bits and pieces.

Your favorite virtue: Imagination

Your favorite virtue in man: Trustworthiness, Curiosity, Dependability

Your favorite virtue in woman: Sincerity, Courage, Self-Respect

Your chief characteristic: Generous, Ambitious, Anxious

Your idea of happiness: sunning myself on the dock at Walloon Lake, sun shining, breeze, family playing Frisbee in the water.

Your idea of misery: Working a job where you can’t eat breakfast and dinner with your family every night.

The vice you excuse most: Impatience

The vice you detest most: Arrogance

Your aversion: Condescension and Hawaiian Shirts

Favorite occupation: Day-dreaming

Favorite poet: Edgar Allen Poe

Favorite prose-writer: Charlotte Bronte

Favorite hero: Harry Potter, Atticus Finch

Favorite heroine: Jane Eyre, Brigit Jones

Favorite flower: Peony

Favorite color: Mint, Turquoise, Fuchsia and Royal Blue

Favorite name: Layla (girl), Jackson (boy)

Favorite dish: Curry

Favorite maxim: “If you don’t go to people’s funerals, they won’t go to yours.”-Yogi Berra

Favorite motto: “It’s probably going to get worse before it gets better.”

 

Dear Future you,

We will travel all over the world and save lives just by making people laugh. You will carry a notebook and lip gloss wherever you go and I will always wear cute shoes. You will dance, and I will clap my hands to the beat. I will tell nothing stories to people, and we will all giggle at the nonsense. Our children will always have bare feet, and long unruly hair. We will live in London for five years and then move to Boston, Portland and then South America. We will learn a new language. You can decide which one, because I don’t really care. You’ll tap your feet to a secret beat every night until I fall asleep and I won’t need anti-depressants or sleeping pills. Our children will always know they are beautiful and silly. They will jammie jam when it is time for bed and help you make waffles for breakfast. I will cook all of our meals from home, except on the weekends when we’ll eat in diners. We’ll host dinner parties with lots of candles and flowers and drink lots of wine, inviting everyone we know. We’ll go on grand adventures, and always make time to paint our nails. We’ll teach our kids about astrology, astronomy, Van Gough, John Wayne, Holly Golightly and calligraphy. We’ll go sail-boating and swing in hammocks. I will write poems and we will sit on our front porch and read. People will come from all over the neighborhood to drink lemonade and gossip with us. In the spring, we’ll plant wild flowers, and in the summer, we’ll go on picnics and swim in the lake. In the fall we’ll carve pumpkins and in the winter we’ll cut out snowflakes and hang twinkle lights. Our children will all play musical instruments. They will love reading, and our daughters will respect themselves because they will know that we treasure them. We’ll read them Harry Potter as they fall asleep, and when they rebel, we’ll wait and pray and trust them to come back home. We won’t worry about money, and we’ll always help out the families we know who are struggling. We’ll always be smiling. You’ll always make me smile.

 

"She wished she had a little yellow house of her own, with a flower box full of real flowers and herbs – pansies and rosemary – and a sweet lover who would swing dance with her in the evenings and cook pasta and read poetry aloud."-Francesca Lia Block

In your happiest daydreams, what does your future hold for you?

dream face.

who is your dream face? no really, i wanna know. i just heard this phrase and i just love it. (and someone sentimental like, "my boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife" doesn't count...it's not a dream if you already have him/her.)

my dream face:

delicious chace crawford from gossip girl.

smart buns.

Recently, in a large city in Australia, a poster featuring a young, thin and tan woman appeared in the window of a gym. It said, “This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?”

A middle-aged woman, whose physical characteristics did not match those of the woman on the poster, responded publicly to the question posed by the gym.

"To Whom It May Concern,

Whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, sea lions, curious humans.) They have an active sex life, get pregnant and have adorable baby whales. They have a wonderful time with dolphins stuffing themselves with shrimp. They play and swim in the seas, seeing wonderful places like Patagonia, the Bering Sea and the coral reefs of Polynesia.

Whales are wonderful singers and have even recorded CDs. They are incredible creatures and virtually have no predators other than humans.

They are loved, protected and admired by almost everyone in the world.

Mermaids don’t exist.

If they did exist, they would be lining up outside the offices of Argentinean psychoanalysts due to identity crisis. Fish or human? They don’t have a sex life because they kill men who get close to them, not to mention how could they have sex? Just look at them… where is IT?

Therefore, they don’t have kids either.

The choice is perfectly clear to me: I want to be a whale.

P.S. We are in an age when media puts into our heads the idea that only skinny people are beautiful, but I prefer to enjoy an ice cream with my kids, a good dinner with a man who makes me shiver, and a piece of chocolate with my friends.
With time, we gain weight because we accumulate so much information and wisdom in our heads that when there is no more room, it distributes out to the rest of our bodies. So we aren’t heavy, we are enormously cultured, educated and happy.

Beginning today, when I look at my butt in the mirror I will think, “Good grief, look how smart I am!”

i miss my dog.

tuesday's tunes

what are YOU, dear reader, listening to right now? i always love recommendations. currently, i'm listening to some tchaikovsky on masters of classical music, vol. 6.

here are a few other little gems i've stumbled across this week:

Rick Barry, Graphic Narrative on Declarations of Codependence

Nicole Reynolds, Whiskey on Unordinary Mine

Explosion in the Sky, Your Hand in Mine on The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place

***Kate Nash, Nicest Thing on Made of Bricks

loving kate nash right now. new obsession.

passionfruit.

on regret and romance.

on regret:

dear readers. what are your thoughts on regret? are you one of those people who doesn't believe it should exist? that we learn from each mistake or poor decision, so there is no need to bother with worrying? or are you one of those people who takes the time to punish yourself for those poor decisions, until you no longer feel the agony? check out the five most common regrets posted on dear jack. i often wonder whether i will regret working too hard. or, on the other hand, if i will regret not working hard enough? i work hard. i like to challenge myself and set high expectations for myself. on the other hand, i enjoy playing hard as a reward. (i think that is one of the greatest lessons my mother taught me. it keeps me balanced.) there is that scene in eat, pray, love when they talk about how italians are famous for perfecting the art of doing nothing. cultures that embrace rest and relaxation-are healthier/happier because of it. i wish that i lived in a culture that was more open to this idea because there is something to be said about taking time to listen to the radio and eat a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream, or go on a walk just to hear the birds sing. When was the last time you did that?

on romance:

what is the most romantic thing that you've witnessed or experienced lately? my grandparents are the most romantic couple i know. it's just magical to me that they are still so in love with each other after all these years. they still hold hands-to keep each other balanced, and to love each other.

"hand-holding is the one aspect that's not been affected by the sexual revolution,"- dalton conley 

and what do you think about that? hand holding is innocent, and yet it can be very intimate and romantic as well.  i love holding hands. when you hold someone's hand it's a little way of letting the world know that you're happy. (because who ever holds hands with someone they're mad at?!) i just watched the episode in season 6 of S&TC where samantha refuses to hold smith's hand. carrie says: "you mean to tell me that smith is a hand holder?? and to think-he served us food!" that's a good scene.