Stone

I am girl crushing hard on Emma Stone. Between her thoughts on skinny shaming, the Stuff Mom Never Told You Podcast and Amy Poehler's thoughts on body image, I've had my appearance very much on my mind lately. I also cut my hair yesterday. I'm so happy with it, but the change is forcing me to look in the mirror more often than I usually do.

I am confronted with a lot of...lack. There are things I can change about this dissatisfaction like a brand new haircut (seriously, my hair smells awesome), and others more that I can never hope to change. Not without drastic measures anyway. Amy Poehler's advice was to focus on a physical feature that was not  terrible, maybe even pretty great. After running through some false starts, I settled on one. I like the shape of my lips. They are full and curve nicely. Arriving at this conclusion took longer than it probably should have. I don't know. It feels a little silly to talk about especially since I consider myself the bookish nerd with the "nice personality". I do think there's value to feeling good in your skin.

Is it weird that I just keep coming back to the movie Little Women where Marmee gives advice to Meg?

20 Feet

I watched 20 Feet From Stardom last week. The movie follows several backup singers that have sung for some of the most famous singers and bands. It spotlights their talent, their dreams, and their journeys. There is a lot of disappointment for these women and not for lack of talent or hard work. Sometimes dreams never materialize even when you've done everything right.

When the movie showcased Lisa Fischer, I was mesmerized. Her voice is magic. Strong. Transcendent.  She talks about singing like it's a fragile thing, a gift that she treasures. I know that to be true. My dad could sing in a way that would make people stop whatever they were doing to listen. His voice was sweet but commanding. When I was little I tried to sing like him. I didn't have the Mariah Carey voice that I revered, but my voice was strong too and singing made feel like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I miss it. That clarifying feeling. I worry that one day I'll look and it won't be there anymore. Singing is tied up with being brave and I have trouble doing both things, but I'm working on the brave part. 

Happy

Last week's his and hers Easter baskets

I have a tendency to think as 'future' changes to 'present' with time, 'life', and more specifically, MY life, will have clarified somehow. I will know more things. Or maybe it's more, I will "not know" fewer things. I don't know why I continue in this belief as it seldom works in this way of thinking.

I grow. I regress. I dream of changes and brace for them. I wonder if I will always be this afraid. I wait for moments where I can be brave. I see happiness inches from my fingertips and convince myself I can feel it. Today, I feel it. Nothing is different from yesterday, but I can feel happy today. My thoughts are cyclical. My life is cyclical. But not bad. Not enough material to complain about. Not today.

Oscar

Although I had a really good laugh reading my Twitterfeed after the initial, "Did he just say...?", I'm feeling a little bad for John Travolta. Surely his mispronunciation was on par with the Paul McCartney "Lawrence Hill" 1999 MTV awards incident. Or the 2000 VMA's where Ricky Martin butchered Aaliyah's name so much, I think they actually cut it out in rebroadcasts. Just sayin'. Let it go, people.

Waiting for Fall

I can see fall on the horizon, my favorite season, even amidst this blistering weather. I've been trying to find good podcasts lately; ploughed through This American Life and Freakonomics, listened to Alec Baldwin's Here's the Thing. I'm realling digging A Way With Words with author, Martha Barnette and lexicographer, Grant Barrett. They talk about language, grammar, colloquialisms, etymology etc. Nerd meet fellow nerds. Which brings me back to fall again. Love the change in the weather, comfy sweaters, pretty new boots and coats, the start of a new school year, Oktoberfest and my birthday. Can't wait.

Swimming

It is almost always the small things that seem to change my whole day. My RSS feed picked up this link to a video created from an excerpt of a David Foster Wallace commencement address (#iheartswiss miss). After being frightened off by the gajillion page Infinite Jest, I feel like I might just try again. Today, in the 108 degree weather, the power momentarily stalling the Trax train I was on to go home (and with that the air conditioning) and the pathetic lunch of packaged Udon noodles and bruised banana, I had a lot of material with which I could feel particularly sorry for myself. But I got home after a very long day, happy for the start of the weekend, greeted by a very cool apartment and yesterday's leftovers from Pat's BBQ. 

And I think, this is water. There was a comment on Tina's website that wondered if the video's message changed because the speaker committed suicide. I don't think it does at all. The message says life is hard and more than that, life is boring and tedious and frustrating. Choosing to find meaning, to find reasons why or why not, gives power. It gives freedom. Ofcourse, Doctor Who says it best:



And then they go to the museum and Amy can't understand why, after all of that, Vincent still kills himself: it's not naive to see the good things. Not hopeless either. Sometimes, it's the only thing you can do.

Titus

Sometimes I wonder if people see me, see the person I would like to be or just the person who's trying. It's exhausting to live up to this imagined person, who looks awfully similar, sounds about the same, and may or may not smell nicer.

Meanwhile, I'm still plugging along, a little delusion in my time management juggling, but keeping my ahead above water.

This vid made me un-naturally happy and inspired: