Who Can Explain It

Isn't that what love is, anyway? The sum of a million intangibles that all come together in just the right way at just the right time?

- Jonathan Tropper - 'This is Where I Leave You'

Via http://www.littlethingsandcuriosities.com/2014/02/on-my-bookshelf-one-last-thing-before-i.html

Resilience

"It may be that by accepting the limits to resilience we can celebrate it - using it when we can and cherishing it while it lasts. Resilience is what allows us to struggle long and hard with tragedy or loss or misfortune or change and still manage to dig deep and find our second wind. It is a kind of toughness. Each life blow no longer shatters us like a hammer hitting brick; rather, it makes us stronger. It tempers us, like a hammer hitting metal. Imagine the comfort in knowing that by never giving up, by accepting the bad breaks and going on, you will have lived life to the fullest, and maybe will have lived it a little longer. Such peace of mind is often reward enough." - Bill Bradley - "Values of the Game"

And

"When the good times come around they gallop in like wild horses. You just try to stay on them for as long as you can. And when they throw you off, you just wait in the shade until they come around again." - Jimmy Buffett

When I need perspective and toughness and to remember who I am and where i come from I go back to basketball and Jimmy Buffett time and time again.  

words mean things

So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. -Dead Poets Society

home is where the heart is

It’s a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what’s changed is you. — F. Scott Fitzgerald

leap and the net will appear

"You won't do it at the right time. You'll be late. You'll be early. You'll get re-routed. You'll get delayed. You'll change your mind. You'll change your heart. It's not going to turn out the way you thought it would. It will be better."   -  kate moller

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

resonates

"i realized i had just entered an interesting chapter in my life. i had outgrown the boys of my past and not quite grown into the men of my future." - s&tc

ruminations

with the demise of google reader's sharing function i can tell i'm going to have to share more stuff via this blog. not a bad thing for you lucky readers!

a writer should concern [her]self with whatever stirs [her] fancy, stirs [her] heart and unlimbers [her] typewriter - eb white

"I used to feel so alone in the city. All those gazillions of 
people and then me, on the outside. Because how do 
you meet a new person? I was stunned by this for many 
years. And then I realized, you just say, 'Hi.' 
They may ignore you. Or you may marry
them. And that possibility is worth that one word." Augusten Burroughs

new york can be a difficult place to describe. never has a city of so many paradoxes existed. there are moments i feel this indescribably deep love for it. and then moments and days and months where i can barely breathe here, where i want to run screaming from my own skin.


all new yorkers know you must constantly flee this place in order to sustain and cultivate your love for it. 

both from so-i-feel. amen.

guest post: everything is illuminated

never read the book 'everything is illuminated' but i've always loved this quote:

"this is love, she thought, isn't it? when you notice someone's absence and hate that absence more than anything? more, even, than you love his presence?"

and now: 

"do you think i'm wonderful? she asked him one day as they leaned against the trunk of a petrified maple. no, he said. why? because so many girls are wonderful. i imagine hundreds of men have called their loves wonderful today, and it's only noon. you couldn't be something that hundreds of others are."

*swoon*

namesake

“the thing about life is that you must survive. life is going to be difficult, and dreadful things will happen. what you do is move along, get on with it, and be tough. not in the sense of being mean to others, but being tough with yourself and making a deadly effort not to be defeated.” - katharine hepburn

i'm named after her. she's a smart one.

true story

this is kind of like 'err on the side of raging'

"rule number 1: always stick around for one more drink. that's when things happen. that's when you find out what everything you want to know."
- john berendt 'midnight in the garden of good and evil'

hat tip to agp in nyc

guest post: hunter thompson

“Walk tall, kick ass… love music, and never forget you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers, and warriors.”

“Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives… and to the “good life”, whatever it is and wherever it happens to be.”

true story

"When you first move to New York after college you need to know how to drink. Because even though people work their asses off here, they also like to party. Even on Sundays! Sometimes I think that this city is like a college for neurotic grown ups/people who walk really fast."
- from thought catalog

nature can make me cry faster than anything

I would insist that the man who spends four years in our North Country and does not learn to hear the melody of rustling leaves or does not learn to love the wash of racing brooks over their rocky beds in spring, who has never experienced the repose to be found on lakes and rivers, who has not stood enthralled on the top of Moosilauke on a moonlit night or has not become a worshipper of color as he has seen the sunset from one of Hanover's hills, who has not thrilled at the whiteness of the snow-clad countryside in winter or at the flaming forest colors of the fall - I would insist that this man has not reached out for some of the most worthwhile educational values assessible to him at Dartmouth.

- Ernest Martin Hopkins,
Dartmouth President, 1916-1945

occupational hazard

been having a bit of a hard time at work lately. i'm in charge of project managing a pretty big onboarding of a partner with a very complex deal that's requiring me to work with product, edit, sales, marketing, etc. and between the terms of the deal and everyone's own priorities, it's been pretty hard to get people to agree. and this is just internal - we haven't even told the partner what we want to do, which likely will result in more angry discussion, and meanwhile we're getting short on time.

last week was a really rough week - got beat up several times at work and a few disastarous meetings and by the time 6:30 on friday came around i was feeling pretty down. like go-sit-in-the-bathroom-and-breathe-for-a-couple-minutes down. had to cut myself off from work email and come home and give myself a pep talk since boxa's not around to do it for me. i also dug out the 'new mental toughness training for sports' for a bit of self coaching. not back to 100% yet, but working on putting things in perspective and regrouping for next week. 'stress is the stimulus for growth, recovery is when you grow'. i hope.

was really not in the mood to go see ashley's new musical as part of the ny music theatre festival after work last night, but i'm so glad i did! the show is called 'trails' and it's about two long-time friends hiking the appalacian trail together after living through lots of drama. of course we have an affinity for the AT, and really enjoyed it. the trail as a setting provided lots of opportunities to learn and grow and wrestle with demons while trudging through the woods. the actors and actresses were great, the music was fantastic and i def cried at the end. also found myself thinking a lot about a 'walk in the woods' by bill bryson - a writer from hanover who also starts out to hike the AT. the book includes lots of interesting tidbits about the trail and is a great description of what it's like to be a thru hiker. highly recommend both the book and the show - though last night's opening night was sold out and so is much of the run, but if you're in nyc might be worth a shot trying to get tickets. at any rate - congrats ash! so proud of you.

october and halloween decorations have to be the cutest things in the world. i keep seeing adorable things i want to buy even though i have no place to display them. halloween makes me wish i had a house in the suburbs with a porch to decorate and trick or treaters to buy candy for. must be careful here.

i lied when i said last week was the last weekend to lay out on the terrace, as this weekend has dawned sunny and warm, so i'm headed out to read magazines and tan. glad i haven't thrown out the chaise lounges yet. i guess this counts as indian summer after the cold snap of a few weeks ago, so i'm reposting some lines i like from the beginning of 'peyton place'

Indian summer is like a woman. ripe, hotly passionate, but fickle, she comes and goes as she pleases so that one is never sure whether she will come at all, nor for how long she will stay. In northern New England, Indian summer puts up a scarlet-tipped hand to hold winter back for a little while. she brings with her the time of the last warm spell, an unchartered season which lives until Winter moves in with its backbone of ice and accouterments of leafless trees and hard frozen ground.

One year, early in October, Indian summer came to a town called Peyton Place. Like a laughing, lovely woman Indian summer came and spread herself over the countryside and made everything hurt beautifully to the eye.
- peyton place

i'll drink to that

tomorrow is the dartmouth club of nyc fall kickoff party, and as the new social chair of the d club of nyc (MUCH less glamorous than it sounds), i have been charged with decorations and music. i'm psyched on the decorations - jack b nimble mini pumpkins, fall hanging decorations and glitter leaves - but the soundtrack has been much more difficult.

normally the music for a party is my sweet spot. hearn even acknowledged how fantastic the playlist i put together for the 90s beach party was back in july. but having a lot of trouble putting together a soundtrack for a cocktail party that spans a few generations in the library of the yale club. surprisingly, itunes didn't have a great cocktail 'essentials' playlist or anything, which is their loss b/c i probably would have bought the entire thing. right now the list is a fair amount of low key alternative, some blue grass, some ragtime, and some oldies (think 'in the mood') with the dartmouth songs thrown in. not sure how it's going to go over, but i guess we can just drink ourselves a soundtrack. immediate stress aside, i am enjoying being more involved with the club, and got very drunk after last week's board meeting off of martinis. discovered at kjb's wedding that the dirty martini's weren't 'dirty' enough for me - apparently i like it filthy (#twss) so filthy martinis have become my poison of choice with predictable results.

had a delightful weekend out in cali visiting with diana, laurak and karla. i've been running around like a maniac lately with work, the d club and apt hunting, so the time change hit me really hard, but i did manage to stay up late enough on friday night for laurak's arrival from la so we could do a really quiet rendition of 'escape' for old times sake.

we played a lot of pong (which diana and i won handily to evan's chagrin). we also walked along the beach and saw a bunch of dolphins. it's so weird to me that SF has all these tropical elements like palm trees and pelicans and dolphins when it's foggy and the ocean is so cold! but dolphins are cool wherever you see them.

i also did not get to ride the cable cars like i had hoped; instead, we went out to a vineyard outside the city for the opening of a wine created by a friend of a friend (more here). kind of like going to a gallery opening in chelsea only we were out in this really rural area surrounded by vines that looked like corn shocks and drinking our faces off of delicious wine and eating goat cheese. it was a fun experience to do that.

we also heard a lot about the plans for diana and evan's wedding scheduled for july in monterey, ca. sounds like a number of the usual suspects will be attending and diana's djing, which means the enrique will be out of control. already looking forward to meeting back at the local saloon. unfort i missed most of the merriment of 'talk like a pirate day' on sunday due to the flight back to nyc. or in pirate speak - being held hostage by a bunch of landlubbers.

back in nyc the apt hunt continues. saw an apt tonight that has a shared bathroom and a lofted bed - debating whether i can live with that. i also saw an apt that is right near the apt charlo and i first lived in when we moved to the city. like i swear the air shaft is the one that littlechen booted out of during a party we threw in apt 27. debating if being right back where i started five years after the fact is worth having this apt search over and done with. tbd the room in this apt was available because the girl is moving to boston to live with her dartmouth '05 boyfriend. the world is too small sometimes. well that and dartmouth people are everywhere.

i'm in the city this wknd except for what is likely an ill-advised trip to new haven on fri night to play harbour at lamb's apt. two hours is a lot shorter than 5 hours when it comes to traveling to play pong but it means another night without sleep or downtime. then again, who needs those anyway??

will leave you with this quote i like from my friend at 'wanderlost':

“let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives… and to the “good life”, whatever it is and wherever it happens to be.”

- hunter s. thompson

stuff i like

hat tip to christine:

"these are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after." - tuck everlasting

stuff i like

while i think this quote really only applies to summer on the cape, a nice quote from my momma:

"summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world."
- ada louis huxtable

kiss me lyon

i love the magazine 'real simple' and i have ever since it came out 10 years ago (they will not stop promoting their anniversary party at grand central later this month. considering going). not entirely sure why - it doesn't exactly cater to my lifestyle (ie i'm NOT juggling a job, a husband and two kids in the suburbs) - but i still enjoy its mix of useful tips, decorating ideas and easy dishes that i will never make but could in theory someday. i guess it's just an enjoyable, somewhat voyeuristic pleasure i enjoy on a monthly basis.

my subscription means i get emails from them. A LOT of emails (see above point about promotion of 10th anniversary party). yet another indication of the fact i am not real simple's target audience came when i received an email about 'colanders for your every kitchen need'. yes. you read that right. do you even know what a colander is? it's the thing you use to strain water when cooking pasta or vegetables. am i looking to improve my life to the point that i have the best colander on the market? absolutely not. most days i'm lucky if i use a separate tool to accomplish this instead of the spoon or a plate. but i digress.

one of the emails i got from them the other day invited readers to share the story of their first kiss, and while i did not submit mine for consideration, i did think it was an interesting blog post topic. so, with thanks to real simple for the inspiration, the story of my first kiss.

i was a cross-country runner, a basketball player and a rower in high school. the boys and girls cross-country teams traveled to all our meets together, so we spent a lot of time hanging around waiting for races, riding the bus to and from meets and having pasta dinners. my freshman fall i became friendly with a senior on the guy's cross-country team. we talked a lot, hung out at cross-country events, and it was evident we were liking each other more and more, but nothing had happened between us yet. every year there's a race in NYC called 'footlocker'. it happens after the state championship races are over in november and is the weekend after thanksgiving. every year my team would do a trip with the guys and girls who were running down to the race. we'd rent a van, stay in a hotel, and run the race in van cortland park in the bronx, and then go into the city to be those annoying groups of kids walking up and down fifth avenue looking at the xmas tree at rock plaza. i mean, go see the sights. incidentally, it was also my first trip to nyc.

it was my first school trip where we were staying in a hotel and after we had run the course that day, we were in our hotel rooms goofing around before bed. eventually it ended up that it was me and him in a room - the simpsons were on tv and he leaned in and kissed me.

we ended up dating for a couple months after that, and stayed friends for awhile, but it was hard b/c he was a senior and dealing with colleges and prom and i was on a completely different plane (i didn't ALWAYS used to go for guys who are younger than me!). but it was a great first boyfriend experience and i have fond memories. and i hope this post makes you think about your own first kiss too. :)

'a kiss can be a comma, a question or an exclamation point. that's basic [grammar] that every woman ought to know' - mistinguette (who apparently is a french actress and singer during the 1920s - 40s. thank you wikipedia)

tbd

i wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. delicious ambiguity.
- gilda radner