the one cool night of summer

I felt the craving in the roots of my teeth, in the roots of my hair. The craving to be awake, to run and not let my lungs or my ankles stop me. The prickling pull of sleep pressed into my right eyelid heavily, churned and begged for my fist to rub and rub and rub. The greatest relief is always itching your eye until it feels like your eyeball will be smashed into jelly.

I caressed the cold air by arching my back against it as it slowly creeped into my window. A cold breeze, the smell of the air filtering in through the screen the sweetest smell I know besides that of human skin. I miss smelling the skin of an arm slung over my shoulders in the morning, but tonight I did not miss any person who has held me in that way. I only missed their smell.

In the book I just finished, I knew the twist ending from page one. I knew she was dead the whole time and I waited for the twist to unfurl itself so the rest of the reading world would catch up. In the same way, I knew he would cheat from the first flick of his tongue against my ear lobe. In the same way I know that summer will blessedly melt to fall in what feels like no time at all.

via *

checking in

Every word I'm trying to write feels contrived. Or maybe I'm just tired and stressed and a weird version of lonely that I am severely not ok with. Every metaphor feels reached for and foreign on my tongue. Then again, I doubt that it's new or fascinating that another twentysomething is having an existential crisis. But it feels important. It feels big. And I miss you. All of you. And I miss the words in my own head as much as I miss yours. I'm still here. The here is just very flexible and strange.

for the alive

True story. The other morning as I washed the sleep off of my face, I noticed my neck in the mirror. The delicate flesh just above my collar bone was bruised with grip marks like I'd been strangled in the night. Hard. My flesh had bruised like fallen rose petals and I had no idea why.

I pictured the walls of my bedroom closing down and growing hands in the night, pressing into my body and daring me to scream or sigh out into the velvet night. I've never been afraid of a little choking, a little extra pressure so I can really feel my carotid artery beating in my neck. Make life feel more vital and impending.

I have yet to solve the mystery of my grips along my neck. Maybe it was my own hand resting gently on my chest and then suddenly pushing on my vocal chords with all of their strength. Playing with the control of breath. Making sure I don't get complacent. Teasing me so I remember to stay alive.

via *

All or Nothing Day

In a world of constant change and seemingly constant destruction, it is so hard to find anything to hold on to, to keep yourself going. It can seem impossible when it feels like life is attacking you personally time and time again. Or when everything is going your way and suddenly the walls of your life crumble around you. I am constantly amazed at the resiliency of humans, of the unimaginable capacity of people to be given a crisis and choose to battle it and choose to stay strong.

via *

I understand that feeling to give up and the hopelessness that can strangle itself around us as we try so hard to breathe. But I've learned a secret as I've grown older: it's all a matter of choice. Choosing to live with hope is so hard and deserves to be noticed. Even if you are only capable of the smallest forms of hope, a tiny pinprick of hope in the middle of a sea of worry, that's enough. Hold on to that and let it grow. One of the best ways to do that is by finding stories of people who radiate with hope and love.

Heather Von St. James is a ten year Mesothelioma survivor. Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer that occurs in the lining of the body's internal organs; it is also a disease with a usual diagnosis of 15 months. The largest cause of Mesothelioma is exposure to asbestos or inhalation of asbestos particles. Usually there is a latency period of many years before symptoms and diagnosis occur. Heather was diagnosed at the age of 36, right after giving birth to her beautiful daughter, Lily Rose.

Heather and her beautiful family

Heather went through treatment and beat her diagnosis of just 15 months to live, even having a surgery on February 2, 2006 to remove a lung (which she now celebrates each year with a day called Lung Leavin' Day, a day spent writing fears on plates and smashing them into a fire... sign me up for next year!) and through it all, she has kept her spirit of hope alive for herself, for her family, and for others suffering with Mesothelioma.

Mesothelioma accounts for around 3,000 cancer cases each year in the United States. Even if you haven't been personally involved with cancer, it touches all of our lives. About ten years ago, my aunt and uncle both died from two different forms of cancer nine hours apart. My entire family felt and still feels their loss and with that sort of cancer running rampant in our family, it can be so hard to stay hopeful and live life without fear. Even if cancer isn't your worry, there are so many things in this world that seek to frighten us. Heather's urge, as well as mine, is to work to fight that fear and remain alive and hopeful.

July 26th is National All or Nothing Day, a day that celebrates that carpe diem attitude that can pull a person through life. As Heather says, "I've been accused my whole life of wearing rose colored glasses and seeing life very optimistically and I have no intention of ever taking them off."

I'll be the first to admit to being susceptible to a bad attitude. I feel as though quite a bit of hardship and struggle has fallen on me. I've been through a lot in relationships, with my family, with my brain working very hard to keep me sad and treat me poorly. But at the end of the day, one thing has held true; I have survived all of it. Going through all of my struggles has made me so strong and it's given me more to draw from in my writing as well as in my conversations with others. It has made me be more open and lovely even through all of the blackness. I'm not saying that I always have a good attitude about life- far from it- but I do know that at the end of all things, I will be ok. I may be sad for a very long time, or bitter, but I'll feel it while it happens and then return to hope.

via *

Each day is a choice for you to love yourself and choose to carry on. Give your all. Love deeply and protect your heart. Don't be afraid to let yourself feel whatever it is you are feeling, but always remember the big picture. Don't let your heart turn hard even as others around you demand you to stop caring and demand you hate yourself like they hate themselves. Do not fall for it. You are lovely and capable. Suck the negative from your life and remember that your life is your story, your victories will make history. You are alive and you are good.

I encourage all of you to pull some of Heather's light into your life, especially on July 26th. Take life by the horns and live it to the absolute fullest because everything is temporary and every breath deserves to be celebrated even if you feel pain. Pain turns to power and beauty and I will believe that until the day I die. I will live my life with one of my favorite quotes in mind from John Green: "We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreparably broken."

I would also like to thank Heather Von St. James for reaching out to me and sharing her story with me. Thank you so much for letting me help spread your gift for hope and tell the world not only about this disease but about the restorative power of hope. Thank you thank you thank you.

Get out into the world, lovelies. Suck the life out of it and remember to remain hopeful. You are all lovely.

To learn more about Heather or Mesothelioma, here are some very helpful links:
Heather's Story
Mesothelioma
Mesothelioma Statistics
Lung Leavin' Day

literally

I'm a fan of hyperbolic language because life is hyperbolic and explosive. I would much rather feel things in constant states of literally and hyperbole than through a veil of unshakable and polarizing apathy. Apathy does not make you impressive and isolation is not something to be proud of. Bleeding is impressive. Feeling pain that will lead to joy is impressive. Feeling joy that will lead to pain, that is even more impressive.

Let life drown you. We have been dying since the day we were born so why not go out with a fucking bang?

via *

if I lay here

"I hope you're old boyfriends tickled your back for you," he says and I can hear the pout playing on his lips. I shut my eyes and feel his chest rise and fall slowly, my ear pressed against his chest bone. I feel those first few pinprick tears starting to play around inside of my tear ducts and blink hard to push them away. Keep myself here in this moment, with his hands painting swirls across my back.

"I honestly can't remember the last time anyone tickled my back," I whisper towards the darkness in front of me. The dark is pixelated by the city lights peeking behind the blinds. The dark is made softer by the crooning records spinning endlessly and closing us into an insular world.

He pushes his lips softly into my midnight hair and inhales deeply. I inhale too, taking in every molecule of this moment. "That's a shame," he speaks, "your skin is so soft."

via *

a matter of truth

I think I've discovered some of the biggest secrets in life right here, shoved into my pillow case. There are some truths out there that are so seemingly obvious, so simple that they almost become a cliche. Cliches don't have a lot of respect in this world but they are cliched for a reason, right? Sometimes being reminded of those simple truths could save a life or fix a broken heart.

Here are some of the simple truths I have discovered recently. I hope that some of these can help you too.

You have to love yourself and you have to love others. At the end of the day, all we have is humanity and our fellow man. Human beings are capable of profound feelings that I will never begin to understand, but watching the insanity that is a human existence unfold before your eyes is a gift that deserves to be treasured. Treasure each other and treasure history. History matters because for all of these years on this Earth, those people who have come before you have cried like you, laughed like you, screamed like you, bled like you. Learn their feelings and empathize with those struggles. Go to those places that are screaming with history and soak it all in because the tens of millions of people that have passed through this Earth deserve that respect and our thirst for knowledge. We are all humans and that needs to be respected and loved.

Love yourself. Please, know how lovely and good you are and can be. The potential you hold in your fingertips could build empires or crumble everything into ruins. You can be unstoppable and beautiful. Help yourself down that path toward beauty and creation by loving your body and your skin and your mind. Have fun in this life and have fun in your skin.

Do not let anyone destroy you without your consent. Here is the biggest secret I have learned, my loves: You are in charge of who is in your life and at what capacity. YOU pick who surrounds you and what energy you let in. The Daisy Buchanan's in this world are gorgeous and they offer you pretty things. When a Daisy shines their eyes across you, it is easy to feel special and singled out but I promise you that you mean nothing to them. If someone tells you they are horrible or careless, believe them. They most likely mean it. And if they don't, what a horrible and juvenile lie for attention.

I went through a break up recently that was needless and cruel but it changed me so completely. I feel as though it made me more empathetic and less so. Less patient and more patient. Lovelies, you are not required to keep venomous people in your life. I felt so destroyed by being in this relationship that I just sort of... remained because I felt too small to leave. That was a horrible lesson but I'm grateful for it. You get to control how venomous people are in your life. YOU. You decide if you make the frightening decision to make it their responsibility to change or if you are smart and adult enough to suck their poison from your life. You get to decide how to live and change.

Change is so hard, I know. But if you know what to do, change. Let that rush drive you against a wall and suffer if you have to but I promise you that everything will get better and you will be ok. Don't let yourself stay miserable. Choose to move on. If you don't, remember your life and your misery is on you and nobody else. Life is too beautiful to miss out on because someone gives you such horrific anxiety that you can't eat for five months or because someone makes you feel small.

Fill your lungs with air, breathe in and out, and love. Love until your heart is full to bursting. Then fill it even more.

I love you. So so much.

via *

the daisies

I shut the light off and bathed in the dark. I let the black velvet water come to nearly the top of the tub until only my neck and head were left uncovered. The music that was playing embraced me like you never did, seeping down through the water and sliding across my skin. It was like an underwater cathedral in my darkened tub and my body was the altar, finally learning to praise itself again.

When the humidity finally loosened my cough, I coughed up the daisies you planted carelessly along my heart. They were bright and sick and smelt like lies. After all of this, I have learned something after all. Don't trust the daisies; they keep poison in pretty packages.

via *

Dolores on the Dotted Line

The bartender sat a swan glass full of peach schnapps in front of me and called me Lolita, though he had never read the book before. He knew enough to know I was one, he said. He knew enough to know that I knew nothing at all. With 23 years, jet black hair and a few broken hearts to my name he said I knew nothing at all. He said not to call anything intense unless it had to do with sex because nothing else should ever be that intense, unless it was fucking.

I sat with my friends beside me and pushed dried up tears into the deserts in my tear ducts and let men buy us shot after shot, knowing that as drunk as my body got, my brain would never follow. I'm not even crying over you anymore is the hard part; I'm crying for my horizon and how long it will take the sun to set. I'm crying for a San Francisco apartment with exposed brick and piano keys. I'm crying for a seemingly endless fall and a chance at a warm December.

I'm crying over losing my Lolita and wanting her gone.

via *

10.30.14

Feeling your mind expand and be molded feels exactly like speeding on an empty city road at midnight. That sense of wild freedom in a place that is usually so full. That feeling of recklessness, that wild and climbing sensation as you pull forward ever faster and faster, screaming with your car, hurtling at 90 miles an hour to a new destination.

It is so scary to grow and learn from people. But connection is such an intense craving in the marrow of our very human bones. Opening yourself, handling your heart to someone and hoping they will cradle it and not stomp it into the floorboards takes so much strength. But God, what a sensation and what a miracle when you finally do it.

I've always wanted to be close to my sister. I've wanted to be a person who could be having a hard day and immediately think to call her on the phone and complain and cry with her. The kicker is, we are ten years apart and so so different. She's medical, I'm English lit. She's Christian, I'm... other. She's so similar to me that I think I've been inventing differences this whole time in hopes that I would stop feeling guilty and disappointed when we weren't best friends when she came to visit from Texas.

But tonight for the first time we opened up to each other and I finally got to say some of the things I've been burying for so so long. I have had no one to tell these words to and it all came spilling out and finally, finally, after years and years I heard the one phrase I have needed from someone in my family. She's proud of me. She is with me. She sees me. And I am so grateful.

10.20.14

Some days (most days) it feels ridiculous that I am not 17. It feels so false that I live in my own house, that I'm not checking in with my mom before I go out for a night with my friends. It amazes me that my mother doesn't know my friends anymore because they aren't the people I have seventh period theater with or the people I walked to the bus stop with. It's ridiculous that I'm paying rent. And working. And going to college. And using a credit card.

When does living a life stop feeling like I'm playing house?

injection

I missed him the way you miss Novocain after the dentist; I didn't miss how numb I felt, how odd my own tongue felt in my mouth. I didn't miss anticipating when the numbness would end. But I did miss the lack of pain. The ability to chew my cheeks to ribbons without feeling a thing.

There were days where nothing made sense but to lie in bed and let the power of him drown me, covering my head and running down my throat. It was in those chokingly silent moments that I'd feel his hands around my neck and around my chest, pressing the air out of me until I thought I was nothing more than an empty bag of bones waiting for this Frankenstein of a man to spark me with seeming life again.

But that love was a lie, a masquerade I created for myself out of whimsical girlish fantasies and vinegar lies that dripped from his incisors. The blades at the ends of his fingertips cut one time too deep and suddenly the numbness left and I snapped awake. People will tell you that being numb is better than feeling too much. But why would you choose a prison of paralysis when the kingdom of consciousness is trying to welcome you home?

via *

food for thought

"Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do.
But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. This question is one that only a very old man asks. My benefactor told me about it once when I was young, and my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it. Now I do understand it. I will tell you what it is:
Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere. My benefactor's question has meaning now. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are on with it. THe other will make you curse your life One makes you strong; the other weakens you."

The Teachings of Don Juan

via *

a calling of sorts

This was the second year that my dear friend and mentor Mr. Larsen, my once Honors English teacher and now friend, has asked me to come teach his Honors English classes about The Great Gatsby. And just like last year, this was my favorite day. This year even more than last year. These Honors students are truly spectacular. They were actively listening to me, they participated and talked with me (even in first period at 8 in the morning, something I can't even say I do in school), and they fought what I said and we came up with new ideas together.

Teachers, back me up on this. There is nothing at all in this world more encouraging and meaningful than when you see a light spark in a student's eyes based on something you've said. Seeing a moment when you say something that can have the power to fundamentally change someone is so incredible. Or seeing someone begin a lecture half listening and ending in rapt attention with a hand in the air, begging to share their ideas with respectful people who will listen to them.

This happened a few times to me today and my heart has never felt more full. I felt comfortable speaking to these kids, but of course there will always be a level of nerve in sharing something that is so vital to you, like this book is for me. And come on, it's High School. For some reason my desire to impress high schoolers has grown exponentially since I was actually in school. I wanted to look pretty so these kids would respect and listen to me. I wanted to seem cool and approachable. I wanted to be heard by the quiet kids who might not ordinarily speak.

I think I was. After each lecture, a good majority of the students came up and thanked me for coming to talk to them. One girl told me that I completely changed her opinion of the book, that she can't wait to read it again. Another told me that I was so funny and that I should come teach at the school. One said I had pretty hair and great style. "You're just so legit! You're so cool! I just looked at my watch and saw that the lecture was ending and got so sad that I couldn't stay and listen to you. Thank you so much for coming."

Teachers, after a day like this, do you go home crying? Because I did. These kids touched me so deeply in my soul and reminded me why reading and English and discussion of ideas is so important. It forges these amazing connections. I love sitting in my English classes and being able to talk freely with my instructors, knowing my ideas are being respected and heard. But being on the other side of that, knowing these kids are soaking up everything I say and sharing in my obsession and letting it morph into their own, is so so cool. Life changing really.

After the teaching was done, Mr. Larsen and I evaluated the day. I expressed my joy at how the day went and assured him I'd be back next year. I also said I hoped I never came off as pretentious or "holier than thou." What he said sort of amazed me. He said he could tell I was self-conscious about coming off as pretentious and that I would never need to worry about feeling that way. He said I had a natural gift for teaching and relating and being. I seemed honest and approachable and open. An expert, but an expert eager to learn and grow with my students.

And then I walked to my car and cried for the entire ride home. I think I've found a calling. I want to reach the world through words on a page and words hand delivered to open ears.

Thank you so much to these students for hearing me today and pushing me. Thank you to Mr. Larsen for being the single most lovely man I know, a true Nick Carraway and a stand up man. Thank you to every single teacher who has respected me and helped me grow. Thank you thank you thank you.

via *

a fictionalization of complete nonfiction.

I'm not saying it's as bad as it could be. I'm not even saying it's bad. It's just that I know they are talking about it and I know they see how different I am. As much as they say it doesn't matter to them, I know it does. I'm the odd man out. I'm the one who isn't rushing marriage, the one who doesn't want children. The one who believes in a good time.

There are only so many times humor can happen at the expense of another person. There are only so many times I'll laugh with you when you are laughing at me and judging me in my attempt to play it off before I snap. I'm the moody girl in the basement, you're the celestial trio. Believe me, I get it. I'll be burning in hell with the alcohol and the swear words and the bass lines that read to you like crack cocaine in a bathroom stall. Bring on the burn if it means I get to feel joy in life now. At least I won't be bored.

Keep your eye rolls to yourself and I'll keep my suspicions and anxieties buried. I love who I am. I do. It only gets hard to love who I am when you shove it back in my face against me. That's when I question myself. That's when my nail beds itch and my pores crack open. I try my hardest not to judge you. Allow me the same courtesy.

via *

thirty dialogs bleed into one

Happy New Year, lovers. I was right about last night being wonderful, and incredibly surprising. Incredibly Surprising. In fact if last night is any inclination as to how 2014 will be, it will be crazy and surprising and beautiful and unexpected. I could use a bit of all of that in my life.

Last night I talked with my dearest friend for the first time in two years, and I get to see him today.
Last night I spent my new year with my James Dean and got my heart served to me on a platter.
Last night I went to bed at six in the morning after having my head scream for hours.
Sometimes there are just too many words for how you feel.

Today I feel settled. Excited. Scared. Anxious. I feel a lot of things. As it turns out, my life will never be uncomplicated. Ever. But I am surrounded by gorgeous people, inside and out. That's all I can ask for, really. I'd rather be constantly unsettled than bored and uninspired.

via *

contented isolation

Human nature quakes for connection
like leaves quivering on a branch,
the skin quivering under a shaking
breath placed seductively in
the crevice under your jawline.

Atoms push and pause,
connecting and unwinding
along a garish carousel circling
into a tapestry of anonymous faces,
flushing to harmonize with the
stranger across from them.

The isolated cries of
the not so isolated sweethearts
and their drifting hearts floating to
another beat. Pump pump. Pump pump.
Silence. Isolationism at its finest
even among the flashing lights of
the ferris wheel in the center of the fair.

It's like candy when you find it,
the last bright red lick melting
against your teeth and sticking in your gums.
The sweet almost sickening taste
crawling in your taste buds,
inching down your esophagus,
icing your stomach lining until you feel ill.

Illness and disbelief at the peace
living in your veins and breeding
in your cells. Disconnection
from it all, tearing yourself from
the breast of connection makes everything
silent. You're ok. You're alive.
You're alone and content.
And, god, it is delicious.

via *

The Book Thief

Some books transcend everything, don't they? They change the way you think. The way you write. The way you see the world. They change everything. It gets to the point where you feel incomplete without that book living on your nightstand staring at you every night. When you see other people reading the book you get jealous that they are spending time with your best friends among the pages, cradling the spine like you cradle those characters in your heart. The book has become so completely yours and so completely you that you simultaneously want to share your love for it and keep every single copy in the known world under your bed for yourself.

This is The Book Thief. The untouchable, perfect, heartbreaking, groundbreaking work of art that changed everything for me.

via *

I read this book for the first time when I was about 15. I was immediately pulled in to this world as I watched Death walk alongside these characters and sit by their side in the snowy streets of Molching, Germany. I was immediately in love. I had never read words like this before in my life. The way death described things. The way he saw the world. I wanted to stand with him as he told me his stories, to see the world in the colors he saw it in.

DEATH AND CHOCOLATE

First the colors.

Then the humans.

That's usually how I see things.

Or at least, how I try.

***Here is a small fact***

You are going to die.

I loved the voice Death had. The tired, dry, sarcastic wit. The love he feels for Liesel. For Rudy. For them all. Death's narration makes this book. The way he describes colors. Every time I reread this book I find a new description to love. The first one I underlined? The eyes of a dead pilot the color of coffee stains.

I've never seen description like this. It's an amazing feeling to pick up a book, not realizing how different you will be after you read it. This book changed my writing entirely. I began going description crazy and I saw the world around me twist and turn while I read some passages over and over again. I had never been so taken by a book. 

When I got to the last fifty pages or so, I slowed down. I had tears cascading down my cheeks and I felt like I would never be able to breathe normally ever again. It took me two hours to pull myself through that mountain range of rubble and I emerged on the other side tear-stained, exhausted, and wholly swept away. It still takes me about two and a half hours to read those last pages. Those are some of the most gorgeously brutal words I have ever read.

I've never felt so attached to characters. They feel like family. Because the author spends so much time letting you get to know these characters, you cannot help falling in love with them. He tells you stories that really have no consequence in the grand scale of the story. They don't move plot forward per se, but they make your heart ache for these people. Rudy with his lemon hair, Liesel's love of words and hours spent on the floor of a secret library, Hans breathing with his accordion, Rosa's hidden moments of tender love with Hans, Max sweating fear every hour of the day. Lord, I can't even type about this book without getting tears in my eyes.

This book gives me the most visceral reaction of any book I've ever read. I feel my entire body pulsing when I read it and when I even think about the words. If I ever feel the need to cry, I can think of a scene in the book between Max and Liesel and in seconds glass tears will fall. If I need a laugh, I think of Liesel and Rudy saumensching with each other in the school yard or along the Amper River. Even the name of my blog comes from this book. Liesel reports the weather to Max one morning so the hidden Jew can have a small taste of the sky.

"The sky is blue today, Max, and there is a big long cloud, and it's stretched out, like a rope. At the end of it, the sun is like a yellow hole..."

Max, at that moment, knew that only a child could have given him a weather report like that. On the wall, he painted a long, tightly knotted rope with a dripping yellow sun at the end of it, as if you could dive right into it. On the ropy could, he drew two figures- a thin girl and a withered Jew- and they were walking, arms balanced, toward that dripping sun. Beneath the picture, he wrote the following sentence.

***THE WALL-WRITTEN WORDS OF MAX VANDENBURG***

It was a Monday, and they walked on a tightrope to the sun.

via *

I've spent a lot of time thinking about why this book has affected me so much; enough to lead me to read it once a year, each year highlighting and underlining more and more of my beloved well-loved copy. (I would read it more but I physically and emotionally don't think I could handle it.)

I think at my core, I connected with Liesel and her love of words. Her inspiring, motivating, life changing dedication to reading and writing and taking control of her own world through words. The power of language is a theme that is so central in this book and that is also a big part of my own life. Nothing moves me more than the power of language and watching this little girl fall in love with words reminds me of myself discovering words and using them as a weapon, a crutch, an embrace, a friend. I see so much of me in Liesel. I see me in her feeling of displacement and her deep love for those she cares most about. Her quiet watchfulness and powerful soul. I love that little girl. 

I love all of those characters. I am in love with Max Vandenburg. Hans and Rosa are my second parents. Rudy. To quote Death:

He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It's his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.

This book kills me. This book steps on my heart. This book makes me cry. 

via *

I was so nervous when I heard this book was going to become a movie. Actually, screw nervous. I was livid. I was in my bathtub reading the book when I decided to look at Tumblr tags, hoping to find some pretty fan art. Instead I found a cast list and filming locations. My heart burst open. No, I thought, this is The Book Thief. Not the Movie Thief. Where will the words be? No. These are my characters. They'll have to leave out so much. No. No. No.

I remained furious for months. I got protective and angry. I didn't want people to start claiming this book that was my lifeblood as their own after seeing a movie and never holding these characters in their hands. I wanted the movie to be done right, to do justice to these words that are so ingrained into me. I didn't want people who I felt didn't deserve this book to be able to see the movie and cry. They don't know these characters like me, they don't deserve to sit and cry with me. They will cry because of the Holocaust, I will cry because I'll be watching my family and my heart on the screen. 

Then I saw the trailer. And lost it completely. It blew me away. I was crying within the first three seconds. I was so happy because it looked exactly like what I always pictured, but also different enough to let me keep my images of these people and places alive in my brain. I calmed down with being so militant about this book being mine. My perception of this book and the meaning I have assigned to it will always be mine and nobody will ever touch that. But now the world will see why I go so crazy over this. They will get to meet my loves. 

I am so scared to see this movie. If watching the trailers is any inclination, I will be a horrible sobbing mess the entire time. I went to a movie last weekend and saw the trailer for the first time on the big screen and immediately started weeping, much to the embarrassment of my sister, brother in law, grandmother, and fellow movie-goers. My mom flat out refuses to see the movie with me because I won't be able to stop crying throughout. That's alright, I'd rather brave it alone. 

This was a whirlwind to write. I'm once again tear stained and exhausted; it's like I just finished reading the book. I love this book to pieces, with every beat of my heart and I am so happy to share my love of this book with you all. 

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11.1.13

Welcome to November! Can you believe it? Hate to sound cliche but where did this year go?

Halloween was not the best day but I refuse to let that come between me and having a wonderful November. Things to carry into November:

• I am taking part in NaNoWriMo this year. Have you guys heard of this? It's short for National Novel Writing Month. Write a novel (50,000 words) in one month. This is my first time really trying and I'm honestly very scared. But some of my absolute favorite books started out as NaNo novels (Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell and Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. WHAT) so I cannot wait to try my hand at it. I'll never have a November where I'm not in school and have as much open time so the time is now. That averages out to about 1600 words a day. Oy vey. Anyone else doing this challenge this year? Let me know! We can support each other! I'll also post some updates on here for some feedback and support. GO TEAM.
• I want this month to be full of inspiration. Lord knows I'm gonna need constant inspiration to stay fresh for NaNoWriMo. Let's talk about favorite books, favorite music, all the favorites! And more importantly, why are they favorites? What makes them stick out in our heads? Let's talk about it.
• I'm meeting with my academic advisor at the U on Monday. Guys, school is so close I can taste it. I'm getting more nervous as time goes on and it gets closer. I hate that the mind does that. I really cannot wait to start a new chapter of my life. I want to leave everything that made me miserable or ill at ease behind and start over as me, not as preconceived me. 
• Why would anyone ever feel embarrassed by emotions they are feeling or have felt? Feelings matter. If someone makes fun of your feelings or antagonizes you about the, that's their problem. If they call you a liar or waste their breath berating you, leave them behind. Hold on to good memories and feelings even if the present is weighing you down. They can't take your past away.
• I want to stop letting every little thing live and breed under my skin. I'm so young, things are so unimportant in the long run. Maybe not unimportant but... inconsequential. People were right. Those huge problems in high school are nothing now. I remember how big they were then but now they mean nothing and I am fine when I though I never would be. This gives me me comfort when life gets rocky. In one month, it won't matter at all. 
• CHRISTMAS AHHHHHHHHH
• Diets are for squares and jerks. Bring on Thanksgiving dinner.

Happy November, lovelies. It's always been a favorite of mine.

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little beans

It's sweater weather at my house. My beans are cuter than anything in the world.

Excuse the fact that these are crappy cell phone pictures. But you can't escape how perfect these little girls are. I'm lost in their bright eyes and furry hugs.

Happy cold weather days.