One of my third grade school assignments was to write and bind a book.  I’m sure there were lessons in how to actually sew the spine and whatnot, but the end result was really quite ugly – it involved contact paper (the kind you lined your kitchen drawers with in the 80s), heavy construction paper and a pencil.  That project is probably the singular reason why the act of “writing” intimidates me so much.  I love to read, I was obsessed with books back then, long before the days of iPads, Kindles and Nooks.  I wanted to create something awesome, epic and beautiful like the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica my parents had on their shelves – so I wrote about the most exotic place I knew – Pennsylvania. 

This well-intended exercise made me realize I couldn’t draw for shit, so I enlisted a friend to illustrate it.  She wasn’t very good either.  It was handwritten, my penmanship never really evolved past kindergarten and I didn’t have too much to write about – one chapter is about the pool and it is two sentences, the pivotal scene involves my eating a chili and spitting it out.  There are only mentions of things I’m glad I didn’t elaborate on as they might have had my grandparents or parents answering to the authorities and no one wants that.  I’m pretty sure the statute of limitations are up, and, well, we survived, and these are the stories you realize make you stronger and I had a pretty kick ass childhood…so here goes, I’m going to rewrite my memories of Pennsylvania.

Chapter 1 – The Car Ride
Original text – I like Pennsylvania!  I like the car ride.  I do not like when there is traffic.  I like when we go on the Verrazano Narrows Bridge because we see the Statue of Liberty.

Rewrite: 
The car ride from our home in Long Island NY to the Poconos in Pennsylvania was a long one.  My grandparents would often take my uncle, cousins and I up for the weekend or for longer stretches in the summer where we would climb aboard their brown econo-van and settle into our seat on the couch in the back with containers of fruit and snacks and immediately start haunting my grandfather with “Are we there yet” within five minutes of pulling out of the driveway.  My grandfather would yell from the driver’s seat “ten minutes” here and there, mostly ignoring us for the two and a half hour drive.  When we got bored we’d throw grapes at other cars from the windows that didn’t really open, they just hinged an inch or two out, which got really hot with no air conditioning.  My grandparents would talk about the other drivers beeping occasionally, but didn’t seem to notice their little band of hoodlums in the back seat were the cause.  There were no seat belts, if you didn’t fit on the couch, you’d often sit on a cooler or just lay on the floor in defeat when you couldn’t fight anymore.  And we fought, giving each other mean red friction injuries we called “Indian burns” and pinning each other down, threatening to dribble a loogy dangling from your mouth to your victim.  I never mastered the loogy threat/slurp, so mostly I was the victim on that one.  Sometimes there was bear wrestling in the back of the van, with the sweet black lab mix named “Bear” who probably just wanted us to sit down and behave too.

Eventually we’d pull into our little sanctuary in the woods and the fun would begin.  After we passed the front gate, we’d start climbing a red clay hill we called “Mt Geronimo” and it would be only minutes before we were lighting the campfire (more on that later), cleaning up acorns from the squirrels that ran through the trees built into the middle of the “house” (more on that)…no…wait…

The second chapter was “At the Campsite”.  At least I seemed to be building a story.  The original text reads “When we are there I like to go inside!  (Apparently I was over enthusiastic about exclamation points from a young age)  It is always different."

And now, rewritten with more detail…

Different is an understatement, my grandfather is a bit of an industrious, eccentric genius, where I think back then we just saw him as "handy".  The story goes that they bought the site when my mom was a teenager and they camped in tents.  It evolved throughout my childhood, though never to the point of being able to do a number two in the bathroom…that had to be done up the road in the public bathrooms.  By the time I was going "the camp site" was a trailer that my grandfather had built a shack on to the front of.  There was also a “bunk house” out back, which was basically a shed with two sets of bunkbeds where the boys slept, and a wardrobe I’m pretty sure I thought I could get to Narnia in.  Or maybe that’s just how I tried to escape the reality of being closed inside with my uncle blocking the doors on the outside of it when I was being particularly annoying.  In the front of the “house” where my grandfather had built a spacious kitchen and a cozy living room were two tall trees.  Inside.  There were trees in the house.  The structure was built around them.  So, often while eating breakfast at the long picnic table inside, a squirrel might dart down one tree, jump to the other and climb back out.  My grandfather would yell at them and then spend hours on the roof trying to repair the entry point.  Only there were trees in the house, so it was a bit of a losing battle.  On rainy days we’d play atari, cards and read.  There were no computers back then and I’m glad for that.  On days when we were outside, we had one rule “Be home for supper”.  To this day I’m awed by two things.  First, our parents presumably had the same rule coming from the same household…and yet they let us go.  And second, we didn’t wear watches, we must have had some sense or knew a lot more about where the sun was in the sky and when, because we were never late.  We just knew when to be home.

Anyway,
Chapter 3 was called The Carnival, I don’t remember that being particularly interesting, so I’ll just say I remember getting an awesome mirror painting with unicorns that my cousins helped me win.  Very 80s, you probably had one too.  I loved that mirror.

Chapter 4 was about the pool.  The pool was unremarkable, except for the dumpsters a few hundred feet to the right across some gravel.  The dumpsters as you might guess is where everyone threw their trash.  Trash attracts bears and there were no shortage of real bears (not the dog) in those parts.  Bears we’d casually walk past when going back up Geronimo for the night.  In the dark.  I’ll say it again, we walked past bears in the dark…a lot.

I wasn’t afraid of bears because my grandmother would often hand feed them from the front door in the mornings.  Little cubs would come up and she’d HAND FEED them…and I remember her encouraging me to as well.  Perhaps I left that out of my story when I was 8 knowing it might encourage an unhealthy non-fear of bears with my peers.  I must have known better.  My cousins and uncle would ride me around on motorcycles and often we’d go to the bear caves which were nearby.  We never saw bears there, but we sure tried, creeping around trying to find them sleeping presumably to say hello or poke them with sticks, who knows.  But that never happened, thankfully.  And, by the time I wrote this little memoir I’d developed a fear of them coming into my bed and eating me, I know this because there’s a chapter about my uncle scratching at the window taunting me about it.  Or at least that’s what my grandparents told me, but I swear I saw scratches on the window, or that’s what I said in my little book.   Don’t trust 8 year olds, they exaggerate.  This version is all true.

There is a chapter about motorcycles.  This is where I should probably explain my uncle is only about 5 years older than me.  He was usually the most senior of our little group.  If my cousins weren’t there with me, it was just him and me.  And having a kid following you around when you’re 12, 13, 14 must have been really obnoxious.  Sometimes I was the little sister who cried when my grandmother combed the knots in my hair with him behind her sticking his tongue out at me and making it seem even more torturous than it was.  All in all, he made a good older brother those years, taking me on adventures (bear caves and Chinese star throwing) and tours of the lake (I wrote a few sentences about that in my grammar school story, but I don’t remember a lake at all), and he included me when he lined up his plastic soldiers on the fire pit and we’d play with gasoline and melt them.  I was a total tomboy and being around boys with free reign in the woods all day was pretty awesome, and I know how to play with fire, which is an important skill when you have a MacGyver complex. 

My favorite memory/story from those summers was when my uncle came back from riding around one day and noticed his motorcycle handlebars were coming off when he lifted them.  My grandfather and he tried to figure it out, and the verdict was that he’d lost the main bolt that kept them attached.  You’d think that would have been it for riding around on the motorcycle for a day until…I don’t know…maybe you take it to a shop and get it fixed…but no…We were sent on a mission to retrieve the bolt.  I was told to put on jeans (I always had to wear long pants for safety when riding along) and given a large magnet tied to a string.  Cue the MacGyver theme!  I was to hold on with one hand and tow the magnet behind me while we retraced his steps to retrieve the missing bolt.  Only, the handlebars kept detaching from the bike.  And the magnet kept getting caught in the wheel and I’d fly off the back.  We never found the hardware, but we tried.  And more importantly, we survived.  Just like MacGyver would, except he probably would have found the bolt and then foiled a plot involving Russians with bad intentions.  That didn’t happen in the Poconos, at least, that we know of.

There is a chapter on Blueberries that I’ll just re-title “Foraging”.  I went on a tour of Central Park the other day with a guide that showed us what we could eat.  As a kid we ate what we found and somehow never got sick.  Since we were due home at supper, many days we left at breakfast and foraged for our food during the day.  The allowance my mom sent me with kept my belly full of candy and the berry bushes kept us nourished.  I didn’t know about the importance of drinking water back then, I don’t think anyone did in the 80’s, so we didn’t.  Yet we were fine for it.  And, though I’m pretty sure playing with fire is universally never a good idea, we did, every day and night.  Everyone had a firepit.  There were no guitars and singing Kumbaya, but there were marshmallows which my grandmother showed me her favorite way to toast.  Get it ablaze for a good minute or two, then blow it out when it was black on the outside and gooey on the inside…it’s my favorite flavor, burned.

When I first tried to tell my Pennsylvania story, I never imagined I’d grow up or that our campsite wouldn’t be there anymore.  Years later my Grandparents sold the campsite and my since then my grandfather went on to do something else involving a tree that left us all scratching our heads.  It was hard to to miss the apple tree on their front lawn pruned into Jesus being crucified – complete with a face, crown of thorns and whittled ribs.  My aunts and uncles have recreated much of the experience in a place we call “The Compound” in upstate NY, but there are no trees in the houses or Jesuses on the lawn.  It's similar in that there are fires and midnight runs through the woods, which probably are bear infested only no one encourages the kids to hand feed them.

The moral of this story, don’t encourage kids to write books.   Most of them are terrible writers who don’t understand irony yet.  Then they grow up into crappy bloggers who spill all the family beans to strangers.  Encourage them to watch MacGyver and read – so when they lose something they don't give up and when they're locked in a closet they think of Narnia instead of being afraid of confined spaces.  And if you're thinking that my family is crazy, we threw sharp metal stars at trees and hand fed bears, you don't want to mess with us.

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Like so many times before, I had a massive fight with strangers in downtown New York City.  It happens a lot when I am down there, I stew, sometimes I lash out on twitter.  I never spew my anger aloud, it’s all silent confrontation and rage in my head.  It started shortly after September 11, 2001.  I worked down there, I had to be there, it was my route to commute.  As if it didn’t dominate my thoughts, I had to face it, twice a day for years, literally passing through and under a burial ground in the PATH tunnels at the World Trade Center. 

Sometimes being downtown gave me comfort, sometimes fear, always sorrow, and as the tourists started streaming in…it made me increasingly angry.  I’d pass tour groups smiling and giving the peace sign posing for photos.  I wanted to shake these people and make them hurt like I did.  I wanted to smack the vendors selling books with images of destruction, shirts, hats, all sorts of crap.  I would think, this shouldn’t have happened at all, and now it’s a destination, and now you’re here – selling disaster porn souvenirs. 

So, tonight I saw a group of visiting servicemen paying their respects.  I don’t know where they were visiting from, I don’t know what branch of the military they serve, but they were having a solemn moment.  And around them people stopped.  Tourists, and likely natives were taking their picture.  It made me furious.  I grappled with people’s right to privacy to mourn and pay homage to the dead without others exploiting it.

Then I thought of the pictures that touch me.  Pictures, sometimes of suffering.  Private moments that I probably shouldn’t be privy to.  I believe pictures can change the world, and maybe some of those images may have been at the expense of their subjects.  I also have a sense of joy when I see people taking pictures with willing NYPD and FDNY, I love when heroes are treated like celebrities. 

Then again, I’m a New Yorker.  I have a complicated opinion of tourists.  I love the money they bring with them that benefits the city I live in, but dodging the stalled masses on my way to work can be annoying.  Some of my best friends who come to visit me are technically tourists and I relish their joy at seeing the city I live in.  And, I’ve taken many down to the World Trade Center site.  Sometimes they take pictures and I do too.  Often, they cry.  Some of the conversations I’ve had on these trips have given me a sense of peace.  Maybe that is happening when these stranger’s cameras are away and they’ve stopped hamming it up for their memento of being “there”.  I don’t think I’ll ever understand wanting to be in those photos.

I also remember, in 1996 I visited a concentration camp.  I didn’t want to, I had a very hard time joining the group of film students I was traveling with.  I thought I knew the history, I honor the dead, I respect their stories, I don’t need to visit a place of torture and horror.  But, I went.  And I needed a moment to sob for people I didn’t know.  I was the stranger there, I was a tourist.  In the end, my visit there turned out to be one of the most unexpected memories of my trip as one of my professors joined me, and told me his story.  His mother was a political prisoner there, she was pregnant with him at the time.  I sobbed some more.  I listened to his story and we had a private moment as he walked with me through the museum and showed me each panel as though he was showing me a private photo album.  He wanted us there, he was grateful to share this place with us and every class he brought there.  He encouraged us to take pictures, and I did.  He extended our photography lessons in that place, he didn’t just want us to take snapshots, he wanted us to make them beautiful.

I’ve been thinking a lot about celebrating death these days.  I watched Whitney Houston’s funeral on tv and had a long conversation with a friend that day about how we eulogize.  I have a favorite clip on youtube and it’s at someone’s funeral.  Somebody I didn’t know, someone who was clearly loved and I am grateful that someone shared that moment, and it made me think – I want that joy to erupt when I go.  It’s a gorgeous tribute, you should watch it.

I can’t think of anything worse than having my own grieving made public, those moments when you are so completely lost and raw.  But, I have.  I have poured my heart out freely on my podcast about many different kinds of losses and on 9/11 itself, I’ve sent words of encouragement to family on the anniversary of someone’s death on facebook.  We eulogize, that’s what we do.  And sometimes the way we do it doesn’t work for everyone.  Maybe that is what happens in that moment I catch walking by.  I don’t know the whole story, I don’t know their stories or the context of their pilgrimage.

But, I also think of the survivors and their families who might need a private moment and instead have people capturing their misery.  I suppose that’s why I leave this city every year on the anniversary and over time I’ve learned my own boundaries of what I share publicly, I tend to hold the most delicate things the most private.  I had to determine that for myself.  I guess at the heart of it is the sense that by living here, I have to share that and cede that control and sometimes it just feels like people visiting have no regard for that.

Gosh, I didn’t intend for this to be so long winded, but I guess I’m realizing it’s complicated and something I always see as unforgivable might actually be something else.

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Trapped In My Apartment (Chapter 1), R. Kelly rewriten by Nicole

8 o'clock in the morning and sounds of hammering and sawing wake me up
I'm stretching and cursing in a bed that belongs to me
Then the sound of wood being thrown out the front door
Then I look outside and see a neighbor looking inside, he starts to talk to my landlord
Now I’m thinking about all the things I needed to do outside my apartment and wonder
How am I gonna get out with no stairs
I watched some tv, wrote a grocery list, did some dishes
Last night I could have run those errands when I got home but I put them off until today
Here I am trying to pass the time
Tried to take a nap, but the hammering was just too loud
Then I cleaned my cabinets looking for food
I needed to go food shopping today
Then I made a PB&J sandwich with what I had
Crept to the top of the stairs to see how bad it was
It was bad, there are steps missing
I said to myself “There is no way out”
“Man, I gotta get out!”
He is still working on the stairs
I got back into my apartment, closed the door
I read some blogs, checked my email
Looked out the window
The pile of wood is getting bigger
He’s knocking more stairs out
And now I'm in this apartment trying to figure out
Just how I'm gonna get my crazy ass out this house
And he hammers some more
And I tweet about my predicament
And @theambershow says I need to grow my hair like Rapunzel
And I reply to come with a ladder to rescue me
And she says she’ll bring a ladder and a dashing fireman
I start making piles of laundry to do
When I can get out again to go to the laundromat
I cleaned my spice rack, found some expired jars to throw out
Now my garbage is filling up
But I have to slow down my cleaning
I can’t get outside to throw the bag out if it fills up
Hammer
Saw
Hammer
Hammer
Saw
Hammer
Saw
Hammer
Staple
Staple
Wood being thrown
And I’m creeping around because my landlord is home
An he’s getting closer to my door as he finishes each step
And I get quieter
And more bored
I need to get out of the house and make the most of this day

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Growing up I was the tall girl.  I split my chin one summer and the doctor at the emergency room didn't want to give me stitches.  It was assumed I'd be so tall people, many shorter folks might be looking up at me…so I was sent to a plastic surgeon.  Legend had it my Grandfather was over 6 feet, so it was assumed I took after him.   I stopped growing in the 4th or 5th grade.  And in this photo taken in 6th grade, I still had a few inches on my classmates (I'm the one with the goofy braces, crimped bangs and MY GOD, I loved that comfy sweatsuit/skirt contraption).  Everyone continued growing and I stayed put, at 5 foot 2. *  Except for the inconvenience of having to consider whether I'll wear heels when I have to hem every pair of pants I buy, like I'd imagine most of us, I stopped thinking about my height as a changing variable somewhere around the early years of high school.

Then, I went for my semi-annual – whenever I get around to it – physical.  There were routine questions, there was the "open up and say Ahh", the tetanus shot I'm still sorry I got, and then I was weighed and measured.  "5'4." "No, I'm 5'2"." Hmm, turn around, let me do it again."  "Turn around and look, you're 5'4"."  I asked him to check his records.  I've stuck with the same doctor for over 10 years now.  He'd measured me 4 times before.  Always 5'2'.  I was amused and asked if he got a new scale.  He hadn't, and so we checked again.  At 33 years old I grew 2 inches.  WTF!?!  I know.  Then he asked if I've been seeing a Chiropractor.  Apparently it happens sometimes when you are doing exercises that lengthen your spine.  It's been a month since I've gone for physical therapy, and I'd probably need to start doing yoga regularly if I'm going to keep these two inches.  I'm still skeptical, it's not like I've been squinched down two inches since I was 10, but he explained it doesn't work like that.  I also don't think you can just get taller as an adult.  But, apparently I did.  I need to have someone measure me with my own measuring tape, but I won't be asking my Dad – he'll still call me Nitroll :)

*except for in California where the DMV mistook my 2 for a 7 so my liscene had me at 5'7

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• Have you seen "that meme" on the internet? @joshey @mattgunn
• In which I just find out WWOR out of Secaucus in the 80s was not national and @macantone was not A list to all kids with "Steampipe Alley"
• How come those bears don't come and clean it all up

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I really didn't know what to do with you this year.  There were awesome invites to celebrate with friends, one overlooking the crowds in Times Square, the other a cozy promise of fun staying local in the borough.  I wanted to do both, perhaps cut myself in half or leave the decision to the last minute, and maybe do neither.   Luckily my friends are cool with that and nothing was set it stone or required a solid decision.  I wasn’t worried, maybe you would work yourself out, maybe I’d chose wrong and be disappointed.  C’est la vie.

For the first time in a few years, I wasn't feeling hasty to end this one.  Not just yet.  It has been a really good year (icky catastrophes excluded of course).  I want to slow time, it goes too fast already.  I'm in love and a nostalgic fool.  The pressure to make you as perfect as possible was in the back of my mind, and it wasn’t just about me – slightly intimidating and smile inducing.  Gosh, you’re so complicated.  It’s also been a busy year, I was tired and enjoying the laziness of the holiday break.  So you snuck up, you went too fast.  You are sort of a jerk that way, and yet I appreciate that about you.  

You started with routine errands and became an adventure that found bounties of bagels, unexpected ceramic wares, Brooklyn scenery, and people watching.  You were a beautiful day, unseasonably warm and I was just enjoying walking, hours flew by as we walked.  It had been too long since I'd done that.  This back injury is frustrating, I've been benched for months.  But, I don't want to talk about pain, it makes me feel old and boring.  And, you don’t talk about fight club.   I'm gratefully starting to trust that this pain isn't permanent, I just have to go slow, and I'm not very good at that.  On your day, I overdid it and the decision of how to spend the evening was becoming one of deduction.  When I would have been getting ready, I had to rest.  We had to rest.

I mentioned I'm in love, which is unicorn, partner in crime cliche, double rainbow fantastic.  But when we’re not on Cloud 9 in our happy bubble, we’re mortals and we’ve been swimming in snot covered tissues recovering from colds most recently.  Somewhat sweet, since not spent alone and the cuddles are precious; but being sick is just crappy.  Compounded with the screaming appearance of Arthur (I’m stealing my Grandmother’s expression for cursed arthritis, which is maddening when settled in your sciatic nerve and sounds only slightly less boring when personified…and I already said I don’t want to talk about it).  We considered making dinner reservations.  Table for 2.  Maybe 4 if we brought our bugs with us, 5 if Arthur stuck around.  Nah, it’s more fun when it’s just the two of us.

And, somehow it all fell into place, as I can always trust you to do.  A spontaneous text from a friend I hadn’t seen in too long, turned into a visit.  I didn’t have to get dressed, made a quick trip to the store for food stuffs and ate and drank in good company.  The three of us watched a silly movie and set out around 11 in search of something I’d never heard of, only having read a vague mention of the tradition the day before.  Something local involving steam whistles and BYOB, another little adventure.  I put on my zip up onesey pajamas under my coat and packed a bag with some booze.  We found the Pratt campus with our ears and got there just in time to claim a spot at the front.  

The gut-vibrating whistles were intense, we giggled, my face was frozen in a huge smile.  I forgot about my cold, there might even be something medicinal regarding deep sound massage and chiropractic sciences, but I wasn’t drinking that heavily.  I’m just finally re-learning how to pause, I didn't notice the clock strike 12.  There were many kisses, I was really happy.  It was perfect and yet so perfectly not.  You’re just another day after all.  But, I do love punctuation and exclamation points and you sure made a loud exit .  Next year, I know you’ll creep up again too quickly, and I might even plan for you this time, or maybe not.  I also love ellipses.

Cheers!

Nicole

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2010  2009  2008

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As I was considering buying a kindle I knew it was eating something in the core of me, something I wrote about my first semester of college.  To buy one would be to have to eat my words.  Words stated with such hilarious certainty, I was giggling while reading them aloud today.

There is a lot of cringe-worthy irony in this essay from 1996, but I was a freshman and everyone knows how annoying and self righteous college kids are.  Apparently I was a Luddite 15 years ago and had no clue what the future would look like.

The Persistence of Books

Webster’s dictionary defines the word replacement as “substitution;  to supplant or supersede; filling a place once occupied by something lost, destroyed or no longer useable or adequate, something that has become obsolete, or otherwise inferior.”  To argue that computers will one day replace books is a ridiculous statement based on the above definition.  To imagine a future without books is lunacy.  We are not living in the science fiction world of Fahrenheit 451.  The mere suggestion is a frightful commentary on society.

True, the twentieth century has brought the technological revolution to a breakneck  pace, but have people grown THAT cold?  So cold that one could imagine a computerized voice reading a child a bed-time story, or worse—bringing a computerized book to the beach on a sunny day?  So cold that the general public is comfortable with this prospect?  It is not the concept of change that is most concerning, but the deviance from unadulterated goodness.

There is no substitution for the scent of a new book, the aroma of new ink and paper.  One can not manufacture a leather-bound, gold tooled—computer; not convincingly, anyway.  There is not nearly as much satisfaction in punching keys as flipping pages through your fingers.  There is no such thing as a dog-eared disk. 

Unfortunately one has to see the reality in this issue.  To many, computers are an exciting step forward.  People have already begun the blasphemous act of downloading books and, in fact, reading them off their screens.  And no, printing a volume does not justify the blatant disregard for the fact that there is a nice little square book that already exists.  CD-ROM technology in the way of reference material is becoming very popular, especially among the younger generation of computer users.  

Personally, I use a PC, and I have no problem with the occasional use of computer resources.  I stress the term occasional, because I find the thought of never returning to the library to proceed with the sometimes tedious research process appalling.  There is a certain charm to be found in the labor of researching, and a triumph in discovering what you are looking for.

With new technology emerging, computers are shrinking in size.  Hand held computers make it more imaginable to slip under the covers before bed with a computerized novel.  The concept of teleputers and interactive computers brings new media to the public eye.  The general public seems to be excited by the prospect of interfering in the natural course of a defined plot.  Interactive books would not only defeat the purpose of suspense but eliminate the demand for talent.

Television and radio probably aroused the same feelings within the literary community.  As the concept of computerized literature brings this forum to a new height, the novelty of bookstores such as W.B. Dalton and Wordsworth’s diminishes.  Will paperbacks be as laughable to our children as 8 tracks are to my generation?  Am I the only person cringing?  Will libraries be partitioned between hard copy and virtual information?

We are entering a strange new world where something as solid as a book is both literally and conceptually fading.  Though it can be substituted in concept, a book will never be replaced in actuality.  The computer age has already begun to overshadow tradition and is a continuous threat to the stability a book represents.  The essence of a book is undeniably unique and will not be overlooked or supplanted by a computer.

-

What the fuck is a teleputer anyway?

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Search Urban Dictionary for your name when you're feeling down.  Instant pick me up.

Crossword wrapping paper from Incredible Things by Fabio Milito

Underskin by Sam Loman on behance

Still Tasty to keep the fridge gremlins away

DNA portraits – I will have one someday

Cntrl Alt Delete wall decals by Dali decals

Folding wooden picnic table that seats 4 on outdorra

Google Maps envelopes

Best map of the world….ever on someecards

If Ikea made instructions for everything on College Humor

Stolen treasures from the LAPD

Charles Darwin Butterfly, South American Map from bugsunderglass

686 Original Snow Toolbelt from eternalsnow

Oh Natlie Dee and her awesome brain

emoticon rubber stamp found on blankanvas for purchase at caina.jp

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"In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it
You'll be the grandest blah blah in the Easter parade.
I'll be all in clover, and when they look us over…
da dum dum dum dum da da da da da da"

This started running through my head the night before Easter.  And immediately I thought "Life List, I need to add it!  I want to wear an Easter bonnet and go to an Easter parade!"  Then I thought, "Maybe next year." 

Then I started talking about it and in less than 10 minutes found out there is an Easter Parade on Fifth Avenue and I still had time to buy a hat, and OMG, this could happen.  I found a hat and a big gigantic butterfly, some sewing skills I didn't even know I had came into play, and I had a hat.  A big ridiculous Easter-ish bonnet.

Timing was going to be tricky and the weather looked borderline rotten.  But, I got out of bed and headed toward St. Patrick's cathedral.

Mission Accomplished.  Then I came home and read the actual lyrics and it turns out….

"On the avenue, Fifth Avenue,
The photographers will snap us…"

I was at the actual Easter parade the song is about! 

New Easter tradition?  I don't know.  It was humid and the avenue was packed with more tourists than bonnet-wearers and a few folks asked to take my picture which led to an internal panic and dialogue that resembled Woody Allen more than Judy Gardland… but there was an Easter bonnet, or at least a hat, and I carried it around all day until the butterfly disintegrated in the rain.  I added something to my life list and accomplished in in less than 24 hours.  Funny how you may not realize you want to do something til you say it aloud and then poof, you can do it if you set an alarm and make it happen.

Thanks @mattgunn for the photos

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