February 2013
1 post
“The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can’t help it.”
– Leo Rosten
November 2012
1 post
October 2012
1 post
On presidential preference
I can't live in this country if Romney is president.
Oh, sure you could. We lived through Bush.
But then we got Obama! Replacing him--
--would be devastating.
Yes! When we got Obama it was like, okay, America wants to get its shit together. Phew. But now, if we don't reelect him, it'd be like, we just couldn't handle having someone who acts in our interest, we had to go and elect another old white guy to rule us.
September 2012
9 posts
“You don’t have to be a wild-eyed socialist or a bleeding-heart liberal to...”
– Emily Barton, via 90 Days, 90 Reasons
“If I am not able to write because I’m afraid of being a bad writer, then I must...”
– Susan Sontag’s 7/19/79 diary entry
Probably the coolest comic I have ever seen. →
Hooray for creativity! Exploring this artist’s world is the closest I have come to playing SNES in at least a decade. I am impressed, amazed, and inspired. Imaginations are awesome, especially when shared!
“We, the people, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that...”
– Barack Obama
“Success isn’t about how much money you make, it’s about the...”
– Michelle Obama
August 2012
2 posts
Vegetables are in high demand at my office.
In a rush this morning, I stuffed two celery stalks and a hard-boiled egg into a sandwich bag. When I went to the fridge to retrieve my food, one of the celery stalks was gone. I ask you: WHO STEALS A CELERY STALK? Also missing from my lunch box (okay, grocery sack) was the bag of cucumber slices left from yesterday, but thankfully the spinach dip and apple were still there. Weirdest. Theft....
July 2012
1 post
June 2012
1 post
My boss: Okay, so, let's all reconvene at 2 p.m. and help Christina clean her office. This is horrifying.
Me: Whoa, why do I feel like this is a Hoarder's intervention?
Coworker: Because there are huge stacks of paper everywhere and your clutter is out of control?
Me: I thought this was supposed to be a meeting.
May 2012
3 posts
I woke up thinking “I love you.”
I wrote my morning pages.
I typed my gratitude work.
I read daily reflections on the bus.
I sent silent well-wishes to strangers on the subway.
I sat up tall for five minutes, three times.
I acknowledged that, although I have a long way I want to go, I have come a long way.
I started this blog.
I agreed to help a friend.
I helped a friend.
I...
March 2012
1 post
Extry, Extry, Sing All About It!
[photo credited to Sara Krulwich/The New York Times]
My awesome friend fatgirlinohio knows I’ve been wanting to see Newsies on Broadway and also knows high ticket prices make me cringe, which is why she oh-so-thoughtfully forwarded me the link to yesterday’s Opening Night Lottery.
I figured that, with a hundred $30 tickets up for grabs, the odds were in my favor, so I spent a...
February 2012
2 posts
4 tags
December 2011
1 post
Om Schooled Teachers' Lounge: Ready and Waiting →
My first contribution to a new blog about kids’ yoga:
“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.” —Anne Lamott I’m sort of a substitute teacher when it comes to sharing yoga with young people—I don’t currently have a regularly scheduled class, but I’m available on short notice,…
November 2011
11 posts
Lessons outlast the classroom
If you had told me ten years ago that I would still be connected to my high school journalism teacher more than a decade after graduation, I would have raised an eyebrow. (Especially if I knew how to raise an eyebrow.) But thanks to the magic of the internet, Carol Richstsmeier—known as Richie to me and her many students over the years—continues to educate me weekly, via her awesome...
Just an average correspondence in YA publishing
Me (via query): Do we want to mention that two teen prostitutes fall in love? Or let that be a surprise to customers?
Editor (via handwritten response): Leave out. Thanks!
“Our destiny is still in our own hands if we pick ourselves up and act...”
– Sarah Palin (Proof that even our ideological opposites can offer wisdom.)
Angels Rushing In Where Others Fear to Tread →
Frustrated with the violence plaguing Mexico, young church members have been visiting crime scenes dressed as angels and bearing messages for criminals like “murderers repent.”
Subway soul surprise
One thing I love about living in New York is that sometimes there is music in the subway, an unexpected accompaniment to an otherwise routine commute.
When I used to catch the train on the UWS, on the occasional Friday morning an elderly man and his electric guitar kept me bluesy company. When I’d transfer from the M to the 6 after work, the passageway in between regularly featured...
Blackberry's "Big Hug" Emoticon
cleatora:
This is quite a disturbing image… Blackberry thinks this is a “big hug” and believes it’s appropriately symbolized with:
({})
I think there might be a character limit on the emote description. Instead, it should actually have read “Big Huge Gaping Vagina”
“Your blood is my coffee, your kiss is my cream….Every time I leave you is...”
– some lyrical lines from The Damnwells’s “Lady Light”
October 2011
3 posts
“Everything was perfect—until Mom got arrested.”
– A tagline (for a book description) that I wrote last year. Really piques your interest, no?
I have a weakness and her name is Kelly Clarkson.
So, I’m not a big pop music person, and admittedly, if you played me the 30-second snippets of the album I just bought, I probably wouldn’t be hooked. In fact, I did hear them, and I definitely wasn’t hooked…so why did I spend the $5 anyway?
Well because it is KELLY CLARKSON, and five bucks in the name of her music is basically like high-fiving the concept of GIRL POWER.
...
Conversation on my corner
Stranger sitting in front of the bodega: Am I outside or am I inside?
Me: Outside
Him (to person he's talking to on phone): I'm outside.
September 2011
4 posts
3 tags
Some Common quotes, in context.
I recently got to hear Common talk about his life, his views, and his new book, One Day It’ll All Make Sense. And because I am a nerd with a journalism degree, I took notes the whole time.
As much as I’d enjoy writing more formally about my experience—because Common and his mom, who also spoke, are amazing, inspirational people—I have a full-time job and a pretty busy...
Snarky people practice (and teach) yoga too! →
I do believe yoga can make us all better, but I definitely support being real about its pitfalls. And this fellow skeptic/yoga teacher does a great job of humorously exploring some of them!
“It’s all evolving. We don’t have the brain open on a young child.”
– My boss, correctly pointing out that our work is not as stressful nor as consequential as brain surgery.
August 2011
3 posts
On Irene's appearance
Mom: You know, I'm starting to think this storm really is a big deal.
Me: Just now? Are you serious? Have you SEEN what the storm looks like?
Mom: No.
--is shown radar screen with large blots of red and green--
Mom: Wow! Pretty!
Me: No, Mom, HUGE. The word we're looking for is HUGE.
Oh, no, that is NOT a fair comparison. RIGHT?
“This is the uprising of the working class. We’re redistributing the wealth,” said Bryn Phillips, a 28-year-old self-described anarchist, as young people emerged from the store with chocolate bars and ice cream cones.
Phillips claimed rioters were motivated by distrust of the police, and drew a link between the rage on London’s street and insurgent right-wing politics...
July 2011
8 posts
Clueless cliche
I know it’s not a new observation but I’m still wondering all the same: Why are all the good guys gay or taken?
(….This thought inspired by waiting for a train with a crowd of beachgoers.)
“Yoga is a safe space to look for oneself. Yoga is a place to investigate and to...”
– Mark Lilly, founder of Street Yoga
Suggestions welcome
I had to factory reset my Android phone and figure I may as well start from scratch rather than attempt to recreate every nuance of my previous user experience.
Any apps you can’t live without?
