Reading Rainbow

Since I've had so much time on my hands recently, I've had a lot of time to spend with my books. I generally prefer to read science fiction and mysteries, but I've been trying to mix it up a bit.

Going forward, I may start doing reviews on the books I read, but in the meantime, if anyone is curious about any of the books on the list below, let me know and I can give you a rundown.

Without further ado, here is a list of the books I have read in the last 7 and a half months or so (in no particular order). And if anyone has any recommendations, send them my way!

• A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick (didn't like this at first, but ended up really liking it!)
• Speaker For The Dead by Orson Scott Card (loved, sequel to Ender's Game although it was good enough on it's own)
• 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clark (book club - loved)
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Tijuania Striats by Kem Numm (book club - one of the few books I didn't like, which is unfortunate because I've read some of his other books and really liked them.) 
• The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester (book club - didn't really like it much as I was reading it, but looking back I liked it)
• The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (loved the whole series, 1st two movies are great too!)
• The Girl With Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson 
• The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
• Big Machine by Victor LaValle (book club - this was just weird)
• A Wind at the Door by Madeleine L'Engle 
• A Touch Of Dead by Charlaine Harris (short stories around the Sookie Stackhouse novels) 
• Dead And Gone by Charlaine Harris (I've read all of the Sookie Stackhouse books (what True Blood is based on), as close to chick lit as I get) 
• Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris
• The Shack by William P. Young (this was an accident, from what my mom told me, I thought it was a murder mystery. I didn't realize it was a Christian book until I already bought/started reading it, so I figured I should finish it. That being said, I didn't like it.)
• The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (the movie wasn't bad, but the book was better) 
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy (read the entire book in one sitting, on a flight from NY to CA)
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (reread it for about the 10th time) 
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (book club)
• Xenocide by Orson Scott Card (3rd book in the Ender series, currently reading) 

Blog Fail

Wow, I just realized it's been almost a month since my last blog update.

Life has been busy...we had a house guest and then the weather finally cleared last week (although it's been cloudy again this week), so I spent a lot of time at the beach/surfing...plus 4th of July...and we went to a masquerade ball over last weekend...lots going on. I'll be posting again soon.

The Life Aquatic with Mega Shark

 1 - Arriving at Avalon

2 - Dive Park

3 - That's me in the middle!

4 - kelp

5 - garibaldi

6 - Mega Shark attack!

7 - After dive lunch at Armstrong's

 (underwater photos by S. Dwyer) 

Scuba diving has always been something I wanted to try, so when one of my friends invited me to go over to Catalina to go diving my immediate response was YES! Previously unbeknown to me, there are places that will do introductory dives for people, like myself, who have no previous experience.

So last Friday, four of us boarded a ferry in Newport Beach and headed over to Avalon. Upon arrival, we stopped at the dive shop, filled out some paper work and got sized up for equipment. Since our dive time wasn't until the early afternoon, we sought out some food (coffee and gooey cinnamon rolls, yum!) and hung out for a bit before heading down to the dive park.

Once we got down to the dive park, we met up with our instructors and started to get suited up. Wetsuit, booties, gloves, hood. Putting on all of that was exhausting in itself. Add a weight belt, vest with more weights in the pockets, an air tank, mask and flippers and I could barely move. But before we got completely decked out in our gear, we got some basic instructions...how to breathe through the regulator, equalize your ears, clear your mask and some basic hand signals that we would be using underwater.

Once we were briefed and ready to go, we made our way down the steps and into the water. We half swam, half floated out to an anchor line and then began to make our descent. Woah, this is weird. I can see everything (the visibility was amazing) and I can breathe underwater?! It was a little trippy at first and took me some time to get used to the idea of it all. After a bit I was able to relax and get into it, but unfortunately my ears did not want to cooperate. Everytime I got to a certain depth, my ears would not equalize (ow!) and since I didn't want to push it, I didn't get to go as deep as I would have liked or swim around too much. I did end up going down 20 feet, which is still pretty amazing, and while I pretty much hung out at the anchor line, I still got to see some great fish, like garibaldi, schooling sardines (or were they anchovies?), kelp bass and of course plenty of kelp.

Overall it was an incredible experience and I definitely want to try it again. And well, as for Mega Shark, either you know or you don't know.

E3 2010 or How I Met Bear Grylls

 1 - I <3 Sonic (H&M Dress, Free People Bandeau, YSL Bag)

2 - Crazy Harry Potter Lego things

3 - Love these party flyers, they totally reminded me of ones I made in high school

4 - Bear f'ing Grylls!!! I look silly, but I was just so excited to meet him.

Last week I had the opportunity to go to E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) for the first time ever and I totally jumped on the chance. I'll admit, I'm hardly a gamer. Tetris, Sonic the Hedgehog and the original Mario Brothers are about as fancy as I tend to get. Maybe I'll get crazy and occasionally play some Wii Sports or Wii Fit, but that's about the extend of my gaming. I just get bored too fast to sit and play through anything that will require attention.

That being said, I can still appreciate a good game. I've seen games being played that, although I'll probably never play, have grabbed my attention. Good graphics and an interesting storyline can almost make watching someone play a game as good as watching a movie.

Anyway, back to E3. Everyone there was excited to go to see the latest games and systems. And while my excitement level may not have been as high as other attendees, but I still enjoyed getting a sneak peek at what's coming out, including the new X-Box, Mircosoft Kinect and plenty of new games.

We also had some fun "celebrity" sightings. While checking out the new Def Jam Rap Star game, Russel Simmons rolled through with his body guards. Then we stopped by the G4 stage, where they were broadcasting live, and spotted Olivia Munn and Kevin Pereira. Later, while walking between halls, we spotted Chris Gore and stopped to say hello (he was super nice). We even spotted Shigeru Miyamoto, with his entourage, walking past the Nintendo booth.

Now, while spotting all of these people was fun, there are only a couple "famous" people that I actually care about meeting. One of those people happens to be Bear Grylls from Discovery Channel's Man vs Wild. Well, apparently, a game is coming out based on that show and guess who was making an appearance? Bear Grylls himself. After I had a mild heart attack, we decided to wait in the meet and greet line, which I never, ever do. 30 minutes or so later, we got to shake hands and take pictures with him! Unfortunately, there was no time for conversation because they were on a tight schedule, but it was still pretty amazing.

Overall, it was a fun day and definitely something I'm glad I had a chance to experience.

Summer Love

 Photos from Montauk last summer. 

1- Kamikaze, although it wasn't breaking.

2- Ditch Plains

3 - low tide at Ditch

4 - Sunrise

It's amazing how much my style and mood can change with the weather. 

As soon as it gets warm out, all I want to wear is flimsy sundresses, bikinis, flip-flops, loose button downs with denim shorts. I want to get rid of my Civic and get a jeep or a pick-up that I can throw my surfboard in and spend my days at the beach. Long walks, boat rides. Evening glass-offs, sunsets, bonfires. Salty, sun-kissed skin.

But then the Fall comes, the air gets cooler. I revert back to high heels, fancy dresses, sparkly jewelry. I want to trade my Civic in for a BMW. I crave lavish dinners, drinks with friends, never-ending parties. I want to work hard all week and play harder all weekend.

I'm going to guess that this has something to do with the way I grew up. Summers in Montauk (furthest point East on Long Island/technically part of the Hamptons), playing in tide pools, bleached out hair, always barefoot. Winters up island, spent studying and working, wearing layer upon layer of clothes to stay warm, traveling into NYC on the weekends.

Well, whatever the reason, until I get lucky and find a job, I will most definitely be taking advantage of what the summer has to offer.

Parlez-vous français?

 Photos from Paris by moi.

In 7th grade, when we made the transition from elementary school to junior high, we had to take a language, as I'm sure many kids do (or maybe did, do kids still take a language with all of the educational budget cuts?). Given the options of Italian, Spanish and French, I immediately chose French. Looking back, Spanish may have been more useful, but ever since I was a little girl, there was something so magical about Paris and I wanted to learn the language.

I did pretty well in my classes. Alright, very well I suppose, since my grades enabled me to join the Foreign Language Honor Society. I loved my French classes. We always had so much fun rambling about my cheveux violet (yes, I had purple hair at the time) and poussée du docteur dans le fromage (yeah, we were goofy). And I'm sure it helped that my BFF had class with me starting in 9th grade and she is a genius with languages (as a opera singer, it's not a big surprise). These classes went on for 7 years, until the end of 11th grade. I was given the option of taking an AP French Lit class senior year, but turned it down to focus more on art.

Ever since these classes, and even before, I dreamed about going to Paris, particularly with my BFF. Unfortunately, we haven't gotten there together yet, although we did get to spend a week together in Ischia, Italy (AMAZING!) a couple of summers ago when she was there for a opera workshop.

Well, my French wasn't of much use in Italy, but then two summers ago, I did get the chance to go to Paris. The hubby was going for work, so we extended it and turned it into a late honeymoon. Once I was there, I realized the French I remembered wasn't doing me much good. I could read things, but had trouble conversing with people. Luckily, almost everyone I ran into spoke enough English that we could understand each other. And being a "pretty American girl!" worked to my advantage.

So last week, I came across a "Fast, Fun French" class in a listing of community classes. I decided to sign up. My first class (of 4) is tonight and although I don't expect to be fluent after, it will be nice to brush up. And I'm pretty excited to put all of this free time to some good use.

My BFF and I are still planning on going to Paris together soon (I need to get a job first, so I can actually afford it). Once we do go, I'll finally change the wallpaper on my phone. It's currently a picture I took while drinking in the park under the Eiffel Tower one night. And isn't going to change until it's a pictures of the two of us in front of it.

 

She Works Hard For Her Money (& Spends It On Clothes)

One of the more challenging parts of being unemployed has been the lack of shopping. I used to shop all of the time, whenever I got out of work early enough, from the comfort of my couch while wearing my PJs, while out competitive shopping for my job. I love fashion. I love clothes. But that's probably pretty obvious seeing as I was buying clothes, on a very large scale, as a career. But now it's a simple equation: lack of incoming income to my bank account equals lack of incoming dresses and shoes into my closet.

Sure, I've added a couple things to my wardrobe since this chapter in my life has begun. And I've done a lot more window shopping at all of my usual haunts. Bloomingdale's, Anthropologie, H&M, Urban Outfitters. Lucky for me, and my savings, I haven't seen a lot of stuff in the stores lately that has caught my fancy. And for the things I have seen that I like, I already own a variation of from some point in time. A pair of gladiator sandals I picked up at TopShop when I was in Stockholm a few summers ago still can't beat anything I see in stores now. A white lacy dress from H&M I bought years ago still gets me tons of compliments. My beat-up denim jacket that I had to leave with my design team for a few days last year because they wanted to check out the natural wear and destruction on it. The lightweight AE army jacket I bought ages ago with money my grandmother sent me for Christmas is just like styles that are showing up on Who What Wear and Refinery 29.

So now, I've been digging into the back of my closet and finding things I completely forgot about. New goal: put together different combinations and get a completely new look out of items that have been in my wardrobe for years. And it's working! For example, when going out last weekend, instead of using that as an excuse to go shopping, I dug around in my closet. A Forever 21 dress I bought for Halloween 3 years ago that still looks as good as new (maybe because I'd only worn it twice before, yikes!). My favorite Dior high-heeled booties I picked up year and a half ago. The army jacket I mentioned before. A purse I picked up at TopShop in NYC last summer. Random accessories, some of which I've had since high school. An outfit that made me happy and all from things I already owned, and nothing that was even close to being new. No need to go out and spend more money as I would have 6 months ago.

So maybe being unemployed is teaching me something: how to be more responsible with my money. I still love fashion, but the trick is to know when to spend, when to save and what to hold on to. As long as pieces aren't extremely trendy or over-designed, it's usually worth keeping stuff in my opinion, which is partially why I save so much.

And contrary to popular belief, you can still be fashionable and not spend a fortune.

People who come to my apartment are often amazed by how much stuff I have. I have a hard time taking anything to Goodwill. My closet and dressers are overflowing and I've just about exhausted places to store shoes and purses. But the trick is to buy items that you know you're still going to like and that will hold up through the years. And it doesn't have to cost a ton. I get compliments on my clothes often and get asked where they are from.

Me: "Thanks, the dress is Marc Jacobs."
Girl X: "No wonder it looks so good!"

Me on another night with another dress: "Thanks, it's from Forever 21."
Girl Y: "You're kidding, right?! I ever find anything like that there."

Yes, Forever 21. It's not about the price or the brand or the store, I buy plenty of stuff at H&M and Forever 21, the trick is picking items that are well made and don't look cheap, which is entirely possible. And it also helps to mix lower priced trendy items with higher priced classic pieces.

Going forward I'll still always spend good money on shoes, purses, jewelry and classic pieces of clothing, but I'll definitely think more before dropping money on random stuff that I just "like" that will only get worn a couple times like I have in the past. The amount I used to spend on clothes per month sounds embarrassing now. And always remember, it's much smarter to spend $500 on a pair of classic shoes that you'll wear all of the time, than a trendy $60 dress that gets wore twice.