A nice, dark shot of me and Lauren at JG Melon’s for dinner. I’ve never been to the place before - or even heard of it - but we braved the packed restaurant because Lauren assured me that they serve one of the best burgers around. The atmosphere is decidedly upscale-frat-house (lots and lots of boisterous banker-types with loosened ties), but hey, she was right about the burger, so I’ll be back.
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So it turns out that not really working out for, oh, two or so years (save for the occasional dance class) leaves one pretty out of shape. Now, I’m not entirely hopeless when it comes to sports - I scuba dive, snowboard, and even hang glide (just not lately) - but the fact is that exercise hasn’t been a part of my daily (or even weekly) routine in a very long time. I walk everywhere, which keeps me semi-fit, but I’d like to get a little healthier.
I practiced yoga pretty religiously during college, and continued for the first year I was in LA, but I haven’t set foot in a yoga studio since then. That is until yesterday, when I attended the Vinyasa class at Pure Yoga. I had a not-so-great day for a variety of reasons, but left the class feeling worlds better. The studio is absolutely stunning, and my instructor, Kay Kay, incorporated a lot of meditation, which was exactly what I was hoping for. I was shocked to discover that I couldn’t even begin to approach some of the positions I used to assume easily, but I’m going to be attending a bunch of yoga classes in the coming weeks, and am hoping to see a real difference in terms of flexibility and strength.
Service generously comped by management.
When I opened my mail and saw Suzanne Guillette’s debut work, Much to Your Chagrin: A Memoir of Embarrassment, I sighed inwardly for just a moment. The cover is pink - like, really pink - and I immediately jumped to a series of conclusions having to do with chick lit and beach reads (not that either is necessarily bad, just that they weren’t exactly what I was in the mood for).
But as it turns out, the cover art is the the only - and I mean only - thing that I don’t like about Guillette’s memoir. Chagrin chronicles Guillette’s twenty-ninth year, during which she suffered through a “spectacular implosion” of romantic misfortune while attempting to compile embarrassing stories for what she originally intended to be her first book - a series of short stories titled Oh, Shit.
It’s to our enormous benefit that this book didn’t end up being what Guillette released (largely due to the fact that her romantic relationship with her literary agent fell apart), because Much to Your Chagrin is a work of heart-stirring honesty and a remarkable achievement. Guillette manages to write about both love and heartbreak while gracefully traversing a minefield of potential cliches, and arrives at the conclusion that life’s uncertainties “can bring one to more authentic places.” I am quite simply in awe of a first-time novelist who is capable of tackling such topics with this level of bravery and skill.
This is a wildly entertaining story that at its essence is about a quarter-life crisis, and yet Chagrin achieves the near-impossible for a work in such an over-examined category: it entertains while simultaneously teaching some very important lessons. Guillette has been there, done that, and come out the other side with some very important things to say, and it’s only when you reach Chagrin’s conclusion that you realize that you’ve been taken by the hand and been shown how to make your way through your twenties with wisdom and grace.
My mood has seen better days, so since it’s quite beautiful out and the leaves won’t stay this gorgeous for too much longer, I decided to take Lucy on a long walk through Central Park (that’s the Met up there behind her). Some leaf-diving transpired, and I discovered that it’s hard to maintain a down mood when there’s a bouncing shih-tzu in your line of sight.
A week or so ago, I mentioned to my mother that I had a small, raised, red spot on my jawline that had been there for a weirdly long time - three months, maybe? It hadn’t really been bothering me, and I figured it was just a cut that was having a hard time healing, but of course my mother made me book an appointment at the dermatologist to have it checked out. I gave some good eye-rolls (who doesn’t love shelling out a co-pay for a prescription for bacitracin?) and called Dr. Avram.
Well, as it turns out, mom was right once again. Dr. Avram took one look at the spot and said he’d like to have it biopsied (that’s a post-biopsy shot, above). Never a fun feeling when your doctor looks concerned. It might be nothing, but it might also be a localized nonmelanoma skin cancer that needs to be frozen off. Worst-case, it could have affected a larger area and will need to be cut out (requiring some plastic surgery as well). I’m pretty iffy on the details of all this, so I’m popping on the internet now to do a little research. I’ll get my results in a week (and of course I’ll report back).
So I’ve had better news. I’m (perhaps naively) not too worried, but this is a nice wake-up call to get yourself checked out if you notice anything amiss - better safe than sorry - and, once again, a reminder that you should always listen to your mother.
