“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice.” – T.S. Eliot

— HuffPost Books (@HuffPostBooks) January 1, 2012

In February 2011, author Cole Stryker looked at the correlation between several common resolutions and their popularity in Google Trends for Urlesque.com. The results were almost comically not surprising. Two months into the new year, the terms “get fit,” “get organized” and “quit smoking” are at their near lowest peaks of the year. “Diet” pops up again toward the summer months, but “resolution” is the most striking, with one solid peak at the culmination of the year and not another appearance till then. Psychology Today writes that “after six months, fewer than half the people who make New Year’s resolutions have stuck with them, and, after a year, that number declines to around ten percent.” With odds like that, it’s tough to be a modern resolution.

I don’t consider myself a quitter. A runner, maybe, but not a quitter, and I’ve been accused of sticking with things (ideas, jobs, people…) long after I should have let them go. In the past I’ve noted that I prefer to call my resolutions ‘to-do lists’ and go at them with the same fervor I attack a daily to-do list at work, or the errands list stuck to my fridge. I’m a staunch list maker, and achiever. So, it’s no wonder that I’m aching for a little break from the tyrannical to-do’s.

As far as lucky ducks go, I might be the luckiest. 2011 was no slouch. First and foremost, I got paid to explore the West Coast, Asia and South America more extensively. I tested my own boundaries, got sick and learned to laugh from it, and opened up to total strangers. I strengthened very old friendships and cemented new ones. I received an immeasurable amount of trust from new colleagues and thus have been able to work with some of the brightest minds in my field. I perfected my summer tan while achieving a work-life balance. Hell, I rode a horse up a mountain like a champ.

And looking ahead, 2012 means…

The beginning of the HuffPost Book Club, my pet project for the past few months, an interactive project that will blur the lines between what we read and how we live. We’re taking books off your nightstand, and out of your commute, and incorporating the words we love into our daily lives as a means of connection and growth.

More mountainous travel to Denver and South America, while planning a honeymoon to somewhere that will blow my hard-working, not-yet-well-traveled fiance’s socks off.

The continuation of my yoga practice, which has had an amazing impact on how I see life and my own health.

The formation of a team at my work place that will quite literally revolutionize the way we read and share and formulate the news, and the chance to re-energize and rebuild one of most important news websites of our time.

Lots and lots of long weekends in new places because, hey, all of that creativity has to come from somewhere.

And, of course, my wedding, February 16th, 2012, when I’ll need to learn to stop being ‘me’ and start being ‘us.’

With so much already on the table, who needs to mandate happiness into their lives?

So, if I had to pick a resolution, if I was absolutely forced to, it would be this: Make no resolutions. Put no boundaries on life. Go where the wind takes you.

See that quote embedded above? Last year I tweeted that simple quote from the Huffington Post Books account. With 57 retweets and favorites, and countless replies, I know I can’t be the only one ready to forge forward without fanfare or looking back.

“How was your trip?” a friend would Skype me that night. “Amazing,” I replied, “I just had the most amazing pizza of my entire life.” This was the last thing she expected to hear from a Brooklyn-raised Italian American and, also, this is Argentina we’re talking about.

When you find yourself in Buenos Aires, don’t forget to make it to Eva Perone’s grave, and remind me to pass along the name of a fantastic little leather shop in Palermo where you can score affordable heels. Oh, and regardless of whether or not you’re a good dancer, give the tango your best whirl. Visitors venturing down to Argentina’s famous capital have no lack of ideas in front of them. Often breathlessly described as the idyllic love child of romantic Paris and edgy New York, guide books quite literally overflow with tips, ideas and itineraries for first-timers that range from sorta-scary-but-generally-okay street art paths to tango jaunts in cramped second floor studios. Food lovers here are corralled into art nouveau cafes and break blood vessels eating at gourmet butcher shops until they burst.

“But stay away from the pizza,” your friends will warn you, “you don’t want that pizza.”

Since Italians are the largest heritage group in modern day Argentina, it shouldn’t be that surprising that pizza is a staple of your typical Argentinian diet. You’re likely to find a Mediterranean restaurant on many streets featuring those old staples like spaghetti and meatballs. Argentine families are often mobile in their daily routines and these quick meals fit into their schedules and fill tummies. But there’s something about that pizza that causes confusion in visitors. There’s something different about this meal that the masses of sauce-covered faces just can’t place their finger on. Even Wikipedia, the crowdsourced dictionary of “subjective” reference, says of Argentine pizza, that it “more closely resembles calzones than it does its Italian ancestor.” Maybe it’s the recipe.

There’s one obvious difference to this exotic sideshow: the crust. This is not your typical Chicago deep-dish thick crust, this is a loaf of flaky bread more on par with another Italian treat, the focaccia, a round bread topped with light sauces and herbs. To achieve that dense, chewy base, dough is left to rise for up to 70 hours during preparation. After that, it’s smothered in an array of large hunks of vegetables like peppers, broad hunks of meat and whole green olives, an achievement similar more similar to a Jackson Pollock painting than your casual New York folding slice. And the faina, ah the faina. If you’ve still got room in your belly for more, you can try to handle this slice of “secondary pizza,” a broad slice packed with chickpeas, roasted onions and cheese. It adds a satisfying crunch to the soft, mushy ball of cheese you’ve undoubtedly only just gobbled down.

While even well-traveled Westerners can admit our US standard of pizza has no resemblance to it’s Italian brethren, we can’t deny having a love affair with the iconic slim triangles of dough covered in a dollop of cheese and drowning in oil. It’s an emotional thing, it’s a nostalgia thing, and here comes Argentine pizza, a mass of bread piled-high with thick, gooey cheeses and almost aggressive toppings, throwing us all for a loop.

If you’re willing to ignore the jeers and ridicule the Foursquare check-in will earn you, there’s an actual gem of a pizzeria right on busy Corrientes Av where Guerrin has been making people cry tears of pizza joy for 43 years. Brainchild of Milan immigrant Franco Malvezzi, the pies here are thinner by Argentinian standards, but still pack a punch that will make you double over in satisfied pain after you’re done licking your fingers clean. If you’re brave enough, pour a tall glass of moscato, fight for a table in the back and join the hundreds of people who line the walls of the bare-bones shop each day for a very emotional lunch break. What does this classic establishment have that the dozens of other shops lack? It could be the minimalist interior, or the all-business serving staff. It could be that the pies are closer to the style of our nostalgic pizza dreams than other Buenos Aires fugazza. Or, it could just be that Guerrin’s house pie, teeming with spicy ham, fresh tomato slices, salty olives and cheese so thick it’s actually walking away from the pizza, is really damn good.

As noted in the video, another big bonus of the program is the simple refrigeration of the products. Each market gets a colorful branded refrigerator that is stocked daily for just $200 with healthier options than high-sugar sodas and snacks. The markets have the choice to sell items at a higher price point to make a profit, or price to sell.

This initiative is just getting started and I can’t wait to see how it grows. As anyone who lives or travels in this city knows, one block can make the difference between neighborhoods and yet there are dozens of parts of the city that go without healthy necessities every day. Folks in the test neighborhoods, Central Harlem and Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, can check the list at GrowNYC to find out which local bodega carries Fresh Bodega products and to become involved in continuing this project.

Fresh Bodegas from GrowNYC on Vimeo.

Photo via Flickr user Maggie Jane.

Even if you’re not a fan of the flashy sights and sounds of spots like Vegas and Atlantic City, there’s something about the odd juxtaposition of a glittering, shimmering golden dragon rising through a puff of white smoke next to a doorway in which a tiny pot of incense has been placed that makes this city like one big treasure hunt.

Try, if you dare, to ignore the rainbows of colors coming off of every surface of Macau.

Note: My trip to Macau was sponsored by their CVB and Myriad Marketing.

I sat in our hotel lounge munching on a croissant breakfast with two other Americans and in they all came, a parade of nations: New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Great Britain and Canada. I couldn’t remember their names as fast as they were being thrown at me but, oh well, I thought, I’ll probably hardly speak to them anyway. I’m not a particularly outgoing person and knowing my own shyness and limitations, didn’t really expect that the size of the group would have any impact on my trip.

I love being proven wrong.

Two days into my trip, in Aguas Calientes, a steamy little hot springs town at the base of Machu Picchu, I started to feel dizzy. I excused myself back to the hotel where I promptly laid down on a towel on the floor and within minutes began throwing up into the poor hotel’s garbage can. That episode repeated itself four more times, until, drowning in silent tears, I had to admit defeat: there was no way I’d be able to do the 5am walk up to the ruins. No coca leaf, nap or cup of tea would resesitate me. Finally around 8am I reluctantly packed my day bag and joined a group of three others at the town bus for the ride up to Machu Picchu. Despite the best efforts of those with me, I couldn’t breathe or focus on climbing, I lost what was left of my dinner into a plastic bag and, at the prodding of a public worker and a few group members, decided to climb back down to the bus and into the warm, loving arms of a special “sick room” hotel room that had been procured for me for the day.

I passed out into the evening then packed up once again to meet the entire group at the train station for the hour ride back into beautiful Cusco, a trip I was dreading, at 12,000 ft above sea level, and I settled into my train seat to begin moaning and groaning when 20-something faces turned to me.

“Are you okay?”
“Are you feeling any better? Is everything alright?”
“Do you want my water?”
“I have some coca leaves in my bag…”

A girl I had met just 48 hours ago rummaged through her stuff to find me an Advil and a gentleman from half-way around the globe got up to give me his seat. When we disembarked the train, a new friend helped me figure out how to buy a Gatorade in Spanish, and another carried my bags from the train to our awaiting coach bus. Back on the bus to the hotel, another friend gave up her seat so that I could lay down across a bench. In spite of feeling like I was rotting alive, their kindness took me by surprise and I began smiling. They carried my burden with me, all the way back to Cusco and to Lima the following day. And when we arrived in Lima, with my immune system fully recovered, others started to succumb to symptoms, and I returned the favor, dispensing Advil tablets, shuttling water and becoming a cozy shoulder to rest on.

I don’t travel in groups. I’m not outgoing and to take the time to really get to know 20 other people sometimes feels like a job to me. Remembering names, taking others feelings into accounts, doing group activities… sometimes these are things I travel to get away from. But had I ventured on my trip to Machu Picchu alone, had I been alone in that Aguas Calientes hotel, I can tell you that my trip would have been very different.

If I had no one to cry to, no one to make me laugh when I thought I was dying, no one to rest my head on, it would have been a very different trip. Instead, I was given the opportunity to be vulnerable to 26 people, never an easy task, particularly not for a life-long New Yorker, and in exchange 26 people carried me up a mountain.

I’ve been home for five days now. I’m very much back in the New York swing of things. I’m hunched over Occupy Wall Street emails, I have wall-to-wall brunch dates this weekend, and back-to-back meetings through next month. My heels were pulled out of my desk drawer and my debit card has swung through the magical Starbucks cash machine at least three times already. But there are two new editions to my desk at the Huffington Post. One is a tiny alpaca keychain, one of the few items I purchased from a Cusco market. His little keychain body is made of alpaca wool and he has googly eyes, which is basically a no-brainer for me when purchasing items. And next to him is a photo. I’m squished into the corner, wearing the one wrinkled dress I packed and new leather shoes from Argentina. I look visibly exhausted and out of my comfort zone. I’m leaning heavily toward my right, into the group of 26 people I had traveled with, and we’re all smiles, some mid-laugh, others mid-pose. It makes me smile every time I take a break from real life and consider the backpack that held all my belongings for over a week.

I entered my South America trip a cynic, a loner prepared to be polite and do her own thing. I came home with one alpaca keychain, one pair of shoes, 312 photos, three new songs on my iPhone, one used plastic bag and 26 amazing friends.

Sure, we were excited about the new cues for Haunted Mansion and Winnie the Pooh, not to mention the big wall guarding the famed Fantasyland expansion and the brand-new Beast’s castle peeking out from over the top. But most exciting of all, the night before we left, I stumbled upon this blessing of a blog, the Disney Food Blog, where I discovered a cupcake crawl.

Walt Disney World might not be the first place you think of when you go on a foodie vacation, but we decided, in preparation for our nuptials and dessert table, it was our duty, no, our mission in life, to test out as many Disney desserts as humanly possible. Thank goodness for walking uphill to Splash Mountain 4 hours a day!

[portfolio_slideshow]

This platter of cake samples was provided by our Disney Weddings planner. We fell in love with both almond cake and marble cake, amaretto cream and white chocolate.

Candied apples are very popular at Disney World. These Mickey and Minnie apples were found in Hollywood Studios and are covered in sparkling sugar.

These cupcakes are found at the Boardwalk Bakery near the Epcot Boardwalk resort area. Besides the marshmallow cream and graham cracker crust, the center was filled with molten chocolate.

Cake pops are a new offering at Disney World and they're already everywhere. These versions were spotted at the Main Street Confectionery in the Magic Kingdom and were freshly made by a team of in-shop chocolatiers.

Best for the tiny hands of kids (or those who can't handle a cupcake) these are simple pretzel rods doused in white, milk and dark chocolate, and sprinkled in coconut, M&M's and nuts. They're available in Downtown Disney and Hollywood Studios.

If pretzels aren't your thing, these chocolate covered marshmallows should do the trick. Like the pretzel rods they're doused in candy and on display in Hollywood Studios and Downtown Disney.

I’m a horrible chicken. I jump ten feet high on haunted house rides; forget walk-through Halloween houses, I could never get near one of those. I get weak in the knees on particularly tall bleachers. It helps if I’ve had a gin and tonic or two before I fly. Meeting new people makes me nervous.

I’m looking to put an end to this madness because, what is fear, really, except a barrier to the rest of my life?

When my mom passed away seven years ago I lost a lot of the inhibitions that held me back as a student. After all, what could be as bad? And what could matter more? But amazingly, living in the middle of life, even a fast-paced life, can naturally give you a few pieces of emotional baggage. Read the news today? Ever think about how all of that could happen to anyone? Yeah, me too.

So, this summer, I’m going on a series of trips that will confront a handful of my biggest fears in the hope that all the little ones won’t be as bad.

First up? Heights.

When I was in Africa I met a little girl that would completely change my life. We barely spoke two words to each other and I was only on her island for maybe 3 hours at most, but she captivated me in ways I would never deem to try to explain in written words.

Francine was ridiculously gorgeous, amazingly shy and humble, and wrapped in a colorful fabric that hinted to me, I know if she had been a US pre-teen as opposed to one living in Rwanda, she’d be entranced by Justin Bieber, feather hair extensions and Disney Channel. In short, she was a normal, beautiful, fun young girl. Her life might have an extremely different backdrop than my nieces in New York but at heart, she’s the same.

I came home from my trip and enjoyed a quick (and rare) coffee break with Tammy Tibbetts who runs She’s the First, an organization that curates non-profits in need with the people who want to provide for them – and they all revolve around creating the women leaders of tomorrow by building schools and giving young women the access to the help they need.

Last year, instead of gifts and drinks I asked my friends to pool together $10 each to support a girl for She’s the First – and within just a few days we pooled together $100 instantly to support a girl in Haiti.

This year, I’m asking for more.

I’m amazingly blessed to have such a strong community around me lately. I’ve met people I’ve only just connected with online; I’ve made lifelong friends out of people who I used to know by handle. And now I’m asking for a favor from you all. I’m asking the amazing community that I’ve just gotten to know to please join me in donating $20 toward She’s the First so that we can sponsor the education of a girl.

I’m hoping to collect $360 to sponsor the Arlington Academy of Hope in Uganda.

Here’s how you can help:

Contact me directly. I’ll be pooling together checks and making up the difference to reach the $360 goal.

You can donate anonymously or by name so I can share messages from the school with you.

I’m pulling for donations for the next two weeks.

I appreciate your time spent reading my blog and my writing, and I have appreciated getting to know you all on a real basis. I hope you can join me in supporting this cause.

Thanks

Update: I had hoped to involve my PayPal account in this endeavour, but because I moved, PayPal has rejected my account information and has not been able to help me figure out why my account will not link up. I hope you will still participate.

As a further introduction, I learned something very different than everyone else did at this year’s TBEX conference. I’m not surprised; we all come from different houses of thought and it was most interesting to see how people made these issues come about, rather than what they actually voiced. One of my favorite things about my job at the Huffington Post is that even while the company has grown nearly double the size in the last few months, it’s still largely run like a start-up. There’s push and pull, process of elimination and hey, we just try stuff ’til we get it right. It’s a quality I admire in the world of digital media, where nothing is black and white, and to me, it’s the difference between people who take their work seriously and people who take themselves a little too seriously. I saw those same dynamics at work this past weekend at TBEX.

“Did you hear about it?” a really excited friend nearly squeeled over a shared coffee just minutes from the conference center doors. I was hesitant to reply, stuffing my mouth instead. It was the completion of TBEX day one and I was already reaching my fill of gossip, bordering the line between humorous snark and actual frustration. My colleague needed no prompt, instead jumping into the story of an episode from earlier that afternoon.

Gadling blogger, my AOL co-worker, Mike Barish had put down his comedy hat for a few minutes during his panel and wore a badge of honesty. Barish launched into a quick speak about his past year, where he felt compelled to be ‘the asshole’ to gain attention among the digital noise, and very sincerely apologized to the large crowd for his basic demeanor over the last twelve months. I later confirmed with a small handful of audience participants that, yes, they’d almost never seen the writer look quite so sincere.

I’ve always admired Mike for his writing talents and have even been envious of his skills; he’s one of those bloggers for whom it all seems to come so naturally, he’s so well-liked and commandeers crowds. I’ve always been socially awkward, preferred books and numbers to friends growing up and feel more comfortable in smaller crowds than governing conference rooms. Yet for all that respect, I could never quite form a repertoire with him. We’ve clashed thoughts, revolved in different circles, and had vastly different, though similarly strong opinions. I’m not above admitting when I hear something touching, and this public declaration, while I did not personally experience it, got my mind working for the next day or so. I couldn’t have had more respect for a fellow writer, or heard a more true statement in a really long time.

During TBEX and other conferences, we fill our bags with laptops, iPads, smart phones. We grab hotel pens from our rooms and jot notes on CSS and widgets and the words we should never, ever ‘nestle’ into a truly fantastic article. We shyly approach mentors, meet digital friends IRL (that’s ‘in real life’ for those note immersed in the cloud), and, yep, drown ourselves in a pint or two. We all wax poetic on the necessity of being part of a community, and like any other, we’ve got some real growing pains to get through. Like Barish pointed out, it’s too easy to posture in a community based on noise. We’ve all, at some point, strained to break through the white noises with some heavy negativity. Negativity is, as noted during a well-attended TBEX workshop, one of the best methods of attention seeking we’ve got in our arsenal. And a Wired article from issue 19.11 cites that user profiles on the site okCupid that contain negative adjectives are more likely to pull-in the attention of urbanites.

Sure, TBEX opening night was marked with hugs and rehashing of fond memories. But by night two there were more apologies than hugs, and a Gossip Girl-esque Twitter account parodying attendee behaviour was rattling off one-liners under the event hashtag. In short: negativity is something you cannot escape in a world such as ours.

Sometimes, we’re all assholes. We’re tired. We’re hungry. That Japadog is acting up. We want our wifi to work faster. We want to be taken more seriously. TBEX, a smart and much-needed event that has grown three-sizes too big since it’s inception is a breeding ground for behaviour like this. In a largely crowdsourced event where even members of the audience can be an expert too, it’s easy to grow a large head and mimic the phrase of the overworked, “I’ve heard this all before” and “I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know.”

What lessons did you bookmark after the conference rooms were locked up? Is your notebook full of the names of widgets and gadgets, short form coding, the email address of a secret sexual encounter you experienced after one too many gin and tonics at Roxy Burger? I hope it’s also leafed with the words patience, listening, and accepting. Patience to get through situations that might make our blood boil. Listening to encourage us to grab just one second of silence and really, REALLY, open our ears to our neighbors. Accepting to dive into that age-old Christian saying that sullied most of my hours of detention in Catholic School, “Lord, let me accept the things I cannot change.” Cause, yep, there’s a lot we can’t change when you’re dealing with people.

Our world is better bigger – huge, even. And we’re doubly blessed to deal with the growing pains of figuring out how to make something work, figuring out who we align ourselves with. We’re due to encounter personalities we don’t get along with, colleagues who’s ideals we do not personally approve of, and people we just wouldn’t give the time of day to if we were anywhere other than standing at the coffee counter wearing a name badge in the shape of a tourism squirrel. My hope, flying home from TBEX 11, making plans for TBEX NYC meet-ups, and idealizing the events of a Keystone TBEX12 hot tub party, is that we not only grab mainstream takeaways, complain about wifi and coffee and open public complaint forums on how we just coulda done so much better ourselves, but that we all learn to read between the lines and see beyond the posturing and mainline takeaways and points from the panels.

Having been in the business of media my entire career, under the largest publishing houses in the world, do-it-all start-ups and living through one of the toughest media mergers of our time, I now understanding that how you act during times when we are tested, unhappy and frustrated… how we handle ourselves in the public forums of our peers, well, that might be the most professional education of them all. Thanks for that, TBEX.

Photo via TBEX Flickr Stream user GalavantingGals.