collage.

hillaryanne. matesofstate. jerseyboys. gonetogovernors//bushmills//converse. museumofmodernart. timessquare. 90,000sqftforever21. brooklynbridge. thecenterforbookarts. food. thefryingpan. stardustdiner. cowgirl. nyu. thestandardgrill. thehighline. meatpackingdistrict. chelseamarkets. centralpark. 

more pics to come!

mates of state.

saw this beautiful//talented//ethereal couple perform for the second time in brooklyn with hillaryanne last week. you think i'm kidding when i say there aren't words to describe how phenomenal they are live, but, well, i'm not. enjoy.

nyc.

13 days till nyc with hillary!
13 years old was i (ok, so i wanted the 13s to line up and had to comprise my impeccable grammar in order to do so) when i played the part of "star to be" in the musical annie. star to be was a character who had just arrived in nyc, having every intention of making it on broadway. while i'm not hopping on a plane for exactly the same reasons, i'm pretty sure that i'm just as excited!



(head to minute 3:50 for the glory that is star to be.)

i absolutely can't wait to see my sister in her new element which she has embraced with such confidence, excitement, and maturity. my little (5'11) baby is growing up!

many conversations recently. many thoughts, many ideas, many moments.

perhaps one of the most exciting moments has been the one on Saturday in which i bought my plane ticket to see sista hillary in nyc! "i can't wait" has rarely been so very true. july 14th, here i come.

more wonderful moments: i recently read surprised by hope by n.t. wright and there is still so much whispering, weaving, wandering about in my mind it that i find myself not entirely sure how to begin articulating my thoughts. so i'll give myself a bit more time and instead share some more well-prepared notions of others i've come across recently...each of these ideas and many more are shaping my thought life at the moment...

• Ending human trafficking is not idealistic or naive. It is audacious. And it is people of audacity who change the world. - Rob Morris, President and Co-Founder of Love146.
  
• Launch out in reckless, unrestrained belief that the redemption is complete. Then don’t worry anymore about yourself, but begin to do as Jesus Christ has said, in essence, “Pray for the friend who comes to you at midnight, pray for the saints of God, and pray for all men. - Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
  
• I believe that if we take justice, beauty and evangelism in terms of the anticipation of God's eventual setting to rights of the whole world, we will find that they dovetail together and in fact that they are all part of the same larger whole, which is the message of hope and new life that comes with the good news of Jesus' resurrection. - N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope

mmm, mmm good.

recladding: the good, the bad, the early.

it's no secret to those who know me well that i am quite the sleeper. napper, not so much, but 8 hours at night is almost always a minimum requirement for me. God has been extremely kind to this little "need' in my life by giving me a job that starts at 9am and is 8 minutes (walk down the hall, elevator ride, and car hunting in the apartment parking lot included) from my apartment. so, to get everything out in the open, i'll inform the three of you who will read this that many a morning i am awake for less than an hour before arriving at work, oftentimes getting out of bed between 8-8:15.

try to keep your hatred to a minimum so you can keep reading.

a few months ago, our apartment complex informed us that they would be "recladding" the building, which for those of you who are like me (i.e. intentionally avoiding any jargon which refers to topics such as building, architecture, or construction of any kind), means the building is being re-bricked and floors 4-10 will be receiving new windows. we live on the 4th floor, a.k.a. the start space on the proverbial monopoly board of project "let's make the swiss tower residents a little crazier as if seminary wasn't already contributing enough to that end" (at least that's what i would have named it had my opinion been solicited). so, falling dutifully in line with julie andrews' lyrical instructions, they've started "at the very beginning (a.k.a. floor four), it's a very good (debatable) place to start." 

now that's all well and good when we're speaking in the proverbial, the big picture, lyrical, the end result even. i'm thrilled that we'll have new windows as the insulation on the old ones was rather sub par. but as the great rapper of my high school days so poetically phrased it, it's time to "snap back to reality" and think about what this means for the here and now.

what does all of this really mean? well, i'll tell you.

it means jackhammers outside my bedroom window at seven o'clock in the morning.
it means jackhammers outside my bedroom window at seven o'clock in the morning.
it mean jackhammers outside my bedroom window at seven o'clock in the morning.
it means jackhammers outside my bedroom window at seven o'clock in the morning.

(by the way, the number of words you can effectively emphasize in a sentence is directly related, in most cases, to the validity and atrocity of your statement. the above statement is hereby declared valid and atrocious.)

this morning it was so loud and causing so much movement that the christmas decorations fell off the shelf in our closet. my sparkly mailbox ornament was broken. maybe i should open my bedroom window and see if the men with the jackhammers would like to try to fix it.

again, let me say that i am thrilled about the new windows. i am thankful that they started on our side of the building rather than the courtyard, leaving the pool accessible for the summer.

all i'm trying to say is, those thoughts are not the ones running through my head at seven o'clock in the morning.

and that is the end of my story.