Hands - Day 3

So I cheated. These are not hands, it is just A hand. But it's MY hand! Isn't it pretty? While taking this photo, however, I realized that when I look at my hands as they type away every day at work, I see more than just fingers flying over keys. I see wonderful people, too.

That silver watch? That's from my lovely grandmother. My ring is from a hippie store I used to work in with a sweet girl named Lisa. The pink flowered box was bought in Mexico by Julia. The elephant traveled with April from India. The Buddha made its way through my old workplace and was finally handed down to me by Amanda. The painted fairy was a craft from my little sister Leah's birthday party, which my friend Christina also attended. The miniature filing cabinet always reminds me of Angela (so organized!). Even the dark purple nail polish I have on today makes me think of Heather. Just beyond the frame of this picture are memories of other friends and experiences that are now manifested in little tiny objects. And all of these are just within reach every day. My hands are happy.

Apparently This is an Annual Thing

Around this time last year I wrote this post. It was a follow up to this post from the year before. I guess every January I have to look back at my life and wonder, "What the hell happened? And what the hell am I going to do now?"

2011 was a difficult year and I'm glad to see it gone... It was very stressful, but it wasn't all bad. Looking back I have quite a few lovely memories...

• I went snow tubing!
• My bar closed. This was extremely depressing and I miss it terribly.
• I went to Boston to visit my very first friend from college. Hanging out with him and his awesome friends was probably one of the best weekends of the year. Nothing but love!
• My boss left my organization. The Development Department consisted of only me for a few months.
• I went to Maryland to babysit my sister for a few days while my very lucky parents went to France. She and I get along splendidly when my parents aren't around, it's really amazing...
• I organized a few events for work all by myself and did quite well, if I do say so myself.
• I went to the beach A LOT over the summer. AND I LOVED IT.
• Nick finished his pre-med program FINALLY. And he got an excellent score on the MCAT. We started pondering potential relocation to other cities for med school...
• Then he and I went to his cousin's wedding on Long Island and had a blast with his ridiculously fun family.
• I went to Ireland with my family for two weeks. It was so beautiful and is truly a magical place, but the weather is horrific. At least I took a lot of excellent pictures. 1,400 of them to be exact.
• I got a new boss and he's awesome!
• Nick and I went to my cousin's wedding in Michigan. Our complete debauchery made it clear that we are still extremely immature and no one should invite us anywhere.
• That same weekend we ended up stuck in Detroit because of the hurricane on the East Coast and realized that Detroit is truly the city that God forgot. I hope I never have to go back. EVER.
• My beautiful mother turned 60 while we were in the armpit of the Midwest (sorry, Mom). To cheer her up I made her an amazing photo book of her life. I am such a good daughter! Even though I slacked off so I had to give it to her at Christmas. Oops.
• I turned 26. I went to see my favorite band Beirut on the night of my birthday, which was absolutely magical. Then I tried to have a birthday party at a bar and just ended up depressed. I'm old!
• The aforementioned first friend from college came to visit NYC and since he is politically active and silly things like that, we went to Occupy Wall Street for a little while. It was interesting enough, but we soon left for beer and burgers, because we have our priorities straight.
• I had a very successful gala for my organization which was about 100 times better and less stressful than last year. I actually got drunk afterwards! It was GREAT!
• I went home for Thanksgiving and kept things fairly quiet and only hung out with one friend. And I'm grateful that he's such a good friend after literally 13 years.
• That weekend my cousin had her engagement party. It was so incredibly lovely that I had to have 7 glasses of wine to deal with the beauty of it all. I don't want anyone to grow up but I think I'm okay with this...
• I went home for Christmas. I saw my best friends and both of my wonderful grandmothers and realized how very lucky I am. I got an iPad that I'm pretty sure my sister tricked my dad into buying. Good job, kid!
• Speaking of my little baby sister, she turned 13 and it has absolutely traumatized me. I keep looking at the picture on my shelf of me holding her when I'm 17 and she is 4 and I can't believe where the time has gone.
• An old friend and his darling girlfriend came to New York on December 30th and we saw one of my favorite bands from college. It was the perfect way to end the year.
• I had a very quiet New Year's Eve with lovely people, just the way I wanted it.

On the schedule for this year....

• I will attend four weddings in June, July, August, and September. Oh. My. God.
• In October I'll go to a family reunion of my mother's side of the family.They will be Irish. They will be Catholic. They will be crazy. They will be drunk. There will be hundreds of them. And they will all look like me. This will be weird.
• Hopefully I will visit my best friend and her boyfriend in Florida and watch them revel in the early days of cohabitation. Hopefully I will do this soon, while it's still cold in NYC but nice and warm on the gulf coast...
• I also hope to visit this crazy lady and her girlfriend in Raleigh and see an old friend of my parents' as well. And I'll wonder once again why I don't live in the South because everyone is so nice and the weather is splendid.
• I will also try my very best to head west to see if "Portlandia" is an accurate depiction of a city that is called home by a dear friend from New York, an old friend from high school, new friends from Bonnaroo, two aunts I haven't seen in much too long, a number of tiny cousins I've never met, and another cousin who was a little girl the last time I saw her and is now a gorgeous teenager. Wow.
• If all goes as planned, Nick will start medical school in the Fall. After many months of contemplating the merits of other US cities, I realize I am terrified to leave New York. I am crossing my fingers that he gets into a school in the city so we never, ever, EVER have to leave. Please please please please please!
• Hopefully I will finally buckle down and apply to grad school. I know I want to do an MPA, but I'm again considering if I should pair it with an MSW just for the background knowledge that would entail. I don't want to be a social worker anymore, I know that for certain. But I am interested in the experience... Luckily I know that the MPA is where it's at for me, hands down. I just really need to work my ass off this year in my new role!
• I also need to save tons of money so I can FINALLY go to France and/or Germany like I've been talking about because I need a goddamn European vacation.
• Also I was reminded last night by a very good friend that I had always planned to go volunteer in India. He told me I should probably do it before I have kids. Thanks for the advice, buddy. I said I'd check out Central America...
• I think we're going to get another kitten. YES!!!!

Life is too short. I hope you've stopped reading by now. Good night.

Wow.

Here I am, back in Brooklyn, once again typing from the boyfriend's computer. How strange it is to be back here after 10 days! I'm tired so this is will be one of those boring, lame, let's-recap-my-weekend type of posts.

I left on the 21st to take a bus to MD, so that the morning of the 22nd I could fly down to St. John in the Virgin Islands for week of sun, sand, and lots of rum. Lots and lots of rum. I went snorkeling, jet skiing, did lots of lounging, ate lots of seafood, drank tons of fruity drinks, wore pretty dresses, ended up with a hellish sunburn, and came back with a heavenly tan. I also got to spend some time with my lovely cousins, both of whom were pretty much the closest thing I had to sisters growing up. Needless to say, we had an absolute ball.

Saturday brought me a bit closer to reality when I flew back to DC. Luckily, the next day I got to spend some quality time with Rachel and her boyfriend in Baltimore at the Brew at the Zoo, featuring tons of beer, local wineries, and live music. The elephants were pretty cool, too. Then we converged at Courtney's house for some sangria and pork barbecue, and once I had my wits about me I hopped back on the beltway and hopped into bed.

Monday was Memorial Day, which meant my family got a monopoly on my presence. I got to see some of their old friends and drink some more sangria, along with more delicious food, so I can't complain. Plus today is my dad's birthday, so we had a little cake for him last night and I gave him his complimentary book and cigar (to be used simultaneously, of course) from the islands. Finally today I made it back to New York, and now I sit finishing up some Indian food while the boyfriend studies, and I feel quite at home.

Easing back into vacation was the way to go, I think. After such a shock of being on a Caribbean island where the water looks like a perfect swimming pool, where the rum flows freely, and where shirts and shoes (and bras) are always optional, I needed some time to segue back into real life. And here I am again... and it is oh so real.

I'm ready for the weekend. Coney Island, anyone?

Cackalackin'

I don't know why North Carolina is called North Cackalacky, but my friends who live there seem to refer to is as such. Southerners are weird... but they are also very hospitable and live in a lovely climate, so I'm glad to be going to good old North Cackalacky for Easter! Tomorrow I'll fly out of LGA to get to Raleigh by about 3:00 p.m., where I'll meet my mother and sister, settle into our hotel, and have a lovely dinner with my parents' good friend Nan, then visit with their other good friend Vince and his sister Peggy. I guess on Easter Sunday we'll drive up to Maryland, and then Monday I'm back in New York. A whirlwind of an Easter vacation, but I'm okay with that. My parents are pretty cool people, and I think their friends are great.

I was raised by parents who surrounded themselves with an eclectic crowd of folks... Musicians and artists and teachers and nurses and massage therapists and librarians... and then those who never really had a set career but just kind of floated through life taking the next job or opportunity that came to them. One of these is Vince, who for the better part of each year now travels around the country in the VinVan, camping in national parks and visiting Rainbow Gatherings. Occasionally he shaves his bushy red beard and gets a job working for The Man... And then he somehow ends up in a fancy hotel in New York City doing some sort of consulting thing I'm not really clear about, and then Nick and I go out to have Indian food with him in Midtown. Weird. I've known Vince my whole entire life and think he's pretty damn awesome.

Nan (real name Nancy), I have also known for just about forever, and again, I'm not really sure what she's done for a living all these years, though she's retired now. She has always been an artist and photographer, and I remember for a while she was a teacher's assistant and shared hilarious stories about the crazy names the inner city children were cursed with (like Iska...pronounced Isaac. Lord.) In fact, when she moved out of her country house when I was in middle school, she gave me a bunch of old issues of National Geographic, which started my collection and which I still have. She always seemed so hip and otherworldly to me, like the coolest grandma in the world, only a child at heart... She has this short white hair and wears crazy glasses and funky earrings and is always working on some sort of art project or is taking beautiful pictures. Featured here is a picture of my dad that she must have taken in the '80s... He's looking remarkably like a hipster with his bushy beard and his overalls, but he was the real deal -- hippie redneck to the max. Anyway, I haven't seen Nan in about 3 or 4 years, and she's really a lovely person with a lovely daughter and a nice little grandson who I guess is probably a teenager now, but who I will always remember as a goofy, brainy little 8 year old. It will be nice to reconnect...

Part of the reason we're going down is to visit Nan, and part is because Vince's sister has cancer and doesn't have a whole lot of time left. My mother adores Peggy, so of course she wanted to spend some time with her. Peggy is a lovely person who has raised a bunch of kids and foster kids and grandkids, and who, when we spent Thanksgiving with her when I was 9, introduced me to "Gone With the Wind," and experience which I will never forget. I guess she's a true Southerner, which I can only pretend to be... Anyway, Peggy has this fiery red hair and penciled in eyebrows and the most pleasant accent I've ever heard in my life. The last time I saw her, I was home for the weekend and I proudly cooked up the best homemade brunch ever for my parents and all their friends -- I'm glad I could share my limited cooking skills with Peggy by making some damn fine eggs Benedict. I hope I'll get to see her at least a few more times after this...

While this will be a very non-traditional Easter, because I can't imagine in a million years that we'll set foot in a church or have an Easter egg hunt or even mention the words "rose from the dead," it will be absolutely wonderful to reconnect with the people who I really feel had a great impact on me during my childhood years and who I am lucky to still know as an adult. Growing up, I always thought of my parents' friends as my friends, too... Since I was an only child who had few friends to drag around with me, and very few of them had children, I did a lot of hanging out with the old folks. Sure I got lucky at many parties and got to run off with any kids who happened to turn up, or I got sick of the adults eventually and yelled at them to turn their music down once I decided it was time for me to go to bed... But for the most part, I was able to talk and eat weird food and it didn't really bother me. I really appreciated the people I was surrounded with growing up and I don't really remember there being any awkward transition between childhood and adulthood, though I'm sure there was. I sat around tables listening to crazy conversations and on porches hearing beautiful live music as a child, as a teenager, and now as an adult, and though the faces occasionally drifted in and out and sometimes I had friends around to share it with, not much changed.

I suppose people have changed quite a bit (and so have I), I just haven't been around much to see it. I've left home for good and I'm not turning back, but still... it's good to reconnect and acknowledge your roots. You can't forget where you come from or the people who made you who you are, especially when those people are pretty damn cool.

Maryland, My Maryland

Well, I haven't posted in a few days, meaning I'm losing out to Rachel. Except that I'm in Maryland, and she's in Hawaii, so I really have no excuse. Also, she is in the midst of trying to survive a fucking tsunami, and is still blogging.

Life for me has been a little crazy. And by crazy, I mean it's been the mundane routine of suburban life that includes basketball, shopping, bad food, etc. But I'm going to recap it in a boring post right here... So if you don't want to read about my weekend, just stop. It's not that exciting, I promise. Save yourself.

Anyway, my parents were going to the Philadelphia Flower Show, so I volunteered (if you can call it that) to come down and babysit my sister for the weekend. On Friday I took the train from New York in the middle of a blizzard, luckily making it to Baltimore before it was even dark out. I took my 11 year old sister out for Indian food, which was kind of cute -- dinner dates with children are always interesting. Saturday I slept as long as I could until I had to take her to a basketball game, where she made 2 baskets and they basically kicked the other team's asses. We headed to Target to get a gift card for the birthday sleepover she was attending later, ate some Subway (gotta love the suburbs!), and then I proceeded to dye her hair. That's right, I put burgundy streaks in my little baby sister's immaculate, thick, long, beautiful black-brown hair. And they look damn good. She was quite proud.

I took her to the party in the early evening, picked up my charming little grandmother, headed to my aunt's house for dinner, where my cousin was home from college, found out the poor cousin has Celiac disease (gluten allergy), and then ate some really delicious home cooked food...sans gluten, of course. I love being home with family. You always eat so well and feel so wholesome and, well, full.... I spent some time talking to my grandmother back at her house, and that was really wonderful, as usual... I really appreciate the fact that I still have 2 very nice grandmothers and I know I need to cherish the time I have with them. Sooo... then I went home and was about to go to bed when my sister called me CRYING and wanting to come home. Some silly spat had occurred, but after calming her down and talking to the mom for a little, we determined she would be just fine to stay. I felt like a mom... big time. It was scary. Then I went to bed, where a cute little Cocker Spaniel and a fat black and white cat curled up with me. So cozy...

I woke up incredibly early on Sunday to do some work, which I was quite proud of myself for working on so diligently. I even went out for coffee and a breakfast sandwich (sausage, egg, & cheese on a bagel...nothing like New York, but oh well), then came back to "the office" to continue working. And that was only 8:30 a.m.! I don't remember the last time I was awake that early on a Sunday. I don't think those kinds of days happen in my life. So just about the time when I was supposed to start getting ready to go pick up Leah, my dad's computer crashed. That was helpful. And then it wouldn't turn back on. So I got frustrated, took my shower, went to get my sister, and took her to her basketball game. Where her team's asses were kicked. BADLY. I mean, this poor kid was crying by the end...

We both needed to chill, so we went out for Thai food... I'm trying to expose her to international cuisines... To bribe her into good behavior some more, I took her out to the mall to search for a "beanie" hat for her, and did some retail therapy on myself and got some impressive deals. Then I bought her a snowboarding game for her Wii. I am such a good big sister! We went to Borders, exchanged some books (Joan Didion, here I come!), then headed home only to find that my parents were back! My mom and I went on a book scavenger hunt around the house, because apparently when you live in a big suburban house you have 9 billion bookshelves and you can't find anything. Then you find stuff your daughter doesn't want and you make her put it in her suitcase, which will now be impossibly heavy. Thanks for the book about primates, Mom.

Oh, and from investigating the computer issue, I determined that the reason the thing had turned off was because my stupid fat cat had been stepping on it. I realized that right when it turned off, she had been under the table SITTING on the power strip I didn't know existed until later, so I have a feeling her extreme fatness made it somehow possible for her to push the power button, which is right on the top and relatives flat and easy to push. Ugh, the most cuddly, adorable, sweet not-so-little creature ever was the one that lost my work. Oh well.

Clearly, more work had to be done, so that was boring and I don't wanna write about it. We ate dinner (leftover beef barley soup!), watched the closing ceremony of the Olympics, drank some delicious Amphora wine, and I ditched the 'rents, and did some more crap for work, and then got bored, and here I am.

I will wax philosophical later about how weird it is to be 24 but to know so fully what it's like to be a parent in some ways, having dealt with my much-younger sister since I was 16. It's a trip. Literally. I mean, I have to take a trip to know what it's like. It will be nice to get back home to NYC to my own reality, which involves my own pursuits of happiness and selfishness and drunkenness and fun. But I always appreciate these weekends of suburban bliss, if you can call it that...

Mostly, it's good to spend time with my sister, as much as she might get on my nerves. She's a good kid, and she deserves for her big sister to buy her useless junk now and then and dye her hair and give her gum whenever she asks for it. And she even deserves to hear life advice from me even when she doesn't want to hear it. I'm just that good.

Ok I'm bored with this. Good night.

Mom & Magda

My mom came to visit this weekend, and she brought along my 9 year old sister. Well, 9 and a half, because fractions are important when you're 9 (and a half). We played the tourist game and went to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, of which only the latter I would return to. The statue was pretty impressive, I must say, but after an hour of craning my neck to see her big old book and pretty gold torch, I was done. Basically after you've done the audio tour, paid a quarter to look into those telescope things to see Manhattan up close, and taken all the pictures you can imitating Ol' Lady Liberty herself, there's not much to do but stand in line for hours waiting for overpriced, greasy food and then sit down at an outdoor food court where overly tame pigeons and seagulls grapple for the fries in your hand. Bleh.

Ellis Island was pretty damn depressing, I must say, but I'd go back. Around every corner you'd read quotes and hear the voices of the immigrants reminding you that, "We had nothing, I had nothing, there was nothing, I left everything behind." So I could understand how my sister wanted to play her Nintendo DS (for those non-tweens out there, this is the modern day equivalent to a Gameboy) instead of reading about the torturous medical examinations and the screaming babies and the inability to understand anyone around you. But the building is beautiful and the photographs and recordings and artifacts are pretty cool. There's a wall outside with the names of people who came over, and although we knew that no one in our family had paid any funding for our name to be put on, we did in fact find our family name (maybe they're long lost cousins). Then my mother realized that her grandfather had already been in the U.S. for a few years without having gone through Ellis Island, and probably could afford to buy his wife and her sister first class tickets, so basically no one in my family went through Ellis Island anyway. Still, we found "The Geisinger Family" and pretended that we had a historical connection. And I realized I really like the name Geisinger and maybe I'll use it for something down the line, like when I'm not rich and famous but I just need to give some creepy guy a fake name or sign up for something online that I don't want to get spammed with in the future.

We also went to Coney Island on Saturday, which I've done a bunch of times by now, but my sister wanted to ride the Cyclone and my mom wanted to sit on the beach. I got a lovely little tan, and I escaped without going on the dreaded roller coaster. I basically started hyperventilating as we approached it, and it's a damn good thing I didn't go because my mom said it was horrible and bumpy and painful and awful. The next day, she talked to her mother (my grandmother) about the trip, who said that HER mother (my great-grandmother, the Geisinger who probably did not come through Ellis Island) had ridden the thing in the '30s and hated it. So I didn't feel bad about not going on, since my great-grandmother had been conned into riding it when it was new and had a horrible, traumatic experience. Maybe her spirit was conjured up during our Ellis trip and she decided to look out for me for a day and say, "Hell no, don't go." Thanks, Magda. You're a champ.