It is over.

The flames are gone.

It is done.

petal in the bowl

The Pinpoint

"I sit beside my lonely fire

And pray for wisdom yet:

For calmness to remember

Or courage to forget."

- Charles Hamilton Aïdé, Remember or Forget

{Currents}

Diy, laundry, shoes, coraline

I'm thinking of Coraline with soft eyes.  My mother, brother, and myself rented Tim Burton's latest DVD last week and I was oddly struck by it.  There's a skeletal way of looking at this movie, accompanied by a slew of interpretations.  

Tim Burton is known and respected for doing what he does best, as any other director.  He personifies the idea of dark humour, victorian undertones, and distorted body shapes but all too real themes and dialogue.  The score allowed me to wind myself into how Tim and composer Bruno Coulais saw Coraline's desicions, desires and fright of the other world that lay beyond the door.  What captured me tenaciously was the truth injected into the idea that Coraline was, in fact, a child.  Many visual aids fail to remind us of this.  Coraline's character was equipped with the idea that tantalization happens in the world.  For eons, man has had desire and inclination dribbled all over them; whether it be chastity, lonliness, jealousy, or anything, truly.  It varies and changes shape from person to person and that is clearly shown in this movie.  It was impressive.  

Because of the natural selfish nature of a child, Coraline succumbs to the other world and finds herself in a dangerous situation regarding her 'other mother' (mind you, this 'world' does not emulate narnia.  It is a perfect reflection of her real world in a physical sense, but the way people see and treat her is the opposite, showering her with affection and love instead of ignorance.).  She is faced with an ultimatum of eternal happiness (according to this mythical set of parents) or never returning to the real world, and therefore vanishing from her true parent's lives.  Yet again, the spinal cord of the movie is the reoccurring decision of what is right and what is easy.  What strikes me with a double edged sword is, however, that like real children Coraline steps out of the way from her conscience to lead this double life.  

Five stars.

--

Us/Them

I met this concept about a month ago.  I was at a John Green Blog TV show, and I was drinking tea.  It was quiet.  John was sitting in a plastic chair, scratched it was, lecturing a class of young adults about books, writing, and interpretations of life.  They were pretty silent, and rightfully so.

Humans have a slight tendency to think in terms of us vs. them.  We generally tend to put ourselves on a pedestal thinking, "This is me, and that is them."  Yet to another person, I fall under the category of 'them'.  'Us' is the human's way of attempting to justify one's thoughts or actions (also both) in a plural form.  It can be practiced in as many forms as there are people on this earth; mainly, I believe it is shown in two general ways.  There is the person who states the type of person they are, merely talking about oneself, and there is the person who contrasts oneself to 'them'.  'Them' can be a group, or a practice, a society or a stereotype.  This can be shown in any aspect you'd like.  Walt Whitman once said, pointed out by John as well that (and I quote) "I celebrate myself, I sing myself, and what I shall assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."

This demonstrates both types of the us/them thoery.  Walt celebrates himself; he proclaims to the world, perhaps only himself that he is a man with a mind.  He is a man, one of many, that thinks and acts, lives and breaths, eats, sleeps, and prophecizes a better world.  He is inviting the world to see him and perhaps agree, but doesn't contrast by listing why he is himself or why he doesn't fit into the category of the next human.  

"For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you," reflects another form of 'us'.  Many believe this reflects Whitman's belief in communism, but I say the rabbithole is deeper than that.  He wishes for not a them, not an us, maybe a we.  In the same moment that he proclaims himself as an 'us', he stomps on the idea and states his desire for the world being a giant 'us', with no 'them' even in the equation.

Travel Channel has been my vice for a while.  Since then, I have taken a noticable interest in cultural foods of others countries, therefore trying unknown and slightly scary eateries, diners, and restaraunts.  Food is a part of life; without it, there is no anything.  Through the words and moments that I ordered, ate, watched others, and recollected all clues of culture in america with eating, it had all intensified and broken into a million peices in my cranium.  The world of appearance, fashion, and media has warped us.  I looked around as the other women and young adults eating; and I was frightened.  I couldn't look at a women and rightfully decide if she was fat, healthy, or too skinny.  I discerned so much right there; mostly, that the effects of society hit a home run inside my head.  I glanced back at myself; if this is what I see in others, how and what do I see myself as?

However, yet again, Money has cackled it's way to the main control of the situation.  Titles to magazines such as 'slim down in two weeks' or pictures of happy women leading unhealthy lives give us the image that it's okay.  Naive as it sounds, I've just realized the entire point of this imagery.  What sells is what's normal.  This is the painting being created in our society.

This theme of life is one that I have struggled with the most.  Being a girl, there are stereotypes and expectations.  As anybody reading this would know, it is unfathomably difficult to choose between getting those compliments everyday on your body or perhaps not being the tiniest yet feeling at peace about it.  What baffles me is the slight stupidity built into the sale technique.  I've always imagined that if one day we could see normal, healthy women walking those shows, there would be more sales from bashful customers.  These mystery women are intimidating.  I speak for myself when I state this, at least.  

Nobody is sure of themselves at the teenage stage in life, as well as far past it.  But I'm sorry to say that these projections of perfection are making all the more worse, and all the more difficult, and all the more damaging to the world.

--

I have been told incessantly to meet, to greet, to mingle, to speak.  One of my good friends introduced me to a kid he had known since first grade.  Not in person, of course.  This guy messaged me late one night, and we started talking.  All was well, it was light, as any first conversation.  As expected we talked like the Nile and eventually, like a phase, it grew normality under it's skin.  I noticed from the start there was something...not off, but pretty strongly. . .well, off about this kid.  He asked flat out questions to me, almost like a job interview, such as 'So, are you fake?  Or not?'

I fathom the idea of a friendship that doesn't contain belly-achers such as fakeness.  Twenty-five minutes in, I felt like this kid jumped in a quarry.  It went from favorite bands to biggest bout of heartbreak, and it made me uncomfortable.  By the fourth day, I was growing tired of 'it'.  I'll attempt to explain.

Constant compliments.  Girls flip over that, being called 'nice' and 'sweet' and 'smart' and 'deep', but it was slightly sour.  What put me off the side of the precipice was when he told me I was 'a much better replacement for the girl he used to like'.  From the very beginning, I reviewed that I; 

1. Don't date.

2. Won't be changing that.

3. Have no interest in dating, romance, or anything of the like. 

I am feeling put off.  I mentioned it to Andrew, while he told me to flat out say exactly what I was bringing up.  I'm scared to.  This kid says things like, 'feel free to leave me a voicemail, I want to know what your voice sounds like'.  He tells me he wants to meet me.  I'm getting shifty.  I know there is no danger.  I know it's just this awkward person.  I, however, don't feel I want to really hold a friendship with this person under these circumstances because. . .cookies, he is CREEPY.  I have no idea how to handle this.  Advice would be marvelous.

p.s. He has my phone number.

--

I very recently finished the unabridged Peter Pan, by J.M Barrie.  The book outshone the adjective of 'charming'.  I had never read any childhood story's pre-Disney plot or style before, and I now know it is a must.  The imagination seen in Disney's version is classic, hey ho, it's coated in gold.  Yet I see the whimsicality and the grace in Peter's story through the words themselves, just as J.M Barrie wanted it.  I read this ironically during a period of days where I truly didn't want to live on Earth.  I swam to Neverland, and let myself melt into the words.  It was exhierating.  I've forgotten over this summer how great books are, really.  I've sat at home, twiddling my thumbs, knowing how much time I've had to do just that.  But for some reason I've wanted to watch something.  I haven't been wanting to think or read, interpret or opinionize because it sudden gripped my and broke my spine.  Thought upsets me now.  I'm fragile again, and emotional.  Not going to learn everyday and coming home with something I must do works for two and half months or so.  But it's starting to really nibble at me.  

I have glimpsed at J.M's way now.  He was a English man, to say the least and the most.  He wore thin ties and tie-ups.  He probably smiled very much at very little.  I would have liked to have a hot drink with him in the middle of January.

--

Vivien Leigh

She was born into war, and left fighting one.  Many say she is one of the best actresses ever to live, holding roles such as 'Lady Macbeth' and Scarlett in 'Gone With The Wind', while still using her beauty to etch her roles perfectly.  I was priveledged to watch her most famous movie with my grandmother last week.  Gone With The Wind blew me away.  I hadn't seen it before.  I thought the story made the fame, but it is both, you see.  I also just watched Waterloo Bridge with her starring and I left the room sobbing.  Actresses who bring color to black and white images are sealed in time, and cannot be brought back.  I personally think that movies have declined in quality when color and effects were brought into play.  Vivien Leigh died in 1967, due to chronic tuberculosis.

I had to!

The Pinpoint

"When I consider Life and its few years--

A wisp of fog betwixt us and the sun;

A call to battle, and the battle done

Ere the last echo dies within our ears."

- Lizette Woodworth Reese, Tears

{Currents}

New couches, bargain books, antics of small children, cause and effect living, anthony bourdain, travel, architecture

I've realized that life comes in sets, almost. What we do, the way we think, and even how we live is almost directly reflected from the earth and it's means of living as well. Some are freed by the summer breeze, others happy inside as the snow battles on during the winter months. For a period of time, I may or may not want tea all the time. The next month, coffee. Other months, one might live in the footsteps of the past, perhaps on purpose. Seasons and phases of life remind some of so much more than that second; direct objects or actions remind me of certain things about the past, or my life I'll admit openly. It's almost as if it's all a deep and richly colored velour bag of events and emotion, and our job as a person on this earth is to stick our plucky hand inside and grab whatever we'd like, even if we know the outcome.

I remember a few months ago I craved the classics and far too sophisticated reading material like a pregnant women with obscure foods. I wanted Poe in my dreams, Victor Hugo was my best friend, and Lewis Carroll was always at the top of the permanent book pile in the study.

And The Labyrinth was the chilly lake at my feet that I dare not swim in, that I repeatedly declined to enter and blamed it on the water snakes. Yet now, I'm almost disenchanted with myself, quite possibly my life too. I haven't really touched a 'legitimate' book in a while. I hold a lot of books to rediculous standards, too. Put it this way, I think the only Young Adult authors that are any good are John Green, Laurie Halse Anderson, and possibly Maureen Johnson. I can't judge, because I haven't laid a hand on any of her books yet.

I think it's kind of sick in a completely human way that each and every one of us is a labelist somehow. Due to the public outcry for a pop culture leader, the media has made fashion labelism the most common, in my mind. But it's no worse than what some other people might do. For instance, reading something outrageously dense by an author's name that you can't prenounce and have no interest in reading is labelism. It's the image, the acryllic painting that dries fast and makes an impression that impels you to pick the book up and reluctantly waste two or three days of your life reading it. And face it; you still don't understand what the author is talking about even after you sparknotes it.

Perhaps the way we write, too, comes in phases. Blame it on state of mind; yet at times I can sweat adjectives, and be as romantic and poetic as I please, but others the will and the words just aren't there. But what is it based on? Perhaps it's all based on patience. Patience with the mind, and oneself, to let the idea come and flourish. That's why sequels to books that come out six months to a year of the last usually aren't of the same quality. The author and inventor of thoughts and dialouge had a deadline, and a restriction or limitation of time to dream and write or test out storylines and all else literary.

Anyway, I have found it strange that I am not consistent with style. Sometimes I'll beat around the bush with colorful phrases. Other times, I pull a John Green and put it out there as if I'm telling you in person or on the phone. It's like bowling with myself; its an abyss of knowing exactly what to do to even have a chance at success, walking up, slightly staggering from the weight of the ball, and giving a good go at it, even though in the end I know I'm an amateur.

inside the looking glass

Pet Names

At times, I think they are a hybrid of whimsicality, acceptance, and fantasy. Some truly make me scoff, and beg to differ on the topic of regularity with a rousing chorus of 'oh, please'. My parents had pet names; bear. They called each other bear, because of some rediculously long and drawing incident involving the animals, yet it died many years ago. Anything beginning with 'sch' is in an instantaneous invitation to roll your eyes. Anything that reminds you of a family member pinching your cheeks and scrunching their face as if a bemused newborn is unacceptable title. If any future specific other of mine attempts to call me 'Pooh bear', I will assume they are cheating on me. Pet names should never be cliché. They should involve a personification of the connection you have with another person you love or care deeply about, by referencing a moment or symbol only you two understand. Doesn't it ever-so-slightly ruin the point if other people understand the name, and just recognize you use it because it's adorable (to you and everybody else, but actually has no other purpose or meaning)?

I'm just biased. Mollywobbles kicks ass, and probably has some psychosexual meaning too behind it.

--

Anthony Bourdain

This man is the happy meal of travel entertainment. This man was born in New York City and raised in New Jersey, which is as I know a true place in America where you can slightly hear the bubbling of the melting pot 24/7. My family comes from there, too; Italian, Irish, Scottish, German. Any nationality that resides in America, resides in New Jersey. Naturally, this interesting man was born into a ravine of culture. Yet it is general knowledge that each country represents itself with food, part of the large and overshadowing idea of culture. And this man loved it from the start, so it seems. I once watched an episode of No Reservations, featuring Chinatown and Manhattan food, where Bourdain noted that Manhattan was his family's Friendly's. Although they experience the Americanized side of whatever ethnic food, he was still tasting, thinking, and investigation each flavor with his tongue and mind. He noted in one of his books that he began his lifelong lover affair with food in France. Not a surprise, is it cookies?

What's the most charming aspect of his persona is how true and real he is when dealing with his passion of food. Also, he stretches his ideas of countries by getting down and dirty with each dish he tries, scary as it may look. He lives inside the labyrinth in style, while ne'er forgetting that food is a game of show and tell.

--

I'm sorry for such a long time away. I was working every day from 9 to 3, and was tired and not in the mood to blog. They'll be more common now.

still I wear the red dress, paint my toes and twirl, take it back to old time, when I was still a girl

The Pinpoint

"ADRIFT! A little boat adrift!
And night is coming down!
Will no one guide a little boat
Unto the nearest town?
So sailors say, on yesterday,
Just as the dusk was brown,
One little boat gave up its strife,
And gurgled down and down.
But angels say, on yesterday,
Just as the dawn was red,
One little boat o’erspent with gales
Retrimmed its masts, redecked its sails
Exultant, onward sped!" -Emily Dickinson {Currents} Too-sweet coffee, ignoring people in general, photoshop, grey's anatomy, not getting dressed. {Constants}  Feeling; Loneliness. Desire; Solace, books, and change.

then

I opened my pretty hazel eyes to light, every single morning.  Life was sunshine, daisies, buttermellow, seersucker dresses and adoring smiles, as life was a festival of itself.  I'd hold mum's hand, and we would edge gently through crowds.  Summer was a breeze; I wore a hot pink bathing suit with tou-tou attachment, snorkeled under water, and laid on the warm summer grass, a spec of pure white in an emerald abyss.  I'd sit in the attic during each terrible storm wearing each old and mothball-clad fur coat, and wonder what it was like to be a beam of lightning.  To be seen, quickly, and unseen in the same second.  My attic was the rooftops of London, the very highest dune in the desert, and Mt. Everest with the smell of old firewood.  I believed a peacock lived inside the carpet, which it did.  DreamCast was the wave of the future, whilst Simon {says} was the closest thing to God any of us fathomed.

       My mother grew tomatoes and violets in the garden, cucumbers and thyme, and the rhythmic sound of her knife pummeling the wooden cutting board is what I hear in every song's bass drumbeat.  I lived off mozzarella and tomato salad, and Danimals was in my bloodstream all day long.  My hairdresser (to this very day) sought to give me 'the rachel'.

I seek a great perhaps

One of the forever fought battles of humanity is the prospect of life after death, death after life, and whether the Three Baskets, Koran, Bible, Torah, or the Vedas have been bullshitting us for thousands of years.  False hope and blind faith are, in my cranium, exactly like that sinfully good dessert you plan your calories (life) around to eat, nibble, chew, and try to push away.  Yet we all know deep down it's futile; blind faith is the world's chewing gum, whose flavor never fades into a dull spectrum.

       Christianity preaches a heaven and a hell, each a place that is based on how you exactly deserve placement on the guest list there.  If you are a bad person, specifically not a good Christian, you go to hell.  Hell is punishment for not fulfilling a good and Christian life; therefore, heaven is exactly the opposite.  We love a reward.  Eternal happiness is our sanctuary; if we live a good and clean life, we shall be free of darkness forever.  God will free your chains, according to the core values of this religion.

       Hinduism is based on karma; karma is directly connected with the cycle of reincarnation, which is a cycle of the body of a person dying, the soul lingering and superseding the body of another organism.  This is a ferris wheel of right or wrong as well; you continue to live and die until your karma is good enough (how high you karma remains is based on your dharma, which is one's general responsibilities as a person) to reach moksha, which is when your soul is connected with brahma, which is the single cosmic force that controls the world.  This religion too promises eternal happiness and enlightenment, but is it based on you, truly?  

Each one of use, poor, rich, big or small closes their eyes every nigh and dreams.  Dreaming is the brains way of sinking into a lake of contemplation forevermore, and growing the utmost gills and breathing until the light of day reaches us.  Many, many people I have come in contact with dream or have dreamed of a personal oil painting of heaven.  Edmund Pevensie dreams of Turkish Delight, some imagine heaven being without a thing or event, perhaps a person too.  

Personal Image of Heaven:

I feel at a festival, a place of unity but peace.  Thoughts and words unwanted flow unharried the breeze.  A violin is played so lovingly; the player embeds promise and dedication into each prolonged note.  It makes me want to close my eyes.  Chairs of vines and tables of forest wood are cast blues, greens, a silly pink or rose, as fairy lights forever glow.  We are dressed in comfort.

Ballet dancers falls, leap like flower petals against the water's surface.  Fruits of beauty and taste are fora ll.  Grapes explode with taste, a white juice spilling like a dam into our mouths.

       I hear Ella singing, humming through her teeth, lips sealed; her voice is smooth, like a lullaby, she makes me dream so sweetly.  Her warmth gives me hope, for what?  Narcissism?  Myself, my Life, the universe?  And anyway, do I dare disturb it?

Everything is glittering, and it all makes me feel so warm and lovely and pretty inside and out.

There is sanity painting the lines of the grass, the curve of the chairs, it illustrates the scene as if I live in a snow globe, watched by somebody who dares to dream.

I fabricate a heaven that roses are carved of sapphires, pastels, and a date that I learned to fly.  Where the stars sing you to sleep, and when those who arrive are still listening to the lingering words of those who say goodbye for the present.  Would there be a present?  There would be a present.  But, a past or future. . .

there's a piano of every street corner.  Children sit around it, listening to deep and sultry tones until they're called for dinner, which is always good.  And everybody is always hungry when mother's ready to feed.  Glamour had lost it's unfriendly charm.  The world can dream and seek what is in reach, forevermore, and grandmothers knit all the time, random articles of clothing; they are always appreciated.  Kids love them in my heaven, and everybody loves everyone's outfit and hair, face and wit, because it is different.  

And there is always, always one to guide whomever's ship unto the nearest town.

The Pinpoint

"Let me tell you something about Claire.  She loves constants.  Things that don't go away.  So don't go away."

-Garden Spells, Sarah Addison Allen.

{Currents}

movies, specifically anything with audrey tautou, nostalgia, black and white, rachael yamagata, family frustration, nail chewing, Sarah Addison Allen

{Constants}

love of small spaces, my cat's mood swings, hot drink enthusiasm, thinking too much about the future (30's.  Turns out, I am one of those people who thinks a persons 30's are the ideal time.)

       It's nice to feel my skin slowly cooling down.  The hot, beaming lights of public satisfaction and desire to prove my god forsaken message is accomplished, slightly, at least gone.  Summer is here, but the season has become a symbol instead of a forecast nowadays.  Yesterday was the 'graduation', and now I'm just here.  In the nook of a study room, in the very corner, unseen from the door, tucked into a chair on my own.  How I like it.  An avant-garde type of plunge I took.  

       The day before yesterday, a strange man came to our house, to take some of our furniture for re-upholstering.  He took my usual study room chair, how shredded it was, my old and raggedy TV room Queen Anne chair, and I now feel slightly naked.  Nevertheless comfortable, because I am here and nobody else is, which I ne'er have had for seemingly months, years, centuries.  I've been leaning my head against the wall for a month, and now I am granted the truth from myself that this is what I need and needed.  I have missed the sound of the rain, accompanied by nothing except the click and snap of keys on my laptop running, summersaulting through my blood.  

       I sat, in this new but equally friendly chair, and wondered about my old chair.  In a month and a half, it is going to return to me, covered in new and majestic fabric.  And seemingly, it's owner will too.  

       Unsurprisingly, thoughts of past ticking of the clock and beyond have been slowly administered to me like an IV for the past few weeks.  So much color and sound, words and faces have returned to me.  I remembered sitting down with a piece of paper larger than me as a three foot tall tuft of curls and drawing pocahontas.  My mother took me too weekly art lessons in first, second, and third grade, as I simply could be myself for an hour with roughly twelve other children.  I could jump into the pool of everything, anything, and have as lacey, or ridiculous tea party with those I connected with as I wanted.  And it was marvelous.  

       Naturally, I've picked up a pottery class at the same local art school, and I'm going to give it a go.  I've always had a crush on pottery; but my ridiculous and baggy sense of self always hid me so effortlessly, and forcefully away from it.  I chortle that besides this fact, I was always the one to score a point for the other team in community soccer or basketball, both of which I am horrific at.

I fathom I was never tan for a reason.

Most Common Thoughts Of Recent

-Boarding school life

       When it comes to topics such as these, it is incredibly difficult to determine if I'm biased from reading Harry Potter and Looking For Alaska, as well as watching Dead Poet's Society a total of one million times, and am just expecting too much.  Is it freedom, independence, a shove, thrust, and cascade into self-trust and obligation?  Or is it being dropped off an unclimbable precipice, into a large and uncongenial dark lake of stress and loneliness, with no area of return?  I am not one to climb the rope, or take part in risk.  I am a cowardly yet slightly proud believer in fact and no chance, prediction that deems itself correct and peace in knowing that one is safe from harm or mistake.  Boarding school is the great risk of my life. It is a lose or win situation.  

-Myself in adulthood

       This has been chewing on me for at least a month.  Infectious to my dreams, the future is a way that I have made excuses for escaping the present, as Alaska Young once taught me.  When I close my sore eyes, I hear and see the ideal version of what I am right now.  Laughing, smiling, happy, witty, tall and skinny, with frizz-free shiny hair.  I'm smart and well-respected, and beautiful on the inside too.  

       Also, a good half of more of this unnecessary dreaming has to do with housing and job.  I imagine myself a female Remus Lupin type; witty, wise, vast amounts of w's.  I imaging eating off plates I made myself from the wheel, bowls as well.  I'd drink coffee whenever I royally pleased, and spell a little like dried flowers all the time.  Tights, a corduroy skirt, thick sweaters and bright eyes I would wear in or out of my Vermont house, I'd drive to a nearby boarding school every day and teach English to those who cared enough to apply to come there.  My cat would be even-tempered.  I would be at peace, somewhat.  It is, as many say, good to dream.

new

this is it.

a new blog post template.

everything is more organized now, hopefully, and I will be seeing the Advil bottle less and less.

(presses ignition button, connected to brainwaves, and all color is seen everywhere.)