"Will you look at the ass on her?"

“I worked with [Paul Newman] on the movie Twilight (1998). When Joanne Woodward came on set, he put his arm around my shoulder and said to me, ‘Will you look at the ass on her?’ That really struck me as an ideal relationship. I love the idea that a guy approaching 80 still loved his wife’s ass.” -Liev Schreiber, Elle

(Via Alexandra Heidi's Pinterest)

An ode to anxiety

We all get it, though it's rarely discussed. Worrying about an outcome that doesn't yet exist, creating unnecessary thoughts that poison the brain. This quote reminded me that sometimes we need to take a breath, and remember how small we are in the scope of things. Funks happen. And they'll happen again. But we're all in this together, right?

“The anxieties come in the night, of course, when we are most able to visualize specific outcomes and conjure up their accompanying pains. When they do, I remind myself that there are almost 7 billion people alive right now. Given the true scope of things, I am nobody. This may seem depressing or counterintuitive to some of you, but for me anonymity can be liberating. And if reminding myself how few people, relatively, could possibly be mocking me fails to break tension, I do a little exercise. I close my eyes and fly around the country, lifting the roofs off various houses and peeking in. In this house someone just announced their engagement; in this one a man packs his army gear for Afghanistan; in the next house a woman goes into labor; next door a man tells his wife he lost his job. Long days, perfect days, days packed with commotion or errands or hours of solitude. Seven billion people. A nurse hands malaria nets; a boy makes a fire on the kitchen floor; a mom combs her daughter’s hair. Seven billion people. The more I fly, the smaller I get, until I’m just about the right size, the size of one person among billions, working my way through my tiny life the best I can.”

Zelda + Scott

"I don't suppose I know you very well - but I know you smell like the delicious damp grass that grows near old walls and that your hands are beautiful opening out of your sleeves and that the back of your head is a mossy sheltered cave when there is trouble in the wind and that my cheek just fits the depression in your shoulder." —Zelda Fitzgerald in a letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, November 1931

"I think every girl is looking for her Mr. Darcy."

"I think every girl is looking for her Mr. Darcy. I'd go for someone who is a little bit brooding and somebody you can have a good conversation with, a good fight with, someone who will always keep you guessing and make you laugh."

- Keira Knightley

PREACH IT, ZOOEY.

Photo via: Mary Loves

I know ONE too many people who need to read this right now.

 I'm not naming any names but, you. And you. And you.

"You can hold tight to facts or truths that you know, despite the buzzing “what-ifs” that fly around you. In a way, you can walk forward stronger and more assured because you are putting faith in yourself being okay with any outcome. You can’t control people or what they do, and you can’t make everything happen perfectly in life. You can however, assure that you feel okay and peaceful throughout all of it.

Take comfort in the knowledge that you will be okay. No matter what. You are strong, you will take care of yourself and heal, and you will grow stronger every day." — Sarah May Bates

Photo: Nurzada Saltanova

"Sometimes all you can do it not think..."

"Sometimes all you can do is not think. Not wonder. Not obsess. Not imagine. Just breathe. Breathe in, breathe out. Everything works out in the end, and the more time you spend worrying about it, the longer it takes for things to end perfectly. Just the way they should."

Photo by: Charlie Engman

"Live Your Way Into The Answer."

“I beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” — Rainer Maria Rilke

Photo via: Sullen & Sullied

"I'm Not the Silly Romantic You Think..."

"I'm not the silly romantic you think. I don't want the heavens or the shooting stars. I don't want gemstones or gold. I have those things already. I want...a steady hand. A kind soul. I want to fall asleep, and wake, knowing my heart is safe. I want to love, and be loved." — Shana Abe

Photos by: Shannen Norman

How to Restore Your Faith in Humanity

• "Take a stroll around a park on the weekend. You’ll see families picnicking, children playing, dogs barking, squirrels nutting and smiles smiling. Parks are such a feel-good place. Go with friends, family or go alone. Either way, be observant and open to the happiness that’s around you.

• Watch a really great movie. I mean, a really great movie. Like Saving Private Ryan or Schindler’s List or Young Frankenstein. Movies about the good in people during the worst of times. Or how even the scariest of monsters can have a heart. Also, come on, Gene Wilder? How can he not cheer you up?

• Watch Military Homecomings. You can find them online or with Billy Ray Cyrus on TLC. I decided to look some up to make it easy and I’m just bawling like a baby now. 1, 2, 3 (seriously, you guys better love me, I’m dripping tears all over my computer), 4, 5. And now you all need to pitch in to help me buy a new computer and more tissues.

• Listen to sad music. Yes, sad music. Research shows that when we listen to sad music, chemicals in the brain are released that are similar to the chemicals released when we cry. These chemicals act as a tranquilizer and calm us down. Enjoy The Smiths and The Perishers. You’ll mope and wallow in the melancholy of it all and then you’ll slowly start to feel better. Once you do, put on something upbeat and joyful like Duran Duran or Noah and the Whale or Kate Nash. And then just dance your ass off.

• Go volunteer. A little more effort than the last few ideas? Perhaps. But if you’re not a typical volunteer type (which is okay, not everyone is!), start small. Clean out your closet and donate clothes to your local shelter or Goodwill. Empty your pantry of some canned goods and take them to a food bank. Or get down and dirty and join an organization to plant trees, clean up trash, read to underprivileged children, anything! There’s tons of ways you can help out, even if you just want to donate some money online.

• Save virtual clippings. Create a bookmark folder called “Faith In Us” or “People Dun Good” or “I LOVE WORLD!” and fill it with news articles, blog entries and other items you find around the internet that restore your faith in humanity. Share stories of  good deeds in the comments and then bookmark this page so that when you’re feeling down, you can come back and remember that people do good things all the time.

• Never forget that those who cheat, steal, lie, hurt, destroy and kill are the minority. There are more people interesting in helping than there are interested in hurting. More people came out to clean up than came out to destroy. "

-- from Made of Air

Dear Seeking Wisdom,

Dear Seeking Wisdom,

Stop worrying about whether you’re fat. You’re not fat. Or rather, you’re sometimes a little bit fat, but who gives a shit? There is nothing more boring and fruitless than a woman lamenting the fact that her stomach is round. Feed yourself. Literally. The sort of people worthy of your love will love you more for this, sweet pea.

You are not a terrible person for wanting to break up with someone you love. You don’t need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough. Leaving doesn’t mean you’re incapable of real love or that you’ll never love anyone else again. It doesn’t mean you’re morally bankrupt or psychologically demented or a nymphomaniac. It means you wish to change the terms of one particular relationship. That’s all. Be brave enough to break your own heart.

When that really sweet but fucked up gay couple invites you over to their cool apartment to do ecstasy with them, say no.

There are some things you can’t understand yet. Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding. It’s good you’ve worked hard to resolve childhood issues while in your twenties, but understand that what you resolve will need to be resolved again. And again. You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness.

Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. 

You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.

Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.

Your assumptions about the lives of others are in direct relation to your naïve pomposity. Many people you believe to be rich are not rich. Many people you think have it easy worked hard for what they got. Many people who seem to be gliding right along have suffered and are suffering. Many people who appear to you to be old and stupidly saddled down with kids and cars and houses were once every bit as hip and pompous as you.

The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.

One Christmas at the very beginning of your twenties when your mother gives you a warm coat that she saved for months to buy, don’t look at her skeptically after she tells you she thought the coat was perfect for you. Don’t hold it up and say it’s longer than you like your coats to be and too puffy and possibly even too warm. Your mother will be dead by spring. That coat will be the last gift she gave you. You will regret the small thing you didn’t say for the rest of your life.

Say thank you.

Yours,

Sugar

*Photo via: Wholesome Scraps

You Tell 'Em, Coco

“Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” - Coco Chanel

"I mean I Know it Sounds Cliche, But..."

"And I mean, I know it sounds cliche, but I guess when I stop to think about it we’re all just absolutely lucky to be here. Thousands of people made babies for hundreds of thousands of years so we could be here. We’re the most modern brightest sparks the universe has ever produced, we’re the latest and greatest in a superlong line of fiery survivors, and we’re living on the only live-giving rock there is in the giant blackness. We get to live! We get to be here! We’re in the 80% of the world who can read, the 20% of the world with Internet access, and the some-other-percent of the world who has time to stop and think about things like happiness and small pleasures and awesome moments.

I guess I like to stop and remember sometimes that we’ll never be as young as we are right now. We only get a hundred years to enjoy everything in this world. Every single person we know will be gone in a hundred years — from grocery store cashiers, to telemarketers who call us at dinner, to the people behind us at movies. We only got a hundred years to enjoy interior design, horoscope signs, books, buffets, and radio waves, clean sheets and good movie seats, bakery air, rain hair, bubble wrap, and illegal naps." - Neil, creator of the book 1,000 Awesome Things 

Now go live the hell out of today, people.

P.S. The lovely Molly Rasmussen has featured me on her blog today, and I am honored. Go check it out. 

Tolstoy's Ten Rules of Life

Leo Tolstoy's 10 Rules of Life

1. Get up early (five o’clock)
2. Go to bed early (nine to ten o’clock)
3. Eat little and avoid sweets
4. Try to do everything by yourself
5. Have a goal for your whole life, a goal for one section of your life, a goal for a shorter period and a goal for the year; a goal for every month, a goal for every week, a goal for every day, a goal for every hour and for evry minute, and sacrifice the lesser goal to the greater
6. Keep away from women
7. Kill desire by work
8. Be good, but try to let no one know it
9. Always live less expensively than you might
10. Change nothing in your style of living even if you become ten times richer

"If This Isn't Nice, I Don't Know What Is."

"And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'if this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'" - Kurt Vonnegut

“You have a special place in the world. All you have to do is find it. Do not give up on yourself, on the truths you have realized. Do not give in to those who would crush your dreams like nutshells. And never turn away from forever love.”

Destiny is for Losers.

"Destiny is for losers. It's just a stupid excuse to wait for things to happen instead of making them happen." 

- Blair Waldorf

Photo: Cognac and Coffee 

Sometimes I Just Like Staring At Girly Things

"A few lucky women have been born with style - but for most of us, style is something that comes with time and experience. Above all style begins with a sense of who you are and your self-confidence. Style comes from opening yourself to the world around you - to book and movies, art, music, travel and especially to other people." - Kate Spade

{photo: Mrs. Lillien}

"It's fun to look beautiful, but it's more beautiful to look fun."

{photo: fuck yeah fit hair}

This is the Story of a Charming Girl...

This is the story of a charming girl...

She is quick, and curious, and playful, and strong;

She lets her imagination run away with her;

She has never been one to stick to convention;

She is fond of daydreams that take her places;

She can order a cocktail in six different languages;

She feels that understated is overrated;

She laughs out loud, sings off key, and believes in taking chances.

                                                             - kate spade

{photo: cedric buchet}