renewal (and a puppy)

in the last eight months, i've done about thirty-five million things: almost finished planning a wedding, gotten a puppy, switched jobs, trained for a half-marathon, begun dreaming of my own small business, almost bought a house, then decided not to buy a house, rearranged my furniture, prepared the best salad of my life... none of which involve writing in this blog. when i first began here, it was to be an exercise in so many areas: self-awareness, voice, and most importantly, gratitude. when i look at past posts, they make undeniably happy because they convey some of the most lovely and occasionally unexpected pieces of my life. and my conviction that acknowledging the beautiful things is one of the most important and overlooked tasks we might undertake only grows stronger by the minute.

which is why, today, i'm renewing my effort to write here (a little bit) every day; to present at least one gorgeous, subtle, outlandish, heartbreaking, intimate, gracious, thoughtful, moving, or joyous beautiful thing simply as a part of my daily regimen. like brushing my teeth, or reminding my students of the word "please," remembering how much love and prettiness there is in the world should always be in the foreground, particularly as we are reminded more and more of the dark and dirty and hard.

with that, here's a really cute puppy (mine). his name is louis harsant cafferty. we get asked a lot if he's named after louis armstrong. louis armstrong is pretty great, so i usually say yes, and sometimes i tell people it's a little bit after louis prima, or the song "louis, louis," but in reality, the night we drove him home, we decided to name him after louis c.k. and so it is that in our minds our dog has developed a decidedly adult sensibility when it comes to humor and language:



love,
j