It wasn’t as cold as it has been over the last few weeks so I took a walk over to Greenpoint today to mail a few letters and shop for soup ingredients. I am making a potato-cauliflower soup tonight and I needed to pick up the cauliflower and garlic but ended up also getting chives and an extra bag of potatoes.

It was a  good walk. On the way I passed: a house that looks like it could have been home to Norman Bates, some groovy street art and a little delivery truck with a mustache drawn on it’s back.

Groovy street art aside I actually didn’t intend on going to Greenpoint today. I needed to mail a couple letters and it was the nearest post office to me.

Overall a successful visit, I got the vegetables I needed for the soup (it turned out great), got some exercise which with all this cold weather I have been missing and I got to know Greenpoint a little better! Looking forward to exploring my neighboring communities once the weather gets warmer.

I am working on a huge project; curating a new designer showcase for Design Week NYC 2010 (more on this later) and I tell ya, it’s kicking my ass.  I have started channeling my inner Wonder Woman. Around my wrists, VAMBRACES for deflecting bullets (paper cups) and around my waist, the trusty Lasso of Truth (belt to old sweater).  I twirl around my room, chanting ‘Wonder Woman’~ I feel invigorated and ready to kick some ass. Thinking of trying it in costume. Stay tuned.

I have always abhorred those bloggers, who expose themselves so willing on the web. I tend to remain rather ambiguous on this blog, never wanting too expose myself too much to the online world. It can be a fine line between sharing and ‘I can’t believe you wrote that’. But lately my guilty pleasure has been reading the personal rantings on Becoming Jennie a blog written by Jennie Ketcham a.k.a former porn star Penny Flame. Jennie is currently on VH1′s Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew and a Colorado girl like myself. Jennie has been a porn star since the age of 18 and deals with her sex addiction, along with 7 others in a real rehab center in Pasadena. They attend group meetings with each other, participate in one on one counseling sessions (DRAMA! some really heartbreaking confessions) and hang out at the rehab center, all very Big Brother/Surreal Life like. There are occasional hallway confrontations, almost compulsive smoke break pow-wows (everyone whose been to rehab knows if you don’t smoke you miss out on the real dish) and even a physical assault thrown in for ratings.

During the filming of the show, Jennie grows particularly close to one of the other recovering celebrities, producer/director Duncan Roy. In her personal blog, Becoming Jennie, she often refers to her candid recovery talks with Duncan, revealing a little about his recovery too. She writes from a very honest place and discusses in detail everything from her thoughts about recovery to the former sexual abuse that led to her porn star life.What makes it an interesting read, is you detect a sincere honesty in what she writes and a conviction to overcome her struggles.

I normally don’t watch anything on VH1 and have never seen previous Dr. Drew Rehab train-wreck shows but Jennie’s story along with the other 7 celebrities on the show, drew me in. It’s not as catty as other celebrity reality shows…well their is one bitchy girl, former Miss Teen something or other, Kari Ann Peniche. You may remember her from her recent sex tape video with Rebecca Gayheart and McHunky from ‘over like two years ago’-Grey’s Anatomy. But overall, I find the show interesting and the celebrities stories intriguing. You get drawn into their recovery. I have to know what happens when therapy ends! It’s sometimes difficult to watch but you don’t feel too overwhelmed, I think the editors do a pretty good job balancing the horrifying details of past abuse with enlightening and sometimes goofy moments. What can I say, I am addicted to it, pun intended. ;>

Check out Jennie’s blog and tune in to Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew!

The people in my class are very diverse. Everyone is learning the language for a different reason, but we all have one thing in common-we all enjoy learning about Danish culture. Our teacher is from Copenhagen, her name is Camilla (it seems-all girls are named Camilla in Scandinavia) and she is very sweet, but tough! She really forces us to speak Danish since almost of the class is taught in Danish.

Overall, the experience has been very positive and I intend to stick with it. I will keep you posted on my progress!

Have you ever watched that show Survivor Man on the Science channel? This outdoor enthusiast is dropped off in the middle of nowhere all by himself, with very little gear, no food, water, etc… Basically he puts himself each week in a new survival situation and films himself err… surviving. Each show he’s in a different location: could be middle of the African plains, a Georgia swamp or the Canadian Rockies. Wherever he goes you know it’s going to be a remote place known for it’s harsh environment. He brings random things with him on the trip, usually whatever he has in his pockets at the time. One show, I think it was the one he did in the swamp he used a stale Doritos chip to make a fire. Bad Ass.

I don’t know if I can conjure flames from snack chips but I do know I would love to give a try.I want to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere and see if I kick into survival mode. I wonder how far I would go to survive? Would I be able to kill animals to live? Yikes! I don’t know. I think you would really have to feel that your life was in danger to have an authentic adventure. Scary!

This has been a traumatic hair year for me. After 7 years of dying my hair black, I decided it was time to go back to something resembling my normal hair color, brown. I loved my hair. It was about 8 inches past my shoulders. It was just on the verge of getting seriously long, you know? I know your not supposed to love something like your hair but it was one of the traits I have always liked about myself so any change to it was going to take some test of faith (I am agnostic by the way).

While on holiday in Colorado on a whim I went to a local hair salon to have the color lifted from my hair. I spent the next 6 hours with my butt glued to the beautician’s chair. I think I read nearly every hair trend magazine in the shop. I was there so long I started to hallucinate that I worked there calling each of the stylists by their first name.  I left the salon minus 5 inches of hair and a dry, frizzy orange mess. My hair was so dry and brittle I had to have another 4 inches taken off just 4 weeks later. Needless to say it’s been a nightmare getting my hair back to good condition

Browsing the Internet today I came across an article on Yahoo! News that gave me pause for thought. It’s enticing headline, ‘Dating 101:Why am I still single?’ drew me in, I needed to know why I was still single!  Psychology Professor Jean Twenge reveals research that shows, while there are a lot of good people, there are most certainly reasons why they are single. Since I am habitually a singleton (see: Things I Want to DO: Dating), I decided to read on and see if I could glean some wisdom as to my perpetual single hood.

The first reason people aren’t pairing up according to Twenge’s research?

‘The Singular Syndrome’

No longer pitied by society, it’s more acceptable to be a single person. Not hard to believe. People are always telling me how lucky I am to be single with no children. They envy my freedom to do; whatever I want, whenever I want, without the shackles of marriage, family or a mortgage to tie me down.

There is in fact a massive cultural shift at work here. …the number of women who are romantically uninvolved is a result of one major factor: our culture tells us we don’t need relationships.

I definitely think that is true. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard this from my mother, girlfriends, even my therapist! I understand why they say these things. We don’t want women to believe their happiness hinges on the love of a man. However, part of being human is coupling up, sharing life experiences with another person and building a life together. So while, I herald the self esteem boosting efforts of well meaning friends, I do think we do ourselves an injustice by trading self love for true love.

…young American adults view deep emotional involvement with others as weakness and dependence. It’s not just that our culture accepts and accommodates the single lifestyle now — it’s that it actually disparages the individual who isn’t focused solely on her own personal advancement. The ubiquitous teachings from our capitalist culture media, Boomer-generation parents who toiled to teach us the importance of pursuing personal goals, and teachers in an increasingly survival-of-the-very-fittest education system — all these emphasize the individual and her goals, not her need for involvement with others.

Reason #2  Social Networking

Oh boy. Guilty, guilty, guilty. While I have tried to curb my lust for social networking, I am still online a lot. I maintain an active online persona and it has been hard to remove myself from it. Of course I use social networking to promote my blogs but I would be lying if I told you I have not utilized  my online social network for dating purposes. You get more attention than you do offline. It’s an opportunity for someone to get to know me without really knowing me. Narcissistic? Absolutely!

…narcissism in America is higher than it’s ever been before, and by definition of considering themselves more important than the people they associate with, narcissistic people make terrible relationship partners. Twenge blames this spike in narcissism on societal teachings … but also feels that purported social networking devices like MySpace and Facebook are less a method of connecting with others than a means of shameless self-promotion, giving the individual limitless opportunity to think about themselves and advertise why other people should want to know them.

My online profiles put me in my best light. I choose the content, the images, even who I am friends with. I wouldn’t say I am a shameless self promoter but I do use it to my advantage, mostly to elevate my sites’ traffic but to also to foster my own image. In the ad biz they call it ‘branding’. And I like to think that’s what I am doing.

I must be my own ‘brand manager’ in order to successfully develop my company’s business. That means minimizing any negative aspects of either myself or my sites, hence the need for constant editing to social networking accounts.I think it’s a great tool and in terms of dating, a way to meet a lot of new guys in a short amount of time. However, it’s certainly no substitute for one-on-one experiences. And it doesn’t exactly reveal the inner me. People can read about my former rock star status or current design show adventures but they don’t get to know the person my friends and family know.

Man Shopping

One of the benefits of meeting guys online is you can quickly get an idea of the kind of person they are in real life, right? Wrong! We’ve become so used to shopping for the features we want in a man, by analyzing a breakdown of likes and dislikes, that we are most certainly missing out on some really great guys.

The majority of American women nowadays were not raised simply to be wives but to value personal advancement by self-sufficient means, and women are now economically independent, deriving their identity from their work and other societal roles, not just from being a wife. Marriage is no longer a necessity but a choice. So when a woman dates a man and he doesn’t possess all the “features” she requires, she briefly deliberates and continues shopping (“Is passionate about his work, check. Loves to travel, check. Forgot to ask how my meeting went, uh- oh. Completely unacceptable.”)

Because we do not need to be married, we aren’t willing to settle for just anyone. So while are fore-mothers may have had to put up with poor manners or intolerable snoring, we have the freedom to simply dismiss men who do not please us. Am I too picky? I have often thought so. Others portray it as an unwillingness to settle, but I know I have adopted the mentality of most women, in that if I do not find all of the qualities I want in a man, I quickly dismiss them. Is it fair? Maybe not. But when the tables are turned, men often do the same with women. For many men it is usually physical attributes that are a make or break a date for them.  Some say men are much shallower than women, when it comes to meeting new potential partners.

So what does this mean for all of us lone she-wolves out there? Can we find love with such high standards? Are we in need of hours of dating deprogramming? According to Twenge, the answer is a matter of simply unplugging our laptops and giving ourselves a huge dose of humility and reticence.  We need to live in real life not just online. Twenge also suggests too,”… get over ourselves”. In short, become human again. We are not supermodels and rockstars, simply, people. Showing restraint in our social networking sites (tone down the sexy photos, rewriting your bio to reflect a more approachable individual) may help us to find real people just like us.

An excellent article. It certainly has given me pause for reflection. I definitely see room for improvement in my own views towards relationships and being single. What about you? Why are you still single?

I am kind of torn on this one. For the most part, my single life is pretty footloose and fancy free. I go out when I want, flirt with whom I want and well… do whoever I want! But having been single for a couple years, I am beginning to feel the need to have a  steady beau in my life.

The problem? I hate dating! Don’t get me wrong, it can be fun. But I would say 70% of the time dating is just a drag. A majority of the dates I go on are guys I have met on dating sites. And while you can get an idea of someone from an online profile, it hardly sums up the individual. Almost all of the men are nice guys but just not for me.But instead of telling them so right off the bat, I end up dragging it out for maybe two or three dates before I just stop taking their calls. Immature,  I know but I just don’t have the heart to say, “I’m just not that into you”.

The dates don’t always end that way. Sometimes, I meet a guy and we seem to have good chemistry so I go out with him a few more times. But then nothing ever comes of it.  These fellas I refer to as the ‘back burner boys’. These are guys who didn’t find you to be girlfriend material but they think you are a fun and interesting person and want to stay in contact with you. They usually add me as a friend on Facebook and I know if I am bored or need someone to flirt/go out with I know I can call on one of the Back Burner Boys to take me out on the town. I have done this with several guys and while I wouldn’t say we are friends exactly, it’s a mutually beneficial relationship with no strings attached.

A Back Burner Boy is all well and good (albeit juvenile) if you wish to remain a singleton but in the last year I have felt a general desire for a long lasting relationship. So for this installment of TIWTD, I am putting it out there: I want to date more. Not to just go out and meet new people but to meet MR. Right instead of just Mr. Right Now.

I am setting a few rules for myself.

1. I will only go out with guys I think I have chemistry with. Sometimes I  meet up with guys just because I find one aspect of their profile intriguing instead of analyzing if this guy would fit into my life (or vise versa). I need to be more realistic when it comes to dating profiles.

2.If I find out I am not interested in them, I am going to tell them. I have a bad habit of communicating with men waaaay after I realize I am not interested in them. I try telling myself  ‘he’s a friend’ when in reality, we are both wasting each others time in a go nowhere friendship. No more! I have enough friends, what I need is a boyfriend!

So when am I starting this undertaking? Well I travel to Copenhagen next week and since there is no time like the present, I have set up a few dates already. As with all my TIWTD, you’ll have to stay tuned to see what happens!

I L-O-V-E Lady Gaga! I knew she was talented but WOW!  Listen to the acoustic version of  ‘PokerFace’  she did for Japanese television. She really can sing!!

Check out the You Tube video here.

I am so looking forward to riding my bike when I return to Copenhagen in a couple weeks. I have missed it so much! One thing I always wished to have on my handlebars was some sort of cup holder.  I have always had to one hand it which isn’t exactly safe for a intermediate bike rider like myself. And I tried more than a few times to carry a cider in my bicycle basket, on the way to a fest,  only to have it spill out. I don’t condone drinking and biking and recommend it only if you have no other way home. Austrian design studio Paulbaut understands the importance of a tasty beverage when you’re on a ride and designed the  ‘Ring-O-Star’ bicycle coffee cup holder to help preserve my morning coffee. Thanks Paulbaut!

I think I’d go for the double. How many holders do you need?

via designboom