Down time

I have existential crises in the car on the way to work in the morning. Do you do that? I think because it's often the only part of my day that's not scheduled, or interacting with someone, so that I have time to think the BIG THOUGHTS alone in my head and freak out about them.

Yesterday morning I was thinking about how desperately sad it makes me that we only get one life and it's really short and shit! have I done all the things I wanted to do? and what about love, and my purpose in life, and career, and what about these people in my life I care about that I don't see, and what about this?...etc.

I've been doing a fantastic job of ignoring important things this last year. It started with being overwhelmed by the legal issues related to my grandmother, then the deaths of my dad and her, the mortgage, the stuff, the life insurance, the debt, the taxes, etc, and has trickled down to me not being able to step up and get my oil changed, write the articles I'm contracted to write, fix my 401K, go to the gym, or call maintenance about that crack in the wall, and even to my relationships. I've been hiding. I've been throwing all my attention in very specific directions, and while that makes me happy in the short term, I'm not sure it's ultimately good. I've been neglecting friends. I've not wanted to put the effort into seeking people out, making plans. And I've been trying to fill the giant hole where my best friend was with other things. It works fine until something triggers it, like "Hey There Deliah" on the radio, or an opportunity for ninja, a glimpse of that UVA shirt, or having to catch myself making a joke no one else will get. And as much as I'm a fixer, I don't know how to fix this. But my heart hurts. It aches so much. Apparently only time is the answer, but that's not a fast enough answer. And since time just takes people and things away from you, that doesn't seem right.

skeptical

I know I've been neglecting my blog. I've been swamped at work and not wanting to do much else besides come home and do nothing, and I've also been busy worrying about everything and getting overwhelmed, like I do, and doing little about it.

Anyway, I feel like the older I get, the less I believe in true love. Now I've been in love before. But it's been awhile. I've never had anyone I thought was the "love of my life." I've certainly had amazing, wonderful,crazy, all-consuming, fine, good, friendship, etc relationships, that served their purposes at the time, but never anyone who I was like, Yes, I want to spend the rest of my life with that person.

And more and more, I see relationships and marriages fail, fall apart, fizzle out, and I don't know that I believe in forever anymore. I don't think I believe it's possible that one person can make you happy and serve all of those needs for your whole life. I think you have to choose what you give up. I go back and forth from thinking it's best to not settle, that I should keep looking for "the one" because when you know, you know(so they say) and then thinking that's naive and foolish and that I'll end up alone....to thinking that I'm being unrealistic to assume I'll find the one person who will be everything to me, who will make all cylinders fire, forever, and that I should just be with the one I know who makes me laugh, who is my best friend, who gets me and my jokes, who I trust, who cares for me.

I think any relationship that's good can be good for awhile until you really get to know someone and spend a lot of time with them, and start to hate their idiosyncracies, tire of them, hate the way your self has become. Then you have to decide whether to keep going, to see if it gets better, if it turns into something else, or if you're just being unrealistic. The longer you spend, the messier and ickier when you decide to leave. And then all of it was for what? Now you've hurt someone you care about, burned that beautiful and unique connection, and you're back to square one.

anniversary

A year ago today, my father died unexpectedly. It's a long story. It was jarring and sad that he died, and it triggered a chain of complicated legal issues, but I didn't lose a father that day. I lost my father 15 years ago when my mother and I left. He was troubled in many ways. Only last year, we had just started reconnecting, to the best he was able, over the care of my beloved grandmother (his mother, whose death later that year still haunts me), and then he died. He lived a sad life, so his death was sad, made even more so by the fact that he had probably died several days before he was found, alone in the house.

Obit I wrote.

My mother and I scattered his ashes over the Atlantic Ocean in Rehoboth. His late-in-life wish was to travel to Turks and Caicos, or Mexico and spend the rest of his life on the beach. While his passport was unused, I know that he'll get there someday, perhaps he's even there by now.

Okay, I have to stop writing now, as getting teary at work is really not appropriate.

Economics terms

It's really rather remarkable how much one blog can influence me. I've spoken before about The Happiness Project.  The writer there said something that struck me today:

If you try to preserve every opportunity, you can’t move forward.

Yeah, that's me, all right. I feel often that I'm wasting time, time I could be spent doing this thing, that thing. I also have trouble getting started because I'm waiting for the perfect moment, or the perfect person, or the perfect set of supplies or circumstances.

In her most recent post she also talked about opportunity cost, a term I learned at Econ Camp that really stuck with me.

Opportunity cost is the cost related to the next-best choice available to someone who has picked between several mutually exclusive choices

Relatedly, there I also learned the term sunk cost. Both of these ideas were crucial to how I looked at the world.

In traditional microeconomic theory, only prospective (future) costs are relevant to an investment decision. Traditional economics proposes that an economic actor not let sunk costs influence one's decisions, because doing so would not be rationally assessing a decision exclusively on its own merits

I had to learn that there's no point worrying on sunk cost. Once it's gone, it's gone. Wikipedia has an excellent example:

Economists argue that sunk costs are not taken into account when making rational decisions. In the case of the movie ticket, the ticket buyer can choose between the following two end results:

1.Having paid the price of the ticket and having suffered watching a movie that he does not want to see, or;
2.Having paid the price of the ticket and having used the time to do something more fun.

In either case, the ticket-buyer has "paid the price of the ticket" so "that part" of the decision no longer affects the future. If the ticket-buyer regrets buying the ticket, the current decision should be based on whether he wants to see the movie at all, regardless of the price, just as if he were to go to a free movie. The economist will suggest that, since the second option involves suffering in only one way (spent money), while the first involves suffering in two (spent money plus wasted time), option two is obviously preferable.

I love days when I get to go in late and can watch The West Wing on Bravo in the morning. I want President Bartlett to be my president. I want to be like CJ, want to have Amy Gardner's job, and want to work with everyone in that office. And Sam. (Rob Lowe, swoon). I keep forgetting that's Mary Louise Parker because she looks so young. She is ageless. And Marlee Matlin! Everyone was on that show.

My favorite quote from this morning's episode "Women of Qumar"

SAM:The President's being sued.

SAM: The Washington Times' running it under the headline "Bartlet Accused of Contributory Negligence."

LEO: I didn't know The Washington Times could spell all those words

Homemade dinners and farmers markets

This was dinner from Saturday night. Amazingly put together, and I even helped! At the top left of the plate is the fresh cold salad we've named Citrus Tuber Salad: turnips and beets from the South of the James farmers market, backyard garden cucumbers and parsley, some orange, honey, olive oil, lime juice, pepper, salt, olive juice, and pine nuts (a last-minute addition that turned out to be perfect).

Here's a close up:

The beets made everything pink

The main dish was a combination of homemade pasta, grilled and marinated chicken, mixed cooked fresh veggies, fennel (the bottom left there, didn't turn out that great).

The food was all complimented so nicely by an acidic Spanish white and then a bottle of sparkling. I can't believe I ate as much as I did, since I ate so much by nibbling while we were cooking.

This is an edited-color photo of a flower I discovered in North Carolina. The flower is a purple-pink, but my crappy camera didn't do it justice, so I edited the tint. It was so so fragrant and soft. I was afraid it didn't grow here but turns out, it's everywhere! I picked these from the tree in the Ellwoods parking lot!

This was dinner from the other weekend: a salad with all kinds of greens from Victory Farms and other yummy veggies from Ellwoods, and my corn salad (corn, red pepper, feta, lime juice, pepper, olive oil)


It was my first time at the South of the James Farmer's Market this weekend. It is arguably the best/most popular one in town. I was feeling a bit car-sick and ill from the heat, and needed sustenance, so I had my first-ever Nate's Taco Truck Taco. I know, it's sacrilegious I've lived in RVA as long as I have without one of their tacos. Well for $3, my chicken taco got eaten in about 3 seconds. I would have liked a little more lettuce, but I always want more lettuce on everything. I went back for seconds after getting my iced coffee from Blanchard's Coffee, but they had gone on a break because of the heat. I was SO mad. So instead I wandered in search of more food, and felt like I might pass out if I didn't eat something. I found a table of someone selling homemade pastries and fresh cold salads and had the most amazing bow-tie pesto pasta salad with fresh fresh cherry red and yellow tomatoes, carrots, and beans. God it hit the spot.

The produce from Victory Farms was amazing and delicious looking and SO MUCH CHEAPER than Kroger. Why am I not buying all my produce here? I may have to start. I'm being turned into a hippie, I swear. Lots of people were selling really scrumptious looking blackberries, but I am holding out for picking access to a backyard bush I know. Oh, and I also had yellow watermelon for the first time. Weirdly, tastes just like regular watermelon. 

While there, I also ran into several familiar faces. Wouldn't be Richmond without it.

Music tonight with a cup of Illy coffee--The I-Am-An-RVA-Hipster-Mix:
Untitled 4: Sigur Ros
Hang Me Up To Dry: Cold War Kids (fun band name)
Idioteque: Radiohead
1901: Phoenix (my new favorite band)
I Turn My Camera On: Spoon

Touching Strangers

Do something that will make your night. First, read below about Richard Rinaldi's exhibit Touching Strangers. From his site:

Touching Strangers is an ongoing photographic project stemming from my interest in the dynamics of group portraiture. The premise of this work is simple. I meet two or more people on the street who are strangers to each other and to me. I ask them if they will pose for a photograph together with the stipulation that they must touch each other in some manner...

My objective was to introduce an unpredictable variable in a very traditional photographic formula: to create a spontaneous and fleeting relationship between complete strangers in front of my 8 x 10 view camera.

Though these situations involve orchestrated collaborations between subject and photographer, the emotions captured are both genuine and honest. Touching Strangers encourages viewers to think about how we relate physically to one another.

Then, go to this link right now to view his photographs in a slide show, make it full screen.You may have to click to forward the photos.

Then click this link to get to the song, sync it up, press play.

Song: The Crane Wife 3 by The Decemberists.

I just happened to have it playing when I went to view the photos. They go amazingly well together. It will make your night. Trust me.

Ooh, Horoscope on point

You could run into some emotional roadblocks today, Taurus. This could be due to a lack of honesty on your part. Make sure you're sticking to the truth at all times. A strong, forceful energy could challenge your ego. Don't be surprised if this force is emotionally highly charged. Conflict is apt to result if you aren't honest about your feelings as soon as they arise.

Megan Fox photoshoot

Holy sokes, this is a weird/hott/creepy/sexualized photo spread.

Source

I saw this magazine in the flesh yesterday and may have to go back and pull the pages out of it. The ones online are too small to do it justice. I can't believe myself either, because I don't really like Megan Fox. I think she looks like a tranny most of the time--too severe, too tacky. She's clearly got great bone structure and a great body, and this photoshoot shows it off.

Image Source

It's so so creepy that the mannequin has her exact face. I'm not sure how they did that. I assumed it was photoshopped, but when you look at the video, you can see the mannequin. Perhaps they tweaked it for the final print version?

because

I love this picture so much. I've been sitting on it, waiting for the perfect occasion to use it, but have not come across one yet, so here you go. (From pretty.little.world)

Now that's a party I'd like to be at

I want to hang out with all the beautiful, unique, and well-dressed people in this post. Scroll down on that link to really see the folks at the party.