seasons change but people don't

The other night I was laying in bed, after a deadly combination of red wine and white russians, and I had a thought that sent me absolutely crazy! Like batshit, I tell you! The thought was this: I am currently missing fall on the East Coast!

This has never, ever happened to me before! It almost came pretty close to happening last year, as I was preparing to move cross country with little more than a week's notice, but I stretched out my time at home, opting to drive faster and longer days so I could squeeze more time out of my last autumn.

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Like many New Englanders, autumn is my favorite season, and it's not just because of all that beautiful fall foliage we're so famous for (although it is insane, I promise you). There's something about the air. The way it smells (crushed leaves and bonfires), the way it feels (crisp and cool, almost brittle). For a brief moment in time, having to wear a scarf and a hoodie feels downright romantic.

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Fall in New England is fair season. I know I'm corny for it, but I absolutely love fairs. The Durham Fair is my personal favorite, although the big E is impressive and unbelievable in it's tackiness, and runs a close second.Here's the worst part about my mini-obsession with the Durham Fair: I never even go on any rides. Nor do I play games, or look at handmade candles and dream catchers. I go there for one thing and one thing only; the food. Fair food is hands down, my favorite, favorite guilty pleasure. Must haves at the Durham Fair include strawberry shortcake, clam chowder in a bread bowl, and a ginormous bag of kettle corn, and if you go to the big E, for the love of god, eat a cream puff!

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Fall in New England is also apple season. I mean, I'm sure it's apple season here, too, but I don't think California has quite the wealth of apples as a place like CT, and even if they did, they most certainly do not have Lyman Orchards, where you can get an apple cider and a cider donut and then, maybe even go on a hayride (do they still do that?) with a bunch of bratty, dirty kids. The best thing though, about Lyman's is the way their apples taste, straight off the tree. Simultaneously juicy and crunchy and altogether perfect.

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It breaks my heart to think that children in California have never spent an afternoon raking leaves in their yard and then jumping into the piles, running around smelling like damp earth with twigs in their hair.
If I had my way, for my birthday, I'd take all the people I love who live here and put them on a plane to meet up with all the people I love back home, and then we'd go have a bonfire in the woods, just like when I was 17.
I guess I'm just feeling homesick. Waxing poetic about the east coast and forgetting that after fall comes winter, which is bitter cold and, after Christmas, completely unbearable. I've heard rumors that the West Coast has it's fair share of fall activities, too. Harvest festivals and haunted houses. The air here at this of year feels warmer, but not altogether different. There's still that sense of changing seasons, some things ending, others just beginning. Who knows, maybe ten years from now, I'll be looking back here longingly, thinking how much I loved spending fall in the bay area.

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But for now, I'm feeling bittersweet. Almost enjoying the way my heart aches for what feels like home. There's something special about being here and missing there. When I was younger and the feeling of loss was a relatively new sensation, I would always go to my father with my troubles, bemoaning how much it hurt. "So let it hurt," he would say, "That's how you know it meant something."

love always

holiday

I finally had an actual vacation! Like, as in, I got on a plane and went somewhere new and different for fun. Not for work, not for some tedious family obligation, and certainly not anywhere near CT (even though I don't live there anymore, something about it is like, the anti-vacation). I went to San Diego to visit Scarlet and Geoff in their cute new house and celebrate the 4th of July by drinking copious amounts of alcohol and eating way too much food.
The best thing about Scarlet and Geoff's new house is their shower, for sure. I noticed their amazing shower curtain first, with it's impeccable detailing and flawless craftsmanship. Would you believe they sourced it all the way from Target?! Astounding! After cooing over it for like an hour when I first arrived, I was awed to find, the next morning, that behind this masterpiece lies the most fabulous mint-green tile I have ever seen! Of course I promptly forced Scarlet to take slutty photos of me standing in front of it.Unfortunately, the colors didn't come out the way I had hoped, but I promise you, it was the mintiest mint I've ever seen!
Also, check out my outfit! I got the cover-up at H+M and I've been dying to wear it ever since. I was so pumped for this trip, because unlike the Bay, San Diego actually gets beach weather. I wanted to wear my cover-up and get a tan and drink pina coladas! Alas, it was totally grey the entire time I was there, and I only actually wore this outfit for the above photo. Goddamn June gloom!
We still totally had a blast, though. On the first night, we went to this dive bar where they had this old chick handing out these awesome patriotic accessories.

We found some randoms and bought them home with us.
When the sun came up in the morning, Scarlet and I were still awake watching creepy videos like this one.
We slept for approximately five minutes. Geoff made waffles in the morning and Scarlet and I lit things on fire to make bananas foster. Then Scarlet and Geoff had a party.
Lots of people came and we ate lots of food and drank lots of beer and vodka. We went to see the fireworks at the ocean.We sat on top of this cliff and watched the fireworks explode over the water. It was dark out and the waves were crashing over all these dark, jagged looking rocks. It was one of those moments where it's so pretty you wish you could share it with everyone, so you sit there clicking the shutter on your camera, attempting to record it somehow, but eventually you just give up because you know it'll never look as beautiful as it did in person.
After the fireworks, we walked back to the house. There was another fireworks display going off in the distance. We couldn't see the actual fireworks, but it lit up the sky and made it look like magic. We stayed up drinking, yet again, until the wee hours of the morning, and by the time I got on the plane on Monday morning I was in this bizarre, slightly blissful half hungover state that lasted a good twenty four hours. I guess that's how you know you've had a vacation, right?
love always

i live here now

so i think it pretty much goes without saying that since i made it to LA, i am now in my final destination: sf bay area. i feel like i ought to apologize for not updating in a while, but if you can possibly imagine moving 3000 miles away from the only place you've ever lived......
it's been complete madness.
i've been living here for about a month and a half now and it still does not feel like home. i'm not really sure if it ever will. i am homesick a large portion of the time. i miss my family, my friends, the corners and smells and flavors of the place i'm from. at the same time, i feel like i can't really go back, at least not yet. it's kinda like i'm trapped in some strange purgatorial no-man's-land and i'm not quite sure how to get out of it and into that place where i live somehwere again.

as much as i thought, upon making the decision to come out here, that the bay area was all rainbows and sunshine and crunchy, granola-y goodness, i've realized that like any other place, it has it's dark side too. I'm living in oakland, in an amazing beautiful house that was once featured in a magazine, on a tree lined street in what looks to be a charming little neighborhood, but just last week as my downstairs neighbor's friend was walking to her car, she had a gun pointed in her face and was forced to hand over her keys to some random stranger who couldn't even figure out how to start her car and ended up just running away, but still, that shit is pretty scary.

i have had two terrible nightmares since i got here and both of them sperately were some of the most unsettling i can ever remember having in the entirety of my life. sometimes the combined forces of working every single day at a job that seems like it will never be finished, plus getting lost all the time and not knowing where things are, and just the unfathomable weight of being totally and completely alone out here makes me think i might be lossing my shit for real this time.

but there are good days too. red velvet cake is pretty trendy out here. i've seen it in a few different incarnations, as cupcakes, sheetcakes, etc. it's all good with me and it makes it kinda hard to stay despondent for too long. the mocha's here are infinitely better than in ct. almost everyone eats their veggies. berkeley bowl trumps whole foods by like, a landslide. one day i managed to run all my errands without the assistance of my gps and i felt really proud and accomplished.

i live with two of the sweetest, most congenial people one could ever hope to meet and also the most adorably goofy yet well-trained boxer in the world. sometimes i get angsty and spend too much time in my room and forget to take advantage of them. i also have the privilege of working with the downest chick that ever lived and she has taken me on some fun adventures to haunted houses and fancy ice-cream shops. the other day we went to ikea and then ate hot dogs, which was really fun. she likes to make fun of twilight as much as i do, which when i really think about it makes all this moving shit almost worth it. her roommates are really rad too.

what i haven't been doing is taking pictures or documenting. i mean, i can barely remember how to breathe sometimes, but even though this is all kind of confusing and uncomfortable, i have a feeling that when it's all said and done, i'll still want to remember it.

love always

road trip, day five: LA

i know, i know, i'm supposed to be writing about LA. I've been working on it, believe me. I've started this entry i don't know how many times, only to abandon it after a few sentences. i guess i just feel like LA is a big deal. I mean, I spent a large chunk of my adolescence reading FLB and fantasizing about living there. I jut don't feel like anything i could say would really do it justice.

Actually, I really don't feel like the time I spent in LA did it justice even. It was towards the end of our trip, so I was tired and cranky. I was feeling all twisted up and conflicted and emotional about the fact that I finally made it to California. Half of me wanted to turn around and speed back the other way towards home. I was burdened with the terrible knowledge that my traveling companion and soulmate would be leaving me soon. I was weird. And confused. And slightly psychotic.

On top of that, LA was fucking intense. Our hotel was like a fucking hipster circus.The fact that our bathroom wall was glass made me really uncomfortable because like, what if I had to take a shit? I mean jon and I are close, but not that close.

Hollywood was even more intense.

At a certain point I think I just shut down and went all numb and apathetic about the whole thing. It was just too much for an angtsy, overtired girl to handle, you know?

The one thing I do remember about Los Angeles with perfect, crystal clarity is the fucking meal that we had there.Pedro took us out for bbq in koreatown, and it was seriously the best, most hauntingly satisfying meal I have ever had.
I have not stopped craving that shit since. (Although I hear there's some pretty good korean bbq in oakland as well).We also drank this weird korean booze that tasted like poison but worked like a charm on my hopelessly frazzled nerves.

Later that night we totally were gonna hit up the rooftop bar at our swanky hotel, but when we saw how busy it was and how under-dressed we were compared to the glammed-out barbies and kens that were swarming all over the place, we decided to just retire to our room and watch harry potter instead.

the next morning we had a really overpriced breakfast that consisted of amazing, fresh squeezed juice and the grossest, runniest eggs I have ever paid $20 for.our waiter looked unnervingly like jon circa 2005.

Oh, LA, I'm sorry we didn't really have a chance to bond. Maybe I'll visit again once I've recovered from this whole ordeal and we'll hit it off smashingly like I always imagined we would.

love always

p.s. on the way to LA we totally stopped at In-N-Out burger and that shit was bangin.sorry y'all, i just couldn't help myself.

road trip, day four: NM, AZ

i've totally put off writing about this day, because i will always remember it as the day we got stuck in the most horrendously awful traffic of my life. to say the least, it was truly bad.


it didn't start off that way though. we woke up on old route 66 in New Mexico in the king suite of the super 8 motel. what can i say? i'm a classy broad.

for anyone who's ever seen cars, route 66 really does look like radiator springs.
we stopped at the KIX on 66 diner and ate some really yummy huevos ranchero for breakfast.
when we got on the highway, we saw a sign for like, the most amazing, coolest rest stop ever that's totally worth waiting 70 more exits for or something like that, so even though i really had to pee, we decided to hold out. it's a damn good thing we did too, otherwise we would've missed out on the largest selection of fake-ass native american touristy shit known to man. including such gems as this
and this
i really shouldn't talk too much shite because we totally did buy a pair of baby mocassins for adonis. they were too cute to resist!

after the tourist trap, my camera battery died, which is really kind of a mini-tragedy because New Mexico and Arizona were some of the coolest looking states we drove through.


at one point, we were in the dead center of this mountain range in Arizona, coming down through the mountains as the sun was setting. it was so beautiful it felt surreal.
then, about ten minutes later is when we hit the traffic. we were still coming down the mountain and up ahead the only thing visible was a spiral of breaklights. all the exits had creepy, foreboding names like bloody basin and dead man's ditch and when we called laura, she assured us that no, there was no point trying to get off and go another way. we were indeed, stuck there.

now, i'm gonna try not to go into too much whiney detail, but can you imagine, after four straight days of driving, stiff neck, no sleep, miles from home, we sat in traffic for two whole hours and moved only ten miles. it was heartwrenching.
eventually, we did make it to laura's house, where she and kevin were kind enough to feed us the best tacos ever and let us sleep in their guest bed, which, after three nights of hotels, really was the nicest thing anyone could've done for me.

love always

road trip, day three: MO, OK, TX, NM

the third day of our trip took us out of missouri and into oklahoma, but first we had to stop at the waffle housefor us northerners, it's a bit of a novelty but i get the feeling that waffle house is like a southern version of denny's.
siting there that morning, looking out the window at a completely unfamiliar
scene, I had this overwhelming sense of freedom, like I could spend the rest of my life driving around and eating in crappy diners and be totally happy and content.

in oklahoma we saw lots of cows and hay.
In texas, the landscape started to shift with little hills popping up in random placesthe road we were driving seemed to go on forever

when the sun set, there was not a cloud in the sky and it was almost painful, hot and blinding.

we stopped in amarillo to eat good, old-fashioned texas barbecueour meals came with coleslaw, potato salad, onion rings, apricots, beans and texas toast. it was quite the setup. but the best part by far, was the decor!

love always

road trip, day two: OH, IN, IL, MO

after the panic-inducing first day of our trip, things got decidedly better. jon insisted on starting out the day by watching bolt on his ipod with the volume on full blast through my speakers, which made me tearfully homesick for my baby kitty, but around the time the movie was finished, we crossed over into Indiana, which was the first place we saw that looked truly different from the northeast.Indiana, at least the part that we drove through, is pretty much cornfields for as far as the eye can see.
Indianapolis reminded me of hartford, but mostly because of the way the highway looked approaching it.
Illinois was more cornfields.
St. Louis looked like a pretty sweet city. Of course, we didn't stop. We were determined to just keep on pushing through.
In Missouri we saw one of those amazing western sunsets that are impossible to take a decent picture of.


when we got hungry, we started scanning the signs off the highway looking for something promising. we came across a billboard for a place called the missouri hick, which served barbecue and we decided to go for it. we took the exit as the billboard instructed, and found ourselves literally, in the middle of nowhere. when i attempted to turn around in someone's driveway, at least ten pitbulls came running from their yard at our car. the driveway that i finally managed to pull into did not have pitbulls, but rather hens and chickens everywhere, just roaming around as if they owned the place. it was slightly terrifying.
when we finally hit civilizationa again, we stumbled onto this place called matt's steakhouse .
seriously, if you are ever in missouri, go to this place. i promise you will not be disappointed. The decor is all cheesy 90's faux-upscale, with a waterfall in the middle and booths the size of a bed. And the steak....the steak completely redefined my idea about what a steak is supposed to taste like. we ordered the KC strip, which made the entire idea of a NY strip seem like a feeble joke. Also, they had these amazing breadsticks that bore an uncanny resemblance to fried dough.

After our amazing meal, we splurged and got a decent hotel to make up for the previous night's disaster. It was small and unremarkable, but we reveled in every detail, from the clean towels to the multitude of pillows. when you're far away from home, it's the little things like that make a difference.

love always