So it turns out that not really working out for, oh, two or so years (save for the occasional dance class) leaves one pretty out of shape. Now, I’m not entirely hopeless when it comes to sports - I scuba dive, snowboard, and even hang glide (just not lately) - but the fact is that exercise hasn’t been a part of my daily (or even weekly) routine in a very long time. I walk everywhere, which keeps me semi-fit, but I’d like to get a little healthier.

I practiced yoga pretty religiously during college, and continued for the first year I was in LA, but I haven’t set foot in a yoga studio since then. That is until yesterday, when I attended the Vinyasa class at Pure Yoga. I had a not-so-great day for a variety of reasons, but left the class feeling worlds better. The studio is absolutely stunning, and my instructor, Kay Kay, incorporated a lot of meditation, which was exactly what I was hoping for. I was shocked to discover that I couldn’t even begin to approach some of the positions I used to assume easily, but I’m going to be attending a bunch of yoga classes in the coming weeks, and am hoping to see a real difference in terms of flexibility and strength.

Service generously comped by management.

When I opened my mail and saw Suzanne Guillette’s debut work, Much to Your Chagrin: A Memoir of Embarrassment, I sighed inwardly for just a moment. The cover is pink - like, really pink - and I immediately jumped to a series of conclusions having to do with chick lit and beach reads (not that either is necessarily bad, just that they weren’t exactly what I was in the mood for).

But as it turns out, the cover art is the the only - and I mean only - thing that I don’t like about Guillette’s memoir. Chagrin chronicles Guillette’s twenty-ninth year, during which she suffered through a “spectacular implosion” of romantic misfortune while attempting to compile embarrassing stories for what she originally intended to be her first book - a series of short stories titled Oh, Shit.

It’s to our enormous benefit that this book didn’t end up being what Guillette released (largely due to the fact that her romantic relationship with her literary agent fell apart), because Much to Your Chagrin is a work of heart-stirring honesty and a remarkable achievement. Guillette manages to write about both love and heartbreak while gracefully traversing a minefield of potential cliches, and arrives at the conclusion that life’s uncertainties “can bring one to more authentic places.” I am quite simply in awe of a first-time novelist who is capable of tackling such topics with this level of bravery and skill.

This is a wildly entertaining story that at its essence is about a quarter-life crisis, and yet Chagrin achieves the near-impossible for a work in such an over-examined category: it entertains while simultaneously teaching some very important lessons. Guillette has been there, done that, and come out the other side with some very important things to say, and it’s only when you reach Chagrin’s conclusion that you realize that you’ve been taken by the hand and been shown how to make your way through your twenties with wisdom and grace.

A lovely and more affordable way to integrate Soft-Maps into your decor: pillows (on both pillows above is a map of DUMBO).

A few weeks ago, I heard about something called “Soft-Maps” (maps of cities and neighborhoods quilted into organic cotton and Dupioni silk) and thought, “Huh. I should get in touch with this girl.” Over brunch a couple of days later with my friend Kim, I discovered that she actually knew the creator of Soft-Maps, Emily Fischer, so the whole “getting in touch” thing proved fairly simple. 

Yesterday afternoon, I headed to Emily’s studio to learn more about her unusual, beautiful, and highly labor-intensive creations. Emily grew up in Northern Wisconsin, and learned to quilt at an early age. While studying for her Masters in Architecture at the University of Michigan, her mother began to lose her sight, and Emily came up with the idea of quilting maps to provide tactile representations of locales. She ended up designing Intermix stores, but ultimately decided to combine her interests and rented out a small studio under the elevated F train (the studio literally shakes every time a train goes by). I think that is awesome, and very brave. The quilts are true works of art and a beautiful way to mark a moment in time, and are made more affordable by the utilization of machine-quilting (handmade quilts are still available). I am particularly partial to the baby’s quilts, which have the baby’s name hand-embroidered into the map as pictured above (if the baby’s name were “Flatbush”).

Go here for more info.