suggestions

love after love

the time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome

and say sit here, eat.
you will love again the stranger who was your self.
give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

derek wolcott

jon kabat zinn reads this poem aloud at the end of a mindfulness workshop at google hq.

spring tastes so good

Thanks to mint.com, I realized I was exceeding my budget for eating out, whether quickly or slowly, alone or with friends, and conversely, that I wasn't spending enough money at the grocery store. Based on this analysis, I concluded that if I took the money I was spending in excess at restaurants, and, frankly, Rumbi Island Grill, and put it towards groceries, my budget would be balanced, and so would be my diet. For me that literally looked like spending $9 more per day on groceries, and $5 less per day on eating out, on average, approximately. I finally put my dissatisfaction into action, and have been preparing bright and delicious meals all month.

I also downloaded an application from Whole Foods that, when I input the ingredients I have on hand, outputs a recipe into which I can incorporate those ingredients. I have buttermilk in my refrigerator, and I didn't know what to use it for, and so I am going to make buttermilk potatoes.

This is all based around the idea that, the more information you feed into, essentially, an algorithm or an application, the more meaningful it will become. The Whole Foods application took unrelated ingredients and related them into a recipe for a meal. Mint turned all of my individual transactions into a chart that graphs my spending patterns. And based on the information, I was able to modify my behavior, and improve my life.

Thanks to direct deposit, a debit card, and free personal finance software, my life is becoming almost as smart as my iPhone. It's just one of the ways I have been "living by numbers."

sanctuary

"What's your style?" I'm sorry, but this has no certain style that you should expect to follow. That is my response.

I have sanctuary. I learned the value of sanctuary at a time in my life when it was completely necessary. In church basements less than a mile away I have found what people travel the world looking for.

But I also like to apply sanctuary to conventional places, uncommonly considered sacred. To begin, a little eatery in Boulder, Modmarket.

This playful reinvention of the common cafeteria is near my place of employment. I like it because it is conveniently located, and it serves fresh, sophisticated, well-proportioned plates without the attitude (and $2 tumblers of wine if you are interested!). It would do well among the Pearl street restaurants, but the fact that it is located off the beaten path, in a strip mall for heaven's sake, adds to its modest charm. Lately, being that I live in a house occupied by 5 people, there isn't much that I crave more than ordering the pomegranate glazed pizza (made with whole grain dough!), and reading the latest issue of Vogue in peace.

Modmarkert is long and slender, and with west-facing windows that reach from the floor to the ceiling, the majestic 5 p.m. spring sunshine pours in and views of the mountains are unobstructed. If the owners are native southern Californians it would explain a lot about the design, and about my attraction to the place. It is minimally decorated in white and brushed aluminum-- bare walls, skinny white chairs and tables, small bunches of grass grow along its walls-- and on good days, I think they put their Pandora radio station to Ulrich Schnauss or someone similar to complete the clean affect. I easily and happily spend an hour here, savoring the time between work and home.

They have a pretty great blog on their website as well: check out one of my favorite entries.

Stay tuned for the next episode of sanctuary: the dance floor.

untitled

sleep evades me. how i am.

& i made it myself.

getting ok with being ok. uncharted territory.

 

want to go here. el museo del barrio in nyc. "la cama" by pepón osorio is part of the permanent collection on display, which chronicles latin american life in the city. the museum, located on upper 5th ave. is on its fourth decade and was recently renovated.