...gwendoes

2013-04-17 399 notes

Gwyneth Paltrow talks about Thug Kitchen

thugkitchen:

Well ain’t this some wild shit. Gwyneth Paltrow showing love for TK on Rachel Ray.

Source: thugkitchen

2013-03-19 753 notes

miklem:

hipsters…. “How to be a Cool Person, A Guide by a Second Grader”. Via laughingsquid

Source: Laughing Squid

“When we imagine things we don’t want to imagine, why can’t we stop ourselves?”

Weeks into our trip to Spain in 2005, A. and I happened upon a surprisingly wee lifesize bronze statue of Mr. Allen in an inconspicuous plaza in Oviedo. The plaque beside it says: ”Oviedo is Delicious, Exotic, Beautiful, Clean, Pleasant, Peaceful, and Kind to Pedestrians. It’s as if it doesn’t belong to this world, as if it didn’t exist … Oviedo is like a Fairy Tale” While in town we traded some money at an exchange, ate at a fancy McDonald’s and counted mullets, and wondered about life on the farm. Oviedo is the capital of Asturias, a province in Northern Spain, which was (quite proudly) never conquered by the Moors.

Before we’d flown to Spain we’d spent a night in Miami with the Beatos. Syl’s Dad grew up in the Dominican Republic, became a priest, told off Mother Teresa in a contentious meeting and eventually left the priesthood and the island. In Florida he later met Syl’s mom, an Asturian immigrant, blond and beautiful, already a mother of three. They raised my beautiful poet friend in Miami where she, of the delicate wrists, fell in love with everything. Her mother told us stories over dinner about the most beautiful, lush hilly country where we’d be spending a number of weeks. I repeated the lines from the ad we’d read on the website for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms - we’d be picking our own food, practicing Spanish and learning to work an organic farm.

Sylvia and Frances drove us to the airport and we were off. I cried a little on the flight - there was no grown-up traveling with us. We had backpacks with summer clothes, a few books each, a sleeping bag and phone cards. Did we even have phone cards? They may have been purchased along the way.

This month I finally read “The Four Agreements,” but they would have served me well that summer - especially, “Don’t Take Things Personally.” One of the senior residents of the farm (which was called ESCANDA - espacio social colectivo para la autogestion la diversidad y la autonomia,”) was a British woman called Louise. She was slim, dark, pretty, but harsh and angular. She often wore plaid, rolled her own cigarettes, dated a local shepherd named Finnian and mocked me mercilessly. That summer was the first time I practiced yoga regularly, in the cold musty basement of the old farmhouse, one outside wall of which was shot full of musketballs.

I imagined, in my allergy-medication-induced lethargy, that shutting up about my unhappiness was better than expressing it. One week when a new WWOOFer arrived, full of enthusiasm and plans to paint a mural on the farm it occurred to me: I had been there for five weeks thinking I had nothing to offer. I’d imagined that my ideas, input, thoughts and feelings were completely unwelcome. I’d spent days blowing my nose, lying on the bug-ridden mattress that rested on four elementary-school chairs, reading every English language book in the house, and occasionally dipping one toe at a time into a Spanish book here and there.

The book that stays most with me from that summer was a long-form journalistic piece by Gabriel Garcia Marquez called “News of a Kidnapping.”I learned more about Pablo Escobar that summer than i did about organic farming. This is not to say that I was utterly useless on the farm. On Mondays 12-20 of us would gather at breakfast in the kitchen without refrigeration, eating dark, mealy bread that had been baked downstairs, smearing it with local butter and homemade preserves, drinking thick, rich coffee made in two percolators…

2012-10-28 1 note

This one strikes close to home…

Source: openletterscomic

2012-10-25 61,147 notes

Barack Obama Being Adorable with Adorable Children

alexleo:

(via jacobreed)

Source: alexleo

2012-09-26 193 notes

miklem:

A Funny & Moving Interview with Comedian Tig Notaro on Conan via laughingsquid

Source: Laughing Squid

2012-07-22 0 notes

All you need is a paper and pen and a little bit of time.

—

Lynda Barry’s What It Is p. 136

… & sometimes you claim that chunk of your life from the ceaseless conveyor belt of your timeline by cancelling plans. We spent last night in Novato at the Econo-Lodge to ease the experience of attending a beautiful wedding in Nicasio. It’s hard to carve out a vacation lately, even for more than a night. BUT! I rented a car! I was the designated driver! I let my partner drink! (a Greyhound, a Mint Julep, some champagne, some beers)! And he became comfortable and was friendly with my doula colleagues, who are dear friends. I have such love for these doulas, and want to do everything in my power to be friends with them. Not only was the time we spent together a wonderful step in that direction, but so is dedicating a little bit of time, some paper and a pen (and a short blogpost) to the task of recording gratitude.

2012-07-17 0 notes

2012-07-16 0 notes

Day One of Lynda Barry “What It Is” project:

p. 76: “I need some professional paper so they won’t think I’m lying about my age. This gotsta look very realistic.”

That’s somehow apropos, with the completely unprofessional “college ruled Composition Book” I purchased today at Walgreens on Mission to serve as my new paper journal. I have in my studio a shelf of journals, most of which document the five years we’ve been living in San Francisco. I came here for a publishing internship, assuming I would make my way (living, occupation, legacy) in books. I remember sitting on the sand of Santa Monica Beach with Monica Pena the week I volunteered at the Painted Turtle, two years ago. Monica said that I’d matured somehow spiritually over the first three years after my graduation from New College. Now we’ve (Austin and I’ve) been here in San Francisco a full year longer than we were there - how am I different?

I am making it work, for the most part. Staying occupied, making money, offering real services to families. I should be proud. I want more than anything to one day produce something that isn’t a disappointment to myself. Here’s to producing and sharing!