food on the fire-escape

Unexpected people will be amazing. They will lift you up and take you out and ask, weeks later when everyone else expects you to be back to normal, if you’re doing okay.

They will give you their entire day because it is your first one back and off and listen to your stories. They’ll ask what happened. They’ll call on the real talking phone. They’ll send you random pictures and videos and love notes every day for a week. They’ll put a bottle of your dad’s favorite scotch in your desk drawer. They’ll take off work and fly to Cleveland and show up with wine and snacks and bake you your favorite everything.

Strange things will make you nervous. Not obvious things. Not the phone ringing.

Time slows down. It feels like it has been November for 15 years.

It is international call your father and tell him that you love him day, so go do that. 

Today, I wish I were in Oakland.

osmium:

The people at the We Are the 99% blog didn’t choose this; they expected something different.  They didn’t see it coming. Yes, yes, maybe they were naive about the possibilities of a fulfilling and secure life in the field of non-profit environmental management.  Probably they should not have sunk tens of thousands of dollars into acquiring a BFA.  But these mistakes didn’t usually used to be crippling.  They were a drag, as you paid off those huge student loans with your tiny little income.  (Ramen and cheese doodle surprise again?  Yummmmmm … )

So Megan McArdle gives the world a lesson in personal responsibility, using the Occupy Wall Street protest to do so. Does she know that if you go down there you will see some actual real-life middle aged black people volunteering? Are those the BFA underwater basket weavers she’s lecturing? No, they’re probably there because they’re in SEIU.

The fact that a private school kid like Megan McArdle looks at OWS and ‘sees’ a bunch of lazy private school kids might be a peek inside her own mind, rather than reality.

whatdayisthis:

National peanut butter lovers’ month.