“What other reason might I have for writing this - ridiculous journal of an aging concierge - if the writing did not have something of the art of scything about it?  The lines gradually become their own demiurges and, like some witless yet miraculous participant, I witness the birth on paper of sentences that have eluded my will and appear in spite of me on the sheet, teaching me something that I neither knew nor thought I might want to know. This painless birth, like an unsolicited proof, gives me untold pleasure, and with neither toil nor certainty but the joy of frank astonishment I follow the pen that is guiding and supporting me.”

 ― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Labels: books, literary quotes, Muriel Barbery, playing plans on repeat, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, writing process

My walks in the country have brought out a flush of color - a new layer of freckles on my arms and a reflection of the sun itself in my hair.  My hair is so close to turning a deeper shade of red, except that it's also turning blonde.  Strawberry blonde - so sweet and bright and light.   The shade and the length and the spring sun have me feeling like an oversized child.  Not a literal child, mind you.

It's weird, feeling almost, already, so close to 30 and looking so close to 20. I want to cut my hair and feel my age.  I want to get my life back on track.  Except no one wants to feel old, and I love long hair in the summer.  I want to fan it out in the sun and charge it up.  I want to braid it down my back in romantic twists and feel the sun soft on my skin.

I used to dream of a summer boy. Someone who would blare The Killers and Kings of Leon but also sit in hammocks reading Youth in Revolt with me.  Someone who would take me on adventures picking berries and riding roller coasters, swigging wine and hiking the woods.  Someone who kept things light and fun, but came from far away and knew I would not follow.  And then in August when the thought of fall would send shivers down our spines, we would shed our summer skins and part ways.


The crush I have is deepening, but with no hope for happiness.  He's leaving at the beginning of the summer and I've grown up enough to know I don't want to start something just to lose it.  I am well aware of how little I have keeping me here, but still, I'm not the type to follow.

Labels: country life, inappropriate crushes, mixtapes for falling in love, someday you will be loved, spring

I am now of sound opinion that the tv show The Magicians is one great fan fiction of the book The Magicians and that the show's creators saw the potential laid waste in focusing the bored narrative on teenagers. The first season was just magic. The second season has lost some of that fire though. I feel like someone needs to create a work of fanfic homage for season one and have that become a movie. Make it one never ending evolving piece of work.

First let me say that Ewan McGregor brought this song to life in Moulin Rouge. It really is better than Elton's.  The romantic feels are all there.

Normally I am book > movie all the way but now that I am finally reading The Magicians by Lev Grossman I am TV show > book.  The book is so blahhhh in comparison.  I will expand on this tomorrow. My trivia margarita is kicking my butt and I am ready to get cozy in my bed!

Labels: I hope you don't mind, margaritas, songs stuck in my head, The Magicians, yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen

So to recap, I am jealous.  And a little hurt. And apparently I miss you.

Not that I would text you. Even if I wanted to.  Even if I miss you.

Labels: all the feelings, I miss you., We used to be friends.

I had a nightmare last night so terrible that I can't shake it.  I dreamed about my ex having sex with my friend and then she told me about it and then because that's not torture enough I was there when they had sex again.  It's so twisted, why would my mind make that shit up?  I wasn't mad at either of them when I woke up because I knew it wasn't them, it was a dream, but I am so fucked up by it.

Thankfully I needed to vacuum and clean my closet and there's drip marks all over my bathroom from the epsom salt soak I did.  Angry cleaning is the only way I can really get through all of it. Still, I don't care how productive I need to be today.  I have this fucked up imagery in my head, this fake memory, and I have no one to talk to about this.

If I do call my best friend or a close friend, they'll point things out that I already know.  Yes, he's going to sleep with other people. No, it's not a good thing to dwell on.  No, I was not previously dwelling on it. Great talk.

Labels: all the feelings, dreams, nightmares, We used to be friends.

Horrible men are everywhere now, but there is hope.  There are the few that have become a breath of fresh air.  I have a crush. I have a crush! I am a teenage girl all over again because crushes are dumb, but I still have one.

Remember how crushes are horrible monsters because they build unattainable hopes? Yeah, that's still true.  There's every chance in the world that this will slip by me and if it does it will pretty much be all my fault because I can't act on it.  Well. I mean, not now.

Also, why do crushes exist if they make your life so miserable?  One minute I'm so thankful for the kindness of strangers and the next I'm giddy and I've lost all ability to play it cool and I just have to subject myself to whatever embarrassing word vomit is coming out of my mouth.

Is there an age when crushes aren't ridiculous?  Is that limit an age or level of maturity or is it a whole the limit does not exist Mean Girls reference?

Labels: inappropriate crushes, Mean Girls, swooning

Pi day was my first anniversary.  It's not the worst day to share with the anniversary of a failed relationship, though.  The fact that everyone celebrates 3.14159265 with actual pies makes it one of the very best holidays.  Even if you're sad, you're quelling your feelings in warm, ooey gooey pie!

On this the anniversary of the very beginning of our relationship, I spent the day in Athens.  I am a bad, bad girl.  I went for a walk in the park attached to Bear Hollow, the site of our first date, and felt nothing emotionally towards him. The park was empty except for Tess and myself and later a lone jogger. It was beautiful, it was cold, it was the same. This was my third trip to Athens this month.  I love it there.  I go to all of my favorite places and it's not until I drive past things I associate with him that I remember they used to be our favorite things, our favorite places.  Which is why I went to Bear Hollow, a place that held meaning for us, yes, but a place that also reminds me of trick or treating and volunteering and birthdays of close friends.

I love it there.  There's so much of me spread across the town that I don't associate it with him or us or what could have been.  Instead I see myself - dreams of a young girl, past, present, future.  The houses on Dearing Street that make me want to raise daughters in their secret gardens. The rolling hills that entice me to walk faster and tone my legs. The bars where I can drink cheaply, the two loops that will get me there quickly, the old with the new.  The piano intro of The Twist.

I'm me, I'm there, I'm happy, I'm bad. There has to be bad karma with starting something over an old thing, so I don't.  I don't overlap stories.  I don't say anything. I look across the table at what I want and I have to tell myself to look away.

Labels: Athens, Bear Hollow, karma, pi day, Tess

I don't even know where to start.  Tonight, for the first time in years, I pumped my legs towards the sky.  It gets darker here at night, but the natural night lights shine bright enough for even a novice like myself to discern multiple constellations. At nightfall this weather feels more like fall and between the light chills and the stars and the nature all around, I feel so...me.

I saw twelve deer, all at once, grazing between neighborhoods, frolicking together.  They were all fairly young, small and still without antlers.  I've never seen that many together at once.  Their smell was strong near the swing set, I almost suspected it had wafted over from the horses down the road, but maybe that's the effect of a small herd like that.  It is very familiar to the smell of being on a horse farm though.  Not quite the same pungent bomb of excrement baking in the sun, but strong like the smell of sweat still thick in their fur.

The neighborhood isn't finished being built yet, so the days are filled with construction noises - trucks, hammers, cement mixers, the upbeat swell of Spanish pop music.  Noise pollution isn't the only type they're filling the streets with.  Despite the massive dumpsters in the streets, they throw recyclable plastic and aluminum from roofs, across yards, and there is trash accumulating three lots away from any current construction.  I can't stand the idea of what damage can be done if those plastics are left to mingle in the still ever present nature.  I used to walk at night or on Sundays with Tess to clean up the streets.  Now it's just me.  I wish I could get more people motivated to prevent the pollution, but I also enjoy the time spent alone out here.  

Labels: night time, recycling, wilderness

If my life were a rom com, there would be no one in the audience yelling at me things like "he's the one" or "you're so blind, you two are clearly meant for each other!"  Sometimes I'm not sure I'm even the main character.  I'm somewhere between 'keeping an open mind' and 'having fun' (which we all know means wasting time and wishing there was something else).  There are no rom com worthy guys.  I don't know if these guys are even b line characters.

This week I was reminded of just how bad it is out there (in the dating world, in the real world, in the life of women everywhere).  A man came to my work with the sole purpose of seeing me and thusly boring my brains out and draining the cheer from my day.  The first day he stopped to talk to me he disgusted me so badly that I workshopped the experience into a poem about the antiquated idea of a ring making you someone else's property.  He was so obsessed with the idea that I had to have one, four carats, or else never be happy.  He showed up the following day to prove to me just how right I had been in my first impression of him.  Claiming to be so good at reading people (I must be such a positive person because I have such a cheerful voice at my job), this asshole read and ignored every sign that I was not interested in him or in further carrying on a conversation with him.

After I escaped his audience, I adjusted my attitude so as to be 100% less inviting for strangers to come and tell me 99 reasons why they think they are so sexy*. I apparently adjusted my attitude too far to the unpleasant because within an hour another stranger came and invaded my personal space.  I guess my voice was drained of all sincerity when I told him to have a good day, because he turned around, came into my space, and hugged me.  After telling me that I "clearly could use a hug" he gave me no time to disagree and I was literally backed into a corner and could not escape. At work.

It is infuriating to be told how you should act, what you should think, what your relationships should be like, trashed on for having opinions and to be touched without asking.  All while at work.  Don't tell me to smile.  Don't fuck with my time.  Don't fuck with me.

There's this one coworker that I'm friends with who appears to like me.  I'm not a flirt, I have the worst luck even trying to flirt, but I also can't tell when anyone is subtly flirting with me.  It took a third person to confirm how obvious it is that he likes me.  Asks about me.  Says nice things about me.  So I've just kept an open mind and continued to be friendly with him. I have no interest in playing games or leading him on.  I don't see him as more than a friend and coworker.  In all honesty though, if he asked me out, I would probably say yes.  A date's just a date.  See if you have things in common, see if there's a spark, laugh and tell an awkward story if there's not.  But with so many guys developing an aggressive attitude about dating, it's really fucking nice to be respected and not to be pressured into listening to an autobiography or to give out your (fake) number.

Be respectful. Treat others how you want to be treated, or how you would want to be treated, if the
roles were reversed.  Being single isn't the worse thing out there.  If your current dating options mean settling, being manipulated or controlled, respect yourself and choose you.

*Yes, guy # 1 wasn't getting anywhere paying me compliments, so he started talking himself up.  He referred to himself as sexy three times. 

Labels: dating, men are assholes, righteous indignation, rom com love theories, work stories