0 Life these days

0 A Chelsea morning

Although I'm only 20 miles from NYC, and my mom lived there for many years, she and I like to play tourist. Yesterday we went to Chelsea, one of our favorite neighborhoods. It was a gorgeous day, so first we ate breakfast at Pastis and sat outside and people-watched (I especially liked eavesdropping on the French-speaking waitresses). Then we walked across the High Line, which was once an elevated railroad track and is in the process of being converted into a walkway that will run from Chelsea to the Javits Center. We finished the day at Chelsea Market, where we bought Fat Witch Brownies and I tried on clothes at Anthropologie that, once again, I couldn't afford.

0 Rad swimsuit

I seriously want this. Of course it's from Anthropolgie: queen of all things feminine and beautiful and totally out of my price range.



(Found on one of my faves, Absolutely Not Martha.)

0 Yellow buttermilk cupcakes

Yesterday I made Martha Stewart's yellow buttermilk cupcakes with vanilla-buttercream frosting for my little cousins' birthdays. It was the first recipe I tried out of my Martha Stewart Cupcake Book and it certainly did not fail me. I love the way the buttermilk gives this classic vanilla cupcake a subtle kick. Plus, they were easy to make, and huge crowd-pleaser.

2 Current read: Atonement

I picked up Atonement by Ian McEwan during my bout at the library last week and now I'm having trouble putting it down (except when I have to...to go to work...overrated). The writing is mind-bogglingly beautiful and so easy to get wrapped up in. I find it's rare to find a book that's both profound but not too dense (you know what I mean?). I'm sure you've all seen the movie so you know how heartbreaking and inventive the story is. What I like about the book which you don't get in the movie is that the narrator is a close third person and the chapters rotate between different characters' perspectives. The story makes so much more sense this way, and you especially can understand Briony a whole lot better; in the movie she's pretty much a wretched little girl, but in the book, she's...complicated.

"It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you."
I also think it's time to me to admit it: I like Keira Knightley. I feel like if you're a girl, you're supposed to hate her or something, but I think she's a fabulous actress. And no one else could have turned the green dress into the phenomenon that it became.


Really, though, can someone buy me this dress?

2 Bergerac, France

I just learned where I will be calling my new home for a year: Bergerac, France, which is a commune in the Dordogne region of France. Dordogne is between the Loire Valley and the Pyrénées, and there are more than 1500 castles in the region! Bergerac has about 30,000 inhabitants and 21 square miles to its name, but it seems to be a big tourist destination (especially among Brits - there are tons of direct Ryan Air flights to different cities in England). Within the town are caves, bastides, castles, vineyards, and a harbor (the Dordogne river runs through it). Cyrano de Bergerac gets his name from the town, and there's a statue of him in the town's center. Apparently Bergerac also has some of the best wine in the Bordeaux region - lucky me. (The departments in France are a bit confusing, so I'm technically in the Bordeaux department even though I'm about an hour and a half from the city of Bordeaux).

I'll be teaching primary school kids - I start Oct. 11 and finish April 30, and have 5 weeks of paid vacation in between. Needless to say, I can't wait.


[That will be me, the red square]

0 Libraries

Libraries might be some of the only sacred places we have left. My local library was renovated while I was away and today was my first time inside. It was 93 degrees today so I sat in the stacks getting lost in poetry. I've been finding it harder recently to get myself to sit down and just relax. Now that I have Internet all the time again, I don't think to read a book or just stop going going going. So today felt like a cool breath of fresh air.

Pablo Neruda is my favorite. I took out a thousand-page anthology of his poems - many with multiple translations (I wish I knew Spanish purely so I could read his work - and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's, for that matter - the way it's supposed to be read).

Oh girl among the roses, oh crush of doves,
oh fortress of fishes and rosebushes,
your soul is a bottle filled with thirsty salt
and your skin, a bell filled with grapes.

Unfortunately I have only fingernails to give you,
or eyelashes, or melted pianos,
or dreams that come spurting from my heart,
dusty dreams that run like black horsemen,
dreams filled with velocities and misfortunes.

from "Ode with a Lament"
photo via we heart it