--SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST MEANT TO BE A MEMORY

 

…Hey Thursday, how you doin’?

…I leave for Mexico tomorrow on a 5:10 am flight.  It’ll be nice to see the sun and know that it’s actually out there.  I won’t have a computer with me, which means there’ll be nothing new on this blog until a week from today.

…Here are some random things I learned so far this week:

“To Kill A Mockingbird,” first published in 1960, was the 9^th bestselling book of 2015.

It took J.R.R. Tolkien 12 years to write “The Lord of the Rings”.

The inventor of high-heeled shoes was Leonardo da Vinci.

Alaska is 425 times larger than Rhode Island.

Hitler was once named Time Magazine’s Man of the Year while Gandhi never was.

There are 89 gun deaths a day, in America, the most of any country in the world.

Osama Bin Laden’s father had fifty children.

Since the civil war in Syria began, 250,000 people have been killed and 10 million displaced.

…And here are some funny musings from friends on Facebook this week:

-Morning sex should be mandatory on Tuesday mornings, it's your reward for making it through Monday

-Men writing on candy hearts...
💜Nice jugs
💜Bend over
💜Are those real? And can I bring a friend?
💜Can I bring a friend?

-the gynecologist mildly slut-shamed me and the ucla clinic still doesn't have free tampons

-I frequent a small business about 1/2 mile from my house, Henry's Ice Cream. Their slogan is "Ice cream makes you pretty!" I just consumed a pint of cinnamon ice cream from Henry's. I am fucking beautiful.

…And finally, here are some things I like from a writer hero of mine:

“It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life.” Anne Lamott

“You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won't really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we'll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won't wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be.”  Anne Lamott

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” Anne Lamott

“You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town” Anne Lamott

“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” Anne Lamott

“Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.” Anne Lamott

“Laughter is carbonated holiness.” Anne Lamott

“No is a complete sentence.” Anne Lamott

“For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.” Anne Lamott

“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.” Anne Lamott

“Joy is the best makeup.”  Anne Lamott

“And I felt like my heart had been so thoroughly and irreparably broken that there could be no real joy again, that at best there might eventually be a little contentment. Everyone wanted me to get help and rejoin life, pick up the pieces and move on, and I tried to, I wanted to, but I just had to lie in the mud with my arms wrapped around myself, eyes closed, grieving, until I didn’t have to anymore.” ― Anne Lamott

“Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.” Anne Lamott

“I don't remember who said this, but there really are places in the heart you don't even know exist until you love a child.”  Anne Lamott

“Hope is not about proving anything. It's about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.” Anne Lamott