Over dinner last night, my friend and I lamented how jaded we’ve become looking at the latest photos in magazines and news sources across the web. Before I got into photography and invested in a DSLR, what impressed me the most with photos I loved was the way these photos captured light. After dummy-proof photo editing apps like Instagram have made adjusting so simple, and once you know exactly how much editing is done to turn an ordinary photo into a masterpiece, the more skeptically you look at any photo and think, “Sure, this looks great, but how natural is it, and how much does it truly capture what the photographer really saw?”

Tonight, I went to see an incredible concert that included Lang Lang, Joshua Bell, and John Legend, among other incredibly singers and pianists. While the performances themselves were awe-inspiring and far beyond what I expected, I couldn’t help but notice the girl next to me who constantly texted her boyfriend and friends throughout the night. I get that you can enjoy music by listening and not watching, but this bordered on excessive. The concert lasted about 2.5 hours with an intermission halfway through. Are we really becoming a society when disconnecting for just a couple of hours is too much to handle? How much information do we really need to share with each other, and where do we draw the line for what is considered acceptable?

I finally finished reading Tomatoland, a book about how the tomato as we know it in the United States has lost all of its flavor due to the agriculture industry’s desire to compromise quality (taste) in favor of quantity (pesticide-laden, green and thus not ripe when picked, but certainly plentiful). Happily, I discovered that most of the tomatoes that are grown with fewer pesticides and with more flavor happen to be grown in California. It makes me miss California produce even more while living in New York, where it’s easy to find produce, but it will cost a lot more, likely be shipped from more distant lands, and also not taste as great.

Summer in New York has arrived. This week, the temperature has exceeded 90 degrees F, and after work, all you see are people hurrying home to hide out with their comforting ACs and tons of cleavage, legs, and butt exposed by city women. I’ve always loved warm weather but abhor humidity. Sweat dripping down my body and clothes sticking to my skin are not fun sensations. I also do not enjoy walking out of my apartment first thing in the morning, and inhaling to realize that the first smell wafting through my nostrils is that of garbage roasting in the summer heat. But, I do look forward to shedding my layers, weekend getaways outside of the city, and outdoor boozing with sangria and mojito pitchers. Homemade fruit popsicles, here we come!

Today, my friend told me a story about how her friend’s girlfriend became angry with him after he told her a friend’s engagement story and how he thought it was completely overdone. She found the gesture romantic and was upset that he thought it was excessive, and he had no idea why she would be so mad. I don’t know her, but I can say the reason she was angry was she thought her own boyfriend would probably never do something as grandiose for her. When a man proposes, that is his way of declaring to the woman (and the world) that this is how much he loves her. This story will be shared on the wedding website, retold again and again to family/friends, and possibly even for generations to come. And life is all a competition, so if a man really loves a woman, he wants to win, right?

Being a friend is hard work. No, I’m not that group of “friends” you see just so that you can do group activities like bowling because in those cases, “the more the merrier.” I’m talking about real friends – the ones when you ask how they are doing, you actually want to stick around and listen to the response. It’s taken me many years, and sadly, even watching Sex and the City episodes and observing Miranda, to realize that your friends don’t always want to hear what you think or what your suggestions are. This is pretty hard for me considering I’m an opinionated person. Your intentions might be completely out of love, but they are not always received in that way. Sometimes, they just want you to smile, nod, and listen.

Tonight, we saw the play Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, in which five women who are chosen as bridesmaids come together (reluctantly) to support their friend on her Big Day. As each bridesmaid’s story is unveiled, we realize that none of them genuinely “knows” the bride anymore, and all have been chosen just for the sake of having bridesmaids to fill in the duties. The more I hear about weddings, the bigger the wedding parties seem to get – five, seven, ten, even fourteen bridesmaids! It seems that women today just want more bridesmaids to fulfill their picturesque view of what their wedding should look like rather than choosing bridesmaids based genuinely on how close she is to each.

It’s almost always one of the first questions one is asked in any new social setting. The question, “What do you do?” is another way of asking someone, “What is your approximate income level?” or “What is your socioeconomic status relative to mine?” or potentially worse, “If we are around the same age, your potential answer will give you status or no status relative to my own achievements to date and cause me to either feel good or even worse about myself.” How awkward would it be to instead ask someone when you first meet him, “What are you passionate about?” or “What inspires you?” Would that then come off as being phony, or would you seem more genuine?