a few slices

4:06 PM
It is cloudy when we meet up. I rush into you, wrapping my arms around your waist, placing a quick kiss on your cheek, apologizing for my lateness and fall into the seat across from you. The place is cozy, but noisy. We are seated by the window.

The waitress asks what I would like.

"I haven't eaten all day!" I observe, realizing this for the first time. The menu was unappealing. "Do you have fresh bread? The one with the hard crust, fresh out of the oven? May I have a few slices of that, some brie, and a few slices of green apple?"

"Nothing from the menu?" She was already impatient with me. You suggest a glass of wine.

"Oh, yes. We'll have two glass of Riesling, please."

The day is already growing old, and the sun is going to set in a few hours. By the time we finish, it will be dark and almost dinner time. I am afraid to stay too long. I have to go. I always have to go.

You tell me about your new place. You tell me about your new projects. We discuss the news and winter shoes. I tell you about my state of being. People always say, "I'm good!" as if good is news. If we aren't in the gutter, we are all good. We tell acquaintances that we are good, but this would never do with intimate company. "I'm moving, I'm doing. I'm traveling there in two weeks." There are projects on the horizon as well, there are people counting on me, but I never talk about this aspect of my life with others. I forget that I have a nonprofit, I forget that we are doing something, that we've been doing something. I am uncomfortable all the sudden.

But your jokes bring me back. They break my silence, they force me out.

The glasses  are now empty, but we are nourished.


Dear Star,

2:18 PM
"You-Who-is-anything-but-Mundane....."like Heaven wrapped around me..."

On a cleaning spree today. I am guilty of being a hoarder of sentiments. Under my bed was a shoe box full of love letters. One even contained a card with pressed flowers (Circa 2005. wow). The good thing is that as much as I lament the lost art of letter writing among my peers, I at least at one point did get some of the best love letters that a young idealistic girl could get. He was a great writer (and I hope he hasn't stopped), and I got the core of it; silly poems, passionate confessions, and sorrowful yearnings. We were each other's first love and he was the type that was so unawares of his own charms, closing his eyes right when the shutter clicked, the moment forever caught on his college ID card. The relationship was magical in its innocence, traumatizing in its destruction, almost detrimental in the lasting impressions that was made.

We all show love in our own way. For him it was through words and writers like to equate the words that we birth onto paper like parts of our souls. We have a tendency to over dramatize & embellish. For all their worth, the words ended up more flimsy than what they were written on.

Some show their love through tangible acts. And as I got the latter in a much healthier relationship I couldn't forget the former. I couldn't feel affirmation like I had in those letters. Maybe I put too much stock in words. Parole. That Italian song. "Words. Just words."

But to a writer words and sentiments are everything.






he was, under the strange stars, utterly, irrevocably, lost

9:01 PM


 “Why are you crying.”
   She said nothing. Dunstan pulled her toward him, wiping ineffectually at her face with his big hand; and then he leaned into her sobbing face and, tentatively, uncertain of whether or not he was doing the correct thing given the circumstances, he kissed her, full upon her burning lips.
   There was a moment of hesitation, and then her mouth opened against his, and her tongue slid into his mouth, and he was, under the strange stars, utterly, irrevocably, lost.
   He had kissed before, with the girls of the village, but he had gone no further.
   His hand felt her small breasts through the silk of her dress, touched the hard nubs of her nipples. She clung to him, hard, as if she were drowning, fumbling with his shirt, with his britches.
   She was so small; he was scared he would hurt her and break her. He did not. She wriggled and writhed beneath him, gasping and kicking, and guiding him with her hand.
   She placed a hundred burning kisses on his face and chest, and then she was above him, straddling him, gasping and laughing, sweating and slippery as a minnow, and he was arching and pushing and exulting, his head full of her and only her, and had he known her name he would have called it out aloud.
Neil Gaiman, Stardust

Instagram

10:27 PM
I do brash things a lot. So instead of blocking the one person who should no longer see my Instagram, I deleted my whole account and lost close to 500 of you guys. So if you're all still out there and catch this, come find me at the handle: Joliesa_marie

SL

Self preservation

6:26 PM
"I would give any thing to see you."

"I want to see you, too."

"What?" He heard me clearly the first time, but there are implicit rules now. We have a goal to achieve and I couldn't hurt him any more even if it was hurting me.

"Nothing. I miss you, too."  A lie can be an act of mercy.

There was silence on the other end. Maybe he was hoping I would repeat it. Maybe he was hoping I wouldn't. "Thank you," he finally said.


How to meet the girl of your dreams

2:05 PM
1. You won't meet her at a club or bar. Your soul mate will not need to wear skin tight dresses that are too low cut in order to get free drinks. She won't be here booty shaking to Nicki Minaj for attention. The decent ones don't go clubbing to get hit on. In fact, they abhor it. And if they do enjoy it, well, you get what you paid for, which is a few drinks.

2. Know what your likes are and stick to them. You like indie music? Go to that obscure band's show. Go hiking on Sundays and catch matinees alone. It's the best feeling when you meet someone who likes the same weird music or hobbies. But it is important to have hobbies and passions of your own that you pursue to keep yourself happy and learning and growing. From those, you make new friends and you're doing something for yourself.

3. Be picky. Learn to discern quality from quantity; the real deals from the cheap thrills. Girls love picky, well rounded men. The more discerning his taste and the more fuck he couldn't give about some heavily made-up pair of tits, the more attractive he is. Case in point:

We were backstage at a Shall Not Be Named rapper's show. Before his set, a leggy blonde in a skimpy dress walks in with a douchey looking promoter. All eyes turned to her and he gives her a quick glance too before turning back to our conversation. "She's cute," I casually say, gauging for his response. "Not really," he says. Why not? "Girls like her are everywhere. But few are like you." Your dream girl shouldn't be any girl that walks by. She has to be special (and she should feel it), with quirks and qualities that complement yours. Hold out because she's as real as you are and if you remain true you will find each other. Bare your blue skin and she won't pass you by.

4. She's not going to appear tomorrow. Or the next day. She's a rare bird. As rare as lightning hitting the same spot twice. She's as unique as you are. This will take a while. It may be years, but when it happens it will be worth the wait. In the mean time, focus on number 2 and keep being the oddball that you are. If you are always on "the prowl," beware. Nothing turns off a lady more than the stink of desperation. Just focus on yourself and those around you.

5. When she does arrive, after so long of a wait, don't ruin it with too much thought, too much logic or questions. "Is this real? Are we moving too fast? There's just so much chemistry that its scaaary." Stop. For once in your life understand the profoundness of the situation that just landed on your lap and do not question it. You just got hit by lightning. It is not mere accident that two people who are so completely compatible in so many minute ways, fitting together like the perfect response to the silliest question, like you've know each other all along, hands fitting perfectly into yours, whereupon hearing their voice the world proceed to fade away, can happen to meet when they did in a city of thousands of nameless, faceless strangers. There is no rhyme or reason to love and when it happens it just happens, right when it is suppose to. For as soon as you question it, as soon as you hesitate it will flutter away as quickly as it came. Some things work in mysterious ways and when the universe finally delivers what you have been due, what you've been waiting for, you can only give blindly into your intuition and enjoy the ride. You won't feel any thing like this ever again. Some never do. Don't be like them. They say only fools fall in love and it may be the only real truth there is.



Nice

10:55 AM
I was searching for my keys and he was standing patiently on the passenger side when the sharp end of my little Eiffel Tower key chain pricked my finger. I yelped from the pain and looked at the fresh wound, barely bleeding but it was so cold outside that everything stung extra. I didn't notice that he was next to me until I heard his voice almost by my ears checking to see if I was OK.

That.




Back to brunette

8:09 PM
Some images of my best blonde moments. Was feeling antsy and fickle. Back to being a brunette, I guess. I don't have the complexion for a red head but I love girls with red hair. I told him I feel so Plain-Jane now, but he kept saying I looked cute no matter what. Do all boys get this response from the same manual?

I'll miss you, blondie.

october reads

5:45 PM
36 Views of Mount Fuji, Cathy N. Davidson

One of America's most significant exports is the English language and the culture that accompanies it. Thousands of Americans have gone abroad to teach English, and hundreds of them have written books about their experiences. These books tend to reveal as much about their authors--and thus our shared American culture--as they do about the host culture in which they find themselves. A professor at Duke who has visited Japan four times, Davidson writes perceptively, frankly, and personally about her struggles to understand Japanese ways. She also attempts to reconcile those ways with her own life. Davidson has much to say about the role of women in both cultures and of the problems of trying to live in both worlds, but, unlike most authors of this genre, she is nonjudgmental and fair. This is one of the best "explanations" of Japanese culture, and our problems in understanding it, that has come along in years. Highly recommended.



Giving up the Ghost, Eric Nuzum

Eric Nuzum is afraid of the supernatural, and for good reason: As a high school oddball in Canton, Ohio, during the early 1980s, he became convinced that he was being haunted by the ghost of a little girl in a blue dress who lived in his parents’ attic. It began as a weird premonition during his dreams, something that his quickly diminishing circle of friends chalked up as a way to get attention. It ended with Eric in a mental ward, having apparently destroyed his life before it truly began. The only thing that kept him from the brink: his friendship with a girl named Laura, a classmate who was equal parts devoted friend and enigmatic crush. With the kind of strange connection you can only forge when you’re young, Laura walked Eric back to “normal”—only to become a ghost herself in a tragic twist of fate.

Years later, a fully functioning member of society with a great job and family, Eric still can’t stand to have any shut doors in his house for fear of what’s on the other side. In order to finally confront his phobia, he enlists some friends on a journey to America’s most haunted places. But deep down he knows it’s only when he digs up the ghosts of his past, especially Laura, that he’ll find the peace he’s looking for.


It's time to give in

1:25 AM
If you judge me purely by my Facebook photos (which is how most of my friends know me), then to you I am 100% unabashedly a party girl. I get dolled up, skip lines (do a few lines?), get drunk, dance on tables, fall down and wake up with inexplicable bruises all over my body. This past weekends bruise count is 5 with one on my upper left thigh. The last time I had a bruise that gnarly and purple was when I jumped off a cliff off the British Virgin Islands and landed completely skewed. But I digress.

For years I've been telling everyone, every chance that I get, vehemently, that I am not a party girl. I am an introvert who enjoys reading books (too many books), writing, obscure films, hot tea, kittens, and my bed. Given a choice between going out or staying in to read, I always choose the latter. But I haven't. So how do we reconcile this?

We reconcile this by accepting that We will always been misunderstood. I will always be that crazy party girl to some and that passionate writer to others. Lately I've been sort of an overachiever at school so we can add that to the list, too. I am both dancing drunken sprite and blundering introspect who feels way too much for her own good, who tries as she might to stop waxing poignancy at every turn will always find beauty and depth in the deepest shadows. That's meeee.

So there you have it. I have a taste for foie gras, Louboutin, and Proust. I like hot baths, wool cable knits, long drags from blunts and all the good party favors. We do what we have to to balance ourselves out. Too much of one thing is probably not a good thing. But there's the rub, I am too much of everything of opposite extremes. That's probably my version of "moderation."

So far so good, though. I've been enjoying every sinful night out and in.

10 years from now

8:06 PM
excerpt from my tumblr when I did a silly questionnaire. its juvenile, but the kid in me enjoyed it very much.

37. Your life 10 years from now: exactly 10 years from now in this moment I will be cuddling in bed with the most comfortable person on earth who can swoop me up with his big arms. we read in bed together. we have two puppies and maybe a few children. we own a french press and he picks up croissants from the shop around the corner. we have this weird obsession with camping and outdoorsy scenic mountain ranges. we like Halloween and hot chocolate a little too much for grown adults. we pretend to collect wine like we know what we're doing. we each have jobs that we love that do not take up all of our time, but affords us the comfort to make time for our kids and travel. lots of travel. we've perfected homemade flat bread pizza...