Paul puts his pretty brain at F-Train:

Bathtub

Airplane

Kismet

Lust

Photos by Jesse Chan Norris. They had no titles, so I named them because I needed a word to link:

Preparations

Heights

Deno’s

Ready-to-wear

Ferris Wheel

Patient

Pals

Sentries

It’s my birthday! I turn twenty-eight this year. It’s been a very good year. Let’s celebrate with a little bitta Leslie Harpold.

Go read Leslie’s very short essays. Three of my favorites are excerpted and linked below.

“Unsaid”

To the woman who leapt out in front of me on Houston Street and jumped into the cab I had hailed, looking over her shoulder at me, saying “Survival of the fittest, sorry!” as she climbed in:

Fuck you. That was just rude.

“On Being Good”

“I am going to grab you by the collar, push my lips to your ear and whisper in my most murderous tone “I am not only a good girl I am the best good girl there is.”

“Fifty Things I Did Not Do This Weekend

“7. Build a model railroad to scale. I also did not build one not to scale.”

From Dooce:

“Jon and I smoked weed for the first and last time together, a little over a year ago, a horrible experience wherein Jon sat relaxed and groovy on one end of the couch and I sat uncomfortably transfixed at the other end, completely convinced that Jon was going to figure out that I couldn’t hold my shit together while high on pot and leave me for someone who could hold their shit together while high on pot. I kept repeating in my head, Hold your shit together, hold your shit together, and I couldn’t say anything but, Huh? when Jon asked how I was doing. I just knew that he knew that I was not holding my shit together and that our wonderful and loving relationship was coming to an abrupt end. After 17 or 18 Huh? responses I finally mustered what I thought was the most coherent sentence in the world, something that would prove to him that I was so keeping my shit together, and I said, ‘I want our kids to know and to understand the magic that is Bob Marley.’ A year later and we’re still together, people. It totally worked!”

A lot of Heather’s photos and projects have a quality of wonder to them. They give you the feeling of having remembered something forgotten. She took most of the photos in our Polaroid guest book at the wedding, and some of them are so lovely you could cry. (Thank you, my sweet.) Some of my favorite stuff from her other work:

• “A very small token of my affection.” A project for 20 things.
• Frost
• Rebecca with parasol and lace
• Hula Hoops
• Little Evan