Sunday, February 25, 2018

February Cityscape

Say what you want about it being gray and harsh, but I think NYC is a very photographic city, even in bad weather. 

Crown Heights in the snow  

9th Ave and 24th St, 3:30pm

a very warm Wednesday at Prospect Park

Everything that day looked beautiful to me. 


Park Slope


Friday, February 23, 2018

10 Years from Now

Before schlepping up to Spanish Harlem for the dinner party on Sunday, I FaceTimed my 12-year-old friend Elizabeth. We met at Fontana Village as I was finishing my 16-day AT hike two summers ago, because her family is friendly and invited me to join their family reunion as I waited for my shuttle back to society. Well, it wasn't even really her family: It was her mom's new boyfriend's family, so Elizabeth didn't know any of the other kids. So she and I sat together and talked for a couple of hours while the other kids played in the pool. Elizabeth wanted to see all of my stuff and learn about what each piece of equipment was for, and she wanted to hear all about how I'd decided to do the hike and how I'd planned and completed it.


Elizabeth have a lot in common, almost shockingly so. She’s a reader and a writer and also lost a parent at a young age. She wants to be a long-distance backpacker someday. Somehow we seem to see the world the same way. I don't really believe in soul mates romantically, but I do believe in souls that align platonically.

It had been a while since we'd caught up. Elizabeth's middle school basketball season just ended and she’s playing a lead role in a school musical. She’s reading The Secret Life of Bees and trying to figure out how to get her first book — a children’s story called "The Very Magical Christmas" — published. I told her about my move to NYC and my current work and the book I just finished, The Basque History of the World. We talked for a solid 45 minutes, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Recently, I was telling another friend about Elizabeth, and they suggested that she and I write letters to each other to open in 10 years. I floated the idea to Elizabeth, and of course she loved it, so we set out to figure out how that would work logistically.






So I googled "how to set a reminder 10 years from now". 

This is what the Internet gave me:




A lot of these ideas made me laugh. In the end, I signed up for the FutureMe email service and will probably paperclip a reminder into my passport as well. Elizabeth and I agreed to write our letters this weekend, to send them ASAP, and to open them 02/28/2028. I am very happy with the near-symmetry of that date.

I'm not sure yet what I'll write about. Probably about why I'm glad we're friends, and what I like about her. Things I expect — or hope — will be the same 10 years from now. 

Thursday, February 22, 2018

An Awkward Chocolate Cake

On Sunday morning I took the train into the city to get brunch with an old friend of my mom’s and her daughter, who just turned 18. They were in the city for a birthday celebration weekend. My mom’s friend, whose name is Ashley, reminded me that it was my mom’s birthday: February 18th. I was caught off guard — surprised and sad that I’d forgotten. Ashley teared up talking about my mom, who'd been one of her best friends, so of course I teared up too. The 18-year-old sitting with us, who doesn’t remember my mom at all, looked at her omelette uncomfortably.

After brunch I walked to a nearby cafe to cry and work on more Hall of Fame nominations. A few hours later I walked to Whole Foods and bought a chocolate cake.

“Do you want me to write anything on it?” The woman behind the counter asked.

“Um… Happy birthday Lisa?” I said. “Or maybe just ‘Lisa.’”

“Is that spelled L-I-S-A?” the cake woman asked, ready with her icing gun.

“Wait, no, don’t write anything. Thank you,” I blurted.

I was taking the cake to a dinner party with new friends. They did not need to blow out candles for my dead mother.

Six of us ate together: my friend Mo and her partner Brennan, who was in town from D.C. Our friend Daniel, who went to Duke and whom I’d met at Radio Club in January. His girlfriend Mari, a singer/dancer/actor who just landed her first gig in NYC. Their roommate Michelle, who works in real estate. (I wasn't 100% sure how Michelle ended up there, because) Daniel, Mari, and Michelle live in an arts collective. All the walls were beautifully painted with giant flowers and faces, and over in the corner a traveling tattoo artist was working on a large arm tattoo for a man whose wife had just had her own large arm tattoo done. They were on a tattoo date. The buzzing was the backdrop for our tacos.

We sliced the cake during a silly card game called Go Nuts for Donuts. I didn’t mention my mom.  How do you interrupt a card game called Go Nuts for Donuts to talk about a birthday cake you bought for your mom who should be 54 but instead died in a car wreck at 40? 

When it was time to leave, I couldn’t figure out what to do with the leftovers. Did I want to leave it for the arts collective, or did I want to take it home to my roommates, or did I want to give it away to a homeless person on the subway? I felt like it was somehow an important decision.

“What does your heart tell you?” Daniel joked.

“I think my heart wants me to share it with as many people as possible,” I replied, too seriously. “It’s a birthday cake for my mom. I'm trying to figure out what she'd want me to do with it."

“We could wrap it up and ship it to your mom?” he suggested, still lighthearted.

“Well, she’s not living,” I said flatly.

“Oh — sorry — dang it.” He winced and smacked his forehead. I’d told him in a conversation a few weeks earlier that my mom had died when I was little.

“It’s ok, I didn’t say that, because I felt awkward.” 

This was not the situation I'd envisioned when I bought the cake. In the vision, I presented the cake eloquently, in a brave show of vulnerability and inspiring symbolism. I'd honor my mom and everyone would eat cake while thinking about how much they appreciate their own moms. Everyone would sit thoughtfully as they chewed, savoring the chocolate and ruminating over life and death and love and grief. Maybe one or two others would share their own stories of loss. It would be somber but life-giving, soul-filling.

That is not the situation I created. “I’ll just take the cake home to my roommates," I mumbled as I grabbed the box. 

Thirteen years later, and I still don’t know how to celebrate the life of my mother in any kind of casual or comfortable way. The next day I wrote a post for Instagram that was a lot more eloquent. Turns out some things make more sense in writing than in reality.

We planted this shrub next to my mom's grave. Amazingly, it grows in the shade and blooms in mid-February. 

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Mondays Aren't All Bad

Yesterday's shift at the restaurant was a good one. Because of the rain it was a mostly slow night, but towards the end I got a decent number of tables. My first table was two English-speaking adults plus a baby named Jack, who was maybe one year old and said “Txikito” and knew his cabeza and nariz. And helado. I think the two adults were his mother and grandfather. I told Jack he was lucky that his family was raising him bilingual.


Later, another group of three sat at the same table. “Famous actor,” a note in OpenTable flagged the reservation. Of course, I had never heard of him. The famous actor was very old, very nice, and appropriately very enthusiastic about the food.

“Are you an artist?” He asked me towards the end of his meal.

“I’m a writer,” I told him, smiling.

“I had a feeling,” he said, nodding.


A young couple sat at the table next to the famous actor. They looked to be in their early 20s. They ordered a bottle of wine and then were easily convinced on a minor upsell. When I went to ring in the order, I found that we no longer had that bottle in stock. So I brought them what they’d originally ordered, a younger wine that was $6 cheaper. They were not fazed by the back-and-forth.

“We’ve had a bad red only once,” they told me with seriousness. “It tasted like nothing.”

I assured them they’d ordered a nicely full-bodied, spicy, oaky Tempranillo. They smiled and said they hoped they’d be able to taste the descriptors I’d named. I laughed and told them it was my job to memorize those words and tell them to my customers so that they’d know what they were tasting.

Later the young man asked me if he was cutting his cochinillo correctly. I told him that if there were rules, I didn’t know them. I told him he was doing great. He told me I was doing great, too.


Another table consisted of three men who were (my favorite customer quality) as enthusiastic about the food as my famous actor. However, one left during dessert to fetch his “addiction” from our sister restaurant across the street. They all laughed about it, and they called me over to bring me in on the joke.


One woman came in by herself, looked at the menu, sat down, drank some water, looked at the menu some more, and then told me she “just didn’t see anything” and left. I got to eat her amuse bouche.


Another couple I waited on were probably in their early 40s. The woman was way hotter than the dude, which bothered me. When ordering, she spoke for both of them, which I appreciated. Generally, they were standoffish. I did not share any laughter with them. Maybe they were having a tough week. But then again, it was only Monday.

through the restaurant window

Saturday, February 17, 2018

My Apple Conspiracy Theory

Why does life happen all at once?  My life as a freelancer has extreme ebbs and flows in terms of workload, and this past week and upcoming week are "flow" weeks.

I've been writing executive summaries of nominations to the Tennessee Healthcare Hall of Fame for Belmont University, doing a few a day. I found out towards the end of this week that there will be more than twice as many nominations as expected, but my deadline is the same. Meanwhile, I got scheduled three shifts at Txikito next week. So I'm working through this weekend to get them all done.

But it's a good kind of busy.

That's pretty much all I did this past week, actually: work on Health:Further, TN Healthcare Hall of Fame, and Txikito. Also ENCIP — we're finalizing our internship opportunities for this summer and strategically recruiting student applicants.

Something fun I did this week (which was also sort of work but mostly fun) was showcase the first 8.5 minutes of Episode 2 of my Health:Further podcast series at the NYC Radio Club meetup. I got tons of great feedback that I'm excited to incorporate.

I also had a phone call with a rep from the online video-based learning site Skillshare, which is recruiting me to produce another class on their platform. Excited for that as well.

The only anecdote I have from this week:

On Friday my computer wouldn't turn on. I was getting a weird flashing folder icon with a question mark on it, which seemed extremely ominous. I didn't have time to deal with it Friday morning, as I was headed to Park Slope to meet with my friend Vicki. She's the Associate Director for Summer Programs at the Robertson Program and my key point-person for getting Robertson Scholars to Edgecombe County through ENCIP. She is normally in North Carolina but happens to be visiting Brooklyn this weekend! Along with a couple of other intern mentors in other locations, we're working on a writing project together to share with the academic community our key learnings on a forming and managing a successful campus-community partnership.

After our meeting, I called Apple Support. A nice man named Dan walked me through some troubleshooting options. Finally, he recommended that I visit an Apple Store for in-person diagnostics. The Apple Store closest to me didn't have appointment availability before Wednesday. The next-closest one didn't have availability til Thursday. But the third-closest had an open appointment slot at 1:15pm! So off to W 14th St., Manhattan, I went.

Good thing I literally never leave my apartment without food, water, a book, headphones, an external phone charger, a journal, layers of clothing, individually wrapped tea bags, hand sanitizer.... sometimes a wine key.... sometimes a full change of clothes.... #NYCsurvival.

Dan, the support guy on the phone, had implied that my hard drive had probably collapsed. I wasn't panicking because I'd backed up all the most important things, but it would be super annoying if I couldn't work over the weekend. Basically I'd miss big deadlines for all my ongoing projects. At the Apple Store I talked to a nice man named Diego who thought Dan was probably right. But he wanted to check one other thing first. So I left my laptop with him and set out to find a library so I could get some work done even while my laptop was out of commission.

I found this incredibly stunning library a 15-minute walk away.


But first, food.



As soon as I got settled in front of the library computer, I got an email from Apple saying my computer was ready for pickup. The suspense was killing me, but then Diego called! And said it was back from the edge of doom! The issue had been the bracket connecting to the hard drive, and they replaced it for free since it was apparently a common flaw.

I was overjoyed.
But then I was suspicious.
Now I am harboring a theory that Apple implants "harmless" flaws in its products to generate consumer panic and then extreme relief and happiness. It's all a conspiracy to remind us to be appreciative of what we have, and to remind us how important it is to back up our data. And to generate even more customer devotion, in this case based on the perceived brilliance of the Apple support team.

Anyway, this is the kind of misadventure that 100% would have made me cry all day long before I started taking antidepressants. Thank the goddesses above for mood-stabilizing drugs, woo!

Sunday, February 11, 2018

In Which I Make Conversation, Podcasts, Galentines, and Pancakes

Time for my self-indulgent weekly recap :D

Last Sunday was a good day because I woke up early to go running, and then met a friend of a friend at a gorgeous cafe in Clinton Hill. The cafe was full of natural wood paneling, live plants, and used books. I ate a beautiful and expensive piece of avocado toast.



I liked the friend of the friend. We both work in the world of content production, though she's more in social media marketing and I'm more in journalistic work. We had a good conversation about finding balance between content quality vs. mass appeal. She also hosts a monthly Girl Gang Hang that I'm super excited to be included in.

I walked home, caught up on email for a bit, and then headed into the city for a work bowling party. There were more people there than I'd expected, and I felt a little overwhelmed by the level of extraversion the situation required, and I tragically left behind my travel mug WITH my reusable tea filter in it, but overall it was pretty fun. I bowled three spares and even more gutter balls, but was somehow the best on my team.

I left the bowling party early to meet up with Kween Kuang, my lovely Boston-based friend Joanna who'd come down to visit her family in Jersey. We sat in a Starbucks and talked about friendship.

Every day this past week I worked on my Health:Futher and TN Hall of Fame projects from 9 to 3. On days I didn't go to the restaurant, I ran in the afternoons. I spent Monday evening at the laundromat. On Tuesday I went on my first date since moving to NYC! I'm saving that story for my memoir.

went to a bar with FREE POPCORN. Why do all bars not have free popcorn.

I worked at Txikito Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday before work I got to see my friend Jim, who is one of the few people I keep in touch with from Nashville. We sat at a cafe across the street from Txikito and talked about his work, his upcoming vacation to Seattle, Victor Hugo, and my forthcoming article critiquing Bumble bios.

if only Lisa were here, too!

This is a grilled avocado. I tried peeling it with my hands and made a huge mess, but after pondering it for several days I still don't know how I could have eaten it more efficiently.

On Friday after my HF and HOF work, I worked on some ENCIP stuff, went for a run, and then went on ANOTHER date. Look at me go! It was a fun conversation, though he completely forgot to ask me about myself, which I thought was funny. We spent an hour talking about Donald Trump and then an hour talking about him (the date). Another story for my memoir.

Yesterday I slept in, then spent a sweaty and unhappy half-hour at the post office fetching a package that had failed to deliver itself to my apartment.

hell is a Brooklyn post office on a winter Saturday afternoon
because even small packages hate NYC apartment buildings.
I spent the afternoon with my friend Bren. We ate a moderately-priced, moderately-portioned brunch at a Williamsburg restaurant, then went to two different bodegas looking for our preferred brand of popcorn to fill our stomachs the rest of the way. What happened that afternoon is another story for my memoir. (I'm loving making these mysterious allusions in my blog, gotta remember to do this more. It makes me feel elusive and intriguing, heh.)

Last night was a beautiful few hours making galentines with Mo, her roommate Stephanie, and her friend Vera. There were also cookies and wine involved. We talked about work challenges and heteronormativity and what queer experiences have to add to the #MeToo movement.

Valentine Factory

Other exciting thing that happened this week: HF published a bonus podcast episode where my boss and I discuss our forthcoming new podcast series on how depression is understood, experienced, and treated throughout our health system and society. Episode 1 airs March 1!

Check out my interview on the Future of Health podcast! 


And my current Sunday morning status: from-scratch banana walnut chocolate chip pancakes (with real maple syrup, obvi).




Saturday, February 10, 2018

These People Were All in the Same C Train Car



this old woman sneakily eating grapes out of her purse
this average-looking white dude with a "no fear" tattoo on his neck

these library-using, coat-coordinating friends

this woman's colorful accents


this woman reading a book called "On Beauty and Being Just"


bonus: different-looking train; same-looking twins

Thursday, February 8, 2018

My Life Without A Microwave

90% of Americans live in a household with a microwave. I am in the 10 percent.

Since Dec. 30, 2017, I've been living without a microwave.

I reheat my leftovers in a pot on the stove.
Cons: requires attention and stirring.
Pros: I'm way less likely to overheat my food, and thus am less likely to have a burned tongue/roof of mouth.

I am no longer able to make nachos the way I like them (with small pieces of cheddar cheese melted onto individual tortilla chips).
Cons: that was such a yummy snack.
Pros: eliminated a not-so-healthy snack from my diet.

Other general pros:
I can no longer give myself cancer by heating food in Tupperware.
Apparently microwaving food reduces its nutritional value? The Internet is telling me this is likely but debatable.

The only other con is, obviously, that it's inconvenient to pop popcorn on the stove.

Brief history of the invention of the domestic microwave, according to Quartz:
Before microwave radiation melted cheese, it served as the magic behind radars, which sent microwave signals out to objects to gauge their distance. But in 1945, Percy Spencer, an engineer at Raytheon, the maker of the first microwave, noticed something peculiar while experimenting with the technology. The high-powered radar turned a chocolate bar in Spencer’s pocket into goo. He then deliberately experimented with—you guessed it—popcorn. And it worked. Next, he tried an egg, which promptly exploded (onto a nearby coworker, as the story goes.)
Today, largely thanks to the microwaveable popcorn boom, the average American eats about 52 quarts of popcorn per year, according to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center.

In 2006, a Pew Research survey (pdf) found that the only consumer products Americans considered more essential than the microwave were cars, washing machines, dryers, and air conditioning. 

LOL I don't have AC or a washer/dryer, either. Really roughing it up here in Brooklyn! 

Meanwhile, turns out microwave sales are actually slowing, probably because people are starting to care more about quality and freshness in their food — valuing that even over convenience.
Growth in sales of microwavable popcorn are also slowing, while sales of ready-to-eat popcorn are growing at an over 11% clip. Why microwave junk food when you can get it pre-popped? Americans are at once too patient and too lazy to use their microwaves these days.
RIP microwaves.

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Les Mis Chapter Titles That I Like

I usually hate reading anything in all caps, but this is how the titles appear in the book. It's probably overwhelming that I listed my favorites here all in a row — but these clever little headings were my favorite part of the book.

TO ENTRUST IS SOMETIMES TO ABANDON


COUNTER-STROKE


FULFILMENT OF THE PROMISE TO THE DEPARTED*


A DARK CHASE NEEDS A SILENT HOUND


CEMETERIES TAKE WHAT IS GIVEN THEM


THE EXCELLENCE OF MISFORTUNE


THE CONJUNCTION OF TWO STARS


THE NOXIOUS POOR


AID FROM BELOW MAY BE AID FROM ABOVE


THE END OF WHICH IS UNLIKE THE BEGINNING


ENCHANTMENTS AND DESOLATIONS


WHERE ARE THEY GOING?


MARIUS ENTERS THE SHADOW


THE GRANDEURS OF DESPAIR


WAR BETWEEN FOUR WALLS


MIRE, BUT SOUL


THE LAST DROP IN THE CHALICE


THE TWILIGHT WANE


SUPREME SHADOW, SUPREME DAWN



Chapter Subtitles I Like:

THE NIGHT OF A DAY'S TRAMP

PRUDENCE COMMENDED TO WISDOM

THE HEROISM OF PASSIVE OBEDIENCE

A TEMPEST IN A BRAIN

A PLACE FOR ARRIVING AT CONVICTIONS

THE SYSTEM OF DENEGATIONS

A FITTING TOMB

SHOWING THAT THE CHAIN OF THE IRON RING MUST NEEDS HAVE UNDERGONE A CERTAIN PREPARATION TO BE THUS  BROKEN BY ONE BLOW OF THE HAMMER

TWO MISFORTUNES MINGLED MAKE HAPPINESS

A FIVE-FRANC PIECE FALLING ON THE FLOOR MAKES A NOISE

GROPING FOR ESCAPE

WHICH WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE WERE THE STREETS LIGHTED WITH GAS

COMMENCEMENT OF AN ENIGMA

THE ENIGMA CONTINUED

THE ENIGMA REDOUBLES

NINETY YEARS OLD AND THIRTY-TWO TEETH

TWO DO NOT MAKE A PAIR

THE UTILITY OF GOING TO MASS, TO BECOME REVOLUTIONARY

MARBLE AGAINST GRANITE

MARIUS NEEDY

MARIUS POOR

MARIUS A MAN

POVERTY A GOOD NEIGHBOR OF MISERY

COMMENCEMENT OF A GREAT DISTEMPER

ADVENTURES OF THE LETTER U ABANDONED TO CONJECTURE

MARIUS, LOOKING FOR A GIRL WITH A HAT, MEETS A MAN WITH A CAP

THE DISTRACTIONS OF DARK CORNERS

THE VICTIMS SHOULD ALWAYS BE ARRESTED FIRST

THE ROSE DISCOVERS THAT SHE IS AN ENGINE OF WAR**

TO SADNESS, SADNESS AND A HALF

WOUND WITHOUT, CURE WITHIN

THE OLD ARE MADE TO GO OUT WHEN CONVENIENT

MARIUS BECOMES SO REAL AS TO GIVE COSETTE HIS ADDRESS

THE AGONY OF DEATH AFTER THE AGONY OF LIFE

BLOTTER, BLABBER

SOMETIMES WE GET AGROUND WHEN WE EXPECT TO GET ASHORE

MARIUS SEEMS TO BE DEAD TO ONE WHO IS A GOOD JUDGE

MARIUS, ESCAPING FROM CIVIL WAR, PREPARES FOR DOMESTIC WAR

THE EFFECTS OF DREAM MINGLED WITH HAPPINESS

THE SEVENTH CIRCLE AND THE EIGHTH HEAVEN

THE OBSCURITIES WHICH A REVELATION MAY CONTAIN

A PEN IS HEAVY TO HIM WHO LIFTED FAUCHELEVENT'S CART

NIGHT BEHIND WHICH IS DAWN

GRASS HIDES AND RAIN BLOTS OUT


*'Fulfilment' is actually spelled with no double L's - maybe a mistake in translation?
**This section starts: "One day Cosette happened to look in the mirror, and she said to herself, "What!" It seemed to her almost that she was pretty. This threw her into strange anxiety. Up to this moment she had never thought of her face. 


Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Things I Saw Today

A little boy spinning around in his fleece onesie pajamas (spotted through a big second story window)

An old woman bent over sweeping, with a small handheld brush, the sidewalk in front of her doorstep

Two men working together to fix a moped on the street. One man was lying on the street to see underneath the moped.

A middle school boy stuck in a tire swing (his body basically folded in half with his butt sticking through the tire center) while his friends laughed and tried to pull him out

And these apartment windows filled with plants. I almost got run over by a bicyclist as I tried to take this picture standing in the street.

Monday, February 5, 2018

Things NYC Has Taught Me

1. I own too many bras. I.e., too many to fit into my tiny bedside table which I'm using as a dresser.
2. Pedestrians do NOT have the right-of-way.
3. If you see weird trash on the sidewalk, don’t pause to examine it. Don’t wonder what you just caught a glimpse of. Just keep moving. Always keep moving.
4. Packages don’t like being delivered to NYC apartments. In fact, they staunchly avoid it.
5. The true meaning of the phrase “laundry day.” It really is an adventure you plan your day around. 

Today my home office was the laundromat. It felt like a NYC rite of passage.

Saturday, February 3, 2018

Hey NYT pls hire me

Hi, I’m a freelance writer recently relocated from Nashville, TN, to Brooklyn, NY. I'm fascinated by food systems and food cultures, so I try to write about that as much as possible, though my topics have ranged from health tech to ultimate frisbee. I grew up in rural Eastern North Carolina and attended UNC-Chapel Hill — where I wrote for The Daily Tar Heel, cut my long hair short, and worked hard to find a balance between my deep-rooted sense of responsibility and my lifelong craving for adventure.

Today, I swipe through hundreds of dating app profiles, wondering what these men mean when they say “adventure.” And what they mean by “decent guy,” and why they think I’ll take the time to memorize their Instagram handle, leave this app, pull up Instagram, type in their username and browse their mundane personal photos.

I keep swiping because I’m fascinated by the way people choose to present themselves online. I analyze why they think those particular photos showcase them well, and what impressions they might want their dating prospects to have of them.

However, I’m generally disappointed by how generic these dating-app profiles are. I'm frustrated because I know there’s more to my generation than Instagram accounts, Snapchat filters and mirror selfies (no matter how defined your abdominals might be). There’s more to millennials than brunching and craft beer and “the search for the best Greek food in the city.” I’m annoyed by the dating-app population because I know they don’t fully represent my generation. In some ways, they seem to represent the worst of my generation.

People write about my generation as if we were as generic as the men on Bumble. I could write many an essay railing against the norms and oddities of dating apps — but I’d never frame those as critiques of my generation.

When I look at my friends my age, I see some very responsible folks who studied hard in school and got the right medical shadowing internships and did well on the MCAT and are now following the conventional path to med school. I see some very adventurous folks who, immediately after graduation, climbed into their untrustworthy 2001 Subaru Outback and drove west, zigzagging across the country to visit national parks and to find a welcoming place to settle down as a ski bum/waitress/world traveler.

It’s actually very strange to be 24 in 2018. I have friends who are celebrating marriage anniversaries and friends who don’t believe in marriage. I have friends who check social media every day and friends who aren’t on social media. I have younger friends whose slang I can’t follow at all, and older friends for whom I have to tone down my own slang. I have a very close friend my age who literally lives in her parents’ basement, and a very close friend the same age who’s paying off his mortgage. (Incidentally, the two matched on Tinder, both sent me screenshots of the other’s profile, dated for a few months, and then decided to be just-friends-but-actually-best-friends.)

I’d like to contribute to the NYT a nuanced perspective on my own generation. My personal social network is culturally diverse enough for me to question all generalizations about my generation. That same circle of friends also includes younger and older people who provide contrasts to help me understand my own cohort. I’d especially like to write about modern dating culture. Here's to white men holding dead fish.

Sincerely,
Caroline H. Leland

Week 5: In Which I Stop Counting Weeks

I feel like I should stop counting weeks. It's funny to me that I used to have eight-week internships in a place, and that felt like a sufficient amount of time to get to know said place. I was ready to leave Buenos Aires after just seven weeks. And now, what I'd give to have that time back, to extend it for another two or three weeks instead of cutting it short.

Anyway, I've now been in NYC for five weeks, and I'm going to stop counting because it's not five out of seven or eight or even 10: It's five out of indefinite. That's terrifying and exciting. I caught up on the phone with a few friends today, and I told them all how wonderful it is to do something you've wanted to do for a long time, even if that thing isn't necessarily logical or well-planned. My plan is to earn more money than I spend, to prioritize friendships with people I admire, and to appreciate this incredible city every day that I'm in it.

That's not much of a plan, but it's enough to keep me moving forward for now.

Living my best life in NYC. I FINALLY got the glasses I've wanted for months, genuine HP glasses instead of the knockoff Waldo glasses.

This week I started to feel like I'm finding a routine. I worked at Txikito Wednesday and Thursday, and I'm working again this upcoming Wednesday and Thursday. Every morning from 9am to noon I work on my Health:Further podcast project. After eating lunch, I complete one or two Tennessee Healthcare Hall of Fame nomination summaries (my latest writing contract). Then I work out, then I either make dinner or head into the city for work at the restaurant. It's a good routine.

The Txikito chefs bought a birthday cake for one of the cooks! 
this guy was chilling next to the cake

On Monday night, I attended a Slow Food event called The Almanac, where a panel of food policy leaders and activists discussed "Food Activism in an Altered Landscape." The guy who founded the New York Greenmarket was there, and a woman who co-founded Brooklyn Grange rooftop farm, a woman who advocates for young farmers, and several other similarly inspiring individuals. My friend Zaki came and brought his girlfriend. They're both financial analysts and said they learned a lot, which I was really happy about. All three of us stayed late to talk to the panelists afterwards.

Slow Food NYC Almanac 2018



On Tuesday, my evening activity was making vegan brownies. They turned out amazingly good, and I have been eating them every day since. Apparently my three roommates have much more self-control than I, because they're not disappearing nearly as fast as I would have imagined. I took half to the restaurant and earned some brownie points with the staff. Pun not intended, but amazingly appropriate! Could this be the origin of the phrase??

At work on Thursday I used an espresso machine for the first time! I love gaining new skills, even simple or extraneous ones.

On Friday evening I met another wonderful new person, a woman named Sierra with whom I'll be co-hosting the newest Brooklyn Dinner Party table. We bonded over our shared experience of having a dead mom. My life is weird.

That night I came home, made dinner, drank several glasses of my organic red blend, and applied to write for the NYT. I'll publish my application essay as a separate blog post.

Hi my name is Caroline, I'm 24 years old and I spend my Friday nights getting drunk on red wine by myself so that I can apply to write for the New York Times.

I've spent all day today applying to my dream job at Duke. Which is annoying because I just got to NYC and want to stay here indefinitely, but turns out you sometimes have to make sacrifices for your dream job. Plus also, I am fully aware that the chances of me landing said dream job are slim, and my NYC residence isn't really all that threatened by this application. Still. Annoying timing.

very excited by the progress my room setup is making! On Thursday I bought a trash can (which is under the table) and some nice-looking organizational boxes for the stuff that used to be in my desk drawer.
significant and mysterious change in my life