Books, books, and more books.

Over the last week I've finished three books. Three! And all I want to do is keep reading! I love when I get into weeks like this, it makes me feel so productive. I do have to credit one book's completion on the brief bout of flu I had. Which sucked. I also lost five pounds...which isn't so bad now that I'm back to eating again. I've successfully completed 2.5 weeks of the P90X/Insanity Hybrid workout and am probably the most toned I've been in my life. Passing over the fact my body hurts daily, it's pretty intriguing to watch muscles and tone form. Most exciting...I have abs? Like, soon-to-be-clearly-defined-[legitimate]-six-pack abs. It is an incredible feeling. I am looking forward to the next time I need to wear a bikini :D

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed sieri sentio, et excrucior.

Admiror, O paries, te non cecidisse ruinis qui tot scriptorum taedia sestineas.

Pompeii & Catullus respectively.

Because enough is never quite enough.

Why does the world seem to function on something so mundane as labels. I mean, I understand what it's like to want need to be in control of one's own life...but not everything needs to be labelled immediately. If one's goal is to take risks, why end a good thing? If every time is a failure except the last time, why be so afraid of it that you end it prematurely? I guess my perspective on 'risk taking' is diverse from the rest of the worlds'. Don't be too confident when someone tells you they like you; the real question is...until when? Because frankly, just like seasons, people change and so do feelings.

Best thing for anyone to do at this point is to launch oneself unabashedly into a book. Any book at all. The History Boys had it right when they said, "The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out and taken yours". As of late, the author that seems to accomplish this most effectively for me is John Green. Ironically, he also had something equally as applicable to The History Boys' quote, "Maybe our favourite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we're quoting". I've found [while composing this blog] that more than half of what I write is quote-based. Sometimes this concerns me...am I simply unable to formulate my own thoughts and ideas? I consider this and decide against it. The quotes I read and reapply are just far more articulate than I could ever come up with. More often than not, the things I read appear to me as something that I could just as easily have said myself [or at least thought]. Again, John Green covers this, "It always shocked me when I realized that I wasn't the only person in the world who thought and felt such strange and awful things".

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If yo do this, you work [and theft] will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don't bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: "It's not where you take things from - it's where you take things to".

What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person. Back to being an eccedentesiast for a while.

Ich errate, dass ich dieses Bit nicht gemacht habe, reinigt vor ein paar Monaten:

Wenn Sie sich in mich verlieben werden, ist es nur gerecht, dass Sie wissen, was Sie sich in verlieben. Sie verlieben sich in meine Unsicherheiten, und meine Besessenheit mit Versuch, zu lösen, was jeder an mich denkt. Sie verlieben sich in meine Unreife, mein beständiges Bedürfnis, geliebt und geschätzten, meine hyperaktiven Rissleitungen, meine Internetbesessenheit, meine Tendenz zu fühlen, zu anhänglich zu sein. ..You Sturz verliebt in meinem gestörten vorbei, meine Hoffnungen und Träume, und wie ich ein hoffnungsloses bin, das romantisch ist an Herzen. Wenn Sie sich in mich verlieben, verlieben sich Sie in meinen Selbst-hass und meine ganzen Unvollkommenheiten und meine Empfindung, dass niemand je mich lieben könnte. Aber Sie verlieben sich auch in den Weg meine Augen wird lächeln, wenn ich mit Ihnen bin, der Weg den ich werde simsen Sie, der morgens nur Ihnen erzählt, dass ich hoffe, dass Sie einen großen Tag haben. Sie verlieben sich in die gelegentlich lustigen bzw. nachdenklich stimmenden Dinge, die ich sage, und der Weg, den ich errötet, wenn Leute mich um Sie fragen. Aber zu mir, wird das wichtigste Ding sein, dass Sie sich in mich verlieben, trotz mein Denkens, dass es unmöglich ist. 

How guilt refined the methods of self-torture, threading the beads of detail into an eternal loop, a rosary to be fingered for a lifetime.

"Dearest Cecilia, the story can resume. The one I had been planning on that evening walk. I can become again the man who once crossed the surrey park at dusk, in my best suit, swaggering on the promise of life. The man who, with the clarity of passion, made love to you in the library. The story can resume. I will return. Find you, love you, marry you and live without shame."

Atonement

She raised one hand and flexed its fingers and wondered, as she had sometimes before, how this thing, this machine for gripping, this fleshy spider on the end of her arm, came to be hers, entirely at her command. Or did it have some little life of its own? She bent her finger and straightened it. The mystery was in the instant before it moved, the dividing moment between not moving and moving, when her intention took effect. It was like a wave breaking. If she could only find herself at the crest, she thought, she might find the secret of herself, that part of her that was really in charge.


But how to do feelings? All very well to write, She felt sad, or describe what a sad person might do, but what of sadness itself, how was that put across so it could be felt in all its lowering immediacy? Even harder was the threat, or the confusion of feeling contradictory things.


Periodically, something slipped. Some everyday principle of continuity, the humdrum element that told him where he was in his own story, faded from his use, abandoning him to a waking dream in which there were thoughts, but no sense of who was having them. No responsibility, no memory of the hours before, no idea of what he was about, where he was going, what his plan was. And no curiosity about these matters.

A world could be made in five pages, and one that was more pleasing than a model farm. The childhood of a spoiled prince could be framed within half a page, a moonlit dash through sleepy villages was one rhythmically emphatic sentence, falling in love could be achieved in a single word--a glance. The pages of a recently finished story seemed to vibrate in her hand with all the life they contained.

Only Revolutions of Ruin

When you love someone, they're a part of you. It's like you're attached by this invisible tether; no matter how far away you are, you can always feel them. And now every time I reach for that tether, I know there's no one on the other end. I feel like I'm falling into nothingness. 

And a greater feeling shall follow Love and it too will blow to dust. For I am longings without trust. The cycloidal haste freedom from Hailey forever wastes. Dust cares for only dust.  [MZD]

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

The only two places where I feel absolutely safe are either in bed with many blankets and pillows surrounding me or in water. Like on the bottom of a swimming pool. Alone. Weightless. Peaceful. Nobody talking, nobody pretending. Just being. Those are the only two places. Everywhere else I get smacked in the face with arrogance, ignorance, shallowness... They knock me down and leave me bleeding on the floor.

Everyone should have a safety plan. It should be a shoebox [or something of the sort] filled with pictures, lyrics, poems, quotes, books, CD's, movies, and such that remind you how much you are worth and how deserving of life you are. Put this box where you keep your "tools of the trade" be they drugs, razors, or even your fridge. If you do that, you'll find yourself rummaging through when you are at your lowest of lows. It's amazing how a picture of someone you love, a meaningful song, or even an arbitrary object that only means something to you will have such a monumental impact. It will help remind you that there is always someone or something there to catch you and get you through to another day.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - T.S. Eliot

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero, Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo. Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats         5 Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question …         10 Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,         15 The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,         20 And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;         25 There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate;         30 Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go         35 Talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—         40 [They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”] My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin— [They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”] Do I dare         45 Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all:— Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,         50 I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room.   So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all—         55 The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?         60   And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare [But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!] It is perfume from a dress         65 That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.   And should I then presume?   And how should I begin?       .      .      .      .      . Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets         70 And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?… I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.       .      .      .      .      . And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!         75 Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep … tired … or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?         80 But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,         85 And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while,         90 To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it toward some overwhelming question, To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—         95 If one, settling a pillow by her head,   Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.   That is not it, at all.” And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while,         100 After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:         105 Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say:   “That is not it at all,   That is not what I meant, at all.”       .      .      .      .      .         110 No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use,         115 Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old … I grow old …         120 I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.         125 I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown         130 Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

“It was indeed like old times when, at that hour, I found myself seated beside him in a hansom, my revolver in my pocket, and the thrill of adventure in my heart.”

That was what we wanted. To burn, to be consumed, to devour our days just as fire devours the forest.


. . . the confrontation with the demons does not necessarily lead to the creation of great art (or any art at all). You can write in the darkest pit and filth of yourself and come up with some dull fragment of vers libre, indistinguishable from that of a hundred contemporaries. Thus pain does not guarantee anything. Art, you see, is not interested in your suffering.


. . . in no way representative of anything, necessarily. Such the perfections of fiction, as well at that honed cruelty it possesses which makes it useless. Everything it teaches is useless insofar as structuring your life: you can’t prop up anything with fiction. It, in fact, teaches you just that. That in order to attempt to employ its specific wisdom is a sign of madness.

Falling in love is the one illogical adventure, the one thing of which we are tempted to think as supernatural, in our trite and reasonable world. The effect is out of all proportion with the cause. Two persons, neither of them, it may be, very amiable or very beautiful, meet, speak a little, and look a little into each other’s eyes. That has been done a dozen or so of times in the experience of either with no great result. But on this occasion all is different. They fall at once into that state in which another person becomes to us the very gist and centrepoint of God’s creation, and demolishes our laborious theories with a smile; in which our ideas are so bound up with the one master-thought that even the trivial cares of our own person become so many acts of devotion, and the love of life itself is translated into a wish to remain in the same world with so precious and desirable a fellow-creature.


. . . for the essence of love is kindness; and indeed it may be best defined as a passionate kindness, so to speak, to run mad and become importunate and violent.