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Have you ever had to keep setting a book down because it just keeps breaking your heart the further you go? This keeps doing that to me. I keep going from frantically trying to jot down quotes I want to remember forever, to feeling so incredibly distraught that it’s all I can do to set this aside and go watch an episode of Friends.

That time when I somehow woke up with the most obnoxiously painful neck and shoulder muscle pain and my husband rescheduled our plans, went and got an icy hot, epsom salt, and cleaned the entire bathtub for me. This is love.

The America of 2016 is so much more specialized than the one I left in 1988. It almost seems that we have created needs so that we can cater to them.

What San Francisco Says About America, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/opinion/sunday/what-san-francisco-says-about-america.html?_r=0

Friendship is the most underrated relationship in our lives … It remains the one relation not bound by law, blood, or money — but an unspoken agreement of love.

Hanya Yanagihara

own less, love more

I’ve been inspired lately to try and own less, and love all the things I’m left with even more. It’s a pretty simple concept, but it’s been rocking my world lately so I wanted to document it.

Somewhere along the way, we are taught that if something is broken -- replace it! Buy more. Buy a new pair of jeans. Buy a new bag. If it don’t work, get a new one. (Okay that’d sound better if it rhymed.)

Recently my every day work bag (pictured below) broke. I made a big decision at the end of last year to use part of my end of year bonus to invest in a bag that I could use daily and take to work meetings without being asked if I’m still a college intern. I believe in Everlane’s mission to make honest high quality products so I went and bought one of their Magazine Tote bags after reading dozens of reviews and videos. For 8 months it served me really well. I actually did use it every day, and it went with most everything. I was impressed with the way it held its shape, and the way the leather seemed to be able to take my daily beatings filling it with my Macbook, 2-3 notebooks, pens on pens on pens, and a number of other smaller bags.

Then one day, the clasp just gave up and broke. And it broke in such a way that I couldn’t just fix it at home myself. I was so sad. This was not the vision Everlane sold me! What was I to do now? I’ll be honest for a moment I took it as a sign that I should go and buy the Building Block bag I’d been eyeing. The thought did cross my mind.

But! Then I thought I’d try and contact Everlane. This wasn’t cool. Plus I was pretty confident they’d agree that their products should last more than a year at minimum.

Ever since I started working a customer facing role, I try to take a few extra steps to empathize with anyone who has to deal with customer tickets. It ain’t easy or fun. People are usually only contacting you because they have a problem, and you’re responsible for hearing them out even though you (usually) had nothing to do with triggering or causing their issue in the first place. It’s a difficult job. I emailed and shared I was a huge fan, that I believed in their mission, and that I was disappointed with the bag’s durability. What could they do for me?

Initially, the response was less than what I’d hoped for. They empathized, but seemed to hint that my daily use of the bag could cause wear and tear. I could go to a cobbler and get it fixed (read: they didn’t offer repair services, unfortunately). Or I could go and buy a new tote bag with a 15% discount and free shipping.

I learned a few years ago in a negotiations class that sometimes you need to be open ended about your ask -- you may be surprised at what they’re willing to offer you right away. But other times, be ready to be explicit about your ask. What exactly did I want? I didn’t want to have to buy a new bag. My original one was sitting there, looking just fine except for the darn clasp that gave up on me. It seemed easy enough to fix, why waste that great leather? Plus, I got sentimentally attached to it. I wanted to fix my bag, but I wanted Everlane to cover the cost.

So I responded:

It worked! Two weeks later and my bag is all fixed! No more back packing wearing Rachel. Building Block rucksack...perhaps I’ll get you some other day...

I miss Venice

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

How cool is this?

Grateful for Friday afternoon happy hours. Complete with moscow mules, aperol spritz and co-workers to commiserate and celebrate with. It’s not fun if you don’t do both at the same time.

Grateful for walks back and forth between offices that provide the perfect opportunity to call a friend out of the blue.

Travel Uniforms

Why are the Obamas so dang cool

Michelle Obama for President 2020 , plz?

The thought changes

It struck me today while I was coloring and meditating on YOBL reading that taking stock of certain to parts of our life are really easy to do - you can take stock of the things you purchase. The new shirt or jacket or pair of shoes you pinned, lusted after, and thoughtfully bought. Or the bag of old clothes you collected in a bag, put in your trunk and drove over to the Goodwill. Or perhaps we’re not even talking about material goods. You can take stock of the adventures you took, the vacations you planned and ultimately hopped on a plane, or piled yourself into a car to take. You have the photos to document it all - the scrapbooks, the Costco developed photos, the Facebook albums, the carefully filtered Instagram shots, and ultimately the in the moment Snap stories.

But one thing that isn’t easy to take stock of - are your thoughts. The mental thought processes you take on, the change of mindset that shifts ever so subtly. These are not easy to change, no, but once changed they’re also extremely easy to miss. Where one day you wake up and you no longer realize where one mental decision ended and another began. So, I wanted to document these small changes and decisions. Because they will make me up to be who I am.

Purchase thoughtfully. Every single item I buy takes up legitimate space in my house. So does it have a purpose. Not only is it worth the actual dollar cost it will cost me to acquire it, but does it deserve the space and attention it will take up in my house, in my mind, etc. If not, then there’s no reason to purchase it. The true cost of each item is not simply the price on the tag. How much will it cost me to maintain it, keep it and hold onto it.

Don’t do it because that’s what everyone else is doing. I used to be really big and into sentimental things - birthdays, valentine’s day, christmas, you name it, I was all over it. Marketing gurus everywhere loved me. I’m their target sister, friend, girlfriend, wife, you get the picture. But since around Thanksgiving/Black Friday last year my eyes felt like they were peeled open to all the crafty marketing stunts and I felt like a victim that no longer wanted to be made prey to their schemes. Why do we need to wait for a birthday, anniversary or Valentine’s day to give someone we love something nice or to express our love for them? To this you might say “well Rachel because at least it’s a nice impetus or reminder and it’s better than nothing” to which I’d say “well, now that you recognize that, pick another day that doesn’t make you a pawn in America’s marketing ploy.” So don’t buy the extra highly priced flowers because that’s what you’re supposed to do.

Control your phone, don’t let it control you. Early this year I turned off all the notifications on my phone. In other words, my phone never lights up with it’s needy “look at me now!” “I need you now!” “MEMEMEMEMEME!!!” I look at my phone when I’m ready to look at it. No amount of facebook updates, Instagram likes, Snapchats, newsletter emails or even text messages lights it up. I’ve found so much more peace of mind this way and after nearly 2 months of doing this I can genuinely told you I haven’t missed anything supremely important in my life. Other than the few days a close friend was giving birth and I was on standby to rush over to the hospital. Even then, the baby came early so there was no point.

Do things one at a time. It’s worth it. I am the master multi-tasker. My browser tab is usually filled with 20+ tabs so much so that each tab is rendered to nothing more than just the tiny little icon. It’s usually a combo of email, calendar, twitter, youtube, blogs, articles and kpopstar. To be honest I still have 20 tabs open while I write this post. Work in progress over here. But whether it’s work, the podcast I’m working on, or an email I’m writing to an old friend I am trying to discipline myself to get in the habit of doing one thing at a time. I set aside 15 minutes for myself to churn this out before rushing over to get ready to leave. You’d be surprised how much you can get done at a time and thus in a day. At work I’ve been using this app to hold myself to what the Italians coined the “Pomodoro Effect.” Try it. It’ll make you more efficient, and make you want to eat tomatoes. Neither of which is a bad thing, if you ask me.

Okay, timer just went off. BYE!

equanimity

noun mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation.

Sometimes all it takes is a song, or rather, the mention of a song to be taken back to an exact memory - an exact memory of a moment that you had managed to bury for years. And you’re surprised you still remember all the words, and all the emotions that come with listening to the melody and saying the words along again. Sadness for being ‘not good enough’ and looked over, confusion of not really understanding why, and listening to this song on repeat, even to sleep. The sadness of a young girl who’s heart was broken for the first time. Music is powerful. Also, I was a straight up fob once upon a time. :)

going from ‘Push’ to ‘Pull’

I’ve decided to turn off all my push notifications on my mobile phone for a week. I was inspired by a friend who told me that he prefers to check his phone on his own time, and control his attention rather than allow his phone to control him.

I’ve decided to take baby steps and ‘experiment’ with this for 1 week. We’ll see how I feel.

In other words, we spend money on spending, then we spend money to warehouse and organize the stuff we spend on. Then we pay to discard it. Then we pay to maintain the landfills where it sits for ever and ever.

Other than the fact that they use the word “chicks” to describe women just a few lines after this quote which makes my blood boil, this article quite nicely sums up how I’ve been feeling as of late. http://www.forbes.com/sites/emmajohnson/2015/01/15/the-real-cost-of-your-shopping-habits/

Books, in ways that are different than visual art, music, the radio, or even love, force us to walk through another’s thoughts, one word at a time, over hours and days. We share our minds for that time with the writer’s. There is a slowness, a forced reflection required by the medium that is unique. Books re-create someone else’s thoughts inside our own minds, and maybe it is this one-to-one mapping of someone else’s words, on their own, without external stimuli, that give books their power. Books force us to let someone else’s thoughts inhabit our minds completely. Books are not just transferrers of knowledge and emotion, but a special kind of tool that flattens one self into another, that enable the trying-on of foreign ideas and emotions.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Why-can-t-we-read-anymore-6720404.php?t=50fc85d59d3ac39e4f&cmpid=twitter-premium

Surprisingly this became the Christmas of our own real life Christmas tree. With photo cards of adorable children that started gracing our refrigerator and friends that randomly stop by to put gifts under the tree. I feel old but also so very much loved and thankful.

When I don’t change my profile picture during a tragedy (retold)

When I can’t find the words myself, I link to someone else’s.

https://medium.com/art-marketing/i-don-t-often-post-to-facebook-because-i-find-it-to-be-generally-full-of-content-i-don-t-care-a-144589bb2f8#.juse216e6

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