Quick Friday Update - Ten Things

This will be quickie. (I know you're disappointed, but it'll have to do.) I suffered from some awful stomach bug/food poisoning thing this week - might have been karma, but probably bad thai. Lots of quasi-dramatic episodes requiring pulling over in traffic and vomiting into lavender scented dog poop bags. I can now say, after a lunch of beers and burgers, that I am back to fighting form. (Minus some residual heartburn).

The light at the end of this week? My bestest bestie, Lauren, is coming up tonight for homemade sorbet mimosas and dancinggggg with Carey, Evan, Mark and Brandon and anyone else who wants to see get down to 90s hiphop. #myfavorite.

I'm also seeing Aziz Ansari and Amy Schumer on Sunday with Jeff and maybe doing a Brazilian dance party tomorrow night with Grant.

In the meantime, things you should be reading/eating/doing/listening to:

1. Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me. [Stolen from my over eager FB status:] I want everyone I ever speak to again to read it and breathe it and love it as much as I have. It is simultaneously pure poetry and incisive and heart-breaking truth, tackling racism, family, and class lines. If there is only one book you read this year, please make it this book. It gave me incredible insight and inspiration.

2. Fools, Wild Child - my favorite folk artists back with a lil mo' modern stuff, but equally catchy and satisfying.
3. This video - I want to be a teacher like this and I want to be able to learn like this: Encouraging Students to Persist Through Challenges. (I may have teared up watching this.)
4. This house - I'm dead.

5. Pre-ordering the new Kinfolk Book. Kinfolk: Interiors for Slow Living.

6. Machiko got me a signed copy of Austin Kleon's Steal Like An Artist Journal. The journal asks you to take 10-15 minutes to go through creative exercises to keep you focused on your goal, while encouraging creativity and innovation. I've added to my daily writing exercises and it's been inspirational and a conversation started. For instance, I just did the "Ten things you want to learn exercise." I surprised myself with the fact that many of the things I want to learn, I've already been attempting. I just need a little extra push. PS have I said today how lucky I am to have Mach as a roomie?

7. Just signed up for the online Beginning Watercolor class through CreativeBug. Obviously I need some guidance - here's a portrait of Sophie I did a minute ago. As a friend said, "It looks like a giant mouse with eyebrows."

8.  From Buzzfeed, "19 Signs You're the Thirsty One in Your Group," to which my friends respond: "Amber, did you write this?" #noshame. Also, lol boys.

9. New podcast addiction: StartUp. Perfect for a nerd like me or someone wanting to start their own business or just wondering how the hell it happens.

10. Random music I'm playing on repeat: