How to Write a Thank You Note, by Leslie Harpold
“I’m not going to go all Miss Manners on your ass and get into the social intricacies and delicate situations that surround thank-you note writing, as I was taught that a solid thank-you note will transcend all complicated situations—and I have seen no evidence to the contrary.”

How to Give a Eulogy by Tom Chiarella
“You were selected. You get to stand, face the group, the family, the world, and add it up. You’re being asked to do something at the very moment when nothing can be done. You get the last word in the attempt to define the outlines of a life. I don’t care what you say, bub: That is a gift.”

Can’t you almost smell that color?

When I first saw a Mountain Rose Apple, my breath caught. It reminded me of a professor who said that one of the Impressionist painters — I think it was Matisse — brought an apple as a gift when he visited friends. And that’s exactly what these apples are, tokens of affection. The best way to bring something simple and sweet to someone you love.

Taste 1,000 fruits is part of my ongoing Life List project. If you’d like to make a Life List of your own, start with these 10 tips or this exercise.

I didn’t finish the last third of Bed by Tao Lin, because it was bringing me down. But as you’ll see below, there were some lovely moments in the first bit, so don’t let my lack of initiative dissuade you.

The best parts of (the first two-thirds of) Bed, by Tao Lin:

Jesus loves you, he thought. But Jesus isn’t in love with you.

“If I gained thirty pounds,” Kristy said in bed, “would you still be with me?”
For love to work, Garret believed, you had to lie all the time, or you had to never lie at all. “I don’t know,” he said. You had to pick one and then let the other person know which you had picked. You had to be consistent, and sometimes a little stupid. “I can’t tell the future,” Garret said. “Obviously. Can you?”

Lucid as a tiny, soap washed moon.

Paul sees Mattie as she is going down the escalator and he is going up. They seem to look each other in the face. Mattie has an abstract expression, and Paul thinks of screaming her name, but then thinks that would be a bit ridiculous. Later, he thinks of just saying her name, at a normal volume. Of course, he thinks.

She grins a little. She reaches for the sugar, changes her mind, moves her hand to her water, changes her mind, brings her hand to her head, scratches behind her ear.

It was probably best not to think about your life, though — ever — Greg knew, but to just assume that it was there, and happening, to trust that it was out there, doing whatever it was that a life would do.

Greg stumbled for a bit, almost fell over. He had forgotten how to walk. Life was precarious like this.

Greg was one of those kids who, to avoid being seen eating alone, never sat in the cafeteria; was always carrying his lunch around, like someone lost or eccentric, looking for a safe place. He invariably ate in spots weird and badly-lit, spots ruthless with indignity — a dewy nook; an abstract, long-forgotten bench; an inexplicable room adjacent the bathroom, with prison bars instead of a door.

Sean looked at her teeth, the private collection of them, packed tightly inside of her small, elegant head, like a secret behind the face, a white and shocking hobby.

Vocab list:

Dugong — a large marine mammal which, together with the manatees, is one of four living species of the order Sirenia:

enjambment — the running on of the thought from one line, couplet, or stanza to the next without a syntactical break.

eschatologically — The branch of theology that is concerned with the end of the world or of humankind.

miasmic — A noxious atmosphere or influence.

pappy — soft and bland

Hi team, my friend Clay Walsh is in this video from the California College of the Arts — it’s part of the It Gets Better Project, which is about helping prevent suicide among gay teens.

I don’t recall being taught anything in particular about homosexuality growing up, but my family comes from a conservative Christian background, and I do remember being uncomfortable the first time I saw two men kissing in college. That reaction was me being afraid of the unknown, and I realized pretty quickly that my discomfort was mostly a product of confusion.

So, two things:

1. If you like me, one of the things I’d like you to know about me is that I don’t think there’s anything weird about being gay, or bi, or trans.

2. If you’re a straight or gay person who’s uncomfortable with the idea of homosexuality, please scroll through these videos until you find a thumbnail of someone who looks average to you — maybe someone who looks like you or your best friend — and press play.

That’s it. Maybe I’m preaching to the choir here, but what the heck. We’re pretty sheltered in San Francisco*, and it’s easy for me to forget that gay kids elsewhere are hurting. Hi, guys. We see you hurting. Everything will be ok.

(* Update: Didn’t mean to be confusing here. What I mean is that people in San Francisco tend to think similarly when it comes to social issues. As someone says in the video, if you’re a homophobe here, you’re the one who needs to be in the closet. In my experience, people recoil and actively call someone out if they use words like “fag,” and will not date you or otherwise engage with you socially. When I say we’re sheltered, I mean it can be shocking to travel to places where homophobic tendencies are tolerated or even prevalent, and so it becomes easy to forget how bad it can be elsewhere. Does that make more sense?)

(This image and those below are from the ALT Summit 2012 Photostream.)

Oof. ALT Summit was so good. A bunch of artistic, fun women talking about making stuff, while their sequins flash in the light.

This was my third year speaking, and I moderated a panel about growing your site readership with Jordan Ferney of Oh Happy Day, Nicole Balch of Making it Lovely, and Kelly Beall of Design Crush.

They were a design blogger dream team, and I was so pleased with how it turned out. In particular, the audience asked great questions. (High fives, smart audience.)

Other highlights included the Dinner En Blanc, where everyone wore white and then we ate ribs.

All of us discussed how we were a little perplexed about what to wear. How do you find a white outfit in the dead of winter?

But the cumulative effect was like having one of those half-awake dreams where you try to stay asleep because everything is so warm and calm.

Looking good, ladies.

I learned all kinds of business and bloggy stuff over the weekend, but there were two more universal moments that stuck with me.

During her keynote Gretchen said, “If you cram your life with the things you love, there’s no time for the things you don’t love. They have to fall away.”

And during Heather’s panel on community, she said of her brother, “His laugh makes me laugh.”

Most concise description of love on record.

Many thanks to Gabby, Sarah, and Kate for taking such good care of us. See you all next year.