I was at Impero Coffee this morning, and (being the nosy person I am) I started going through the drawers of the coffee table. Imagine my delight when I opened a drawer and discovered a handful of fortunes just waiting to be read! I was so tickled that I just had to share. I added 3 of my own (they were just hanging out in my wallet) in hopes that some future snooper will get a reward for their efforts. Enjoy!
This is the best piece of rhetoric I’ve read all week: a for-sale ad for a car posted in Craigslist. It’s pretty hilarious, and genuinely entertaining. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
I was in Washington, DC, last weekend. It was a gorgeous springtime trip to the nation’s capitol. I went to a whole bunch of fun places: the Washington Monument, the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of the American Indian, the WWII Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial, the White House, the Capitol Building, the Library of Congress (including the Asian Reading Room, which I got to take a special tour of), and the National Arboretum. Here’s a video I made of my experiences there. Enjoy!
Is there anything better than a plate of delicious little tarts and a good book of interesting poetry? I’m sitting in a lovely little cafe called Le Pain Quotidien near Dupont Circle in Washington, DC, enjoying my sweets (pictured above) with a cup of Earl Grey tea and a book of poetry by Aracelis Girmay called Kingdom Animalia. I picked the book up at a local bookstore called Kramerbooks (also in Dupont Circle) a little over an hour ago. I know a lot of people dislike eating alone in public, but I love it. The sound of conversations is like music. To my left, a young woman is meeting with her realtor to discuss what she is looking for in the home she wants to buy. To my right, two middle-aged women are chattering away in Portuguese, their conversation punctuated by laughter and cappuccinos. Life, all around. Behind me, it passes by along the sidewalk. It’s a pleasant afternoon, and I’m enjoying my solitude among the crowd.
photo by Anne Jansen
This afternoon, I was about 20 feet away from President Barack Obama! It was awesome. He was at The Ohio State University giving a speech on renewable energies. After a 3 hour wait outside in the sun, and an additional 2.5 hours of waiting inside the RPAC (our gym), I had worked my way to the front of the crowd and was able to enjoy the president’s speech from a location that allowed me to see the sweat on his brow. Suffice it to say, it was an incredible experience!
photo by Anne Jansen
Barack Obama is one of the most passionate and talented orators I’ve had the privilege of seeing in action: not only did he deliver an inspiring speech, but he also did so with natural grace. He incorporated the audience’s comments into his presentation. For instance, as Obama listed the reasons we need to invest in renewable energies, one man called out “For our children!” and the president nodded and added the reason to his list without breaking his verbal stride. A few minutes later, he was talking about how we need to make sure our representatives hear our voices, and one woman said “Yes we can!” (it made sense in context, trust me), and President Obama chuckled, nodded appreciatively, and echoed her words. He really is a natural and gifted orator.
I tried to capture some of the spirit of the event (especially his speech) on video as well, so here it is. It’s a short, simple video, but I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed being there!
Tonight I went to see a local production of Edward Albee’s 1967 Pulitzer Prize winning play A Delicate Balance. The venue was an intimate local theater in Clintonville called the Columbus Civic Theater (pictured above). It has about four rows of seats, and probably seats somewhere between 40 and 50 people. It was a lovely little venue that served tea, hot chocolate, and hot apple cider (plus cookies and Hershey’s Kisses) during the play’s two intermissions. The people working the ticket counter (who I assume are the proprietors) were friendly, helpful, and kind.
Lovely setting aside, the play itself was fascinating. The acting was phenomenal, and the costumes and the set (pictured above) were relatively timeless. Additionally, I was completely absorbed and lost in the plot. Generally speaking, the play is about loneliness — how in our society we are so often surrounded by people, but are still genuinely, painfully, tangibly alone. In that vein, it also deals significantly with human relationships: blood ties, friendships, acquaintances; it takes a good, hard look at which relationships afford you what privileges.
Overall, it was a wonderful evening at the local theater, and the acting exceeded my already-high expectations. Very fun, very intimate, and a very good experience!
The other day, I checked out Gail Bederman’s book Manliness and Civilization for some research, and I found LOVE LETTERS (and an assortment of other notes) in it. It was such a wonderful surprise — not just because I’m a nosy kind of person and enjoy little glimpses into other people’s lives, but also because the notes were so delightful. One of the silly ones is included above (it’s just so random that it makes me laugh every time I see it), and the two actual love letters are below. I did hesitate over whether or not to put them up online, but ultimately decided they were too beautiful not to (and they’re anonymous, so I didn’t feel like I was violating anyone’s privacy). I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!
I love writing letters to my friends, so of course I have a lot of writing-related goods to help make letter-writing fun. Here are some of my favorites.
These are just a few of my favorite things for keeping in touch with the people I care about. I have many more wonderful stationary products, but these are some of the best ones I’ve come across. While I know not everyone’s going to run out and buy a typewriter from their local antique storeor fountain pen shop (yup, that’s where I got mine!), I think they’re a great way to help make correspondence fun and easy.
I’m sitting in one of my favorite coffee shops in Columbus — a great little place called Impero Coffee, located in the Short North — and I managed to snag my favorite table. Impero changes their art a few times a year, and it wasn’t until I’d gotten myself situated, put the cream cheese on my bagel and the sugar in my tea, and unpacked my dissertation writing gear that I looked up. And do you know what I saw? A deer. Wearing a tie. Right above me. Here’s my view:
Unexpected, but hilarious. After last night’s big disappointment (more on that later, but suffice it to say I saw Spike Lee give a talk and it wasn’t good), I needed a lift, and this ridiculous thing above my table accomplished that. Well, the deer and the great staff and clients at Impero who have already lifted my spirits. 
I’m sitting in the downtown Cup O Joe (a local coffee shop chain) in a swath of sunlight working on my diss. Yes, I’ve taken to calling my dissertation my diss because, well, it seems somehow appropriate. So here I am, and I look up from my table and realize how beautiful this particular coffee shop is. You wanna know what that first picture is? It’s the ceiling. More specifically, it’s the beautiful white cloth spirals draped from the high ceiling. The second picture? That’s what I see every time I look up from my page. Which, incidentally, is what the last picture in this post shows: my diss in progress. About a year ago I started writing it by hand, so that mess o’ lined paper is my current chapter. Anyway, here it is, midwinter, and I’m sitting in a gorgeous, sunny cafe writing my brains out. It’s quite lovely, really. I have to hand it to Columbus — it’s a good hole-up-and-write city.
