least said, soonest mended

when you're dumb, you gotta pay. let's leave it at that.

terrible ideas

if you're trying to avoid someone so you don't get drunk and make bad decisions i'm pretty sure the responsible thing to do is not to go to a house party in rural vermont where the goal is to drink your face off with said person.

then again, if i had wanted to be responsible i would have invited my parents and my pants to this party, and neither will be in attendance. besides - 'terrible ideas - don't you just love those?' ;-P

hat tip to oprah

read a bunch of magazines while i was in florida last weekend - (great time, weather was chilly sat/sun but lovely mon and tues, did some shopping, drank a lot, saw some gators by the boardwalk, caught up on family, politics and dartmouth with my grandparents) - including a couple issues of oprah and was inspired by her monthly feature 'books that made a difference to me'. usually she's asking a celeb this question but this time you get my thoughts:

1. gift from the sea - anne morrow lindbergh (yes that lindbergh)
you might think this one is a no brainer, but not only is it filled with ocean imagery to describe life, it's also a bit of a feminist manifesto. she goes down to sanibel island off the coast of florida to reflect on her life as a wife and a mother, which is where the feminist bit comes in. there are several passages that really speak to me, especially the ones about relationships and patience, and being 'an ocean person' i take along a marked up copy anywhere i go.

2. go dog go - dr. suess
perhaps another no brainer given the dr. suess/dartmouth connection, but this one is on here b/c it's the first book i remember reading on my own - giving birth to a life long appetite for the written word. my parents placed a big emphasis on reading growing up - books and red felt tip pens for annotating everywhere. i'd crawl into my parents bed for 'special time' (aka one child with two parents - a rare thing in a family of 4 kids) and we'd read. my dad and i still have a running joke from go dog go: he or i will say 'hello - do you like my hat?' and the other will reply 'no i do not like your hat.' and then 'goodbye' and 'goodbye'. spoiler alert: she busts out her party hat at the end of the book and they eventually ride off into the sunset, which is why i'm fond of party hats.

3. the winner within - pat riley
this one combines business with pat riley's experience coaching the los angeles lakers and later the new york knicks. one of the best parts about it is it takes place when the celtics were the basketball team to beat and it's a blast to read about larry bird, kevin mchale and robert parish in their heyday but it's on this list because it's about sports psychology, coaching yourself and the life cycle of a team - playing sports growing up required a lot of mental toughness training and self-coaching - much of which carries over to life as well - and so i still find myself returning to my dog-eared and highlighted copy to find a favorite concept, mantra or quote when i need to be reminded of a time when i was a lot more disciplined and a heck of a lot tougher.


4. the goal - eliyahu goldratt
i know this one is standard b-school reading, but i read it because my mentor at the time gave it to me as a gift and told me to read it. i've read a ton of business management books (hi 'what they don't teach you at harvard business school') - looking for ways to keep learning and improving in business, but this one has stuck with me because it's based in manufacturing ala creating car parts in a factory and solving business problems like supply and demand and bottlenecks. reading this book helped me understand where so many of the ways to think about business originated. i suppose there's a reason it's standard b-school fodder!


5. bridget jones's diary - helen fielding
not deep or particularly life changing, just a good friend to have on hand when life gets crazy. i've read it so many times - it's hysterical, relatable and quotable (there's a theme) - the first time i read this was on a bus for a school trip and cracked up so hard at the vcr episode. celeste and i like to refer to ourselves in the third person when speaking to each other and everyone has a mr or mrs. darcy driving them mad in the realm of love in one form or another. 'she who laughs, lasts' and this is a good one for laughing. :)

2012

loved this quote about the new year:

may your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. i hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful and don't forget to make some art - write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. and i hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself - neil gaiman

hit the road lyon

a bit of a low-key (lame) friday night here in nyc, as i have a 6:30 am flight tomorrow morning out of newark, nj and have to get up at 4 am to get there on time. a little apprehensive that i'll wake up, and about the fact that in order to avoid paying an $80 cab fare i have to go meet a shuttle in the dregs of midtown around 5 am. hoping for the best but will feel much better once i am on that plane.

heading down to naples, fl to visit my grandparents for an extended long weekend trip. last year's visit wasn't really much of a break, thanks to my grandmother's health issue, a hefty dose of family emotional issues and a 5 PM cocktail hour, but this year my grandmother is doing much better, so i've got that going for me at least.

a little weird to have more time off after having effectively not worked a full week in the last month, but i'm not complaining. take it when you can get it is what i say.

in other travel news i am ECSTATIC (surprise party sue style) to report that i have purchased tickets to go visit vin in london in april. haven't been to london since my freshman year of high school (aka 15 years ago) when we went on a family trip. so psyched to rediscover it and spend some apartment 7 style time with vin. more to come on this i'm sure.

wish me luck on the waking up/not getting mugged part of the trip. i'm off to bed.

merry new year!

merry new year and happy 2012! it only took me 8 days into the new year to write a blog post but that doesn't mean i haven't been ruminating on things.

had a blast last weekend in hanover for the new year. pretty low key and wonderful to spend some time in new hampshire and with mulley, boxa and vin. got to play beacoup games of pong and rock out to all the music i've been wishing i could blast in a basement (hi avicii 'levels' and 'we found love'). no real drama, very little booting, and positive feelings to start out the new year. did a lovely walk around occom pond on saturday morning, and saw the muppets movie saturday afternoon at the sketchy movie theatre in lebanon.

didn't end up doing a pub crawl - we played lots of pong at eli's house on rope ferry road and then headed to canoe club for the ball drop. on the way we stashed a bunch of booze aka hot damn and andre in one of the d newspaper dispensers (not sure what else to call those) and booked it to food stop at 11:45 to stock up on beer for pong at sigma delt after midnight, which we also stashed under the picnic table between the real estate agency and sd while we ran back to canoe club and made it with five minutes to spare.there was also some flaire involved thanks to the sigma delt library and we closed down xh after flipping a table around 4:30. at times it wasn't exactly clear whether we were celebrating new years 2004 or 2005 or new years 2011, but i just love goofing around and being silly and not taking anything too seriously and it was a fun way to relive the good old days.

2011 was a pretty good year - what sticks out for me is the weddings and events related to them - got to go to newport beach and monterey california, seattle and denver for the first time and had more than the usual amount of usual suspect time i'm pleased to say. spent three full weeks on the cape which was a real treat - i should see if i can wrangle that into an annual thing. really pleased with the progress i've made in my job over the last year and i still like it - so that's a good thing too.

as far as 2012 goes i'm going to work on thinking me some 'pretty pink and blue thoughts' in the words of divine secrets of the yaya sisterhood (a surprisingly quotable book).  i've really been thinking about making sure the people in my life are the ones i really want there - i don't want to spend energy on people that bring me down for one reason or another. part of that is being honest with myself about why i'm doing the things i'm doing and making changes if something isn't working out. it's a work in progress but have made some changes already and so far i'm liking it.

but i'm also thinking a lot about giving people the benefit of the doubt. been thinking a lot about the quote 'be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle'. trying to genuinely be happy for others and to remember that there often is more to the story than meets the eye. if i find myself feeling jealous,  i want to use it as a guide for what i really want in my own life, rather than being negative about that person. i also just don't need all the noise - from facebook or twitter or foursquare, etc. unless you're really someone that is important to me i'm hitting the mute button. not saying i'll be able to cut it out completely, but i definitely have room for improvement. trying to take a page out of jim altucher's book really.

we'll see how it goes but overall i'm excited by the possibilities in 2012. the new year is a fresh start and the year is wide open. 'one should lie empty, choiceless as a beach, waiting for a gift from the sea' - anne morrow lindbergh :)