2011-2012 Year Goals

Goal #1: 
Revisit these goals monthly, rather than just making the grand gesture of posting them on a blog no one reads and forgetting about them.

Goal #2:
Stay the same weight, or lose weight, or gain weight in order to become sheer f-ing muscle. I'm only okay with gaining weight if the result is me being 100% cut. I mean, as muscular as I can be without looking gross and manly Madonna arms.

Although I have to be honest: I'm a lifelong athlete,  and a lifelong worshiper of blood and pain, what I consider "normal" physically is different from other people. Consider my trajectory so far:

Ballet. I was the only 9-year-old on point. The nurse thought I was starving myself and knowingly mutilating my feet. She was right on both counts.

Running. Blood. Sweat. Tears. Pee. Blisters. Blood. Mud. Scrape. Burn. Ouch. Stress fracture. Stress fracture. Chafing. Repeat.

Boxing. You know how we all loathe getting the "bad jump" on a trampoline, where the timing's all off and it feels like your bones are being shoved together in that big machine that crunches cars at the scrap yard? Boxing is like that ALL the time. But oh is it glorious.

The main idea of the aforementioned digression is this: When I say I want to look as thin as I can and still not look scary, that means to most of you, I will indeed look scary, because I have a skewed perception of normal.

Goal #3: 
Have a social life. Go out once a week AT NIGHT (oh man... did you see how I went there? bet ya didn't think I'd go there but OOOH I went there, booyeah, yeah, I said booyeah). I will not let myself be eaten alive by schoolwork. I will plan smarter, and not for 12 hours at a time, unless it's by choice and far in advance. I will also go out twice a weekend, once during the day and once at night. The definition of "going out" is as follows: All activities that involve a reasonable chance of me meeting people. And while admittedly, I could go out for a run and meet someone, running doesn't count because it's just me and my ipod.

Goal #4:


TO BE CONTINUED

The Baby Corn Experiment

All this talk of data at our professional development workshop today inspired me to tap into my inner scientist.


Objective: Dip baby corn in every sauce in my fridge on this day in time. Record results in 100% subjective, 0% quantifiable terms.

Awesome.

Results: 

Baby corn and...

peanut butter: unnecessary

soy sauce: excellent. salty. perfect blend of predictable and surprise. like paul rudd.

mustard: requires further analysis in combination with others (such as a tomato tortilla, cilantro, onions). potential as part of an award-winning ensemble cast (such as the cast of true blood, or the Mediterranean veggie wrap at Panera)

jelly: why don't I just eat the jelly with my fingers? I'll use my scientific reasoning skills to not even try that.I already know I won't like the combination, so I'll just avoid it. (like, ______ + kim kardashian = always sucks, so I run the other way and cover my ears whenever I hear her name)

bbq sauce: heavenly.subtle. multidimensional. Leonardo Dicaprio.

savory bbq sauce: weird, but not in a good way. like that guy who always plays axe murderers

italian dressing: quirky. like zooey deschanel.

ketchup: lazy. overly pensive. like zach braff's character in every movie he's ever been in ever.

mayo: awkward. like, jonah hill superbad awkward.


IN RELATED NEWS, when I googled "Steve Buscemi creepy" to find a horrifically creepy picture  of him to post above, I realized something. There's an entire subculture around photoshopping his eyes onto other people's faces. The most popular ones are Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian.

There's a patch:

And my personal favorite:

Be sure to check out http://chickswithstevebuscemeyes.tumblr.com

Acceptance Speech for Most Amazing Caprese Salad Ever

I just made the most amazing caprese salad in the history of caprese salads. I am having an out-of-body experience right now. The perfect union of white balsamic vinegar, fresh mozzarella, salt, tomatoes, and three (not one, not two, but three) kinds of basil. The flavor is dancing across my tongue.

I couldn't have done it alone. In no particular order, I would like to thank...

• The Market Basket in Chelsea, MA, for providing high-quality fresh mozzarella cheese at a sinfully low price. 
• Trader Joe's, for the perfect Kosher salt. 
• My mom: 
• for generously donating three kinds of basil from her garden
• for insisting that I take home some tomatoes freshly picked from Wilson Farms
• for raising me to have good taste, and appreciate good food
• for giving me white balsamic vinaigrette in an old salad dressing bottle, and labeling it with her perfect mommy handwriting
• for taking time out of her day to read this completely ridiculous blog that is mostly dedicated to her supreme and total awesomeness 
• The Kingdom of the Netherlands, for inventing Heineken beer, which goes perfectly with this meal. 

 XOXO- Leah

Dear Unfolded Pile of Clean Laundry,

Don't look at me like that. I know. It's been two days, and you're angry. Help me, you're thinking, get me out of the jumbled, wrinkly messy situation in these God-awful, loud crinkling blue Ikea bags. Fold me. Crease me. Put me away in the correct locations so I can finally get some peace.

I never set out to hurt you, clean laundry. I didn't haul you home from the laundromat Sunday night with the intention of ignoring you. But soon after your reentry into my apartment, I realized that life had other plans for me, as it so often does. Life had other plans for me in general, because suddenly, all four seasons of Mad Men were available on Netflix Instant.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

Hear that? That's all the productivity I had planned for this week. That's all the unit planning, mentor text-reading, running, boxing, tanning, cooking, stretching, cleaning, and doctor's appointment-scheduling I wanted to do this week exploding into the nothingness that awaits once a show like Mad Men becomes instantly available via the internet.

I think I've stayed away from Mad Men this long in a misguided attempt to rebel against my parents. My parents both have doctorates in marketing. My mother used to be a professor. My father IS a professor (GO TO BU. GET YOUR MBA. LET ME COME WITH YOU TO MY DAD'S CLASS). Growing up in my house, we were only allowed to go to the bathroom during the Superbowl, because it was unheard of to miss the commercials. No "goo goo gaa gaa," in our house. It was more like, "Wazababyyy... can you say 'marketing ploy?'"

I spent most of my life trying to run in the opposite direction from my parents. It began when I realized that, despite both being "Dr. Wyner," neither of them owned a stethoscope. I'd like to think that at the ripe old age of 3, I said to myself, "What's the furthest thing from being a doctor of marketing... A BALLERINA! I'LL DO THAT!" when in reality I probably began dancing because I loved attention and I loved pink. 

I love my parents dearly, I do. They always encouraged me to find the right path for myself, and they never told me to follow in their footsteps. I know that I 100% invented the pressure I felt to be like them, but that doesn't change the fact that at the time, it felt real. When both of your parents are marketing geniuses, the LAST thing you want to do is go to a frat party and be noticed because the guy with the washboard abs just wrote a paper citing an article your father published in the Harvard Business Review. You want to be noticed because you're wearing a 40 dollar push-up bra that you purchased just for this fantastically low-cut shirt. Terrible return on investment, Victoria's Secret.

I AM SO FUNNY. Daddy, if you happen upon this blog post, I hope you're laughing, because you're the only one who will find that last sentence funny. Anyone else, ask me if you want to understand the joke.

I tried to watch Mad Men once before. The urge struck me on a rainy Sunday afternoon when I should've been planning lessons. Actually, I have no idea when it happened, but given my schedule for the past three years, it's a pretty safe bet. I couldn't get through the first episode I was so bored. I could see all the nuances, but they stuck out like those rods you buy to support flowers in the garden (the cheap ones, not the nice ones my mother buys, those don't stick out). It was as if big purple letters floated across the screen...

...NEW GUY TRIES TOO HARD...

...NEW GIRL WISELY PLAYS DUMB, DOESN'T SHOW HER HAND...

...IT'S THE 60S, SO THIS CHARACTER WILL STAY IN THE CLOSET UNTIL SWEEPS 6 SEASONS FROM NOW...

...LOOK AT OUR SUPER AUTHENTIC VODKA CONTAINERS! LOOK AT ALL OUR CAREFUL RESEARCH...

I wasn't ready yet. It's kind of like yoga. I tried it at age 18 and fell asleep I was so bored. Now I'm obsessed, because I'm old, jaded, stressed, anxious, overworked, underpaid, and exhausted and yoga makes it all better.

So laundry, I'm pretty sure you're staying put. I know my drawers are calling out to you in their glorious near-empty state, but you will have to wait, because right now, I have a fever, and the only prescription is  :

sexism

racism

materialism

adultery

lying

media manipulation

double entendres

vodka

smoke

(in other words... MAD MEN)

Don't hate me. I'll fold you tomorrow.

Maybe.

Probably.

Okay, probably not.

XOXO-Leah