25

My lazy blog tendencies continue, but I have an excuse for this past week...it was my birthday! Yes, I am officially a mid-20 something. Although I still am having fleeting quarter-life crises thoughts, my friends helped me ring in my 25th year in fashion! It was somewhat of a week long celebration. I went home the weekend before to celebrate with my parents = my mom took me shopping.  I had a work picnic that happened to fall on my birthday, so only had a half day of real work (yay). Then I went out for some delicious drinks with coworkers and friends. The real celebration took place on Saturday ... dinner, drinks ...and more drinks with great friends. All in all it was a great birthday. 

Unfortunately I was a little under the weather Friday (getting old ya know!) so I stayed home to sleep it off. I also had lots of time to finish reading one of the three books I've been working on Something Borrowed by Emily Griffin. I'm a little late getting to this series as well, but I snagged it from a friend when she told me she didn't want to read it. (Me: Really, why not? Friend: Because the girl has an affair with her best friend's fiance! Me: You read four chapters though, it says that on the back cover? Friend: Yeah, I didn't read the back cover until after I read those 4 chapters. Me: Um, it is called something BORROWED.) Anyways, one girls trash is another's treasure. I flew threw this book and really enjoyed it. It's a classic, summer read - no deep thoughts necessary. Now on to Something Blue! 

Pray = India

I've reached the India portion of Eat, Pray Love. I'm back in lazy blogger mode, so here is a quote from that section that seemed appropriate, especially as my 25 (I'll be old) birthday rapidly approaches:

"Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time-when pursued like a bandit-will behave life one; always remaining one county or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you're banging through the lobby with your newest search warrant, leaving only a burning cigarette in the ashtray to taunt you. At some point you have to stop because it wont. You have to admit that you can't catch it. That you're not supposed to catch it. At some point, as Richard keeps telling me, you gotta let go and sit still and allow contentment to come to you."

Eat, Pray, Love

Summer time is making me a bad blogger. I feel like I am constantly on the go, and when I'm not, I don't want to be stuck inside, on my computer. But I'm muli-tasking right now (watching the Bachelorette) and remembered, oh yeah I used to blog. So this will be a quick post. I'm currently reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and I absolutely love it. A few of my friends said they started reading it, but couldn't really get into it. My reaction has been the opposite, and I don't want to read it too fast, because I don't want it to end. I finally am diving head first into a nonfiction book: a recently divorced writer leaves her life in American behind to "find herself" by experiencing pleasure in Italy, devotion in India and a balance in Indonesia.

Maybe it's because I am in limbo as to where my life is going right now, but I find myself relating to this book and constantly marking pages and passages. So while I'm finishing the book I'll just share a few that stuck out:

"But I felt a glimmer of happiness when I started studying Italian, and when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt- that is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.

One Ocean, One Climate, One Future

Happy World Oceans Day! I honestly didn't even know it was World Oceans Day until I opened my gmail this morning and found the latest from Oceana, an environmental advocacy group I get updates from. Nor did I realize that World Oceans Day was proposed by the Canadian government in 1992 and has been unofficially celebrated every year - until 2009 when the United Nations chose to officially recognize June 8 as World Oceans Day each year.

The day provides "an opportunity each year to celebrate our world ocean and our personal connection to the sea." This year's theme is "one ocean, one climate, one future." As with the rest of the environment, our oceans are are need of as much help as we can provide. So to help promote the ocean conservation message, the Ocean Project is urging ocean lovers to Wear Blue and Tell Two.

An addition to wearing something blue (easy, I didn't it without knowing today!) they encourage us to tell people two things they likely don't know about our ocean and how they can help. So here are two random facts for you:

1. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, coral reefs support more specifies per unit area than any other marine environment.

2. According to the UN approximately 2/3 of ocean species are overfished, and many types of ocean farming are highly damaging to coastal environments. A study in the journal Science projected that, without a change, the populations of all wild fish species currently caught will collapse by the year 2050.

And I'll even bring this full circle by recommending a book for all you ocean lovers out there - there is a Chicken Soup for the Ocean Lover's Soul, to help you reconnect with the magic of the ocean.

The Beautiful and Damned

I was very intrigued by the story of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, so I did some more research. This is just a summary of their lives, but read more:

Scott Fitzgerald met Zelda Sayre at a dance at the Montgomery Country Club in July 1918. By September, Fitzgerald declared that he was in love with her. Zelda was different than many of the other women her age at that time because of her free spirit and sometimes rebellious and reckless way - a perfect match for Scott. As mentioned in the previous post, Zelda refused to commit to him because of his dismal economic standing. As soon as This Side of Paradise was accepted for publication, Zelda agreed to marry him. They were married at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City on April 3, 1920.

After spending their honeymoon in NYC, they began their life together "the fabled couple who embodied the fun, the wildness the brilliance and glamour of the era which Fitzgerald named the Jazz Age." Despite shaky finances, the couple went to Europe, even living on the French Riviera for a time and finally back to the states, throwing wild parties and living a life that would eventually tire them both. At some point, they entered a period which they both drank heavily, daring each other to more reckless acts. Eventually, Zelda had a breakdown and reached a point where she was in and out of psychiatric hospitals while Scott worked to support her and their family. Later, Scott was admitted to the hospital for alcoholism.

Although their life together was essentially over, they apparently never stopped loving each other, as Zelda continued to write to Scott from the hospital and Scott refused to move her to a state institution - despite the price this cost him. In 1940 Fitzgerald later suffered a heart attack and died shortly after. In 1947 Zelda tragically died when was locked and trapped in a room awaiting electroshock therapy and a fire broke out.

"Like the subjects of one of Fitzgerald's novels, they seem the embodiment of 'the beautiful and damned'".

I'm Cheating on my Book

I'm cheating on my book. I cannot juggle reading a bunch of different books. Although I was forced to do this in college, I try not to make a habit of it in my new "adult" freedom. I'm still reading This Side of Paradise, but I'm just not getting into it and have started another book. As I was explaining to a friend yesterday, I think the talent of some writers is in their storytelling, and some is in the beauty of the words. This Side of Paradise "is about the education of a youth, and to this universal story of Fitzgerald brought the promise of everything that was new in the vigorous, restless American during the years following World War I."

To me, in this book at least Fitzgerald's strength is certainly not in the storytelling - there are long expositions about morality and much of the book focuses on the status-seeking greed of the main character, Amory Blaine. The book finally got interesting, for me at least, when the arrogant Amory finally experiences heartbreak. Apparently Fitzgerald had just broken up with a girl (Zelda) when he finished writing a a manuscript he had been working on. He hoped if he became a successful novelist he would win Zelda back. Then, after the was accepted for publication, he wooed his girl back and she agreed to marry him! About a week after the book was published they married.

In fact, I'm finding the back story of Zelda and F. Scott more interesting than the book itself! I don't think that's a good sign.