still in style.

I sometimes wonder if anyone notices the girl with the mustard yellow winter headband warming her ears, loaded down with handbag and gym bag and grocery bag, basking in the warmth of the subway platform (which 5 short months ago was unbearable until the doors of the F train opened, blasting the lucky ones with cool air).  I wonder if they catch her casting sidelong glances at them as they wait for a train, and if they know that she's already stitched a narrative of their past in sixty seconds, all lost loves and long voyages and small in-between moments held together with twine.  I wonder if they've done the same for her.

But most of all, do they notice her reading material?  Do they realize it's no longer Sunday?

it just keeps getting better.

Christmas was really nice this year.
It's hard to go wrong with New York at Christmastime, coming home to family & cats, a delicious dinner, and spending time in front of the fireplace every night, but for some reason, this year just really topped them all.  Kevin and I enjoyed soaking up all the city had to offer (and the inevitable crowds that go with it).  Gifts given and received were the most thoughtful yet, and from a dinner party on Christmas Eve Eve to leftovers days after Christmas, each meal had everybody in the kitchen and tasted better than the one before.  I was surprised actually; this time last year, I had just come home from South Africa and couldn't have imagined a nicer Christmas-- but this year really took the cake (and pie, and salted pistachio-white chocolate bark).
There was hot apple cider at the Columbus Circle market, the Rockefeller tree, watching skaters in Central Park, fat happy cats with ribbons round their necks, and oysters on Christmas Eve, and bottles of vino, and Skype chats with family across the sea, and wrapping paper, and pearls, and beautiful cookbooks, and ginger-lemon crème brûlée, and long walks, and morning lie-ins, and pomegranate seeds, and shopping trips, and a whole lot of laughter.

I'm resigned to making 2012 the year of self-improvement in all aspects, but I really can't complain about life now.  I feel so lucky to have made the move to Brooklyn, especially last night when my roommates and I hosted a hair of the dog potluck to ring in the new year.  Our apartment was cozy and warm, looked beautiful in the last light of the dried-out Christmas tree, and was full of friends old and new, sharing food and drinks.  This year ended on the really high note it's been carrying all along.

Cheers to 2012.

oh, how the light has changed.

Autumn is a season of changing light.

The light of the early morning is the perfect place to enjoy that first cup of tea, though the air is still cool and bed beckons.

There are delicious long runs on Sunday afternoons, each one a race to beat the dying day.  An end to the weekend that leaves me juxtaposed between flushed cheeks and skin that is cool to the touch.

Darkness falls earlier in the city these days.  The shadows of buildings and skyscrapers lengthen and meet the setting sun, the warmth of the light fades, and a chill moves in.

This is my favorite season.  I guess I've always loved change.

a day at the museum.

Back at the end of February, just before I started my new job in Brooklyn, I spent a day running around my beloved Philadelphia with Kevin.  It was a beautiful early spring day, and a fitting "farewell" to the city of brotherly love.

We had some Robsons beers that I'd smuggled home from Durban to go with our giant plates of brunch at Sabrina's.  We walked up the Parkway to the Art Museum where we got given the red member badges, for the sole purpose, the girl at the counter told us, of making us feel superior.  We saw armor that seemed to be made to transform horses into unicorns, lots of modern art installations, and scoffed at tourists running up and down the museum steps (I guess the red badges worked).

It was a very nice day.




All photos taking with the iPhone, some with the instagr.am App.

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oh, life.

Life has been crazy lately.  Since my last post, I wrapped up a very short-lived career "trading for Joe", and began a new job at a non-profit in Brooklyn.
Yep, that's right.  Brooklyn.  As in, "I live in Pennsylvania and commute to Brooklyn every morning and every evening".  Luckily it hasn't been as bad (yet) as I'd thought and within a few months I'll have saved enough money to pay a deposit on an apartment in New York.  But for now, my travel time clocks in at just under 2 hours each way, which I'm viewing as extremely valuable reading/podcast time (Ira Glass, I'm lookin at you).

I've got a lot of figuring out to do, most especially in the How will I ever find time to do the things I enjoy doing in the free time I don't have? category, but it will come with time.  And for now, I've got my first real job working for an organization I believe in in one of the greatest cities in the world.  And though the commute may get long at times, that fact is certainly nothing to complain about.

This weekend, updates about life.  Promise.

out with the old, in with the new.

Hi!  I'm back!
After my year in South Africa , and three weeks of joyful reunions, slow readjustment, and holiday cheer, I have decided it's time to return to this little blog.  My post-volunteering job hunt has just begun and may take some time, so in the meantime, I can share a bit of my life here on SFS.

I rang in 2011 with a weekend in New York.

2010 was the most exciting, interesting, challenging, eye-opening year of my life yet... but I have high hopes for 2011.  With my best friends from college, I welcomed January 1st at Brooklyn Brewery, and spent the surrounding days soaking up all that New York has to offer.  There were a couple of stressful trips to Trader Joe's in Union Square (is that place ever not crowded?), a few too many strong margaritas at happy hour(s), beer-drinking adventures in the Village with a good friend I hadn't seen in way too long, and a tough morning curled up in Diana's bed, watching wedding shows and attempting to rehydrate (unsuccessfully).
And after a very lovely few days, I've decided that although my job search is widespread in the hopes of finding something sooner rather than later, I would really love to find something in New York.  So here's to the hunt...

I read this poem here last night, and thought it was really beautiful.  And so, to start off this year and to bring this blog back to life, here it is.  Happy New Year!

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
   For those that here we see no more;
   Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
   And ancient forms of party strife;
   Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
   The faithless coldness of the times;
   Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
   The civic slander and the spite;
   Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
   Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "In Memoriam (Ring Out, Wild Bells!)"