Who am I anyway?*

*A Chorus Line reference, so, a musical theatre nerd for life, obviously, but also, according to a combination of the About Me section to the right on here and the about the author paragraph I include in my queries to lit agents and the what am I doing with my life essay on my dating profile:

Sister, friend, agent, writer, actress, baller-ina, I wear a gajillion hats on any given day and am actively avoiding acceptance of any one single label whether it be for my career, personality type, or agenda. One of these days I'll find a bed, a chair and a bowl of porridge that's juuuuuust right, in the meantime, I write about being any number of permutations and combinations of these roles as I work and play, dream and do, call things as I see them and love my life.  A Boston College grad and one of two artist representatives at a boutique agency based in Gloucester, MA representing stylists and hair & makeup artists in NY, LA and Boston, I'm always up for an adventure, never going to be in to kayaking, and really enjoying my days since deciding the rat race has been fun but it's not what I want to waste my thirties on.

All of this is to say, I am a work in progress, just via use of some flowery run-on sentences. 

A note to my angsty teenage self, who was so set on being a big fish in a big pond and getting out of dodge

It takes you 10 times out of the country to realize there’s no place like home, to feel all right about going back, and to decide - at least for the time being - you've seen what you needed to see and experienced what you needed to experience.

1. Your first time out of the country, you are not fully able to process just what’s different.  Yes the bathrooms, yes the food, yes the street signs.  Maybe the language and obviously the currency.  But you’ve taken other field trips with your classmates, and this trip is kind of just like those trips on a bigger scale.  You’re pretty far away, but you’re going home soon enough, so this is totally temporary. Your bed back at your parents’ house will be there for you to sleep in within the week, and so for this first time out of the country, you’re just along for the ride, and you’re honestly taking for granted the fact that you even crossed a border.
2. Your second time out of the country you fall in love.  With freedom, with the boy you sat beside on the bus from the airport, with the coolness in the air coming off the water, with the accents of the people in the pubs, with the idea of being connected to those people thanks to ancestry dating back a few generations.  You drink the local beers, you dance your best jig, you stay up till all hours of the night not wanting to miss a minute of this epic excursion.  You cry when they put the news on at the bar one of the nights you’re out and you see that something awful has happened back home, and then your spirits are lifted by that boy from the bus and the locals at the bar who sing drinking songs and tell you not to worry, this too shall pass, we’re all in it together.  It is life.  It is this big wide world.
3. Your third time out of the country you just chill.  You’re still so young, you have so few actual stresses, and yet you’re craving a cerveza on the beach, soo bad, mannn.  You just need to, like, unwind, and walk through a rain forest holding an umbrella ironically for the photo op.  You need to pair the cute new cover up you bartered for with a bandana over your messy hair.  You need to “forget” to put on sunscreen until it’s too late, and then drink fruity drinks out of yardlong plastic sippy cups so you don’t feel the burn and you can forget that you’re going back to school work and so much angst over boys and grades and your parents and siblings.  You forget to remember how lucky you are.
4. Your fourth time out of the country, you get the picture, or rather you get the sense that you’re walking through a scene out of one of the fairy tale picture books you grew up reading.  There’s magic in the air and in the wine and in the food and in the history – this is what “they” mean by ancient.  You’re reverent as you enter a walled city, you’re wistful as you throw a penny in a fountain over your shoulder, you’re tickled pink as you try and succeed in speaking the language you spent years studying.  You realize you need this, and though you say as much, you can’t quite articulate what you mean in saying it.  You just feel it in your bones – the necessity to experience as much of this as possible, the fact that you’ll be back.
5. Your fifth time out of the country, you’re all about filling up that passport book with as many new stamps as possible, so you hop from one incredible city to the next, and you know what questions to ask so you will end up seeing the coolest places each city has to offer.  When it’s cold you warm yourself up with big steins of beer.  When you have a down day you seek out museums of history or art.  When you master use of the public transportation you pat yourself on the back or on the backpack.  When it’s time to go home, you hardly look or feel American anymore.  You’re certain your worldliness will blow everyone back there away.  You’re ready to reconnect but you realize you really did not mind how thoroughly far away and out of touch you felt while you were gone.
6. Your sixth time out of the country, you leave for love.  You put your credit score and your heart on the line, because it’s worth it.  You would and you do go around the world with and for someone you trust would do the same for you, and together you two venture into the vast unknown.  You consult guidebooks and you pack lunches, and you make days and weekends and weeks of it - soaking in every sunset and sunrise, opening up in the great wide open.  You pose with exotic animals, you swim in new oceans, you make friends with fellow free spirits, and you ring in the New Year a dozen or more hours before your friends and family back home.   You’re older going home.  
7. Your seventh time out of the country is a mistake.  So much for lucky number seven… You think you should have saved the money, you realize you could have saved the time, you have no way of saving yourself from the inevitable heartbreak when, toward the end of the trip, that boy from the bus on your second time out of that country tells you this is when your time as travel buddies and partners-in-crime and lovers and best friends ends.  And you find yourself broken half a world away from the rest of the people you love, and you are reminded of just how tangible a distance can be and how long a flight back home can seem when its spent tired and teary eyed. 
8. Your eighth time out of the country, you’re on a mission.  You’re in search of your self in whatever corner of the world you feel you’re most likely to find it.  So you only book a one-way ticket, because you don’t know when or if you’re going to want to come back.  You have a loose agenda and a plan to take in sights that range from the picture on the packaging of a box of hot chocolate to the inspiration for your grandmother’s kitchen.  You journal and read like mad as the countryside whizzes by you out the window of the train.  You hike in flip-flops because, in spite of the guidebooks in your bags, you are in the moment and swept up in the excitement of the open-endedness.   You meet long-lost cousins, you face your fears, you gain weight from all the cheese you eat, and on your twelve hour layover between the last minute flights you booked home, you pick up a book that will change your life.
9. Your ninth time out of the country, you’ve come to reclaim some of the territory you first charted back when you were a freshly minted globe-trotter.  You take a whirlwind trip that packs a lot of punch.  You’ve got just three to five days to celebrate how cool it is to see a landscape again with new eyes having grown and changed since the first time you explored it.  You almost give your heart to a guy you meet just as you’re leaving, but then you remember you’ll need it still to set the course of your next adventure with. 
10. Your tenth time out of the country, you walk past the people in first class on your flight and realize that in the grand scheme of things, you’re all the same.  You’re all little fish in this big pond, little kids on this big playground called Earth.  You all have potential to make a difference and be the world to one or any number of other people.  You’re all ships passing in the night, you’re all related somehow or other.  You’re all going home eventually.  And as you eat frites or you swim in the baths, or you find just the right filter for one last instagram post before you leave, you realize while we all share this enormous play ground, you’re one of the relatively few people to have been blessed with the chance to try out the swings, the jungle gym, and the monkey bars in corners all over the world.   And you’re sure you’ll have a hankering for more international travel in due time, but in the meantime, you’re looking forward, if not to settling down, to settling in back home.  

When your waxer notices

You know you're moving in the right direction toward your peak physical shape when your waxer won't stop talking about it.

Frankly she sees you from an angle few others do.  You're lying on that roll of paper like a straight up specimen under the bright overhead light that lets her work her magic.  You leave an imprint of your body on the table when you stand up before she discards said paper, and you walk in ready to be fully seen by her - friend, confidant, mentor that she is, that she's become in the past ten or eleven years.

So when she says you're looking good, you're well within your rights to take the compliment as one of the most genuine you'll get on any given day or week.

Plus she sees you every two months or so.  I swear my waxer (who's the best by the way and who I will happily recommend to anyone who's looking to book since bathing suit season's upon us) said I looked good a year ago when I saw her too, but then every 6 - 8 weeks since when I've gone back (more regularly since relocating closer to her neck of the woods) she's seemingly been more and more impressed by the shape I'm getting in.  She's had a front row seat to any and all progress I've made.

So... I'm just here to humblebrag basically.  Ha.  But also to give the reminder to not be so quick to heed your self criticism, worry about the voices of those closest to you, or pay any mind to unfavorable feedback you feel like you're getting on your insta posts or dating profiles.  There are constants in your life who you forget are keeping tabs, and who will let you know when you're on the right track.  You need simply to stay regular with your appointment booking.

Shiny, sparkly things or How I Met My Credit Score

Unlike many friends of mine in high school, I didn't get to carry one of these puppies around on our mall trips:



Some mom's had one of these, a Macy's and Bloomie's card to loan to their little girls, but circa 1998 - 2002, my folks were busy paying off credit card debt my mom had racked up dressing the five of us kiddos in matching holiday garb for a decade and a half, so there was no plastic to spare.

Perhaps that is why Capital One convinced me I needed to opt for the pink sparkly design option on my first credit card.  I think I got one or two thousand dollars right out of the gate.  Like the credit gods knew I would be willing to play ball.

And oh how I played.... played with balance transfers and played with paying just slightly more than the minimum each month, played with credit line increases and 0% APRs for the first six months. Played so well those first few years, I earned myself an American Express Gold Card at age 21.

Which was actually hugely helpful in getting me in the practice of paying a / the / my whole bill each month - if only there were a way to start every young credit spender on Amex....

But then.... the dreaded recession reared its ugly head and revoked some of the perks I'd come to rely on - with my Amex specifically, which had allowed me to sign & travel and pay those charges back over time, until it didn't and I was suddenly called upon to pay back the $3k I spent on ACK in 2009 immediately if not ASAP.

So....lo...  I had to do some drastic penny pinching and transferring and pleading and the result was a real bad credit score.  A real. bad. credit. score.

But then!!!  As luck would have it, my penchant for shiny sparkly things paid off... as the year I moved to California I needed a car to take me there, and there was a savior, an angel, a fairy godmother at a credit union in non other than Bedford, MA, who brought me back in to the big leagues wrapping this balance and that one into the car loan, paying cards off a full and raising my credit score by a whopping 225 points in the span of the year and a half I called the west coast home.

Would that I'd had this site as a reference back in the day: http://brokemillennial.com

Penned by my pal (/neighbor/roomie/sisterfriend)'s little cuz it breaks it down for today's 20somethings and teaches them how to plan for the ebbs and be proactive with the flows.

Citizens of the world

Since signing off for a full 40 days this past Lent, I make a point of only Facebooking on Tuesdays & Fridays now.  But Monday night, I signed on to post this:

"Couldn't wait till tomorrow to sign on and say I think we are not at war with terrorism so much as we are fighting what is at the root of terrorism: hate. 

And the Donald Trumps of the world are condoning hate, perpetuating fear, and fighting for the wrong side.

How dare any of us jump to politicize the conversation within hours of learning 50 lives were lost, but beyond that how dare that disgrace of a presidential candidate be so callous as to accept congratulations in the wake of what was a cold blooded massacre of citizens he claims to want to protect. Where is your compassion? Where is your humanity? Where is your self-control and humility?

The fact that Trump (and so many of his followers both ignorant and educated alike) cannot grasp the distinction Obama made in February, that our enemies are "not religious leaders - they're terrorists...and we are at war with people who have perverted Islam" speaks volumes to why and how the position of president would be a weapon of mass destruction in that man's hands. Not harping on or not using the term Islamic Radicalism is not about political correctness, it is about taking time to be thorough and careful. It is about not shrouding entire populations in hate and intolerance. It's about not making sweeping generalizations, not stereotyping, not labeling, and most importantly not breeding unnecessary and unhelpful and uncontrollable hate and contempt. 

Anyway, less about him and his lack of tact, lack of composure, lack of reverence for his fellow Americans. 

I am so grateful for and in awe of and inspired by the men and women from all walks of life, from both sides of the aisle and from any number of religious or non religious standpoints - celebrities, politicians, clergy, lay people, gay, lesbian, trans, bi and straight who have been brave enough to preach love since Sunday.

Love is truly the only weapon we have to combat the hate and the fear at the core of acts of terror. 

Love is the only ideology that will save the world with its subscribers 

Love creates and sustains life - it gives life meaning. It is all we have, and it is all we need 

💜"

Interestingly enough, days before he was set to host the TONYs, and before we all awoke to news about the utter senselessness of Sunday's early morning tragedy, James Corden was on Stephen Colbert and shared just about the loveliest thoughts on whether he'd started to feel less British since moving to America.  Watch around 3:20.  Charming, right?  "We're [definitely] all kind of in it together."

I want it all

I have a sort of serious question:  Is it okay to do things just because you can?

Cause that's what I keep doing.  I obviously and staunchly believe no one should do evil, mean spirited, malicious or hateful things "just because they can."   But the things I have been doing aren't harmful to myself or to others, so, I don't feel bad for them and I don't regret them after doing them.  That said, they aren't for everyone, so I understand the reaction I get from people, who ask, "why would you do that?"

And I just hope my answer, "because I can," is sufficient.  I don't want it to seem trite, or flippant, or moronic.  I don't want to come off as selfish, irreverent, or impulsive.

"Because I can" is the best I can conjure up.  And maybe I should couple it with the disclaimer, "and because I never want to say or even feel 'I can't.'"

Because somewhere along the way to growing up, I developed an aversion to "I can'ts" coming from anyone who technically can or theoretically could.  Obama successfully clinching the presidency in 2008 on his "yes, we can," slogan must have reinforced the aversion.

The thing is, a year before I'd come to terms with the fact that there are people who really can't do one thing or another because of their station, because of the way cards were stacked against them, because of injustice in the world, because they run out of time or are crippled by fear, because they care too much about what other people think, or because they don't have the means or the mindset allowing them to see that they actually can.

I adopted a mantra when I was training for the marathon a few years ago.  I ran with a charity - the melanoma foundation.  And thinking on the reality of the circumstances brought about by melanoma, and cancer in general, and tragedies, and heartbreak, and disabilities, 8 or 9 miles in to a training run one Sunday afternoon, "we run for our cause, we run cause we can" came to me.

Pretty much ever since, I've done what I wanted when and if I could.  I've thought to myself, "do I want to do this? Can I do this?" And when the answers been yes, I've just gone and done it.

I'm watching the TONYs tonight (naturally) and Renée Elise Goldsberry took home the award for her role in Hamilton earlier in the evening.  She expressed immense gratitude for a multitude of blessings.  She got the gifts of her two children, and she got this win.  Can you want it all AND get it all?  Sometimes the answer is yes, you can.

So it's okay to want big.  It's okay to go big.

And it's a serious question I'm asking, but I'm also answering it for myself and making the argument that yes, it's okay to do things just because you can.

On the flip side of things

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adi-zarsadias/dont-date-a-girl-who-travels_b_4704794.html

There's this.

And I think the author's warnings are fair if not spot on, a girl who travels "is hard to please...she goes with the flow and follows her heart...she will never need you...[and] she will forget to check in with you when she arrives at her destination...So never date a girl who travels unless you can keep up with her."

But I dissent from her urge to the reader that if they unintentionally fall in love with one, they daren't keep her.

Maybe she needs and wants to do whatever she fancies, but by no means does that have to mean she wants to be let go of completely.

Think:

Date a boy...

who travels: http://jamesrussell.org/blog/blog/date-a-boy-who-travels

I had forgotten this one.

But it's good.

And it's got a point.

I have been feeling very Sagittarian recently.

Count down is on to my week in ACK next month.

It's been 5 years since the last time I spent more than a night on the island.

'Tis the season to

Doprah for Days

And pretend it was 6/1 when I wrote how every so often I spend three weeks with Deepak Choprah and Oprah Winfrey guiding me in morning meditation.  So do thousands of others who drink Deepak and Oprah’s brand of mindfulness cool-aid each time a new round of their twenty-one day series hits the Internet. 

To say the duo has changed my life with their 21-Day Meditation Experiences would be a bit of an overstatement, but to deny the fact I’ve come to rely on the seasonal appearance of their marketing materials in my inbox would be dishonest.  I actually feel my spirits lift when I find out I have a few weeks with the two of them on the horizon.  I genuinely appreciate the reminder from the two moguls to be mindful.

The current popularity of meditation as a stress reduction technique is well-documented. Major corporations have introduced the practice to their employees, doctors recommend it to patients at risk for heart attacks and celebrities have endorsed its ability to keep them grounded and connect them with their purpose and aspirations - the pressure of life in the public eye is kept at bay by their ability to tune everything out for twenty minutes or so.   Commercial a ploy as it is for high profile advocates like Oprah and Deepak, you can’t knock them for encouraging enlightenment, wellness, self-care and mental health.

I find time to be one of the most valuable things one can have in one’s possession.  How we allocate minutes and hours and days to the demands made on us to deliver at work, in relationships and in our communities can be complicated to decide.   I have been making a point of sectioning off time in my life for mindfulness for years now.  If I’ve reaped some ribbing from facetious friends and family for doing so, it’s been entirely worth it for the benefits I’ve reaped of mental and physical well being. 

My new dentist greeted me saying, “you have perfect blood pressure” just the other week.  I am still not entirely sure why it was necessary for him to take my blood pressure at a consultation about my teeth, but I wasn’t surprised in the least to learn this fact about myself.   Rarely does anyone or anything get a rise out of me. 

I’ve maintained an even-keeled base level and temperament since my first foray into the new-agey world of wellness eight years ago.  It was actually a bi-product of back pain I was having one spring.  My chiropractor shared an office space with a holistic healer who advertised his ability to cure people of smoking addictions and poor eating habits with hypnosis.  Tempted, I purchased a package of eight sessions with this Avinoam Lerner, and by summer, I was feeling more clear headed and self confident than I ever before, not to mention eating fruits and vegetables with the best of them.  Armed with the emotional freeing technique during which one taps on a series of endpoints of the body’s energy meridians to diminish distress and two mp3s with hypnoses Avinoam had recorded for his patients to listen to at home, I was open to expanding my arsenal of self help and mental health go-too tools.  In the years to come I took up yoga, long distance running, and IntenSati fitness, which combines aerobic moves and positive affirmations to improve your attitude and level of physical strength and endurance.

“What do the recordings say?” my friends used to ask, curious about my habit of tuning in to Avinoam’s mp3s for twenty minutes per day.  “They say, ‘ you are feeling good about your body,” I’d say in my best imitation of his Israeli accent.  The phrase became a running joke for a while, but the teasing subsided when those same friends saw the shift in my all around health and wellness. 

I have meditation and mindfulness to thank for the glass half full persona I present to the world. I imagine I’ll continue to be partial to practices suggested by different gurus at different points, but I maintain these “Doprah days” do wonders.

A Whole New Palette

Pretend I posted this on 5/29...on the topic of food and choices...

“Oh she won’t want it,” my aunt said passing the steaming hot casserole dish over my head, “this wouldn’t work with her beige diet.”

“Beige diet?” I asked, oblivious to the way the turkey sans gravy, heaping pile of mashed potatoes and butter-less dinner roll basically blended in to the dinner plate in front of me.

“Chicken, rice, potatoes, chips, Life Cereal,” she listed, “you’ve never noticed you have the beigest diet in the world?”

As I watched the peas, cranberry sauce, carrots, yams, and green bean casserole make their way around the Thanksgiving table, I realized my aunt was right.

For the fist twenty years of my life I subsisted on substantially flavor-less and undoubtedly uncolored fare.   It is not my mother’s fault.  She would ask me to make that clear.  My father too.  They swear up and down that I LOVED vegetables when I was little.  We all collectively remember the cooked carrots incident of 1990 as being a big turning point.  I couldn’t keep the carrots down, and from that point on my parents couldn’t make me finish my plate before leaving the table.  So I picked and chose around every dish offered and wound up with an assortment of white meats and starches without fail.

A firm believer that a well baked batch of chocolate chip cookies can put the world back in order whenever things are going awry, I would bake with M&Ms whenever I was feeling self-conscious about my eating habits.  The candy coated chocolates were the greens, oranges, reds and yellows I missed out on by refusing to try salads even when my friends started making a habit of going to Fresh City for lunch, turning my nose up at whatever peppers and onions were grilled on kebabs between chunks of chicken or shrimp at summer barbeques, and declining any passed app that didn’t come on a skewer at cocktail hours. 

Thyme – and time changed everything.  In my mid twenties, I bought The Biggest Loser cookbook for a boyfriend focused on getting fit, and we spent a season or two making homemade meals for things like Valentine’s Day and our mid-march anniversary.  Soon, we considered ourselves culinary wiz’s for our ability to make Chipotle Honey Lime Pork Tenderloins and Italian Flank Steak with Roma Tomatoes that would have made Jillian Michaels amused if not particularly proud.   Thyme, basil and balsamic vinegar became fixtures of his pantry where we did the bulk of our special occasion cooking.

My own spice cabinet still would only ever contain pepper, lemon pepper and garlic powder for several years to come.  My kitchens never seemed to call for cooking beyond a few staples I could make with just those, and frankly, I was afraid when I opened cabinets of foodie friends with rack upon rack of spices I wouldn’t risk entering into the mix.

By my late twenties I was attempting to be more adventurous, at least when out for fancy dinners.  “I’ll have the fire roasted garlic chicken with fennel and acorn squash,” “…the Label Rouge chicken on the tangle of greens,” “…the pollo pressato with mashed sweet potato.”  Sure I was prone to pulling the seasoned skin off the cut of poultry presented to me, but at least I was trying the side dishes that came with.   No longer averse to rounding out my eating habits, I had actually seen a holistic healer for a while who helped me use the emotional freeing tapping technique to squash my fear of consuming cooked carrots and to convince me I could enjoy eating broccoli.  With age comes an openness to bettering one’s self.  Also, a naturally slower metabolism.  

The month before I turned thirty, I was went ahead and let myself get swept up in the new wave of clean eating called WHOLE30.   Entering a new decade of life, I decided it was finally time to enter the world of eating well.  I faced my fears of spicing up my own spice rack, and I racked up a ridiculous bill having filled a basket at Whole Foods with everything from Dried Cilantro to Cloves, Mustard seed to Marjaram, and Paprika to Tarragon.  

Thirty days sans grains, dairy, legumes, sugar, and alcohol wiped away my predisposition to the bland, artificial and less exotic food out there. I spent weekends prepping meals more colorful than I ever could have dreamt of in my beige diet days, and then I spent weeks devouring them.  My palette expanded with every day I x’d off on my wall calendar.

I’ll still err on the side of cookie baking on a bad day and taking the easy way out by ordering chicken when I’m overwhelmed by a long or unfamiliar menu at dinner out, but there’s no longer a dish that goes over my head at Thanksgiving.  And the rich range of colors I’m met with when I open my fridge, pantry or cabinets has made this decade of dining my best yet by far.