I felt pretty torn about this one. I’d been following Gretchen Rubin’s blog about the Happiness Project for a while and wondered what extra stuff would be in the book. I got it from the library, so I’m not sure that it matters as the only cost to me was time. Luckily she’s a really [...]
A scene from my recent vacation: Volcán Mombacho, as seen from the belltower at Iglesia La Merced. I did a bunch of journaling and drawing, so more thoughtful Nicaraguan posts are on the way…
I went to New Orleans this past weekend. Great trip, my opinion of the city definitely went up (which makes sense, because there wasn’t much lower to go before). Though I’ve been a couple dozen times, this was my first trip out and about as an adult, sampling nightlife-y kinds of things. Friday we were [...]
Yesterday on the way back home I came across a rough-looking guy. Sweating, dirty, walking with a cane. When he started talking to me I stopped. He told me he was from Metairie, and then told me he had diabetes and something else wrong that I didn’t really hear because I wasn’t really listening. He [...]
Last weekend was a little road trip out to Birmingham. So nice to catch up with a friend that I hadn’t seen for an absurd amount of time, and also make some new ones. I ate at Cantina, where the fishburgers and garlic fries get my hearty recommendation. Also saw Bon Iver (good performance) and [...]
I drove over to Charleston, SC for Memorial Day weekend. It was Spoleto Festival season, I finally got to see the Alvin Ailey Dance Company (after a mad dash from the parking deck to arrive in our seats *just* before it started). My favorite piece was Suite Otis, a tribute to the awesome (Georgia-born!) Otis [...]
You probably recall Jonah Lehrer’s New Yorker article about the kids who were told not to eat the marshmallow. Those who were able to hold out were better behaved, higher achievers later in life.
Low delayers, the children who rang the bell quickly, seemed more likely to have behavioral problems, both in school and at home. [...]
I’ll be spending the weekend in Baltimore. No big plans except for a visit to Fort McHenry and catching the Sunday afternoon game at Camden Yards.
Of course you can substitute for the word “travel” any number of things you enjoy:
Last week the question arose as to what we would do differently if we were immortal… I answered that I would travel more.
Later the question was asked, what would you do differently if you found out you had only a short [...]
Is it truly so hard to keep sidewalks open and walkable? Recent problems in Toronto [via funkaoshi] remind me of my local gripes last year. That spot in my ‘hood recently patched up those threadbare spots with new paving stones. Need to get a photo.
The present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space. We are in the epoch of simultaneity: we are in the epoch of juxtaposition, the epoch of the near and far, of the side-by-side, of the dispersed. We are at a moment, I believe, when our experience of the world is less that [...]
Things I intend to do:
Travel outside my home state of Georgia at least once every month. This was my official New Year’s Resolution, probably the first year I’ve ever taken the resolution thing seriously. So far I’m 3 for 3 (January February March), and I’ve got #4 lined up for April, and a few other [...]
I’ve just started reading the so-far excellent The Lost City of Z, about exploration in the Amazon jungle. The central character was a member of the Royal Geographic Society, and the author goes to the London headquarters to do some research…
In a corridor of the Royal Geographic Society’s building, I noticed on the wall a [...]
Last weekend I enjoyed a little trip from Atlanta to Winston-Salem. If you find yourself in the area, I recommend a stop in Reynolda Gardens and maybe Mary’s Of Course Cafe. Old Salem was neat, but I’m glad we didn’t linger too long.
I love planning and organizing things so much that sometimes I’d rather not ever do the actual thing.
(This is actually a running theme in my life. See also: song database but no new recordings, exercise plan but no new muscles. The only time it works in my favor is when having a plan inherently leads [...]
You didn’t miss anything. I was only gone for a long weekend, but felt the same way. It’s a nice reminder.
It’s just so damn easy to look upon someone else and jealously think, “Wow, he sure got lucky.” Real people did not have great opportunities fall in their lap. Mostly, crappy opportunities come along, and in the meantime, you make the best of them.
—Po Bronson [via powazek]
My favorite part from Randy Pausch’s book, The Last Lecture:
I’ll take an earnest person over a hip person every time, because hip is short-term. Earnest is long-term.
Earnestness is highly underestimated. It comes from the core, while hip is trying to impress you with the surface.
“Hip” people love parodies. But there’s no such thing as a [...]
“Most normal persons are now taught to neglect far too much the sort of excitement which the mind itself manufactures out of unexciting things.” —G.K. Chesterton on the Joy of Dullness
The history of the weekend and how it’s changed our culture of leisure:
For many people weekend free time has become not a chance to escape work but a chance to create work that is more meaningful—to work at recreation—in order to realize the personal satisfactions that the workplace no longer offers.
[via link banana]
Austin’s post about the new house has some of the more poignant, sweet, mind-blowing ideas that I’ve read lately:
I wonder about this proximity of bodies. I wonder how we will grow in a bigger space, with an upstairs and downstairs. How our changing spatial relationships might alter our story…
Strange as it may sound to many people, who tend to think of critics as being motivated by the lower emotions: envy, disdain, contempt even… Critics are, above all, people who are in love with beautiful things, and who worry that those things will get broken.
—Daniel Mendolsohn
From an interview with Anthony Bourdain, a passage on those beautiful moments and how they feel kind of sucky at the same time:
I‚Äôve talked elsewhere about there are times in your life… I‚Äôll use the example of you‚Äôre standing alone in the desert, and you see the most incredible sunset you‚Äôve ever seen and your [...]
It’s been really wonderful to keep an eye on A House by the Park, “a first-hand chronology of the design, planning, and construction of a modern home in Seattle.” I’m not in the market now, nor do I plan to be in the near future, but it’s cool to watch and learn from a safe [...]
This cool dialogue about noticing made me think of three connections.
The first one came before I read it. The idea of noticing reminded me of a passage in Anne Fadiman’s book, Ex Libris, that I quoted in my review and will quote again because it’s funny:
The proofreading temperament is part of a larger syndrome with [...]
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