FLOTUS covered her arms with a cool blue dress. Think Sunday’s NYTimes style section rant had anything to do with it?
Category: Uncategorized
Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Chapel
Weddings are awesome – celebrating someone you care about finding, in some form, The One or at least a perennial holiday date. Especially participating as a guest – no pressure on giving a toast, making sure other people have good times or any of the other duties of a party member. The downside of guestdom is the quest to look good at a wedding. I’m still not sure why this is more pressure than other parties, but maybe it’s the people taking all the pictures or the rare chance to get dressed up. Or maybe it is just the whole happy celebration vibe of the event. You want to look and feel good, because it’s such a great – and huge- day in peoples lives. A good friend was married this Sunday at St Patrick’s Old Cathedral in New York. The church, located in Soho on the corner of Mulberry and Prince, is the site of The City’s first Cathedral Church. Built in 1809, it precedes adaption of the Commissioners Plan for expansion of New York to encompass all of Manhattan. At its apex, it was at the center of Manhattan. Continue reading “Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Chapel”
Conduct Unbecoming an Inner Goddess
I have not read E L James’ Fifty Shades of Grey for lots of reasons. Despite the first person narrative of way too many posts on this blog, I dislike books written in the first person.[1] And based on the excerpts I have read (because I was curious, and some of the smartest women I know have read this book) Anastasia Steele Grey’s inner manic meta-being is just too exhausting (two halves of which are presented by her Inner Goddess and her half moon glasses wearing Subconscious, which unlike the IG, doesn’t get to pant along in post-climatic afterglow) and exhaustingly stupid, as is James incorrect use of “metaphorically,” “figuratively,” and her overall abuse of poor Icarus. You are hang gliding, dumbass, not flying into the sun. IHOP is not Mount Olympus. [2] Continue reading “Conduct Unbecoming an Inner Goddess”
The Art of the Self Date
Most of the time, company can be a good thing, but occasionally it is just as nice to be by oneself. Some signs you might need a self-date are: an incredible need to decompress, have the time to finish just one crossword, ideally with a glass of wine by your hand, or you may just happen to be in a completely new country where you know no one else. Provided, in the latter that it is safe to go out, do so. It is the best way to experience a country and get to know people.
I had narrowed my Istanbul self-date down to two choices. Dukkan, a steakhouse I covered in 2008 and which was started by Defne Koryürek and Emre Mermer, two Istanbulites who are local food advocates. Their premise for a restaurant multiple reviewers have called “Carnivore Heaven” was to instill pride in a national cuisine. Until 2007, the top two cuisines represented in Istanbul were Chinese and Italian, catering to the many businessmen who came through the city. Continue reading “The Art of the Self Date”
Call Me Laura
Stopping at Istanbul seemed like a good transition from Egypt back to the US. It is a country in which more than 90 percent of the population is Muslim, but unlike Egypt which is definitely an African/Asian mashup of Middle Eastern culture, Turkey is mostly Western, for all that it lies in both Asia and Europe.
The median age of the almost 50/50 male/female population is young – only 28. Male literacy is around 95 percent, while female literacy is almost 20 percentage points below that. This fact reflects a lot of my experience in Turkey. In Egypt, I lived a harlem-like experience- my exposure was mostly to women, children and older married men. As a family, we didn’t go out that much at night – the only times I was out after dark involved carrying a 5 year old home.
In Istanbul, you don’t have to wait for the night to see signs of life, and you can sit out on the Bosporus and have a cup of coffee or a beer. But like Egypt, almost all public–facing positions – shopkeepers, waiters, bus drivers to bankers – are filled by males. It is a male dominated society, with over 60 percent of the economy driven by the service and industry sectors. So basically, anything you want to do, you have to interact with a male. And some of them can get quite pushy. Continue reading “Call Me Laura”
azimuths compass 