Love, You Got Me Good

Those familiar with this blog may recall a poem I shared last year called "Late Poem." I was totally surprised by how much I loved it, given that I don't usually care much for poetry. It's careful and suggestive take on love, sex, and femininity still has a hold on me. I'm trying to figure out a way to get it printed somehow and saved for prosperity.

Anyway, with the dawn of 2012, I'm trying to stretch my intellectual muscles a little bit more. I begin a new job in a couple of days (very excited!), and I'm looking at it as an opportunity to change not just my 9-5 life, but the rest of it as well. For some reason, I've been idealizing my senior year of college as some kind of golden age for me being mentally engaged. I was writing theses (both analytical and creative), getting seriously into absurdist fiction (I wrote a little of it that I think still has my parents a little freaked out), and taking my chances with, yes, poetry.

In that spirit, I'm sharing the poem below, which I found via NPR last night (I know, I'm a cliche). It appeals to me for many of the same reasons as "Late Poem," but with a more dastardly attitude. I like it.

  Love, You Got Me Good

by Ross Gay

Honeybunny, for you, I've got a mouthful
of soot. Sweetpea, for you, I always smell
like blood. Everything that touches me, Lovemuffin,
turns to salt. When I think of you
I see fire. When I dream of you
I hear footsteps on bones. When I see you
I can feel the scythe's smooth handle
in my palm. Love, you got me
standing at attention.
Clutching my heart. Polishing guns.
Love, I got a piggy bank
painted like a flag. I got a flag
in the shape of a piggy bank. For you,
Sugarfoot, I've been dancing
the waterboard. You're under
my skin, Love. Don't know
what I'd do without you,
Love.

Back, Maybe.

So, I am making a tentative return to this blog. I let it fade at the beginning of the summer, mostly because I couldn't seem to find a focus.

Lately, I've been so surrounded by innovative ideas, inspiration, and change that I find myself wanting to contribute again, in an online, semi-exhibitionist way. Also, I reread some of my old entries and found myself laughing and generally liking them. So, there's that.

In the vein that there are, indeed, no bad ideas in brainstorming, I'm thinking of using this as a creative outlet, not necessarily a measurable goal machine. When the mood strikes (which I hope it does more often than not), I'll post something for the internet to see.

Below is courtesy of Ira Glass, who is full of wisdom.

What the Inside of My Brain Must Look Like

image via Matchbook Magazine

Full of books, chaos, and whimsical interior decorating ideas. This is what moving does to me.

4 Things Making My Life Excellent Right Now

Time for a little Spring/Summer moment of gratitude, I think. The past couple weeks have been fairly stellar - lots of new things happening and I can stand to be outside for longer than 15 minutes at a time. That alone is reason enough to give thanks to the universe.

1. The M15 Bus.
Yes, I realize I've lived in the same apartment, with the same public transportation options, for 2 years. Of course, as I am about to leave said apartment, I discover the true joy of the M15 Select Bus, which runs up First Avenue. Now that it's consistently beautiful outside, I never want to take the subway, which served as a shelter (albeit a dirty one, more often than not reeking of something I couldn't and didn't want to identify) from the cold in the winter.
Anyway, I want to see the trees, sun, and the wonders of the East River on my commute home. Not the dank, barely lit confines of the R train. So, thanks, M15 bus - for at least another week. Then, it's on to the M4.

2. Emily Giffin.
I'm the first to admit that I'm a complete and utter snob when it comes to books. If a book is widely commercially popular (The Kite Runner, Water for Elephants, The DaVinci Code), I will not read it. I'm not proud. It's just the way I am. This sentiment is times two for the shudder-inducing literary genre known as "chick lit." Books like "Sex and the City" and "Bridget Jones's Diary" were awesome and groundbreaking, but spawned a new generation of books that ultimately did a huge disservice to women writers and readers, in my opinion (insert Barnard joke here).
Anyway, my point - all of these sentiments kept me far, far away from Emily Giffin - writer of Something Borrowed, Something Blue, etc. However, people kept recommending them to me, saying the books were actually smart. Yes, they were fun, somewhat superficial reads, but not the kind of disconnected fluff found in typical "chick lit." So, after reading several offerings of straight literary fiction (Swamplandia!, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It), I decided to take the plunge. I wanted something fun, a little mindless, and compulsively readable. Which is exactly what I got. These books have kind of taken over my life. They're like candy. Candy that kept me up until 2 am last night.

3. My Mom.
Because she is a wizard of interior decoration and has helped turn my miniscule new apartment into something not just livable, but adorable. Plus, she's driving all my new furniture to the city and helping me move in. And she just sent me cute shoes in the mail. Thanks, Mom!

4. Memorial Day Weekend.
No explanation needed.

Poem/Procrastination

I'm working on a few different posts right now, but between working, packing, cleaning, traveling to and from New Jersey, and editing my brother's History essay, they have all been mercilessly shoved to the back burner. So, in an effort to not let the blog go dark, I am going to share this poem that was shared with me about a month or so ago by my delightful friend and fellow bibliophile Erin.
It's entitled "Late Poem" and the epigraph is from Nabokov (one of my favorite Russians, of whom there are many), specifically Ada, or Ardor. The poem is by Cynthia Zarin. I wasn't familiar with her before reading this, but have since become seriously enamored with her poetry.

Late Poem

" . . . a matter of changing a slide in a magic lantern."

I wish we were Indians and ate foie gras
and drove a gas-guzzler
and never wore seat belts

I'd have a baby, yours, cette fois,
and I'd smoke Parliaments
and we'd drink our way through the winter

in spring the baby would laugh at the moon
who is her father and her mother who is his pool
and we'd walk backwards and forwards

in lizard-skin cowboy boots
and read Gilgamesh and Tintin aloud
I'd wear only leather or feathers

plucked from endangered birds and silk
from exploited silkworms
we'd read The Economist

it would be before and after the internet
I'd send you letters by carrier pigeons
who would only fly from one window

to another in our drafty, gigantic house
with twenty-three uninsulated windows
and the dog would be always be

off his leash and always
find his way home as we will one day
and we'd feed small children

peanut butter and coffee in their milk
and I'd keep my hand glued under your belt
even while driving and cooking

and no one would have our number
except I would have yours where I've kept it
carved on the sole of my stiletto

which I would always wear when we walked
in the frozen and dusty wood
and we would keep warm by bickering

and falling into bed perpetually and
entirely unsafely as all the best things are
—your skin and my breath on it.

Forgive me for going completely "Barnard" on this one, but I think it encapsulates so perfectly what femininity is, without being flowery or overdone. It's romantic and sexy and real, all at once. Very interesting to juxtapose with the fact that I saw Bridesmaids yesterday.

Hopefully this will fend off my guilt at not writing anything original in the past month. My brain will produce something usable soon, I promise.

Business Time

As much as I wish it were, this post is not a musing on the Flight of the Conchords masterpiece, "Business Time." Although, if you'd like a little bit of that in your life (and when wouldn't you?), you can click here.
The real point of this post focuses on the 40+ hours we all spend at work each week. I'm currently in the middle of a very smart book given to me on Easter - Women, Work and the Art of Savoir Faire by Mirielle Guiliano, of French Women Don't Get Fat fame. Before this book, I only thought of this woman as author of a book that prescribes a two-week regimen of nothing but leek soup to drop pounds quickly. I love leeks, but, gross.

However, as I quickly learned, she is kind of a rock star. She was brought in to run Veuve Clicquot's US operations back in the 80s and took the champagne brand from owning 1% of the US sparkling wine market to 25%. Plus, I love a strong woman who can write refreshingly about both working hard and relishing the finer things in life (like a bottle of Veuve, an affordable luxury).

Anyway, one the favorite little tips I've come across thus far is the SWOT test, which stands for

• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Opportunities
• Threats

These four categories are guidelines to use when assessing where you are professionally (or in general), and where you might want to go in the future. In the midst of my spring cleaning and reexamination after the Paris trip, I'm so glad this little book has come into my life to offer a blueprint that is fun to read and also helps me to think about my future - something that seems so vast and overwhelming that it's difficult to wrap my head around most of the time.
For those of us who have (somewhat) recently graduated from college, the "new normal", at least as I've found it, has been life without a predetermined or even clear next step, the way there is when you're in school or any type of program working towards a clear goal. When the goals are things like happiness and fulfillment, the steps to get there can seem murky or easy to miss.
I've been giving these kinds of things a lot of thought recently. One of the things that became so clear to me in Paris, talking to all the different sorts of people we met, is that there are so many different and diverse paths to leading full, satisfying, interesting, happy lives. There's no right answer for how to live - kind of wonderful and overwhelming at the same time, right?
Ok, I'm going to finish ranting and clean some more. Sigh. Look forward to a Spring Cleaning update soon - complete with embarassing "before" photos and hopefully less embarassing "after" ones. Xo.

Moving on (Farther) Up

Hi friends,

Since Paris (which, especially upon reading this article, I am dying to return to. I think I'll just read Ines de la Fressange's book instead - more economical), I have been very lax about the blog (apologies), but there has been a lot going on.
Perhaps most importantly, I've signed a lease on my first solo apartment! I am so excited!
This entire experience has been a complete whirlwind, so I will attempt to break it down for you. My roommate, who is an intellectual badass, is leaving New York when our lease is up August 1 to attend the University of Chicago. This, coupled with the fact that I've been wanting to summon up the courage to find my own place, led me to start trolling the internet for inexpensive studio apartments. This mostly consisted of absentminded searches on Craigslist and other no-fee rental websites, but, since I didn't see myself moving for another two or three months, I wasn't starting to freak out yet.
As you may have guessed, that did not last long. A week ago, I checked CitiHabitats, just for kicks, since they usually don't have much in the price range I was looking for. And then, it happened. I found the most adorable, excellently located little enclave of a pre-war apartment with street-facing windows, ten foot ceilings, and a bathroom that wasn't in the hallway outside. Open House today from 6-6:30? Don't mind if I do.
So, in the half hour window I had between leaving work and going to babysit, I went to the apartment and found that it was not, in fact, too good to be true. It sounds strange, but even in the five or ten minutes I spent in this admittedly little space, I could tell that if I didn't jump on it I was going to be very sorry.
Long story short, after much agonizing, much appreciated parental support (both fiscal and emotional), and filling out an endless amount of forms, I signed the lease. I move in June 1, and could not be happier (aside from the nagging stress of finding a sublet for my current room). It sounds ridiculous, but I really feel that this new living situation might change my life in less than obvious ways. We shall see.
I'm showing the apartment to my mother (real estate wizard and interior decorator extraordinaire, thank god) next week, so maybe I'll take some photos of my new little home.
Now, it's back to work. XO

PS. On a completely different and somber note, I've been looking at the photos taken by the two photographers killed in Libya yesterday. The New York Times photo blog has some really excellent collections. Also, this article on the aftermath of their deaths is unvarnished and truly moving. I've been so caught up with my own issues lately, which seem pretty insignificant in comparison to this kind of senseless loss. It's so important and hard to try to keep things in perspective.