make an encouraging banner

Take a picture of your parents kissing. Write the phone call you wish you could have. Give advice to yourself in the past. Recreate a poster you had as a teenager. Take a picture of strangers holding hands. Ask your family to describe what you do. Write your life story in a day. Photograph a significant outfit. Recreate an object from someone's past. Write down a recent argument. Make an encouraging banner.

my wonderful roommate claire and i have started a summer project. we will be completing a series of assignments from Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher's book Learning To Love You More. i think that it's going to be a really fun, positive thing, and i would encourage everyone who reads this to check it out, too. read, comment, share, contribute your own. get inspired-- it's what all of you do for me.

on a side note, claire has also started a public blog (link on the side), and it feels like the warmth of sunshine and the promise of sunrises and the poignancy of sunsets all at once. her blog has inspired me to write more, and to write better. so hopefully you'll be getting more berlin-esque posts (reference for the five people who read this blog regularly) soon.

things that i want to tell you about in person

the air guitar championships, the bee gees heavy metal tribute band that opened the championships, the magic of summer movies and picnics in the parks of new york, the project that i have recently started with claire which you will be hearing more about very shortly, the way it feels to sit by the water under bridges on hot but breezy days with trains passing over head and grass under my toes, the strange muscles that are sore now that i've started yoga again, the various whirring sounds in the basement that lull me to sleep at night, the beauty and wonder of dinosaur skeletons, the feeling of anticipation when the lights in the planetarium darkens, right before the stars turn on, the current length of my hair, how much i miss you.

"I don't care if it's honest if it's fun," said Big Red.
"I don't care if it's fun if it's real," said Kym.
"I don't even care if it's real," said Debbie. Not everyone knew what she meant.
-Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

things i've been doing (besides not updating this):

• working as a hostess/takeout girl (but soon to be a server!) at chevy's fresh mex. the upsides: pretty good money, improving my spanish, cheap food, working with my roommate meg, sombreros. the downsides: falling on my butt in the kitchen because it's slippery, mexican music 24/7, having to smile constantly at i-banker tools, coming home covered in salsa and guacamole.
• hanging out with allen who was here for a few days! going to the museum of natural history and seeing dinosaur skeletons and cosmic collisions in the planetarium.
• books: hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world, the history of love, labyrinths, even cowgirls get the blues.
• movies: the wackness, encounters at the end of the world (so cool!), wall e.
• SONIC VISION. and you might be able to guess what accompanied it.
  
• watching wet hot american summer on an inflatable screen at a big empty pool in williamsburg. with icecream and blankets and a few hundred neighbors.
• interviewing for fall publishing internships! re-organizing my life.
• our awesome apartment. our awesome, although damp apartment. our awesome, although moldy apartment. our awesome dehumidifier, elroy, who is solving the damp, moldy apartment issues.
  
• my landlord bill looking for a leak in my room and cutting holes in the wall so it looks like a christmas advent calendar. no chocolate in sight.

tonight we're going to see the national air guitar championships for claire's birthday!!!
my apologies to anyone who has been checking this. it's going to get better, i promise.

love and air guitars