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Review: Downtown: My Manhattan

Cari — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:34:59 +0000

I cannot count the number of times I’ve started and stopped reading Pete Hamill’s Downtown: My Manhattan. Not because I didn’t enjoy reading it, but because I never seemed to have the time to commit to it. I can’t even blame it all on library book expiration — at one point I’d mooched two copies off BookMooch and managed to give away/donate both before I read it. I started thinking about it as well as Philip Lopate’s Waterfront during last summer’s Loop, but never got my hands on a copy. Recently I got back into it and decided this was the time. I would re request a copy for the library as often as I needed to. Luckily, it only took one renewal and I absolutely love this book. I find myself wishing for a sequel.

I like Hamill’s idea about owning a city (and its neighborhoods) in different ways. It’s something I never really thought of, but it’s absolutely true. I argue about the boundaries of the Upper East Side in the same way he does about “Downtown”. Your perception depends on your attitude, your hobbies, your favorites and your age. Hamill is significantly older than I am so his view of his neighborhoods were different to mine even when they overlapped. There’s also the question of timing — this book was published in 2004 which doesn’t seem that long ago, but is significant in the development and change of NYC.

Perhaps the key change was the view of 9/11: in Hamill’s writing, the city was still dealing with the hole in Lower Manhattan. While I was reading, they placed the spire atop the new Freedom Tower. Healed? No. But in a much different place than the early 2000s.

The other issue that time hurt? His bibliography. So many titles I want to read. ** So few available for Kindle and some out of print entirely.

Two lines from the book’s beginning and end tell Hamill – and New York’s — stories in a nutshell:

I live here still. With any luck at all, I will die here. I have the native son’s irrational love of the place. For any native the home place is infused with a mixture of memory, myth, lore, and history, bound together in an erratic, subjective way. That’s as true of the natives of New York as of the natives of Oxford, Mississippi. … …. The wanderer in Manhattan must go forth with a certain innocence, because New York is best seen with innocent eyes.

New York is the same… and different, depending on the person looking at it. When it’s home, it’s yours. You are possessive. Don’t tell me all of the Upper East Side is rich yuppies — it’s my home. I can see beyond the stereotype for the people who actually live there and call it home. But at the same time, when I explore a new area I see it through wide eyes like I’m traveling for the first time. Many weekends last summer I had a book, a camera and a breakfast bar. NYC was just as easily Australia, Spain or Japan. It wasn’t home, it was a new place to explore. I never planned to move back to NYC – or even stay once I was here for grad school, but I’m still here. Will I die here? I don’t know — I can see the up and down sides of both.

Then, for the first time, I saw them: spires aimed at the sky. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. All gilded by morning sun. “What is it?” I said in a stupefied way (as my mother told me years later). “Sure, you remember, Peter,” she said. “You’ve seen it before.” And then she smiled. “It’s Oz.” … Was at last a kind of grown-up, living in the buildings of Oz itself. Living, that is, in Manhattan.

Nothing can ever compare to the first view of a city — I don’t have that memory of New York – I started coming here when I was too young. I do recall my first trip to the Statue of Liberty — riding in the car with my grandparents and grandpa telling me the name of every bridge. I was amazed that he knew that. For me? That first city view is the one I alluded to in my review of Where God Was Born … Jerusalem. Nothing will top the old city from Mt. Scopus. Something close, but not exactly, is my view of the Colosseum when I walked from the Vatican while in Rome. Magic.

Sentimentality is always about a lie. Nostalgia is about real things gone. Nobody truly mourns a lie. More millions grieved for the world that existed on September 10, knowing it was forever behind us. I believe that New York nostalgia also comes from that extraordinary process that created the modern city: immigration.

This is an interesting contrast. I don’t know that it’s as black and white as Hamill makes it, but I do believe that sentimentality is often tainted by rose colored glasses. But you can be nostalgic for things that your memory made out to be better than they were, so I’m not sure.

They will discover that the easiest way to know this place is to start at the beginning. That is, to go on foot to Downtown. The liquid heart of the city…. Like many New Yorkers, I’m a creature of habit. I usually walk directly to the railing of the Admiral George Dewey Promenade, a name that no New Yorker ever uses, and I face the harbor. …some unplanned way, part of the Battery is now a necropolis. Here we can pause and remember the dead of various wars and other calamities, or we can move past them in an indifferent hurry. … Over the years the landfill even closed the gap with the old red sandstone fortress now called Castle Clinton. This was built in 1811 on a small man-made island a hundred yards off shore...Nobody would. This was a harbor. All harbors were safe. Or so we believed. …

So much of this series of passages resonated with me. Even though I didn’t grow up in NYC, I grew up as a child of the Hudson — or the North River as Hamill likes to call it. The Hudson is the liquid heart, the Harbor even more so. it fed the city and helped it to develop intro the metropolis that it is. But a necropolis? I know, of course, about the Sphere and eternal flame that have served as 9/11 memorials even with the opening of the official 9/11 Memorial, and I know about the Merchant Mariners’ monument, but I didn’t realize how many other memorials are within the grounds of the Park. I’ve been down there many times and I’m wholly guilty of moving past in an indifferent hurry… I need to take the time to appreciate the Battery and not just for the sunsets and quiet reading place.

The one exception to the erasure of the Dutch town is the small triangular park called the Bowling Green. Nobody bowls there anymore, although the Dutch and English once did. …. Stewart was clearly a mindless fool. The first Marble Palace is still there at Broadway and Chambers Street. It has recently been rehabilitated after years of decay, but there is no sign that tells passersby about Alexander T. Stewart or his extraordinary monument. He is, in fact, largely forgotten by all New Yorkers except students of the city’s history. One reason: He left no heirs. There would be no family foundations to perpetuate his name, no doors erected in his memory to decorate a city church, no college scholarships

I had no idea none why Bowling Green had the name it did. In hindsight, that’s sad. I wonder what Hamill’s thoughts were on the citywide celebrations of Henry Hudson quadricentennial in 2009. Would it seem odd to celebrate a heritage that has been mostly wiped out? And why was it wiped out? Was it only due to no heirs, like Stewart? Is it due to the old adage of the victor’s writing history? I think it’s a little bit of both — and either makes me sad at the history that was lost to history. What else might we have known about this wonderful city?

Even its location speaks to our origins as a city, for Trinity faces Wall Street, creating a symbolic crossroads of God and Mammon. … Today the tombstones and monuments, like so much about Trinity, exist as testimony. They tell us something about mortality and vanity, of course, as all graveyards do, but they also speak to us about history and change in the city of New York. …But with the probable exceptions of Hamilton and Fulton, even those whose names remain legible are now as forgotten as those whose names have been erased. …St. Paul’s Chapel, a branch of Trinity that had opened in 1766 …. But the spare simplicity of St. Paul’s was fitting for a president who represented republican values. It remains the oldest continuously used structure in Manhattan. After September 11, 2001, the chapel served its city with great honor, providing food, drink, and rest to hundreds of rescue workers and hard hats, and its fences were decorated by thousands of spontaneous messages from those who came downtown to find lost relatives, friends, or lovers, or simply to mourn. St. Paul’s has been witness to more history than Trinity itself. …It still asserts a sense of phoenixlike triumph, rebirth, and enduring faith.

So much intertwined history between the churches of Lower Manhattan, including Grace Church on Broadway and E. 12th, which Hamill references later. I don’t think I realized how connected the three are, although they certainly fall under the If These Walls Could Talk umbrella because they have been witness to some amazing history. Oddly enough, that’s something I usually attribute to Europe, not Manhattan. It’s the old cliche. “In England, 100 miles is far. In America, 100 years is old”. But that’s not true of Lower Manhattan. It’s only fitting that St. Paul’s served George Washington, but also the 9/11 rescue workers. Trinity itself was damaged in the attacks, but it – like New Yorkers – shows its resiliency.

Thanks to the desperation of Aaron Burr, he had discovered the true religion of New York: real estate. … The adherents of the secular New York religion founded by John Jacob Astor saw manna falling from the skies. Inevitably, Manhattan went up. First, uptown. Then to the sky. … From roughly 1880, and for another fifty years, there was a vivid architecture of New York grandeur. Some have called it the New York Renaissance. Others define it as part of the City Beautiful movement. The name doesn’t truly matter. But most of the physical New York I love comes from that era. … the Woolworth Building, the Flatiron, the Daily News Building, the Seagram Building, the Chrysler Building. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection, the New York Public Library, the old Custom House, the New York Stock Exchange, Carnegie Hall, Judson Memorial Church ….at Columbia University, and dozens of others scattered through the city. When I think of New York as a visible city, these are the buildings that dominate all others. …. Sullivan’s maxim was used to justify some of the worst architectural junk in the twentieth-century city. These new blank and faceless examples of the International Style, with its roots in the Bauhaus, made the beaux arts buildings even more valuable presences in the city. They were also crucial to the city’s sense of itself

Some things never change many centuries later. Reminds me of another book on Mt. TBR. When the Astors Owned New York. Sadly, it’s pretty far down Mt. TBR as I own it in dead tree format. On the other hand, that should be a reason to read it sooner — reclaim the space. But I never have occasion, or space, to carry around a dead tree book. While I’m not hugely into real estate, I loved his description of the city’s architectural evolution. Hamill’s habit of talking about the building(s) and what they are now really helped set the setting to understand NYC in the time he was seeing it.

Each time I came for a visit to Penn Station, there was less of it. I was not alone, gazing at this immense act of municipal vandalism and whispering, You bastards. You stupid goddamned bastards. …basic model was the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, but the designers never lost sight of its function as a railroad terminal. …The vandals had attacked some core image New Yorkers had of their city and themselves. The landmarks movement rose from the rubble. Because I was in Europe at the time of the first assault, I never had a chance to walk through that magnificent waiting room and run my hands over the sensual marble and travertine, and say a proper good-bye.

Penn Station was long gone by the time I was born. As much as I love Grand Central’s beauty, I have a hard time romanticizing Penn, which I hate. But in a way, I’m grateful to its destruction because it created the Landmarks movement which is currently celebrating a “landmark” anniversary with a fabulous exhibit at the Queens Museum. I wonder why the timing was perfect 50 years ago to celebrate the city’s architectural history, and not before. I wonder what else might have been preserved if they acted sooner.

Broadway in my mind is an immense tree, with its roots deep in the soil at the foot of Manhattan, which is why I insist so stubbornly to my friends that the uptown places I cherish on Broadway are actually part of Downtown. But there also exists in me an idea of Broadway. It swells with every variety of urban swagger. You see the swagger in the old downtown financial district, where men in conservative suits and overcoats walk toward offices, or clubs, or lunch at India House in Hanover Square as if certain of their destinies. …Sometimes, New York knocks you down. It also teaches you, by example, how to get up. …Obviously, each of these Broadways is shaped by the neighborhoods through which it passes.Broadway never obeyed the commandments of the grid, and the reason was simple: Broadway was Broadway, and even the planners knew they must not tamper with what it already was.

I have often struggled with this idea of Broadway as a physical place while also being an idea. That doesn’t even take into account Google Maps’ current idiocy of referring to every road called Broadway as Broadway Theatre. Go ahead, test it out, it’s insane programming. But Broadway goes beyond many descriptions and it’s its own thing to different people. There is no right or wrong. Strangely, he never touched on my favorite part of Broadway — the Canyon of Heroes. I love that as a tribute not only to the city’s history, but also a path through the living history, whether it’s Bowling Green, Zuccotti Park, City Hall, Broadway is a path through history in Lower Manhattan. It turns into a path of commerce, but to me, Broadway is NYC’s living history.

For a brief period during its construction, it was known too as Stewart’s Folly, because he chose to build on the east side of Broadway, and right behind his emerging store lay the Five Points. No decent woman, it was said, would risk shopping there, where thieves and pickpockets and other predators could strike swiftly and then vanish into the lawless alleys of the city’s worst slum. At night, it was predicted, armed gangs from the Points would come to loot the place.

AND

After Broadway, a second major street had carved its way into the old empty farmlands of the early nineteenth century and into our present history: the Bowery. ….but in 1849 the well-off citizens who resided near the upper Bowery had the name changed to Third Avenue in an attempt to evade the raffish stain of the true name. …Bowery Theater was built in 1826 on the corner of Canal Street (the present 50 Bowery). It offered three thousand seats and was the first American theater to be fully illuminated by gaslight. After the Civil War, the Bowery went into steady decline and then suffered a fatal blow. As happens frequently in New York, the blow fell in the name of progress. … After the el was taken down in 1955-57, and sunlight returned, and the old bums blinked at the sight of the sky, the Bowery remained squalid.

I knew very little about the Bowery (and nothing of Five Points, sadly) until I took the Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy’s Grit, Graft & Grandeur : The Bowery walking tour. I was fascinated by this tour and wished its three hour run was thirteen or thirty hours. There is so much fascinating history in this region. It has been and continues to be Broadway’s ugly step child, but in reading this book and taking the tour I realize there’s so much relatively unknown history tied to this street. One of my favorite photos of the Bowery is its old and new: the New Museum and the Bowery Mission. I cannot imagine an El dropping embers onto theatergoing women — I cannot imagine the Bowery as a hub of NYC theater, even though I know it was. Some of Bowery’s Skid Row history is on visible display in 190 Bowery — but it’s old history is gone. Lost to progress as he says.

FROM THE BEGINNING, Fifth Avenue was a very good address, although it seldom had any murders. It did, alas, contain murderers. The social and geographical foundation of what was called “the” Fifth Avenue for most of the nineteenth century was Washington Square. And before its six and a half acres were laid out as the city’s first planned square, it was the potter’s field. But in the center of today’s square—at approximately where the fountain was built in the 1960s—stood the gallows. …. even in the late 1950s, when I was living in the East Village and spending time around the square, old residents were telling me tales about how on certain foggy nights you could see the dead rising from below the grass and the footpaths. Some wore the yellow shrouds in which they were buried, identifying them as victims of the fever. Some had distended necks. Many were women. I didn’t believe a word of these tales, of course, but knew they must be true.

I knew about the potter’s field — thank you Linda Fairstein’s books — but I had no idea about the Gallows. How did I do grad school at NYU and not know about this. How did the professors not use it as a way to behave. And yes, there are so many tall tales that in some ways, we still know to be absolutely true and false at the same time.

At the same time, I also had no idea of Union Square’s theatrical history even though many of the buildings remain today. I didn’t think about its connection to the Jewish Rialto (again, thank you LESJC!) despite some obvious lines from the Merchant of Venice. As Hamill said, “If to the brownstoners Fourteenth Street was a branch of Fifth Avenue, to the actors, musicians, and writers it was a branch of Broadway.” As a fan of Off-Broadway, I wondered how/why it developed apart from Broadway (besides the current union issues that make it so today). I’m not surprised that I learned that in this book — or that it grew out of the old Jewish Rialto.

Union Square, after all, was named because of the planned union of Broadway with the Bowery, not as an homage to that union for which so many New Yorkers had died…. The Academy of Music had sealed its own doom as a venue for opera when it refused to sell boxes to the new men of wealth; they responded by building the Metropolitan Opera House on Broadway and Thirty-ninth. Its first season was 1883. Three years later, the Academy was finished as a venue for opera and other upper-class entertainments. The old Academy of Music had been hammered into dust in 1926 to make way for the massive headquarters of Con Edison. Its once-powerful neighbor, Tammany Hall, had vanished too, taking the remains of Tony Pastor’s stage with it. In 1929, the politicians opened their new headquarters on Union Square and East Seventeenth Street, where this last Tammany Hall would remain until 1943 (it’s now a small, elegant Off-Broadway theater and the location of the New York Film School).

Wow. In many ways, Ochs was lucky that this also hasn’t happened to Times Square. It’s amazing how the city has progressed northwest, leaving its history “hammered into dust” and leaving few traces of its roots. Tammany Hall is another one of those figures like Broadway — physical or an entity. Or both.

Were the Occupy Wall Street riots really just the current installation in the cycle that included the Draft Riots and the Tompkins Square riots? Is the Brooklyn Renaissance new, or is it just the next in the cycle of renewals that also included the Bowery, Tompkins Square Park, Times Square and many others?

The seeds of excess and empty theaters led to the sell off that led to the current problem: not enough space on Broadway. It’s a shame the Hudson Theatre is now home to a hotel, and can’t welcome back the Tonight Show’s return to NYC in 2014.

Then the Depression happened, and Forty-second Street began what seemed a terminal decline.

For the Bowery, it was the Civil War. For 42nd Street, or the Deuce, as Hamill likes to call it, it was the Great Depression. What was it for 125th Street? Hamill doesn’t touch on that since he acknowledges he doesn’t know Harlem the way he knows his Manhattan. Disney is the new Hangman? First it came for 42nd Street, and then 125th (at the Apollo). The financial crisis of 2008-09 didn’t claim another neighborhood, but the pattern is there. Has the city learned from it?

Toward the end of the 1970s, every New Yorker, male and female, white, black, and Latino, had learned to live with fear. They grew up in a world of plague, where the combination of drugs, guns, illiteracy, casual violence, and the rise of AIDS was creating a nihilistic hell never imagined by Dante Alighieri. Even priests and cops walked with wary steps. The Deuce was the place in which the hard kids lived most fully during that brief time between a lost childhood and the penitentiary. Very few New Yorkers expected a happy ending to the squalid saga of Forty-second Street, and yet a reasonably happy ending was what we got. Sometimes miracles do happen. In the 1990s, through a combination of planning, will, intelligent politics, and sheer luck, the Deuce was reclaimed.

And now? AIDS is a museum exhibit. That’s not to say that it’s not a part of every day life — but IV drug use is down, casual sex is discouraged, crack “fad” is gone — and 42nd Street is a family destination.

That openness is essential to living here. It is based on choice. You can choose to look at the Vermeers in the Frick or walk around Chinatown. If you live downtown, uptown is also yours, a subway ride away.The wanderer in Manhattan must go forth with a certain innocence, because New York is best seen with innocent eyes.

These “innocent eyes” are off to more reading because I have a new-found love for the city I call home.

Reading List:

Marcia Reiss Lost New York
Nathan Silver Lost New York
Jacob Adler: A Life on Stage
Tyler Anbinder: Five Points: The 19th Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World’s Most Notorious Slum
Neil Bascomb: Higher
Anthony Bianco: The Ghosts of 42nd Street

Essie Summer 2013 1.0 and Spring Redux

Cari — Sun, 05 May 2013 20:22:10 +0000

So when I stumbled on the new Essie summer line, I squealed like the 13 year old I am when it comes to nail polish. So pretty, vibrant and perfect for summer. I’ve been busy and not caught up on my nails so I didn’t realize they were actually out already until a colleague said she had Bottle Service. Knowing I “needed” a pedi this weekend, I hoped for the best. Before I got to the salon today, I was at a friend’s place and saw a pretty, vibrant orange. I was intrigued. It was Saturday Disco Fever. Orange doesn’t tend to suit me well and it’s definitely more of a pedi color, but I gave it a try.

Saturday Disco Fever indoors and out

It’s pretty, but it’s definitely not for me. Clockwise form top left: indoors, indoors flash and outdoors. It’s very close to Brazilliant which was a summer favorite and might be OK for a pedicure, but not for me for a mani. Just doesn’t work with my skin tone. Still, nothing lost but a few cotton balls to try it.

Happened to be in CVS this morning and looked to see if they had any of the colors, but they were sold out. So it turned into one of my favorite salon past times, treating myself to a color I might not like enough to buy. With few exceptions, I won’t buy a color that can’t work for manis and pedis because I rarely do my own toes. The down side, I found myself wishing for Cab-ana this week when my pedi chipped.

Was pleasantly surprised to find that my salon had the new colors. It was actually a hard choice because I was thinking about a color that might work with the outfit for tonight’s Lortel Awards. I saw and dismissed Shake your $$ Maker, (much darker and less neon than the swatch looks) and a few of my standards. Quit looking at Merino Cool, it’s summer. Without even fully planning on going all with the new summer line, I landed on Bouncer, it’s Me! and DJ Play that Song.

Bouncer It’s Me and DJ, Play That Song (Outdoors)

Bouncer It’s Me and DJ, Play That Song (Indoors)

Bouncer It’s Me and DJ, Play That Song (Indoors Overlap)

I’m quite pleased with both colors although I don’t think the blue looks anything like the swatch? Would I buy it? Probably not, too close to Butler Please (and Mezmerize) but it’s a great summer pedi color. I love the purple, although it’s definitely more fuschia and not really neon in my opinion. It’s a hair darker than Splash of Grenadine and less sparkly than Madison Ave-Hue (below). Bizarrely? I was initially concerned about it clashing with the coral/red skirt I planned to wear tonight and then I remembered I had a skirt that works perfectly with the purple — two actually, one a solid, one part of a multi color pattern on black. Thank you, Old Navy, and my love of all thinks pink/purple for bailing me out.

Madison Ave-Hue

I like Madison Ave-Hue. It’s not as vibrant as Grenadine or DJ, but I love the sparkles. Also great for hiding sheet marks. Both of the above are indoors. If I ever took one outdoors, I’ve since deleted it.

Haven’t yet tried Bond With Whomever. Salon has it so I’ll give it a go for next mani ped, maybe. I need to try Ginza again because my only take away that I remember was that it chipped too quickly. Overall I give the Spring lines a B. Some winners (Cab-ana, Madison Ave-Hue, Come Here, First Timer) and some mehs (Avenue Maintain, Ipanema (too close to Fifth Ave) with the purples (Bond, Ginza) still TBD.

More soon.

Go The Dist: Revised

Cari — Fri, 03 May 2013 00:47:10 +0000

I did it. I finally bit the bullet and revised my #GoTheDist goal for the year. Not because I’m less active than I thought, but because my initial goal was essentially a math error. I bike at roughly 3x the speed I walk, there was no way I was going to hit what was essentially a bike goal. So the new goal is 500 miles. That’s still highly debatable, but at least it’s realistic-ish.

Here’s my mileage so far this year:

Walking     Biking
Totals for January       16.28              58.89
Totals for February      20.52             54.15
Totals for March       25.08             37.61

Totals for 1Q 61.88 150.65

Totals for April 56.5 17.71

I walked nearly as much in April as I did in Q1! Partially a factor of the improved weather, and partially helped by 16m in two days, but there’s no reason I can’t keep it up. I walked all over the planet last Spring and can do it again. I did realize it’s a good thing I’m not going to do the Great Manhattan Saunter since 9 miles killed my feet on Sunday. All isn’t good with those numbers though — reflects a drastic decrease in gym visits. Time to fix that.

Review: Where God Was Born

Cari — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 07:02:50 +0000

“In the Middle East, what you believe can still get you killed”

After the post that was supposed to be about the book turned into an analysis of reading habits, it’s time to think about this book. As I mentioned, I read it on the iPad, so it wasn’t physically highlighted or dog eared, but I certainly made extensive use of the Kindle app’s highlight feature. It is an amazing book both in Feiler’s writing style, but also in the information he presented.

I was left thinking throughout the book about what his chosen title meant. It has very little to do with the physical place where Yahweh, Jesus or Allah were born (if indeed there is such a place) and more to do with the idea of where religion and belief in god was born. There were gods in ancient Greece and Egypt, but it wasn’t organized religion the way it came to be in monotheism in the Middle East. In many ways this book has more to do with where monotheism is born and the idea of a relationship with a god. At least that’s my take as someone who loves the history but has no relationship with a god.

Where God was Born is one of Feiler’s three titles that explore the Middle East. I’m now eager to re-read his previous two to see if there’s anything more I glean from them, especially Walking the Bible which I read before I went to Israel. Where God Was Born is dated (mid 2000s), but also contemporary in that it’s set in the current politically climate in that things really haven’t settled back down and you wonder whether they ever really will.

The Cradle of Civilization-the tiny, fertile crescent of land that stretches from Mesopotamia to North Africa – had once more seized control of the world’s destiny, and the future of civilization seemed to be at stake. ….. This land is not that big. It’s not that fertile… If you’re in Egypt, it’s the only way to get to Syria. If you’re in Mesopotamia, it’s the only way to get to Africa. If you’re in the Mediterranean, it’s the only way to get to Asia. It may not be the living room, but it’s a corridor, and a very important corridor at that. Israel, the world’s greatest hallway.

It made me wonder why Feiler chose to go at the time, but that was also a question I tackled when I planned my 2009 trip. Was it “safe”? Would it ever truly be safe? Is part of the charm of the Middle East its instability and state of flux? I think that’s a key part of it. You’re never going back to the same place. And Israel will always be a key piece of the region’s history no matter which pieces get resolved. And in some ways it’s still a living part of the old historical routes.

As a Jew raised in the American South, I grew up in a world where religion was a regular part of my life but not exactly a central one. Politics mattered more to me than faith; and depending on what I was doing during years as an itinerant journalist, clowning, country music, or Third World travel became my surrogate religion. Who needed to count commandments when you could count countries visited? … For a year I trekked across the Middle East, from Turkey to Jordan, and explored the first five books of the Bible. I visited Mount Ararat, crossed the Red Sea, climbed Mount Sinai. That year in the desert changed me forever. I had gone seeking adventure and came back craving meaning… And then came the conflagration –planes into buildings, armies into distant countries, security walls around peaceful towns, genocide, jihad, crusade in the news. The world that had been at peace was now at war over God.

While I was an American Catholic, I identify a lot with Judaism. It’s partially my reading, partially growing up in NYC where Judaism is as much a part of the city’s culture as being an Upper West Sider or a Brooklynite is. It’s not foreign and in some ways reminds me of what I love about religion in Japan – it’s part of the lifestyle rather than being a distinct element. I’ve never looked to the Middle East for religious inspiration, and I don’t think I ever will — but the history and landmarks fascinate me. Even if things didn’t happen as the Bible says they did, things have happened there for 5,000+ years and it’s awesome to walk where so many have before. This was true for me for Israel (especially Jerusalem) but also Petra. What amazing living history.

There are pieces of Israel, and pieces of Feiler’s book that I didn’t get because I’m not familiar with the Bible – Hebrew or otherwise and to be honest, I don’t have much of an interest in it. It’s a story — in some ways historical fiction is how I see it — and I’m not that much of a fiction reader. The story has to be compelling to get me to read fiction and I don’t find the Bible’s story interesting to me. I’m much more interested in the history in which it was set — some of which led to the stories told in the Bible.

Since I began exploring the Bible, I had been bedeviled by the tantalizing, tender relationship between the details in the text and the facts in the ground. After two centuries of digging, archaeologists have come to what can be characterized as an awkward accommodation with the Hebrew Bible. For the Torah, there is simply no physical evidence that any of the events described took place. There is, however, plenty of support that the stories fit squarely in the historical reality of the second millennium B.C.E. …. The walls could not have come tumbling down around Jericho because the city didn’t have walls.

That all makes sense. Stories are set in what happened — especially oral histories that were then written down to form the Bible. I wonder when/how the Bible came to be taken literally. I’m always amazed when people take it as a verbatim history. But then again, I’m a questioning person. Because Feiler took a (mostly) scholarly view, I didn’t find myself questioning him as much. He had me wanting to read more to learn more.

I love the text, but not necessarily what human institutions have done in its name. Manipulation, exclusivism, hatred, and violence are undeniable outgrowths of biblical monotheism. … Is there a place where faith and tolerance can live side by side? In short, is religion just a source of war, or can it help bring about peace?

As I mentioned, I don’t necessarily like the text, but the way he views the text is how I view organized religion. And that’s part of why I think it will always be a source of war because people of all faiths are dead set on being “right” rather than learning to respect and coexist. That’s of course not to say that no one respects other religions, but the ones who are making names for the religions are doing it for all the wrong reasons. I was reading this during the events around the Boston Marathon and the anti-Muslim comments angered me. People seemed to be operating under the assumption that the perps had to be Muslims whether or not they were. It’s sad. Later in the book, Feiler also returned to this theme:

One recurring problem with the religions that grew out of the Hebrew Bible is that each has a tendency to believe its faith is unique, its interpretation of the text absolute, and its relationship with God so exclusive it has the right to harm those who disagree. The idea that the writers of the Bible were influenced by sources that predate their own suggests the Bible should be seen not as sui generis but as being in dialogue with other texts. And if scriptures can be in dialogue, surely the faiths that grow out of those scriptures can be in dialogue as well.

Perhaps the most fascinating part of the book as it related to my own time in Israel were the following passages as his group approached Jerusalem via helicopter:

Our nose was headed at the heart of the Temple Mount, the Haram al-Sharif, the legendary Mount Moriah, where Ariel Sharon inflamed the second Intifada, Yitzhak Rabin led the capture during the Six-Day War, King Hussein watched as his grandfather was assassinated and he received a bullet to his own chest. Mohammed ascended to heaven from here; Jesus made a Passover pilgrimage here; Solomon built the Temple here. … Our tail swung left, then right, but our head never wavered, locked onto the glint of infinity that has lured people to this spot since God was born. It was like being pulled backward through a vortex of time, an ineluctable wave of legend on top of custom, hatred on top of hope. … We were close enough to hear the prayers. We were near enough to get shot. We were poised in a nameless breach between heaven and earth.

This was nowhere near his first visit to Jerusalem, but there’s something magical about seeing the city for the first time. As he mentioned in Abraham, it’s impossible to look at one of the holy sites and not see one of the two others. Jerusalem, especially the old city, really feels as if it’s the center of the world. Given how many faiths it gave birth to, it is in many ways. So much happened here, so many people walked here even if they werent those whose tales were later recounted in the Torah, Bible or Koran. That’s what’s so fascinating about contemporary Israel and why it will always be a tourism draw. There’s something about the first site of the old city form Mt. Scopus

the old city from Mt Scopus (July 2009)

One of the cities that I regret not having the opportunity to visit when I went to Israel in 2009 is Bethlehem. We had it on our tentative list, but after the time and effort it took to cross the Israeli / Jordanian border, we decided we didn’t have the stamina for a West Bank crossing. As much as I wanted to see it, I don’t know why. Part of culture or history? Feiler’s description of the city painted a beautiful picture of a key city in history

Bethlehem is one of the few cities that appears across the entire two-thousand-year arc of the Hebrew Bible, from the patriarchs to the prophets. The city is first mentioned in Genesis as the place where Jacob’s wife Rachel died after giving birth to Benjamin. A tomb marks the spot, which we passed on our way into town, fenced in, empty. Joshua later assigns the area to the tribe of Judah, and it’s frequently mentioned during the period of the kings, most prominently as the birthplace of King David. The story of the boy warrior who becomes the king of Israel … Bethlehem’s heart, Manger Square … A Latin inscription reads HERE JESUS CHRIST WAS BORN TO THE VIRGIN MARY. “The star has fourteen points,” Arlet explained, “because there are fourteen generations between Jesus and David—” “And fourteen more between David and Abraham.” We smiled at this shared bit of knowledge. The holiest spot in Bethlehem shows the deep roots between Judaism and Christianity: both believe the blood of David runs through the messiah. …

In that passage I learned more about Bethlehem than I ever did in years of CCD or church. I had no idea it was as important to Judaism as it is to Christianity. And until I read the below (bolding mine), I didn’t realize what the connection was between the manger, christmas and jesus’ birth

“So when you bring people here,” I asked, “do they think it’s the actual place where Jesus was born, or do they think it’s just a story?” “It’s a difficult question,” she said. “Most of the time I explain that, as a Christian, I believe this is the place. None of us knows the actual place, but for generations we have believed it was here.” “There are many scholars who say that the reason Jesus was born in Bethlehem is because the Hebrew Bible says the messiah must come from the House of David. Otherwise, why would a pregnant woman have left Nazareth and walked three days to get here?” … “You have to understand, for us believers, we don’t care about these questions. If you find an answer for this question, you’ll just find another question, so in the end, it’s better not to question.

And perhaps, to those who live there, this is how they remain free of the politics that permeate the area

“So do you belong to a country?” “No, I belong to a city. Bethlehem.

Politics have been key to Israel’s development even before there was an Israel. Feiler draws an interesting parallel between the development of Washington D.C. and Jerusalem with each country’s decision to move the capital. If David hadn’t taken the city, it’s likely the word Jerusalem wouldn’t have become the symbol it is today.

“After he takes the city, everything changes. Jerusalem evolves into something much more than a geographical entity. It becomes a theological emblem. It becomes the chosen place of the Almighty. It becomes the holiest city on earth.”

That emblem was reinforced in a later passage in which Feiler wrote

The dome, often photographed in pink dawn light, has become so associated with Jerusalem, even in Jewish iconography, that it seems emblematic of the larger holiness of the place.

Jerusalem is a religious icon in and of itself, perhaps eclipsing the leaders of the faiths it’s home to because unlike gods and / or the prophets, people have actually seen Jerusalem.

“Because we are probably the only people in the world who can read with the greatest of ease a text written thousands of years ago. Modern Greeks can’t easily read Homer. Today’s Chinese can’t read Confucius. In India, a Hindi scholar must study Sanskrit. Europeans can’t simply read Latin. The one achievement of Zionism that didn’t come at anyone’s expense was the revival of the Hebrew language.

I love history, I love that some people in Israel today can read the Scrolls. That hit me even before I went to Israel. In the fall of 2008, the Jewish Museum hosted an exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Museum exhibit openings have a lot of talking heads but like a few lines from Feiler’s Abraham, I remember a few words from the Israeli Antiquities Chief who opened the exhibit — he, a citizen of modern Israel, could read these thousands of year old texts recovered in 1947.

Perhaps one of the most interesting passages in the book was that in which he walked around the walls of the Temple Mount in his struggle with whether the symbol of Judaism should be a wall or whether the wall detracted from the actual lessons that could be taught. I was amazed by the site of the old city — the walls and what they represented. The Western Wall is iconic to Judaism, but the Temple Mount is so much more… to all three Abrahamic faiths and at the same time is at the core of how/why there will likely never be peace in the region – competing traditions and a need to be “right”:

The first lesson of the Temple Mount is that religious rights and wrongs cannot be refereed by claiming first dibs. If they could, Jerusalemites today would be worshiping the god of bread. … [ and on the original Temple] … The entire structure was nearly identical to the Egyptian temple at Karnak, which was 45 feet high and 65 feet long, with a forest of internal pillars, and a windowless inner sanctum. … This is the Golden Gate, perhaps the most famous portal in Jerusalem. The Gospels suggest Jesus fulfilled this prophecy and entered the city on Palm Sunday through this gate. Muslims believe that on judgment day, a knife’s edge will stretch over a valley from a mountain to heaven’s gate. If that mountain is the Mount of Olives, as legend suggests, then the Golden Gate would be the entrance to eternity, and anyone buried here would have a presumed advantage. Jewish legend, however, holds that the messiah is forbidden from traversing a cemetery, which means those buried here would be hindering everyone’s salvation. Jews and Muslims can’t even agree on whether it’s good or bad to be buried near heaven’s door. The Kidron is the Valley of Death. … What has always appealed to me about the Temple Mount is how many of the holiest spots in the Abrahamic faiths are all gathered on the same piece of earth. Geography, so central to the roots of monotheism, seems to bond practitioners into some forced accommodation.

At this time in his journey (and the book), he left Israel for Iraq. Whether or not it’s truly the site of Genesis’ Garden of Eden, Iraq has all the temptation of a forbidden fruit. In part, it’s because I can’t go, in part it’s Tony Wheeler’s Badlands, which focused on tourism along the so-called “axis of evil”. While I loved the time in the book when he was in Israel, I was in awe of the Iraqi section because I did not realize how much biblical history is tied up in a country that has been a war zone for the vast majority of my life.

Feiler had the proper concern before going – including leaving a note to his new wife that read, in part, ” If you are reading this, then I have not come home to you” and taking out death and dismemberment insurance. But as was the case with other parts of his trip, he wasn’t going to let that fear stop him.

In all the war-based coverage that has aired of Iraq since 1991, I don’t recall ever hearing that the ancient city of Ur was known now as Tell Muqayyar, or that it is just outside the present day Nasiriyah. Or that the ziggurat’s (decapitated or not), still stand. It sounds like a new location is on my travel bucket list and I hope that one day it will be peaceful enough to visit. The fact that you can actually be “by the waters of Babylon”, a city that was more influential than Ur, Damascus or Jerusalem and still has a presence today. That the Ishtar Gate still exists. I never knew how crucial the exile in Babylon was to the development of Judaism, that it was what taught the Israelites that

“the god of the Israelites did not reside just on a mountaintop in Jerusalem—… they set about redefining what it meant to worship God. They invented Judaism. With the loss of holy space, holy time becomes important. … With no access to sacred sites, sacred text became Israel’s lifeline to its past. The Bible may not have been born in Babylon, but it certainly came of age here.”

As much as Iraq fascinated me, Iran didn’t interest me and if not for a recent reading on the Cyrus Cylinder and an upcoming stop in NY, I probably would have skipped this section. In fact, I didn’t recognize the country from its description. We have arrived at the dead end of freedom, the largest religious dictatorship in the world, the shining city on a hill for many Islamic extremists around the globe. Part of it is due to the age of the book, but if I read that description out of context, I would have said he was writing about Saudi Arabia.

Speaking of the Cylinder…

1879 a cylinder was unearthed in Babylon that articulated Cyrus’s worldview, the most sweeping declaration of human rights ever found in the Ancient Near East. Cyrus couched his vision in the name of Ahuramazda, the god of Zoroastrianism. Now that I put the crown of the kingdom of Iran, Babylon, and the nations of the four directions on the head with the help of Ahuramazda, I announce that I will respect the traditions, customs, and religions of the nations of my empire and never let any of my governors and subordinates look down on or insult them as long as I am alive. From now on, till Ahuramazda grants me the kingdom favor, I will impose my monarchy on no nation. Each is free to accept it, and if any one of them rejects it, I never resolve on war to reign. “O mortal, I am Cyrus the son of Cambyses, who founded the empire of Persia, and was king of Asia. Grudge me not therefore this monument.”

When I read the Met’s press release about the upcoming exhibit, I was fascinated by some tangible piece of history that dated back so far and touched history, so when I read the above, I reached a new level of wow. I cannot wait for this exhibit to open. There is so much good at the Met this summer, but I especially can’t wait for this. Love when books intersect with life.

In short, OK, in really long, this was an amazing book that really made me think. Somehow I think this may be my only write up, but it certainly won’t be the end of my thinking about it. Especially since these intriguing titles are listed in his further reading. When can I get back to the Middle East?

More Mt. TBR.

The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein
The End of Days by Gershom Gorenberg
The Dignity of Difference by Jonathan Sacks

Where “God” was born?

Cari — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 07:02:50 +0000

I have an extremely conflicted relationship with organized religion and the concept of god, yet I am enamored with the Middle East. Mom and I went to Israel for my 30th birthday and it was magical and everything I thought. I was already planning my next trip while still there. When people were curious about it, I explained it as a fascination with history. And that’s a huge part of it in the same way I love Rome. So much happened there. But that’s not all of it, I’m fascinated with reading about the Middle East and you can’t read/experience/know the Middle East without looking at religion. Too many of the world’s faiths are tied there.

I think part of the reason the books about religion don’t bother me and actually interest me in a way church doesn’t is that the titles I’ve opted to read look at the Middle East through a historical lens. It’s not “God said this, therefore it’s true”, but rather “Here’s this artifact found. Here’s a possible correlation in the Bible” or even “here’s a story from the Bible. Here’s some history on which it may be based”. That is fascinating. Some favorites in that vein:

Bruce Feiler’s Abraham (reviews) which I read while in Israel and has one of the most memorable lines from a book in that it gives me pause nearly four years later. When speaking about the Western Wall/Temple Mount/Mount of Olives he wrote, “The defining spiritual fact of Jerusalem is this: Any panorama, any camera angle, any genuflection that encompasses one of these holy places will necessarily include at least one of the others.” There is no barrier. No physical separation.
Feiler’s Walking the Bible, which I’m disappointed that I don’t appear to have reviewed online. I hope I still have a copy because I know I loved it. It is, in fact, the book that started my interest in this type of reading.

Notice a pattern?

Some are also through a sociocultural lens — books that get into the people not the stereotypes. They really teach a lesson to people willing to learn and go beyond the propaganda (on both sides). Some favorite titles:

Donna Rosenthal’s The Israelis
Martin Fletcher’s Walking Israel (review)
Michael Muhammad Knight’s Journey to the End of Islam (reviews)

I’ve also read other titles that focused on religious people although they didn’t focus specifically on the Middle East:

Shalom Auslander’s Foreskin’s Lament
Binyamin Cohen’s My Jesus Year ( reviews: which also had a fascinating fact cited “In the United States more people pray to Jesus on Sunday then attend all the weekend sporting events combined“. I’m not sure I know more than 10 of these people, and certainly not my age. It certainly highlights the difference between the Bible Belt and the rest of the US)
Robert Eisenberg’s Boychicks in the Hood

I have a ridiculous amount of new additions to my Mt TBR it might as well be considered a new mountain on its own:

The Swerve - Stephen Greenblatt
In the Land of Israel - Amos Oz
Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths (and most of the rest of Karen Armstrong’s books)
The Year of Living Biblically - A.J. Jacobs (I started this one and couldn’t finish. I may give it another go)

Where did those new additions come from? What was the point of this post? Oh. Yeah. Bruce Feiler’s Where God Was Born which I’ve been reading for the last week. I’ve had it since at least 2009 but always put off reading it. I’m not sure why since I clearly loved Feiler’s other two titles on the Middle East. I got a Kindle copy from the library and began to read it last weekend. I could not put it down. That rarely happens with a non – fiction book, especially a subject I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m fascinated with…

This post was meant to be the review, but thinking about the review sent me in so many directions that the review will follow.

Weigh In: April 23, ISO: DietBet

Cari — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:24:05 +0000

Loss Since April 7: 1.0

Total Loss: 17.8 lbs

Weigh in for DietBet 1 (Jan 28) and weigh out for DietBet 3 (April 23)

Excuse the bedhead.

I was worried about this DietBet. I hit my number at the two week mark, but then I wasn’t losing any more. I also knew I was going to be away this weekend. Friday when I left, I was half a pound over. I decided to just do my best, make smart choices, and track. I weighed myself last night when I got home and thought I was in a good place to hit the number on the dot this morning but I stepped up my fluids anyway.

BAM.

Not only did I hit my DietBet goal, but I beat it by 2.1 lbs. Thank you water weight last night.

I don’t know how much the winning share will be, but the pot was $10K. Wow. Really proud of myself for sticking with it even while away. This also makes up for the loss I didn’t have in the second DietBet.

I’m looking for another good DB to join since the one I did for the first two months was discontinued. I like the large pot of this big public one, but I didn’t feel the same sense of community in the message board. It’s odd that I care about it since I’m not a message board person, but I didn’t like the competitiveness that consisted of putting other participants down.

Any recommendations? I’ll be paying for this one since I don’t think the last one will pay out in time and I used my winnings from #1 on this one.

Also, can someone please have a word with Mother Nature. I want to walk home, but this weather is ridiculous.

Essie Spring 2013 part 1.5

Cari — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 21:48:47 +0000

Essie, I take it all back. You’re back in my good graces.

Essie In the Cab-ana in the sun

Essie In the Cab-ana in the shade

Went for a mani-pedi today and had no intention of getting In the Cabana. I was thinking an orange that I could never get away with on my fingers (maybe Tart Deco or Brazilliant) and even had Vermillionaire in my hand but my eyes kept wandering back to this pretty blue. I was surprised when I looked at the label, I thought maybe it was Where’s my Chauffeur because I didn’t like Cabana the first few times I saw it. It’s actually closer to but more vibrant then Turquoise & Caicos. Unable to find another color that really grabbed me, I decided why not. I am in love. I still might not buy it since it’s really a pedi only color and I always get my pedis done, but it’s really a gorgeous color. Perfect for spring and summer.

I bought Madison Ave Hue from the Spring collection and Come Here from the Resort collection yesterday. Which one is on my fingers, you ask? Neither. Because the Butler Please glitter palooza, while pretty, was an epic fail to remove and I turned the planned pedi into a mani/pedi. I try to use salon dates to try colors I don’t have (and maybe one day I’ll avoid color busts by trying first). I really wasn’t sure what color I wanted and my eyes were drawn to a pretty pinkish purple, which, I initially thought was Play Date. But, it was Splash of Grenadine, a color I’d had my eye on for a while but hadn’t found to try. So I did. and I love it. Probably not different enough from other pink/purples I have, but another perfect spring color and I have happy fingers *and* toes. Madison Ave and Come Here soon.

Essie Splash of Grenadine

Weigh In: April 7 and Accountability Redux

Cari — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 15:54:37 +0000

Loss Since March 10: 1.6 lbs

Total Loss: 16.8 lbs

I could look at that and be disappointed, but I’ve instead chosen to focus on the last two weeks where I got back on track.

I was so good through March 10 but then some things popped up and I wasn’t. I still tracked every mouthful but I wasn’t drinking enough and made some less than ideal food choices when rushed/stressed/out of my comfort zone. Within the last two weeks I’m back in my own environment where I can more easily control my choices, on a more normal schedule (goodbye 16 hour days) and I feel better about it. Still, life is going to happen and I need to figure out how to better manage that. On the plus side, I didn’t gain other than water weight, I just didn’t lose.

I have my regular check in with my endocrinologist on Tuesday and time to see where my numbers are.

Time to revisit my Accountability post two months later and see where I am. Original comments struck through with new text after.

~~Blog. Yeah, we’ll see how that goes. But when I was losing, I was blogging. So we’re going to try it again.~~ Honestly, pretty good. I will never be a daily blogger but I’ve kept up pretty well. And I read the few blogs I follow daily or every other day.
On the writing theme, I’m tracking. I was a master at tracking way back when and it’s time to go back. I don’t see what my road block is here. I face the foods when I see the number on the scale, it’s time to face it in my tracker. I tracked today. Including the m&ms. That’s a start. I have tracked every day since, every morsel that went into my mouth. I think (shocker, shocker) it’s a big reason I’m losing. I’ve also kept up my #GoTheDist tracking even though my goal is unattainable. Oh, and I haven’t touched m&ms since Jan 29.
Money. I joined Run With Jess‘ DietBet challenge at the instigation of a Hive friend. It cost me $10 but I will lose my 4% and if I do that every month it won’t cost me another cent I don’t think. AND if I hit the 4% goals each month (a big if, I know), I’ll hit goal by July, which gives me plenty of breathing room if I have an off month. I had my off month. And I jumped right back in the game with a $25 buy in. To be honest, that was free from my winnings in the first DietBet but it doesn’t mean I’m working any less hard to win this one. I want the pot, in part to go toward my new iPad.
#GoTheDist. I gave up on tracking this a chunk of the way through last year although I continued to track my workouts in MapMyFitness. But the challenge is a great motivator and it gets me to the gym when I don’t want to go. See bullet #2
~~Smoothies. Yep, back to smoothies for dinner. They help with the salt retention and they give me my chocolate fix when I otherwise eat things I have no business eating when I get home.~~ I started with this, and then I got bored. I just can’t do them daily like I used to and I still don’t really like bananas. But I’ve moved toward other, better evening choices like Jello and hard boiled eggs. Evening eating has been going well although I need to break the newly reacquired Tasti kick.
I’m not giving up soda. Not yet, at least. I was the queen of fake lemonade last time and while I’m contemplating getting a soda stream, I’m not ready to make the switch off soda. I’m afraid I won’t drink enough until it’s warmer. But it’s diet soda so that’s a partial win. And I got a soda stream. Just bought but haven’t yet tried the diet lemonade for it. I’m totally addicted to fiizz and seltzer is nice. And I’m getting as turned off my Diet Dr. Pepper was I was by Diet Coke so maybe that’s my body voting.
~~S is for Spark. as in the Spark to get to goal. As in SparkPeople. If I do what I did with Weight Watchers online, I can make it work with Spark. There is no difference in the foods I’m eating.~~ As I mentioned, I went to LoseIt. I never really liked Spark and used that as an excuse not to track, which is ridiculous. But I haven’t missed a single meal since I switched to LoseIt and I’m thrilled. It’s easier to use and works well for me.
~~I’m going to get my knees to the point where I can do more than one squat, or I’m going to quit putting off knee surgery and get it done.~~ N/A

It was a start, and a very good one. I’m proud of my progress although I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish I’d lost a little more. But I know how to fix that. Now time to set some new measures of accountability in addition to continuing the ones above:

Exercise everyday. It doesn’t have to be the gym, and my 64 stairs a day probably count anyway, but with the weather getting nice there’s no reason not to spend some time outside walking, etc. Especially because I’d really like to finish the Great Manhattan Loop.
Eat better. Not just within the calories, but more fruits and vegetables. It’s the perfect season.
Diversify my breakfasts. I’m getting sick of Cheerios. I think there are better options to keep me fuller too.
Set a goal. Maybe even a Goal. Time to figure out what I’m working toward.

Maybe more to come.

on clothes and closets

Cari — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 00:37:32 +0000

as a result of this brief flirtation with spring, I decided it was time to change my closets. That and the fact that I am sick to death of my winter wardobe. My nails have moved to Spring, and it was time for my wardrobe to follow suit.

I did a pretty decent job purging clothes when I moved in September, so I didn’t have too many clothes that needed purging. There were a few things I didn’t wear all winter (aside from size reasons) and out they went. The tip from a few years back about organizing clothes by color color and hanging all clothes facing in the “wrong” direction has really helped me stay organized clothes-wise and to easily identify unworn clothes.

Some things I did find (out):

Not counting store-specific sizing like Chico’s, I have pants in four different sizes. Granted, some of that is due to ridiculous sizing in women’s pants, but some of it was hanging on to clothes that I outgrew long ago. While I did a solid job of maintaining the loss from three years ago, I gained a few pounds back. When I did, I immediately upsized to clothes that were/are too big because they felt comfortable. That ends… soon. I want to say now, I want to say I put the too big pants in the bag to go to the thrift shop, but I’m not there yet. They will be gone by the end of April. I need to get comfortable again in properly fitting clothes.
A suit I’d bought for interviews when I graduated college and probably last wore in 2003 when I interviewed at a law firm. Needless to say, it didn’t fit even with bizarre suit sizing. It probably didn’t fit well in 2003, 2010 when I lost the weight and definitely didn’t now. Yet, I’d hung onto it “in case”. Well I had a realization today. Even if I needed a suit tomorrow, it wouldn’t fit and wouldn’t sell me well. I couldn’t wear it. So it’s gone, in the thrift store bag.
I got rid of some sentimental clothes. In the past “ooh I remember buying that in Australia” was a reason to keep it but I successfully tossed some clothes bought between 2005–07 that needed a new home since I never wore them anyway.

I still have too many clothes, but this is progress.

Essie Spring 2013 P. 1

Cari — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 02:29:09 +0000

No, I didn’t buy the four below. I really wanted to though. Except I don’t think Cab-ana is as vibrant as it looks below. It’s not as perky as fall’s Where’s my Chauffeur.

I am an Essie girl. Ridiculously so.

I was therefore over the moon at the new resorts collection as well as the cities themed colors for Spring. Above from left to right are: First Timer, Madison Avehue, Cab-ana and Hip-Anema.

I love how Avenue Maintain looks online (Essie, All Lacquered Up). On my fingers? Not so much

Essie 2013 Avenue Maintain

It’s nowhere near as vibrant as it looked and is a rather blah blue. To be honest, I’ve had mixed luck with blues. I love Butler Please, but Lapiz of Luxury didn’t work with my skin tone at all. I’ve learned that I need to see a bottle live to judge it better than on the web, but I apparently didn’t listen to my learnings on this one as I ordered it as soon as it was available and was rather disappointed at the bottle. As there are, of course, no returns. It is likely destined for the office polish swap.

Luckily, I LOVE First Timer and Ginza. First Timer actually looks better outdoors than in. So maybe there’s hope for Maintain?

First Timer (Indoors)

First Timer (Outdoors)

Fell in love when I saw Avehue’s glitter flecks in the store. Hope to try it or Hip-Anema soon. In the mean time, a good overview here.