Tick.

This Sunday burned away quite slowly, unlike most in recent memory. After a refreshing walk in the rain, I decided to pull up hollAnd's "I Steal And Do Drugs", a CD/DVD set featuring 5 original music videos set to minimalist electro-pop. The video footage, often featuring slowed-down, repeated images, may not be enough to satisfy a music "lover" in search of the instantaneous! glossied-up, Pitchfork-hyped "indie" act, and may as a result come off as pretentious and overstated. However, there is something to be said for the way the images drag across the screen...it stirs up an interest in the minute, calling to mind the "butterfly effect" and the power contained within. If you keep rushing through the day-to-day, letting weeks, months, years slip by unnoticed, you could be missing out on wonderful things. Random acts of kindness committed by fellow residents. The flight of a solitary bird twirling its way through a concrete-and-steel forest. Telling glances from passers-by. Even the way the clouds float and curl above you. If you can afford to take things even a little bit more slowly, go for it. Patience, regrettably, is a lost virtue...if you can restore it within yourself, you will reward yourself and all around you a hundredfold.

On that note, take the time--only a few minutes, even--to be thankful for all that is going right in your life and in the lives of the ones you love. Moreso, be thankful for what has gone wrong, for without it, you wouldn't have been able to scale new heights. There have been many opportunities that have truly changed my life this summer, and many people that I have met for whom I have become all the better a daughter, sister, friend, worker, lover, student, and citizen. I have and will continue to cherish every one...