be present.

it's come to my attention ...well, not recently. that'd be a lie.



it came to my attention, ages ago and has been a long time crystallizing itself into a coherent idea, that life moves. fast. this, i realize, is not news. this is fact. every year of your life is fractionally reduced on the whole. when you were five, a year was 1/5. when you're 25, 1/25. and so it goes. likewise, the earth rushes 587 million miles around the sun every year. that's 67,000 mph give or take. and how do we, humanity, respond to all this haste?

with urgency! we rush. get up, grab coffee, speed to work, meetings, phone calls, email, lunch, phone calls, errands, dinner, bed. replay. even seeing family and friends is a tightly scheduled event. the conversations pre-programmed. the smiles customary. everything routine. we couldn't tell you what the coffee girl was wearing or what color hair the guy in the suv at the stoplight next to us had even if you asked... which you wouldn't think to do anyway. we see everything. we notice almost nothing. and so it goes. (yes, i borrowed that from vonnegut.) insincerity has become an artform. not because we're malicious, but because we're thoughtless. we cheat others, we cheat ourselves. and in doing so (completely unintentionally), we make the time feel shorter than ever.



stop.

be present.



see people. actually, see them. make eye contact. hear the guy getting your coffee.

"want room in that?"

answer. a real answer. no, routine.

"nah, i'm good. thanks. more caffeine the better this early. but you guys must've been here by 5am to open up."

engage people. it's stupid and it's small and it's simple. and it makes every second.



exist fully. be present.

this... is... glORious.

first, watch this...




now, watch this...



i'm still not sure how i manage to find these things, but i love when they fall in my lap. this pretty much made my day.

it's almost cold enough to see your breath...

....some nights. ep tends to take its time bringing that weather in - a fact which sometimes disappoints me, until i think of the thousands sheltered by cardboard just south of the border, and i feel guilty instead of annoyed. what these nights really remind me of, though, are meteor showers. i got to the age of 18 without seeing a shooting star. not one. tragedy.

one winter at college though, one winter caught me up. it was only four or five of us - my roommate and i (consequently, this is quite possibly my favorite roommate memory ever. maybe.) and a few others. up at three a.m. four sweatshirts apiece, still freezing. and it was cold enough to see your breath. from the dorms to the soccer fields only took five minutes, but the damp had already started to freeze on my jeans. forty-five minutes of lying on the dewy ground finished the job. far from the lights, staring into the sky, everyone lay close... but not close enough to keep the cold off. we watched. and none of that "twelve trails per hour" crap. no, several streaked across the sky every minute. and i was in awe.

conspiracy

i assume everyone has had the pleasure of this forward at some point or another...

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.

...my theory is that everyone can. i mean, i've never meet anyone that couldn't. personally, i think it's just sent around to make people feel special... although i can't for the life of me figure out why 55% would make anyone feel special... after all, it's still over half of society. but maybe that fact says more about human nature than "study" does.

conspiracy

i assume everyone has had the pleasure of this forward at some point or another...

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The
phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the
olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit
pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a
pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by
istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot
slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.

...my theory is that everyone can. i mean, i've never meet anyone that couldn't. personally, i think it's just sent around to make people feel superior... although i can't for the life of me figure out why 55% would make anyone feel superior... after all, it's still over half of society. but maybe that fact says more about human nature than "study" does.

~FORMAL~

...i was tempted to use a pun ...but refrained. there are very few who can/should use them. kinda like guys having both ears pierced. either it works amazingly or looks amazingly ridiculous. there is no inbetween.

...but i digress...

i was at another wedding. big surprise, i know.

i now have two formals that i will never ever ever wear again.

(not that they weren't quite lovely choices by the two lovely brides.)

therefore, i have decided to send said formals to the dominican republic via bartlesville oklahoma.

yes, really.



if any of you know anyone who might have any leftover, ill-fitting, or otherwise personally useless formal dresses of any kind or color lying around.... send me a message and i'll see what i can do to get ahold of them. it's for a good cause. really.
see... in brief, it works like this. marriage is a big thing there. if you can't do it properly (dress, etc.) you just don't. instead you live together. thus a christian missions org has decided that it would be most ingenious to solve the problem by removing the complaint (lack of formals). so they take formals, bridesmaid dresses, etc. down to give away! great right!? yes it is! and you should get involved. :)

if i could be *anywhere*, august 29th...

...this would be the one place.




welcome to the Roundhouse... a former piano factory in Camden Town that got turned into a rock venue before the Stones because, after all, how many grand pianoes could any single country purchase?

but the reason i would rather be there specifically on the 29th... is the illustrious Duke Special is performing ...with a complete orchestra backing them. so genius!

http://www.bigwheeltickets.com/show.php?id=52

...i think it's the eccentricity, i really do. how can you not love this?