Sunday, February 26, 2012

My musical thoughts in words.

Sometimes, I think in music. I don't mean to say that I have songs stuck in my head, although I hardly live a moment of my life when a song is not running through my head, but that sometimes my thoughts are literally music. They are not words or associations of the senses - neither smells, nor pictures. Sometimes they're just music. It's not rare that I sit down to blog and wish that I could compose the melody of my thoughts for you. It's quite impossible.

This week was filled with adventure. After the sisters left on Monday, I had a day of preparation before my friend Melanie came to stay with me. She had an audition in the city for Cincinnati Conservatory, so she stayed with me, and we had quite the eventful week. On Wednesday, we saw Madama Butterfly at the Met. It was incredible. I can't begin to explain how extraordinary the production was. The sets, the costumes, the staging, the voices - oh the voices! - were beautiful. Thursday night, Lauren and I took Melanie to S'mac. If the name doesn't say it all, S'mac is a mac and cheese place on 12th between 2nd and 1st. They also have gluten free and vegan mac and cheese! Needless to say, it was great. Then we went to Momofuku milk bar. Then Melanie and I headed uptown and I showed her Times Square and did some shopping.

The rest of the weekend was a blur. We had Indian food and gelato on Friday night, and I had rehearsal all day Saturday. After rehearsal, I met Melanie and Betty back home. We had initially planned to go to the Prince Street Cafe in Soho. But once we stepped out the door, we had no desire to face the wind. So we went to the Corner Shop Cafe on the corner of Bleecker and Broadway. The Corner Shop Cafe has amazing brunch, and even better dessert. Betty had their gorgonzola walnut ravioli (which is to die for), and Melanie ordered their Rigatoni Napolitano. I got a roasted root vegetable salad with balsamic vinaigrette, and all of us split a side of asparagus and their truffle mac 'n cheese. For dessert, we split their apple bourbon crisp and their creme brulee. It was the best creme brulee I've ever tasted. I'm a firm believer that in the right company, a delightful meal can be an extraordinary thing. During one of those meals, your conversation is beyond social chatter. It's often meaningful and usually revelatory. Saturday night we shared one of those meals. We left full and happy - giddy, almost. My head was full of music. My thoughts were music of a sort. They were impossible to articulate, but they were beautiful, creating their own melodies and intriguing counterpoints that seemed to have no beginning or end.

As I type, Melanie is en route back to Idaho Falls, and I'm trying to catch up on my unfinished homework. Although, I suppose that blogging isn't accomplishing one bit of my homework. I'm blogging with the intention of later finishing my homework.

I once had someone tell me that placing a comma wherever you desire a pause in your sentence was perfectly logical. Being the grammar square that I was at the time, I was fast to disagree. Commas, like all punctuation marks, had a specific role to play in the English language, bound to a set of specific rules that governed them. However, the more I write, the more I find his logic to be sensible. Sometimes I incorporate his new comma rule into my writing. I've become comma-happy. So happy, that sometimes I create comma splices without truly realizing that they're splices, because I place them where a pause would naturally occur in my sentence. I speak this as a disclaimer. If you notice an excess of commas in my writing, it's most likely due to the way I'm thinking I want my sentence to sound. Normally, I try to be as grammatically aware as possible. (Mainly because I find grammar fun, but also because I hold the high opinion that it makes you more credible as a writer.) Think of this as a commapology. (Curtis Reynolds).


To a wonderful week!

Singing my own song,
♥ Em

England countdown: 12 days!

Monday, February 20, 2012

The sun sets on Lady Liberty...

...and on a beautiful weekend. Sisterfest 2012 was a huge success. Meg and Steph arrived early Thursday morning on a redeye flight from Salt Lake. The poor dears. But what would a sisterfest weekend be without our sister Courtney, right? Thursday morning, I'm checking my facebook and the first picture I see is of a paper plate with a face, sitting on top of a suitcase. The caption is, "Courtney was nice enough to watch our luggage for us!" For the rest of the weekend, we caught shots of Courtney at the statue, by St. Patrick's, getting into trouble, on the subway... They headed into the city to meet me so we could make it to our first Sisterfest activity - the Rachael Ray show. Our call time was at 1:00, and once we were there, Mary took us for a tour of the studio. While being prepped for the show, the comedic guy that cues the audience to laugh, clap, shout, etc. finds out that I'm a classical voice major at NYU. So, before I know it, I'm singing a snippet of an Italian aria for this audience. The taping was relatively easy, and Rachael was super interesting to watch. (My secret... I've never actually watched the Rachael Ray show before).

The 5 Crowley sisters at Grand Central!


After the show, we had some time to kill, so we found a place to grab appetizers and drinks, and did some shopping. Then we headed down to Hangawi, the incredible organic vegetarian Korean restaurant that I went to with Mary, Matt and my uncle, Andrew, over Thanksgiving. You enter the restaurant and they ask you to remove your shoes. You then sit on the floor and enjoy the best Korean meal you'll ever have. After dinner, we headed up to Times Square so the girls could see it at night, and did some shopping while there. Afterward, I headed home while they finished shopping and made their way back to Brooklyn.

On Friday, we met up after my class. We were going to do the statue of liberty. So I need to take an R train to Whitehall Street/South Ferry. Well, I catch the first N and have to transfer at Canal St. because N trains don't stop at the South Ferry station. So, I wait a decent 20 (ish) minutes for an R train, which takes another 20 minutes to get from Canal to Whitehall. If you aren't familiar with the New York City subway system, I must explain. Whitehall Street is 4 stops away from Canal. A mere 4 stops. On a good day, I can get from my subway stop into Brooklyn on an R in 20 minutes. It took me 20 minutes to get downtown. So I'm almost an entire hour later than I had planned to meet the girls, but we caught the 1:30 ferry to the statue. I've never been out to the island, so seeing the statue up close was actually really awesome. The first time I visited the city, we took a Water Taxi, which essentially just takes you close to the island and you get some pictures and such. Being close to the statue was different. Really awesome.



We headed back into the city to meet our dinner reservation at Pure. Mmmmm. We split the arugula salad with apples and winter greens for an appetizer. I had the cauliflower cous cous with persimmon scented dolmas for my main course. I wasn't as impressed with my entree as I was with both Mary's and Steph's. Steph had the sunchoke gratin with vanilla poached pear (which was incredible) and Mary had the Pear Ravioli with smoked long pepper mousse. Meg had the zucchini local heirloom tomato lasagna. The lasagna is really awesome as well, but I've had that before. Again, I was super impressed with the sunchoke gratin. For dessert, we split the dark chocolate semi freddo, a regular sundae and a mint chocolate sundae. Pure has the best desserts I've ever tasted. Raw dessert done right trumps non-raw dessert any day. The night was filled with amazing conversation, and I've taken away memories that I'll never forget. We all stayed in Brooklyn that night, and the next morning I had to head back into the city before them for rehearsal.

Saturday met us with different schedules. I had all day rehearsal. During my lunch break, my dearest friend David Stolworthy just happened to show up at my dorm as a surprise! It turns out that David actually is studying in New York this semester, and has been lying to me for months trying to keep it a surprise. Snitch. I'm so excited that he's here. I ate lunch with him and his friends Celina and Macy. I'm so excited that he's actually here.

After rehearsal, the sisters met me at my dorm and we got ready to head to the Met! Mary's friend was gracious enough to get us tickets to see Ernani, a Verdi opera that was a Spanish love tragedy. The voices were beautiful. The leading soprano was Angela Meade, who won the Met competition a couple years back. Her voice was gorgeous.


Sunday morning we met at the American Museum of Natural History. No matter how many times I see the museum, I still love it. You can never cover the whole thing in a day. Meg and I did the Butterfly Exhibit while we were there. Oh my goodness. It was absolutely incredible. You walk into this exhibit, and there are butterflies of all colors and sizes everywhere. I had five butterflies land on me. And Meg and I watched a butterfly hatch from its chrysalis. After the museum, we tried a Mexican food restaurant called Cafe Frida for lunch. We were super impressed. The food was super yummy. We tried their salsa sampler for an appetizer - they make 9 different kinds of salsa. We made our way down to Rock Center to do some more shopping, hitting up the Lego Store, J. Crew and of course, Anthropologie. After a very successful night of shopping, we did dinner in Brooklyn meeting up with Matt. We went to Bar Toto, this awesome Italian restaurant in Park Slope. Their Tiramisu is to die for. Steph, Meg and I split two kinds of pizza. (What is a New York trip without pizza, right?)


All in all, it was a tasty, fun-filled weekend. Only time will tell where next year's Sisterfest will find us.

♥ Em

England countdown: 17 days!

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Sweet Nothings

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return."

My loving family sent me the cutest Valentine's Day care package in the world! The three hearts are from my nieces, Katie and Anna. They also sent me dehydrated veggies/blueberries, an owl mug, gum, brush ups, vegan food, window stickers (courtesy of Katie), and a Valentine's Day headband. It's basically the most adorable thing I've ever received.
 
In addition, I got the sweetest card from my grandma. In fact, it's been a week of letters! My mailbox was literally over flowing this week. My roommates and I forgot to check our mail all week... So it looks like I'll have a full weekend of letter writing to do!

Saskia, Amanda and I made Valentine's day cookies. I wore pink. It was a Valentine's day filled with spirit.

Afterward, my floormates and I went to Momofuku milk bar. Their crack pie is to die for. Amanda and I returned home and spent part of our evening consuming too much sugar and drinking milk from cartons.

...Which resulted in Amanda and I both fitting into my forever lazy onesie pajamas and building a partial fort in our room. All in all, a lovely evening.

♥Emily

England countdown: 23 days!

Saturday, February 11, 2012

The flowers are confused

... It's not spring, darlings! It's snowing as I write. I'm sorry for skipping a post! It's been extremely busy. This week was rather uneventful... I spent most of my time slaving over Advanced College Essay homework and trying to clean my room. :/

On Monday, I was invited to a "favorite things" party at Mary's with some ladies from church. It was so fun. You bring your favorite thing to share, (it can be anything) and then explain why it's your favorite thing. We swapped make-up tips, favorite foods and little tidbits of information. It was awesome.

Two of the sisters are coming this weekend! I can hardly wait. :) This post is short, but mainly because I'm in the midst of drafting an essay, and unfortunately, it takes priority.

I leave you with an awesome quote from the book, In Search of Human Effectiveness: Identifying and Developing Creativity.


"If I were to summarize what is most generally characteristic of the creative [individual] as we have seen him, it is his high level of effective intelligence, his openness to experience, his freedom from petty constraints, and impoverishing inhibitions, his aesthetic sensitivity, his cognitive flexibility, his independence of thought and action, his high level of energy, his unquestioning commitment to creative endeavor, and his unceasing striving for creative solutions to the ever more difficult... problems he constantly sets for himself"

-Em

England countdown: 27 days!