Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Jan 2012

Thank you. I purged. I cleansed. I centered. 1/12th of an amazing year under my belt.

There is something great about going through one's belongings and donating the clothing, shoes, etc. that you don't wear. This year I supported Housing Works and Dress for Success. I also (finally) got rid of all my old electronics that needed to be trashed. I was able to participate in a local drop off sponsored by The Lower East Side Ecology Center, which besides E-cycling does amazing stuff generally!

In January I:

*Played my guitar some

*Read:
Five Chiefs
The History of the Twentieth Century

*Saw:
Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same
Iron Lady
How the World Began
Phantom of the Opera (wanted to do that since age 12)
Faust
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
Norwegian Wood


*Completed an amazing cleanse

*Completed a Cross Fit class and will register once I'm back from Kenya

*Had a series of amazing dinners (and lunches) with friends

*Continued progress on the job and consulting front, received an acceptance to sit for the Foreign Service Exam

*Kenya prep including some trips to REI and Paragon (niether of which I am allowed in for the next 6 months- I am a way too "geared out")and getting all of my vaccines

*Registered for the Brooklyn Bridge Swim

*Attended political fundraisers, was elected President of Lambda Independent Democrats (LID), and participated in an increased involvement with Trevor Project NextGen.

February, I am excited for an equally great 2nd month - I mean, I'm going to Kenya...I'm thrilled!

Roof Party 2012, what.

Monday, January 30, 2012

I'm fairly certain that this latest album has been on repeat since it's release back on October 28. Having been obsessed with her first album I pre-ordered this one and have not been let down!

Saturday, January 28, 2012

an amazing song, nothing more.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Complicated Sex on Fire

I forgot about this little mashup, love it.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Outta this World



The original Blue Marble -- the iconic 1972 photograph taken by the Apollo 17 crew while they were on their way to the moon.



Blue Marble 2012: a composite image made from data collected by the Suomi NPP satellite.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

gonna run baby, run like the stream down a mountainside



"the demon in me was best friends from the start"

This makes me very happy! So does a morning workout, kale, apple, strawberry, ginger juice, sore muscles, hot tea, studying and dinner, Mmm.
You know it's a good tattoo when not only your artist has it as her profile picture, but the shop is using it to recruit walk-ins. Couldn't be happier with the new tattoos from Annie, be sure to check out her work here and if you are in Brooklyn and need some ink, go to Three Kings Tattoo and see Annie, she's incredible!



(PS - I care about privacy a bit more than Mark Zuckerberg)

love.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The Great Gatsby Curve

In his blog the other day, Paul Krugman wrote about the Great Gatsby Curve. I immediately smiled, not because what this graph demonstrated but because of my more than fond memories of American Literature. I dunno what draws me again and again to so many of the wonderful books and characters that I learned in high school, but I'm always drawn to them. Reading this blog entry made me smile because titling this graph this way is something I would do and strikingly melds so many of the things that capture my interest all into one.





"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning-- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Monday, January 16, 2012

This song made me want to pick up my guitar tonight...it's been awhile.

Friday, January 13, 2012

One year

365 days ago today I was laid off from the Empire State Pride Agenda. At the time, I felt like the rug was pulled out from under my feet, today it's the best thing that could have happened! Amazing what perspective can give you, I wouldn't be where I was today if not for that moment in my history.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Let's go for a ride

Baobab Tree - the tree of life


I am so excited to see a baobab tree in person when I get to Kenya in 42 days!!!

Harney Granite Peak in the Black Hills of South Dakota

‎"The old Lakota was wise. He knew that a man's heart away from Nature becomes hard. He knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon lead to a lack of respect for humans too." - Luther Standing Bear - Oglala Sioux Chief

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

my love affair with the moon

I can't even begin to express how happy this makes me...


Photo Credit: Trust Me, I'm an "Engineer"

"We are searching for the answers / so we can destroy them and dream up better questions." ~Rob Brezsny

Monday, January 9, 2012

and the road flows like a river and pulls me around every bend




"and i roll over and taste the pillow with my grin"

Quotes

To doubt everything, or, to believe everything, are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
~Henri Poincare

Out of the crooked timbers of humanity, nothing entirely straight can be built.
~Immanuel Kant


"it is impossible to simultaneously measure the present position while also determining the future motion of a particle"

Saturday, January 7, 2012

This morning when I woke up, these words, written long ago, were in my head...I thought I'd (re)share.

"And gravity pulls and no matter how hard you try you can't fight it.

She's been finding Walden hidden in storybooks and pictures, tucked away on tanning pages. Notes in margins of broken hearts and heavy chests. Brilliant yet speechless.

There's no reason in madness or love. No sense in weightlessness. She wants to go home.

Meticulously detailed plans and letters written, stored away deep within a trunk of safety, the key strung loosely on waxed twine around her neck."


and the only thing that can logically follow these words is one of my favorite quotes:

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods; There is a rapture on the lonely shore; There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and the music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more..." ~Lord Byron
‎"My body is a journal in a way. It's like what sailors used to do, where every tattoo meant something, a specific time in your life when you make a mark on yourself, whether you do it yourself with a knife or with a professional tattoo artist." ~Johnny Depp

Monday, January 2, 2012

A small reflection...

I've always liked the idea of "training," it's never much mattered exactly what I was training for. I've never trained for a marathon or that sort of thing, but I have trained myself to do a lot of seemingly random, and genrally unimportant things. To me the challenge is in changing patterns, lifestyles, automatic responses, etc. I am a creature of habit and routine, I find comfort in the familiar - yet at the same time enjoy breaking patterns.

In 2011, I lost a few items that were important to me; what I realized losing my keys a few days before the close of the year was that it didn't matter. I needed to just let it go. I was sad, because the keys included a key ring that my sister got me when I graduated high school, it was engraved with one of my favorite quotes, a Grateful Dead lyric; "she can wade in a drop of dew." To me, that quote always meant that "she" was magnificent, that "she" could do anything, that there was no challenge too great. Sometimes it's really nice to have these sentimental trickets and things all around, but what I realized is in losing them, I focused a little too much on the "thing" and not enough on the "meaning" - it doesn't matter that I don't have that silly key ring, I still believe those words, I've still got my great sister, who when I told I'd lost the key ring, was super sweet, said some good words that nearly made me cry and that is what is important.

That maroon beanie that came on more adventures than I can name, that carried all that energy with it, well losing the hat can't take all that energy; I carry it. I don't have many "things" but the things I do have generally have a lot of meaning and sentimental value to me, 2012 is all about the value and the feeling, not the thing...


‎"Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose."―Yoda