Anonymous asked: hey nancylicious! i wanted to get your take on how to go about developing new friendships. I'm mid way through a 1-yr grad program and realized a reoccurring theme in my life is the lack of strong friendships. At this point it feels kind of hopeless and that there must be something off-putting about me.

NANCY’S GUIDE ON HOW TO MAKE NEW FRIENDS

I can sympathize with this concern.  When I moved to New York, I was also nervous about my ability to make new friends.  While I had a well-established circle of friends that moved there after college, spending my first year postgrad in China had put me a year behind in urban social development.  I confided i n best friend R my concerns.

“Oh Nancy,” she replied.  “Everyone in New York is secretly lonely.”

If you wants friends, be a friend. Connect with those friends you already have but may have lost touch with.  Friendships are give-and-take.  Not take and take-for-granted.  Look critically at your (lack of) strong friendships: as demotivator says, the only consistent feature in all your dissatisfying relationships is you.

Rather than play victim, however, own it!  Be accountable!  Change your destiny as a lonely cat person! Rewrite history!  Connect with those you want to stay connected to via facebook, email, gchat, text, phone, and in-person.  Push yourself out of your (lack of) communication comfort zone.  Not everyone will respond in kind, but at least you will be putting yourself out there and admitting that you are a social being.  At the minimum, you can regard this as practice for when you make new, strong friendships.

If you want friends, be a friend. Look left, look right.  You probably have friends or acquaintances right now you are not counting as such.  Person A might be reaching out and trying to be a friend to you but you are so focused on befriending Person B you are blind to their efforts.  Maybe you think all your friends are tea drinking knitters… so that when a coffee-drinking crocheter offers you an espresso, you cannot see if as a friendly gesture.  Be open to the possibility that friends come in all shapes, sizes, and personalities.  Don’t make someone not count.

And listen, listen, listen.

Okay, no more questions for now.


Monday, February 8, 2010 — 1 note   ()
This is my Working-at-the-Office face.  O RLY. YA, RLY.

This is my Working-at-the-Office face.  O RLY. YA, RLY.

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Monday Gratitude

It is a quarter till 9 on a muh-muh-Monday and I’m already in the catnip zone side of life.  A hat tip to this weekend:

  • Surf. I was flattered on Friday night to be invited on a surfing expedition! which we thankfully did not take on Saturday due our various states of hungover.  Only surfers sincerely intend to wake up the next day at 7 am after starting an evening with Irish Car Bombs.  Ha! anyway.  Had an awesome evening session yesterday with the waves noticeably emptier with the Superbowl hullabaloo. Yes, I live in gringoland.
  • Homemade Sun-dried Tomato Bread.  Every Saturday I get a loaf of freshly baked bread - focaccia, black olive focaccia, multigrain - from the organic market…and I promptly finish it in two days. It’s amazing to the point where I can’t eat bread for the rest of the week because all other breads taste like cardboard. I almost feel that - like New York pizza - it has something to do with the water the bakers use.  Confidential to my future husband: may you love the smell of freshly baked loaves of savory goodness each Sunday. Also, sex.
  • Sunday Girl Talk.  After morning yoga, I check in with deliciously boy-crazy K to compare notes on life.  Best way to start a Sunday and end the week.
  • It’s overcast! Only in the tropics in the middle of dry season are fingers crossed for cumulonimbus clouds and sunshowers.
  • The Cinnamon-brewed coffee I am about to buy. And I’m off!!! 

image taken by me at SF MoMA.

Monday, February 8, 2010 — 1 note   ()

Small World: The Weekend Reminder

SCENE - late dinner at restaurant. Nancy arrives, joining table of friends including Becks, Ash, and Nic.

Nancy: Hey guys! When did you get back from Nica?
Becks: We just got back when I emailed you.
Nic: And I have a message for you! Do you know a ‘B’?
Nancy: Oh my god. You met B?  Where?
Becks: We stopped by ‘Grande for two days on our way back.
Nic: Nancy you should have seen his face when we said we knew you. His eyes got all big and he just lit up.  Lit up!  It was so cute.
Nancy: (laughs) That’s so sweet…especially ‘cause he’s such a dude!  Like, a Total Dude.
Nic: Yeah, he’s so dude he’s Brah.
Ash: Wait… who’s B?
Nancy: He’s a good friend.
Ash: A good “friend” or a good friend?
Nancy: Ash! He’s just a friend!
Ash: So why are you making that face?
Nancy: What face?
Nic: The same face B made when he mentioned your name.
Ash: Nancy, what did you do to this Brah to give him that face?
Nancy: Shut up, guys! Stop it!
Ash: Then stop making that face!
Nancy: Look, I can explain: I met B last year at Playa Grande after J and I hitchhiked there so I could spend my final night in Costa Rica on the beach.  J left with a bunch of his guy friends to surf … I think, Ollie’s Point? So for the last two days I just hung out with B. But B and I did not hook up.  We just hung out on his birthday, I lost to him at pool - that’s all. B and I are just friends.  Just friends! And he’s such a sweetheart, you guys.
Ash: Like how you left J out of the did-or-did-not-hook-up equation. Nice touch.
Nancy: Shut up.

Monday, February 8, 2010   ()

Sometimes I play Hard to Get. And sometimes I play Leave Me Alone.

Spot the difference.

Saturday, February 6, 2010 — 5 notes   ()
FEBRUARY 5, 2010 - SALTWATER THERAPY
3RD IN A SERIES (1, 2)
In the days following the crocodile sighting, I asked others what they had seen and heard.  I was hoping to find the primary source - the key witness - so that I may learn where to avoid and how to recognize a crocodile in the water.
Responses ranged.

Yeah, I ‘heard’ that.
Um, if you say so.
I don’t believe it.  What crocodile would go into the impact zone?
I mean, how would you even know if you saw a crocodile? They’d just look like logs in the water.
I believe it. Even though I didn’t see it.  Wanna know why? ‘Cause it’s happened before.

Crocodiles are not uncommon here.  They are known to live at the river mouth – Boca de Nosara – a beach north of Playa Guiones.  The argument for why no one has been attacked is that prey is plentiful in the Pacific.  Tuna, wahoos, sailfish, dorados.  Olive Ridley Turtles bob through the sea on their commute to nearby Playa Ostional, their egg-laying haven.  Dolphins will swim pass your boat and in certain months whales breach offshore.  Marine life is doing just fine…no need to develop a diet for humans, thankyoupaddlethru.
Dogs, however, get eaten with unsurprising frequency.  Residents near Boca de Nosara have gotten used to their backyard pets venturing too close to the water and never returning.
One resident – let’s call him Guy A - had two of his dogs eaten.  The first casualty came with the territory. When the second dog disappeared, however, his friend – let’s call him Guy B – became very upset.  Pissed off, even.  Even though the dog wasn’t his, it was Guy B’s favorite dog!  His favorite! Guy B decided he would help friend Guy A by exacting revenge on this crocodile.  “I know the cave where he lives,” Guy B said. “I’m going to trap that bastard for you.”
A few days later, Guy B returned to Guy A with the news.  “I got him.  I trapped him with chicken.  Now, the croc’s all yours.”
As you read this, you might be wondering if true friends are the ones that do - or do not - trap dog-eating crocodiles for you.
Well, Guy A couldn’t just leave the crocodile there.  So he enlisted a third friend, Guy C, to help him put a bag over the crocodile’s head, throw it into his truck, drive it to a remote riverbed, and set it free.  It’ll take the crocodile at least a few days to get home, they reasoned.  That should send a message.
Um, indeed.
Meanwhile, I still surfed.  The first few sessions back in the water, my mind would drift to that phantom crocodile. In the brief moments it occupied my mind, my chest would tighten and my eyes squint into the water’s depths.  The sea was as revealing and illuminating as a Magic 8 ball: Reply hazy.  Try again later.
One morning, though, I did see a murky white mass, about a foot long beneath the ocean surface.  It one-two-step swam in one direction, then the other, before disappearing entirely.
Despacio, mae! Hay un tiburon, I shouted to my friend, O.  Pero es muy pequeno.  A calmness passed through me.  I had never seen sharks at Guiones – though in truth, I never really looked.  Now that I had, however, they suddenly seemed trivial compared to the crocodiles of my mind.
Seguro? O stuck his head in the water like an ostrich.  Eyes open, he scanned back and forth.  Es negro? 
No, es blanco. 
5 minutes passed as he paddled back and forth.
I don’t see anything. Beat. Maybe it was a sting ray? Covered in sand?
No, it had to be a nurse or reef shark, I insisted.  I recalled how B used to shrug off these sightings in Playa Hermosa de Cobano five hours south.  He surfed Ponce Inlet after all.  Sharks in Costa Rica were nothing.  And now, I could say so, too.
Yesterday evening, I surfed at sunset.  I hadn’t thought about sharks or crocodiles in a while.  I just watched the waves and kamikaze paddled into them.  Caught some, didn’t catch more.  Cheered on friends and accidentally stole shared some of their waves.  I looked at the horizon, squinting, and realized why H-bomb ordered all those sunglass goggles a few weeks ago.
The sea flat and between sets, I looked down at the water.  I tried to stare through the surface again, and – there it was! A white mass dancing directly below.  I stayed perfectly still and honed my gaze further.
The greater my concentration, the more elusive it became.
After about five minutes of looking – but not directly – at it, I realized I was following the clouds’ reflections’ as they danced on the water’s uneven surface.
Uggghh!!! I slapped the water.
I am so dumb.
image via

FEBRUARY 5, 2010 - SALTWATER THERAPY

3RD IN A SERIES (1, 2)

In the days following the crocodile sighting, I asked others what they had seen and heard.  I was hoping to find the primary source - the key witness - so that I may learn where to avoid and how to recognize a crocodile in the water.

Responses ranged.

Yeah, I ‘heard’ that.

Um, if you say so.

I don’t believe it.  What crocodile would go into the impact zone?

I mean, how would you even know if you saw a crocodile? They’d just look like logs in the water.

I believe it. Even though I didn’t see it.  Wanna know why? ‘Cause it’s happened before.

Crocodiles are not uncommon here.  They are known to live at the river mouth – Boca de Nosara – a beach north of Playa Guiones.  The argument for why no one has been attacked is that prey is plentiful in the Pacific.  Tuna, wahoos, sailfish, dorados.  Olive Ridley Turtles bob through the sea on their commute to nearby Playa Ostional, their egg-laying haven.  Dolphins will swim pass your boat and in certain months whales breach offshore.  Marine life is doing just fine…no need to develop a diet for humans, thankyoupaddlethru.

Dogs, however, get eaten with unsurprising frequency.  Residents near Boca de Nosara have gotten used to their backyard pets venturing too close to the water and never returning.

One resident – let’s call him Guy A - had two of his dogs eaten.  The first casualty came with the territory. When the second dog disappeared, however, his friend – let’s call him Guy B – became very upset.  Pissed off, even.  Even though the dog wasn’t his, it was Guy B’s favorite dog!  His favorite! Guy B decided he would help friend Guy A by exacting revenge on this crocodile.  “I know the cave where he lives,” Guy B said. “I’m going to trap that bastard for you.”

A few days later, Guy B returned to Guy A with the news.  “I got him.  I trapped him with chicken.  Now, the croc’s all yours.”

As you read this, you might be wondering if true friends are the ones that do - or do not - trap dog-eating crocodiles for you.

Well, Guy A couldn’t just leave the crocodile there.  So he enlisted a third friend, Guy C, to help him put a bag over the crocodile’s head, throw it into his truck, drive it to a remote riverbed, and set it free.  It’ll take the crocodile at least a few days to get home, they reasoned.  That should send a message.

Um, indeed.

Meanwhile, I still surfed.  The first few sessions back in the water, my mind would drift to that phantom crocodile. In the brief moments it occupied my mind, my chest would tighten and my eyes squint into the water’s depths.  The sea was as revealing and illuminating as a Magic 8 ball: Reply hazy.  Try again later.

One morning, though, I did see a murky white mass, about a foot long beneath the ocean surface.  It one-two-step swam in one direction, then the other, before disappearing entirely.

Despacio, mae! Hay un tiburon, I shouted to my friend, O.  Pero es muy pequeno. A calmness passed through me.  I had never seen sharks at Guiones – though in truth, I never really looked.  Now that I had, however, they suddenly seemed trivial compared to the crocodiles of my mind.

Seguro? O stuck his head in the water like an ostrich.  Eyes open, he scanned back and forth.  Es negro?

No, es blanco.

5 minutes passed as he paddled back and forth.

I don’t see anything. Beat. Maybe it was a sting ray? Covered in sand?

No, it had to be a nurse or reef shark, I insisted.  I recalled how B used to shrug off these sightings in Playa Hermosa de Cobano five hours south.  He surfed Ponce Inlet after all.  Sharks in Costa Rica were nothing.  And now, I could say so, too.

Yesterday evening, I surfed at sunset.  I hadn’t thought about sharks or crocodiles in a while.  I just watched the waves and kamikaze paddled into them.  Caught some, didn’t catch more.  Cheered on friends and accidentally stole shared some of their waves.  I looked at the horizon, squinting, and realized why H-bomb ordered all those sunglass goggles a few weeks ago.

The sea flat and between sets, I looked down at the water.  I tried to stare through the surface again, and – there it was! A white mass dancing directly below.  I stayed perfectly still and honed my gaze further.

The greater my concentration, the more elusive it became.

After about five minutes of looking – but not directly – at it, I realized I was following the clouds’ reflections’ as they danced on the water’s uneven surface.

Uggghh!!! I slapped the water.

I am so dumb.

image via

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Hey Anonymous! I got your question. I am just working on a good response! It's coming Monday, I promise.

Friday, February 5, 2010   ()

To this post, Jes commented:

Your company was missed! I was sadly without another beginning rider and there was a severe lack of B-girl action on the dance floor. It was actually the third annual Beirut tournament… Ron and Peggy were the winners, likely because of their freakish wing-span. Next year Miss Beach Bum, you’ll have to track down some winter gear!

My bad! I forgot…. I missed last year’s winter edition as well (yes, there are Vermont summer editions) in order to save cash for what would end up being my departure from New York.  I wasn’t sure if the gang would still have VT winter weekend this year since founding members and superhost couple CG and JRG are currently growing a junior G!  Glad to hear that the tradition lives on.

And to commemorate this, I bring to you my favorite 8 seconds of our 1st Annual 2008 Beirut tournament.  Concentrate on the cup! Don’t be distracted!

And yes, Jes, I am totally open to making my next year’s visa run a wintry one.

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