thank you

today my friend ernesto sent me this:

"romantic love is mental illness. but it's a pleasurable one. it's a drug. it distorts reality, and that's the point of it. it would be impossible to fall in love with someone that you really saw."

fran lebowitz is a great thinker and i admire the courage in which she sees life so clearly and unfiltered - life as a raw experience. when i was a younger girl, i can remember telling my dad about who i wanted to be someday. i had plans to model myself after joni mitchell, or margaret mead, maybe even simone de beauvoir. i wanted to live just like them, dress like them, say the words they said, and follow in their footsteps. my dad, so sharply as he often did, put me in my place with literature. and of all the people in the world, he quoted lebowitz, saying "great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about other people."

at least 8 years later i am once again put in my place with her words.

thank you ernesto, for things you do not even know.

thank you.

about your dress

right now i'm listening to the maccabees, thinking about riding bikes, and christmas trees, and funny boys with silly hats. i need to straighten out my mind and get my priorities in order.... as soon as this song's over with.

bee stings and such

today has been pretty busy and i am thankful for that. days like this i aspire to be occupied. idle minds tend to reminisce. OH GOD PLEASE KEEP ME BUSY!

surprisingly work has been pretty good. i'm finally getting some legit assignments, such as developing an outreach project for elementary art students. i had a really good lunch break too. i walked across the street to loch haven park and ate an apple and read a chapter in 13 moons. i sat under this huge oak tree and got stung by a bee on my arm. i wasn't even mad about it. in fact, i didn't even know what it was at first. i just rubbed the tiny bump and thought to myself "i've felt this feeling before but what is it?" then it got me thinking about when i was last stung by a bee, which i've figured out to be 12 yrs! on my walk back to the museum i decided that nostalgia isn't always a waste of time.

i got a 2nd job at ten thousand villages. they promote fare trade and support artists and rural communities all over the world. my heart tells me to stay in nonprofit. there's just no greater feeling then knowing that what you do every single day makes a difference in someone's life. plus, the people who work there are incredible. they are nearly saints and you can't help but to want to be around them all the time. hopefully all this goodness will overshadow the fact that i will be working 7 days a week now.

it's no secret that time's are tough for me right now. i'm struggling to support myself, to pay bills on time, to buy groceries more than once a month, and to be able to afford enough gas to get me back home for the holidays. it's actually really depressing if i think about it for too long. it could be worse though, or at least i keep telling myself that. i am thankful and am trying to find the blessings in this struggle. either way, i'll push through it somehow. i always do.

alive in NYC

i've been in new york city for about a week now, visiting annie, and just sorta living aimlessly in the best possible way ever. we are in the upper east side of the city, in a 3 room apartment with 4 other girls. you do the math. space is limited, just like money, and time... but i don't think i could be happier.

today we woke up around 9 am, we threw our sneakers on and hastily made our way down the hall and five flights of stairs to the outside world. since all 5 of us share 2 keys, we leave one copy with ed- the shoe repair guy, whenever we go out. his shop neighbors our apartment and is cluttered with tools, and shoe laces, and all the other odds and ends that a shoe repairman could acquire over 25 years of dependable service. i feel enormous whenever i'm in his shop, and i always come out smelling like polished leather. ed gladly assumes the responsibility of key holder, and it is my belief that he looks forward to the small talk encounters we share whenever one of us needs to be let back into the building.

once annie and i hit the streets we breathed in the heavy city air and jogged our way through the masses of people. like a complex maze, i thoughtfully lead the way from lex and 72nd, past maddison avenue, crossing over the met's jeffersonian steps, and stopping only for oncoming traffic and the occasional artist's booth.

only a little winded, we finally reached central park. my eyes were instantly overwhelmed by the miles and miles of open green space. straight ahead of us was a vast clearing that could have easily held up to 3 or 4 football fields. the green was paralyzing. atop the emerald terrain and its rolling hills, were random clusters of people lying on blankets, and bathing in the sun. they reminded me of drifters at sea, floating on colorful rafts, and were the only absence of green in this central city acreage. i felt at home.

our run was amazing, and i've run in a lot of cool places before: the grand canyon, the english coast, up a mountain in the forgotten city of bergamo italy, but this was much different. it felt familiar and comfortable, and as an outsider that is really something. i felt like a runner here, which must sound idiotic - since i am one and have been for over 5 years. what i mean to say is that in the middle of all the life here, i felt, in my bones, as though i was achieving a purpose effortlessly. so often i set out to live deliberately and i'm left feeling like a fraud. inadvertency is not as easy as it looks.

the reason i love new york city is this: life is always happening. it buzzes around me like an atmosphere of possibility, and despite it's greatness, and history - it includes me. i am a vital part of what makes this city alive. and it doesn't matter if you're a shoe repairman or a scientist researching the cure for cancer - your life has value here and just as importantly, it feels valuable.

i have only a few more days in the city and then i am off to the west indies, followed by 2 months in europe. the summer is half spent and i still haven't even begun my great adventure. but that is yet to come. right now i'm here and i intend on living in the now.

**** i've been listening to the weepies. they make me feel like i should be wearing a scarf.

FACT: there are more links in your brain, than atoms in the universe.