The highest form of flattery

I'm always working on the lifelong journey of not being validated by the world...suffice to say, it's difficult.

but surely admission to being positively validated externally is healthier than denying it?? At least for now, when I'm not Eat-Pray-Love-amped-on-nirvana-24/7 yet? (Oh, shoot, now I'm self-comparing...)

Eek, I hope.

Remember when I was featured by Siovhan? Read this to discover one of my funny quirks...

It's kind of nice to know people think you're alright, even when you're leaning over the kitchen sink performing a saline sinus cleanout on yourself...

(I will spare you further details.)

A-pathetic

Is how I've been feeling lately.

Midterm after paper after midterm after pesky quiz after another paper, etc.
Piercing windy cold.
Utah.
Waking up too uninspired to put on anything more than sweats.
Swallowing grainy horse pill vitamins to ward off H1N1.
Not applying a stitch of makeup for the week's majority.
Succumbing to the slippery slope of Ugg boots. (Rainbow sandals, I'll see you in a few...)

Does a-pathetic mean not pathetic, then?
Ooh, goody, I feel better already: there IS an empowering aspect of boredom!


On Tuesday, I started sobbing halfway through Greg Mortenson's forum address here at BYU (maybe the first time I've cried this whole year). It was brilliant, inspiring, humbling, hopeful, emancipating, and also real...I had been looking forward to it for several weeks, and will link it on here as soon as it is available online.


Regardless, I really think it's okay to wallow sometimes. A huge part of who I am is an isolated cavewoman. I LOVE alone time as much as I love social time, and I think my parents are reincarnated cavepeople: they need silence and stillness to recharge their batteries. Holing up in our rooms for hours to read, write and think in quiet sans TV or computer was a huge part of how I grew up.

I love my inner cavewoman. (But never fear, the next day I know I'll need to get out and run around to relax my brain from thinking!)

This song is one of my wallowing anthems, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

For my beloved newsroom nerds

I wouldn't have made it through the Provo experience without my Brimhall building buddies.

Alliteration aside, Comms kids are the coolest on campus.


With thanks to @hugasponge...I think these should be required 321 uniform.



Shop here.

La Mallorquina en mi cocina

Even though I think Crescent Rolls would be better jazzed up with more salty savory accoutrements (olive oil and garlic, thyme, rosemary perhaps?)...


I made Nutella 'Croissants' that looked like this yesterday.

And it took about 30 seconds to make, 10 minutes to bake. (Beat that, Rachael Ray.)

It was my roommate's first experience with Nutella (success).

And though I have to say, I longed for my favorite Napolitana de Chocolate from La Mallorquina in Madrid (my mom and I went 3 times in our less than 2 days there at the end of my study abroad) ...mine were a pretty bomb American substitute.

(Best 1 Euro spent in all Europe. Photo via here)

My roomie/"esposa" Sarah and me in front of La Mallorquina.

Our faces (and thighs?) were so round by the end of study abroad! hehe

Come over and be fed.

New hobby!

You know its a new hobby when your mind races with thoughts of future creations...

To send my card to your nearest and dearest, go here!

xo

Keep calm, carry on, and be cool

Okay, so I am having massive doubts about being Lady Gaga for Halloween (the jig is up)...

(photo via NYT)

My goal was hilarity, but I am afraid it will be a big flop and no one will understand the depth of hot mess I set out to portray. A bad sign was when one of my most up-to-date fashionista friends could not recall THE bubble outfit until I showed her the above.

I think I will just be a chic bunny, instead? I mean, rabbit ears are in vogue too right now!

photo via here

and via here

Also, speaking of les Parisienes ...
I am bursting at the seams wanting to recap the following story about my cousin who is studying abroad there ...
Because of her desired anonymity, I will share the bare minimum, yet still enough to make us all swoon and sigh.

Basically, a really cute boy (who is in lurrrve with her) flew to Paris for the weekend...

because he missed her.


They aren't even "dating" (yet...no pressure!) but had a magical time.

Je suis jaloux.

I Skyped with her for 45 minutes today for the details when I maybe should have been studying, and for the rest of the day, I was grinning.

Sometimes I really don't know why I'm so cool! Je nais se qois, anyone? ;)

xoxo

Reinforce as needed

"You're a genius all the time."

-Jack Kerouac

Fit for a Monday!

photo via here

Elated

I have had a professor this semester that has been particularly perplexing to please.

So I can't describe my tired happiness when after I spend hourrrs (and I mean HOURRRS) working on a midterm he emails a few minutes ago from Vienna (aside from the point, except to explain further how I'm wearily jealous) to tell me that my draft does not warrant any comments, just maybe polish up a few sentences in the opening?

CAN DO!

We all know rough drafts are the hardest ones to make, so yeah, I'll own up to sheer gratitude right now.

Sorry for the horn tootage.

Elate yourself with these fellas:

Yes, lobster rivals an outdoor movie screen

Guys, this is making it HARDER!!!

Anyone knows I love NYC/New England/DC/Boston.
But I am a SoCal wimp for good weather!
(Blame it on my parents!)

The following are ejemplos to explain further what I like to call 'my own great East/West Schism':

A new East Village NYC Lobster Roll shack (even bearing my nephew's name!) with proprietors from Cape Elizabeth, Maine- the original lobster roll place! (It's beautiful up there, ps...you eat your rolls overlooking their gooorgeous craggy shoreline.)

Bonus- they only use knuckle and claw- any lobster aficionado will tell you its the best part! (Missing good shellfish, and heck, ANY FRESH SEAFOOD, in the landlocked beef country that is Utah. Apparently I didn't overdose enough this summer...)

and

A Hollywood Hills home with disappearing edge pool AND outdoor screen. My only question is if you can watch movies in the pool...


More confusion, non-schism related:
I am still annoyingly congested and tired, despite pounding Sudafed's maximum suggested dosage for the past 5 days.
No cough, no fever and thus, no flu.
So that's good, right? Seeing as some silly boys in my complex have quarantined themselves in for the weekend with swine flu?
Yes?
Suggestions?

St. Albans School for Boys

Just say that title twice aloud....SWOON!

Brittany features a Door of the Week, which began as "Dør of the Week" when she was in Denmark (the motherland) this past summer.

This week she featured St. Albans/National Cathedral School (in Washington, DC).

photos via The House That Lars Built

My dad attended St. Albans all 13 years. He tells the story of learning to count to 50 in kindergarten to his teachers (nuns) for the prize of a snow globe. He proudly won it, after they asked him to stop after 100.

St. Albans is also where he proposed to my mom, the carefree California volleyball & beach lover. (He soon became a California convert. She insists she had no sway.)


I don't think there's anything more darling than little East Coast prep school boys. Maybe it's because I don't have little brothers, but I sometimes have this 60s housewife imagery of kissing my little boys' cheeks as they run off to school dressed in their sport coats, ties and tucked in collared shirts.


Needless to say, St. Albans holds a very special place in my heart.

Sartorialist goes to General Conference

(Or something like it.)

I think this post on Conference Street Fashions is so cute!

Being Mormon does not mean you have to take on a fashion palate as frumpy as your elementary school teacher's themed sweaters.

Check out the personalities!


This look was my favorite:



Contains my favorite elements:
juxtaposition of hard and soft i.e. a patterned breezy dress (soft) with leather jacket (hard);
splash of gray for a functional scarf (it was cold that day!), and last but not least FIERCE utilitarian urban shoes.

On not looking like a hot fruitcake mess

I have a sore throat and will probably be up all night judging by the considerable consumption of spearmint tea I have downed, and many trips to the loo I have already taken.

Good thing they post the new Project Runway episode to Lifetime.com in the wee hours of Saturday morning (confessional alert! hehe)

Saturday mornings usually consist of my favorite Pilates class with this darling lady, but I may have to take a raincheck.

I hope you all are doing well. I decided today that while my birthday breaks up the monotony, September on a whole is pretty dismal. October is infinitely more exciting. And not to mention I have a genius idea for a Halloween costume...want to hear more??


And a chat with my engaged friend Kristine from a few days ago still has me giggling. She is set to get married next August, and she was sending me links to color swatches for her wedding...

With regards to the color of the dress in the top left, I said something along the lines of "I am not so keen on peach, but really liking the fuschias [like this]."

She assured me there would be no peach:

"I want people looking sexy at my wedding, not scrumptious."

Ahh, I miss you Teen! I wish we could take a late-night drive right now for limeades. Or go snowboarding on a whim ;)

And I just realized it's your birthday 10/10!!! Happy day, my dear.

I can't wait for your wedding!!! xoxo

Another one for the Garden State!

Remember "Chandeleeeahhhs"??!!

Few things are more astonishing or more laughable than a nice thick Jersey accent.

Ok, NOW I want an iPhone

Because before, nothing had sold me. ;)

Ever since two of my silly guy friends made their own "I Am T-Pain" song, I've been really wanting an iPhone.

So imagine my obsession with the following:

Like a Malawian baby or a poodle

Every Monday at 8 PM, I can be found grinning ear to ear with glee gawking at Gossip Girl.
(If I am eating my weight in Diego's chicken nachos, I will be squealing too).

However, even though episode 1 filled the void, I was skeptical.

But episode 2? DELICIOUS. I laughed so hard at Chuck's quote I actually, upon request, verbally repeated it back to my roommate who was in and out.

(“For people like us, a college degree is just an accessory, like a Malawian baby or a poodle.” - It got it's own +1 here)

Episode 3:...MEH. Sotheby's auctions and money is getting boring. Back to the drama, please!!

Episode 4: Lizzie McGuire Goes to College. Over it. The best part was again, Chuck Bass's quote along the lines of "NYU men don't wear shoes, they wear sandals."

CANNOT wait for Episode 5, when Georgina is back to liven things up. Pardon my French, but vicarious bitching never felt so RIGHT.

Also, sometimes I pretend like I'm a cool pseudo-hipster (you know the ones that subsist solely on coffee, cigarettes, and crack) but really, I do love love love the music they play and compulsively download it as soon as I find out what it is.

Phoenix? LOVE. Try this and this.

That is all.

"At first blush..."

Remember that law book that has left me on the verge of tears a few times?

Today it made me smile!

In delivering the Court's opinion in Cohen v. California (that found it was unconstitutional to convict a man (Cohen) wearing a jacket in a federal courthouse with "F*** the Draft' on it), Justice Harlan said:

"The case may seem at first blush too inconsequential to find its way into our books, but the issue it presents is of no small constitutional significance."


In the pages that followed, the opinion kept stating "the four-letter word" in a rather cheeky (pun intended!) way, as if the justices were giggling to themselves as they skirted the obscenity.

Nerd alert for sure...oh school...

photo via here

Back to basics

Loved the GC this weekend.

(Utah's obsessed with acronyms i.e. OMG, did you see the RSP and the EQP in the JSB playing hooky from FHE?)

General Conference- it's where all the Mormons in the world tune in and hear from our main leaders and are reminded how much we are loved by God and other great uplifting things. Semi-annually. This year, there was a constant theme of SERVICE and LOVE expressed.

I love cutting through the cultural nonsense and getting back to basics with GC. Because ironically it's the fundamentals, the essence, that culture tends to mess up, at least for me. Even though I am not perfect myself, sorry Utah, but I get really frustrated with fanatical hyper-righteous interpretations I see here.

My faves: Uchtdorf and Bednar from Saturday AM session, and Holland Sunday PM session (there are 4 main 2-hour sessions).

How about you?

People dissection

"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people."
-Eleanor Roosevelt

Here are excerpts from the latter part of the above quoted:


5Ws: Kate (pictured) and me, dinner, last Friday night, at MAZZA 9th and 9th Sugarhood... because we needed to get out of the bubble.

(Nerd by day. People watcher by night. Don't let the glasses fool you...)

The quirky mix included:
a) wonder bread white family that looked totally out of place but their assured expressions said otherwise.

b) the innocent U-but-may-as-well-been-from-BYU couple with the 'rescuer' male and 'i'll gracefully giggle at your lame jokes for the rest of eternity if you save me from single-dom' blonde female counterpart.

c) the persian group going to town family-style.

d) the 4-top of quirky hipster denizens who were fabulously nonconformist but could have used 5 more minutes in the shower.

e) an attractive man species with a gal who, if we had looked at him for 2 seconds longer, would have straight up murdered us with her A-pocket Sevens.

ALSO
as we checked out the lesbian couples (all 2 of them) and wondered for the 2498435 time aloud how gay we ourselves looked (2 parts concerned, 7 parts comically) ... is when I grab Kate's knee (to properly tell a story) and the waitress walks by.

EXCELLENT.


And let's not forget 'lumber jack' waiter who we both made eye contact with for a good 4 seconds, then giggled, then looked up again only to realize he had turned around to look at us again.
Hysterical.

'Lumber Jack' was a dark scruffy pirate type ... think Josh Kelley meets Johnny Depp.


After some other Sugarhood shenanigans, we drove home and my jaw hurt from laughing so hard.


I need to get out more often.
xo

You thought my obsession was waning

But you thought wrong.

I cannot help my Sesame Street kick...because could MOBAMA get any more awesome?

I don't recall Barbara or Hillary on in my SS days...Lame.



Laughed my head off at Big Bird's statements starting at 1:20 ... what a goon!


And don't worry, NY Mag has a Michelle Obama Look-Book that they've updated since Election Night. Yes, I've looked through all the pictures...can you say cardigan-envy?!?