meet me in the studio letting go
Tigers
What are we now but voices
who promise each other a life
neither one can deliver
not for lack of wanting
but wanting won’t make it so
We cling to a vine
at the cliff’s edge.
There are tigers above
and below. Let us love
one another and let go.
-Eliza Griswold
01. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?
Go to law school? (haha, cheap shot.) Meet any of the LG group (Em, Susan, Kara!!). Drink white rioja, mulled wine, white sangria, and cava. Go to Spain and Portugal. Travel abroad with someone who wasn't my family. Make a cucumber gimlet. Walk into a fraternity house. Live in an apartment by myself. Drive to Chicago by myself. Bake a turkey. Read Jonathan Franzen. Walk in graduation robes while soaking wet. Almost get chased off a farmer's land because of a meteor shower. Break into a community pool. Go to a drive-in movie theatre.
02. Did you keep your new years' resolutions? Will you make more for next year?
My resolutions last year were:Cull my judgmental tendencies. Life is not an episode of Project Runway. I don't need to be Michael Kors + estrogen.
Appreciate what I have more. This includes, but is not limited to, my parents, my friends, Houston, Rice University, and the privileges I have.
A lesson from Kara: Be critical of what I love. Rebuild from that criticism.
Read more books. Watch more movies. Go to another play.
Write at least another short story before I graduate. Write at least one more time for SSBB. :>
A repeat from during the year: Spend less money. Eat more vegetables.
I most definitely did not cull my judgmental tendencies, nor did I write another short story before I graduated, nor did I go to another play or read more books. I would like to say there was some degree of appreciation going on, and I've definitely have tried, though not necessarily succeeded, to be more critical of the things I love and to rebuild from that crticism. I watched more movies than last year, I think, but not as many as I would like. And... I did not spend less money, but I think I have eaten more vegetables?
This year:
1. Eat more vegetables.
2. Spend less money.
3. Block out time for law school, treat it like a 9-5 job, not just something I do on the side.
4. Try harder to reach out to others and stop complaining about being lonely.
5. Call my mother more, if only so she won't call UCPD on me.
03. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.
04. Did anyone close to you die?
No.
05. What countries did you visit?
Italy with Eric, Spain with my parents, Portugal with my dad.
06. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
A boyfriend. This time, I'm actually kind of serious. Or just some established non-platonic relationship and not with someone who has another serious relationship with someone else. Also, self-control.
07. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
May 15th because it was graduation. And also the entire week of Spring Break, but especially that night we fit like 25 people in a room to play King's Cup and then our little group of friends managed to communicate telepathically with each other to get the others to leave.
08. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
To be perfectly honest, reconnecting with Nathan. This summer was a really incredible experience, and it made me wish I hadn't waited until winter break of my senior year at college to call him up. After that, Thanksgiving was pretty much a complete success, from the wine choice to the food to chatting with P., one of the family friends' kids that I always had a soft spot for, and the two of us reminisced about this totally bizarre memory we have of a whole horde of us in my basement, with the lights off, pretending to be lions and tigers and crawling around on all fours. WERE WE ON DRUGS??
09. What was your biggest failure?
I should have approached law school with more willpower and dedication. :/
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Thankfully no! I did cut myself on my razer last week, but that totally doesn't count.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
New winter clothes: snow boots, two Eddie Bauer down coats, sweaters from Zara, so many sweater tights and warm socks.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? AND 13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
To be honest I don't have an answer to either one of these questions. I'm disappointed in the political leadership, but they didn't appall or depress me any more than usual. I'm really glad that my college friends are as awesome as they are, but they were that way last year too.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Food. New clothes. Wine and cosmetics I totally don't need.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part one! Graduation! Beer Bike 2010! Our senior cruise to Mexico! Going abroad! Starting law school! Getting to meet Em and Susan and Kara and Meesh! A summer with Nathan.
16. What songs will always remind you of 2010?
Far East Movement, "Like a G6." Kanye West, the entire My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Miss A, "Bad Girl, Good Girl." Jay-Z feat. Alicia Keys, "Empire State of Mind". Rihanna's "Rude Boy". Cee-Lo's "No One's Gonna Love You." Lady GaGa's "Telephone." Ke$ha's "Tik Tok". Black Eyed Peas, "Boom Boom Pow". Black Keys, "The Lengths". Rap Beat's "When They Cry". Elizabeth and the Catapult, "Rainiest Day of Summer". Gorillaz, "Plastic Beach." Why?, "Blackest Purse." The 1900s, "Tucson." And maybe most importantly, Kanaan, "Waving Flag."
17. Compared to this time last year, are you: happier or sadder? thinner or fatter? richer or poorer?
I'm neither happier nor sadder. I think I'm thinner. And definitely poorer.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
I wish I hung out more with all my Rice friends if I knew how much I would miss them in Chicago. I wish I hung out more with Frat Boy over the summer. I wish that I explored Indianapolis more. I wish Nathan and I had done more crazy shit, like lying in the soccer fields of Prairie Trace and watching the stars. I also wish I said goodbye to Houston more definitively.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Procrastinate, waste time, and bitch&moan. Also, waiting for people to come to me instead of going to them.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
At a family friend's house, catching up with Li Wang, who was someone I knew through junior high onwards, and once I kneed him in the crotch and neither of us remember why. He was a jerk through high school, one of Those Chinese Guys, and that wasn't helped by the fact that I was a mouthy little jerk when I was in high school too, and we didn't talk at all through college, and it was kind of nice just to chill with him on completely neutral grounds. Apparently he's really into music now, went through a country phase where he affected a drawl XD, and he's thinking of getting a PhD. We talked about our love lives (?!) and what kind of weddings/funerals we would like to have and talked movies for a long time. If you told me in high school that I'd be 22 and enjoying a Christmas with Li Wang, I would have vomited.
21. How will you be spending New Years?
IN MASON, OHIO, with summertea and absenceofmind! I'm so excited.
22. Did you fall in love in 2010?
No.
23. How many one-night stands?
It is hilarious that this answer is the same as last year's.
24. What was your favorite TV program?
I didn't keep up or pick up any new TV shows this year. I did however consume "Arakawa Under the Bridge" like there was no tomorrow, and almost wept in frustration whenever "Angel Beats" subs were slow, so maybe I'll just count those.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I'm not one for hating, but there are a few classmates at law school that I'd rather not ever be stuck alone in a room with (YEAH HELLO THAT IS YOU, GENETIC ADVOCATE).
26. What was the best book you read?
Colm Toibin's The Master, which is a beautiful, restrained reimagining of Henry James' life. Douglas Hofstadter's The Love Affair As a Work of Art, which was an examination of love letters from a number of European writers, and the entire book gave me the feeling of wandering into a roundtable discussion full of obscure French writers from the late 18th to 19th century who are all arguing in loud voices about which one of them had the most obnoxious love life while their spouses sit with me in the corner and watch in numb shock and hysterical amusement. It's a good feeling but it's also like getting into a pillow fight with Proust and getting smothered by his enthusiasm. Finally, the play "Copenhagen", which was like being in high school and getting obsessed with fallout and Oppenheimer and Szilard all over again.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Aloe Blacc, Outputmessage, Rap Beat, and the Crystal Castles' second album.
28. What did you want and get?
Mac Pro lipstick in Lasting Lust. Winter clothes!! A new phone after eight years of a Motorola Razr that still thinks Cingular is my service provider.
29. What did you want and not get?
Someone at law school I felt like I could really confide in. IDK why I thought that would happen, but I did. Also I have been looking for a red toggle coat with a hood and a white sweater with a thick cable-knit pattern since freshman year in college. The grace to accept the things that cannot be changed, the courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish one from the other.
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Favorite film released in 2010, "Exit Through the Gift Shop." Favorite film that I watched for the first time in 2010, a three-way tie between "A Pervert's Guide to Cinema", "Becket", and "The Terrorizer". I loved HP 7.1 but honestly it doesn't match up to the sheer joy that watching (and re-watching with my parents) "Exit Through the Gift Shop" gave me.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 22, which is the beginning of the end when it comes to birthdays, isn't it? I actually didn't even remember what I did for my birthday and had to find the Hivefive email from the time in order to recall! And apparently July-11th!Cathy said, "in fact we didn't really celebrate my birthday! But Friday we did go to a Korean bbq place with absolutely amazing kalbee, and yesterday I did go with Nathan to the IMA and look at wood cuts by a contemporary of Hokusai." So apparently the answer is I didn't do anything on that day, but I did celebrate it peripherally.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Going to NOLA for New Year's Eve with my Rice friends.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
I tried to be a little edgier and more back-to-basics rather than in-your-face colors. Also I got back into using eyeshadow and have almost sworn off lip gloss entirely. I've also realized lately that I wear a lot of greys. I seem to only be wearing dark brown or black shoes, except for those cognac-colored leather boots I got last year, which are seeing a lot of action.
34. What kept you sane?
Listening to thirty years back-episodes of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. Gchats with Aja, Yin, and now Jizzy. Knowing that ARTT is there for me.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Like I told Em, I am stanning TOP from Big Bang so hard these days. CL and Minzay round out the kpop trend.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
I was incredibly apolitical this year. It was awful. I am planning on trying harder next year.
37. Who did you miss?
I really, really missed my Rice friends while at Chicago. Once I got a call from them while they were drinking on Thursday night, so I opened a bottle of wine and joined them and we phone-conferenced about our lives. Cat called me while on the road during my finals period. Routine updates with Lisa always make me feel less alone. And when they offered to help pay for my plane fare to NOLA, I almost cried.
38. Who was the best new person you met?
My law school class (Bloomington and Awkward Katherine specifically) and my Elements of the Law professor Rosalind Dixon. ALSO the Inception fandom. ♥
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.
Nothing is as rewarding as being the most "you" that you can be. I know that sounds ridiculous but the best fun I've had throughout this year (the second half of senior year, this summer with both the traveling abroad and Frat Boy, the little time I've been at law school) has always been when I tried to be unabashedly myself, and though someone else in my position in the same experiences may have gotten more out of it, I think I was always happiest when I tried to be myself and not imitate someone else being happy.
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
We'll take ourselves out in the street
And wear the blood in our cheeks
Like red roses
We'll go from car to sleeping car
And whisper in their sleeping ears
We were here, we were here
-- The National, "Geese of Beverly Road"
What are we now but voices
who promise each other a life
neither one can deliver
not for lack of wanting
but wanting won’t make it so
We cling to a vine
at the cliff’s edge.
There are tigers above
and below. Let us love
one another and let go.
-Eliza Griswold
01. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?
Go to law school? (haha, cheap shot.) Meet any of the LG group (Em, Susan, Kara!!). Drink white rioja, mulled wine, white sangria, and cava. Go to Spain and Portugal. Travel abroad with someone who wasn't my family. Make a cucumber gimlet. Walk into a fraternity house. Live in an apartment by myself. Drive to Chicago by myself. Bake a turkey. Read Jonathan Franzen. Walk in graduation robes while soaking wet. Almost get chased off a farmer's land because of a meteor shower. Break into a community pool. Go to a drive-in movie theatre.
02. Did you keep your new years' resolutions? Will you make more for next year?
My resolutions last year were:
I most definitely did not cull my judgmental tendencies, nor did I write another short story before I graduated, nor did I go to another play or read more books. I would like to say there was some degree of appreciation going on, and I've definitely have tried, though not necessarily succeeded, to be more critical of the things I love and to rebuild from that crticism. I watched more movies than last year, I think, but not as many as I would like. And... I did not spend less money, but I think I have eaten more vegetables?
This year:
1. Eat more vegetables.
2. Spend less money.
3. Block out time for law school, treat it like a 9-5 job, not just something I do on the side.
4. Try harder to reach out to others and stop complaining about being lonely.
5. Call my mother more, if only so she won't call UCPD on me.
03. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.
04. Did anyone close to you die?
No.
05. What countries did you visit?
Italy with Eric, Spain with my parents, Portugal with my dad.
06. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
A boyfriend. This time, I'm actually kind of serious. Or just some established non-platonic relationship and not with someone who has another serious relationship with someone else. Also, self-control.
07. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
May 15th because it was graduation. And also the entire week of Spring Break, but especially that night we fit like 25 people in a room to play King's Cup and then our little group of friends managed to communicate telepathically with each other to get the others to leave.
08. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
To be perfectly honest, reconnecting with Nathan. This summer was a really incredible experience, and it made me wish I hadn't waited until winter break of my senior year at college to call him up. After that, Thanksgiving was pretty much a complete success, from the wine choice to the food to chatting with P., one of the family friends' kids that I always had a soft spot for, and the two of us reminisced about this totally bizarre memory we have of a whole horde of us in my basement, with the lights off, pretending to be lions and tigers and crawling around on all fours. WERE WE ON DRUGS??
09. What was your biggest failure?
I should have approached law school with more willpower and dedication. :/
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Thankfully no! I did cut myself on my razer last week, but that totally doesn't count.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
New winter clothes: snow boots, two Eddie Bauer down coats, sweaters from Zara, so many sweater tights and warm socks.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? AND 13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
To be honest I don't have an answer to either one of these questions. I'm disappointed in the political leadership, but they didn't appall or depress me any more than usual. I'm really glad that my college friends are as awesome as they are, but they were that way last year too.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Food. New clothes. Wine and cosmetics I totally don't need.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part one! Graduation! Beer Bike 2010! Our senior cruise to Mexico! Going abroad! Starting law school! Getting to meet Em and Susan and Kara and Meesh! A summer with Nathan.
16. What songs will always remind you of 2010?
Far East Movement, "Like a G6." Kanye West, the entire My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Miss A, "Bad Girl, Good Girl." Jay-Z feat. Alicia Keys, "Empire State of Mind". Rihanna's "Rude Boy". Cee-Lo's "No One's Gonna Love You." Lady GaGa's "Telephone." Ke$ha's "Tik Tok". Black Eyed Peas, "Boom Boom Pow". Black Keys, "The Lengths". Rap Beat's "When They Cry". Elizabeth and the Catapult, "Rainiest Day of Summer". Gorillaz, "Plastic Beach." Why?, "Blackest Purse." The 1900s, "Tucson." And maybe most importantly, Kanaan, "Waving Flag."
17. Compared to this time last year, are you: happier or sadder? thinner or fatter? richer or poorer?
I'm neither happier nor sadder. I think I'm thinner. And definitely poorer.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
I wish I hung out more with all my Rice friends if I knew how much I would miss them in Chicago. I wish I hung out more with Frat Boy over the summer. I wish that I explored Indianapolis more. I wish Nathan and I had done more crazy shit, like lying in the soccer fields of Prairie Trace and watching the stars. I also wish I said goodbye to Houston more definitively.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Procrastinate, waste time, and bitch&moan. Also, waiting for people to come to me instead of going to them.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
At a family friend's house, catching up with Li Wang, who was someone I knew through junior high onwards, and once I kneed him in the crotch and neither of us remember why. He was a jerk through high school, one of Those Chinese Guys, and that wasn't helped by the fact that I was a mouthy little jerk when I was in high school too, and we didn't talk at all through college, and it was kind of nice just to chill with him on completely neutral grounds. Apparently he's really into music now, went through a country phase where he affected a drawl XD, and he's thinking of getting a PhD. We talked about our love lives (?!) and what kind of weddings/funerals we would like to have and talked movies for a long time. If you told me in high school that I'd be 22 and enjoying a Christmas with Li Wang, I would have vomited.
21. How will you be spending New Years?
IN MASON, OHIO, with summertea and absenceofmind! I'm so excited.
22. Did you fall in love in 2010?
No.
23. How many one-night stands?
It is hilarious that this answer is the same as last year's.
24. What was your favorite TV program?
I didn't keep up or pick up any new TV shows this year. I did however consume "Arakawa Under the Bridge" like there was no tomorrow, and almost wept in frustration whenever "Angel Beats" subs were slow, so maybe I'll just count those.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I'm not one for hating, but there are a few classmates at law school that I'd rather not ever be stuck alone in a room with (YEAH HELLO THAT IS YOU, GENETIC ADVOCATE).
26. What was the best book you read?
Colm Toibin's The Master, which is a beautiful, restrained reimagining of Henry James' life. Douglas Hofstadter's The Love Affair As a Work of Art, which was an examination of love letters from a number of European writers, and the entire book gave me the feeling of wandering into a roundtable discussion full of obscure French writers from the late 18th to 19th century who are all arguing in loud voices about which one of them had the most obnoxious love life while their spouses sit with me in the corner and watch in numb shock and hysterical amusement. It's a good feeling but it's also like getting into a pillow fight with Proust and getting smothered by his enthusiasm. Finally, the play "Copenhagen", which was like being in high school and getting obsessed with fallout and Oppenheimer and Szilard all over again.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Aloe Blacc, Outputmessage, Rap Beat, and the Crystal Castles' second album.
28. What did you want and get?
Mac Pro lipstick in Lasting Lust. Winter clothes!! A new phone after eight years of a Motorola Razr that still thinks Cingular is my service provider.
29. What did you want and not get?
Someone at law school I felt like I could really confide in. IDK why I thought that would happen, but I did. Also I have been looking for a red toggle coat with a hood and a white sweater with a thick cable-knit pattern since freshman year in college. The grace to accept the things that cannot be changed, the courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish one from the other.
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Favorite film released in 2010, "Exit Through the Gift Shop." Favorite film that I watched for the first time in 2010, a three-way tie between "A Pervert's Guide to Cinema", "Becket", and "The Terrorizer". I loved HP 7.1 but honestly it doesn't match up to the sheer joy that watching (and re-watching with my parents) "Exit Through the Gift Shop" gave me.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 22, which is the beginning of the end when it comes to birthdays, isn't it? I actually didn't even remember what I did for my birthday and had to find the Hivefive email from the time in order to recall! And apparently July-11th!Cathy said, "in fact we didn't really celebrate my birthday! But Friday we did go to a Korean bbq place with absolutely amazing kalbee, and yesterday I did go with Nathan to the IMA and look at wood cuts by a contemporary of Hokusai." So apparently the answer is I didn't do anything on that day, but I did celebrate it peripherally.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Going to NOLA for New Year's Eve with my Rice friends.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
I tried to be a little edgier and more back-to-basics rather than in-your-face colors. Also I got back into using eyeshadow and have almost sworn off lip gloss entirely. I've also realized lately that I wear a lot of greys. I seem to only be wearing dark brown or black shoes, except for those cognac-colored leather boots I got last year, which are seeing a lot of action.
34. What kept you sane?
Listening to thirty years back-episodes of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. Gchats with Aja, Yin, and now Jizzy. Knowing that ARTT is there for me.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Like I told Em, I am stanning TOP from Big Bang so hard these days. CL and Minzay round out the kpop trend.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
I was incredibly apolitical this year. It was awful. I am planning on trying harder next year.
37. Who did you miss?
I really, really missed my Rice friends while at Chicago. Once I got a call from them while they were drinking on Thursday night, so I opened a bottle of wine and joined them and we phone-conferenced about our lives. Cat called me while on the road during my finals period. Routine updates with Lisa always make me feel less alone. And when they offered to help pay for my plane fare to NOLA, I almost cried.
38. Who was the best new person you met?
My law school class (Bloomington and Awkward Katherine specifically) and my Elements of the Law professor Rosalind Dixon. ALSO the Inception fandom. ♥
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.
Nothing is as rewarding as being the most "you" that you can be. I know that sounds ridiculous but the best fun I've had throughout this year (the second half of senior year, this summer with both the traveling abroad and Frat Boy, the little time I've been at law school) has always been when I tried to be unabashedly myself, and though someone else in my position in the same experiences may have gotten more out of it, I think I was always happiest when I tried to be myself and not imitate someone else being happy.
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
We'll take ourselves out in the street
And wear the blood in our cheeks
Like red roses
We'll go from car to sleeping car
And whisper in their sleeping ears
We were here, we were here
-- The National, "Geese of Beverly Road"