Cozy Night

I love the fact that after a very long, uncomfortable day, I am curled up in bed, watching a hopefully mindless but not completely meaningless movie, wearing my favorite grey hoodie with cherries on it that I’ve had since high school.

And if I ever start to feel a tinge of guilt over the fact that this is how I am going to spend my evening, I just start throwing around the two magic words — “self-care.”  It’s the Mars Hill way.  ;)

Gifts of Mercy from My Walk On a Spring Night

– A cool, gentle breeze.

– A beautiful, hazy sunset, shades of yellow and orange, houses and trees set on fire by the reflection.

– Being followed by the sound of an ice cream truck playing “A Bicycle Built For Two.”

– Did I mention the sunset?

– Being visited once again by the angel of comfort in disguise, dancing softly at my feet.

– Taking roads and pathways not yet traveled.  I couldn’t get lost because I had no destination.

– Being vicariously serenaded by lovers and friends as they sang Rocky Mountain High from their apartment balcony.

– Rounding a corner to see a beautiful two-story home painted the perfect shades of red and green, bathed in sunlight.

– Being followed home by a skittish, playful, and pouncing orange kitten, and then walking her back to where she belongs.

– A lovely conversation with my neighbor about how I’ve used the door and two red chairs that I bought from their yard sale a few weeks ago, and a hello to their “shy” toddler.

Probably the best walk of my life.  And much needed.  Now, it’s off to bed before my two-hour therapy session tomorrow…

Kind of hilarious

George Ellery Hale was the twentieth century’s most important builder of telescopes. In 1897, Hale built a 40-inch-wide telescope, the largest ever built at that time. His second telescope, with a 60-inch lens, was set up in 1917 and took 14 years to build. During that time, Hale became convinced that he suffered from “Americanitis” a disorder in which the ambitions of Americans drive them insane. During the building of his lens, Hale spent time in a sanatorium, and would only discuss his plans for the telescope with a “sympathetic green elf.”

Thank you, Useless Knowledge.

Now back to writing about a central and guiding tragedy in my life.  Oh, Mars Hill.

Another Anger Quote

“I think when one has been angry for a very long time, one gets used to it, and it becomes comfortable, like old leather.  And finally, it becomes so familiar that one can’t remember feeling any other way.”

–Jean Luc Picard (yes… from Star Trek… old school)

Something else to think about.  This is my fear when I think about the possibility of remaining angry for any significant length of time.

How True

“As he was speaking, he kept reminding himself that he was going to a rendezvous and that not a living soul knew about it, or, probably, ever would.  He led a double life–one in public, in the sight of all whom it concerned, full of conventional truth and conventional deception, exactly like the lives of his friends and acquaintances, and another which flowed in secret.  And, owing to some strange, possibly quite accidental chain of circumstances, everything that was important, interesting, essential, everything about which he was sincere and never deceived himself, everything that composed the kernel of his life, went on in secret, while everything that was false in him, everything that composed the husk in which he hid himself and the truth which was in him… was on the surface.  He began to judge others by himself, no longer believing what he saw, and always assuming that the real, the only interesting life of every individual goes on as under cover of night, secretly.  Every individual existence revolves around mystery, and perhaps that is the chief reason that all cultivated individuals insisted so strongly on the respect due to personal secrets.”

–Gurov, from The Lady with the Dog, by Anton Chekhov.

COMING SOON

Anger: Good? Bad? Or something in between?

Me, Seattle, and the Irresistible Revolution

College in Pictures: A journey through my four years at Carolina

 

Not sure which order these will happen in, but they’re coming.

Geez

The Anthropologist in me is furious:

“Soap was considered a frivolous luxury of the British aristocracy from the early 1700s until 1862, and there was a tax on those who used it in England. Today it is apparently a frivolous luxury only for the French.”

Another Interesting One

Another interesting bit of “useless knowledge”:

In the spring of 2000, it was reported that a 25-year-old Tehran transsexual, who had just undergone extensive surgery to become a woman, said he wanted to change back to a man after realizing just how poorly women are treated in Iran.

Wow

On my iGoogle page, I have a box called “Useless Knowledge.”  Every time I open the page, it gives me a new useless, and usually interesting, fact.  Sometimes they have commentary, and try to be funny.  This is the most recent one:

The motto of the Olympics is

“Citius, altius, fortius” which means “Faster, higher, stronger.” But it sounds more like the motto for Viagra.

Wow.  I think they took their humor a little too far this time.  Hahahaha.  If there was a line, they crossed it.  :)

My new little friend

Got my nosed pierced with Betsey today!