To the boy in the computer lab:

Funny how the two of us come here almost every day,

but I don't know your name

or anything about you

Except that you probably know Excel much better than I do,

you check your email almost as much as I do

and you're a PC

If this was a romantic comedy, there would be a mix up at the printer and somehow I'd end up with your calculus review sheet, and you'd go home with my art history slide list and that would give me an excuse to talk to you.

And naturally, I'd ask you why you are taking calculus, and maybe you're a business major, or maybe you are one of those blessed souls who wants to teach 17 year olds about integrals and derivatives.

And I'd tell you that in high school, I spent the majority of my calculus experience listening to Three Days Grace on a borrowed iPod.

And you'd confess that your guilty pleasure music is Hanson post-MMMBop.

And I'd laugh.

Hard.

And you'd like that.

And the beginning would really be that easy.

*meet me at the printer in 5?*

a question

Love-to-be:

You're old fashioned and I'm a little old fashioned,

so why don't we take black and white photographs and name our children Lucy and Harold

and build a home out of pennies and patience

and you'll read the paper as I'm finishing up dinner and after the food is gone we'll sit at the table for hours,

still hungry for each other's company,

even after all these years?

image via

everything is more romantic in french

This may just be one of the most romantic songs I've ever heard.
I fell in love with it when I heard it play at the end of French Kiss.

Louis Armstrong's trumpet can take my breath away any day.
And Edith Piaf's voice is incredible.

I don't even need to hear the words to want to melt into some dashing man's arms and forget the world.

cannonball--take two

Remember that one time when I was going to be brave?

And just go for it

head first

without worrying about how deep the water was?

I think I'm failing

and I'm too tired to try and catch myself.

Let alone anyone else.

the way to my heart

Love-to-be:

Let's bring it all to the table.

Your strengths.

My weaknesses.

Your faults.

My gifts.

And let's make music from all the discord in our lives.

image via weheartit

Currently obsessing over:

Can I just say that I love everything about this?

Oh, to sing a duet with Andrea Bocelli.

In Italian.

Someday, I want to be able to understand this without having to use Google Language Tools.

the shorter story

Some people like to go to haunted houses and watch scary movies and let their imaginations run wild to feel that thrill of utter horror and fright.

But I've never been like that.

I'm the one who watches sad movies when I'm happy.
And listens to rainy day music when it's bright and sunny.
And cries not only in movies but at the end of really good books.
Whose idea of a perfect Saturday morning is curling up in a blanket with a mug of hot cocoa and watching something like "The Way We Were."

Because there is something about that heartbreaking, purely human rush of delicious melancholy that gets me every time.

Frankly Scarlet

Sometimes when you spend all day on campus, walking from class to class with wet feet in wet shoes and glasses covered in water droplets, it means you stay up way too late to paint your nails a ridiculously named shade of red when you should be sleeping.

And then you curl up into your many many blankets and dream of handwritten letters and pin curls and red lipstick.

one fine day, you're gonna want me for your girl

Jack: Maybe you should let somebody help you out every once in a while.

Melanie: Definitely not. I've got all of these little balls up in the air. And if somebody else caught one for me, I'd drop them all.

-One Fine Day

Today I feel like I'm barely keeping all the little balls from crashing to the ground.

And I wish I knew how or who to ask for help.

I need a mental health day.

Or a good old fashioned Saturday.

A day to curl up in many many blankets (because our heat is not working right now), make a huge mug of hot cocoa, and watch a silly movie that will make me cry and laugh in the same hour and a half.*

*As my friend Clark pointed out, 90s chick flicks are the best. I agree. Am I old enough to say things like, "they just don't make them like they used to.."?

**On another note, I liked One Fine Day so much that I taped it when it was on TV and still have an old, worn out VHS copy with commercials. Maybe the plot is incredibly unrealistic, but I don't even care. Maybe it's not. Maybe you can meet someone on the worst day of your year and things could turn out alright. And this song is half of the reason I love the movie.

these foolish things

Today as I was tidying up my room, Nat King Cole and the sound of rain in the background, I thought about how lovely life is.

Even on days when the power goes out, and it's cold and rainy, and sometimes a little lonely.

The learning and loving and moments of loneliness can be so sweet.

This song started playing and I decided that someday I will dance to it and it will be terribly romantic. As all songs by Nat King Cole are.*

"A tinkling piano in the next apartment

Those stumblin' words that told you what my heart meant

A fairground's painted swings

These foolish things

Remind me of you."

I love rainy day music. It's so...cleansing. Just like the rain.

image via vi.sualize.us (isn't it just gorgeous?)

*According to this little peek into my 16 year old self, Nat King Cole is already on the list to be played at my wedding reception. I'm not sure how many of the other songs I'll keep. But definitely Mr. Cole.

xo

Sometimes I honestly believe all I need in life is an endless supply of good hugs and forehead kisses.

this lovely image via vi.sualize.us

long time coming

" She leaned over to him and said, 'we've been in love for so long.'
He said, 'you're the only girl I've ever loved, and I've loved you since I was 15.' "

Congratulations to my friends Kortney and Clayton!
(they got married on Friday)

If you ask me, they've been made for each other since they were in high school, and I'm so happy for them.

nothing wrong with a little change

Love-to-be:

Please choose your occupation because it's something you love, not simply because it will make you loads of money.

I've told you before, it's not about the money.

I will love you just as much for your passion for what you do as for the inventive ways we will stretch our dollars.

Love it enough to do it for 20, 30 or 40 years, but love me enough to let it mellow into a conversation topic when you come home.

Let it be your profession, your passion, but not your life.

I always admire men who choose a career that may not be the most financially cushy, but that is something they truly enjoy.

So. Whatever you choose to do, do it with passion.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a doctor or a lawyer or even an advertising man. There is no reason you should feel guilty for making six figures. That would just give us more opportunities to do good, and I would love that.

All of this is just to say that if what acts as your figurative cup of coffee in the morning is the thought of teaching 17-year olds about The Cold War or mitosis or Shakespeare, we will be just fine.

We'll live in a small*, older house, with chipped paint and a kitchen table we'll refinish ourselves.

We'll find adventures in weekend camping trips and coveted nights out, but mostly in good conversation and great food.

Made by yours truly, of course.

We'll learn to save our pennies and nickels and dimes and when we finally have enough to take that big trip to Europe or South America or Africa that we've always wanted to take, we'll appreciate it that much more.

So, dear, do what you love, love what you do, and love me too.

*I don't much care for housework, anyway. So, in my opinion, the less house to clean, the better.

image via deviantart

I sing the songs of the glory of you

{I am always a little awestruck at beautiful pictures of "old love." love that has never let the butterflies die. love that has tired hands and feet, no longer tired from the searching, but from continuously walking and reaching toward that same love they spent so long searching for. from carrying a load that was too much for one pair of hands. from working together to cultivate that kind of love. the kind that lasts forever.}

..........................................................
"Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of
dreams,
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your
feet and hands, Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners,
troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,

Your true soul and body appear before me,
They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops,
work, farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating,
drinking, suffering, dying.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you
be my poem, I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better
than you.

O I have been dilatory and dumb, I should have made my way straight to you long ago,
I should have blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted
nothing but you.

I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you,
None has understood you, but I understand you,
None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to
yourself
...
O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are, you have slumber'd upon
yourself all your life, Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,

What you have done returns already in mockeries, (Your thrift, knowledge, prayers,
if they do not return in
mockeries, what is their return?)
...
There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good
is in you, No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you,
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits
for you.
...
I sing the songs of the glory of you.
…
Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what
you are picks its way."

-Walt Whitman, To You

(full version here)
image via vi.sualize.us

Some Kind of Story, Part Two

She'd always played it pretty safe.

She could be spontaneous about the little things.

The midnight food runs, the impulse buys, the making of friends and the trusting of those friends.

But love?

Love was not something she ever did without thinking.

In fact, she thought about it a lot.

And she wondered if maybe she did a little too much wondering and dreaming and writing.

And not enough leaping.

I never knew just what it was about this old coffee shop I love so much

I've always loved coffee shops.

Not for the coffee, because I don't drink coffee. (though they generally have killer hot cocoa)

But because of the atmosphere and the energy.

They just seem like creative spaces.

And I love that.

There's something really endearing about the boy in this video. Maybe it's that he seems like more of a boy getting into mischief than a man looking for his soulmate.

Maybe he's both.

Either way, I'm digging the video.

ps: I just checked out a couple of his other songs, and love love love this one.

Much Ado

I found out from one of my favorite New Yorkers, Miss Meg Fee, that Provo is doing Much Ado About Nothing.

June 11th and 12th.

Outside.

FREE.

My favorite kind of theatre.

Who'll go with me?

fresh

summer is about discovery.

and swimsuits and sunscreen.

and late night conversations.

and baseball games and ice cream cones.

and butterflies.

and trying new things.

like letting my heart do the thinking.

and opening up the windows and letting some new light* in.

oh yes. summer is about butterflies.

image via vi.sualize.us

*or love..?

The quirky kind of romance that is just real

The Quiet World

-Jeffrey McDaniel*

In an effort to get people to look

into each other's eyes more,

and also to appease the mutes,

the government has decided

to allot each person exactly one hundred

and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear

without saying hello. In the restaurant

I point at chicken noodle soup.

I am adjusting well to the new way

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,

proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.

I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn't respond,

I know she's used up all her words,

so I slowly whisper I love you

thirty-two and a third times.

After that, we just sit on the line

and listen to each other breathe.

Love to be:

I'd save my words for you.

Those three words that I hope won't sound cliche,

Me

image via this

*(poet recommendation from the fabulous Meg Fee). I love Jeffrey McDaniel's book, The Forgiveness Parade. His words are just so honest and real. They speak to me. Meg has posted several of his poems and he's never failed me. In case you're curious, and like poetry, this is how I feel about high school. and also life, sometimes.

"Let me show you what I'm made of:

...good intentions are not enough." Loving this song.

Love-to-be:

Remember this letter?

It occurred to me the other day, that when we meet, I might be the one that needs to be patient and not get upset if you're upset about another girl.

A girl from your past who is still on your mind and in your heart. A girl that I will probably need to forgive, in my own heart, for how she hurt you. A girl that probably didn't really do anything wrong besides not be the right one for you.

So. If that is the case, I want you to know that I'm not going anywhere. I've been a friend a few more times than I've been a girlfriend. I've got strong shoulders and a big heart.

Big enough for both of our issues. And big enough for that kind of love where it's not about me, but about you. And what you need.

I just hope that what you need is me.

image