The Dalai Lama's Rules for Living

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1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
   1. Respect for self
   2. Respect for others
   3. Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

Wendell Berry- The Sycamore

You know when you come across a new piece of art that you feel was personally written about you? Or even just speaks to you- whispers in your ear until the message seeps down into your soul?

That's how I feel about this beaut. Enjoy.

The Sycamore

In the place that is my own place, whose earth
I am shaped in and must bear, there is an old tree growing,
a great sycamore that is a wondrous healer of itself.
Fences have been tied to it, nails driven into it,
Hacks and whittles cut in it, the lightning has burned it.
There is no year it has flourished in
that has not harmed it. There is a hollow in it
that is its death, though its living brims whitely
at the lip of the darkness and flows outward.
Over all its scars has come the seamless white
of the bark. It bears the gnarls of its history
healed over. It has risen to a strange perfection
in the warp and bending of its long growth.
It has gathered all accidents into its purpose.
It has become the intention and radiance of its dark face.
It is a fact, sublime, mystical and unassailable.
In all the country there is no other like it.
I recognize in it a principle, an indwelling
the same as itself, and greater, that I would be ruled by.
I see that it stands in its place, and feeds upon it,
and is fed upon, and is native, and maker.

Remember:

Here's to striving to be a better person!

Cat-Nappin'

Catatonic Recuperation, Sunnyside May 21,201

This is how I spent the entirety of my Saturday. Safe to say, I think this sums up the past few days.



Do you work a M-F, 9-5? How do you spend your weekends? Are you more of a "I-need-to-recuperate-and-relax" like myself or do you prefer to spend off days being actively out & about?

Lovin' is what I got

Birthday Latte, @DoraCoffee, LES, NYC, May 16, 2011

(In an effort to avoid whining about the fact I'll have spent the second day in a row on my hands and knees scrubbing our new office space in the basement of a project that hasn't been used in two years nor cleaned, I'm auto-setting this post before I have a reason to complain about more things and sharing the happier moments from the past few days.)

24th Birthday & Graduation Weekend, NYC, May 15, 2011

24th Birthday & Graduation Weekend, NYC, May 15,2011

Birthday Sapphires & Love, Sunnyside, May 16, 2011

Birthday Ohana, Sunnyside, May 16, 2011

Keep on smiling!

2 years 2 many

As I've mentioned, recent weeks have been hectic. But from them came Jon's 24th birthday and our two-year anniversary. (Did you know 2 years stands for cotton or china? Or something like that)

So. For the sake of my lovely boo, I am here to commemorate these past couple of years. And cheers to many more. Instead of flowery words I just wanted to share some smiley pics. We are a pair for words with few flicks to parade our silliness.

Here's to loving to live and living to love.

V's Variability

variable |ˈve(ə)rēəbəl|adjective1 not consistent or having a fixed pattern; liable to change 
Before taking the billions of research oriented classes I've taken, I never really understood the term variable.
Now I do. Oh how I do. And it has come to be one of my favorite words.
I like the fact it can be easily applied to several situations- taken out of scientific context and variably used. (hah!) I like that its soft sounding and includes the word "able" making it sound positive. 
And, most importantly, I like the fact that it describes a loyal aspect of my own nature: having a fixed pattern of inconsistency. (More or less). I like to pretend that I'm consistent. Heck sometimes I even thoroughly believe myself. But then something happens and I'm back at it all over the place. Changing plans, making big moves. Delusional with dreamy expectations.
And I (sometimes) love it. After all, what is life without a bit of variability?

Do you have any particularly favorite words? Or do you have a habit of taking words out of their original context and applying them generously?

Questioning q's quintessence

quin·tes·sence

[kwin-tes-uhns]–noun

1. the pure and concentrated essence of a substance.

2. the most perfect embodiment of something.

It seems like forever ago when I posted this, though it is still relevant. Especially after this weekend's play-cation.

What characteristics compose me? What desires? What needs? Some people can rattle off a laundry list by memory of what defines them. But me? Not so much. Like my moods, my necessities tend to fluctuate around the ideas of love, laughter, family, nature, and comfort.

But this weekend rattled what I had thought had become a somewhat stable mentality.

You see, I'm a native Miami-an. I skipped town in 2005 to embark on collegiate wonders renouncing the state of Florida with its perpetual heat. Here I am, six years later wondering if Florida really is so bad. This weekend I was reminded how much I miss the simplicity of being able to see grass, the remarkable difference that an ocean breeze has on rising temperatures and in turn my sanity.

Maybe it's because I'm still partially in a playcation-coma, and maybe it's partially due to the overwhelming anxiety about if I'll be able to land a job in NYC. (And I'm not going to lie, a BIG part is because I have been absolutely miserable the past two completely unbearable NYC summers.)

So what is my quintessence at this point in my life? I guess I'll have to see....

What is the "pure essence of you"? Or what would be the "perfect embodiment of something" for you?

Playful P

I thought I had managed to post yesterday from my phone. But apparently I'm not that crafty yet. Here are a few quick flicks taken from my fancy phone. 

We got home late last night and I'm still in a vacation coma. Hopefully I'll be able to write and visit everyone within the next day. Who knew a mini 3-day play-cation could leave you totally pooped?

Quick point being, play is a necessity in life! Despite being totally exhausted, we had a blast and definitely needed the chance to play around :)

Butterbeer is better, Harry Potter World, IOA, April 2011

Story of my life, Downtown Disney, April 2011

Ohana means family <3, Epcot, April 2011

Day 2 beginnings, IOA, April 2011

Opportunistic O

I love to use the word "opportunity". Not because I'm necessarily an adamant go-getting, but because it is realistic euphemism for anything.

"Why are you going for a walk Michelle?"
"Oh you know, give my bones an opportunity to stretch and brain some room to jiggle!"

"Why do you want this job?"
"Oh because it would be an amazing opportunity for clients to have someone to really listen to, and for myself to learn from their strengths"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, this is a weak post and I could do so much more with it. But, I "auto-tuned" it because I'm having a blast in Disneyworld!!!

M is for Michelle's mother Mabel

Thanksgiving 2009, Camp Hill, PA

My mom is a bit bananas. And significantly older than me (she had me at 39 in the 80s!) Now that I'm older and not constantly surrounded by her, I can appreciate her level of looniness.

Like many mother and daughters, we had quite the rough patch during my teen years. Partly I attribute to her menopause, partly to my hormonal teenage-ary, partly because a lot of anger I had in me from their divorce came out. She kicked me out of the house so many times I ran out of friends to stay with.

But, for the most part we have overcome these bouts of emotional lunacy. Again, I believe this is mainly because we don't live in the same immediate radius. (If I were, I'm positive she would randomly burst into my house whenever she wants without notice, because thats her nature...and thats what she does to my brother.)

Now that I'm a bit older and very slightly wiser, I can understand my mom better when she hits her lows or becomes too needy. I can also tolerate my temper enough to not yell at her for silly things: I can pick our battles.

And interestingly enough, my mom now regards me as an "expert" and often asks me my opinion on psychologically or any brain-sciency oriented things. (Oh how the tables have turned!) My mom is NOT a dumb lady. I might have been a latch-key kid out of necessity, but she did the best she could to satisfy my wants beyond my needs. I look at some of my friends that grew up in dual-parent households and I see the difference of how growing up with a single mom had a positive effect on my sense of self.

For better or worse, I've inherited her: mood swings, sense of independence, strength, smile, sense of humor, cleanliness...and that's about it. When I think about it, we are far more different than similar. But we get along. And she's always by my side when I need her.

Every year I write her a nice letter for mothers day and her birthday. I'm (almost) 24 and I usually make her a cheesy present instead of buying one- and she always loves it because she's that kind of mom. And I know I don't say it much aloud, but I love her for being my mom, being herself, and teaching me how to become a strong woman.

Thanks, mom.

New Years 2007, Jojo's, Camp Hill, PA

New Years 2008, Jojo's, Camp Hill, PA

Life with L

Is it really April 14??? Talk about an eventful week. Lack of time is leading me to loosely post my life in pictures from the week. I guess there really are only so many hours in a day....

Subway Art, 6 train, April 2011

Sunnyside and the livin ain't too sunny, April 2011

Chelsea Drear, Chelsea, April 2011
(no filters)

Melanie & Andrea & May, Hospital Part Deux, April 2011

PB&J Doughnut, Doughnut Plan LES, April 2011

Bird Skull?, SoHo, April 2011

If only... (LOLCats)

Kidding around with K

Crazy Rafiki, Disneyworld May 15 ,2009

I am not a serious person. I can be serious for a while. I can act like a grown up. But my nature is to laugh, hysterically. I kid around like nobody's business. I find terribly corny jokes hilarious. I live for fun.

I get this sense of juvenile joy from my mom. My mom is all about embracing the humor in life. It's also part of the reason why I want to work with kids. So much fun, so innocent, so exciting.

This weekend we're going to Disneyworld- honestly my favorite place in the world tied with the beach. We planned it last month and I have had this overwhelming sense of joy ever since. It feels like I have a nebula in my chest ready to explode with fun and excitement.

Don't wanna, Disneyworld May 16, 2009

Do you like to kid around? Do you think those that do are childish? What do you find fun?

H's Happiness Health

There are flowers everywhere for those who look- Matisse

Over the past decade or so, the field of positive psychology has flourished thanks to researchers such as Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihaly among several others. And it's just about everywhere we look in pop culture. It's all about making yourself happy, what's wrong with you that you're not like people in commercials with giant smiles running through a grassy field with dogs.

But happiness is particularly important to me. Not necessarily because I strive to avoid unhappiness- that's not healthy. My family has a long, long history of "mental health issues". Enough so that my main priority as of recent years is to keep track of my happiness meter to evade the scary shadow of emotional catastrophe.

So what do I do? I'm far from figuring out what makes me tick and a part of me doesn't even want to know that much. But I try to eat well, observe my emotional characteristics, and semi- recently took up actively exercising.

After all, it's not about just knowing. It's about learning and living.

Luke: What's in there?

Yoda: Only what you take

What makes you happy?

Faithfully F

Faithfully frazzled that is. The past few days have been an absolute blur- I can't even remember what I did Tuesday but I remember frantically flying through the city. Yesterday involved a long, long, job interview process which ended with me most likely getting a job. Point being, I've been so busy I've barely even opened my computer because the few moments I've had to relax I've spent them vertically with eyes closed. (AKA sorry for not getting around to blogs)

Faith is a tricky subject for me. And I'm not necessarily speaking to the religious and spiritual aspects of it but rather faith in myself and those closest to me. Until recently, I had never quite correlated the idea of confidence and faith as synonymous. But they are.

And it ties into the idea of accepting oneself. Right now, I'm on the precipice of several things and if I miscalculate my moves I'll waver and crash head first into an eight ounce glass of water without the freedom to wiggle. Trying to manage the last five (hopefully) stressful weeks of graduate school in order to graduate on my 24th birthday, searching for a job within my field, balancing my needs for financial security with the needs of Jonathan at this phase in his life, and family.

I'm weary of not choosing the right path per say. But on some level, I've managed to create a sense of faith in myself. Maybe because I have the avid support of friends and family; they've managed to instill this loving security blanket around me. But at the same time, I've realized I've yet to drastically misstep in my life.

I've blundered a bit, but I've bounced back harder. So if I slip and flail through the air, I have faith there will be a trampoline waiting for me at the bottom to ricochet me back towards the sky. Everything happens for a reason.

What do you have faith in?

C is for Character (istics)

character |ˈkariktər|noun1 the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual : runningaway was not in keeping with her character.• the distinctive nature of something : gas lamps give the area its character.• the quality of being individual, typically in an interesting or unusual way : the island is full of character. 

Personality is a rather fixed set of characteristics and traits. Some inherited others well, not so much. Sometimes, I feel as if I'm dramatizing my natural characteristics to fulfill certain personas. And there have been times when I have been described as "being a character".

But what characteristics compose my disposition?

Stubbornly adamant, slightly obsessive, passionately slothish, romantically motivated, sleepily hyper, shyly silly, whimsically catlike, cunningly witty.

I think about my closest friends and my family. People I encounter in random circumstances. Everyone is a character in their own right. And I wonder, is that because I've (or we've) made them out to be? Or is it safe to say their characteristics have crafted their own character?

"CatLady",  April 2011

What defines your Character?

B is Between Being Balanced

I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, I speak like a child.

— Vladimir Nabokov

I wanted to hold this post off until the last moment because I was struggling between deciding between balance and being. Here I am with the moments ticking still unsure of where to go, and where to find my own balance in being.

So I'm just going to Be. Being is such an effort. You know, really being. Being conscious of your thoughts, your emotions, your movements. It's easier to drift off and focus on space- or the absence of space in my mind. It's easy to be sucked into the vacuum that entails our daily existence. But it takes power to become aware of ourselves.

But Being is not just what we are as sentimentally propelled creatures. It's cyclical. We must be in order to become. We must become in order to be. And as we do so, we must maintain balance to bloom.

"To find the balance you want, this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it's like you have 4 legs instead of 2. That way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart." 

-Elizabeth Gilbert

Need a good laugh and a good ab workout?

7 minutes of your life that you will not regret!

sex is an expensive habit but it still makes me happy

Alpalcas, Camp Hill, Summer 2009

I went to visit my friends the alpacas today who live near the damn. Driving home from my appointment, I missed the exit I had proposed to take. Instead of going toward Happy Valley with overeager kids doing upside-down keg stands, I ended up on a cruise through the back roads that go up-and-down-and-turn-too-sharp-and-the-bottom of the mountain makes love to Sharky’s fender into a bender.

It started off with the 90s throwback power lunch hour on the local R&B station. In between the yeah babies and doing it rights I realized, I got the power and I like it like that. A semi-slight-circular detour smoothly turned into seductively teasing trails between skinny mountain thighs squeezing the nerves tingling out of the sensationally excited epidermis- not even shy about showing.

Permagrin positively plastered, provocatively prone peculiarities pinned possibilities precociously playing preciously proactive ponderings!

Suddenly, funkadelic cardiac beats pulsed vibrational rhythms right into a scattered brain. Thoughts were arrested as they boogied out into a ridiculous laugh. Silence at last! As if inhaling enough air in order to exhale the bubbles down to the bottom of the pool, a wave of refreshing water soothingly engulfed the space between wiggling toes and a glorious crown. Lungs lavishly lounged in the relief. Mmm, delicioso!

Action verbing thoughts turned sublime moments into mine. Mental masturbation mastered, I pulled into the driveway sincerely serene.

I realized again nothing ever goes as planned. And I smiled.

-Camp Hill, PA, June 2009

Change clothes

Change. Such an innocent motive propelled my mind into long-forgotten memories.

In an effort to prolong my procrastination from homework, I decided to take down my change jar and count. Imagining I had maybe an hour's worth of meaninglessness to occupy me from the voices telling me to do real work. Plus, for some reason counting change has always fascinated me. As a kid I used to offer my services to my family and spend hours taping dirty coin wrappers formed by a cheap Bic to emerge with blackened digits.

10 minutes later and I was done. In those short moments, existentialism got the best of me.

Up until relatively recently I've been an avid supporter of change- changing myself, my surroundings. Anything really. I've gone through every hair color (including pink, purple, and teal), gotten up and moved cities when bored, and numerous different aspects of myself and environment when possible. I thrived at the opportunity to switch life up. I would call them adventures.

Now? Not so much. I still like change. But something about it scares me now with major responsibilities in tow. No longer do I have the support of anyone to pick up the pieces if I get in too deep. No longer can I say things like, "I want to do xxx before I'm 18/21 so it doesn't stay on my record". No longer can I  up and go without over analyzing my moves not to mention caring about my impact on others.

Yes, I'm growing up and I understand that has something do to with my semi-craving for stability. But what happened?