52 lists -- week 16 -- list your favorite books

i went into a barnes and noble the other day and i was totally overwhelmed by it. i normally go to the library, so seeing all of those fresh, new books displayed so nicely was a shock to my system. it reminded me of how much i like to read. and how many books are on my to-read list. every time i turn around there is a new book for me to read, a new recommendation; it seems never ending. but that’s ok. because i read a lot, especially now that i’m “reading” audiobooks. 

this was a difficult list for me. i consulted my goodreads read list, but i know that that list only scratches the surface. just like my to-read list only has a handful of books on it compared to the number of books that exist, and that i want to read, my read list only encompasses those books i’ve read in the past couple of years. so i’m sure i am forgetting some. but there are definitely some authors i love -- john steinbeck, ray bradbury, haruki murakami, robert heinlein, kathy reichs -- and i read as many of their books as i can get my hands on. 

ps. if you aren’t on goodreads, i highly recommend it. especially if you read a lot, and are tired of writing down book titles and recommendations on tiny pieces of paper and then losing them. it’s such a handy website and app.

to check out some of the books i'm reading now, check out my 2013 reading challenge.

what are some books or authors you recommend? 

52 lists -- week 15 -- list your favorite quotes

i'm a sucker for cheesy quotes. those quotes that make you feel good about yourself, or make you want to go out and change the world. i mean, who wouldn't love those quotes? but i also love those quotes that you stumble upon when reading a good book. or those quotes that speak right to your soul or your heart; that make you think again about your life. or those quotes that make you smile and laugh. or those quotes that make you cry and break your heart and make you want to help others. so this list of quotes a little bit of everything, except for the cheesy quotes. as much as i love them, i don't need to repeat them here, because everyone knows them already, and it's a little embarrassing!

there's a quote i want to add to this list:
"oh my god! my pubescent nemesis!" -- john kennedy toole, a confederacy of dunces
(backstory: i listened to the audiobook of this book in preparation for our trip to new orleans and the reader gave ignatius reilly the best voice. so every time i read this quote i hear it in that accent and it's just the funniest thing.)

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one of my quotes came from this ted talk by shane koyczan. i wanted to include it here because i first heard this poem being read in this amazing video, and then through ted talks, and it is so moving and amazing i think everyone should listen to it and learn from it. if you have ~12 minutes, please check it out.

what are your favorite quotes?

2013 -- week 16 -- date night under the stars and our engagement!

growing up i wasn't super athletic; i played soccer for a couple of years, but who didn't? i wasn't good, by any stretch of the imagination. in fact, i was the joker near the goal box who would run up to kick the ball and watch the ball sail past me towards the goal. it was a disaster. i only played a couple of seasons before realizing that it was a waste of everyone's time. i was much more suited to running. i didn't need hand-eye coordination, something i clearly lacked, all i needed was a pair of shoes and a road. now as i've grown up, i've gotten lazy and developed asthma, so i don't run nearly as much as i should. but i do still enjoy being outdoors and getting the blood pumping, so we decided to play kickball (plus we wanted to make friends). we started in the fall and met such great people that we came back for the spring season, and have already signed up for the summer season too. and this season we're actually starting to get good, it's kind of exciting. (check out plan b!)

maybe one the best nights of my life was two summers ago in oaxaca. it was the day after i met rcg, and we went to a lagoon to swim with bio luminescent algae. swimming and shimmering in this lagoon was a once in a lifetime experience. but the night was made so much better, for me anyways, because you could see every star in the sky. you could make out constellations that you rarely could find and you could see both bands of the milky way. it was spectacular. and i got to share it with rcg. it was kind of like our first date. ever since that night, whenever the night is clear and the stars are out, we try and take a minute to enjoy the beauty of the night sky. so it seemed only fitting that we go to kitt peak national observatory, a mountain in the sonoran desert that hosts the world's largest collection of telescopes, for a date night. 

kitt peak has a nightly observing program ($50/person) where you show up before sunset and stay until well into the night to look at and learn about the stars, planets, moon, and the telescopes. we learned so much! and we got to see some of the coolest stuff ever -- the banding on jupiter, saturn's rings, and the craters on the moon. when we looked at saturn it was like a picture out of a magazine or a textbook; when rcg looked at it, his first words were, "holy shit". it was that amazing. and the telescope was powerful enough to show both saturn and jupiter's moons. it was crazy. but the night only got crazier -- after we drove down the mountain (the first mile with no headlights!), rcg pulled over and asked me to marry him! i'm still a little shocked, but in a deliciously happy kind of way.

a skull for her and dinosaurs for him

i find tattoos intriguing for a couple of reasons. one, once you get one, you almost instantly want another. what's up with that? they aren't cheap and they hurt. i mean, don't get me wrong, they are often super cool (although equally often, super awful), but what is it in our brain that tells us to get more and more and more tattoos? two, i love looking at other people's tattoos. i'm so interested in knowing the rational for them. why did you get that? why in those colors? three, once you have a tattoo you become part of this community of tattooed people. when i got my first tattoo, that was a very small community of people that i knew, but as i've gotten older and met more people that community has grown. and i'm not sure why, but it is a community. i mean, you don't feel camaraderie with other people with pierced ears, noses, etc, do you? maybe it's because tattoos are so permanent that we feel closer to others who've made the same commitment as us.  

another thing i find so interesting about tattoos are different people's approach to them. i like to design my tattoos and i have to have them all planned out in advance. so when i walk into the tattoo parlor i can sit down, give them exactly what i want, and get it done. rcg on the other hand, is very different. he gets an idea, does some research and then sends it off to the tattoo artist. he learns what the tattoo will look like when we show up to the appointment, and then he lets the tattoo artist further improvise with color and details. the crazy part is we are both equally pleased with the results when we leave. 

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it's been a while since my last tattoo, but ever since moving to mexico i have been thinking about getting a new one. i knew i wanted a skull but i had a hard time figuring out what exactly i wanted it to look like. i love the sugar candy skulls of dia de los muertos, but they were too intricate for what i wanted, so i started to look at the skulls i saw around tucson for inspiration and i got a lot of ideas. 

   

left: a skull pin from popcycle // middle: a skull painted on the side of the rialto theatre in tucson // right: a painting hanging in borderlands brewery

then i doodled a ton. 

     

finally drawing the perfect skull.

and here's the final result -- a flowered skull in among my other flowers:

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like i said before, rcg goes about getting his tattoos very differently than i do. when he got his first tattoo, he knew he wanted to get the cover of one of his favorite albums, but he also let the tattoo artist have a little freedom by adding flames and feathers. this time, was similar. he was (is) really into dinosaurs; he wanted to become a paleontologist when he was younger. so as a tribute to that, he decided he wanted a dinosaur tattoo. his idea was for a scene going from his shoulder to his back, with a couple of predators looking around his shoulder, hunting a pack of herbivores on his back. after deciding that, he made sure both species (allosaurus and apatosaurus) were from the same period, and then let hh, our tattoo artist, design it and pick out the colors. (this is part one, stay tuned for part two!) 

virgin beaches and conch shells

after our night in isla mujeres, we spent the next morning sailing to isla blanca. isla blanca is not a legitimate island though; it's actually a super intense peninsula about 10 miles north of isla mujeres, that takes less than 2 minutes to walk across. the captain parked the catamaran a short distance from shore and we got to swim to shore and explore for a little. and it was magnificent: the beaches were empty and the water was cold but refreshing. 

on the following day we went to another island, a virgin island, with the most spectacular blue-green turquoise water. we couldn't handle swimming in the cold water, so the captain took us to shore in the dingy, and we spent the rest of the morning looking for conch shells and exploring the beach. in our explorations we found a snake, raccoon and ocelot prints, horseshoe crab exo-skeletons, tons of conch shells, and a tortoise skull. it was kind of crazy amazing. unfortunately we didn't take our cameras ashore so there aren't very many pictures; you'll just have to go visit it yourself!