On The Road Again

Taking a little trip out to Boston (and Cambridge!!) with my mom and godmother!
Back Monday night.

Off to marvel at the Ivy...!

Saturday Songs

Enjoy the following from Belle & Sebastian, one of my favorite bands. They're quirky, funny and make for a good, entertaining listen. And they have great accents.

 

Dear Catastrophe Waitress - An appropriate pick for today. Didn't have my best balance working the lunch shift today. I dropped a whole basket of bread, and several knives. Whoops. 

 

Funny Little Frog - Listen and you will soon realize the appeal. It's uplifting, while at the same time bizarre when you really think about the lyrics. House to myself tonight, so my conversations are likely to be "a little one-sided, but that's all right."

Other favorite B & S songs; 

Expectations

Blues Are Still Blue

For the Price of a Cup of Tea

Piazza, New York Catcher

Similar artists include Vampire Weekend, the Shins, Stars & Regina Spektor

Stephen Colbert Super PAC

http://www.colbertsuperpac.com

 

        I love Stephen Colbert for making such a loud point about pacs, money and politics. He's proving that money talks, loudly. But that's all it does, talks.

        I went online and wrote in 106 characters or less what I stand for (and you should too!) I think words and conversations beat out silence, but immediate action beats out words. We need to spend less time arguing over the debt crisis, and more time making actual changes. Only by doing can we get things done. Now, this philosophy may appear naive. Surely we can't just jump into action whenever we feel like it, otherwise we may find ourselves treading water in the middle of a decade long war that's taking more than it's giving. Surely laws need to exist to prevent bold decisions- But what about the not so bold decisions? People can't talk about anything except the debt crisis these days-- So why not make a radical change in policy and see what happens? Nothing can be worse than what we're facing right now, so why not take action?

Combinations

Some things go together.

Peanut butter and chocolate, 

White & Black

Sun & Sand,

Movies & Popcorn,

Macaroni & Cheese,

Wine & Cheese,

Batman & Robin,

John & Yoko.

Things go together because the compliment one another. One has qualities that the other lacks. They're responsible for picking up the slack. They work together and don't hold each other back. 

Things that go together fit. There's no question that hands were meant to be held, because the shapes mold so easily. Similarly, we complete puzzles by finding the edges that compliment one another, the edges that snap into place.

We don't doubt that plain shorts go with patterned tops or that 

ice cream is topped with whipped cream. No other arrangements would really make sense, and certainly wouldn't be appealing to the eye or tongue. 

Combinations of words sound smooth together, like classic poems, nursery rhymes, or 

the rhythms of 50 cent or slam poets. 

Assonance and alliteration build sentences that flow 

like honey out of lips and into ears, 

beautiful for the whole world to hear.

Dynamic duos are timeless. 

We remember combinations, 

whether they're the codes to our safes,

the artists playing on our radio,

or the sustenance between two slices of whole wheat bread. 

And then there are things that don't go together,

like milk shakes and cartwheels,

sushi and bowling

(a combo I experienced this evening),

texting and driving, 

and, well, I'm drawing a blank.

I guess combos are a bit more memorable

than non-combos!! 

Creme Brulee Finger & Stupidity

        Had a minor finger surgery today. They pumped a ton of anesthetics into my middle finger, and removed some strange foreign object that I don't remember ever entering my poor hand. The doctor used some strange fire-related tool to "seal up the wound." The process reminded me of creme brulee, although not as appetizing.

 

        As I was driving home, I ended up behind this tiny, beat up automobile with all of these heinous, right-wing bumper stickers. Now, I can try to understand Republicans and hear them out if they present their ideals sanely. What I don't understand is stupidity. One of this woman's stickers read "When Liberals ask you for change, say you don't have any." Tell me how this is cooperative, kind, or hopeful. When I read that, I felt sorry for her. All I could think was Wow, you really have no sense of spirit, and no desire to help bring about change.  

        I'm not a fan of party politics. I don't think having a wing-system brings us any closer to accomplishments, because the game of politics itself detracts from the issues we face as a nation. When we all sit around and complain about the administration, or slap meaningless stickers on our bumpers, we simply feed the problem and make it larger. The only way to make things better is by finding representatives who will act instead of speak, who will go out in do instead of dwell on mistakes.

Sun Shower

The rain came fast.
Poured down so hard, you could barely see out the windows.
She poured some tea.
She lit some incense.
And then the sun peaked out and changed the entire mood of the shower.
She poured the tea down the drain,
and went out to lie on the newly watered lawn.

Nature can be funny sometimes, and so can she.

Tarnished

Tarnished

Mother sat peacefully on the porch,
looking young and pretty in her pale blue apron.
Her auburn curls tied back to keep her neck cool,
her foot tapping to the beat of the transistor radio
and the whir of our twenty year old fridge

She told me that clouds are lined with silver
the day we laid in the grass watching white pirate ships float.
The wind came and carried them away.

I’ve only found linings of charcoal, or some vicious
purple, like the blackberries we ate in Elysium.
you licking the dark juice from my rounded fingertips,
I sat wondering if life had anything more perfect to offer.
The wind came and carried you away.

Your voice, smooth as honey, flows into my head at night,
and we sway to the sound of silence, the two of us
on a balcony under the starry summer sky. Silver, then.
But when dawn’s pink fingers pry through my curtains,
I open my eyes to the tremendous distance that remains

between us— back to black.
I lounge with mother, breathing in the thick southern air,
sipping sweet tea and trying to polish the soot off these clouds.

IKEA!

If you've never been to Ikea, I strongly suggest that you go. I went today with my brother, so that he could buy some new stuff for his dorm room. It was a furniture store on steroids, an interior designer's dream, a decorative extravaganza! I love decorating-- When I can't fall asleep, I always imagine intricate kitchens, front lawns, living rooms, etc. So, naturally, I went crazy! It was room after room of shiny sinks, beautiful rugs, organized shelves and fluffy beds.

Besides being a great place to fantasize about decorating my future dorm room, apartment or house, I also thought of what a cute date going to Ikea would make (like in the movie 500 Days of Summer).
Anyway, it's been a long day of shopping and driving. Off to bed, to dream of that gorgeous store all wrapped up in my brand new comforter!

Twenty Seven Club

Kind of a morbid name, you have to admit. This post goes out to all those musical artists who died at the young age of 27. There's even a whole, official site dedicated to them. (here)

Amy Winehouse: 14 September 1983 – 23 July 2011

  

Kurt Cobain: February 20, 1967 – c. April 5, 1994
 

Jimi Hendrix: November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970

Janis Joplin:  January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970

Saturday Songs

Going along with the alliteration of the title of this post, enjoy the following!

 

Classic: The Beatles

 

  

The Black Keys: a new favorite

Notecards

Some random note cards I found:

eating grapefruit at the bar and inspiring other people, letting them know that life is so important

Silent.

Getting stranded in the post office parking lot in our frozen car because the battery died while listening to music. No cell service, and the building is hardly warmer than the inside of the car, slowly creeping towards unbearable. 

 

"...you find yourself studying the fine colors on the river, you feel wonder and awe at the setting of the sun, and you are filled with a hard, aching love for how the world could be and always should be, but now is not." -Tim O'Brien The Things They Carried

It’s not her fault she’s falling,

No one handed her a rope

She’s wading through hot waters,

In desperate search for hope

Her eyes are full of salty drops

And her black hair wearing thin,

Seeing the shambles in her life,

She has not a clue where to begin.

Too Hot For a Post

Sitting in Irving Farm to escape what feels like the hottest day Connecticut has experienced. Have to admit I love the heat though. It's phenomenal. 















To suit the mood, here are some quotes from StoryPeople, 

I have a friend who took all the doors out of his house one summer. It reminds me there's nothing I have that's worth hiding, he said. No secrets is the key to world peace. He put them all back on that winter. I decided it was peaceful enough for me, he said. 

***

 What if we all got along & people loved each other & sang songs about peace? he said. Would that be a good world? & I said I didn't know about that, but it would be a good summer camp & he looked at me & shook his head & said, It's no wonder you're leaving us with such a mess.

***

 melting in the slow heat of a summer night, damp with the dark air & thoughts of you 

 ***

And a great Dave Matthews song (don't mock) that I love listening to in the summer:

 

In the land of dreams

        The sky was the color of eggplant. Stars reflected, writing dreams upon her face. She gazed out there just wondering how to get to the great beyond. She imagined and invented things that she thought might exist....out there. 

Found at kelliehill.blogspot.com
Check out her site!

        A place with an endless supply of warm, balmy days. Lemonade glasses so tall and cold, and always full. Toe nail polish that never chipped. Laughter rolling over the mountains, turning every drop of water into a crisp diamond. Running bare-foot through the grass and not having to turn back. A land of sunshine so pure it immediately made your skin golden brown and your hair shiny blonde. Sailboats and fishermen and mermaids swimming alongside dolphins. Shelves stocked with ripe avocados, Colombian coffee and Swiss chocolate. A place where your favorite song, the one your grandmother used to play over and over as she lulled you to sleep, would play on forever, and not on replay. The song would extend forward, continuing into the hills as you danced along at your own pace, just waiting to hear what else the instruments had in store.

        The sky looked like eggplant that night. She dreamed. She sent those visions off to the land of supernovas. The place where the Fates sit. The place where the cosmos combine and it all happens.

Blog Title Irony

There's a depressing irony in the fact that I named this blog Little Miss Muffins. I recently went gluten-free, and it is one of the hardest diets to stick to! Wheat products are in basically everything. I read something that said even some toothpastes are bad for celiacs. 

TOOTHPASTE SHOULD NOT HAVE GLUTEN! 

Anyway, now I guess I need to find some gluten-free muffin recipes to try out. That should be...fun. 

I have no idea why the little wheat stalk below looks so happy. I'd be happier with a bagel, instead of eating rice, and reindeer food as my friend described it (carrots and celery).

Found this guy on thesmartkitchenblog.com

 

 

This post is about human connection.

        So I recently began reading The Cider House Rules by John Irving. I've found it to be pretty unique so far-- I'm only 100 or so pages in and so much has unfolded already. I've found parts innocently describing bedtime stories and sections just pages later that describe dirty prostitutes and unsafe abortions.  It's gripping and different from what I've been used to lately. Here's a bit I enjoyed today:

If you love no one, and feel that no one loves you, there's no one with the power to sting you by pointing out that you're lying. If an orphan is not adopted by the time he reaches the alarming period of adolescence, he may continue to deceive himself, and others, forever. He believes he can trick the world. He believes he is invulnerable. An adolescent who is an orphan at this phase is in danger of never growing up.

        At the end of the day, what counts is human connection. It's a bit like rock climbing, if you dare indulge. You can't start a successful climb without the proper gear, and a well-trained spotter. What matters is having someone to grab your rope, before anyone else even realizes it's slipping. We need reliable lifelines who aren't deceitful, people who can see the whole face of the cliff and let us know where to put our hands and feet when we get stuck. We need friends who will stand at the top of the cliff ready to lift us out of our pits, put blankets on our back and salve on our hands. We need people to give us slack, give us tension, and help us stay safe as we crawl our way up our massive rock face. If we don't find these spotters, we'll either be too stunted to start the climb, or end up plummeting off of it somewhere in the middle.

Morals of the story:

• Adopt orphans so they have a home
• Read John Irving
• Don't go rock climbing under-prepared.

The Gas Pedal

She's drive a car that doesn't have brakes. 

Dangerous, one might think, but really, it isn't.

The road she's on has no stop signs, no red lights, 

no places to turn around.

She's able to ease up off the gas,

to slow down and take in the scenery.

But, the only way to stop would be to take her foot off the pedal.

She's never tried this approach, and she's afraid if she does,

the car may never start again.

She'd be stranded, with no directions home.

Besides, there's no need to stop, no need to reach for that brake

that isn't there.

There's far too much to see, 

too many places to go.

Variety Hour

Early start to the day- Headed on an adventure...first east, then north. 
Wanted to leave you with some stuff to peruse while I'm gone, since I won't be posting much until Saturday or Sunday (please check back, though!) 

The theme of this week's Variety Hour is dreams...~

I always buy cards in this style. They have the best quotations!!

"Around My Head" by Cage the Elephant, performed on David Letterman. 

I always play this song after I have a dream about an old friend or memory that I didn't particularly want to relive in my subconscious. 

Best line: "You got me tangled like a braid, tied twisted." (though I sing it, "like a bread-tie twisted", because I like the sound of that much better. Way more original)

My brother got me into this band-- New rock, pretty good stuff. I have two of their albums off of itunes. Check them out! 

And from his tongue leapt promises--emptier than their cabinets,

and his pockets.

But at least his words were rich enough to satisfy

her most ambitious dreams.

{piece from a Tori Original Notecard, dated 2010}

Ciao,

TB

 

Stair Stepper (pt 4)

Read part 1 then part 2, followed by part 3, and then if you're still interested, read this:

         ...But you’ll also feel higher, in position and in mentality. It’s a queasy feeling, altitude sickness, perhaps, or overexertion. Nonetheless, it’s a high that you cannot ignore. When that next opportunity to jump arises, you check that your shoelaces are tied and push off with vigor. You struggle, but remember, if I did it once, I can do it again
         This mentality may work, but should be used with caution. Eventually our muscles thin and our bones break down. As time passes, we cannot handle the full climb. But our minds drive us to accelerate, to push through and just do it. 
         We keep moving up the belts, waving at those we surpass and grumbling about the individuals who always manage to stay a step ahead. And so, the distinct rungs of our society form. Much like the revolving belt at the airport, the escalator doesn’t care whether you’ve gathered your bags. It’s going to keep moving and climbing, so hold onto your hats and your competitive drive.

Photo is from this site

For now, that was the last part. If you've read them all, I'd love to hear your thoughts (preferably the positive ones, but criticisms keep me on my toes too.)

An Organized Disaster

She keeps track of time with those fluorescent lines. Watching the days slip by, by, by.

My lovely lovely desk where I work, think and write. The papers are scattered, but have a definite system to them which only I will ever understand.

Off to work, all day and night! Hopefully time for a more in depth post later.

See The Sun, Drink The Stars

At every corner, there were decisions. There was danger. There were reasons to worry and to panic and to fret about money, and time, and sadness, and pain.

But somewhere she knew that with beauty, and imagination, and a love for life,

she couldn't possibly fail.

So she woke with the sun. She poured it over her arms; let it warm her face.

She sat on the roof at night and drank up the stars, admiring the stellar arrangements.

She let her bare feet get covered in the morning dew as she walked through green, damp grass.

She approached every corner unafraid of making the turn.

On the improbability of changing others

You laugh until you cry,

You cry until you laugh,

Everyone must breath

Until their dying breath. ~ Regina Spektor

Oxygen to the blood, body and brain is essential to life. I could get scientific and state the reasons for this, but I passed AP Bio and would like to go down a different road right now.

            You can’t change people unless they’re willing to be changed by you. I try to fight this; I try to justify actions and analyze conversations, tendencies, and emotions. I break them down as if they are scientific notations that could be re-written in a way that can be understood. In fact, most things can be boiled down, condensed, picked apart to tidbits. But, they become indistinguishable pieces of a greater idea, and these tidbits rarely represent the person as a whole, a disintegration which renders the whole process useless.   

            I’ve attempted to change the way people are or how they act or simply how I view them. It always fails. In the end, we control our own breathing. We only have power over ourselves. My telling my mother to not eat a dozen Oreos for lunch will not deter her, but rather make her angry. Debate, as much as I love it, rarely succeeds in convincing one opponent to change his position; it only provokes argument. Thinking that the person whom your heart vacantly aches for will wake up one day and realize he’s wrong will probably leave you pretty lonely. Some parts of life aren’t worth meddling with, and so we musn’t try to get involved past the points where we’ve been welcomed. Like the human instinct to breathe, some things cannot be changed until death.  

Post inspired by this Regina Spektor song. I like it, for the most part...except for the part about November Rain, for reasons left unexplained.

Saturday Songs

One of my favorite songs by the White Stripes. Makes me imagine that I'm someplace else, someplace lovely and full of life. Someplace like this:

Now with that image in my head, I'm off to work! 
Ciao, 
Enjoy your Saturday. It's beautiful outside today.

Go-Fish

        You may or may not have figured out by now that we're all playing a game. The game of life. It's a common phrase, yes. In this game, we have no rule books. There's room for bluffing. The world has cheaters, and people who play by their own rules. Some people bore us constantly by using the same perpetual strategies, refusing to change things up.
        The fates, or God, or whatever power you believe in deals out unique hands; these sets of cards are equipped with our hereditary info, our characteristics, our intelligence. Some of this info should remain secret. If we share our hand with anyone else, at all, we increase our chances of losing. Our cards are sacred, a special extension of ourselves. So, make sure your friends don't have any mirrors set up behind you--especially if you have something to hide.

        Secrets are bound to spill (as in England, with the recent phone hacking scandal, or the wiki-leaks incident months ago). So make sure to hold your hand tightly close to your chest, keep it safe. When asked to reveal your cards, just say "Go-Fish," let other people keep searching around for the cards they want--don't let them get off easily with your hand. When so much of our modern world focuses on over-sharing, via Facebook or Twitter, our own personal matters are the only sacred thing left.

Stair Stepper (pt 3)

Read Part 1 and then Part 2 .....

It seems unlikely, since we as a society are often told that ‘there is always room for improvement.’ We work to diminish the amount of space between ourselves and the perfection we seek. We keep decreasing the distance by a half, ridding ourselves of flaws and making the cuts we see necessary. Eventually, we end up climbing along a horizontal asymptote that travels straight along a path destined for infinity. One cannot reach the finish line, but neither can one plummet to the ground. We hover over the line, driven to keep that status for as long as we can hold out.

            How does it work? We get locked into these different stairwells of status, setting the pace and the grade to the lifestyle of our choice. We buy the fancy car, but cringe each time the payments arrive in the mail. We attend prestigious universities, only to be swallowed by loans upon graduation. Yet, once we set that bar, we have to keep climbing despite the intensity. Life is not like a stair master. You can’t hit “Quit Workout” and take a drink, you’d be looked down upon for sure. No one enjoys dealing with that kind of humiliation, the type that crawls under your skin like ants aggregating over a lollipop. So you stay on, watched by the other gym-goers. You sweat and you push until you’re feeling fainter than ever.....

Variety Hour

Been a bit too busy to sit and write these past few days. Too busy to get something good onto the page. So this is Variety Hour, a few random snippits of cool stuff I've found, heard, or seen, just to spice things up. 

Invitation:

It is not what you think, this reaching across the generations. There is no effort of will, no fierce glare in the face of the sideways dance of everyday. There is only the quiet house each morning, filled with soft breathing while you hold your tea in the cool air & always that moment when your love spreads a cloth upon the table & invites the whole day in again.

This is a small snippet from StoryPeople, a group of artists who enjoy writing about what makes life unique or strange. They have some great stuff on their site, including note cards with fabulous stuff on them.

The bumper of an awesome little retro car. I often engage in this fantasy in which I'm wearing a classic 1930s outfit, with my hair curled and tied back in a handkerchief and funky glasses on, sitting next to someone dressed like Jay Gatsby. We're listening to show tunes or something like this, having an amazing time.

A landscape shot of Vermont. Who knew it was so beautiful there? (They may have no major cities or a bustling population, but they have fantastic ice cream and cheese!!)

 Finished this great book last night, A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert. It follows the lives of roughly 8 women, spanning across 3 or 4 generations, and tells their tales of triumph, war, love and desperation. I found it marvelous. Her writing techniques really  hooked me, and toward the end I could not put it down.



Time for coffee. Sitting on my porch because I'm up awfully early this morning, so I thought I'd enjoy the brightness of the day.

Those Jazz Guys

        Jazz musicians; they sway with the rhythm. They smile and nod as they play. They squint their eyes in the middle of a song, and just from looking at their expression, you can feel the emotion on stage.
        They wear hats. Glasses, sometimes. They play sax, clarinet, bass, piano. They play their hearts on brass instruments; they tug on their strings. The music leaks out of the pipes and into your ears and suddenly you're inside the piece. It wraps its tight arms around you and persuades you to tap your willing feet. You do. You're moved by the sound, by the jazz, by the soulful feeling that can only be brought out by music.

        She doesn't play piano. She can't sing a tune to save her life. But she listens. She sits and closes her eyes, letting the sound take her far away. She knows that the answers are written on some sort of scale. The proper key to open the doors will be found in one of those beats, one of those long and rhythmic pieces. She takes in the melodies, then goes home and taps away at her own keys. So what if the sounds don't quite equate? ~

Keep Hold of Your Royal Flush

        He may have spoken truths. But just how true those truths were, she didn't expect to find out. First she thought in circles, tightly bound in the pits of her stomach. Then she let her thoughts run in lines again. She let them prance onto pages of notebooks and note cards. She signed them and placed them in envelopes, then hid them to be found as treasures later on. Mindful treasure that would serve as a document of history. Her face flushed when she read documents from years past; these too, will draw smiles one day.

        She isn't a fool. She believed in everything at first, because she had to. Then she realized how silly it is to latch onto the words of anyone else, because words are not solid. They represent, in their purest form, ambiguity. Interpretation. These qualities make language fun, but unreliable, and hurtful at times. She listens now, nods and smiles, but does little else. After all, life is a game of cards and she's been dealt a solid hand. But she'll be wise to hold onto her hearts until the outcome is for certain. She can't afford to gamble.

Crazy for Coffee

If you're reading this blog, you must know an important fact about me. I am a coffee addict. I have been ever since I was a little girl and my dad would give it to me in my pink plastic teacups.
Last night I was thinking of what dessert to make for my mom and her friends and decided to make espresso chip bars. Paired with a nice iced coffee (in an over-sized mason jar...of course), this makes a delectable dessert. Perfect to suit both a chocolate and caffeine fix!