The F*ck-It List: Summer of Redesign

Meeting good people in a city like New York is like winning the jackpot. You encounter so many people on a daily basis from different walks of life that finding a kindred spirit is often a daunting task. I had been spending most of my time either on set or in meetings, so I really didn't have time to notice how dismal my social life had become in recent months. The only people I had had any contact with were the ones I had been working with, and I've recently become a big proponent of not crapping where I eat. It had been months since I'd been home, or seen my cat who I sent home before my last excursion to LA, and the loneliness was really starting to set in. Then one night, on an errand to the tanning place, I met Alicia.

Alicia was in her mid-twenties and worked days at a local hospital. She only worked at the tanning salon as a favor to her friends that happened to own place (that.. and meet people in an environment that didn’t involve alcohol). That night while I was waiting for my airbrushing session, we both found ourselves engrossed in an NBA game on the lobby’s television. It wasn't until a ref made a lousy call for which she expressed her severe disdain with a certain hand gesture, that I realized this girl was a legitimate fan. The two of us got to talking and realized we had tons in common. We were both Florida transplants that came to New York for work and love, the latter part not working out so well. We’d crack jokes about our NYC dating horror stories and the random guys that would come into the tanning salon just to try to score a date with her. Soon my 10 minute spray tan appointments became full blown gossip sessions. And a friendship was born.

Alicia and I were sitting around at brunch one afternoon when we realized that before we’d met one another, we had been living the exact same story in the exact same town. We were two smart, marginally attractive girls who let their lives go to $hit over boys who cheated on us with simple girls. I think everyone has had the experience of breaking up with someone and drastically changing their outside appearance. After Alicia’s most recent, and probably the most devastating of breakups, she lost 10 pounds, stopped tanning, and without a second thought cut her gorgeous blonde hair to her shoulders and dyed it black! Waking up the next morning looking like a combination of Snow White and Kate Moss on heroin somehow still didn't make her feel any better.

Recently turned blonde again, Alicia is still figuring out life. Like me, all the self exploration and internal sole searching she’d been doing left her doubting herself. So she started allowing friends hook her up. That disaster ended with a huge realization that she didn’t have any idea what she wanted. She doesn't have a type. We are supposed to get more insight and intelligence with life and all its experiences. But the truth is we know less about ourselves now than we did when we were 18.

Walking down the street after a gluttonous meal, we realized that we both had come to hate this town simply because there were too many bad memories here. That particular day however, the weather was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky, and all of Hoboken was out at the parks and walking their dogs in the fresh air. In short, it was the perfect day.

"You know," I said, "Some days.. I think this town is almost livable."

We both stopped dead in our tracks.

Alicia turned to me, and said, "I was just thinking the same thing. There were days where I would lay and bed and want to wake up when it’s over. And then.. one day you start meeting good people and you think.. maybe, just maybe I could make it here."

So we decided right then in there that we were going to reinvent this town, and do over the past few years of our lives. We'd make lists of all the things we have to do to get rid of the old crappy memories and make newer, funnier, and better ones. We coined it our “f*ck it” lists.

We’d each make lists of five places that we wanted to redo. We'd go to these places with the new awesome people in our lives; take lots of pictures, hell maybe even video. and erase the times we had spent with people who had caused us enormous amounts of pain.

The concept of the f*ckit list really had nothing to do with boys. It was really about two girls living very similarly unfulfilling lives that came to find kinship with one another and decided to take matters into their own hands. You can only be victims of circumstance for so long before you decide to be proactive and do something about it.

So thus began the summer of re-design! The first thing we needed to do was decide on locations! See it's not about the building or that particular night, but the person you were with who disappointed you so greatly in the end that the mere thought of the place left such a rancid taste in your mouth! So when I got the call from a friend that he would be in Boston this past weekend, I couldn’t resist. Besides, Boston and I had never formally met and I had always wanted to go to Fenway Park. But for Alicia, Boston was a ghost town of bad memories and was definitely one of the top priorities on her list. And like that, the two of us packed our bags, and began the first of our many adventures to come.

After all, as Henry Miller once said, “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things." And that is exactly what we needed.