Julia Allison

Yes, I do record literally every sip of alcohol I take in a...

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 10:35:00 -0400

Yes, I *do* record literally every sip of alcohol I take in a “note” on my iPhone.

I started writing it down because I was curious; I had a bad habit of saying I “never” drank when what I really meant was that I “rarely” drank. How much was I ACTUALLY drinking? I figured there was only one way to find out … totally anal-retentive iPhone records. (I also have a list for caffeine consumed.)

So here it is - from 2010 until today, every. single. drop. (and yes, a lot of those drinks coordinated with dates, cough, cough.)

I actually really want to graph it, but haven’t figured out how yet …

ALCOHOL CONSUMED

2010
Jan 14 - 1 glass white wine
Jan 15 - 1 glass rose
Jan 16 - 1 glass rose, 1 shot peach schnapps, 1/3 shot tequilia, 3 glasses of champagne
Jan 17 - 2 sips margarita at lunch, 1 glass red wine at dinner
Jan 23 - 3-4 sips red wine
Jan 19 - two sips champ
Feb 26 - one shot
Feb 28 - one glass red wine
Mar 2 - three sips red wine
Mar 4 - one glass (small) red wine
Mar 5 - one hot chocolate w kahula, glass of red wine
Mar 6 - one hot chocolate w kahula, one glass red wine
Mar 9 - one glass red wine
Mar 13 - 2.5 glasses red wine
Mar 18 - Sake shot, one glass japanese beer
Mar 19 - 1 glass red wine, 1 drink hard liquor
Mar 25 - 1/2 white Russian
Apr 11 - 1/2 red wine, 3 sips of martini
Apr 12 - 1 glass red wine
Apr 18 - 1 glass red wine (Pinot)
Apr 20 - 1 glass white
Apr 25 - 1/2 glass red
June 14 - 3 bellinis, 1 smirnoff ice
June 21 - 1 glass white wine
July 23 - half glass white
July 24 - 2 glasses champagne, one glass white
August 9 - 2 glasses white wine
August 21 - 1 glass white, 1/2 glass red
August 23 - 1 glass white
Aug 24 - 2 glasses white
Aug 29 - 1 margarita
Sept 19 - 1 glass red wine
Oct 1 - 2 glasses white wine
Oct 8 - 1 glass red wine
Oct 10 - 1/3 glass sparkling wine
Oct 28 - 1.5 glasses red wine
Nov 1 - 1 glass red wine
Nov 8 - 1 glass red wine
Nov 10 - 1 glass red wine
Nov 15 - 2 glasses red wine
Dec 3 - 2 glasses white wine, 1 hot chocolate bailey’s
Dec 5 - 1.5 glasses red wine
Dec 11 - 1.5 glasses red wine
Dec 17 - 1 vodka martini
Dec 18 - 1 glass champagne, 1/3 alcoholic fruit punch
Dec 31 - 4 glasses champagne

2011
Jan 5 - 1 glass white wine
Jan 6 - 1 glass white wine
Jan 14 - 1/2 margarita
Jan 16 - 1/2 glass red wine
Feb 18 - 1 glass white wine
Feb 26 - 2 glasses red wine, 1 glass champagne
March 8 - 1 glass champagne
March 9 - 1 glass champagne
March 11 - 4 sips of margarita

What Your Facebook Profile Pic Says About You: If you … ...

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 09:24:00 -0400

What Your Facebook Profile Pic Says About You:

If you …

Post a photo in pink ski gear: I am athletic yet feminine! I probably ~~have~~ contemplate having a perplexingly expensive gym membership and a personal trainer, plus a very small trampoline that a yoga guru told me I needed to “get the toxins out.” I rock-climb ~~for fun~~ to impress boys. I enjoy breathing fresh air, or air that has been freshened by some sort of scent that I bought at Whole Foods for $18. I love driving ~~Hybrids~~ Range Rovers that I tell myself are secretly sustainable because they just last for so long and recycling Perrier bottles I bought while on holiday on an island reachable only by helicopter. I text message my representatives to alert them to environmental disasters and/or royal weddings. I would TIVO “Top Gear” except I don’t get cable, preferring instead to Hulu it or purchase several seasons at once on iTunes, thereby overloading the not-so-robust memory capabilities of my MacBook Air. I only use Apple products, as they go best with my look, which is “ski bunny eco-lite chic.” In reality, I only ski greens, so as not to ruin my makeup. Do these pink googles make me look fat?

** I am not referring to myself.

*** Mostly. ;)

Questions I’m thinking about as my 30th nears … Jeff...

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 03:57:32 -0500

Questions I’m thinking about as my 30th nears …

Jeff Bezos Princeton commencement speech, 2010

Reader Question: Pointers on Long Distance Relationships?

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 01:33:00 -0500

Hello there! So I got this email today from a lovely reader who asked me if I had tips for LDRs, given that I’m really - unexpectedly - happy (or at least not UNhappy) with the distance between Jack and me. Below I wrote a few of my tips, but I wonder - what has worked for those of you who have successfully maintained long distance relationships?

From: [redacted]
Date: February 20, 2011 5:45:25 PM CST
To: julia@nonsociety.com
Subject: long distance help!

hi julia!

first off- you look so radiant and it makes me smile because I can tell you’re SO happy, which is why I’m emailing.

I recently started dating someone long distance- he is so sweet and perfect and gives me everything my ex close distance (cheating) boyfriend didn’t.

but it’s very hard to keep up this long distance lifestyle- and you seem to be doing it wonderfully (and gracefully) so I was hoping you could offer some pointers!

xoxo
[redacted]

It’s funny - I actually stopped my five month (non-exclusive) relationship with Daniel (“Hipster Lawyer”) back in January 2010 because of the “distance issue.” He lived in Chicago, I lived in New York, and I thought it would be much easier to date Justin (“Prom King”), who lived just 10 minutes from me (*actually, I basically moved in with him). I had just tried the whole long distance thing from July - Oct 2009 with Toph (“Code Name TK”), who lived in LA, and after three or four months, I felt the distance really hindered any chance at a normal relationship, so I suppose I was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing.

But things were different by the time I started dating Taylor (“SF Boy”) who, um, lives in SF (duh), in the late summer of 2010 - because I had finally realized that with my travel schedule, EVERYONE is long distance. Even if a guy lived next door to me in Chicago, I’m in another city (or three other cities!) 2-3 weeks of the month. Plus, who knows where I even want to end up, location wise? I could happily move to San Francisco or LA or even stay here in Chicago.

Once I accepted that as a fact, long distance didn’t become such an issue anymore - and oddly, I started realizing there were some unexpected benefits. (Who knew??!)

Keep in mind, I don’t think this is an ideal permanent state for any relationship, but I do believe that there can be unintended positive effects from having your partner in a different city, depending upon:

your personalities (you MUST have a mature and trustworthy partner or this will NOT work)
how creative/flexible/communicative you can be
how motivated you are to make sure the relationship succeeds

Here are a few of my keys to successful LDRs:

A very wise, very beautiful girl friend of mine, in a four-plus year LDR, once told me the secret to her successful relationship: “always know the exact date of when you’ll see each other next - before you get on the plane to leave.” I absolutely agree with her. In my LDRs which didn’t work out, we never knew when we would see each other next (maybe next week, maybe next month?). With Jack, we plan in advance. We’ve never left each other without knowing the next time - or two or three times - we would visit each other, down to the dates. There’s something psychologically soothing about being able to count down the days to your next in-person rendezvous.
Use all of the technological tools God & Steve Jobs have given us. I had a LDR my freshman year of college (with Dan, my HS boyfriend), and it was filled with total and utter angst about phone bills (!!!) - hundreds and hundreds of dollars in long distance charges neither Dan nor I could afford. I doubt we would have struggled as much in the era of Skype and Facetime. SMS has saved many a LDR. I think Jack & I text each other upwards of 50 times a day, from his good morning text to his goodnight text, there is rarely a moment we’re not in touch with one another. We’re also really big into sending each other photos via SMS. Not THOSE kind of photos, c’mon. But cute little pictures of where we are or what we’re doing. And yeah, we flirt a lot, too - or, “flext” (flirt-text?) as I like to call it. In fact, he just flexted me right now. ;)
Enjoy your time away from your partner. I know, I know! Controversial concept I’ve learned from my 347 relationships: time away is just as important as time together. Case in point: I’m sitting here in my sweatpants & fleece, looking incredibly grungy, because … well … no one is here to notice. It’s awesome. One of the most difficult aspects of living close to someone (and this is exacerbated by living WITH them) is complacency. When I lived with Alex for two years, it was - ironically - our closeness that ended up killing the romance. We were BFFs and just adored each other, but I started treating him like a roommate - I never bothered to get dressed up anymore, I would walk around naked or in sweats constantly, we did the same thing every weekend. When you’re long distance, that’s far less liable to happen. Every visit feels special, and while you long for them while you’re away, if you know when you’ll see them next, you can focus on your work, your friends, your family and yourself in the meantime.
Trust. Jack is the single most trustworthy person I know besides my father. He is both honest to a fault and extremely reliable. I don’t think I could do this if I were worried - at all, ever - that he was up to god knows what out there in San Diego (or any city he might be stationed in the future). The few LDRs I’ve had which worked only worked because of this. (Taylor was/is super trustworthy and honest as well … some others in the past, cough cough, not so much.)
Emotional communication. I don’t know what other people need, but I know I need a LOT of loving communication - and from experience, the lack of that can torpedo an otherwise amazing relationship. I need to feel secure and cherished, and especially when my partner isn’t around to hug me and kiss me, I need to feel that love via email or text or phone or skype or … something! Perhaps I’m the only one (doubtful, but I realize not everyone is as emotionally needy as me, LOL), but I know it’s really important for me to feel that connection - and it actually doesn’t matter what the medium is!
Try not to go longer than two or three weeks without seeing your partner - in person. Jack & I agreed that we would make an effort to see each other at least that often, if we possibly could. Because of Fashion Week (and him moving from Pensacola to San Diego) we had to wait four weeks from our last visit until our next one (on Tuesday), but we’ve had several conversations about how that was not ideal, to say the least. ;) Obviously, if we’re still dating when he gets deployed, we won’t have that luxury, but until then, approximately every 2 weeks that’s our goal. I think it’s important to mutually agree on a maximum interval, because if you feel you can go a month without seeing him and he finds it difficult to go longer than a week without seeing you, that’s bound to lead to massive disagreements, and eventually the downfall of your relationship.

That’s just a start (but I need to get to bed). I’m really curious, though - for the readers who have had LDRs - what works, and what doesn’t?

Towards the end of my interview backstage with designer Dennis...

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 23:50:19 -0500

Towards the end of my interview backstage with designer Dennis Basso, I asked him whether he had a Twitter account. Not only did he have one, but he insisted on taking a photo of us with his blackberry and live tweeting it right there and then.

Can’t say that’s ever happened before!!

That goes down in my mental list of “best Fashion Week interview moments ever” - which includes Max Azria kissing me, Betsey Johnson taking off her heels mid-shot, Miss Jay Alexander turning me around, looking me up & down and drawling, “that’s *some* assssssss,” and pretty much anything, ever, with Tim Gunn.

Dear Readers,

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:36:00 -0500

You know, I’ve been trying out the comments system for the past two or three weeks, and while I’m thrilled to hear from some of you who wouldn’t have otherwise piped up, I’m really disappointed (although not entirely surprised) at the bad apples who are about to ruin this for the whole bunch.

One of the reasons I did NOT have comments is that I don’t want to spend my day doing the following:

1) deleting nasty missives that say things like “your boyfriend will never marry you because you’re too old, ugly, fat” (that’s a nicer paraphrase of a variation I’ve gotten several times, probably from the same - shocking! - anonymous reader) or “your cleavage is offensive for X, Y, Z nasty reason” or “you’re a disgusting, vile X, Y, Z expletive” and so on and so on. Not interested. Not even remotely interested.

2) engaging in pointless, time-consuming debates which I try to enter into with an open mind, in which readers have an agenda and NO MATTER WHAT I SAY OR DO, I can do no right in their eyes. I do not think I owe these readers - haters, “trolls” - anything. Not details about how I make my money. Not details about what I do with my time. Not details on how many lawyers I consulted to make sure my internship was legal. Not details about my boyfriend or his family or what I choose to wear for my birthday or what sorts of photographs I take for glossy magazines.

I share moments in my life and things which inspire me with you because it gives me joy.

But let me be CRYSTAL CLEAR for those haters: I. do. not. owe. you. ANYTHING. You are neither my friends nor my family nor my bosses. Just because I choose to share SOME aspects of my life on this website does not - NOT - give you an all-access pass to become the ultimate arbiter - judge and jury - for my life. I don’t know who or what gave you that idea, but you are very, very wrong.

Suffice it to say: I will be canceling the comments if this nonsense continues. And I am no longer going to post ANY negative comments directed at me or aimed at spiraling the discussion into an unhealthy, unproductive place. You are welcome to say you don’t like a dress, but you are NOT welcome to insult me. I’m sorry. That’s not how it works. It’s like coming over to my house and slapping me repeatedly and then peeing on my furniture. The second time you try, I will not let you in the door.

Let me also bring up one other disgusting trend: these same people - under false names - have - for years - YEARS - contacted not only my employers to say disparaging remarks about me (like they thought it was inappropriate that I pose in Michigan Avenue magazine) - or back in the fall, emailed NBC to tell them I was lying about working for them (that was a surprise to NBC, since they were running my segments at the time), or emailed SONY to tell them they hated me. CREEPY, obsessive and disturbing. Even more nauseating, when I was dating my now-friend Taylor in the fall, they looked up his private email address and EMAILED HIM nasty things about me, which of course he forwarded to me with a note saying that he thought anyone who would do that had psychological problems. Frankly, I agree. WHO DOES THAT???

Listen, I get it: you don’t like me. Your point has been made. You can believe everything nasty you read about me, even if it’s not true. That’s your prerogative. BUT KEEP IT TO YOURSELF. Don’t contact my employers. Don’t contact my boyfriends. Don’t contact my friends or my family. AND DO NOT CONTACT ME.

Here’s an even better idea: DON’T READ ABOUT ME. Don’t think about me. Don’t talk about me. WHY BOTHER?? I’m serious. It makes no sense. It’s weird. I don’t sit around thinking or talking s—t about YOU, trying to find ways you’ve screwed up or ways you might potentially screw up in the future!

You are going to believe what you want to believe! It doesn’t matter what I say, trust me. It doesn’t matter what I do. I could join a convent and devote my life to saving the world and it still wouldn’t sway you - why? Because you have MADE UP YOUR MINDS.

But you should realize this: every second you spend thinking about me, obsessing over my life, trying to find things I do wrong, is a second you’re not spending with your own families, or with your friends, on your career or on something which truly gives you joy.

Please think about your real purpose here. Is it to “ruin” my life? You’ve tried very hard. You’ve made me cry many, many times. I don’t trust people the way I did even a few years ago. Are you proud of that? What is it, exactly, you want from me?? You’ve taught me that bullies last long after high school ends. You can continue your crusade and I can continue to find ways to block you from interfering with my life. But I’m not going anywhere. I don’t ever give up - ever. You haven’t noticed that yet?

Please, let’s end this. It’s been years now. It’s time to let go. Let it go.

Bored? Curious? Just want to look at pictures of pretty dresses?...

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 00:32:02 -0500

Bored? Curious? Just want to look at pictures of pretty dresses? Browse over three years of my lifecast archives!

Attention ambitious young things! I’m hiring TWO INTERNS - one for Fashion Week, one to help with my new social media column!

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 18:10:00 -0500

Hello there!

We’re lucky - we’ve had a lot of amazing interns here at NonSociety - Emily, Amanda, Jonathan, Melissa, Kate, Nikki, Kay, Samantha, Matt, to name a few. Some stay for a few weeks, some for a few months, and some have worked with us for almost a year (shout out to Amanda at Emory!!) Plus, some love us so much, they even come back for more!

We’re looking for part time winter & spring interns - energetic, organized, dedicated individuals with a positive attitude who want to work for us for, ideally, three - six months (or more!)

Read about one of our former intern’s experiences here. Although we are aware that we are probably deluding ourselves, we secretly pretend it’s the best internship in the nation ;) You could have this much fun! this much fun! or this much fun! this much fun! or even THIS much fun!

Below (in a few ‘grafs) is what I posted to get our last set of Awesome Interns. All of the criteria is still the same: we need you to be up for anything, very personable, a fantastic writer. We want creative, organized, dedicated individuals!! An interest in TV, new media, technology, fashion, business and writing is preferred, as is a flexible schedule.

******** IMPORTANT - there are TWO internships here, and I don’t want to confuse them with each other. PLEASE SPECIFY which one you’re interested in!!!! ********

#1) FASHION WEEK INTERN - MUST be in Manhattan Feb 8 - Feb 19 and free the majority or the entire time. Must LOVE Fashion and know a lot about it. This can be a two week internship (Jonathan was last Sept).

#2) SOCIAL MEDIA INTERN - can live ANYWHERE in the country, as long as you have access to email ;) - a smartphone is not a necessity but it’s preferred. This internship is expected to last at least 3 months, and requires a more journalistic background, as you’ll be helping with research on tech & social media issues. You’ll also be working with Emily Rose, the social media manager for my new column. You’ll be brainstorming column material, doing pre-interviews, fact-checking, looking up statistics and reading up on the latest social media trends. Perfect for someone who is obsessed with technology and media.

******** MORE INFO - PLEASE READ ALL ********

We really like our interns to stay for 4 months minimum (except the Fashion Week internship - that’s just two weeks), 6-8 months ideally. That may seem long, but please consider:

1) this internship is NOT full time!
2) you don’t have to live in New York City, although if you do, you can get all of the invites to parties & events we don’t use
3) the work is sporadic - you may get three emailed assignments in a day, and none for a week. It really depends on what’s going on.

Most importantly, we have found that interns who stay longer end up getting a lot more out of the internship than those who breeze in and breeze out in two months. It takes a while to build up trust and rapport in any working relationship, and internships are no different. Ask Amanda or Emily or any of our other awesome former interns.

What we’re looking for (And check out one of our old internship ads for a bit of a laugh):

1) Incredibly organized
2) Unbelievably reliable
3) Tech-savvy
4) Smart
5) Energetic
6) Fantastic writing ability

** Huge bonus points if you have graphic design skills, can put together gorgeous press kits, powerpoint presentations, websites, write screenplays, organize events, or write copy. We’ll also be impressed if you have active profiles on all three major dating sites: Match.com, eHarmony and JDate. Impressed and a bit worried.

******** HOW TO APPLY! ********

EMAIL NonSocietyHR@gmail.com

If you’re interested in the position, please send a creative cover letter to NonSocietyHR@gmail.com along with your resume and any social media sites you’d like us to view - everything from your twitter to your FB to your blog (we know you have one). PLEASE SPECIFY WHICH INTERNSHIP YOU ARE APPLYING FOR!

We don’t care whether you’re business oriented or writing oriented or design oriented or PR oriented, just tell us what you’d like to get out of the internship, and we’ll see if it’s a match.

4 Ways to Be a Badass Job Applicant

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 18:02:00 -0500

I’ve probably hired about two dozen interns over the past five years, but only a handful stand out in the “Totally Exceeds Expectations” category. How can you be one of them? (This goes for other jobs to which you might apply, too, not just with me, and not just internships.)

1) Be unbelievably persistent. Under no circumstances should you give up. Interns who get hired are those who email. And email again. And again. And again. Not in the same day, of course. But understand that your future boss (whether that’s me or someone else) probably has hundreds of inputs she is valiantly trying to keep track of … and yours is surely at the bottom of her priority list. But if you’re persistent enough to keep on trying, you WILL catch her attention - and she’ll think, “You know, if [Potential Intern] works that hard at getting me to notice this job application, then she A) really wants this, badly and B) will surely work just as hard on every single task I give her.” The truth is, many things in life are just about banging on the door again and again and again until someone finally lets you in. Or it breaks. You know. Either way.

2) Never, EVER ask “how to do” whatever task you’ve just been assigned. Problem solve. Figure it out! No boss - me or anyone else - wants to delegate something only to have a boomerang email asking for specifics on how to get it done. That sort of defeats the whole “time-saving” purpose of delegating. Any task can be completed if you’re both creative and you try multiple routes to the solution. And frequently your boss doesn’t know exactly how to do it, either. That’s why she hired you! The point is, creative problem solving is just creative problem solving - any smart, capable person can do it - and, in my opinion, it’s the most important characteristic you can have as a job applicant.

3) Focus on how what you want to “get” out of the internship (experience, contacts, free cupcakes) intersects with what the employer can “get” out of you (they need a writer/designer/burgeoning PR rep). Talk about that in your cover letter. A mistake potential interns frequently make is not thinking strategically about how they can fill their needs while filling the needs of their employer simultaneously. I want the intern to get a lot out of the process too! That doesn’t mean that EVERY task “fills their needs.” It just means that the overall arc of their tenure does so. Mutually beneficial symbiosis is the key.

4) Be personable, respectful, eager and reliable.
Internships are loss-leaders. You’re trading your time and your talent to learn, to get experience, to put something on your resume and to take the next step towards your career goals. I was an intern for a year and a half (making copies & setting up chairs for Mediabistro’s lectures), and published articles for next to nothing for two years after that. It takes time. But if you want it badly enough, it will happen.

And this could be your first step.

hello there ... welcome to my "bits of life"cast

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 04:28:00 -0500

So, for those of you who are new here: you may be wondering to yourself, “self, now what, exactly, is a “lifecast”?

Or if “yourself” is a little more, uh, charmingly jaded, you might ask, “Self, why the hell should I give a crap about what this random girl did over her weekend?” And the answer to the latter is … you probably shouldn’t! But if you do for some reason enjoy peeking, I promise not to tell anyone. ;)

I really should just call this my “bits of life”cast, because that’s more accurately what it is, anyway. No, it is not every moment of my life - or even close to every moment of my life (although when it began, I did record more frequently). Yes, it consists disproportionately of special occasions (photos of me in my sweats working aren’t terribly thrilling, much as I love me some Juicy Couture velour track suits). But sometimes it’s links to articles I like or to videos I think you might enjoy, a quote which inspires me, a song I want you to hear, or a beautiful photograph I’d love for you to see. And sometimes I just post about really cute shoes.

My lifecast is almost like an online scrapbook - it’s meant to be fun, light, just a glimpse into my world. Although I sometimes do speak about serious subjects, I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong impression: this site is not, under any circumstances, to be taken too seriously. In fact, writing here started as a business which grew out of a hobby, and that - well, frankly, that ruined a perfectly good hobby. :) So it’s back to being a hobby, and I plan to keep it that way, at least for the foreseeable future. If you enjoy it, thank you so much. If you don’t, many apologies. Luckily for both of us, there are 200,000 blogs out there which you may enjoy more!

A quick and not-at-all-comprehensive guide around this lifecast is probably best summed in a post I did when I quit (for about a month after a bad breakup) last May.

I reprint it, with my own permission (lol), below:

Although I don’t know you and you don’t - let’s face it - really know me, we’ve been through a lot. I started blogging in 2006, and began this lifecast in 2007. I chugged away, dutifully recording these bits of my existence, photographing and captioning and - especially in the first years - reflecting quite a lot, ruminating on life, love, and happiness. Sometimes I shared deeply personal stories with you, other times - lately - not much at all. Sometimes I offered you advice. Sometimes I just posted awesome photos of my pet dog. I did these strange, sometimes hilarious, sometimes awful things called lipdubs. I filmed over 100 episodes of a little show called TMIweekly. I got a tattoo. I fell in love, got heartbroken, fell in lust, got heartbroken, dated and loved, dated and liked, dated, dated, and finally fell in love again. At this point my heart is so battle weary and scarred I can’t even tell if it’s broken or intact, but I’m leaning towards broken. Finally, I talked about my faith - which I came into (relatively) late in the game, but which has changed me inexorably as I navigated my way through the byzantine maze of my late twenties.

I share these bits of my life because I love sharing, and I feel lucky that technology has provided us all with the ability to entertain each other in whatever way we can - be that with smiley candids, inspirational quotes, books we’re reading, music we made - or sometimes just a few adorable dog photos.

At the end of the day, I hope something I posted allows you to laugh, causes you to think, or just makes you smile.

Thank you for visiting.

:)
julia

BIG NEWS: I’M MOVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My landlord...

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:17:00 -0400

BIG NEWS: I’M MOVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My landlord sold the apartment in which I now live, and I have to be out by August 13th, so I spent the past two weeks looking for apartments in Manhattan - but when I put a deposit down on one I really liked, something just didn’t feel right.

So after (almost) six years in New York, I’ve decided it’s time to, uh, mix it up a bit.

I’ve been thinking about moving since October of last year, but inertia (and perhaps a bit of fear) got in my way. Plus, as much as New York drives me crazy, I love this city - it’s the only place I’ve lived as an adult, and yes, it feels like home, more than Chicago, more than DC, more so than any place I’ve ever lived. In fact, from the moment I moved here in November of 2004, it just felt … like me. I am, in so many ways, a New Yorker, with all that entails (good and bad!) and I can’t imagine not feeling that way.

That said, I need a change. I need new challenges, and I need to get out of my comfort zone. (Famous last words! haha) I remember moving to New York - with five giant boxes, two suitcases, one dog, an apartment I shared with two roommates I found on Craigslist, ten grand in the bank and no job prospects. I knew about four people in the entire city - and yes, I was petrified. But what I found is that being thrown into the deep end is the surest way of learning to swim … FAST. I wasn’t going to allow myself to sink.

So I’m throwing myself into the deep end again. I’ll probably be petrified again. That’s sort of par for the course with uprooting your entire life to move miles away from everything you know.

But if I don’t try this now, I don’t know if I ever will. And I know for sure I would regret that. I keep thinking of this little piece of artwork in my grandparents’ house in Glendale, which had a drawing of a tiny boat with a William Shedd quote: “A ship in the harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.”

So I’m leaving the safe harbor of New York for the stormy seas of somewhere else … and I hope you wish me luck. I’ll need it.

Besides, the harbors of New York aren’t going anywhere. ;)

Flashback: My First (& so far, only!) Commencement Address

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 03:19:00 -0400

I ran across this tonight while doing research for a presentation I have to complete for Friday … and since it’s commencement season, I thought you might enjoy it. Wayyyy back in 2008, my then-intern Samantha asked me if I could speak at her high school, and I was honored to do so.

Anyway, I don’t think I ever posted it, or if I did, I don’t remember doing so. Then again, I rarely remember anything except that I really like dessert.

Mmm … dessert.

Commencement Address to Baruch College Campus High School
June 26, 2008
Julia Allison

[Samantha introduces me]

Thanks Samantha - that was sweet.

Of course, Samantha HAS to say sweet things about me. She’s my intern. In three months, when she goes to college and STOPS being my intern - THAT’S when she gets to say mean things about me. Obviously - because she’s a New Yorker! - for profit. She’ll get a top tier lit agent and auction off the rights for a tell-all “novel” called The Devil Thinks She’s Carrie Bradshaw. It will go on to sell three bajillion copies and Anne Hathaway will get to play me in the movie, except this time she won’t have to lose weight for the role.

See, graduates? Sweat-shop like indentured servitude ISN’T a waste of time after all!

And if that’s the only thing you learn today, it’ll be more than I learned from my high school graduation speech, where the speaker - a school board member - talked mostly about death. At least that’s what a classmate told me when I asked him about it on Facebook. I must have slept through it, which is surprising, because when you think “school board member” you generally think “riveting, poignant, hysterical, ridiculously good looking” - really everything you want in a commencement speaker. I can’t imagine what went wrong when they planned that.

So, yes. Commencement addresses. They’re funny, actually. I listened to a lot of them when I was preparing for this - Oprah, Steve Jobs, JK Rowling, Conan O’Brien, Ali G.

They all gave really good advice. Especially Ali G. (“You is the most cleverest students ever! You is the elite!” he told Harvard’s graduating class in 2004. Yes! Exactly! Great … advice … Put that on your resume! Who even needs internships??)

But the funny thing about really good advice - with the exception of Ali G’s - is that … um … how shall I put this? It’s all the same. Mostly they’re cliches that people repeat ad nauseam, but then don’t back up in their everyday lives. Cliches like LIVE IN THE MOMENT, TREAT OTHERS THE WAY YOU’D LIKE TO BE TREATED, TURN THE OTHER CHEEK, STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES, MATH IS HARD, WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS LOVE SWEET LOVE … you know, those sorts of things.

And that’s not really anyone’s fault. It’s hard not to be cliche, only because once you more or less figure out life - inasmuch as anyone can really figure it out - you realize that there are only, like, three Really Big Lessons. The rest is just God being all “creative” and paraphrasing the originals.

You’ll hear - and ignore - these same three lessons in hundreds of permutations before you finally repeat them to your kids, so they can hear and ignore you. It’s the Circle of “I Told You So.”

Lesson #1) Yay for Failure.

Every commencement speaker in the history of the world loves to talk about how awesome failure is, and how they’re pretty much the best at failing, ever. Except Ali G. He mainly talks about the size of men’s feet, but we really don’t need to get into that.

Their point, of course, is that failure teaches us things. As I read in O - the Oprah magazine (where I get all my spiritual guidance) - “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.” To translate for future college students: “When you lose at beer pong, you WILL learn to not to fill the cups with vodka.”

Okay, so maybe that’s not the (only) kind of profound lesson that failure can teach you. The fact is, failure is really fun to reminisce about when you’re far, farrrr away from it. JK Rowling, who everyone knows was practically homeless when she started writing Harry Potter, talked about this to Harvard grads last month. “You will never truly know yourself or the strengths of your relationships until you have been tested by your adversity. Rock bottom became a solid foundation upon which I built my life.” That’s inspiring!

But not a great consolation when you have to call up your parents and explain, like I did when I was a junior, why you got an “F” in your Intro to Film class. (Who knew you needed to actually WATCH the assigned movies?) I’m a very creative thinker, so I told my parents that the registrar automatically fills students’ transcripts with Fs until the professors send in their REAL grades, and mine was, uh … late … with my “B.”

My dad’s still waiting for the updated transcript.

That, of course, wasn’t the only thing I failed at in college - just one of the most pathetic. I was also rejected as a Georgetown tour guide two years in a row, kicked off of Kickline and fired from my school paper for telling the editor that I wanted my dog to pee on one of his conservative editorials. Clearly, I’ve always been a bastion of maturity.

The thing is, it’s not failing in and of itself that’s so fantastic. You can’t be like “Okay, I’ve failed! Now where’s my SUCCESS, damnit??”

As Oprah said in her address to Stanford’s class of 2008 this month, and probably to your moms every weekday at 11 am for the past twenty-five years, “Ask every failure - what is this here to teach me? And as soon as you get the lesson, you get to move on. If you really get the lesson, you pass and you don’t have to repeat the class.”

Here’s the key - something Oprah forgot to mention. The real lessons are ALMOST 100% LIKELY to be TOTALLY DIFFERENT THAN YOU EXPECT. What do I mean by that? Well, if you fail on a test, you’ve been taught to think that the lesson is study harder, right? Um … no. It’s not. (Your parents are glaring at me right now.) It’s not “study harder” or “get a better GPA” or “go to more discussion sections” or even “stop flirting with your one really hot Intro to Chem TA,” although probably that’s a good idea.

So what’s the real lesson? It depends on you. On a small scale, maybe that failed test means that you’ve prioritized something else - you were up all night talking with your roommate and what you learned in that one conversation far outshone anything you could have learned from studying. OR - maybe you failed that test because, despite the lingering belief that all human beings should choose between business, law or medicine, you actually are much better suited to being a Professional Hipster - um, I mean, artist - living in Williamsburg, listening to bands which are so cool they don’t even exist yet. Who knows?

You might just have a very different life path, and the only way of getting there is to FAIL off the one you thought you’d be taking.

Which brings me to the second theme commencement speakers loooove to harp upon, which is, of course:

#2) Don’t listen to anyone else.

Your parents are having a heart attack right now. Hold on, hold on!

Let me clarify - or allow Steve Jobs to clarify. In his famous 2005 commencement address to Stanford, he said, “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

And here’s the most important line: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

Sounds so simple, right? Duh? You’d be shocked (but your parents won’t be) at the number of people who forget that they’re not living for what other people think.

You’re about to leave your homes and embark upon this new adventure. NOW is the time to begin finding out what YOU want to learn, what YOU want to spend your time doing - not what your parents or guidance counselors think is appropriate.

Because by the time you hit your mid-thirties you’ll have over a decade of people telling you how and why you can’t do things. If you’re like most highly ambitious people, you’ll try to screen them out - but after all those years, the “can’ts” build up, like plaque in your arteries.

And that’s when you really start losing your youth - it isn’t the wrinkles or the sunspots or even the extra cellulite on your thighs. It’s the loss of hope. The loss of optimism. The loss of the attitude that says “screw you, I can do this - who are you to tell me I can’t?” It’s the loss of the ability to game the system simply by virtue of the fact that you don’t GET the system.

It turns out that ignorance can be - if not bliss - a highly useful weapon in your life arsenal.

Which brings us back to Steve Jobs. His famous story from that commencement speech goes something like this: he’s bored by college, drops out, but then stays because he’s curious and genuinely wants to learn. He takes a class called Calligraphy - a class he never could have or would have taken otherwise - and what he learns there becomes the basis for the industry changing typeface in the first Macintosh graphical user interface.

Feel free to bring this up to your parents if you ever have a disagreement about the “usefulness” of a course you’d like to take in college. “But Steve Jobs!” you can whine, and then reference the iPod’s latest sales figures. They’ll totally capitulate.

Okay, I’m almost done here … the final lesson is …

drumroll please!

#3) Dump your boyfriend or girlfriend before you go off to college.

Okay, okay, that’s not actually one of the Big Three Lessons - but it IS really good advice. Advice you totally won’t take, but let me guarantee you - one day, after a long freshman year of whining and forced long-distance misery, you’ll realize I’m right.

I suppose that advice does - in a sense - support my real final lesson - which is … JUST ENJOY YOURSELF! (Also known as LIVE IN THE MOMENT). You grew up in one of the most fascinating, complicated, stimulating cities in the world. Resist the urge to become jaded.

People - mostly old people you won’t listen to - will tell you over and over that these years are the best in your life. You will ignore them. Don’t. That kind of pressure may not be terribly helpful, but it’s a sage reminder that you are about to have the ability to explore the world and your own innate curiosity with a freedom that may be - not impossible - but difficult to regain in later life.

Don’t ever take that for granted.

I will close with one of my favorite lines from a faux commencement address written by Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune back in 1997. It was so popular they made a song out of it called “Wear Sunscreen.”

“Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.

You are NOT as fat as you imagine.”

Congratulations Class of 2008!

Hello from the ashram ...

Mon, 17 May 2010 13:00:00 -0400

I won’t write long today - I’ve already written pages and pages and pages in my little notebook, but I wanted to share a bit of my experience here with you before I go back offline. In fact, I wasn’t expecting to have internet access here, but they do (as one of the monks said upon seeing my iPhone, “Oh, you should download the Om Meditation 108 app!” I laughed … it’s a modern ashram, indeed).

Mostly I’ve stayed off my laptop (this is the first time I’ve really typed in a week), preferring instead to write longhand, but I’ve certainly checked my email - just not the way I used to check it (every fourteen seconds), I’ve texted, I’ve even talked to a few people on the phone … but I’ve kept my electronic communication entirely in check. You know, I think we’re all liable to make these great proclamations about technology: that it’s a force for good (relaxation or peace or contentment) or a force for evil (stress or anxiety or worry). But technology is just like anything else - it can be either, it can be both, and it’s probably somewhere in between. The goal is to use it wisely, not to let it distract us from being completely and joyfully present.

So after exactly a week here, how am I? I don’t really know how to begin to describe what’s happened in words. It will probably take me weeks, if not months, to process this. But to say I found what I was looking for would be an enormous understatement.

I am peaceful, almost euphoric in my contentment for the first time in a very, very long time. It’s not just the three hours of meditation and chanting daily, or the four hours of hatha yoga, or the long nature walks I take, or the incredible home cooked vegetarian food that I dream about at night or the interminable stretches of time I spend just sitting outside in the bright sunshine (like I am now) and thinking, or the half dozen books I’ve read since I got here … it’s just this all-encompassing feeling of love which resonates in this place, and now, within me. I feel strong here. I feel whole. And yes, I feel very, very close to God.

Life is funny like this … you beg and beg and beg for something - whatever it is that you crave, you’re not even really sure - and then sometimes, if you listen, if you “assume custodial maintenance of your own soul” (as Elizabeth Gilbert says), life actually gives it to you, even if you couldn’t articulate what was missing previously. Life, in fact, almost always gives you exactly what you need. Whether you like it or not!

And this is exactly what I needed. Don’t get me wrong - I cried the first three days I was here, stuck in the past, beating myself up for my failures, for my missteps, for my mistakes, for what I didn’t yet have, for what I felt like I needed to make me “happy.” But just like hatha yoga, when you breathe into the pain, it does, eventually, dissipate. So that’s what I did.

Perhaps more important, I finally forgave myself - I forgave myself for all of the relationships I felt I had screwed up, for all of my character defects, for my sadness, for feeling so inexplicably lost. Then I let go. I said goodbye. I allowed myself to breathe - and then I felt it. I felt my soul relax, and, yes, I felt God rush in. It felt like every cliche in the entire world, every love song, every aphorism, every spiritual awakening. I cried tears of euphoria, because the wonderful thing about accepting yourself and God’s love is that it doesn’t require anything from you. You just have to show up. To clear room in your soul, to allow yourself to live in the present, without obsessing about the past or worrying about the future. To just be. And that’s the most freeing part of all. You cannot be rejected; you are always enough.

So here I am, exactly as I am. I wear the same clothing almost every day, a pair of ratty moccasins which have seen better days, some black Lulu Lemon yoga pants and one of the various thin cotton American Apparel tops I packed in my suitcase along with a dozen books and ten pounds of vitamins. No makeup - I didn’t even bring any - no curls. No heels, no bras. Nothing standing between me and nature, really. It’s wonderful and freeing and healthy and I feel like I’ve fallen back in love with the world. And it feels good. Really good.

I will be staying here until May 26th (I was originally scheduled to go to London, but I will be doing all of the required interviews by phone so I can stay here). If I could remain longer, I would (my father and I will be spending memorial day weekend together for his college reunions). My goal in the next ten days is to figure out how I can take this feeling - this calm, this peace - home to Manhattan with me. I don’t know the answer to that yet, but, like everything else I’ve learned in my short time here, I know that it will come to me. It will work itself out, if I just let go.

If I let it unfold. :)

You all know I’ve been having a difficult time of it...

Sat, 01 May 2010 15:31:00 -0400

You all know I’ve been having a difficult time of it lately … but for some reason, two days ago, my perspective suddenly (without warning) shifted. It felt like a Magic Eye, where I was squinting at the painting for hours and hours trying to see the hidden picture, and then - BOOM - I saw it.

One of my biggest issues - and I think this is the case for many of us - is that we’re our own worst enemies in terms of finding happiness (or contentment, which is probably a better adjective). We focus on what’s going wrong, not what’s going right. We fixate on what we don’t have, not what we do, what we’re lacking, not our abundance.

The truth is, once we shift our perspective to focus on the gifts in our lives, our problems seem … well … small in comparison.

I had a tough time in the month after my breakup with Prom King, for a variety of reasons (some of which had nothing to do with him at all!). But two things helped me get through to where I am now:

1) Forgiving myself for feeling pain. Don’t use this as an excuse to wallow, but don’t deny yourself a chance to grieve. I loved PK, and our relationship meant a lot to me, and it’s okay that I cried over him. Thank god I did! I needed to go through that. And just because I felt great yesterday and today doesn’t necessarily mean I’m done shedding tears over him forever. It just means that I’ve gone through an important part of the grieving process. The end of a relationship - or a job, or a friendship - is like a death. It deserves to be processed, and felt, and experienced fully. How else can you learn from it and move on if you never go through that??

2) Getting over this crazy idea that “happiness” means we’re happy ALL THE TIME, with no ups and downs. I posted something yesterday about what a beautiful day it was, and how I was thrilled to be having lunch with one of my favorite friends. I let myself be completely in the moment there - just appreciating the sun and the weather and my friend and the veggie burger at Houston’s - and some Debbie Downer tweeted back that I was “bipolar.” Girl, welcome to life! Sometimes you’re up and sometimes you’re down. That’s just the way things go. It’s NORMAL not to be blissed out all the time. If you were, how could you ever appreciate it?? I’m so grateful for these feelings of contentment right now because, frankly, I’ve had a bit of a craptastic last few weeks. It’s like having a meal after being on a fast. Doesn’t matter what it is, it tastes damn good.

We’re human, our emotions are cyclical. Life isn’t always going to be a party (and too many parties in a row makes the parties feel like work). The worst thing to do to ourselves is demand that we not feel the way we’re feeling.

So today, take stock of your situation and do as Ralph Marston advises: reassess, shift your viewpoint and realize your blessings. The cliche is true: life really is what you make of it.

Me: Successful entrepreneurs and successful daters in New York have the same skill set: an inexplicable persistence and unflagging, delusional optimism.

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 01:56:00 -0400

Me: Successful entrepreneurs and successful daters in New York have the same skill set: an inexplicable persistence and unflagging, delusional optimism.
Friend: Why does every analogy always have to come back to dating? It's always about dating.
Me: It's not always about dating, in the courtship sense. But it IS always about relationships. Everything important in this world, when it comes down to it, is a relationship.