LOVE:

Vanity Fair:

I have had this DVD from Netflix on my coffee table since January of last year. I put the pro in procrastination, reader. If there were an Olympic competition for wasting time, I would be suffocated by the weight of all my gold medals. Unfortunately, the only categories are for sporty things, and that’s just not part of my journey. So I suppose the only way I’ll ever get an Olympic medal is if I marry an Olympian and demand one of his medals in the divorce settlement. Or I could live happily ever after with my Olympian husband and then start a reality show dynasty like Kris and Bruce Jenner. Yes I’d quite like that. Call me, Tom Daley. Anyway, last night at midnight — it was a weird weekend — I finally decided that I had arrived at the proper moment to watch Vanity Fair. Like most of the DVDs on my Netflix queue, I have absolutely no idea why I selected it and added it so high on the list. Nothing about it rang any bells. I don’t recall going through a Reese Witherspoon phase. But I should have at some point, I suppose, she’s a remarkable actress. Anyway, the film suited my tastes completely. You know that I never would have wanted to live in England before heating and plumbing and all that wonderful technology, but there’s something intoxicating about the culture. It’s changed so much, but it’s still full of social climbers trying to reach the top. I don’t know if Meghan Markle is a social climber or just a lucky princess-to-be, but she did well. good on her. I hope to do the same with a Middle Eastern crown prince. Anyway, Vanity Fair is about Rebecca Sharp, played flawlessly by Reese Witherspoon as she tries and tries to reach the pinnacle of society. The story never really seems to go anywhere as Regency pictures usually fail to do, it was just a sumptuous series of triumph and tragedy. And it was so utterly beautiful. And the ending charmed me completely. Becky never gave up, even when she was dealing cards in a German casino. She kept her head up and created a life worth living. It’s people like her — even when they’re fictional accounts — that I look up to. Since becoming an adult, the major lesson of my life has been to make life happen to me, not wait for it. Becky and I shared that belief, and through her joys and her failings, I saw a lot of myself of her in me. Good picture, I do recommend it, even if it is a half hour too long. 

Veggie Grill in Chicago:

I burst into tears last night while going through my Instagram stories. I blame exhaustion and stress, reader. I have had a lot of homework for my college classes and it just keeps coming, and I just need a break. I’m cold and dead on the inside. I need a long weekend somewhere warm so that I can recharge and rejuvenate my life. I need some sunshine, a pool, and a palm tree. Palm trees do me a world of good. Anyway, I had a lot of pent up anguish in my heart. So, when I saw an announcement from the Veggie Grill pop up, I literally began sobbing. Reader, one of my favorite restaurants in LA is coming to Chicago in a few days. I have to get there just as soon as I possibly can. Oh my god, should I go over the weekend????? I just might. Oh my god. Do you know about this wonderful place? Let me take you on a brief journey back through my culinary history. When I went to LA for the first time, which feels like a million years ago, I stayed in the most gorgeous apartment in West Hollywood and it was only a short walk to the Grove. I was absolutely spoiled. There, I happened upon a vegetarian restaurant and decided to give it a chance. I ordered a vegetarian country fried chicken with trepidation, but when it arrived at my table, I LOST MY MIND. It was absolutely delicious. I went back almost every day, trying everything on the menu. Their tacos are insane. The lentil soup is lit. The salads are extraordinary. Everything there is absolutely divine. And whenever I’m missing Hollywood, I’m missing the Veggie Grill. I can’t believe one is finally opening up within a day trip’s worth of time from me. I feel so completely and utterly blessed. I will have to go just as soon as I can. God, I wish it was warmer. Spring and vegetarian tacos can’t come soon enough. 

Obama Portraits:

Ever since my beloved pet cat Tiger passed away, I have dreamed of commissioning an oil portrait of myself looking elegant, holding that precious cat in my arms. The background would be sumptuous and out the window would be an unreal amalgamation of Paris and Egypt. This portrait will eventually hang above a mantlepiece in a future home that I long for. It’ll be decadence defined. I love a good oil portrait. Whenever I visit museums, I adore studying the way people chose to have themselves rendered. One of my favorite places in London is the National Portrait Gallery. In the halls hang portraits of all the illustrious members of English civilization. It is such fun to wander through. Anyway, when the portraits of Michelle and Barack Obama were revealed, I gasped with delight. The portrait of Barack is my taste completely — and I have never seen something quite like it in all my life. He sits, looking both thoughtful and coyly amused, on a beautiful chair that is regal but not a throne. He seems to float, surrounded by beautifully rendered flowers. I can’t stop looking at the way he is both grounded and ethereal. I am not sure if that is a symbolic representation of the hope he provided to the people who adored him, or if it’s just a trick of the artist. Either way, it is tremendous. Michelle’s painting is also lovely, and the way she dominates and fades into the canvas is a delightful. But I can’t stop thinking of that flowery painting. I will not return to Washington DC until that monster in the White House is gone, but when I finally get back, I cannot wait to study this painting in person, gasping with the same delight I felt when it was first published online. What a beautiful thing, what a grand time to remember. I miss the Obamas with all my heart and soul.

Spring?

Spring has not sprung. I am not totally oblivious, but the weather has been ever so slightly warmer the past few days, the snow is finally melting away, and I almost feel like life has meaning again. Nothing is so awful as winter. I don’t care how beautiful you think puffy piles of crystalline snow are. I don’t care about your cozy sweaters and your hot tea and your crackling fires. I don’t care about skiing or or parkas or that Scandinavian concept of Hygge that all the hipsters and wine moms have adopted. I don’t want anything to do with it. To me, as I’m sure you know, winter is a hellish misery of frozen doors and chilled fingers and darkness and eternal misery. I long to go outside for a walk. I want to lounge in the vineyard with a book. I want to feel the sun again. I want to breathe the air and not wince with pain. I want so much to not be where I’m at. But the snow is melting like I said, and I have spring fever. I feel like a caged animal and I want to be free. The end is finally in sight. It’s supposed to snow again soon, but it won’t damper my spirits for long. This misery will soon fade into a nightmarish memory and I’ll be in a T-shirt and I’ll be ignoring the garden and I’ll be preparing to slip away for my two month long sojourn to Mexico City. I long for long, hot days. And tequila. And the sun kissing my skin again.

HATE:

Snapchat Redesign:

I barely like Snapchat, but because I am so wonderfully young and hip and new and fresh and all that, I like to stay abreast of all the current social media options. If I could just stay on Instagram alone, I would, but everybody is on the Snap, so if I want to stay up-to-date on the latest about Kourtney Kardashian’s tarantula infestation, I need to log onto the app. And if I am curious about the whereabouts of the Crown Prince of Dubai, Prince Fazza (also known as my future husband), Snapchat does me a world of good. We were in the same town once, reader, but never bumped into each other. Thrilling times. Anyway, I scroll through the updates every morning when I slowly wake up, unable to do anything but glower at the bright screen. It’s been fine. I watched Paris Hilton get engaged basically in real time. But ever since last week, I have abandoned the app, and I really have doubt that I will ever really put much more time into it. The app was redesigned and now it makes literally no sense. All of my friend’s updates are somewhere mysterious, there are stories about people I have never heard of and certainly don’t care about, and I am still rather unsure of how to look at my old posts that I saved. This is particularly irksome since I keep track of all my travels on Snapchat. I keep them as a kind of video journal, so I was so deeply irked when I became confused. I really don’t like to be confused. And so that’s really all I have to say on the matter. I hope Snapchat comes to its senses and releases an update that makes sense and reorganizes the content in a way that is logical. I feel like such an old person complaining about a Facebook update, but this is another level of weird. I hate it.