- More creating, less consuming.
- Strive for progress not perfection.
- More doing, less thinking.
- Listen to your body.
- Feed yourself.
- Practice saying No to others.
- Cultivate skills, hobbies, self.
- Body acceptance.
- Clean space, clean mind.
- Take risks (don’t let your fear of failure keep you down).
- Listen to your wise mind.
471. Haruki Murakami Bingo
The genius of Haruki Murakami’s novels and the strange worlds within them is captured in a cute and potentially interactive idea: Bingo! Its creator, Grant Snider at Incidental Comics says he has read all of Murakami’s works (12 novels, three short stories, and a memoir).
#668 Tiny Stormtrooper Carries Teddy Bear
This photo is called Baywatch or Trooperwatch, by Kristina Alexanderson, a still life photographer (her Flickr) who works with toys. Her favorite subjects are Stormtroopers and what their ordinary lives might be like.
The best scarves ever: http://yokoo.tumblr.com/ @Iamyokoo http://www.etsy.com/shop/Yokoo
Sinkmade body butters and oils, whipped together by a witchy scribe http://www.byemilyjayne.com/
Hoodies by a hoodie veteran: http://shop.thehoodieshop.com/
Visionary plastic…
3D artist and motion designer JR Schmidt reconstructs New York City in LEGO using an assortment of maps and satellite imagery to set the elevation and color of the blocks. Best thing since Christoph Niemann’s I LEGO NY.
dope!
Mediation is not an effective response to a student being bullied because it re-victimizes the target and puts him or her back into an unbalanced and emotionally vulnerable situation. The administrator needs to investigate the complaints and mete out consequences to the bullies when the story is corroborated! - @avivascully , school social worker.
”Felicia had reported the taunts to an administrator, who arranged mediation sessions between Felicia and the boys she said were harassing her. Police are now investigating her death. Neither they nor the Education Department nor the school would comment on the bullying allegations.” —- http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/nyregion/suicide-of-staten-island-girl-is-blamed-on-bullying.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
Beauty and terror.
Just keep going.
No feeling is final.
Let me start by saying that I like the body of work that Ta-Nehisi Coates has produced over the past few years. I believe that he is one of the best writers of my generation, and I read him regularly because I want to see how I might strengthen my own craft. In particular, I admire the ways that…
My writing process.
I keep writing blog posts and not finishing them.
I’ve noticed a few things. I tend to write novels. When things are too emotional, it’s hard to finish. I get nauseous, sad or anxious. However, it can be cathartic to keep working through and just finish. Once I put feelings on paper, I can let them go. It’s been a very healing process. Other times, I don’t have the courage or strength. I save it for another time. That’s okay too.
I feel a lot of pressure and I’m not really giving myself the time or space to follow through. I need to work on discipline. The story of my life. The goal: devoting 1 hour 45 minutes to writing every day until I leave New York. When I return back to Chapel Hill, I can write for 1-2 hours daily. I’ll have time.
I would like to finish some of the posts I started. I would also like to finish some of the essays I’ve started and not finished. I have about 50 or so from the past 8 years on various hard drives. The more I read, the more I want to write. However, I have to give myself time to process what I’ve just read. It helps to bring a notebook with me everywhere. I hate typing notes on my phone.
Sometimes the words just flow. Other times it seems like each word takes so much effort to type a single word. I erase paragraphs. I erase sentences. I’m finding my voice. I really appreciate all of Nicole’s encouragement. She’s been such an amazing mentor/motivator for me the past few months.
Andy
I met Andy at a party when I was twenty. When we talked, I heard music playing. I heard bells ringing and a beautiful symphony. It was magic or maybe all the PBR. I literally thought I was falling in love. He was so handsome. My [first] boyfriend was in Europe and I was going to Tanzania for the whole summer in a few days. Andy and I theorized about life. He was just so smart and so cute. An asshole. It seemed the first time that someone so attractive was into me. He spent the night. I had a boyfriend so I made him sleep on the other side of my bed. He got really angry. When his friend picked up in the morning, he was still so pissed. He knew my friend Michi. She warned me against him. Her taste is impeccable and I didn’t listen.
Years later, I see Andy again. He’s a bar back at my old watering hole. He’s still so cute and so charming. Those freckles. *swoon* We talked.
We start hanging out. I don’t even remember how it happened. I just know he met my best friends and introduced himself as my boyfriend. It was a week later. I’ve only had two boyfriends in my life: Josh and Elijah. I didn’t agree with him. I didn’t correct him either. I just kind of ran with it. I knew it was a little strange but he was just so cute. Those freckles. Those eyes. That height.
We had so much fun. We say movies outside. We went to shows at the Cradle. We climbed trees over the Eno River. I broke a branch and feel in. We laughed. We got lost in Hillsborough. We made out in cars. He also told me I was needed to lose weight and I that I looked like an American Apparel model. Not at the same time though.
He didn’t have any friends. He was our summer together. It had only been a few weeks. Every time he met my friends he got so weird. He later confessed he hated how many friends I had. He wanted it to be just us. He wanted us to build our lives together. He wanted so hard to be more than ordinary.
We hung out almost every day for a month or maybe 3 weeks or 5 weeks. I don’t really remember. It was May and June in 2007. We went out to meet my friend Lena. She had just got back from a trip. We took all these pictures together. We look so happy. This was all so new to me. He was trying to plan my birthday, 5 months away, with Lena.
We go back to his apartment. He tells me he read a book and now he has to break up with me.
I immediately ask him give me back to the adderall I gave him. It was my prescription for my ADHD. I’d given him some to help with his exams. He was still finishing his undergrad degree. He had dropped out for a while. He said he took it all. I knew he was lying. I told him it was impossible and that they were time-released.
I asked more about this book and why he needed to end this relationship that he had started.
He wouldn’t tell me the name of the book. He told me he was destined to be alone. That it was him against the world. Everyone was swimming with the waves and he was swimming against them. He wanted no part of my life. I already had so many friends and seemed so secure. There was no space for him. He was all alone. It was him against the world. I told him we all feel like that but when we’re 13. The Holden Caufield syndrome. We think no one understands us. We grow up and realize we’re not alone. He needed to grow up. I found him infuriating. Unfortunately, he was still so cute.
I wanted to leave his apartment. He insisted I stay. It was 3am. I was in a tight dress and heels. He had picked me up. I didn’t have my car. I couldn’t sleep. I went to the couch. I waited until the sun came out. I waited for him to go to bed. I looked at his desk. I saw the adderall that I’d gifted him: the adderall he claimed to have taken. I took it back. Put on my shoes and walked home.
I’d continue to run into him for years. He would tell me his plans of getting his PhD in chemistry. He said he set the curve in his Calculus classes. My friend worked in academic advising. He came into see her. He didn’t recognize her. She told me he was failing all his classes.
