Shift.

I have been to New York City about a million times in my life. Okay, maybe not a million, but definitely quite a few. When I was little I used to go there with my mom for weekend trips regularly. Needless to say, I got to know Chinatown pretty well. As I got older, I was able to convince her to go to Manhattan on a couple of occasions, but the trips got more infrequent until at some point they just stopped. These days I've reduced my visits to a handful of times a year despite having more than a few friends living there. Pretty much every time I go though, I think to myself, why don't I live here?? And every time, I had a reason: I'm settled in Boston, I'm too scared to start somewhere else, my career and my connections are in Boston. I even thought that having a hairstylist that I liked in Boston was a good enough reason to stay!

However, when I went to New York this weekend with my friend Erika, I had a bit of a transformative experience. Looking back, I'm not entirely sure when it happened, but somewhere between Friday Night Live, the live demonstration of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy at the Albert Ellis Institute and being out in the Village until 5am meeting a bunch of random new people, I had a realization: I am doing okay. Yes, I realize it's not incredibly profound, but it means something. It means that for the first time in many, many, many years, perhaps even my entire lifetime, that I have felt like I am in a good place. Sure I am busting my ass and working a million hours a day, but it feels like I am getting somewhere, like I am working towards a goal and feeling pretty good about it. And yes, the dating process is a complete pain in the ass, but suddenly for some reason, I don't know that I care anymore. I'm not completely in denial. I can recognize that I'd like a relationship at some point, but I think I may have stopped obsessing about boys (for the time being.) What it comes down to though is that I have wonderful friends and a career that I like. I have fun when I'm not working, and I have two amazingly sweet and funny pups that still manage to love me unconditionally even though I don't take them for long enough walks. I live in a great city in an amazing location with a fantastic roommate and I'm in a good place financially. And if there is one thing that I have figured out in the last year and a half, it's that I'm a strong and capable and resilient person who has been through some really shitty stuff, but has managed to make it through somehow. For those of you out there who know me, I'm guessing you think that I have totally lost my mind. And for those of you who don't, I imagine you're thinking I sound awfully obnoxious right now, but believe me, it's taken me a hell of a long time to get here and I'm still not %100 sure about it all.

So basically the long-winded version of what I'm saying is that my reasons for staying in Boston now feel completely invalid but I now know I wasn't ready back then. Maybe it was fear, maybe it was a feeling of being stuck, but whatever it was, I think a shift may be in the process of occurring. Perhaps my time is done in Boston and I'm ready to move on. If I stay or go is yet to be seen (and largely dependent on whether or not I find a job out there) but I'm officially open to whatever comes my way...

Me and Erika at the beginning of the night at the Brooklyneer:


Me and our new friends at the end of the night at a random but delicious falafel stand:
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Swanking It Up

I have recently lost the inability to sleep. I'm not exactly sure why but I think the fact that I have been totally overloading myself with work has definitely contributed to it. It's not like I am laying there with my mind racing, it's somewhere a little closer to feeling like I can't breathe. Okay, maybe I am confusing that with my cold, but it's what I'm feeling right now, at 7:15 am on a Monday. Being up this early on a Monday is not abnormal for me, it's just that today is supposed to be a holiday, when I'm supposed to be relaxing and not thinking about work.

You know, I've never been like this before. I've never been someone who hasn't been able to leave my work at work, but apparently now, I'm someone who is worrying about how to get everything done in the time that I have to do it. Does that even make sense? I don't know anymore. What I do know is that part of my job is to push "self care" down my clients' throats, mostly because they forget to do it, or have so much going on in their crazy lives that they don't have time.

Unfortunately, I haven't exactly been practicing what I preach.

So in an effort to start, I bought a month long package (off of RueLaLa--awesome!!) at this amazing gym/spa by my apartment. And for the first time in about 6 months, I finally went back to working out. Disgusting, I know. Trust me I've felt pretty gross myself. But I'm turning things around, getting back to me, and I'm doing it here:




Pretty fancy right? I know, I am excited-- just in time for Mexico, 25 days and counting!

Dating Rocks!

I have been on an awful lot of dates lately, mostly boring, but some crazy. My friend Erika and I also found this fantastic movie making website. Put the two together and what do you have? An awesome movie of one of my crazy dates. Enjoy!

On Being Sick...and Soup.

So far 2011 can be summed up in a few short words: work, bad dates, work, mediocre dates, work and oh, a little more work. No need to take pity on me though, I have definitely brought it all upon myself-- partially because I like to keep busy for a variety of reasons and partially because I have been feeling the need to "put myself out there." Not exactly sure why, but as the new year rolled around I thought to myself, I need to meet more people. And so I did. I met so many people and went on so many dates that I am now officially burnt out.

I realized it on Valentine's Day when I started to get that tickle in the back of my throat. It was coming and I didn't know how to stop it. You guessed it, a cold, a full on head cold of mammoth proportions, one that started on Valentine's Day and has not let up since. The significance of Valentine's Day is really non-existant, aside from the fact that it is a day that represents love and the one person I have been forgetting to love this year is myself. A bit ironic isn't it? Since last year was the "Year of Joy?" Apparently, this year has started off being the year of everything/everyone but Joy. So I'm starting over. I'm abandoning on-line dating and I'm going to try to get back to myself. Starting with... feeling better. I am making myself this soup tomorrow and it is going to be yummy.

Avgolemono
adapted from a recipe by Cat Cora
1 (3 pound) free range chicken
2 quarts water
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely diced
2 bay leaves
1 leek, cleaned and quartered
1 carrot, peeled and quartered
2/3 cup aborio rice
3 large eggs
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper

Directions
Place the chicken in a large pot with 2 quarts cold water, enough to cover the chicken. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to low, skimming when necessary.

In a separate pan, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil and add the onions. Sweat the onions until clear. Set aside.

When chicken is cooked through, remove from the broth. Let the chicken cool and pull the meat from the bones. Dice into large cubes. Set aside.

Add the onion, bay leaves, leek, and carrot to the broth and simmer for 1 hour. When finished, remove the carrot and leek from the broth and add the rice. Bring to a boil and then turn heat to medium high to simmer until the rice is cooked to al dente, about 30 minutes. Add the chicken back into the broth. Add more water if needed.

In a small bowl beat the eggs and lemon juice together. Pour 2 cups of broth slowly into the bowl of egg and lemon, whisking continuously. Once all the broth is incorporated, add the mixture into the pot of chicken soup and stir to blend well throughout. Season with salt and pepper. Serve hot.

This image was stolen from someone else's blog. I chose it because it looks very similar to my soup and I used the same pot (except mine was blue)