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1. Run away to Brooklyn. Rent an apartment with a claw footed bathtub. Commute to Manhattan during the week and put in hours at a menial publishing job. Drive home to New Jersey on weekends to swim in the pool and cry to your mother. Smoke Gauloises on the fire escape. Let yellowing issues of Rolling Stone and Vogue pile into a protective fortress around your bed. Listen to Cat Power. Fall asleep mostly naked beneath the duvet watching Sportscenter and drinking earl grey. Date a Yankees fan and kiss his hands on the 4 Train into the Bronx.

2. Run away to Barcelona. Eat milk chocolate magnum bars and drink cheap champagne. Burst into charming fits of laughter whenever you get embarrassed about butchering the Catalan language. Wear denim cutoffs, Dr. Pepper chapstick, and very little else. Go dancing at 3 a.m. Whiten your teeth. Tan your shoulders. Braid feathers into your hair. Perpetually wake up with sand caught in the thin cotton sheets of your tiny bed. Listen to the Rolling Stones and kiss all the longhaired boys you can get your hands on without ever having to apologize.

3. Run away to Los Angeles. Sublet a studio in Venice three blocks from the beach. Listen to top 40 radio. Go to Chateau Marmont and charge drinks you can’t afford to a long-dormant credit card. Sleep with a television actor who lives in the valley. Sleep with a musician who lives in Bel Air. Break things off with both of them when gas prices begin to rise. Find Gilda Radner’s star on the Walk Of Fame and swallow a sob when you see the filthy cement around her name is cracked. Walk through the Venice Canals until the sun sets and you forget your own name. Call your mother crying from the parking lot of a 24-hour Ralph’s supermarket. Tell her you want to come home.

4. Run away to Paris. Gaze at the pink and pistachio glow of macarons in the window on Boulevard Saint-Germain. Listen to Joni Mitchell. Meet an Argentinean man in the Latin Quarter for drinks. Melt into his accent and kiss him goodnight, but return to your apartment alone because his face doesn’t look enough like the man’s you are trying to forget. Get lost in the Richelieu Wing of the Louvre, admiring Napoleon’s fine red damask. Walk alone along the Seine in an old dress, ten-dollar shoes, and an Hermes scarf. Fumble with the locks on the fence overlooking the river. They all have lovers’ names etched into them and the girl who left the red heart-shaped lock has the same name as you.

5. Run away to Martha’s Vineyard. Write heartbroken stories during the day in front of a large fan that blows curls of humid hair across your tired face. Take a waitress job at The Black Dog at night and try hard not to drop too many trays. Learn to ride a moped. Pretend you’re a Kennedy. Listen to Carly Simon. Eat hand-churned ice cream out of waffle cones. Visit the flying horses and consider how many girls just like you have sat on the same horse clutching for the same brass ring. Get stoned and dance barefoot down the length of the eroded Jaws beach. Date a Red Sox fan. Yell at each other during baseball games, and then kiss and make up between tangled sheets.

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xeno

n. the smallest measurable unit of human connection, typically exchanged between passing strangers—a flirtatious glance, a sympathetic nod, a shared laugh about some odd coincidence—moments that are fleeting and random but still contain powerful emotional nutrients that can alleviate the symptoms of feeling alone.

(Source: dictionaryofobscuresorrows, via quarterlifecoe)

Top Albums of 2011

My list is a little late, but I present my 10 favorite albums that came out over the past year. And some runners-up because I had to. Agree? Disagree?

1. Bon Iver - Bon Iver

I have listened to this album on vinyl for hours, alone in my apartment. Seeing it performed live was totally one of my highlights of the year.

2. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

This one got some serious vinyl rotation too.

3. The Drums - Portamento

I didn’t listen to this until later in the year but I’m ecstatic I did. I love to blast it through my headphones.

4. Black Keys - El Camino

I might be just slightly biased about my hometown band but this album absolutely rocks. “Sister” is my favorite (apparently I am biased about that too since I am a sister, says one of my friends..).

5. Charles Bradley - No Time for Dreaming

I have @jpcranman to thank for this. The Menahan Street Band who plays with Charles Bradley is super funky and great.

6. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy

I’m happy to have a badass album by a lady on here since I end up listening to music by dudes much more frequently than music by women. Umm..girlcrush. Love the lyrics.

7. Real Estate - Days

Simply well-crafted tunes and that’s final.

8. Active Child -You Are All I See

Pat Grossi plays the harp and has an amazing voice and this album is almost too easy to listen to.

9. Sigur Ros - Inni

Sigur Ros gets me every time. The studio versions of the songs are obviously good but this live album takes them to a whole new level. Still haven’t seen the video of the performance but I will in due time…

10. M83 - Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

Anthony Gonzalez fashioned a great album. It’s pretty outstanding to listen to all the way through.

Runners-Up:

Feist - Metals

Common - The Dreamer, The Believer

Cults - Cults

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (soundtrack)

The soundtrack is brilliant…so gritty and I love it. Not only did it really intensify and enhance the movie, I can (and do) listen to the music all on its own.

2011…you did good.