Category Archives: Good intentions

Sundays are for me

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As my friends know, I’m very protective of my Sundays. To the extent that I have come to think of them as Selfish Sundays.

Unapologetically.

I’m glad to get brunch, or to meet for coffee. But once 2p or 3p rolls around on Sundays, I’m ready to be on my own.

Ask me to dinner. Suggest seeing a movie. Any other day? Cool. On Sunday, this is me.

No

It all started with this guy. We’d usually spend Sunday afternoons apart, but get back together for dinner at the end of the day. While he was the better cook of the two of us, on Sundays, I’d whip something up while he played basketball with his friends. It became a fun little routine.

When we split, Sundays were hard. I cried a lot some Sundays. But I soon found it helped to plow through with what I had learned to enjoy.

Now Sundays are rarely anything but pure joy for me.  I don’t make apologies for staying in bed past ten a.m. I blog (hi!). I walk around and think. I read books.

Do you have a ritual or routine you guard fiercely? If so, what does it entail?

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Reflections and hopes

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This New Year’s Eve I thought about staying home. At 8:30, I rallied with encouragement from @eorlins–and a virtual shove out the door by my neighbors’ loud gathering–and had a great time.

NYE

Note to self: you should rally more often. You have fun when you do.

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On January 1 to news that would have crushed me just two years ago: the man with whom I had my most significant romantic relationship so far is getting married this coming May.

What a relief that all I feel is glad that he’s happy. With perhaps a dash of “that’s weird.”

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Later on January 1, I had a terrific brunch with @JulieRoginsky and then with no warning at all, I had the greatest workout I’ve experienced in ages. Total accident. Through it, I might have found myself a personal trainer in spite of not making any fitness-oriented New Year’s resolutions.

Or any resolutions at all.

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My only hope for 2013 is to be happy. To continue being happy really, because I am most of the time. I wish the same for all of you too.

Yoga that blows my mind

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Are you into yoga? I have taken classes here and there, but nothing serious. Usually whatever my gym offers versus a more specialized studio.

A friend from high school, Nicole Scavo-Powell, found Astanga yoga while caring for her terminally ill father and became very serious about it, eventually becoming certified to teach.

When Nicole and reconnected on Facebook, I saw her pictures and videos and found them incredibly inspiring.

N Scavo photo by Jennifer Savo

N Scavo photo by Jennifer Savo

Amazing!

N Scavo-Powell

Nicole teaches in Scranton including at Mission Yoga, and also teaches privately.

Don’t forget Sandy

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I passed this sign approximately 100 times pre-Sandy.

Now it’s a good reminder that people are still hurting on multiple levels.

image

If you want to help, here are a few ways to consider.

  • Shop at a local business in a region affected by the storm.
  • Connect directly with a family in need. Here’s one option.
  • Check out New Jersey Needs, a clearinghouse organized by @bookgirl96
  • Donate to the Humane Society
  • Give to the Brooklyn Recovery Fund
  • Support Long Island’s Island Harvest

Lost and Found

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Remember the cool new Lodis wallet I bought? I lost it on October 21.

While I can tell you the exact moment I lost it – getting out of a taxi in front of my apartment building as I returned from CA via a red eye – but I can’t tell you how I managed to drop it and not notice during that seven or eight foot long walk to the front door.

About an hour after I returned home, I realized that my wallet wasn’t in my purse. I panicked.

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When did you know you were an adult?

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When I spoke to Kathleen Schmidt for her Twitter Spotlight, I asked her to add a question. I should have known hers would be a great one!

Her question really stuck with me: When did you know you were an adult?

Allison Winn Scotch got to answer the question in her Twitter Spotlight. This is what she said.

The first time I packed lunch for my son.

I know: you’d think it would have been sooner, like, giving birth or buying an apartment. But nothing had a bigger impact than packing lunch and tucking it in his little backpack. Probably because it reminded me of my own mom, and how much of a grown-up she seemed to little old me back then. There is/was something very ritualistic about it, and I knew – bam – I was all grown up. (Even if I don’t always act that way.)

I love this question! It has made me think so much that I wanted to answer it myself.

Not long after I left for college at seventeen, both parents separately confessed that when they started the drive home, they had to pull over to cry. Was I an adult then? Not quite, but it was a step in that direction.

Later I thought I became an adult the first night I spent in my very own apartment after I moved to NYC  (the first time). By that point, I had lived in Manhattan for about six weeks thanks to a summer program NYU offered, renting out dorm rooms by the week. Those six weeks allowed me to get acclimated to the city and my first job before launching an apartment hunt.

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On lost love: Arc of Life and Love, Unbent by Treatment

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I go to a terrific physical therapy place in Brooklyn. They treated my little neck issue, and now they treat lingering issues from breaking my ankle.

My ankle PT is in a passive phase: I lie down on a treatment table and have heat packs applied, sometimes with stim. I lie down while my main therapist Matt manipulates my foot and ankle, and massages muscles and tendons. I lie down while having my ankle iced.

We talk.

Matt and I talk about his new baby boy. I ask Jason about his salsa dancing adventures. Colin tells me about how he came to eat a largely vegan diet or about the matching tattoo he and his sister got after the sad death of her husband. Melvin Googles the weird fracture I suffered.

Tonight I was the last patient in the place, spending most of my time with Matt and Colin. When I got home, something made me Google Colin’s sister and the novel she had published last year.

I’ll never know why I didn’t go straight to Amazon, or why I didn’t just buy the book on my iPad. But instead, I found this article and video about love lost.

To be honest, I feel a little creepy posting this even though it’s a video that ran in the damn New York Times. It’s intensely personal, emotional and moving, to the extent that I feel like I’m prying almost.

But now that I have pried – or not – I hope you’ll watch the video so I’m not left here with my heart aching all by myself.