Winter in Florida exists if you look for it. It's fur-lined parkas and dramatic scarves that appear as soon as the temperature drops below 50F. It's late-night chamomile tea and those same disconsolate evenings that'll dog you anywhere else. Most of the time, though, it's beautiful, all blue skies and freshness like early spring.
I'm apartment hunting now, logging hits and misses in a Craigslist spreadsheet and wrapping my head around the idea that I'm a new Floridian. I just got a permanent job here, and for the first time in years, I know I'll be somewhere longer than a few months. I'll be working the night shift, covering general assignment news, cops, features and the rest for the Times. I'm relieved and grateful and excited and, thanks to the ticking apartment time bomb, just a bit stressed.
Elsewhere this month: Rolled a suitcase 50+ blocks in 18F weather in New York City, then spent all my rent money on books, food & beer with my best friend from home. It was the best, most-needed trip. The weekend after that, I hosted my best friend from college. We ate late-night tacos and people-watched and split $8 pitchers of foamy beer in a dimly lit bowling alley, complete with a smoke machine and lasers and grainy music videos from 2004 projected on a big screen. We cheered anytime we knocked over more than five pins.
Lately:
"You will catch yourself sometimes saying, 'Well at least I don’t have to deal with [small relationship grievance] anymore!' but you will also know it’s a lie. You would have dealt with [grievance] forever. You would have grown old with [grievance]. [Grievance] would have made you laugh at the kitchen table at age 60 while you did the crossword together in a punk rock LL Bean fever dream." A breakup.
“The subreddit doesn’t exist because anyone thinks it’s a good idea to do suicide intervention here. It exists because there are people who only feel comfortable here. And they need to talk to somebody.” How Reddit is changing suicide intervention.
Little things: Diners are important / Greenland on expired film / Lunch al desko / What guys' shoes say about them / An important friend / Dream home / Rosalie's Good Eats Cafe / Leslie Duke's art / Florence vs. Atlanta / At home with Maira Kalman / How to lose weight in four easy steps / A song / A poem / Photos on the iPhone 6 /Another poem / 30 and bookless.
"Our libraries struck me as something like Rilke’s ideal for love—two solitudes, side by side." A longtime couple combines their books, by Alexander Chee.
I'm going to miss Parks and Rec so much.
"A lot of men’s stories seem tinged by regret and nostalgia. They wish previous relationships hadn’t ended or romantic opportunities hadn’t slipped away... Women are more inclined to write with restlessness. They want to figure love out."
I love Yelena Bryksenkova's art.
"You could call summers like this a colossal waste of time. But that’s what feels immortal about them—wasting time, colossally, as the gods must do. And as energizing and healthy as it can be to participate in society and be a good citizen, I’m greedy for time with the soul, or at least with my brain, the neurons firing fiercely even when I’m sluggish—all those mysterious goings-on, so easy to ignore in the productive life." True summer.
What will happen to the Tampa Bay Times?
"With this 'parking' alibi, we’re being asked to imagine that these killings are a private tragedy, not some big public deal—not terrorism, not even like terrorism. We’re being told to believe that the vigilante killing of three young Americans is socially and politically meaningless." The Chapel Hill massacre blues.
Been spending my midnight commutes with the decidedly saccharine, nevertheless lovely Dear Sugar podcast.
"I had never realized how much my sense of self came from remaining unobserved, or from having spaces where I felt I could be as such."
"I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that's what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it." Joan Didion.
"I now inhabit a life I don’t deserve, but we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope the caper doesn’t end anytime soon." David Carr.
I'm apartment hunting now, logging hits and misses in a Craigslist spreadsheet and wrapping my head around the idea that I'm a new Floridian. I just got a permanent job here, and for the first time in years, I know I'll be somewhere longer than a few months. I'll be working the night shift, covering general assignment news, cops, features and the rest for the Times. I'm relieved and grateful and excited and, thanks to the ticking apartment time bomb, just a bit stressed.
Elsewhere this month: Rolled a suitcase 50+ blocks in 18F weather in New York City, then spent all my rent money on books, food & beer with my best friend from home. It was the best, most-needed trip. The weekend after that, I hosted my best friend from college. We ate late-night tacos and people-watched and split $8 pitchers of foamy beer in a dimly lit bowling alley, complete with a smoke machine and lasers and grainy music videos from 2004 projected on a big screen. We cheered anytime we knocked over more than five pins.
Lately:
"You will catch yourself sometimes saying, 'Well at least I don’t have to deal with [small relationship grievance] anymore!' but you will also know it’s a lie. You would have dealt with [grievance] forever. You would have grown old with [grievance]. [Grievance] would have made you laugh at the kitchen table at age 60 while you did the crossword together in a punk rock LL Bean fever dream." A breakup.
“The subreddit doesn’t exist because anyone thinks it’s a good idea to do suicide intervention here. It exists because there are people who only feel comfortable here. And they need to talk to somebody.” How Reddit is changing suicide intervention.
Little things: Diners are important / Greenland on expired film / Lunch al desko / What guys' shoes say about them / An important friend / Dream home / Rosalie's Good Eats Cafe / Leslie Duke's art / Florence vs. Atlanta / At home with Maira Kalman / How to lose weight in four easy steps / A song / A poem / Photos on the iPhone 6 /Another poem / 30 and bookless.
"Our libraries struck me as something like Rilke’s ideal for love—two solitudes, side by side." A longtime couple combines their books, by Alexander Chee.
I'm going to miss Parks and Rec so much.
"A lot of men’s stories seem tinged by regret and nostalgia. They wish previous relationships hadn’t ended or romantic opportunities hadn’t slipped away... Women are more inclined to write with restlessness. They want to figure love out."
I love Yelena Bryksenkova's art.
"You could call summers like this a colossal waste of time. But that’s what feels immortal about them—wasting time, colossally, as the gods must do. And as energizing and healthy as it can be to participate in society and be a good citizen, I’m greedy for time with the soul, or at least with my brain, the neurons firing fiercely even when I’m sluggish—all those mysterious goings-on, so easy to ignore in the productive life." True summer.
What will happen to the Tampa Bay Times?
"With this 'parking' alibi, we’re being asked to imagine that these killings are a private tragedy, not some big public deal—not terrorism, not even like terrorism. We’re being told to believe that the vigilante killing of three young Americans is socially and politically meaningless." The Chapel Hill massacre blues.
Been spending my midnight commutes with the decidedly saccharine, nevertheless lovely Dear Sugar podcast.
"I had never realized how much my sense of self came from remaining unobserved, or from having spaces where I felt I could be as such."
"I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that's what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it." Joan Didion.
"I now inhabit a life I don’t deserve, but we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope the caper doesn’t end anytime soon." David Carr.