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Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:46:14 -0400

Aja Monet - What I’ve Learned

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 20:28:45 -0400

Aja Monet - What I’ve Learned

"I told her once I wasn’t good at anything. She told me survival is a talent."

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 18:45:08 -0400

“I told her once I wasn’t good at anything. She told me survival is a talent.”

- Girl, Interrupted (Susanna Kaysen)

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Sun, 16 Jun 2013 18:44:53 -0400

"Those who escape hell however never talk about it and nothing much bothers them after that."

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 14:28:12 -0400

“Those who escape hell however never talk about it and nothing much bothers them after that.”

- Charles Bukowski (via songs-for-you-truths-for-me)

"Cakes have gotten a bad rap. People equate virtue with turning down dessert. There is always one..."

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 21:21:10 -0400

“Cakes have gotten a bad rap. People equate virtue with turning down dessert. There is always one person at the table who holds up her hand when I serve the cake. No, really, I couldn’t she says, and then gives her flat stomach a conspiratorial little pat. Everyone who is pressing a fork into that first tender layer looks at the person who declined the plate, and they all think, That person is better than I am. That person has discipline. But that isn’t a person with discipline; that is a person who has completely lost touch with joy. A slice of cake never made anybody fat. You don’t eat the whole cake. You don’t eat a cake every day of your life. You take the cake when it is offered because the cake is delicious. You have a slice of cake and what it reminds you of is someplace that’s safe, uncomplicated, without stress. A cake is a party, a birthday, a wedding. A cake is what’s served on the happiest days of your life. This is a story of how my life was saved by cake, so, of course, if sides are to be taken, I will always take the side of cake.”

- Jeanne Ray (via songs-for-you-truths-for-me)

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Tue, 11 Jun 2013 23:16:34 -0400

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Tue, 11 Jun 2013 23:16:16 -0400

"I make no apologies for how I chose to repair what you broke."

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 23:13:26 -0400

“I make no apologies for how I chose to repair what you broke.”

- Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy (via songs-for-you-truths-for-me)

Janiemoe: Next Month I'll Have Lived in NYC for a Year.

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 09:55:50 -0400

Janiemoe: Next Month I'll Have Lived in NYC for a Year.:

janiemoe:

And sometimes, I still can’t believe that I’m here.

I had been to New York twice before moving here— once for a day trip while visiting my friend in Connecticut (she had a broken toe, so we kind of sat around the Met) and the second time was to visit some friends less than a month before I decided over the course of the two scariest days of my life to give away 3/4 of my belongings and take over a sublet from a friend.

I am not well-travelled and there are times (less often now) when I can be cripplingly shy, so I think most people who know me thought I had gone nuts when they found out I had moved. There really wasn’t any other option in my mind. I had been saving money for years. It was going to move to a city, and if it couldn’t be Paris, it was going to be New York.

Six months before that, I had taken my first trip out of the country when I went on a January term trip to study in Paris. My roommate was extremely noisy, and I think I got less than three hours of sleep each night for two weeks. I also had trouble finding time to go to places other than bodegas, so with lots of food allergy concerns, I mostly subsisted on potato chips, macaroons, and sardines. Despite that, I had never been happier in my life. As embarrassingly corny as it is to say, I finally knew what it was like to be alive.

It is strange. A giant city— lost in a sea of people with buildings towering overhead is where I’m most comfortable. Constant change, a city cobbled together by varying architectural styles, cultural subsets, and histories…we are a patchwork people.

Sometimes I will see something that breaks my heart and haunts me for days, but I’ll turn a corner, and I will be faced with such beauty— sunlight breaking through the clouds over Central Park, a curious building, an unlikely couple in love… And every day, something to do. This past Friday, escaping the rain by walking into a museum, I got roped into watching a lecture on WWII.

There are people who ask, why New York? You could live more comfortably and safely, even in a smaller city. We’re not here to be comfortable and safe. We’re here to slug it out in the city that greeted our ancestors— mine escaping potato blight and a bleak future— hoping to find the better life that they knew had to be here. We need the constant hum. The heavy traffic, clogged sidewalks, and cramped subway cars. The struggle is where we find our fun.

I love New York.

janiemoe: NYC, photography, central park,

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 09:53:57 -0400

janiemoe:

NYC, photography, central park,

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Fri, 07 Jun 2013 22:40:14 -0400

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Wed, 05 Jun 2013 23:22:52 -0400

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Wed, 05 Jun 2013 23:22:10 -0400

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Wed, 05 Jun 2013 23:21:28 -0400

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Sun, 02 Jun 2013 22:32:07 -0400

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear..."

Wed, 29 May 2013 23:16:43 -0400

““You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face””

- Eleanor Roosevelt (via forthedream)

"Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive."

Wed, 29 May 2013 23:13:07 -0400

“Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.”

- Josephine Hart (via quote-book)

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Mon, 27 May 2013 22:43:05 -0400

"She was a compulsive pessimist, always looking for the soft brown spot in the fruit, pressing so..."

Sun, 26 May 2013 21:26:31 -0400

“She was a compulsive pessimist, always looking for the soft brown spot in the fruit, pressing so hard she created it.”

- Amy Waldman | The Submission (via blogut)