Finding Gratitude in a Hurricane

 
It's Tuesday afternoon, the day after Hurricane Sandy. A storm that knocked out our transit system, killed a few people, flooded Manhattan, and left thousands of people without power.

But I'm fine.

We had no flooding. We never lost power. Our internet was a little slow all day, but our internet is slow a lot of the time (thanks, Time Warner).

My roommates and I spent the day playing video games, drinking beer, making t-shirts and playing with glow sticks.

Last night, I sat in my room watching Breaking Bad and nursing a hangover headache. With 4 minutes left of a particularly exciting episode, my adrenaline at nearly through-the-roof levels...the episode just stopped. I tried for half an hour to find another site that would let me watch the last 4 minutes, but I couldn't. So I googled a recap, read the insanely unpredictable events that transpired in those last key moments, and was immediately upset at the fact that I had to read, and not see, what happened.

And then I remembered how lucky I was that these were the worst problems I faced all day.

Throughout the day I got text messages and gchats from friends in other parts of the country asking how I was doing. My responses were always upbeat, because everything was always fine.

I'm sure I speak for a lot of Brooklynites who didn't lose power and didn't see any real damage when I say that I am extremely grateful that I somehow managed to dodge what could have been a really shitty bullet. I don't know how long it's going to take for power to be restored for my parents in New Jersey or my friends in Manhattan or at NYU Hospital, where patients had to be evacuated down 9 flights of stairs in the storm. There's still no timetable for when the subway is going to be up and running again, or for when the hustle and bustle of New York life is going to be back to normal.

Molly at Stratejoy talks a lot about gratitude. About being thankful for even the little things in your world that make you happy. I've been part of the Stratejoy tribe for about a year and a half and I don't think this message ever really resonated with me until now. Because in the midst of everything going on in my city, and knowing that the only damage I suffered was the cancellation of my full week of Halloween plans, I cannot help but be grateful for how lucky I am.

I hope all my fellow East Coasters are doing okay! Let me know how you fared in this crazy weather, everyone.

**This is my new series called Stratejoy Monday. To learn more about all this goodness, see the first 5 months of my Stratejoy journey here.  

Breaking Bad...is so good

In the last year and a half or so, I've decided to join the rest of the world by catching up on TV. The shows I previously watched consisted almost entirely of reality shows - Project Runway, America's Next Top Model, So You Think You Can Dance, and so on. In fact, I think when Glee first aired it may have been the only scripted show I watched at all.

And so, armed with the Netflix subscription that I allowed myself to re-subscribe to after finishing business school, I started powering through some of the "better" shows that I had missed.

There were shows that I hated, like Parks and Rec.

There were shows that I liked but didn't necessarily love, like How I Met Your Mother or Weeds.

Mostly, though, due to having friends with good taste in TV, I watched shows that I absolutely adored. Arrested Development, Downton Abbey, 30 Rock, Archer, Mad Men, and Friday Night Lights, just to name a few.

But nothing, and I mean NOTHING, prepared me for Breaking Bad.

If you had told me 6 months ago that I would find a TV show that I loved more than Friday Night Lights, I don't think I would have believed you. Because, as most of you know because you've probably watched it, FNL is ridiculously good. Don't even get me started.

The thing about Breaking Bad is that it took me forever to really get into it. I watched the first season and a half over the course of what was probably 2 full months. I liked it, but I just didn't have the desire to watch it ALL THE TIME.

For some reason, towards the end of season 2, I became obsessed. I started watching as many episodes as I possibly could on a given day. I'm done with season 4 and I cannot wait to get started on season 5 because seriously, WHERE WILL IT GO FROM HERE SEASON 4 WAS SO CRAZY.

Here's why I love Breaking Bad:

1) The plot, obviously. It's compelling and interesting and suspenseful and a whole host of other good things.

2) The acting. Amazeballs. The acting is so good that you realize that Aaron Paul is hot but it's like you don't even care because he's just so awesome (remember that time you watched an episode of FNL and didn't think about how hot Tim Riggins is? No, because that never happened).

3) The characters. They're good! They're evil! It's all over the place in an insanely awesome way because everyone has so much depth to them. And then people die and it's like I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF I'M HAPPY OR SAD ABOUT THIS BECAUSE EVERYONE IS SO GREAT AND ALSO SO AWFUL.

4) The complexities. This show is complex in a way that isn't confusing, much the opposite of what I imagine Lost to be like, though I've never seen it and have no interest in seeing it. Or if you watch Revenge, which is also a pretty good show, you'll know that Revenge is both complex AND confusing. Which is annoying. Breaking Bad gives you these little snippets of things that happened in the past that shed light on certain people or events or situations and you're like, "OH SHIT YO" because, oh hey, you just opened up a whole new can of crazy worms. But they're awesome. Awesome crazy worms.

How did I get on worms? This took a weird turn.

5) The gore. I don't love gore. In fact, whenever I watch fight scenes I do that thing where you turn your head but maybeeeee every so often peek at the screen, or I cover my eyes with my hands and sort of look through my fingers a little. I don't deal well with watching that kind of stuff. HOWEVER, the blood on Breaking Bad is mostly surprise blood, so I don't have time to worry about it because HOLY SHIT, that just happened. And all I'm saying is, if I'm going to watch someone's throat get slit, I'd rather not know it's coming.

Okay, and in the interest of fairness, but mostly because I spend so much time thinking about this show that I don't want to stop writing about it, here are 2 things I don't like about it:

1) You may have seen me say this on Facebook or Twitter already, but must Bryan Cranston be in his underwear so often? It's excessive.

2) If Jesse can learn to cook Walt's special blue meth without knowing anything about chemistry, why does no one realize that probably ANYONE could learn to do this? It makes no sense to me that everyone acts as though Walt and Jesse are the only 2 people on the planet who can cook meth with that high a purity level.

Okay, I'm done. Seriously, guys. Breaking Bad.

PUPPIES

Yup. This is a blog post about everyone's favorite subject - DOGS.

If this is not your favorite subject, please remove my blog from your reader immediately. Dogs are the greatest.

This weekend, Crapface and I went to Meet the Breeds, which needs no elegant explanation other than the fact that you get to walk up and down the aisles of the Jacob Javits Center and pet all different types of dogs.

Like American Eskimos

Or an awesome Bull Terrier!

Or this Chow Chow puppy, who is literally THE BEST DOG I HAVE EVER SEEN IN PERSON.

I mean, I can't even. Do you guys know how much I love dogs that look like bears? A WHOLE LOT. A few months ago I devoted an entire blog post to my love of Genghis Khan, Martha Stewart's Chow Chow. Genghis Khan is probably (definitely) my favorite dog that I've never met.

I've also been particularly fond of Chow Chow puppies ever since I started watching Youtube videos of DoyDoy the Chow Chow years ago. Here is my favorite. YOU'RE WELCOME.


It was a good day.

This is not a toy

A year ago, I wrote this post about going to a shooting range in Manhattan. Learning to shoot a rifle was pretty fun, even if we were required to sit through nearly 2 hours of education before doing it.

This past weekend, though, my friend and I upped the ante. And by that I mean we went to Pennsylvania, where all the restrictions we faced in New York around what guns you can shoot without a license are apparently nonexistent.

Each party is assigned an instructor, and they take you around and do everything for you - so while at the rifle range in NYC I had to load my own gun, here we had a guy set it up and pretty much hand it over. Which frankly is fine with me because I never plan on owning a gun.

So instructor man starts out by saying, "Do you guys want to try pistols, rifles, or shotguns?" at which point I got too excited and yelled "PISTOLS" because seriously, all I've wanted to do since shooting a rifle is shoot a handgun.

My wish was granted.

I was shooting a nine millimeter in this second picture, which my friend Lauren and I were pretty excited about because rap songs always talk about "ninas" and now we feel all sorts of gangster and shit. Also gangster - the fact that as I looked through all these pictures that Lauren took of me, I couldn't help but think about how good my hair looks. I mean, LOOK AT IT. So pretty. For once.

The last gun we shot - the "grand finale," as our instructor called it, was this bad boy.

This is some badass assault rifle that, I have to be honest, was a little intense for me because the gun kicks back straight into your cheekbone. But it looks cool.

I don't know when I'll ever shoot a gun again (unless we go back to this place in the future, which...we very well may), but this was an entertaining way to spend an afternoon, for sure. And, just throwing it out there, my paper target guy had a ton of holes through his head and heart. POW.

Forgiveness

I have the very last Joy Juice journal prompt sitting in my inbox. It's been over a year, 119 introspective journal entries, and a whole lot of...well, everything. Goals, thoughts, realizations, criticisms. As a way of making sure I'm fully prepared to write my response to entry #120, I'm rereading my entire Joy Juice journal, month by month. As I go, I'm pulling out quotes, to-dos, and other things I want to take with me as I head into a life slightly less Stratejoy-ful.

As I reviewed month 3, the Authenticity month, I came across the following and I wanted to post it here for 2 reasons. First, because I need the reminder. And second, because I was going to skip Stratejoy Monday today but HAHA now I don't have to. High five.

I wrote this on December 7, 2011. It is completely unedited. The prompt was:

Write a letter to yourself. Accept, forgive and give value to the lessons you learned from something you consider a "wrong choice" or a "bad decision."

I couldn't think of any specific examples, so I went the general route instead, which I think works better for me as far as self-improvement purposes are concerned.

Dear Arielle,

I forgive you for not standing up for yourself more often. For being timid and sitting idly by when things happen that are unfair to you, or people screw you over and instead of giving them a piece of your mind, you swallow it and move on.

I know how hard it can be to do this, sometimes. Standing up for yourself involves becoming vulnerable in a way, in showing that you are upset with something, and we both know how vulnerability isn't your strong suit.

You're not a pushover. I know it. Just think about the small victories - when you defended your right to bring a girl and not a guy to a formal in college, or when you went into your boss's office and told her how you deserved the promotion that she had neglected to give you. If you keep these in mind more - how you stepped outside your comfort zone and put your true thoughts and feelings out there EVEN if it didn't work out the way you wanted it to - I know it will inspire you to have more and more of these moments of self-assuredness. Until one day, standing up for your true, real, honest self will be the rule, not the exception.

Until then, we must accept the losses with the victories. You can't change yourself immediately, but you have to slowly chip away at the bad habits until only the good remains. So from each moment where you say to yourself, "I could have said more on my behalf," let's learn from it, accept our mistakes, and move on, more powerful than before.

You are amazing. The world needs to hear your voice.

Onward and upward, and always on your side even when no one else is,

Arielle

**This is my new series called Stratejoy Monday. To learn more about all this goodness, see the first 5 months of my Stratejoy journey here.  

Staying on Top of it All

Last week, I was catching up with a friend over bubble tea. We talked about all the usual things - jobs (or lack thereof), her upcoming wedding, and so on

As we were leaving, she said, "Elle, we really need to do this more often. It's always so good to talk to you because you have your shit together and I can pick your brain."

If we were chatting online at the time, which we clearly were not, and if I were the type of person to ever say, "LOL," which I'm also not, my response would have been the following:

LOLOLOLOLOL K

I mean, my friend has a luxury apartment and a fiance, and recently hit her 5 year anniversary at her job. Meanwhile, I've been unemployed for 10 months, the extent of my love life right now is thinking that maybe a guy has a crush on me but also maybe he doesn't at all, and I got so drunk this weekend that I lost my sunglasses and dropped my phone so many times that I cracked the screen. And she's telling me that I have my shit together?

So I've been thinking a lot about what it means exactly to have one's shit together. While I would certainly never describe myself as a mess, I think the phrase "having your shit together" implies a certain level of polish that I definitely lack. Does anyone truly look to people who have embraced the leggings-as-pants look as role models? I feel like...no (seriously though - leggings are so comfortable okay JUDGE AWAY I DO NOT EVEN CARE).

Let's assume that this one friend isn't the only person out there who thinks I have my shit together. What is it about me, then?

Do I have my shit together because I'm punctual?

Do I have my shit together because I never bail on plans?

Do I have my shit together because I pay my bills on time?

Sure, these are all things that "with it" people do, but I didn't leave the house until around 5pm today, my hair is about 2 days overdue for being washed and today I ate a slice of pizza for breakfast, another one for lunch, and a third one for dinner.

So whoever died and made my friend - bless her heart - in charge of delineating who has their shit together and who doesn't, I thank you. Because I don't deserve it.

Or do I? I constantly find that my friends ask for me advice on stuff, and 2 weeks ago Cassie told me she was surprised that I had never considered being a life coach as a career path.

A LIFE COACH, YOU GUYS. As someone who cannot even find a date from the internet. Cassie, I adore you.

Okay, so I do admit that despite the ridiculous state of my life right now, I'm typically someone who is sort of on top of things. I'm good at returning emails and phone calls and my room is always pretty clean. And despite all of the crying I've done over jobs that didn't work out over the last 10 months, deep down I think I've always known that I'll be fine. Because I may not be on top of certain areas of my life (in fact, I may be drowning in them), but as far as my life as a whole goes, I have it together. I think.

It's comforting, to be honest. No matter what happens, I always know that I'll pull a Tim Gunn and make it work. And while I may lose alignment, I'll never lose control.

At least I hope

P.S. For those keeping track, yes, I clearly realize that I'm writing a post about how I have my shit together and it's a Stratejoy Monday post and I'm posting it on Tuesday. FAIL. But at least I wrote most of it yesterday.

**This is my new series called Stratejoy Monday. To learn more about all this goodness, see the first 5 months of my Stratejoy journey here. 

JDate Strikes Again

I don't think it's any secret that online dating for me has more or less been a spectacular failure. Not in that I've gone on horrendous date after horrendous date, but that I can't even seem to get to the "going on a date" stage with anyone before they show me their true crazy-and-or-creepy colors.

To demonstrate, I just want to tell you all a story.

Recently, I was messaging back and forth with a guy from JDate. I wasn't super into him but decided to get over myself and just go with it anyway.

Last week, he messaged me and said, "I think texting would probably be easier. Here's my number."

The next time I logged into JDate, which happened to be 5 days later, I messaged him back: "Sure, sounds good. Here's my number."

On Saturday evening, I emerged from the subway and immediately whipped out my phone to call my friend Lauren, as we were meeting up to go to the Jay-Z concert. I noticed that I had a text message that said, "Hey it's Zack from JDate," but since I was hurrying off to the concert I decided not to respond until later.

2 hours later, the concert was over and I saw yet another text message from him: "Nevermind, I'm not interested in you."

This was the point at which I wrote him off, as his only basis for being upset would have been the 2 hours that I didn't respond to him, in which case, CALM DOWN YO. But I decided to take the high road. Our text conversation, which happened over the course of the next 45 minutes or so as I was traveling from the concert to my friend's party, is as follows:

Arielle: Okay. I just wanted to say hi and that I've been in a concert all night and not looking at my phone.

Zack: What concert?

Arielle: Jay-Z

Zack: White girls at a Jay-Z concert? He really does have 99 problems.

Zack: You took forever to respond to my message, and then you didn't even text me, you just emailed me your number. That's not attractive to say the least.

Arielle: Sorry, I've just been really busy lately. If that's not okay with you, that's fine.

Zack: Why are you even on JDate if you're not going to make dating a priority?

Arielle: I'm really sorry but I'm at a party and I can't talk right now.

Zack: Ur fucking clueless. Lose my number.

/scene

I just...I can't. No, I didn't respond to him for 5 days, and no, I didn't text him when he gave me his number because I opted to just give him my number instead. But...IS THIS REAL LIFE?

Okay. No further commentary necessary here.

Goals, revisited

Earlier this year, I wrote about the goals I wanted to achieve over the coming months. At the end of my Stratejoy season, I wrote about goals again (I also wrote about Girl Talk and what my eyes look like, but whatever).

In the last 2 months, I have effectively done absolutely nothing to better my life in any way. I've been temping, sure, and going to Jay-Z and Foo Fighters concerts and playing kickball, but I'm living completely without strategic direction. You know, managing my life without really leading it.

In an act of extremely fortuitous timing, Ashley (also a graduate of Stratejoy blogging!) decided that as a way of bumping up her growing coaching business, she would offer 100 free 60-minute coaching calls. My life was in dire need of some centering so you know I jumped on that shit (she still has some spots left, so if you too want some super helpful no-judgment practical advice and help in sorting out all your ish, I highly suggest you go sign up for your spot, too).

So I had a lovely Google+ hangout with Ashley where I told her everything that's going on and how I was generally overwhelmed by the enormity of what I wanted to do with my life, because when you look towards the finish line of all your goals as opposed to the next step along the way, that's a surefire way of scaring yourself into doing absolutely nothing.

Ashley helped me look at my goals and figure out some more manageable baby steps to help me get there, so that I could stop leading a completely static life where I'm intimidated by the sheer amount of work ahead of me and start making the teeniest tiniest bits of progress.

Do you know what I mean? Saying to yourself, "I want to publish a book of personal essays" is way more intimidating than saying, "Maybe tomorrow I'll just jot down some notes about what essays I want to write."

This wasn't even one of the things Ashley and I discussed, but it's on my list anyway.


Also, SIDEBAR: Probably most people who read this blog also already read Nicole's blog and have thus seen this video, but if you haven't, I highly suggest you watch the below video immediately. Nicole gave a 5 minute talk about the 3 lessons she's learned from long-distance running, and even if you're not a runner (RAISES HAND) these will totally still apply to you in working towards any goal, at all, ever. So, watch this.



Moving on.

I wanted to share the action items that Ashley and I set out during our chat, because putting them out there for the world worked for me before and hopefully it will work again. Here goes!

1) Set up one date within the next 2 weeks. This is probably not actually going to happen, for reasons you guys can all read about when my next post goes up on Wednesday. I will allow for the possibility that either a) every guy from the internet stops being weird or b) I actually get asked out in person, but let's not get our hopes up for those.

2) Be more thoughtful about what I eat/drink in social situations. Do I ALWAYS need another beer? The answer might sometimes be "yes," but I have a feeling that if I thought about it a little more, it could also sometimes be "no."

3) Exercise 4 days a week. I don't have a job, guys. There's no excuse for not doing this (says the person who did not go to the gym today. Whoops).

4) Be more proactive in job hunting. Despite the fact that I'm totally burnt out on job hunting, I don't have the luxury of just NOT doing it anymore. So instead of taking the easy way out and blindly sending off resumes, I need to make more of an effort to try and find connections within the companies I want to work for.

5) Do not leave the house wearing something that doesn't make me feel great. I love yoga pants and pajamas. In fact, I probably spend more time in sweatpants-type clothes than my 3 roommates combined. Because I'm a slob, I guess. But I feel way more confident when I look nice, and so I'm going to make more of an effort to do that. I already succeeded at this today!

I'm fixing my life, you guys. IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN.

**This is my new series called Stratejoy Monday. To learn more about all this goodness, see the first 5 months of my Stratejoy journey here.