ANTM does some really cool shoots. There was the one where each girl represented a different deadly sin and they were photographed from inside a coffin (awesome). There was the one where they reenacted different famous paintings (awesome), and there was the one where they were each a different zodiac sign (awesome). Even the simpler shoots, like the underwater one (pictured above) are gorgeous. They make a lot of cool art on the show, you guys, is what I'm saying.

Also it's on the night before I have the most stuff due every week, so that's a pretty big draw...

Time Travel, You Guys

2010-05-04T12:43:00.000-05:00

[image via weheartit]

I've always been fascinated by time travel. And, by that, I mean that Back to the Future has been in my top 5 since elementary school. What can I say? I love me some Marty McFly. Anyway, time travel is such a common trope in the media that we come to associate it with fantasy, mocking it in humorous shows like Phil of the Future (What can I say? I love me some Ricky Ullman.).

I'd be lying if I said I didn't occasionally feel a stir of depression that I'll never see Elizabethan England or stalk Cary Grant in his prime. But! What if I were to tell you that time travel might be possible? Apparently, Stephen Hawking, paraplegic genius extraordinaire, says it could be. Check out this blurb from The Daily Mail:

Nothing is flat or solid. If you look closely enough at anything you’ll find holes and wrinkles in it. It’s a basic physical principle, and it even applies to time. Even something as smooth as a pool ball has tiny crevices, wrinkles and voids. Now it’s easy to show that this is true in the first three dimensions. But trust me, it’s also true of the fourth dimension. There are tiny crevices, wrinkles and voids in time. Down at the smallest of scales, smaller even than molecules, smaller than atoms, we get to a place called the quantum foam. This is where wormholes exist. Tiny tunnels or shortcuts through space and time constantly form, disappear, and reform within this quantum world. And they actually link two separate places and two different times. [...]

Given enough power and advanced technology, perhaps a giant wormhole could even be constructed in space. I’m not saying it can be done, but if it could be, it would be a truly remarkable device. One end could be here near Earth, and the other far, far away, near some distant planet.

Theoretically, a time tunnel or wormhole could do even more than take us to other planets. If both ends were in the same place, and separated by time instead of distance, a ship could fly in and come out still near Earth, but in the distant past. Maybe dinosaurs would witness the ship coming in for a landing.

I know, right?! So, if, hypothetically, this whole "crazy time loophole" thing could work, this is where I'd want to go/what I'd want to do:

1. Wear a ridiculous corset during the renaissance, fo' realz.
2. Find a British dude and live out one of those 1800s-era romances.
3. Visit a shtetl and learn about my ancestors.
4. Go to a Beatles concert during the height of their fame.
5. Stalk Cary Grant in his prime (like I said).
6. March in a women's suffrage protest.
7. Go to the future? Is that an option?
8. Re-ride the Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios before they replaced it with that awful Simpsons thing. Partially because it was super fun and partially because it would be sooo meta.
9. Pull a McFly and find my parents.
10. If that works, convince my mom to get her ovaries checked out on a regular basis
... Okay, now this is getting a bit out of hand.

What would you do if time travel were a realistic notion?

A Hero of Mine

2010-05-02T21:42:00.000-05:00

[image via weheartit]

Tonight, Conan O'Brien was interviewed on 60 Minutes, his first appearance after a three-month forced hiatus. (In case you've been living under a proverbial rock, the reasons behind this hiatus are found on his wikipedia page.) In honor of his triumphant return to the world of television, I present to you a list of reasons why I love him so very, very much.

1. Hello, he's hilarious!
Conan's standard is silly, absurdist humor (my favorite being Noches de Pasion con Señor O'Brien), but he tempers it with wit and self-deprecation. It's the best of both worlds.

2. He's not afraid to be serious.
There's nothing like a good sense of humor, but when comedians are all jokes, all the time, I think some of their integrity gets lost. Not only does Conan occasionally get serious, but he is tremendously sincere and eloquent when he does it. He's been known to cry on national television, and that only makes people respect him more.

3. He's just straight-up a good person.
For proof, see this anecdote: apparently some girl named Nikki wrote to Conan asking him to be her date to prom (not unlike how I wrote to Daniel Radcliffe asking him to be my homecoming date when I was 14) and he totally wrote her back (by hand, no less)! He wrote: "Dear Nikki- Thanks for your flattering offer. It's great to know I have such a devoted fan out there, and I'm sure you would make a great prom date (I didn't go to mine - it's a very sad story). Unfortunately, I got married recently, and my wife doesn't allow me to go to proms anymore with cute 16 year old girls. Still, it was very cool of you to ask me. Thanks, and have a great evening. Your friend, Conan". And he drew a freaking picture of himself with a speech bubble saying, "er, hi Nikki!" SO CUTE, you guys. Here's a link to a copy of the actual letter.

4. He plays guitar.
Speaks for itself.

5. Raw sex appeal.
The height! The hair! The freckles! Bah! And it doesn't hurt that it's his job to wear suits every night. I approve, wholeheartedly.

Some of my favorite Conan quotes:

♥ "If life gives you lemons, make some kind of fruity juice."

♥ "If you apply the must-succeed-every-time standard to a creative thing, you ruin it."

♥ "I'm laughing because crying would be sad."

And my favorite favorite favorite: "Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get, but if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen."

Gives Me Hope

2010-04-30T12:43:00.001-05:00

[image via weheartit]

I've been a bit down in the dumps, recently. I can't find an internship for the summer, and my social anxiety issues prevent me from really giving the search my all. Plus, Mother's Day is coming up, which means every media outlet is flooded with sentimentalized visions of motherhood. Thanks a lot, world.

So, in both an act of self-medication (in lieu of my usual macaroni from a box) and as a little inspiration for all you readers out there (all three of you), here are a collection of things that give me hope that there is good out there. Things are going to turn out okay, you guys. It might not seem that way every second of every day, but it's the truth.

♥ The comments to my interview on Yes and Yes. I am deeply touched by every one of them. The fact that something I wrote about a terrible, horrible thing that happened to me could help even one person means more to me than any internship.

♥ The questions and comments people write on my beautiful sister and best friend's formspring.

♥ This performance, Barbie and Ken 101 by slam poet Rafael Casal. Sensitive men = awesome.

♥ This performance, B by slam poet Sarah Kay. Goosebumps every time. (Can you tell I'm in a slam poetry phase?)

♥ This story, and the fact that it's covered by the very mainstream Oprah.

♥ The postal revolution. I have both written letters and received them, and both feel wonderful. Highly, highly recommend.

♥ This site. Obvs.

I leave you with one of my favorite Shel Silverstein poems:

Listen to the Mustn'ts
Listen to the Mustn'ts, child, listen to the Don'ts.
Listen to the Souldn'ts, the Impossibles, the Won'ts.
Listen to the Never Haves, then listen close to me.
Anything can happen, child, anything can be.

Project 'Say Cheese'

2010-04-29T21:51:00.001-05:00

[image via weheartit]

When a stranger passes you on the sidewalk, what do you do? Do you look away? Make eye contact? Run in the opposite direction? Oh, that's cool. You know what I do? I smile.

Okay, I haven't always done this. Usually, I'm the kind of person who stares determinedly at the ground a few steps ahead, with the unconvincing excuse that she "doesn't want to trip." I hate awkward small talk and one-on-one conversations. I have social anxiety issues - people freak me out, you guys. However, a few weeks ago, things changed... well, at least a little bit.

My therapist wants me to take baby steps towards unleashing my inner social butterfly, so she suggested I try doing a few scary or uncomfortable social things each week. After successfully chatting with a Panera cashier about my 'unique' name (read: 'Whoa, you're a girl!'), I began to look for something to do every day (a girl can only have so many bowls of creamy tomato soup with croutons). So, now, I smile at people on the sidewalk.

It's interesting to see how people react. Some people ignore me or look away. Lots of people, actually. I could rant about how social media is ruining our ability to interact with real human beings, but I'd only be mocking myself. Facebook is just so... easy. Still, getting a smile in return is one of the easiest, cheapest self-esteem boosts on the market. I've gotten smiles from babies in strollers, middle-aged professionals walking their dogs, and lots and lots of old people (I live within two or three blocks of two different old folks homes). One lady even said hi! Out loud! And I didn't even know her!

My favorite part is that ever-so-brief look of surprise that graces people's faces when they realize I am smiling at them and not at the person behind them. The entire encounter only lasts for a few seconds, but the effect lasts much longer.

Do you ever smile at strangers? How do they react?

Why I love... Disney World

2010-04-28T20:31:00.000-05:00

I am a Disney princess. Always have been, always will be. So, as part of a new series called "Why I love..." what better place to start than with my home base?

1. The rides are chicken-proof.
Let's face it: I'm a bit of a wimp. I didn't go on my first real roller coaster until I was almost in high school. It was a little wooden thing, too, but it scared the pants off of me. Since then, my tastes have only slightly changed. I can stomach a few drops and can handle loops and corkscrews like a pro, but I've still never passed into the "roller coaster person" realm. Luckily, the scariest rides at Disney World are the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Rock'N'Roller Coaster with Aerosmith, both of which I actually like! You guys, at Disney World, I'm a total badass, and it's delightful!

2. Hello, predictability.
As a gal who's had to handle quite a bit of change in the past few years, I crave the calm of predictability, and Disney World is full of it. Those dumb little pre-shows before each ride rattle off the same banter no matter how many times I go. The dude at Test Track wants to freak me out with some "surprise tests," Mr. Pseudo-Airplane-Pilot at Soarin' wishes me a nice flight, and the ghoulish maids and butlers at the Haunted Mansion urge the crowd to "drag your bodies to the dead center of the room." Oh, the puns.

3. I know stuff!
I'm friends with smart people. Really smart people. I got a 5 on the Calculus AB AP test, but, guys, I don't read classics for fun. I'm sorry. I don't keep up with politics and current events like I should, my HGTV-lovin' parents didn't teach me about famous movies (save for Tootsie and, like, Rambo). I. Don't. Know. Things. You know what I do know, though? Disney World trivia. I can show you where the nearest 'hidden Mickey' is in, say, the queue for Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin (the continent on the Earth-looking planet on the mural just before the loading area). I can tell you where the closest bathroom is upon entering Hollywood Studios (straight ahead and to the right, just past the stroller and wheelchair rental). I can recommend the yummiest snack at the Magic Kingdom (Dole pineapple soft-serve, you guys. So good.). I'm not a dummy; it's just that all my knowledge is concentrated on the Mickey-shaped part of my brain.

4. Reliving your childhood = awesome.
I don't know about you guys, but my childhood was positively drenched in all things Disney. My mom was a big fan and so was her mom. On more than one occasion, I was seen running around the house with my grandma, stretching a beach towel between us like a magic carpet, and singing "A Whole New World." I drew pictures of Disney princesses and wrote stories about them and fantasized about meeting the characters. There's no restaurant that sells Dunkaroos and Warheads and plays reruns of Legends of the Hidden Temple (that I know of...), but Disney World exists! It's a mecca of the little reminders of what life was like before I had to worry about internships and resumes.

5. A little magic never hurt anyone.
I think the reason why a lot of people scoff at Disney World besides, you know, the exorbitant cost and the fact that Walt Disney was supposedly a Nazi (not true - I wrote a research paper about it), is the fact that everything is just so darn cheesy. The people who sell you parking passes remind you to, "Have a magical day!" before you drive off. Banners telling you to believe in yourself are all over the place. Everything is so gosh darn colorful. You guys, life is hard, lots of the time. Believe me, I know. But loosening yourself up, soaking in some everyday magic, and allowing a single tear to roll down your eye as the Spectromagic Parade moseys by (not kidding), really works to make the hard stuff a lot more manageable.

Plus, you know, that delicious African buffet at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, and the nearly Broadway-worthy Festival of the Lion King performance, and the fact that there are parades every day and fireworks every night. And, of course, that feeling of falling into a cool hotel bed with sore legs and blistered feet after a long, long day of navigating your favorite place sans map (maps are for tourists, and I'm a professional). There's nothing like it.

Image credit

On turning 21.

2010-04-28T16:26:00.001-05:00

I turned 21 a week and a half ago. The night before, as per usual, I was wasting time on Omegle, telling myself that it was a "writing exercise" or a "social experiment." After instant messaging my sister for a bit (yes, I was instant messaging while I was on Omegle; I was probably on youtube too), I decided to try actually using it as a social experiment.

I started just over 20 conversations by posting the same question: "I'm turning 21 tomorrow. Do you have any advice for me as I start the next chapter of my life?".

My expectation? Mostly weird drinking-and-sex-related advice. This is after I tried using "favorite ice cream flavor" as an ice breaker and learned about a few flavors I couldn't find at Ben & Jerry's (ahem).

The result? Yeah, pretty much that. But also a few startlingly genuine ones. Here are a sampling (with minimal spelling and punctuation editing for clarity).

The nice ones:

- "Do something you've always wanted to do, but haven't gotten to yet."
- "I think you should live life to the fullest! But be safe too..."
- "I would say leave anything that has happened behind and start fresh. If something happened or whatever just let it go. You can start over."

The super duper helpful ones:

- "Don't drink too much. I lost my fucking car and hit my friend in the face."
- "Always take time to curb stomp fax machines."
- "DRINK A LOT."
- "Yeah go drinking but don't get wasted everyday and no drunk driving."
- "Get drunk."
- "If you are a jackass you will still be a jackass."
- "umm...don't try to down 21 shots in a short period of time because you want that next chapter of life to actually happen. aside from that, though, have some fun and don't hurt anybody. oh, and don't spend your 21st on an airplane like I did...that was boring as hell"
- "Get a keg and start a party."
- "Fuck a lot and don't die."
- "Yesss get highh and get somee asss and drink it all away."
- "um good uck fxck idont know lol" (This was from a registered sex offender, as Omegle helpfully pointed out. Um, conversation terminated, dude.)

My number one favorite:

"Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Seize the day. Never regret. It is very, very hard to forgive, but you must forget. The past cannot hurt you now. Only if you want it to. God knows you've had your share of faults and flayings. No matter what, keep going. Reach for your star, your muse, your dream; keep going till sweet Death brings you on home. Be kind unto your neighbour, honour thy peoples abroad; keep thinking, talking, seeing, believing and feeling as you see fit. Remember that every new day is a lifetime left for you to explore."

The verdict? You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince... of advice. Also, Buttery Nipples are a delicious drink, but so embarrassing to order.

Image credit.

I have an inside joke with a stranger.

2010-04-05T17:09:00.000-05:00

From www.omegle.com.

You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: Hello.
Stranger: That watch looks lovely.
Stranger: May I see it for a second?
You: You may, but be gentle. It's new.
Stranger: I see.
You: Notice the intricate embroidery on the wristband? I had it specially made.
Stranger: I noticed.
Stranger: Very well done.
You: I appreciate it.
You: Money well spent.
Stranger: I agree.
Stranger: I had a watch similar to this one, you see.
You: Really?
Stranger: Yes.
You: Was it a gift? Or did you treat yourself?
Stranger: It was a gift from my sister.
You: What a sweet girl. She clearly has good taste.
Stranger: Indeed she does, I was quite fond of that watch.
You: You're using the past tense. Did something happen to this watch? Should I be worried?
Stranger: Well, you see, it was stolen from me a while ago whilst riding the subway.
You: Oh dear!
You: I trust you weren't hurt.
Stranger: I wasn't. It seemed he only wanted my valuables.
Stranger: The watch was all I had on hand; I wore it everywhere.
You: How positively dreadful.
Stranger: It was dreadful. I nearly wept.
You: I don't blame you! I've nearly soiled my hankie just imagining the whole scenario.
Stranger: I'm not surprised. It is a scary situation to be placed in.
Stranger: I'm shivering as we converse, remembering it.
You: Please know that I'm keeping you and your watch in my prayers, if that's any consolation at all.
Stranger: Oh believe me, it is. Any little bit will help me get over this horrid memory, and possibly consider a new watch. When I'm ready, that is.
You: Of course. Take your time. The grieving process is a long one.
Stranger: Ah, yes, I've been told so by many loved ones.
Stranger: Everyone has been so helpful, including you, kind Stranger.
You: It warms my heart so, knowing that I was able to help you on your journey to regain happiness.
Stranger: I'm glad.
You: Is that an Irish lilt to your voice? Or am I mistaken?
Stranger: You are sadly mistaken, friend. I have never visited Ireland.
You: I regret the error.
Stranger: I wouldn't mind going, however.
Stranger: It is nothing to regret. Just a simple mistake.
Stranger: No worries.
Stranger: Ah, but it appears I must depart.
You: I understand.
Stranger: Thank you for your kind words, and support.
You: It has been a pleasure, making your acquaintance.
Stranger: It was a pleasure making yours, as well.
Stranger: Farewell, kind stranger.
You: I wish you every happiness.
You: Farewell.
Your conversational partner has disconnected.

A letter

2010-03-02T21:22:00.001-06:00

Dear Maw,

Sometimes I'll make a facial expression, and, even though I'm not in front of a mirror, I know it looks like you. Because it feels like you. It feels like you're in there, controlling my reactions. These days, I can't really figure out where you end and where I begin. When I wear black socks with jeans, I'll look down and forget that they're my feet, because, in that moment, they're yours. It's fun to chase that feeling. Sometimes I wear old shirts of yours and spray on some of your going-to-shul perfume, and I hug myself. It never comes close to hugging you.

You used to have this silly phrase that you'd use whenever you were forcing me onto a scary thrill ride at an amusement park (a ride I'd always end up loving). You'd put your arm over my shoulders and say, "Remember: when Mommy's around, nothing bad can happen." And it was always true.

I miss your silliness. I miss your winks. I miss the way you used to wake me up for school in sixth grade. You'd gently squeak open the door, climb into my warm bed, snuggle for a few minutes, and then kick me out, enjoying the luxurious Ikea comforter while I brushed my teeth in the chilly haze of six A.M. I miss that time you came to visit me my freshman year of college, the time you didn't tell any other family about it, so I could have you all to myself. We went to the Rainforest Café and shared some absurd appetizer platter, enjoying the cheesiness of it all (both figuratively and literally). I miss the way you accredited all of your accomplishments to the fictitious "Mom school." You must have been their star pupil.

Who would I be without you, Mom? Would I still like Paul Simon? Fresh mozzarella and baklava? Would I still be able to spend hours aimlessly wandering through Barnes & Noble? Would I know how to use chopsticks or how to tweeze my unsightly unibrow? Would my favorite parts of roller coasters still be the loops? Would my favorite parts of bagels still be the bottoms? Would I still judge new parents on what they name their children? Would I still obsessively label my school supplies?

I'm not mad at you for dying, and I don't think, "you fought a hard battle" that you eventually lost. You succeeded in everything you intended to do. You made your mark on me, and on Cody, and on Spinny. You made it on everyone, really. When does a funeral ever need to spread out into two rooms, with the service projected onto a TV screen so everyone can see? When is there ever so much laughter and happiness at a shiva? You went out with a bang, Mom, and I wouldn't have expected any less.

I love you, Maw. Love, like the present tense. You're my best friend and my hero.

Yours till the chocolate chips,
Ty

On guilty pleasures

2009-12-17T08:40:00.001-06:00

I am twenty years old, and I love Taylor Swift music - I don't just like it. I LOVE it. I also love Taco Bell and Americanized Chinese takeout and spending lots of money on pre-made meals at Whole Foods. I pass hours watching iCarly reruns on my Netflix account and I've read all ten books in the Gossip Girl-esque A-List series. I have an annual pass to Walt Disney World, and I would rather watch the newest low-rated rom-com than whatever film's vying for an Oscar nomination.

You might think that these are things I should be embarrassed to admit. The thing is, though, that I'm not. At all. You may call them "guilty pleasures" but I call them "pleasures," straight up. Why should I have to be embarrassed about enjoying something as simple and harmless as a book or a song or a taco?

To me, the whole idea of a "guilty pleasure" is complete BS. My mom dying has taught me that life is short. It's not just a silly adage. Life is actually, really, truly SHORT. And if you want to spend your time condensing your interests into a little box that society deems acceptable and appropriate, you go do that. You struggle through olde English and depressing foreign films and salads with fat free dressing. You go stare at a painting for hours, trying to find its meaning when you know inside that you'd much rather be watching a made-for-TV movie. I, on the other hand, will be doing things that make ME happy.

Now, I'm not saying that all traditional literature and art and healthy foods are bad, because they're not. I'm just saying that if you're not enjoying them, if you're just reading or watching or eating because you feel like that's what you're supposed to do, you are wasting your life. If you like to feel academic but Moby Dick is boring you, try Dracula instead. If you want to be active and fight this quote-unquote "obesity epidemic" but you hate the treadmill, why not dig that old Skip-It out of your garage? This is YOUR life, you idiot. It's not someone else's.

And if you really do enjoy Moby Dick, more power to you. But it doesn't make you any better than me, the one in the corner, reading a Seventeen magazine and nursing a $3 Vitamin Water.

Happiness.

2009-06-30T11:44:00.000-05:00

I forgot that it was originally my mom's suggestion that I make this list... I've added lots since then.

Jason Bateman in a tux, the instrumental portion of "So Close" from Enchanted, Josephine curling up on my arm, tzatziki, pretty little pictures and knicknacks, going out for breakfast, black tights, polished fingernails, long, nubby knit scarves, cozy stone fireplaces, fancy non-alcoholic beverages with little paper umbrellas and colorful drinking straws, Barack Obama, the opening credits to Late Night with Conan O'Brien, no traffic and a full tank of gas, Expedition Everest, coconut shrimp, people who smile when you walk into a room, material that feels surprisingly soft, "5 notifications," hot cookie bar, questions where you know the answer, colorful Vitamin Water labels, guys who wear any combination of: suit jackets, scarves, those v-neck sweaters with white tee-shirts underneath, shoulder bags (sigh), or converse, how when wearing rain boots, you can step in a puddle and nothing happens, chai tea, frozen yogurt with goodies, discovering a new artist/book/anything that you love right away, positive thinking, absolutely anything that comes out of Demetri Martin's mouth, getting what you deserve, Lisa Frank, James Marsden's 100-watt smile, smart humor, vacuumed floors, rainbow sprinkles on anything, brightly-colored opaque tights, the right kind of dorkiness, abnormally big snowflakes, sharing a weird interest with someone else, Dream Phone, 3 sneezes in a row, Fred & George Weasley, apple crisp, checkered tablecloths, when my dad orders for me at a restaurant, Cody Lauren Feder, Spencer Rose Feder, acrostic poems, haikus, limericks, the Tyra Show when it's about a juicy topic like stereotypes or eating disorders, those huge lollipops at Disney World, having goosebumps through the entire length of Enchanted, Josephine's yawns, African accents, lucid dreaming, thrift stores with cute clothes, magic, African music, a cheese plate that doesn't include bleu or brie, thecherryblossomgirl, cutting up magazines, humility, a new book in a favorite series, when people laugh after I say something that was supposed to be funny, Yiddish, Alex & Seth, 6'3", user-friendly technology, my mom's old things from art school, magnets, clementines, when my mom laughs really really hard about something silly, Jamba Juice- power sized, Dr. Perry Cox, Cody's flared nostrils, screenwriting, yellow cake from a box with chocolate frosting from a can, getting mail that's not from Northwestern or US Bank, seafoam green, modern fairy tales, Lannie and Jessie, collages, pop art, when Disney princess things include Jasmine, flamingos, Sanibel Island, gift cards, peanut butter and jelly with no crusts, technology that does what I tell it to do, post-its, Dégas, books that are easy reads with deep ideas (Le Petit Prince, The Giving Tree), when actors are a lot like the characters they play in real life, when actors are nothing like the characters they play in real life, when restaurants have something cool instead of bread in the bread basket, a haircut to feel good about, a new Potty Notes/The Inquisition, the fun Jewish holidays nobody knows about (Purim, Sukkot), the first 3 pages of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, green grass, decorated anything, pretty graffiti, extra credit, fireflies, sugar free mentholated black cherry cough drops, vacuumed floor, corner rooms that have windows on 2 walls, recognition for something you're proud of, people that understand the complexity of shyness and don't try to "fix" it, opaque colorful tights, rearranging furniture, watercolor wash with pen & ink mark-making on top, making a statement, The Vagina Monologues, the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Einstein plain toasted bagel with plain cream cheese, singer-songwriters, subtleties, feeling accomplished after exercising, burning calories, wrapping presents, unnecessary bows, rainbow sprinkles, how everybody clapped after Finkel's last lecture, psychology in general, folk music, not taking anything too seriously, Conan O'Brien, the end of the writer's strike, finishing 2 loads of laundry, chicken-flavored ramen noodles, Flintstone's vitamins, Dear Reader, rain boots, The chandelier in Lulu's, getting past the security at airports or the turnstiles at Disney World, Legally Blonde, being witty online, how Tom Hanks always plays the good guy, racking focus, long eyelashes, people who look interested while you're talking to them, just the right amount of eye contact, going to the Cheesecake Factory with a huge group of friends when it's really busy and it's cold and dark outside & splitting pasta with Cate and tiramisu cheesecake with Maria and going to see an exciting movie afterwards, "wherever the car takes us," innertube waterslides, Dairy Queen after going to the Sanibel Beach, sleeves that are not too short on me, themed photoshoots on America's Next Top Model, takeout from Yen Yen, Cody's colorful & organized closet, using big vocab words in everyday conversation, costume jewelry, the apple store, shopping malls before Christmas, Starbucks culture, organic grocery stores, when someone brings up a topic in conversation that you've been dying to talk about, a goldfish bowl, when NBC goes, "a new episode of The Office, right now," the fat envelope, paper lanterns, pressed sandwiches, a plate of decorated cookies where no two are the same, natural phenomena, the ice cream truck, doing the victory dance, "You're beautiful inside and out," Ikea, Steve Carell, really clear, crisp photographs, Roald Dahl books, 4 square, painting each nail a different color, kids' meals, Sephora, a positive response, serendipity, subway tile, short skirts, real hot chocolate, roaring fireplaces, Nikki Blonsky, sweet tables, doing the hora, holding hands, umbrellas, how Matthew Broderick doesn't age, duets, art classes, trees, the smell of the air in Florida, citrus desserts that taste more tart than sweet, board games we actually finish, dressing up, ringlets, the word 'poetic', Penn Badgley, geek chic, when performers go from being featured players on SNL to being officially on the cast, champagne, rainbow order, snowflakes in your hair, picnics on the beach where sand gets in your sandwich but you eat it anyway, music where you just have to start dancing, the segment of Conan where he has awkward conversation with Max Weinberg, the preshows to rides at Disney World where they try to make you nervous, bangs, writing in IPA, flipping through the channels and noticing that your favorite show is just starting, figure drawing with a fat piece of charcoal, lemon-flavored jolly ranchers, memorizing a song on the piano that sounds impressive, sincere compliments from people that aren't family, Target, free samples of food, magically fitting into clothes that you know are not your size, acoustic guitar around a campfire, Ellen Degeneres, teapots, bright red lipstick, Mary Janes, the take-off on an airplane, boys who offer their suit jackets to girls in dresses when it's chilly out (so cute), the play-doh extruder tool, dandelions, the perfect circles that any light makes when I unfocus my vision or am not wearing glasses, when a train goes past the station and makes a little wind current that blows my hair back, reunions with people I care about (art club, family), when somebody in Chapin bakes something for no reason and leaves it in the kitchen for everybody to eat, and the whole floor smells delicious, when people are a whole head taller than me, the first snow of the season, working really hard all day and then doing something with friends that night, the kind of glamour you feel when you're in the airport leaving to go on vacation, all fall & winter holidays, going on a scary ride I've never been on before and liking it, and then the comfy, proud feeling that I'm opening myself up to new experiences that follows, listening to standup on youtube and actually laughing out loud, finding gift cards I forgot about for Barnes & Noble and then actually using them, finishing an assignment & feeling proud of it, unexpected hugs, reading for pleasure, a fortune in a fortune cookie that pertains to what's actually going on in my life, the "I've Just Seen a Face" scene in Across the Universe, giving people a gift that you know they'd love but would never actually buy for themselves, scrapbooks, sitting cross-legged, the powerful last note of the soundtrack to any Disney World ride, the very very beginning of "Soarin" where your feet go off the ground and the screen is dark and there's that humming noise and then all of a sudden you're in the air, tree lights when it's not Christmastime, boys that make you want to wear a dress, getting bundled up and going out in the cold air, but still feeling cozy, sledding, fun-size Butterfinger bars and how they taste like Halloween no matter what time of year it is, labelmakers with different colors of tape, how the less sticky tack you use, the better it works, speaking French outside of class, Jonathan Safran Foer's style of writing, coming home to a freshly cleaned room, gift baskets, Professor Scott Curtis, Gossip Girl (the TV show, not the books), cap'n crunch, Nintendo 64, clichés, "no worries," playgrounds with really good jungle gyms, gap between the 2 front teeth, trendy but cozy bakeries, when a limb that has fallen asleep starts to wake up, new and very customized shampoo, conditioner, body wash, toothpaste, 22 colors of converse, Minnie Mouse's voice, trendy packaging, satisfying fireworks, movies that make you think, the smell of PayLess, the smell of White Hen, Noodles & Co., the smell of Carrabba's, vests, the word, "crampon," Anthony Rapp, those clay things that, when you slice them, have a picture inside, baseball shirts, interesting salt and pepper shakers, people that don't drink, finding something on a menu that is exactly what you're in the mood for, ridiculously crisp picture display on Blu-Ray, chalkboard signs in a grocery store, farmer's markets, trendy water bottles, fresh tomatoes instead of tomato sauce on a pizza, Island Pizza & Pasta, some kind of harvest salad that would usually have bleu cheese but has feta instead, overgrown flowers, Mom in a sun hat, funky glasses, achy legs and schlumpy pajamas and collapsing into a cool hotel bed and falling asleep while watching Stacy after a long day at Disney World, saying, "See you tomorrow," to close relatives during a B'Nai Mitzvah/Wedding weekend, regular ol' brand name foods in other languages or countries, people that just listen -- really listen, instead of waiting for their chance to speak, cupcake bakeries, the smell of the beach, and the narrator in Arrested Development, frozen yogurt places, bangs, cool lettering, positive criticism, layered necklaces, Zooey Deschanel, reading non-guilty-pleasure books for fun, Joy Yee's, interior design, nice memories.

Where I Keep My Magic

2009-05-29T01:20:00.000-05:00

I squeeze between the sticky, sunscreen'd mass
of tourists, grinning, breathing air that smells
of buttered popcorn, squinting through my knock-
off Ray-Bans, humming with the tinny tune
that jingles over unseen speakers, down
a path that weaves through gift shops till it hits
the Castle. Picturesque, the scene belongs
within a snow globe. Through the palace doors,
my college thoughts evaporate. My child-
like wonder's genuine. The characters
I pass are real; they must have sprung from dust-
filled storybooks. A princess waves to me
and I wave back, too stunned to speak, and watch
some fairy lanterns glow with pixie dust.
The most important choice I'll make tonight
regards the color of the massive tea
cup for my date in Wonderland (pale peach-
pink, turquoise-swirled, no question). I want no
more than to dance beneath the snapping fire-
works till my puff of cotton candy melts
between my baby teeth. But midnight chimes,
and I emerge, enchanted, from between
the Castle doors. The air's that tingly kind
of chilly, and it's time to leave, though I'll
return, for this is where I keep my magic.

"Write using a fold in time," part two.

2009-05-28T22:41:00.000-05:00

My ticket's faded, worn but still whole. I
slip it through a slot in the scanner and
a green light softly blinks, my cue to move
forward. I squeeze, grinning, through the sticky,
sunscreen'd crowd, blowing my bangs out of my
squinty eyes. The air smells of buttered pop-
corn, carefully manicured flowerbeds,
and sweet Florida sunshine. A cheery
tune wafts from hidden speakers. We -- my two
sisters, my father, and I -- follow the
curving pathway under a dimly-lit
tunnel, through Victorian-style gift shops,
confectioneries, and, finally, towards
the Castle, so picturesque it belongs
inside a snow globe. It beckons to us.
Once we're on the other side, memories
of collegiate late nights and poetry
assignments vanish. My childlike wonder
is genuine. Every character I pass
is real, sprung from a dusty storybook.
Princesses wave to me and I wave back,
starstruck eyes wide. Fairy lights strung through the
trees are powered by pixie dust. The most
important decision I need to make
tonight is which oversized teacup I
choose to inhabit for a dizzying
ride at the Mad Hatter's tea party (pale
peachpink with turquoise swirls, there's no question).
I want nothing more than to dance beneath
the snapping fireworks until the last of
the cotton candy has dissolved on my
tongue. I am so... happy. As I return
to the other side of the Castle, I
stretch my cardigan sleeves past my wrists. The
air is that tingly kind of chilly, and
it's time to go back home, back to alarm
clocks and participation grades, back to
real life. I sulk for a split second, but
when I remember my ticket, warm in
my pocket, I'm ready for anything.

"Write using a fold in time," part one.

2009-05-28T21:31:00.000-05:00

I open my wallet and flip past my driver's license, student ID, and gift card to my favorite bookstore, and there it is: my ticket. The size of my palm, it's faded and worn, but still valid. I slip it through the industrial aluminum scanner and a green light softly blinks, my cue to move forward. I squeeze, grinning, through the sticky, sunscreen'd crowd, blowing my bangs out of my squinty eyes. The air smells of buttered popcorn, carefully manicured flowerbeds, and sweet Florida sunshine. A familiar cheery tune wafts from hidden speakers. We -- my two sisters, my father, and I -- follow the curving pathway under a dimly-lit tunnel, through a series of Victorian-style gift shops and confectioneries, and, finally, towards the Castle, so picturesque it belongs inside a snow globe. It beckons to us. Once we cross to the other side, memories of collegiate late nights working on poetry assignments have vanished. My childlike wonder is genuine. Every character I pass is the real thing, sprung right out of a dusty storybook. Princesses wave to me and I wave back, starstruck eyes wide. Fairy lights strung through the trees are powered by pixie dust... I could probably fly away if I tried, but I don't want to. I love it here. The most important decision I need to make tonight is which oversized teacup I choose to inhabit for a dizzying ride at the Mad Hatter's tea party (pale peachpink with turquoise swirls, there's no question). I want nothing more than to dance beneath the snapping fireworks until the last of my cotton candy has dissolved on my tongue. I am so... happy. As I return to the other side of the Castle, I stretch my cardigan sleeves past my wrists. The air has become that tingly kind of chilly, and it's time to go back home, back to alarm clocks and participation grades, back to real life. I start to sulk for a split second, and then I remember my ticket, warm in my pocket, and the rose-coloured glasses return.

"Reflect on the expression, 'Death is the mother of beauty.'"

2009-05-28T13:53:00.000-05:00

Death certainly has had a major influence on the way I live my life today. When I was younger, my biggest fear ever, the one I didn't even like to think about, was the thought of my mother dying. Whenever she'd leave the house, I always wanted, "I love you," to be the last thing I said to her, just in case she got in a car accident. Now that she's gone, it's like I can cross her death off my list of things that scared me. It's happened, and I'm okay. Happy, even. Without her death hanging over my head, I'm able to enjoy the things life sends at me. I feel inspired more than I ever did. I'm constantly running back to my dorm to write or draw or just think. My brain is just spilling over with ideas. I see the beauty in nature and in people. I've started embracing my awkward moments, acknowledging them for what they are and not reading too far between the lines. Rather than worrying about the possibility of my mother's death, I can put all of me into the tasks upon which I embark. Before, when I wanted to talk to my mother, I had to call her, but now, I can at any time. I don't really believe in God, but I do get the feeling that, whenever I'm working on a project, my mother is always there, peeking over my right shoulder and nodding in approval.

"Recall a childhood memory."

2009-05-28T13:28:00.000-05:00

I had a fantastic third grade teacher. When we answered questions correctly or followed the rules especially well, she would give us little slips of paper, like black-and-white Monopoly money, called "certificates," and on Fridays, we could cash them in for prizes ranging from pieces of candy to the privilege of moving our assigned seats. One of my favorite things about Mrs. Schmidt was that she gave us a lot of freedom when it came to book reports. One month, I read a telling of Hansel and Gretel, so I made a gingerbread house for my report. I stayed up really late (probably only until about ten PM) with my mom, gluing graham crackers with canned icing to cereal boxes stacked to look like a house. We decorated the roof with colorful Skittles and stuck a Hershey's bar on for a door. We mixed shredded coconut with green food coloring to make grass, and propped gummy spearmint leaves up for trees. When all was said and done, my mom and I were both laughing hysterically about the many spoonfuls of frosting we ingested, and I had a beautiful gingerbread house to bring to class. When I arrived in class the next day with my cookie creation, I suddenly became the most popular girl there. Everyone ooh'ed and aah'ed over my work, and one boy even asked me for my autograph. I wish class projects were still like this today. Sigh...

"Write about returning somewhere feeling different."

2009-05-28T12:38:00.000-05:00

Visiting your high school is always an interesting feeling when you're in college. My high school, when I was still a student there, was the point of my existence. I was over-committed and overworked, and I frequently got lost in the bureaucracy that is inevitable in a school of five thousand people. My personality was reduced to a number, 21860. I ate the same Caesar salad for lunch almost every day. My happiness hinged on the difference between a B+ and an A-. Now that I'm in college, I'm so much freer and accepting of myself as a person. I take classes in the areas that interest me instead of following the AP path the way I was forced to in high school. I work every day toward the person I want to become in the future: a comedy writer, with absolutely no interest in physics, biology, or statistics. When I visited my old stomping grounds last year, I was amazed by how much I felt like an outsider. It seemed like, any second, a security guard (we had many) would throw me out for being an intruder. And yet, as I passed the rooms where I once hurried to class, my old lunch table where I frantically finished my AP calculus homework, the hallways where I worked with my beloved Art Club on decorations for the homecoming dance, it seemed like I'd never stopped being #21860.

"Springboard off of a classmate's poem."

2009-05-28T12:21:00.001-05:00

I really enjoyed Kellan's sonnet about the beauty he sees all around campus. Sometimes, we get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of due dates, chores, and club meetings that we forget to look at the beauty that is blooming all around us, especially during spring quarter. I spend a good portion of each day looking out my open window on the second floor. I am about level with a majestic oak tree that so beautifully demonstrates the changing seasons, its leaves turning red-gold in the autumn, its branches lined with snow in the winter, looking like yogurt-covered pretzels, and now, so green it almost looks fake. At the place where the trunk branches apart, there's a hole that leads down into the body of the tree. A family of raccoons lives inside, and every night, promptly at eight o'clock, they venture out for the night. The raccoons seem so mysterious, especially as it gets later, and only their silhouettes are visible against the blue-purple night sky. The mama raccoon recently had babies, and she's very protective of them. I imagine she leads them down the gnarled trunk to the dumpsters behind the sorority houses and teaches them to look for morsels of food among the paper bags and plastic candy wrappers...

"Describe a place that is sacred to you."

2009-05-28T12:03:00.000-05:00

My favorite place in the whole world is Disney World. I love the meticulous attention to detail, the way that the buildings on main street are constructed like movie sets. I love the smells of chocolate fudge and buttery popcorn in the Main Street confectionery. I love the anticipation in the moment between getting on the ride vehicle and the ride actually starting. I love the cheesiness of the stage shows. I love the abundance of pastel colors and the stereotypical way each country is represented in "it's a small world." I love the tame attractions -- Dumbo, Peter Pan's Flight, Mickey's Philharmagic Orchestra, Snow White's Scary Adventures -- and I love the wild ones too -- shooting from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 2 seconds on Rock 'n' Roller Coaster and dropping faster than the speed of gravity on the Tower of Terror and being attacked by the Yeti on Expedition Everest, screaming on all three mountains. I love seeing my favorite characters from movies alive before my eyes. I love the idealized portrayal of Hollywood in MGM studios. I love the similarly idealized portrayal of the future in EPCOT. I love the fairy lanterns in the bushes by the teacups ride. I love how there are parades every day and fireworks every night. But, mostly I love how, at Disney World, everyone is encouraged to remember their childhoods in a positive light, no matter how silly they may feel upon doing so. In today's increasingly cynical society, maybe it's good to have a little cotton candy every once in a while.

"Recall a scene in which you felt uncomfortable."

2009-05-28T11:39:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in a discussion-based English class, but I am incapable of verbally contributing. Every time my brain wants to put my hand up, it fails. I wish this weren't the case. I wish I was one of those loud-speaking, quick-thinking, hand-raising girls just brimming with insightful comments and unafraid to express them. I wish my hands weren't freezing and my palms weren't clammy. I wish my cheeks would stop blushing and my mouth wasn't so dry. I wish I could think of something to say without looking like a petty wallflower, too weak to just put my hand in the air. But, alas, here I am: shy, reserved, soft-spoken, afraid. "Shy" has so many connotations, most of them negative: I'm weak; I'm unfriendly; I'm dumb. The thing I hate most is when people say, "Don't be shy." It's like telling a clinically depressed person to cheer up. Believe me, if I felt okay talking, I would do it in a heartbeat, but for some reason, the sheer thought of speaking in front of the class sends shivers through me. I wish class syllabi didn't make class participation seem so easy, and I wish it weren't weighted so heavily. I wish that, just for once, listening attentively and jotting down pages of notes in swirly handwriting was enough. I wish a simple personality trait didn't have to be plagued with such a stupid stigma. I wish being shy was regarded the same way as having brown hair. Both are genetic, anyway. So, I sit, glancing all too often at the clock, waiting for the minute when all my bodily functions can start functioning normally again, and I can be free.

"Retell a cultural story."

2009-05-28T10:55:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time, there lived two children named Hansel and Gretel. Their German name-loving parents spent their days at business meetings and their nights out drinking with friends, so the twins had lots of time for themselves. They liked to spend this time exploring the woods in their backyard. Since Hansel was a fan of Greek mythology, he was familiar with the story of Hercules and the minotaur, so he remembered to mark their path into the woods with stones or bits of string so they'd be able to find their way out in time for their parents to return home, drunk and babbling. One day, Gretel was on one of her fad diets again, and she wanted to venture into the forest to escape the block of Vermont cheddar that called her name, seductively, from the refrigerator. She woke Hansel from his nap in front of the TV, and the two set out, heading in a different direction from the paths they'd usually take.

After a few miles of walking and inane conversation about reality television, the two stumbled upon a very colorful house. It had a green roof, orange walls, and a red door. Upon further inspection, they realized that the roof was green because it was made of layers of cabbage leaves and lettuce, the walls were orange because they were made of woven strips of sweet carrot, and the door was red because it was built from slices of peppers and tiny cherry tomatoes. Gretel was very excited because the long walk had made her very hungry indeed, and these were foods she was actually allowed to eat. She and Hansel feasted on the crudité palace until they were properly satiated, and then searched for a stream, so they could fill up their Nalgene bottles. Surprisingly, a small brook bubbled just past the house, and after gulping some of the strangely gold-tinted liquid down, Gretel recognized it as the Master Cleanse drink, a concoction of lemon juice, ice water, cayenne pepper, and real maple syrup that helped Beyoncé lose 20 pounds for her role in Dreamgirls. Gretel squealed in delight -- she would be down to a size two in no time.

After a while, the twins realized it was time to get back home, so they turned back toward where they had left a trail of stones, but it had gotten dark, and they weren't able to see where the stones were. They decided to brave their parents' wrath and spend the night in the forest. Hansel knocked on the tomato door to see if whomever lived in such a dieter-friendly house would allow them to stay the night. After a few minutes of silence, a little old lady opened the door. She offered the twins some comfortable beds to sleep on, which they gratefully accepted. The next morning, after feasting on homemade whole-grain pancakes with fresh strawberry sauce, the twins saw that it was light enough to head back home. Gretel, always wanting to make an impression, remembered the fairy tale about the two children who curiously had the same names as herself & her brother, and pushed the poor health-conscious lady into her environmentally-friendly oven. Hansel took the liberty of stealing her jewelry collection and some more of the Master Cleanse solution, and the two headed back home.

When they returned, their parents were still sleeping off their hangovers, so Gretel poured some of the spicy lemonade into a tall glass and placed it on her mother's nightstand, along with several jewel-encrusted pendants and rings, and the kids slipped quietly into bed. When their parents finally woke up, rather than being angry, they were happy that their children were so good at conning the elderly out of their posessions that they rejoiced with some more alcohol.

Today, Hansel is a well-paid male model and lives with his boyfriend, Franz, and Gretel is a size 00 investment banker worth several million dollars. They still treasure the old days when they used to sneak into the woods together, and they still do it occasionally, chucking at the thought of the old lady's untended, rotting corpse, and everybody, except the wouldn't-hurt-a-fly eco lady, lived happily ever after. The end.

"Write an imagined portrait of someone on the news."

2009-05-28T10:25:00.000-05:00

As I browsed the New York Times website, I found an article about the use of Photoshop in magazines and promotional photos. It intrigued me so much that I am going to respond to it instead of writing a portrait about one of its participants.

The discussion of body image has become so common in society today, that we are at once consumed by it and impervious to it. I think I am a good representation of the average woman in that I tip my hat at my feminist side by criticizing the media for enforcing such an exaggerated and unnatural look as the ideal, but I simultaneously wish my thighs didn't touch, my stomach was flatter, my jawline more pronounced. We all know by now that Nicole Richie is skinny, and so are Mary-Kate Olsen and Victoria Beckham and Keira Knightley. We also know that something like ninety percent of Americans are morbidly obese, or whatever statistic the news tells us today. Everyone's New Year's resolution involves getting to the gym or eating celery. Fad diets are unhealthy, but they're so tempting, right? America's Next Top Model shows us that a "plus-size" girl is, what, a size ten? TV tells us that men like women with big chests, but clothes are engineered to flatter the... flatter girl. Splenda has adorable commercials and is calorie-free, but it's made from chemicals, and now the makers of high-fructose corn syrup are fighting back with commercials protecting their product. Three Musketeers bars are marketed toward typical chocolate-obsessed women who, of course, care about their weight -- a candy bar with less fat? Let's get it! Eating disorders are glamourized. Dove Campaign for Real Beauty sells body-firming cream for the "real woman." It's all hypocrisy, and I fall victim to it. I watch a TLC documentary about a woman who weighs 900 pounds, and suddenly my 5'8" 150-pound, big-chested, flat-bottomed, size 14 on top, size 9/10 on the bottom frame seems almost thin, but then I watch any Hollywood movie or network TV show and I become a whale. A green apple is hardly a satisfying dessert, but it's a "smarter" choice. Just typing my weight and clothing size on a public blog makes me cringe. What has our society come to?

"Analyze the lyrics of a favorite song."

2009-05-28T08:30:00.000-05:00

These are my favorite lyrics from "On the Radio," by Regina Spektor.

This is how it works:
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath

No, this is how it works:
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you love
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does,
You'll just do it all again.

I am a fan of Regina Spektor because she doesn't stick to the traditional verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus format of writing lyrics. Her songs take you on journeys, tell stories, change the way you think about life. I like "On the Radio" because it is extremely honest. The sharp staccato notes of violin and piano in the background are elegant and alarming at the same time, and the lyrics are too. I also like how Regina Spektor starts each stanza with "This is how it works," like she's explaining some great formula of life. When you listen to what she's saying though, she really is. You are young until you grow up. You do love until you stop loving. You do try as hard as you can. People's emotions are always fluctuating -- it's a part of being human. Life is what it is. I guess it's fitting, then, that I first started listening to this song while I was in the process of a major transition in my life. I was a senior in a gigantic, abnormally competitive high school, and I spent the day at home working on my college application essays while my family went to a party. Initially, I was frustrated and restless, but as I checked more items off my to-do list of 9 applications, I realized that when I'm not doing analytical essays about, like, "Catcher in the Rye" or something, I love writing. I don't have to be bound down by traditional expectations of what writing needs to be. Regina Spektor music reminds me to look outside the proverbial box and really focus.

"Write a portrait of an unsung person."

2009-05-27T22:00:00.000-05:00

Here's to the quiet ones: the ones who'd rather curl up with youtube than get smashed at a frat house, the ones who say "poop" over "crap," and "crap" over "shit," the ones who watch one romantic comedy after another but never come close to replicating the scenes. We are the ones who dodge teacher eye contact in class and hide behind stacks of books. Whatever we have to say comes out in the form of frantic ink-scribbles on notebook paper or typed up in a blog like this one. We wear our hair over our eyes, smear on medicated berry Chapstick instead of lip gloss, dress modestly. We bite our nails and look away. We blush. We stutter. Our mouths are dry and our hands are clammy. But don't let the nervous façade fool you. Behind the damp foreheads, our brains pulse with a frenzy of information. We have opinions on everything, ideas to contribute to arguments. The issues is not that we do not have anything to say, but, rather, that we aren't always able to say it by the traditional means. The next time you see someone doing more listening than speaking in a group conversation, don't assume they are uninteresting or unfriendly or weak or stupid. Just give them a little space and eventually, their real personalities will unfold...

"Write using a found line."

2009-05-27T21:26:00.000-05:00

"All we are we are. All we are we are. And every day's a start of something beautiful, something real."
- Matt Nathanson

All I am I am. I am a tall, awkward, liberal, shy, opinionated, non-confrontational, passive-aggressive, stubborn, Jewish, left-handed nail-biter, artist, writer, sister, daughter, worrier, control freak, Disney fanatic, female, Tina Fey protègée who is afraid of talking on the phone, loves Indian food, questions her religion, wears a dress size larger than she cares to admit, never swears, has seen fewer movies than the average fourth grader, has big dreams and big expectations, and is inspired by everything. I resist arguments. I procrastinate. I talk to my sisters about everything. I pick off my nail polish instead of using remover. I take my laptop everywhere. I consistently bomb class participation grades. I let laundry pile up until I have to do four loads in a row. I prefer all desserts with rainbow sprinkles. I miss my mom. I miss her a lot. I hate when people try to give me advice on how to cope. I cut my own bangs. I clean my room till it's spotless and let it become a chazzerschtell again. I get rejected. I get accepted. I hold my nose for ten seconds upon passing a smoker. I am a breathmint snob. I write and draw and laugh and cry and speak and listen and sleep. I'm still learning to find the good in every day, and I'm not stopping for you or anyone else. I am flawed, and I am wonderful. Watch me go.

"Write in the voice of someone who has passed away."

2009-05-27T15:59:00.001-05:00

I felt like it was necessary to do this post about my mom.

"Okay, for one thing, I don't want you getting all depressed every time you think about me. I mean, I want you to be sad, but don't get consumed by that sadness. I think I've poured enough of me into each of you that it's not like I'm really, REALLY gone, you know? Don't think I didn't see you tweezing your eyebrows even though your bangs cover them up. Yeah, that was me. And look how your handwriting has gotten kind of spiky. That's me too. And see you you love Greek food? Did Dad even try a gyro before he met me? I know the hospice nurse told you to try not to think about unfinished business and now you've been getting all worked up because you want a refresher course on how to split apart of Panda Express wooden chopsticks. That's just practice, Honeybunch. And, besides, if you're ever in a place with chopsticks where etiquette is important, they'll probably give you two separate ones, anyway. I saw how Aunt Francie gave you a locket with pictures of the two of us inside -- just think of that as the link between you and me. Squeeze it and it'll be like I'm squeezing your hand. And keep replaying the sound of my laughter in your head. I like that. It's like when you would tell me you missed me at camp or CTD and I'd say, 'You better!' You better miss me."

"Observe a living thing and write about it."

2009-05-27T15:52:00.000-05:00

Josephine is snoozing on a brown paper bag. Relaxation is her status quo. She has this amazing ability of making any surface, any surface at all, seem like a king size bed overflowing with pillows and down comforters and fleece throws. Josephine Pi (we adopted her on Pi day, March 14) Feder is my cat. She's a Scottish Fold, with tiny ears that fold over like they're too sleepy to stay up. Joey finds a resting place -- a bookshelf or a couch, or, in this case, a folded grocery bag, and then she tests it, sticking out one delicate paw, black and orange and white, and pressing it down to check for -- what? For enemies? Then, she curls her head in as if to lick her chest and her whole body folds up and lands gracefully on her resting place. Sometimes she yawns. I love when she yawns. I love to see this pudgy, fluffy, cuddly, middle-aged cat open her mouth wide to reveal rows of tiny sharp teeth. I mean, somewhere along the road, she had to have an ancestor that was a lion, right? This one time, we had to bird-sit for our grandparents when they went out of the country. They left their lavender-chirping parakeet, Fivel, with us, and Joey tried to kill him! I couldn't believe it!

"Describe one of your parents engaged in a task."

2009-05-27T15:47:00.000-05:00

I always admired how my mom would agree to make any art project my school asked her to do, on a volunteer basis. She won the volunteer of the year award at the JCC where I went to preschool. I loved to sit at the kitchen table and watch her create a masterpiece, all neat and precise. She'd cut little shapes out of construction paper, all the colors of the rainbow, and glue them to a piece of posterboard with Elmer's rubber cement. Nobody uses that stuff anymore. It had that potent forbidden scent that I loved even though I tried not to. Then mom would draw great big beautiful pictures on butcher paper that she'd tape to the walls of the gym at the JCC, whatever the theme was. For the CInderella luncheon, she drew a pumpkin carriage the size of our kitchen. She'd clear all the furniture out so she could use the floor, lining up the chairs in the living room (I used to pretend they were a choo-choo train). Then she'd outline her drawing and fill it in, but she wouldn't just scribble to fill in the lines, no, she'd make stripes with her marker, pinstripes almost, overlapping them ever so slightly. She wouldn't use regular Crayolas either, but scented markers, with slanted tips like highlighters -- lemon for yellow and cinnamon for brown and, strangely, mango for turquoise. For the longest time I thought real mangoes were turquoise as well -- I hadn't seen a real one yet at that time. ONce mom finished coloring the drawing, she'd spice it up with her signature doodles, spirals and starbursts and tiny zigzag lines. Her doodles rarely wavered from those three. She'd put them on birthday card envelopes and name labels as well. They were her thing. Mom's talent in all things artsy dribbled down into her 3 daughters, myself included, with the exception of one thing: the delicate art of precision. Maybe it's the dominance of my right hemisphere or something, but somehow, I was never able to line things up with a ruler like she could, never able to glue down a photo so that each edge was parallel to its corresponding side of the paper. I'd ask her, "Maw, how can you tear a piece of paper in half without a ruler or scissors and have it come out in such a straight line?" and she'd say, "It's easy! I learned it in Mom School!". She must have gotten an A in Mom School because she was the best mom I could have possibly asked for. Now that she's gone, I feel myself longing to start a family so I can be the best mom ever to my kids too. Of the 3 of us, I'm the most like her, no question. We liked to spend our time the same way, so whenever we did things together (like getting coffee and going to see a silly Ben Stiller movie late at night after our grown-up calligraphy class), we both had a great time. My dad wanted to wear the torn black ribbon for a full 30 days, but I chose not to. I want to remember the wonderful memories we had together, not the dumb bout of cancer, the oxygen tanks, the bald head, the funeral, the shiva, the crying, the crying, the crying...

Rest in so so much peace, Mom. 12/19/61 - 3/21/09

Cinderella in Fourteen Lines

2009-05-27T12:40:00.000-05:00

They called her Cinderella, Cendrillon

in French, a tongue of pastel colors. Just

a name, but ev'ry letter spelled, "alone,

knee-deep in cinders, coughing cloudy dust."

Young Cindy lived in sordid squalor, while

her sisters swam in bonbons, truffles, jewels.

Her swollen eyes cried out, but they just smiled,

took honey-scented baths, broke all the rules.

The ball was Wednesday, early April, set

for twilight, leaving time for casting spells

on pumpkins. Charming saw her silhouette

and melted, learned he liked the way soot smelled.

And Cindy blushed and Charming bowed. They kissed

and found true love -- it really does exist!

Josephine Pi Feder

2009-05-27T12:37:00.000-05:00

Colored like a tiger, with the

Tail of a raccoon, her big green

Eyes are almost slits with anger,

Black nose twitching, in between, and

So she hobbles to the kitchen,

Looking mostly like an owl.

Tufts of fluff all blowing in the

Air-condition wind, she growls --

It's as if she wants to speak with

Human words, though she cannot, for

Felines can't, but should she learn, she'd

Speak a Scottish Brogue, in a roar!

Josephine, though vexed right now, is

Loveable (when full of fish). Her

Hissing almost seems cartoonish.

Josie: cat food connoisseur.

I Knew

2009-05-27T12:35:00.000-05:00

I stared and stared

and stillness filled up

the sterile little cell,

from the hanging sack

where blood had dripped life

through its tangled tubes

to the taped-on needle,

to the weakened vessels,

the slow-pounding heart,

the soul -- until everything

was silent, silent, silent!

And I smiled.

Poetry

2009-04-15T12:17:00.000-05:00

Poetry.

I like it when it doesn't mean a poem.

That crème brûlée,

With its golden lace top

That cracked with the slightest tap

Of a teaspoon,

With its snow-white custard

Dotted with tiny specks of vanilla,

In the shallow, shiny ceramic dish,

Surrounded by raspberries.

It was pure poetry.

The wedding,

On a crisp October evening

That made everything seem brighter,

The lights,

The violins,

The bride's smile.

It was pure poetry.

The funeral,

With the slender mahogany casket

Covered with peach roses,

The thorns still on,

With the eulogies,

Person after person;

They loved her so much.

So did I.

So do I.

The funeral was pure poetry.

Maybe I like it better when it means a poem.

This poem is pure poetry.

About

2009-03-22T18:20:00.001-05:00

Hi, I'm Tyler and I love writing! Let's be friends!

My mom died of gynecological cancer on March 21, 2009, and writing has really helped me cope. I started this blog as an exercise for the poetry class I took when I returned to school after her death.

Now, I'm using the blog as a haven for people looking for happiness. I wax poetic about the things I love and grumble about the things I don't. Come join me! It'll be fun, you guys! ♥

2009-02-06T12:15:00.000-06:00

I'm sick this week. I have a particularly nasty case of the common cold. My nose is red and raw, my voice hoarse, my joints achy. I spent too many hours clicking through wikipedia, finally diagnosing myself as a bona fide hypochondriac.

I was five tenths of a point from a B- on my Judaism midterm. I don't really care: I stole a single purple balloon from the lecture hall. I painted my nails with gold sparkles. I need a nap.

2008-11-16T21:12:00.000-06:00

It snowed tonight. Big, fluffy flakes falling almost too slowly. They melted before hitting the ground, like magic. I took refuge from the icy air in my peacoat, a shapeless black faux-suede number with little shoulder pads and oversized buttons. My friends and I huddled together as we shuffled into the crowded dining hall. We feasted on warm, barely baked cookies with melting vanilla ice cream, spooning the soupy muddle from plastic bowls. When it was time to walk back, the sky was clear and the snow was gone. Sources say it'll be back tomorrow.

Six days until I leave for Thanksgiving. Six days to prove myself in class, to try to coax my metabolism to hurry up a little. I'm missing three days of class to spend time with my family. Dad says Mom spoke of Disney World - big news after her recent switch to new chemotherapy drugs. The worst part of Disney World is leaving; I long to lay submerged, toasty warm beneath clouds of fairy dust and cotton candy, forgetting my worries. Mom has cancer, Dad is in therapy, both sisters are heartbroken, and here I am, clinging to sugar-coated telephone descriptions of "how things are going."

And yet, I'm content, for the most part. I'm making A's in every class (thus far), I smother my dark thoughts with acoustic guitar, my cat talked to me on the phone yesterday. My days are filled with writing, laughing, cuddling. Strawberry-frosted shredded wheat with skim milk; gym shoes, pit stains, a lukewarm water bottle. Class discussions that set my heart into its tri-weekly tap-tap-tap; falling into a daydreamy haze during psychology lectures. This week I register for my winter quarter schedule. History of film plus three others. Modern art history? Introduction to Judaism? Beginning painting? Time will tell...