chelseapvrcella

I didn't know your twenties were supposed to be hard until I was watching that one episode of Girls when they are at the gynecologist's office waiting for Jessa to get an abortion. It's when Hannah is in the stirrups that the doctor said something like "You couldn't pay me enough to go back to my twenties." At first I misunderstood and thought she'd kill to be twenty again. And then I realized she meant that, actually, your twenties suck.

Personally, as someone approaching the quarter of a century mark, I've done pretty well for myself. I think I've come out of the first 5 years of my twenties fairly unscathed (knocking on wood over here). I think what makes your twenties so turbulent is that you go through a lot of firsts. I was also a late bloomer so it was even more interesting for me. I would say the thing that most threw me for a loop was my first boyfriend, my first love (I think) dumped me unceremoniously a year and a half ago after a relationship almost as long. That event single-handedly made me question my entire belief system. And I came to the realization that my entire belief system was incredibly naive in theory. I've since mostly recovered and I'm in a pretty good place but whenever someone leaves my life now, in whatever capacity, I am much less upset about it.

In the last 6 months I have lost two of my closest friends over silly disputes that they just couldn't get over. I've done enough soul-searching to know there was nothing I could do to salvage either friendship but it did make me slightly uncomfortable. I was sitting around wondering if I was driving these people away by something I was saying or doing to offend them. But I wasn't. People do just grow apart, outgrow each other or hinder the growth of another. The latter hadn't occurred to me until I read a line of Susan Miller's May horoscope for Leos on Refinery 29 a few days ago:

"Conditions, arrangements, and relationships that the universe deems unproductive or no longer relevant to you will now be swept away to make room for the new goodies on their way to Leo after Jupiter enters Leo on July 16."

My horoscopes for the last year have been telling me that 2013-2014 was the year preparing me for my best year yet, starting on July 16th. But it was after I read that sentence that I really came to peace with the people who have left my life for whatever reason. If I would've stayed with my ex-boyfriend I would still be an anxiety-riddled, low-confidence girl. Now I am a woman who sees myself with all the potential I saw myself with when I was 21 and spontaneously moved to New York. I wouldn't be planning to live in Europe and then Asia in the next year. I've been taking steps toward re-designing my entire portfolio. I'm open to any opportunity that comes my way.

When these friends left my life I was concerned. I'm glad though that they didn't stick around to prove to me what kind of hindrance they would be. There is one person who I haven't heard from in a few weeks but I hope they left my life only on a very temporary basis. If not, I am okay with this too. I am so confident that there are only bigger and better things out there that will present themselves to me. 

I feel strongly that our positive or negative energy truly makes a difference on a personal and universal level. We effect everyone around us with our energy and lately I am making a point to keep my mouth shut if I have nothing nice to say. I am also trying to put forth as much positivity as I can into the universe in general because it can only do good, right?

I'm not trying to get into a bunch of hippie, free-love shit here but I think the key to a long, happy life is positivity. I believe we'll get everything we ever wanted as long as we put it out there. I'm not just asking the universe to grant me my every secret desire but I'm also asking the people around me to make it possible, while I do the same for them.

This entry brought to you by one line of a horoscope and Dr. Habib Sadeghi's eye-opening article in this Goop #16.

Okay, so I hate exercising. I would like to say it's because I hate sweating or that I'm self conscious or something but it's sort of more like... that I would much rather watch TV than do plank or run around the block. I work really hard during the day at my job and the last thing I want to do, quite literally, is work my body. I used to stress really, really hard at my job until I recently, when I cracked with a capital C.

I ended up bursting into tears in front of my boss after a very tense meeting with the president of our division (at the very large fashion company I am employed by). That was on a Wednesday. I then felt so ill that I didn't go into work the next two days. And by Monday, I had the most amazing realization. I really didn't need to be working 50-60 hours a week. I could probably stay 24/7 and there would still be more work to do. So I stopped. I stopped working 8:30-9:30 without a lunch. I stopped letting the passive-aggressiveness and not-so passive aggressiveness of my coworkers and upper management get to me. I realized the only person I could control is me and that if I knew I was working as hard as I could and being as thorough as possible, that was ALL I could do. And no one could ask me to do any more than that. Suddenly, I was a new person. I'm happier, more rested and my appetite is back with a vengeance. With a capital V. I am CONSTANTLY hungry now. While I'm not the skinniest person in the world (I normally sit in a happy size 12) I pride myself on not being an emotional eater. I eat when I'm hungry but I also do not deprive myself of my sweets. I rarely drink juice or soda and I drink a ton of water. So when I jumped on the scale after a month of my less-stress attitude, I couldn't believe I had gained 8 POUNDS. I'm pretty sure 3 of these pounds are water weight, ifyouknowhatimean, but that still leaves a solid 5 poundage that is truly unnecessary- on top of the 25-30 I'd like to lose before I turn 26! I kind of started to freak out.

I started WebMD-ing constant hunger, thought I had type 2 diabetes, downloaded an app to count my calories and tried to figure out what kind of exercise I could stomach (heh) during the week when I couldn't escape to a YTTP class. I really couldn't tell you how I came to this conclusion but I had an epiphany of sorts: HULA HOOPING. I was sitting at my desk at work when the idea came to me. After a little googling I saw that I was in good company: Beyoncé and Marissa Tomei are hula hoopers too! Who knew?!

And right after work today I marched my size 12 + 5 pound ass to the K-mart in Penn Station and bought myself a hula hoop for $6.59 (plus tax). I made sure to test in the aisle to make sure I could actually do it (I could) and I was on my way. And then I realized I had to get home. On the 1 train. At 7:30 PM. WITH AN ADULT SIZE HULA HOOP. Luckily I made it home without more than a few strange looks. I made my 595 calorie dinner, put on some Kitchen Nightmares and went to town. I hula hooped almost non-stop in my living room for half an hour! I surprised myself! I couldn't believe how much I was sweating by the end of it. And how quickly the time went by! FINALLY an exercise I can do WHILE rotting my brain in front of the television. The most amazing part? Hula hooping is super effective at burning calories at 7+ per minute. That's more than aerobics. And it targets your obliques and abs- exactly what I want.

My suggestion to my other lazy, vain, "jolly" friends is to try hula hooping! Approximately $7 will buy you a fun workout that burns about 236 calories per half hour. That's like 3 caramel filled chocolates, 1 ounce of chocolate covered potato chips, 2 corn tortilla quesadillas, or 2/3 of an almond croissant.

Good luck and see you in 35 pounds!

I know my last and first post was about the importance of consistency and establishing an editorial calendar, but we all go on vacation. I was just in San Francisco for 5 glorious days, my first real vacation in a very long time. But you know before vacation when you’re trying not to go grocery shopping and trying to eat as much of the perishables as possible? I did so quite successfully but it led me to the next dilemma of my reality: no food was left for me when I got home. I walked in the door, ravenous, and immediately made a triple decker ham sandwich, as you do, after a 6 hour flight, 2 hour commute, and 5 flights of stairs later.

A few hours later I was obvi hungry again and decided to make a big bowl of brown rice spaghetti! Vacation really got ahold of me because I completely lost any sense of time. I boiled my water (while running a “full” mousetrap down to the trash, ugh) and put the pasta in. It cooks similarly to wheat pasta, a touch quicker if anything. As someone who considers themselves a pretty accomplished cook, a ghetto gourmet if you will, I was surprised when I placed a bite of the sauced and cheesed pasta into my mouth. It was SO UNDERCOOKED. Like, what I thought was 7 minutes was actually only 3 minutes because my pasta was legit crunchy! Pissed at myself I wondered how to fix this most grave of mistakes.

I did the only thing I could do at that point: I dumped about 1/4-1/2 cup of water into the bowl, covered it with a plastic splatter guard and nuked it for 3 minutes. I had no idea if it would work in the slightest but when the timer went off and I stirred the pasta, it sounded like the texture had improved. In vain I tried shoving a bite in my mouth but it was of course too hot after essentially being re-boiled in the microwave. I tossed it in the freezer to get it to cool down quickly and then stuck a couple ice cubes in it to speed the cooling even more. I stuck a bite in my mouth. To my pleasant surprise the pasta was the most perfect al dente. Victory was mine. Mine and for all the lazy, zoned out fatties that have also fucked up their only chance at a decent meal.

New York, I’m back.

There is nothing I hate more than a blog. Not true, but it's like having a "blog" is the new "owning a boutique". Everyone wants to do it but they are not at all equipped to do it successfully. Most people are lazy. Myself included. It takes a certain passion and dedication to regularly post and while most Millennials are under the impression that just because we ourselves know that we can put together a nice outfit, curate some nice product roundups, type run on sentences, or [insert mediocre skill that really isn't that groundbreaking], we do in fact have to prove it to someone and for whatever reason blogging is that medium. We hope that being semi-talented will get us somewhere wholly amazing and land us a guest creative director job at J.Crew and allow us to create a small capsule collection from which we will make a few thousand dollars worth of commission from. It's a sense of entitlement our generation has that either fails us or motivates us to take what we believe we deserve.

Unfortunately, humans really love consistency. Posting on an editorial calendar is what keeps people coming back for more. People want something to look at everyday at 10AM when they're done rifling through work emails and don't want to face the mundane tasks they're (read: we're) forced to complete. But think about it, we love routine and find it almost calming. Or maybe I'm just type A?*

What I'm trying to say here is that I'm starting a blog. It's like Chelsea's blog 3.0. Which is approximately how many times it took Phillip Lim to start his line so perhaps it'll work out this time for me too. What I'm also trying to say is that I'm going to post about whatever the fuck I want which will in turn mean that I post on a semi-regular basis, hoping likeminded individuals at least half-heartedly enjoy what I post, and whatever comes of it will be completely organic. And if that is a job offer from Hello Kitty that I have to relocate to Tokyo for based on the incredible blogging abilities of this twenty-something Millenial, then so be it.

I just spent 10 minutes trying to figure out what to say about myself to try and give you an idea of what you might find here but I'm not even going to limit myself like that. Those of you who know me will be able to make an educated guess. Those of you who don't a) how did you even get here? and b) will just have to be surprised.