On Beauty.

My fabulous editor shared this on her FB profile, and I had to share here.

I am such a huge fan of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty...it's so hard to remember that beauty is defined in so many more ways than what's on billboards and television screens...this helps though...

Even as I wonder how I can learn to Photoshop myself like this!

9.11

Every year, September comes, and every year I think 'this year, it won't be weird. This year, the day will come and go and I won't think about it.'

Of course, it is weird. I do think about it.

Today, I lose my ability to be articulate. I forget how to say things eloquently, how to explain my thoughts and feelings using the words that I so carefully choose and so proudly master on other days.

Today, I am quiet.

Because there are no words that can say all the things that I want to say. And the sentence I would like to write--it never comes.

Today, in "Things That Are Awesome."

Tweenbots!

Creator Kacie Kinzer writes:

In New York, we are very occupied with getting from one place to another. I wondered: could a human-like object traverse sidewalks and streets along with us, and in so doing, create a narrative about our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it? More importantly, how could our actions be seen within a larger context of human connection that emerges from the complexity of the city itself? To answer these questions, I built robots.

Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim the Tweenbot in the “right” direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation. One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, "You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.”

First, I love TweenBot. Second, how awesome is it that people stopped to help him? It just reminds me that, at our core...people are awesome!

And...Third, he did get there. In 42 minutes. With the help of 29 people.

Word, humanity.

It isn't Thanksgiving without some drama, right?

As I write this, I'm curled up in a big armchair in my parents' house, post-Thanksgiving smells wafting through the air as Eric online Christmas shops (hopefully for me?), Baxter snoozes, and my dad reads his Daniel Silva book.  

It's warm and cozy and quiet today...about the exact opposite of twenty-four hours ago, when I was at one of those crazy wonderful giant family Thanksgivings, complete with thirteen adults, six kids under the age of 7 (and one yet to come), three dogs, an enormous bird and more stuffing than any 19 humans should be able to consume.  Holidays at our house are way too loud, way too political, and really really fun...but, as the old adage tells us, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt.  And last night proved that saying very very true.  

In a triptophanic, apple-pie-induced food coma, my sister...pictured above, much smaller, balder and fuzzier than she is now...had a devastating meeting with a model train and a flight of stairs.  She came out of it with a dislocated and fractured shoulder.  Lesson learned.  In battle, model trains will win.  

So...Eric (who earned his keep as new husband/brother-in-law) and I brought her to a sleepy little emergency room in a small town in Massachusetts (quoth Eric: "Chiara!  We brought you to 1952!"), where my sister was wheeled into Trauma Room B and a lovely nurse pumped her full of morphine and a remarkable ER doc (v. cute...no George Clooney, but maybe Noah Wylie-esque) slowly and impressively relocated her shoulder.  She came through it like a trooper...I'm certain that was no picnic...but I was in the room and she neither lost her cool nor her consciousness, so...wow.  

At some point, I looked down at the floor and saw a lone penny, lying face up.  Just as I was about to reach down and pick it up, because certainly my sister could have used some good luck right about then, I realized that, at some point, someone in Trauma Room B would need better luck than we had.  Because while she's definitely in some serious pain, she's going to be just fine...soon able to once again wave her hands around like the Italian she is.  

And for that, I am thankful. So I left the penny where it was. For someone who needs a little good luck for themselves.  

uhm...caption please?

Ok...this morning i groggily stumble out of bed (oh, how i loathe you, saturday appointments) and check CNN for news of Hurricane Ike. I spent the lion's share of last night watching my boyfriend weather the storm in Houston, and wanted to make sure he's ok. (Yes...I know...Eric says it all the time... "Sarah, a major storm is ruining people's livelihood and you're concerned for the safety of the rich, white prettyboy." Whatever. I like Chuck Bass too.) But I digress.

No sooner does the page load than this photo appears:



With NO CAPTION!!!

Uhm...correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this seem like a caption-required photograph? Let's leave aside for a moment that if this man is FLYING through the AIR, the photographer must be a) extremely heavy, b) in an above ground bunker, or c) Aquaman (But Spiderman had the lock on photographer by day, so I think it's more likely that it's a or b). But who is this guy? Why is he flying through the air? Why is he out in the middle of a hurricane wearing a muscleshirt and birkenstocks? and perhaps most importantly, WHY IS THERE NO CAPTION ON THIS PHOTO???

Ugh. C'mon, CNN. What are we, amateurs?

September 11, 2008

Author's note: I wrote the following on September 11, 2002, and I reread it every year. This year, I share it with you.

so much happens in a year. and they go so fast. and it's funny...most people count their years by specific dates...birthdays. anniversaries. another 365 days. another long, languorous rotation around the sun. my how things change and how they stay the same.

and it gives me pause, because i think about those people whose birthdays and anniversaries fall on september 11th...and i wonder how they feel to have that day taken from them. and i think about the people who have the other kind of anniversaries on september 11th. the kind of anniversaries that you don't want to celebrate. my how things change and how they'll never be the same again.

and there aren't any answers. there weren't answers a year ago, and there aren't any now. and that makes me crazy, although i'm getting used to it. god i was angry then. i felt hatred for the first time in my life. i wanted vengeance. vengeance is such a fascinating word...it has such rich connotations. and it's not a word i'd ever have used before. but that's what i wanted then. i hated them, and i was thrilled when they were given a name and a face, and i could direct that anger. i hated god; i went to church because it seemed like it was the place to go—all that catholic schooling pointed to god for answers. i didn't get them. i hated people; i wanted to scream my throat raw when people who weren't here said that they "knew it was going to happen" and that they "felt like they'd missed seeing a movie that everyone else had seen." i was angry and when i think back, i can still feel it in the pit of my stomach. i'm not as angry now...but i still have my moments.

sometimes i feel like a fraud. i think about that morning and how very removed i was from it. i think about the fact that i was 60 blocks away. and no one i knew was hurt. and no one i loved was there. and i see that look cross people's faces when i refer to that day. that look that says "why is she so sad? it's not like she was *really* there." and when i see that look i think, maybe they're right. maybe i shouldn't be so sad. maybe the thought of it shouldn't make me tear up. maybe there's no really good reason why i grieve.

but i do. i grieve for the firefighters who went up the stairs when thousands could think about nothing but getting down them. i grieve for the wives who waited for husbands to come home and never stopped waiting. i grieve for rescue dogs who were depressed because they couldn't find survivors in the rubble. i grieve for doctors who lined up to treat patients that never came. i grieve for the men and women who worked in the newsstands and delis at the base of the tower...no one seems to talk about them. i grieve for men and women who held hands and jumped into the sky to escape a fate worse than a 110 story drop. i grieve for this city, with whom i've had a love affair for 20 years, which lost an immovable piece of its skyline. i grieve for all the new yorkers who look at that skyline and see "a kid missing its two front teeth," as someone so eloquently said to me in the days following the disaster.

and then there's the selfish part of me. the part that grieves for me. for what i knew of the world then, and what i know of it now. for what i missed. for the fact that i didn't take a last look at them. for the fact that i'm forgetting just where they stood, and just how they looked. for the fact that "my" new york is forever changed...and something there will always be just out of place. for the fact that there will always be a before and an after. i grieve because i never got the chance to say goodbye. because all of a sudden, i was thrust into uncertainty with nothing to do but aimlessly wander down fifth avenue. because i've had no choice but to reconcile myself with this new world that i hadn't been prepared for. i grieve for the part of me that used to take things as they came. and i have moments of severe distaste for the control freak that i've become—but now and then i feel her fade, and i have moments when i sense that the old me is coming back.

of course...there are silver linings in this cloud. there is a year that has changed my life. there are stories of hope. and there are things that ease the sadness. there are moments (that come more frequently now) when i know that there is an innate good in humanity. last night, there was a car service driver who explained how he put on his turban right after he explained how he felt about this strange, unhappy anniversary. several months ago there was a doctor on a train who took my pulse while a woman i didn't know handed me saltines. there are traffic cops downtown who don't just give you directions, but escort you to the brooklyn bridge. there are neighbors who offer to help if you ever need anything. there are new friends and old ones, who call just to check in. there is love, found before the dust could settle. and there is faith in humanity that is far more powerful than faith in god ever was.

i will light a candle today. and i will think about what is gone. i will spend the evening with my closest friends. and i will be thankful for what is here.

Gustav drives me to distraction...

should be writing...instead, can't stop watching Gustav move like a purple people eater through the Gulf of Mexico. As regular readers of MacLeanSpace know, I've spent a lot of time in New Orleans since Katrina, working on a variety of Education-based projects. I've seen firsthand the challenges facing the people--and especially the kids--there...poverty, healthcare, education, housing and more. Every one of the kids I've met there has a tragic story related to Katrina...family members dying, parents with addiction problems, PTSD and more. The kids and the schools are just now getting back on track--many of them had their first full year of normal school back in New Orleans last year. 

And now...it starts all over again.

good luck, Louisiana. you're going to need it.

Supermarket Singles

ok...so i know i said that i was going on vacation and that i might not post...but i read this article in this morning's Providence Journal and I couldn't help it.

For singles, the aisles of a supermarket have a certain romance to them, with possibility seemingly around every corner display of baked beans.

And for a “how we met” story, little can top chatting over a shared love of kumquats, or bumping heads reaching for a bag of kitty litter.

So the local organic foods market in Providence decided to take fate into their own hands and host a "singles night." 75 people showed up, each was given a nametag with a food item on it. Their task? Find their match. Chips and Salsa, Hot Chocolate and Marshmallows, Milk and Cookies. A-dorable. So. Cheesy. So Fun!

Maybe this just appeals to the silly romantic in me...but I read the article beginning to end...and I couldn't help but grin the whole time. The only thing that would have made the article more fun to read is if it sported the headline "Piggly in search of Wiggly." Yes...cookie found milk and hot chocolate found marshmallow (although there's no indication that "found" in this context means anything more than, quite literally, discovering the other person), but chips unfortunately did not find her salsa...it was a tale for the ages. sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes, you end up buying a pint of Haagen Daaz and vowing to try it next time. Which, in this case, for you single Rhode Islanders is in October at the Whole Foods in University Heights.

As a marketer by day, I always appreciate ideas like this...You've got a supermarket...everyone in history has had a supermarket crush...why not make the fantasy a reality? And why stop at supermarkets? How about bookstores? Coffee shops? Sporting Supply Stores? Hardware Stores! Lord knows there are enough singletons out there who would be grateful for being able to forgo the bar scene. After all, no great love story ever began..."We met at a bar."

a picture worth 1000 years

the world is changed.  the country is different.  history has been made.  and my god. does it feel good. i'm proud of us, america. after years of oppression and hatred and disenfranchisement and inequality...we've done it.  we've opened the floodgates and started down a long, strange road towards the future.  

and to those who say we can't do it...i say...yes we can.