On E.T.'s Phone Call Home

July, 1947.

If you've ever taken Astronomy for Non-Science Majors or paid the extra twenty bucks for the planetarium pit-stop amidst a long day of dinosaur skeletons and leopard panoramas, you'd likely share an appreciation of how small and meaningless our existence feels in comparison to the rest of universe, whose limitations are (literally) boundless. In an effort to pay homage where it's long overdue, make a wish on a star the next time you're out past sundown or, better yet, simply acknowledge the sky above and the potential for life on the other side. All of a sudden, the universe will become ever-so-slightly smaller. Enjoy!

On Strawberry Fields

Forever.

Happy Birthday, Ringo Starr, who (when asked in an interview last week how it felt to turn seventy) described himself as a twenty-four year-old at heart. And so it goes with birthdays-another year older on the outside but ageless on the inside. How to negotiate this discrepancy, that widens with time until it feels irreparable? With songs about skies filled with blackbirds and diamonds while (as Ringo recommends) taking one birthday at a time. Enjoy!

On Business and Pleasure

Never the Twain Shall Mix.

When romance come knockin' on our doors, it's hard to turn away no matter how bleak the forecast. But what's even rarer are the opportunities in between and, so, we convince ourselves it's better to have loved and lost and timing isn't everything. And as we leap into fires and brave impenetrable mountains, we wait with bated (or exacerbated) breath for the day in which our failures become a success, the upside being it only needs to happen once. Until then, enjoy!

On the Tweets of the Trade

A How-To Guide for Wasting Time at Work.

For those of us at a computer all day, we have no excuse: catching up on the latest break-ups, make-ups, and left-over binges (of our friends, that is) helps pass the time. This article initially struck me as a nostalgic reflection on the technological take-over which, upon reading, would simply prolong this mind-numbing time-filler (on, say, the subway ride en route to the internet gossip mill - aka Work). But the more I read, the sooner I realized this article was meant for people like me: the i-phone-less, tweet-deprived, anti-technology (blogging) cave(wo)men who are better off just giving in. But where to draw the line? On one hand, according to this article, twitter sounds like my technological soul mate! On the other, it might take years before I stop associating Foursquare(d) with anything other than an age defined by crooked teeth and bad skin. Until then, I'll get my fill in the (NY) Times Business Section for updates on gadgets that are already things of the past and imagine what'd I'd tweet had I wasted all that time and money. Gotta go check fb now; Enjoy!

On the Long Road Ahead

aka The Highway.

Windows rolled down beneath the crisp, clear sky, and your favorite oldies blasting from those mediocre speakers you'll never fix. Road trips are hard to come by these days, when replacements for the job you love to hate are no longer, and the cost of transport (let alone car insurance) is enough to keep you home on Friday nights (if only TGIF had reruns). So when the rare opportunity presents itself, grab it fast, savor the silence between states and take time to roll in the empty fields while looking up at the clouds and stars, even if it means delaying the inevitable. Enjoy.

On Different Shapes and Sizes

At the Jumbo Buffet.

Over the course of a typical family's (infinite) time-line, things happen: marriage, divorce, adoption, estrangement, birth, and scandal, to name a few. With each occurrence, the family reshapes into the new version of itself, incorporating the consequences of that moment in time. Here's a uniquely inspiring account of one family's moments, which demonstrates the human capacity to embrace and adapt to the unexpected forces that be, at its best. Enjoy!

On Coming to Fruition, Family-Style

...and we're back!

We'd all like to believe we're consequences of fairy-tale romance and that our inception was an inevitable byproduct of love at its purest. But in the real life version, it's a safe bet that mom wasn't rescued from atop a concrete tower in real bad need of a haircut, or that dad wasn't the bad-ass warrior-hero reminiscent of, say, Costner in the overly-criticized yet mesmerizing Bodyguard. Regardless of how you happened, the lessons to be learned from those who preceded you are specific to the moment and times from whence they came. Take them with a grain of salt, know you can defy them, and then sleep restfully knowing no matter how (un)romantic those initial moments might have been, romance (and life) is what you make of it. Enjoy!