The Worst Game of Tag Ever

You may (I doubt it) have noticed that things have been decidedly quiet the past six (!) weeks around here. It's not because I've run out of things to fix around my apartment, or because I spontaneously won a trip to Australia (I wish). It's more just that I haven't had anything to talk about.

Or, more accurately, that I haven't had anything that I thought I could talk about.

This web site, and this blog, was created so I'd have some outlet to show my abilities for future career opportunities. And as a result, I felt like I could really only write about things that were professional (-ish); things that highlighted my strengths and interests. But the truth is that I've been dealing with one of my biggest weaknesses for the past couple months or so, and it's really tripping me up.

I've been playing tag with depression for more than half of my life at this point. I know the convention is to say that one "fights" depression or "struggles with" it, but I'm not really satisfied with either of those phrases. To fight suggests a level of courage and strength that I'm not worthy of. But to simply struggle makes me feel like a B-list horror movie actress, flailing to escape the grasp of her attacker.

No, depression is more like the most annoying, never-ending game of tag you've ever played. I never defeat depression. It is always with me, whether somewhere off in the distance or tapping me on the shoulder. It never really goes away; I just get better at outrunning and evading it.

I have no expectations that I could accurately convey to the inexperienced masses what this feels like (see Hyperbole and a Half's "Adventures in Depression" and "Depression Part Two" for the best examples I've ever come across). I keep going over it in my brain, and the best I can come up with to describe the experience is this:

Your life consists of you walking along an endless, floating dock. It rocks and moves, but it's fairly wide and a stable enough surface to stick to. When you add depression to the mix, whether because of a chemical imbalance or unfortunate life circumstances, that dock gets more and more narrow. And the water gets rougher. And it becomes more and more easy to fall off the edge.

No matter how good your balance is, it's only a matter of time before a swell knocks you overboard. And you can swim, but it takes everything from you — all of your concentration and energy. Meanwhile, life continues lobbing you with its expectations; there are responsibilities to juggle and people you don't want to let down. Everyone you talk to thinks they have the magical solution — oh, just do these five things, meet with these three complete strangers, relax and don't work so hard, work harder so things will change, go to the gym, go to church, fill out these forms A, D, and G. 

And all you can think is, "Can I stop drowning first?"

The day will come that you make it back to the dock, and that's when you realize that you're expected to pull yourself out, too. 

Anyone who's ever dove off the floating docks on the Charles River — and has as terrible upper body strength as I do — will understand the magnitude of this obstacle I'm talking about. It's really fucking hard to pull yourself back onto that dock, especially with the waves crashing over you, especially after you've been treading water for what feels like forever. So you just cling to the edge for a while, waiting to get back some of what you've lost. Waiting for the chance to pull yourself back up again.

That's kind of what this stage of depression feels like to me. You're not drowning, but you're not really living, either. It stops you from moving forward, and I've definitely felt stuck for the past few months.

For someone who thrives on taking action, accomplishing tasks, dreaming up projects, and just straight-up trying things, it's really jarring to lose any and all of my motivation. I've always had things that I didn't relish doing — hukking my laundry two blocks to the laundromat, cleaning the bathroom, writing networking emails — but they never felt both insurmountable and pointless at the same time. They were simply lines on my to-do list that I would inevitably check off and move past, nothing more. When depression tags me, everything feels impossible. I can barely function as a pleasant 28-year-old adult, much less tackle anything that's more than an absolute necessity.

So there have been no projects. Meals have gone from trying new recipes to heating up frozen trays of whatever in the microwave. I drag myself to the gym not for any sort of enjoyment, but with the hope that it will help me sleep better at night and maybe dissipate some of the frustration I feel about everything right now.

I don't want to end this on a downer note. Let me make one thing very clear: clinging to the edge of the dock is a lot better than just trying to keep your head above the water. And I make no guarantees, but I get the feeling that I will soon be able to haul myself up onto that dock — without an ounce of grace, I'm sure. Expect a lot of flopping.

See you soon.

Things!

Here's what I've been up to this winter:

1. Listening to the Pitch Perfect soundtrack on repeat. Sometimes it's the only thing getting me through the godawful commutes to and from work. Just try listening to this and not feeling happy. (Sequel's coming out in May. Who else is excited?)

2. Rearranging the built-in bookcase. Not much changed, but now everything fits in an orderly manner, which soothes me. Some people do yoga, I organize.

3. Learning how to make cheese and ketchup from scratch. (Really.) (I know.)

4. Eating way too much cheese.

5. Finally getting stuff up on the walls in the dining room. There are two camps of thought when it comes to hanging things. One states that you should carefully measure everything out and tape up paper templates and I think use toothpaste to help mark where the nail should go or something. The other is a more "just start hammering" mindset. (I'm with the latter — is anyone surprised? Our walls are in crappy condition to begin with, so I'm not too worried.)

As Andy put it, the ink blot posters are "a little Rorschach for our shack." I originally bought this pack of cards, then scanned my favorites and ordered prints from Snapfish. There was initially a mistake made with my order, and delivery was delayed by all the snow, but it worked out in the end (and props to Snapfish's customer service for helping me out, too).

6. Taking a Jamaican cooking class. I'm obsessed with the jerk chicken we made.

7. Using the hallway to showcase my postcard collection. The wall was looking a little too bare without the Christmas banner. Clothesline presentation FTW!

8. Treating the gym like a second home. It was one of the few things both open and accessible during all the blizzards, and I've reached the point where I feel weird if I don't go for more than two days in a row. Good for my body, bad for having any free time ever after work.

9. Enjoying having the apartment all to myself...for this week. Not gonna lie, if it wasn't winter and freezing, I'd probably be doing this. (There's been plenty of singing and bad dancing, though.)

10. Counting down the days until I escape to Florida. I'm in desperate need of a legitimate vacation, and this one will combine two of my favorite things: warm weather and Katie! What could be better?

Deep Thoughts (Brought to you by: Red Wine)

This winter has really been wearing on me, so I decided to escape Boston last weekend and went to see Adrienne and Dominik in NYC. While there, we had lunch with one of their friends who has lived in the city for about nine years — and she said she couldn't imagine living anywhere else.

Wait. Nine years? 

She didn't have a husband to stay put for. She didn't have kids (that I knew of). She had a job, but not one that she couldn't theoretically have elsewhere. She just...loved living in New York City.

I was baffled.

It's not that I can't imagine anyone loving New York City. It's more that I have a hard time imagining loving anywhere that much. Loving it enough to want to stay there, just because. It really got me thinking about the idea of home, and what it means to most people. What it means to me.

It's like this: I used to be irrationally afraid of sleeping over at other people's houses. It's not particularly unique because, at around the time this happened (fifth grade or so), I was inexplicably panicked about everything: kids at school making fun of me, people thinking I was weird, people thinking I was fat, the fact that one day I would die, the fact that one day my parents would die — the list went on and on. When the time came that I actually did spend the night at someone else's house, I just wouldn't sleep. Easy as that.

Senior year of high school rolled around. I momentarily grew a backbone and decided to go to college at Syracuse University — the farthest away out of all the schools I'd been accepted to. I felt smug that I hadn't given in to my fears and enrolled at the University of Michigan, which was a mere 45 minutes away with perfect traffic conditions.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep for the first year.

Though I did not grow to love Syracuse and its city's post-apocalyptic charm, I did finally break the spell that kept me firmly tethered to Michigan and the house that I'd spent half a dozen years living in. From then on, when possible, I spent summers interning in other cities (D.C., Boston), studied abroad (London), and constantly dreamed of going anywhere but here.

I've lived in Ohio, Michigan, New York, D.C., England, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania. But ever since I grew out of my parents' house, I have yet to find a place that really feels like home. And I worry that I will never find such a place — in fact, a small part of why I took a road trip around the U.S. four years ago was to surreptitiously scope out possible future living situations.

This is what I understand about the concept of home:

1. "It's where your heart is." To me, that's dumb, because your heart is in your chest, and your chest is wherever you happen to be (unless you've been involved in a terrible motor vehicle accident or equally awful bear attack). To most people, I think this probably means that the location encompasses or is adjacent to those that you love, romantically and/or emotionally.
2. It's where you feel most comfortable. 
3. It's where you feel at peace, content.
4. Dare I say, it's where you feel happy?

I actually Googled "what is home" and waded through some of the results, but it got a little too nebulous for me to accept. It's well and good to say that home is wherever your husband/lover/life partner is, but what if I don't have one of those? Next.

"Home is where I can take my bra off." If that's the case, then I've got a kingdom's worth of homes to choose from! (Just kidding, mom.)

"Home is where the rags of your life are turned into quilts, lemons become lemonade, and a few extra pounds are simply welcomed as more of you to love.” Good Lord, barf. Note to Self: stop consulting Real Simple for life advice.

Before I moved to Boston, I was back in my parent's house in Michigan, climbing the walls and itching to escape. Boston and D.C. seemed like the two most logical choices for a future home base, since both were fairly large cities and would likely have more job opportunities, and both were home to at least one person I could probably count on for emotional support. Honestly, it was pure luck that I ended up in Boston: Adrienne finished grad school and was looking to move into a place she could afford, and that meant getting a roommate. It was that Sign from the universe that I'm always looking for, and I grabbed on to it.

Two years later, I'm still in Boston and Adrienne has split. And lately (okay, for the past six months, at least), I can't help what wonder: what am I still doing here? I always figured that decent reasons to stay put included a mix of (1) your dream job, (2) good friends, (3) love, and (4) a great city/town/desert island. These days, I've got maybe one of those — and to be perfectly honest, it's hard to out-and-out love Boston right now, with this Winter of Discontent so firmly blanketing the city and no signs of it letting go. 

But it's not just the winter that's getting to me. It's that ever-present itch, that feeling that I'm missing out on something better just because I'm in the wrong place. I always assumed that I wouldn't feel that way anymore when I finally found the right place to be, but what if that never happens? What if I was just born with a heart filled with Wanderlust instead of the more easily remedied Regular Lust?

What if Boston is Home, but I just haven't found the Right People to make it so? How long do I wait around for that to happen? What if I find the Right Job, but it's in the Wrong City? What if every place I've lived was the Right One, but I left before it had a chance to be? (Scratch that last one, Pennsylvania was not, and never will be, the Right One.)

WHAT IF I'M JUST A TERRIBLE PERSON WHO IS NEVER SATISFIED WITH ANYTHING IN LIFE?

These are the things that I worry about, now that my nights aren't consumed with thoughts of boys making fun of me or my parent's funerals.

My Reading List

Let's talk about inspiration. Let's talk about resources. Let's talk about what I waste approximately 20% of my day doing: reading design blogs.

My friend John just moved into a new apartment with his girlfriend and he's understandably pumped, but I think he also realizes that it's now time to up his interior game. He wants to make this new place look really great but, being a normal person who's been historically more interested in movies and sports than paint color trends and gallery walls, he doesn't really know where to start. In fact, his main source of interior design information seems to be me, which is terrifying.

So, this list is for him, and for anyone else interested in fixing up their place, getting free ideas, or just looking for something new to read.

Amazing Interior Design Blogs You'll Want to Read Almost Every Day
 

Apartment Therapy: The absolute mother lode of information about everything involving renting, renovating, decorating, and just plain living in an apartment (or house!). If you have something specific you're looking for info about, there's a good chance there's a post on AT about it. A personal warning from me: do your best not to get sucked into reading the comments section; AT offers a wealth of knowledge, but its vocal readers offer a wealth of cattiness that just messes with all the fun design vibes.

A Beautiful Mess: This site will not be for everyone, but if you love Zooey Deschanel, ultra-bright pops of color, and dorky wordplay, you might be a Beautiful Mess reader. Decorating tips and projects are mixed in with recipes, crafts projects, and fashion posts, so beware that there will be some wading involved if you're focused solely on the former. They've recently started mixing in some more ambitious projects (i.e. they involve trips to Home Depot and use power tools), but there are still plenty of easy fixes and craft ideas for the less handy, as well.

Manhattan Nest: I've expounded on the virtues of Daniel and his blog in the past, and even now that it's become more renovation- and construction-focused, I still enjoy it. Sometimes you read things for the practical information and sometimes you read things for sheer pleasure. If you're looking for more approachable ideas (not all of us own two historic houses in varying states of disrepair), venture back to the early days of the blog when he was just a lowly college apartment dweller. There's a good mix of instruction and inspiration.

Design*Sponge: If you've never heard of Design*Sponge, this is obviously your first foray into the world of design. Although this site isn't limited to interior design, it does comprise a bulk of the posts and there are hundreds of house tours and sneak peeks to check out if you're into that kind of porn. There are also some great project how-tos, basic skill instructions, and design history information.

Yellow Brick Home: Confession: I went back and read this blog from the very beginning (because that's what I do) when I first saw it being mentioned, and I was not impressed. I wasn't into their style and the writing was still a little awkward and too-PC (again with the weird lack of swearing in the interior design sphere of the Web). BUT. I followed the progression of the blog, and with it, their style, and this is now a favorite that I look forward to. Think of this not as a source of project instructions but as a source of inspiration to get off your butt and go thrifting, paint something, or finally get those frames up on the wall.

Vintage Revivals: Typos and scary enthusiasm aside, this blog is one that most frequently makes me think "Man, I want to try that." (The Himmeli wreath in our living room has this blog to thank.) Eye candy is nice and all, but it's also fun to see project ideas that are so innovative, you actually do them.

Go Haus Go: "Refreshingly approachable," is the phrase I keep coming back to. Not 100% vintage or 100% IKEA or 100%...anything, really. A normal person who lives in — gasp! — not New York or California and is just trying to make her house look awesome. I dig.

Brooklyn to West: Nowadays, the writer is selling handmade projects from her wood shop, but for something really, insanely impressive, check out all the posts from when she was helping design and build a restaurant in California — using primarily salvaged materials. (Click "Il Vecchio" on the side menu.)

Emily Henderson: Former HGTV show host, current professional stylist. Not a particularly practical source of information since she has rich clients to pay for everything, but man, there's something pretty stuff to look at.

I could go on, but I'll stop myself there. Any suggestions I didn't list? I'm always looking for more to add to my feedly! (Seriously. I am.)

A Few Things.

Happy New Year and all that jazz!

1. I'm still alive. 
    
2. I meant to get out an Operation: Christmas Cheer, Step 3 post before Christmas. Obviously, I failed at that, so let me sum up what it would have consisted of: bake delicious stuff (these turned out surprisingly well for Christmas morning) and watch Christmas movies/shows (Elf, A Muppet Christmas Carol, SNL Christmas Special: check)
    
3. Aside from Christmas-related crafting, I lost a lot of my creative drive in December, and am currently fighting against my annual January-induced, month-long malaise. But I have some ideas that might be worth changing out of my pajamas and leaving the house for. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, one of my best friends has finally moved back to the States after way too many years away, and in the process of getting ready to move her stuff out of storage, she unearthed this gem:

Hi, my name is Lisa, and I'm a DIY gifter.

It's not an addiction I'm particularly proud of, and I fully blame Pinterest and HGTV for feeding what was originally an innocent "Hey! I like to make things!" mindset.

I made this for Katie when I was living in Pennsylvania, working at a job I hated in a town I hated more. I had no friends, I lived alone, and I had way, waaaaaay too much free time. Katie's a marine biologist, so it's not a completely random choice of subject matter, but it wasn't until I'd finished it and proudly shared my accomplishment with Adrienne that it was pointed out to me how it bears a certain likeness to a certain part of the male anatomy. 

Yup. High on all that focused crafting excitement, I'd inadvertently made my best friend a three-foot-tall painting of a jellypenis.

This, of course, didn't stop me from giving it to her, because I have no shame. (That same year, I made Adrienne a giant wreath out of dictionary pages for her Christmas present, and had to then construct a house-shaped frankenstein box in order to ship it to her. I've been informed that it almost immediately fell to pieces upon arrival. Those were dark days.)

Nowadays, I try to rein in the urge to automatically (blindly) make someone their gift and, at the very least, pair a small-scale project (ornaments, for example) with something legit that they might actually want. I haven't managed to go cold turkey yet, but I have hope that one day I will be perfectly happy just purchasing nice things for my friends. Nice things that don't look like floating orange penises.

Unless, you know, that's what they asked for.

Trend with Home Blogs: Sponsored Content

From the time I started college to present day (nine years, criminy), reading home and design blogs has somehow become one of my top five leisure activities. I remember the days before Google Reader (RIP) and organized RSS feeds, when I'd simply check out the day's posts on Apartment Therapy and then move on to something else. In sharp contrast, today I subscribe to nearly 20 different design blogs (all, at least somewhat, focus on interior design) and am always on the lookout for another gem to add to the list. These are my sources of inspiration, information, and yes, entertainment. 

One of my absolute favorite blogs is Manhattan Nest, a site that has grown from being centered around a college student's Manhattan apartment to a chronicle of that same person's renovation and revitalization of an old home in Kingston, NY, where he lives with his fiancé. What I love most about Daniel's blog can be boiled down to a few key things:

1. His writing style: it's casual, it's peppered with slang and asides, and he's not afraid to swear — something I've found to be strangely unusual in the world of home décor blogging.

2. His jump-right-in attitude: at the beginning, he wasn't some DIY handyman or master decorator, he was simply passionate about living in a space that he loved, even on a college student's salary and beginner's abilities. He writes honestly about taking shortcuts (both acceptable and those not to be emulated), making mistakes, and learning as he goes. 

3. How the blog remains personal and relatable, despite being "a design blog." (I will say, though, that I kind of miss the old apartment days — but mostly just because I don't have my own old house to fix up and make permanent changes to.)

It's this last part that really gets me, because what I've noticed more and more over the past year is how common sponsored content is becoming even among relatively small blogs (I'm talking your non-Emily Hendersons, your bloggers without book deals, etc.). 

Here's the thing: I get the desire to make a living while doing something you love, and I know how hard it is to translate writing for pleasure into a reliable income (failed journalism student, here). But there's something about blatant sponsorship that, when handled poorly, is a major turn-off.  It changes the experience completely. Manhattan Nest just posted about a plan to do more sponsored content in the future in order to pay for the purchase and renovation of another project house, and I completely see how it's a wise business decision on Daniel's part. I'm just crossing my fingers that he handles it well, as he has with the few sponsored posts he's done in the past.

So the question becomes: how to make an income doing this thing you love (blogging) without sacrificing what made it special in the first place? I don't have a real answer, but I have noticed a few things about sponsored posts that don't leave a bad taste in my mouth.

• Transparency. Most blogs I follow have this down pat, but it's super important to be clear about when a post has been sponsored or supported in any way by an outside company. It may not seem like a big deal, but it strengthens the level of trust between blogger and reader. After all, who's going to read what you've got to say if they don't trust what you have to say?
   

• Succinct. Tell me about the product or service if it relates to the content of the post, but only tell me what I need to know. What information would you include if you weren't being reimbursed? What things would you mention if you were simply telling a friend about your latest project or something great you want to recommend? Keep it short, keep it simple.
   

• Honesty. While it's certainly possible that bloggers only agree to freebies or special opportunities from brands that they love and respect, there's something to be said for those who try something and have honest criticism to share. One thing that comes to mind is Anna of Door Sixteen, when she wrote about the poor quality of some of Society 6's (old) iPhone case designs. Keep it real.
   

• Genuine. Don't forget what made people start reading your blog in the first place. Stay true to what makes your own "brand" so special. Do not, in any circumstances, get into the habit of creating posts where the disclaimers and product details are lengthier than the actual content of the post itself. Yeesh. 

Even following all of those guidelines, I have to admit that I generally prefer reading blogs that aren't carefully planned out with a posting schedule and editorial calendar, complete with a requisite number of posts that tie in sponsors and products. And that's coming from me, someone who is desperately jealous of all those people who get to call blogging their job (stupid name aside, it's writing, it's creating, it's everything I love).

I'm interested to see how things play out on Manhattan Nest. At the very least, it's the promise of more frequent posting in the future, which is good for me because there are only so many times a day that I can bear to refresh my newsfeed in vain.

Hi.

"I don't know how to start shows. It's just a problem that I have. I never figured out how to come out and just start talking. Because the first thing you say on stage always feels stupid, because there's no real reason for me to talk to you. It just doesn't exist."

-- Louis C.K., Hilarious

So, this is going to be where I write stuff. Non-work stuff. Probably some DIY stuff. Some design-y stuff. Maybe some copywriting stuff.

I'll try not to make it too boring.