Took the stool right out from under me
I visited my father's restaurant today for the first time since his passing. He was the original owner and chef since I was a little girl. He had several restaurants at one point but Settembre's Italian Restaurant and Catering was his last and the one that I spent the most time in. My uncle Tony owns it now, but he's been trying to sell it for awhile now, since he was never much of a cook and has a successful limo business to run, Settembre's Limos, sensing a family biz name trend? Anyway, the restaurant has switched management and names several times now, it was a Mexican place at first and most recently Rockin Robins--an American grill and ice cream shop. The renters were five months behind in rent so my uncle had to lock the doors on them and is selling the equipment inside to cover expenses.

Going inside wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, since it changed so much. The only thing similar was the catering halls in the back of the place where I'd hide away dancing to the juke box when I was bored. Being outside in the parking lot was hard though. I had flashes of all the times I'd pull up to grab a pie and some of my dad's yummy food to share with friends and all the times I was dropped off there to visit with my dad and the summers I spent there helping out folding pizza boxes, being a soda jerk or waitressing. My heart expected him to come out and join us in the empty lot, wearing his usual apron tied around his waist and a t-shirt covered in flour. Alas, the freezing winds and memories were the only things greeting me today.

The reason for my visit after five years of looking the other way when I drove by, was to pick up two bar stools for my apartment, to replace the ugly bulky ones that came with the place. No one ever really wanted to sit on them, except for when I was cooking them dinner (daughter like father) and had no choice. The stools are perfect, red like almost everything in my apartment (couch, microwave, etc). They are very retro too, which is also very me. Whatcha think?

News: I set up an interview and press release for my step dad Michael and so far it's resulted in the following article: Financial planners: Winning the lottery isn't always a dream. An AM radio channel is interested in speaking with him too, and I'm hoping to hear back from more local CT media as well.

What comes first, the emails or the date?
What do you prefer?

I've had good and bad with both, so I'm not one to really talk, but it's been the topic of conversation lately with some of my friends, two of whom are experiencing this problem on Match and are not sure which way is best or the protocol of when to end the emailing and bringing it to the next level before things get stale or preconceived opinions are formed.

I've had some nice email exchanges but often find people can hide behind words and be different online. So I prefer just meeting people and deciding for myself, a la Blink. Then again I recently gone on a couple of dates with someone and since we didn't converse before or after our dates on phone or email, it was like meeting with a stranger instead of a friend. So what's the moral of this post I guess there should be a happy medium, a way to connect but not mask or get too comfortable online that you don't have an offline future.

Sexy Stats: 81% of women have gotten the giggles during lovemaking--compared to 51 percent of men. Yet, 35% of men have teared up during lovemaking--compared to 23 percent of women.

Video: Brokeback to the Future lol, this brings in a whole other level to Doc and McFly.

Movin on up
Today was an all around good day for me, especially career wise. I arranged for two briefings with two different InfoWorld reporters for one of my clients. Then found out during my 90-day review at my new PR firm that I was being promoted. So, I'm no longer an Assistant Account Executive but an Account Executive. I was hoping to get this promotion by my sixth month review since I was on my way to becoming at AE at my previous company, so was very pleased, honored and excited to achieve this promotion sooner rather than later.

I was already having dinner with friends coming in from Tennessee and my NY girls that evening so I was ecstatic to be able to share my good news with them. I toasted with a glass of red at dinner with my fabulous lasagna that I had and then a glass of champagne at Bar Veloce. Cheers!

My mother meanwhile was also in the city on business and having a field day at Clinique picking up stuff for the both of us at 40% off thanks to her new candidate that works at Clinique's marketing department and receives an employee discount. I can't wait to see the goodies she picked out for me during her next visit.

PS: Back in December I blogged about being in the audience during George Clooney's speech at NYU on his now Oscar nominated film Good Night and Good Luck and journalism in general. Well, now you too can watch the 55 min panel here.

Film School Rejects
I'm now one of the staff writers at Film School Rejects, a brand new site offering movie critique and news. I'm mostly going to be writing DVD reviews like I did at DVDFanatic. I've pasted links to my most recent ones below. I'll also be writing the occasional editorial too, especially come Oscar time.

DVD Reviews:
Just Like Heaven
Red Eye
Joonbug

My staff bio reads:
"Tara has her master’s in journalism from NYU and was a former features reporter at a daily CT newspaper. Her passion is movies, thanks to her dad who brought her to see a new movie every Monday and for ignoring R ratings even when she was only five, which later led to a detention in elementary school for saying “Yippee-ki-yay, motherf *$%ker” to her gym teacher who reminded her of Bruce Willis’ Die Hard character. Her movie claim to fame is auditioning for the little girl in Three Men and a Little Lady, dancing with Robert Downey Jr. and for seeing every movie on the AFI 100 list. Tara lives in New York City and writes When Tara Met Blog …oh and she still has a thing for Bruce Willis."

Just Say Yes
I know my friends are tired of me preaching about how you should never turn down a reasonable date, even if you may just want to be friends. A date is a date and its good practice. One girlfriend of mine emailed me saying I was going to say no, because I had a lot going on that weekend and then I thought ‘what would Tara do?’ So yeah, she went on the date and supposedly had fun, so there you go. Even if it doesn’t lead to something erstwhile, my philosophy is that it gets you that more comfortable dating and out there. I’m not saying to date a real jerk just because they asked you out, I mean accepting dates within reason and if you're not interested after that you don't have to go on a second.

The following Newsweek article Dating: Positive Thinking about the book, The Year of Yes, just goes to show that my advice might be sound after all...

Maria Dahvana Headley grew up listening to the "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign of the 1980s. As a student at NYU in the late '90s, she applied that advice to her love life, turning down most men who asked her out and dating only intellectual, literary types. Frustrated by those guys, she reversed course, resolving to spend one year responding positively to all flirting and saying yes to literally anyone who asked her out. The ensuing 150 dates included a homeless man, several non-English speakers, 10 taxi drivers, two lesbians and a mime.

Headley's memoir of the experience, The Year of Yes, is now in bookstores, and Hollywood's already calling. She urges other people to say yes more often, despite some horrible dates. (One guy took her to a bar that, it became clear, was a strip club—and that's a tame example.) "Lots of women are pretty set in what they think they have to have in order to be happy, but it doesn't hurt to date people who are not that," she says. It worked for her: during her dating spree, she met a playwright who was divorced and 25 years older and had two children—baggage that would have ordinarily nixed his chances. They married in 2003; now 28, Headley lives in Seattle with two teenage stepchildren. "It's something I never would have picked, but it's turned out to be this kind of amazing experience," she says.

Posted by Tara at 7:40 AM PST

Updated: Monday, March 20, 2006 8:57 AM PST

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