February 15th

So I was going to do one of two things tonight:

1.) Post a blog about how important love is and use a bunch of lovey-dovey quotes that I've spent years collecting along with a bunch of pretty pictures about people's shadows holding hands and rant about how I still believe in love and that I'm not jaded or bitter about the fact that I'm single.

or...

2.) Post a blog about how stupid this Hallmark Holiday is and how it's stupid to focus on showing how much you love someone on one day as opposed to every other day of the year and how this is a scam on the part of greeting card companies, florists, and candymakers designed to make millions of dollars and make single people miserable.

BUT

Instead I'm knitting and reading fanfiction and eating Cheez-Its and letting myself be okay with my alone-ness. Because even without the over-use of hearts in the world today, this day really sucked. So I'll blog tomorrow.


Cheers,

Willow

"Promise"

I went home this weekend and - of course - my mother asked about the usual people, how they're doing, where their lives are headed, etc. I gave the standard answers, and in some instances (when she asks about people I no longer talk to, for example) just glared at her. In a good-natured way, of course. If that makes sense. Anyway.

On Saturday, I stopped by the house and we were doing laundry and talking about miscellaneous things (I know how to spell that without using spell-check: what now!?), and she turns to me and says,

"So Mark asked about you the other day."
Me: *Mark? Mark... Who the fuck is Mark? Mark, Mark, Mark....* "Who?"
Mom: "You know, the cutie at the bank."
Me: *Oh, GOD, stop! I don't want another relationship! Make it stop! ... He is super cute, though...* "Oh, really? Did he 'lose my number' again or is he just a chicken shit?"
Mom: "No! Well, I think he did actually lose your number and is just too shy to ask for it again -"
Me: "*snort*"
Mom" -- but I was telling him how you're back at school, and he commented on what a pretty campus it is and how he'd like to meet you there sometime for coffee or something."
Me: "What, does he want to transfer so he can ignore me at close range?"
Mom: "No, but I think it's worth a shot. Why not go curl your hair and put makeup on and come to the bank with me this afternoon?"
Me: "No. Because we both know he probably has a girlfriend and just wants a 'back-up plan.'"
Mom: "You might be right; he's way too cute to not have a girlfriend..."
Me: "Thanks, Mom."
Mom: "But he could be a good friend! God knows you're in desperate need of that. He could just be a nice person to get coffee with. He's such a nice boy, give it a try."
Me: "Mom. I don't want a boyfriend or any kind of "boy" "friend". I just want somebody to make-out with!"
Mom: "Well. I can't help you there."
Me; "Of course."

These kinds of moments always strike me. I mean, it's been over a year since R----- and I broke up. Okay, so I technically broke-up with him, but it was all his idea: I didn't have a choice. Since then, though, there've been so, so many moments like the one with my mother you just read. The very first was Brian. Oh, Brian... He basically looked like an angel - sang like one, too - but (as usual) he never called me back. After him was my first encounter with this Mark character by way of my mother's lovable meddling. Then there was Darren who came into the shop ALL the time and then disappeared one day... (I had nothing to do with that, in all honesty. No murderers here.) Then there was Riley at the Governor's Cup, David at my aunt's cottage, and now Mark again.

What I'm trying to say is that in the year or so that I've been in the shell-shocking state of singleness, I've been reminded more and more that I'm not "damaged goods." I'm young, (somewhat) pretty, (used to be) vivacious, (still) passionate, and (completely) driven. Nevermind that I've got one hell of a mental disease and all the social complexes that go with it, but what I mean is that I've still got life in me. It's like that song by The Rocket Summer:

"You've got so much love in you,
you've got so much love in you.
I'm amazed that I'm talking to you -
you look like the songs
that I've heard my whole life
coming true.
You've got so much love in you."

Right!? I've still got all this life and passion inside of me that one person didn't appreciate or deserve toward the end. So I need to start paying attention to the potentials that have... Promise. Like Mark. Maybe next weekend I'll curl my hair, put on my favorite dress and some red lipstick (which was finally returned to me by my aunt by way of my grandmother - thank you, Leslie!!!) and see if he'll live up to his promise. All of these situations birthed the beginning of a song (as yet unfinished) that kind of reminds me of every girl I've ever met.

We all daydream and wonder and fantasize about every guy we meet that has any kind of potential. We all wonder about the promise of what may or may not come next. I guess I should open myself up to it.

"So baby how can't I want want want this?
When we've got so much promise..."

I guess that's all for now. I should probably head to the library and get some work done.

Peace,
Willow

That Old, Familiar Pain

C-------'s getting married a week from yesterday. I'll be there, front row, center, crying because I'll be so, so happy that she finally found someone who makes her as happy as she deserves to be - which is so, so happy. As someone who went through the ups and downs of relationships simultaneously and shared in her joys and heartaches, it is so refreshing and thrilling to see her with the one man who could ever come close to deserving her. I've seen how happy she's been in the last year; the change from how things used to be is beyond dramatic.

I know I blogged about this a while back, but my thought has been confirmed: everyone was betting that I'd be the first to tie the knot. Obviously it was still a few years down the road, but it was on a lot of people's minds that R------ and I would be heading down the aisle relatively soon. Instead, it's C-------. I promise I'm not bitter, truly. I'm just... A little bruised? Feeling foolish that I'm going to my dear friend's wedding not only unmarried but single and alone? I know I should be focusing on the fact that my dear friend has found true love at last and that I get to party with some of my besties in the party-est town in the country and we're gonna get trashed and have a blast and I am, really, I am. It's just sinking in that my life plan is still stubbornly stuck to the drawing board with nothing but dirty eraser marks on it while hers is beginning to fill with color and beautiful pictures my broken pencil doesn't even dream of drawing. That's an odd metaphor but it's exactly what it looks like at this point.

But I'm going to get on a train on Thursday afternoon and party with her for the last time on Friday night and we are all going to Vegas on Sunday and she's getting married on Monday and we are going to drink and dance and celebrate that two completely random people by total chance found each other and found their soul's true self in the other. And I couldn't be happier.

“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don’t blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being “in love”, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.”~ Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Tuesday Reviews: "The Courtesan's Guide to Getting Your Man"

Ophelia Harrington has no desire to wed stuffy and arrogant Lord Malcolm Ashford. Stifled intellectually, socially and sexually by her family and gender role, she seeks out the only truly independent woman in London: a beautiful courtesan known only as the Swan. With some convincing and lots of training, Ophelia transforms into the most desired courtesan of her time: the Blackbird.
.....................................................................................
Piper Chase-Pierpont is a 30 year old, plain, boring senior curator at the Boston Museum of History and Culture. When her position is threatened by funding cuts, she realizes her last chance to secure her job is by creating an outstanding exhibit on the great Civil War abolitionist, Ophelia Harrington. But when Piper discovers Ophelia's secret diaries in a hidden compartment of a truck in the museum basement, her plans for the exhibit - and the recent return of an old flame - get turned upside down. Using the diaries as a guide to seduction, Piper unlocks her own independence and sexuality while unlocking the secrets of a woman long before her time.

Review: As a borderline addict of trashy romance novels, I expected this to be an Anglicized version of The Rosetti Letter. It was very similar, though far more explicit than academic, but still enjoyable. The stereotypical dowdy-academic main character was a bit frustrating, and I found it rather difficult to believe that a woman of Ophelia's social class would run away to be a professional prostitute. However, Piper's use of Ophelia's diaries was creative and her plan of seduction was refreshing after eons of novels in which the woman is the seduced.
The ending twist in both stories is both somewhat predictable while at the same time riveting (and at a point, inspiring in the gutsy-ness displayed). I give this one - for a dual-period, dual-author romance I picked up at the airport - 3.5 out of 5 stars. Be warned: there are large chunks of this books that are extremely sexually explicit - not for the faint of heart or prudish mind, i.e. I loved it.

To read up on the author's, visit their websites!
Susan Donovan
Celeste Bradley

Happy Reading!!!

~Willow

“All the secrets of the world are contained in books. Read at your own risk.” -- Lemony Snicket

Wednesday Reviews: On "Midnight in Paris"

On Midnight in Paris
(cross-posted to the "Reviews" page)

Starring Owen Wilson and featuring Kathy Bates & Rachel McAdams, this film is – in this author’s mind – the epitome of what a film should be. The acting was not superior, the writing was not sublime 100% of the time, the cinematography was not impeccable, and the story could have been better.

However.

It was thought-provoking and terribly romantic. Dear Reader, please understand that when I use the term “romantic”, I do not necessarily mean it in the sense of rose petals, doves, champagne, chocolate and pretty words. I mean (particularly in this instance) Romantic with a capital R. I speak of a state of mind, a kind of artistic sensibility that throws caution and logic to the wind. Romantics dream of personified ideals, of dreamy realities where men are noble, ladies are idyllic and beautiful, and the good guys always win – through whatever struggle or misfortune – oh, and love, love reigns supreme.

The main character was a Hollywood screenwriter struggling to become a novelist. He and his fiancé were in Paris with her parents, and met some of her college friends – one of whom was a completely pedantic asshole. He spent a good five minutes decrying the very Romantic idealism I just proclaimed. What a prick. Anyway, while the protagonist’s fiancé runs around Paris and the French countryside with this pair (worshipping every word the asshole spat, of course), he insists on seeing Paris on his own terms. He takes walks at midnight and believes that “Paris is most beautiful when it is raining.” I agree, but only because I’ve been there, done that. I strongly recommend it. On one of these midnight strolls, he is picked up by an old-fashioned car and unwittingly carried into a glittering party populated by famous writers and artists he admires. Did I mention that all of these characters are members of the “Lost Generation” who lived in Paris during the Roaring ‘20s, which he refers to as “the Golden Age”? Yep.

For those who sneer at sci-fi/time travel pieces, stop. I, too, find them distasteful. This wasn’t so much sci-fi as it was Romantic/magical realism. The time travel just…happened. There was no machinery, no flashing lights or science at all. He simply got into a car with funny-dressed people, and walked into their world. It wasn’t science, it was magic. Anyway I was thinking through the whole thing that this movie was what I dream about. You think about what the great writers said, and the way they said it and the cadence of their voices and you realize that no one talks like that anymore.

People always comment on the way I speak – because I speak the way I write and vice versa – and tell me that people don’t really talk like that anymore. My answer is always the same: if souls could speak, they would be more fluent than the gibberish that trips over our tongues today. The great writers of the past were so… eloquent in their expression. It’s a trait that I fear our society has lost (to great detriment of our self-expression as a civilization) over the years, to speedier forms of communication. Back then, we had newspapers, speech halls, books, essays, poetry, letters and spoken language that was all so beautiful. Today we have texting, e-mail, Twitter, social networking and so much media that our own voices are drowning and dying out. Eventually, we will all communicate with nothing but a series of beeps and tones. What a sad world to live in.

So despite the potentially problematic issue of time travel (which I would encourage the viewer to simply accept as part of the fantasy world that is fiction), the endearing, loveable and legendary characters brought forth by the so-called “gimmick” of time travel – from Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, even Pablo Picasso and Edgar Degas – are rich and vibrant and undeniably resonant. Their talk of ideals, of literature and art and love was so passionate… It resonated with the protagonist and with myself. As a writer, I take all words to heart for they are words and words possess a magic all their own. Hearing a character embody Ernest Hemingway and speak with such force and fervor made going to the movies the best moment of my time in Salem thus far.

To conclude: Yes, the acting is not terrific, but it is still quite convincing; No, the cinematography is not perfect, but it captures the mood of Paris both then and know and even offers a taste of magical realism, completing the film; No, the writing is not impeccable, but it does its job. So to the film snobs I say don’t waste your time.

But to the Romantics, the dreamers, the silly-hearts… Buy some popcorn and get swept away.

Directed by Woody Allen
Limited release May, 2011

“You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.” --George Bernard Shaw

~Willow