A note on internet privacy

You might find this post odd, since you’re reading this on a blog, one that has minimal privacy and just about all personal information revealed, but here’s the thing: I choose to disclose information to the world. You, however, might not want your entire life accessible to anyone with access to Google.

A friend of mine called the other day to make plans for dinner. In that phone call, she told me she was updating her online privacy, Googled her name to see where it would come up, and found an online journal my sister had kept in 2004 that mentioned going to lunch with said friend. A PRIVATE online journal, that was password protected. Today, I told my sister. Here is how that conversation went:

Me: So did you know you had an online journal in 2004 that's still online?

My sister:  Huh? Its accessible?

Me:  Apparently

My sister:  Wow, just found it.  How do i delete that!

Me:  I don't know!

My sister:  Holy crap!

Me: Your grammar in it is horrifying

My sister: Oh, I know.

So, readers, you might want to go ahead and type your name into Google and make sure any personal information, like your diary from when you were 14, is not accessible to the public. Just a thought.

Day 7:

Click here for Day 1, here for Day 2, here for Day 3, here for Day 4, here for Day 5, and here for Day 6.

For dinner tonight, I met a friend at a little cafe we used to frequent in high school. The last time I was there was when my girlfriends and I got together during a break in college, about 10 years ago. The best part? Nothing has changed. It's still the hippie, eclectic, whimsical, cozy cafe it was when I was in high school. It's decorated for Valentine's Day right now with pink and red paper lanterns, which I love. So I took this fuzzy picture, awkwardly, while my friend laughed loudly, drawing attention to my creepiness.

Further proof of ghosts or goblins

I’ve spoken of our prank-pulling ghost before. He or she turns on the touch lamp in the dining room and the DirecTV box in our bedroom from time to time. Our upstairs neighbor wakes up every so often to find her (2^nd floor) bathroom window wide open. Well here’s further proof for you skeptics.

Every night, while we’re sleeping, our bed moves toward the windows. I sleep on the side closest to the windows and each morning, I wake up just a little bit closer to them. At first, it’s barely noticeable, but after a few nights, the legs on my side of the bed are completely off the area rug and standing on the hardwood floor and the space between Kurt’s nightstand and the bed has grown considerably. Of course, I blame it on Kurt and his tossing and turning, but here’s the thing: we’ve had the bed in other positions in the room and it didn’t move slowly to the right the way it does now. So either Kurt is moving the bed in his sleep (probable, but wouldn’t this mean our bed would have moved in the other places we’ve had it?), our house is slanted (very probable, but then wouldn’t all the furniture move slowly toward the windows?) or the ghost is just trying to let us know he or she is around. Kurt thinks I'm crazy, or as he put it, "a weirdo", but I’m betting on the ghost.


Thing of Beauty, Day 6:
If you missed them, you can find Day 1 here, Day 2 here, Day 3 here, Day 4 here, and Day 5 here.

Source: 29.media.tumblr.com via Amy on Pinterest

This is one of my favorite quotes from one my favorite authors. It's just perfect.

Day 5

Ok, I know this might not be the conventional idea of beauty, but I love this picture. I saw this tree and manhole on my run in the park this morning. They're in the middle of a field,. As I passed them once, twice, three times, I started to wonder about that manhole. I'd seen it hundreds of times on my runs in that park, but I never really gave it a second thought. Where did it lead to? Why is it positioned at the base of a tree? My imagination started running wild. Maybe it's a secret (or not so secret) entrance to an underground city inhabited by Keebler elves, or maybe it's a Cold War era bomb shelter, or the entrance to a tunnel that runs under the town. It made me feel like a kid again, playing make-believe, believing in magic.

Day 4

Source: i.imgur.com via Amy on Pinterest

Power is a Beautiful Thing

It has never been easier to communicate, voice opinions, or garner support, than it is right now. Social media has become influential in affecting change all over the world, from causing Bank of America to drop its debit card fees to the protests and government upheavals of the Arab Spring.

When I had first heard of Susan G. Komen’s decision to halt funding for Planned Parenthood, I was beyond disgusted. Here was an organization whose main philosophy was about providing quality preventative healthcare to women across the country, and they were severing their partnership with an organization that is effective in doing so. Let’s forget about the abortion issue for the time being (since many Planned Parenthood sites don’t even offer abortion services and its main focus is to help women get quality healthcare when they need it and cannot afford it), Planned Parenthood offers healthcare and breast cancer screenings to women of all walks of life, with or without health insurance (I’ll also forego discussing health care in this country because really, I could go on forever). Komen’s partnership with Planned Parenthood made sense. I couldn’t believe that a charity for which I had an immense amount of respect would bow to political pressure and bullying. They had decided to withdraw their money and support of Planned Parenthood, thereby hurting thousands of women, just because they didn’t agree (or more likely, had big-time supporters who didn’t agree) with one service Planned Parenthood offers.

So, how did I hear about this decision? It wasn’t from The New York Times or CNN.com. It was through social media, Facebook to be exact. Many of my friends had expressed their disappointment with Komen by sharing articles on the issue. Twitter just about exploded with responses, both good and bad. And today, just 2 days after the announcement that it would stop funding Planned Parenthood, Komen announced they have reversed that decision. I can’t help but think this is in response to the huge backlash they received via social media. Instead of writing letters to the organization in vain, a time consuming effort if nothing else, social media allowed the public to voice their disappointment and withdrawal of support within minutes of the announcement, allowing Komen to reverse its decision before it was too late. It’s a prime example of just how powerful people can be when they come together for (or against) a cause. Very inspiring. Very beautiful.

Thing of Beauty, Day 2: Monkey Bread

This might not look beautiful and I'll have no idea if it tastes beautiful for another 30 minutes or so, but this Monkey Bread sure smells beautiful. I wish you could smell what I'm smelling right now. It must be what Heaven smells like.

What I Learned in the Firehouse Gallery

One day a week, from the ages of 6-18, I had art lessons with a woman named Juanita. Until I was 13, these lessons were held in her firehouse gallery in Bordentown with about 20 other children at all different levels of experience. Juanita was a very special person. Not only was she a master painter and a wonderful teacher, she was one of those people who comes into your life and changes your outlook, for the better. She saw beauty in everything. Juanita had bright orange hair, wore blue eye shadow and two pairs of glasses hung around her neck with colorful bands. She always wore bright clothing and costume jewelry. She was living art. Her stories of her childhood always fascinated me: getting invited to the Academy Ball by handsome cadets, working as a makeup artist at a funeral parlor (yes, THAT kind of makeup artist), switching between the homes of her grandmothers (her mother died young and her father, whom she idolized, worked on the railroads), one of whom was staunch, Christian, and serious, one of whom was colorful and lively and let her wear all the makeup she wanted. I'm sure you can guess which one she felt more connected to.

Juanita's firehouse gallery was something to behold. It was old, dusty, with dark red utility carpet covering feet-deep concrete (which she never refrained from telling us anytime one of her students leaned back in his or her chair so the chair was balancing on only 2 legs. "I do NOT like the sight of blood," she'd tell us and push the chair forward). The walls of the gallery were wood-paneled, but that didn't really matter, since they were covered ceiling to floor with her paintings. It was an amazing array, from still lifes and portraits, to the huge painting of a bull-fighter and bull. Juanita had many, many friends and students, which meant she received many greeting cards, all of which she kept. And I mean she actually kept every single one. Before the word "hoarder" enters your mind, you should know that these cards were what her students used for inspiration and practice. We would rifle through shoe boxes of cards until we found one we liked, and that would be our assignment: to paint the picture that was printed on the card.

She taught me many things about art in my 12 years as her student, such as, but not limited to: there are no straight lines in nature, never ever use black or brown (in light, black is the absence of color, and white is the combination of all colors. In art, it is the opposite. To create black, you use every color. Creating brown is simpler: you use contrasting colors - purple and yellow, green and red, or orange and blue), how to create any color using only the 3 primary ones, when painting portraits, always start with the eyes. But what she taught me about beauty and life is something I take with me everyday.

During our classes in the firehouse gallery, we would take a break mid-way through for pretzels and Kool-aid. Her cousin, who lived with her in the apartment upstairs, would mix flavors of Kool-aid for us and we would have to guess the flavors. Our other assignment? To tell her something beautiful we saw that week. We’d each go around, crammed in the tiny kitchen with Kool-aid mustaches, and tell her our beautiful thing. She’d end the break by telling us a joke. I believe her theory was to encourage us to flex our beauty muscles, to be able to recognize beauty with each of our senses. As artists, she believed we needed to appreciate beauty in every way. A sense of humor is beautiful, food is beautiful, music is beautiful (we listened to old-time music on the radio during every class).

Juanita passed away when I was 18, in the beginning of my Freshman year of college. I think about her often and how important she was, not only to developing my talent, but to developing myself.

Every day during the month of February, I will post something I think is beautiful, either a story, or picture, or song. I hope it inspires you to stop and look around, and find something beautiful in your everyday life.

I'm going to start with this article my friend shared on her blog. Make sure to read the letter to the author's son at the end. Her message of acceptance and celebration is truly inspiring and heartwarming. And of course, beautiful.