TO BUZFEED OR TO LIBRARY

At the beginning of 2014 I set out to accomplish various new year's resolutions. By the writing of this post, several had already been broken: Drink 100 oz of water each day, produce less than one grocery bag of garbage a week, meditate everyday, etc. etc. I have failed at these, but still try to abide by the spirit of the resolution.

There are two other resolutions that I haven't even started working on yet. One is to read ten Latin American novels and the other is to read all of Hemingway's novels. I was really excited about these two and being able to successfully accomplish them, but then something happened...BuzzFeed. All of sudden I found myself wanting to learn important things about myself, like what kind of food I am, or what dead person I am, or what kind of scientist I would make. Before I knew it, I was spending hours on these quizzes (which probably speaks to some narcissism on my part) and it was March.

So today, I decided to go grab my first novel and start to read it. The librarian was amused because I could not find my library card and I just asked for a Hemingway novel. She said "you know he wrote many" I said, yes, but I have a deadline to meet, so just give me the first one you find. Today I start reading For Whom The Bell Tolls and I am praying my heart out that I don't come across a BuzzFeed quiz.

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INSPIRATION

This is one of my favorite paintings because it is so unexpected. It is not of my typical style or executed the way I would've have liked to see it executed. Instead, I love this picture because it reminds me that you never know what can be inspired by what. I did this painting after a trip to Vermont during the fall. I assumed I would have been inspired to paint organic images and shapes, but instead, I was inspired to paint primary colors in squares and triangles.

WHAT PRESENCE OF "BIRTHERS" TELLS US ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS TO TRULY BELONG IN AMERICA

It appears Trump has been satisfied with the long form of President Barak Obama's birth certificate. I guess the various affirmations and certifications from Hawaii's officers that he was in fact born in Hawaii were not enough. Trump may be satisfied, but the rest of the birthers are not. Frankly, they never will be. Fundamentally, they are not so much concerned with whether he was born or not born in the U.S. Their concern is whether he is a "Citizen" in the truest and purest meaning of the word. Whether he is a human being endowed with rational thought and entitled to the same rights as any other human being who is endowed with rational thought as they imagine themselves to be. In other words, is he just as important to society as they are? Is he as human as they are? They would like the answer to be no. What I always find fascinating about the birthers' position is that they have never challenged President Obama's mother's citizenship. They have onl...

I CAN'T PASS JUDGMENT ANYMORE

I know all of my friends are loving the ease and convenience of carrying books around on a Kindle, or whatever the gadget of the day is, but this move to electronic reading is really affecting my ability to judge others, yes, you heard me right-judging others is now difficult. It used to be that I could sit on the train and just by watching book covers, and their respective readers, I would get an idea of what books I might like. Now, everyone has a kindle and I can't really derive reading recommendations without appearing to be a stalker. But worse than that, new friendships are severely affected. I used to be able to walk into someone's house and look at their bookcase and know whether I should run the other way-now, the non-visibility of books makes identifying incompatibility so much more difficult. For example, if someone were to walk into my house, this is what they might see: You would be correct in making quite a few assumptions about me based on this ...

MODERN IFIGENIA

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