school resumes tomorrow evening.  three classes at night + working full time + freelancing + and well, trying to maintain some semblance of a life =  a little worried / overwhelmed.

here’s to knocking ’em dead.

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A woman approached Picasso in a restaurant and asked him to scribble something on a napkin, and said she would be happy to pay whatever he felt it was worth. Picasso complied and then said, “That will be $10,000.” “But you did that in thirty seconds,” the astonished woman replied. “No,” Picasso said, “It has taken me forty years to do that.”

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it can get you to start paying attention, can help you soften, can wake you up.

Flannery O’Connor said that anyone who survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or  her life.

Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate.

I’m reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, Some Instructions on Writing & Life for one of my upcoming courses.  So far, quite an excellent read on how difficult starting to write can be and the benefits it can have on one’s life.

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i never seem to have an umbrella when it’s raining.  this morning, an older man shared his umbrella with me while we waited to cross the street.   people can be really nice.

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awesome NYE

Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.  E.Gilbert

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You get what anybody gets — you get a lifetime.  Neil Gaiman

To 2011 — the year of us,

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The philosopher Odo Marquard has noted a correlation in the German language between the word zwei, which means “two,” and the word zweifel, which means “doubt” — suggesting that two of anything brings the automatic possibility of uncertainty to our lives.

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You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

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i shouldn’t complain that i’m cold in 55 degree weather in LA

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