10 steps to 2012 success

10. Be accountable to yourself and others. That's the only way to ensure that items on your work and personal to-do lists get accomplished.

9. Be a better global citizen. Recycle. Eat organic eventhough it's more expensive. It perpetuates more ethical agricultural practices. Eat more, consume less (http://noteatingoutinny.com/). Explore roof top gardens (learn about CSA aka community supported agriculture). Give back in multiple ways. Teach others. Use your existing skill set (www.catchafire.org).

8. Don't lose your i-phone. (Three times would be really embarassing, especially since I never have good samaritan stories. So far (1) puked and got kicked out of a cab/ left him an i-phone in the back seat, and (2) went crazy dancing and got my bag stolen in a ghetto Peruvian bar)

7. Walk/ Run 1,000 miles in a year. This is an arbitrary number. I have no clue how much I usually run/ walk. I'm planning to use the Run Keeper i-phone app to keep track, which means I will have to have my i-phone on me at all times (Yes- #8!).

6.  Quit biting your nails. If weekly manicures help you quit, don't forget to turn off the UV light in the nail-dryer (causes cases of skin cancer on the hands!!). Get a monthly pedicure (I need it.. haha).

5. Carefully monitor the Momofuku fried chicken reservation website (http://reservations.momofuku.com). I've set up an account since November 2010 and still no openings. 2012 is the year!!!

4. Get socially networked. Yelp, blogger, twitter, instagram. I'm on it, but looking to make more of a presence.
www.vira.yelp.com
www.twitter.com/elaineylin
instagram- vira12

3. Be more people oriented, and less task oriented. Four years ago, one of my mentors told me that all professionals he works with ultimately fit into two categories. First, there are those that are technically competent, who come to rely almost completely on that strength. Second, there is a small subset that reaches an inflection point and is able to go to the next level. This group can communicate, see the big picture, and then crystallize their thinking and simplify issues to bring others along. In contrast to the first group, he believes this second group has virtually no limitations.

To me, this goes beyond the professional context. The most memorable people to me are the ones with the most heart, who know how to connect with people, and apply whatever they can to helping others out. Having the smarts is great but unconditionally sharing it is a much more admirable trait. 

2. Act your own age, not your shoe size. I have to stop halving the doses of all kinds of medication- cough, cold, aspirin. It might be the reason why my recovery time is twice as long as any normal person. Also, the last time I went to a club, some punk snidely remarked, "I would totally talk to you girls if I were five years older!" 28 isn't middle aged and over the hill, but I'm no bubbly 21 year old in 6 inch heels. It's time to tone down, and stay out of the sun.

1. Start reciting daily affirmations to set a positive mindset throughout the day. Prime example: Jessica's daily affirmation.

Happy holidays!

Now that Part I of the holiday season is over, it's difficult to adjust to being at work once again after all these days of hectic holiday parties/frantic gift shopping (and the subsequent wrestling with giftwrap)/endless hours consulting cookbooks as I try to figure out the best way to stir three pots at once (call for backup!) followed by blissful hours of napping, nibbling on cookies, and watching movies with my family.  It's crazy to think that once again it's time to think about New Year resolutions.  But here's one that I think will definitely make the list.  

Photography 101

Photography is selective vision. It's a slice of the world in a split second. One scene can be photographed at least ten different ways, but often the most successful image is the angle that cuts out the trash can in the background, and precisely crops out the distracting truck, building, or person so that the eye is tricked to focus on what the photographer wants you to see. It's about capturing the most unusual angle that challenges the way that we normally perceive an object- uncovering beauty where you least expect it.

These lessons are simple in concept, but takes tremendous practice. It's about having the right perspective and patience that lets you see perfection, even if it's just for a second.

Much of this can also be said about our view of each other in the world. After your first love and first heartbreak, you understand how imperfect, how human we are- how beautiful and how ugly the same person can be. You may not realize it right away but eventually, there will be point when you can appreciate finding beauty in selective shots and stop irrationally looking for perfection everywhere. Everything is transient, and everyone, even the most stubborn, is an unintentional passenger of change.

In photography, you can capture change. Lower the shutterspeed, and you can hear the shutter swing open and closed. It's amazing how that mechanical process lets reality seep in. Turn the dial to one sixtieth, one thirteieth, one half, one second, one point five seconds. In photography, 1.5 seconds is an eternity. If a car has driven past you, it will show up as a blurry streak across the frame. A person crossing the street is now a ghost. And although unlikely, even if nothing in your frame has moved, you'll capture a blurry object because it's your hand that has shook slightly in those 1.5 seconds. Nothing is constant.

I imagine relationships are a lot like these shots.

Varying in length, a lot of them can seem perfect for a split second. But keep the shutter open a little longer, and another person can show up in the periphery, another object can obstruct your view. Your focus can shift, or your subject can steer out of the frame without you even noticing it.

The perfect relationship is the perfect long exposure. No matter what the distractions, you can always adjust yourself, find a different angle and you and your subject never lose focus.

The concept is simple, but we always need a little extra practice.
"Homeless" by vjsuave from vjsuave on Vimeo.

http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/blog/love-story-unfolds-on-city-streets-with-the-help-of-moving-projections

What we talk about when we talk about entropy

http://sylviethecamera.smugmug.com

Something in my head is wired to be outwardly tidy.  Somehow that jumble of brain cells knows that while my biological being is a mess of interconnecting capillaries affecting neurons influencing who knows what else, having a basic control on my immediate surroundings soothes me.  Which makes me the person who, if need be, leaves tidy piles of papers on her desk for the next day (the preference, of course, being a bare desktop); the person who makes sure all the clothes are facing the same direction in her color-coded closet; the person whose first purchase for a new apartment was a mini filing cabinet so she could have a place for everything.  My borderline obsession for neatness has always been a source of amusement for roommates, who watch while I shovel unopened mail into little stacks, squirrel away shoe boxes under the table, and create designated spaces for manicure accessories.  As I explained to one friend, this need to create a clean space trumps all else.  I simply can’t function in any other setting.

Which is why it came as a shock when my creative writing professor threw down the last page of my memoir one dreary November afternoon and praised me for my ability to dig into the messiness of life.  Beaming at me, she announced that it was clear to her that my theme was entropy.  I stubbornly pointed out the sparse language, the fleeting scenes, and above all, passage after passage of highly controlled dialogue—none of these things, I insisted, should lead her to believe that I was embracing entropy in any way.  Did she not notice how my characters were mostly external, focusing on physical tasks instead of mucking about with feelings?  Or was it not clear enough that this is a quiet story, that it wasn’t following any type of Augusten Burroughs arc?  But, my professor interjected, life is about messiness.  No matter how hard you try, things will organically fall apart and just as organically come together again in a slightly different way, over and over again.

I resisted.  Understandable, I hope, considering my love for calm spaces.  I revised my memoir for another torturous month, handed it in, and then promptly forgot about my professor’s entropy pep talk for seven years.  At long last (I’m a slow muller), I’m beginning to see what my professor meant.  So much of my time is spent anxiously trying to avoid unnecessary surprises that I sometimes worry that my worrying will prematurely gnaw a hole in my stomach.  But for some reason, I’m finally realizing that there are too many variables that I can’t control, and that fretting about them actually might give me an ulcer someday.  Even now, I can see my professor’s tiny, unlit office, the tribal weaving hung up above the squishy velvet couch, the ceramic mug of tea that my professor was ignoring as she tilted her chair back towards the window, her cowboy boots dangling in the air as she watched me try to wrap my head around what that ream of paper on her desk meant to me.

So maybe I like to keep my surroundings tidy—because that’s something that I actually have control over.  But everything else?  I’ll let entropy take care of it.

Grandma,

I miss your laugh. It was as contagious as your smile. When you laughed, we all laughed.
That, was simple happiness.

I'll wear pink under my black clothing next Tuesday
because..
your life was meant to be celebrated with bursts of colour and not shadow figures.

I hope you like your new home. But not enough to forget about us.
We'll all miss you. You and your laughy self.

Santa's Week Before Christmas..

Politically Correct Santa

'Twas the night before Christmas and Santa's a wreck...

How to live in a world that's politically correct?
His workers no longer would answer to "Elves",
"Vertically Challenged" they were calling themselves.

And labor conditions at the north pole
Were alleged by the union to stifle the soul.
Four reindeer had vanished, without much propriety,
Released to the wilds by the Humane Society.

And equal employment had made it quite clear
That Santa had better not use just reindeer.
So Dancer and Donner, Comet and Cupid,
Were replaced with 4 pigs, and you know that looked stupid!

The runners had been removed from his sleigh;
The ruts were termed dangerous by the E.P.A.
And people had started to call for the cops
When they heard sled noises on their roof-tops.
Second-hand smoke from his pipe had his workers quite frightened.
His fur trimmed red suit was called "Unenlightened."

And to show you the strangeness of life's ebbs and flows,
Rudolf was suing over unauthorized use of his nose
And had gone on Geraldo, in front of the nation,
Demanding millions in over-due compensation.

So, half of the reindeer were gone; and his wife,
Who suddenly said she'd enough of this life,
Joined a self-help group, packed, and left in a whiz,
Demanding from now on her title was Ms.

And as for the gifts, why, he'd ne'er had a notion
That making a choice could cause so much commotion.
Nothing of leather, nothing of fur, Which meant nothing for him.
And nothing for her. Nothing that might be construed to pollute.
Nothing to aim. Nothing to shoot.
Nothing that clamored or made lots of noise.
Nothing for just girls. Or just for the boys.
Nothing that claimed to be gender specific.
Nothing that's warlike or non-pacific.
No candy or sweets...they were bad for the tooth.
Nothing that seemed to embellish a truth.

And fairy tales, while not yet forbidden,
Were like Ken and Barbie, better off hidden.
For they raised the hackles of those psychological
Who claimed the only good gift was one ecological.
No baseball, no football...someone could get hurt;
Besides, playing sports exposed kids to dirt.
Dolls were said to be sexist, and should be passe;
And Nintendo would rot your entire brain away.

So Santa just stood there, disheveled, perplexed;
He just could not figure out what to do next.
He tried to be merry, tried to be gay,
But you've got to be careful with that word today.
His sack was quite empty, limp to the ground;
Nothing fully acceptable was to be found.

Something special was needed, a gift that he might
Give to all without angering the left or the right.
A gift that would satisfy, with no indecision,
Each group of people, every religion;
Every ethnicity, every hue,
Everyone, everywhere...even you.

So here is that gift, it's price beyond worth...
"May you and your loved ones enjoy peace on earth."

what my yoga teacher said

the meaning of life is to find your gift. the purpose of life is to give it away.

What's your Secret?

Don't Save It All For Christmas Day

"Don't Save It All For Christmas Day"

Don't get so busy that you miss
Giving just a little kiss
To the ones you love
Don't even wait a little while
To give them a little smile
A little is enough

How many people are crying
People are dying...
How many people are asking for love

Don't save it all for Christmas Day
Find a way
To give a little love everyday
Don't save it all for Christmas Day
Find your way
Cause holidays have come and gone
But love lives on
If you give on
Love...

How could you wait another minute
A hug is warmer when you're in it
And Baby that's a fact
And saying "I love you's" always better
Seasons, reasons, they don't matter
So don't hold back
How many people in this world
So needful in this world
How many people are praying for love

Don't save it all for Christmas Day
Find a way
To give a little love everyday
Don't save it all for Christmas Day
Find your way
Cause holidays have come and gone
But love lives on
If you give on
Love...

Let all the children know
Everywhere that they go
Their whole life long
Let them know love

Don't save it all for Christmas Day
Find a way
To give a little love everyday
Don't save it all for Christmas Day
Find your way
Cause holidays have come and gone
But love lives on
If you give on
Love...
Love...

An ancillary to Wade's post...

http://sylviethecamera.smugmug.com

Deconstructing luck, fate and other happenings

You flip tails with a coin 7 times in a row. A bird pooped on you this morning. You feel like a perfect match for someone because of all these strange commonalities and coincidences. That's luck. When it's a series of fortunate happenings, you bask in its glory wondering what you ever did to deserve it. However when it's a downpour of missed trains, missed opportunities, lost connections, it's a giant black cloud that hovers over your shoulder.

The truth is that we're looking at it all wrong. We need to take a step back to see the bigger picture. It's our nature to seek patterns in our everyday happenings, trying to make sense of randomness. However, attributing strings of good or bad events to luck just gives luck too much credit. Take the three scenarios I started out with- they are all missing critical information to make a complete judgment. You need to know the full population of tries to determine if the result really beat the odds. Flipping tails 7 times in a row is a lucky occurrence if you only flipped a coin 10 times, but if you flipped it 100 times, the probability of 7 tails shoots up drastically. That bird poop is not quite the lucky occurrence if you walk outside frequently enough. And the perfect match feeling is just your fuzzy focus when you actually like someone. Most likely, if you recall that first date, he liked the Mets and you hated baseball, he liked barbeque and you preferred any other cuisine, he liked mindless comedies and you liked indie flicks. It took you several mis-matches to land on those few commonalities and coincidences. The bigger problem is our selective memories, and how skewed things get when you let a few moments define the way we think.

In our search for consistency, patterns, and fortunate happenings, we can't always trust our memories. I know that, and I'll apply it if I feel like I'm sinking into wishy washy concepts of luck and fate. Despite that, I still believe in perfect, serendipidous moments. It's the simple moments, stripped of grand gestures, that really let you catch a glimpse of who someone is and who they can be. (Just don't forget moments are only perfect because they are short.)

Inspiration- Radiolab's Stochasticity Podcast

Keep calm & carry on :)

"Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our worries" Charlie Chaplin


The Crystal Gazer

I shall gather myself into my self again
I shall take my scattered selves and make them one
I shall fuse them into a polished crystal ball
Where I can see the moon and the flashing sun
I shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent
Watching the future come and the present go
And the little shifting pictures of people rushing
In tiny self importance to and fro..

-Sara Teasdale

The Original Hipsters

Smiles!

Thoreau Knows

http://sylviethecamera.smugmug.com

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”

—	Henry David Thoreau

From NPR with love

Something inspiring from NPR.

Like a kid again

There’s something about jumping on hotel room beds that makes people smile from ear to ear. I’m not sure why we’re so inclined to take these jumping mid air photographs but I’ve definitely photographed my fair share of them.

For me, it’s not the act itself where you voluntarily launch your body into free-fall but the small moment we have with ourselves when we land. I have noticed this in several sets of photos. As we get ready for the jump, our bodies subconsciously prepare our bodies for a fall. The body switches into a “fight or flight response". The heart rate spikes, adrenaline kicks in, and your pupils even dilate. Your body is on alert in a sense even though your logical brain knows you’ll land onto a hopefully soft surface (assuming you’re coordinated enough to find the bed and not the floor).

For a tenth of a second in mid-flight, there is always that small doubt or fear that you might not land so gracefully. Your brain knows you’ll be safe but your body thinks otherwise. Your body prepares by tensing up and may even clench your eyes closed right before landing.

You jump anyway, taking this leap of faith knowing that you most likely will be met with a soft bed. The “thrill” of being in mid air and the free falling sensation stimulates parts of our brains but I think something more amazing happens when you land.

There is a small sense of euphoric high when your leap of faith is met as you land safely with all limbs in tact. In that same moment, you open your eyes, relax your body and for a brief moment there is that pure genuine smile only produced from kids on Christmas morning. Logic, skepticism and cynicism that crept into our adulthood mentality took a moment’s vacation. For that brief moment, we’re kids smiling all over again.

A little help

Fenway Park, Disability Awareness Day

A man with autism gets a little help singing our national anthem.

This one time I painted a living room with a girl.

This was a handful of years back. It was about eight months before the huge, flame-out of a breakup. That day, though? That day we painted the living room? It was pretty uneventful. We painted my parents living room for $50 between us and a pizza. That was it. I think we watched Anchorman or something after that.

But it still holds as on of the most indelible memories I have. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not still in love, it happened, it was good, it ended, and we’ve both moved on. But I’ll never forget that day. Because it’s never, in the long run, about the grand gestures. You can fly across the world and show up on her doorstep with a rose in your teeth and a ring in a little velvet box but I can guarantee you that - more often than not - she’s going to remember the time you built the birdhouse in the back yard, or what have you, a whole lot more.

Life wasn’t meant to be taken in large movements. The next day will inevitably arrive, you’ll sleep, and the moment will have passed. But when you have a hundred thousand small moments, you can step back and appreciate the picture a lot more than metaphorically blowing your load on some grand moment that, in all honesty, look, you’re not Bruce Fucking Springsteen, you’re not going to be able to blow everyone’s mind every single night. You’re not Romeo and/or Juliet. There’s no reason to drink the poison together in some flame-out gesture. So that leaves us with the small stuff. It’s all about the detail.

That’s what love is. Attention to detail.

And the moment will end. And then things will get boring. And it might get a little quiet. And it might all end horribly. And you might hate each other at the end. And you might walk away from each other one day and never speak again. But that’s just how it goes.

But she’ll remember the time you held the door open for her on your first date.
She’ll remember the time you laughed at her impression of the landlady.
She’ll remember the time you stayed up all night that first time.
She’ll remember the small things a lot longer than the big ones.

But everything ends. And I’ll tell you why you have to make the small things, the small moments count so much more:

One day, probably a while longer from now, when old age takes ahold of someone, she might just only remember your smile. Everything you ever did together, every second, every moment, every beat, every morning spent in bed, every evening spent together on the sofa, all of that - gone. Everything you ever did will be reduced to the head of a pin. She won’t remember your name. She’ll just remember your smile, and she’ll smile. She won’t know why. It’s a base, gut reaction. But she’ll smile, uncontrollably, and it will come from somewhere so deep as to know that you touched her on a primal, honest, and true level that no scientist, scholar, or savant could ever begin to explain. There is no more. There is nothing else. There is just this: She’ll remember your smile, and she’ll smile.

And you know what? That’s all that really matters in the end.




Ned Hepburn

A million reasons to believe

With the holidays approaching so quickly it is easy to become overwhelmed. We live in a culture where things are always rushed, where we are constantly running to get ahead and trying to complete our never ending, self-imposed to-do list. We are always striving to become better, to do more, and most of all to be happy. During this time of the year it always seems as if this feeling of stress is heightened. Between the mandatory deadlines, the expectations we set on our selves and the ones others put on us, we are lucky if we even get a chance to enjoy the magic of the season.

This weekend as I watched my house and the rest of my neighborhood slowly light up I got to thinking about the power of believing. Every year around this time people begin putting up their trees, decorating their houses, and getting ready for the holidays. It takes a lot of work and preparation and for many people precious time that they do not have. I got to thinking how each household has their own reasons for why they are so busy, and problems they are dealing with, and it really warmed my heart to see that despite all this, so many people did their share to contribute to the festivities. It made me realize why it is so important to take time to believe and feed into this magic. Every time we let go and do something to celebrate the season, we are helping lighten up the load (and the town) not just for ourselves, but also for everybody else.

The holidays are a time to be enjoyed. It is an opportunity to be free-spirited, to let go of our cares, and to tune into our inner child-- you know, the kid who used to stay up at night writing letters to Santa, who got excited to listen for his footsteps, and who couldn’t sleep the night before Christmas because morning just couldn’t come fast enough. With only a couple weeks until the new year, I think this is a perfect time for each one of us to check in and try to let go of our worries, frustrations, and the expectations we set on ourselves and others, and instead focus on what really matters- things that makes us happy and peaceful. For me, that is spending time with my friends and family, being around nature, cooking, making art, watching movies, listening to music, and just finding opportunities to be silly. If we are each able to do what makes us feel happiest and most peaceful, then we will inspire others and contribute to the overall feeling of happiness for those around us. And just like that, that feeling will circulate and make it back into our own lives, creating an atmosphere of peace. Just like how each light bulb contributes to the overall glow of the tree, I really believe that each time we light up and shine, we contribute to the overall joy and magic of the season.

Magic on 35th Street

Last Saturday, I took a photo day. I walked around Herald Square with camera in hand, and pushed through a crowd about ten deep to get close enough to the Macy's Christmas window to snap a photo. None of the department stores capture Christmas anymore. The once traditional ornately decorated windows are pseudo modern, with galaxies flashing on flatscreens in the background, and fairies and bubbles flying around. Mobs of crazed shoppers potentially carry pepper spray, and snow hasn't appeared since that fluke storm in October. I wanted to capture a little kid entranced by the decorated windows, but unsurprisingly, all I saw were looks of confusion. These are strange days.

Tired of the hustle and bustle of the area, I slid onto a side street into Korea town. Neon signs flash karaoke and barbeque- the only things you'd assume Korean people do if you were a tourist. I walked for a couple of blocks, and found myself suddenly hungry. After passing what felt like twenty BBQ places, I stopped at an unlikely pizza shop in the middle of 35th street. I order a slice and make my way to the back. I sense several pairs of eyes from the center tables follow me to the side booth. And then one of them says "You shouldn't eat alone- there's plenty of room at this table." I'm thinking about how much I do hate eating alone, but my plan was to pretend to check my i-phone and glance every so often at the guys at the table who had a pile of poker chips and playing cards fanned out in their hands. "It's ok, I don't want to interrupt your game." He smiles gently and says "It's hardly a bother."

In an ideal world, he would be 6'1", with a kind smile, piercing eyes, and we'd hit it off right away in one of those serendipidous stories. In reality, Stan was a kind 65 year old grey haired grandpa, wearing glasses and rocking a grey Mr. Rogers sweater. His friends were just as eccentric- Jerry, with curly, unstyled and unruly hair, wearing a blue t-shirt with "Beer pressure" plastered in white print; and Herb, in a long sleeved white tee commemorating the annual grapefruit festival in some small town, with cartoon grapefruits with smiley faces printed on it. There were a few others but I didn't even have to look all the way around the table to know that this would be an interesting conversation. "So do you play poker here often?" I asked Stan. He looked at me and said, "This isn't poker. That's illegal. This is magic." Weird. "And the poker chips?" "It's for show. It freaks people out," he says. I look around the table. If they were playing poker, they were playing with five decks.

It's amazing how I found this not so secret magic club in the middle of a pizzeria in the midst of this crazy city.

My pizza came with entertainment. Jerry found my card no matter where I hid it in the deck. He found my favorite card- Ace of spades- which was the first card he flipped over after pulling one card out for each letter in my name. And he kept tying a knot in my scarf that would with a slight tug come undone as if it was never there. Then, Stan took out an air pump and blew up a balloon, which Jerry transformed into some animal and gave it to me. I must have looked confused. "You have to tell her what it is," Stan said, as if it was too obvious that I had reached an age where my imagination became stagnant. It turned out to be a bunny, and I nodded as if I knew all along. This was the most bizarre pizza experience ever. I even learned my first sleight of hand: the coin tuck, aka, the disappearing coin trick. As I clumsily flicked the coin from my ring finger, and tried to clutch it between my thumb and forefinger (hardly hiding it since my fingers were so thin), it looked pitiful and uneasy. I realized that magic was really an elaborate acting session. By the time the magician passes the coin to the other hand, it's already tucked away in his original hand. I practiced clumsily and jokingly said "maybe I can fool a little kid." The guy across from me laughed, and corrected me. "Little kids are the hardest to fool."

An hour later, they invited me to Sarges, their next stop every Saturday, where they would continue to share magic secrets while chomping on pastrami sandwiches, but I had some more photos to take before the sun went down. I thanked them for the entertainment. Not only did I get a balloon bunny, I learned a magic trick, and most important of all, I re-learned how to be a little kid again. I thought about the last line- little kids are the hardest to fool. That's because they're inquisitive, and when they want to know something, they won't hesitate to pry and stare closely at your every move to figure out how the trick is done. Adults on the other hand, having seen magic tricks before, anticipate the outcome, and question less. I wonder how often my perception doesn't match up to reality due to these rationalizations. It just goes to show you that we should all aspire to be little kids or magicians. Magic keeps you young.

Unofficial Magic Club
35th between 5th and 6th ave- Cafe Rustico every Saturday Afternoon
38th and 3rd Ave- Sarges- every Saturday 5-9pm
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/24/nyregion/a-magic-zone-in-midtown-manhattan.html

Will You Do Me a Kindness?

During Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone's impromptu date in "Crazy, Stupid Love," the film cuts to the characters sprawled across a massive bed covered in what must be 1000 count sheets.  Their complete ease with one another is highlighted with a series of charming moments where they share informercial obsessions and Lauren Bacall impersonations, but the moment that stayed with me was when Ryan Gosling very simply asks "Will you do me a kindness?  Will you ask something personal about myself?"

What struck me about my reaction to that clip was that I wasn't experiencing envy that Emma Stone was the lucky recipient of those questions--what struck me was that I was actually jealous of Ryan Gosling's character:  that for all his supposed worldliness, he had the honesty to not only admit his own vulnerabilities but also to address them by understanding what he needed emotionally to even be able to ask Emma Stone to listen to--and thus assuage--them.

As a girl who was raised in the generation that valiantly tried to break the traditional male/female stereotypes, I was taught by family, teachers, and peers that we could be just as tough as boys.  Maybe I took these social cues a little too close to heart and overcompensated, or maybe I was already reticent by nature but I somehow wound up more comfortable keeping my emotions at bay--especially if those emotions stand the slightest chance of making me (gasp) vulnerable.  To be brutally honest, I tend not to admit to any type of pain unless it's along the lines of breaking my foot walking down the stairs or mysteriously losing all mobility in my arm after having a cup of tea.  What else would you expect from someone who was raised on overachieving female heroines who pretended to be boy knights and saved kingdoms (Tamora Pierce), or who were gifted with powers to slay the most rank and vile dragons (Robin McKinley)?  Even now we're bombarded by women who have more bravado and intelligence than their male friends (Jillian from Workaholics) or lovers (Lana Kane from Archer).  Since the media kept bombarding me with images of strong females who don't let their emotions rule their actions, I never saw any reason why I should do otherwise.  (Yes, I'm rather susceptible to the media.)

But then I finished Claire Bidwell Smith's dazzling new memoir, THE RULES OF INHERITANCE, which Hudson Street Press is publishing in February.  Now, because I have a habit of running away from emotions I usually also avoid sad memoirs, especially if they drag me through something so intensely personal as someone's worst days, as Smith so bravely does.  But even a young Smith--thrown for a loop when both her parents are diagnosed with cancer when she is 14, heartbroken after her mother passes away when Smith is 18, and emotionally shattered once her father also passes away when she is 25--is capable of emotional depths that Dickens would appreciate.  She doesn't spare us any of the gritty, painful moments that lead her to where she is now, nor does she sugarcoat her life after she finds an inner peace.    

What Smith so gently, but oh so adroitly showed my reluctant self is that instead of continuously trying to make myself tougher, maybe what I should be working on is listening to myself to unearth just what it is that I really need, even though it would also mean confronting that raw squirmy mess of emotions that I've squashed away.  Wouldn't it be better to see what makes me vulnerable, and learn not to be ashamed of it, but to accept it as part of who I am?

So many people now (okay, myself included) are driven to find a work-life balance.  But while my pursuit of "life" has been focused on more movie nights with my friends, actually going to see that museum exhibit, or jumping on all the leaves scattered on the sidewalks during my walk to the train, I've never considered listening long enough to be able to figure out what that inner voice has been saying all along.  Who knows what that'll bring?  And maybe then I can stop being jealous of Ryan Gosling, and move on to being jealous of Emma Stone the way the rest of the world is.  

young at heart

I walked down an obscure brick-paved road in Manhattan one sunny Sunday afternoon. (I know, obscure roads and Manhattan practically never share a sentence together.) I was admiring the beauty of the afternoon sunlight, reflecting off a delicate glass high-rise and hitting the worn down brick-paved road at just the right angles to illuminate the ground. The autumn air bit my cheeks as I walked down the starry lane towards the river. This was my version of the Yellow Brick Road, sans the scarecrow, lion, and tinman. As I strolled along, half staring at the dazzling water and half looking at an artfully designed wall with paint splatters, something caught my eye through the hedges hovering over me. 24 Pez dispensers of different colors and characters lined up neatly on top of a white frame of the doorway to a 2 level brick house. It looked like the doorway to a grown-up playhouse. A symbol of youth. A welcoming gesture to leave your worries at the door because ‘worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble-gum’ (thanks Baz). Written on the façade of this beautifully kept New York City house was the message that you are never too old to be young.

My guilty pleasure? Losing myself to my once upon a time 10 year-old self.

Each morning, I ride the train with crowds of suits reading the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal on their iPads while I hide my eyes behind fictional books about shopaholics, hunger games, werewolves and young lovers. For those precious 45 minutes before my eyes are set on spreadsheets and numbers, my mind is lifted from the speeding train and gently placed in a land far away where magic exists and imagination breaks new boundaries.

Occasionally after a long day, I catch myself whispering secrets to my stuffed animals (friends, if I may), waiting patiently on my pillows. I tuck my friends into bed before I leave for work and hug them close when I fall asleep at night. My habits more accurately resemble a 5 year-old child rather than someone in her late twenties, but hey, age is relative and a friend is a friend is a friend. There’s something about having an invisible confidant. The familiar faces by my bedside. Calvin and Hobbes. The idea of having that rock, that solid foundation in my life when everything else is changing too fast for me to breathe, keeps me utterly sane.

Thank you, 10 year-old self.