Nora's Archive

I'm a girl who likes things to be a certain way. As a child, I would take the time every evening to lay my clothes out in the shape of a person (even though I wore a school uniform). As a teenager, I owned a Palm Pilot that I used alongside a daily planner with color-coded highlighters.  In the years since, I transferred my obsessive tendencies from personal organization to dating:...

I’ve said it before: I love Love. I never end a phone conversation with a family member without reminding them that I love them, I smother my niece and nephew with kisses and I struggle not to end every text message with an "XO". When you live like this it’s hard for Valentine’s Day to seem terribly important, but you won’t find me turning down an excuse to stimulate our economy with...

In New York City, when the subway would smell like hot garbage or the street sweeping trucks would blow debris all over my bare, lotion-covered legs, I’d disappear to a farmhouse in the Vermont countryside.  Not literally, of course, because that would cost time and money, two things I never really had much of when I lived there.

I called it "Farm Fantasy", and mine was pretty perfect: a...

The relationship advice I’ve gotten (and okay, given) hasn’t always been spot on.  And although its nobody’s fault when the guy you pursue ends up being gay or already has a girlfriend, the most consistent piece of good advice out there is this:

Find somebody that you have fun with.

For me, this presents a different kind of challenge: I have fun doing almost anything.  Even on dates...

I like flannel shirts and big boots and the smell of Old Spice under my arms.  I like Britney Spears and skincare routines and I’ve tried every mascara on the planet.  I’m as well-versed in professional wrestling and competitive eating as I am in Katherine Heigl rom-coms and celebrity gossip.  I pride myself on being a girls' girl and one of the guys-- but one thing I’m...

2010 was a banner year for me.  Not just because of what happened, but also because of what didn’t.  So what’s the best way to summarize 365 days? With words, numbers, and a few pictures - obviously.


1
- baby squirrel narrowly escaped being caught with my bare hands
- friend who gave birth to a little human of her own
- brother who got married
- brother who got engaged the next day (a...

(or, Why It Sucks to be Born in December)

I hate my birthday. Seriously. Hate it. Not in the way that lady sitcom characters hate it because omg-omg-omg it means they’re getting olllld and is that a laugh line? No, I hate my birthday because it falls on quite possibly the least celebratory day of the year.

December 28 places you smack dab between the exhaustion of Christmas and the ability to get...

It’s a little premature for New Year’s Resolutions, since I typically like to save those until February, but my new life goal is to eat like a real-life grown-up.

After a recent trip to the doctor to investigate what I was convinced was a food allergy (what else can it mean when it looks like a little baby elbow is sticking out of your stomach every time you eat?), it was called to my attention...

The past seven days have officially been Ex-Boyfriend Week.

Ex-Boyfriend Week is a magical time when former loves suddenly reappear in your e-mail inbox, text messages or Facebook feed, trying to see if the space they had formerly occupied in your life has been filled.

It’s as if every time I kiss a boy on the mouth, I equip him with a radar that alerts him when I’ve begun to see somebody new...

Chelsea and I met at my favorite dive bar, the kind of place where the smell of stale beer and tater tots punches you in the face as soon as you walk in.  We’d been texting and Facebooking for weeks before we finally agreed to meet in person, and we both had a blind-date exit strategy just in case the evening didn’t go as planned.

This isn’t a typical love story: This is the story of my...