vermont until sunday

au revoir. ben and i are off to vermont for the week to visit annie in burlington. 

a suntan

after reading a book with my dad before bed, he'd tell me stories about his childhood. mostly about his friends, brett and boo, who he would get into all sorts of harmless trouble with; breaking their arms falling out of tree houses and the like. think dennis the menace. he had many, many stories to share about growing up. friends, family, school. all entertaining enough to become bedtime stories.

one story that i remember: a boy from his school, in preparation for a dance, used a [first generation?] self-tanner that turned his skin orange. everyone laughed at him at the dance and, after countless requested story-repeats, so did i. every time. an orange boy? ha. just think, that self-tanner tale was so memorable that my dad used it as a bedtime story, and i still remember it over 15 years later.

and still, i laugh, because i [countless times] have had an orange hue. at the start of my job, i willingly tried every tanner that passed through the office doors. nobody else would. streaky skin and orange palms were just a part of the job. i am now more discerning, i swear. there were also the unseasonable [winter in vermont] spray tans from body le bronze in preparation for ultra-glamorous nights out in college. and i still get slightly nostalgic every time i smell some variant of that jergens gradual-tan moisturizer. i was champing at the bit to buy it as soon as it hit store shelves. oh and of course, sally hansen airbrush legs. clearly i am no stranger to an enhanced complexion.

but, i can not fail to mention my first dabble into the world of self tanning at age 11. bizarre to think that i even cared about tanned skin at that age, especially only years before i was laughing at the thought of changing your skin's tone. but, it was a purchase from [now defunct] limited too. they had just launched a collection of personal care products, va-va-vanilla shower gels and berrylicious body sprays, which oddly [since its target customer was more/less 10 and this was before the reign of paris hilton] included a self tanner. it came in a sky blue tube and had a yellow sun squiggled on the packaging. i remember using it several times, without any truly noticeable difference, before it remained untouched in a bathroom drawer for several years.

though i am no longer in search of the perfect faux glow, a hint of color is always nice and i can't get enough of dr. dennis gross skincare alpha beta glow pads. they provide a reasonable amount of warmth to winter's skin-sans-sun without the risk of leaving streaks or orange hands; and offers a dose of vitamin d. see? i am now discerning.

dilemonade

instead of thinking about the pulled a muscle in the back of my leg (must google this) from ballet class tonight, being on day 7 of a nasty cold, or about the paper bowls scattered around my apartment that are filled with coffee grounds to cover up the unbearable stench of a deceased neighbor that wasn't found for a few days (very sad/disgusting), i am going to think of happier thoughts. my leg will fix itself within a few days and so will my cold. i am lucky to have an apartment, especially in this weather. my senior year of college, i participated in BOX CITY to raise homelessness awareness. we slept in cardboard boxes on the campus green in chilly, chilly november. did i mention that i went to school in vermont? brr. throughout college, i was super-involved with the homeless community in burlington. i volunteered three times each week providing childcare at the local shelter. but it wasn't until i spent one night in the cold that i realized, even the littlest bit, what it feels like to not have the option of a warm home. so i am thankful for all that i have, even with my patch of bad luck the past few days, which as my mom said, isn't all that unlucky to begin with.

truthfully

from the chapter on college in the jewish american princess handbook found at my nana's house:


oh, vermont's blurb is entirely true. except instead of catalogs, we were constantly shopping online. the book was published in 1982 and still the returns are difficult.

chloe

this is chloe. i couldn't stop looking at her wet fur and overall appearance. funny, muppet.

vermont weekend

ben and i stayed with annie in vermont last week over memorial day weekend. a much needed break from new york city. burlington is such an amazing city. and even though the weather was not ideal, we had a lovely and leisurely time.

co-ey

lady planter

e + j's heads

a city market sandwich, of course

a visit to the ol' campus

i've strictly been using disposable cameras lately. the time it takes to develop the film, to when i am able to post pictures is my biggest challenge. but the film looks so wonderful, doesn't it? compared to a digital camera. it's more expensive, but i think it's worth it to not have the luxury of immediately seeing the images or taking a photo five times to get it right. i love, love, love the moment of seeing the pictures for the first time. especially after a weekend getaway.

gwendolyn

she asked if she could sit next to me. my mouth filled with beef jerky, i nodded and kept reading from my kindle. within the half hour, she told me she was nervous about traveling alone. even though her mother took her to the train station in connecticut and her father was picking her up in vermont. i said that i would make sure she was fine and to not worry about the trip.

she was delighted when i told her my name, saying we both had names of celebrities "sorta." she said she was going to wear a fancy dress and ask justin bieber's publicist if he would take her to her 8th grade dance in may. it doesn't hurt to ask. she normally shops at hot topic but she is wearing american eagle today. most girls wear abercrombie but she doesn't like the smell of the store. she went to her first concert last month with her friend. they saw ke$ha. she taught herself guitar and has her own youtube channel. she loves lip gloss. she got a cell phone for her 14th birthday, but her mother took it away after a few months after she used too many minutes. she doesn't really miss it. she described the problems she was having with her friends. her friends told her she was annoying and were constantly stabbing her in the back. she wanted to give them gifts and write letters to win them back. when i told her that her friends sounded annoying, she defended them. her older sister used to stand up for her, but she is now in high school. she also has a six-month old brother who is a little flirt. she told me that girls physically fight with each other all the time at her (middle) school. she dated a boy for two months and he broke up with her on her facebook wall. her general motto is that "things could always be worse." she is going to try out for the talent show this year and go out for cheerleading in grade 9. she tapped me on the shoulder to ask if i was okay when i was quietly listening to my ipod. she tapped me on the shoulder to show me pictures of her old haircut. she got her nose pierced this summer in burlington. she reads seventeen like it's the bible. she wants to go to cosmetology school or be a singer. she said to remember her because she will be famous one day, repeating and spelling out the letters of her last name.

i wasn't expecting a seat-mate like gwendolyn and i'm still not sure how i feel about her. i was planning to teach myself to crochet and i had great book for the 8-hour train ride up to burlington. at first i felt lucky to sit with her. she was 14 and it's been a while since i've had a conversation with someone that young. a different point of view. despite being tiger beat incarnate (which she preferred over the seventeen she was reading), she was very levelheaded. she was introspective and at many points, she reminded me of myself at that age. giving her advice felt especially rewarding, though i'm not sure how much she actually considered any of it. after a while, i was trying to keep my interactions with her as short as possible (like i said, i had a great book), but she didn't quite take the hint. un/relatable.

after our (many, many) hours together, she hugged me and said how great it was to meet me. and it was great to meet her. or interesting, rather. i realized that it has only been ten years since i was her age and my, how things change! even to think of the past five, four, three years.

i bought a new diary today. i hadn't completely filled up the last volume, but the timing for a new book felt right. i had the last one since june. wild amounts of life has happened since and it just seemed like i needed a fresh start. blank pages, life cycles.

le cohen

annie moved back to burlington a few months ago and this week was the first time i was able to visit her.

annie has one of the truest-to-self decorating styles of anyone i know and i lovelovelove her for it. if i had never seen it before, and you took me through one hundred apartments to guess which one was annalise cohen's, (without a doubt) i'd guess correctly.



what a wildly crazy/lazy trip to my favorite place in the world! it felt good to get a little fresh air.

what not to wear

since i'll be hopping in and out of my new york apartment over the next few weeks (currently in connecticut for christmas), i already packed for my new years trip up to vermont. i have an odd appreciation for packing (mostly because i am an obsessive list-maker) but from the looks of it, my suitcase doesn't seem so entirely different from when i packed for the south of france this summer. except for the addition of multiple, multiple pairs of stockings.

five days in the green mountain state, i have packed three pairs of shorts, a tank dress and two pairs of 4-inch heels. annalise cohen needs to answer her phone and knock some sense into me.

nobody talks about my UVM like that

a conversation with my cousin:

erin: hey, so im appyling to schools. did you like vermont?
me: YES
erin: haha kk so i should apply there, right?
me: LOVVVVVVVVVVVVED it
erin: i hear mixed things
me: it is the best school. what idiot said mixed things?
erin: hahaha soo many people are like nahh it's mad "hipster" and weird. but then i hear it's gorg

NO WAY.

jess

lucky for me, my office closes early on fridays during the summer. so i spent the afternoon packing away some old clothes, i drank tea, listened to grace potter and read lula (probably my sixth/seventh time reading this edition and reallyreallyreally excited for the new one to come out). i got to see the beautiful golden-sunset light up my bedroom. i am thankful for having tall ceilings and for having two windows and twice the sunlight.

and jess is here! i have such a love for her! we lived in the same dorm in college, i was a sophomore and she was a freshman. i would remember that the first time that i met jess was at a party. she was chatting up a storm about (none other than) designer jeans. annoying! but that wasn't the very first time we met, it was weeks before. the night that i met jess was when she heckled me on the first night of school. i was going out with my girlfriends and she was on someone's porch on pearl street. she is such a jerk! and then heckling became one of our favorite pastimes to do together. along with arts-and-crafting and honest chats over dominos kickers. she toted around a smoke-colored metallic juicy couture handbag everywhere she went and she also got a tattoo that year (that i don't think she'd would want me to tell on here what it is but, it's a crown and i always feel free to make fun of her for it.) and that's the joy of jess. she's the kind of friend that you can laugh with through any situation. you can be completely honest with her because that is how she is. she is probably the most honest person i know. for better of for worse but definitely for better.

and she is moving to manhattan! and on the hunt for an apartment near mine. happy weekend!

ready

2008.

exactly two years ago.

i wasn't expecting that graduating from college would make me feel any different. sure, i was happy to be finished with classes, but i thought the graduation ceremony would be like any other day. instead, i felt remarkably proud and accomplished. annie and i sat next to each other during the ceremony. we were giddy the entire time. we sang along to the school song and took in every word from the guest speaker, julia alvarez. i got to walk into the ceremony holding the banner for my major (probably the last and best time that my last name (adams) would be used to put me in some sort of order). i had the silliest grin on my face the entire time, i was so excited. i had the same big and genuine smile that i had at my bat mitzvah, and surely will have at my wedding. a smile so constant and wide that it hurt.

liz made the class of 2008 graduation speech (clearly, i had very accomplished roommates.) for the weeks before the ceremony, trying to find the perfect words worried her. but, even more so, it also made things real. this was happening, we are graduating. are we ready? just imagine having that task! writing the speech made it more real for her and sooner than for the rest of us. we could all put off the inevitable just a bit longer. but she was great and poised and she captured the moment. liz and i were talking about it a few nights ago, how hard it was for her then and re-reading her speech on the internet, makes me teary. i so distinctly remember the afternoon of emily and i being lazy around the living room and liz sitting on the back of the couch asking us for our opinions. we mulled over which childhood snack she should mention in one of the beginning sentences. it feels like that was just a few weeks ago. anyway, she ended her speech with a thought that couldn't be more relevant to my daily life in manhattan.

"take UVM and vermont with you, by never failing to appreciate the seemingly ordinary, small things in life. spread the positive environment that you fell in love with at UVM in all that you do."

i like how liz said "uvm and vermont." because college was great, as i am sure it is for everyone who attends. but, i feel the experience of living in the green mountain state is unparalleled. and i probably sound like an annoying parent who brags about her children, but really, it was wonderful. my time in vermont prepared me for life outside of it. i learned so much from living in that beautiful state that i'm able to take with me everywhere i go.

toward the last day of classes, annie found a quote that she really connected to. bloom where you are planted. she googled the quote and found that it was in a unitarian universalist sermon. she read the sermon and really connected with it, too. she then looked into the beliefs of the universalists. again, she could relate.

in burlington, the main downtown street (filled with shops and restaurants) is called church street. and at the top of the street, is (but of course) a church. a unitarian universalist church. we knew we had to go. annie and i are both jewish. but we are open to learning about the principles of different religions and taking away their positive attributes. we are also both (perpetually) in the middle of reading huston smith's the world's religions.

so off we went to the salvation army in the north end that saturday and picked up some pretty fancy clothings (circa 1970) and went to church the next morning.

as we walked in on that sunshine-filled day, everyone was asked to write on a paper something they were either thankful for, or something/somebody they wanted people to pray for. they called it "joys and sorrows". i wrote that i was thankful for that morning's sun. annie wrote a rather lengthy message along the lines of being thankful for everyone being together that morning and how wonderful it is to celebrate life and the joy that it brings. we didn't realize they'd be read aloud. and when they were, the messages were pretty standard "pray for my sick uncle", "i'm thankful that the fundraiser was a success". so when they read annie's above-and-beyond letter of love, everyone giggled. and we did, too.

then they asked who was new to the congregation. and we were, so we raised our hands. and they made us both speak into a microphone about ourselves. and everyone applauded us as we told them that we both graduated the week before. and then we sang the beautiful hymns and listened to a truly superb sermon (coincidentally based on exploring what's out there) from their beloved minister (who was having her last sunday there). there was a lot of joy in that church and it was a feel-good day. it was the last sunday i spent as a resident of burlington.

around that time, we were sitting and watching a family of string-instrument players perform on church street. as we were enjoying, an old man was sitting on the bench with us and we all had a remarkably interesting chat for an hour about how many opportunities there are out there for us. how we have to experience everything we possibly can while we're young and to not get tied down by anything or anyone. how life is a chain-link fence and that everything leads to another and that we must experience and appreciate it all. everything we were feeling at the time, he reinforced.

i really felt that it was the beginning of a new period in my life. not just in an "oh, you graduated, welcome to the real world" way, but a deep, deep feeling of change. and i was excited. i felt mentally prepared for what was ahead of me and considerably different than i had arriving in vermont four years earlier. i was ready.

my good friend (hi, will! love you!) just graduated this sunday. i met him when he was a baby freshman and i was a junior. it's amazing to think that he is now finished with UVM. i'm really proud of him. he has changed from an overconfident freshman (haha) into a wonderful and true gentleman. i talked to him a few days before the ceremony, he said he didn't think he'd feel any different after officially graduating. but neither did i and i hope he did, too.

catamounts

all week, liz and i have been scheming and longing for a friday night in. we were roommates in college and were really lucky to experience the amazing local food from vermont. a lot of which, is sold at whole foods a few blocks away. we planned that we'd get a frozen american flatbread, ben & jerry's and some other goodies and spend the night noshing and relaxing from the week. when we met outside of the grocery store last night, we both showed up (almost identically) wearing vermont green (with gold accents). go cats go!

sorority

this picture is my official sorority picture from 2005. i look so young and wholesome. precious. i remember waking up fifteen minutes before i had to get it taken. i barely brushed my hair, threw on mascara, a black shirt and ran down the campus green with my girlfriends to be photographed. somehow i managed to look fairly resplendent and perhaps everything was at that point. but things were certainly about to be shaken up only a few days after this was taken.

i pledged the spring of my freshman year. and i loved it. i loved all of my new friends, i loved the history and traditions, the parties, having a house and a house-mom, mingling with fraternity boys, wearing my flip-flops with our letters on them around campus. i even enjoyed the weekly meetings and always having to wear my pledge pin. truly everything. it was just the college experience i was looking for.

and then towards the end of the semester, rather swiftly, the sorority was shut down by the national headquarters. after being on our campus for over one hundred and twenty years, we got the boot. i cried for days afterward. i wept in my dorm room, i sniffled through my classes. i remember waiting for the campus bus during a downpour (in pink rain boots) as tears streamed down my face. a kindhearted girl came up to me and put her umbrella over my head until the bus came. it was out of a movie, it was so sweetly pitiful.

but then the sun came out and i realized that i had all of these new friends. and they were wonderful and great and they didn't go anywhere. and i even lived with a whole bunch of them my junior and senior year. and i still even live with one (hi emily)!

college continued on. my interests expanded and i challenged myself to become immersed in new adventures. i joined a feminist group on campus and i volunteered nine hours every week at the homeless shelter in burlington babysitting the sweet, sweet children. i'm not sure if i'd have these same experiences had i been in the sorority. i'm not sure i'd have the time to juggle everything. or even the desire or need to branch out.

it's amusing to think of what my college experience would have been like had the sorority remained on campus. but i will never know. what i do know is that my experience at vermont still turned out to be wonderful. it was one of the first times i realized that life can change in the most unexpected of ways, but never without reason or purpose. who even knows if i would have the wonderful job that i do now, as there were so many twists and turns that led me here? it is all just part of the fun and i'm thankful.

anticipating summer

i'm pretty sure we just skipped over spring in new york city. after it rained a record-breaking amount in march, april has been wildly hot and sunny so far. last night, emily and i visited liz in her new apartment (which is only a few blocks away from ours!) and then walked around the east village for a while. it was so pleasant. a stroll at night in the warmth. summer is on its way.

i have had two epic summers in my life. the one right after senior year of high school, gallivanting with jenna. and the summer before senior year of college.

from the seven girls in our house on converse court, four of us stayed up there that summer. two thousand and seven. beatrice, stephanie, annie and me. i didn't exactly have a job (save for the eight hours in total i worked at bath and body works on church street), which also meant that i didn't exactly have a lot of money for a few months. but it didn't matter, i was having too much fun to even think about finding actual employment.

my days went on like a dream. they were whimsical, really. concocting ingenious recipes, crafting, bicycling, throwing water balloons from the second floor porch (luckily people were generally friendly about it!), hours and hours spent at north beach, eating massive amounts creemees (the vermont way of saying soft serve ice cream) and visits to swimming holes. before living in vermont, i didn't even know that swimming holes existed. massive rock formations through flowing rivers. part swimming, part rock climbing. scattered all throughout the state. truly beautiful and wildly fun. they are unfortunately very dangerous, but in a way, they are also nature's way of saying "enjoy yourself! be happy!"

and i was.


though there isn't much nature to speak of in manhattan (weekend getaways are a must), summers here are quite unique. last year was my first summer in the city with a job and it was a bit of an adjustment after usually having a few months off from school. but, it was also a lot of fun. lazy weekends in washington square park on blankets, sundresses, spending time on boats, outdoor concerts, rooftop parties, street fairs and summer romances.

last night's stroll really made me excited for what's to come.

vermont weekend

it's been exactly six months since i've been back to vermont, so when beatrice asked me if i wanted to take a weekend trip last wednesday, my answer was a quick "yes!". burlington is a town that i dream of. truly idealistic. friendly faces, farmer's markets, a creative spirit and a definite sense that the city cares. it's small and simple and a great change of pace from new york. as soon as we arrived, i felt instantly relaxed. burlington is always a warm hug of familiarity. i feel peaceful there and i know i will live there again one day.

we were lucky enough to be there for the first warm weekend. it's miserably cold in the wintertime, so when the warm weather comes around, everybody is in a wildly good mood. we went to burlington bay cafe, to pick up a snack before heading down to the waterfront. the man at the cash register, when asked how he was doing today, replied in such an honest tone, "could we be any better?". and that really stuck with me throughout the day. because as long as there is warmth and sunshine in burlington, it's enough reason to be happy. and the whole city is smiling along with you. we all really couldn't be any better.

along with happiness, the warm weather brings everyone down to north beach in droves. lying in the sun on the blankets, feeling the cool breeze from lake champlain, music blasting, seeing all of your friends, playing assorted beachy games. the temperature being higher than forty degrees is reason enough to celebrate. when i was in college, i really embraced these days of heat and readily skipped classes to go down to the beach (sorry, mom). and though there were masses of people, you really knew most everyone and it was incredible. being there this saturday brought back so much joy. i only recognized a handful of people outside of the friends i came with, but it still made me happy knowing just what everyone else was experiencing. it was their time now. the amazing feeling of the first days of warmth. they survived the treacherous winter and now it was their time to delight in it.

i love how i haven't lived in burlington for nearly two years, but i was still constantly running into so many friends.

and i love partaking in my old favorite activities, like having a delicious breakfast at penny cluse, a must for any trip to burlington! (my roommates and i even rented it out at night for our graduation party!)

my time was spent amongst lovely friends

and the typical gallivanting around town.

we drove by our old house on converse court. seven boys live there now and we talked to a few that were hanging out on the porch (the second floor porch was, by far, the best part of the house!) they told us which rooms they were living in and confirmed that the house is haunted. it was built in the 1890s and was definitely not a place you'd want to spend the night in alone. but nevertheless, it was incredible living there.

oh and i must mention all of the stars in the sky! they were so clear and beautiful. living in the city, i forget that stars exist sometimes. when i travel outside of new york, i am always amazed. it's funny, really. or really unfortunate. the stars alone were worth the trip up to burlington, but this weekend brought so many more delights.

getaway

en route to vermont.
au revoir, new york.

an impromptu trip up to burlington with my girlfriends! 

i will return on sunday, i'm sure brimming with love, inspiration and a couple of city market sandwiches packed in my bag. 

localvore

while living in burlington, i became very good at buying groceries that were grown and made locally. bread, cheese, honey, chocolate, vegetables, eggs - everything. now that i live outside of vermont, my habit has continued and i still buy local. except local to vermont and not new york. my heart is in the green mountain state and when i see its products in the aisles of my grocery store i can't resist!

eve

new year's eve was perfection. 

the very gracious kate hosted a party at her apartment on the upper east side and so many dear college friends flew in for it. i haven't seen some of these lunatics since graduation. we all have such different things going on in our lives now. new jobs, new locations, new boyfriends. new everything. but somehow, everyone is exactly the same as i remembered. except this time we were all in one of the greatest cities in the world. it was such familiar fun.

10 , 9 , 8 , 7 , 6 , 5 , 4 ...

3 , 2 , 1 

almost

it snowed and snowed in vermont. but on days that it didn't, it was usually sunny. it was still freezing like you have never experienced, but the sun was out and shining. this naturally caused the snow to melt. especially all that had accumulated on the rooftops. and the snow on the rooftops was multiple feet deep. sometimes we'd hear a jarring crash when we were inside of our house, only for it to be the snow melting just so - that it fell in an avalanche below. on three separate occasions in the winter of 2008, i had missed, by mere seconds and steps, being hit by a massive amount of snow falling from our roof. it never happened to me before, in my four years of living in vermont, and wasn't common amongst any of my friends.

i am sure it was a sign of something. though i still have absolutely no idea of what.