Boston Strong

See individual post

Two Weeks Later

Beautiful cover from Boston magazine.
See individual post

Words

"The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
See individual post

Old Fashioned

"...in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books. Instant information is not for me. I prefer to search library stacks because when I work to learn something, I remember it." -Harper Lee
See individual post

But I Do Like Coffee

See individual post

Buh Bye

"Can you unfriend someone on Facebook without them knowing it?" -the editor of a certain magazine. Clearly, being up-to-date on social media was not a requirement for his job (unfortunately).
See individual post

Coexist

"Historical sense and poetic sense should not, in the end, be contradictory, for if poetry is the little myth we make, history is the big myth we live, and in our living, constantly remake." -Robert Penn Warren
See individual post

Better Keep Drinking

"By drinking a cup more coffee than usual, people in a Tufts University study increased their ability to spot grammatical errors." -March issue of Family Circle magazine
See individual post

Like

"...and when the luck begins, it's like a wedding,
which is like love, which is like everything." -Alice Oswald
See individual post

Boston

"For Boston's not a capital,
And Boston's not a place;
Rather I think that Boston is
A sort of state of grace.
The people's lives in Boston
Are flowers blown in glass;
On Commonwealth, on Beacon,
They bow and speak and pass.
No man grows old in Boston,
No lady ever dies;
No youth is ever wicked,
No infant ever cries.
No orthodox Bostonian
Is lonely or dejected,
For everyone in Boston
With everyone's connected.
So intricate the pattern,
The barroom of the Ritz
Becomes a jigsaw puzzle
Each life a piece that fits."
-excerpt from "Boston is Like No Other Place in the World, Only More So," by E.B. White.
See individual post

Ghosts

"But when we are searching for an example of what we no longer have, we see it everywhere." -The Cat's Table.
See individual post

Math Minded

"My parents sent me to Wellesley. Halfway through I went to talk to the dean. I said why do I have to take courses I'm not interested in? I want to take math and physics. She said: 'You belong at MIT.' So I went to MIT for a year." -conversation with a little old lady in the locker room at the aquatic center.
See individual post

Run On

See individual post

Copley Square

"At that time, they heard a low, loud rumble -- almost like a thunder clap. They immediately looked at each other and then at the sky ... but nothing." -short recap of Monday's tragic events.
See individual post

Glad That's Over

"I constantly remind myself that resting takes confidence. Anyone can train like a mad man but to embrace rest and to allow all the hard training to come out takes mental strength." -Ryan Hall
See individual post

Marathon Monday

By a playground near our hotel in Boston.
See individual post

Eh

"It's just a run-of-the-mill book, and the awful thing is that it is absolutely the best I can do." -John Steinbeck on The Grapes of Wrath.
See individual post

Monticello

"From breakfast, or noon at the latest, to dinner, I am mostly on horseback, Attending to My Farm or other concerns, which I find healthful to my body, mind, and affairs." -another good one by T.J., who's birthday is today.
See individual post

En Vogue

"In manners of style, swim with the current." -Thomas Jefferson
See individual post

Swedish Newspapers

Where was this when I wrote my thesis?!
See individual post

Powerhouse

"You have incredible calves." -a woman I ran with over the weekend. Thanks?!
See individual post

March Madness

"Whit, you may have noticed that you had the dubious distinction of coming in last place in the Hines NCAA tournament pool...but the good news is that the last place finisher gets his or her $20 back -- so you actually won! (but I'm keeping the $20)." -email from my dad
See individual post

Spring

"How beautiful the blossoms are -- emblems of the resilience of life." -Louise Gluck

Photo of the tree in our backyard (yes, in the desert!)
See individual post

Half full

Good advice from a professor...
See individual post

Sharp Shooter

Photo above by Annie Liebovitz of Annie Oakley's little heart target at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe.
See individual post

Pepé Le Pew

"After this, I have to go to Animal Control to see about trapping a skunk." -woman ahead of me in line at the post office. Sounds about right for Los Alamos.


See individual post

Memories

"When the past is recaptured by the imagination, breath is put back into life." -Marguerite Duras
See individual post

A Squirrel's Ear

"...it was time to plant corn on our farm when the leaves on the bur oak tree were the size of a squirrel's ear. And so that would be April." -from an NPR story on the Big Tree in McBaine, Mo.
See individual post

The Life

"I loved, I was loved, my health was good...I was happy and I confessed it to myself." -Giacomo Casanova
See individual post

Sunny skies

"Something new in the air today, perhaps the struggle of the bud to become a leaf. Nearly two weeks late it invaded the air but then what is two weeks to life herself?" -Jim Harrison
See individual post