Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah...

and it's Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, J.D. Salinger, Stieg Larsson, and Herman Melville.

Rhode Island School of Design student Dinah Fried's photograph series Fictitious Dishes is brilliant.

When viewing these, one can imagine himself as the starving Oliver Twist, 

the imaginative and unsettled Alice of Alice in Wonderland, 

The Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield- the classic teenager,

 the sleek investigators of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 

 or Moby Dick's vengeful whaler and the wanderer, Captain Ahab and Ishmael.

In my opinion...Miss. Havisham's wedding cake, a Christmas goose that belonged to the Cratchit family, and a sweet can of pears that a famous and desperate father-son duo once gobbled down, would also be great additions to the series.

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"Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Sometime, not so far from now, I will not be writing about you anymore. Does that scare you? It should."

-Anonymous

Hurricane Isaac is relentlessly pounding the Gulf Coast and my heart goes out to them. I am showering you all with prayers of safety, peace, and a smooth recovery. 

I love people. I can't help it. I love people as a whole and I love them individually. I love watching people interact. I love hearing boys and grown men laugh. I love seeing little girls and grown women cry. I love that people are soft and warm and that they can't help it. It doesn't matter if their heart is frozen solid-they are warm. I love the smell of a newborn life and the wrinkled, worn hands of an elderly soul. I love observing people when they make decisions, whether it is something crucial and close to their heart or just which meal they want at Chick Fil A. I love taking care of those that are sick and celebrating with those that are well. I love the human heart and how it is both strong and fragile. It carries a human's body through years of ever-changing emotions, illnesses, and events that leave it damaged beyond repair. But still, it continues to beat and beat and beat.

That being said, I love my roommate. 

Tess Davis, you're a champ. You shower me with sincere encouragement and tender kindness. You praise my achievements and coax me through my failures. You understand me, support me, are honest with me, and I'm very thankful to have you in my life.  "Without you, today's emotions would be the scurf of yesterday's." 

Merci.

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"Give light and people will find the way."

Ella Baker

"My heart was too big for my body, so I let it go."

-Anis Mojgani

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And they splashed into the deep blue sea.

Chandler Jones and I have been as thick as thieves since we met. We stood by each other through the years of screamo music, girly ribbons, braces, Relient K, obsessions with the color purple, mohawks, craters, proms, excessive smiley faces in texts, and many tie-dyed t-shirts. The years have shaped us into the people that we are meant to be but even through all of these changes, our friendship has stayed the same. 

Thank you for reading my thoughts and for listening to my stories. Thank you for the countless Chick-fil-a deliveries and private concerts. Thank you for understanding the importance of a good drink, a great smelling candle, and a well-made t-shirt. You've made my days glow since I met you. 

So without further adieu, happy birthday, Mr. Jones! May your 21st be everything that you've ever dreamed of!

Cheers!

So long, summer 2012 and thank you for the gifts that you gave me.

You were wonderful. 

When you're smiling the whole world smiles with you. -Louis Armstrong

1904

1917

1920

1930

1940

1950

1969

1983

1996

2012

Smile

n.   1. A facial expression characterized by an upward curving of the corners of the mouth and indicating pleasure, amusement, or derision.

2. A pleasant or favorable disposition or aspect.

Adoration, satisfaction, pride, joviality, hope, relief, sympathy, surprise, or ridicule. It doesn't matter what a smile's motive is- a smile is always a beautiful thing. It doesn't matter if the smile is made up of three gold teeth, all pearly whites, two baby teeth, gums that are enshrouded by wrinkled, ninety year old lips, or braces with colored bands, smiles are always beautiful. Someone once said, "a smile is the light in the window of your face that lets people know you're at home" and I always thought that that was a wonderful thing to say. 

So, go on and let those corners of your mouth reach for the stars. 

A Sedentary Summer

What happens when you're working or studying all summer?

You get tired.

What happens when you get tired?

You pour yourself a cup of green tea, open the blinds, and curl up on your bed or couch with Netflix.

Series that I watched and completed this summer:

Breaking Bad

Mad Men

Arrested Development

The Office (for the forty-sixth time)

As strange as it seems, I loved the days of finding Safety Yellow Epoxy Paint in my hair after a day of work. I miss finding it in my hair four months later. I miss finding it in my hair eleven months later. The other day, I found a strand of hair in my car and guess what? It had yellow paint on it. 

Fourteen months later. 

I also miss coming home from work and being covered with dirt and grime. On the days that I spent in the welding shop, I looked like a freckled chimney sweep. I'd turn the corner of the warehouse to go to the break room and expect to see Mary Poppins, Jane, and Michael--hand in hand and waiting patiently for me to take them to the London rooftops. 

I miss painting. Not just bars, poles, and windows...but actual pictures. I miss the physical act of it. I miss the way it makes your fingers, elbows, and shoulders ache after you've been doing it for hours. I miss finding a long stroke of it on the side of my cheek. I miss being covered in charcoal and graphite from drawing. I miss ink. 

I hope to have a free day at some point next week so that I can open my apartment windows, set up my easel, take out my paints and my beloved jar of Mineral Spirits, set up my canvas, and let loose. 

Happy birthday, Julia Child!

"Life itself is the proper binge."

Words of Wisdom from Julia Child

-"If you’re alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who’s going to know?"

-"It’s terribly important to keep a good temper."

-"Fat gives things flavor."

-"I think every woman should have a blowtorch."

-"I always give my bird a generous butter massage before I put it in the oven. Why? Because I think the chicken likes it -- and, more important, I like to give it."

"Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it."

-“...nothing is too much trouble if it turns out the way it should.” 
-“Just speak very loudly and quickly, and state your position with utter conviction, as the French do, and you'll have a marvelous time!” 

Julia Child, a woman with a big heart, a big personality, and big shoes.

Intensely dedicated, utterly fearless, smart as a whip, quick witted, and a firm believer in eating, loving, and living well... she is the perfect role model for women everywhere. 

Happy birthday, dearest Julia.

Bon Appétit!

In the Hungarian Cafe

Gregory Muenzen

Susan Sontag, Charles Bukowski, Franz Kafka, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Rainer Maria Rilke, J. R.R. Tolkien, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Leon Tolstoy,Virginia Woolf, Silvia Plath

AVase with Fifteen Sunflowers

Vincent van Gogh

When I think of this summer, I think of Van Gogh's Fifteen Sunflowers. I think of the composition, color scheme, his first name painted across the side of the vase, and the overall raw and disheveled appearance of the flowers. 

To me, my summer has been a lot like Fifteen Sunflowers. The hot sun drenched everything in a palette of burnt yellows and the summer was a complete mess. A composed mess, but a mess nonetheless. I appreciate it, though. While many moments stand out, others either blend in as if they didn't happen-or they are hidden behind memories of higher importance. There is one more week left. When it's over, I will write my name on this summer with my most perfect penmanship and move on to a new chapter- perhaps that chapter will be A Vase with Twelve Sunflowers, Three Sunflowers in a Vase, or something even more radiant.

I love the earth and all the gifts of her so lavish hand:
Sunshine and flowers, rivers and rushing winds,
Thick branches swaying in a winter storm,
And moonlight playing in a boat's wide wake;
But more than these, and much, ah, how much more,
I love the very human heart of man.

Above me spreads the hot, blue mid-day sky,
Far down the hillside lies the sleeping lake
Lazily reflecting back the sun,
And scarcely ruffled by the little breeze
Which wanders idly through the nodding ferns.

The blue crest of the distant mountain, tops
The green crest of the hill on which I sit;
And it is summer, glorious, deep-toned summer,
The very crown of nature's changing year
When all her surging life is at its full.

To me alone it is a time of pause,
A void and silent space between two worlds,
When inspiration lags, and feeling sleeps,
Gathering strength for efforts yet to come.

-Amy Lowell

Thank you, 1712 8th st.

Today is moving day.

This sweet Tuscaloosan home will no longer be mine.

Such character, this house has.

One outlet per room.

Squeaky door knobs.

Original hardwood floors.

Polluted air vents.

Uneven floors that make the washing machine move two feet with every load.

Feral cats that roam the premises. 

Rogue raccoons in the attic that we've never been in.

Doors without locks.

Temperamental air conditioning and heating.

Thick, impenetrable plaster walls.

Windows at every turn.

Cracks in the ceilings.

French doors.

The green room.

Closet-less rooms.

A large front porch.

And a room without a light switch. 

.  .  .

Thank you, 1712 for being the roof over my head. Many men, women, children, frat stars, and average college students have lived within your strong walls and I'm thankful to have been one of them.