pretty young thing

Yoga is medicinal. My hot hatha flow class this evening was extreme but empowering, and if the energy in the room was any indication, the feeling wasn't only my own.  We did handstands for the entire length of Michael Jackson's "PYT".  It was epic.

Friendship is medicinal.  Beth lent me, quite literally, the shirt off of her back before class today.  She thought I might like to wear it to work because she enjoyed wearing it to work, and she's smart because I do.  It's darling, think: ivory, beautiful detail, flowy sleeves.  Beth and Ryan have given me a chance to sample work/life balance at it's most healing - post-yoga Thursday night dinners shared with two people I love.

[image via here]

second family

Debbie, Emily, and Amanda tried on a new coast last weekend. Their travels led them across the Hudson into B&T territory for dinner in Hoboken, and they were kind enough to invite me to stay with them in the city. 

A consistent drizzle, the requisite combination of foregoing the taxi/blindly navigating the subway, and our umbrella-less existence ensured one semi-soaked weekend, but no one minded. We were having too good of a time sampling bakery fare and taking in a performance of Phantom.

We reminisced, caught up on neighborhood-happenings, sang songs off of our beloved Newsies soundtrack (together in NYC, how could we not), brushed shoulders with Marisky Hartigay, and fought off state police personnel for snapping pictures in the subway.

Time/space can often alter friendships, but mine with this family is an exception; an easy instant, and I am swept back to life circa Arcel Circle. It was as though I woke up on an eager summer morning, stepped into my suit still damp from the day before, and ran next door for swimming and sliding and diving and PB&J on wheat.

me too

Oh I love red.  I'm very loyal to my colors.

Elizabeth Taylor

[image via here]

sweetheart

You were happy once; you were sunshine and smiles and a brightness that radiated.  You may be cloudy now, you may not want to sing.  You may just want to fold inside of yourself, on the oldest couch you can find, by the biggest window, and watch it rain.

You used to find that little things made you happy; now you can't even find the big things.  Somehow, along the way, you lost yourself.

One foot in front of the other, sweetheart, and you will find your way back.

[image via here]

and speaking of forts

[image via vera vodak]

wild rumpus'

Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are prompted this contest.  I wish I had known.  My fort-building skills are enviable - for this, I thank my creative counterparts on Arcel Circle.  I also thank my parents - for years, they patiently and without objection maneuvered around rearranged furniture and never once challenged our monopolization of the linen closet.

on art

The following excerpt has changed the way I look at everything. It's also changed the way I look at my gray cube, as a photocopy of page 204 from Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog now hangs on my wall:

But when we gaze at a still life, when - even though we did not pursue it - we delight in its beauty, a beauty borne away by the magnified and immobile figuration of things, we find pleasure in the fact that there was no need for longing, we may contemplate something we need not want, may cherish something we need not desire. So this still life, because it embodies a beauty that speaks to our desire but was given birth by someone else's desire, because it cossets our pleasure without in any way being part of our own projects, because it is offered to us without requiring the effort of desiring on our part: this still life incarnates the quintessence of Art, the certainty of timelessness. In the scene before our eyes - silent, without life or motion - a time exempt of projects is incarnated, perfection purloined from duration and its weary greed - pleasure without desire, existence without duration, beauty without will.

For art is emotion without desire.

[image via here]

kreativ

Sincere, heartfelt thanks to Allie, the effervescent and kind author of No Small Dreams, for nominating me for a "Kreativ Bloggers" award. It appears that literary preferences and Parisian tendencies (and the internet) can forge friendships 3,000 miles away. So, I'm to name seven unknown things about myself. Here goes:

1. A wooden balance beam fell on my head when I was five.
2. As a child, I was encouraged to color outside the lines.
3. I assisted in a gum surgery when I was fifteen, and successfully sutured the patient's mouth back together.
4. My current obsession hinges on the careful preparation of green tea, steamed soy milk, and honey.
5. The only song I can recall from years of piano lessons is the theme from a "Love Story".
6. George Winston lulls me to sleep every night.
7. I am going to write a book soon.

I'm also to call out a few favorites of my own:

1. Sharing Deodorant
2. Fuzzy Purple Socks
3. Design Crush
4. With Love & Such
5. Little Brown Pen

6. Audrey Hepburn Complex

7. Bread & Honey

I'm not the most social keeper of blogs, but I do appreciate this. Grazie mille, Allie.

andy andrews

Until a person takes responsibility for where he is, there is no basis for moving on. The bad news is that the past was in your hands, but the good news is that the future, my friend, is also in your hands.

Andy Andrews

[image via here]

bob marley

Tonight I've signed myself up for a Bob Marley Friday Night Flow class at Garden State Yoga. The room is candle-lit and Bob Marley music accompanies the practice. I can't think of a better way to start my weekend.

capitals

t exists soley to give people like Colombe, Maman or the Grinpards a frisson of possession. Tuhh-scany belongs to them just as Culture and Art do, or anything else you can write with a Capital Letter.



[quote via here]
[brilliant excuse to participate in drop cap usage via here]

emily ryan

If there's anything I love more than cowl necks, it's pockets. Hence why I love this tunic. Gracious thanks to Design Crush for introducing me to Emily Ryan.

george whitman

Shakespeare & Co. is my idea of the perfect refuge, and while my Parisian affair was brief, I spent a generous amount of time in this warm, affable bookstore just across the Seine from Notre Dame.

The Sundance Channel aired a special on George Whitman, ex-patriot and owner of Shakespeare & Co., entitled Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man. At the end of the documentary, Whitman recites the poem below. I fell in love with his cadence, the serenity in his gaze, the simplicity of that moment he chose to share his poem, the eccentricity of his haircut. I’ve memorized his poem and it’s morphed into mantra of sorts; I catch myself thinking the words without realizing I’m doing so.

Here is my best effort at putting this poem on paper (so to speak). I can't find it in written form, trust me, I've tried:

Among the visions which my fancies trace
There was one brightest star, one face -
One image from afar filled with syruped grace

Each poem is her heart’s fantasy
Each flower and tree is framed within her memory
Each dream, each midnight, and each dawn
Are garments, thoughts of her put on

Each beam of light from the imperial blue
With her in falls the good
The beautiful
The true

okay

Begin anywhere.

- Frank Giampietro

[image via here]

sugar paper

I'm blessed to have good friends in my life. I should tell them this more often. With the above.

[images via sugar paper]

fallen

Autumn is the hardest season. The leaves have fallen. And they fell like they were falling in love with the ground.

- Andrea Gibson

[image via little brown pen]

today

[image via here]

three lives

Last Saturday, I spent several hours at Three Lives & Company, a special bookstore in Greenwich Village.  It is small, quaint, and stocked with bestsellers, obscure titles, travelogues, local authors, classics, children's books, and so on.   I wanted to read (okay devour) every book my fingers tumbled amorously across.  Miraculously, I narrowed my massive pile down to just one, A Moveable Feast.  Thrilling.

I approached the cashier and he asked, "All that time spent and just this to show for it?"  I smiled and said back, "That time spent is my favorite part." 

p.s. Google Books gives the best previews for perspective reads, typically the first three chapters (or more).

up

This news story was bizarre/perfect material for the stunt below.  I might recommend the following be read out loud for cadence's sake.  Make Will proud now. 

[via here]

wtf

The ink pad would need replacing by the end of day one.