Thoughts while enjoying the gorgeous California sunshine with my Kindle and a glass of iced tea

1. Bite Beauty is releasing liquid lipsticks, and I have never been so excited for a lipstick launch, ever. Bite is absolutely killing it. Fun fact: Their lipsticks are technically edible because they're made with food-grade ingredients. Also, can we appreciate how gorgeous/creative the art direction is?

2. A comprehensive guide to all of Arrested Development's running gags. Amazing.

3. What did you inherit from your parents? And I don't mean your eye color or whether or not you can roll your tongue. I mean like the little things you've picked up from coexisting with your parents for 20+ years. I inherited my mom's paranoia regarding dying of a freak accident, and her capacity for delight; she still makes my sisters and me Easter baskets even though two of us are legal adults (my basket this year had a pair of pug socks...apparently they're pretty easy to find because people just give them to me for birthdays and other occasions, and now I have six pairs AKA it's officially a collection). I inherited my dad's appreciation for '70s music and terrible puns, so he's at least 30% responsible for a lot of the the content of this blog.

4. This hurts a lot to read. I've always thought that minority white supremacists suffer from an inferiority complex/deeply-ingrained sense of self-loathing, which is really sad. But it's also hard to feel sympathy for her, because I think in this situation you either are strong enough to tune out all the external pressure, or you internalize and perpetuate hateful rhetoric and deny your own heritage in order to "fit in". I think the latter is definitely the weaker option.

5. I currently have two cookbooks, Chrissy Teigen's Cravings and the Bouchon Bakery cookbook, both of which I love passionately. And Molly on the Range has been waiting in my Amazon cart forever and I have patiently resisted. Until I have a bookshelf on which to put them and a kitchen in which to use them, I don't feel justified in having a cookbook collection. But I really want a cookbook collection.

6. I watched a great TEDx talk recently called "How to be human in the age of social media," and he talked about what I think a lot of us struggle with: the noise. There's just so much unregulated chaos going on all at once, and it's difficult to know what to pay attention to. And I think it proves, if anything, that a true democracy is not a good thing. Having observed the shifting news landscape as a former journalist, he gave an honest assessment of where social media stands today, and how it would have to evolved in order to be a genuinely productive marketplace of information. He asserted that the goal is to "guide communities toward consensus," which reminded reminds me of that game of Pokémon that everyone played at once. It was chaotic for sure, but the character slowly made moves. Sometimes the trolls won, and it would go a couple of steps backward, but I think it demonstrates the true power of working toward a common goal.

7. I absolutely love miniature things, and am guilty of buying things just because they're miniature (which makes the checkout line at Sephora a very dangerous place for me). And I only just realized that I had accumulated around 2,500 Beauty Insider points at Sephora from having an account since 2008 and never cashing them in, so recently I've just been using them to buy samples. Lots of samples. And it is delightful, let me tell you. Nothing else brings me as much joy as seeing tiny little bottles lined up on my vanity.

8. Something I've really loved lately is The New York Times' "Modern Love" series. It's a short essay series written by readers, of all love stories. Some of the stories are everyday-relatable, some are fairytale-incredible, and some are Shakespearean tragedy-heartbreaking. But they're all really beautiful. Favorites: "Wanting Monogamy as 1,946 Men Await My Swipe," "My So-Called (Instagram) Life," "The Physics of Forbidden Love," "You May Want to Marry My Husband," and "Grappling With the Language of Love".

9. Some doctor left his ID card clip at the restaurant the other day, and as I was looking through it for a phone number, I came across a card with a bunch of emergency codes. There were the standard ones, like fire and earthquake, but there were also ones for bomb threats, active shooters, and mass casualties. And I was struck once again at the ethical complexity of medicine. I admire doctors so much, because they really do have to be prepared for anything, and sometimes you really can't save everyone. You have to kind of steel yourself against the most unsavory aspects of the world while maintaining your sense of hope and compassion. It's a difficult task.

10. Even though San Diego barely has seasons, I love the subtle sensations that accompany each one. They're so strangely nostalgic. I love the slightly burnt smell of the heater system in our house, because it reminds me of lazy winter mornings when the three of us would wear fuzzy socks and fleece pajamas, drink chicken soup for breakfast, and dabble around on the piano. I love the heavy mist that settles over crisp fall days and the smell of rain on the pavement; it reminds me of trick-or-treating on Halloween as a kid or stepping on crunchy leaves, bright spots amidst the gloominess. And now in the summer, I love the heat rising off the sidewalk, everything bright and sun-baked and the sky a soft, velvety blue. It's just great to be alive sometimes.

HAPPENING MEOW