What I'm Looking For in a Craigslist Posting

For the past two days, I've been compulsively checking and re-checking Craigslist postings and other realty type sites in a frenzied effort to find an apartment before the New Year. Not that I need to even move before the New Year, but I just love Craigslist.

But there have probably been virtual reams of listings that I haven't diligently followed up on (by entering them into my Excel workbook and calling them straight away.) This is because I would like my Craigslist experience to be a warm and friendly one. None of this "Female roommate looking for same to share West Village apartment."

I want vibrant notes of effusive exhortations with berry-like overtones of personality. Just as with grocery shopping, which I unequivocally do NOT do because I am ever low on anything (except basil and Kashi GoLean), I Craigslist for fun! Please help me by being fun Craigslist posters ... please!

This also goes out to brokers, really. I really appreciated Ruth's going out to see that $1,600 Cobble Hill studio that I know I can't afford (despite Mike and Anand thinking that I am Ms. Moneybags because of my newly-minted stock option-holding status). And then calling to tell me about it! To a lesser extent, the woman who had a place where the shower was in the kitchen and the toilet was in the bedroom.

A year or so earlier, in an unwarrantably self-deprecating paragraph of a letter to her brother Buddy, she had referred to her own figure as "irreproachably Americanese."
-Franny and Zooey

How cute is this juicer?

In the style of a ...

Shopping Blog, Part II

Foremost, an I Ching shoutout. I think it does a good job of expressing the ebb and flow that is at the heart of the J. Crew women's sale site.

Because, the Charlie coat that I bought went on super sale to $99. Words will not express. I was debating getting another one in camel, but everything sold out. Prudence got the best or worst of me. I mean, would it be Jackie Kennedy-esque or simply compulsive to buy two identical coats in different colors? Would it have been so bad to shiver through that one cold week in November? And the early morning at Woodbury?

Another sad or inevitable sign of change - I ordered this suit jacket (in black) to replace the one that I lost at the West End back in the spring. And, I'm a size 2 in J. Crew suit jackets. But, apparently not this (highly tailored) one! Because it's a lil snug. More motivation for this big loser!



Holiday party on Saturday! And, this is a little presumptuous, but if you have some doubts about the firmth of your upper arms at your holiday party, look no further.

Pesto Change-o!

I finally used the 'food processor' part of my blender / food processor today to make some pesto! For some reason, they had huge cheap bunches of basil at the supermarket, which I initially bought to make this: Spicy Chicken and Basil Stir-Fry.

Outcome? Somehow whenever I try to make Thai food, the fish sauce taste comes out really hostile. I don't know, maybe it's the brand? This dish was no exception. Sigh ... nothing will ever taste as 'good' as Thai Village, will it?

Anyway, I then decided to use the leftover basil to make pesto. Because, it is supposed to be super easy to make, according to such eminent authorities as Lisa B., and who doesn't love pesto?

Outcome? This time maybe I can blame the Parmigiano Reggiano in the can (albeit an eco-friendlyish can from Whole Foods). Too salty and um, pesante tasting. Too bad! Although I think it'll taste okay with pasta. Mmmm...remember pasta?

Oh, I'm forgetting the whole reason I wanted to post on a random Monday night. Anyone want to MOVE to New York?!? Just kidding. I know none of the five people who read this want to move to New York. Am I moving to New York? Maybe, maybe not, maybe whatever :^)

Eagerness

The word has taken on an unshakeable connotation of naivete. Is it just my cynical self that assumes that the young boy "with eager eyes" will be disappointed in the near future when his arm is mangled in a thresher? That the children "eagerly reaching" for gingerbread men will be brutally rebuffed by an evil stepmother? Optimism, hope, excitement - to my cliche loving mind, all portend disaster.

So whenever I find myself eager for something I worry. I don't want to jinx it.

This week has seemed insanely long because I think I'm thinking three times more than I'm actually thinking. I've harrowed myself into living in triplicate. What if this, what if that, what if nothing?

When I hear girls say "I can't eat the food I cook," I wonder whether it's because their food isn't cooked with love. That's how I feel when I eat any food that comes out of a container.

Well if you're bored / then you're boring!