June 3, 2012
I thought it was time for an update.

You know. Given the silence.

Many of you were probably wondering, ‘why so many crappy posts?’ Now you’re probably wondering, ‘why the silence?’

At least, that’s what I’ve been wondering.

The thing is, I just switched jobs. I traded one for two. SO my life has been a little cridiculous.

Yes, it’s true. The Gap is in my past, preferably to stay there for the rest of my life. I’ll miss the people. Everyone I worked with was great.

I won’t miss the store. I won’t miss the shipment line at 6 a.m. or the closing shifts til 10:30 p.m. on Friday nights. I won’t miss cleaning the bathrooms at 8 a.m. on Sundays or pulling replenishment for two hours in the back. Above all, I won’t miss the music.

Jesus P.

ANYWAY, I’m now working part-time at a boutique in Evanston, where I hope to start some social media work soon, as well as selling on the floor and some behind-the-scenes look-it’s-how-you-run-a-business work. I also snagged an internship downtown at an urban planning non-profit called Metropolitan Planning Council, check out their facebook: http://www.facebook.com/metropolitanplanningcouncil and follow them on Twitter @Metroplanners. DO IT NOW.

So, the long and short of it is, this here blog has slid down another rung on Ariel’s List of Things to Do Ladder, and it’s about to slip down one rung further because I have a very exciting project in the works that I’m not telling anyone about because when I do I wind up not following through.

Also I started a really promising story but then I hit writer’s block #19PagesIn. I think I’m going to inaugurate that hashtag. Right here. Right now.

Not right here. On Twitter. In a couple minutes.

You get the idea.

ANYWAY I’M SORRY, but my life is starting to focus and I’m starting to get pumped about it, so sorry if the posts are spotty like a Seurat painting over the next few *insert amount of time here*s.

R

7:04pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9myrxMiSZ_B
May 27, 2012
Makin’ shirts

And takin’ names.

R

9:50pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9myrxMGvfw3
May 26, 2012
On the train ride home last night,

I revisited that old, cliche hypothetical about the renegade train. Given the choice between pulling a lever and killing one railroad worker, and not pulling the lever and killing five, the general consensus is (I believe) to pull the lever.

I guess this is for two reasons: first of all, the impetus is to minimize collateral damage: one man is less than five, therefore less damage has been done. Second of all, in situations like this, people want to act. They want to believe that they did the right thing. To not pull the lever is to fail to act, to invite speculation. ‘Why didn’t he pull the lever? Why did he hesitate?’ To pull the lever is to say, ‘It was a rough choice. I did what I thought was right.’ Most people, inevitably, would choose to kill one worker.

I think I would choose to kill the five.

Here is why: we must assume, because it is more likely than not, that each worker has some combination of family: spouse, children, parents, siblings, significant other, etc. To kill one worker is to leave one worker’s family bereft. To kill five workers, on the other hand, creates a community. A small cohort of people who are touched by the same tragedy and experience the same pain (insofar as the human reaction to grief is similar).

Furthermore, even if the one worker has no family whatsoever (a very unlikely scenario), and the five workers all do, the death of one man is much more likely to be regarded as a tragic accident than the death of five. Five grieving families are far more likely to band together and ask questions. Why, for example, was there no warning system in place to alert the workers? How did the train become renegade in the first place? The larger the group, the more likely they are to receive answers and compensation, and achieve reform. Hopefully in the future, the tragedy can be avoided altogether.

It should never be at the discretion of one person to decide the fates of six. But given a choice between wasting one life and championing five, I would choose the latter.

I wonder what that says about me.

R

1:19pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9myrxMB7ReA
May 23, 2012
In the beginning of Tuesday…

…there was sleep. Which is like nothing, but different.

After that, there was an alarm.

Then there was awakening.

The thing that awakened was named Tom.

It had a very trying day ahead of it.

8:09pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9myrxM1Hp5J
May 22, 2012
Blurp.

That is all.

R

10:00pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9myrxLz-KLR
May 21, 2012
I have nothing to say.

It happens.

R

9:50pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9myrxLw5YQP
May 21, 2012
By the way,

I made pants that fit.

It’s kind of a big deal.

R

9:33am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9myrxLtX-xs
May 19, 2012
In the beginning…

…there was nothing. But nothing isn’t an image, so that doesn’t really help us.

Let’s talk about something else.

7:48pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9myrxLnkQ6I
May 18, 2012
When life gives you raspberries…

…MAKE LEMONADE.

This is a recipe for red lemonade.

This recipe will make about 4 glasses. Originally I did about a half a cup of raspberries, and as you can see, they took over. So I reduced the original amount.

Ingredients:

6 lemons = approx. 1 cup lemon juice (manually squeezed, not with an electric juicer)
1 cup water
6-7 Tbsp sugar
1/4 - 1/3 cup raspberries
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

  1. Muddle raspberries at the bottom of a pitcher.
  2. Squeeze lemons til they scream. Or similar.
  3. Add water and sugar to taste - 6 Tbsp is very tart, I might even go all the way up to 8. I think a whole cup of sugar would be too much, though.
  4. Mix together, whisking to break up the raspberries.
  5. Add cinnamon. Mix.
  6. Enjoy!

7:35pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9myrxLjzBpA
May 16, 2012
Soup

Hey guys - this is a rough draft because I was hurrying, but let me know what you think!

R

…

“It’s all soup,” it came gravelly and sudsy out of the mouth of Adam.

He didn’t look like a philosopher, so Mia went back to her lager.

Lager is the best drink for figuring the universe.

He was grubby. Chubby. No – not chubby. Brawny, but flabbing around the biceps. At another angle, she’d have noticed his eyes. Everyone noticed his eyes.

He was 67, his name was Adam and he lived alone in a shack outside town.

Mia hardly cared – she was busy thinking. IF the universe was finite and IF the world had a timeline and IF means always ascribed an end, then all this had a trajectory.

Then the world had a point.

Which put them on a vector…to where?

The edge of her notebook cut into her arm. That was okay - it reassured her that what she was doing was deep and important. That was all that mattered.

“It’s all soup, dammit,” he repeatedly, somewhat vehemently. 

Mia tightened. Mia always tightened in the presence of conflict – Mia was a conflict diamond. If you screw the tension rod to a high enough density, you become diamond and nothing can affect you. It works for carbon, and it works for carbon-based life forms.

It always worked for Mia. And at the earliest sign of trouble, Mia transformed.

“Yeah?” asked the edgily blasé bartender. “What kind?”

Adam who nobody yet knew was named Adam swiveled his bottleneck eyes on the unfortunate purveyor of spirits.

Unconsciously, the man fell back a step. He leaned against his bar and folded his arms across his chest.

Mia noted all of this very carefully.

Adam leaned forward and set two beefy hands on the bar. His aqua vitae shuddered.

“Human,” he growled.

The room went quite quiet. Adam stood up. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small metal circle, about the size of a watch face.

Everyone swallowed and evaluated their lives.

Then Adam cleared his throat. It was a curious noise. 

He turned unexpectedly to Mia. She still missed his eyes – she was busy gazing very intently at her notebook as his pupils burned holes in her brain.

He set the watch face beside her. “Don’t call me. I’ll call you.”

And then he left.

8:24pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9myrxLcxNBd
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