Friday, April 29, 2011
On Love at First Sight
True or False?
I'm inclined to lean towards the optimists, but perhaps that's a result of one too many back-to-back reruns of When Harry Met Sally, where love-at-first-sight is the norm. The bottom line is romance comes in many shapes and sizes, from drunken one night stands originally intended to stay within the confines of a 24-hour play date to instant chemical reactions where the husband and wife never looked back. The end result is always the same - love at first sight, after the fact. Enjoy!
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Thursday, April 28, 2011
On Disdaining Distractions
Terribly Timed Texts.
A mere two months into my i-phone club membership, I can shamefully confess I have officially joined the disdainfully distracted human race. Standing on a line? Scrabble board shuffle. Heart-shaped puddle? Photo snap, facebook upload, twitter announcement, & wallpaper change - in that order. Boyfriend needs attention? Sure, but after I check my email again, and again, and again. I don't want to live like this, but I do, and I simply don't know how to stop. Does anyone? Enjoy!
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Wednesday, April 27, 2011
On Spring in the Afternoon
NYC at its Best.
There are few places more beautiful than NYC during the onset of springtime. As native NYers creep out of their winter caves in anticipation of blooming buds and brightly-colored sandal selections, people literally stop to smell the (recently-planted) flowers, with smiles on their faces and pale, bare legs exposed. Enjoy!
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Tuesday, April 26, 2011
On Someone Else's Fate
Crime & Punishment.
As a juror in a week-long criminal trial (just this past month) regarding a series of crimes related to attempted murder and assault, I found myself - at times - struggling with the idea that the fate of the innocent (until proven guilty) defendant was in my (and 12 other jurors') hands. Upon the judge's insistence (and, I s'pose, also the law), us jurors were instructed (multiple times) to leave our biases and past experiences at the door (to the court house) and determine the fate of this seemingly calm and collected 62-year-old man as impartially as possible. While not an impossible request to adhere to, our minds couldn't help but (occasionally) wander to its consequences: jail-time versus male-time, walks in a (barbed-wire) playground versus Marine Park, guilt versus innocence. And so the judicial system goes, a not-so-fine line between an all-too familiar struggle between emotion and reason during which we're actually under strict orders to want not what the heart wants (for once). Enjoy!
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Monday, April 25, 2011
On Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon
Seek and Ye Shall Find.
If you look hard enough, you, too, will find out how easily you are connected to Kevin Bacon by less than six degrees. Or, alternately, if you're a Brooklyn native - to Marissa Tomei by no more than two. The human desire to seek out this connectedness - to each other, to strangers, to B-list actors (okay, A-) - whether it actually exists or not, speaks to both our need to understand the who/what/when/when/andmostimportantlywhy of inexplicable life events, and our innate craving to make the world that much smaller. Whether these connections actually exist or not is irrelevant since, after all, six degrees ain't that small and, besides, people will convince themselves of just about anything if the inkling is there. Case and point: Myself --> constantly mistaken for his relative throughout the 90's --> K.Bacon! Enjoy.
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Friday, April 22, 2011
On Crying in Public
When Gazes Avert.
There was one day in particular this past December-the week before Christmas, to be exact-where I cried in public for over an hour. If the force with which tears release themselves can be categorized on a scale between 1 and 5, mine alternated steadily between 4 and 5 pretty much the whole time. First, in my cubicle at work, which I left immediately. Then on the eight block walk to the subway, where I switched between sobbing into a cell phone mouth piece to no one in particular when certain people did not answer their rings. Finally, on a thirty-five minute subway ride, where I maintained little anonymity in an less-than-crowded car on a Wednesday or Thursday afternoon in broad day light, several hours before New Yorkers tune out their miserable work days with music, newspapers, or the latest Stieg Larsson novel. In spite of my preoccupation with my own situation that day, I remember being simultaneously aware that I was that girl - the one exposed to perfect strangers who break out in sweats trying diligently to avoid eye contact while running through a myriad of reasons as to why the magnitude of her tear-scale is skyrocketing (a break-up? a death in the family? a scandal at work?). And yet, as the hour progressed, I also recall making eye contact with not a single person, except for my co-worker who bravely struck up a conversation simply to say, Go home. The bystanders were successful in their gaze aversions because to catch the eye of a level-5 crier is risking becoming part of their story, even if the gaps in between are never uncovered and they never truly understand where exactly they fit in. Enjoy!
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Thursday, April 21, 2011
On Care(free) Packages
Signed, Sealed, and Delivered.
At summer camp in the 90's, the most highly anticipated care packages were from best friends who snuck forbidden gummy bears and candy bars beneath a facade of unnecessary tampons, because no counselor could deny the onset of puberty to young girls who secretly wished the facade to be true. Hours later, once the campers were bid adieu by the counselors who rushed off to secret make-out sessions and cigarette holes, the chocolate-smudged wrappers were ripped apart by slender, sun-soaked fingers to the chorus of ardent squeals of delight, as rules were broken, friendships forged, and sugar highs invoked. Enjoy!
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Wednesday, April 20, 2011
On Multiplicity
When Two Is (Probably) Better Than One.
A close friend of mine - with whom I have nearly ten years of memories including almost moving out West on a whim in 2003, watching numerous sunsets in the Catskill Mountains, and dating best friends from Ann Arbor, Michigan at summer camp - is also my only easily accessible girlfriend (within moderate walking distance) with babies. Almost a year after her twins were born (next month), it is still hard to believe that (not one but) two gurgling bundles of joy (for lack of better words) are actually hers, and when asked (repeatedly) what it's like to have twins, her response - I only know what it's like to have two - illuminates the wonderment that inevitably accompanies the mystique of lucking out with multiple babies instead of (just) one. Enjoy!
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Tuesday, April 19, 2011
On Going Stag
Wedding Bell Blues.
Whether you've been placed between your best friend's 80-something, toothless grandparents or next to the groomsman's loudmouth college roommate's cousin, your seating arrangement at your BFF's prenuptial is a telltale sign of where you rank among her other BFF-AEs. Until it's your turn to play musical chairs, and demotions are implemented as quickly as chess pieces sweeping across a rookie's first board, while guests drown their seating-arrangement-stati in champagne and butter pecan icing. Enjoy!
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Monday, April 18, 2011
On the Waiting Place
Ode to Dr. Seuss, And To Life In General.
As one who is quite familiar with The Waiting Place - where people go (to wait) for their Uncle Jake, or a pot to boil, or a Better Break, or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants, or a wig with curls, or Another Chance - I have come to appreciate the comfort in not knowing. Even if the news is what you're hoping to hear, there's solace in Uncle Jake's inability to disappoint, in the boiling water that has yet to evaporate, in the Break that has not un-changed your life, in the pearls that aren't fake, in the pants that hopefully still fit, in the curls that aren't straight, and in the unrealized Chance, whereas when the news is finally delivered, Oh, the Places You [may never actually] Go. Enjoy!
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Friday, April 15, 2011
On Mamma Mia
...and we're back!
When the going gets tough, a mother's love can cure all. After a devastating young-adult heartbreak in my early 20's, mammia mia drove me aimlessly for hours on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway while I sobbed in the passenger seat nibbling on pounds of burnt bacon, cooked to perfection just the way I like. Her parting words, one night, while I smoked countless cigarettes in my bedroom a few doors down from her own, were If only I could show you, if only I could tell you. (Er, she's a romance novelist.) If not for her inspirational prose and stellar culinary skills, I might have starved to death that week while drowning in a haze of nicotine poison. Instead, I ate endless portions of the one-food-I'd-bring-to-a-desert-island and enjoyed the picturesque view of the Verrazano Bridge through my tear-drenched eyes, and came out on the other side (of Staten Island). Enjoy!
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When the going gets tough, a mother's love can cure all. After a devastating young-adult heartbreak in my early 20's, mammia mia drove me aimlessly for hours on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway while I sobbed in the passenger seat nibbling on pounds of burnt bacon, cooked to perfection just the way I like. Her parting words, one night, while I smoked countless cigarettes in my bedroom a few doors down from her own, were If only I could show you, if only I could tell you. (Er, she's a romance novelist.) If not for her inspirational prose and stellar culinary skills, I might have starved to death that week while drowning in a haze of nicotine poison. Instead, I ate endless portions of the one-food-I'd-bring-to-a-desert-island and enjoyed the picturesque view of the Verrazano Bridge through my tear-drenched eyes, and came out on the other side (of Staten Island). Enjoy!
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Thursday, April 7, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
On Bridezillas-In-Real-Life
Down the Aisle of Pain.
Between (not so many) years of obligatory bridesmaid trauma, a few close maritally-troubled friends, and a handful of late-night reruns of Bridezilla on the cable channel that (best) captures life's finest moments, it's easy to brush off the wedding craze as something other people indulge in. But then - while innocently perusing twice-removed facebook friends' requests for wedding photographer suggestions - you discover far off towns you can rent for the low, low price of $16, 500 per day (Dunton Hot Springs, Colorado) and an unexpected (strong) opinion about the appropriate number of rocks stitched into the hem of a white gown, and then it begins... Enjoy!
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Tuesday, April 5, 2011
On Bookstore Romance
Fairy Tales in Real Life.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't once read a 400(+)-page version of Crime and Punishment in its entirety - for a guy - and scribbled (online) cliff notes onto scrap paper while emailing (him) quotes from my 'favorite passages.' In exchange, I welcomed glances from fellow subway patrons who, undoubtedly, formed (inaccurate) judgments about my intellectual curiosity when, in fact, it wasn't mine to judge and, besides, I had Eggers hiding in my bag for when Dostoevsky dragged on (usually around 12:30pm - halfway through lunch time). But catching up my English-major deficits is a small price to pay for true love and, so, we do what we have to do - peruse book store (clientele), overdose on latte refills, ignore stinging sunburns on solo spring picnics, and occasionally show up at a friend's party ... alone ... until the time we no longer have to. Enjoy!
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Monday, April 4, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
On Unwarranted Overconfidence
VUP: Very Unimportant People.
A handful of flash cards gone right and we self-elect ourselves to Nobel Laureate without double checking our answers. A home-cooked meal without burning down the house situates our culinary talents amongst the finalists on Top Chef. An occasional bouquet of flowers earns star power in the romance department and a free pass for the next three months. And a Double Jeopardy showdown dominates dinner conversations galore. Enjoy!
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