Bachelard, the French philosopher and Sorbonne professor known for his constructivist epistemology and history of science studies (are you excited yet?) once started a lecture with the following: “On your way here, did you look only straight ahead of you, or did you look up at the sky, and at the left of you, and [...]

Categories: Life

For someone who claims to thrive on spontaneity and throwing caution to the wind, I sure do make a lot of detailed to-do lists and plans of action. Like, really detailed. While I have made hasty travel plans many times, as soon as that plan is made, I fervently research everything I can about the [...]

Categories: Life

The year I read 89 books (about 30 of which are probably thanks to my last semester of prep school and first semester at Smith), I read all of Salinger’s works in a couple of weeks, save for The Catcher in the Rye, which was required HS reading. Franny and Zooey made my “Favorite books [...]

Categories: Life

The web and world of print aren’t lacking in optimistic articles that advise forgetting 2009 and looking forward to 2010. Well, I’ll jump on the bandwagon for the second half of that (forget 2009? how about we all just learn from it instead?) After I wrote the last post on my 2009 health challenges, I [...]

Categories: Artsy/Crafty · Life

In the pep talks that I give to myself when I am ill, which has unfortunately been a substantial chunk of the last 5 years, and basically ALL of this past year, I try to remember that familiar feel-good saying, “every cloud has a silver lining.” I’m not sure it’s even known who said these [...]

Categories: Life

Do you know about Safety Cone Adventures? What about Park(ing) Day? Well, if not, you soon will. Below is an email I sent to friends about the converging of these two endeavors: I rarely mass-email, but Safety Cone is an exception to many rules, so here goes. If you keep up with my crafty-head-self at [...]

Categories: Artsy/Crafty · Life