Honeymoon, Day 2.

Woke up at 9:15am to a full breakfast set up on our porch. Fruit salad, assortment of French pastries, a plate of brie slices, jams (mango-lime, chocolate-coconut!) and coffee. I could seriously get used to this. Ate outside looking at the ridiculous view of the ocean and trees, completely surreal. After breakfast we went swimming in our private pool. I realized that I love pools as long as they're fresh water and I have a raft to lay on. We swam for what seemed like forever and then realized that it was only 11:00am. Time definitely slows down in the islands. Showered and got ready, picked up our rental car at reception (a Mini Cooper convertible) and made our way to St. Jean. Ok, so the roads on St. Barts are TINY. So narrow. And winding! If I could compare them to anything I'd say that it's like driving on the Pacific Coast Highway, only half the width, more hairpin turns and a lot steeper, with a speed limit of 30 km per hour (18.6 mph) but most people want to go double that. I realized halfway to St. Jean that I must have gotten a lot more sun than I had thought (I put on spf 8 tanning oil, I usually wear no more than spf 4 at home, if anything) because my arms felt like they were on fire with the top down.

Got to St. Jeans, had lunch at Nikki Beach. I ordered the Seaweed Salad and Tuna Tartar, Brian got the Mozzarella, Tomato and Proscuitto Salad and the Lobster and Crab Spring Rolls. Everything was surprisingly good since I thought Nikki Beach was a cool, trendy place but figured the restaurant was subpar. Definitely noteworthy! I ordered the sorbet trio (also figured out on this trip that when it's hot outside, I love sorbet!) and Bri ordered the Caramel Ice Cream with Nutella and Banana...he loved it. Waitress gave us a whole bottle of Sex on the Beach, on her! So nice! Love Nikki Beach!

Something interesting I realized about St. Jean: even though nudity is outlawed in St. Barts, and Saline Beach is supposed to be the only beach where nudity is accepted, the European tourists in St. Jean don't seem to know that. I saw SO MANY BOOBS. Most of which I (as well as probably everyone else there) never want to think about ever again. I don't want to sound like a prude American or anything but really, I don't need to see fat old women topless while I eat my lunch. No thanks.

After lunch we drove around the island (SO SCARY) and made our way back to the hotel. Made dinner reservations at Do Brazil and hung around the hotel looking up fun things to do while here. Mapped out our route to Do Brazil (it is in Gustavia on the opposite side of the island) and left for dinner. This was my first time driving on the island at night. It was absolutely terrifying. I am a New York driver so I'm used to crazy cabs, narrowly avoiding accidents and psychopathic drivers, but NONE of those things prepared me for driving at night on St. Barts. First of all, there are barely any street lights or road signs. There are road closures, street repairs, and ditches everywhere, hardly any guardrails on steep turns. At one point we came around a blind curve and practically ran into a gathering of locals who were hanging on the side of the road, then saw a few of them on scooters coming up on us about a mile down the road. I was convinced they were going to jack us for our rental car but Brian insisted it was a pretty safe island. Still, I didn't take his word for it. Insane. Had a huge panic attack but eventually made it to dinner. Do Brazil is right on Shell Beach and is very pretty. Most dining in St. Barts is outside so we sat on the patio overlooking the beach. We were brought hummus Amuses-Bouche (they love that here!) and drinks, I ordered the Prix Fix menu: an asparagus shooter (which I never received), grilled eggplant and other mixed vegetables, scallops with hazelnut risotta as the entree and grilled pineapple and vanilla bean ice cream (glace) for dessert. Brian ordered the plantain and prawn tempura with spicy chili sauce, and some sort of fish burger that he said was "delicious. It was crazy." He ordered this dessert, oh my god, strawberry ice cream sandwiched in a giant macaron, which he said he ordered with me in mind. Aww. Speaking of macarons, I'm really surprised I haven't had any since arriving. There is plenty of time left...

All dinner I was very anxious about driving back to the hotel...seriously, I can't stress enough how terrifying it is to drive on St. Barts, but we made it home in one piece. Again we were so tired that we went to bed by 11pm.

Wedding down, Honeymoon to go. Day 1.

Our wedding was this past Saturday, June 11th, and was literally the best day of my life. It went without a flaw (I had read an article that at least 3 things would go wrong and to just expect it...), everything was beautiful and everyone had a great time. Success! More on that at a later date.

I had meant to buy a travel journal before our honeymoon but with all the chaos of planning a wedding, I completely forgot. I will be keeping track of the day to day events here so I can write them down later. We left first thing Sunday morning for our honeymoon to St. Barts. After having a few drinks Saturday night I was kind of a zombie the next morning and I still had to pack. I made the car service sit outside my apt. for 20 minutes while I scrambled around but thankfully didn't forget anything important. Got anxiety on the plane (nothing new) so I took a Xanax for the first time in like 8 years (I learned how to deal with my anxiety on my own but certain situations, plane rides being one of them, take me to that next level where I can't even handle it) and it helped tremendously. I calmed down enough to stop freaking out and finally fell asleep, waking up in St. Maarten. We transferred to a puddle-jumper (minor baggage transfer issue but it worked out) and were in St. Barts 15 minutes later.

This is our first time here and it's very exciting! David from our hotel picked us up at the airport and gave us some important island info on the way back to our hotel. We're staying at Hotel Le Toiny, which is absolutely gorgeous. It's not on the beach but we have our own pool right outside of our door on the porch and insane views of the hills and ocean. They had champagne, fruit and coconut cake waiting for us when we got to our room which was perfect, it gave us a chance to sit and chill and just take it all in. We unpacked, then got ready for dinner at the hotel's restaurant, Le Gaiac, which is supposedly one of the best restaurants on St. Barts. In NY, French food is definitely not our go-to when it comes to choosing restaurants, but when in St. Barts...

This trip has definitely opened our eyes because the food here is DELICIOUS. We had an amuse-bouche of tomato gazpacho in a shot glass with a straw and some sort of gelee on a cracker. Very good. For an appetizer I ordered the Mahi Mahi ceviche which I'd never had before...so good, I shared with Brian and we devoured it. He got the crab meat and avocado which was served over some sort of tomato, also delicious. They gave us a passion fruit ice in between which I really wish was on the dessert menu because I would have ordered it. As an entree I ordered the carrot ravioli with ginger, Brian ordered a whole local lobster that they had freshly caught. Both were amazing, we were in awe of how good the food was. For dessert we ordered the sorbet quartet and the ice cream quartet. I had the most unusual and incredible sorbet...pineapple and basil. I could eat this all day, every day. The bill came, our first of the trip, and all I can say that the dollar-to-euro exchange rate is not friendly to Americans! Oh well, we only get one honeymoon!

We went back to the hotel and were so surprised to see that they turned down our bed while we were at dinner. Definitely a 5-star hotel, I've never had that kind of service anywhere. We were so exhausted from the wedding, our traveling and suffering from a slight food coma due to dinner that we went straight to bed. At 10:30pm. Unheard of for us!

Vera = love!

Ok so I know I'm getting married in a little more than a month. And I have the most perfect wedding dress that I love. If none of that were true, however, I would be going crazy trying to find this dress! I am so in love with it! I always thought I wanted a white dress but this is the first non-white dress that I've seriously lost it over. I am in love with the shape of it...the fitted bodice with the asymmetrical neckline and the flowy, goddess-like bottom. Ugh, this is the first dress that I like as much as, if not more than, the dress I currently have. Why do I have to read bridal blogs??

Vera Wang Spring/Summer 2012.

Requisite "Stuff I NEED for the summer" post!

I love the summer. LOVE. And what's not to love? Sun, tan skin that's blemish-free thanks to the sun, warm weekends spent in the park or just walking around enjoying being OUTSIDE, free-flowing clothes that don't make you feel like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (or the tire guy from the Michelin commercials), gardening (and if you don't garden, enjoying all the fresh produce that the warm weather allows us to have locally), the beach and running around in the waves, I can go on and on! It is my favorite season and unfortunately the shitty New York climate shortens it to a mere 3 months. I also love my city, though, so I will take what I can get (and when all else fails, I can take a mid-winter breather in South Beach and justify it by claiming it's solely to visit my parents). Every year I get so excited for the roll out of summer clothing and accessories because it's how I wish I could dress all year long! Here aresomethings that I HAVE TO have (or, in some cases, things I've already bought!):

Wave Break dress, Free People, $98

Bought this in grey. I want to wear it as a dress, not just as a cover-up, but I'm still trying to figure out the bra situation.

Beaded Geometry Bag, Anthropologie, $228

LOVE. Why is this back-ordered until 5/16!?

Jayde Boyfriend Shorts, True Religion, $176

Everyone needs a good pair of cut-offs! Not necessarily these but I like the length.

Tye Dye to the Max dress, Free People, $168

I have been obsessed with this dress since I first saw it, unfortunately I am 5'2" and I don't think the material is that hem-able.

Haleigh dress, Dolce Vita, $242

So, I guess I have a hippy/Mexican/tribal pattern theme going here. Whatever! Wish this weren't $242.

Nyle sandals, DV by Dolce Vita, $68

Fun beaded flat sandals.

Dipped Shrunken Sweatshirt, WILT, $127

I love light-weight comfy sweatshirts for cool summer nights.

Slinky Yarn Mott Street Pullover, LA Made, $92

More comfy-ness.

Virgo Dress, LA Made, $79

Effortless, throw-it-on-and-go dress. I like that it's racerback, too.

Fernanda Wedge, Juicy Couture, $150

So I don't like Juicy usually at all, but these are really cute. I love espadrilles and I like the black and natural colors woven together, it's a little different.

Horoscope Tote Bag, M Missoni, $29

Fun tote bag for the beach, plus it rolls up small so it can fit in your regular bag.

My life.

Complete with pizza & pikachu, this is the story of my life.

I want to be the girl with the most cake.

A couple of weeks ago we had our cake tasting for our wedding cake. To be honest, I was looking forward to this more than any other pre-wedding happening. I had contacted Betsy from Nine Cakes because 1. she works mainly with buttercream frosting, and 2., because her cakes look like this:

So we had been emailing about cake flavors and icing flavors, we were going to be tasting some hazelnut frosting, some green tea frosting, mocha frosting, peanut butter frosting, almond cake, chocolate cake...god I can't even type all of this without getting insanely hungry. Basically, I imagined that she would be putting heaven on plates and serving it to us. Which, luckily, is exactly what she did. It was insane. She even threw in a surprise flavor, caramel buttercream with sea salt, which sounds weird but was the most perfect combination of salty&sweet I've ever had. That with the almond cake was my favorite, by far. Brian of course loved the chocolate cake with peanut butter buttercream, which we all knew would be his favorite before we even tried it. I almost wish it weren't such an easy decision so we would've had to eat more and more cake before we could figure it out.

So, the cake part is done. Each "vendor" (look at me, I'm so official now, I know all the wedding terminology) we get squared away reduces my stress levels by, like, a lot. We're meeting with, who will hopefully be, our photographer next weekend. I have more florists to call since the one I had been waiting to hear back from is "not available" (which I think is her polite way of saying she doesn't want to work with us, I do know exactly what flowers I want so I think I might have smothered her artistic creativity a little). So after that I guess it leaves the DJ/band and ummm I think that's it? Oh and an officiant (another fancy wedding term...look at me). I just remembered today that we need to get our marriage license, too.

New Favorite Song

I don't know how I slept on this song, but "I Love U So" by Cassius is so good!

Does this mean I'm a Gleek?

Ok, let me start off by saying that I'm not a fan of Glee. Bri and I watched it once to see what it was all about, actually we only made it through about 15 minutes, and were left completely confused. Is it a sitcom or a musical? Is it supposed to be serious or funny? I have no idea. I don't get it.

Sephora and O.P.I. did a good job with these nail polishes, though. I don't really know what they have to do with Glee but whatever. I like them.

"I Miss Blogging" somehow became "So I'm Planning my Wedding..."

I can't believe I haven't blogged since September! Tisk tisk, self. I need this. I have to release everything going on "up there" into print and then read it over and over and obsess over it. Otherwise the past is a total blur and I have no documentation of where I have been and how far I've come.

Anyway, so much is going on! What most people have been asking about lately is how my wedding planning is going, which is weird, but good, because I've had to talk about it so much and it's actually making me more excited. I guess the most notable update is that I'm now planning my wedding sans full-service wedding planner. Which is insane because when I go back and read this post I can't even believe it turned out like this. I don't even know where to start with that story. I guess I shouldn't have mentioned this first, since now I'm going to go on a total wedding rant, but whatever.

I don't even know where to start with this story. She started not being as amazing and proficient as she claimed to be almost immediately. She wouldn't be in touch for weeks (almost full months) at a time, she would take weeks to write back to emails (and sometimes would only write back after I emailed again saying, "Hey, yeah, so, I emailed you over a week ago..."), so I started getting stressed about that. Oh, and that monthly to-do list that I was so excited about? Never received even one! I got more stressed when I went to buy my dress and everyone who helped me kept saying that I needed to find a venue really soon. Then four months had passed and we still hadn't gone to look at a single venue. When she finally made appointments for us I had to look at venues on my own because she was busy/sick/etc. (not part of the contract). When I went to one venue, they had canceled my appointment with her and she had never told me. That was really awkward because I was literally walking through a FUBU photoshoot to check out the space. The girl showing me the place and I both had no idea that FUBU was even a brand anymore, but they are, and it happened.

That night I emailed my planner to tell her I fell in love with a space and we wanted to book it. She started the email with, and I quote, "We have a bit of a miscommunication I need to clear up:" and went on to tell me that on the date of my wedding, the date that she was sending me on venue appointments regarding, the date that we had been discussing since August, she was planning another wedding that had been booked before she even met me. My head pretty much exploded. She offered me her assistant, who I didn't even know existed, and when I declined she said, and I quote again, "I wish you much luck in your wedding planning." AND. She refused to give me my 50% deposit back. Livid doesn't even begin to describe how I felt. I still don't even have the words for how I much I despise her. I've calmed down since then (this was at the end of November), though, and realized that court is there for just this reason.

It was honestly a blessing in disguise because now I'm working with two girls who are AWESOME. I ended up contacting the venue that I loved on my own and booking it anyway. The woman who runs the space (it's called Smack Mellon) put me in touch with them. Anna and Elizabeth from Just About Married are like fairy god-planners. They are so much like us! They only offer day-of planning so I have to be way more hands on, but I'm loving it. They have referred me to so many great vendors (and great people!) so far. Yesterday we went for our tasting at Three Brothers Butcher BBQ, which doesn't sound like a classy wedding caterer, but they are! They're catering company is called CaraLeo Catering and they are incredible. I can't even believe the meal I had yesterday. I'm literally still full. The menu and the way they cook is all that we wanted and more. We didn't want fancy small plates with puff pastries and pate or anything like that, just simple, good food that has a definite Italian style. I can't wait to see their proposal, I would LOVE to have them as our caterers. We brought some of their BBQ stuff (wings and ribs) to our friends' football party afterward and everyone said that they're so stoked for our wedding. Nice! Anddddd I just made an appointment today for a wedding cake tasting! Look at me, I can work 6 days a week AND plan a wedding. I'm a:


So, now we have the date, the venue, hopefully the caterer, hopefully the cake, I have my dress, things are falling into place and it's good.

This was supposed to be a life post, not a wedding post. I don't want to become one of "thoooose people" who only talk about their weddings. WELL, people who post pictures of their babies all over facebook ARE worse, but still...don't want to even be comparable. I promise to space out the wedding updates from now on so it doesn't get gross.

Yoga, peace and a stress-free life? Impossible?

For my New Year's resolution I had promised myself less stress. My first step was to find a yoga class that I liked and make sure to go. I went three times. I made so many excuses as to why I couldn't go, "This week I NEED to work late," or "I NEED to eat NOW, I can't go home and eat after yoga," or "My yoga pants are dirty, I have nothing to wear." So, needless to say, I got stressed. A lot. I still do. Every time I get their email newsletter I feel so guilty. Today's had a list, "Way of the Divine":

* Tolerate other peoples' weaknesses
* Give others enough time to change
* Rejoice with others and share one soul
* Soften your anger and help people change
* Do not Punish others or take revenge
* Do not allow Positive Actions to be cancelled out by negative actions
* Stand by Others even though they brought their suffering on themselves
* Do the Right Thing
* Go Beyond what others deserve
* Find a Small Place in your heart even for someone who does evil
* Focus on where a person came from and have compassion

Reading this makes me feel guilty. I don't know if there's a single thing on there I do. Over the past few years I've become so intolerant of people. In fact, I find myself often saying, "UGH I HATE EVERYONE!" I come to very harsh conclusions about them very quickly, I get joy out of people "getting what they deserve," if they're wrong/stupid/ignorant I automatically dislike them. It's sad. I used to be such a positive person, I used to love everyone. Don't get me wrong, the people I love I am ridiculously loyal to, I love them, I go out of my way for them, I want nothing more than for them to be happy and healthy and will do anything in my power to make sure they are. I feel that type of treatment should be earned, though.

After being treated badly by people I had once called my friends, on a few different occasions, my standards for people have definitely gone up. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing. It protects me from getting hurt, but it also has made me a little bitter and jaded. I spend so much time being angry that I don't let myself be happy enough. Hence the stress. I want to be posi!

Not Waving but Drowning

Every so often life becomes too much. Murphy's Law kicks in and everything that can possibly go wrong actually does. Things start piling up and it's all I can do to keep my head above water. In the past few weeks:

- Our register at work broke, but we turned it into a positive situation and took the opportunity to upgrade to a Point of Sale system. Which means I've spent the last week squinting at spreadsheets, inputting products/brands/suppliers/UPC's by hand, making mock-invoice after mock-invoice trying to get used to being a member of the 21st century. Brian calls me Grandma.

- Our favorite (and only) employee Dre had to go back to school in PA so we've lost him until he comes back in December for break. He also happens to be a good friend of ours so it's sad x2. Brian's dad is working with us again so there is the silver lining. I like working with him and it's great to see him all the time. He mainly works at the warehouse, though, and the store definitely suffers with only two people working there.

- The wall that's unstable in our warehouse is getting repaired, which means workers in our way for the next week or so and the door not being able to be used.

- The day that wall started being fixed, someone knocked down, as in, destroyed, a DIFFERENT wall (holding up the only good doorway we were able to use). With our forklift. And we don't know who did it. And we're being held responsible anyway. And my dad's decided to get involved. And now it's REALLY hard to receive/transfer orders since we can't get in/out of the warehouse easily. Fun for everyone.

- Our chinchilla Sammy got sick and passed away due to a kidney problem that he was born with that just started showing itself out of nowhere. It was pretty quick and terribly sad and I still don't know if I've fully allowed myself to deal with it yet.

- The fire inspector gave us a list of things at work that he wanted us to change for this years inspection. We've been spending the past two weeks moving stuff around and putting up shelving (1. Stop using furnace closet for storage), getting an electrician to fix/put in new lighting fixtures (2. Remove all clip-lights), getting Dre's brother to build some sort of holder for CO2 tanks (3. All compressed gas cylinders must be chained/stored properly). They're reasonable requests I guess, except the furnace is OFF being that's it's been 88+ degrees for the past 2 months and we remove the boxes when we turn it on because we have common sense. And our clip-lights are not a fire hazard because we have them secured properly and nothing flammable is around them because we have common sense. The CO2 thing I can't argue about, though.

- I am so backed up on writing checks and dealing with my paperwork it's not even funny.

- Someone hit my car with their door in a parking lot and did serious damage. This is only two months after getting it fixed when someone hit it with what looked like a baseball. Silver lining: when they fixed my bumper they didn't attach it properly so this is killing two birds with one stone. I am without a car for the next few days though and I have so many errands to take care of.

- We upgraded our credit card terminal and switched our processing to our local bank. Which required me to learn new technology, set stuff up and talk to customer service people on the phone. My own personal hell so even though I said I'd call on Monday I've been avoiding it like the plague.

- Today I decided to get my work bag caught in my front door which led to it shutting on my heel and taking about 3820342 layers of skin off. I left a blood trail from my door to my bathroom and almost fainted from the pain. Definitely worst injury I've gotten in a very long time.

- We've been working on finding a venue for the wedding, which is exhausting and stressful. We've been trying to get back to our planner in a timely fashion just to get things out of the way but it's so hard when you have a thousand things going on. At 11:30 tonight we finished up looking at a list that she gave us, checking out each place and given them a quick critique. Sounds easy but with my work papers strewn all over the table, knowing that I should REALLY be dealing with them, it's kind of hard to focus on whether or not this studio is TOO studio-like or if this terrace will be large enough for a ceremony.

Feeling the way I feel right now I'd REALLY love to make some yoga time, which is laughable because you can't make something that doesn't exist at the moment. I wish I were a Hindu goddess with 10 arms, then maybe I could get all of my things done.

New Favorite Song (& video)

2 of my favorite female musicians on the same track? Yes please. Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. - Teqkilla remix. Download here: http://neetrecordings.com/blog/



Plus Kid Sis came out with a new video for Big N Bad:

Wedding Planning

In less than one year I will be getting married. I don't think that has really set in yet. I watched a few episodes of that Kleinfeld show Say Yes to the Dress and all the brides are all bubbling over with emotion. They go off on these romantic tears about how absolutely lucky they feel to be spending the rest of their life with their fiance and how their wedding is going to be the best day of their life. Is it wrong that I don't feel as excited? Don't get me wrong, I do feel that way about Brian, I just don't gush about it the way those girls do. I keep thinking of the wedding as one big party that will just finalize everything. We both knew that this was going to be the obvious next step in our relationship so it was just a matter of "when?".

I've been trying to get ideas for dresses and colors and stuff but I figure I'll wait until we get a venue so I can plan around that and visualize it all put together. To help with everything we decided to hire a wedding planner because 1. The thought of doing all of that by myself made me ridiculously anxious, 2. I attempted to find a venue on my own, called 1 place in 2 weeks and felt totally defeated after finding out about their 150 person minimum (we have like 65 guests so far) and 3. I work 6 days a week and honestly just don't have the time.

Her name is Lisa Anderson Green and so far I love her. I'll be honest, the first thing that stood out to me was the French Bulldog on her main page. Is that wrong? We set up a consultation and we all just clicked. She gets us and is everything I'm not: organized, regimented, experienced at wedding planning. Perfect. At the beginning of each month she's going to email me with what we need to accomplish and then we need to get it done. I love deadlines because I procrastinate unless I have them. Working with her is going to make everything perfect, I'm sure (especially since I don't know what "perfect" should be, and she probably does). She also has a blog that gives great planning/hiring pointers.

We have a new meeting scheduled for Tuesday (yes, she makes me schedule things...so organized) and I can't wait to get started.

Thine ever, or never.

When I was 16, my dad gave me my own copy of The Select Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I say, "my own" because from the day I discovered it I would always steal his copy (I actually still have his, despite having my own, on my bookshelf). I feel like everything I've ever needed to know in life I could learn, whether by literal interpretation or inference, from Emerson's writings.

Lately I've been feeling a little lost. Not terribly, not "winter"-lost, not quarter-life-crisis lost, just like I'm searching for SOMETHING. Some sort of answer to a question I haven't asked yet. I'm not sure I've ever felt this way before. Usually I know what's wrong. Even if nothing is actually "wrong," I can usually figure out what's causing me to feel that way. When I can't, I do some soul searching. Emerson is definitely a worst case scenario. I haven't found my answer yet, but I stumbled upon another answer in the mean time.

I've been getting emails and text messages from a friend of mine lately. I shouldn't say "friend," as-in: current...more like a once-upon-a-time friend. Long story short (sort of): we were friends, she and her bf rescued a dog that was being abused but the new dog didn't get along with the dog they already had, Bri and I wanted to help by keeping the new dog but our landlord wouldn't allow it, they were having problems in their relationship (the dog was coming between them) and placed the blame on us, stopped calling us, started avoiding us, she and I emailed back and forth which pretty much ended with her more or less saying, "I can't separate our friendship from the dog situation so I can't talk to you anymore." I know that sounds pretty nuts, but it's true. I took the whole thing pretty hard, being that she was the first friend I let into my life in awhile. I totally let my guard down and she turned out to be a mistake. Our last conversation was in March of last year.

The recent emails caught me totally off-guard. She missed me and didn't know where we stood and just wanted to touch base. I told her very honestly how I felt, that she hurt me by ending our friendship over a DOG that was never my responsibility but who I still helped with, that I thought it was pretty ridiculous and I wasn't about to set myself up to be hurt like that again. She wrote back with some nutty things, making up lies ABOUT me, TO me. Things that I supposedly did or said to her that never actually happened. This whole thing took a lot out of me because up until maybe two months ago I was saying to Brian, "I still can't believe what happened with them...how crazy was that?" It still bothered me because up until the "break-up" point, I considered them to be great friends. Part of me wanted to be like, "Sure, all is forgiven, let's be friends again!" but then logic kicked in and said, "You've already seen how she reacts to stressful situations, you don't want to be on the receiving end of that again."

The whole process of meeting new people, opening up to new people, spending the time and energy feeling them out, learning them and deciding where you want things to go, eventually TRUSTING new people...it's so difficult for me. By nature I'm a private person, always have been. Take that, and the fact that I've had a whole lot of what I though to be great, unbreakable friendships turn bad out of nowhere, and you've got someone who is convinced that they don't need friends. There's always that nagging feeling that I might WANT friends, though, despite all the bad experiences I've had.

From Emerson's "Friendship" essay:

"Thus every man passes his life in the search after friendship, and if he should record his true sentiment, he might write a letter like this to each new candidate for his love: ---

Dear Friend,
If I was sure of thee, sure of thy capacity, sure to match my mood with thine, I should never think again of trifles in relation to thy comings and goings. I am not very wise; my moods are quite attainable, and I respect thy genius; it is to me as yet unfathomed; yet dare I not presume in thee a perfect intelligence of me, and so thou art to me a delicious torment. Thine ever, or never."

17 Year Old Me

"Memories of the past year seek me out. They don't want me to forget who I am, what I've seen, what I've done, and who I've become. I turn away, in hopes to solely concentrate on the present. Yet they persist...they nudge their way back in, and pry open the locked box in the back of my mind...releasing memories of all the pain and confusion I've known. I'm not that person any longer. I've moved on, turned down a different road than the one I was traveling on. I've made a new life here, wherever "here" may be. I know the wounds of the past will never heal, but the scars that face me everyday serve as a reminder of how far I've come. As the night falls down, on this small New Jersey town, my memories are a state away. Yet they're rendered back to me as consistantly as the flicker of the lightening bug that's flying around this yard. A backyard has never been so comforting, and I've never felt so at home. Stay with me, memories. I beg you.

Basically...I'm acknowledging this as a new chapter in my book of life. Change can be good, as long as you never forget your past. Distance is nothing to be afraid of. As long as I can look to the sky at night, in hopes of finding an answer, and the moon is still up above me...I know that I have a constant, and that everything will be alright. Believe me, I've been checking for it."

- written June 27, 2001

I wrote that 1st section sitting on my exboyfriend's porch in Paramus, NJ. He was older and had his own apartment - I had been staying with him for awhile to get my head straight. 17 was a rollercoaster for me. I had made the decision to leave school and work full-time, which is a decision that, to this day, I fully stand behind. It's what I wanted but by no means was it easy. In order for me to keep moving forward I had to temporarily leave the past behind me. My friends, my family, everything. I had to make myself feel like I was wholly starting over, otherwise I would have been torn in too many directions for my volatile and confused 17-year-old mind to handle. Most people at that age are being Seniors, going to prom, being stupid, immature and loving every second of it. I wanted nothing to do with all of that. I just wanted to LIVE already.

I AM ENGAGED.

It's true!

A few months ago we had a talk about getting engaged, which went something like:

Me: You know, if you want to get engaged you don't have to do that whole fancy/awkward getting down on one knee surprise thing. We're us, and that's weird, so we should just decide and do it together.

Him: So I don't have to make a whole big deal of it?

Me: No, that's not us. We should do it together.

Him: Ok, awesome. That's a relief.

Me: Good. So let's get engaged.

Him: Ok!

...and then nothing happened. We work constantly and lately have been focusing most of our non-work-related attention on making our new place look like we actually live there, so yeah, getting engaged after being together for eight and a half years really wasn't a huge priority.

Last Sunday (6/13) Brian and I took a drive down to the Short Hills mall in NJ because I had shoes to return to Bloomingdales and he wanted to get an iPad. Of course we drove all the way there only to realize I left the shoes at home and they were sold out of iPads. Of course. Somehow we wandered into Cartier. And somehow they had the most perfect ring in a size 4 3/4. And then, somehow, we were engaged. The girl in the store was more excited than we were, I think. She offered us champagne, which we declined, and said congratulations a ton of times. It didn't really hit me until we walked out of the store and I looked down at my finger. It was so strange to be wearing an ENGAGEMENT RING. I still feel like I'm 16 years old (and look about 20-max) so it's just crazy to me. We called our parents and they were all excited. I kind of wished we had waited a week so my parents could be back in NY to congratulate us in person, but they've made up for it over the past few weeks.

So, that's it. We're playing "grown ups" and it's weird, but I'm undeniably happy.

Lomography Light Painting Party

I just received an email from the NYC Lomography store about an upcoming party they're having. They're giving out glowsticks and flashlights and will be teaching how to "light paint" with plastic cameras. I've been having a lot of fun with my Holga so I wish I could go. Unfortunately I will be driving for 7 hours tomorrow to go to a tradeshow/party in middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania. Oh well, free food and drinks, give-aways and catching up with/meeting people from our industry...better than a full day of work I guess.

Anyway, more info on the lomo party: INFO.

How awesome is that picture!? It came in the email. One day I will be able to do that, I swear.

Fix Up.

I actually set foot in a gym this week. That might not seem like a big deal to anyone, but I'd never been before! Our new apartment comes with free gym membership (which NO ONE uses) so I've decided to get in shape. I noticed over Christmas break (in Miami Beach, no less...home of the ridiculously skinny people!) that I had put on a few extra pounds. Not such a huge amount that it made me too self-conscious, but enough that I wanted to do something about it (last time I checked it was 9 lbs., which I know isn't a lot but I'm only 5'2" so it's kind of noticeable). January, February and March came and went and I hadn't so much as lifted a finger. In my defense, I also moved and went on two trips during that time so my schedule was pretty packed...plus it was our busy time at work so I was usually there or at home zoning on the couch in order to recover for the next work day...excuses, excuses. The other day I got motivated, though, and finally went to check it out. So far I've been doing 3+ miles on the elliptical, which may not seem like so much to all of you "I go to the gym 3-5 times a week all year 'round"-people, but it's been kicking my ass. My calves and whatever muscles are by my hips are KILLING me, but mentally I feel pretty accomplished. I've never WORKED at being thin before. I'd always been one of those assholes who'd been blessed with a fast metabolism, who could eat an entire pizza, plus cheesy bread, PLUS ice cream, and not gain a single pound. Apparently until now. I've been eating healthier, too. Lots of veggies, fish, brown rice, no pastas or potatoes...I've been doing well and I'm proud.

New apartment! (No question mark!)

We got the apartment! I'm so ridiculously excited. Over the last week we've written way too many checks, signed way too many papers and spent way too much time looking for new furniture, but we're happy! When making semi-life-changing decisions like choosing a new place to live, I usually feel very anxious and unsure of myself, but this time I feel good. The ONLY negative thing is that they have a no pet policy (it was really hard convincing the new landlord that my chinchillas are clean, hypoallergenic and don't smell...so much so that she made us pay double the security deposit) so that means no puppies for the next two years. It's hardly a sacrifice considering all of my other "new apartment must-haves" are there (walk-in closet, bath tub, 2 parking spaces, patio area, good bathroom storage) and even some extra bonuses, like a free gym and indoor pool and having jacuzzi jets in said bathtub. Our move-in date is March 1st but we're going to take our time and do it little by little. Working 6 days a week makes things hard so we're not going to stress ourselves (hah, easier said than done).

Our current landlord started showing our place today, which meant that for the whole afternoon we were in cleaning mode. I hate that we let it get so messy but we clean up for OTHER PEOPLE, not ourselves. I would love to blame it entirely on how tired we are from work but I think it's definitely half exhausted/half lazy. I felt like a little kid, hiding things under the bed and stuffing things in my drawers or the corners of my closet hoping no one would notice. I have my fingers crossed that someone liked the place and will rent it soon. The sooner they rent it the better for us, since we're being charged for the full month of March even though we'll probably be out by the 15th. Now comes the fun part, packing our entire lives into boxes! Wee!

New cameras, new apartment?

After the Kid Cudi show we went to a few weeks ago, Bri got bummed on the quality of photos and videos we took. Obviously they weren't great, they were taken with our cell phones because he didn't want to bring the giant Nikon D40 (even though I bought him a cute, wait no not cute, MASCULINE, camera bag from Supreme). So that weekend we went to New Jersey to get him a new digital camera. He is a brat/geek and has to have the best of everything, so he was dead set on buying a Leica, just to have a small point-and-shoot camera that he can easily bring with him anywhere. After about ten minutes of boring camera talk, I wandered away to entertain myself. That is when I came across their Lomography section.

I'd always wanted some sort of lomo camera. At one point I NEEDED to have their four-lens ActionSampler, then the SuperSampler, and my most recent (recent, as in, for the past 6 years) necessity was the classic Holga. I finally bought it! The guys at the store were awesome, they showed me what film to use, what speed is best, how to load/unload it, etc. They were really helpful and kept laughing about how Brian and I are polar opposites in regards to our cameras.

We went back to the store this past Saturday. B wanted a portable tripod, I had some questions after reading the Holga book and I had my first roll of 120 film that needed to be developed. After asking all my questions about film types and cross-processing I picked up some 120 slide film also. I'm pretty surprised that they cross-process (and they also scan negatives! I can't wait to try some 35mm film in the camera and hopefully get photos printed past the sprockets. I'm going back Thursday night to get my film. I hope the photos come out good but it was my first time with this camera, I'm not expecting too much. Again, the guys were REALLY helpful and awesome. If you're in the NY/NJ area, go to Bergen County Camera (we've been going to the Westwood location). There's honestly no need to go to B&H anymore, they have everything and are even more helpful.

New apartment! Well, not yet, but we looked at places last week and we really like this one. It's a condo unit but it has its own entrance (not in a building where you have to take the stairs or elevator to your floor), it has two bedrooms and two marble/granite bathrooms (one bedroom will be our office/chinchilla room), a washer and dryer, a little patio area, views of the Hudson River and TZ Bridge, an AWESOME kitchen with marble counters and custom tiles...I loooove it. We put down a deposit and filed an application, fingers crossed! The worst part was having to call my current landlord to ask if we could get out of our lease a few months early. Ugh, terrible. He said ok, though, after sounding totally hurt and confused. Now I'm just going to wait anxiously and see what happens!