A Little More Hope for Haïti

A couple weekends ago, I took the train and bus far, far up North to attend my first event for a new group I joined called Chicagoans help Haiti. It was a sewing workshop to make dresses and pants for children orphaned by last year's earthquake. We were instructed to bring some t-shirts (for pants) or pillowcases (for dresses) and a $1 donation. I didn't really know what to expect. Frankly, I thought it'd be a bunch of old people. But I gave it a shot anyway.

I met someone while I was walking in who was around my age, which was quite comforting. As we were handing in our t-shirts, we realized we both had shirts from Threadless, so we obviously hit it off right away. We chatted and hung out a bit throughout the event, then exchanged emails as we were leaving. Turns out she is freelance photographer, and I sometimes freelance write. We thought we could team up sometime in the future to work on an article or project together.

The event itself was a well-oiled machine if I ever saw one. Two head sewer ladies supervised the whole process of ironing, tracing, snipping, pinning, elasticing, unpinning and sewing the little pants and dresses, which also had little pockets. Each t-shirt and each pillowcase went through 10+ steps before its transformation into a pair of pants or a dress. Every single station was manned and humming with conversation and laughter. It looked like everyone was having a good time.

When I wasn't taking notes, I was on the elastic crew. I sat with two lovely nice old French ladies and guided pieces of elastic through dress collars. I enjoyed creeping in on their French conversation. Actually, I was super shy around them and apprehensive to let them know I spoke French. I told them I was embarrassed I would make mistakes. "That's how we feel in English!" they said. "I am sure we make mistakes all the time." I felt a little bit better and so I chatted with them in French.

As I was working away, I thought that it kind of seemed silly to bring all these people here to spend a few hours sewing clothes when each person could just have easily gone to a thrift store and purchased some children's clothing for a few measly dollars. But as I looked around, I understood that people wouldn't get the same feeling of accomplishment out of donating someone's old and forgotten clothes. We were all working collectively to make something that would benefit others, and that's why the sewing workshop was a good idea. Most of the people couldn't even sew, but they were given simple tasks that didn't require sewing skills. The event also brought friends and strangers together over a common philanthropic goal. Plus those head sewer ladies were awesome at delegating, so a lot got done. I left before the event was over, but the pants and dresses were piling up as I left. I hope they make some little Haitian kids happy.

Here are some of my photos, which are pretty awful. I wasn't dedicating too much time to taking them. If you'd like to see some really great photos — including one of me working hard on that elastic — visit Sarah Tilotta Photography's Haiti Sewing Workshop album. She's my new photographer friend, and you'll quickly see that she's great at what she does!

patterns for boys' pants.

That's Sarah's pillowcase! I am sure it made a great dress. I really like the pattern. I wish I had a dress with that pattern.

Super awesome sewer lady on the right. She seriously kicked butt. She was so nice and so efficient, which is not easy to do at the same time.

Cute little girls who served as models for the dresses. For even cuter photos, see Sarah's album.

Once a t-shirt, now little boy pants.

Once a pillowcase, now a little girl dress.

Low Battery

This week started off well enough. Then that flat tire thing happened. And that was no big deal because I handled it well enough. And then, the next day, another flat tire happened. So I had to take the bus home, which stresses me out. Not the bus itself, but taking the bus with a bike is stressful. Everyone is waiting for you to put your bike on or get it off and there is all this pressure and inevitably you pull the wrong lever and drop your bike in the middle of a busy street known as Chicago Avenue. In between all of this, I was cramming in a lot of freelance work and had a lot of nine-to-five work to see to, and I just got über stressed in general. Plus I couldn't make it to the pool or yoga or obviously ride my bike or eat things that are good for me. I could probably find about six more things to make the week more dramatic and horrible, but to make an already-long-enough story short, I was not feeling great.

By Thursday I was totally fried. I never miss Thursday night French class. Never ever never ever. But I needed to try taking a few hours off of life. So I headed home to where my two good friends and roomies were. The second I walked in the door, I unloaded everything on them. About the bike and the work and the this and the that. They patiently listened, then one handed me a dinner of delicious leftovers and another offered to accompany to a coffee shop so we could both get work done. They didn't even know how much I needed those things. I was SO hungry and SO unmotivated to spend the rest of my night working.

And just having some human beings to unload my complaints to felt great. Especially because I internalize things a lot and think because I moved to big bad Paris alone, I can handle anything. And I probably can. But it's nice when I don't have to.

The week is over. Tomorrow starts a new one. Hooray!

On Flat, Salty, Deflated Tires

I spoke too soon when I boasted last week about how productive my life is, because I definitely put too much on my plate sometimes. Yesterday, I fudged up my volunteering schedule so was running late for my shift, then realized my bike tire was flat. Really the flat tire had nothing to do with my jam-packed calendar, but it reminded me of how tight I schedule my day-to-day life. I cram it all in and leave absolutely no room for hiccups.

My first instinct with the flat was to freak out, perhaps leave my bike at the shop and hurry up to Open Books. But I would still have a flat tire and no bike. Thankfully, the folks at the bookstore are super understanding and know all about work/life/volunteer balance. So I decided to get it fixed before riding up there.

There’s a repair shop precisely six feet from where I park my bike, so I rolled on in. The mechanic took a look and began to give me the run-down on my bike: it’s in bad shape, kinda. The tires are old and cracking and are getting worse from biking in winter (salt). He found multiple pieces of glass, which have probably just been hanging out there for some time because my tire pressure was so low. It’s supposed to be at 90 PSI, and mine were at 20. Really I am lucky I got a flat because I could have blown my tires in the condition I was riding.

I felt stupid. Stupid for messing up my volunteer schedule and nearly missing my shift. Stupid for not checking my tire pressure and biking around with apparently a whole freaking windshield in my tires. Stupid for feeling like I could do 10 things in one day. And stupid for thinking any of this even matters.

Mandatory let’s-talk-about-France moment: Those people don’t care about anything. They don’t care to get stressed about things anyway. I got really good at this carefree attitude when I was over there, but the longer I’m in ‘Merica, the more easily I seem to get stressed about minor petty things such as scheduling mishaps and flat tires.

But the flat tire was good. I couldn’t go anywhere, so I could breathe a little bit and not rush to my next calendar reminder. I just had to sit there. And do nothing. It was exactly what I needed to do. I thought about how maybe I need to scale things back a bit. And even though I won’t, I’ll at least check my tire pressure more often.

No Nager, Merci

One of my fav Paris bloggers, Prêt à Voyager recently blogged about her experience at Paris swimming pools. I was cracking up as I read the whole post, because she was so spot on. Basically, Parisians are WACK when it comes to swimming pools. I like swimming a great deal, and when I was in Paris and training for my most recent marathon, I tried my hardest to swim once a week as cross training. But it was impossible. It was just too weird. And crowded. And naked. Here are some other things:

- The lockers were always really complicated. I tried to swim at several different pools hoping to find one that was a good fit, and every time had to learn some new complex locking system. Whatever happened to the good old key? No, instead they have euro coin locks, or locks where you have to enter a secret pin code after two beeps. Also, one pool has these weirdo mannequin hanger thingys that everyone casually hung their clothes on and put inside their lockers. I was embarrassed because I just threw my clothes in a heap inside the locker. I thought that was what normal people did.

- For men, anything but a Speedo is deemed unsanitary (see picture). Men must wear Speedos to be allowed to swim. Gross. If you forget yours, you can buy one from the vending machine. Double gross.

- After exiting the locker room and before entering the swimming pool, you must walk through 1-2 feet of stagnant water. It's like a kiddie pool blocking your path to the swimming pool. It's, you know, to sanitize your feet. Triple gross.

- Parisians can't swim. Not fast or in a straight line or anything. I don't even know why they go to the swimming pool. They enjoy clogging the wall space so that swimming without stopping is absolutely impossible. They can't smoke there, so I really don't see why they are wasting their time poking around the pool.

- The hours at every pool are very limited, which means you have to share a lane with 10-15 Parisians who can't swim. See above.

- I don't want to talk about the locker rooms.

I finally gave up on swimming and just counted riding my bike up Rue de Belleville as my cross training.

Now I live in 'MERICA, and I belong to a big fat American gym that has a pool. I swim twice a week usually. It is heavenly. I can flip turn to my heart's content without worrying about some Speedo-clad man kicking me in the face. AND the locker room is just ladies only! Crazy!

Gettin' er Done

I read this post from a blog called Frugal Girl in which she discusses cutting schedule clutter. She says that her readers are always amazed that she finds time to blog, bake, read, paint furniture, etc. Her retort is that she plans ahead, works efficiently and gets enough sleep, which gives her the necessary energy to get it all done!

A lot of people have the same reaction to all the stuff I am able to get done. These are the things that I do pretty much every week work week outside of actually working:

- Read ½ a book
- Go to two or so yoga classes
- Swim two or so miles
- Bike 40 or so miles
- Climb some walls
- Attend a French class
- Grocery shop
- Cook or prepare most of my meals
- Interview a couple folks and write some blog posts
- Write some other stuff
- Get some good deals with my coupons
- Watch a movie or bake a delicious treat
- Talk to Libby

I don’t always get it all done (with the exception of talking to the cat). But I mostly do. And just like Frugal Girl, I have a schedule, and I do my best to stick to it. If I plan ahead, I can pack it all in. For example, on Thursday nights I have French class at 7:45. So, after work, I go swim laps, and, if I have time, pick up a few groceries before class. I guess I could just go home and twiddle my thumbs until class. But that’s not really my style.

I am not a time waster. I like to pack as much as I can into every single day so that I can feel like I’ve accomplished/learned/achieved something. And every single day, I probably do! I don’t watch a lot of TV or spend a lot of time looking at people’s Facebook pictures or do whatever it is that a lot of people do that prevents them from being productive.

Itty Teeny Baby Steps

Today something groundbreaking happened in yoga class. I absentmindedly somehow touched my big right toe. In my young life, I've never been able to stick my legs straight and comfortably touch any toe, ever. In past years, sometimes I could almost-very-nearly-ouch-this-hurts graze the tops of my feet. But today, January 12, 2011, I touched a toe.

I started doing yoga weekly about a year ago, and my progress has eekingly been slow. I've been sitting hunched over my whole life and have very weak shoulders, core, upper body, everything — except I could kill a man with my legs, which are pretty freaking strong from all those marathons I've run and the biking to and from work every day. And since I am such poor model for what a yoga should look like, I am honestly surprised that a. I haven't given up yet and b. some of these tecahers haven't approached me after class and said "listen honey... I'm sorry to tell you this, but this isn't for you."

But I have stuck with it and no teacher has laughed in my face (for the record, yoga teachers are SO encouraging. The one last week was really quite nice, even though her class was so hard I thought I might barf). And even though it has taken me a year to touch one measely toe, I am proud of said accomplishment and am excited for the rest on the horizon.

One of my New Year's resolutions is to do a handstand. I still have nine more toes to touch. I shall work on this.

Getting to Know Wormhole

I recently came into some freelance work this weekend, which meant it was time to head to a coffee shop. There's always Filter, but it's crowded, a little bit too hip and limits Internet to two hours. So I decided to try Wormhole, a newish coffee shop in my neighborhood. As an added bonus, a friend from high school recently started working there. I thought it'd be nice to see him.


I didn't get good pictures of the whole place since I didn't have the right lens on my camera, but it has a pretty cool '80s theme. I chatted briefly with the owner, who brought in a lot of the memorabilia from his mom's basement — lunchboxes, mugs, posters and even a working Nintendo with tons of games for customers to play.

This wasn't my drink, but I couldn't resist snapping a photo.


This was my vegan bluebery/cornbread muffin. I couldn't resist taking a bite before the photo. It was so good I ate two.


I also like this photo, and aspect of the shop. I hate coffee shops that don't have enough space for you to "season" your drink. This left enough room for a few people to mix in sugar, grab napkins, etc.

Open Letter to the Person Sitting Next to Me at The Coffee Shop Singing to His Friend

Inspired by McSweeney’s open letters to people are entities who are unlikely to respond.

What the ef is wrong with you? People who listen to music on their computers at coffee shops bring headphones. Because it is an invasion of personal space and other people's sanity to blare your music in public. The same goes for blaring your voice. Which is not very good anyway. Also there is no variety, you are singing the same two mumbley lyrics over and over. What are you mumbling anyway? About crying? What do you have to cry about? I am the one that should be crying because you are ruining my productivity. Your coffee cup is empty, so it would be nice if you could leave now.

Janorexcia

Janorexcia – The act of starving oneself in January to lose Christmas pudge. Also might have something to do with New Year’s resolutions.

How to use it!

• I didn't eat lunch today and instead went to the gym so I am a good janorexic. – me
• Drinking coffee no cream no sugar for janorexia. – Bradley
• Who keeps putting chocolate caramels in the kitchenette? this is not helping my janoerexia – Amy

Are you participating in janorexia?

An Open Letter to Facebook and Your Damn Engagement Ring Ads

I like some of the services you provide for me. You make it easy to tag my friends in photos, put me in touch with faraway acquaintances, and entertain me a little bit on a bored Saturday afternoon. But I do not enjoy the part where you try to pressure me into getting married.

I know you think you know me. That me being 24, female, and in the same relationship for some time now = put a ring on it. So maybe that’s why you keep bombarding me with your “Do You Like Diamonds? Like us!” pay-per-click ads. But listen. I’m not interested in getting married anytime soon. That is why I keep deleting all your engagement ring ads. And then when you ask me why, I say I’m not interested in them. So why do you keep shoving those diamonds down my throat?

Usually I do not get so offended by advertising, especially because I know you need it to keep your service free for me. But I can only delete so many ads, tell you I don’t care about engagement rings, then see three more glaring at me in the right-hand column the next day. I. Don’t. Want. To. Get. Married. At. This. Point. In. My. Life. Is that so hard to understand? If you cared about me, you would listen. But you don’t care about me. You just want me to get married. LAME.

Resolved

My roommates and I have been talking resolutions for the past few weeks. I thought of several throughout my month-long reverb10 blogging project. And last night I sat with my friends and sister to review what ours were. Here are mine:

1. Take more pictures
2. Wear more accessories
3. Be more thrifty
4. Stop buying meat from the grocery store (either it's local or nothing)
5. Take a dance class
6. Touch my toes
7. Do a handstand
8. Not look like a fatty fatty two-by-four in Kari's wedding this spring

December 31: Core Story

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: What central story is at the core of you, and how do you share it with the world? (Bonus: Consider your reflections from this month. Look through them to discover a thread you may not have noticed until today.) (Author: Molly O’Neill)

I rang in 2010 kind-of-but-not-really sure that I wanted to be in Chicago. I was pretty sure, but not totally sure. By the time 2011 came along, I was definitely sure. This has been the core story of the year and of a lot of these reverb10 posts. Although I still have some work to do, things are going pretty dandy. And that is that.

Reverb10 was good because it got me to write almost every single day. But I also felt like many of the prompts made me search for meaning in places there wasn’t any. Many of the prompts were also repetitive, and it was challenging to keep my posts different from one another.

I liked that these prompts made me think about what I’ve been doing over the past year, but nothing bubbled up that I hadn’t thought of before. I’m thinking about stuff all the time.

And I was also surprised by how many people told me they’ve been reading. This is a little scary for me because I’m a perfectionist, and I don’t have the time to make every single post perfect. I am worried that people will find typos or a misspelling and think poorly of me. But such is life, I suppose. If don’t want to mistakes, then I shouldn’t try, right?

Thanks to everyone who has stuck with me over the past month. I am going to try to keep the blog going strong and write a few times a week.

December 30: Gift

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: Gift. This month, gifts and gift-giving can seem inescapable. What’s the most memorable gift, tangible or emotional, you received this year? (Author: Holly Root)

I've been thinking about this prompt ever since it was posted yesterday and haven't been able to come up with anything good. So I'm going to cop-out a little bit on this one and say the best give I have received this year is patience. See, I'm a very impatient person. If things don't go my way, I immediately become very frustrated and pissy.

I appreciate the patience of my friends and family whenever I get like this. And I also appreciate when they tell me "stop it." It really puts me in check. I am working hard on improving this quality about myself, and the patience of those close to me really helps.

An Open Letter to the Woman Furiously Popping Her Zits in the Locker Room Mirror

Inspired by McSweeney’s open letters to people are entities who are unlikely to respond.

When I first joined the gym many moons ago, I was meek in the locker room. While woman of all ages and shapes and sizes unabashedly changed in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors, I scurried to the bathroom to do my changing in the privacy of a stall. But, due to my laziness and gradual nonchalance about other women critiquing my body (I know they do it to me because I do it to them), I was soon enough changing out in the open with the best of them.

This was a major hurdle for me to overcome, and I can only hope to one day achieve that all you have. Some women – usually of the quite old variety – watch television or sit in the hot tub in the nude. Others do their makeup or hair while wearing nothing but skimpy towels. I admire these women. But I admire you more. You, who has the confidence and spunk to put your face centimeters from the mirror and pop your zits onto it. You have turned the athletic club locker room into your personal dressing table! Where did you learn to care so little about your environment or respecting the people in it?

December 29: Defining Moment

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: Describe a defining moment or series of events that has affected your life this year. (Author: Kathryn Fitzmaurice)

In my last post, I talked about my strive to achieve things. What was the most frustrating about being unemployed for seven months was 1. I wasn’t achieving what I wanted to professionally and 2. I was so focused on achieving #1 that I couldn't concentrate on achieving anything else. So I guess the job offer turned the tables and defined the rest of 2010 for me.

The idea of defining my whole year by that one thing leaves a really bad taste in mouth. It feels long ago and the excitement has faded. I am disappointed that I have nothing better to show for myself since then. Maybe I do, but nothing as huge. Boo and hiss. This prompt is making me feel like a failure, and I don't even know why.

December 28: Achieve

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: What’s the thing you most want to achieve next year? How do you imagine you’ll feel when you get it? Free? Happy? Complete? Blissful? Write that feeling down. Then, brainstorm 10 things you can do, or 10 new thoughts you can think, in order to experience that feeling today. (Author: Tara Sophia Mohr)

Earlier this year, everyone in my office took a personality assessment for some team-building workshops. Based on our answers, everyone received a list of their top five "strengths." My number one strength was Achiever:

Your Achiever theme helps explain your drive. Achiever describes a constant need for achievement. You feel as if every day starts at zero. By the end of the day you must achieve something tangible in order to feel good about yourself … After each accomplishment is reached, the fire dwindles for a moment, but very soon it rekindles itself, forcing you toward the next accomplishment. Your relentless need for achievement might not be logical. It might not even be focused. But it will always be with you.

And so on and so forth. Now that I read the description, it kind of terrifies me. It makes me sound like a workaholic weirdo who doesn't know how to have a good time. That's not true. But this does describe me really well. I just met a couple college friends for breakfast last weekend and was telling them how I didn't feel like I had achieved anything in the past year. "BETSY YOU GOT A JOB," Lauren the ever positive, said. "THAT IS AMAZING!!" (yes Lauren speaks in all caps). But that was eight months ago. For an Achiever, eight months is a long time to go without achieving a lots more things.

Of course I have things I would like to do in 2011. I would like to do a triathlon, touch my toes and do a handstand. I would like to speak more French. I would like to read more books. I would like to write more. I would like to take a couple more trips. I would like to find more meaningful volunteer work. I would like to save more money with coupons. I would like to be better at thrifting. There isn't one thing I would like to achieve the most. I want it all.

And, if I were to accomplish every single thing on my list, I know exactly how I would feel: incomplete and eager to find something else to achieve. It sounds pathetic, that I am never able to appreciate my successes because I always have to move to the next thing. Do I strive to achieve things simply for the sake of achievement? Or are these things I actually want to achieve?

So maybe I should work on NOT achieving things this year. But I know that won't happen. It would be a waste of a year of my life. Instead of ten thoughts I shall try to concentrate on one, and that will be to feel satisfied with all that I've accomplished.

December 27: Ordinary Joy

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Our most profound joy is often experienced during ordinary moments. What was one of your most joyful ordinary moments this year? (Author: Brené Brown)


I’ve been eying the climbing wall at my gym since I joined this summer. When I was in college, I got into climbing for a bit and invested in my own shoes, harness, chalk bag and belay device. A few months ago, I brought all my equipment from my parents’ house with the intention of getting back into climbing. But it all just sat in my closet for awhile.

I don’t know what was holding me back. I wasn’t scared or nervous. Maybe I just didn’t feel like adding yet another physical activity to my life, which already includes biking, swimming, yoga and sometimes running. But I finally decided gather up my equipment and head to the wall about a month ago.

I surprised myself by how easily I remembered all the knots. And although I hadn’t climbed in a few years, I figured I would do okay since all my yogaing and swimming might have done something for my upper body strength and endurance. Wrong, apparently.

I climbed a little bit up the wall, and then I got to this 90-degree jutty outy ledge and absolutely didn’t have the strength to pull myself over it. Then I tried again the next week. And I still wasn’t strong enough. It wasn’t until my third or fourth week that I was able to pull myself up to get my feet and hands in the right position and get over the ledge.

Maybe I didn’t feel pure and ordinary what-does-this-even-mean joy. But I felt accomplishment. I couldn't do this one thing. I kept trying. And then I could do it. Neat.

Also, I realized during my swim earlier this week that I could breathe every four strokes instead of every two strokes for a longer time and wasn't totally out of breath. That isn't as exciting though because that is quite possibly one of the dumbest accomplishments ever.

Family Christmas Far from Home

I had never missed Christmas at home. But I was 4,145 miles away in Paris. So instead I took the train to Thionville, a commune in northeastern France, where I would spend Noël with Jessica and her family.

Although I was not one of Jessica’s closest friends, her family welcomed me like one. To Strasbourg to visit the holiday markets and to try flammenküche! To Nancy to sightsee and sample macarons! Back home to warm up with raclette! By the night of December 25, I had Jessica to thank for a crash-course in local cuisine and culture. It was finally time for Christmas dinner, which Jessica said would start late and last until the wee hours of the morning. Père Noël might even stop by before the night’s end.

The servings were small but rich. In between the brioche stuffed with foie gras and compote and the oysters, there were frequent breaks to rest, to drink, to smoke and to laugh. We drank the wine I brought as a gift, and I explained how I had picked out the bottle by copying some French wine connoisseurs at the supermarket. My French storytelling wasn’t perfect, but no one acted like they noticed.

When the final desserts hit the table, I was happy and full. As I sleepily enjoyed my slice of bûche de Noël, I felt just like one of the family. In a foreign country and far from home, this feeling was nothing short of extraordinaire.

This post has been entered into the Grantourismo HomeAway Holiday-Rentals travel blogging competition.

December 26: Soul Food

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

What did you eat this year that you will never forget? What went into your mouth & touched your soul? (Author: Elise Marie Collins)

Photo by Louis Beche.

First things first. Let’s talk macarons. No, not macaroons. Macarons. They’re like little cookie sandwiches, but comparing them to cookies might be insulting. Macarons take great care, patience and know-how to prepare and bake. If you eat a just-okay macaron, you’ll easily forget the experience. But if you bite into a perfect macaron, with its eggshell-fine crust and sweet melt-in-your mouth inside, you will understand what all the fuss is about.

It’s best to pay big bucks to eat a professionally made macaron because making them is quite complex and difficult, especially for common folk. The best place to get them is Paris, most say at Ladurée, a Parisian tea salon and pastry shop. But my aunt, my mom and I weren’t in Paris. And we like to bake. So we decided to have a shot at making our own macarons.

The afternoon spent processing our own almond flour, tracing macaron-sized circles on parchment paper, whipping egg whites to the exact and perfect consistency and trying to decipher French recipes (I’m the worst at translating recipes and menus. French has so many words for eating and preparing food, and I don’t know half of them) was only kind of about the macarons. It was more an excuse for us to experiment together with something we all enjoy. We joked that if the macarons turned out horribly, we’d give them away to people we didn’t like.

And the first few batches DID turn out horribly. The macarons were crunchy, which equals failure. But then my aunt discovered where we had gone wrong – something with the almond flour proportions. And they started turning out better and better. I might go so far as to say they turned out good! Not Paris good, but still pretty good.

For me, making French macrons with my mom and aunt was and continues to be the perfect example of why Chicago is the right place for me right now. For someone so obsessed with France and its culture, you’d think I’d have moved there for good already. But the people I love are here in Chicago. And that is why – for now at least – I’ll take making my own imitation macarons with my family over eating a real Ladurée one in Paris.

December 25: Photo

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you. (Author: Tracey Clark)

In my world, “Sift through all the photos of you from the past year” means “look at all the photos on Facebook in which you were tagged in over the past year.” So I did that. And what I was looking for is one that shows me as skinny as I want to be, as happy as I want to be, with as good of hair as I want and probably in a fun place with fun people so I have a good story to tell.

Of course that photo doesn’t exit. And it’s not because it couldn’t have. It’s because my friends and I never take any freaking pictures.

When I was in France, I took all kinds of pictures. Living in Paris is very exotic. I know people who were living in Korea, Berlin and Jordan over the past year. They took all kinds of pictures. Because they are living in far away countries and we all want to see what their lives are like.

But Chicago? We feel our lives are mundane, so we never take pictures. But that isn’t true! Chicago rocks. Why haven’t I taken any pictures of the parties we’ve had, the festivals and concerts we’ve been to, the family dinners we’ve cooked? I'm going to work on fixing that in 2011. Stay tuned.

But for the purpose of this prompt, I guess this is my favorite photo of me from the past year. It was taken by photographer Glitter Guts at a Gemini Club show at Metro a few months ago.