Archive for December, 2008

The projected snowfall for today:

And the shoes I chose to wear today:

VELVET 4″ STILETTO.

I’m … adventurous? Riiiight.

Have a wonderful and safe New Years celebration everyone! I’ll see you in the New Year (a year I like to call “The Year of Jenny”).

Masa Restaurant in Boston’s South End is offering $0.50 tapas and $5 pitchers of sangria Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays all night and from 5 pm – 8 pm Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday!

Click to enlarge.

Alternatively titled: Um maybe it’s time to try out a STRAIGHT bar, huh?

My gay boyfriend (GB): OMG. Some cute guy just poked me on Facebook. Who pokes people?

Me: Shut up you whore. Link me.

GB: (sends link)

Me: Um, I know him.

GB: Of course you do. Who is he?

Me: I was supposed to do some work for him a few months back. He’s friends with our other gay friend. And our OTHER gay friend went to a 30th birthday party recently where this guy was a guest. See? (links a photo from the birthday party)

GB: Who’s that tan man next to him.

Me: Oh that’s (name). He works at (place in the South End that my sweet tooth frequents.)

GB: Wow.

Me: This is like the god damn 6 Degrees of SeparGAYtion.

GB: !!!!!

Me: I hate my life. How is it that the straight girl knows more about the ins and outs of the gay circuit in Boston than you, AN ACTUAL GAY MAN, does?

GB: Please go blog this. Go blog this now.

This is honestly the best birthday so far. I can’t even tell you how happy I am and surrounded by people I love. I’m a big pile of cheesy happiness today.

Thanks SO MUCH for all the birthday wishes (I looked at my Facebook wall and got overwhelmed! You guys are the BEST!)

Here’s a picture of me!

Oops (… I did it again). That’s not me.

Wait … HERE’S a picture of me looking very Sarah Jessica meets Sarah Palin (ha! I wish!) (more photos from last nights festivities in my Flickr.)

Tomorrow is my 28th birthday and I think it’s only fair that I get to hijack my own Top 10 list and make it all about me this once. I have a really good feeling about 28. The last few months of 27 have been so amazing, I hope it’s only going to get better. So with that in mind, here are the Top 10 things I would like to do in 2009.

1) Travel. Yes travel. More. Much more. So far I have the plans laid out for a trip to London (May…ish), Chicago (July), LA (undetermined as of right now but maybe March), and probably Portland again (whenever Chris and Kerri feel like donating their futon!).

2) Spend More Time Outside. Hello, I’m Jenny and I’m a workaholic. Which means I’m chained to my desk and hardly ever use my lunch hour to just GO OUTSIDE. My weekend time is so precious I never get to do everything I’d like. And I never use my vacation time to just GO TO THE BEACH (a place I LOVE and wish I went more). No I really don’t use my vacation time. Mine expires on December 31st and I have SEVEN VACATION DAYS LEFT. I have a problem.

3) Get Back to Creating Art for FUN. I used to take thousands of photos, play around on canvas, and design for hours in Illustrator just because. Sometimes I would hang some of my stuff in my studio, other times I would just wipe it and start over because IT WAS FUN. And then somewhere along the line people started buying a piece here, a design there, and more and more and more and it stopped being fun. Well I stopped taking/creating/designing those kind of freelance projects a long time ago and I think it can be fun and for me again. (PS Don’t Google “Xacto Knife” looking for images. All you see is puncture wounds and blood. GROSS.)

4) Take More Risks In My Career. I am a serial worker. I stayed at my first job out of college for over 4 years. I’ve been at my current day job for nearly 3 years. And while it’s not exactly the right time to go out and look for new work, I’m sure there is plenty I can do with my time here that I’ve just never taken the time to propose. (More than once this year work has been taken away from outsourced external design agencies and given to me to do. I think that’s worth SOMETHING. And part of my job I can go AFTER.) Also? Like I just said, I cut out a lot of freelance, but I also started doing a LOT of other kinds of freelance. Freelance work that I LOVE. Freelance work that I didn’t realize I could even get paid for. I need to do that more.

5) Continue to Trim the Fat. A couple times a year I go through purges where I get rid of any extra THINGS I just don’t need: I get rid of old clothes I don’t wear, I clean up my hard drive, I go through collected paperwork. Over the past year or two I started evaluating friendships and relationships in the same way. I often mention my “Btree” friends (aka the Braintrees.) These people are some of my best friends in the entire world and I’ve known most of them for or close to 2 decades. I got lucky with them, but it also put me in the mindset that other friendships and relationships have the longevity and tight, family-like bond that we all have together. This is really just not the case. And it’s not to say I haven’t met and had friendships/relationships with people that haven’t meant something to me – but I only just learned that it’s not best for me to keep some people in my life so closely. Coincidentally, this seemed to have allowed me to see and brought me closer to ‘the good ones’.

6) Date More Wisely. This one goes along with the above. I need to be more aware of not only who I’m dating, but WHY I’m dating them. I’ve been single for a year now, and actively single and dating for several months now. And all I can say is YIKES. I’ve been on some trainwreck dates – like CAPITAL TRAIN, CAPITAL WRECK. And my problem again is that I sometimes try to be too positive about a situation. For example, I told my good friend Sarah about one date in particular and she stopped me and said “You don’t have to be that positive about that date. It sounds AWFUL.” On the flip side, I’ve been a little burned and I’m a little too quick to X someone – but in my defense after doing a little research on some potential dates, Sarah concluded that I am “shopping around the pound and what I need to do is visit the breeder.” Which, god love this girl, she always makes me laugh and knows what’s best for me (and trust me, some of these guys are just NOT it). So Bostonians, I know where to find the most fabulous gay men, the strongest tequila and soda, the best sushi around, and a delicious Sunday brunch – now where the hell are all the single straight guys hiding? HA. Email me. (Kidding! Sort of ….?)

7) Talk To More Strangers. We start our life being lectured to NOT do this, but I have met and become friends with some of the most incredible people by doing this (and that’s only a random sampling!). They make me want to meet more.

8) A New Home. I’m not sure what exactly this means for me. Will it be somewhere outside of Boston? Will it be in my most favorite neighborhood in Boston – the South End? I just know that I need to mix things up. I’ve been needing to for a while, but some good things happened at work and with friends and it was just easier to stick around than risk anything. But now I think it IS time to take those risks – I don’t have a boyfriend,husband, child or pet to consider! Now is the time to do it! WOO.

9) More Random Acts of Kindness. Over the past few months I’ve tried to make a more conscious effort to listen to what’s going on around me and do a nice deed or help someone out who needs it. Obviously I’m not going to tell you what those things are (it’s not really selfless if you go around saying “LISTEN TO WHAT I DID.”), but I want to do more of this. And I want to encourage my friends (both IRL and in Internet land) to do this more. It is the most rewarding new habit ever.

10) I’m stealing this from an article I read on the internet: Use this decade year to go to extremes. “Climb the tallest mountain you can find. Picnic at midnight. Learn to sail. Talk to strangers. Road trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Take a midnight drive to the beach -– then stick around for dawn. Take advantage of what you have: energy, idealism, enthusiasm, a willingness to experiment, a lack of encumbrances, a desire to learn and grow. Enjoy — and you’ll be better able to appreciate the next stage.”

What will YOU do?