HAY GIRL

Armour’s Summer Issue is OUT OUT OUT OUT and I got some...

Sat, 04 May 2013 13:41:00 -0500

Armour’s Summer Issue is OUT OUT OUT OUT

and I got some musings on the book Overdressed and a lil DIY feature inside

Educate yourselves here

"I want to die saying that even if love doesn’t exist, even if I end up unfulfilled by my career and..."

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:15:21 -0500

“I want to die saying that even if love doesn’t exist, even if I end up unfulfilled by my career and personal relationships and even if I die alone in a ditch somewhere or half-eaten by wild dogs, I believed in the ecstasy of life. I dared to believe.”

- Nico Lang, “Why Being A Romantic Isn’t Hopeless”

my ‘n my art

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 13:29:06 -0500

my ‘n my art

Feminism's Changing Place in Fashion

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 10:30:00 -0500

Sometimes I lend my mind grapes and fashion inklings to WashU’s on-campus fashion and style magazine, Armour. Below is one of my most recent non-DIY articles.

pictured: Leandra Medine, better known as The Man Repeller

The fashion industry in its simplest definition is the constant sartorial creation that perpetuates an ever-changing concept of beauty. Of course “beauty”, as we have always been told, is in the eye of the beholder and perhaps the pen of the definer. But that’s an exploration for another day. Feminism, on the other hand, is more complex in that it has varying extents. For the purposes of this article, however, I’m going to say it’s feeling and acting on capital G-P, Girl Power— academically, professionally, socially, the list goes on and on. The two concepts often butt-heads through their stark contrasts. Fashion is beauty, vanity, fantasy, man-made and is showcased externally while feminism is brains, reality, a widened scope of the world and a fire within us. The common question that lies between the two worlds is: is it possible for feminism to exist within fashion?

Today, the answer is a whopping “hell yeah!”

Thanks to personal online channels, women in fashion at any level are able to bring an opinionated voice to the face and job-title us plebeians see, where they can speak in a setting free of advertisers, content quotas, or formal editors. For example, one of the most popular fashion bloggers today, Leandra Medine better known as The Man Repeller, has completely changed the feminine and all-too-posed fashion blog formula through being smart, candid, and unconditional in embracing her quirks. While Medine hasn’t explicitly dubbed herself as a feminist, her witty writing and personal brand foundation revolves around the fact that you should always dress for yourself, with bonus points for man-repelling androgyny. Her mantra works too— this lady’s got over 250k and 150k Instagram and Twitter followers, respectively. Not to mention her blog gets 2.6 million page views a month (that’s like the entire population of Chicago checkin’ you out on the regular). The internet allows for an audience far larger than ever before, which is why we can look at Medine and ‘get’ her as opposed to writing off her stylistic quirks. As she says herself, “[my blog and man-repelling] is not really about fashion, it’s about the freak behind it”. The point is, Medine continues to break barriers, not only in what’s cool for a woman to wear, but also bending the perceived gender standards within fashion.

On the opposite end of the fashion influencer spectrum, betcha didn’t know designer Miuccia Prada was an ardent feminist. Prada, who holds a PhD in political science and is known for her designs’ eccentric elegance, is a fashion institution, however it was only recently that she was given a stage that reached a little further beyond the fashion bubble. Miuccia Prada was part of 2012’s always popular Met Costume Institute exhibition, where visitors were exposed to not only her designs, but her values as a creator and a fashion industry influencer. In one instance she is quoted as saying, “fashion fosters cliches of beauty, but I want to tear them apart”. Through her industry stature and exposure through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she has given people a lot to think about and shows us that fashion not only has brains, but needs it.

While both of these women are still feminine to their own extent, their voices are strong through words and visuals. What’s even better is that they are two of dozens and counting. As we continue to progress as a society at large, changes in technology and gender barriers allow for feminism and fashion to merge more and more. Even though at the end of the day fashion will always be about aesthetics, that should never prevent the women within it from being seen and heard as strong, opinionated, and innovative leaders who are grounded in values outside of fashion. As Beyonce, our agreed upon God, once asked, “who runs the world?” GIRLS (and we look good doing it).

See the full issues and read more:
Spring 2012
Fall 2012
Holiday 2012
Spring 2013

On DIY Haircuts (Do 'Em)

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:54:17 -0600

Cutting your hair with your own hands is not for the fickle, it takes certainty, drive and a little bit of insanity… kind of like art?

Last week, I stayed home and in a feverish fit (literally, 100 degrees), cut my hair in the bathroom sink. This ain’t nothing new, the first time was in 2nd grade when I was just trying to even out my pigtails. Can’t blame a girl for trying, eh? Yeah, that incident got no motherly sympathy. Flash forward 10 years, I also cut my hair for three years in high school/college with no problem. Why did I do it? IDK my BFF Jill? No, but really, I just knew it was time to go short. You heard it here… third (because I’ve already seen/read/noticed this elsewhere), but long hair isn’t chic anymore, it’s basic.

Pros? Saves you hella money, gives you creative control (ha, what a douchey thing to say) of your head suit, beat boredom, arguably impressive if it looks decent, and thrilling… if you’re into that.

Cons? Um… from personal experience, the look on your hairdressers face when you admit this fact. It’s like telling a grad student that you dropped out to home school yourself in middle school level learning. Alas, I DO WHAT I WANT.

Anyway, this is how it all went down. I shuffled in my sweatsuit #chic from my bed to the bathroom holding my normal-ass scissors and thinning shears. Wet my hair, divided it into two even sections, pulled them to the front, cut about two inches clean off. Spent the next hour with the thinning shears in an effort to make it effortlessly imperfect (ya know, comme le français). If stay conscious during your past haircuts, it’s not hard to learn their tricks by just staring in the mirror. Minimal effort learning, y’all.

The Importance of Being Wary of Fashion, in Fashion

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 22:42:00 -0600

Fashion is so funny. Really, though! As much as I love it and drown myself in its news and images, it’s a really funny industry. I’ve been avidly following all the NYFW coverage, which yes of course is great and I’m always down for wearable art in a high glamour setting, but man, people are funny.

Looking at street style specifically, the ish that’s all over the blogs I usually hit up, these people look great for the most part. But taking a serious step back from the culture of fashion, people actually do look a lil cray. I mean, don’t get me wrong, power to them! But, declaring that someone’s coat is “everything” or their necklace is “major” or their eye makeup is “having a moment”… let’s float back to earth for a quick lil sec, can we? I’m all for doin’ you as eccentrically as possible but I feel like Fashion Week brings it this pinnacle in which everyone just wants to get on a street style blog despite the fact that it’s supposed to be about designers’ shows. Is that what we want the industry to be about? It’s way too easy to get wrapped up in what we think fashion is ‘supposed’ to be, which all too easily let’s really great design talent get overlooked. There is amazing stuff out there if you just broaden your concept of, capital F, Fashion— I think Susie Lau of Style Bubble exposes this the best. Fashion is everywhere! You just have to realize it.

But even outside of finding talent, the fashion industry is often criticized for lacking perspective.

Originally Captioned: Fashionistas pose for photographs in front of a homeless man outside Moynihan Station following a showing of the Rag & Bone Spring/Summer 2013 collection during New York Fashion Week.

:-\
I don’t want to seem like I’m biting the hand that feeds, but, there are bigger problems out there. The aesthetic world is exciting, fantastic in a literal sense, inspiring and definitely has a keeping-up-with-the-jonses type situation, but keeping perspective is essential.

Which brings me to why I love John Jannuzzi (twitter, tumblr) and Laurel Pantin (twitter, tumblr) so much. No, they do not know me, but I really don’t care. Both have a voice within fashion that while is uncommon, is also well-received. Not to mention they both seem (at least to me) nothing short of genuine and embrace their past and present quirks with open and comedic metaphoric arms. Honestly, I just want to be their best friends (especially because they are already friends too) but I feel like they ‘get it’ without sacrificing style or personality. From reading what they both write, they seem to know the absurdity that runs rampant in fashion and call it out all the time, especially Jannuzzi. All I want is more people like them. I want to go to there.

I personally love fashion for the artistry, glamour, diversity, pace and culture (dey love cupcakes). But I know there is more out there! However, after writing all this maybe it is I, who is not even wary, but naive.

Let’s Embrace Consumerism For a Hot Sec I like these...

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 22:25:00 -0600

Let’s Embrace Consumerism For a Hot Sec

I like these things, gimme.
Sortof clockwise: ALC sweater, Delfina Delettrez single earring, Sophnet men’s oxford shirt, Rebecca Minkoff loafters, Loeffler Randal bag, Westward Leaning sunglasses, Frends headphones.

The best part is I’d totally wear these in one outfit, the worst part is I ain’t got the justifiable funds. Sugar daddies, inquire within.

A Comprehensive but Biased Evaluation of the STL Exercise Scene

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 11:16:00 -0600

Wellbridge Gym

I’ve had the priviledge of coming here several times because they are pretty generous with their guest passes and luckily we are totes neighbors.

Pros: Free coffee! Super nice facilities, a demographic that makes me feel young, and a staff who will correct your ab workout techniques even if you don’t ask.

Cons: I recognized a lot of WashU gurls and I’m not about that. It’s wildly expensive, and again, a staff who will correct your ab workout techniques even if you don’t ask.

Estrogym

Less commonly and more officially known as the South 40 Fitness Center. Admittedly, I haven’t worked out in the gym part of this since sophomore year because, well this place is definitely swamped with underclassmen, but I do werk the classes.

Pros: It makes me feel mature, they have cheap group classes that I am a big fan of, on-campus, stretching (sun?) room is good for people watching, it’s above BD so it’s like dinner-and-a-movie except more like dinner-and-a-workout.

Cons: It makes me feel old, still costs money even though we pay $44k in tuition??? Don’t get me started on private education institutions, that’s a rant for later.

The AC

Presently, I only use the AC for the pool because the “cardio” room is HELLA depressing. I ran on the treadmill once and I was like wow, this is it, this is the end of life.

Pros: For once, it’s free. Word on the street is that it has a good weight room, but as a lady who is daintier than real athletes, this intimidates me and thus I do mental weight lifting instead. It’s steps from the b-school, yay?

Cons: Definitely the jankiest building on campus besides like, Ruby, I’m serious, they don’t even bring tours to this building. The pool has wackass hours- like 7:30-9am on weekdays wack. If we had it my way, there’d be two separate pools for plebeian lap swimming and real swimmer practice things.

YogaSix

Off campus yoga

Pros: 2 week/6 class free pass! I’ve been milking this like it’s a golden cow (wut?). Mat rental is only $2, teachers are great, good variety of classes, and it’s an unofficial Lululemon runway show.

Cons: Have to drive there, and it’s actually pretty expensive once your free pass expires.

Outside: Question mark?
In my temperature-humble opinion it is still hella cold out so I have not explored this option beyond walking, a lot. I don’t have a car and I’m rull into fresh air so I am like BFFAE with Walking. However, I just signed up for The Color Run 5k in April so I should probably get my running act together.

Pros: Um it costs you NOTHING except your time, it’s scenic (hay Forest Park), you get clean(ish) air, and technically more strenuous than running on a treadmill I think.

Cons: Ugh, people see and look at you and probably talk about how out of breath you look while they’re riding in their cars with heated seats, also: inclines and you have to dress for the weather and not for your potential sweat level.

On the list to try: Sweat, Lululemon yoga classes, and Skyzone Exercise classes <— THIS IS REAL. I know, I know.

Real Talk: Shame and Vulnerability

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 20:12:00 -0600

I recently watched these super famous Ted talks, The Power of Vulnerability and Listening to Shame with social researcher Brené Brown. I searched for them after it was mentioned in the the recent New York Magazine article, Why You Never Truly Leave High School.

If you haven’t seen the talks, her main points include: Vulnuerability is defined as emotional risk, exposure, or uncertainty. People who have a sense of worthiness and belonging in life feel this way because they believe they are worthy (but we already knew that, thank you Perks of Being a Wallflower). She called these people ” the wholehearted”, they have courage to be imperfect, the compassion to be kind to themselves and others, and have connections with others as a result of their own authenticity. As a result, they fully embrace vulnerability and uncertainty, Not that these people are comfortable with this, just that they recognized it was necessary. According to Brown, this acceptance is the birthplace of joy, creativity, belonging, and love. In order to live wholly, you must recognize that, you are enough. Shame, very much tied with vulnerability, she describes as an epidemic in our culture, which is fueled by secrecy, silence and judgement.

I’ve been thinking about her talk in relation to myself (TICK TOCK ME O’CLOCK) during the last few days and need to get some thoughts out. After watching the talk, I realized that I am vulnerable, and I am all the time. I recognize that I am wildly imperfect and embrace it to the point where I’m often called “weird”— often lovingly but sometimes not. Not only do I live this way, but I publicize it via my social media platforms all the time. EMBRACE YOUR QUIRKS, PEOPLE.

But that’s another thing I thought about, assuming I am not an outlier in feeling this way, is it possible that our generation is more vulnerable and shameless because we document nearly everything in our lives via the internet? While it’s true that what we choose to put out there is for the most part moderated by ourselves, thus we have the ability to craft a persona of some sense, what is your incentive to lie and how long could you even keep that up? From my perspective, there is no reason to be anything less than your authentic self (unless that sucks, then maybe stop reading this?). The beauty of the internet, especially twitter, is that complete strangers can appreciate who you are just via the content you tweet. We no longer need to seek acceptance via those we actually know, and that is a cool thought, I think.

Something I say all the time, usually ironically in the situation but always meant at heart is, never be ashamed of who you are. Why must some pleasures be “guilty”? Why are some pleasures “ironic”? Who says I can’t do X, Y or Z? Why should I be embarrassed about eating sushi off the sidewalk (health hazards aside)? I just wanna do me!

Maybe it’s a generational shift in mentality (read: NYTimes’ What is about 20-Somethings), maybe there is a pop cultural appreciation for being a little ‘out-there’ by society’s standards a la Jennifer Lawrence for example (who really werks it) or maybe it’s just me. I am fortunate enough that I am surrounded by and seek out people who are genuine, supportive and interesting… and I make it a point to dismiss those I deem otherwise… sorry, not sorry, life is short, don’t hate your friends. But the point is, not only do I pride myself on my honesty, but I also suck at secrets and lean full well into my idiosyncrasies. My life is mostly an open book for those who ask.

This whole post (rant?) could obviously be expanded in a million ways to create a pretty thought-provoking article, if I do say so myself. However, for now it’s ending here.

I’ll leave you with one of Brown’s last statements in Listening to Shame, “we just want ourselves and those around us to dare greatly.”

I'm a Second Semester Senior... Now What?

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 09:07:47 -0600

As a student in the 16th grade (go with it), I’m about to come to the end of my formal education journey. ~~Society~~ ~~Life~~ ~~People~~ Liars tell you that being a second semester college senior is easy, breezy, beautiful (COVERGURL). While yes, so far it has been extremely easy (read: what is homework?), I am bored.

If I had to scapegoat this ish, I’d say it’s me. I am in four classes, two of which are art-related and have little (read: no) homework. The other two business courses are, what’s the word, “meh.” So far, my TA position has been the first thing to really occupy me.

While it’s true that I should maybe enjoy my boredness since I have a job, I live with my best friend, I’m still partially living off my dad’s dime, yadda yadda yadda, I NEED A NEW HOBBY. There’s only so many friendship bracelets I can make, I’ve finished Breaking Bad, my room is consistently spotless etc. etc.

So I’ve done some thinking and here are my New Hobby options:

Take my Aubrey Plaza/April Ludgate doppelgänger status to new levels
Exercise
Find a way to make Cheetos even better
Read all the books
Finally learn the Single Ladies dance (failed attempt in November of 2008)
Learn to cook, question mark?
Join a fight club— gotta put these brass knuckles to werq
Make more STUFF
Learn to make balloon animals, become a part-time entertainer
Work in the lab more
Create and maintain a fake celebrity twitter account- JOKE.
Travel! Semester trips include: Kansas City, Miami, Bahamas, Chicago and Pittsburgh. Tentatively: Colorado.
Focus on getting my post-braces tooth alignment back, I’m coming for you, Retainers
Explore STL more
Teach others how to rid themselves of FOMO— an enlightenment I achieved last semester
Take up a second major in TEDTalks
All of the above?!

Kay I’m outta here. You can find me later eating cheetos with my retainer while doing the single ladies dance in my kickboxing class wearing a balloon animal hat. PEACE.

The Zoo: NOT JUST FOR KIDS, PEOPLE Hey, guess what? I’m a...

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 23:59:00 -0600

The Zoo: NOT JUST FOR KIDS, PEOPLE

Hey, guess what? I’m a senior now. I totally succumbed to that good ‘ole Senior Mentality and gave myself an “easy” semester. My conclusions here might be a little premature, considering I’ve only had five days of class but… drumroll please… I have SO much free time. I mean like, so much. I need to find another hobby besides Breaking Bad, making friendship bracelets, and day dreaming about pizza. Moving on, this fact in combination with my ticking time bomb clock of graduation is allowing me to shamelessly cross off long awaited STL bucket list items.

So, Alice and I hit up the zoo! This thing is literally a two min drive from school, my four year absence from it is pathetic. Anyway, as expected, the zoo ROCKS. Seeing animals outside of Planet Earth and in 3D is so great. I hadn’t been to a zoo since 1998 in Germany and even then the animals there were raccoon and wart hogs… ain’t nobody got time for that! My personal favorite was the gorillas, I felt like I was Jane (alright, Tarzan…). The cheetah was also great, mostly because it actually looked JUST LIKE this cheetah stuffed animal I had growing up (see above image).

Despite how great the zoo is though for entertainment and education, have you ever thought about the concept of a zoo and the nature (no pun intended but I like it so pretend it was intended) of wildlife? I am no expert by any means on how zoos operate or how or why animals are chosen, but to me it seems a little forced and sad. I saw a giraffe in a cage that only had space for THE GIRAFFE. I looked at it and it gave me its version of the stank eye back (I’m sure of it), it was upsetting. Alternatively, imagine if animals put us in zoos— weird, right?

The Best Stuff at WashU That The Tour Guides Will Never Tell You

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 17:11:21 -0600

can’t take credit for dis pic, taken by Brian Feldman

The Staff

The people who work here are the best. There is a woman who works at the vegetarian station at the DUC who has literally been there for over 50 years. Can you imagine? The guys at the mail station know my name (Ms. Hay) and are hilariously intrigued by my brass knuckle situation.

photo by Athena, sorry for the sausage fingers, I was born this way

Molly, the receptionist at the Weston Career Center, is (capital T-S) The Sweetest and went to school with my old BG boss?! She’s also motivated me to be more active this semester after hearing all of her marathoning stories.

But seriously, real talk, this campus, as Princeton Review once said, “runs like butter.” The people who work here are not only kind and hardworking, but often pretty interesting or funny. BE APPRECIATIVE, Y’ALL.

Free food

It’s everywhere, it’s all the time, and it’s usually good. The study abroad fair in the b-school last semester featured catered cultural finger food corresponding to each country. Private school is crazy, man. Another strategy: join a club! Clubs get funding and funding goes towards food. Heck, DSP is having a social at this very second where I got my strawberry intake for the day.

Microsoft Office is $Free.99

Das right, at least for b-schoolers das right. If you didn’t know this and feel like a n00b, come see me in the lab and I’ll hook you up.

WILD: as a concept, not an event

Apparently WILD means “walk in lay down”, but in my experience it’s been more like “run in eat pizza.” Either way, if you plan your day right and pace yourself, the event is not nearly as fun as the afternoon you had leading up to it. Act like a state school! See the sunlight! Put off your homework! I know, scandalous.

EVERYTHING ABOUT BD

This place is not sold hard enough. IT IS AMAZING. Even the prepared food in glass cases is waymazing. Open faced tilapia sandwiches? kay. Grilled trout? super. And although not “gourmet” (god, you foodies ruin everything), the three cheese melt. *cue heavenly church music*. Bonus: they’re often bumping music while you order. Double bonus: Angela (see The Staff) is a delight. Also the indian station is BOMB.COM FOR REAL. If you haven’t tried it because you are afraid of ethnic food or some other kind of terrible-person flaw, well then, more for me.

Fresh flowers?! Obvi. Also seen is your standard boat-shoes-wearing-curly-haired WashU dude

NYC BAYBEE

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 18:32:00 -0600

Winter break gets boring, there is really only so much Breaking Bad you can watch (yes, really, that shit made me nauseous) and there is only so long you can avoid your hometown gym (mission possible). SO, not so shockingly, I packed my timberlands and headed to New York.

PLOT TWIST: And then I got the flu. Luckily, my first stop in Westchester was very forgiving to the feverish lump of human I morphed into.

Alice and I took turns reading Mindy Kaling’s book to each other.
LOLville, population 2.

I finally gave into DayQuil (fever dreams ain’t nothing to mess with, kids) and shipped myself into Manhattan to stay with Jess and Faryn on the Upper East Side. BONUS: They literally share an address with a pizza place, score.

In exchange for staying with them, I made this paint-chip wall… thing. If I were an artsy robber this would be my leave behind. SORRY/YOU’RE WELCOME.

Not from the place mentioned above, but from Carmine’s in Brooklyn. OM NOM PESTO NOM. Thanks to the flu, this was the first real food my stomach had seen for 3 days. Welcome back, food.

Got to briefly see some of my bk peeps

Spoiler Alert: The real real reason I was in the city was for a Fashion Road Show put on by WashU’s career center. I’ll never turn down an opportunity to see a fashion brand from the inside. But it gave me a great excuse to bookend the trip with fun friends.

One of our stops on the Road Show: Michael Kors

The last stop on the NY Train was Park Slope where I stayed with Kate and her family. We OD’ed hard on Freaks and Geeks, I wasn’t mad.

We managed to convince J Cole to make us brunch, JACKPOT. Having friends in high (read: gourmet) places is always a good thing.

chocolate chip pancakes with bananas and powdered sugar were on the menu

Our afternoon activity consisted of us riding the 6 train past “last stop” in the hopes of seeing the infamous abandoned City Hall subway station, which is supposed to look like this:

sick, right?

However, believe it or not, Kate and I were so excited to be in an empty train car that we missed it the first time around because we were too busy reverting back to being primates.

My pet chimp, Kate

Luckily, as a college kid on skewl break, time is abundant. So we rode it again, saw what we could and went home to disco nap before heading out again. We’re just like, so *~wild ‘n free~*. Ha.

As for now, BACK IN DA LOU: where the ~~people~~ eats are fat but the prices are skinny.

Like a Zombie From Da Grave

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 12:37:31 -0600

They say you never break up just once. Consider this my first booty call to my blog, in an attempt to rekindle our LTR (longterm relationship, duh).

Anyway, I missed this thing- not only because it was a way to prove to myself, and maybe others, that hey! sometimes I am funny (although, maybe not…), but also my memory blows now and I can’t remember what I did yesterday so I need dis. I’ve resolved to rekindle the blog flame in 2013 so either get ready or unfollow me, hopefully the former, please.

Since you last read text here, some things have happened to me including: I’ve made the executive decision to grow out my bangs, got my wisdom teeth out, let another ear piercing into my life, grew closer to the people I like and distanced myself from those I loathe, and I have a job post-graduation at Bloomingdale’s. Not a bad semester, eh?

I leave you, with life’s mantra, as dictated by Ron Swanson:

My Last New York Day

Sun, 19 Aug 2012 20:31:00 -0500

The end, it’s here.
It came.
Tick tock, time stands still for no one and it cruelly ticked and tocked its way to my last day in New York.
Cue your tears now… no? Okay well then just watch mine.

Papa Hay came for this ceremonious occasion to help me move out in exchange for me showing him a grand ole Manhattan time.

In just one day, on Saturday we…

went spinning at SoulCycle. After 6 months of yapping on and on about it I decided it was time to bring my dad to show him what it’s all about. To say that he loved it would be an understatement. We took the class two days ago and he’s still talking about it, we gotta SoulConvert up in hurr. Endorphins are no joke.

then we went to Bergdorf’s, because obviously I had to show him what my world was for so long, plus it never hurts to visit old friends.

we got a little side-tracked in Loro Piana via the chinchilla coat.
mmmmmm

We made a spur of the moment decision to eat at the BG Restaurant (my first time!). It was not only delicious but a great way to bookend my New York journey with Bergdorf’s on both sides. The meal consisted of tuna tartar, lamb salad and a complimentary chocolate tarte— it’s good to have friends in high places!

Sittin’ by the window overlooking the park.
These chairs always reminded me of faberge eggs… weird? Nah.

After we took a long long walk down to The High Line, by my dad’s request.

Making a friend at the Gansevoort Street entrance

For the night’s entertainment, we got tickets to Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark on Broadway. That’s right, we did it up BIG. Orchestra section style. A really dazzling show, there was a whole combat scene up in the air above the audience, amazing stuff.

After getting dropped off in Greenpoint, the night ended with me and my roommates drinking beer, hanging out and playing Jenga and Uno at our local bar, One Stop Beer Shop. Honestly nothing more I could have wanted: good friends, good drinks, good food, good laughs.

—-

I still haven’t quite come to grips with the fact that my education is about to banish me to another year in St. Louis. This is my last blog post and I’m not going to make it overly sentimental or try to sum up my time in New York because ~~there are no words~~ I’m not eloquent like that. But it should be noted that this was the best thing I could have done, I grew an incredible amount and I can happily say that New York owns my soul. As my dad said on Saturday, “New York is a hot bed of individualism”, and I can’t wait to return home to it.

OY VEY IS RIGHT

Please help subsidize my newly needed anti-depressants. Address upon request.

Well… that’s all folks! This blog is being put to rest.

7 Very Distinct Reasons Why I Love New York

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 09:02:10 -0500

Complete strangers playing chess in the park, surrounded by more strangers. There is just something so whole about it.

How if you stand anywhere on the street at night, you can see into dozens of apartments and into dozens of separate lives.

$1 Coffee Street Carts
Thank you for being an integral part of this poor girl’s budget.

The way people use every bit of real estate they have: stoop, fire escape, roofs, window ledges, sidewalk you name it. The world is our backyard.

You’re never expected to make eye contact with anyone on the street. Thank god, this ain’t the suburbs. It’s also totally the secret to how celebs live here so casually.

Everyone looks good all the time and even if they don’t, I just rationalize it by thinking they made a really distinct sartorial choice that I don’t yet understand.

You never have to ask in desperation, “so… is anything going on tonight?”
UGH I cringe at those memories from freshmen year when nightlife was so sparse and for the upper echelon of the social scene and I clung to any semblance of a frat party facebook invite (EW). WELL GUESS WHAT. Everything is happening here, and it’s happening all the time.

Steph’s Day of Birth: the 21st edition Attention world:...

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 09:03:00 -0500

singing

token party planner pic

you know you work in social media when...

bday chiquita and her main squeeze

hello kitty oreo icecream cake. because, duh.

make a wish thing thing

bridging the gap between youth and adulthood

sass courtesy of Amanda and myself

opening gifts at her birthday dinner

Steph’s Day of Birth: the 21st edition

Attention world: Stephanie Chin MADE iT.
Can I get a, “congratulations” with a side of “phewf”?? Thank you.

Because it’s summer and we love Steph and we love ~~each other~~ gin bucket, we had a lil 2 day celebration for this banana chiquita.

Day 1
India, Alice and I planned and hosted a lil shindig in our apartment. Activities included: a wall to write things about Steph (ex: if Steph had $10 left in life what would she spend it on? Steph’s kids will be…, Sometimes Steph…., When I look into Steph’s eyes…, Steph dreams about…, etc.), Hello Kitty walls for photo backdrops, Emily’s ~~famous~~ infamous gin bucket, good company, great dancing and even greater early 2000’s beats. Because I can’t and won’t lie, I’m going to disclose that my night shamefully ended with me walking through the McDonald’s drive thru. JUDGE ME.

Day 2
11 of us went to Le Barricou, Steph’s favorite French restaurant, for a lavish and long dinner (oh, we treated ourselves, alright). India and I shared escargot (das right) and then I got the coq au vin, that’s chicken cooked in red wine for all you amuricans reading. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve eaten french food (or at least quality french food) since I was in Paris last summer. My diet here is mostly eggs, bread, apples coffee and beer. Now that I’ve actually typed that out all I can say is “Wow. Really, Helena?”. It’s time to get back on a meal plan, or something… but, I digress.

The point is, it’s important to show people how much you love them, sometimes especially on their birthday. Steph is so wonderfully generous, supportive, and hilarious as a human that we had to do it up big.

Cheers.

Sunday Roofday

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 12:48:05 -0500

I’ve been sick for two weeks now. Viral meningitis -> strep throat, it’s a lovely existence (aka please pray for me). Anyway, because of this, I’ve been mildly incapacitated from some things.

I can, however, still lounge like it’s going out of style. Especially on a roof.

So Sunday, we spent 6 hours straight hanging out on our roof.

Nature was killing it

Erik and India

Napping lady

Catching sunsets

No one does ombre better than Mother Nature.
That ish ain’t no trend, folks.

You know what you can do in 6 hours?
Eat, drink, be merry, talk, sing, listen to Alice play guitar, nap, see the sun go down, eat some more, watch the Polish family downstairs BBQ and then eat a family dinner, watch their fireworks, witness shooting stars, and generally just DGAF it up (urbandictionary that word if you have to).

ROOF KIDS NEVER LEAVE THE ROOF
…until we have to sleep in our beds

10 Things I Never Did in NYC

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 12:47:00 -0500

Whether you knew it or not, I have been living in New York City for over 7 months now and unfortunately am coming to the end of my road… for now at least. I move out in a little less than two weeks and realized recently, “wow, there’s a lot of ish I never did while I was here”. I know I still have some time left… so what, who cares! Dis is my blog.
Consider it listed.

1. Ride the bus
I am the queen of the subway, all hail to me, the metro maven, the subway superstar, the train triumphant (alright you get it). I don’t do that bus stuff. Actually, I went on a bus once back in February but didn’t realize it was an express bus to the Bronx… so I made a little bit of a fool of myself when I was like “omg SOS I’m a bus n00b please let me off RIGHT NOW” when we were by 90th street. Oops, learned my lesson. And that lesson was to never ride the bus again.

2. Open an oven
Ha! As people know, I’m not a renowned or experienced cook and have only slowly come to perfect the art of stir fry. To be completely honest, I don’t really care what I eat most of the time as long as it fulfills nutritional, caloric, and emotional (let’s be serious) needs. So about the oven… who needs ya! Seriously though, I never opened one.

3. Wear heels
LOL. So I packed for New York back in January with the mind set of, “OMG I’m going to NYC and working in fashion and everyone is pretty and I’ll be going out in a non-college campus bubble so I will totally wear heels ‘n stuff”. WRONG. You can take the girl out of NH/the suburbs/St. Louis but you can’t make her wear heels. So I brought 3 pairs of heels here and ended up wearing 1 pair twice, for two fancy BG work events. I am who I am: a flats fiend.

4. Wear my flannel shirt
Go figure, right? I move to New York and later Brooklyn and don’t even wear my flannel shirt.

5. Wear any of my flasses (fake + glasses, flasses)
See above. My “hipster” flasses (categorized by people who don’t know anything about anything hipster) that I’ve owned for a long time got absolutely no use. C’est la vie.

6. Get a haircut
I’m too poor* for that stuff! Luckily I employed my old self-taught haircutting skills from high school to maintain my bangs… but that’s about it.

7. Go above 100th street
Because… why would you? And honestly I only went that high once and it was in Central Park which doesn’t even count. If I was talkin’ the streetz, I would have never gone above 90th street and that’s only because family friends and SoulCycle are up there. Would you hate me if I said I was a Downtown Diva?

8. Step inside a Whole Food’s
Again, I’m too poor for that stuff! And honestly, I don’t really understand how everyone else isn’t too. Money is a weird thing when you think about it. Think about it. Maybe everyone is secretly dumpster diving and just stuffing it all in Whole Foods bags. Seriously though, fill me in on this stuff y’all.

9. Stay out all night
This may be “the city that never sleeps”, which by the way is not true because pizza places close and when that happens what is the point of being ~~alive~~ awake? Anyway the latest I was ever out was 4:15 and that is just way to stressful for a morning person like me.

10. Venture to the Bronx
I had a big city to-do list with Bronx related activities like the Botanical Gardens and Zoo but I just never made it up there. It’s the NYC equivalent of going to Canada- it’s far, it’s foreign, it has questionable prices. However, I was able to make it to the other 4 boroughs which I think is more than a lot of people in “the city” can say.

*”too poor”: Take this with a grain of salt. For example, I won’t buy quality food/a haircut, but I did spend $20 on 2/3 of the awful 50 Shades of Grey trilogy and enjoy indulging in unnecessary manicures. Vom, I shame myself.

Also it should be noted that the self-flattering alliterations in this post came to 5.

My Latest NYC Hiatus

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 11:16:03 -0500

Last week I went home to Massachusetts for a few days with my girl Lolzy Talzy. Spending time at home is exponentially more enjoyable when you have your high school friends there with you too… added bonus: you’re all 21 now with kind siblings who will drive you, woohoo!

Sunday night I had the privledge of attending and dining at the Livneh’s summer Thanksgiving, made special for Danielle who is leaving for her gap year soon. I’m talking real Thanksgiving, from the turkey to the pie to the embarrassing family stories, the gang’s all here! Om nom nom.

Luckily, we didn’t pass out fully for the night and made it “out” aka to Margarita’s lololol. But I never say no to a half-decent margarita so I was down, plus we got to watch the Olympics.

Per usual, home gets a little dull. I cut up this super old sweatshirt with the intention of making a muscle sweatshirt but ended up with a top vaguely reminiscent of this wack peplum trend. I’m not mad.

Talia came over for dinner Monday night. My dad loves when I come home so we dined like the lavish elite queens that we are. I’m talking grilled salmon, corn, salad, gyoza (random…), grilled veggies, fruit, and ice cream. Talia and I were “in charge” of grilling the salmon… we mostly just pushed each other in the hammock instead. Thanks, Dad!

Late night cookies and milk after late night swimming at Max’s.
The suburbs are the best.

The view from Y Landing

Tuesday I spent the day up in New Hampshire (MY FAVORITE PLACE) visiting camp…

… where I got to reunite with my dearly beloved sister. She’s so grown-up with her own cabin and everything, wut?? Visiting was great though, it’s always a wonderful thing to see that the place you left behind hasn’t changed at all. Being there felt as if I had never even left. I spent the morning in the craftshop and the afternoon teaching windsurfing. Added bonus: I felt like a Bear Island celebrity when the dining hall sang hearty welcome to me.

This view from the craftshop will never change.

On my drive back home at the end of the day, I stopped at Weirs Beach, because duh. Got myself a bike week shirt because I swear my collection of those shirts will one day be worth a ton of money… or NH street cred. Either way I will be proud and rich in some capacity.

The day ended at Grendel’s Den in Harvard Square with home friends over dranks.

Our last home stop before Talia and I drove back to NYC was Tutto Italiano, a Lexington Insider Secret. Wait, someone should actually write an Insider’s Guide to Lexington. Dibs, dibs! Anyway, we postponed our early drive time to eat some tutto with Max and Hilary before heading south.