Book Report: The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

I read this book a couple of years ago, reread it recently, and enjoyed it as much as the first time. Gretchen Rubin is very relatable and her whole project is inspiring. One of my favorite parts of the book is when she writes her own "Commandments" and "Secrets of Adulthood."

A couple of hers that have stuck with me:

• Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good
• You can choose what you do; you can't choose what you like to do

And I wrote a few of my own:

• It's more important to be kind than to be funny (you almost always regret the cheap laugh)
• Bring snacks & always have gum
• You get your best work done before 1pm
• If you need to get something done, turn off gchat and turn on something with a beat
• Most of the time, you're doing alright
• Be at least 15 minutes early to any interview/important meeting
• A night in at home can totally count as "plans" if it needs to
• Just say hello
• Breathe 

My favorite quote from this reading was this: "Enthusiasm is a form of social courage."

YES. It takes courage to be excited about something, without reservation or worry of appearing uncool. But the world is better, and I know I'm happier, when I'm enthusiastic about life.

P.S. I emailed Gretchen Rubin about one of her blog posts a few weeks ago and she sent me a very sweet reply last week. Classy lady.

P.P.S. Unrelated, but is anyone else watching The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt? I know it's got some PG-13 humor, but I can't.stop.watching.

The Help

As if enough book clubs haven't blogged about this book already, I'm going to add my nickel or dime, too.

I feel like Skeeter and I are kind of similar. 23, college graduate (or soon-to-be), single and trying to write out a place in the world.

Since the first time I went to South Carolina when I was a little girl, I've loved the South. Maybe it's my grandmother's Charlestonian blood running through my veins.

I feel confident that I could live in the South for only one reason: the food. And after reading about Minny's caramel cakes, and fried chicken and pork chops, all I want is some down home barbeque.

Over Thanksgiving, my family visited the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. I could have spent all day walking through the exhibit, reading the labels and quotes from everyday people and prominent leaders of that movement, but we only had a couple of hours.

We saw the room where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and read about so many others who suffered simply for trying to speak out. It became so much more real to me. I have so much admiration for those who fearlessly fight for justice, anywhere and everywhere. Whether that is by staying put in a bus seat or taking huge risks to report the truth.

All I can really say about The Help is: read it.

And then think about it.

We study history so we don't repeat it. But, just like everything in life, it's never all bad. I loved reading the stories of tightly-knit bonds between women, remembering that despite the tough times, in the long run charity never fails.

image via google

The legacy of Atticus Finch

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what." --Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird

I read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was about 13, and loved the story. I felt like Scout, and my dad was my Atticus.

This week I read it again, with a 23-year old perspective, and dug deep into the pages of the story and the social commentary that goes along with them. I thought about families, communities, rights and wrongs and the wisdom of Scout Finch.

It's so much more than a story about racism or prejudice. It's about the strength of a family, the power of communities (for good or for evil), the simple things in life, and the never-ending debate of right vs. wrong, and what we should do with our rights about those wrongs.

It made me think about what I think and how that influences my actions. It made me long for times when life may have seemed simpler on the outside, but there were wars to fight inwardly.

Sometimes it's good to be reminded of the true strength of the human spirit.

image via

homemade

I just finished reading A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg. She's the writer of Orangette. She has this magical way of writing like she's had you over for lunch, and after your belly is satisfied like it's never been before, you ask for the recipe, and she, graciously, obliges. And then she tells you about that one time when she made it for so-and-so and suddenly you're off on some tangent that will, inevitably, lead you back to the table.

Since Sunday afternoon, when I started it, this book has been my late night dessert each evening. Not only have I loved curling up in my bed just before I go to sleep, to drool over the recipes and stories Molly tells, I have loved making time in my schedule to read. It has been too long, but it is such a treat.

I loved it. And I may just gain 200 pounds from trying all of the recipes. Although, to Molly's credit, there are enough salads in that book to balance out the butter, chocolate, and whipped cream that fill the rest of the pages.

So thanks, Molly, for confirming that a life centered around the kitchen is perfectly balanced. And that real life fairy tales actually begin with chocolate cake instead of poison apples.

"The most terrible battles leave some places untouched, protected, despite being surrounded by fire."

How perfectly convenient that, yesterday, as I was waiting for the timer on the chocolate chip cookies to go off, I curled up in an armchair in our parlor* to get sucked into the first part of Suite Francaise, "Storm in June," while outside drops of rain as big as marbles fell all along the ground, and thunder shook the walls of this antique house.

My parents gave me this book for Christmas and I am finally getting around to reading it. It was actually the bit on the back of the book about the author, not the plot synopsis that caught my interest originally:

"When Irene Nemirovsky began working on Suite Francaise, she was already a highly successful writer living in Paris. But she was also a Jew, and in 1942 she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where she died. For sixty-four years, this novel remained hidden and unknown."

I really like the book so far. I am always so inspired by stories of ordinary people and the things that happen to them.

This part especially struck me:

"In all her life the woman had probably never said anything but ordinary things, like 'the leeks are getting bigger' or 'who's the dirty pig who got my floor all muddy?'...What are we in people's eyes, Maurice and I, other than two miserable employees? It's true in a way, but in another way, we are precious and unique. I know that too...All they could do was to keep walking and place themselves in the hands of God."

image via this

*so named by my landlords.

vintage

I've never been very trendy.

Not to say I don't take effort in putting myself together, but I grew up with my mother's and grandmother's examples of timeless class rather than of-the-minute fashion fads.

However, I've always been partial to old things, so I guess you could say I'm vintage in the sense that I love old movies, used books and the music of my parents' and grandparents' era.

Someday when my bookshelves stop moving themselves every year or so, I'll stock them with a collection of Barbra Streisand movies, books I've read and reread so many times they automatically open to my favorite pages, and Rat Pack records that make that scratchy sound when placed on the turntable.

Follow up to "Date a Girl Who Reads"

The other day my mother and I were talking about our favorite children's books, and I was struck with such gratitude that my parents read to me as a child. I remember so many times sitting on my Dad's lap, reading Make Way for Ducklings or Harry the Dirty Dog. Later, the baton was passed to me and I would get to take a turn reading a chapter of The Forest Runners. Or going to the library with my mom to get my first library card, and discovering the pure discovery that is reading.

While my older sister was flying through Agatha Christie mysteries and Jane Eyre, I was hooked on Harriet the Spy, Maniac Magee and Homer Price.

The first book I ever read from my Dad's bookshelves (stocked with classic literature) was To Kill a Mockingbird. And when people ask me what my favorite book is, that's still what I say.

I remember as a little kid, when I found a book I really liked, I worried that if I closed it before finishing, the story would go on without me. Somehow the characters would resolve their conflicts and fall in or out of love and I'd miss out, unless I sat there and read to the end.

I've always loved reading, but I haven't always made it a priority or given it the time it deserves (or the time I want to give it). This week I remembered why I love it so much and forgot how I really survived on a diet solely comprised of textbooks and news articles.

But I've mended my ways and I'm making a summer reading list (suggestions welcome!), because that's what summer is for, right?

Here's to my parents, for teaching me the beauty of great stories.

Read This

I realize that dozens of other blogs and websites have posted this already, and I could probably just link to it, but I want to make sure you read it. (I found this from Meg Fee's re-post of it. Sometimes I want to steal Meg's Google Reader because she finds the best bits of writing!)

Because it's absolutely exquisite.

"Date a Girl Who Reads by Rosemarie Urquico

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by God, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes."

Yes oh yes. Rosemarie, you nailed it.

one of my favorites so far:

So sometimes I read this blog "letters to crushes"*

Today, I read a post titled "The best places to fall in love are book stores and libraries."

Oh boy, oh boy do I agree with that.

Full post here. Read it.

*Thank you, miss Katya, for introducing me to it!

The massive, annual, hopeful, probably too long, list of summer goals:

Books I want to read/finish (at least a few of them this summer...):

-Finish Zorro

-Finish Deep Economy

-Michael Pollan's Food Rules

-Let the Great World Spin

-Finish the Alchemist

-Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Concerts I want to go to:

-Ryan Star...it's this Saturday, so...not likely, but it would be awesome

-Carbon Leaf..next Monday!

-Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers (in September)

-Twilight Series (concerts, not vampires)? Beirut?

Movies I want to watch:

-Karate Kid

-He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not (for like the 4th time...but oh well)

-Letters to Juliet

-Adam

-The September Issue

-Coco avant Chanel

And...

-make enough money to pay tuition in the fall (car wash? bake sale? garage sale?

-continue to work in the adlab

-go to the farmers market

-eat all the bing cherries I want

-make a batch of freezer jam

-make a loaf or two of semolina bread with basil butter

-really improve my rumba, so when gold latin auditions come around...

-eat less cheese

-learn a few more phrases in French or Italian (besides "Je ne comprends pas" or "Parlo un po' d'italiano")

I'm making a goal to read something every day. The newspaper, a book, Ad Age. Anything.

And you can hold me to it. In fact, please do.

image via vi.sualize.us


"what you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. it will decide what gets you out of bed in the mornings, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you. fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."

- pedro arrupe

Human-i-tease

Today and last night I realized I would probablylove my Humanities class if I actually took the time to do the readings. (Or do them earlier than 12 o'clock at night).

So I'm recommitting to this on-again, off-again relationship I have with my studies.

Dear Humanities,
I know that you are just a GE class. And that you don't directly relate to my major (although I do plan on advertising to humans, not animals).

But I am going to love you. We'll be good friends, spending lots of time together. (Thank you, 2660-page Norton Anthology of Western Literature)

And I promise to not save all the readings until the day before the late day of the test.

Love,
A girl that really wants to care about old Greek and Roman guys, orders of columns, and well, humanity.

{This line, which I read last night, from the Satyricon, struck me:

"He's got a clock in the dining room and a trumpeter all dressed up to tell him how much longer he's got to live."*

I feel like this needs to be made into a contemporary rock song.}






*Though I love this line, Trimalchio, I think you are a buffoon.

Pencil marks, chocolate smudges, and battered dustjackets

Yesterday I was in a bookstore. One of my favorite bookstores.
I stood in one aisle of the Blue Room, holding two books in my hands. Two copies of the same book.

*the first: new, paperback, smelling of freshly printed paper, smaller/more portable, and also 3 dollars more.

*the second: used, hardcover with a slightly battered dustjacket, thick, musty pages, and the binding a little curved.

I stood there for at least ten minutes, trying to decide which to buy. It was not a matter of whether or not I would buy the book; that had already been decided when I looked up the author's last name, eagerly scanned the shelves, and stood on tiptoes to reach the two books. It was a choice of new vs. used, or new vs. new-to-you.

I have always felt that used books have more character. That if they are well-worn, it means they have been well-loved. That if the binding is curved or the cover is a little tattered, it's because it has been opened again and again to reread a favorite passage, or that the former owner took it everywhere with them because they just couldn't put it down.

One of my mother's cookbooks, when opened, immediately falls to her favorite brownie recipe. The page is scattered with annotations, adaptations, and a few smudges of chocolate. I love that. That's not just how cooking should be; it's how life should be.

We try to do our best, and take the best care of ourselves. And that is a very good thing. But sometimes we screw up, and our pages get a few smudges, and the dustjacket gets a few tears (or we lose it altogether), or we add pistachios to the mix, and later decide that made one terrible batch of brownies. And sometimes, much as we try, we don't learn from our mistakes the first time. Sometimes we must revisit that painful passage again (and again), to catch the whole lesson.

But at some point, when the screwing up has paused for a moment: we put ourselves back together, smooth out our edges as much as we can, and stand tall, knowing that someone will love us better for our scars, for our failed attempts at perfect life, and for the story no one else can tell.

{After several minutes of mental deliberation, I chose the sullied script over the virgin text.}

Somehow I know I will love this book. And I think I will love it even more because it has been loved by someone before me.

photo via deviantart

reading until the wee hours of the morning.

Last night I finished the Poisonwood Bible. I read until one in the morning because I just couldn't put it down.

It is quite possibly my new favorite book.

It made me think about a lot of things: family relations, life, religion, Africa and why other countries felt (and still feel) the need to "civilize" it, change it, or convert it. I wish I had been underlining my favorite phrases throughout, but I started about a hundred pages from the end.

one simple yet profound thought:

"everything you're sure is right, can be wrong in another place." -Leah Price

That one phrase sums up 90% of what I learned in Intro to International Development, last semester. If you try to help someone/something/some country/some way of life by changing it to what you are used to, without letting it change you right back, it won't work. If I learned anything in that course, it is that it takes working with whatever you are trying to help, with the attitude of being both a teacher and a student.

Read it. It is definitely worth it.

Love, Save the Empty

*new favorites*

musicians:
Chantal Kreviazuk
Erin McCarley


songs:
you belong with me-taylor swift
vuelve-reik
foundations-kate nash (thanks Katie, for introducing me to this one!)
gravity-john mayer

and a few old favorites, for good measure:
que vida la mia-reik (this was the first song in spanish that I listened to and could understand almost everything...it was a glorious moment)
la vie en rose-the louis armstrong version from French Kiss and the original edith piaf one.
life less ordinary-carbon leaf

*also: this post was originally going to be just about music, but I have a new favorite book: Persepolis. It's very comical, in parts, but very interesting. I'm anxious to read the second one, and to see the movie.*

25 before I'm 25

I saw this on Meg Fee's lovely blog and it inspired me to make a list of my own.

I've actually been working on it for a few weeks, but it took a little bit of time to compile 25 goals that were daring enough to inspire me, yet realistic enough that I could accomplish them.


25 before I turn 25:


1. Spend some time in foreign country
2. Learn to cook
3. Learn how to use graphic design programs [Photoshop, InDesign, etc....currently i use "paint" :)]
4. Read 25 new books
5. Let myself fall in love
6. Go to New York City
7. Define my political opinions a little more; be more knowledgeable (particularly for 2012)
8. Record a CD with Brittany in a recording studio
9. Learn to play guitar
10. Write an up-tempo song
11. Learn to not be afraid of driving
12. Use my writing skills for good
13. Kiss someone at midnight on New Year's Eve
14. Donate something (time/money) each year to worthy causes (excluding tithing/fast offerings)
15. Become fluent in Spanish
16. Create something I am really proud of: a song, a painting, a dance, an idea, a wedding dress
17. Learn to like vegetables
18. Start a collection of records
19. Take a cross-country road trip
20. Go to a really good concert or two
21. Get paid to use my talents (no matter how little)
22. Spend some time with my family in the Deep South
23. Share my talents. For once, really show off
24. Take full advantage of the dance opportunities available to me
25. Read each of these at least once, all the way through