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‎January 29, 1947 ― Again I slept late. But there’s something in the New York air that makes sleep useless; perhaps it’s because your heart beats more quickly here than elsewhere―people with heart conditions sleep less, and many New Yorkers die of heart problems. In any case, I’m enjoying this windfall: the days seem too short. Breakfast in the corner drugstore is a celebration. Orange juice, toast, café au lait―an unadulterated pleasure. Sitting on my revolving stool, I participate in a moment of American life. My solitude does not separate me from my neighbors, who are also eating alone. Rather, it’s the pleasure I feel that isolates me from them. They are simply eating; they’re not on vacation.

Simone de Beauvoir, America Day by Day, 1947. (via beauvoiriana)

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quintessential ny feels

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out in the back of the church we told each other we’d grow up and keep being odd with our fingertips stained and our knees all bruised and you took a deep breath and told me that you can’t teach a fish to climb a tree and if someone tried to make you survive through a lifetime of cubicles you’d explode like a firework and i laughed and said okay what color firework 

i figured you’d say something sarcastic and strange like chartreuse or evergreen or wintermint

but you looked at me with those eyes that meant you had glimpsed something of your future and sort of hated it and you said “you know the color you feel when someone you love slowly forgets you”

and i swallowed hard and said yes, yes i had lived through a couple of those

you looked at the sky then. “i’d be one of those,” you said, “a whole sunset of them.” 

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A bit more on NASA’s uselessness:

If you’re here, you probably have a deep love for astronomical discovery. You probably see the inherent value in space exploration. You probably have spent some time thinking about the long-ranging effects of space programs and the mind-expanding, universe-exploring, resource-gaining benefits they will confer on future generations. And if someone talks about how NASA is useless, you probably feel slightly indignant and bring up all those things in response. 

I get it. I’m with you. But it’s not going to be very effective. Those lofty NDT quotes about ~the dream of tomorrow~ really only resonate with people who already, y’know, see the value of the space program. 

The “Dream of Tomorrow” argument doesn’t work too well in practice. Rational arguments can be made that this perspective is too farsighted in light of societal ills or other priorities; that it has few practical, immediate applications; that it’s a niche interest. And when you frame it solely in terms of “exploring the cosmos will better our species,” well … those are all valid hurdles.  

Framing NASA’s value solely in terms of grandiose future possibilities is an implicit admission that yes, space programs are frivolous and impractical. 

There are practical, everyday applications to the things NASA has given us. It’s not that NASA is useless, it’s that when you’re watching your favorite wide receiver get their shit rocked, you’re probably too busy hollering about it to think, “Gee, I wonder how that helmet is structured and where the technology to build it came from.”

NASA pushed along the development or straight-up pioneered the tech behind things ranging from LEDs to solar panels to UV blocking sunglasses to the foam in your athletic shoes to the Invisalign that fixed your busted teeth to the smoke detector that embarrassed you in front of your new girlfriend when you tried to impress her by making fajitas. Medical technology owes huge debts to NASA technology, which means lots of us owe our quality of life to the same.

And if you want to talk about this from a purely economic standpoint:

NASA’s budget accounts for <1% of the federal budget

As the linked Neil DeGrasse Tyson video above points out, this is half a penny on your dollar.

Every dollar invested in NASA is estimated to produce $7-$8 in goods and services

The industrial, environmental, and agricultural advances alone are enormous boons for the economy. These are all things that affect us every day even though most of us will likely never encounter them directly

Consumer goods based on NASA technologies span across multiple industries and are employed by billion-dollar companies. Think of the sheer scale of commerce involved just in Nike Airs alone and tell me NASA has no economic value

I’ve always liked that Antoine de Saint-Exupery quote: “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” But it’s a pretty bad short-term strategy.

It’s a huge disservice to astronomy-lovers and space programs to promote this idea that NASA may not be practical but us High-Minded Intellectuals support it for High-Minded Intellectual reasons. The average person ain’t gonna listen to that, and then all of a sudden the astronomy you love so much has no funding because we did nothing to keep it around.

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I don’t have trust issues, I have experience

#thanksnewyork

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one of my favorite places <3

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untangling the web of expression, identity, and aspiration is pretty key to simplifying life

What Living In A Million Dollar Apartment Taught Me About Happiness

I love my home. This is partly because it only costs me $500/month in rent, but it is partly because it suits me, though my home is far from perfect. There are occasional roaches, my oven barely fits most of my cooking pans, and there’s an active freight train track in my backyard. I love my home because it suits my needs and my budget. It’s not some aspirational statement about who I am or how I want others to see me; it’s just me right now, making the best of my life.

I’ve lived in some wonderful places because my parents were officers for the State Department. When we were posted in foreign countries, our homes were owned, decorated, and maintained by the U.S. government. Our entire home was designed to reflect a particular image of the United States to the many foreign dignitaries, and cultural figures, who dined at our table or sipped tea in our living rooms. It sounds glamorous, and sometimes it was. We were, of course, very fortunate. But it was also really bizarre and made it impossible to ever really feel “at home.”

The first house I remember was the one we moved into when I was four or five years old. It was a four-bedroom, two-bath bungalow in an upper middle-class suburb of Johannesburg. It had a laundry room, and adjacent household staff quarters, a pool, a garden, a covered front veranda, nine-foot walls trimmed with barbed wire, barred windows, and an electric gate with an intercom. I have good memories in this house, but it was also 1989 and apartheid was in full effect in South Africa, and we were cut out behind our electric gate from the reality of it all.

Looking back, my life in that house was sweet because I was young and (quite literally) walled off from the external world where terror was going on just beyond our porch. My memories were of Halloween parties, and going to my private school, and going to friends’ houses, which were equally secluded. After I studied African politics, I returned to South Africa to volunteer at several NGO’s and drove by the house I once lived in. From the outside, it was just a drab 1970s bungalow with even more barbed wire. I am told it is still owned by the U.S. Government.

It wasn’t until I left South Africa, when I was young, that I realized how truly surreal our homes were. When we moved to Paris, we lived in an apartment in the sixteenth arrondissement, which, to me, is the equivalent of the Upper East Side. It was over 2,000-square feet, with courtyard parking, views of the Eiffel Tower, and a whole separate apartment complex on the top floor. We could literally ride bikes and roller skate in our apartment. Our neighbors were the Countess de Champagne (that’s right, the champagne countess), a Saudi princess (who was only there one month per year to shop), and a law firm. It was the grandest place I lived or will ever live, and it was also one of the unhappiest. My mom and dad worked late. This house didn’t feel like ours (because it wasn’t) and we were always called upon to host complete strangers who were friends of so and so. My parents had to host five-course dinner parties with bars and wait staff. I was told to stay in my room, and out of the kitchen, during these events.

I feel privileged to have lived in these cities — and many other gorgeous homes in far-flung places — because my parents served the United States government. But, at the end of the day, we were a two-breadwinner, civil servant family with the same problems as many other families (with some quirks and situational differences). Living in these homes took the pressure off paying rent when we were overseas, but it came with other pressures, like death threats from terrorist groups, or awkward dinner conversation with political donors who wanted a free place to crash in an expensive foreign city. Using our home to represent something that they weren’t definitely hurt my parents’ marriage, and it gave my brother and me some issues as well.

In my opinion, we often get caught up in the notion that the home needs to show off an aspirational version of ourselves, but that isn’t always an accurate representation of the people living in that house. So much of our life was spent in surroundings that did not reflect who we were at all. After a childhood of living in dream homes, I can safely say that I have no interest in taking out a monster mortgage to fund a dream home. I would so much prefer a home that is suited for me — the real me, not the aspirational version of me. My home should be a place to be myself, not a place to sink a small fortune into being something I’m not.

My house makes me happy now because it’s just as imperfect as I am. It’s a place where I can live happily and simply, instead of stressing about home maintenance or improving it to fit some social standard. That being said, I pin the hell out of DIY shit, clip World Market coupons, and tend to my compost like it’s my child. I still want to make my space beautiful, but I want to do it for me, on my own budget.

Emma is an attorney who moved from NYC to Nashville for law school and decided to stay.  She will never again live North of the Mason Dixon line or pay more than 1/3 of her salary in rent. Follow her blog or her Instagram.

Image via Pexels

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I want a poster of this

“There’s nothing hard about being four.”

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That feeling is the best and most dangerous part of any submission of the self to something collective and greater. I miss it.

“I’m studying to be a rabbi. I’m a little worried that I’ll be out of a job because less and less people seem to find religion meaningful. It’s getting to the point where it seems crazy or stupid for someone my age to believe in God. I see God most in my relationships with other people. Victor Hugo said that ‘to love another person is to see the face of God.’ I think our capacity to love is uniquely human and naturally connects us to something higher than ourselves. I even think that loving a baseball team can be a religious experience. I was here in 2012 when Santana pitched his no hitter. Everyone in this stadium was holding their breath at the exact same time. And when the game ended, everyone screamed with the same joy. We all felt so connected at that moment. And I think that was holy. That’s the feeling I want to create in my synagogue.”

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okay I have to disagree with this one. There are definitely cases of dudes ignoring clear signals - headphones in and plugging away at something? I don’t want to talk.

But I don’t think we need to live in a society where women don’t allow men to approach them, ever. That’s not healthy. And maybe this is just the fact that I don’t have that many friends who live near me but -- I’d kind of love it if someone - respectfully - started a conversation with me the next time I’m at the coffee shop.

I know there are times when saying no is hard but working at a coffee shop at least provides a convenient excuse for those times when being polite is appropriate - “hey, it’s nice to meet you but I have to get back to work.”

Of course, for those times when being polite is not appropriate, it’s also totally fine to say “go away.” Something I’ve been working on ever since a guy cornered me in the library and tried to have a loud conversation about Hunger Games in the poetry section. NO.

via Everyday Feminism

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That’s the best fucking business plan I’ve ever heard

“I was a maître d’ at a restaurant for thirteen years. But one week I got a really bad case of pneumonia that put me in the hospital. While I was lying in that hospital bed, I was thinking about how I really didn’t want to go back to work. Then that motivational speaker came on TV. You know– the one that has all those teeth in his mouth. And he said: ‘Think back to what made you happy when you were young! That’s what you should be doing!’ Well I grew up in the country, and I always had a lot of dogs, so I thought that nothing would make me happier than to be a dog walker. But I knew I needed to distinguish myself. So I decided to make a uniform. I smoked a joint and came up with this outfit. I wanted people to look at me and think: ‘If this man is walking our dog, and there’s some sort of major disaster, he’s going to survive. He’s going to fish for those dogs. He’s going to build a bunker and shelter those dogs until it’s safe to bring them home.’ After I finished the design, I got four of my friends to wear the uniform, and we borrowed all the neighbors’ dogs, and we walked them down 5th avenue while handing out business cards. I got five customers that first day.” 

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Eleanor Roosevelt’s 1959 booty call telegram to her favorite burlesque dancer wins the web this week, but here are some other great things that happened, too: bit.ly/1Kl2cca (via sideshow)

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“I was born in a small town in North Carolina, but my family moved north when we were young. After I graduated from college, I went back for a visit. I thought it would be fun to make a bit of a triumphant return to my hometown. I was driving a new car and had a City College sweatshirt, so I was feeling pretty good about myself. As soon as we arrived, we got out of the car to walk around a bit. We were acting a bit too self-assured. My brother started taking photos of signs that said ‘Negro Entrance.’ We were gone for a couple hours. When we got back, a young white teenage mechanic was shouting at us from across the street. ‘Don’t get in your car!’ he screamed. ‘Don’t get in your car!’ He brought his truck over and towed us back to his garage. He explained that he’d seen the police disconnect our muffler so they could pull us over and take us to jail. After he fixed our muffler, I drove all the way back to New Jersey and didn’t return for 40 years.”

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the most true romantic thing I have ever heard

“It’s taken a lot of time to fit together like this.” (Namakabroud, Iran)

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“When I’m bored, I call up Radio Pakistan and request a song, then I start dancing. I’ll even dance on a rainy day. It’s my way of expressing how grateful I am. I am the happiest man in Pakistan.” (Passu, Pakistan)

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“I’ve spent my life trying to undo habits—especially habits of thinking. They narrow your interaction with the world. They’re the phrases that come easily to your mind, like: ‘I know what I think,’ or ‘I know what I like,’ or ‘I know what’s going to happen today.’ If you just replace ‘know’ with ‘don’t know,’ then you start to move into the unknown. And that’s where the interesting stuff happens.”