Jelly!

I'm at Jelly today! What is Jelly, you may be asking?

To steal their own description:

Jelly's a casual work event where everyone's invited. It's for anyone who'd like to work alongside other creative people in a welcome environment.

Some Jellies are in people's homes (that's how it started) others are in coffee shops and businesses. You bring your laptop and some work, and Jelly provides wifi, a chair, and smart people to bounce ideas off of and collaborate with.

I brought my Fauxtobooth! Here are some of the fauxtos... (See all of them here.)

Postcards from Hilary: Want One??

A little over a year ago, I did something called "Postcards from Hilary". I started a Flickr group.

Over the last week, I've been sorting through old stuff and came across lots of postcards (like 100??) I've bought, but never sent - some from here, lots from other places in the world.

Want one?

Anyone who wants a postcard can Flickr-mail me your address and I'll send you a postcard! Then you can take a picture of it (or yourself with it) and submit it to the group!

If you don't have a Flickr account, but want a postcard, comment here or email me or something and we'll figure it out. :)

Shakespeare

Working on throwing stuff away. And cleaning. And organizing.

Just found two papers I wrote for an NYU Shakespeare class titled "Capulet Tannenbombed" and "The Caliban Ban".

(shaking head)

I had a major crush on that professor.

Ice Cream I Don't Like. (Wha?!?!?)

I got this pint of ice cream on Sunday to eat while watching the Oscars.

Haagen-Dazs Reserve: Hawaiian Lehua Honey & Sweet Cream.

I dished some out for myself and for Sam. He tried it first.

"It's like eating a stick of butter" he said.

He's right.

I'm throwing the rest out.

Unheard of!

Hilary, Age 16

I found this list of things that made me happy, written at age 16 in 1990.

- A warm summer breeze
- A letter from a friend
- A campfire under the stars
- The first daffodil of Spring
- Completing what's been started
- An unexpected call
- Being alone without feeling lonely
- Encouragement from those you look up to
- The beach at midnight in the rain
- Riding a bicycle down a hill
- Giving a gift to an important someone
- Eating french fries with vinegar
- Diving into clear water
- Memories from long ago
- Knowing what you want to do
- Spotting a guy as he spots you
- Singing in the shower
- Feeling free to be yourself

Yeah. I think all those things still make me happy.

And now I want to go to South Burlington, Vermont for some Al's French Frys. The last time I ate them was with my friend Justin, who I had brunch with yesterday. :)

Cheever

This morning I was walking to Cheever Place to meet a friend. On the way, I came across this book by Cheever.

At NYU I once had an assignment to write a short story in the style of Cheever. My professor wrote in her comments that my story was "worthy of Cheever himself". Huh?! Naturally, she immediately became my favorite professor.

On this book is a quote from Joseph Heller. I read Catch-22 in 11th grade, in a class taught by my favorite high school teacher - one who had a lot of influence on me. I've mentioned her before, when I shared my scrapbook. WIthout her, I would not have become an English major. And I never would have written that story.

This week, many of my mentors have shown up in a variety of ways!

Factory

My friend Sam Tr. shared this with me! He found it at xkcd.com. :D

Hilary, Age 5

Can you spot me? Click through to see.

I Do...Now I Don't!

For sale...



Don't worry - I've been meaning to do this for years!

And Lee told me about a funny (useful) site - I Do...Now I Don't. Too funny.

Tryin' to get some new camera equipment. :)

Excerpts from a box of memories.

I took a container out of the closet, intending to sort and organize and discard various items.

But, of course, I was immediately distracted by a couple folders of poetry, stories, and letters from when I was a teenager.

Egads!

Apparently I used to print two copies of my letters to my friend. One was for her and one served as my diary. We lived in different states after 7th grade, so wrote many, many, many letters. Here are some quotes.

"(Boy) is such a jerk! I like him so much! This morning I told him I had to go to the office with my note. He walked with me, but I thought the reason was that he had to go that way. I had forgotten my note in my locker, so I said I had to go back. I expected him to keep on going, but he turned around and went back with me. Then we ate breakfast together in the cafeteria. Scum. I like him so much!"

"Guys are really peculiar, you know? But as my principal said 'Women try so hard to figure out what men are thinking about and usually they aren't thinking anything'."

"Tonight there is a sports award banquet, but I'm not going. Tomorrow night I have a concert and there are music awards. I'll get a letter for drama and one for chamber singers. Then I'll have four letters. What am I supposed to do with them all? Show them off to my kids?"

"(Boy) wrote in my yearbook! He's so funny. He works at Chuck E. Cheese's! He dresses up as the mouse! Isn't that funny?"

"(Boy) and I bought two tapes. The Ramones and The Damned. And some #1 pencils!"

"I think I am closer to being in love than ever before. ONE MINOR DETAIL IS THAT HE HAPPENS TO HAVE A GIRLFRIEND NAMED (Girl). Shoot her."

"(Girl) and (Girl) are good friends so I figured I could handle (Girl) for the evening. It was difficult, but I am a mature, responsible adult and I can handle such inconveniences."

"(Girl)'s mother called last night from Leningrad. It was really confusing. (Girl) had already fallen asleep and she was hard to wake up! Meanwhile, her mother was yelling into the phone trying to figure out why it was taking so long to talk to her daughter! It worked out anyway, right? Yeah. I wonder what time she will wake up? I hope late. That would be very good. Da."

"It seemed so strange to me to have sausage with waffles, but my mom seemed set on it. Whatever."

---------

Here is a set of stories that one of my closest friends sent to me... As written. :)


A SHORT STORY
Once upon a time, in a far off kingdom, well, actually it wasn't a far off kingdom. But it was a place in northern Vermont, so that kind of counts too. Anyway, in this state of Vermont, there lived many people. But the sad part of it was that I know nothing about these people, so that is why I titled this story "A Short Story". THE END

AN EVEN SHORTER STORY
Once upon a time there was a city, and it was big, and a lot of people lived there, and there was this one particular person who lived there and her name was Hilary, and she was cool! THE END

A BEDTIME STORY
Once upon a time, there was a time of day when it was time to go to bed. This was called bedtime. And it was a tradition in some countries to make up stories to be put to sleep. But if the stories were so good, wouldn't the people want to stay awake so that they could hear what the end of the story was? The end!

THE FINAL STORY
Once upon a time there was this girl and she was writing stories to her friend so that her friend would think she was totally crazy. And they were really stupid stories that had nothing to do with anything, but the person who was writing them had nothing else to do so she thought that she would amuse her bestest friend in the whole world! The End

-------

Wine Away!!!

Ever have one of those friends who is a disaster waiting to happen?
Who knocks stuff over? And spills stuff? Especially if it's, say, red
or purple?

I'm totally one of those friends.

Tonight I went to a wine meetup with my friend Lee. I use my hands
(well, one, at least) when I drink wine.

I also use my hands (both) when I talk. So expressive!

So, natually, in a fit of excitement, I tossed my red wine out of its
glass this evening.

I looked down at my outfit. Clearance jeans, sweater and boots. All
three cost me a grand total of $37. Untouched.

I looked at Lee.

Lucky jeans. Cashmere sweater. White button down, stylishly untucked.

I got it all.

I immediately remembered the last time I spilled wine at a bar. On
myself. The bartender smiled and handed me a bottle of Wine Away. The
stain disappeared.

I now know that Gracious Home carries this product. And that the west
side location is open until 9pm. But the east side location, sadly, is
not.

Wine Away.

Keep it handy around the likes of me.

Sign up for Photojojo's Photo Time Capsule!!

I posted these photo a year ago this week! And I know because of the Photojojo Time Capsule!

Once a week, it will find your most interesting photos from a year ago and send 'em to you - reminding you of all the fun (or not so fun) stuff you were doing at that time.

Sign up! It's so cool!

www.photojojo.com/timecapsule/

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Help! (is what I need)

I am feeling overwhelmed.

I'm sitting in my disorganized, overflowing apartment thinking about all of the following...

- I need work! (photo-related or consulting work using my, you know, MBA)
- I need my driver's license!
- I need help with my websites!
- I need to get rid of stuff!
- I need to sell a diamond ring! (yeah, it's been hanging around for over a decade)
- I need more light!
- I need to organize and clean and re-arrange my apartment! (I need a maid!)
- I need to do my taxes!
- I need new clothes!
- I need a photo editor!
- I need a running partner!
- I need a super-successful photographer mentor!
- I need...help!

:)

If you can help with any of these things and wanna barter for, like, photo services or something (no, not THAT)...let me know!

!!

!

Ginger tea.

I'm addicted. And Yogi tea has little messages on the bags. My latest one said "Your head must bow to your heart".

I also love ginger snaps, ginger beer, ginger bread, ginger ice cream, ginger candy.

And did you know it helps if you get seasick?

Hole-on Ex Pinhole Camera

Emily and I both had these Make & Shoot pinhole camera kits. (Thank you for mine, Adrian!)

But they're a little time-consuming and intimidating.

So we made them together!

Will take pictures soon. :)

Uh oh.

I turned on the tv and caught the end of American Idol. I haven't watched it at all for a couple seasons. But. Um. I think I might get sucked in.

Some of them are...older than usual, right? (I am out of it.)

D'oh!

Saturday Brunch

Today I went to brunch at Matt and Miguel's. Get-togethers at their house are always a blast! And when Kimi comes (which she did), there's always tons of great food and drink!

Even though I was there for several hours with Matt, Miguel, Bill, Dorothy, Kimi, Mark, Emily, and Chris, this is the only photo I took:



Chris had this magic way of turning Georgi into Skyy. Hooray for bloody marys!

After brunch, Emily, Matt and I walked to Baltic Bazaar to look for fabric. Some of the photos along Atlantic Avenue:

Me and Emily:


Head of Storm Trooper:


Me with posters inside store selling storm trooper head:


Inside Baltic Bazaar:

Creative Kettle Giving

Look at what I got... I needed a kettle!

Cool Valentine's Day Stuff

HEY! Don't forget to check out Carded.tv!

Fresh, hilarious video e-cards like you've never seen 'em before!

Send 'em to all your valentines!

Some are sweet ("I wish I'd gone to prom with you")...



and others are not ("Don't screw up Valentine's Day")...


and some are for those who just need some really big hints on how to be romantic...


All are funny!

Plus, it's extra-super-fun cuz you can type in the name of the recipient and your name and it'll say 'em! Out loud! If you have a name that's not in there, you can ask them to add it for later. :) I love that they recorded Hilary with one L and Hillary with two Ls differently!


----

Also, a fun thing for V Day in NYC is Loser's Lounge Tribute to Mamas and the Papas at Joe's Pub. I stage managed the rehearsal yesterday and it's gonna be AWESOME! There's a 7pm and a 9:30pm show.

Movies

I've seen the following movies in the past week...

- There Will Be Blood (thumbs up)

- Once (lovely)

- The Band's Visit (so great, but I wouldn't expect it to be for everyone)

- Persepolis (I liked the graphic novel better, but also liked the film)

- The Eye (ugh)

Winter

It's here.

Midtown Photo Trek

Yesterday I met up with photographer friend Matt and went on a kinda chilly, kinda overcast & drizzly photo excursion in midtown Manhattan.

I always feel great after doing street photography. Instead of talking about it, I'll show you a few of the photos.











And a photo Matt took and I edited of me:

Wine Meetup...and Photography

Tonight I went with Lee to a wine meetup at Plumm on 14th Street.

Do you like wine? You should sign up for the group and come to some of the events! Especially if you're a man. There were A LOT of women there.



I went because next month I'll be showing some of my photos from Malaysia at an event like this one. I was interested in checking out how it currently works and seeing if there are any changes/requests I might want to suggest.

There are! But I won't go into them right now.

It was a great event. $11 to get in. $7 glasses of wine. Complimentary cheese and bread and little meat and spinach pies. And I'm sure I could have met a lot of nice people if I'd been in that state of mind. But Lee and I hadn't seen each other in a while, so we took the opportunity to catch up.

Anyway. Sign up for the group! And come to drink wine and see/buy my photos in March!

Application to Date Hilary

Matt wrote this and sent it to me today. It cracked me up.

Some of the questions are for my father's sake. My friends tend to adore my father.

There may be some revisions.

We'll see.

:)

Diorama Night at Freddy's

On Super Tuesday, Emily got a bunch of us together to go to Freddy's for Diorama Night!

Remember dioramas? Those scenes you created in shoeboxes in the third grade?

This "event" happens monthly at Freddy's.

You gather up some art supplies and boxes and show up. Then, when it's time to begin, a theme is given. People then create dioramas based on the theme. This month's theme was "things under your bed".

Usually each individual creates their own diorama, it turns out. This time, though, everyone seemed to be working in teams. Our team was huge. And we had the biggest diorama. :)

At the end, people vote to choose a winner. Every person gets a vote. Our team was so big that we would have won if we voted for ourselves. So we voted for other people.

Anyway! Here are a few photos... (See all photos from the night here!)

Emily, our fearless leader:


Inside the diorama:


Outside the diorama:


And some details:

Rock On by Dan Kennedy

This book came to my mailbox over a week ago, but I've been so busy that I didn't even open the package until yesterday.



So far? Hilarious.

One section describes what each member of a band must be/do to make it.

For instance, the lead guitarist?

"You should look bored, as well as skilled in Web-site development, including back-end architecture and server-side technology. You should also appear to be courting an iron deficiency in the blood. It should be unclear as to whether the iron deficiency is from long hours developing e-commerce and mobile blogging applications or touring with the band."

Dan Kennedy makes me laugh.

Celebrating Love

On Sunday I celebrated love at an FCW Society brunch hosted by my friend Julie. It was my first time doing anything with this group and I met lots of beautiful, talented, fun women!

We ate, drank wine, shared stories and experiences. And everyone got into the fauxtobooth.

So fantastic!

See all photos here!