I FREAKING HATE MY UTERUS, Y'ALL

"You know that feeling where . . ."

Isn't it interesting that we view feelings as places?
As if sadness and loneliness and anger and fear and helplessness are just little woodlands we meander through. 
I like that.

GRRRRRRRRRR.

 This LiveJournal entry that I posted on December 30th, 2009 does a good job of explaining the current scenario.  Note that it takes a *lot* to turn me into this much of an angry bitch.  Note also that this is an LJ entry and thus it was not an actual sent letter.

Dear Mark,

Stop texting me.  Stop messaging me.  Stop emailing me.  I Have No Interest In You.  You broke up with me two and a half years ago, remember?  And thank you for that, by the way.  It was quite possibly the only positive thing you did for me, even if you did it for reasons unrelated.  The year I spent with you was the dumbest year of my life.  I'm not blaming you entirely for it but I'm not completely letting you off the hook for it either.  But you know what?  I'm over it.  And you.  I'm seriously, honestly, completely over you.  I don't think about you, Mark.  I don't ever think about you.  I have my own life now and it has nothing to do with you.  You think I'm still terribly angry at you or hurt or something, from two and a half fucking years ago.  Honestly, what the hell is your problem that you think I still invest ANY time into thinking of you?  I'm only reminded of you every month or so when you send me these creepy lonely desperate pathetic messages wanting to be friends with me.  Apparently my very brief replies declining the invitations have not given you the hint, so I'm just going to ignore you now.  I have literally no emotions invested in you EXCEPT that I'm fucking pissed that you're still sending me stuff.  I dare you to be more pathetic.  I mean I'm still very hurt that I'm not with Asa but even I have the common sense not to keep harrassing him with texts and emails and messages, and that was three months ago, not TWO AND A HALF YEARS.

Unfortunately I've deleted most of your messages and texts to me so I don't have much evidence to keep as little mementos of your personal comfort zone invasion, but here is a message you sent me on December 12th:

Hey it's Mark...
how have you been? alright here.. just been bounching around the northwest for the past few months after moving to portland.
Portland was alright but I felt like I needed to keep moving so yeah... anyway the reason I am saying hi is cause I'm actually back in town right now and I'm bored and i know that you are the craziest person I know in this town which in return makes you the the most sane in a weird sort of way that I'm sure you understand, so I was wondering if you wanted to hang out some time. I'm not really letting anyone else know I'm here cause I just don't want to deal with stupid people. I'll be here for a while though so they are all bound to find out. but for the time being I'm sorta hiding... hahaha
anyway, I don't have a phone and I havn't had one in like 6 months but you should call my old number which is now my brothers: 509-899-****
Hope to hear from you!
If not I understand cause I was quite and asshole to you way back when...
Mark

And here is the text you sent me an hour ago that prompted me to write this entry:

Hey its mark.  Just letting you know this is my new number.

I really wish I had saved some of the other messages you sent me because these do your desperation no justice at all.

 Then, twenty-two days later, on January 21st, 2010, I wrote this entry:

cuz, ya know, um, this is perfect timing for you to keep harassing me right

this actually happened monday night but i couldn't get out of bed and then i forgot about it

so i'm, ya know, passed out in my bed in post-surgery painland and all, it's HALF PAST MIDNIGHT on a MONDAY and i get a little beepy noise from my phone saying i have a text

and I open it and it says

"You really dont like me do you?"

and I'm thinking who the hell are you, mystery texter  because I made a point to delete his number from my phone because he irritates the fuck out of me and i don't want to be reminded of his desperateness.  so I reply,

"Who is this?"

but then I realise it's probably mark because he would completely do something like that.  So i memorise the phone number and go through my old texts and yep, it's mark.  so I write back:

"Oh it's mark.  honestly i don't even think about you at all.  i don't care.  Why are you texting me at 12am on a monday?  Why are you so obsessive?  It's creepy."

I never got a text back.  YAY HE'S GONE MAYBE

I thought he was gone.  Hooray!, thought I, he has vanished!  He will leave me alone to get on with my life!  Ten months passed.  I was in the clear.  Life was lookin' dandy.  And then, fool that I am, I decided to log into MySpace for the first time in about a month just to see if anybody had sent me anything.  And lo and behold, posted on my MySpace, was a comment from 'Last Thursday' from Mark.  And it said,

How's life?

He refuses to go away!  MAKE HIM GO AWAY.
I posted this in his MySpace comments.  Please, Please, Please let this be the end of this.  PLEASE make him go away.  PLEASE.

 

Leave me alone.
Do not call me.
Do not write me.
Do not message me.
Do not text me.
Do not comment me.
Do not ask how I am doing.
Do not talk about me.
Do not hold out any hope that I will ever socialise with you again.
I do not like you. I want you to stay away from me.
Please, please, please. LEAVE ME ALONE.

Jesus Christ.  I find it slightly horrifying that he would even find anything appealing in my personality, considering I strive to be Not Like Mark At All.

heroic

So, I'm making this post just because I am feeling really really proud of myself.  Which is dorky, but, hey.  I deserve a pat on the back.

I heard noises of a rather . . . sexual nature coming from the room next to me so I went out to investigate, and my suitemate N was lying on the floor with her skirt hiked up and a shirtless guy on top of her, with the door open.  They tried to kick the door shut softly but I stopped it with my palm and responsible!Kellie kicked in.

Me: Are you okay, N?
N: Yeah . . .
Me: Are you drunk?
N: Yeah . . .
Me: (to guy) . . . are you really sure you want to be doing this to her while she's drunk? *scornful tone*
Guy: I'm really drunk too.
Me: I just don't want her to regret it in the morning is all.
Guy: Yeah, she's probably ready for bed.
Me: Yeah, I think you guys should go to bed.  Sorry to ruin your fun and stuff but I just really don't want you to regret this.
N: No, you're such a good friend Kellie, you're the only responsible person [no really I swear that's what she said]
Me: Yeah, I mean have fun and everything guys, but maybe just don't go the whole way right now.
N: I love you Kellie!
Me: I love you too N.  Goodnight guys.

LULZ.  I felt like I was in one of those teen educational movies or something.  I am such a total responsible nerd.  But really though, I just prevented a potentially bad situation from occurring.  I think I have a right to be proud of myself, at least a little bit, for being helpful.  But I didn't want to be really lame and brag about it where large amounts of people would see it.  *waves to audience*

obviously feminised names

I love these so much.  They're so underloved because they were given to women a lot in the 30s and now everybody views them as old lady names, but they'll get their place in the sun again soon.  A lot of people also see them as ugly or unfeminine because they retain all of the sounds of their male ancestors, but I love love love me a good strong female name.  Some I especially like:

Albertina
From the Germanic name Adalbert, which was composed of the elements adal "noble" and beraht "bright".
---I've just started being really fascinated by this name.  It's like a toy made of porcelain that you love to play with and spin around but must handle very carefully because it is very fragile.  I love the shapes and sounds my mouth makes when I say this name.  Albertina.  You could call her Berta or Bea or (gasp!) Beata!
Claudine
From a Roman family name which was derived from Latin claudus meaning "lame, crippled".
---It's like Nadine, but with colours that remind me of impressionism.  Claudine is the name of every woman in every Monet painting I've ever seen.  And that's not just because his name is Claude.  Or maybe it is.
Ernestine
Derived from Germanic eornost meaning "serious".
---Oh Ernestine, everybody thinks you are so ugly and rotten.  I will nurture you into a beautiful bloom, with your literary and feminist references.  Ernestine has a harshness and a bitterness that puts a lot of people off, but there's a softer, more lacey side to it that follows you around if you're lucky enough to see it.  Ernestine is a name that was antiquated before it was ever used.
Georgina
From the Greek name Γεωργιος (Georgios) which was derived from the Greek word γεωργος (georgos) meaning "farmer, earthworker", itself derived from the elements γη (ge) "earth" and εργον (ergon) "work".
---Such full, bouncy sounds.  Few names have a true rhythm to them.  Georgina has a true rhythm to it.  Georgina reminds me of fruit trees.  It's full and rich and saturated with colour and life and possibilities for personalities.
Geraldine
From a Germanic name meaning "rule of the spear", from the elements ger "spear" and wald "rule".
---I see Geraldine as almost a mix of Ernestine and Georgina.  Geraldine is frumpy and ugly but lacey on the inside much like Ernestine, but it's intense with sound and colour and flavour like Georgina.  One of my favourite things is when names give me not only colour but flavour.  Geraldine carries a parasol.
Oscarina (okay, so I made this one up)
Possibly means "deer lover", derived from Gaelic os "deer" and cara "lover".
---I made this up about a year ago because I was (am) so infatuated with Oscar Wilde that I couldn't bear to have him missing from my female combos.  Daphne Oscarina was the combination it was invented for.  Anybody named Oscarina would have to be an avid painter with her own "art studio" that is really just a converted garage.  It's swell.

I can't even imagine how awesome it would be to have a daughter named Georgina.  Even though if I ever have a daughter I totally won't name her that since there are names I like more.  But even so!  Georgina!  Albertina!  Be still my beating heart!!  I sometimes wish I wanted a big family just so I could bestow all my children with these antique roses of names.

This needs to end, now.

Dermatillomania, that is.  I'm stopping.  I'm going to force myself to stop.  No matter how painful and stressful and horrible it is going to be to do so, it needs to stop.

One month before my eleventh birthday - actually, it was exactly eight years ago today - my parents got divorced.  Along with the crippling mental illness that ensued came the beginnings of acne (which may also have to do with the first hints of puberty).  I was the only person in my class, and in fact my entire school, who had acne.  My mom had just moved out abruptly and my brother was locking himself in his room for days at a time and I spent a lot of my time locked in my room as well, crying and crying and staring in the mirror at my stupid crying blemished face, and then I just began digging my nails into it.  I had nothing but fragments of family left at home, and at school everybody started to avoid me because of the scabs on my nose and forehead resulting from hours of time spent in front of the mirror pawing at my face until it bled.  I just wanted my stupid ugly zits to go away.  I thought if I just tore at them enough they would go away.

And now eight years later, this compulsion has spread from my face to my arms and shoulders and back and hips and neck and stomach and chest.  Over almost my entire body, I am covered with small circular scars.  I hate looking at my body in the mirror, and it has nothing to do with weight or whatever else it is most women dislike in the mirror.  It has all to do with these horrible blotched scars covering me.  And it makes me so angry at myself that I begin to pick at them more, because a part of me still believes that if I can just pick at them enough, they will go away.

Whenever I get an itch, instead of scratching it, I find a blemish I've created somewhere around the area and pick it open.  If there isn't one, I find a pore and dig my fingernails into it.

There have been dozens, if not hundreds of nights where I have crawled into bed around 11pm hoping to get a relatively early night, and then start tearing at my skin, and when I look at the clock it's far past midnight.

For a period about a year ago, I would run my razor over areas of my body where there wasn't any hair, just so that I could get razorburn, so that I would have something to pick at.  That's why my stomach has scars on it.

A few years ago, I cut my nails short in an attempt to stop.  The next day I stole the family pair of tweezers so that I could use them to keep damaging my skin.

I haven't worn a bathing suit since I was eleven because I don't want anybody to see my back.  Nor have I worn a tank top because the tops of my arms and shoulders are covered with wounds and scars.

I very rarely wear white shirts, because they get blood stains on them.

I realise that all of this is really disgusting to think about.  It's really, really, really disgusting, and if I didn't trust Oscar so much to love me unconditionally I would never make this post because there have been a lot of times when I have convinced myself that nobody would ever want or love a person with such a disgusting habit and such a disgusting body.


I'm stopping now.  This is it.  Tomorrow afternoon I am cutting my nails short, going to the store to buy scar remover, and purchasing band-aids so that if I have an urge to pick at my skin it won't be able to be fulfilled instantaneously and I'll have time to convince myself not to.  I'm going to stop this.  I'm going to do whatever it takes to stop this.  I have allowed myself to destroy so much of my self-esteem, confidence, hope, and body for some of the years when I needed it most.  And it ends now.  This illness is not going to eat away at my life.  It ends now.

invisible tears in my eyes

I don't understand why I cry so much.  More specifically, I don't understand why I've been crying so much lately.  It's not depression - I went through five years of hell with depression, and I know that this is not it.  I'm happy, generally.  I'm not burdened by anything.  But some little thing will happen during my day, something that might make the average person a bit upset but certainly nothing tear-worthy, and I'll lie in my bed and cry over it for ten or fifteen minutes and then feel perfectly alright again.  It's as if there are little fireworks inside of me and every now and then someone lights one of the fuses, and there they go off crackling inside of me strong and glowing and piercing, before little smoke spectres appear in their place and everything is calm again. 

I love being an emotional person.  I really do.  It took me years to accept that.  I used to cry at the slightest thing in elementary school and everybody would mock me, and I hated how fragile my emotional state seemed to be.  I remember when I was very little and my mom told me that I was "so sensitive", and then she explained to me what that word meant, and appropriately enough I was very, very hurt.  But no.  I love my emotions now.  I love feeling.  Everything in this world, art and music and films and tea and love, I have the incredible privilege of experiencing to a deeper and higher and more powerful degree than the vast majority of people, and I love that endlessly.  Even sorrow, though I do hate it so, a part of me loves it as well.  As Wilde put it, wisdom comes with winters. 

There are some small experiences, though, that I wish I weren't affected so deeply by.

It's so unfair to other people to have my wonky stupid emotions playing with me in such negative ways when they do a random and perfectly reasonable thing.  It's not his problem at all, it's mine.  And my cumbersome emotional states for which I have a slowly reblooming contempt.

Sick Child (Lithograph)

Edvard Munch

1897

Fuck You, Crime Psychics.

Okay, I realise I haven't posted here in quite some time and this is not the lightest subject to bring up when I do so, but a fellow WWU Freshman has been missing since Saturday night.  Which is awful.  Absolutely awful.  But this post is not about the awfulness of his disappearance, but rather about the awful, awful nature of the posts I'm seeing under the 'Help Find Dwight' Facebook group. 

Example:
I just listened to Coast to Coast radio program. Someone called in and ask a psycic named CC to give a reading on Dwight. CC accurately discribed him and said he was alive and walkng in a clearing sourrounded by trees south and east of his residence. Possibly near water. She also said 2 days, either he's been gone 2 days or would be found in 2 days. She did not see any foul play involved.God speed to all.

Let us dissect:
CC accurately discribed him
His picture has been posted all over the entire city and aired on various news stations.  It's everywhere.  Of COURSE she described him accurately.  Jesus Christ.

and said he was alive and walkng in a clearing sourrounded by trees
We live in Washington State.  If you are not currently walking in trees, you are currently walking in an area surrounded by trees.

south and east of his residence.
Bellingham is located in the very north of Washington, and has a large body of water to the west.  There is no other possible direction he could be located.

Possibly near water.
I reiterate: Bellingham has a large body of water to the west.  It also has dozens of rivers and lakes and ponds.  In fact, I doubt you could be anywhere on the west coast of Washington and not be described as 'near water'.

She also said 2 days, either he's been gone 2 days or would be found in 2 days.
Well he definitely has been gone for more than two days.  I think that's one of the few blindingly obvious facts about this case.  So I will give you two days, psycic [sic] and if Dwight is not found in the clearing of a wooded area near water south east of here without any foul play involved, you have a lot of explaining to do.

---------------------------------------------------

This absolutely enrages me.  There is a person missing, who has been missing for a long time as far as missing cases go, who is most probably either dead or in imminent danger of dying, who needs help as immediately as possible if he is still alive, and there are honestly people out there who are willing to cash in on this and spew arse gravy about "2 days" and "bodies of water" AT THE POSSIBLE EXPENSE OF A HUMAN LIFE.  FUCK YOU, CC THE PSYCHIC.  Fuck you and your disrespect for human suffering, fuck you and your tainting of a search for a person's child, fuck you and your willingness to possibly delay search parties from finding this person in what little time span he may have left in order to earn a few bucks.  How will you feel if there was foul play involved, if Dwight is not found safe?  How will it make you feel to know that you might have given this family an artificial hope to cling to, redirected the search for him in a damaging way, delayed finding him until it was too late?  You are absolutely disgusting.

ANYWAY. 
I feel a bit better now.
I hope enough people are sensible enough to ignore the profit-driven babblings of an unsympathetic crackpot that Dwight will have a chance of being found safe.  It's a horrid situation that's only being made worse by people whose actions distract from the real issue at hand.

more collegiate things

Today went better.

It started out not better; I had a magnanimous as always video conversation with my love, which was wondrous, but then I had nothing to do afterwards and couldn't sleep and was feeling quite lonely.  And then Bobbi posted on my Facebook wall "KELLIE.. YOU SIT IN YOUR ROOM ALL THE DAYS".  And it sort of hurt my feelings.  And I think that's the first time in our six year friendship that Bobbi has ever hurt my feelings.  I know of course that she was just trying to be lovely and wonderful and it was her own way of making sure I was okay.  She's endlessly lovely. 

Anyway, I sat there feeling incredibly depressed for about three minutes, and then I got up and walked up to the fourth floor and knocked on Bobbi's door and we went for a walk and then had dinner.  It was nice.  I needed that.  Bobbi always knows how to cheer me up. 

And at dinner I had a genuine conversation with Natasha and Marie about roast potatoes and scholarship money.  Also a slice of chocolate cake.

And I hung out in Tessa's room with her for fifteen or so minutes before we had to go off to a group activity thing.  And we both agreed that a specific girl in our stack is unforgivably loud and irritating.  Ahh, talking about others behind their backs.  What an evil you are, and yet, how magnetically you bring people together.

I checked out the TV lounge as well, where Jeremy and another girl were watching Pay It Forward on television, and I watched for a bit, though we didn't really have conversation.

So, yes.  The day evolved from one of loneliness and insecurity to one of mild socialisation.  Dare I say that things are getting better?

we're only making plans for Nigel

I feel . . . an odd feeling.  I would say I feel deflated but it's not that really, it's more as if I'm a sort of firm spherical object such as a tennis ball and I've been punctured quite forcefully but due to my rubbery shell I've managed to keep my general form intact.  It's my third night at university and I hear and see and feel people buzzing around me and I've been sat in my room since 6pm reading Oscar Wilde and watching Mock The Week and for the first time appreciating the Smiths.  All of this should make me enormously contented, but I nonetheless feel so icky right now.  I feel like everybody is pitying me; that's it.  I feel like I am being pitied and stared at and patronised, though I'm probably not and it's probably just that stupid OCD part of my brain. 

Nobody sat at my table at dinner today.

What is going to happen to me if I don't make friends now, while everybody else is? 

I miss Oscar so badly.  I just want this to be over so I can run off and marry him and never have to feel lonely again.  I'm torn between building a stable foundation in my life and fleeing in a burst of romance and spontaneity.  Perhaps I could catch the next plane to England and show up at his doorstep without telling him I'm coming and ask him to marry me and we could just be happy forever together.  Please.

But what would my parents think if I threw away my world and ran off to follow love? 
Why do I care what my parents think?  Their lives are the utter antithesis of the way I'd like to live mine.
But moving away and figuring some other uni method and just starting to live the way I want to live.  I don't know that even I, in my romanticism, could take that plunge.  But it grows more and more plausible every day.

Even if I end up completely destroying my future, in the grand scheme of things, it won't make any difference to the universe.  So why shouldn't I go for it?

What is it?  I don't even know what I'm referring to. 

I need Oscar here with me.  That's what I'm referring to - anything that gets us back together.  Everything else is so shallow.  I'm not bothered by the prospect of overturning my life.  I'm only bothered that I'm not bothered.  And then I realise that the only reason I wouldn't be bothered by such a thing is that nothing else I've got going in my life is of even the most miniscule importance when held up against the explosively beautiful, neverending stream of sunshine that is my love for Oscar.  Nothing else is of any permanence or consequence or value.

It's just so painful to live with the knowledge that we may not be together permanently for several years.
But even several years' wait is a blessing of a price to pay for the privilege of being able to meld my life with such a spectacularly magnificent human being.  I desire nothing else from life.

Most Common Death Bed Regrets

This article was posted on Twitter - The Most Common Death Bed Regrets. 

They are:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Today, I am promising myself that I will not have these regrets in life.  I will continue to follow my dreams, even if they're silly- especially if they're silly.  I won't focus on monetary matters (unless they relate directly to pursuing said dreams).  I will let people know exactly how much I care about them, and I won't hide my sadness or love or joy or fear.  I will not let those I love slip away from me.  And above all, I will choose, forever, to be gloriously, pompously, decadently, illuminatingly happy.
 
In that spirit, a song that everybody who is the owner of their own life should hear- 
 
Ten Things by Paul Baribeau.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard

I do not feel like writing a long description here, but I'm on a rather indulgent art binge and I've just come across this rather extraordinary piece:

The Swing

Jean-Honoré Fragonard

1767

More from Jean-Honoré Fragonard-

The Musical Contest

1754

The Lover Crowned

1772

The Stolen Kiss

1788

If orgasms were rooted in visual decadence, Jean-Honoré Fragonard would be the greatest lover of all time.

Berthe Morisot

I just discovered the impressionist artist Berthe Morisot today via the fuckyeahimpressionism Tumblr blog. According to that ever-reliable falcon of soul Wikipedia, one of the main reasons she's not well known is because she was born equipped with a vagina.  All the better to love her, I say.

Young Girl With Doll

1884

This is the initial painting that drew me to her.  It's stunning.  I love the innocence of the girl's face and her entire expression, and the black that concentrates your eyes to the element of timidness there.  It reflects such . . . fragility.  Looking through her portfolio she seems to paint children frequently, especially young girls.  

On the Balcony 

1872

As I was explaining earlier to Oscar, painters who are able to use black are some of my favourites.  I love contrast in paintings.  I love contrast in photos and sculptures and life, but especially in paintings.  Black is one of the most difficult colours to pull of, but when a painter does it successfully it simply oozes elegance.  This painting I like because it contrasts the difference between what the little girl and the woman see from their same view.  It channels the strange and uncomfortable process of going from a tiny, white-clad, innocent to a societal, black-clad, structured woman.  

Psyche

1876

In addition to her depictions of young girls, she also seems to have painted many high society women, none of whom look particularly enlivened.  Most are either very dressed up and bound, or in the process of becoming very dressed up and bound.  Her young girls, on the other hand, reflect either the purity of youth, or a sense of disdain at societal things.  To give a more concrete example of what I mean, take a look at this painting:

Lucie Leon at the Piano

1892

It seems obvious to me that the vast majority of her paintings are depicting a strong displeasure with late 19th century French society, and especially the induction process that females must go through in order to maintain social status.  This makes sense, because she was born into a bourgeois familial line.  One more for the road, to highlight once more her view of an innocent young child in contrast with a high society French bourgeois woman:

The Cradle

1872

She was also, it seems, a muse of Manet's.  I'd urge whoever you are to look up some of Manet's portraits of Morisot at some point; they're absolutely gorgeous.

So, in conclusion, we have a French female feminist impressionist contrast-capable painter.  I approve of you, Berthe Morisot.

Mein Liebe

I was IMing with Oscar today and he ended up sending me an old screenshot he had taken back before we were together, on the last day of May.  It was of a few of the private messages I had sent him when he was going through his breakup.  They were telling him that I found him to be a fantastic person (which I do), that I found him to be very attractive (which I do), and finally that I had a crush on him (which I do, plus some).  I knew they were taken in May because in them my display picture was the Twining's tea bag that I haven't had up for several months.

Something about that was so beautiful to me that it nearly made me cry.  I couldn't really pinpoint what exactly made me so overwhelmed with emotion; I had screenshotted his confession of a crush on me, after all.  And I think I've just realised the reason why it struck me so much.  I think it's because it was a kind of proof that my words had actually meant something to him even then, that they were so important he wanted to make sure he remembered them.  Lots of people were sending him messages of companionship, but mine meant enough to him that he wanted to hold onto them.

I suppose what makes me so happy about that is that in some small way I was able to get across to him even then, at least a tiny bit, that he is absolutely a divine human being.  And he is.  It reminds me of that Velvet Underground song that has some of the most stunning lyrics I've ever heard -

I'll be your mirror, 
Reflect what you are,
In case you don't know.
. . .
I find it hard
To believe you don't know
The beauty you are.
But if you don't
Let me be your eyes.
. . .
When you think the night has seen your mind
That inside you're twisted and unkind
Let me stand to show that you are blind.


I cannot possibly put into words how incredibly important it made me feel to know that maybe, possibly, I am his mirror.  He deserves to have a mirror reflecting to him how beautiful he is for all eternity.

I love him so much.  I love him endlessly and infinitely and exponentially, and I've used all of those words so much since we became a couple because they're all true and they all apply to the way I love him.  It's more than just loving him constantly.  It's falling in love with him constantly.  I realised today that that's what it is.  I have the comfort of love, of course, but at the same time I have the absolute joy and passion and schoolgirl giddiness that goes along with falling in love with someone, and I have it over and over and over whenever I think of him.



And yes, I know that you can read this.  I love you.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

This is one of my absolute favourite poems.  I have never read a piece with a more elegantly-constructed cadence (though Poe's The Raven does come close).  Whenever I read this poem I just get these gorgeous swoops and dips of sunsetty colour, like orange ribbons looping and bobbing in the wind.  It's stunning.  Of course the words and the message are breath-taking as well (moreso if you know about Maya Angelou's life).  I want to twirl around in a ball gown made of this poem.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
By Maya Angelou

A free bird leaps on the back
Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange sun's rays
And dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
Lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with
A fearful trill of things unknown
But longed for still and his
Tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.

hello there

This is the obligatory first blog post.  Seeing as I am beginning a new chapter of my life (if you'll forgive the cliche), what with the imminent head-offage to university, I thought it could do no harm to make another probably futile attempt at regular bloggery.  I hope to scribble relentlessly about mundane activities here.  Enjoy your stay.  Shall I put the kettle on?