Monogram your pancakes
“Surviving a loss and letting go is only half of the story. The other half is the secret belief that we will find, in one form or another, what we have lost. And it is that potential, shimmery as a star on a clear night that helps us survive.” – …
Follow your desire lines
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson In the park where we play, there are nicely laid out concrete paths, leading from the swings to the picnic tables, from the castle to the soccer field, …
Always carry a pencil
“What writing is all about is what happens on the page between the reader and the page…What I want is a collaboration, really, with the reader on the page where the reader is also making an effort, is putting something of himself into it in the way of understanding, in …
Make your own costume
"During my teen years, for Halloween, I went as a registered voter." – Martha Plimpton There’s just nothing more depressing to me than half-hearted Halloween costumes, those teenaged boys with a toothpick hanging out of their mouth who say they’re a hillbilly or kids who’ve done nothing but take a …
Frame your storyboard
“Not equal to Not metaphor Nor standing for Not sign.” – Minor White Imagine Beetle Bailey’s surprise. As Aldous Huxley said, perhaps Earth is another planet’s Hell. And maybe on that other planet, gargantuan people sit down with their oil drum vats of coffee, butter their big-as-car bagels, and open …
Say WOW when you see a bus
“As once the wingéd energy of delight / carried you over childhood’s dark abysses, now beyond your own life build the great arch / of unimagined bridges.” –Rainer Maria Rilke There is a pure and shining glory in the world of my 2-year-old daughter, Tess. It is called a bus, …
Find your saxophone
"Follow your bliss. Find where it is and don’t be afraid to follow it." –Joseph Campbell If you’ve read 37 days before, you might have picked up on my love affair with actor Johnny Depp. Beautiful, talented Johnny. Quixotic, funny, odd, quirky Johnny. Did I mention beautiful? Ooh-la-la. What can …
Always rent the (red) convertible
“Be daring, be different, be impractical; be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.” Cecil Beaton (1859-1941) French philosopher Red Convertible #1 When gun-wielding snipers were busy terrorizing Washington, D.C. in October 2002, my …
Dance in your car
“We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.” – Japanese Proverb While driving downtown last Wednesday, I was pondering the epistemological problems of social cognition and constructivism, the origins of values in transcendent functions, and Kantian categorical imperatives. Okay. Well. Maybe it was Johnny Depp …
Don’t stop to wave, you’ll drown
“Why are women immobile? Because so many feel like they’re waiting for someone to say, “You’re good, you’re pretty, I give you permission.” –Eve Ensler This week, I watched a videotape of Eve Ensler speaking at the 2004 Omega Institute “Women in Power” conference. Ensler is a playwright most famous …
