“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.”
-Lin Yutang
Laundry, Wine…and a Little Family Bonding
Last night, I forwent drinks with my friend after work and begrudgingly dragged myself to the laundromat. It was a chilly Thursday evening and I was happy that the weatherman was once again wrong; I hadn’t been looking forward to walking home in the rain with my clean clothes. Once there, I got myself (my laundry that is) situated and went towards the back to chat with my friend R (the owner).
We have this joke that laundry is like a therapy session. We do a lot of girl-talk and just venting in general. The only interruptions are when real customers (I don’t count) come to either pick up or drop off their laundry. Last night, we were in rare form. We were a group of four; R broke out a bottle of wine and locked the front door. So, in the midst of folding laundry and our therapy session, we had wine. I highly recommend having wine while doing laundry by the way, totally makes it tolerable. I ended up staying there much later than I had anticipated, but I no longer cared what time I got home.
On my way home, I received a phone call from my father. He was on his way to drop something off at my apartment and asked if I was home. I told him I would be home shortly. Now, I am very anal with my clothes when I wash them. More than half of my wardrobe does not get dried in the dryer, but rather hung on a rack. Since my father was coming over, I wasn’t about to hang all of my underwear for him to see. My poor clothes had to suffer; but I could put freshly cleaned sheets on my bed.
As I was in the middle of making my bed, I heard my father’s knock at the door. After I let him in, I continued to put the finishing touches on my bed (consisting of a lot of pillows) while we chatted. This, of course led to my father throwing a pillow at me to “help” my process. After I was done, we chatted a little more and when I thought my father was about to leave (he never usually stays that long) he asked if our cousin was working that night. I said yes he was and we ended up heading out.
To explain, our cousins own a pub in my neighborhood. I never hang out in my neighborhood, so I rarely ever set foot in there and my cousin who works there always nags me about not visiting him. I figured he’d be pleased that I was finally coming. When we got there, his younger brother (another cousin) was behind the bar. So, my father and I grabbed seats at the bar and ordered drinks. It figures that the one time I would actually show up, he wouldn’t be there.
When we decided that we were going to leave, a friendly patron decided to buy us our next round, so of course we were obliged to stay for another.
By the time I walked through my door I was definitely more than tipsy and I still had to hang my clothes to dry. Needless to say, I did not get to bed early like I had planned and I broke my no drinking until this weekend rule for this week. But…it was totally worth it. Girl bonding and father/daughter time all in the same night…priceless.
“Colors, textures and the way we reveal our body shape can enhance, reflect and effect our every mood, emotion and thought. Fashion has the power to fuel our souls and create a specific audience of energy in our lives. Welcome to my psychology of style, this is wearapy.”
-Jeannie Mai
Knitting…A Thing of the Past or an Idea for the Future?
When I was younger, I had my fair share of wardrobe mishaps. I’ve walked out of the house in the winter with a pony-tail, no hat, scarf or gloves and…I’m ashamed to say, espadrilles. I remember one particular day where I went sledding in clogs (remember them?). In my defense, the decision to go sledding was last minute. My friends and I had been a little bored and the idea just popped into our heads. Mistake. After trudging ankle-deep through the snow for a couple of rounds down the hill, I ended up sitting in the car with my then boyfriend, while he tried to help warm up my feet. They were numb. Oh, and if you hadn’t already guessed, my socks (I know, socks with clogs…) were soaking wet. I don’t recall the rest of the events that transpired that day, but I had learned my lesson…at least for sledding that is. Aside from that time, I think my problem was that I didn’t really feel the cold, or rather, it didn’t bother me. That case isn’t true anymore. Once I discovered the warmth of the proper winter attire, I never looked back.
After a very unfortunate incident where I lost my favorite hat last winter (I stepped out of the car and it blew away), I am on the quest for a new one. Not sure when I will actually find it, but I am looking. What I am really looking for right now, is a new scarf.
I have a lot of scarves, but none of them are what I want and when I find what I think I want in a store, I feel like there’s always something wrong with it… I have decided that perhaps I should learn to knit so I can make myself the perfect scarf, since that really is what I am after anyway. As a child, I tried to learn how to crochet. Sadly, I couldn’t make a stitch. I have heard that knitting is easier than crocheting, two needles instead of one…but, I fear that with my lack of crocheting skills, I will also possess a lack for knitting. I brought this idea up to my mother earlier today while we were gchatting. She laughed at me and made a joke about how it was really domesticative of me. I decided then and there. No knitting for me…maybe.
Mental Note to Self…I Shall not Turn on the Style Channel Before Bed!
Earlier this year I was flipping through channels, wondering why I pay so much for cable when, more often than not, there isn’t anything good on. Gone are the days of dramas and sitcoms where, week after week, perfectly penned episodes were aired and enjoyed by all. Now-a-days, these have been replaced (sadly) by reality television.
I am not a huge fan of reality television, although I have to admit that I was addicted to the first season of Jersey Shore…I mean, who wasn’t. I would come home late at night and there wouldn’t be anything else to watch and let’s face it, once you watched one episode, you were completely hooked. Thankfully, my addiction only lasted for the first season and I have yet to turn on the proceeding ones…though, I can hear about them practically everywhere.
I have never been into Survivor or Dancing with the Stars, or any of the likes for that matter. Then one day, it all changed. I flipped on the style channel. Now, I don’t remember if I had turned it on to watch my fix of Sex and the City reruns or not, though, that is why it was on last night, but I came across this show called How Do I Look…and my opinion of reality television changed forever (at least, for this show that is).
The premise of this show revolves around one new person every week who has a terrible sense of fashion. Last night’s episode consisted of someone who is living in the ’80s…big hair, spandex, red lips…need I say more! So, the host, Jeannie Mai, along with a panel of three people, two of which are somehow connected to the fashion offender and one who is not, perform a much needed make-over. Each person of the panel is responsible for picking out a collection that the offender has to try on and model in front of a mirror…and later choose between. At the end of each episode they have an unveiling in which the former offender comes out in an outfit from one of the collections and just looks fabulous.
Last night, as I watched the time drone away, I turned off the show after the modeling of the collections and before the end result. I actually do this often. To me, the end result isn’t as entertaining as the process of purging the old and modeling the new. This show is highly addictive and at the same time intelligent. If you have not already done so, I suggest flipping on the style channel and watching How Do I Look. If you love fashion as much as I do, you will not be disappointed.
Couture in the Summer
This summer, my sister, A, came to New York. For the past I don’t know how many years, she has been living in San Francisco and we would see each other maybe twice a year, if we were lucky. Naturally we jumped at the chance to see each other for the whole three months and decided to sublet together. So, I said goodbye to my studio in Queens and we said hello to our two bedroom in the East Village.
First, I’d like to say that the East Village isn’t exactly my style, it’s definitely more A’s. I feel like, if I were to live anywhere in the city, it would be the Upper East Side. I prefer the quieter, prettier, more sophisticated neighborhoods (albeit sometimes stiff) to the trendy ones. Don’t get me wrong, I love to hang out in the trendy ones, the Meat Packing District is by far my favorite area to haunt in Manhattan, but I wouldn’t want to live there. As we settled into our new routines, which consisted for my of an extra hour of sleep in the morning and a far shorter commute to work, I quickly began to see why people lived in the city.
On my way home from work one day, I walked down a different street and came across the most amazing Roberto Cavalli dress in the window of a consignment shop. Now, I had heard a lot about these consignment shops, but I had no idea that I was living near one (or, as I would later find out, many). I decided to pop in and see if I could try the dress on, but the door was locked, so I stared at the dress longingly and made a mental note to come back.
The next day, I walked the same way back to my apartment. I slowed down my pace as I got closer to the consignment shop, held my breath and looked up at the window. The dress was still there. I sighed in relief and walked into the shop. The owner was really nice, and after a bit of conversation, he took the dress down for me and I gleefully walked into the dressing room. I slipped out of my work clothes, into the beautiful dress and stared at myself in the mirror. I ignored the lack of make-up and glamorous hair, and fell for the dress immediately. I never wanted to take it off. I was in the dressing room for so long that the owner had to ask me if I was ok; it was the dead of summer after all. I bought the dress of course.
I walked out of the store carefully holding the bag that carried my new favorite dress. I now owned this amazing dress for a fraction of what it would have cost me had I bought it in the store. I ended up going back to that consignment shop three more times, purchasing an Armani bag and two more dresses, one Chanel and the other Emanuel Ungaro.
My credit card may have taken a big hit this summer, but with my new couture pieces, my wardrobe has never looked better.
“I did try very hard to tell the whole truth without violating my literary instincts. One can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a window pane.”
-George Orwell
Wine-less Wine Class
Over the weekend my friend, we’ll call her Z, and I attended a wine class. We had signed up for it over a month ago and had really been looking forward to it; what better way to spend a brisk November afternoon then to learn about wine with one of your closest girlfriends and be warmed by it. We had thoughts of coming out of the class slightly tipsy and then of continuing out festivities into the evening. We would be onto our nightcap while everyone else was just starting their night. Little did we know however, that things were not going to go exactly as planned.
As I hauled my ass into Manhattan from Queens my friend impatiently tried to hail a cab from the east side. Despite the fact that I got into Penn Station about thirty minutes before the class was going to start and it was only a few blocks away, I took a shopping detour and then had to rush down through claustrophobic sidewalks to get there. Z and I try to make it to places early but we always end up comedically rushing to get anywhere on time.
We got to the class about five minutes late but luckily, there was only a handful of people there and a long list, so the instructor informed us that it would be another fifteen minutes before the class started. We found a spot away from the rest of the people and after playing musical chairs to get the ones that were the least uncomfortable, we hunkered down with lowered voices to get a little girl talk in. The only thing that was missing of course was the wine.
About twenty minutes later, after more people had shown up, the instructor came up to the front of the room and said that he was going to begin. The first thing that he told us was that there wasn’t going to be any tastings. I think all of us probably looked at him in shock. What did he mean no tastings? Was he serious? he went on to clarify that although we were going to be discussing wine and learning the basics, we would not in fact be drinking any. He should have put that in his course description, because I doubt that that many people would have signed up for a Saturday afternoon class with the knowledge that there wasn’t going to be any wine. I mean, how can you actually learn about wine without tasting it. Z and I looked at each other, each giving the other the let’s-get-out-of-here eyes, we even turned and spoke to a few of our neighbors and asked if they knew that there was not going to be any wine, and they were just as shocked.
During the beginning, Z and I kept looking at each other, wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. We were sort of half paying attention and then we got into it. It turned out that it wasn’t so bad. It would have been nice to actually taste wine too and we weren’t going to pretend to understand why there wasn’t any when the class had, after all, not been free, but we ended up having a decent time.
More than half of what he had been saying, I realized that I knew…an old friend of mine from high school and junior high is an assistant sommelier now, so, he must have taught me more than I thought. I know that I’m going to sound a bit pretentious when I say this (my uncle’s words, by the way, which I had to laugh at), but I liked the class more, knowing that I knew most of what he was saying. It’s silly I know, but true.
After the class, Z and I were both starving, so we set out to find something to eat, and wine. We had walked halfway across town when we decided to walk back towards the direction where we had just come from and go to this cute little irish Pub right near Penn Station. It’s the spot that I used to go to with my aunt for burgers and wine. They have delicious burgers and fries there, and I believe that if a place does not have good fries, then you just simply cannot have burgers there.
Before we even decided upon the food, we b-lined it for the wine list. Since we hadn’t actually tasted any wine, it was only fair that we test out out new found obnoxious wine skills on these unsuspecting victims. Z picked out an ’06 Bordeaux and, because it was French wine, I was satisfied with the choice. We told the waitress about our now infamous wine class and she didn’t mind our obnoxious behavior at all. Needless to say, the Bordeaux turned out to be fabulous. I love a good Bordeaux. Actually, I love French wine in general. Oh, and the food was really good too. By a quarter after seven, we were out of that restaurant and onto our nightcap.
What we learned fromm all of this? Just because you sign up for a wine class, don’t expect there to definitely be wine. Also, Z and I can pick out an awesome bottle.
How Do You Know?
There’s an old line of advice that people give out when others find themselves with a broken heart; love will come to you when you stop looking for it. I, the hopeless romantic that I am took that literally for a long time. What I didn’t realize was that that statement doesn’t just apply to love, it applies to life. Things always happen when you least expect them, whether it is meeting a new friend, finding the perfect job or discovering your new favorite song. Life happens while you’re living it, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t question things.
How do you know when it’s okay to let down your guard and trust someone? What has to happen? I believe that there’s always a moment when the line gets crossed and if you can’t think of that moment, then it hasn’t happened yet. It’s not easy to let someone new in, but if you have the courage to do so, it can be inspiring. I was recently inspired by someone in ways that I had long forgotten and it is nice to be able to feel that way again. Everyone who comes into our lives has a purpose, whether it be minute or profound. Everyone is there for some reason to help you discover something new about yourself…or something old.
My issues with trust stem deep. In the past I’ve tried to pretend that they didn’t exist, but that’s the thing with trust issues…they always resurface. I’ve learned to accept the fact that they are there and the causes of them, and deal with them instead of pushing them away. This way, they breathe instead of fester.
“I have more than once observed that, in my second character, my faculties seemed sharpened to a point and my spirits more tensely elastic; thus it came about that, where Jekyll perhaps might have succumbed, Hyde rose to the importance of the moment.”
-Robert Lewis Stevenson
Jekyll & Hyde
elizabethsara 