(A Long-Lost Heirloom Recipe Not to Be Forgotten)

This is a post written in a convent of nuns (what else, though, I guess) in New Jersey where I am staying to celebrate Thanksgiving. Why? Imma let you think about that on your own.

Ingredients
3 people that dressed up for the Hunger Games midnight premiere at the frickin' IMAX theatre in New York City. Of which you were part of-- half-way. You and the other half-costumed person count as 1 of those 3. Everyone takes photos of your roommate, THE most dressed up person in miles, presumably. She's probably all over the internet, and we just don't know it. Seriously, so many creepers! That we of course encouraged...



*'Twas written in November, sits unfinished forever; yet, its necessity lies in its moral lesson of always being strong enough to wear teen novel costumes even in the most trying of times

A Fresh Taste/California Rolls Are Preferable to Failure

Remember when each recipe cooked up a disaster?

What about if the entire blog turned out to be it's own recipe for a cataclysmic failure?

Hello, November 11: my last recipe to date. 4 months later, let's approximate that I'd have been at roughly Week #... wait... I'd already skipped about two or three weeks prior before the last two posts... not really quite sure where I'd be right now... so... if YOU'RE okay with this, then I'M okay with this, and it doesn't really matter, and it's almost like it never happened! November 11? Psh, that was yesterday! Feels like yesterday! Wasn't yesterday.

Imma be honest with yous guys: The reason I've avoided posting a recipe for so long is because I was avoiding fear, thus embracing it in every possible way; I was so embarrassed that I hadn't followed my "52 weeks" plan (that I'd so publicly made) that I only fell farther away from achieving it. The more embarrassed I got, the more afraid of this blog I became. After much encouragement from about 3 avid readers, I told my self "SCREW IT!" and...... left this page open on my computer for the past couple of days. 

SO, failed WIFI after too many times calling the front desk, plus a little bit of "Let It Go"-theory, I decided: I don't have to do anything I don't want to do! I can write this blog however I frickin' want! Does this look like a recipe to you so far? Did I perhaps set myself up for the failure I was parodying? Can I do an entire recipe of photos? PICTARECIPE! Can I tell you all about the last 4 months in one she-bang?! As Adele Dazeem would say, blah blah blah "frozen fractals". Oh, and also something about being a mountain queen.

California Rolls Are Preferable to Failure: a 4-month process

Ingredients

November: Your first trip to an Ivy League school. Just so happens to be Homecoming Weekend at Yale. Just so happens to be the Yale/Harvard Homecoming Game. ..... :-| 

Offset with a ridiculous amount of tailgating, you'll be fine.

 

Pre-Christmas: A visual study in what, at one point, you found was funny/necessary enough to include in a future blog post.(I'll humor myself.)

Thanksgiving: Celebration in a doctor's-manion-turned-convent in New Jersey with your best friend since middle school who's spending her year as a Dominican volunteer teaching computer skills to immigrant women, joined by 3 other early-20's female volunteers, creating a lavish organic turkey dinner in said convent SANS NUNS for the ENTIRE WEEKEND aka PARTAY!

Once again, that's nuns. convent. organic vegetables. young women makin' turkey

Christmas: 1 Charlie Brown Christmas Tree... and also 1 miniature Christmas tree that's really trying sooooo so hard to be awesome. Such a valiant effort, truly, that even though it ended up tilting so much more than anyone was comfortable with, you still found it beautiful. 

(+ a photo shoot with your Hulu fireplace ASAP after you decorate)

Transition Into Winter Season: 2-weeks notice at your restaurant hosting job. Deeply sad--you actually said out loud "they're good people", like "good people" was a phrase you said all the time. You just learned it.-- But really, guys: go eat at Spring Natural Kitchen. 

Moving on to work straight across the park, which GEEEE somehow takes you 25 min. longer WHAT FUN!

(Das boot is from a fanc-ay chocolate shop that the owner of the restaurant gave you for your Secret Santa. Those are chocolate covered Cheerios that came on the inside, and the stand is made of dark chocolate. Sickening. Delicious.)

Exceed at Star Gazing in the City: A pensive Keanu Reeves to sit outside your new front desk job at Exceed Physical Culture so you can watch him talk to other people. 

Rockefailure (thank you): 1 picture of noses. You have gained a significant other and meant to take a photo with the Rockefeller Christmas Tree and preferably the entirety of your faces in it, but you didn't. Yet, he has access to organic farm eggs, looks great in flannel, once beatboxed with Lin Manuel Miranda, and this is one of ~3 photos you have together. So: 1 picture of noses.

Gingerbread House: 1 package of Whole Foods gummy bears that inspires a deadly scene of a Purple Bear spaceship invasion on the (beret wearing?) Pink Bears who live in the Forest with the Chocolate Boot (see above). Hours of creation, immense pride, gluten-free graham crackers entirely unnecessary because you actually don't end up eating gingerbread houses... who knew...

I'm including another photo because of the immense pride.

 Christmas: TOO MANY gluten-free SPRITZ COOKIES and by too many I mean ALL OF THE WORLD'S GOODNESS. Hand-made by the impeccable Susan Barnes (whom you all must capture to bake you things). 

*Recipe from Amherst, OH local native superstar Cherl Costelow who landed herself in Taste of Home Magazine this December!! Valid immense pride.

January: One week in NYC without anyone else there, as they grasp the concept that everything stops for the holidays. You flew back because you "just had to" and thought you had to work, which you didn't, & when you finally do work, your gym's walls and ceilings opened & flooded like the Titanic. Polar Vortex, Shmolar Shortex-- you flew home the next day! 

<--- that's a flooded touch screen PC computer. What kind of computer did they replace it with? Thank you.

While Home!: Many things you bake. And that is all. Because you are suddenly depressed, as a certain airline lost your gate-checked bag. That you stupidly put your laptop in. Due to your fury-packing, post-gym-Titanic-flood. 

 

Road Trip: 1 boyfriend's best friend, who naturally feels "3rd wheel" as he joins the road trip from Texas to Ohio to pick you up and have the boyfriend meet your parents... Perhaps you tell your mother his feelings afterwards. Perhaps she creates big good fun out of it & forever, actually, tells you to "say hi to Kyle". 

Late January: Meryl Streep's island. 

...

... 

The Berkshires is a beautiful land of organic farms, real "package" stores, & also 1 of Meryl's abodes, which has AN ISLAND. OK.

February: 5 minutes to see 1 best friend from home in one of the most confusing yet exciting cities in the world-- and you choose to meet in front of The Body Shop. 

Snow Day: 3+ hours spent crafting, 80% of which was organizing your craft box. 

Can you say anal/antisocial/coolestpossiblepasttime? 

WHICH LEADS US TO: The Instructions. 

Instructions

1. Audition for a role as an immediate replacement in a theatre for young audiences tour so you can say that you've been "flown out to California", but mostly so you can spend a week with this beaut: his name is Jacques and he's (an alcoholic) an adorable Shih Tzu. He belongs to the girl you're replacing, though, so don't get too attached. 

2. Take jealousy photos.

Ugh all these scenic, beautiful pictures of beaches and junk and I don't feel like anyone cares, but someone somewhere wants to see them... Is it you? Over there? No? Oh, sorry for disturbing... 

3. Be a sponge. Being an immediate replacement for a show that's been on tour since January means that you get (basically) zero rehearsals means that you watch the same show every performance for a week means that you can take pictures of the set in every venue, but hopefully with kewl kids enjoying it like so.

4. Spend Las Vegas Day getting vegan desserts and eating them on top of a Red Rock Mountain you climbed.

4.5. Find another 5'1 actor named Anna with short hair playing a boy.

5. Eat-all-you-can sushi. No words. $25 of goodness, shock, and somehow, still, lots of ICE CREAM.

6. Plead with gambling dealer to let you take a photo with Tinkerbell, until he retorts "not with that piñata!" #tinkgram 

(6.5 Admit she has a problem.) 

7. Deem Pasadena, CA a really cool place. 

8. Celebrate Pi Day in the only way you can on tour: a cheese covered apple pie, warm out of the oven, in a Bavarian highway dive. 

9. Ask "Why?" Why is the San Francisco Palace Theatre an actual palace? Why does it have grounds, with a swan pond? Why can't I have it?

10. Truly feel, for the first time, excited to return to New York City.

WHAT?! 

Anyways: Now, I'm asking you to do all of these things in order to procure your perfect Less-than-Failure California Rolls. I don't care if flying to California and seeking out that cheese pie costs you a million yen. Quit your jobs, find a subletter, buy a new suitcase, cut your hair, transfer your prescriptions, realize you have a government controlled substance and beg your saintly roommate to shadily pick up your prescription for you and mail it to a random hotel in San Jose, too much information?, & use Instagram more than you ever thought personally possible. Picking up your life-- or at least what you can fit of it in an airplane regulated suitcase-- and saying, "I'm gonna go be a little boy in a blue onesie on the road for 3-ish months, see ya!" is scary. It's new. It's super stressful and has totally screwed up your freakin' prescriptions, need I go into that again. You wear the same outfit almost every day and only now realize how horrible hotel shampoo actually is. However, this greasy new hair texture, consistently bad WIFI, and excess of money spent on power bars is worth it. It's exactly what you needed. You needed to leave New York. Only if to finally come to the conclusion that you wouldn't mind going back.

----- but just for the 11 days you're gonna be there for Easter, srysly, let's be real. IT'S WARM HERE AND I HAVE A TAN AND TODAY I DROVE TO TRADER JOE'S!


*Disclaimer: eating raw or uncooked fish can be harmful to your health. So, drive the extra 1,000+ miles and get some real frickin' fish on the shore of Malibu Beach like we did. Worth it, salmonella. 

Sleepytime Tea Sandwiches

Ingredients

• 1 man to another at the restaurant in which I work, which, let's note, is located on 83rd and Columbus:
  "And, by the way, man, thanks for coming all the way uptown for this."

really

• 2 shoulders on either side of your body (not yours, silly) that you weeble-wobble between for an indiscernible period of time. = Subways 4 Lyfe
• 6.5 hours spent napping on a Monday
• 16 songs on Katy Perry's new album that prevent you from getting to bed by your self-imposed bedtime-- only because the last time you saw Katy Perry, she was in a tiger onesie & now you're convinced she can do nothing but inspire greatness
• A pinch of confusion: 

SCENE: A street outside of a coffee shop. A middle-aged woman (Nanny?) accompanies a younger woman with a stroller (Mom). Mom pushes the stroller towards the entrance. She calls back to Nanny?, who has stayed by the street. 

     MOM: Do you want something?

     NANNY?: Oh, no, I don't drink coffee.

     MOM: WOW! Well, you're a much stronger person than me!

Nanny? smiles in passive agreement. Mom propels the stroller into the coffee shop. Nanny? immediately pulls out a cigarette and lights it up. 

Oh. OK.  

• 8 hours of freezing cold, beginning at 8:30am and splashed with water, Gatorade, and 47 °F. The NYC ING Marathon was an incredible event to volunteer for with my step-mom and step-sister. Even more cool to rep the airline that continually makes me look much wealthier than I am (Holler at your Business Class to and fro London. Love me that cheese plate). Watched disabled athletes power through the 23rd mile mark on their cycles. 100% awesome. Experienced the last stretch of 26.2 miles for 50,000+ runners. Inspirational. Provided liquid betterment to a portion of the those runners. Satisfied-- to a point. Being straight out of Northwestern (Type-A Personality Utopia) and raised by 4 hard-working, middle-class Catholic Midwesterners, I abided by the established "no breaks" rule and did not stop. filling. the. cups. once. Nor did Sue or Mel. When I finally had enough of walking like a duck with my numb toes, I looked up and saw that HALF of the other United volunteers had left. WHAT. I WILL NOT BE A SUCKER. We left. Earlier, though, Mel and I did rock out a great Gatorade version of the song Cups. For which she thanks 4 years of Amherst High School Girls Basketball water cups and downtime.
• 484 miles traveled for 19 hours in Ohio for 1 driver's license for 0 cars. I am grateful for my new license, as I feel like an identifiable human once again. However, the lack of sleep + numerous extra, unrestful naps via travel were less than appreciated. It caused this incident on the way home:

In the 2nd to last row of a Big Plane (meaning, to me, one with more than 150 seats), I was attempting to fall asleep for my 1.5 hour flight. At some point in my drowsiness, I saw all of the seats ahead of me fill with... danger? The flight attendant was saying something -- notably not good-- over the intercom, and there seemed to be panic in the air. Something was just. not. right. Gradually, I realized what happened: someone in one of the exit rows had opened the emergency latch. What the WHAT? The flight attendant got, eh, a bit more nervous. I was so confused and growing increasingly scared-- though, let's note, apparently not scared enough to move any part of my body, wonder why no one was visibly freaking out, ask anyone what was going on, or really do anything about it at all.  

Well. That's probably because it didn't happen.

Instructions
I live off the 200-Dyckman stop. On the island of Manhattan, that's, as some people call it, "the top of the world". (And not in a good way.) To me, it's home. But it's also, sometimes, a painfully long subway ride. I'm (for once) not using painful as a hyperbole or off-handedly intense throwaway. Riding the subway can be physically painful for my eyes, my brain, and, eventually, my entire body. Why?

Because I have narcolepsy.

Haha. No, no, I don't. I'm pullin' your leg. I'm simply overly tired like the rest of the young, overachieving population. What I really need is to quit an activity and get some more sleep.

Alright. Seriously, though. I do have narcolepsy.

.... ? ...

Nope. I do.

Isn't that... like, where you steal stuff?

Uh, no. That's kleptomania.

You don't sleep?

I wish. That's insomnia.

Oh, so this is the one where you sleep all the time. No, way! Could you, like, fall asleep right now?

Ummm... I mean, I guess so. I mean, not right now. But I can fall asleep pretty much--

So would you, like, fall asleep in class?

Yes.

Ouch. Have you ever fallen asleep standing up?

Sort of.

That's weird. Have you ever fallen asleep in the middle of a conversation?

Yes.

No way, totally crazy! Have you ever fallen asleep driving?

Yes.

Oh. 

"Oh." That's much better than, "You're lucky-- I can't sleep at all!" Until you live with a sleep disorder, you most likely don't fully understand how you don't want one. Most people-- even my family-- don't see how it affects my life. Ask anyone I've ever lived with in college (where it developed), though, and they will give you a tooootally different answer. Probably akin to "she sleeps everywhere and I don't know what to do!" I like to lighten the mood/make fun of myself, but those roommates would probably not laugh at the mention of narcolepsy.

Strange, seeing as it's one of "those" words that people find, well, funny. When I tell people I have narcolepsy, they normally think I'm kidding. And there's usually a smile on their face. Perhaps because it's kind of a... "hip" condition. (No, nothing is wrong with my bony hip, nor is that hip to be referenced in quotes. This is the cool neat super fly In-Style Magazine hip.) Everyone I've ever told has never met a person with narcolepsy before-- heck, I've never met a person with narcolepsy before! 

This all used to not bother me, until I read this last month: Narcolepsy only affects about 1 in every 2,000 Americans. That's 200,000-250,000 people-- much more than I originally thought! I read this in an eloquent & engaging memoir by Julie Flygare, a woman diagnosed at age 22, right after graduating from Brown & in her first years at Harvard Law School & and a huge overachiever. My. Current. Hero. So, spoiler, she didn't become a lawyer. Big woop. 'Cuz she did become a writer (a la, the book) and narcolepsy advocate. I realized that there are thousands of people, young and old, who actually fall asleep face first at random times of the day and have vivid hallucinations upon waking-- there's even a national conference! I didn't have to hide in my sleep infested closet anymore, and I don't have to joke about it.

Let's be honest, though: this is still my blog. I'm not gonna be dreadful. No one wants that. So, please, enjoy: a proper, non-mimicry explanation of narcolepsy in a not-so serious series of pictures. 

I've fallen asleep twice while writing this, even though I have a stimulant to help me stay awake. That's because narcolepsy is a chronic neurological disorder in which the brain loses the ability to maintain normal sleep and wake states. AKA, my REM sleep cycles are CRAYZAY!
*In my overnight sleep study, I was able to fall asleep after a full night's sleep for five 20-minute naps, 1.5 hours apart, within an average of 4 minutes each, and then enter into the last stage of REM within 2 minutes. It takes the normal sleeper 80 to 100 minutes to enter REM. It takes me minutes. 



I never knew other people actually had these symptoms (because they're kinda weird, when you don't know they're symptoms), but here are these suckers: 

- Periods of extreme daytime sleepiness
- Hallucinations while falling asleep or waking, sometimes jarring-- thus, my illogical airplane prankster above!
- Sleep paralysis upon waking or falling asleep, during which an individual is awake but cannot move-- thus, my lack of heroism in said airplane above!

* Cool neurological explanation time. This will fascinate you: Your body paralyzes itself in the last stage of REM, so you don't actually fight that lion or actually run off that cliff to avoid the ninja clown in your dreams. This usually goes unnoticed by normal sleepers because it occurs only when they're fully asleep and entering the REM stage at the appropriate time in the sleep cycle. Aw, but it's not fun to be appropriate-- mine happen during hallucinations, either when falling asleep or waking up from a nap. It's generally only vivid images of my roommate knocking on my door but I'm unable to get up or even carrying on a full conversation with me that I can't answer back to. It's frustrating because you feel like you're in a straightjacket; it's annoying because it's hard to tell what's real and what's not.



Narcolepsy symptoms usually start appearing between ages 7 - 25, but many people experience symptoms for an average of 3 - 5 years before receiving a diagnosis. I was known as the morning monster in my house... forever; that was never not existent. Probably should've invested in some armor for my poor mother, who got thrashed at in the a.m. for YEARS. My sister's favorite stories of our youth involve us sharing beds on vacations and me squirming around like a lost serpent all night.









Most primary care doctors ain't gonna get it. They're not familiar with the symptoms. I spent years saying, "I'm tired all the time", then, "interestingly, sleeping 8 hours a night isn't helping at all, contrary to your belief ", then, "listen, foo!, I fall asleep within 5 minutes of sitting down and I was sleeping before you walked in."

Honestly, I have no idea how I got through college. OK, whatever, I totally do-- I was mean to my sleep cycles and learned how to half-aamp; or bullsh#*... everything. All I wanted to do was drink excessive amounts of coffee and pull a series all-nighters like all the healthy people.

I'm more tired than you. No, please, don't hate me, and I hate to say it I really do, but unfortunately that's what I spent 24-hours in a sleep clinic last December to be statistically able to say. Take a crack at this baby: people with narcolepsy's daytime sleepiness is comparable to how someone without narcolepsy would feel after staying awake for 48 - 72 hours straight. 

Nope, yeah, you know, it's uh... OK, clearly Condescending Wonka here still doesn't get it.

Sure, this happens a lot: 

but the Top 5 Most Common Places Anna Sleeps are:
1. My couch
2. Amidst travel: cars or airplanes (immediately), or the subway
3. In class (or any sort of seated instructional setting)
4. A desk
5. My bed (gasp, NO!)

#5 refers to attempting to read & waking up 2 hours later with all of my makeup, clothes, and lights still on. I digress: The point is that I don't fall asleep anywhere interesting because I don't really do anything all that interesting. You want me to fall asleep at the Taj Mahal? Give me a plane ticket, a book, and a chair and wait 5 minutes.

 *This one is a joke.

Here's what I hope people gain from learning about this I'm not gonna lie odd disorder: it is just that-- a disorder. Something one can't fully control. Last December, when my roommate was helping me fill out my Symptoms Checklist to prepare for baby's first big trip to the sleep doctor, I looked at one of the symptoms and then jokingly proposed to her, "violent upon waking?" She looked at me with stern seriousness and said, "Actually, we are scared to wake you up from your naps. It's like you become a completely different person." She suggested I go ahead and circle that one. 

When my eyelids waver mid-conversation of a late-night gal chat about your traumatic first pimple, please don't take that as my not caring. If my head nods up & down to a noticeable degree during that staged reading & your first New York gig, please know that I am totally still proud of you and your ability to breathe in this must-covered basement. And when I begin to slur together words between turns of Parcheesi and accidentally mutter something like "computer stars", which has nothing to do with Parcheesi or anything we were talking about, please stop the game and shake my face, because I'm babysitting you and that makes no sense.

I care. I want to be awake. I like you. (Probably.) My brain just has other plans. Kind of like the new iOS7. 

(Did you get that. I hope so.)

Am I afraid of Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Tea?

Yes.

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