time and space

Finally.....
A moment to breathe.
I wish I could spend all day writing in this thing, telling you about every single one of my fabulous adventures. Alas, I am too busy having them. And also, you know, working and sleeping and doing normal stuff (what a bother!)
I do have to say though, as of late, I believe I have become more adventurous...and more fabulous! Last weekend was a wild dance party on treasure island.

Look at that breathtaking view!!! Look at those palm tress!

Look at that sunshine!Look at my adorable friends! I live in California now! Can you fucking believe it?!

Admittedly, I love it here. Since I moved, I have been happier, healthier, more centered and at the same time, crazier than I ever would have believed possible. Do I think it's because I live in California now? No. Do I think it's because I actually had the balls to pick up my shit and move out here? Do I think it's because I faced down one of my worst fears and actually left the place where I felt safest and most secure? Yes, yes, a million times, yes! The best advice I can give you in this entire life is to find what scares you most and then do it until you're not scared anymore.
With that being said, there is a very special place in my heart that is still entirely owned by lovely little Middletown, Connecticut. I visited a few weeks ago. It was my first time back in six months! I have never before spent that amount of time away from Middletown.There was a part of me that felt, without me there, that it might have just disappeared or vanished into thin air.
But no, of course it was still there. In all it's humid, thunderstorm summertime glory, smelling exactly the same as it did when I was sixteen. And even more amazing, all the people that I love had somehow survived and were just as sweet and warm and cozy as I remembered them.
My Mom, who somehow seems to only get more beautiful as she gets older.
Amy's doll Erin, who somehow became a mini woman since I left home.
Tiffany, who somehow manages to not burst into flames from her perpetual hotness.
Mojo, who somehow got even cuter AND sassier since I saw her last.
And Amy, who somehow always leaves me shocked and awed that any one person could be such a good friend.

So many beautiful, inspiring women! There was a part of me that didn't want to leave these girls, and at the same time, I was starting to miss the bay. What's a girl to do when her heart lives in two places at once? I closed my eyes really tight and made a wish that the town where my heart lives would somehow join forces with the city I am in love with and make a baby, but then I realized, if they did, it would look just like me.
love always

daddy's day

every year on father's day, i make my father dinner. i drive up to his apartment with my car full of groceries and force him to gorge himself on the type of greasy, bad-for-you fare that he normally attempts to stay away from. only this year, i can't. i can't make my dad dinner on father's day because he is no longer just a car ride away. he's in a strange and distant land otherwise known as california. so, while everyone i know is planning some sort of grand tribute to their fathers (or their baby's fathers), i'm left wishing that i got to spend father's day with my daddy.
you know how some people grew up taking their father's for granted? i never really had that problem. with a father like mine, that would be kind of impossible. my dad was everything a dad was supposed to be; practicing softball with me when i wanted to try out for little league, showing up to every single dance recital and school play i was ever in (trust me, there were many), hating on any boys who dared to think they might be good enough to date me. even when my parents split up, my father was never the absent type. he encouraged me, supported me and loved me through every awkward phase and minor drama exactly the way a good father should.
the most important thing my father did for me however, goes far beyond the realm of basic parental nurturing. in short, my father showed me how to live.
my father is, and always has been, a free spirit. never one to conform, he sold drugs in high school and wasted his college years on art. even crazier, he was the only man brave enough to impregnate my mom (she's a crazy bitch, but, you know, the good kind).
the thing is, my father could have so easily fallen into that whole flaky artist/slacker thing that's so common amongst the creative folk, but he didn't. my dad holds a steady, respectable job (i think his official title is evil computer genius), in addition to finding time for more fulfilling pursuits such as teaching pottery to teenagers, going rowing with his girlfriend and learning to speak spanish. and yes, he's still an amazing father, sometimes taking up to ten phone calls a day from my whiny ass.
i'm not saying that he's superman or anything, but my daddy ain't no slouch! he takes his responsibility as a human being very seriously. he operates with a firm concsience and an open heart. he does what he feels is right rather than making excuses to do what he wants when it's wrong. he communicates openly and honestly with the people he loves. and most importantly, he lives passionately, taking risks and daring to love deeply no matter how many times he's been hurt or knocked down.
in a world that can be at times, so harsh and so cold, i feel so infinitely grateful to have been blessed with such a strong male role model. in my most difficult and desperate moments, i look to my father as a reminder that love exists, that people can be good, and that it's possible to live a life outside the norms of society without giving up one's integrity and ambition.
i'm finally coming to a place in my life where i feel happy to be who i am. i look back at all the events that have led me here and i can't help but feel that i owe so much of my progress to my father. nobody else in this world could have raised me the way that he did. even though he's not here for me to say it to in person, i still feel like so lucky to have such an excellent father to honor today.

daddy, i miss you so much today. i wish i could spend father's day with you, but since i can't, my second wish is for you to know that i love you more than words could ever express.
happy father's day!!!!

love always

the craziest easter ever yo!

today is easter. i have no clue what that's really all about since i was raised to fear catholicism. what i do know is this:
some people think that easter is like a knockoff version of the pagan holiday eostre, which is basically a celebration of the fact that it's fucking nice out finally.
also, easter is a day set aside for feasting on all the cute baby vegetables that grow in spring.
for these two reasons alone, i am down with easter.
i really wanted to wear a frilly, pink, layer-cake of a dress just like when i was five, but i didn't feel like that would be received so well at our yearly family easter dinner, so i wore this instead:

-blue rose-garden print cardigan from forever 21
-black babydoll tee from h & m
-the only pair of skinny jeans that actually fits over my ass from marshalls
-and some fake-ass native american fringey boots, also from forever 21
i topped it all off with a spritz of victoria's secret double body mist in candy baby, which smells just like marshmallow peeps and is therefore the official scent of easter.
the day started off perfect. i downed a few glasses of wine, ate about a pound of caviar, and was just sitting down to a fabulous looking easter dinner, when wham! the inevitable drama of being with my family came to what i just might call an all-time high (or low, depending on how you look at it)
seriously, words cannot do justice to the shitstorm that went down in my house on this holiest of days. one thing i love about my family though is that after everything was said and done with, we all ate cake and laughed hysterically about it.
now that's what i call a good old-fashioned holiday!

love always

about that waitressing gig....

'member when i wrote all that mess about being psyched to start waitressing again? let me just state for the record that i was absolutely right. on the whole, my waitressing job is fan-fucking-tastic! you may check out the website for the restaurant that i'm working at here . notice how a vast majority of the items on our menu are organic? me likey. and yes, the food really does taste as good as it sounds. add to that the fact that i work with some truly kick-ass females, who all do a different cool and interesting something when they're not waitressing, and you've got yourself a recipe for one very happy ex-wine-sales-rep.
until today that is, when i experienced my first waitressing throwdown of my new career. i knew that shit would happen eventually. here's the deal:
i was not scheduled to work dinner today. i was only supposed to work lunch. since i had the night off, i decided that i would make dinner. i had a chicken in the freezer that needed to be defrosted, and i've been reading for a long-ass time that brining your meat makes it taste better. so i decided to try it. yesterday afternoon, rather than just throwing the chicken in the fridge to melt, i lovingly prepared a brine using salt, sugar, garlic, honey, bay leaf and of course, lots of water. i planned to let it sit for a full twenty-four hours for maximum flavor retention.
as soon as i put that shit in the fridge, the wheels in my brain started turning. i thought about how i could blanch the gorgeous baby artichokes i bought the other day with some new potatoes and then throw them in the pan a few minutes before the chicken was done. then i thought about possibly adding some quartered shallots as well, maybe making a nice arugala salad with honey mustard dressing to serve with it all. before i knew it, i had my whole meal mapped out, from the prep down to the plating.
i know that may seem a bit excessive for a weeknight dinner, but food is my obsession y'all. it's what makes me tick. some people eat to live, i live to eat...and cook...and read about cooking...and eating. you get the point. so when i received a text this morning asking me to cover someone's shift tonight, i politely declined. i had much more important things to do.
the trouble didn't start until after lunch, when my boss basically demanded that i come in for dinner, or never come to work again. my hands were shaking. my lip was quivering. i was using all the willpower i had to simply not shed a tear. how could they demand that i abandon my chicken?! i had spent so much time thinking about it over the past twenty-four hours that i felt like i had an emotional connection with it! i was pissed yo!
thankfully, my mom came to the rescue (as mom's often do) and offered to cook the chicken for me so that it wouldn't go to waste and let me tell you, it was the best damned chicken i've ever had. despite the fact that my mom cooked it for a good three hours (she's paranoid about food poisoning), it was still moist and juicy. the brine had soaked all the way through, permeating the meat with a savory-sweetness and a rich, herbal flavor. it was so worth it. all the heart-wrenching, power-struggling drama was totally fucking worth it. i'd do it again in a heartbeat.
let's just hope that next time, i won't have to cover anyone else's shift.

love always

lifestyles of the young and reckless

i had such a fabulous weekend this past weekend, that i kept waking up in the middle of the night on sunday, just to mourn the fact that it was over.

as i mentioned before, my weekend started with an extensive sherry tasting on friday, accompanied by assorted spanish treats, such as marcona almonds, serrano ham, and the most amazing garlicky olives ever. the tasting was led by a seriously charming spaniard, who simultaneously had a british and spanish accent. technically, this event was a "sales meeting", but halfway through it, i was feeling so light and fuzzy that i drunk-texted everyone i was mad at, and made up with them right then and there.



post sherry extravaganza, i napped, bubble-bathed and pretty much luxuriated in every way possible, so i woke feeling happy and refreshed on saturday morning. i hit the gym to burn off some of those extra pork-fat calories, and then treated myself (along with heater and her adorable daughter) to a delicious lunch of fresh spring rolls, coconut soup, and spicy-steak salad. afterwards, heather suggested that we go shopping at marshalls, where i picked up three pairs of the cutest sunglasses i've ever seen, including these bad boys:















i also got a pair of professional looking, black kors pants, a sheer white tee, a pink, halter-top bubble dress, sexy boyfriend jeans, and tweed pants from the limited in their cassidy fit, which is my fav. as we were ringing up our purchases, i realized i was late for my hair appointment, so i hightailed it to the angry chair , where i got the best haircut/dye job ever, courtesy of dan, who's a real cutie. check it:





when i arrived home from the salon a million hours later, there was a dinner party in full swing at my humble abode. i spent the evening eating delicious food and having some very entertaining conversation with just a few of my most favorite people.



i woke up early on sunday and just barely managed to make it to the gym again, before i had to help sarah shop for her super-bowl party. we then went back to her house and proceeded to make quacamole, buffalo wings with bleu cheese dip, some really tasty snack mix, artichoke dip and ceasar-deviled eggs. steff and vinnie arrived around 4 with yet another dip, one of my favorites, cream cheese, chilli and melted cheddar. we started pouring pink punch and before i knew it, i was once again in a food/booze induced stupor. unfortunately, all the fabulocity became a bit overwhelming and i had to call it an early night before the super-bowl even ended (not that i was paying attention to it anyway).



i then fell into a fitful sleep and dreamed of being on a permanent vacation....

and the moral of the story is.......

i had a dream that reminded me of my vacation, and i woke up and realized that maybe i ought to wrap it up so i can write about something else.
the last couple days i had in california were much more mellow. i went to ironstone winery, hung out with my family, ate some good food, including thai spaghetti and meatballs, which was really bizarre. on friday, the day before i got home i got really sad, whether this was because i didn't want to leave or because i was dreading flying home in the middle of a freaking snow storm, i'm not entirely sure. either way, i felt very emotional.
actually, during my whole trip i felt pretty intensely emotional. there is something about being that far away from home that makes me feel vulnerable and anxious. i'm really attached to everything i surround myself with here, in connecticut, but what if i had a choice? what if i could choose to go somewhere else and get attached to a different set of things? maybe even a better set of things?
so this is the direction my thoughts have been taking since i've been home. just how much do i wanna stay in this cozy little box i've made for myself? the world is bigger than i thought, and i haven't even left the country yet.

love always

now that i know how to post pics....

okay,k, k. i've been home for almost a week and i still haven't even discussed the most fantastical part of my trip; san fransisco!
we went to san francisco on a wednesday and it was super nice and sunny out. as we drove into the city, i was literally swooning in the backseat. yes, folks, believe the stories. san francisco is fucking gorgeous. none of that grimey, gray sludge that coats the atmosphere in nyc. it's all blue skies and clean air and weird achitecture.

















in short, i'm in love.
after we parked the car, we took a trolley to chinatown, which is so way better than any other chinatown i've been to before. i mean, you can tell that you're in chinatown, not because it smells like fish, but because it looks chinese.










like, this building is a fucking bank. how cool is that?

we ate lunch at this place called brandy ho's. the food was remarkably similair to the food at forbidden city, but seriously, these people should win an award for having the best restaurant name ever.

aslo in chinatown, i shopped for super-cute, super-cheap clothes and jewels.
after chinatown, we walked back through the city to the car. on the way we hit up this crazy fountain, that is also a monument to martin luther king jr.













i looked pretty hot inside of it!


after that, we went to the filmore, which is a shnazzy nieghborhood that costs a million dollars to live in. we took the dog for a walk in the park and at the park we could see the whole city. sheryl said "it's like meeting a guy who's really hot, and really nice and he's totally into you.", which is in fact, exactly what it's like.
we ate dinner at spqr, and i'm still confused about why the hell food and wine named the pasta carbonara as one of the ten best dishes of the year, but somehow neglected to mention the insane lasagne, which almost had me rolling around on the floor it was so good.
so now that i'm in love with san fran, i think i will get super-rich so i can move there and live in a house that looks like this:



















or even better, one that looks like this:




















love always

berkeley, again

when i woke up on tuesday, i still felt a tad bit groggy, but mostly all better. i was pretty psyched to actually get out and do stuff since i had been such a lameass the day before. the first order of business was getting some food, and for that, we headed to pancake circus, the diveyest restaurant ever. i had the veggie benedict; english muffin, scrambled eggs, avocado, tomato and onion, all smothered in this insanely buttery hollandaise.
after breakfast, we decided to go back towards berkeley and hit up the meditation center that we skipped out on the night before. the drive there was pretty freaking amazing. we drove through sonoma to marin county, which is super pretty, and ended up at spirit rock which is even prettier. we weren't allowed past the gates because there was a silent retreat going on, but we climbed the beautiful hills instead and looked down at the whole thing from way up high. it was very hobbit-esque. check it out.



















after we departed the shire, we headed back to berkeley for some dinner with my uncle. we ate at this thai place cha-am , which i must say, serves some seriously boombangin thai. i ordered a simple dish of shrimp and scallops with veggies, garlic-chili sauce and brown rice, but it was perfectly done and i didn't stop eating it until i was uncomfortably full.
my uncle invited us back to his place for some pastries, tea and desert wine. i convinced him to give me this test to find out whether i'm "androgynous" (he's a psychologist). basically, the idea is that a someone who is healthy and balnced has equal high amounts of masculine and feminine qualities. i scored abnormally high on both the masculine and feminine parts. so basically, i'm a genius, but i've kind of had a hunch about that for a while...

love always

i suck at vacationing

So, to continue with my story....


after my horrific plane ride, i actually did land in sacramento. by that point, i was barely concious, but since this is my first time on the west coast, i tried to stay awake for the ride. we saw a del taco which was definately different than connecticut, but the thing i was most amazed by, was the fact that they have lemon trees and orange trees and grapefruit trees just growing in people's yards like it's nothing.


i slept like shit the first night, even though i was dead tired, but when i woke up, sheryl made ham and eggs and coffee, which was pretty awesome. then we walked the dog and i stole an orange off someone's tree, because i just had to taste it. i must admit, it was pretty slammin.


we headed off to berkeley around noon to visit my favorite uncle and go to a meditation thingie. the drive was so overwhelming for me, because everything looks so different here. and not in the way that i expected, either. yes, there are palm trees, but what's really crazy is the land itself. sometimes it rolls into these big green hills, and other times it flattens out completely, but it always looks bigger than in connecticut, and the sky looks bigger too.


by the time we got to berkeley i was so blown away and disconcerted that i really couldn't even focus. we hung out at my uncle's apartment for a bit, and then we decided to walk downtown and find food. on the way we saw these gorgeous flowers with these odd pod-like things attached to them, which we later found out were passion fruits. we also saw lavender plants, and sage and all sorts of fancy-smelling things, and the flowers were actually in bloom! in the middle of january!


we decided to eat at this vegan/raw restaurant called Cafe Gratitude . it was super cozy inside and the menu was huge. they have this whole gratitude theme going on as well. the food is called stuff like i am amazing, and when they bring it to you, they say "you are amazing". they also asked us the "question of the day", which was "what about your life is blessed?" i ordered the i am abundant sampler plate and although most of it tasted like your average health food, the hummus and the olive tapenade were super-tasty. i also had a killer dessert called i am bliss, which kind of resembled a chocolate cream pie and really was quite blissful.
the trouble started after our meal, when we were walking back to the apartment. all of a sudden, out of nowhere, i felt like i had swallowed a basketball. maybe it was all the dense vegan food i had just eaten, or maybe it was the fact that my whole body was still reeling from the traumatic night before, but of course i did not consider either of these possibilities. instead i panicked, and decided that i must be pregnant.
at that point we all decided that i was in no shape for sitting through an hour long meditation class. sheryl went to the elephant pharm to buy me a pee test, and we decided to just head back to the apartment and chill, which was nice because i really haven't seen my family (or at least this sect of it) in a long time. my uncle was very sweet, providing us with tea and plenty of little things to nibble and pick at. i fell asleep on the car ride home, and woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and ready to go......

love always