Day 230: Rumi

My friend Amy shared this, with the quote: "The time has come to turn your heart into a temple of fire" (Rumi).

I feel this way because I am churning and alive with hope and love and excitement about the life I am trying to build for myself, and I need to go for it - full out - and leap out into the abyss - and be ok with what comes back to me. Regardless (of whether I get accepted or not).

Day 229: The un-Feng Shui bedroom

I am really enjoying my new bedroom layout. Berna pointed out it's not feng shui at all (feet in bed towards the door! Like they carry you out when you're dead!) but man, I am totally enjoying having the extra couch in here, the new direction of the bed, my lamp installed, and my repositioned bookcase. I love my little apartment. I really am grateful, daily, to have my own space - a space to grow strong and to own myself. It's proving critical, and I cherish it. I realize it could easily not be this way, so I am grateful for this precious gift of space.

Day 226 - 228: Growing art, community & food

For Thursday, January 26
Today I heard Carrie Mae Weems talk at the Getty. She was amazing, inspiring, so full of life and fervent in her pursuit of truth & beauty.


For Friday, January 27
Today I met with Beverly at the Washington Irving Branch of the LA Public Library to discuss beginning to tutor adults on reading. I am really excited to do my mandatory LAPL training, and get started!

For Saturday, January 28
Today I spent $96 buying gardening supplies. I've planted lettuce, strawberries, onions, garlic, beans, peppers, and lavender. Can't wait to see what blooms!

Day 225: Sunsets on Venice Blvd

Day 223 - 224: Nike has a point...

For Monday, January 23, 2012
Today's meditation was something along the lines of: If you don't try, you'll never know. If you try, you just might surprise yourself.

I have been reflecting a lot on taking chances, and just DOING it, just living and putting it out there, lately as I'm trying to profoundly shift some areas of my life (read: career).

My friend also sent me this:

monstercult.org: why indeed!

So...what if you just took the plunge, with the sole goal of doing it just to do it and because you want to know and because you will learn and experience amazing things in the process?

For Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Tonight I made yummy Avgolemono soup for dinner. I used long-grain brown rice and egg whites, and it was delicious.

I stopped by the library on the way home. Why? Well, I made a huge list of things I want to do with this year about 24 days ago. It was really overwhelming, so I picked a couple of things per week and just wrote them in my calendar. That way, I know they're scheduled, and I'll see them on my calendar so I don't have to remember them. It also helps with the overwhelming factor.

This week, I wanted to sign up to volunteer in LA somewhere and get a library card. Since I moved here in September, I haven't done a lot of new reading - just re-reading what I have. It's time to get fresh! On new books, at least.

So I signed up to volunteer via this great site last weekend, and I filled out my pre-registration online for my library card. I stopped by the library tonight on my way home to pick up my card. There was a sign asking for volunteers to help adults learn to read. So, in line with yesterday's gratitude, I submitted an application when I got home. I'm grateful to be able to read - I can't even imagine my life without it - and I enjoyed working with my Arab ladies in Brooklyn, teaching them basic literacy, and would love to do it again. I'm also grateful for the feeling of progress, like I'm doing (good) things I've been wanting to do, and taking steps in really building out the healthy, fulfilling, balanced life I want for myself.

Day 221 - 222: Metropolis II and Possibility

For Saturday, January 21, 2012



Metropolis II in action at LACMA, which I visited today, was incredible. The installation is beautiful, complex, and fascinating. You can stare at it for hours! I love complicated, nerdy systems.



For Sunday, January 22, 2012
Northwestern, NYU, the Walker, Art21...New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, LA...

I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of eye –
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –
- Emily Dickinson

How beautiful is possibility, how elevated from every day life, how I reach forward to gather paradise.

Welcome, year of the dragon.

Days 218 - 220: Always love

for Wednesday, January 18, 2012
I have been invited to write an article for publication in a scholarly journal! I submitted an abstract a few weeks ago, and I have been invited to proceed. This is very exciting. I am so grateful for reminders that my research is interesting, that people want to hear what I have to say, and that I have a brain.

for Thursday, January 19, 2012
Chance is such a beautiful thing. Today I found this stuck in my Netflix.



I sent it back on its way of course. But I wondered about the letter writer, about the letter recipient...it was just a beautiful little window into lives I will never know about, and that made me happy, to think of people loving and living and sharing this planet with me. How many stories there must be in the world! I want to know them all.

for Friday, January 20, 2012
Today was a great day. Not only did I kill it at work, I got a phone call from Northwestern, from one of my idols, inviting me to come visit Northwestern as a prospective PhD candidate. They are inviting 6-7 of us, their top candidates, to come visit, and they will select the final four from there. It was so unexpected. And so lovely. Such a beautiful and affirming reminder that when you put yourself out there, you may get rejected a bit, but something will always open up.

I was talking to someone recently who told me that he felt guilty, that with every failed romantic relationship he felt himself closing off. Like he takes out his vengeance and anger on the next person, for what the previous person did. And love becomes even more remote a possibility. This made me sad, for all the joy he is blocking out of his life, for all the beautiful options he will never know or experience.

I am not like this, I do not think. I want to believe in every beautiful thing, and I feel like if I let the bad experiences ruin me, that somehow they will have won...I never want to stop believing in the possibility of love, in the joy of beauty, in the gorgeous wonder of the world. That would be such a loss.

There is always always always beauty, if you look hard enough. There is always always always light at the end of the tunnel. There is always love. Always.

Day 214 - 217: A Bostonian Blur

for Saturday, January 14 - Day 214
Sometimes you just need to laugh at the good, crazy, honest truth.



for Sunday, January 15 - Day 215
I'm grateful for a lovely dinner with Diane at Highland Kitchen. By the way, definitely order the banana bread pudding.

for Monday, January 16 - Day 216
I'm grateful for seasons. Especially when I live in a warm place, and get to visit a cold place, but don't have to stay there. The snow is beautiful.


for Tuesday, January 17 - Day 217
I'm grateful for safe travels! It really is miraculous when you think about how easy air travel renders our life (even though most airlines seem to try to undo that ease as much as possible), and what it makes possible.

Day 213: Friday the 13th

Time away from one's work is always refreshing! How lucky am I, on Friday the 13th?

Day 212: Warmth

The heater works again! And hopefully the hot water, within the next half hour (knock on wood).

I'm grateful for the invisible little things like heat and hot water that make everyday life livable and comfortable!

Day 210 - 211: New Perspectives

for Tuesday, Jan 10, 2012


I am grateful for a change in perspective. Sometimes things just look different, and you can learn from it, from another vantage point.

for Wednesday, Jan 11, 2012
I appreciate the little luxuries of life now: electricity, gas, heat, hot water. My apartment has been out of hot water and heat since Saturday morning, so I've been doing some urban camping. I bought a space heater, which Bruno of course adores.



Jefferson, my landlord's handyman, came today and offered this joyous pronouncement:
"No hot water for you, eh no."

But he'll bring me a new water heater tomorrow, so there will be hot water tomorrow. And he will buy a replacement part for the heater tomorrow. So first, we should just ask for help, it comes when we request it. And then, too, I am grateful for tomorrow - it is another day, it is a new hope.

Day 209: Downton Abbey Season 2 Bender

Thank god for Maggie Smith's delightfully brusque Countess Violet.

Day 208: Never never give up

Days 206-207: Southern California's oranges & wines

For Friday, January 6 - Day 206

What a beautiful Friday! A busy day at work and beautiful outside. I'm grateful for a gorgeous swim outside, and figuring out how to fix my own headlight in the dark (by myself!).

For Saturday, January 7 - Day 207

I enjoyed my day winetasting in celebration of Berna's 30th birthday in Temecula. Couldn't imagine a better group of people to spend the day with, especially a date that is so fraught with emotion.

Day 204-205: Falling

for Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Today my meditation was: "True happiness arises when we are able to change our minds rather than the world around us." I have been thinking about this a lot with my work/job. Perhaps I just need to re-imagine it, go back and uncover my assumptions and explore the possibilities if I move those assumptions around & test them.

I am also grateful to have shared some seriously amazing Indian food with Berna tonight.


for Thursday, January 5, 2012
Tonight's meditation was, "When we fall on the ground it hurts us, but we also need to rely on the ground to get back up."

That just resonates with me so much. I keep turning it over and over in my head, and just finding more truth in it. What I do after the adversity is what defines me, not the adversity. And what I do is my choice. That is under my control.

I want to surf adversity, when it comes to me. Just cut the edge of it, glide along the tension, move with it rather than trying to defeat the current, gracefully - and gratefully - flow with it and ride it through.

Day 203: Back into the swing of things

Tuesday, January 3

So grateful for flexibility to work from home. A plumber fixing my leaky faucet! And swimming again, under that crazy big SoCal sky!

Day 200-202: Welcome 2012!

for Saturday, December 31 - Day 200
I am so grateful 2011 is over. It is so great to have a fresh start, even if just on the calendar. It makes so many things seem possible again!

for Sunday, January 1 - Day 201
Today I'm thankful for the chance to celebrate my friend Becky. Happy birthday Becky!
What a great way to start the year, by having brunch on a gorgeous SoCal day with my best friends.

for Monday, January 2 - Day 202
Today I'm grateful for a lovely hike in Griffith Park, the last long one I'll be able to do for a bit given that I go back to work tomorrow, as well as traveling for the next two weekends.

Yeah, that's right, I was up BEHIND the Hollywood sign. As in, I hiked all the way up above it.
I also had a productive day, which makes me feel great about starting the New Year off right. Just gotta keep up the momentum now!