The Beckoning of Lovely

So, I guess I haven't updated my blog in a while. This probably has much to do with the fact that since I no longer need to be shoved into my room all day studying for the LSATS, I seemed to have found myself a life! The LSATS went well, hopefully I did better than the last two times, and improvement is always better than failure, but I have about another two weeks of waiting, so I have tried to push it out of my mind.

In the midst of trying to shut out the nagging feeling in my head, I got an email from my friend linking me to this page ... http://www.thebeckoningoflovely.com/

Along with it was a warning that this video may make a friend of ours cry. I was skeptical. I'm not usually highly emotional, especially towards 7 minute movies that do not encompass any wounded animals. I watched, and much to my surprise, I actually did find tears welling up in my eyes. The weird part was, that as I felt myself having this reaction, I was actually surprised it was happening. There wasn't actually sad in this video, nothing that would normally cause tears. So, in the end, I decided to pretty much ignore these feelings blaming hormones and move on with my life. However, I found myself thinking about this video throughout the day and by the time night came around I was back on the site watching video after video. I ended with the One Year Later: 09/09/09 video at around midnight and sat there reflecting on what I saw for a while.

I guess in the end I realized that subconsciously, this video had brought tears to my eyes because Amy had attempted to do something that very few of us ever go through the trouble of doing. We spend so much of our lives thinking only of ourselves, and the best most of us ever do is to think of the ones we love. Why is it so hard for us to reach out to strangers? And I don't mean strangers like those in the breast cancer foundation or the national autism foundation (although I am far from saying don't donate to these companies, just that I am currently speaking of something different.) I'm talking about going out of your way to do something nice for a person who is probably not too unlike yourself? A regular person, on their way back from work, worrying about what they're going to dinner, the chores they have to do and the papers they have piling up at work.

As a philosophy student, I have read and thought much about the place of beauty in the lives of humans. Though it may not be thought of much, beauty is truly a necessary aspect of our lives. It allows our souls to transcend the mundane and reach a form of happiness that would otherwise be impossible. Consider the simple example of being in a room with plain white walls, floor and ceiling. Now think of this same room with murals of the meadows and rainbows and birds soaring up high. In the end, its the same room, but the first can leave a person feeling anxious, nervous and pent up while the second has a calming, soothing and freeing sensation. This may not be something that a person consciously thinks about, yet it is something they will undoubtedly feel. So what does this have to do with The Beckoning of Lovely? Everything! What Amy accomplished is truly an instance of the beautiful. She pulled strangers out of their every day lives to come together to build something beautiful. For that moment, all those who came together had the opportunity to forget all their problems, and all the problems of the world and immerse themselves in beauty and happiness. They had the chance to spread this happiness to others.

It's true that it is a dreamer who lives this life every second of their life, but I think we have gotten so inundated with the day to day problems of our lives that we forget to, as the saying goes, "stop and smell the roses." We have forgotten what is really important about life. It is not just the numbers in our bank accounts but the beauty of the night sky, the splendor of a waterfall or even the beauty of the building we spend our days in. We have turned into zombies, and I think we should all take a page from Amy's book and spread the lovely.

My Life After the LSATS

Everyone I know seems to be making promises to themselves lately in hopes of becoming a better version of themselves. My artist friends are making promises to draw everyday, my writer friend is promising to write every day... so it truly leaves me wondering, once my LSATS are over (in exactly a week from today!!!) what will I be doing every day? I mean obviously, I wont be practicing law every day; thats what the three years of hell they call law school will be for. No, for my year off, I want to do something great for myself. So here's a small list I've compiled.

1. Get serious about my diet- I have lost 15 pounds since I graduated college, and I'm extremely proud of that. However, I have roughly another 5 pounds I'd like to shed, and they're proving to be the most difficult. I know I can do it, but it means skipping that dessert at night, doing the full hour of cardio at the gym, and no more taking that extra helping, no matter how small it may be, because the food is just so good.

2. Knit a blanket- I taught myself how to knit last year, and although I still don't really know if I'm doing a knit stitch or a purl stitch, or what the difference is, or how to combine those two stitches to get any other pattern than the one I always knit, I honestly love the process. I know it may look a little dorky, I will be that 22 year old knitting on the subway, but it's fun to do something with your hands while you're just sitting there. The better part is to actually know you're creating something. I know an entire blanket may be a bit adventurous, but I do have an entire year!

3. Make jam- I don't really have an explanation for this. I honestly don't even eat jam that often, so I don't know where this sick need to make jam has come from, but it has. I want to make jam and I want to give my jam to everyone! All sorts of jam! I was thinking that I could ask all my friends if they wanted jam, and all they would have to do is give me an empty jam bottle and they'd get it back filled with jam! For those of you living far away, you could just ship me an empty bottle with enough money for delivery and I'll send it back to you!

4. De-clutter my life- I am a self-professed materialistic girl. It's true. I really like things. People may see this as a bad thing, but I don't. In the end, I know that what I buy is just stuff, and they wont necessarily make me happy for long. Unfortunately, that doesn't change the fact that I really do get joy out of shopping for things and having new things. As a girl, these "things" usually mean clothes and bags. I honestly can't even begin to express the amount of joy I have carrying around my new patent leather coach bag, dressed in all my new work clothes has brought me. However, years of this habit, alongside parents who have always been kind enough to feed this need, has left me with a lot of stuff. It's gotten to a point where I have taken over three rooms in my house, and that, I'm starting to realize, is a little absurd. So I will clean, donate and knowing me, probably buy new things to fill the void!

5. Read- My lack of a life and the lack of things to do on Long Island has led to many trips to Borders with my friend. In fact, we started calling the combination of blockbuster, borders and starbucks, "the trinity" as we usually wind up hitting all three on any given night. Anyways, as we'd perusal the books at borders, I'd constantly pick up books pretending like I had the time or motivation to read them. I'd come home, add them to the growing pile of books by my bedside table, and there they'd stay. I started a few, even got halfway through one (Lev Grossman's The Magicians- read it! It's really good so far!) but have yet to finish a single one. So, I want to attack that pile full force and read more classics. There are a ton of books that I feel like I should have read already, and I haven't, or some that were assigned to me in high school that I never really gave the attention deserved because it was an "assignment."

6. Apply to law school- I have spent a year studying for this god-forsaken test, so while most people wouldn't be excited at the prospect of mulling over applications, I truly am. I love looking at glossy brochures, thinking about the life I could live at any one of the hundreds of institutions. I dream about my life in another city and these feelings of longing and excitement fill me. Part of me can't wait for getting on with that part of my life, but in the end I know that I still have a lot to accomplish in this year first!

Working Girl!

I'm a working girl! Yesterday I had my first internship meeting and today, my first day of work! My thoughts of life in the real world? Its boring. Lets start with yesterday....

So heres the scene. I had just woken up at 7am for the first time since.... well, longer than i can remember. I get ready in a blur, go to the train station and am standing there with my earphones in my ear. Now for anyone who speaks New Yorker, this is a clear sign to not speak to me unless you arm is falling off, and even then, don't expect me to care. So, I'm standing there, rocking out to emo in the early hours of the morning when a girl who must have been like a year or two younger than me came up to me. She didn't speak, she didn't tap me, she literally just came up to me, an inch away from my face. I try my best to ignore her, to avoid eye contact, but she just stood there looking at my eyes. So, I grudgingly take off my earphones and growl, "yes?"

"Excuse me ma'am, I was wondering if you had any makeup," she said. Firstly, I am not a fucking ma'am, you're my age! Secondly, if you're going to speak to me, make sure its from a respectable distance. One inch does not qualitfy. The girl was not winning any votes from me. "No, I don't. Sorry," even though it was quite obvious from my voice that I was not in the slightest bit sympathetic to this girl. I take a step away from her, and move to grab a hold of my earphones to shove back into my ear.

"Well," she went on, taking a step closer, closing the nice distance I had created to a mere two inches, "the thing is, I'm going to be on television and I was just throwing up so my eye make up is a little smudged." If this was really supposed to make me care about anything other than the fact that this girl who just vomited was standing so close to me, we'll she failed.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I replied again, "but no, I don't have any make up with me," and an eager attempt to end the conversation, I ended with, "but your make up looks fine. Really, can't tell at all." There, I was civil, I conveyed the point that I didn't have my up with me, thats the end of the conversation right? I again reached for my earphones and she again thwarted my plans by responding.

"Thanks! But the camera picks up everything, I'm going to be on television." No fucking kidding. So, lacking creativity due to the a.m. blur, I again say I'm sorry, put the earphone in my ear and quickly walk away. Heres a hint to anyone i may see in the mornings- do not talk to me.

The intern meeting went well, basically just got to know one another and then got to know the history of the organization I will be working for and what my job entails. Basically, I'll be working within the New York City courts with an outside organization, interviewing and helping jurors, listening to their problems, complaints, comments, and the like.Then, it is my job to write down their problems, complaints and comments and go to the office once a week to enter it into a computer. Nothing too complicated....

...and yet somehow today when I woke up at 6am to make a 7am train to get to the court house by 9, I was worried. After spending two and a half hour at the meeting, I still seemed to have no idea what my job was. I mean, I didn't know where I was supposed to sit, let alone where the bathrooms, cafeteria or anything else a juror might ask me were. I didn't know where they were supposed to go, what they were supposed to do, what forms had to be filled. It was clearly a classic case of the blind leading the blind. Did I fall asleep during orientation or something? Why don't I know any of this?

At 8:45 I'm standing outside of the courthouse ready to meet my doom. They were all going to realize that I was a fraud. I took a deep breath in, and entered the courthouse. Here I realized that there were two doors, one leading to a security check point and the other just leading past a security officer. I decided to follow the professionally dressed people, gave a big smile to the officer and didn't get bothered at all. Success! I walked around on the bottom floor for a while, trying to find an elevator and went up to the 15th floor, thereby pretty much using all the information I was given. Luckily, as soon as I got up there, a man saw my confusion and my name badge and told me to follow him. He showed me the booth I would be sitting at, which had to be rolled out to about 20 feet away. Now this may not sound like a lot, but I had been up since 6, had just walked about half a mile in heels and my bag and was now expected to roll this giant booth twenty feet, in my heels with my bag and a cup of coffee in hand. My face must have truly expressed everything I was thinking because about a second later he was wheeling it for me. God, sometimes I love being a small girl.

All in all, things didn't go so badly, just very slowly. The three hours I was there felt like 8 and I learned some where the bathroom was and where the lounge room was, and could answer at least those questions by the end. Now, its 330 and I'm back in the comfort of my own bed staring at my LSAT books staring back at me, sipping on my fifth coffee of the day wondering when it will be time to go out for drinks with my friends. We all need a reason to live for and clearly work isn't going to be mine.

Moving on...

So this is a really weird time in my life- and I think taking a year off is to blame. The sad reality is that all my friends that are a year younger than me are getting excited about going back to college while a large percentage of my friends that have graduated with me are now going to grad school. They are all leaving me and I am stuck back on Long Island. Luckily, some of my best friends are home as well, but it doesn't really make this time any easier. I'm hoping that when my internship starts in the beginning of September life will start looking up, but for now, I can't help but feeling stuck in my life. Our lives have pretty much turned into hanging out at parking lots wondering what were going to do with our lives, and waiting for a special occasion to blow our money on tons of booze. Alcohol is truly a wonder drug, and in times like these, I am grateful for it.

I'm studying- yet again- for the LSATS. The entire time I am taking question after question I wonder why I am even putting myself through the torture. I do really well on practice tests, but I am a choke artist. I swear, if Reggie Miller came to watch me on the day of the LSATS, he would have a field day (get it, the choke thing.... yeah, don't worry if you don't. It's a product of being the younger sister of a Pacers fan). But still, I go on, taking question after question, hoping that this time, the test will actually reflect my efforts and dreaming of all the grad schools I could go to.

Sadly, this is my life. So far, being a college grad pretty much sucks. I am jealous of those going back to college, jealous of those going to grad school and jealous of the working people who have their own apartments. Why did I ever thing that spending a year at home would be a good idea? On the bright side, I have lost roughly 15 pounds since college, apparently all the pent up frustration is exactly what I needed to get myself on the elliptical every day.

Well, that's it for now. If anything truly interesting happens in my life, I'll be sure to write. But as the most remarkable thing has been that the tickets I had to the Rachael Ray show got cancelled. For the record, I hate RR. Hell if she can say EVOO then I can say RR. I hate her guts, I think she is annoying and she can't cook and that she really needs to lay of the ciggys. So when I say that I, not only got tickets for this show, but was also upset by the cancellation, you know just how low my life has sunk to. Anyways, the point is, don't hold your breath, it may be a while.

Food Philosophy

I just came back from watching Julie and Julia and I have to say, its been a long while since a movie has resonated so deeply with me. Although I know I am not alone in saying this, I truly feel like that movie was speaking directly to me. I'm a new blogger and just like Julie was in the beginning, I can't help but feel like no one is reading my blog. I mean, sure I know that's not entirely true as the amount of hits on my site keep steadily increasing, but I can't help but wonder who to attribute this to. In reality, I have three "followers" and they include my best friend, my boyfriend and his best friend. I love them each dearly, but considering they usually tend to hear more of my thoughts than they'd like to, it doesn't seem worth it to write a blog for their benefits. So I guess what I'm saying is, I can't help but feel like a very tiny fish in a very large pond, a needle in a haystack... and at times, a nobody. But then again, aren't we all just nobodies?

It's exactly times like these, times when I feel myself spiraling quickly into an existential crisis that I love to bake. Unfortunately, it is almost 1 am and if I go downstairs to bake now, my parents will probably send me to a shrink. So instead, I'll blog about baking. Don't get me wrong, I love to cook, and back when I was at school me and my boyfriend would cook together almost nightly. Usually, we'd spare no expense, buying the most random ingredients for dishes that we knew we would never use again. By the end of the year, my pantry was probably more stocked than most of the women have after accumulating theirs for a decade. Although sometimes, cooking proved to be a stressful and at times annoying process, the truth is that when we finally sat down to eat (usually three hours after starting the entire cooking process, not including grocery shopping), all the blood, sweat and tears (literally) all faded away. The alcohol helped, no doubt- but it was more than just that. It's this feeling of fulfillment, of utter satisfaction that is so hard to explain, that made us go through the entire process the following night.

Cooking, however novel the dishes, is still a mundane process. This doesn't mean I don't enjoy it, but as it is something that must be done daily, it tends to lack the excitement of baking. I started baking before I ever started cooking. My mom would deal with the dinner, and occasionally, if I was in the mood, it was a birthday or holiday, or if someone in my family had a yen for something sweet, I would make dessert. I have become quite well-known within my family and close friends as being the one to turn to if your sweet tooth is acting up. However, as I've grown, and therefore so has the amount of stress in my life, I find myself gravitating towards the kitchen every time something truly bad happens in my day. The day my car got broken into and my ipod and gps was stolen, I discovered the joys of monkey bread. A bad grade on a test? Only white chocolate coconut cookies could brighten my day. Part of this has to obviously do with the end product, but really, thats just the cherry on top. Most of all, its the very process of measuring exact quantities of ingredients, that can make you forget your troubles for just a little while, and sometimes give you the perspective you need to get yourself through the day. I know those who hate baking, saying that they prefer the freedom of cooking to the exactness of baking, and while on a day to day basis I agree with them, there is something extremely liberating in just following a recipe to the T. Well, I suppose I never truly follow a recipe exactly, often choosing semi-chocolate chips over raisons and the like, but when it comes to the flour to baking soda or powder, I never wavered from the recipe.

...And the smell. There really is nothing like the smell of something sweet baking in the oven. The way it drives you wild for sometimes up to an entire hour, and then comes out too hot to eat, tantalizing you for even longer as you sit there wondering with every minute that passes if its cool enough to eat yet. There really is nothing else like it. Finally, you then get to watch your family and friends devour every last bite, searching for the words to express just how great their life is just for knowing someone who has the ability to make something as wonderful as what you have just presented to them. Taking your own first bite as you watch the faces of all of the people you love looking like they have yet again reached nirvana through one of your own creations, you join them in their bliss realizing that the horrible day that had occurred only hours earlier suddenly seems like little more than a distant memory.

Anyways, I tried not to give too much of the movie away, because I really want everyone who has ever really understood the sheer enjoyment of a single morsel of food to watch this movie. So, go...watch. and tell your friends to read my blog!

The Quite Obvious Truth

I went to see the Ugly Truth a few nights ago, and I really wasn't expecting very much from a movie rated 1/2 a star, but as I am quite frequently reminded, I really don't mind watching movies that others believe are horrible. So, while I really enjoyed the movie, it didn't really teach me anything I didn't already know about men. I think intuitively, every girl knows the subtle art of manipulation. Any girl that has talked to a single guy other than her family has got to realize that they do indeed think out of their cocks. Really, there should be no surprise there. Just the act of putting on make up, spraying some perfume, wearing those heals that you know your ass looks great in, it's all a part of our manipulation. We know all about the librarian and the saint, and we use it. Even in relationships, we know how and more importantly, when to switch from friend mode to lover mode, and you can sure as hell bet we are using it to our own benefit.

The movie did a pretty good job in portrayed men as complete idiots. This fact is pretty much undeniable. Mine frustrates me probably more than most people I know. There will be times he will say something, or he wont understand something I'm saying and it will truly feel like we are from two completely different planets. I firmly believe that the ugly truth was right about the fact that guys will constantly think out of their dicks while women will think from their brains, or perhaps more often, from our hearts. But as long as you have a guy who knows how to keep his cock in his pants around everyone else but you, I don't think these differences are necessarily such a bad thing. Speaking from experience, there is nothing quite like the feeling of having a guy who you know is one hundred percent attracted to you and only you. In a good and healthy relationship, these differences balance each other out, and both people are better for it.

However, just as men have their faults, women are no picnic either. We're emotional, at times bitchy, judgmental, stubborn and truly there are times we are just downright crazy. Now let me define crazy. My elderly, almost blind and somewhat senile dog bit me the other day when I went to go kiss him goodnight. I was, needless to say, pissed. So what did I do? I gave him the silent treatment. For days I wouldn't talk to him, thinking that he did nothing to show he was sorry. I would feed my other dog and would completely ignore him. In the back of my mind I knew my dog had no idea what was going on, he probably hadn't even realized he bit me to begin with, much less days upon days later. Yet, I could not forgive him. I wanted to know he was sorry and I wasn't going to let it go. It wasn't until one night when I was laying in bed thinking about the situation did I realize that I was being completely insane and if I could be this unbelievably stubborn when it came down to my senile dog, I was extremely lucky to have a guy who could put up with me.

My last comment about the movie is a little bit different. There was a scene where Butler asks Hegel how many times a week she "flicks her bean." Now I don't believe myself to be a prude but I have to say that asking a girl how many times a week she "flicks the bean" is crossing a line. I don't understand why it's anyone elses business how many times their friend "rubs the nub." Perhaps that is a bit prudish, but I just believe that some things are best left private. There should be some sort of mutual understanding within humanity that says what you do behind closed doors has every right to stay there. But, thats just my opinion.

All that Jazz

I got an interview!!! For a recent graduate, this is spectacular news. Not only that, but its an interview for a paid internship! Somebody's willing to pay me for my work! Given, its only 100 dollars a week, and that money will basically be spent on train tickets from Long Island to the city, but I'm not about to let that rain on my parade. For that matter, I'm not going to even let fact that this is merely an interview and I that I may not actually get hired stop me from celebrating. The simple fact is, in my mind, this job is mine. Call is egoism, call it confidence, who knows, in my head the interview is a mere formality. Word to my friends- it'll probably be prudent to not be around me if I find out that I have not actually gotten this internship.

In other news, I just came back from a day in the city with my boyfriend. It was fabulous. We took a trip down to Chelsea Market, and being the utterly gigantic food snobs that the two of us are, it was quite amazing that we had never been there before. Well let me state this for the record- I LOVE Chelsea Market. It has almost every one of my favorite things under one roof, awesome food and alcohol. Add to that there are enough free samples to probably make a meal (or in our case, an appetizer to lunch) and the possibility of seeing Bobby or Giada (we saw no one famous) and if you're truly lucky being there in time for the free wine and tequila tasting at the wine shop and I am a very happy girl. Of course I had two main problems with being there, a. as I've mentioned, I am a recent college graduate, which means I don't have nearly enough money to buy everything I want to eat, and b. also because I am a college grad, I have about 10 excess pounds that I need to lose. So while I did have to choose between getting the white chocolate brownie at Fat Witch Bakery, or the banana nut muffin with cream cheese icing at Eleni's (I chose the brownie), we splurged on lunch and ate at the Green Table.

The Green Table, as you probably could have guessed, is a restaurant that strives to serve local and organic food. The food was amazing. I got a chicken pot pie while my boyfriend got the cheese plate and I was in heaven. There is something about organic food that has the ability to just make you food so incredibly good. Even though I was probably consuming my daily allotment of calories in just the crust of that pot pie, I somehow felt healthy doing it. My chicken was organic, the veggies were organic and locally grown. Even the wheat that the crust organic. Plus, It's like your giving to charity by eating at the restaurant because you're helping the local farmers. Really, its a win/win situation. Well, at least until you get the check it is.

At night, we stumbled (yes, stumbled, as we chose our dinner location on the fact that they were known for having extremely potent margaritas, and as such we were highly intoxicated) over to Caroline's on Broadway. The comedy show was okay, Bobby Lee- the guy from mad tv- was head lining and to be quite honest, he wasn't really that funny at all. Thats truly saying something when I was so drunk by this time that when I got up to go to the bathroom I almost fell 3 times during the trip, causing pretty much everyone to look at me. All in all, however, it was a great trip and made me realize for the umpteenth time just how much New York is better than every other city in the world.