i am grateful for:
1) the grateful dead. i went to six shows in my day. the first was at madison square garden (a crappy place for a show compared to the bucolic shows–all the seaminess was concentrated, undiluted by nature and spacious parking lots). i was 13 and had detour orange hair that people kept asking to touch.
2) steve jobs. i’ve only ever owned macs and i am so grateful that someone smart and powerful and together enough created something so big for people like me. he validated right-brainers by giving them tools they could understand to create things the left brain world couldn’t dream of. thanks, steve.
3) dancing. need to dance. now.
4) breathing. one breath at a time.
5) this cool blog, brain pickings. it has a post about the best map books, another on the best books on happiness, and must-reads on the science of love. one post, “Summer Reading: 10 Essential Books for Cognitive Sunshine” quotes Eli Pariser’s book, “The Filter Bubble” (about how Google and other Internet megaliths are customizing search so that we never even see stuff we are unlikely to click on any more): “In some ways, I think the primary purpose of an editor [is] to extend the horizon of what people are interested in and what people know. Giving people what they think they want is easy, but it’s also not very satisfying: the same stuff, over and over again. Great editors are like great matchmakers: they introduce people to whole new ways of thinking, and they fall in love.” go eli. love it.
6) walking around nyc in fall and watching: the nyu students, the european shoppers with their front-strap daypacks clicked over their long scarves and their sneakers with jeans, the dreadlocked guys with djembes in washington square park, the nyu journalism school reporter stopping the music to interview them, right after dancing with a toddler, etc.
7) the candle café. so reliably delicious–large green goddess juice and a fresh, hot paradise cassarole: vegan gravy on top of sweet potato puree on top of millet on top of steamed greens. and a vegan choco-choco-chip cookie to end.
8) that my friends adam bucko and taz tagore finally found a home for the reciprocity foundation, their organization that helps homeless youth by finding them jobs, teaching them yoga and meditation and connecting them to a non-denominational spirituality. they are so inspiring and cool.
9) the idea of a whole holiday of forgiveness, apologies, renewal, and letting go.
10) pear chocolate tart from once upon a tart in soho. even though the owner looks like he needs a very long vacation, that place still rocks.
