stop.start.pause.

Lessons from the Unexpected in Volunteering: Taking Opportunities, Taking Time

2011-09-10T17:17:00.000-07:00

AllPeopleBeHappy afforded me the opportunity to work with Ghana Act at an eye clinic that visits rural areas to address preventable blindness, eye health, and vision. I traveled to many villages where I took patient vitals and distributed supplies. This opportunity spoke to me because it provided healthcare to people with limited access and it improved patient vision, which is a means of not only seeing the world but of learning from it. Studies have shown that poor eyesight constrains quality of life and the ability to learn in school and perform many jobs. I hope that by improving eye sight, we also empowered people to better their lives.

What I didn’t anticipate was the vast amount of the unexpected that accompanies living and volunteering in a developing country, and the opportunity for change and growth that the unexpected can provide. I was fortunate that my volunteer agency Ghana Act allowed me to explore the unplanned, and that I followed it with an open heart.

On days the eye clinic didn’t take outreach trips, I decided to volunteer teach the sixth grade at a small school in a rural farming village called Saviefe Deme. It’s an experience that wasn’t part of my “volunteer plan” and I’m very grateful for it. My time teaching in this village transformed my relationship to people who are in poverty, and to kids, who no matter their circumstance, have a tremendous need for support and honest belief in their abilities. This leads me to,

Lesson No. 1: On volunteer trips, embrace unexpected opportunities to get involved.

Lesson No. 2 is best demonstrated with pictures.

First day of teaching:

Last day of teaching:

Which brings me to,

Lesson No. 2: On volunteer trips, oh what a difference a day makes! (Or a week, or a month)!

Volunteer, and volunteer with your whole heart.

Thank you, AllPeopleBeHappy

Thank you, Ghana Act

Thank you, Saviefe Deme sixth graders

for helping me understand that every human has dignity, and that every human deserves the opportunity to live in accordance with that dignity

Closing Gallery: “Role Models” - Saviefe Deme students try on my hat

All People Be Happy

2011-03-08T18:57:00.000-08:00

What do you feel will lead to a world where All People Can Be Happy, and what contribution will you make?

Everybody's voice matters, and I believe by listening to each person's voice, we create an environment of support that fosters individual and community growth. I currently tutor with the East African Community Services, where I visit the homes of refugee families to tutor their children. I value this opportunity to help people who are at a disadvantage improve their lives through education. Below, I'm tutoring Luis from Tanzania in math. By listening to Luis and giving feedback and encouragement, he is able to find the answer himself!

1. Luis contemplates a tough math problem on his homework.

2. He tells me what he's thinking; we talk it out.

3. Success! He knows how to find the answer.

By always listening, everybody cultivates attitudes of belief and achievement in people.

Learn more about the All People Be Happy Foundation here.

All People Be Happy

2011-03-07T08:46:00.000-08:00

What do you feel will lead to a world where All People Can Be Happy, and what contribution will you make?

By always listening, everybody cultivates attitudes of belief and achievement in people.

Everybody’s voice matters, and I believe by listening to each person’s voice, we create an environment of support that fosters individual and community growth. I currently tutor with the East African Community Services, where I visit the homes of refugee families to tutor their children. I value this opportunity to help people who are at a disadvantage improve their lives through education. Below, I’m tutoring Jeanine from Tanzania in reading and writing. Watch her progression of drawings!

1. Jeanine’s drawing of my name the first time we met.

2. Jeanine’s most recent drawing. Notice the spelling!

3. Here is Jeanine, now working on her cursive!

Learn more about the All People Be Happy Foundation here.

"Overstanding"

2011-02-17T19:29:00.000-08:00

Rastafari is a language of sorts, and I recently learned about the wonderful Rasta term "overstanding." Overstanding is a play on words that implies the elevation of knowledge, where the overstander (my term?) sees knowledge as a tool for personal improvement instead of feeling oppressed by it (as in "under"standing). It's like seeing the weather as an adventure instead of a scourge.

"All we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next.” - J.D. Salinger

2011-02-13T19:32:00.000-08:00

On January 28th, 2010, my old blog nicoleqatsi got 340 views. Three hundred of those were searches for passages from "Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters." January 28th, 2010 was the day J.D. Salinger's death was announced. Remember what a lovely writer he was by reading my list of his quotes here.

R.I.P., J.D. You will be missed; I will be shining my shoes for the fat lady.

The Gestalt of You (and Me)

2011-01-12T20:26:00.000-08:00

Watching old copies of The French Chef (Julie Child was 6' 2'' with frizzy hair) and reading Amy Tan's novel Saving Fish from Drowning has me ruminating on personal style and the empowerment it can bring through self-expression and authenticity. Julia was a very happy lady despite her size 12 feet!

"Yet I was not dissatisfied with my looks -- well when I was younger, yes, multiply so. But by the time I became a young woman, I knew it was better the be unforgettable than bland. I learned to transform my faults into effect. I darkened my already thick eyebrows, put big-stoned jewelery on my knobby fingers. I dyed my muddy hair in long streaks of bright gold, red, and lacquer black and wove them into a passive plait that striped the entire length of my back. I adorned myself with layers of unlikely colors, clashing tones married by texture or design or flow. I wore large pendants and medallions, clown-green gaspeite where people expected cool imperial jade..."
- Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

To Read: MLK's letter from a Birmingham Jail

2011-01-09T20:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

"I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."

A day in the life of Ben Franklin

2011-01-05T17:43:00.000-08:00

(from ben franklin's autobiography: the new yorker)

stop.start.pause is environmentally friendly

2010-12-20T22:27:00.000-08:00

and is printed on 100% recycled electrons.

Because his heart is still free.

2010-12-19T16:52:00.000-08:00

(image: me)

Added by author on 11/22/2011 - I no longer believe that caged birds can have free hearts.

Bravery

2010-12-14T22:27:00.000-08:00

is admirable in all its forms.

"There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes."

2010-12-12T20:11:00.000-08:00

- an old Norwegian saying, told to me by my dad

Julia Child: On Traveling

2010-12-08T22:55:00.000-08:00

I'm devouring Julia Child's My Life in France. It's a recipe for life! In it, she describes people's different approaches to traveling, and I whole-heartedly agree with her style.

On traveling through France and Italy with her parents: "I grew restless on those days of driving and driving and eating and driving and eating at the biggest-best restaurants and sleeping at the biggest-best hotels. To hell with it! It seemed like we'd never really been anywhere or done anything...In fact, I didn't like traveling first class at all. Yes, it was nice to have a bathroom in the hotel and fine service at breakfast, and I'd probably never visit those grand hotels again, but none of it seemed foreign enough to me. It was all so pleasantly bland that it felt as if I were back on the SS America. I don't like it when everyone speaks perfect English; I'd much rather struggle with my phrase book."

On traveling through France without her husband, Paul: "Paul and I liked to travel at the same slow pace. He always knew so much about things, discovered hidden wonders, noticed ancient walls or indigenous smells, and I missed his warm presence."

Impossible Is Nothing

2010-12-04T00:36:00.000-08:00

click here to see a snail stretch to three times its body size, entitled "impossible is nothing."

(thanks, pat)

sometimes i go about pitying myself / and all the while i am being carried across the sky / by beautiful clouds.

2010-11-30T19:45:00.000-08:00

-ojibway indian poem

:'(

2010-11-05T22:01:00.000-07:00

--a baby albatros, dead from feeding on plastic in the pacific ocean--

see more about it here at scientific american.

i woke up at 2:59 this morning, reprieved because i fought dream-catchers & won

2010-08-01T14:01:00.000-07:00

my lyre has fallen & broken,
but i have my little tom-toms.
Look, do you see those crows
perched on the guardhouse?
I don't wish to speak of omens
but sometimes it's hard to guess.
Life has been good the past few years.
I know all seven songs of the sparrow
& I feel lucky to be alive. I woke up at 2:59
this morning, reprieved because I fought
dream-catchers & won. I'll place a stone
in my mouth & go down there again,
& if I meet myself mounting the stairs
it won't be the same man descending...

-yosef komunyakaa

Nuh uh!

2010-06-30T16:31:00.001-07:00

Next time somebody claims animals can't feel, show them this video and say "Nuh uh!"

a minor obsession with time

2010-06-18T13:36:00.000-07:00

I want a watch that just tells me the year, to help me think bigger picture.

Would you like an algorithm with that?

2010-06-16T12:43:00.000-07:00

in a step in the right direction, mattel released computer engineering barbie. now if only they could design a doll with anatomically possible body dimensions to wear her bluetooth headset, but she might not be able to pull off that crop vest.

Good Oak

2010-06-06T23:20:00.000-07:00

"There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a cabin. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace. To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden. To avoid the second, one should lay a split of good oak on the andirons, and let it warm one's shins while a February blizzard tosses the trees outside. If one has cut, split, hauled, and piled one's own good oak, and let one's mind work the while, one will remember much about where the heat comes from, and with a wealth of detail denied to those who spend the week in town astride a radiator."

-Aldo Loepold, naturalist and author of A Sand County Almanac

"Sometimes, sit and think. Sometimes, just sit."

2010-06-04T18:07:00.000-07:00

(taken at the sculpture garden in minneapolis)

Lydia Mendoza: "The Lark of the Border"

2010-05-25T16:46:00.000-07:00

I'm listening to the "First Lady of Tejano" here at NPR.

Disfrutate!

The developmental stages of marriage concepts: magical, idealized conventional, individualistic, affirmational

2010-05-21T17:20:00.000-07:00

I just came across this study.

"Abstract: This study involved the construction of a theory and scoring manual for assessing the developmental stages of individuals' concepts of marriage. Four stages (Magical, Idealized Conventional, Individualistic, Affirmational) were identified. The reliability of the scoring procedure (interrater and item-total protocol) was judged to be acceptable. Correlations with age, schooling, ego development, and years of marriage support the marriage concepts stage sequence. Adolescents (N=162) scored at the first two stages of marriage concepts. However, in ego development, their mean score was above the Conformist level, thus suggesting that the adolescents were more advanced in their overall personality development than in their developmental stages of marriage concepts."

Roy T. Tamashiro¹
Received: 24 April 1979 by College of Education, Ohio State

Laying fallow on Sunday mornings.

2010-05-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

Happy Moms.

2010-05-09T15:38:00.000-07:00

The Bright New Year, a song by Bert Jansch

Keep a poem in your pocket.

2010-05-02T21:24:00.000-07:00

The New Yorker reports that April 29th was A Poem in Your Pocket Day in New York City. Here's what I chose to put in my pocket:

"In the woods is perpetual youth."

My oh my.

2010-04-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

Tulip-magnificence.

(Holland)

The Rose Garden

2010-04-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

one day in summer
when everything
has already been more than enough
the wild beds start
exploding open along the berm
of the sea; day after day
you sit near them; day after day
the honey keeps on coming
in the red cups and the bees
like amber drops roll
in the petals; there is no end
believe me! to the inventions of summer,
to the happiness your body
is willing to bear.

-mary oliver, the roses

tidepooling

2010-04-15T22:30:00.000-07:00

low tide at deception pass, spotted a purple sea star: "five broad rays are stiff and bumpy, patterned with lines of very short white spines...common on rocky beaches under overhanging rocks...feeds by humping over prey and forcing shells apart then inserts its extrudable belly to dissolve and devour the inner parts" (yate's marine wildlife).

Insect covered in morning dew

2010-03-31T19:28:00.001-07:00

see more here.

Martin Buber

2010-03-25T21:26:00.000-07:00

I've been ruminating on the arousing and personally-inspiring "I-It, I-You" Theory of philosopher Martin Buber:

"In I and Thou, Buber...worked upon the premise of existence as encounter. He explained this philosophy using the word pairs of Ich-Du and Ich-Es to categorize the modes of consciousness, interaction, and being through which an individual engages with other individuals, inanimate objects, and all reality in general...The generic motif Buber employs to describe the dual modes of being is one of dialogue (Ich-Du) and monologue (Ich-Es)...Buber argued that human life consists of an oscillation between Ich-Du and Ich-Es.

Ich-Du

Ich-Du ("I-Thou" or "I-You") is a relationship that stresses the mutual, holistic existence of two beings. It is a concrete encounter, because these beings meet one another in their authentic existence, without any qualification or objectification of one another. Even ideas do not play a role in this relation...Buber stressed that an Ich-Du relationship lacks any structure and communicates no information. Despite the fact that Ich-Du cannot be proven to happen as an event (e.g. it cannot be measured), Buber stressed that it is real and perceivable. A variety of examples are used to illustrate Ich-Du relationships in daily life - two lovers, an observer and a cat, the author and a tree, and two strangers on a train. One key Ich-Du relationship Buber identified was that which can exist between a human being and God. Buber argued that this is the only way in which it is possible to interact with God, and that an Ich-Du relationship with anything or anyone connects in some way with the eternal relation to God.

Ich-Es

The Ich-Es ("I-It") relationship is nearly the opposite of Ich-Du. Whereas in Ich-Du the two beings encounter one another, in an Ich-Es relationship... the "I" confronts and qualifies an idea, or conceptualization, of the being in its presence and treats that being as an object. All such objects are considered merely mental representations, created and sustained by the individual mind...Therefore, the Ich-Es relationship is in fact a relationship with oneself; it is not a dialogue, but a monologue. In the Ich-Es relationship, an individual treats other things, people, etc., as objects to be used and experienced. Essentially, this form of objectivity relates to the world in terms of the self - how an object can serve the individual’s interest." - Wikipedia

An another note, Wikipedia is improving my quality of life. Since reading Buber's wiki article two weeks ago, I've carried the Ich-Du in my heart. It's relaxing.

Lessons from Loved Ones

2010-03-16T22:32:00.001-07:00

Pat is fearless with his physical form. I want to be, too! The world belongs to the brave.

<3 Happy Patty's Day, Pat <3

Happy Paddy's Day, Pet!

2010-03-16T21:36:00.001-07:00

This year St. Paddy's Day was especially important to me -- I have a new and much-loved Irish brother, my boyfriend's name is Pat, and I'm visiting the homeland this summer.

Tea Time We baked scones (a UK/Irish thing, recipe here) and served it with Irish Breakfast Tea. Scones are notoriously difficult to cook but they turned out tasty, especially with lots of Kerrygold Irish Butter and Orange Marmalade (Pat's preference) or Nutella, which I tried for the first time in Ireland many years ago.

Biking to a garden Where better to visit than a green, green place. This rose garden is less than eight blocks from our house.

See Pat reading in the lower left.

Dinner with meat and potatoes

Music

Pandora station: Tommy Makem & Liam Clancy - It's good craic.

Movie

The Secret of Kells: small budget animated film made in Ireland about the Book of Kells

"i have lived through many ages/ ran with salmon, deer, and wolf./ i have seen the northmen invading ireland/ destroy all in search of gold./ i have seen suffering in the darkness/ yet i have seen beauty thrive in the most fragile places."

The Still Face Experiment

2010-03-16T11:32:00.001-07:00

Perhaps the most remarkable video I've seen all week

"How Not to Read Imaginative Literature"

2010-03-15T00:15:00.000-07:00

I fear this might be a contradiction.

From How to Read a Book by Adler and Van Doren

"The Importance of Suspending Judgment"

2010-03-15T00:11:00.000-07:00

I really like this one.

From How to Read a Book by Adler and Van Doren

Google maps has bike routes!!!

2010-03-10T09:33:00.000-08:00

!!!!!

with distances and estimated time and everything

!!!!!

best comment ever

2010-03-08T18:34:00.000-08:00

lighthouse comics got its first ever comment from a stranger:

the commenter is an italian blogger. i've finally found my audience.

Altruistic Bonobos

2010-03-08T09:33:00.000-08:00

here.

can't say i'm surprised.

Hah!

2010-03-07T10:11:00.001-08:00

the best commercial of all-time

2010-03-04T23:35:00.000-08:00

hands-down.

smash conformity.

read about it here.

i learned there are troubles of more than one kind/ some come from ahead, others come from behind/ but i've bought a big bat. i'm all ready, you see.

2010-03-04T14:25:00.000-08:00

-dr. suess

The Condensed History of Women in Space

2010-03-03T19:05:00.000-08:00

told through cartoon portraits here.

"Metallocarbonane enthusiast Anna Fisher flew aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-51-A in November 1984. Fisher became the sixth woman in space. Bonus: first mother in space! "

Sweet Potato and Chard Quesadillas

2010-03-01T19:43:00.000-08:00

very yummy. from kingsolver's animal, vegetable, miracle.

SWEET POTATO QUESADILLAS (recipe in .pdf)

i made it cheaper by using a whole onion to fill it out and an inexpensive light cheese instead of brie. (plus a dollop of sour cream from the fridge.) i wish i'd taken a picture.

try it, mich <3

"a mongrel working his legs to a gallop/ hustles the gull flock to flap off the sand-spit" -sylvia plath

2010-02-24T15:22:00.000-08:00

just back from camping in the hoh rainforest and a walk along the dungeness sand-spit on the way home.

Steinberg et al's (1981) prototypes of socially intelligent behavior

2010-02-24T12:21:00.001-08:00

Accepts others for who they are
Admits mistakes
Displays interest in the world at large
Is on time for appointments
Has social conscience
Thinks before speaking and doing
Displays curiosity
Does not make snap judgments
Makes fair judgments
Assesses well the relevance of information to a problem at hand
Is sensitive to other people's needs and desires
Is frank and honest with self and others
Displays interest in the immediate environment

"Ghostly dance of a sea dragon"

2010-02-23T19:40:00.000-08:00

a must-watch video, narrated by david attenburough

at bbc nature

"Let our minds become pilaff."

2010-02-22T15:40:00.000-08:00

"Well?" Zorba said mockingly. "Don't worry, boss, you can't argue that out. Let's talk of something else. Just now I'm thinking of the chicken and the pilaff. Let's eat first, ballast up first, then we'll see. Everything in good time. In front of us now is the pilaff; let out minds become pilaff. Tomorrow the lignite will be in front of us; our minds must become lignite! No half-measures, you know."
-Zorba (Kazantzakis)

"Clever people and grocers, they weigh everything."

2010-02-21T22:21:00.000-08:00

-zorba

If you're gonna make a serious meal, you need serious gear.

2010-02-18T19:55:00.000-08:00

(images: me; pizza: me & pat)

Recovery Road?

2010-02-17T10:29:00.000-08:00

We're in the blue.

(click to enlarge at source)

Altruistic Ants

2010-02-15T09:43:00.000-08:00

here.

(story: bbc news)

"The Great Eskimo Hoax"

2010-02-14T20:31:00.000-08:00

a common misunderstanding is that eskimos have at least 100 words for snow. well that part's true, but so do we. it's just that their words are compound words, which is equivalent to phrases in english~

single words (include conjugates): to snow, snow, snows, snowed, snowing, snowflake, snowflakes, slush, avalanche, avalanches, blizzard, blizzards, blizzarding, to flurry, flurry, flurries, flurried, flurrying, frost, to hail, hail, hails, hailing, hailed, powder, snowstorm, snowstorms

and now for a few english phrases that are only one word in yupik (eskimo-ese): fresh snow, snow bank, snow banks, deep snow, soft snow, fallen snow, snow drift, snow drifts (and now mix and match): freshly fallen snow, snow on the ground, freshly fallen snow on the ground, deep snow on the ground, fresh deep snow, fresh deep snow on the ground (and on)

a day at the bug safari

2010-02-08T16:23:00.000-08:00

location: seattle, washington
cinematographer: patrick flannel
narrator: nicole flapperly

great cover

2010-02-04T22:16:00.000-08:00

a bouquet of books

2010-02-04T20:13:00.000-08:00

a fresh stack of books from the public library

aren't they beautiful, and they haven't even blossomed yet

charming

2010-02-03T10:34:00.000-08:00

the question is not, what is your patronus, but rather what memory would you recall to cast your patronus?

The perfect 113 seconds.

2010-02-01T21:54:00.000-08:00

Buddy Holly - Dearest

the wildness within

2010-01-31T15:17:00.000-08:00

(sculpture: kate macdowell)

"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."

2010-01-29T07:48:00.000-08:00

-carl sagan

The Annotated Alice in Wonderland

2010-01-25T23:10:00.000-08:00

Recently I read The Annotated Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol with notes by Gardner and original illustrations by Tenniel. Marvelous! I'll restrict my comments to annotations since most of you have read the story itself.

I love how the Lobster is standing in ballet's first position, such attention to detail by Tenniel. The annotation points out that little girls delight in making this observation, where they can recognize something they've done in real life in the pages of a book. Maybe even twenty-six year old ladies were amused doing so...

"'Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.' As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes. When the sands are all dry, he is as gay as a lark, And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark: But when the tide rises and sharks are around, His voice has a timid and tremulous sound."

Another scene of madness and merriment is when the Duchess puts too much pepper in her soup. I declare one can never have too much freshly ground pepper in one's soup! The annotation reads, "It was the custom in Victorian England to put excessive pepper in their soup to mask the taste of slightly spoiled meat and vegetables....Carrol provided these lines to be spoken in the stage production of Alice:

There's nothing like pepper says I.... Not half enough yet! Nor a quarter enough. Boil it so easily, Mix it so greasily, Stir it so sneezily, One! Two!! Three!!!"

A wonderful incantation worth remembering.

Lastly, Aldous Huxley chimes in on the meaninglessness of the Mad Hatter's question, "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?" His answer given in the notes is "Because there's a b in both and there an n in neither...Huxley defends the view that such metaphysical questions as: Does God exist? Do we have free will? are as meaningless as the Mad Hatter's question -- 'nonsensical riddles, questions not about reality but about words.'"

King: Boris
Queen: me
Malice: Alli
Hatter: Pat

Beautiful soup, that.

"My memory's not too great.......it leaves space for my other brilliances."

2010-01-25T15:56:00.000-08:00

-my coworker jolina

If Pixar's "UP" had been set in the 1700s

2010-01-21T18:08:00.000-08:00

somebody should make that movie.

(painting: anne siems)

Confronting your immortal form

2010-01-12T00:01:00.000-08:00

(image: via)

What Would Elizabeth Bennet Do?

2010-01-07T21:41:00.000-08:00

Upon Wiki'ing Elizabeth Bennet, I was tickled to find this illustration:

Wonderful quote!
Wonderful watercolor!

Million Dollar Baby.

2010-01-06T22:39:00.000-08:00

nine rounds of tears, two broken thumbs up.

"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

2010-01-06T09:26:00.000-08:00

- lewis carroll

"ovaries of steel"

2010-01-03T07:18:00.000-08:00

balls of steel. pshaw.

random new year's resolution generator

2009-12-31T21:31:00.000-08:00

these spoke to me:

get yours here.

Lighthouse: 12.25.09

2009-12-25T03:30:00.000-08:00

Grab yer saw.

2009-12-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

Lighthouse: 12.16.09

2009-12-16T22:13:00.000-08:00

click image to enlarge

There's a moral in it: Drink a Guinness.

2009-12-16T00:16:00.000-08:00

i bought a collection of guinness tales in a vintage shop for my sister's christmas gift. they were written in 1934 and they are badass. i scanned in the story "there was a little man." click on the picture above to see it enlarged for reading.

also, a moral from another story:

"i dont know dear reader, if you've ever had
the troubles that made poor theophilus bad;
rheumatical twinges
and pain in your hinges
and jaunduce and ague
but allow me to say that the very best way
to banish the lot is a guinness a day."

I google-imaged "sadness" and this was one of the first hits.

2009-12-16T00:12:00.000-08:00

my sister would mention the pathetic fallacy.

(image: via)

for pat

2009-12-14T23:56:00.001-08:00

i miss you huge, like jupiter huge.

The Beauty of Being Poor

2009-12-14T15:49:00.000-08:00

one of my favorite things about having a four-digit yearly income is that it forces me to be creative. homemade bread crumbs from on-sale old bread and herbs from my window herb garden, a day of leisure spent browsing the public library in the morning and an afternoon walk to the lake, maybe one day making play clothes out of curtains.

dickenson

2009-12-12T14:11:00.000-08:00

(image: me)

It's what's inside that matters.

2009-12-10T20:35:00.000-08:00

did this little guy think he caught a mighty firefly?

(image: via)

transformative art

2009-12-08T16:18:00.000-08:00

when palette becomes canvas

(image: me; painting: unknown)

how each / rose grew on a shark-infested stem

2009-12-07T16:06:00.001-08:00

by ian mcewan

In a sleepy haze, I wished good morning to a coat rack that I thought was my sister.

2009-12-01T22:28:00.000-08:00

Herzog

2008-07-10T17:32:00.000-07:00

For instance? Well, for instance, what it means to be a man? In a city. In a century. In transition. In a mass. Transformed by science. Under organized power. Subject to tremendous controls. In a condition caused by mechanization. After the late failure of radical hopes. In a society that was no community and devalued the person. Owing to the multiplied power of numbers which made the self negotiable. Which spent military billions against foreign enemies but would not pay for order at home. Which permitted savagery and barbarism in its own great cities. At the same time, the pressure of human millions who have discovered what concerted efforts and thoughts can do. As megatons of water shape organisms on the ocean floor. As tides polish stones. As winds hollow cliffs. The beautiful machinery opening a new life for innumerable mankind. Would you deny them the right to exist? Would you ask them to labor and go hungry while you yourself enjoyed Old-fashioned Values? You -- you yourself are a child of this mass and a brother to all the rest. - Saul Bellow