valentine

This year for Valentine's day, I am without a valentine for the first time in four years. Admittedly, it feels a little odd to not be enacting the Valentine's tradition I shared with my ex - dinner at forbidden city, accompanied by copious amounts of wine - but I'm not yet at the point in my singledom where I feel bitter or slighted.

So, I'd like to celebrate with what is undoubtedly my most favorite piece of romantic poetry ever. In a way, this is my Valentine to myself. If I were to receive a Valentine, I would want it to say exactly this, as I have always fantasized that in some strange, far-off, magical way, this poem in in fact, for me (I do have rather tiny hands you know..)
But this is also my Valentine to you, to the entire universe, with love....

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
by E. E. Cummings
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond any experience,your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose or if your wish be to close me, i and my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending; nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility:whose texture compels me with the color of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing (i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens;only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

love always

june gloom

lately, the weather in lovely ct has been absolutely poisonous. eerily dreary and stiflingly humid. just walking outside feels toxic. my friends keep getting sick and everyone looks like they have storm clouds under their eyes.
it's time like these i think, where i grow the most. stay indoors and curl up, into myself where i can remember the answers i already knew. feel the way my heart beats at the center.....
in other words, i feel all angsty and goth and emo and like, fourteen years old or something! wtf sun, why you gotta be all non-existent and shit?! get your ass in gear and shine on us before i start writing poetry again....
or indulging in crap like this:

or even worse, this:



love always

warning!

i returned home to soggy, rainy connecticut early this morning after spending the past week in puerto rico. i worked a double, with only an hour long break to deposit my check into my empty bank account. i felt a sharp, stabbing pang in my chest everytime i remembered that this time yesterday i was somewhere else. needless to say, i'm a bit melancholy about being here.
the past week was everything a vacation could possibly hope to be; good, bad, rainy, sunny, humid, exhausting, emotional, unreal, exciting, terrifying, frustrating. i have stories to tell, pictures to show, moments to relive. i'm still in the process of digesting it all.
at the moment it seems pretty unlikely that i will want to write about anything besides this trip for what may seem like an unreasonably long time to some of you. for this i appologize in advance and offer up my sincerest hopes that it doesn't get old too quickly.

these are words that i need to write.


love always

surpirse, surprise. i'm sick again....

for the past couple of weeks, i have been on-and-off sick. today and yesterday have been an all-time low. it's hard for me to accept being ill, especially when it means staying home and recuperating and especially in the midst of such an exciting time in my life. what this means is that i've been attempting to go out and live like the healthy, but i'm not quite there. i'm only giving fifty percent. i'm like a zombie, going through all the motions but not really feelin it.

oh, and i'm in bed early. like, really early.

you'd think that all this rest and relaxation would give me a perfect opportunity to sit down and write something, but it hasn't. i'm bored! if anything, this mellow time has only strengthened my resolve to get out and do something. anything. many things. but all of them real, raw and honest.

however, as they say, every grey cloud has a silver lining. so i'd like to give a shot-out to all my silver linings.

like how nice it is to have friends who you feel close enough with that you can temporarily move your sick bed over to their place, and then lay around in your pjs watching movies.

or how good it feels to make up with someone, even though you still disagree with each other, because you love each other enough to not have to agree.

most importantly, finding a sense of comfort in yourself, whether you're sick or not.



love always

and the moral of the story is.......

i had a dream that reminded me of my vacation, and i woke up and realized that maybe i ought to wrap it up so i can write about something else.
the last couple days i had in california were much more mellow. i went to ironstone winery, hung out with my family, ate some good food, including thai spaghetti and meatballs, which was really bizarre. on friday, the day before i got home i got really sad, whether this was because i didn't want to leave or because i was dreading flying home in the middle of a freaking snow storm, i'm not entirely sure. either way, i felt very emotional.
actually, during my whole trip i felt pretty intensely emotional. there is something about being that far away from home that makes me feel vulnerable and anxious. i'm really attached to everything i surround myself with here, in connecticut, but what if i had a choice? what if i could choose to go somewhere else and get attached to a different set of things? maybe even a better set of things?
so this is the direction my thoughts have been taking since i've been home. just how much do i wanna stay in this cozy little box i've made for myself? the world is bigger than i thought, and i haven't even left the country yet.

love always

i suck at vacationing

So, to continue with my story....


after my horrific plane ride, i actually did land in sacramento. by that point, i was barely concious, but since this is my first time on the west coast, i tried to stay awake for the ride. we saw a del taco which was definately different than connecticut, but the thing i was most amazed by, was the fact that they have lemon trees and orange trees and grapefruit trees just growing in people's yards like it's nothing.


i slept like shit the first night, even though i was dead tired, but when i woke up, sheryl made ham and eggs and coffee, which was pretty awesome. then we walked the dog and i stole an orange off someone's tree, because i just had to taste it. i must admit, it was pretty slammin.


we headed off to berkeley around noon to visit my favorite uncle and go to a meditation thingie. the drive was so overwhelming for me, because everything looks so different here. and not in the way that i expected, either. yes, there are palm trees, but what's really crazy is the land itself. sometimes it rolls into these big green hills, and other times it flattens out completely, but it always looks bigger than in connecticut, and the sky looks bigger too.


by the time we got to berkeley i was so blown away and disconcerted that i really couldn't even focus. we hung out at my uncle's apartment for a bit, and then we decided to walk downtown and find food. on the way we saw these gorgeous flowers with these odd pod-like things attached to them, which we later found out were passion fruits. we also saw lavender plants, and sage and all sorts of fancy-smelling things, and the flowers were actually in bloom! in the middle of january!


we decided to eat at this vegan/raw restaurant called Cafe Gratitude . it was super cozy inside and the menu was huge. they have this whole gratitude theme going on as well. the food is called stuff like i am amazing, and when they bring it to you, they say "you are amazing". they also asked us the "question of the day", which was "what about your life is blessed?" i ordered the i am abundant sampler plate and although most of it tasted like your average health food, the hummus and the olive tapenade were super-tasty. i also had a killer dessert called i am bliss, which kind of resembled a chocolate cream pie and really was quite blissful.
the trouble started after our meal, when we were walking back to the apartment. all of a sudden, out of nowhere, i felt like i had swallowed a basketball. maybe it was all the dense vegan food i had just eaten, or maybe it was the fact that my whole body was still reeling from the traumatic night before, but of course i did not consider either of these possibilities. instead i panicked, and decided that i must be pregnant.
at that point we all decided that i was in no shape for sitting through an hour long meditation class. sheryl went to the elephant pharm to buy me a pee test, and we decided to just head back to the apartment and chill, which was nice because i really haven't seen my family (or at least this sect of it) in a long time. my uncle was very sweet, providing us with tea and plenty of little things to nibble and pick at. i fell asleep on the car ride home, and woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and ready to go......

love always

why must YOU cry? i mean really, stop it....

i've been in kind of a rut lately. nothing too serious (although, i promise you, at times, it feels serious). just your typical quarter-life crisis, i-feel-like-i-sold-my-soul-because-i-work-in-a-semi-coprporate environment type shit. i've asked countless people about how i should go about fixing this, and everyone has answered in a typical fashion.


find a hobby.


the thing is, i have plenty of hobbies. i write. i collect vintage. i read with obsessive fervor, but these are all solitary things to do, and what i'm craving more than anything is a feeling of connectedness, of teamwork. so, i began scanning craigslist looking for a group creative endeavor. anyone who has ever read craigslist in connecticut knows that the majority of posts basically say "i'm looking for a teenage model to come to house so i can date-rape her" and for quite some time my search was fruitless.


then, i saw the ad for gold fangs (yeah, for real)


this guy had posted numerous times before searching for actors and actresses for a short film in my area. i had never payed attention for whatever reason, but the idea of gold fucking fangs was too much for me to ignore. to be honest, the fantasy going on in my head was somewhere between the never-ending story and interview with the vampire (because the twilight vamps don't have fangs).


so i sent out an e-mail, expecting to get a response from some dorky film student about the sci-fi fantasy flick he was creating. i figured that at the very least, i might be able to meet some hot nerdy boys whose virginty i could steal, but no, oh no, my life does not work that way.


instead i received an e-mail from reh dogg, who according to an article in our local newspaper, won some award for the worst you-tube video of the year. i can only imagine the fierce competition he was facing for that coveted title. after watching it though, i guarantee you, this man deserved it. (if you are in need of some serious lulz, go check it out, it's called "why must i cry)


then, reh dogg follows up with an e-mail inviting me to view some of his work, including the gold fangs movie which i was so damn psyched about. seriously people, words could not do it justice.

at a certain point i just had to accept that god is playing a cruel joke on me, but it's a good joke, and i have no choice but to keep laughing.

love always

aww, poor baby kanye needs a hug

dear mr. west,
have you been reading my diary to find out that my entire life's purpose is to watch cocky, arrogant motherfuckers (such as yourself) get their hearts broken and turn into whiny, little bitches, because seriously, your new album just gave me a hard on.
i should have known that you were headed to emoville as soon as you remixed fallout boy, but i never would have imagined you'd be so damn good at it.
i kind of secretly hope that since so many boys seem to idolize you so much maybe they'll follow your example and actually let themselves feel some feelings for once.
congratulations on finally putting out an album that you actually deserve to be so fucking pleased with yourself over, and by the way, if you need some assistance (wink, wink) getting over all the nasty things that bad woman did to you, feel free to hit me up.

love always

twilight is the new danielle steele

someone find me a vampire boyfriend, like, immediately. i'm attempting to read twilight and it's driving me fucking insane.
i cannot even wait for the movie to come out, especially because the boy who plays edward is an uber-hottie. i will probably have to bring a mini vibrator to the movie theater though, so i don't lose my mind for real.
or maybe i'll just bring a hot date instead....

love always

the best part of any sappy movie is the soundtrack

i have made a vow to myself to keep this blog light and cheerful. the last thing i want to do is bore anyone with incessant, whiny self-pity (i do enough of that in my real life, thank you very much). that being said, i have to confess that i'm going through a pretty emotional time and for the past couple of days i've been pretty much a walking puddle of tears. however, this has allowed to me to engage in one of my absolute most favorite, self-indulgent, post-breakup practices: listening to the mushiest, gushiest, most heart-wrenchingly sappy songs, preferably while crying and driving simultaneously. so, more than anything right now i want to share with you my top picks for what to listen to when you feel like wallowing in despair.



keane- a bad dream

i first heard this song on scrubs, in the episode where laverne dies, and to be honest, i don't even like keane, but in the second chorus when the guy croons "..but i just feeel tooo tired", it sounds so genuine that i almost want to forgive him for the fact that the rest of his music blows ass.

amy winehouse- back to black
she may be a complete train wreck, but amy winehouse knows a thing or two about broken hearts. best to listen to this one drunk so you can fully understand where she's coming from.



damien rice- 9 crimes

seriously, be careful with this one, it might make you want to slit your wrists, or worse, call you ex. it's that depressing.



mariah carey- we belong together

such a classic! i heard this on the radio today and sang along like my life depended on it. it's especially satisfying if you can keep up with mimi during the fast parts without losing your breath.



miley cyrus- seven things

okay, this is officially the cheesiest of the cheesy and i feel like i should appologize for even mentioning it, but i had to because i'm a sucker for anything disney.

lily allen- littlest things
the best part of this song is when she says "[i remember] the first time that you introduced me to your friends and you could tell that i was nervous so you held my hand". it makes me lose it every single time.

and of course,

dashboard confessional- screaming infidelities
the rarest of indulgences, because this song is soooooo fucking pussy that if you listen to it while you're not actually in the throes of major heartache it might turn you gay.

ahhh, i feel better already.

love always