Healthy foods start with every letter of the alphabet. Here are 26 of our favorites, from A to Z, and why we think they’re so super.
My favorite: “Xigua” - totally cheated. That’s not English!
An old walrus-faced waiter attended to me; he had the knack of pouring the coffee and hot milk from two jugs, held high in the air, and I found this entrancing, as if he were a child’s magician. One day he said to me - he had some English - “Why are you sad?”
“I’m not sad,” I said, and began to cry. Sympathy from strangers can be ruinous.
" — The Blind Assassin, Margaret AtwoodIn honor of former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt (1844-1962), a few of our favorite Eleanor quotes…1. “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”2. “Campaign behavior for wives: Always be on time. Do as little talking as humanly possible….
14. “Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”
Inspired by paperbackgirl to begin posting things I’ve read and how many times I got my butt down to write every month. Hopefully this will be a tool that encourages (and guilts, depending on what mood I’m in) me into writing.
April Reading:
- Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
- Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder
- Snuff by Terry Pratchett - I enjoyed this one immensely, and it’s always a pleasure to see Sam Vimes at his best.
- Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
- Thud! by Terry Pratchett
- Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - read again in preparation for Baz Luhrmann’s new masterpiece (hopefully).
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - O Pip.
- Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett
- Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett - as you can see, I went on a little Discworld binge this month.
- Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely - fascinating read for a Coursera lecture I’m taking. Also, the sequel The Upside of Irrationality is on sale for $1.99 today!
April Writing:
Must show some love yet again for 750words.com. Since I started at the end of April, I take it as a good sign that I’ve gotten to the words 3 days in a row. Hello May! Looking forward to the exciting things you will bring.
Our Facebook fans share their best advice for beginner runners.
11. Remember that you are a runner.
Whenever you’re in doubt, remember these wise words from our Chief Running Officer (and Mayor of Running) Bart Yasso: “I often hear someone say I’m not a real runner. We are all runners, some just run faster than others. I never met a fake runner.”
O spring! How coy art thou.
One can’t help but bring out the flirtatious splashes of colour and show just enough skin to stay somewhere barely above indecent. Now that it’s warm enough to walk around in a dress, it’s such fun to pair it with this:
As well as this:
Butter London is smooth enough, but for day-to-day wear Essie has the price and the pop to win me over.
So, life since I’ve last written anything has been a 5-month roller-coaster and a 3-month “acclimation+I’m going to kill myself+let’s hibernate” insanity of sorts. I’m sitting here trying to write, and it’s a little worrying that the words don’t flow as easily or freely, that I must work to squeeze them out (imagery. wrong one.) again.
I recently read somewhere that the imaginary “ideas muscle” in your brain is just like any other muscle - if unused, it atrophies and takes a long time to get back into shape. So once again, like my thighs and weak ass triceps, I embark on the journey to whip myself back into shape, both linguistically and muscularly. Don’t laugh. It’s a serious business.
—-
Let’s do the twitter kind of summation.
We bid Taiwan farewell, still looking like an awesome pair of hippie college kids hopping continents and such.
Then I got married to the most amazing man ever. So proud to call S my husby. #marriagerocks #proudwife
Then we traveled up California. Then back down. Then back up. Then turned it all around. And did the hokey pok-wait, wha? Somewhere between up and down and all-around, we managed to fly out a couple of times to NYC to (a) interview for some jobs, and (b) apartment hunt, and that is a story for another time.
Crossing continents again, this time back to Asia for a second wedding (Taiwan),
and then a third wedding-feast (Thailand). But here’s a picture of Pattaya instead:
Then we jetted back to San Diego and packed up 14 boxes and shipped them via UPS, who, by the way, provides excellent service for an extremely affordable price. We only lost two mugs and a jar!
The end of January saw us freezing our bums off in Brooklyn, and I distinctly remember sitting in our sad, little apartment littered with suitcases, lying down on the floor from sheer exhaustion and a clash of 42646 different time zones thinking, “What the heck did we get ourselves into?” followed by “I’m already regretting this. It’s below freezing outside! I don’t have a coat. That’s it, I’m going to freeze to death. And all that work for nothing. My sister can have the dog.“
—-
(beautiful Brooklyn)
It’s been 3 months since that dramatic night, and we are still here. Somehow, I’ve survived the harsh NY winter and came out the other side - paler, plumper, and disgustingly grateful for sleeping-bag coats and a husband who managed not to kill me during the hibernation. The other day, I burst into tears walking through Washington Square Park because the tulips were so damn beautiful and I could feel myself getting sunburnt. Talk about “really appreciating the seasons.”
S is enjoying his new job immensely and I know him and his team are going to do amazing, life-changing things. I’m so proud of him. As for me, I’m chugging along fine and somehow landed a job with the two most impossibly sensational bosses, ever. They feed me stuff and, according to A, buy me flowers for no reason whatsoever. And it’s true.
I’m currently taking a writing course at Gotham Writer’s Workshop, and man is it difficult. To do anything well in life requires discipline, and at the age of 24 I am truly just beginning to understand how little self-control I have over anything, be it running, or writing, or praying, or cooking, or cleaning out the fridge, or keeping in touch with people, or flossing. Well no. I floss every day (and you should too!). But you know what I mean.
And the conclusion after all this is that I sincerely hope I will be back here every. single. day. Writing about stuff and boring your brains out, but honing my skills nonetheless. And I leave you with the perfect spring appetizer made by S.
Now go forth, and be hungry.
