roll your eyes, & move right along.

I will not try to be eloquent

Nor impress you with my wordy ways

Elongating sentences with strings of adjectives

Fragments for emphasis.

No, I'll cut straight to the chase. I

was prettiest when I wasn't eating

At all

And taking my cues from Cassie and Daisy

and Sylvia Plath

And it isn't about the boys,

Because they either like you or

They don't

Most of the time it is the latter

At least, when it comes to the good ones

It's about the girls you see, and how they all get together and talk.

About their thighs that jiggle, and look like cottage cheese

In shorts, in summer heat.

Those girls, more than anything, make me want to stick my finger Down my throat.

Not eat for three days.

It's about being lovely, you see

To yourself

And to the mirror,

Like a wisp of smoke.

(summer daze)

Truly good film is rare. Truly good film is when you can’t get the characters out of your mind, no matter how hard you try. It's when the emotions you felt lingers for days afterward. Recently I just saw (500) Days of Summer and, I have to say, it was a pretty decent movie. Go on, roll your eyes. I know it has become the Garden State 2.0 in some regards, mostly because hipsters around the world are embracing it. But I really think (500) Days lives up to its hype, and even beyond.

Why? Well, sitting through (500) Days of Summer is a lot like falling in love. At first, it charms you, excites you, and exhilarates you. Then, just as you have invested yourself completely, it rips your heart out. I’m pretty sure I left the theatre murmuring, “ow!” and clutching my chest. I wanted to laugh, cry, and shake my fist at humanity all at once.

Above all, (500) Days was a scary, startling wake-up call. It made me realize I’ve spent the past three years being a Tom. Just because someone likes the “same bizarre crap” as you, doesn’t mean you are soul mates. Even worse still, you can like someone as much you want, but that doesn’t guarantee that they are going to like you back. Love isn't sports. It isn't academics. It doesn't matter how much toil and work you put into pining after someone. There is a point when you have to get over someone, and move on. Maybe (500) Days of Summer was just the push I needed to finally let go of my perspective Summers.

See it. You won’t be disappointed, not if you’ve been at the wrong end of a relationship.

castles in the clouds

What can't you live without? For me, it is I Capture the Castle, Cassie, and giant volumes of Austen, Dickinson and Plath. It is curling up under the covers with The Secret Garden, Beauty and the Beast, or Tess of the D'urbervilles. It is tea tea tea in fancy goblets of all shapes and sizes. And, my latest caffeine addiction, hazelnut coffee.

It is Lula magazine, giant ribbons you tie in your hair, Simon when he is with Garfunkel. It is living vicariously through Angela Chase, Anne Frank, and that little Romanov princess. 

But, best of all, it is knowing that this list will not be ending anytime soon. That I could go on and on...I can't live without mermaid hair or lockets or wandering aimlessly though libraries on rainy November afternoons, and a thousand other luxuries.

I feel sorry for those who can't reside in their own sacred world of characters and made-up places. Who can't empathize with the creatures of their own imagination. I think I'll never grow out of pretending. 

the secret of roan inish

"Once a selkie find its skin again, neither chains of steel nor chains of love can keep her from the sea"

I went to the library yesterday afternoon and picked up a few films. I was having a very horrible day, and needed to give my mind some distraction from reality. One of the films was The Secret of Roan Inish and I can say with confidence that, after watching it last night with a cup of raspberry tea, it is one of the most enchanting movies I’ve ever seen. The swelling Irish landscapes, the haunting score, the beautiful costuming, and the folklore, all left me missing something that I didn’t know I’d ever lost. The film was so full of Ireland and the rolling blue sea that my heart could hardly remain inside my chest. It wanted to leap into the screen, and reside with its Gaelic roots permanently.

That night, I dreamt I lived on the Irish coast as a fisherman’s wife. My home was a cozy little seaside cottage with low ceilings, roaring fires, and an endless simmering pot of stew. We survived the tempestuous stormy winter evenings by curling up under quilts and reciting ghost stories in fevered whispers. We always smelled of salt, of brine, of fish. It was a dream that kills your spirit a little when you realize you must awake. I realized that, if I ever find myself in Ireland again, I won’t be coming back.

digging my watery grave

I used to believe I was a mermaid, and that is why the sea had such an almighty grip on me. Why I had this unexplained need to be intimate with the water, tip-toeing around its shore and caressing its current. I revered the ocean to the point of fear. The sea was neither bad nor good, but rather omnipotent and unmerciful. I dared not awaken its anger, and even my earliest recollections involve the insistence of life jackets and wary wades.

Yet I have not grown fins. I have not begun breathing while submerged under the murky waters of my bathtub. Mermaid, I am not. But I cannot deny the allure of the ever beckoning salty air. The answer seems so frighteningly simple: I must be some backwards reincarnation of Annabel Lee.

Am I the only one? Are you Annabel Lee too? Do our hearts thump and thud so wildly inside our chest only because our secret souls are searching for our star-crossed other halves? Oh, I’ve often suspected the angels had qualms with me. My consistent ill luck could only be the work of some sinister cosmic intervention.

I am not very brave. If I was, I’d slip out in the quiet of the night and escape to a kingdom by the sea. I’d let the tempestuous storms whip my hair into a million tangles. I’d correspond with the ghosts of sailors and pirates. Watch your mouth in front of the lady, they would all grumble and scold at each other. I’d revel in their company to such an extent that I’d withdraw completely from the living brand of humans altogether. A nautical citadel full of souls drowned and drowning still.

I am an Annabel Lee, and you are an Annabel Lee, and so is every other girl who is equally in love with the sea and the schoolboy she never will meet.

"Often I wish this would all be over, Liesel, but then somehow you do something like walk down the basement steps with a snowman in your hands."

the book thief.

of ticks and tocks

I’ve wanted to write. I’ve wanted words to drip out of my ink pen and onto the unblemished white page. But it has all gotten in the way. The books, the work, the incessant cuckooing of the clock. There are days I’m afraid I might go mad with all of it. Until I am cuckooing myself, faithfully on the hour.

I’m clinging onto the shards of sanity by refusing to neglect the inner workings of my own private little world. Going on adventures with Daisy and Piper, and mourning for My Tess. Angel’s in his heaven. Eating white chocolate ice cream out of my Chesire Cat mug. It was as white as snow, you know. It had me wishing for December.

Do you know what would be ever-so-lovely? Going to the cinema in a town where not one soul knows my name. I’d smuggle in candy hearts, gooey popcorn balls, and a giant thermos of tea. When you go to the cinema by yourself, you don’t have to be afraid to cry. You can rest your head in your hands and sob the whole way through (which I always do, especially when we went and saw Finding Neverland. I didn’t even stop when we went back to the car, cried the whole way home).

sping awakening

I'm reaching out for Spring. April mornings that begin with squishing your bare toes in the dewy grass. Bike rides that bleach your knuckles white and leave tangles in your hair, that exhilarate you more with each lusty inhale. I want to eat berries until my fingers have turned every shade of purple. I want to take off my coat and feel the warm air lick at my skin.

Summer is swollen ankles and feeling restless. Summer I can live without. Spring, however, I need if I am to be revived from this Winter's coma. I yearn to thaw out, to once again become reborn.