New Year's Res - midpoint check-in

Somehow the month of June has come and almost nearly gone, which means that 2015 is almost halfway over - so I guess it's as good a time as any to do a bit of a check-in regarding my New Year's Resolutions. Back in January, I made a few bold statements as to what I was going to work and focus on during the year - and while they weren't major, swooping resolutions,  I did identify five small areas that I felt could use some improvement. So how am I doing?

Read more non-fiction

This one gets a resounding yes! I've read 9 non-fiction books since January, which is about 8 more than I usually do. It may be silly, but I made a really focused attempt at loading up my library loan requests with non-fiction choices. I haven't loved everything I've read (but I don't love every fiction book I read either, because, duh), but pleasant surprises include Man Seeks God (read it for comparative religions), Blue Mind (read it for a scientific look at all the water in your life), The War of Art (read it for a creative kick in the pants), and Maphead (read it for the love of maps). I feel like I opened the door on an entire library full of possibilities and I am beyond glad I did so.

Volunteer

Back in January, I worried that this would be the hardest-to-achieve goal, and sadly, I'm proving myself right. Thus far, I've spent exactly one day volunteering - and while it was for a good cause, it was a recurring gig for an annual event - so not exactly a stretch in terms of developing a relationship with a new cause or group. The difficulties haven't changed - my erratic schedule doesn't allow for a consistent block of time in which to volunteer, and outside of that one aforementioned event, isolated and/or one-day volunteer opportunities are few and far between. That being said, there's a chance that my schedule will even out in the near future, and with that will (hopefully) come a wider range of volunteer options.

Get out of culinary rut
I could be doing a whole lot more to fulfill this goal. While I did make a beef stew for the first time in February AND added pickled daikon to my Just Salad the other day, the Chipoltles and mac & cheeses greatly outweigh any other exciting culinary choices I've made this year. The outlook for at least the rest of the summer is good, however, thanks to my one-third share of this CSA. I've already incorporated turnips into two separate dishes, and even though I'm not new to leafy greens, figuring out how to use the massive amount of kale/swiss chard/spinach/dinosaur leaves is proving to be a really interesting challenge.

Make time for doodling

Even though I haven't quite made it to the "sit at a giant empty desk while I mindfully doodle charming and heartwarming designs on a gorgeous sunlit afternoon" stage (what, your daydreams don't look like that?), I have managed to make some (very small) headway on my next knitting project, I finally bought a gym membership and have logged some much needed hours on the treadmill, and I've spent more than a few afternoons turning off the TV and doing nothing more than curling up with a good book. I'm learning that the times in which I engage in an activity that falls along the lines of what I WANT to do versus what I SHOULD do, I end up happier, more relaxed, and more ready to face whatever I do actually have to do later that day. I still haven't filled a notebook with idle doodles, but I certainly have given myself permission do do something just for me, even if it's for only 15 minutes at a time, and it's made a difference.

Quality over price

I get a B+ for this - I did say no to Payless and yes to a pair of Tom's AND I plunked down a few bucks to get some really nice Pyrex bakeware, but I also fell down the Old Navy rabbit hole and bought a bunch of cheap shirts and dresses. So, I still have a bit of work to do. It's just REALLY hard to walk away from those colorful $5 tank tops!

Unsubscribe
I'm convinced that emails are the cockroaches of the internet. I swear that I hit "unsubscribe" on every last unwanted promotional email that shows up in my inbox and everything is all fine and good for like two wonderful days - and then slowly but surely the "Promotions" tab in my gmail fills up with all sorts of junk. It's a Sisyphean task, but my vigilant unsubscribing has made a noticeable difference, so it's not entirely in vain.

Bonus resolution - Fitbit every day ;)
On January 1, I charged J's old Fitbit that had been sitting in his desk and slapped it on my wrist. Six months later, I've hit the 10,000-step mark 124 times (I use this fantastic goal tracker to log my steps along with the Fitbit iPhone app) and I am a Fitbit fanatic. Irrational choices I've made as a direct result of the tracker on my wrist include: getting off two subway stops earlier to increase the distance I walk to work, choosing to go to the salad place instead of the wrap place simply because the salad place is farther away, and marching in place during commercial breaks to get those last five hundred steps. I will undoubtedly have a separate post solely dedicated to all things Fitbit at the end of the year, but for now I'll say that while I had no idea of the rabbit hole I was throwing myself into, my Fitbit is pretty much my favorite thing ever and I'm considering having it permanently attached to my wrist. (#kidding). Now if you'll excuse me, I have to do some laps around my coffee table.

How are you doing on your new year's resolutions?

Visiting the (new) Whitney Museum

I've said it 500 times before, but I love me a good art museum. And when the Whitney Museum opened to the public in its new downtown location (after its midtown home closed in 2014), I knew that I simply had to be there - except that I was in the middle of a crazy rehearsal process and could barely get to the grocery, let alone spend an afternoon at a museum. But somehow the show happened and we stopped rehearsing and at the first sight of an afternoon off + the museum being open + gorgeous summer weather (a more complicated equation than you'd think) I headed downtown.

Let's get one thing straight - I am not a professional art critic, historian, or reviewer. I am simply someone who took a few art history classes in college and enjoys spending free time amongst works of modern art. That being said, I have some thoughts on the new Whitney Museum.

First of all, the Renzo Piano-designed building is gorgeous. But of course it is gorgeous - there's no way a newly constructed, starchitect-created building would be anything but visually stunning and skyline-changing. And some aspects of the building are truly great - there's what looks like a delightful little restaurant in the lobby, and almost all the floors have outdoor terraces with to-die-for views of the Meatpacking District/Hudson River/Statue of Liberty/Jersey. But it's as though everyone thought so long and hard about the building itself (and it's subsequent money-making aspects, i.e, a restaurant AND a cafe AND a heavily-branded bookstore) that they forgot about the art.

Not that there isn't art all over the place. There absolutely is, and it's all interesting and reflective and very important to the history of American art. But the problem, as I see it, is that the art gets lost in the building. Each floor has little nooks and enclaves that suggest different galleries, but I found there to be no obvious flow to any of the floors. I had to double back many times thinking that I had missed a section, only to get trapped by a giant group of people going around a corner. As is the case with most museums, various works of art were grouped according to a theme or subject matter indicated by a short blurb printed on a nearby wall, but it was nearly impossible to figure out where one collection ended and another began.

And then there were the staircases. As I said before, nearly all the floors had access to an outdoor terrace, and some of those terraces also had staircases leading to subsequent floors - but only some of them. So If you are trying to see the entirety of a floor and then spend time on the terrace and then head directly to the floor below you, sometimes you will be able to accomplish this, but sometimes you'll have to double back through the gallery to find the indoor staircase that then leads to another floor. These indoor staircases, though, are cramped and industrial, and made me wonder if I was supposed to be using them at all. I guess the idea is for everybody to take one of the two giant elevators, but the crowd of people in front of the elevator bank was most off-putting. That, and shouldn't we be taking the stairs for our health anyway?

And lest I forget to mention the noise level. High vaulted ceilings and hardwood floors are gorgeous to look at - but there's a reason that assembly and concert halls also employ those two architectural features. It. was. so. loud. in. there. From the sonorous teachings of a tour guide to the squawking of small children to hearing-deficient old ladies discussing their lunch plans to the constant click of an iPhone camera, I half wondered if the ambient sounds were an ill-advised immersive installation piece. Dear Museums: alongside the popular #empty days, how about you also provide some #silent hours? If I were so inclined to re-visit the Whitney, I'd give some serious consideration to paying a premium for a child and phone-free morning.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm disappointed in the museum. It was frustratingly crowded for a Monday afternoon (I hate to see what it's like on a free Friday evening), but I think that is largely due to the design. Tiny and confusing galleries created a sense of claustrophobia, and most patrons had looks of mild confusion and angst - the very opposite of what I'd want my museum-goers to feel. The opportunities to stand back and contemplate a piece were few and far between. In fact, the largest collections of chairs and benches were, ironically, not in front of art works at all, but placed in front of giant picture windows that looked out over the Hudson. Great views, sure, but I don't go to an art museum to look at a river.

I get that many museums have to make do with the building they're given - whether they're housed in an old mansion, converted castle, warehouse, etc., there are some instances in which you have to simply deal with an oddly placed support beam or random staircase - but the Whitney was created from scratch. It could have been anything, and they chose to focus on everything but the art.

That being said, I'm probably being way too harsh on a successful new art museum. I'm all for the creation and support of new venues for arts and culture in any city. I also realize that my thoughts are completely unfounded and based on one three-hour visit, so my data points are in no way comprehensive. But, at $22 a visit for adults, it's probably going to be a minute before I make another journey to that museum in the Meatpacking.

#tbt - traveling though the heart of Japan

In the fall of 2009, I joined two of my college besties on a trip through Japan. It was, for all practical purposes, a trip that shouldn't have happened in the first place - I had JUST moved to New York about two weeks beforehand, I had basically no money due to having recently written two giant checks to both my new landlord and my broker who found me the apartment I couldn't really afford in the first place, and my next gig wasn't going to start for another month, leaving me completely unemployed for my first full month of living in one of the most expensive cities in the country. But, give me any sort of recognizable free time and even the slightest suggestion of the possibility of a trip, and you can bet I'll be on the first flight out of town. Which brings me back to Japan - Brian was spending the year teaching English about two hours south of Tokyo, Rachel was looking to clear her mind of a recent death in the family, the three of us hadn't seen each other in a while, and why not catch up over some really good sake? What resulted was one of the best and most memorable 9 days of my life - fish markets and imperial gardens in Tokyo, conveyor-belt sushi and a soak in the local onsen in Shizuoka, a bullet train past Mt. Fuji, and a long weekend of bike riding and temple viewing in Kyoto. We laughed, we reminisced, we caught up on each other's lives, and we remembered that travel is good, but travel with friends is great.

I didn't have this blog back then. Heck, my first iPhone wouldn't show up on my doorstep for another two full years. But I did recently find an old jump drive containing the (gazillion) pictures I took on my old and trusty Sony Cyber Shot, and realized that this trip down memory lane would be even more fun if I were able to share it with you all - I hope you enjoy it!

women shopping / chef searching / students training / photo making / window gazing / bike riding / temple viewing / maiko sighting / ramen cooking / ladies walking / sumo wrestling / architecture  recognizing / bullet training / mountain toping / prayer scrolling / sun protecting / leaf peeping / funicular driving / pachinko playing