Tea Stains on Parchment

New Year, New You! Time to get back into shape! Take up a hobby! Reinvent yourself! Self-help specialists and newspapers everywhere bombast us with phrases like these. A new year is approaching, and with it, is evidently a new you. Because the some numbers on a calendar change, apparently we must, too. Apparently a method for counting human existence equates progress in our own little lives. Well, here is a "demotivational" post, it doesn't. So, we're approaching 2019—what an accomplishment! A new year seems like a new horizon, like we must be getting closer to something. And yes, sometimes change is great and making a better life for ourselves, but I think that people are just using a new year as an excuse to get their life together. Before I tear into New Year's resolutions, let me preface this by commending us for wanting to make our lives better. It's important to be able to see a problem or point of improvement in our lives and want to change. And that ...

Ever since Instagram, there has been a flood of colorful, photogenic, and unique foods. But, these chic food trends have taken a turn for the outlandish. I mean, drinks served in lightbulbs, burgers covered in marshmallows, and don't get me started on "unicorn" or "rainbow" foods (most things should never be rainbow!). Thriving in this technicolor, toddler—designed food world is the very antithesis of color: black foods. Somewhat unnatural, these black foods are tempting. Dark and mysterious, filled with activated charcoal, could they possibly be any good? Well I never turn down trying something new...especially ice cream. It seems that if I ever go out, it is always for ice cream. So it is no surprise that it was ice cream that brought me to the black food trend. I had heard of the ice cream from one of my favorite shops Franklin Fountain. It was a unique flavor, black, and limited time. How could I say no? Before I outline my adventure on the dark side, let ...

A lot of you here are in school, probable college, and you have a lot of work coming up (you can actually see it on the syllabus). And maybe you're not in school, but you still have a busy life full of stress I'm sure. Honestly, trying to navigate your way through a grocery store can be extremely stressful. There is always something to be cleaned, something to be prepped, a paper to be written, poems to be read--that sentence alone was stressful (because it's true). When there is always something to do, it's hard to allow myself to do nothing. Well, I'm here to tell you, or rather myself, that you can and should  do nothing. OK, stop what you're doing. Sit, curl up under a blanket, diffuse some oils, and breath. Now get back to reading this blog post. I'm not going to tell you to stop worrying because I know that that isn't going to change how you feel. But remember, whatever you're stressing about is only one moment, so take a few moments for you....