Welcome to The House of Chill

My first decor purchase for The House of Chill

My housewarming is this weekend! I moved on Thanksgiving weekend and between the holidays and then craziness at work, we’re just now having the chance to warm it up officially.

I say officially because I had about 10 friends over to help us move and 10 turned into 20 and soon enough I counted 30 people between the living area and the backyard. We had crashers and everything. It was a wonderful start to what I hope will be a constant habit of casual hospitality.

I’ve had one random brunch party, one “you have to come over now and drink beer with me” night, one night of consoling the roomie over beer and pizza and just last weekend a very fancy, involved dinner for two. We’ve already packed a lot of living into this space, and I love it. Continue reading

19 and 0, Love Songs for the Record (Playlist)

The last thing I created as a truly innocent, naive person was a mixtape I made on Valentine’s Day, 1997. I was about a month into my freshman year of college at The University of New Hampshire. (I’d deferred a semester while trying to work out the financial aid situation with NYU, where I had been set to attend. Didn’t work out, went to UNH for their excellent journalism program.)

I turned 18 a couple months before starting college. I had a religious upbringing and hadn’t been allowed to date in high school. I was a virgin, had never drank or anything like that. So, on Valentine’s Day weekend, I made a mix called “19 and 0, Love Songs for the Record” to commemorate 19 Valentine’s Days alive and single. I had a feeling future Valentine’s Days wouldn’t be so simple.

Original "Cover Art," circa 1997.

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Abundance (Photo Blog)

I have a rare free weekend coming up, and it’s a holiday weekend to boot. I’m still toying with the idea of jetting off to Phoenix for a friend’s huge Valentine’s Day costume party or to Killington to snowboard.

It’s just as likely that I’ll stay in, make desserts from this book and decorate my home for my housewarming party at the end of the month.

I am the worst at getting things up on the walls. This is the first apartment I’ve been in since I got to the city where I truly feel at home and can settle in and breathe. So, it’s time to get some art up.

I have a poster I want matted and framed and some prints I want to order. As a former dancer, I’ve always loved these prints from Bill Brauer.

Where I need help from you is on suggestions for good sites to use for photo printing.

I took the four shots below at a farmers market (one of my favorite things to do), and I’d like to get a couple of them printed and framed. They make me think of abundance and harvesting and generosity. They just make me happy, and I want that feeling of abundance in my home.

What site or store should I use for printing? Which of the shots below do you like best?

French Breakfast Radishes, Evanston Farmer's Market, Illinois

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Meet the Maker: Sullivan Walsh, Maker Of Gorgeous Beds

“Anyone could think up the designs and build these things, but we are the people who actually DID it.
It’s the people who DO things, and MAKE things, and bring their own wacky shit into the world that inspire me.”

Sullivan Walsh, Brooklyn metalworker and artisan

Salvaged gears for lamp and mirror bases

I recently met artisan Sullivan Walsh at a friend’s book signing at a new, cute boutique called Shag (Link NSFW). Walsh told me he was a metalworker who lived in Brooklyn. I love architecture, metalwork and woodwork, so we chatted for a minute and exchanged business cards. The next day he sent me an email and a link to his website. As soon as I clicked it, I was all “Wooooaaaaah, must go visit his studio and check out his stuff!”

I’m going to be highlighting more local businesses and cool people who make stuff on this site. I love Brooklyn and I’m constantly meeting the coolest, most talented people. Hopefully, you’ll dig my interviews with them and support these folks and their work/art. Walsh is someone who exemplifies what Seth Godin is writing about in his new book Linchpin, so I’m really happy he’s the first local artist I have the honor to introduce. Continue reading

Getting Excited and Making Things – January Post Recap

I’m not one for resolutions. I just needed to get back to writing more this year, so I have.

The name of this site (and my official mini-bio) is Dangerously Enthusiastic. That sums me up, as enthusiasm infuses everything I do. I got a new t-shirt with a motto that neatly summarizes what 2010 is all about for me. I am Getting Excited and Making Things.

That Would Be Me.

Here’s a quick list of what I dove into in January. Check out the posts you may have missed, give me the redux of what the posts you already read made you think of or inspired you to do, and let me know if you wrote anything in response that you want me to check out. Inspiring you to make stuff, see stuff in a new way and FEEL SOMETHING is the best work I can do. Continue reading

Killing the Ifs

Bleeker Street, 1.25.2010I was on the C Train, dressed up for a viewing party for the Oscars at a nice bar called Greenhouse. I was meeting a girlfriend of mine there.

I was reading something on my phone, then I looked up and electricity passed between my heart and his. You know that feeling. When you see someone in the crowd and your heart flip-flops. You get a chill that starts at the base of your spine, spreads to your stomach and ends with the hair standing up on back of your neck. You just know. I know within seconds if a person is going to be a real part of my life.

I looked back down at my phone. Tried to avoid his eyes. Looked back up, and he was straight up staring at me. He was gorgeous. A head of dark, thick curly hair and curious eyes. Tall. And still staring. Continue reading

Hate Me Now

I’ve been getting a lot of great feedback and encouragement recently in my personal life and in regards to my career and my writing.

I enjoy genuine compliments, but I’m much more interested right now in finding out who hates me. Somewhere, someone in the world thinks my ideas are stupid, thinks they can write better than me or thinks they can do what I do but better. I have silent haters, and that sucks. Not because they hate me, but because I can’t hear them.

People admire celebrities because they have so many devoted fans. I’m only jealous of celebrities because they have vocal haters. Fans buy their music, read their books, wear their clothes … but haters are the ones who help them take their game to the next level.

I can’t wait until the day when someone shows up here to hate on me. I’m trying to take what I do on this site and on Mouth Of The Border to a different level. I want to create content that’s valuable for you and make you feel as excited as I do about what I’m living and experiencing. Leave reading the things I share with you having learned something new or seeing a situation in a different light.

And when the day comes when haters start showing up in my comments and in my inbox, I hope that people let them hate. I want to be challenged, I want to provoke. Let them hate because I need to hear them to make the best possible writing I can.

It’s inevitable that at some point in my journey there will be people who hate me as much as other people love me. I can’t wait until that happens.

Music for the Haters (Click song title to listen)

Hate Me Now – Nas
“Best storyteller thug narrator my style’s greater
Model dater, big threat to a lot of you haters
Commentators ringside try watchin my paper”

Some People Hate – Jay-Z
“Raw rough and rugged, when addressin’ the mass public
My attitude is fuck it cause motherfuckers love it
Got a, chip on my shoulder the size of the Golden Nugget in Vegas
And fuck bein famous, I came to get the butters
I came from the gutter, my success in this game”

Know What I’m Sayin’ – Mike Jones
“So do me a favor, and recognize that you a hater that couldn’t see me if I was your neighbor…
Shiit, middle fingers up (haters down).
We ’bout that drama, so if you don’t want it bitch don’t bring us up…
(Know what I’m saying)”

Can’t Fuck With Queen Bee – Lil’ Kim
“I know you wishin’ that you wrote this song
But these same words comin’ from you, would be a joke
You better off takin’ heed from your boy Jada
I know you, hate dyin’ – but you gon’ die a hater
I got a vision, I think for the future baby pah
Y’all nearsighted, lotta y’all, can’t see that far Lil’ Kim”