Something to think about on a disgusting Wednesday morning...

"Stop looking for bananas from people who have no bananas. Some people just cannot offer you what you need. " Karen Salmansohn

Why is that always so hard to remember?

Positive Thoughts...Positive Thoughts...

We are what we repeatedly do. 

Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Aristotle

Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sparse

Out at sea for seven years

I got your letter in Tangiers

Thought that I'd been on a boat

'Til that single word you wrote

That single word it landlocked me

Turned the mast to cedar trees

And the wind to gravel roads

Idaho, oh Idaho

"Idaho" Josh Ritter

This song is sparse in the most wonderful way - acapella and quiet, like a lullaby. I'd never paid much attention to it; in fact, I think I usually forward through it, but now I want to visit Idaho.

A book review, I guess

I'm actually reading two food books right now. The one I wrote about the other day and one called Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. In order to stave off her biological clock and an impending nervous breakdown, Julie Powell (this is a true story, by the way) decided to cook every recipe - that's 524 - in Julia Child's seminal Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Hilarity, obscenities, offal and 10 pounds of butter induced weight gain ensue.

Anyway, it's been a really enjoyable book, and I'm sorry that I'm down to the last few pages. Although now I can comfort myself with her newest memoir, Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat and Obsession. French cooking mastered, she goes on to try her hand at butchery.

So, as I said, an enjoyable read. It's not rocket science, or food science for that matter, just a little peek into a year in someone's life when they decide to do something a little crazy. But then there's this thought, and it takes the whole thing to a new level (for me at least):

I knew this because for nearly eleven months Julia had resided in my brain, in those drafty, capacious, hopeful apartments where the ghost of Santa Claus still placidly rattled about, along with my watchfully dead grandmother, and reincarnation and magic and everything else that couldn't survive out in the brighter hard highways of my mean metropolitan mind.

So lovely and real and universal. I'm sure we all have these places in us. Harry Potter, my alternate existence as a hippie in a yurt, the idea of soul mates and karma happily wander around in mine.

Words to live by anyone?

People who are unaccustomed to choosing often feel they have no choice because they don't like what the act of choosing requires: inconvenience, clarity, discipline, willingness to risk something new, courage. But those near-term hurdles are what let you win the long-term race. It's worth being inconvenienced if you have a lighter conscience. It's worth being gutsy if your choice lets you sleep at night. It's worth being a little more disciplined if it lets you feel your strength and inner power. It's worth sticking your neck out because that's how you get a life that doesn't suck. 

~ Michelle DeAngelis

apropos of nothing

I think "Sullivan Street" is an unfairly overlooked Counting Crows song. I have a live version of it that I love. Of course, nothing can beat "Raining in Baltimore," but it comes pretty close. I know, I know...me listening to the Counting Crows is never a good sign since they're kind of my go-to depressing music band, but really I'm more introspective than blue (at least I think I am), and they're good for that too.

Overheard

I walked past a girl at work right as she vehemently said, "that's crap, you are how you act." It's a pretty simple concept, but I must have been out sick the day that lesson was taught. I guess learning it now is a case of better late than never. I think keeping this in mind will make it a lot easier to know who gets to be in my life and who is just a waste of space in it.  

the perfect little song...the perfect little dream

God bless the Paste Magazine CD Samplers and Elly who lets me borrow them. Here's a new find - such a sweet little song. I pronounce it lovely. 

I was a little girl alone in my little world 

who dreamed of a little home for me.

I played pretend between the trees 

and fed my houseguests bark and leaves 

and laughed in my pretty bed of green.

I had a dream.

That I could fly from the highest swing.

I had a dream.

Long walks in the dark 

through woods grown behind the park, 

I asked God who I'm supposed to be. 

The stars smiled down on me. 

God answered in silent reverie. 

I said a prayer and fell asleep.

I had a dream.

That I could fly from the highest tree.

I had a dream.

Now I'm old and feeling grey. 

I don't what's left to say 

about this life I'm willing to leave.

I lived it full, and I lived it well. 

There's many tales I've lived to tell.  

I'm ready now, I'm ready now, I'm ready now 

to fly from the highest wing.

I had a dream.  

Priscilla Ahn, Dream

If Only It Was That Easy

"I've always found allegories kind of comforting.  When you encounter people named Liar and Abstinence, you might not be crazy about them, but you know exactly what you're getting into."

Love Walked In, Marisa de los Santos

Come on all you cowboys, all you blue-eyed baby boys

This is a list of what I should have been

But I'm not

This is a list of the things I should have seen

But I'm not seeing

The song "Cowboys" is the perfect example of why I love the Counting Crows.  It's dense and lyrical and strange and angry and slightly depressing.  It's my song of the day.

On the Road

My friend Josh and I were emailing about Jack Kerouac the other day (which makes it sound like a much more literate conversation than it actually was), and I decided to check Wikipedia to get the penny tour of his life, since to be honest, I've never read any of his stuff.  After I read this though, I think I'm going to have to change that.  It's lovely.  

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars, and in the middle, you see the blue center light pop, and everybody goes ahh..."

Just lovely.

When I came to

I looked down across the seat at you

You're upside down

Your brown hair hanging all around

I couldn't breathe

Beneath the belt, I couldn't hardly move

I couldn't think

I didn't know what to do

If there's any truth it comes from you

"Everything After the East Coast Ends," Matt Pond PA

I just saw a great Monster commercial during LOST (bliss, but that's another story). It's this guy with gigantic thighs. He goes underground and in a bicycle-y thing, another guy is pedaling and thus turning the world. When the guy stops pedaling, the world screeches to a halt, water sloshes out of a tub, a man falls off his motorcycle. Then they change places and the world starts turning again. Cut to a picture of Earth turning in space...then the tagline, "There's a perfect job for everyone." I hope that's true. I hope I can figure out what it is. It reminds me of another Monster commercial from a long time ago. A guy standing on the corner dressed as a clam passing out flyers...then the tagline, "Are you a happy clam, or just a guy in a happy clam suit?" That ad was legend in my office at Stein Mart. Every time someone was having a bad day, someone would ask, "Awww...are you just a guy in a happy clam suit?"

And I know paragraphs would be nice but I'm having some serious formatting issues and after trying to figure it out for 35 minutes, I give up.

Mantra: repeat as necessary

what other people think of me is none of my business

pondering

...I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

From "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini

"As I let go of the past, the past let go of me."
The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue

Good book. A sort of fairytale for grownups.

Now that we've met

We can only laugh at these regrets

Common as a winter cold

They're telephone poles

They follow each other

One, after another, after another

But now my heart is green as weeds

Grown to outlive their season

And nothing comforts me the same

As my brave friend who says,

"I don't care if forever never comes

'Cause I'm holding out for that teenage feeling

I'm holding out for that teenage feeling"

All the loves we had

All we ever knew

Did they fill me with so many secrets

That keep me from loving you

'Cause it's hard, hard

"That Teenage Feeling"

Neko Case

How will you know if you've found me at last?

'Cause I'll be the one, be the one, be the one

With my heart in my lap.

I'm so tired.

I'm so tired.

And I wish I was the moon tonight.

~ Neko Case ~

It's a seller's market

Tell 'em that the house is not for sale
We're still livin' here, how come nobody can tell

Tell 'em that the house is not for sale
We could grab a couple sheets, yeah, give 'em quite a scare

-Ryan Adams

(maybe it's time to think about selling)

Then Again, It Just May Be

Well my dad told me one-day son, this girl will think of what she’s done
And hurting you will be the first of many more regrets to come.
And he said if she doesn’t call then it’s her fault and it’s her loss.
I say it’s not that simple see, but then again it just may be.

The Avett Brothers "I Would Be Sad"

Then again, it just may be. I love it.