8 1/2

I was reading Vanity Fair's "International Best-Dressed List" article, which is full of bad puns (e.g. "she’s the Apfel of our eye"), expensive stuff, and preferred charities. For the latter, it's standard fare (UNICEF, breast cancer research), but then I got to Tilda Swinton.

At first I thought she was making fun of the interviewer, the specificity of her foundation sounded so whimsical: “The 8 and a Half Foundation, founded this year with Mark Cousins, to bring great world cinema to children on their eight-and-a-halfth birthdays.” Then I Googled, and no, it's real. Excuse me that my mind didn't jump directly to Fellini, but now I'm just trying to think of what I was watching when I was 8.5...and I'm pretty sure it was this.

"Reader, I married him."

P.S. I am most likely going to watch this later this afternoon, during the pie-baking.

"Is this some radical new therapy?"

I'm not entirely sure why this NYT article about creating new habits appeared in Sunday's Business section, but the topic is interesting enough. Personally I've changed a lot especially within the past year and, woo for my "parallel synaptic paths," I've established new habits , patterns, and all of that.

Honestly, what stuck out to me amidst all the standard stuff about how learning new things wards off dementia was this line: "She recommends practicing a Japanese technique called kaizen, which calls for tiny, continuous improvements."

What immediately came to mind was the 1991 Bill Murray movie What About Bob? and the "baby steps" credo espoused by Richard Dreyfuss's character, shrink Dr. Leo Marvin. (I watched this one, Groundhog Day, and Rushmore innumerable times with a high school boyfriend.) So basically, I know that it's important to keep trying new stuff, that baby steps aren't a bad idea even if the shrink is crazy too, and that I should probably finally set up my own Netflix account because I now have an overwhelming urge to rewatch Bill Murray movies.