i would like to live in that house.

sweet disposition, like no one's watching you. - the temper trap

cause i'll tell you everything about being free - wolfmother, vagabond

if all of the sudden, you found out you only had one month left on earth. what would you do, after you got over the shock, the fear, the anger, the grief. after you stopped focusing your energy on you, what would you do?

i bet i know.

i bet you would say i love you to every person you love, every day. i think you would say thank you for everything you've been given. i bet you would love deeper. i believe you would forgive those who you think have wronged you. i wager you would even cry, not because you were leaving, but because you realized just how much you love.

now.

why wait until you have a month left?

what's wrong with today?

(based off steven kalas' book, human matters. i could find the exact excerpt, but i have to go to the movie.)

People don't realize this, but loneliness is underrated. - (500) Days of Summer

maybe that's all that we need, to be in the middle of impossibility. - indigo girls

Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.

~ Pablo Picasso

Yes, I do know this is upside down. I am, however, completely incapable of flipping it around.

the words had a timeless ring to them; they came from a place in the soul many layers below joy or sadness, where distinctions between monarchy and peasantry no longer mattered. - selden edwards, the little book

did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts? how i wish, how i wish you were here. - pink floyd, wish you were here

i do declare you were all i ever wanted. - send packing, by all-time quarterback

Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living. - Jonathan Safran Foer

Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth
"You Owe Me"

Look what happens
with a love like that,
it lights up the whole sky

~Hafiz

but then i realized
it's not that you are out of focus,
or too far.
it's that my eyes can no longer see you.



Can you tell I like taking pictures of backs?

Sweet pea, keeper of my soul, I know sometimes I'm out of control, but you're the only reason I keep on coming home. - Amos Lee, Sweet Pea

Sorry for the abscence; had a exceptionally busy week/weekend. I should be back now, and I'm getting some film developed right now which I'm hoping will have some good shots on it.

"Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. There are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing." - Miranda July

she exhaled, and with that breath released everything she had ever hoped for. she's hoping to start anew, you see.

I am not so different in my history of abandonment from anyone else after all. We have all been split away from the earth, each other, ourselves. - Susan Griffin

Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break. ~William Shakespeare

for fatty

I read bad poetry into your machine, I save your messages just to hear your voice. - R.E.M.

I watched Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii today. It was amazing. The best part was David Gilmour on the harmonica, with a dog howling next to him.

Nothing is more memorable than a smell. one scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains; another, a moonlit beach; a third, a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years. hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once. a complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth. - Diane Ackerman

"I can't think of anything worse then spending the rest of my life with someone I can't talk to, or worse, can't be silent with." - excerpt from the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society

You don't owe me anything, you've paid me a world in memories - A Fine Frenzy (band)

Baby steps

Since I am obviously incapable of consistently blogging decent sized posts, I am taking a new approach - a Twitter like post, everyday. Just something short, probably my favorite quote for the day or something that made me happy.

That little post will probably turn into a larger one, but I won't be intimidated by it. I figure it won't hurt to try.

"I carry you with me into the world,
into the smell of rain
& the words that dance between people
& for me it will always be this way,
walking in the light,
remembering being alive together."
~ Brian Andreas

P.S. Thoughts about the new layout?

It was time for a new look. On life and on hair.

2nd update. This time I mean it.

After going up to see the family this last month (and having some of them come down here these past weeks), I got to thinking how fun it would be to stay up with my grandparents over the summer. I have a plan for finding a job, and I would get to hang out up there for the summer.

No plans have been solidified (I only came up with this last week, after all), and I'm still tossing the idea around in my head, weighing the pros and cons.

I must say though, it feels good to have a plan. Even a preliminary one.

2 new updates

Firstly, a significant number of my family was down for the past couple of weeks for a wedding. My aunt, who is an interior designer, saw some of my pictures and had an epiphany. Her husband works in the same office building as a publisher, and a guy who owns a high quality photo printer. The idea she had was to make a coffee table book of my pictures, and also a greeting card business. Which I thought was pretty darn cool.

I will have to type the second item up tomorrow, because I am tired. If I don't publish the first bit now though, it's a great probability that I'll forget.

This past weekend, I took a trip up to see my moms side of the family. I learned, to my utmost surprise, just how many people read my blog. Rather, still try to read my blog, as I haven't blogged in at least a month.

My problem is, I feel I have nothing to write about. I could write about photography, cars, homeschooling, shoes, Star Wars, notebooks (with which I have found a recent love), Wall-E, 92 Subaru Legacys, Dancing with the Stars, American Idol..... I just don't feel that is anything particularly noteworthy. If you're gonna spend your time reading something, it ought to be something good.

I will try harder, and not edit myself to the point of an empty page.

The only problem with Tivo...

Say you're planning on watching the Oscars, but because you have Tivo, you just set it to record. I mean, how really wants to sit through all those commercials?

So, you set it to record. But you don't think, hmmm, they might run over the designated time slot, let me record the next show just in case. Because it is supremely annoying when you miss the last 2 minutes of a show; since that scenario has happened before, you should be able to foresee and avoid this particular quandary.

But, you don't. And you miss the awards for Best Actress, Best Actor, and Best Picture.

Technology has made you complacent, and you pay the price.

Boo.

.

Friday afternoon will always be remembered as the best afternoon in the history of mankind. There is no disputing this fact; it shall forevermore be known has Most Explosively Joyful Day EVER.

Ever.

Mom and I were driving around (for once she was doing the driving, whilst I wiled away the time car spotting), and she mentioned something about "the little white car behind us". Nodding absently - little white car was probably a Toyota Camry -, I continued my search for something pretty and fast. Then she pointed at the "little white car".

Ladies and gentlemen, it wasn't just any white car. It wasn't a Toyota. Nor a Ford. Lexus, Volkswagen, Nissan, Dodge, BMW or Porsche couldn't claim it. Not a Lamborghini or Ferrari.

It was an Audi. MY Audi. The R8, in all its glory.

Alas, it was turning right into a shopping center, while we turned left into a grocery store.

At this point I should mention you don't see many R8s. A Ferrari, while still rare, is much more frequently spotted. Even Lamborghinis are more common. If you do see an R8, it's probably on the showroom floor. I have only ever seen 2 - once driving home in the rain, and another time I spotted it at a light.

Which is why I convinced Mom, after we finished grocery shopping, to see if we could find it in the parking lot of the shops. We did. I had endure some hard core teasing, but it was sooooo worth it. Ibis White, with Oxygen Silver side panels. I even took a picture of the engine, a 4.2 liter V-8. It does NOT get better.

So, imagine my delight the next day when I'm sitting at your average traffic light, and what do I see?! That's right folks - my R8. Just about peed myself, I was that excited.

Words fail to describe the experience, but rest assured it was euphoric.

Harry Potter

*NOTE: I wrote this post just after the release of Breaking Dawn (the final Twilight book), back in August. I never finished or published it, but looking through the archives I found it and decided to post it*

As was mentioned in previous posts to this, I am a Harry Potter fan. Which is actually a bit of an understatement, considering.

I cannot honestly say when I began reading the series; it may or may not have coincided with the first movie release in winter 2001. I do remember sitting on our old blue couch, listening to my mother read one chapter, every night. I remember trying to convince her to read two chapters, or just a little bit of the next.

It was 7 or 8 years ago, but I can still remember with poignant clarity listening to Harry's first adventure, covering my head under the pillow every time there was a close call, hugely relieved when it all turned out ok.

A small declaration of my affection to the series can been seen on the top spot on my bookshelf. I own two copies of Sorcerer's Stone (one hard back, one soft), and one hard back copy of the other 6 books. In American edition.

On my trip to Europe, I bought all seven books in the series, and lugged them happily around for two weeks in my suitcase. All softback, except for Deathly Hallows (book 7), which is hard back. They look a lot like little bricks (the weight is also pretty comparable).

I don't have a story that Harry Potter helped me when my grand parents died, or parents divorced, or anything of that magnitude. I just know they make me happy, and that's enough for me.

I have read all of the books at least 4 times each, upwards of 6 for my favorites. I cried in books 4-7. When it really hit me that on July 21, 2007, the book series would be over, really over, I cried. Embarrassing, but true.

July 20, 2007 I joined countless other fans in bookstores, waiting for the midnight release of book seven - the final book. No more waiting in fearful anticipation of what would happen in the next book, no more wondering how it was going to end.

The only suspense from then on would be how they were going to slaughter the next book as they transformed it into a movie. ( I like the movies. But they leave so much out, they should say it is a loose interpretation of J.K. Rowling's novel).

I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little saddened by the ending. One of my favorite characters snuffed it. There are many things I admire about J.K.R., but her ability to make a reader feel is probably what I envy most.

After I was disappointed by the ending of the Twilight series, I re-read Harry Potter. To make me feel better, to remind me that not all series have (what was to me) cop out endings.

So, thank you, J.K. Rowling, for restoring my faith.

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Some more pictures can be found here.

Perplexing

Last fall I attended one of my best friends wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony, held on a rooftop, and was relatively intimate (about 70 attendees is pretty small, right?).

I had driven down with some friends, and only knew a handful of people who were coming. Including the bride and groom, I knew 6 people.

Which meant that I was going to spend a lot of time conversing with a bunch of people I had never met before.

As a general rule, I don't talk a lot. When I'm with my family and people I know, then I'll talk, but with people I've just met, listening is usually what I fall back to. You can learn so much more when you listen.

One of the things I figured out that weekend is that, as much as I am interested in new people, I'm more interested in what they say and why they say it.

I talked to a crazy Danish guy who told me the bride had been his nanny (she wasn't), a cousin of the groom's from Sweden who had a degree in engineering, was working on his degree economics & had previously been a Motocross racer, a photographer who said if I ever wanted to assist on a wedding shoot to just call her, a man who asked me if I was a poet and had a woman tell me that she doesn't sleep well when she eats garlic.

All that, and I only stayed at the reception for a couple hours.

If there is one thing I have never understood about humans, it's conversational topics. I've stood in checkout lines and learned way more about somebody then would ever be necessary.

All the things people tell perfect strangers, but it seems we can never remember to tell the people we hold close that we love them.