a shiny new year

picture from matchbook magazine (launching this january)

in 2011, i will hopefully:

- somehow make my way into the walls of the explorers club headquarters once. my interest was first sparked when someone casually mentioned in an elevator that they were en route to the annual explorers club dinner with a pen pal, who just happened to be an arctic explorer. (i was also pretty excited to find an inexpensive, first-edition copy of osa johnson's memoir to read sometime this year. evidently, i have a renewed interest in explorers.)

- try to leave the country at least once, maybe to beynac or to scandinavia for mid-summer. (and just maybe meet a handsome stranger on a train.) leave the city more often this summer. go sailing at least once (and finally convince someone to go row boating on central park lake with me, however painfully touristy it may be.)

- fill my apartment with bell jars of plants and fresh cuts of flowers.

- bike around brooklyn a little more. and eat more locally (which naturally includes mcclure's bloody mary mix, with a hint of pickle brine).

- visit the cloisters in the snow.

- see more old movies in theaters (like the film forum).

- go to the u.s. open finals. make it to a few more mets games (and chomp on shake shack's shroom burgers for good measures).

- sweet talk a few friends into starting a writing group.

- have more fun. have a little fun every single day. never work til midnight - not even once. laugh more. make more jokes. listen to more music. see more music live. play with more sparklers. play more skeeball. be kind. make other people happy. follow joy into more creative pursuits.

tomboy style

from top: audrey tautou, melanie laurent, françoise hardy

once a tomboy, always a tomboy. and spoken from a life-long jo march (scraped knees, a sailor's mouth, and all), this style blog is perfection.

swann's way

(photo via sunday girl)

"my mother was right; when you've got nothing left all you can do is get into silk underwear and start reading proust." - jane birkin

well-spoken advice! reading proust is one of my many new year's resolutions (they're kind of my "thing"). so, i was delighted to find a modest, musty old hardcover collection from the wonderful housing works bookstore to christen a new bookshelf today. musty old hardcovers are the only way to read classics, in my opinion.

(and undoubtedly since winter weather always piques my trans-siberian railway fantasies, i've also been coveting copies of doctor zhivago and beauty in exile.)

see also: el ateneo, peterman's eye

the perfect pixie

a 60s catherine deneuve 'do channeled into a pixie cut? not an easy feat, but just gorgeous.

the milstein hall of ocean life

sometimes there's just no better place in new york to spend a sunday afternoon after brunch.

gratitudes, lately

(from top: pininterest, kate's paperie, the neo-traditionalist)

last night, i went to astoria for a friend's housewarming party, giddy from the idea of weeks of vacation ahead and maybe ladelefuls of cider and champagne. during nearly every conversation, i was struck by how lucky i am to live in this city and to have met the folks i have. and there's something special about waiting on the astoria boulevard subway platform in particular - all the bridges and skylines and cold air after dark.

see also: living in paper moon, a little challenge

inspiration: wimbledon

(see also: la-di-da la-di-da la la, nerd boyfriend)

just kids

a single line in its times review led me to patti smith's gorgeous memoir, just kids: "they went to coney island, able to afford only one hot dog. (ms. smith got the sauerkraut.)"

i plucked it unsuspectingly from the strand's front table, hardly able to detect its beating heart at the time. the book chronicles patti's life-long (and only briefly romantic) relationship with robert mapplethorpe. the two arrived in new york penniless in the early 1960s (a city i hardly recognize) and met by chance. they shared an egg cream in the east village and then were inseparable as best friends, roommates (for a spell, among the other misfits at the chelsea hotel), and soul mates. everything about patti and robert's chelsea and brooklyn, their transcendent love for one another, their youth, their aspirations to create art was so alive. the book, in turn, is unflinchingly soulful.

the mention of just kids this week, after it received the national book award, still stirs something in me several months later. and just listening to patti read her last letter to robert may very well break your heart a little.

(see also: paths that cross will cross again)

california girls

truth be told, i fell in love with california during a childhood trip along the pacific coast by way of route one. i spent my teenage years dreaming of the day i'd head west. in those years, new york never held the same magic for me that it did for friends of mine here. nevertheless, i couldn't be more grateful to have accidentally settled in new york after college. the transformative power of this city - with all of its hustle, possibility, and freedom -is unreal. and i'm gaga for brooklyn. that said, the transition to a grey concrete winter has me suddenly craving a little winter vacation filled with salty air and cypress tress and taco stands.

all photographs by the cherry blossom girl

(see also: don't worry baby)