The Avocado and Me

Julie and Julia . The film. That's why. I was watching the movie earlier today and drinking hot chocolate, mentally preparing for the upcoming week of online school. At the moment, I'm convinced there's not much better than Amy Adams eating butter and Meryl Streep rocking pearls. Amy Adams (Julie) cooks and writes to alleviate workplace misery; I watch movies and write to... cope with?... social distancing. Also? Among the abundance of movies presenting unhealthy relationships and "bad boy" tropes, Julia and Paul Child's love story is a breath of fresh air. In watching Julie's blogging story, I began to reevaluate mine. And then I begin to think about art in general, about why anyone bothers with thrusting a pieces of themselves into the world. It's a hassle. So I was wondering why anyone cares about leaving something behind, a splash of color, a pretty quote, a fingerprint. Here's what I've decided, after two hot chocolates and appr...

It's not the end of March, but I really wanted to write today, and the creative juices just weren't flowing. March was... a month. I don't have too much to say about it that the media hasn't already. My heart, to everyone hurting from the pandemic. My gratitude, to all of the grocery store employees, people providing services like mail and trash removal, and folks bearing the weight of mass panic (hi, Costco door busters). Next week, my peers and I will be transitioning into online education. We'll see how it goes - I'm optimistic. Virtual choir sounds like a real adventure! Alrighty. I think it's safe to say that we're all in need of some cheering up. I know that (at least for me) nothing has really done the trick, because no one really seems to know what's going on. But I'll give it a shot. Here were some happy things and some favorites from a generally grim month. Happy Things I've read ten books, lent four to my friend Madeleine...

Because I'm currently faced with a surplus of it, I've been thinking about time. Spinning on my desk chair, I was thinking about how all the days have begun to melt into one another, and how much brain power I've historically dedicated to distinguishing a Monday from a Tuesday. When I have a surplus of time, I also have a surplus of thoughts. Eating takeout Paneer Makhani, I've been thinking about life and how precarious and fragile it is. I've been thinking about what it means to live and what exactly  makes life rich; how life ends with absolutely no regard toward this richness; how life, itself, the concept, is not conscious; about how, in the words of Sam Harris, "consciousness is the one thing in this universe that cannot be an illusion." Of course, all of these different thinks eventually came together as one big, overwhelming think. I started to think about life and its relativity to time. Time and its relativity to life. Where consciousness fit...

It's a wacky time, says every news article and YouTube video and blog post that's come out in the last two-ish weeks. And it is. It really, really is. I kinda feel like I'm living through a contemporary take on the classic YA Dystopia. We haven't come to The Hunger Games  yet, but the hoarding of toilet paper (and according to my sister's questionable source material, maple syrup?) might be just as violent. In light of all of this, I hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy. Right now, I'm out of school. We're pretty much confined to our houses and cars. Brussel sprouts are sparse at the grocery store, which ought to be everyone's number one concern. During the year history will remember by the coronavirus, we are extremely isolated. Despite this, I think it's important we all stick together and take care of each other; we need to call our friends, support people who've lost their jobs, maintain a sense of community. Isolate your ph...

I'm feeling particularly mortal. It's a refreshing feeling caused by a not-so-refreshing pandemic. Living is a precarious state - I am grateful for the tight rope. Sometimes, things scare us, and they are horrible, but they remind us of what is really important in life. The novel coronavirus is the most applicable example here; it's funny, spellcheck keeps telling me coronavirus isn't a word. I think people deal with pandemics like this in one of three ways: fear, denial, or humor. I choose the latter, not as a way of deflecting the severity of the situation, but to stay a little happy. A little bit of happy works wonders. So, here's the scoop. Where I live, school has been canceled from March 13th to the 27th. The grocery stores are mobbed. Costco is pretty much out of toilet paper. People are frightened and confused and misinformation is everywhere and gosh, I hope Tom Hanks'll be okay. When stuff happens, we're forced to see how great our lives wer...

My bullet journal is named Harper, and she is breaking. The pages are arching their backs away from the binding, the covers can no longer contain all of the papers and Polaroids, and the book mark is frayed. The once flat journal now resembles a sort of music-less accordion. In the words of Esther from English class... 'she thick.' Bullet journaling has really captured the Internet of late. YouTubers like Amanda Rach Lee have generated careers around them. Pinterest has an overload of bullet journal layouts and ideas. My best friend has an Instagram account devoted entirely to her bullet journal (my favorite spread she's done would have to be the Phineas and Ferb one. It's true art). I have been bullet journaling since the eighth grade, when I realized my schedule did not have room for an art class. It was a tragedy, so what all stressed teenagers do: I went online shopping. I ended up with a black dot grid journal for thirty dollars. Thirty dollars is a lot for a ...