seriously!

nataliedee.com

margot on conan!

if you don't watch any other part of this video, please take 10 seconds to tune in around 2:20 to see tyler playing some kind of strange "off andy's shoulder" piano thing. seriously. it's so ridiculous and awesome.



they seem really nervous. and all dressed up for the occasion. i would be too.

it was all for you

exploding dog.

untitled.

I was driving to the neighborhood like I do every Tuesday afternoon when my phone rang. It was Sandra. Sandra knew Mika because she had responded to a flyer for Express Yourself registration I had left on her doorstep back in July, before we had even chosen a neighborhood. I visited her for the first time a few months ago, and she told me about her husband that lives in another state and her daughter who has been able to attend school for the first time this year because she has been fighting cancer. I had a bittersweet relationship with Sandra; she had been so helpful and encouraging from the beginning, but she was planning on moving to be with her husband at the end of the year.

Sandra had called me a couple of times before, so when her name popped up I wasn’t too surprised. “Hey Sandra, how are you doing?” I asked. She responded in her broken English, “I am doing okay. I have a question for you.” She proceeded to ask me if I knew of anyone looking for part-time house cleaning or if there was any work she could do with Mika.

This was not an uncommon question. As people in the neighborhood see me more, they think of me in many different ways—one of the obvious ways being a white female with money and connections. However, for Sandra it was different. She has been enthusiastic to help me from the beginning and had not asked for anything in return. I told her I was a few minutes away from her house and that I would come right over.

I greeted her and we chatted for a few minutes. She said something in Spanish to her daughter who then got up and left the room. “I have to tell you something,” she said quietly. She did her best to convey that she and her husband were going to stay separated and she was going to need a part-time job to help with the bills. She couldn’t work full-time because of her daughter’s fragile condition and she didn’t know who else to call. She couldn’t apply for many jobs because she doesn’t have proper documentation. She couldn’t tell her daughter that she wasn’t going to see her father in a few weeks’ time. She fought back tears and we sat in silence for a few minutes.

I knew these types of days would come because they are inevitable in the work that I do at Mika. I just wasn’t expecting this day to come so soon.

the office in real life part 4

this is a muffin, not a donut. this was found sitting in the breakroom after someone so generously brought us delicious treats from starbucks. who eats just the CENTER of a muffin?

kennedy and me

if there were a presidential candidate that used this as their campaign ad these days, i would vote for him or her, hands down, no questions asked.

today the world has beautiful colors

from Chicago's Red Eye newspaper on November 5, 2008:

"an anonymous black man announced to an L car full of strangers: 'Rosa Parks sat. Martin Luther King marched. Barack Obama ran. and my grandchildren will fly.'"