run, jaron, run.

for my beautiful thing of today, i'm going to tell you a little bit about one of my best friends, jaron bernstein.

jaron lives in chicago. we went to middle and high school together. we've done eight million things together, but what brought us close was theatre. jaron is an unbelievably talented actor. i've thought so forever, and even now, when i feel more disconnected from acting than ever, i would love to work with him again. more than that, he's an extraordinary friend. he returns messages, calls me wasted from chapel hill to remind me he loves me, adores my husband and makes him feel at home in our group of friends and with his family, is thoughtful and lovely and funny. even when we drive each other crazy, he's one of my favorite people in the world.

last year, he lost his dad to pancreatic cancer. like jaron, his dad was a very special human being, one remembered only with fondness. it was so fast, too: i can remember the moment jaron told me about diagnosis, and the short months that flew by too quickly before he was gone.

so what i want to write about is what jaron is now working on. because when i lose people i love, and trust me, i've never lost someone i'm as close to as jaron was to his dad, i mope. i clean my house and that's about the extent of any great effort i might make. i sink into sadness until i'm ready to return to the world of the living.

but jaron has grace beyond his years. in honor of his amazing dad, he's running a marathon this thanksgiving weekend. it accomplishes so much: it will raise money for pancreatic cancer, it is an homage to his father's love of healthy living and exercise, and it is a hugely positive action in the face of enormous loss. before he set this goal, he'd never run more than three miles.  i've been following his training, the ups and downs, trials and victories, of pushing your body and soul to the edge of its capacity, and i am so proud of him, and lucky to call him my friend.

i'm posting a link to his personal fundraising page. please, whether you know him or not, pause to consider whether you might be able to donate anything to this beautiful cause. i know it would mean so much to him, and it would absolutely mean the world to me. you can find his page here.

jaron, i'm rooting for you and remembering your dad, and, as usual, am one sappy hot mess.

love,
j

i got you this.

i've been meaning to write about this for a while, actually -

my beautiful thing today is a game i play with my mom. it's simple, easy to include others, takes very little time, and makes me feel so much better on days where i'm a little ornery.

basically, we send each other quick emails that say "i got you this," occasionally with humerous commentary. and then we attach images of truly heinous, tacky, tasteless things. or bizarre. it's an exercise in finding the least appealing gifts on the planet, and she and i are both masters at it. and it makes me laugh every time. so now, when i have a really rough day, i type "i got you this" into the search box of my email and go through a few archived classics. it never ceases to improve my mood.

here's a few examples:

don't i have the coolest mom?

ps. i got you this:

love,
j

what i like about einstein

there's a lot.

but i ran across some words of his today, initially just the first half of the quote, and then the complete text. and every cell of my romantic preschool teacher self swooned a little. here it is:

"if you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. if you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."

no, seriously. please do... i'm pretty sure the fate of... everything rests upon it.

love,
j

this moment

i've re-written this post four times now. each time i've deleted it for fear of it sounding negative, or breaching privacy laws at work, or offending someone. the things i want to write about today are too personal and bittersweet to grace this page, and i think i can be at peace with that.

let it suffice to say: this past week has contained some of the greatest depth of emotion i've ever felt. 

and then we got our "trash the dress" photos back, and in the midst of a lot of darkness they were a beautiful reminder of the inordinate amount of joy that fills j's and my days.

so i'm not going to write about any of painful or challenging things that transpired over the week. i'm just going to share one photo, one perfect photo capturing a moment with my favorite human being on the planet. i love him, i love our city, i love our life together, more than anything i really love being his wife. and all of that comes rushing at me when i look at this:

just like a painting, our lives are made up of positive and negative space; light and dark. and one only serves to give us perspective through which we may view the other. i'm glad this photo popped up during my planning time on monday. it was a good reminder that no matter how hard my day at work is, no matter how many things feel like they're going wrong or are spinning out of my control, i have the gift of waking up and coming home to an incredibly loving marriage each day - an adventure with the one person i can't imagine life without - and i'm grateful for those other, harder pieces, too, because they drive home the realization of how truly beautiful finding that is.

j - thank you for being "home" to me. i could never find the words to explain how lucky i feel to have this with you, that marriage is so much better than i could have imagined, that no task is insurmountable because i have you by my side, but this photo can.

love,

j

hazel hamilton

this morning, j's grandmother passed away... it's been a long day, and there's a lot of heartache, and every cell of me wants to soak up all of her legacy. there are stories about the house in warm beach, about her cooking, about her favorite feisty sayings, about her love story with grandpa george, about all the things that happened directly as a result of her simply being.


and i hope that when my days are through, my family looks back on me half as fondly.

j said there were a few things he could always count on her to say, and one of them was, "if i knew you were coming i'd have baked a cake."

and then, on our drive to the airport to pick up his brother, he shared this clip with me, and i think both our hearts broke in the most beautiful way possible:

and now we're finally heading to bed, and though we're bleary-eyed and i am so sad for my husband and his family, there's a bittersweet beauty to being able to begin mourning and remembering someone so wonderfully lovable -

for me, there were also a couple things i heard her say consistently over the last couple years. one of them was telling me she was going to carbonado in the morning, but the other was even better. she'd look at me and frown, and i wouldn't be sure if she was going to tell me she liked my sweater or that she wanted me out and was going to call the police, but after a long pause, she'd say, "i don't know who you are, but i think i like you."

hazel, i like you so much.

here's to the truly epic and beautiful hazel hamilton - the matriarch of a family that never ceases to take my breath away. you are already sorely missed, and i have so much to learn from you. i'll start by lifting your "i'd have baked a cake" catchphrase. it's perfect.

love,
j

jeg elsker dig

last night was pretty wonderful. it was one month since j and i tied the knot, and jenn called to cancel going to yoga, so i decided to do something special... i headed to central market and picked up some goodies, then tidied up the house (and myself!) and put on a pretty dress to wait for j to come home.

i fixed up the balcony with a little table and chairs and some of the signs from our wedding. i put out a bunch of candles in mason jars and the champagne glasses we received when we were first engaged. when he got home, he was so surprised at how beautiful our little place was. it's beginning to feel more and more like a sweet little home. i'm even thinking about inviting some people over for a real meal! (sheesh! exciting! carissa, perhaps?)

i sat him down and popped one of the bottles of champagne from our wedding, and then served a four course meal. yep. i consider myself a relatively fancy lady, but never in my life have i made a four course meal for one other person. it was incredible.

course one: shrimp cocktails. in vintage pink martini glasses. the perfect combination of spicy and sweet. and i'm a sucker for depression glass.

course two: romaine salad with bleu cheese dressing, st. agur bleu crumbles, and hand salted macadamia nuts.

course three: wild rice, white truffled green beans, and lobster tail. i cooked lobster tail! and i served it with the most delicious butter - j asked me, what did you do to this butter? and i said, nothing, it's pasture butter. do you know what that means to me? it means it comes wrapped in foil and tastes good. anyway, the lobster was really perfect and special and even though i was so anxious about over-cooking it, it turned out just right and made him so happy. (and it's on sale right now at central market, if you're now having a hankering. a really, really good sale).

course four (and i'll admit i didn't make this one, but i replated it real pretty): pink champagne cake that said "Happy Anniversary" in pretty letters, with a side of cherry garcia.

i have to say, ninety-nine percent of the time, i don't feel like i deserve j. on a daily basis, he does so much for me. he wakes up early every morning and cooks me breakfast. he makes me coffee. and then he drives me to work. he comes down and meets me for lunch a couple times a week. he makes me things for my classroom. he does laundry. he cooks delicious meals. so most of the time, i wonder, why'd he marry a schlub like me?

but then there are these glorious moments, like last night, wearing a beautiful sparkly dress, where i feel like the best wife in the world, and where i think maybe i've finally been able to capture and express how much i really love him. nope. it's too much. but where i've come pretty close to expressing it -

and getting to eat lobster and cake never hurts either.

happy anniversary, j! i love you a whole shitload.

love,
j