it's turtles all the way down.

“i can finally see that all the terrible parts of my life, the embarrassing parts, the incidents i wanted to pretend never happened, and the things that make me “weird” and “different,” were actually the most important parts of my life. they were the parts that made me me.”

- jenny lawson, let’s pretend this never happened

whereabouts

what’s been going on? lately, lots. or maybe not so lots. regardless, i’ve not been updating my blog with regularity, so here are my excuses:

there’s been cooking. a frenzy of pioneer woman-inspired dishes like pork chops with pineapple fried rice (pictured, sans onions), herb roasted chicken, potatoes au gratin, spicy black bean soup, super tacos, gourmet burgers with homemade basil aioli, not-so-gourmet burgers, and the list goes on.

my amazing grandmother, who looked like a movie star, painted like picasso, and had read nearly every book in the library, passed away. she left a giant hole in my heart but a lifetime of sweet memories. when i hear the birds singing in the morning, i’m pretty sure she’s saying hello.

i went on a petite road trip to chattanooga with my man. we gazed pensively at the river, strolled downtown, ate some great food at places like lupi’s pizza pies and tony’s pasta shop & trattoria, and drank some great drinks at places like rembrandt’s coffee house in the art district, which offers this charming view:

we also rode on a wooden trolley to the tippy-top of lookout mountain, where those of us who don’t suffer from acrophobia (boyfriend) were photographed atop precarious boulders by those of us who do suffer from acrophobia (me).

and i went to a bonfire where an iconic musician was also in attendance. turkish food was eaten, new forms of dance were invented, tequila was sipped rather than shot, and an extraordinarily large hunk of wood was placed in the center of the flames:

the end.

“if you lack the iron and the fuzz to take control of your own life, if you insist on leaving your fate to the gods, then the gods will repay your weakness by having a grin or two at your expense. should you fail to pilot your own ship, don’t be surprised at what inappropriate port you find yourself docked. the dull and prosaic will be granted adventures that will dice their central nervous systems like an onion; romantic dreamers will end up in the rope yard. you may protest that it is too much to ask of a girl that she defy her family, her society, her weighty cultural and religious heritage in order to pursue a dream that she doesn’t really understand. of course it is asking too much. the price of self-destiny is never cheap, and in certain situations it is unthinkable. but to achieve the marvelous, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought.”

tom robbins, jitterbug perfume

genius in a paragraph.

“my mother said i broke her heart, but it was my integrity that was important. is that so selfish? it sells for so little, but it’s all we have left in this place. it is the very last inch of us, but within that inch we are free.”

- alan moore, v for vendetta