lagony

...although sometimes it seems easier. Or maybe I just don't know how to love. There needs to be a secret, a secret that everyone is in on where all of the sudden love is illuminated and it becomes like the movies. That would be nice.  But it isn't always like the movies and sometimes it's agonizing, well, maybe it isn't love that is agonizing, but the absence of love, or when I begin to doubt (myself). I don't know what I'm doing.

let's do dinner

It is hard for me to stop looking at this incredible dress. Oh, to go to an event just to stand on the balcony and stare out...

(http://fashiongonerogue.com/2010/03/29/amber-heard-by-guy-aroch-french-revue-de-modes-spring-2010/#more-26973)

trays, trays, trays

Trays are my new obsession and I have been convinced they are a necessity, so elegant. I've decided on two. One will be in the bathroom for either makeup or jewelry (still undecided) and a larger tray for the bar. Ideally, I would have a little bar cart to store liquor, glass, mixers, etc., and then the tray would grace the top, displaying the liquor. It would be a cute little entertaining corner, we shall see.

and that's just lovely

Monday. Everyday I get to my office, pour myself some coffee, and then just stare at the computer screen while I collect my thoughts for the day. On Monday, this process takes longer.

On another note, I love Carla Bruni. Ever since a friend gave me her CD in high school it has been love. She's artsy class with that impeccable French style.

just you

Over a year ago Jeff and I got in an argument.

At one point I didn't know why we were fighting.

And so I simply asked him, "What do you want from me?"

He responded, "I just want you."

And it was the sweetest thing.

lost significance

What sort of diary should I like mine to be? Something loose-knit and yet not slovenly, so elastic that it will embrace anything, solemn, slight or beautiful, that comes into my mind. I should like it to resemble some deep old desk or capacious hold-all, in which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking them through. I should like to come back, after a year or two, and find that the collection had sorted itself and refined itself and coalesced, as such deposits so mysteriously do, into a mould, transparent enough to reflect the light of our life, and yet steady, tranquil compounds with the aloofness of a work of art. The main requisite, I think, on reading my old volumes, is not to play the part of a censor, but to write as the mood comes or of anything whatever; since I was curious to find how I went for things put in haphazard, and found the significance to lie where I never saw it at the time.

V. Woolf

to know

ATX

It's Friday! And I will be headed for Austin as soon as I get off work! Oh the excitement! Here are a few of my favorites in Austin:

Best Breakfast Taco: Torchy's or El Chilito...Torchy's may be better in general but El Chilito has the best salsa and much better coffee. So, Torchy's = best taco; El Chilito= Best Taco Experience

Best Coffee: Anderson's Coffee...This is hands down the best place to buy beans for brewing.

Best Coffee Drink: Pacha...The Pacha latte is worth putting their name on.

Best Dinner with Friends Restaurant: Trudy's, the mexican martini and stuffed avocado combo is hard to beat...crowd pleaser.

Best Bakery: Sweetish Hill/Uppercrust, although this is a near impossible category.

Best Bookstore: Bookpeople...hands down, no excpetions.

Best BBQ: Salt Lick

Best French Restaurant: Chez Nous, it is fabulous, you're almost in Paris.

Best Outdoor Activity: Barton Springs

Best Place to See a Movie: Alamo Drafthouse

There is so much more, but it's hard to categorize everything (i.e. it would talk too long) so here are the honorable mentions: Blue Elephant, Maudie's, Matt's El Rancho, Waterloo Records, Mozart's, Hula Hut, Zilker Park, P.Terry's, Uncommon Objects, South Congress Cafe, Fado,  219 West, Kenichi, Vino Vino, Kerby Lane...and everywhere else, I just love Austin to death.

half-formed thought

I often remember a college professor of mine quoting T.S. Eliot’s The Wastelandas an accurate observation of society. Specifically, he quoted the last two lines of this verse:

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
‘Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.’
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone. “Automatic hand” is what gets me. She automatically, instinctively, caters to her appearance and primps, as appearance is of the utmost importance. Both the physical appearance and the social appearance that all is well, nothing new here can be argued. ”Automatic” also illustrates that it was nothing out of the ordinary, a simply act of love to move on from without any dwelling that might interrupt the task at hand. Play the music and keep going. Every time I read any part of The Wasteland there is something new and that is what I love and why I re-read.

eau de parfum

It's perfect. Now apparently this discovery is behind the times and Narciso Rodriguez was a winner back in 2006, but I just made the purchase and could not be happier. Describing perfumes is not really a forte of mine, but it's musky and (sephora claims) fit for an "Egyptian Queen." I'm in love and apparently a newly crowned Egyptian Queen. I'll take it. Where's Antony?

"A woman's perfume tells more about her than her handwriting."
-Christoan Dior

history abrupt

Since I was young, I've contemplated who I want to be, what I want to do, all of the goals one should have in life. A lot of this stemmed from observations of older women and thinking "that's not how I want my life to be spent." I want to be happy and appreciative. I want to be self-sufficient, both financially and joyfully. And I never want to stop learning. Those are the most important things that always resurface when I contemplate the future me, well, and the present me for that matter.

"Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world." -Eleanor Roosevelt, role model

tissues

"Instead of going rigid, I go calm. I center down wherever I am; I find a balance and repose. I retreat—not inside myself, but outside myself, so that I am a tissue of senses. Whatever I see is plenty, abundance. I am the skin of water the wind plays over; I am petal, feather, stone."

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
By Annie Dillard

red confidence

After the first breakdown that involves tears, I believe it's the beginning of the end. This is usually premature and more often than not, it is then that I force the end. I'm tired of being vulnerable and I'm too young to settle. When my confidence wilts, I panic. It's as if I am wilting, and there's nothing and no one to hold me up.

I need some red lipstick.

only three more months

My favorite television shows are embarrassing. If it's embarrassing to admit watching, I watch it. In that vein, "Pretty Wild" on the fabulous E! begged for my attention, at least for a test run. It's hard to tell if I will watch it, or unintentionally catch it in marathon form in a few months, but there were some words of wisdom, "You are the sum of the people you surround yourself with."

Interesting and at least partly true. Everyone is more alike than they are different and so people bring out those similar characteristics in each other, let's relate. I think it is important to be mindful of this, both so I am able to be exactly who I want to be and also so I am able to understand other people. If we're all alike, why is it so hard for everyone to just get along? Everyone cherishes their differences more, and mostly because that's what sets everyone apart. Generically, we are human and we are similar. Specifically we are the culmination of life experiences, but we are all in this life together. Let's get along.

I have terrible luck with roommates. While my dad said that it's probably me, thanks dad, I will blame it on fickle luck. My first college roommate was Japanese, with an unbelievably limited grasp on the English language. I asked her what her major was and she just giggled and nodded. That was our most successful conversation. She had Japanese parties in our tiny dorm room, where, I believe, everyone just gathered to taunt me with their Japanese. So, I moved. A friend from orientation told me that one of the main freshman dorms had a few rooms open, so two weeks later, I moved. My new roommate was fine, a little scary, but the typical freshman roommate experience. When I met her she asked me about my sleeping habits to inform me that she sleeps 5 hours a week, yes, a week. Needless to say, we were on different schedules. All was fine and dandy until one morning, roughly 5 a.m. she falls out of bed. Now this is a five feet drop from her twin bed, so I'm concerned and she's not moving. It's a long story, but I called an ambulance and they took her to the hospital.

Around 8 a.m. she gets back to the dorm and is now upset with me because she has to pay for the ambulance. If you're unconscious in my room, I'm calling the ambulance. I feel like that's reasonable.  So, I was afraid of living with her, because she now had this grudge against me and kept threatening me because apparently she had to go to AA because of the whole incident.

I moved again.

Third move, first semester at college, one month. And not my fault, dad. Next semester of college my roommate was bipolar and an RA, again, not my fault. This was followed by some decent roommates, along with meeting my best friend Liz, and best roommate ever. I wish I could bribe her to move to Dallas, because now I'm back to terrible roommate season.

when your coffee's too cool

“I'll Be There For You” by Louise Cuddon:

I'll be there, my darling, through thick and through thin
When your mind's in a mess and your head's in a spin
When your plane's been delayed, and you've missed the last train.
When life is just threatening to drive you insane
When your thrilling whodunit has lost its last page
When somebody tells you, you're looking your age
When your coffee's too cool, and your wine is too warm
When the forecast said, “Fine,” but you're out in a storm
When your quick break hotel, turns into a slum
And your holiday photos show only your thumb
When you park for five minutes in a resident's bay
And return to discover you've been towed away
When the jeans that you bought in hope or in haste
Just stick on your hips and don't reach round your waist
When the food you most like brings you out in red rashes
When as soon as you boot up the bloody thing crashes
So my darling, my sweetheart, my dear...
When you break a rule, when you act the fool
When you've got the flu, when you're in a stew
When you're last in the queue, don't feel blue
'cause I'm telling you, I'll be there.

lovely weather

This weather is worth writing home about. It makes everything more enjoyable, even driving, even in Dallas.

"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold, when it is summer in the light and winter in the shade."

-Charles Dickens

"Great Expectations"

l o/i v/f e

"One should love life more than the meaning of life," someone said during a banquet at the Blanton Museum while I was in my senior year of college.  It resonated. I constantly sought after a meaning, wondering, in the big scheme of things, "why?" This quote triggered a shift that had already begun.

I think that this is important. There is so much happening everyday, with or without answers, life continues and it is beautiful and fun. Now, I appreciate the search for meaning as much as the next philosopher, but if you spend your whole life wondering and never doing, would it be a waste? I don't want to live my whole life for a meaning, that may or may not be true, while turning my back on the adventures that encounter everyday.

There's also the direction that by loving life, you appreciate the meaning to its fullest. You are here now and should appreciate all that has been presented. However, I automatically think of the Christian who claims that there is nothing in this world to love, only God. I would always argue in high school that if God created the world we live in then we should be able, if not expected, to appreciate all that was created in the world as it is thus a reflection of him.

Is it foolish to not love to the fullest the one thing that is certain? And if you are certain of God, then, wouldn't the world be the only direct, physical connection you have with him, if it was created by God?

I digress. "One should love life." I believe, no matter where you are in life, you should try, try with all your might, to love life, for it is certain, now. I love that I am here, that I exist with this moment. I love that I have a cup of coffee in my hand.

douceurs

Bonjour mon amour! Je pense a toi et j'espere que tout va bien. Je t'embrasse. Bonne journee.

To which he replied,

"Bonjour princesse! Je pense toujours à vous et j'espère que vous avez un grand jour. Vous êtes parfaite!"