Friday I'm in Love

Here's what I'll be doing this weekend:

NOTHING!

I'm pretty thrilled about this. We haven't been home together a single weekend this month. I think we've had maybe two weekends here since our European vacation, so having a whole lotta nothing on tap feels pretty glorious. As for those drinks you see, mine is the g&t in the highball: Hendricks gin, cucumber slices, tonic, and basil from the garden. T's is the double old fashioned with rum, simple syrup, and mint from the garden. It's going to be 100 again on Saturday, so I expect we'll be needing plenty more of these.

But before we get to the weekend, we have Friday, and as such, here are three things that caught my eye this week, funny and poignant and okay, poignant again, in turn.

What People Waiting in Line for an iPhone Can Learn From Twilight Fans

Oh, how this makes me giggle. Favorites: "This is going to take awhile, so maybe you should put a few posters up and such" and "Sorry Apple addicts, when it comes to waiting in line, you are getting schooled—by a bunch of girls!"

Time Wastes Too Fast 

In college when I had writer's block, I would watch Ken Burns' Thomas Jefferson until I was inspired. It never took long. Monticello is one of my favorite places on the planet - my dad and I nerded out there together too long ago; it's time to go back. We had a TJ table at our wedding, where I seated my siblings. My Jefferson thing is... complicated. I like brilliant people with incredibly varied interests and talents who do great things, yes. But my favorite characters are always the most contradictory ones, the ones full of paradox, the ones battling demons. This piece from the Times, "Time Wastes Too Fast," filled me again with wonder at this man and all the reasons I love being a Jefferson freak. That I can be inspired again and again, swept away still after all these years of paying attention, is exactly why Jefferson will always be among my biggest crushes, with all the trouble and contradiction that it might (and does) bring. (Hat tip: Lauren Airey)

Same Hill, Different Day

A couple of years ago at the New York Public Library, T and I came across a photo exhibit by someone who'd taken a photo out of their apartment window every day for years. The Twin Towers were in their personal skyline. One day the view was dark and fiery. The next it contained a hole. Hundreds of shots of that view, all lined up along a wall. This project - far removed from a window in the middle of the concrete jungle - reminds me of why I liked that one so much. Outside of the tragedy that was captured, there's the quiet routine of everyday people, the gentle coming and going of seasons, the humanity unfolding relentlessly, every single day, with all that it brings. Back then, a skyline with a missing tooth. This time, a simple hill and the people who visit it. "Same Hill, Different Day," by Paul Octavious, via Little Garden.