iris independent

I need ‘em. Pretty please comment below with a great book you’ve read recently.

I’m all about the personal challenges as of late. If that makes me a super-annoying woman who is clearly close to 30, then so be it.

So, we’ve already talked about my rest-of-the-year challenge: 3 concert tickets on my fridge at all times. I’ve been wildly successful so far. On the docket for the rest of the month is Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Passion Pit, Sam Amigdon, and the New Pornographers.

Since it’s now summer, glorious, summer, I’ve thought up short-term ways to just be better:

• My summer reading should only be those from the classical literature canon. I totally believe that some good things have to be forced. Currently, I’m on Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. Next up? Jane Eyre.
• Just picture it: It’s a beautiful summer day in one of the most exciting places in the world. <Ariel View of New York City. Zoom into the window of an apartment on the Upper East Side.> A disheveled-looking woman is sprawled out on a couch in a darkened living room, her face lit only by the screen of a laptop. People, this is my brain on Facebook. Because I lack self-control, each log-in to Facebook leaves me feeling as though I just finished off an entire package of Chips Ahoy: unsatisfied and guilty. I challenge myself to log-on to Facebook just once a week. Hopefully this will force me to find more intelligent substance on the internets. I’ve already deleted the app off of my phone. Baby steps.
• Since it’s still in motion, it makes sense to list the Twin Cities Marathon as a short-term goal again. A friend and I have already registered, purchased the plane tickets, and started training. The more money I sink into it, the less inclined I am to be drop-out. Right? Right?!? Right.

Alright. They’re in writing. I insist that you judge me should the above go uncompleted.

Jenn is one of my newer friends here.

Okay, so we’re not friends yet. I’m in the process of courting her because I really, really want her to be my friend.

While my New Year’s Resolutions were many, generic, and mostly unattainable, Jenn’s New Year’s Resolution was to go to a concert a week. This is how super amazing she is.

(Sidenote: She’s also the kind of person who only needs 5 hours of sleep a night. Therefore, I will not be physically capable of hopping on that bandwagon.)

Jenn! You are just the kind of friend I’ve looking for: a concert buddy.

Sharing music is like sharing love - in the non-creepy, STD-free kind of way. So, allow me to share my latest loves, AKA: recent or upcoming shows.

Kate Nash (which, quite honestly, was a terrible show)

Sia

Jonsi

Harper Blynn

(Hopefully) Mumford & Sons (Pull through for me, Craigslist God)

The New Pornographers

Yes, I want to be one of the cool kids. Yes, I want to frequent live music the way I frequent Pinkberry, Bed, Bath, & Beyond, or Lenny’s.

My new lifestyle goal is to have three concert tix on my fridge at all times. Deal? Deal.

I’ve lived in New York for nine months and I can finally say that I feel settled.

I’d characterize my first two months as taxing, but calm. I didn’t know many people, so I came home everyday after work. And I had already given myself a disorientation allowance, so it felt normal to feel not-normal.

The next six months:

Wow, the next six months. I suddenly had people. People who came into my life easily; people who made me feel liked. How could I say no to any dinners? drinks? shows?

I also had plans. Enough plans to warrant typed-up weekend schedules.

While people and plans are nice, I was completely and utterly overwhelmed. Having friends didn’t mean I felt comfortable. Working all the time didn’t mean I felt confident.

The Upside: I didn’t feel lonely or miss anything back home. There wasn’t time for thoughts such as these to take hold in my head.

The Downside: I was on an extended vacation from my former budgeted lifestyle with Dinners! Excessive drinking! Expensive shoes! I boasted about my life as though I was a tourist in this city, not a resident. I was THE most annoying person to my friends back home.

Now, I’ve been here nearly a year.

I genuinely feel like it’s okay to leave work at work, I can say “no” to social commitments, I’m back on a budget.

I love me a new context. But, settling in has its own appeal.

Ah, yes.

Me.

I remember now.

I’ll be 29 in  a few (solid) months and it’s time to make the generic “Before 30″ list. I’m disgusted with myself.

However.

It is a good way to get shit done. And I respond really, really well to lists and directions.

It’s also late, I’m tired, and I really just wanted to get the idea started before I completely ADHD-out and forget that I ever desired to do it in the first place.

So,

1. Marathon (Registered)

That’s all I’ve got at the moment. My, am I ambitious.

To be continued.

This struck me:

“Once upon a time, Aristophanes relates, there were gods in the heavens and humans down on earth. But we humans did not look the way we look today. Instead, we each had two heads and four legs and four arms - a perfect melding, in other words, of two people joined together, seamlessly united into one being. We came in three different possible gender or sexual variations: male/female meldings, male/male meldings, and female/female meldings, depending on what suited each creature the best. Since we each had the perfect partner sewn into the very fabric of our being, we were all happy. Thus, all of us double-headed, eight-limbed, perfectly contented creatures moved across the earth much the same way that the planets travel through the heavens - dreamily, orderly, smoothly. We lacked for nothing; we had no unmet needs; we wanted nobody. There was no strife and no chaos. We were whole.

But in our wholeness, we became overly proud. In our pride, we neglected to worship the gods. The mighty Zeus punished us for our neglect by cutting all the double-headed, eight-limbed, perfectly contented humans in half, thereby creating a world of cruelly severed one-headed, two-armed, two-legged miserable creatures. In this moment of mass amputation, Zeus inflicted on mankind the most painful of human conditions: the dull and constant sense that we are not quite whole. For the rest of time, humans would be born sensing that there was some missing part - a lost half, which we love almost more than we love ourselves - and that this missing part was out there someplace, spinning through the universe in the form of another person. We would also be born believing that if only we searched relentlessly enough, we might someday find that vanished half, that other soul. Through union with the other , we would recomplete our original form, never to experience loneliness again.”

-Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert

1. Today, my work friendys and I are flyering the neighborhood in which our school resides. I’m super excited to go into the buildings of our students all voyeuristic-like. Oh, yeah. And to spread the good word about our school. That too.

The stories (and sounds) that come out of the projects are pretty staggering - everything from the shooting sprees on New Years (ahem, GUN CONTROL) to the random mid-day hollering that makes me have to close the windows in my already stifling classroom.

Also, the school ordered roti for lunch AND it’s going to be 55 degrees today. Yum/Yay.

2. Kate Gosselin on DWTS. Girlfriend can’t stop actin’ a fool and blaming it on her children. And I quote:

“Kate’s the kind of woman who will do whatever is necessary for her children,” said one source. “It’s great for her to be on the show, but she did it only in a way that benefits her family.”

Enjoy your weekend, pals.

So. Friend Ann and I were venting about the douchebaggery happening with the men around us as of late. They are stories of no consequence because we knew these weren’t guys with whom we’d actually want to spend a significant amount of time.

This conversation led to a bigger question:

Who do we want to spend our time with? What qualities does a person have to have to be really considered?

Yes, the person betta treat a sista right, but the qualities should be stand-alone. Representative of a person in or out of a relationship.

For me, the qualities can be divided into three “buckets” - all of equal importance. All qualities which point a person in a certain direction in life.

Progressivism:
This encompasses not only political leanings, but also activism and involvement. A person who appreciates and considers tradition, but doesn’t rely on it. A forward-thinker and critical reasoner.

Intellectualism:

This includes appreciation of reading, language, food, and travel. All are indicators of not only mental capabilities, but of a person who seeks out opportunities to simply know more.

Also, an interesting facet of this bucket is the question of the level of intellect a person prefers. I want a partner to be smarter than I am, but not too much smarter. A challenger, but not a dwarfer. Tres typical? Probs.

Music Appreciation:

This could be grouped into the intellectualism bucket, but is standing alone because if a person is on the same level in terms of music, they’re often on the same level emotionally. AKA: If a person gets my music, they get me.

A person’s three buckets - like mine - represent who she is and who she hopes to be. Does a person have to have all three? Would I be less fulfilled if only two of the three were present? Ann, speaking from her own experience, says: yes, m’aam. Thoughts?

What are your three buckets?

Tonight, the city pauses for its first snowfall of the year.

Six inches are expected and, for me, that means it is the perfect night to stay in. Though I will say that I’m astonished at the temps back home and how uncomfortably low they are, people in New York are taken aback whenever I complain about being cold: “But, but… aren’t you from Minnesota?”

True, but I have been reveling in the balmy weather. This is one adaptation that has come easssssily.

Not all changes have been welcomed and I’m still acclimating to much. However.

I’ve been loving public transportation and all the easiness it brings to my life.

The music scene is - unsurprisingly - wondrous. I haven’t actually made it to any concerts yet, as I’m still in the search of a concert buddy, but there are armies of indie music appreciators who fervently share the love.

I’m used to working at public schools that don’t have a dime to spare. I’m used to appreciating the small tokens of thanks: being served coffee during Teacher Appreciation Week, a pen with the school’s name printed on it. You get the idea. Working at a school that has a crazy amount of money is something I could get used to. My Christmas gift this year? A Visa card with $250 dollars on it. AND - perhaps more impressively - each staff member was gifted a book that had been carefully selected for him or her. Hardcover, which equals special.

Lenny’s will deliver hot coffee right to my door. Enough said.

So far, the intensity of the city is satiating. People. Everywhere. All the time. They’re all working themselves to the bone and expect you to be doing the same. They’re all up for anything. They’re all uber-competitive. I’m just waiting for the moment when loving this becomes loathing this.

Finally, I never want to do laundry again. The Colombian man who runs the laundry next door has a real appreciation for my clothing. He adores each article and wants to take good care of it. I drop it off dirty, pick it up clean and folded, and am only 10 dollars lesser.

Speaking of, it’s time to pick up my laundry, order some Lenny’s, and wait for the snow.