I’m Amanda. I’ve got wide eyes, a smart mouth, and a MetroCard. And I’m not afraid to use them.
One of my favorite things about NYC is that people read more here. You need something to do on your way to work, and listening to your iPod gets old. I plow through at least 52 books a year with the help of the subway, where I spend about an hour a day.
I find myself putting off creative work when it starts to feel like, you know, work.
I love writing when I’m done with it. But it’s work when I’m doing it. It’s quiet and lonely. It hurts my head sometimes.
Then I start thinking of all the other things I need to do before I can work on writing. Usually this involves the sudden, preposterous realization that the world is going to get hit by an asteroid that will wipe out the human race if I don’t organize my hallway closet right now.
Annie has made her faildogs.com debut!
A few weeks ago, quite a few literary people were buzzing about Mary Gaitskill’s essay “Lost Cat” in Granta 107. The piece is about well, a lost cat. Her lost cat. And what it made her realize about other relationships she’s lost.
Some people were calling it a tour de force. Others were like, “Dude, it’s a cat.”
But as a person who has wept over an English bulldog until tears froze on my face, I could relate.
Back in February 2008, I launched a Tumblr dedicated to Life Coach’s relationship advice. I’d broken up with Cade a month before and was just about to meet a guy who would later be called TBID.
I talk to Life Coach about once a week. He’s given me advice on investments, work, travel, and city life. But we mostly talk about relationships - dating, commitment, passion vs. dedication, and quality time.
A few weeks ago, I thanked him for being there for me, especially through this last breakup.
We talk of love like it’s some cosmic destination or black hole. We can fall into or out of it. We can live inside it. It permanently alters our universe.
The endeavor’s only a few spacesuits and freeze-dried sandwiches short of NASA.
I recently read a “Modern Love” column from The New York Times that addressed a question dear to my scarred heart: What do you do when someone falls out of love with you?
When the going gets tough, the tough don’t go home. Especially when that means giving up on a dream.
In my nearly four years in NYC, there have been a few times when it made fleeting sense to move back to Texas. I was between jobs, listless, scared, unsupported…
I’m so glad I stayed here.
The June edition of The Atlantic has this article by Joshua Wolf Shenk called “What Makes Us Happy?” about The Grant Study at Harvard. The point of the study was to thoroughly examine the lives of 106 Harvard graduates (JFK was one participant), see how life unfolded over the years, and then figure out why. What made successful men successful? How did those who lived miserably end up with their lot?
I recommend taking a look at the article when you get the chance. It’s long, but really interesting. This excerpt jumped out at me:
Well, actually only two. These are from Yoni Brenner’s July 2008 piece “Fourteen Passive-Aggressive Appetizers” in The New Yorker:
1. Top thick slices of country bread with fresh goat cheese. Sprinkle with herbs and bake until crusty; serve to everyone but Jeff.
2. Vegetarian friends? Try veggie rumaki: wrap a strip of imitation bacon around a water chestnut, spear with a toothpick, and broil—but instead of imitation bacon use real bacon, and instead of a water chestnut use veal.
Read the rest here.
I walked around in my underwear so much in the first year of my current lease that my neighbor with a parallel kitchen installed blinds.
Caroline Dworin wrote “Parallel Lives,” a story about living in one of two twin apartment buildings mere feet away from her neighbor, so now I don’t have to. Here’s an excerpt:
