Slice of life

I made chocolate chip banana bread for my roommate yesterday afternoon. I think he liked it.

Sunday reading

I have an impressive/useless skill regarding my books: Pick any book off my shelf, and I can tell you where I acquired it.

Shelf 1 of 2

That Roger Angell collection up top? Bookstore on S Craig Street in Pittsburgh. The Scripps family history? Salt Lake City. Those Nora Ephron essays? A Friends of the Library tent at the TB Reads festival in St. Pete last fall. And so on. 

I love old books for the same reason people collect coins and won't buy used mattresses: You can imagine their previous life. I've found pictures, postcards and even plane tickets in used books. Which brings me to the Sunday reading list. It's hard to have a weekly feature on a blog that's existed for three days, but let's try it out.

Warm things

It turns out that waitressing in Queens is not an incredibly lucrative enterprise. 

As the weather turned cold this fall, I went through the supplies that had survived my year in Florida and found a single glove. I went to Target to buy new ones, and couldn't bring myself to pay upwards of $20 for a new pair. Screw that, I thought. I can buy a $4 skein of yarn and knit my own winter gear.

So, I made a hat

and started on a mitten. The first one, I forgot to add a thumb. It was an elaborate sock.

The second one was a success that I marveled in for weeks. Which was a problem, because I only had one mitten. But, over New Year's, I finally made a second one.

I had a pair of mittens for nearly two weeks when I left one on the Subway.

The widow

My goal for the long weekend is to replace that mitten.

Why-O Why-O

When I was 16, I lied about my weight to the woman printing my driver's license.

"130!" I said, hoping she didn't notice the quaver in my voice or the extra eight pounds that were, at the time, hidden in my calf muscles.

Five years later, when I renewed my license prior to my 21st birthday, the clerk didn't even ask - she just printed the 130 again. She clearly didn't see the extra pounds that had migrated to my hips, or she simply didn't care.

Today, I lost that 130 pounds. The category doesn't even exist on New York state licenses.

So long, Ohio license

I had to switch my license over, because it expires on my birthday, as do my car's plates. After putting it off for as long as possible, I went to the DMV after work today. Fifty-six minutes, two forms and $60.75 later, I was a New Yorker.

A bit about me

Here's a brief overview of me (and, most likely, what I'll blog about).

• I'm a big, huge unapologetic Domer. Go Irish forever and ever amen. 
• I'm also Catholic, but not unfailingly so. (Is anyone?)
• I own more than 250 books.
• I subscribe to six magazines and one newspaper.
• I read a lot.
• I mostly stick to the five main food groups: Cereal, Cheese, Mac & Cheese, Bagels with Cream Cheese and Wine. 
• I carry a corkscrew in my purse, just in case. 
• My dad thinks my writing is funny.
• Pandora stations: Frank Sinatra for cleaning and cooking. Ke$ha for the gym. Charlie Worsham for everything else. 
• My best friend's name is Michelle and she makes peanut butter for a living. Kind of. 
• I'm terrified of ceiling fans. 
• I'll be 25 in February. Rachel and Monica were 25 when Friends started. 
• I like sitcoms.
• While I watch sitcoms, I knit.
• Baseball. 

An experiment in openness

Hello,

I have spent a good bit of time this week reading the (adorable) blogs of good friends, of people I've never met and of people I once had an econ class with who now have incredibly cute children. I admired the level to which these bloggers desire to share the ups and downs of their lives with friends and strangers on the web. I decided to join in.

For years, I've resisted this urge to blog for one reason: I hate the word 'I'. I don't like writing about myself, talking about myself or, frankly, sharing in any way. That needs to change, and here's why:

Six months ago, I made a fairly disastrous cross-country move to New York City. From the outside, it didn't look that bad; I quickly got a job as a waitress at a bar in Queens (so NYC struggling writer) and found a real job at a prestigious institution not long after. The reality was different, though. 

I left my fun sportswriting job in Florida and moved north all on the word of a friend who wanted us to be roommates. He told me to get a one-month sublet for the month of August so that we could find a place to call our own starting Sept. 1. I'd been in the city for two weeks when that friend, one of my longest and closest, stopped returning my calls. We never saw each other. I have no idea if he even still lives in NYC.

I still live here.

I moved with the idea that this friend (and his myriad friends) would help me to become a more social, well-rounded person. What happened is I became even more withdrawn, which a young person in the city so nice they named it twice -- the second name is Manhattan -- has no right to be. And so, this blog is my experiment in openness, both to the world around me and to the idea of sharing that world. Wish me luck.

- Laura