I’m 25, Eating Shredded Cheese Out Of The Package, & Finally Back Blogging

#life, humor

Hey friends, 

Can I still call you “friends?” I know it’s been awhile. Like, a long time. But I’m back. I recently experienced what some people (and my insurance company) would qualify as a “a life event.” I turned 25. I am definitively in my mid-twenties. And I am also definitively eating Sargento shredded cheese directly out of the package as I type this. Cheese is spilling everywhere.

I should say first: This blog post is not sponsored by Sargento. But Sargento cheese is amazing and if you aren’t eating it hand to mouth right now, you need to go get some from the grocery store ASAP. Stop reading. Go get Sargento cheese. If it matters to you, I am eating their three cheese Mexican blend.

Is 25 exactly what I thought it would be, you ask? No. It’s exactly like 24. I would love for my 25th birthday to have been a life-changing experience. But I came home, read a YA novel, drank tea, and went to bed. So, as far as I can tell, 25 is pretty much the same as 24. If my life hasn’t changed at all, why am I blogging again? 

I’ve missed it. For a really long time I didn’t feel like I had anything to say. But then I realized: I have things I care about. The heated debate about Annie’s versus Kraft mac and cheese, for example. (Annie’s for life and I’ll fight you on this.)

I want to tell you about my life now and about living in New York City. I want to tell you about the time I realized my trainer at Equinox was a contestant on the last season of an MTV reality television show. (Yes, I belong to Equinox, and yes I still watch MTV. Neither of which I am completely proud of.) I want to tell you about the man who straight up growled at me on the street the other day. These are things I need to share with you.

So I’m back blogging, and this time, unlike the guy I hooked up with in college, I am committing to you. I will be here, once a week (or more perhaps, but I am very flakey), to tell you about my life and to talk to you about things on my mind. 

I have a lot of thoughts.

“Too many?” She asks herself briefly, before her thoughts shift to conspiracy theories about Amelia Earhart’s disappearance.

I want to tell you about the horrible Christmas movie I watched, about the time I blatantly tripped on the sidewalk in front of the man of my dreams (well, I don’t actually dream when I sleep anymore, but he looked like the sort of guy that girls dream about). And mostly, I want to revive this dry blog with some fresh life –– AKA new content.

So, let’s go. Let’s do this. Did you get the Sargento cheese? This is the point in this post where I need you to lift an aggressive amount of cheese out of the bag and into your mouth. You can do it. I believe in you. I am currently doing the same. 

If you did not get the Sargento cheese, were you listening to me but at all? It is integral to this next section that you feel deliriously happy. 

Things I expect to write future posts about:

  • Dissecting the Zenon trilogy, the strengths and the weaknesses. 
  • $7 bottles of wine that taste the same as $20 bottles.
  • The need for a new queen of romantic comedies in the wake of Nora Ephron.
  • Why can’t I keep my plants alive?
  • When all of your friends have boyfriends, and other single-girl problems. 
  • I’m trying to save money but Instagram is conspiring against me. 
  • Cheese? Probably. 

These are just a few topics I hope to cover, you’ll have to keep coming back for more. In the meantime, I’ll still be 25, likely eating cheese, and attempting to tell you about my life. Welcome back? 

Advertisement

An Honest Thought I Had

#life

I moved to New York City when I was 23 years old, with too many possessions and too many hopes. It took me a whole year to get here — symbolically of course. In reality, I took I95 transferred to the FDR and drove all the way through to my East Village apartment, which took about an hour and a half.

But I had spent a whole year trying to move to New York City, and now that I made it here I couldn’t decide if it was everything I wanted it to be or nothing at all.

I lived two lives in this city. One where I went to art galleries, rooftop concerts and expensive Sunday brunches. And one where I heated up frozen food, took work home with me most nights, and wondered if adulthood was just a huge sham.

In keeping with those two lives, I spent 50% of my time breathing in that New York City magic that Friends and Sex and the City convince you floats in the air. The other 50% I spent crying or anxious over whether or not my life was what it should be at this age. I mean, 23 is young but shouldn’t I be trying more things, dating more, cooking real recipes, or at a spin class?

So three months into my stint in the Big Apple, I had fewer answers than I did a year prior. 12 months ago I had a dream I could bank on. The very dream every New York City newcomer has. Now the dream was gone, replaced by an overpriced apartment, a so-so job, and a general anxiety that I might get mugged, or assaulted, or killed by a terrorist on my way home from a friend’s house at night.

It was about three months into living here that I realized that I would be the last girl at the dance. That my friends were each living in New York City for a finite number of minutes, hours, days and years that they had pre-planned. Each of them had already parceled their twenties out into chapters — New York City was just the first chapter in their life stories. And when I looked at the rest of my twenties I saw nothing beyond right now.

To be continued…

Life Update Pt. I: Mozzarella Sticks and Good News

#life, Uncategorized

Hey friends, it’s been a while. I don’t write much anymore, which is on me. But, at the request of my sister, I’m back at my metaphorical piece of notepaper ready to talk. 

Things are happening in my life. I think. Well, technically things are happening to everyone every day. But let me correct myself. Good things are happening in my life. I mean, right now, I’m halfway into an order of mozzarella sticks, and this might be the peak happiness a person can feel.

i don't know

I Guess, What I’m Trying to Say is…

#life, Uncategorized

Eek, guys, I haven’t posted in a while. I’d like to say I haven’t been writing because my social calendar is bursting at the seams. But that’s not really the truth. I’ve had the time, I just haven’t been able to figure out what to write about lately. 

When I started writing two years ago, I was living in London and having awkward encounters with foreigners, going on grand escapades, and making blog-worthy memories every day (multiple times a day). That blog basically wrote itself. Then I moved back to Boston and I tried to chronicle what it was like to be ending a big chapter of my life.

Dear Hillary, Love A Young Woman

Uncategorized

Hill,

Wow. This is crazy. Just a few days ago, I had envisioned an entirely different type of piece I was going to write for you. I know you envisioned the situation differently too. But, even though it’s difficult to find the right words, I didn’t want to be silent, I didn’t want to sit and stew. I realized something important: nothing that happened on Tuesday night would change what I wanted to say to you. 

Emptying my Twitter Drafts

humor, Uncategorized

Emptying out your drafts folder is kind of like dumping your purse out onto the table: If you weed out the old receipts, the random bobby pins, the usb port (with no corresponding cord), and the cough drops that mysteriously wriggled out of their wrappers, you’ll find something unexpectedly great that you had forgotten about entirely. Here’s what I found:

 (You can make your own judgments about which of these are the hidden gems.)

What Day Is Everyone Moving Back Into Stuvi?

humor, Uncategorized

Hey you know what’s fun about college? It keeps going on, even after you’ve graduated.

Okay, I’m not going to play dumb about all of this. I saw The Notebook, I know that all things have to end. But with move-in weekend happening now, it feels weird. Three months since I graduated Boston University, and I’m still waiting to hear what day I get to move back in and which classes I’m taking this fall. It’s weird when something that was such an important part of your life for so long just ends suddenly.

Did I reference Toto’s Africa enough times?

humor, Uncategorized

*To be read while Toto’s Africa plays in the background*

To any of you who read my previous post about my family, you will have heard a little bit about my twin sister’s volunteer trip to South Africa. Well, I’m happy to report that she has made it back on American soil and has officially won the title of ‘More Interesting Twin.’ It’s also possible that she always had this title. But, due to the fact she has no blog of her own (she’s far too busy and intelligent to ever voluntarily post this much personal information on the Internet), I thought I’d tell you all about her trip. 

We Put the “ILY” in “Family”

humor, Uncategorized

Aside from signaling the end of a Shakespearean comedy, a big family wedding also serves to bring family far and wide together. And on such a full sea were we then afloat. Okay, that’s already too many poorly-integrated Shakespeare references for this post– let me get to the point. Last weekend, I attended a classic Biggart family wedding.

For those of you who don’t know me or my family too well, let me tell you something about us: we know how to party. And that’s what a wedding is, after all: a huge party. My family loves to celebrate big, with synchronized dance numbers and conga lines headed in questionable directions, with aggressive requests for the DJ to play “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls and total domination of the photo booth. To paint you a picture of the kind of party it is, by the end of the night, odds are good that a cousin of mine will have removed his tie and tied it around his head. This is just who we are. 

Seattle, I Love You. Hiking, You Suck.

humor, Uncategorized

*Written while on a red eye to JFK*

It may have been a little naive of me to expect Tom Hanks to be in Seattle, waiting patiently since the early 90’s for me to show up and knock on the door of his houseboat. But the sleepless delirium of a six-hour, 8:00 a.m.-departing flight combined with the disturbingly fresh Pacific Northwest air tricked me into thinking that I might be welcomed to this city by Mr. Sleepless in Seattle himself. Sadly, it appears he’s moved forward with his life, I assume to New York City to live with and send mail to Meg Ryan. I suppose I’ll have to settle for Patrick Dempsey.*

*I should note that by the end of the trip, I had come to the disturbing revelation that neither Patrick Dempsey nor the rest of the cast of Grey’s Anatomy lives in Seattle. Let’s just call it one of the greater letdowns of my entire life and move on.