Chapter Four: Random Thoughts of the Day

Some items swirling in my mind at the present time:

• Nobody doesn't like the Beatles - if you say you don't you're a liar who must not like any genre of music at all because this band so heavily influenced EVERYONE

• when it is 12 degrees outside, you do not want to do laundry, you want to stay in bed and watch movies. unfortunately, I have to bundle up and haul my 3 weeks worth of laundry to the laundromat ugggggghhhhh

• Someday I will have a bitchin' art collection

• According to O Magazine (yes, the Oprah one) I am an intelligence seeker, unconsidered with people's perceptions and the status quo - Oprah, you pinned me once again you sly dog

• Some of the best movies I have ever seen are animated

• I finished two books this week. Boom roasted!

• Someone please come over and do my laundry for me...I think I might actually freeze to death if I go outside

• I am cycling tomorrow for rare cancer research...If you don't donate to my team I'll hold it against you...forever

• I plan on boycotting V-day this year - much like every other year - because I am edgy

• Someone please remind me to buy my mom's birthday present this weekend. Seriously.

• If someone went through my iTunes, they would think I was 5 different people (alt. rock, world music, indie/folk, french [this is so big it is NOT included in world], and a classical music snob). Truth: I AM 5 people....(I am cackling in my head)

• I missed my subway stop twice this week because I was engrossed in my reading. Zola, I commend you.

• I spend about 25% of my time convincing my friends to move to NYC now. No bites, but I shall persevere.
  

• Please do not ask me about hot/trendy clubs/bars in NYC. I know next to none. I have been to one club since moving here. I do know maybe a handful of cool bars. Ask me about museums and I will talk you into the ground. Dance - same thing.
  

• I am taking a Michael Jackson-themed dance class, and come February a Fosse class as well. Jealous (said in a John Lovtiz voice)

• I do not like outer space

• You could not PAY me to see Avatar. I'll stick with FernGully thanks, I don't need to see weird blue people wars...

Yours,
SW

Chapter Three: Waste Makes Waste

As I look around my apartment, there are certain things missing from it that some would consider de rigeur or necessities. First, I do not own a couch. I live on the 4th floor of a walk-up (aka no elevator, no doorman). I don't own one because I can't even imagine the hassle of getting it up here (EVEN with deliverymen - there are tight corners) and couches are ridiculously expensive. I get by just fine with floor cushions, a bean bag, and some comfy chairs.

Second, I still do not have a working tv. My dad was in town this week on business, and brought me a digital antenna to remedy the situation - however, it just cuts out and in. Annoying, but I don't watch enough tv to be truly bothered. Plus, I hulu, or at least I did.

Which brings my to #3: i don't have the internet in my apartment - well not really. It comes and goes. It's not that I'm cheap and won't pay for it. It's that I feel it is another "necessity" that may not be entirely so. Granted it is wondrous helpful when you need to pay bills online, skype, or just fight off boredom.

I think the 3 above things are not are necessary as we hold them. I can read a book instead of watching tv, I can always go to Starbucks or a cafe for wifi, and I have already mentioned how I my lounging plan works.

I recently read about the "American Apparel Diet" in which people take the pledge not to buy any items of clothing (shoes, accessories and underwear are okay'd) for one year. I think that the idea is great, but I would go even further and say that you can only spend money on real necessities.

These days, I try to only buy things related to my health and wellness. There is, however, my Netflix and my bills, but generally I try to spend my money on food and exercise. So, grocery bills are safe and so are my dance classes. Daily coffees or snacks are no-nos. If I go out to eat, I usually can get two meals out of it - so this goes in the health and wellness area as well.

In NYC, there is ALWAYS something that your brain is begging you to spend your paycheck on - broadway, dance performances, bands, crazy restaurants and bars, super hip clothing stores... I find that these are best enjoyed when someone else is paying for them (like my parents when they are in town) or when they are as a reward or celebratory. That makes them more special and actually worth the $$ you cough up to see them.

Now here is where I get preachy. Consumerism has obviously gripped our society. At times, it seems like one cannot even fight against it. When we do "give in" it should be done responsibly: Buy used books/cds/dvds (or rent them!), do a clothes swap with friends, shop at thrift stores (although thanks to the hipsters, the prices here are now exorbiant), etc. I tried to keep a shopping/spending journal last summer/fall and it was outrageous how it seemed I could not go one day without buying something - be it lunch, coffee, a magazine. It really opened my eyes. Of course, I am not a co-opy lady who grows her own fruit and veggies and composts and knits her own clothing. But since I live in one of the biggest cities in the world, I am trying not to take advantage of the consumer delights that are running rampant. I encourage people to examine their real needs/wants/necessities and then tone them down.

I didn't even mention the planet and global warming and the effects of our consumeristic society on the both - consider yourself lucky!

Yours,
SW

Chapter Two: A: Red Panda Q: What is NOT a panda, Alex?

I love the way the bears - and pandas in particular - walk. It is not so much a walk, as a saunter, a sashay, a wobble. They constantly look as if they are about to fall over or start dancing like Baloo (the Jungle Book people!). However, what I do NOT love is a masquerade, sirs.

A little while ago my friend told me there were pandas at the Prospect Park Zoo. I was in utter shock. My panda radar did not sense their presence. I was wary, but willing to believe. Oh how naive I was! Naturally, I went to the zoo's website for further investigation. It was what I feared most: the zoo had RED pandas, not panda pandas.

Red pandas are not, as the name implies, pandas that are red and white instead of black and white. I have no real idea what they are, I just know what they are NOT. I am sure that there is so distant relation in their Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus or Species - but I will hear none of it.

Red pandas are like shortbread without the butter, a high school dance where NO ONE cries in the girl's bathroom, a happy/normal Poe poem, a pair of heels that are comfortable... It is like Sesame Street's "one of these things is not like the other."

I know that pandas belong to the same family as raccoons, but raccoons scare the crap out of me, so I am going to ignore this fact. When you are young, raccoons seem nice and cute and friendly (thank you for your lies Pocahontas!). In reality, they are scary - especially when they are rummaging through the trash on the Bluff outside of your dorm!

For some reason, pandas have an innate Eeyore quality to them: they're just chill (not the whole suicidal thing).

I know at this point you are asking yourself if I just wrote a whole post on pandas. The truth is yes, yes I did. Don't worry I am planning a hard-hitting investigation on subways and why they always give me bruises soon.

Yours,
SW

Chapter One: Book Obsession

I admit it: I am pretentious. I love flouting my knowledge. I love being right. I love Jeopardy (I almost tried out for the college edition). I love reading classic French literature, and then saying I read classic French literature - I especially like arguing that Zola, NOT Balzac is France's greatest writer. I love sitting in the subway reading my Zola (in French) and feeling self-important. But hey, at least I admit it!

I am a devourer of books. I inherited this from my mother. When I visited home during college, there would be books on my bed that I just had to read. Even now, I am reading three books at one time. Aaaand, two of them are in my bed. Yes, I have progressed to sleeping with my books. It is truly sad.

I don't know how this happened. Wait, yes I do. I have a big bed and was reading late into the night and fell asleep. Sad.

My apartment does not show my book obsession. My room at my parent's house does. I even have them in piles by category (I know, I know, it keeps getting worse). Jogging my memory I have piles for: French books/grammar books, Harry Potter, Impressionism/Post-Impressionism/art, French history, fairytale literature, Jane Austen, and classic lit. I believe that is all.

My tastes are a bit odd. They range from anything to do with Van Gogh, to Austen, to Poe, to Zola, to the history of Paris, to chick lit.

These days, I am trying to only buy used books. I am a mild environmentalist and feel guilty about all the trees. Plus, I love reading other people's margin notes. I love it. Sometimes the notes are entirely insipid, but sometimes they surprise you and you end up reading an entire paragraph/page/chapter differently.

Right now I am reading Au Bonheur des Dames by Zola (I confess, I have read it in English as well), Sunflowers by Sheramy Bundrick, and I just finished the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by I don't remember the authors because it is in the other room and I don't want to get up.

I am sure that my pretentious and assumed literary airs will seep through again. Be forewarned.

Yours,
SW

Prologue

I guess introductions are in order. My real name is Emily, though I feel I am rarely called by this moniker. When one is blessed with porcelain skin, chocolate hair and azure eyes, one is called: Casper, Frosty, Wednesday, Ice Queen, Ghost, etc. Additionally, my last name afforded the nickname Max by several guy friends. More recently there is Panda - black hair/white skin (original!). Mais, I digress...Snow White happened upon me primarily in college. I am not sure exactly of the particulars. I do know that during a trip to Disneyland for Spring Break my Sophomore year I stalked this aforementioned character and upon developing the photo, we looked like sisters.

My parents also bear mentioning for they have bestowed upon me figurines, a cardboard cut-out (for my 21st birthday), a Christmas ornament, and this year for Christmas the special edition DVD set complete with 7 stuffed dwarfs.

I guess it didn't help that my senior thesis was entitled "A Rhetorical Analysis of the Songs in Walt Disney's 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.'" I won't bore you with too many details, but my main finding was that Snow White is a character with a split dichotomy of helplessness and can-do attitude. For months my nose was burried in analyses of this classic fairytale, and, alas, now I can spout knowledge about this tale and the broader genre whenever I feel provoked.

But enough about my assumed alias. The other half of my title is rather easy to venture a guess at: the Big Apple=New York. I also thought that it served as a nice reference to my character as well.

Forthcoming chapters will be filled with god only knows what. I make no promises.

Yours,
SW