2:58 Grow More

Garage graffiti in my hood.
Seen on the Blue Line… and on the internet.

Beautiful friends! Yesterday, we discussed the need to actively connect to our lives rather than float through them, lazy river-style. We talked the … fish… and the bees #normal. And I suggested writing as a means of accepting reality, processing emotions and breathing into the discomfort. Alternately, you could tag the world behind your eyelids on a garage door. Whatevz.

Speaking of garage doors, opportunities for growth are hard to catch, and harder to hold onto: they’re the electric eels of opportunity, essentially. In my recent-ish Year Of No post, I declared that I would make a concerted effort to only commit to projects and people in support of my health, happiness and future this year. Truth: I’ve already signed on for all of the things — it’s side gig city up in hur. But I’m so, so excited about all of them! Here’s a little list of ways I plan to bloom in the coming weeks, i.e; here’s some cool sh*t I’m doing:

1. I’m the new Social Media Coordinator for the Comfort Station! (The current website is in transition, so I’ll link up to it when it’s finished.) Anywho, The Comfort Station of Logan Square used to be a warming station for Logan Squarians of olden times waiting for the streetcar. Thanks to the Logan Square Preservation Society and the hard work of some seriously dedicated neighbors of mine, The Comfort Station was saved and converted into an art gallery/concert hall/maker’s space dedicated to bringing creativity to the community. Um, hello, creativity and community are my two favorite things… so look out for my posts, tweets and… tumbles… soon!

2. Two of my other favorite things: writing and feminism! I was recently asked to be the Marketing Consultant for {she crew}, a multidisciplinary journaling/playwriting/feminism camp for 12-14 year old girls… DO check them out! And if you’re independently wealthy or you found $20 bucks on the sidewalk, consider donating!

3. I’m going to be a nun on the Sound of Music float in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. Now, you know my experience with St. Patrick’s Day. Normally, I would avoid this hell-pit of drunken frat boys in “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” t-shirts but… fame and glory and parade floats. Amen.

4. Here’s some cool sh*t I already did… exactly one year ago! It’s NEDA (National Eating Disorder Awareness) Week, and Gena runs a really important series on recovery. According to Gena, who knows her sh*t, “nearly 20 million women and 20 million men will suffer from an eating disorder at some point in their life.” That’s, like, a lot of people, you guys.

Look. Eating disorders are often wrongfully perceived as pseudo-diseases — just another of the many heads of narcissism — and that’s just not true. If you have someone in your life who’s going through an eating disorder, please educate yourself on how to be supportive and understanding of what’s going on in an ED victim’s brain. If you have an eating disorder, yourself, please (pleasepleaseplease) seek out therapy and look to sites like choosingraw for solidarity in your recovery.

I continue to receive emails in response to the piece I wrote for Gena last February from women who still struggle to love and accept themselves. Keep speaking your truth! The more ED victims speak openly about their experience, the more we grow.

Grow more, babies. Thanks for reading!

XOXO,
Rose

2:57 The Secret

Ophelia by AJ Chu
The artist is 17 years old! Can I get an audible gasp?

This post is about swimming instead of bobbing around in the angry seas of your existence like a miserable piece of plankton. It is about flying instead of floating on the fragrant wind like a broken bee.

This post is about connecting to your life.

The complaint I hear most often amongst my peers relates to the brain-eating drudgery of waking up, going to work, exhausting oneself at work, going to sleep… days peppered with various obligations (buy dish soap; pay gas bill; exercise, maybe; try to stop treating your loved ones like burdensome extracurricular activities), but the formula’s usually the same.  You’re going nowhere: you simply are.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been feeling weirdly severed from myself: not so much caught up in the common travails of a working girl, but more like the broken bee: lying in repose atop each little gale; passively blown about — to bars, to meetings, to parties, to concerts. Enjoying myself, sure, but not reflecting on my doings or relating them to my future. Longtime readers know this is unlike me: I often worry that I focus too much on my future, and don’t focus enough on unwrapping and relishing my present. Chalk my recent deviant behavior up to burnout, maybe; or quickly thawing visions of spring.  Whatever the reason, it occurred to me that I used to suffer from this kind of disconnect all the time. And I do mean suffer: I’m not at all comfortable with bobbing and floating… honestly, I don’t think anyone is. I don’t need someone to provide me with a map, but I need to pick a direction and chase it down like a huntress: like a Wildewoman, and trust that the brush will recede and the path will become clearer as I run.  I can accept my surroundings, but I must always be fully conscious of a higher purpose so that all of my experiences, obviously good or obviously terrible, have meaning. So that I have meaning. You feel me?

Sweet.

So here’s the secret —  the practice that has given me an active role in my own life, and therefore the power to dream about what’s next without losing sight of the abundance all around me. Get ready for it….

…Write. You need to process everything that happens to you, and if you’re anything like me; acknowledgement of a life event, followed by acceptance, followed by an adjusted plan of action doesn’t just light you up like a hot current. You need to make your own electricity. For real. Grab some copper coils and a potato and rig that sh*t up. Rather, grab a journal and a fluffy pink pen. Grab an Underwood Touchmaster Five. Make self discovery your mission. Make sense of self your b*tch. (I’m listening to Childish Gambino right now, I’m sorry.) Once you’ve established “unearthing the true you” as your main goal, and you’ve embodied the habit of working at it through writing, you’re in it. You’re engaged in your own world. Then when you have bouts of detachment, when nothing makes sense, you have something to come back to; a practice to ground you. You’ll have enough faith in yourself to keep moving, and that’s everything.

Now then. If the only snippet you hold onto from this saga is “Make self discovery your mission. Make sense of self your b*tch.”, I’m, like, super okay with that.

XOXO. Missed you guys,
Rose

2:45 Be Yours

Darling Emily Winfield Martin illustration available for free download!
Have a heART.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Darling! Let’s discuss how to treat yo’self like the dish you are on this most polarizing of holidays, shall we? And how!

1. Don’t be a Marnie. You don’t need no man (or woman or particularly scrupulous cat — Elmer, I just want you to love me!) to validate your existence. Just by virtue of existing, you’re already valid. And all of your thoughts and doings and hard-earned connections are sweet-ass soul-cherries on top…Really, you’re much, much more than enough. #math …#manhattanme

2. Dream on, Mama. If you ‘re in your twenties, you’re probably not where you want to be yet: just know that you’re where you’re supposed to be, and follow everything that glitters for you along your path. Trust that the curbside litter and miscellany you’re drawn to will teach you something about yourself. Remember what you were taught growing up: if you work hard to make your vision real, magic happens. As a young adult, it’s not that we forget the positive messaging we were spoon-fed in elementary school; it’s that one day we realize we don’t know what we want — our visions of yore are dim and obscured by distrust and false purpose. The road we’ve been on all along becomes a windy road to nowhere, and all of the maple leaves and bottle caps and essential life skills we’ve collected along the way — i.e. how to apply liquid liner on a moving train, how to say the alphabet backwards in French, how to hashtag all of our thoughts —  only seem to weigh us down. Should’ve been practical: should’ve majored in finance, should’ve packed some granola bars and dry socks and a bedazzled whiskey flask.

One day, Bubeleh, it will all make sense. Until then, let your dreams flicker in your heart’s wick, let them hum in the cells of your marrow, and trust. Then keep going.

Another Nicoletta Ceccoli <3<3<3

3. You have permission to screw up. There exists a school of thought, I think, that if you shoot for perfect, you’ll be all right even if you’re a little off the mark. I call bull sh*t, though. Because it’s V-day, let us consider cupid: if his aim was off, you’d probably have eyes for your local sidewalk preacher instead of your resident dream man. Translation: don’t attempt perfection and settle for surrounding riffraff. Point your lil’ love arrows wherever you want them to land. Be intentional about your choices, and accept when you’ve made the wrong decision.

4. Along those lines, you have permission to change. I think the most important trait you can have is authenticity. Maybe you’re unhappy; the way you live your life isn’t true to you and the way you feel in your guts. Maybe you surround yourself with booze and boisterous others when you’re actually a cat lady in training. Maybe you’d rather read Harry Potter than Love in the Time of Cholera and your literary friends would vote you off the erudite island if they only knew. Be who you are… or at least be who you think you are. We’re all figuring that out, and if the people in your life can’t understand your newly established need to be genuine… find new people. Tell the old people to suck it. Do you.

5. Try a little. If you have a thing, or an idea of what you want your thing to be, you have to do it. If you want to write; write. Start a blog. Submit here and here and to Paris Review if you want to (if you get published in Paris Review I will die of jealousy. But don’t worry about me.) Write me a guest post. For reals. Email me at rosetruesdaleATgmailDOTcom (decode THAT spambots!) Seriously, if I end up posting your work, I’ll pimp your good name all across the internet.

And if your thing is something you can’t quite do yet, start developing the resources and connections to eventually make it happen. In my case, I’m interested in a less hokey variety of life coaching — let’s call it “lifestyle consulting,” mmkay? — but I’m not certified and I don’t know how to run my own business and I’m not yet a published author which would make me 1000% more legitimate. That’s okay, though, because I’m collecting experiences like the ol’ magpie I am, and I’ll get there. Try with me.

6. Self care is… somethin’. Look, I would never judge you. But maybe you’ll feel more like the goddess of love that you are if you, like, pluck your eyebrows. Wash your hair, if it’s crunchy with dry shampoo and smells like everything you’ve cooked for the past two weeks. Shave your legs for the first time this winter (#projecting) if that’s something you do… and if it’s not, you go, hairy sister. Take time to feel your best this Valentine’s Day. That’s all I’m saying.

7. Wear your insides outside. Ladies, be your version of sexy today, okay? I tend to favor man repellent clothing, e.g. harem pants, oversized sequined schmattas, capelets, platform wedges that make me a head taller than every boy I meet… Perhaps sweater sets are your thing, Idk. Perhaps you rock the fringed leather/bobby socks combo like no one else. Get it girl. And don’t EVER let your significant other tell you how to dress, because that’s apparently a thing. Someone recently told me that her boyfriend wouldn’t let her buy a jumpsuit. I’m sorry (Nope. Not sorry at all), but aren’t we talking about your body, and the way you present yourself to the world? If he thinks you’re too provocative or not provocative enough, tell him to take a hike. In platform wedges. WUT.

8. Eat some chocolate today. I had a chocolate cherry smoothie for breakfast. Amen.

9. Tell somebody you love them. Hi Mom!

10. And listen to this song on repeat.

I love you all so much! Take care, today and every day.

XOXO (XOXOXOXOXOXOXO, Valentine!)
Rose

2:43 Brain Dump

Eye Candy by Nicoletta Ceccoli
Alternate title: Rose on Valentine’s Day

Warning, bids: this post is going to be all over the place. Look forward to an open letter to Isaac Fitzgerald and Stephen Elliot in the near-ish future, plus some of those interviews I was on about a few short weeks ago… but for now, here’s a brain dump, from my cerebral cortex to yours.

1. I saw this band perform on Friday and I will never be the same. Body positivity, gold lamé, homemade neon bodysuits with tiger epaulettes and songs about cats… these are the things my dreams are made of.

Girlfriend is vegan, too!

2. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot (too much?) about the balance between risk taking and self-preservation. I’ve never, for example, moved across the country for a job or a dude or to satisfy a wanderlusty whim. On the one hand, I think there’s real value in comfort and stability as you’re getting to know yourself, i.e. it’s tough to figure out who you are when you’re trying to survive on bad sushi takeout and PBR while waiting tables in Bushwick. That said, I’m sure the more self-aware daredevils among us learn a great deal by throwing caution to the proverbial wind. Whether or not starting over is smart… it’s sure as sh*t brave. And Sara Bareilles wants me to be brave.

3. More on that: there is no starting over. Not really. You carry all of your past experiences with you wherever you go. The new year’s no clean slate: it’s the same smudgy, fingerprinted, gummed up slate as before! You can even still make out your doodles and odes to Seth Cohen of yesteryear underneath today’s doodles and odes. This is equal parts blessing and sham, you guys. No matter the seismic opportunities the universe hurtles your way, you always have to be you, even if you’d rather be Stacy London. And like, who wouldn’t rather be Stacy London?

4. What are our feelings on Valentine’s Day? Growing up, I thought it was hilarious to refer to said holiday as Man Hater’s Day… an attitude that I haven’t managed to shake. But like, I love chocolate. And pink and red and hearts and general kitsch. Last year, I made beet cake and brownies to celebrate (and demanded that my girl, Emily D., man an awkward photo shoot for me. You’re a real pal, Emily D.!). We’re planning a V-Day centric craft day this weekend and a night of motown dancin’ on Saturday…but is anyone having a party on Friday? With cute boys and pink drinks, maybe?  I just want an excuse to wear this dress and act a fool. Gimme.

She eats beets with maniacal glee.

5. I’m feeling desperate to go on a trip. Maybe a solo trip… anyone have any tips on cheap/free traveling? I like to think I’m a relatively worldly woman, but trekking on a budget does not come naturally to me. Like at all. I’d love your thoughts, darling readers!

That’s all for now. Thanks for sticking with me through these times of tumult and hysteria, Boo. It’s kinda fun, isn’t it?

XOXO,
Rose

2:42 Everything, All At Once

Just some chaos.
By my homegirl, Camille Rose Garcia.

Hi darling friends! I started off 2014 with such a blazing blogging fever… wot hoppened?

Fact: I’ve been hustlin’.
Fact: I’ve been failing. Like, over and over and over again.
Fact: I’ve been cryin’ about it. Also, I’ve been eating banana soft serve and drinking whiskey and sleeping 9 hours a night about it.

Friends, life has me a little down right now. Not in a completely inconsolable way, but in a way that has me berating myself for ever thinking I had anything figured out; for foolishly fretting about how I might assimilate various opportunities into my reality before said opportunities were in the metaphorical bag. (Btw, this bag is not a metaphor and you can cheer me up by buying me one for Valentine’s Day. Or better yet, you can will the universe to make a published author, impressive career woman, and super proficient polymath out of me so I can buy it for myself… thx.)

In my relatively sulky state of being, I’ve been thinking a lot about whether or not there’s any sort of symmetry in how and when flaming sh*t arrows and detonated love bombs, alike, pierce our guts and/or douse them in magical sparkle fluff. Decidedly, there is not. Your long-term to-do list; e.g. nab a sweet gig, con someone into marrying you, make babies if you’re so inclined, can serve to motivate and inspire you, but aside from that, it doesn’t mean a thing. You can’t move to the next line item just because you crossed off the one preceding it, and you definitely can’t wait to accomplish y if you haven’t gotten around to x yet. You could be waiting forever, and waiting is the pits. Essentially, our accomplishments are not linear; they’re all mixed up with breakdowns and defeats in a great vat of soupy entropy. It’s not one thing at a time: you get engaged the same day you’re diagnosed with something awful. You fall off your Louboutins and break your hip while walking up to accept your Nobel peace prize. You can’t fathom making time to date anyone until you’re financially solvent and thrilled with your day to day, but by that time, you’re old as sh*t. Nope, it’s not one thing after another: it’s everything, all at once.

I’m not saying that we should stop dreaming or stop trying or that we should all become fatalists. Your life is abundance. For real: there are no limits. But let’s make like the universe and cut it out with the tunnel vision. Let’s take the good with the bad; let’s weather the maelstrom of measles and gumdrops and typhoons and puppies and open our hearts and frontal lobes to all of it. All of the things. All of the time.

Get it girl.

XOXO,
Rose

2:36 I’m Not Here

Just some camo. Casual.
By Erick Davila, courtesy of this Pinterest page.

Hi long lost friends and readers. I’ve not been around here, of late… because I’m angsty as sh*t! I have theoretical ants in my (very real) gold lamé harem pants. All of my guts are bulbous and vibrating and my eyes have a pulse. Also I just googled “things that vibrate” and I am immediately sorry I did so.

I can’t tell you what’s going on with me, Internet. I can’t even tell me what’s going on with me, except my Weltschmerz is legitimate and you’d understand if I told you particulars. Instead, I’m going to cha cha around it like Ginger Rogers on a ballroom floor or Obama on health care (zing!) because I miss blogging enough to make amorphous references to an ambiguous existential dilemma but not quite enough to blow my cover. Capisce? Kinda?

You all know that, generally speaking, my prescription for all that ails you is to get comfy with your feelings, wring out every last globule of perspicuity from your terrifyingly beautiful life and go forth, young lass. But, like, sometimes living in the moment is actually #theworst. Certain harrowing circumstances require constant distraction, specifically circumstances involving waiting. If one is waiting to hear back from grad school so one can attempt to plot out one’s imminent life ; if one is waiting for one’s boyfriend to return from saving elephants in Laos so one can break up with him and start becoming a self actualized postmodern woman; if one is waiting for any other human or organization to effect change in one’s life, that completely blows for… one. Okay, we’re talking about me. Hi. It blows for me. Anyway.

Some healthy distractions if you find yourself, likewise, waiting… and by healthy, I mean not whiskey:

1. Make stuff. Roast garlic-ginger carrot fries. Paint black and white portraits of Juggalos on red canvas for your formal dining room. Or just come over, because those are my planned activities for tonight.

2. Nerd out. Maybe you’re not as enthralled by ICP fan aesthetics as I am. It’s cool. Watch every Doctor Who episode that’s ever aired from the beginning of time. Compose a cento of Eleanor Roosevelt quotes. Whip out Velociraptor! Cannibalism! Or just read food blogs and expand your brain like a chia seed in water, Peanut!

3. Treat yo’self. These four things can transform your SAD hibernation hovel into a mecca of sparkly self care: a quality seaweed face mask, green juice supplies, Sally Hansen sticker nails and a playlist comprised of every Alanis Morissette song. Go.

That’s all. Miss you. Love you. Juggalo art awaits.

XOXO,
Rose

2:24 & 25: Proton Girl

By Lora Zombie

Happy Saturday, beautiful friends! I pooped out at 11:00 and cabbed it home to crawl into bed with Elmer last night, so physically, I’m feeling pretty fab for a weekend morning. Mentally, though — I’ve been a glimmering beacon of negativity lately. Seriously. Queen of the Wild Womp-us. I’m also fortunate enough to have friends who are enduring some of the same tribulations as I am — but I can get a little too comfy lounging in the chaise of their solidarity and support. I complain more, negativity copulates and breeds more negativity, and soon enough I have a new generation of grumpy brain-bunnies nibbling at my synapses. It’s an epidemic. An adorable epidemic.

Yesterday, I ventured into the arctic windchill for a salad, as one does, and it actually occurred to me: isn’t the skin on my eyeballs super thin? Can eyeballs freeze… and rupture? I was out in the cold, simultaneously worrying about eyeball schisms and composing delightfully horrific tweets in my head… because when you have a crazy thought, you should obviously post it on the internet. Later, I proceeded to concurrently challenge my liver and vent my spleen, a.k.a. I drank and griped. A lot. About everything, with people who are too nice to me to tell me to shut up, and when I woke up this morning, I wondered why I felt like such an asshat.

I have been an asshat! I’ve been taking advantage of everyone’s generous ears, and in light of this discovery, I’m bringing back the love list. Because despite minor adversities, I have so much to be grateful for – and I need to focus on that sh*t. It’s winter: tis the season for antagonism, so perhaps you need a reminder, too. I urge you to be a proton amidst the frenzied-electric atomic static in the great nucleus of LYFE #science… because we can be happy and try to change our situations at the same time, right?

Today’s Little Love List:

1. Finally having an apartment big and lovely enough to throw fabulous parties with my, likewise, fabulous roommate. Hoera! So many themed soirees coming your way, friends. Just wait.

2. Adoring my friends. Last night, I took a breather from whining to express one of the best parts of adulthood: you gravitate toward your kind of people. Your friendships are no longer convenient, so if you’re a person with a job and a to do list, you more than likely only make an effort to maintain the relationships that really matter to you… and as time goes on, and people go their own ways, eventually all of your relationships matter to you. Pretty sweet.

3. Living in an age where I feel comfortable rolling my eyes whenever someone utters the words “biological clock” to me. I can’t even. Also, being blessed with a mother who has never uttered the words “biological clock” to me.

4. The best family a human could ask for.

5. My proximity to so many cute hipster bars and so many cute hipster boys. Logan Square for the win.

6. A future rife with possibility. Am I just the fruitiest? RAINBOWS. UNICORNS. Idk. I have some plans on the horizon that I’ll hopefully have the opportunity to share with you all soon-ish. Right now, I just have a vision and a laptop, and that’s ok by me.

7. Weekend. That is all.

Love you all! Do you need a shot of positivity? What are you thankful for?

XOXO,
Rose

2:22 & 23: Year of No

Rose can’t come out to play. She was eaten by a tree.
Perennial favorite, Mark Ryden.

Bids, I’m sick.  Not an easily identifiable feverish and shivering sort of sick — more of an ambiguous, bodily ennui; an omnipresent meh feeling complete with lots of snot. Right now, I’m ailing to the precise degree that I feel iffy about flaking on friends, but I know that one whiskey drink could do me in. Also, you don’t want to make out with me in my current state, in case you were thinking about it. You probably weren’t thinking about it.

Anyway. I got to thinking about what a struggle — and a revelation — it’s been to learn the word “no.” And, like, to use it sometimes. I’ve written a lot of posts on figuring out how to carve out space for myself. After 10 or so years of straight A’s, needy boyfriends, and an academic/career path that required not only my time and energy, but 100% perfect health, squeaky clean nasal passages and perpetual teetotalism; determining what made me happy and deciding to do it at the risk of offending everyone in my life who had been conned into believing that I was a yes-person (and a social one, at that!), has been the ongoing dilemma of my young adulthood.

Has anyone endured the opposite experience? The painful transformation from cloistered caterpillar to winged and well-loved butterfly baby? I ask because I’ve seen “Say Yes!” emblazoned all across the internet: Pinterest, all the blogs, every resolution list. I’m not an entirely eremitic psychopath, you guys — I mean, I get it. Say yes to adventures. Say yes to opportunities. But maybe… not at the expense of caring for yourself and quietly pursuing your passions?

What does this even mean?
Courtesy of this Pinterest page.

Internet, I resent your blind enthusiasm. This is my Year of No. This is my year to trust my gut and know what deserves my attention and what doesn’t. This is my year to slow down, narrow my field of distraction, and spend my life actually doing things I want to be doing. Come to think of it, last year was like that, too. #winning

How about you? Is this your Year of Yes? You can tell me. I won’t gripe about it unless you start smacking me in the eyes with your memes and graphic mantras. Don’t do that.

XOXO,
Rose

2:17 – 21: SAD Face

Craft day at our place and Stephanie’s super fly coasters!

Hey boos! Since I last checked in, I decoupaged two coasters, made one flower crown, bedazzled an outlet cover, baked two spelt boules, relished some cat cuddles and saw American Hustle. It’s my goal to look like braless Amy Adams every day henceforth, FYI.

Truth time, though: I’ve been nail-nibblingly anxious about life stuff. For the most part, I’ve successfully managed to distract myself with friends, wine, rhinestones and gluten — but I’m tired, you guys. And my body’s all, “Wtf?! You promised we’d go to yoga today!” And I’m all “Shhhhh, you need more spelt boule, Body. Namaste.”

There are ways around winter, though; ways to feel weird sparkly springtime behind your face during even the blusteriest of days. What polar vortex, even? Mai tai me! Here are some simple ways to get your glow back:

If you can’t breathe through your nose because indoor heating/boogers/cat: get thee a neti pot, and fast. I boil my water first and let it rest so as to not infect my brain and/or scald my nasal tributaries. You should do the same.

If everything is chapped, coconut oil is magic. I use it to wash my face, moisturize, and roast brussels sprouts! For reals, though, it removes eye makeup and ambiguous gunk better than anything you can find at Sephora; it won’t dry out your pores; and if you repeatedly nuzzle your roommate’s cat with a slicked up visage, he’ll smell like a pina colada! Love you, Lil’ Coconut!

If you’re pasty like Mod Podge, pour yourself a tall glass of carrot juice. Flamingos are only pink because of their highly shrimpy diets. Channel your inner flamingo and your outer Jersey Shore cast member: pump yourself full of beta carotene and shine on, Snookie-girl!

If your shoulders are super tense, blame the cold: our first instinct when we step out on the tundra is to tunnel back into ourselves. But we’re not turtles, we’re ladies (or something). Nighttime yoga will not only elongate your spine immediately after class, but you’re more likely to remain unraveled while you sleep… which could very well lead you to wake up sans old woman aches, and so on and so forth as you rock out the remainder of your days with perfect posture and and an enviable swan neck. Try it!

If you’re feeling puffy, try not eating an entire boule in one sitting… Idk, what? Look, mammals need insulation in the winter. We just do. Don’t do a juice cleanse — juice cleanses are essentially starvation diets that don’t give people the necessary tools to make lasting lifestyle changes. (And how do you really feel, Rose?) You guys: eat. Eat. Food. But by all means, cut out the bad stuff and replace it with leafy green stuff.

I would recommend ditching allergens and inflammatories.

Or if you’re tryna go vegan, I can help! Here are some tips on going veg part I, II, and III.

Most importantly take a food-based vitamin D supplement and bundle up to soak up what meager rays this winter sun spits out. Vitamin D: Mother Nature’s Prozac… take it every day and turn that SAD face upside down!

Love you guys. Stay warm… and spring is coming, I promise!

XOXO,
Rose

2:16 Keys and Coat and Shoes and Hat

Carol Roque is incredibly talented and incredibly nice and you should buy her work!

Darling friends! Another, less philosophical reason for my exhaustion: I almost always wake up at the crack of dawn ready to BRING IT, no matter how late I stayed up eating avocado tempura with my homegirl Stephanie, or admiring the work of my lil’ punky homemaker roommate as she installs a homemade bistro chalkboard in our kitchen and pulls fresh raspberry muffins out of the oven at 10 p.m. like. A. Boss.

I love reading about people’s daily routines. Example: I loved this website so much that I asked the Chicago-based author (and founder of One Part Plant… and veg-friendly cookie cookbook creator) to get lunch with me. The idea of itemizing all of the bits of my day a la “5:30 a.m. Awoke. Ate avocado on toast washed down with beet carrot kale juice. Consumed entire pot of coffee…” appeals to my goody-gooody note-taking core. And on some level, I’ve always wanted to be baller enough for someone to interview me in a “how do you get it all done?” fashion. It’s nbd, Katie Couric, I just have Pulitzer prize-winning genes and naturally shiny hair. If you want to be like me, all you have to do is read Proust in a lavender bath for 20 minutes a day…”

Here’s my routine:

5ish: Wake up. Begin consuming iced coffee that I prep in my French press overnight. Proceed to guzzle like a Hummer. Prepare breakfast. This morning: cinnamon vanilla oat bran with mixed berries, salted almond pecan butter, and peanut butter coconut granola. I ❤ breakfast.

5:15: Write like a mofo. Sometimes I start with morning pages – just two pages to flush out all of my mental effluvia and sweeping brain trash. Sometimes I try to work on the book. Sometimes I blog. But I generally end up writing for at least an hour, which I should probably pat myself on the back for. This sh*t’s some hard-earned me time.

6:30: Head to the gym. Spin or eliptical while listening to my boyfriend’s new album and watching Martin Garrix music videos (or, you know, Sara Bareilles music videos… tomato tomahto) on MTV. Contemplate lifting weights… maybe pick one up even. So. Boring. Stretch my back out on an exercise ball like a weird cat-girl. Shower and beautify in the locker room – generally a terribly last minute endeavor, and I usually forget an essential or two, i.e. socks, underwear, makeup. I’m nothing if not resourceful.

8:30: Hop on a train to work. Instantly assess whether or not there’s anyone cute in the subway to make eyes at. If not, I apply eyeliner or read (currently this book.) When I separate from the mole people underground and emerge into daylight, I occasionally stop for more iced coffee because I am a fiend. The walk from my subway stop is about 8 minutes.

9-5:00 or shortly thereafter: Work time. I do lots of web and email stuff for an arts organization. I’m generally very busy, but I try to make time to take a walk on my lunch break. Too often, I’ll walk to the Whole Foods that’s almost two miles away, grab a salad, and walk the two hours back in an hour. It makes me feel very productive… it also makes me feel very poor.

5:00 on: The world is my oyster. Tonight, I’m making fancy pizza with a bunch of broads and then going ICE SKATING. I love wholesome lady-activities!

That’s it. That’s my day. Anyone else into this stuff? I like recording details in theory more than in practice… I don’t know how food bloggers keep a consistent log of their eats. I do know, however, that writing this stuff out makes it all sound so much lovelier and more intentional than it really is.

What’s your quotidian routine? I’d love to know… like for real. Do share!

XOXO,
Rose