Summer in the (New York) City

I loved being an Intern. In fact, I did some of my best creative work while avoiding databases, excel sheets and Fed Ex boxes. My emails: Fantastic! The speech for Mom’s 50th: It made you laugh, it made you cry. And the song I wrote about how bored I was to the tune of “I wanna be where the people are” actually made it on to someone’s facebook page. (Not mine.)

But….I was an Intern in New York City! The most fun thing to be! Of course, I already had a working knowledge of New York and a place to live. Luckily, even if you are not as totally hooked up as I was, you can be, once you read:

The findingDulcinea Guide to New York for Students and Interns!

Ashes to Ashes…Funk to Funky

This morning, while I was updating our Fashion Guide, I came across this Marc Jacobs bag. I gasped. My heart pounded a little. A few minutes later I noticed I was still short of breath and got a warm fuzzy feeling when I looked at the bag.

It’s true. 1 Day until my 25th birthday and I have finally succeeded in become abysmally vapid. Basically, aforementioned gorgeous green bag (which I promise never to own because it is made of leather) is just another indication that my 25th birthday is will set in motion my total and complete spiritual death.

Other evidence?

A) When discussing birthday plans with Sig Oth (and yes, if I’m shallow enough to fall in love with an accessory I WILL call him that) I whined: “All I want is a clean room and to do my laundry.”

GUESS WHAT WE’RE DOING ON MY BIRTHDAY? I’ll give you hint. We’re cleaning my room. (My 15 year old self is rebelling by restoring my skin to its 15 year old quality.)

B) The roommates wanted to take me out for drinks. Sadly, Not-Quite-25-Year-Olds can’t really “go out” two nights in a row. After an exuberant company happy hour to say goodbye to our beloved Matt, I had to beg: “What if we just drank wine (and ate crackers) while sitting on our couch? I mean, it’s not cool, per se, but isn’t it an accomplishment to have a living room you want to hang out in?”

Meghan handled it smoothly, assuring me that when you get to a certain age, you just need recovery time.

But then I started thinking: What’s so bad about change? Our desire to stagnate is twisted product of our desire to live forever. We think maybe if we stay the same, we’re not really getting older. But we are. So, I’m going embrace my potential for change, and I am going to start by becoming….organized. I know. You don’t believe me. Just you wait.

Stay tuned for before and after pictures of my messy room, and something better. My newly named Organizing Mentor, Sushene, will be guest-starring on the blog and teaching everyone how to be organized.

Now, excuse me while I try to go find my keys.

NYC Apartment Hunting

Don’t worry. As much as I love this picture, I would never DEIGN to live on the Lower East Side. Seriously, the only thing worse than a hipster is an incredibly wealthy hipster eating brunch where a fantastic pickle shop once resided.

But, let’s say I did want to live in the Lower East Side. Or any other really awesome New York neighborhood. As Liz knows, apartment hunting isn’t easy.

Or, it wasn’t easy, until we waved our magic Internet Wand and presented you with: the Apartment Hunting in New York Guide.

People like my brother can use it when they move back to New York, or to New York. They can find an amazing apartment in an amazing neighborhood that is as pretty but way more down-to-earth than the one in the picture. Then, they can invite me over to hang-out and maybe crash on their couch.

I love it when my work pays off.

4,000 U.S Soliders are dead in Iraq. Make it Count?

If you were on the findingDulcinea Home page this morning, you no doubt noticed that U.S Soldier Death Toll has reached 4,000. (If you weren’t on the home page this morning, give yourself a slap on the wrist. Ok. Moving on.)

Our coverage of the events surrounding this devastating statistic is excellent; it only took 4 soldiers dying to hit this landmark, but the war has 5 years of history behind it. And of course, while 4,000 is a number that kind of makes your eyes glaze over, the stories of individual do a better job of jolting us out of our apathetic comfort zone.

When I read one of our links, A New York Times article featuring the blogs and letter of six soldiers who died, I, to put it bluntly, freaked. One soldier in particular lashes out against America for fighting a worthless war AND blasts Americans for sitting around caring about nothing but Brittney’s shaved head. I’m going to be honest: I am way too much of snob to care about Brittney’s hair.

But I do get pretty cranky when the Q train is crowded. I am a little stressed my birthday because like, oh my god, I am so old!! And is Whole Foods really out of frozen broccoli AGAIN?

In short: GUILT. Mostly about the fact that these soldiers seemed to really hate America for sending them to Iraq. If I could believe that at least they believed in what they were doing, I could live with it. But at the same time, all these people chose to go into the military. Some of them even chose to go into the Military AFTER we were at war with Iraq.

That means that there is a section of the population so educationally, financially and ideologically disenfranchised that they are unable to make the decisions that will be prevent them from suffering (or dying) on behalf of a cause they don’t believe in. Where is this disconnect coming from? And how do we stop it?

We certainly can’t blame our soldiers, but can’t protect them from the Iraqis or themselves.

**This blog does not reflect the opinions of anyone but its author**

Israel Explained In 10 Words or Less

A few weeks ago during one of our guides’ meetings, Adam explained to us that we needed to become experts in the art of word economy. As poets crammed worlds of emotion and symbolism into the final couplet of a sonnet, so would we tighten our picks and insights.

I envisioned future conversations at concerts in McCarren Park.

Hip Guy in Ray-Bans: So, what do you do?
Me: I’m a writer.
Hip Guy (raising one eyebrow from beneath Ray-Bans): Yeah, what kind of writer?
Me: An Internet poet.
Hip Guy (breaking into un-brushed, smoky smile): Whoa. So, like, a real writer.

And, future conversations at Happy Hour on the Upper East Side.

Stiff Guy in Brooks Brothers Shirt: Before I approve you for conversation, I have to ask: What do you do?
Me: I’m an economist.
Stiff Guy (hiding mild confusion by smoothing his hair): Oh, are you? What sort?
Me: A word economist.
Stiff Guy (blinds me with professionally bleached teeth): Thank god. I thought you were going to say you worked for Bear.

So, essentially, not yet 25, and all my dreams were coming true. Of course, actually being a word economist is far more difficult than having inane fantasies about its implications. Last week, I was put to the test when I got assigned to write an Israel Travel Tale. When I got back from Israel, I had over 90 pages written about it, but in order to meet Dulcinea’s High Standards, I was going to have to tell my story in 750 or less. I’m proud to say that its earliest, un-edited version, my tale was just under 900 words, and the one you see on the site now meets the 750 word cut-off.

I read it today and I felt inspired–invigorated. I had no idea it was possible to say so much in such a short amount of time. Then I had an idea: In honor of “recommitting to you resolutions”, I would have have a resolution to become a word economist all the time.

After spending 24 1/2 years talking everyone’ s ear off, I am officially going to try to shut up. I am going to do novel things like think before I speak, have inside thoughts and not provide two tangential counter-arguments for every point I make.

You see, one time Stephen came to visit me in college and my friend was having some relationship issues. I advised her for 30 mins. Stephen made some suggestions in 30 seconds.

“You guys are right,” my friend said, and then hesitated. “I think you’re saying the same thing.”

Stephen nodded sagely and offered an apology: “Rachel’s the book and I’m the Cliff Notes.”

Well. Forget it. I’m a word economist now. It’s like Cliff notes, on sale. I can just imagine the conversation with the Bored High School Junior …

Recommit to Your Resolutions

Good news. findingDulcinea has named today “Recommit to Your Resolutions Day.” That means that people like me, who never made any resolutions, and people like you, who made them and totally forget about them, have a chance to try again.

The better news? You don’t have to do it alone. In fact, our “Recommit to Your Resolutions Guide” will actually go to the gym on your behalf! That’s right: You can keep smoking a pack a day, but the Internet will not have even one cigarette.

But seriously. The guide does have all sorts of fantastic information on how to stick to your resolutions. And, it’s being backed by Bill and Jim Germanakos, who both won the reality TV show, The Biggest Loser. “The Weightloss Twins” have given us 9 tips for meeting our goals. In fact, Bill Germanakos is in our office today. He hasn’t spoken to me, but I know what he’s thinking: “Rachel–you can lose a 164 pounds just like I did! You just have to focus.”

Ok. Maybe he’s not thinking exactly that, or anything about me at all, but the truth is, his presence has caused to re-evaluate why I didn’t make resolutions this year. You see, sometime in December, I found some old resolutions from junior year in college. They were resolutions I’d worked quite hard to formulate. They embodied the person I wanted to be. Unfortunately, 3 years later, I couldn’t check a single thing off the list. Depressing.

So today, I looked through Bill and Jim’s list of how to stick to your resolutions. #2 is be realistic. Now, realistic is probably my least favorite thing to be. However, I realized that if I ever want to get anything done, I’ll need to reform my hyperbolic, over-actively imaginative ways.

For example, today I decided I would try to get fashionable. I went on Style.com, the online arm of Vogue Magazine. Now, if there were a Web site equivalent of the sound that parents make while talking on the Peanuts television show, Style.com would be it. (For me.) I couldn’t absorb anything, and didn’t see myself implementing any of (definitely valuable) advice.

But then, during lunch, I went to the drug store and looked at hair products. Now, realistically, I could commit to de-frizzing my hair. Of course, I didn’t buy anything but…was there anything on that list about taking baby steps?

Paterson reads my blog!

New Governor David Paterson obviously reads my blog. He must have read the section where I said, “I’m not opposed to infidelity,” and decided it would be a good idea to confess to having extra-marital affairs on DAY 2 of his stint as governor. Gotta love it. (If you don’t love it, you can probably find another one to spend a few hours in a hotel room with you. Or, maybe you do love it, but it’s just not working right now. If you’re Governor Paterson, you’ll find that extra-marital affairs are great way to keep yourself occupied while you’re contemplating whether or not to get divorced.)

So basically, everyone is shaking his or her head in half amusement, half dismay at what a Carnival of Sexual Transgression Albany has become. But I’m kind of impressed. (And not just because Paterson and I share a tacit approval of cheating on your spouse.) I’m impressed because his confession has made it obvious that people’s personal lives oughtn’t factor into politics. And now, New Yorkers are left realizing we lost a perfectly good governor who paid for extra-marital sex and had him replaced with one who didn’t pay for the extra-marital sex he had. Whew!

Now, Spitzer broke a law, got totally humiliated (conservative conspiracy, anyone?) and came across as a total hypocrite who was no longer fit to be a public figure. (Although surely he could have continued to do a solid job as Governor. Unfortunately, politician = public figure. Bummer.) But Paterson…Paterson just made us all look really dumb for thinking we can control these things.

And I stand by the fact that what Spitzer did was despicable and (until we change the law) illegal. But the bottom line is, there’s a lot of cheating in politics. When are we going to stop acting surprised? It’s a shame that many people aren’t always faithful. But they’re not. So when we will learn to have a system that doesn’t blow up every time it happens?

And to the people of New York rolling your eyes over your new Governor I say: Love the one you’re with.

What’s Hilarious About Spitzer?

Unfortunately, nothing is really funny about Spitzer. That frustrates me, because I’m both trying to have a funny blog and dying to write about Spitzer. Looks like I’m not going to get what I want. On the upside, as long as I’m not successful, I won’t run the risk of my power going to my head. If I had too much success, I’d be likely to slip up and spend 100,000 dollars on high-class prostitutes. Close call!

I find it odd that the media is treating this incident like it was a fluke mistake or an inevitable progression stemming from the psychologically damaging ramifications of political power. Maybe I’m naive. Maybe it’s really normal for men to pay for sex. I guess it must be, or the under-ground prostitution industry wouldn’t be thriving so. But when this scandal was exposed, I was really taken aback.

Let me say off the bat that I’m not opposed to infidelity. I don’t think it’s a good thing. I don’t think it’s an indicator of a happy relationship. I’d like to think I’d never do it myself. But if YOU did it, I would forgive you. And if I didn’t know you personally, I wouldn’t even pass judgment on you at all. (Bill Clinton.) I’d say, if I heard about someone cheating, that “everybody’s human.”

However, I’m pretty surprised that what’s people seem to saying about Spitzer. I’ve read several articles where someone’s quoted saying, “Well, now we know he’s human.”

Really? Is that what it means to be human? I wish I would have gotten that memo earlier, because I would have spent a lot less time feeling guilty for stealing Splenda when I buy my coffee from Guy and Gallard. Yes, making mistakes is human. When I say I will work out for 45 minutes and I only do thirty: human. When I say I’m going to take a break to read one article about Spitzer and read three instead: human. Personally, I would like to think hiring a prostitute is something other than human.

Now, I’m a nice liberal New Yorker and would love to say that I think prostitution should be legal. (I also wanted to say that I never fell into the black hole of blogging about politics, but look what happened there.)

In any case, I’m conflicted. Intellectually, I want people to make their own decisions. I want prostitutes to be protected under the law, because if this incident proves anything, it’s that the practice is beyond unstoppable. I want to nip further hypocrisy in the bud.

But in my heart of hearts, I just don’t want women to be prostitutes. Evidence indicates its a horrible job. Furthermore, in most cases, well-adjusted happy women don’t become prostitutes. Although I callously observed in the elevator this morning that “there’s nothing tragic about earning 4,000 dollars in an hour,” there are many damn good reasons why I’m not. (The first and foremost is that I would never waste a hour that could be spent viral marketing doing something frivolous like selling my body.)

In conclusion, I’d like to vote, “undecided” on this issue. But here’s the real point. Either all those people who called Spitzer “human” should be busting their asses to make prostitution legal or they should be thinking long and hard about what exactly it means to be a human being.

How to Have Anxiety

I think it’s important, as I approach the 25 year mark, to celebrate my achievements up to date. Today, it’s come to my attention that after 25 years of half-hearted attempts, I finally live in a state of complete panic 24 hours a day. It’s true! I have no nails, a permanent crease in my eyebrow, chronic nausea and have even been feeling my heart pounding a lot. And of course, I have anxiety dreams. Amazing anxiety dreams! This weekend I had a dream that I dropped my laundry off and when I came back to get it, the laundromat had been replaced by a condo! Seriously–do you know anyone else who can combine gentrification guilt and fear of fashion-inadequacy into ONE DREAM? I’m going to to say it: I’m fantastic.

The best part? I can teach you to be fantastic, too. You see, a mere 6 months ago, I peer edited our Mental Health Guide and I took all the quizzes. Guess what? I DIDN’T QUALIFY FOR DIAGNOSABLE ANXIETY. I was defeated and humiliated. Was I doomed to be just a regular old neurotic for the rest of my life? Talk about stagnant. But I wasn’t going to a let a little quarter-life crisis tell ME that I couldn’t change. Nope. I found ways to get more nervous. And if you follow my advice, you can get more nervous, too.

Here are few tips to get you started:

1) Worry about things that are completely preposterous. For example, last night we went to see Night Train to Munich, a wonderful, hilarious and totally engaging Rex Harrison flick from 1940s. It should have been a good time, and it was, until Rex had to do a pull up to avoid falling to his death on the Swiss Alps. While the rest of the audience was applauding, I was muttering to myself, “Upper Body Strength. Must get more. Or might die on Swiss Alps.”

2) Worry about the complete opposite preposterous thing, so you can feel confused and frustrated. The next day at the gym, as I was dutifully curling 5 pounds weights, I mused, “I think my arms are looking too buff.” I proceeded to give up on weights, and feel grumpy, while contemplating too buff-looking death on Swiss Alps.

3) Don’t let go. Missed a train? A non-anxious person might be annoyed and then move on. You need to berate yourself, and curse the world for your bad timing UNTIL the next train comes. When you finally get on, give yourself one stop to take a breather, before you start looking at your watch every 25 seconds and repeating silently to yourself, “I’m going to be late.” (Note: If you want to go for the gold, trying blurting out, I’m going to be late, a few times in addition to your internal repetition. Everyone on the train will think you’re nuts, and you can add embarrassment to your negative feelings.)

4) Overload. Never just have plans with one person. They might cancel on you. Make plans with at least three people, and also generate a list of stuff you’d need to do if you had to spend the night alone. When invariably no one cancels, feel guilty, rushed, hysterical and angry that you have to see any of them instead of tackling your personal to-do list. Let whoever you hang out with know how busy you are and how much you sacrificed to see them, ensuring that you both have an awkward evening.

5) Psych Yourself Out. “There’s no way I can make this a top 10 list. I don’t have time. And with 1.5 minutes per user according to Google Analytics, no one is reading past #3 anyway…this is too depressing. I have to stop.”

How long will you live?

A few people have commented that my quarter-life crisis has a glitch: I’m not going to live be a hundred, therefore, I’m not really at my “quarter-life.”

However, I found a quiz online called, the Living to 100 Life Expectancy Calculator. Now, even though as a professional Web researcher, I was totally skeptical of this quiz, I decided to take it in the interest of giving my readers a fast answer. I took it, and continued to be skeptical: in the section where it asked me to choose what kind of snacks I eat, it didn’t even list Healthy Valley Raspberry Tarts. Any quiz that fails to comprehend the plethora of Raspberry Tarts in our kitchen is no friend of mine. But I digress.

The point is: It says I’m going to live to be 97. And that’s taking into account the fact I said I was usually stressed out, drank too much caffeine, slept poorly and lived in a polluted city. Should any of those things change (and I do plan on doing more yoga…soon), then I might in fact live to be 100. That doesn’t broach the subject of quality of life, but at least it lends some (shaky) validity to my quarter-life crisis.

Also, another point for my friend Sushene: I learned in college that according to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, we form our characters until age 29. If you read the Book II, you’ll see that youth is meant to be spent learning to actively pursue a virtuous life. Eventually, virtuous deeds will become sort of habitual. Aristotle emphasizes that we’ve got to get in the practice of doing good early. According to my professor, you’ve got to get into the practice by age 29, at which point your habits are formed. (A friend of mine pointed out that with “inflation”, this translates to about 45.)

Anyway, the Quarter-life crisis comes about when all the rules we’ve been taught loosely through our youth become extremely relevant in the real world. We have the years between 25-29 to complete the emergence from well-intentioned child to mostly-functioning adult. The upside of all this? Your life isn’t 29%. You’re actually just beginning your “fully-formed” life. Good luck, Sushene. Your changes will be saved in 8 days…