Category Archives: Thoughts

I Went to Paris Without my iPhone–and Loved It

Posted on May 5, 2012 by Alden Wicker

Porte Saint-DenisAbout a year ago, the last of my friends without a smart phone finally gave in. He had been so proud (or obstinate, rather) about his flip phone. When we met up for a catch up drink, I didn’t even notice him pull out his iPhone until he asked, “Notice anything?” while waving it in front of my face.

Of course, I congratulated him joining the rest of us in 21st century New York.

The truth is, I couldn’t imagine navigating life in NYC without my smart phone. From the time I started searching for apartments, I had a Blackberry to help me travel from one tiny apartment to the next without a map.

Now I use my iPhone all day long: in the morning to meditate, check the weather, and even check my email before I get out of bed. (Yes, I’m a person who does that.) I catch up on the rest of the mail that has come in between 7 and 9am while I wait for my smoothie at Liquiteria. Then I place it by my desk where it will alert me with a lit screen if I have text messages from friends or dates.

But it’s on the weekends that I really need it. What’s the quickest way to get to my friend’s apartment situated in that “up-and-coming” neighborhood in Brooklyn? Is the train actually running? OK, it’s not, which one should I take instead? “Ah I’m running late, srry! 15 mins!” What’s the best route by bike to the South Street Seaport? Where’s a good bar nearby? Where should I stand on the subway platform for quickest exit? Which seafood on this menu is sustainable? I’m standing at the farmers market and need a recipe for squash blossoms, help, Epicurious! Just spent $15 at the farmers market, need to note it down for my budget. Me and J. are together at this amazing brunch spot, here’s a pic of our breakfast cocktails. Jealous much?

Obviously, it’s a useful thing to have. But even when I don’t need it, I’m still pulling it out of my pocket, like a worry stone with an LCD screen. An extra minute without something to pull my attention means it’s time to check my mail and stare jealously at A.’s beautiful Instagram pics.

So imagine my horror when I landed at London Heathrow last Saturday and my iPhone’s top left corner only said “Searching…” No! Please, let it work. I need to Instagram the Eiffel Tower! I want to check in at French restaurants and have a map of the metro at my fingertips! But some quick research on my laptop at Heathrow revealed I was SOL.

I, however, am an optimist who loves to read O Magazine articles on how to connect with one’s inner life. I could do this. I could live for a week in a foreign city–in which I wasn’t totally sure I could still have a conversation or even string together sentences–take the metro, meet up at appointed times and just generally function on a basic level. I just needed a flip phone with basic calling and texting functions, and my brain (I hoped) would handle the rest.

Here’s what I discovered:

vielles dames in Paris

I interacted with France. As I stood on the platform Monday morning for my first solo trip, and I had nothing to occupy me. I glanced around, and accidentally caught the eye of a French guy across the platform. He smiled at me, and I looked shyly away. When I boarded the train, I looked out the window for lack of anything else to do, and I saw him again. He waved goodbye as the train left the station.

“I forgot that French men hit on you all the time,” I told D. when I met up with her for lunch, telling her what happened. “That hasn’t happened to me!” she said. My guess is that her having her nose always in a Kindle or iPhone makes her unapproachable. Perhaps I should do that same in NYC?

I exercised my brain. D. equipped me with Paris Pratique, which lists every rue in Paris in an index, with a corresponding square in a grid on a neighborhood map. Each time I wanted to get somewhere, I would look up the street, turn to the page, search the square for the street, and then find the nearest metro stations in order to plan my route.

Maybe it sounds crazy, but I quickly grew to love this little brain teaser. Sometimes I chose a longer route than I could have. But doing it this way felt so satisfying. Of course, you could brand me as a tourist as soon as I pulled the little book of maps out of my pocket, but c’est la vie.

Don’t ask me why these books are hanging from this tree by Saint Germain. I couldn’t tell you. 

Flowers in Paris

I got lost (but that’s OK). This requires a back story: D. and I were at a lovely little wine bar one night when we met a pair of Danish guys. (Not “Denmarkian,” as I accidentally called them. Oof.) They were in the exact same situation as us, with one living and working in Paris, and the other visiting for the week. Adam and Adam were their names. So Adam #1–as I would come to call him—and I made plans to hang out together the next day while both our friends worked.

When we met up the next day, he was all for just wandering around, getting lost. But it was drizzling on and off, and I had my sights set on the Pompidou. Using my little map, I led us confidently toward the famous modern art museum.

“Are you sure this is the right way?” Adam asked once, looking at his phone. I consulted my map. “Yup! We’re headed right down this big street,” I told him. We continued to walk, talking and folding away our umbrellas as the weather cleared. Twenty minutes later, I looked again and realized we had been heading in the exact opposite direction. “Crap!” I cried. “I totally messed up!” Adam smiled an innocent smile. “You knew the whole time, didn’t you,” I said. He just smiled some more. “Jerk!” I smacked him with my Paris Practique, but I was laughing.

We never did make it to the Pompidou, and yet I still really enjoyed our walk. I managed to lead us in the wrong direction a couple more times, but we eventually made it to the Grand Palais for an exhibition. My sense of direction is crap, but there are worse things than getting lost in Paris.

Parisian women

This woman’s expressions is just so French, isn’t it? 

I stopped showing off. There were so many times when I had an itch to pull out my iPhone and Instagram some famous monument or Parisian thing and post it to all my social networks. I wanted to check in to every Parisian café and restaurant and museum. “I’M IN PARIS! I wanted to trumpet to every person I know. Eventually I stopped caring and just enjoyed where we were, concentrating on the food and the art and the tulips in the tuilieries.

I rediscovered pens, paper and planning. Before I could go anywhere, I had to write down the name of the street and address, phone numbers, restaurants, directions and everything else I could have looked up on the fly if I had an iPhone. I had slips of paper stuffed into my purse at all times, and what a delicious feeling that was! Making everything digital is so tidy and clean, but a piece of paper covered with evidence of where you went and where you want to go is lovely, tactile and romantic.

Lovely, tactile and romantic … sounds like Paris to me.

I’m back to life with an iPhone now that I’m back in New York, but at least I now know I can survive without it. I just might get a little lost …

 

Posted in Experiments, Lifestyle, New York, Thoughts | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Bienvenue a Paris! Here’s a Roofie

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Alden Wicker

Remember how I said, “Paris is always a good idea?” I want to take that back.

That’s because my very first night in Paris, I got roofied. Thanks, Paris. Right back atcha.

Here’s what happened:

My plane touched down at Paris Orly at 2:45, and D. was waiting for me right outside the baggage claim. We did the high-pitched squeal thing and then took a bus into the city to the 17th arondissement (that’s neighborhood for you non-Francophiles) where she lives.

Crate of Radishes in Paris

Yellow flowers in Paris

Flowers in Paris

Bouquets of flowers in Paris

Window in Paris

Her adorable little apartment is on an adorable little street that is just so French. I made D. watch the opening sequence of Beauty and the Beast with me, where all the French people are popping out of windows singing “Bonjour!” I wanted to fling open the windows and yell “Bonjour!” to the people walking the cobblestones below me, visiting the boulangerie (bakery), the bucherie (butcher), poissonerie (fishmonger), patisserie (pastry shop), flower stand and all the other little shops lining the street.

I bought a pretty orange purse from a stand. I attempted to negotiate but the guy pretended he didn’t hear me and I chickened out. Then I got apples from the organic store (they call organic “bio” here, FYI) and we popped into the wine store, where a kindly merchant suggested some red wines for us, then wrapped them lovingly in tissue paper, writing the price in their strange French characters–the one looks like a seven–plus directions on how long we should let the wine breathe. Adorable.

Wine shop in Paris

We took a delicious four-hour nap before rousing at 10 to prettify ourselves. We ordered the NYC box of sushi from Sushi Shop. Isn’t it awesome looking? Life was good.

NYC sushi box Paris

Box of sushi

And then it all went downhill.

We took the metro to the Champs Elysee, and walked down a little street to a nice bar D. had been to before. I guess the bouncer saw us coming, because he immediately said when we walked up, “Desolée, c’est fermé.” (Sorry, it’s closed.)

“Really?” D. asked in French. He nodded as he held the door open for a pretty girl to go inside. “Come back tomorrow,” he told D.

I gave him a dirty look before we turned to leave. Next we tried the club Matignon, where the bouncer looked us up and down and consulted with a haughty girl with a clipboard. She gave her approval and we were in!

Wow, there were a lot of pretty people in there. And they alllll had bottle service. Except for us. The upside was that we didn’t have to elbow our way to the bar. The downside was that we spent 20 each on a glass of champagne.

The music was awful. The DJ would lay into a really good track with bass, tantalizing us before switching it off in the middle and putting on Killing Me Softly and We Will Rock You. Seriously?? Of course no one was dancing. After finishing our champagne, we were still way too sober to deal with this situation. So we knocked back one shot at the bar, and ordered a couple mixed drinks. I didn’t even finish a quarter of mine, because I soberly spilled it in the bathroom.

So at this point, I had two drinks in my system of the course of an hour. I felt completely sober. D. and I were talking to a couple nice guys when two other guys walked up to us, introduced themselves and then asked us to hang out with them at their table. Yes, please!

Later, we would recognize how weird that was. But at the time we were grateful to finally partake in the bottle service, instead of awkwardly standing around, not dancing.

One guy was Egyptian, as was his female friend at the table. I asked her what she thought about the political situation there, but she shushed me. “I don’t want to talk about that right now. Ask me over brunch.” The other guy was from Miami. The guys poured D. and I a drink from a bottle of Belvedere.

D. took a sip and then leaned in to shout in my ear over the music, “This doesn’t taste like vodka. What if something is in it?”

“Nah, it’s fine,” I told her. “It’s probably just the club jerking us around and watering it down.”

Famous last words. It could have been the vodka, or it could have been the energy drink one of the guys poured in it. But twenty minutes later I found myself barely able to stand. Well, I thought twenty minutes later. I blacked out for a period of probably hour, during which I made out with one of the guys and danced on the bench seat. I don’t remember any of it. Apparently the guys kept trying to get us to go back to their apartment with them, but D. ran interference on that idea. My blackout eased to a brownout when I started walking to the bathroom, and fell sideways into a table. I righted myself with effort, and somehow got myself down to the bathroom and inside, where I vomited. A lot.

When I came out, an employee pointed to the bathroom, which had vomit all over it and said something in French about it. I shook my head. “I didn’t do that,” I told her, and dragged myself upstairs where I sat down and waited for D. to find me. I couldn’t even find the energy to go back to the table. I couldn’t stand up! I don’t know how long I sat there, but I finally realized I would have to find her. I stood up and walked somewhere, I don’t remember where, and found her. Oh my God, I found her.

That’s the last thing I remember. Somehow, we found a cab, and we got back to her place. D. said that we got out of the cab, she went to unlock her door and when she turned around I was standing in the middle of the street, and then just fell sideways. Just bit it.

She also told me that she had to undress me and put me in pajamas. She made rice for me, but I passed out. Fifteen minutes later, the roofies hit her, and she was in the bathroom too, petrified.

She attempted to text her boyfriend, but couldn’t string together letters in the correct sequence, even though she was really trying.

I’ll

Trell

Too

Twz too

Drunk to

Troll

You tnght

The mariachi band outside her window woke me up this morning. “D.! Why is there a mariachi band outside your window?” I whined. I looked down at D.’s t-shirt and boxers and remembered. I was so embarrassed. How could I get that drunk? I wondered. I haven’t done that since my freshman year of college! What an amateur move. When D. suggested it was roofies, I poo pood the idea. But when we started thinking back over the night, over the three drinks I had and the sudden onset of my inability to stand, we realized what happened.

I managed to navigate the stairs in her apartment to buy a baguette and we devoured it, thanking our lucky stars that the roofies didn’t hit D. until we were back in the apartment. What would have happened? I don’t want to think about it.

We went to lunch with a friend from college today, and ran into a French friend of D.’s. When we told her what happened, she shrugged, ashing her cigarette. “Oh yeah, that’s happened to me too,” she said in French. “It happens all the time.”

I don’t even understand roofies. Why would you want to hang out with a girl who is vomiting everywhere? That’s what roofies do! It’s so cowardly in so many different ways.

I guess I had just gotten too complacent about being safe when I’m out. What was I thinking? I wasn’t. At least we got home safe. But people have been instant messaging me, asking things like “OMG, are you having just the best time?” Actually, no. I’ve been sleeping, rejected at a bar, vomiting and then trying to recover from a massive hangover.

Hopefully that was the low point. Tomorrow I’m going to go to some musées, eat delicious food, and go to good bars where I’m going to keep an eagle eye on my drink.

There are many things I love about France. The fact that I could get a warm baguette this morning from a boulangerie five feet from D.’s door, the long dinners over wine had at a table on the sidewalk, the way the Eiffel Tower twinkles every hour on the hour. But things I don’t like are piling up: the constant smoking, the matter-of-fact racism, and the absence of peanut butter are some of them.

Now I’m adding roofies to the list.

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How a Green Girl Travels (to Paris and London!)

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Alden Wicker

Paris is always a good idea poster

You are about to be jealous in t-minus 3…2…1….

I’m in London!!

Yup! I hopped a flight (carbon offset at a price of $22.66, naturally) to the old continent to visit my dear friend D. in Paris–of the going away party and recycled champagne glasses—and I’m on layover in the land of bad food, class divide, mean tabloids and royalty obsession.

The first thing I saw disembarking my flight? A hunky British dude making direct eye contact. I think I like it here.

D. is living the dream in Paris. On the one hand, I don’t like that my best friend is thousand of miles away. On the other hand, now I have an excuse to go to mother f’n Paris! (She keeps trying to get me to move there, but how could I leave NYC behind?

After we tear it up in the city of lights for a week, we’ll be back in London for a weekend. I’ve spent a whole summer in Paris before, but as the Audrey Hepburn character Sabrina said, “Paris is always a good idea.” But I’ve never been to London. “We must go,” I emailed D. emphatically. “It’s a huge hole in my experience that needs filling.”

So please, if you have recommendations, comment below or tweet them my way! I’ve already gotten a short list of museums, plus un-missable street food and competing recos for the best place to get high tea. (National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Tate Modern, Bosphorus Kebabs, The Ritz or Dukes Hotel, respectively).

 Also, what does a modern green girl pack for her adventure in world travel? It’s all revealed:

From top left: iPhone charger, compact faux crocodile wallet, John Masters Organics lip balm, Korres non-toxic lipstick in coral, Sigg water bottle (empty for security), apartment keys (stripped of superfluities), laptop charger, Clean Hippie blog business cards and card holder, ChicoBag reusable bag, birth control, handkerchiefs from the Brooklyn Flea (2), pen, sleep mask, iPhone in Anicase endangered species cover, headphones, passport (!), flight reservation, sunglasses gotten for free from advertising partner at work with logo rubbed off with soy nail polish remover (couldn’t find my Kayu sunglasses—darn!). Not pictured: Zebra striped travel pillow made with post-consumer recycled content, laptop, magazines (coming up). 

What to Wear for an Overnight Flight

Clearly, the goal is to get as close as to pajamas as possible without looking like a typical American ass. I chose my Degree Six top in soft organic cotton, organic Deborah Lindquist leggings, and a stack of Green Sewn vintage sari bracelets. You can’t see them, but on my feet are fuzzy socks—a Christmas present from my dear sister. 

Mags Go Green for Earth Day

I have been busy unsubscribing from catalogues left and right, but I just can’t give up on my print editions of magazines. After all, they don’t put everything on line. And many magazines I get through my work. Piles of magazines have been eating my apartment like kudzu, but flights are a fabulous time to catch up.

Check out this bundle that has probably given me permanent back problems from hauling them to work and then through the subway system to the airport. (No black car for this lady.)

 

I absolutely loved diving into the April editions, since magazines from inStyle to Self are doing their darndest to pay lip service to Earth day with lots and lots of toxin-free and eco-friendly products—some old friends, some new to me. I also love that InStyle is educating consumers about one of my favorite websites, Skin Deep. 

Tsi-La PerfumesOn my to try list: aluminum-free Weleda citrus deodorant, Yes to Tomatoes acne spot stick, USDA-certified organic essential oils by Tsi-La, Mali Organics Koke’e organics sugar body polish, DairyFace Eye Caramba Nourishing Facial Refresher, Butter London non-toxic nail polish, Dairy Kai vegetable base skylight candle, Bracketron’s Mushroom Green Zero wall charger, (all rated high by inStyle) and NY-based Anjolie Ayurveda moisturizers and soaps (thanks Oprah mag!). I even found some goodies in the ads: non-toxic Zoya nail polish and EOS lip balm (the ones you’ve no doubt seen in those little egg-shaped containers).

Of course, when I say “To try,” I do’t mean “Run out and immediately buy everything.” I just mean it’s on my radar if I happen to find myself in need of body polish. Truly being green means being judicious about purchases, yo.

Old favorites: tarte mascara–as recommended by Rachel Roy in inStyle–Priti soy nail polish remover (used to rub logo off those sunglasses I mentioned above), argan oil, and RMS beauty Un Cover Up.

Stay tuned for lots of lovely pictures! I have my big fancy Canon D7, my little canon for nights out and of course Instagram on my iPhone. Meanwhile, enjoy one of my favorite songs about Paris. (Hopefully we will make it to club Showcase! I had to cull my going out options down from three sequined dresses to one.)

Gotta run! My gate just got posted for Pearee.

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How to Do a Sunday Mind Cleanse

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Alden Wicker

It had been a long night.

In fact, it had been a long weekend. A long week. A loooong month. I felt emotionally and physically … drained isn’t the right word. Because I didn’t feel empty. It was like my brain was a muddy puddle where all the silt has been kicked up, and my thoughts were swirling slowly around my brain. Ew.

I was thinking this as I lay in bed at two in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day, but I had missed 60% of it after a big night out. I decided I need a mind cleanse. So I dragged myself out of bed and formulated a plan for how I would feel better by the time I went to bed. Here’s what I did:

Start with:

8 oz Organic Juice Drink

I know this is in the physical cleanse area, but it helps get you in the right frame of mind. My favorite place to get juice drinks is Liquiteria. After pulling on some yoga pants and a top in order to look somewhat productive, I walked the seven blocks south to 11th Street and 2nd Ave to get a bottle of “the killer x,” with apple, lemon, ginger and immunity booster.

Add:

42 Minutes Rooftop meditation

You could do this in the park, but I prefer my roof because it’s the closest thing I have to a backyard in that it’s quiet and private-ish. I can only imagine what Sheep’s Meadow looked and sounded like on a nice day like Sunday. Probably like a music festival.

I took up the ladder outside my apartment door to my humble little blacktop roof. I laid a big, fluffy towel out on the side that looks over the pretty gardens in the back (which, unfortunately I don’t have access to or else I would be down there), and laid on my back for a while, just looking at the blue sky above me. An unseen windchime tinged on someone’s fire escape, and birds chirped in the trees in the garden. In other words: bliss.

Then I assumed a prone position on my stomach much like Wile E. Coyote after he falls off a cliff and splats on the ground. I know you’re supposed to sit up, but that just wasn’t happening and I wanted to be gentle on myself.

I used MyMeditation Lite. This is a simple little app that will guide you through breathing exercises and then will ping you into the main meditation for three, 12 or 30 minutes. I set it to the longest setting of 12 minutes of breathing plus 30 minutes of meditation. I meditated casually. My thoughts wandered often. I would let them for a bit, and then gently shoo them away and empty my head again. When my phone chimed, I already felt a little better.

In a separate bowl mix:

1 Clean Apartment

Really, nothing refreshes like a neat and tidy apartment. I just can’t feel on top of my game when there’s crap scattered everywhere. So I did my dishes, stacked all my unread magazines and recycled the rest, swept the floor and hung up my clothing. I threw open a window to let fresh air in, and just for good measure turned on my ionizer.

Then I chose one space to reorganize–my jewelry box. It’s small and simple, but it’s such a nice feeling to see everything neatly lined up. You could do this with your denim drawer or desk drawer or bookshelf. Anything that makes you feel like you’ve tidied a corner of your life.

Add:

Something Simple for Dinner

Grab a simple vegetable, drizzle it in olive oil and shove it in the oven to roast. The act of cubing the vegetable, the simple seasonings and the fresh taste cleansed my palate of any vestiges of last night’s alcohol and set my mind at ease.

Add:

1-2 Pieces Edifying Piece of Writing

This could be almost anything: an issue of The Atlantic or The New Yorker, some non-fiction about new discoveries in psychology, modern buddhist writing, or even just a celebrated piece of literature from from the past few years. I chose Poser, by Claire Dederer, for my reading.

Warm up:

A Bathtub of Saltwater

Saltwater has wonderful properties, or so I hear. Feng Shui consultants use it to cleanse themselves before doing an apartment energy cleanse, it’s recommended as a remedy for all sorts of maladies, and it just feels nice.

You can order delicious-smelling organic infused salts off of Etsy, but I still have salt left over from my trip to Iceland, so I liberally poured that into a warm bath and soaked, reading my book and drinking a cup of green tea.

Stir in:

1 Call to a Family Member

I owed my grandmother a call, so I rang her up and we discussed the nice, clean, happy things grandmothers and granddaughters discuss: my career, where I had gone out to dinner, the weather in New York versus Arizona, etc. There’s nothing like discussing what you’re making for dinner and singing a round of “You Are My Sunshine,” to feel happy and productive.

Combine and bake for at least 8 hours in:

A Nice Deep Sleep

Whew, that’s a lot of mind cleanse. By the time I was done with all these mind-health activities, it was time for bed. So I climbed into bed, feeling clarified and (almost) looking forward to Monday morning.

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Do You Only Wear What You Kill?

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Alden Wicker

The fashion world is abuzz over fashion writer Jenni Avins’ account of killing and skinning her own foxes for a fox fur vest.

Walk around in Soho on any afternoon, and you’ll see parades of girls wearing fur vests in every color and texture, from shaggy and black to cropped and striped. Yet the online community is up in arms.

On Ecouterre, 222 readers voted for “Hell no! Murder is murder,” when asked if trapping and skinning your own fur made it OK to wear it, while the other two options, “Hell yes,” and “Meh, I have no problem with fur,” got a collective 57 votes.

Meanwhile, on Refinery29, the comments exploded into a maelstrom of judge-y, catty comments, like one raising the superb philosophical question of whether it’s OK to kill a baby if it’s “free range” instead of sticking it in a cage. Come on now, people.

You would think going through all that trouble to skin your own pelts would give you some sort of dispensation from the usual screeching over killing animals.

Fur seems to strike a special cord in us. Why? Because we can almost recognize the animal in the fur coat as we pull it on? And yet, we wear leather boots, purses and belts. And we eat meat of all kinds.

Look, when it comes to fur, I treat it like I do any meat–with careful consideration. Call it being a conscious fur wearer. In my mind, if you judge your fur the same way you judge your meat, that gives you three options:

1. Get yourself a used or vintage fur coat. They can be found in almost any consignment shop for a steal.

2. Go with the environmentally friendly nutria fur, which I wrote about for Huffington Post Green.

3. Go free range. Now, I don’t think it’s necessary to participate in the actual skinning of the animal, a la Jenni Avins, but if it were possible to secure a fur vest from the Greenmarket the way you can currently pick up a pork loin or sheepskin rug, I would be all over that option. As of right now, I’m not sure there is a way to do that, unfortunately.

As for myself, I have two faux fur vests, which I’m a little ill-at-ease with because they are synthetic. I have a fur coat I inherited from my mother (with mixed feelings). And I have a yummy, warm fur head piece I got as a gift that I believe is rabbit. I’m not chucking anything, but I don’t have plans to pick up anything new anytime soon.

What are your thoughts on killing your own fur? Would you ever do it for the sake of owning a conscious fur vest?

 

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Are Real Simple’s Recipes Any Good for Clean Hippies?

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Alden Wicker

I still remember an exercise my first grade teacher gave our class 19 years ago. She taped a big posterboard up on the blackboard with instructions handwritten on it. (We were studying “following directions” at the time.) She told us to follow the directions.

In a pattern that would endlessly repeat itself to this day, I enthusiastically set about following everything in order. “1. Draw a square. 2. Draw a circle inside that square. 3. Draw a star somewhere on the page.” And so forth, until I got to instruction number 10: “Don’t do any of the above instructions. Just write your name on the paper and hand it in.”

Only one boy in the whole class found this tricky piece of information, sauntering up a good ten minutes before everyone else. This exercise was supposed to teach us to read the directions all the way through before getting started.

And gosh darn it, do I think of that exercise every single time I get to a third of the way through the recipe and realize I don’t have a slow cooker, a certain spice, a big enough food processor, the cognac I meant to pick up, etc, etc. I still haven’t learned this particular skill of reading through all the directions before starting. (My predilection for charging into things without reading the directions has earned me a nickname, Blue Toad, and is something my editor has remarked upon several times. Whoops.)

And … I did it again on a fairly epic scale. A few months back Real Simple came out with an ambitious piece called, “Food for a Month”, with recipes that would supposedly keep you fed for 30 days. It seemed like a challenge to my willpower and cooking skills: “Alden, could you have the preparation and skill necessary to cook all of these recipes?”

In a word, no. But I’ll be darned if I haven’t been trying my hardest. There have been a few speedbumps:

  • These are family-sized recipes. The first time I went out and bought every single item off the ingredient list, and then set about futilely trying to cook it all up before it went bad. Whoops. I should have known to read a little closer before I dutifully bought two pounds of pork chops. My grocery budget was shot for the month.
  • They are meat-heavy. So far, out of the seven recipes I’ve cooked, one has had quinoa as the star protein. The rest of the recipes feature pork chops, lamb ribs, pork loin, steak and chicken. This gets expensive when, like me, you want to get your meat from the Greenmarket or Whole Foods. Also, why so much meat? What is this, the Midwest?
  • I am a young, single NYC gal. Therefore, I do not need a recipe for every day of the week because I’m going out to dinner and drinks and events, and I really don’t eat that much. In my quest to conquer these recipes, I’ve let arugula rot in my crisper. Twice. So, I’ve switched to choosing two to three of the tastiest-looking recipes, cutting them in half and cooking that up for a couple dinners.
  • They actually aren’t that healthy. Somehow, I thought Real Simple‘s recipes would be as fresh and modern as its photography. But one of them was hanger steak with waffle cut fries (“Prepare frozen waffle fries according to directions …”) and a simple salad. Maybe we are in the Midwest.
  • They aren’t season-specific. This came out in October, and features ingredients like asparagus (best eaten in the spring) and few gourds or root vegetables beyond potatoes. I get as much as I can at the market, but with these recipes, I’m forced to heavily on supplements from the grocery store.
  • They don’t play off each other. What is the point of having a recipe a night when there is no synergy? Random ingredients have been piling up in my pantry, especially when the recipes pull stuff like calling for regular breadcrumbs one week, and panko bread crumbs the next. Really? I might have to take a break and use up all the extras before I continue to the final week.

Still, there are some tidbits worth saving, especially the vegetables sides. Miraculously, when I got home from my long weekend in Virginia tonight, the cauliflower left over from the breaded pork loin last week was still edible, so I cooked it up. It’s a simple recipe using a few ingredients, and for a Monday night after a weekend of heavy chili, cookie cake and two brunches, a plate of pure vegetables is just what I needed.

All you do is cut cauliflower into little florets, throw them in a pan with olive oil, pepper and salt until they are cooked up and yummy, toss them with some diced sweet peppadew red peppers, capers and parsley, and you’re all set.

I think overall, however, I’m going to stick with Whole Living recipes from now on.

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But I Didn’t Know! Is Keeping Eco-Evil Stuff OK?

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Alden Wicker

My necklaces, including a coral one

Coral necklaces. Fur. IKEA furniture.

We all know you shouldn’t buy these things. Coral is rapidly dying from ocean acidification and changing climate conditions without our harvesting it for jewelry. While I don’t include “animal rights activist” among my list of self-identifiers, it’s hard to get fur that is consciously raised like the meat at the farmers market. And IKEA furniture is both the progenitor and creator of a disposable economy of waste.

But what if you already own these things from before you went through your sustainable awakening?

I have all these things and more, items that I’m not necessarily proud of, attractive detritus from typical status-seeking American consumption. I don’t want to spend the money and resources to replace it. Is it more sustainable to set an example by purging my closet of nice leather boots, fur coats and strip-mined jewelry? Or is it better to hang on to the long-lasting pieces and accept that life is a journey? I would say the latter.

Or I could just be deluding myself. I really like my fierce, red coral necklace from Vienna that seems as if it would prick the fingers that try to touch my neck. Even if I rarely wear it except on those rare occasions where it’s both below freezing and it’s an appropriate occasion, I still like to bury my face in my mother’s silver fox fur coat from the 80’s (thankfully back in style and divested of its démodé bunch sleeves). Though, the fur coat warrants a whole other discussion that you can find in this Elephant Journal post. IKEA furniture, well, my apartment came furnished with it. I’ve filled out the rest of my space with used and antique, real wood pieces, but the table and Murphy bed are square and center.

What are my options? I could:

A) Forget the whole thing and buy whatever strikes my fancy. Fortunately I’ve outgrown that.

B) Put a minimal amount of effort into finding locally-made, sustainable items, when convenient, and keep the old stuff. Easy, but not exactly thoughtful.

C) Do a partial purge to get my closet down to the minimum viable possessions, and put effort into thoughtful purchases in the future. That means continue to wear everything from leather boots to fur coats to conventional jewelry.

D) Purge my closet of anything that isn’t sustainable. This would mean taking some to consignment stores and Goodwill, and throwing the rest that isn’t fit for consumption out, thus contributing to waste, but living a model lifestyle moving forward. Also, that would be expensive.

I choose C. But tell me: What are your thoughts?

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Life Is a Museum, Not a Store

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Alden Wicker

people in a museum

Life is not a store.

This may not sound profound. Of course life isn’t a store. You can’t buy happiness, right?

But America thinks you can. Want health? Buy pills. Want friends? Buy yourself a kickass wardrobe and a bottle of champagne. Want beauty? Buy artwork and curtains.

I don’t have it figured out. I still buy myself life. I buy myself goodness at the farmers market, and identity (and a hobby) through the hosting fee for my blog. And I have a Bloomingdale’s credit card that I use and abuse like no one’s business. Consider this not a lecture, but a pep talk for you and myself.

What if we treated life like a museum instead of a store? What if, instead of thinking how we could make the good stuff ours, we studied it, read up on its history, discussed it, and then moved on? We could always come back later, and appreciate it again. Or take a picture so we could savor the fact that we were there. But I bet it would save us a lot of grief and money if we stopped trying to own things and instead just appreciated them.

Taragana Pyjarama – Ocean (Teengirl Fantasy remix) by FoolHouse

Life as a store is buying a DVD to watch on your laptop. Life as a museum is seeing a showing in the park with friends.

Life as a store is bottle service with a skimpily-clad waitress and i-bankers hitting on you from the table next to yours. Life as a museum is BYOB at your apartment with good friends and a few new people who’ve tagged along.

Life as a store is a touristy tour of historic and nature sites. Life as a museum is a self-guided hike with nothing but a map and a sense of curiosity.

Life as a store is seeing a beautiful, stylish woman, and adding what she’s wearing to your shopping list. Life as a museum is admiring her, and maybe paying her a sincere compliment. And then moving on.

I want to live life in a well-stocked museum with rotating exhibits, where you could linger for hours and drink in so much beauty it makes your brain tired. I don’t want to live life in a place where people hover, waiting for you to either give them money or leave. Let’s drink in the beauty, take a picture, or just remember it, and then keep going.

(BTW, I’m on Pinterest. Check out my “Surround Yourself With Beauty” board.)

Tell me: What do you do to drink in life like a museum exhibit?

Photo credit: digital cat  on Flickr

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My Painfully Honest New Years Resolutions

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Alden Wicker

I was thinking the other night about the only New Years resolution I remember keeping. I mean, I nailed in a satisfying way we rarely get as grownups, or ever, really. I was 11, and I decided that my New Years resolution would be to start brushing my teeth at night before I went to bed. At the time, I hated brushing my teeth. After I spit out the grainy taste of mint, I would immediately gulp down orange juice.

But I kept that resolution, and I still brush my teeth at night to this day … except when I’m too tired and I get in late.

Strangers In The Wind

In honor of what I learned from this, that resolutions should be simple, specific and actionable, I present you with my three resolutions. Which are not simple, specific or actionable. But, that is the life of a New Yorker, isn’t it? We’re always overreaching.

1. Cultivate Relationships with Good People

Have you ever found yourself in a friendship or relationship where you’re justifying? “Well, he has amazing taste in music; my Spotify playlist is so much better with him around.” Or, “She helped me move once and that was really sweet.” But eventually, you realize you’re not doing anyone favors by keeping it alive. You’re teaching that person it’s OK to be a flake and self-absorbed, and you’re undermining your own happiness and kindness by continuing to hang out with that person.

So this year I’m going to focus on relationships with people. If it is true that you are the five people you spend the most time with, I’m going to choose those people carefully. They are going to be kind, authentic, creative, intelligent people. It’s going to be hard. I’m not in a relationship, and my best friend just moved to Europe. I am going to have the strength to refuse to fill my weekend nights with people I don’t truly admire just for the sake of having them filled. But I’m a firm believer in the idea that if you create space, and stay true to yourself, good people will move in to occupy your world.

Action Steps: Reach out to people I truly admire. Turn down invitations to events with people I don’t.

2. Practice Authenticity

After a hard Friday night, when I found out the guy I had been dating–and for all intents and purposes had been treating me like a girlfriend, I mean, he invited me on a double-date dinner party and a day hiking trip–didn’t want a relationship, I got really down on myself.

I was rescued by a heart-to-heart with one of my best friends. And he told me something. He said, “You seem like different people at different times. Sometimes you are totally nonmaterialistic and genuine, with your heart in the right place. Sometimes it seems like you care a lot about status.” And I realized he was right. I’m always fiddling with the music so I can trot out an obscure song that no one recognizes and hence no one actually enjoys. I love one liners and zingers. I collect experiences with the intent of sharing them like trophies. Come on, Alden.

So this year I’m going to practice simplicity in my life. I’m going to do things because they are right in that moment, put on music that everyone can enjoy together, and find a guy who is right for me because he is him, not because he has a good bio (artist-living-in-Brooklyn, hedge-fund-guy-living-in-FiDi, Buckley-graduate-turned-DJ-in-Harlem … yes, those are all actual guys I’ve dated).

Action Steps: Practice mindfulness in my interactions with people. Always ask myself why I’m doing something. Is it to impress? Or to just enjoy the moment?

3. Treat My Body With Respect

When we’re young, we act as though our body is a utilitarian vehicle that transports us through our life. We accumulate dings on our psyche and our health during all-nighters, gross binges, and reckless drama-fests. But I can’t sell this body on Craiglist and buy a new one. What I do to it you can see, both in the bags under my eyes and the irritation in my voice.

I’m going to eat healthfully. Locally when I can, organic when I can, and mindfully always. I’m going to continue to do yoga, and try to do it more often. I’m going to take delicious afternoon naps, prioritize sleep over reading blogs, avoid sugar, and brush my teeth before I go to bed. I’m going to smile more and snap less.

Action steps: Take opportunities to go to bed early as just that: golden opportunities. Visit the farmers market more often. Put yoga on the schedule.

But first, I’m going to stay up all night on New Years. Duh.

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Tip for Flying Zen: Get a Window Seat and a Camera

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Alden Wicker

I spent Christmas in Phoenix, as I said before. It was wonderful and sunny and relaxing, with just a tiny bite of cold.

But I just need to say this: Get a window seat.

I had forgotten the wonder I held when I used to fly out to Phoenix when I was 10, 11, 14. How curious I was at what created the patterns and colors below me. But it all came rushing back.

The airport was strangely deserted the day after Christmas, and I had an empty seat next to me on the plane. It was a cloudless day in the desert. As the plane lifted off, it shuddered and gravity sucked at our feet. We trembled and struggled higher, passing over grids of houses. The smog obscured the far edges of Phoenix and partially obscured the mountains at the edge of the valley, and as we reached the east-most edges of the desert city, I saw empty cul-de-sacs, constructed at the height of the housing boom but never quite filled with houses. Then civilization receded, the ground spiked and jutted, and the plane lifted higher and all that was left were dark lakes pooling in the center of ridges, carved by millennia of rivers running over the sand.

As we continued east, a dusting and then a blanket of snow appeared. The world turned black and white, with aspens freckling the white canvas. The day was clear and there was no sign of human life save a single road running straight toward the horizon, or an occasional grid created by what, I don’t know. It was as if we had left our earth behind and found ourselves on a different planet, the one that Native Americans had lived in centuries ago.

I had “White Christmas” stuck in my head, so I put on M83 and allowed myself to fall into a complete reverie for hours, watching the world go by, literally, my face pressed to the window.

M83 – Lower Your Eyelids To Die With The Sun

Powered by mp3skull.com

The landscapes reminded me of the book that I gave my stepdad—who is a photographer—for Christmas: Leave No Trace: The Vanishing North American Wilderness. It features photos of glaciers, estuaries and mountains from a plane. I hoped my stepdad had a window seat in his plane and his camera ready. (You can see his pictures of Denali here.)

All I had was my iPhone, and I pined for my real camera, which at least has a zoom. I used Instagram to color-correct some of the photos, and then gave that up when I realized the intense blue of the sky and white was just fine.

The horizon was so far away and so flat I wondered if I could see Mexico from the plane. The shadows pooled so blue on the backside of veined mountains they looked like opaque lakes, or pieces of sky fallen to the ground. I watched a small plane pierce straight up into the sky, leaving a trail of white condensation behind it, then slowly curve backward, glinting in the sun, like a person diving in exquisite slow motion off of a diving board.

The mountains fell away with a sharp cut, and we passed over farmland, betrayed by the edges of wheel-shaped fields, pressed together like poker chips on a table. The wheel shape allows long sprinkler systems to pass over the field from one center point, creating a mid-century modern pattern on the ground. They went on forever, miles and miles of discs as far as the plane-elevated eye could see. Fly-over states indeed.

From the east, a front of clouds greeted us, turning yellow, peach and pink as the sun died behind us. By the time we arrived to the clouds, it was dark outside and the lights were just winking on below us outside of Chicago.

Long, meditative moments like this bring me back to myself, and remind me of all the amazing beauty in the world.

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