June 2012
May 2012
one thing i heard today
“REAL MEN EAT MEAT. If they don’t eat meat, they aren’t real men, and probably drive around in Volvos with Obama stickers on them.”
Oy. Sometimes I find it very hard to be nice to people.
“Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning.”
—Mahatma Gandhi (via yogachocolatelove)
“If you’ve been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you - you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing was ever going to happen again.”
—C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (via whimsicaljane)
vegan update! (day 2)
So first challenge: I had very little time for dinner so I stopped at Panera in between teaching and rehearsal…I asked the cashier if the vegetable soup had dairy in it thinking that of course it wouldn’t, it’s vegetable soup, right? So he goes around the counter to this giant book of ingredients, and it does indeed have a tiny bit of cheese in it. The tomato soup is apparently also not vegan. After a few minutes of dilemma-ing and the cashier offering that I try chicken soup (which, admittedly, did not have dairy in the ingredients) I just got the vegetable soup anyway. I looked online later and turns out the only completely veggie soup at Panera is black bean soup, which they weren’t offering today.
Anyway, I’m a little overwhelmed - how do vegans ever go out to eat? Still not sure if I want to do this completely or just be one of those “almost vegan” people, as in someone who never eats animal products at home but occasionally will deal with it if they’re at a restaurant and there aren’t any other options. I’m not particularly keen on eating salad every single time I’m eating out.
Otherwise, though, it’s been good so far…even when I was hanging out with a friend today and we stopped at an ice cream place, instead of getting ice cream I just walked a block down the street to the health food store and got a smoothie. Which worked out perfectly. I like that in general this is making me think about where my food comes from - not just animal products but fruits and veggies and processed foods too.
“That’s love: Two lonely persons keep each other safe and touch each other and talk to each other.”
—Rainier Maria Rilke (via boxofoctaves)
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Vegan!
I’ve been planning on going vegan at least for the month of June, was going to wait until June 1st to make the month nice and rounded out but I’m actually really excited, so I’m starting now! I just have to use up the Greek yogurt and a few veggie burgers and things left in my fridge have cheese in them, then I’m good to go. A little nervous about the lack of Annie’s mac & cheese, as well as a few gatherings and such I’ll be attending where no one else will be veggie. Otherwise, I’m excited to see how this turns out!
Also, seriously, if anyone wants to suggest something that will satisfy my mad cravings for macaroni and cheese, that’d be great.
“The British psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott believed artists were people driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide.”
—Mary Ruefle, “On Fear” (Poetry, June 2012)
The Sixth Station
Joe Hisaishi & New Japan Philarmonic Orchestra
The Sixth Station
by Joe Hisaishi & New Japan Philarmonic Orchestra
on Spirited Away
I just watched this the other day, the soundtrack is awesome!
“Yeah, yeah. Holocene. Holocene is a bar in Portland, Oregon, but it’s also the name of a geologic era, an epoch if you will. It’s a good example of how all the songs are all meant to come together as this idea that places are times and people are places and times are… people? [Laughs.] They can all be different and the same at the same time. Most of our lives feel like these epochs. That’s kind of what that song’s about. “Once I knew I was not magnificent.” Our lives feel like these epochs, but really we are dust in the wind. But I think there’s a significance in that insignificance that I was trying to look at in that song.”
—Justin Vernon, on the Bon Iver track Holocene (via etherealfaerie)
“One of the most healing things you can do is recognize where in your life you are your own poison.”
—Steve Maraboli (via creatingaquietmind)
“What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.”
—Albert Einstein (via kynlegur)
“There are still so many beautiful things to be said in C major.”
—Sergei Prokofiev (via classicalliterature)
the unbearable weight of staying | warsan shire
i don’t know when love became elusive
what i know, is that no one i know has it
my fathers arms around my mothers neck
fruit too ripe to eat, a door half way open
when your name is a just a hand i can never hold
everything i have ever believed in, becomes magic.
i think of lovers as trees, growing to and
from one another searching for the same light,
my mothers laughter in a dark room,
a photograph greying under my touch,
this is all i know how to do, carry loss around until
i begin to resemble every bad memory,
every terrible fear,
every nightmare anyone has ever had.
i ask did you ever love me?
you say of course, of course so quickly
that you sound like someone else
i ask are you made of steel? are you made of iron?
you cry on the phone, my stomach hurts
i let you leave, i need someone who knows how to stay.
Women don't have to:
- be thin
- have a vagina
- give birth
- cook for you
- have long hair
- wear makeup
- have sex with you
- be feminine
- be graceful
- shave
- diet
- be fashionable
- wear pink
- love men
- be the media’s idea of perfection
- listen to your bullshit
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