"she wants to know if i love her, that's all anyone wants from anyone else, not love itself but the knowledge that love is there, like new batteries in the flashlight in the emergency kit in the hall closet."

extremely loud and incredibly close

getting into the holiday spirit.

sometimes i forget that new york is place people come from around the world to photograph. 

i see it through eyes that have seen it for seven years. 

and so i cease to see. 

until i remind myself to look up and around. 

this year, since i'll be staying in the city, i'm making a concerted effort to celebrate the transformation of the island in this month of december and to allow myself to be swept up and away by the holiday spirit. 

ps: that picture of me was taken just before i headed off to an ugly christmas-sweater party. strangely enough, my parents were off to an ugly christmas-sweater party themselves--i on the upper west side, they somewhere in the houston metropolis. funny, huh?

for your weekend...a halo of light.

they lit the big tree this week. the one at rockefeller center. but i'm gonna let you on a little secret.
the oragami tree at the american museum of natural history is the one to see. it's pure magic (and i'm not easily impressed). it emanates light. glitters. and when you go, because you must, look for the little space man--my personal favorite.

have the loveliest of weekends! but before you go, may i ask a favor of you? i want to know what it is that you the reader most like to see on this blog... a little feedback if you will. i ask because your opinions always provide me with such insight and inspiration. and on that note, happy weekend, happy holidays and happy, happy tree-gazing (wherever you might be).

a strange, rambling sort of post...

i hate the A train. let it be known: i HATE the A train.

(and i was in a terrible mood today).

uniquely enough the terrible mood had nothing to do with the A train.  i say uniquely because usually the two are connected. {and yes, i just placed uniquely where a strangely normally lives--what can i say, i'm trying it out}).

i haven't always hated the A train.

though, to be fair, i should have seen this coming.

when i moved to new york (at the wee age of eighteen) i dated a guy who lived just off the A.

turns out i didn't really like the guy. really not after he gave me a key to his apartment (did i mention i was eighteen?). call me old-fashioned but i think the giving of the key is kind of a thing. a big thing.

i promptly broke up with him in a diner on the upper west side. i remember walking out. the weather was suddenly cooler, lovely. oh, pathetic fallacy! (yes, i just said pathetic fallacy. if you must know i adore that term and have been trying to get it onto this blogspot-lover-of-mine for ages).

and then of course there was that time on the A when at the ripe old age of nineteen the guy i was falling deeply and desperately in love with told me his girlfriend (i know) was moving in with him. or moving to new york for him. bad either way.

heartbreaking, actually.

this all was followed by a man who couldn't be bothered to get on the A train to pay me a visit. actually, that's not quite true. but that's what it felt like.

(god i hope none of the guys ever stumbles across this).

no, really, God that's a prayer i'm offering up to you right now.

the point is this: i hate the A train.

i hate that in the early mornings it more a shuffle-step-dance than train ride. i hate that it sits at 168th for far too long and crawls past 135th. i find it offensive that it calls itself express when the local gets from point a to point b in the same amount of time, all the while making far.more.frequent.stop.s. (don't believe me? try. i've converted more than my fair share of non-believers).

i've been thinking lately that, given my druthers, i might never ride the A again.

you see, for me, the long subway ride is symbol of my struggling life. taking a little too long, to get not so far.

but alas, the A is the train closest to home.

and so i remind myself that this phase of my life shall pass. and soon enough.

this struggle (to be replaced by another, i'm sure), this subway line, this apartment, in this corner of manhattan, this job, and that job, and that guy, and this frustration--it all passes.

all of it--including my bad mood or the feeling that i'm not good enough or thin enough or strong enough.

it is a seamless quilt moving flawlessly across this loom of a life. the colors and mistakes and unexpected strands provide depth, dimension, even a little...dare i say...flare.

and you know how i know? because my bad mood passed tonight.

it passed just as Sting sat down in front of me in the movie theatre. yes, that Sting. let it be known that i believe him to be one of the sexiest men alive. (all that yoga or something). though, when i told my dad he kinda scoffed and said, so what? all that means is he sat in front of you in a theatre. 


but i saw it for what it was: a sign. that if i keep showing up, day after day, then given enough time, good things will come.

you see, Sting is my sign. his sighting--my little gift from the universe.

after all, wouldn't mind running into him on the A train.

oh God, please don't let this pop up in Sting's google alerts. 

look again. that's not the turkey.

we had plenty of desserts planned for thanksgiving. we had the fruity desserts covered, the chocolatey, even the traditional. 

there was no need for my ice cream pie concoction. but the ice cream pie has never been about need. it is about whimsy and delight.

and who doesn't need a little more whimsy in their life?

it may have ended up looking something like a turkey and weighing something akin to one, but let me tell you... it was good.

it's quite easy to make: a veritable dumping ground of anything cold and delicious. a pre-made graham cracker crust combined with three or four different flavors of ice cream and  plenty of crushed toffee pieces (think heath bars {or skors}) layered after each different flavor. and voila! done. guaranteed turkey-day (or any holiday for that matter) success.