Do you ever associate specific things with a certain period of time in your life, like food or movies or a song? My senior year of high school, I had surgery to get my tonsils out and recovery was miserable. There were complications with my ears that made swallowing incredibly painful, blah blah blah. Anyway I basically lived on the family room couch for three weeks. I started watching Friday Night Lights during the day and when I couldn't sleep at night I would watch Late Night With Jimmy Fallon reruns. I have a weird nostalgic fondness for these two things (and my mom's green fleece sweatshirt) because I associate them with getting me through that post-op recovery.

I have a similar fondness for the movie Skyfall. It's the movie that made me realize I wanted to become a cinematographer (another story for another time) but it got me through 2D Design my first semester of college. I had this class for FIVE HOURS every Thursday night—the professor was terrible, and I had none of the required skills (as a photography student there was no choice but to take this graphic design/illustration class as a visual arts prerequisite). I would bring my laptop to class and watch it while I worked. When the credits rolled, I would say to myself, "self, we're halfway there!" Then I'd start the 2 1/2 hour movie from the beginning and then when it was finally over, so was class. Skyfall got me through.

In my family we love The Wonder Years. My mom always talks about watching it many a night when she couldn't sleep. Right now for me it's Law & Order. Thanks, Olivia Benson/Rollins/Ice T/Detective Amaro and especially DA Barba (I love the judicial system!), for getting me through. Also, just for fun I changed my text alert to the iconic Law & Order sound effect. It makes getting a text exponentially more dramatic/exciting. I highly recommend.

And just because, here's a photograph I made with my cell phone of some roses at Disneyland.