I don’t remember when it was that I became so fascinated with quotes, but, I know that I have had this fascination for a while. I believe that quotes are underrated and should be appreciated more; a good quote can do a lot for a person. I know that for me, if something makes me smile, I want to quote it…and so I do. I have a mini notebook in a desk drawer at work, where I store all of my precious quotations. If I’m not at work, than I type them into my phone and add them in the next time I am. I wasn’t always this organized. I remember when I was an adolescent, I used to write many a quote on the backs of notebooks and I’m sure that I have lost a bunch over the years, but the point is that I am organized now!

As I sat down this afternoon with a post-gym cup of tea, I noticed that there was a quote on the tea bag. At one point I used to collect tea bag quotes…until they began becoming repetitive, then I gave up, so I had forgotten that they existed. The quote simple says, “The beauty of life is to experience yourself.” When I originally read that, it made me stop and think about it. It doesn’t say that the beauty is to experience new things, it says “yourself,” and I think that that is something that a lot of people forget. Life is about you and at the end of the day if a situation doesn’t work for you, you need to change it, because it won’t change itself. This reminds me of what Samantha said in the first SATC movie, when she found herself in a relationship that wasn’t working for her, she ended it with these words, “I love you but I love me more. I’ve been in a relationship with myself for forty-nine years and that’s the one I need to work on.” It sort of goes with my tea bag quote. It’s hard to admit, but I feel like it is something that most people don’t do; most people don’t live for themselves.

Recently, I have been obsessed with a quote from Kazuro Ishiguro’s novel The Unconsoled. “That’s it, that’s it! All the way, take it all the way! Hold back nothing!” If you had no knowledge of the context of it whatsoever, you could still understand it. This sort of ties into the two quotes above as well. It is also saying to transport yourself forward; to stay on that path no matter what, though, the definition of what that “path” is can be ambiguous. If the exclamation points are too much for you, you can ignore them, but I like them; I feel that they add to the power of what the quote is trying to say.

There is so much more that can be read into these quotes above, I was just skimming the surface to show how great they truly are (these particular quotes and quotes in general). And, if you didn’t think that I was a nerd already…I even have a dictionary of quotations sitting on a book shelf at home ☺.

After a weekend of non-stop shopping and driving, it’s nice to find myself in the comfort of my own home on a Sunday evening, drinking tea and watching movies…oh, and eating cheese :). It is freezing outside and, might I add, chilly in my apartment as well, hence the tea, although, I quite love tea in general, so, I would be drinking it regardless. Six months ago I was packing my belongings to move into the city for the summer with my sister…I cannot believe that it’s the end of the year already. Where does the time go?

I was just watching the film Eat, Pray, Love and I was thinking about how my friend Melissa and I had both started the book together, the day before we went to the theatre to see the film. I was also remembering how, despite the fact that it became a book that I loved, I never finished it. See, the book is divided into three sections, much like the movie, and the last section I just couldn’t get through. I’m not a religious person, and well, it was just a little too much for me. But, I wonder how much the ending from the film differs from that of the book, because it usually does. Perhaps I will pick it back up one day and finish it; right now it resides in one of my desk drawers at work.

Watching Eat, Pray, Love is like attending a therapy session. It makes you think about yourself more than you may want to at times. It makes you review your life decisions and decide if they were the right ones. It makes you think about the people that have come into your life and the ones that have left, relationships that have grown and changed with time and those that did not make it.

Live without regrets, that’s what I live by. I always enter into a new situation and ask myself, will I regret this if I don’t do it…if the answer is yes, than I do it regardless of the fears that I might be having. Live without regrets. If you can watch a movie like that and reflect back on yourself and say that, yes, I have made some decisions and they were hard, and sometimes I wasn’t sure if I could get through them, but that I don’t regret any of them, then they were the right ones to make. The things that I regret are not things that are in my control and therefore, shouldn’t be worth dwelling upon. That is easier said than done of course, but it’s not impossible.

A little self-reflection is good for everyone. For instance, why did I recently write a letter to someone, but never sent it. It has been sitting on my desk amidst a stack of papers for nearly a week now, addressed, stamped and sealed…but it’s just sitting there. All I have to do is place it in a mailbox, but I haven’t…and I may not. I don’t need to think about that for the moment though; it’s not time sensitive. Right now, I am just sitting on the couch with my tea (aka, a huge Eeyore mug that my father bought me years ago, that I was at first embarrassed to own, but it is the only mug I ever use now) and watching movies…although, I do have to finish my Vogue before the new one comes out…

Yesterday, my friend H and I played hooky from work in favor of taking my father’s car for a joyride and spending the day together shopping. Now, I didn’t really steal my father’s car, he’s in Florida right now visiting my grandfather and gave it to me to use for the week while he’s away. Right now, my father’s driving around in a Mustang, he literally just sent me pictures, and as much as I love his car, I must admit, I’m a bit jealous.

So, I picked H up from her place before noon and, after a pit stop at DD for lattes, we set off to our first destination of stores. H had to exchange something in VS, so that was our first stop. We must have been there for over an hour easy and though we both walked out with a little pink-stripped bag, I definitely dropped a lot more money there than she did.

Our next stop was Pier1 to browse and so I could look at the snowflake ornaments that I had been coveting online. I probably would have ordered them, but I had seen in the item description that they were five and a half inches in circumference and I figured that they would be better to see in person first and then decide after. It was a good thing that I hadn’t purchased them, because they looked nothing like what I thought they would and, very easy breakability. Alas, there will be no snowflake ornaments for me this year.

After briefly walking into a few other stores, we were running out of steam and decided to hop back in the car and grab a bite to eat at this delicious Japanese restaurant called Wild Ginger. It was only my second time eating there, H frequents there a lot, and the food was just as good as I remembered it to be. The one problem…I don’t eat fish or seafood, which is fine, but the Japanese restaurant in my neighborhood makes, what I like to call fake sushi, or as they call it, spicy chicken rolls. Of course the chicken is cooked, because otherwise that would just be gross and, might I add, highly unsanitary, but my point to this is that I cannot find this anywhere else. So, aside from that, I really do love Wild Ginger.

Next, we got back in the car and made our way to Crate & Barrel so I could pick up the ornaments that I had ordered from them. After walking the entire length of the store multiple times and after I had retrieved my box of ornaments, which although was big, was so light I swore that there was nothing inside of it although I had in fact viewed the contents, we walked back over to the register so that H could pay for her items. Midway across the store, I asked H what she had thought of this vase that I had been eyeing practically the whole time we had been there and she really loved it. There was no price so I asked a sales associate to help me and, when I found out that it was about half the price that I had thought it was going to be, bought it immediately.

We briefly attempted to go into one more store, but we were pooped and decided to retire back at H’s place for a while, we had in fact been shopping for nearly five hours at that point.

About half an hour later, I left H at home and headed down to Wantagh to have dinner with my Aunt and Grandmother, in heavy traffic and was jealous of H being at home. After good conversation and a nice dinner, I headed back out on the road for home and was so happy to see it that I vowed never to leave it again, but, it’s a good thing that homes are so forgiving, because I broke that vow already.

The first thing that I did last night once I was home, was immediately open up the box containing my vase to make sure that it had not broken. It emerged from what looked like a sea of packaging paper in perfect condition. I hugged it to my body, put it on my table and have been staring at it ever since.

After the rain of the past two days and the incredibly awful fog of the day before where, I had to drive my dad’s car through it on the Jackie (which I’m not fond of to begin with), I woke up this morning to a beautiful crisp winter day. Now, I’m not a fan of winter, but I have to admit, I am in love with this weather and I definitely missed the sun.

December marks the beginning of the holidays. This year, I have decided to start a collection of ornaments. The ornaments that we had growing up were never anything special to me. Sure, there were the occasional favorites of mine that I fought with my brothers over to be the one to put them on the tree, but they were all different. I’m not sure why that was, I have a feeling that this happens with a lot of people unless you really take the time to pick out a theme and stick to it. Ornaments may seem cheap, but you have to buy so many of them that it adds up. I have always loved silver, so I am going to start a collection of different silver tones and white. Below are ornaments that I am buying, the graphite balls can be purchased at Crate & Barrel in sets of three where the snowflakes are from Pier1 Imports and sold individually.

The weather is going to be pretty consistent from now throughout this weekend (and into next week, though I really only care about the weekend for the moment), so I am going to take full advantage of it. Of course there will be the ornament shopping which will commence tomorrow, and the tree shopping. This year I want to get a real tree because I love the smell of pine and I have seen teeny ones for only $20, and they are cute! Also, since I live by the water, there is nothing better than grabbing a bottle of wine, or in this case perhaps a latte (or maybe insolated thermos of tea) and driving out to the jetty. The view of the water and the Whitestone Bridge is just spectacular, especially when the sun is starting to set. Normally I go there in the summer, but I think I’ll start a new tradition this year.

You know the night was a success when you wake up in the morning with your girlfriends and, despite all being hung-over, you break out in laughter. Oh, and your thankful that the neighbors didn’t murder you in your sleep.

This weekend, I packed my bags and headed down to Philly with Z to celebrate our friend R’s thirtieth birthday. This had been in the works for a few months now, and we were looking forward to partying it up and making it a night to remember.

As always, Z and I rushed to the West Side to catch our train, which thankfully was not crowded. We both had brought magazines and the likes to pass the time, but in strict Z and S fashion, they were never opened and we spent the whole time listening and talking in circles over each other about our lives and, pretty much everything…and, taking turns giving stares of hatred to the seats in front of us as the women were talking so loud that we would lose focus. Really, there should be a noise level cut off, even if you don’t care about the people around you, do you really want everyone to hear your personal conversations? I know I don’t. In the end of course, we abandoned our seats in search of new ones a little farther away, though, they turned out not to be that much better.

The train was slower than usual and we ended up being over fifteen minutes late to catch our connecting train, which thankfully an announcement from the conductor told us that it was being held, though we only made it because I sprinted ahead. According to Z, upon us entering a flight of stairs for our descent to the platform, I almost ran over a couple with a stroller. I cannot confirm or deny this because honestly, I had my tunnel vision on and wasn’t looking, but I’m sure that it happened; I will cut anyone off if I’m in a rush, and even when I’m not, I just don’t have the patience to walk behind slow people. In any event, we literally ran onto the second train as they were shutting the doors and plopped into our seats. An hour later we emerged in Philly.

What does a groups of girlfriends do to get ready for a night of serious partying? Well, first we got manicures and walked around Whole Foods in search of snacks, then the three of us headed back to R’s apartment, where we ordered a pizza, large of course, opened a bottle of wine and started choosing our outfits for the evening. R already had hers picked out, but Z and I had brought some options with us and we helped each other in her decision. I was the only one who ended up in jeans, which is highly unlike me, but frankly, it was colder out than I had thought and I wanted to keep that extra layer against my skin.

We got to the party fairly close to the starting time since, it was after all R’s party, and to our surprise there were already people there. We’re so used to showing up to parties fashionably late that we never expected people to actually show up on time, or as some of them probably did, early. It didn’t take long before the space was packed with people. The only problem, the bartenders were extremely slow. I am not accustomed to waiting so long to get a drink.

As the night progressed, the crowd thinned out a little and we exploded into another part of the venue, creating an impromptu dance party. Girls danced with girls, guys with girls, drinks were spilled and replaced, shoes came off. On a trip to the ladies’ room, I found a glow in the dark necklace sitting by the mirror and brought it back out with me. Everyone took a turn playing with it until its amusement was lost and it was discarded. At some point they called last-call to everyone’s chagrin and we kept partying it up until the very end, needless to say that we closed the place down.

After an irritatingly long wait for our cab we trudged our tired selves back to R’s apartment. After the customary discarding of the shoes, Z and I went straight to the refrigerator for the last two slices of pizza and R happily went into her cupboard for some kind of peanut butter crackers (I think). At some point R also broke out some string cheese to our delight; oh and we poured the remainder of the wine from the bottle that we had cracked earlier in the evening. R put on some music from her computer and a Rent song popped on. We grabbed remotes, 90’s style (there were conveniently three of them) and belted out the familiar lyrics to songs from the Rent album, using them as if they were microphones, while dancing around the apartment in varied states of our party outfits and pajamas. Seriously, we should be filmed at these times.

The next morning we woke up after a few hours sleep in disarray. Aside from the usual hangover effects, our feet were killing us and so were our throats, and it took me a moment to realize why. We turned on an episode of SATC as we started to collect ourselves and tried to fight the hangover, then we met R’s parents for brunch. Afterwards, we made our way to the train station to await the first of our two trains back to New York. Normally, I don’t mind the ride from Philly to New York and the time usually goes by, I guess it must have been the hangover, which equates to a lack of being able to leaf through a magazine or finish my book. When we got to Penn Station, Z left to catch a cab back to her apartment and I continued onward through the LIRR, subway and bus until I was finally back home. I was so spent from lack of sleep and hangover, but it was all totally worth it.

You know you had a great weekend when you are showered, pj’d and in bed before ten o’clock on a Sunday evening.

After a long weekend and previously short work-week, I came into the office this morning, latte in hand, ready for a ton of emails and voicemails to get back to and loads of work. Of course I ignored the fact that I haven’t received an office email all weekend except for a rather weird one asking if anyone was in, on Thanksgiving no less…I was after all home, where cell phonage is sporadic at best. But, upon sitting at my desk, I found that nothing was working. No emails, no programs, not even the internet. What’s a girl to do?

At first I thought that it was of course my computer and I tried restarting, but to no avail. Then, since it was rather early in the morning I took out my book and started reading at my desk. It felt weird, but seriously, how am I to do any work when the whole server is down? So, I sipped my latte and read a few pages of my book, that I truly had thought I would have finished over the holiday weekend so I could write about it and loan it to a friend. Alas, I ended up being busier than I thought I would be. Not a big deal, it will be finished by the end of this week and if not, then on my train ride to and from Philly where I will be partying with my girlfriends. Then I will start on my Vogue :).

After a bit I realized that this network problem would take longer to resolve than I had at first anticipated, so, I decided to grab my gear and make a run for the gym. Nothing like a good workout early in the day (I usually prefer gyming early anyway; there’s no crowd and you can actually get a good workout in). Also, I hadn’t been to the gym in two weeks because last week was shortened and the week prior to that I was out of commission with a sinus infection.

I walked over to the gym, which is really just on the other side of Third Avenue and half a block north. After changing and filling up my water bottle with, to my disappointment was warm water out of the fountain, I set off for the treadmills. Now, I injured my knee in the middle of January and sillily kept working out on it for six months until finally going to the doctor to have it checked out, so I can’t run on the treadmill, but I can power-walk…well sort of.

I got onto the treadmill and started walking and soon realized that my knee wasn’t bothering me today. I decided to speed-walk for three miles, call it a day and go back to the gym tomorrow to hit the weights. I ended up doing only half a mile less than my goal which was good, and my knee still was okay, but I, myself was exhausted.

I took my time showering and going back to the office and the network still was down, which at that point was just frustrating. What is the point of being at work if I can’t get anything done? I decided to confer with one of my friends (the one who is waiting for my book) and sat in his office for a good twenty minutes before making myself a cup of tea and trudging back to my desk in hopes that the status of my computer would have changed. I tried opening on program…and it worked, so I tried another and another. They all worked and the internet works again too. My email is still down though.

When I started drinking wine I had wanted to love it. I thought that there was nothing as classy or sophisticated than to have a glass of wine in hand, whether out with friends or in the company of your own home. There are only really two beverages that you can curl up with and I believed that wine was one of them. In fact, when I moved to my current apartment, my very first purchase was a set of wine glasses. I hunted for months for them and one day I walked into Pier1 and there they were; perfect size (oversized) and shape. They came in a few different colors, although I can’t quite remember what they were. I ended up with green hued glasses. Green is not really the color that I ever would have seen myself choosing, but there it was…the best color. I bought white and red wine glasses, and champagne flute…four or each sounded like a good number to me. I also purchased two different sized sets of drinking glasses during that visit (four of each of those too). It wasn’t until after I walked out of the store that I realized that I had two really heavy bags to cart home via public transportation all the way to my little suburban area of Queens, but they were worth it. Sadly, after a freak accident a few years later, by someone whom I won’t mention, the champagne flutes are no more. They have since been replaced by beautiful Waterford Crystal ones which add a nice dimension to my still in tact wine glasses, but every so often I find myself missing my old ones.

The first wine that I tried was an Australian Merlot.  And I have to admit, I wasn’t too keen on the taste. My mouth puckered at those first few sips even though Merlots aren’t really known for having tannins. It was then that I realized that loving wine was something to be acquired, kind of like how some people feel about reading Shakespeare or seeing the opera. (Neither of which I agree with, I have always been a fan of Shakespeare and, although I have only been to one opera, I loved it.) After the Australian Merlot I graduated to the California Cabernet and that was when I first fell in love with wine. I couldn’t get enough of the inviting fragrance or the way it danced on my tongue. I also didn’t mind the fact that my mouth still puckered at the first few sips.

For a while, Cabernet’s were all that I would drink. I have a picture of myself that was taken at a New Years’ Eve party a few years back and I’m sad to say, my lips were slightly stained red.

I started drinking Chardonnay with my aunt during our sporadic dinner outings for a few reasons. First, I wanted to drink the same thing as her because I thought that she was cool and that would in turn make me cool. I also believed that to really love wine, you had to be able to diversify your palate. And a third reason, which I hadn’t yet come to realize, was that whilst ordering wine by the glass at a restaurant is a fun way to try new ones, ordering red by the glass can be a bit more tricky (at least if you’re me anyway). I cannot stand red wine that has been open for more than twenty-four hours. I do not care how good it was the day before or how expensive. Even though it has only slightly oxidized and is still completely drinkable, I cannot enjoy it and therefore am known to pour, what some might say, perfectly good bottles down the drain.

Then last summer, everything changed. I reconnected with an old high school friend, who is now a sommelier. At the time, he was studying wine and instilled his knowledge upon me. I guess that one way to learn about wine is to do one country at a time and, for the most part, he was studying French wines. For years I had been saying that I hated Pinot Noir, but when I took my first sip of a Burgundy, I was hooked. (For those of you that don’t know, all wines from Burgundy are Pinot Noir; unless they are white…then they are Chardonnay.) Since then, I still have the occasional California Cab, but for the most part, I only drink French wines. There is just such a difference in the way that these Old World wines are made as opposed to the New World Ones (i.e. Australia, California, etc)…they’re just simply amazing.

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.

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.