I love Emily Yoffe

Note: Many many photos follow the text, for you visual types.

Read her Slate article on the book The Secret here: http://www.slate.com/id/2165746/?GT1=10034 This book looks like a triumph of marketing. All I saw was the cover and I wanted to buy it.

Then when I learned it was all about mindset, about asking the universe for what you want, I really wanted to buy it, and then I remembered that I've already mastered that; I conned the universe into giving me C. That's sort of the ultimate ask-and-ye-shall-receive right there; the man's a godsend. My daily treasure box.

Best quote: "As self-absorbed as I already am, I loved the permission the book gave to sink deeper into a Jacuzzi of megalomania."

This resonates with me because lately I've been in this writing class (actually a really good class) where you sort our your own style. There has been plenty of opportunity for navel-gazery. And while I've learned a lot and have come out of it with some pretty astounding insights into the way I write and the topics I need to write about, part of me is really embarrassed at spending all that time on little old me.

But I digress. Joffe calls the book "pernicious drivel," and that's exactly what it sounds like, even if I do believe that if you want something, you should put it out there. Who knows? The universe might just deliver.

Anyway. So my grandmother died. Old ladies will break your motherfucking heart. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Also, C and I went on this bitchin' road trip, and in between burning rubber, we stopped off at Arches National Park for a whirlwind visit. I give you - Arches!

This was the road to Arches. We had some crazy, crazy weather while we were driving around down there, and all it did was make us yearn to go back during even worse weather: snowy, bright hot, you name it. As it was, the rain brought out the deep oxidized reds of the soil and the rock. GORgeous.



The lichen wasn't bad either. Although I worry about the focus on my point-and-shoot; I think I may have worn it out. It's not looking as sharp as it once was.

Diabolical thing that I am, I am using that as an excuse to agitate for a digital SLR. Now comes the lengthy process of actually choosing one.

Oh! Right! Lichen!
God, it was gorgeous. If you haven't gone to Arches NP, go. Go now.
There's this rock? That's balanced on this other rock? And it's really trippy.

I'm telling you, it was wild, the day we were there.

Below, see that tiny little head-like thing? When C and I saw that, I pulled the straw out of my mouth and said, "Shoot, that thang looks like Nefferteetee."

Guess what that rock formation is called? Nefertiti. I'm so smart.

Dead juniper tree. I love me some dead tree, tell you what. There were also a ton of pinon and live junipers, and Indian riceweed and paintbrush and all these amazing tiny wildflowers, all popping out of this soil that ran the gamut from a peachy-gold to rose to dark rust red. Stunning! A visual feast! [Insert your own cliche here]!

Did I mention the yuccas? Because there were yuccas. Native Americans used to use the leaves for making rope and other textiles. I personally think that is bitchin'.

Now, I really really want to go on a serious Four Corners road trip, recreating the one my dad took my brother and I on when we were just callous youths. We cared more about laying out in the bed of the truck to get a tan than we did about the red red rocks or the local culture, although we were both laid out flat by the Anasazi. It gave us both a fairly serious love of Native American culture, particularly after we found out that one of our ancestors was part of the Cree tribe. And now I want to take my white-bread husband down there so he can find his inner Indian. He's already got an inner black man.

No no -- step off, ladies. He's all mine.