I am a Southerner in the City, an aging debutante, a small town girl cursed with big city aspirations. My grandfather says that I’m at the cusp of feminine failure—I’m as old as a bottle of prime Tennessee whiskey (aged 25 years) and still single. I need to “get on home” and find a nice Southern boy—a doctor, maybe an insurance salesman. At this, I dig in my heels and set out to date every inappropriate man in Manhattan…
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
The New Power Lunch
The Big Apple can be brutal for a working belle with an appetite.There’s no time for a hot meal and the hotdog cart on Broadway and Canal is notcalling my name. What to do?
Five years in New York City and I’ve finally learned the art of portable lunches packed with protein. Think golden roasted chicken tucked into a sliced baguette, a sliver of basil & mint frittata… Don’t think you can do it ? Check out “The New Power Lunch!”
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Difficult Easy Joy
I want to be the 2 year-old at the birthday party (like my niece, pictured left). That time when not enough chocolate icing warrants a tantrum and joy comes easy. Life is a simplified, play date version of itself.Now? Work. Work. Work. The personal, the professional, the mundane require near superhuman efforts just to receive a passing grade. I remember how I longed for a difficult, city, adult life for so long. Well, I got it. In spades. Now, I want to go back and I can’t—none of us can. Mom sold my Archie Comics and Dad sold my childhood home by the bay. Press forward…
This morning, just as I start to feel unjustifiably melancholy about my too adult life, I read the best little New York Times “Modern Love” piece that’s ever rolled off the presses. ( “A Signal in the Sky Said: Marry Her” )
Ben Karlin, the author, love seeker and serial monogamist, talks about work in the context of love but his musings apply to everything in my life and yours.
“Moments of pure beauty, I realized, are not handed out like a free newspaper as you dash into the subway. You have to make them. Work for them. Sometimes, it’s a huge pain and you don’t know how or when they are going to happen. But it is flat-out wrong to expect them.”
Maybe I’m not crazy—or a complete Type A New Yorker—for working so hard for everything in my life, I think. Karlin continues.
“…life…had to be cultivated, curated, fussed over. Then came the bliss, in arrhythmic spasms.”
Ben Karlin, if you weren’t married to your gorgeous Italian, Paola, I might make you mine. Until then, keep writing and giving me hope.
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