I see more and more engagements and weddings…and births
and more and more deaths and RIPs…of people from childhood
I think this is the clearest sign of “growing up” so far — the scenes I’m getting used to these days are vastly different from those of just 4 or 5 years ago, and it’s hard to imagine I was ever back there.
From now on, it’s just watching life come full circle, over and over…
Andrew and I are sitting at the table eating some strawberries.
Andrew: Jenny, can you search up how to eat a strawberry?
Me: I’m pretty sure you put it your mouth and bite.
But I search anyway and we come to this
“So Apparently, We’ve Been Eating Strawberries All Wrong”
Me: How did you know there was another way?
Andrew: ‘Cause there’s always a better way on the Internet!
#LessonsForLife
Today was the first truly free Saturday I had in a long time. No lingering obligations and just before big time apprehension of the next adventure sets in.
I had little idea that it was going to be such a Great (enjoyable, relaxing, fulfilling) day while the hours unfolded - otherwise, I would’ve begun devising a way to Instagram the whole freaking thing, to panorama it minute-to-minute if you will.
Just kidding, there was social media involved. In fact, a highlight was when I introduced my brother to Vine, and he was instantly coming up ways to do magic with it.
Anyways, I woke up at 9:30, a lukewarm hour somewhere between “I go went to MIT” and “I’m in the real world (for a Saturday, anyway)”. Showered. Ate breakfast, Nutella included. Read a few pieces in an old-ish issue of The New Yorker, clipped one out because I’m planning to mail it to a friend; reviving old-school-ness makes me happy I guess. Disguised escaping-to-the-track-field-a-5-minute-walk-away-and-reading-my-Kindle-under-the-sun as “going outside for fresh air”, and came home just in time for my dad’s homemade wontons. My brother finally comes back from Chinese school, and we proceed to use our respective iDevices. I somehow went from watching haul videos on Youtube to showing Andrew Vine. Social media doesn’t quite clench onto my brother as it does to me; he drags me out again to play frisbee. We stay an hour. Once home and refreshened, it was time for a fundraiser dinner at the high school cafeteria; Andrew would be serving as waiter for the first 2.5 hours and playing in the middle school jazz ensemble for the last half. After a 4-course meal and a most comprehensive sampling of this town’s young musical talent, we returned home and decided it’s movie night and the movie will be Matilda (always the best).
Now that’s all over and I’m sitting here, trying to remember this day forever. The levity. Comfort. Family. Community. Going through a day with not much planned and coming to realize near the end that, actually, very many pieces of Good Things happened.
So now really, at the end of the day, those Good Things are afloat and swirling in my mind, which at the same time, is moving onto bigger-picture things like I really love my brother and maybe life in suburbia is what I would like after all. But before those pieces of Good Things turn into fears, worries, stress about the future again, I’ll just conclude by saying Praise the Lord.
i need to read.
a lot.
and KNOW STUFF.
and THINK.
THINKING IS THE HARDEST PART.
always.
I only have room for things in my life that feel great and have purpose. No matter how cool something is, if it doesn’t pass my checklist I’m running the other way.
- Pharrell Williams | Fast Company December 2012/January 2013
Observing inverse relationships
“Steak has become the butch foodie communion, and tellingly not just for flinty-eyed, Armani-suited leaner-than-thou businessmen, but for metrosexuals who wish to beef up their cultural testosterone.” — A.A. Gill, “Steak Shows Its Muscle”, Vanity Fair May 2013
Chloé
(via Garance Doré)
Leaving Boston … :(
“I think I exceeded my maximum occupancy. Wait, I mean maximum capacity.” — Andrew, who is super full after dinner.