My Struggle: Or, A Week of Healthy Eating

Five things I learned by not eating processed foods for one week. 

A wholly unfamiliar shopping cart. 

A few months ago, my dear friend Shayna Schmidt, talented actor, passionate cook and yogi, and sometime health expert, decided to more seriously pursue that last description and become a fitness and nutrition coach. One of her first exercises, which I gamely (and slightly naively) agreed to take on, was a weeklong “Clean Eating” challenge. As someone whose weeknight meals consist of Easy Mac and a glass of wine more often than I’d like to admit, this was a challenge met with more than a bit of apprehension. But after all, I’ve seen Shayna convincingly play everything from a young girl to a deranged veteran, so I feel there is little with which I cannot trust her. And so into the world of healthfulness I followed our brave leader.  

While the shopping list did little to assuage my fears and confusion (“those gourds on display in the Thanksgiving section are edible?”  “What the hell is Flax seed?,” “no SUGAR in my coffee? This was a mistake.” etc., etc.), soon enough I was on my way, and eventually succeeded at lasting an entire week sans bread, cheese, processed food, and alcohol. Temptations were plenty and some minor kitchen chaos ensued, but in the end I felt pretty accomplished. While I could go on about the trials and tribulations of an amateur chef in the brave new world of health-conscious cuisine (quinoa overflows and blender misadventures included), I’ll boil it down to the most surprising things I learned while masquerading as a health nut.

Picking Favorites of the New Emojis Coming Soon to Communication Devices Near You

Expressive texters the world over rejoiced this week at the announcement that 250 new emojis will be released next month. In this strange day and age where I feel a dancing woman in a red dress followed by a cone spewing confetti can more express my hopes for an evening than any string of words the old English language might afford me, this is welcome news. This emoji download will offer more than ten times the choice of letters in the roman alphabet (even more when compared to Internet Parlance -- seeya vowels!), but let's narrow it down to the cream of the crop.


Derelict House Building: When looking for the perfect way to tweet about your recent trip to Detroit, this emoji will save precious characters. 

National Park: Will this be a specific park? Which one?? If so, how will it be recognizable in the tiny space of an emoji?! So much suspense! I hope it's Mount Rushmore. 

Lower Right Shadowed White Circle
Upper Right Shadowed White Circle: Good to see the emoji company has finally recognized our need for choice in matters of shadowy circles. 

Right Speaker With One Sound Wave
Right Speaker With Three Sound Waves: Once again, the tyranny of choice. Perhaps next round we can expect a speaker with two sound waves, to indicate the kind of mid-level rager that happens, say, at an office holiday party in a conference room haphazardly spruced up with a few limp streamers, where men in high-waisted khakis and women in pantsuits sip non-alcoholic punch and shuffle uncertainly to light rock. (See how much space I could have just saved with a two-sound waver and the collared shirt emoji??)

Man In Business Suit Levitating: If I had a nickel for every time I could use this emoticon I would have exactly as much money as this blog is worth. 

Joystick: Is this a euphemism??

Reversed Hand With Middle Finger Extended: It's about damn time. Far and away the most highly anticipated emoji, for the pure reason that one of the downsides to our increasingly isolated, internet-communicating society is the loss of opportunity to flip someone an offensive hand gesture. 

Fax Icon: What is this mysterious device? I think I remember hearing about it once in a 90s movie. If the next big app to launch is a time machine, there's also a Floppy Disk emoji you should find useful. 

Dagger Knife: When Gun, Steak Knife, Bomb, Pill or Syringe just won't get the job done. Patrick Bateman can finally tweet. 

Slightly Frowning Face
Slightly Smiling Face: For when :) or :( are just too damn expressive.  

North West Pointing Leaf: WILL this be a tree branch extending towards the the baby Kardashian? If not I see no use for it. 

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Waiting with bated breath (and slightly smiling face). 

Girl Meets Deer: a classic love story

Once upon a post-grad Christmastime I cheerfully arrived home to my apartment and announced to my roommate that I was buying a deer. To which she, bless her little heart, merely responded “Where will it go?” (Details, details!). I guess she’d known me long enough that such a proclamation was unlikely to evoke more than a wary eye-roll.  I had found the deer, a life-sized, solid wood, turn of the century, hand carved Belgian deer, no less, at my place of work. This is less outrageous than it sounds; I was working at the time at ABC Home, the venerable furniture emporium and dealer in all things outrageously beautiful and depressingly priced. For the sake of my sanity and in hopes of my continued abstinence from shoplifting, I pray that this was my last job in which I want to cry no fewer than 8 times a day while surrounding myself with beautiful things I can’t afford. French ceramic bowl? A mere $285! Titanium shot glass? Simply sacrifice your weekly paycheck; it’s $1600 for a set of two!  Squandered paychecks and retail hustling aside, though, the job was an unparalleled source of inspiration and continues to be an invaluable mental sourcebook (as well as a comedic sourcebook; #shitcustomerslookingforamarbleBuddhasay would make a hell of a Twitter feed).

It was Christmastime in this furniture fantasyland when I first laid eyes on my beloved cervidae. Our eyes met one morning in early December, mine eagerly scanning the entryway for potential big spenders, his wooden ones staring, as they are wont to do, deadly at the glitter-covered floor (if you’ve ever been to ABC around Christmas you know exactly what I mean. If you’ve ever worked at ABC from the months of October to February, you especially know what I mean and probably still have some evidence of this in your scalp. Magical). From the moment we locked eyes/from across the room, I was enchanted. Perhaps it was his regal stance, perhaps the gentle curve of his antlers or the intricate carving along his rump. Perhaps the proud way he held his head high despite the array of feather-adorned ornaments hanging from it. In any case, I knew I had to have him.

Once I got around convincing the visual team to part with the star of their holiday tableaux, I faced the frustrating obstacle of transporting my beloved new pet home. While I’d like to think Prancer is magical enough to fly with the best of his sleigh-pulling siblings, alas this proved but a pipe dream and I faced more pedantic options: UPS or a Yellow Taxi. Since there was no way I was going to part with the sculpted creature while he tumbled unattended in the back of a delivery van, I was left to trusty New York transport. Several (dozen?) yards of bubble wrap, a very vocally skeptical cab driver, and much instructing of a slightly exasperated boyfriend later, Prancer was home.

While countless friends and houseguests scoff at the oversized and under-practical addition to my tiny apartment (especially given the frequency with which I am wont to complain about said apartment’s tininess), I maintain that Prancer is the best purchase I have ever made. Some things just speak to you (or rather, suggest to you with subtle eye signals achievable in wood). Through his steadfast wooden friendship, Prancer taught me that sometimes when you see something you love, you just have to go for it, concerns about door width and transportabilty be damned. Oh, and his antlers make the perfect drying rack, so hows that for practical, haters?

the origin of the world (/blog)

^^ maybe don’t google that at work

One day I woke up and everyone had a blog.

I imagine it actually happened a little more gradually than that, but to my panicked 22 year old self, that’s what it seemed. Already feeling an underachiever in the age of the seemingly ubiquitous 25 year old college-dropout billionaire, I was fresh  out of my swanky liberal arts education and newly awash in the wall of “real-world” bafflement which so often arrives behind it when all of the sudden along came a new realization of mediocrity. I didn’t have a blog. I didn’t have a blog?! I’d somehow missed the boat on a generation-wide trend, and was falling more and more behind with each day that passed with nary a thought projected out into the vast echoes of the world wide web.  

I had to act.  I’m all for the trend of getting thoughts out on paper, and in this day and age it would seem thoughts are rendered null and void if not shared with the webosphere, hurled out into a virtual vastness for all or none to see.

As I pondered just what makes me *uNiQuE* (or what tumblr URL somehow applicable to me would not be taken by the rest of the obsessively blogging world), my eyes fell on my roommate, friend, and steadfast companion of my life thus far in New York City: my carved wooden reindeer statue, known to friends as Prancer. The silently judgmental observer of my every move within the exceedingly confined confines of my apartment, Prancer is a constant source of inspiration and companionship to me, and continued evidence of my borderline insanity to those who know me. Who better to serve as guide while I record my hopes, dreams,and everyday struggles delusions, ramblings and janky attempts at highbrow home decor? Join us. And remember: it’s Prancer’s world, we’re just living in it.