Quotation
"'Oh, Marilla, I thought I was happy before. Now I know that I just dreamed a pleasant dream of happiness. This is the reality.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams

Quotations
Colleen Wagner: This definitely calls for a grassy knoll. -Sitting and watching the sunrise in the Arb, April 23, 2010

"'Dear old world,' she murmured, 'you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Random Musing
I, along with a group of really wonderful people, watched the sunrise this morning in the Ann Arbor Arboretum (colloquially shorted to "the Arb" normally). We stayed up all night - well, three of us did, the others napped a bit - doing some very necessary homework and studying (plus hanging out of course), and then walked to the Arb from my apartment.

We sat on blankets in the middle of this beautiful field and watched the sun rise above the trees. It was a great experience. My friend Colleen's above quote pretty much sums things up. Some things in life really do call for grassy knolls.

And I am, after such an idyllic night/morning and being less than one week away from summer and no schoolwork for four straight months, very content with the world right now. It's a nice feeling.

Quotation
"This susceptibility to impression had been his undoing no doubt. Still at his age he had, like a boy or a girl even, these alternations of mood; good days, bad days, for no reason whatever, happiness from a pretty face, downright misery at the sight of a frump." -Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Quotations
Lorelai: Ooh, and here are your somber highlighters, your maudlin pencils, your manic-depressive pens.
Rory: Mom.
Lorelai: Now these erasers are on lithium, so they may seem cheerful but we actually caught them trying to shove themselves in the pencil sharpener earlier.
Rory: I’m going home now.
Lorelai: No wait! We’re going to stage an intervention with the neon post-its and make them give up their wacky crazy ways.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.04: The Deer Hunters)

Lorelai: ...liposuction kills, staaay fat.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.04: The Deer Hunters)

Emily: You were on the phone?
Richard: Long distance.
Lorelai: God?
Richard: London.
Lorelai: God lives in London?
Richard: My mother lives in London.
Lorelai: Your mother is God?
Richard: Lorelai.
Lorelai: So, God is a woman…
Richard: Lorelai.
Lorelai: …and a relative, that’s so cool. I’m gonna totally ask for favors. -Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.18: The Third Lorelai)

Rory: I can't hang out or kick back. I need to find a retarded kid and teach him how to play softball.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 2.02: Hammers and Veils)

Random Musing
If you didn't know this before, you're probably now aware that for me "funny" = Gilmore Girls. If you have not seen this show, that is what you should devote your summer free time to. Just in case anyone anticipated being dead bored all summer and wanted something fun to do. That is my personal recommendation.

Random Musing
Some information that you might find valuable:

With just a person's first name, year standing, and enrolled school within the University of Michigan it is actually possible to find them on the internet. With the aid of the umich directory and facebook specifically.

True story.

P.S. No, I was not stalking anyone for my own purposes. This was all done in the aid of an incredulous friend. We're now both permanently convinced of the creepiness of the internet.

Quotations
"'But he who accepts human love must bind it to his soul with pain…'" -L.M. Montgomery, The Golden Road

"To love makes one solitary, she thought." -Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

"Her love had reached a point where now at last she was beginning to be unhappy…" -F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night

Quotations
Rory: I can't be late on my first day of school. Do you know what happens to people when they're late on their first day?
Lorelai: It's shorter?
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.02: The Lorelais' First Day at Chilton)

Chilton Dad: What’s exciting about a test?
Lorelai: Do you play golf?
Chilton Dad: Yes I do.
Lorelai: You explain yours, I’ll explain mine.
- Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.04: The Deer Hunters)

Lane: Was it a four-way stop?
Rory: What does that matter?
Lane: I don’t know. I don’t know what to ask after you’ve been hit by a deer.
- Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.04: The Deer Hunters)

Rory: Well stay in the car.
Lorelai: It’s dangerous in the car with all the kamikaze deer running around.
- Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.04: The Deer Hunters)

Richard: Rory, who's your friend?
Rory: I don't know, but this is Tristan.
- Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.06: Rory's Birthday Parties)

Quotations
"'…I'm sorry, and a little dissatisfied as well. Miss Stacy told me long ago that by the time I was twenty my character would be formed, for good or evil. I don't feel that it's what it should be. It's full of flaws.'
'So's everybody's,' said Aunt Jamesina cheerfully. 'Mine's cracked in a hundred places. Your Miss Stacy likely meant that when you are twenty your character would have got its permanent bent in one direction or 'tother, and would go on developing in that line.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

Random Musing
I turned twenty today. Weird. A whole new decade of existence. Very very weird.

And I do, in case you were curious, feel that my character is very much full of flaws - which is not exactly a satisfying feeling. But, alas, what can one do about it? It is to be expected really, as the above quote explains.

Hmm, once again L.M. Montgomery manages to define aspects of my life.

But yeah, it's a birthday. Hopefully it'll be a good day. So far it has been pretty great. I am for once looking forward to the day. I'm being optimistic. This "phase" won't stick around beyond the next twelve or so hours, but it's probably a healthy change from all the pessimism. It is a bit more pleasant. Even I am willing to admit that.

Quotation
"…but what use are fine speeches and Parliament, once you surrender an inch to the black waters? Indeed there has never been any explanation of the ebb and flow in our veins – of happiness and unhappiness." -Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room

Quotations
"Mr. Harrison was certainly different from other people…and that is the essential characteristic of a crank, as everybody knows." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

"'People who are different from other people are always called peculiar,' said Anne." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

Random Musing
I am very much okay with being labeled both "peculiar" and a "crank." You should be too.

Quotation
"There was no treachery too base for the world to commit; she knew that.  No happiness lasted; she knew that." -Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Quotation
"Anne was always glad in the happiness of her friends; but it is sometimes a little lonely to be surrounded everywhere by happiness that is not your own." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

Quotations
"'And yellow silk. It makes one think of a dress of sunshine. I always wanted a yellow silk dress, but first my mother and then my husband wouldn't hear of it. The very first thing I'm going to do when I get to heaven is to get a yellow silk dress.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

"…and all her hair
     In one long yellow string I wound
     Three times her little throat around
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
     I am quite sure she felt no pain...." -Robert Browning, "Porphyria's Lover"

Painting
Untitled

*I am the first to admit this painting is kind of a cheat in terms of being yellow. It's the closest I could find, plus I know - even if no one else does (well, before I wrote this and put it on the internet) - that it started off very yellow even if it ended up a bit green.

Quotations
"'Maybe I got out of the wrong side of the bed,' suggested Davy. 'Milty Boulter says if you do that things are bound to go wrong with you all day. His grandmother told him. But which is the right side? And what are you to do when your bed's against the wall? I want to know.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

"'Thanksgiving was last week. There was no school and we had a great dinner. I et mince pie and rost turkey and frut cake and donuts and cheese and jam and choklut cake. Marilla said I'd die but I dident. Dora had earake after it, only it wasent in her ears it was in her stummick. I dident have earake anywhere.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

"'"The kind of a wife I'd like to Have.
She must have good manners and get my meals on time and do what I tell her and always be very polite to me. She must be fifteen yers old. She must be good to the poor and keep her house tidy and be good tempered and go to church regularly. She must be very handsome and have curly hair. If I get a wife that is just what I like Ill be an awful good husband to her. I think a woman ought to be awful good to her husband. Some poor women havent any husbands.
THE END."'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

"'Mrs. Lynde says Mrs. Wrights grandfather stole a sheep but Marilla says we mustent speak ill of the dead. Why mustent we, Anne? I want to know. It's pretty safe ain't it?'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

"'Mrs. Lynde was awful mad the other day because I asked her if she was alive in Noah's time. I dident mean to hurt her feelings. I just wanted to know. Was she, Anne?'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

*Just in case you're new to the Anne books, Davy is a male character (he's 8-10 years old in the above quotes) in the novels

Quotations
"'Now, Anne, don't look as if you were trying to understand. Seventeen can't understand.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

"'I'm so glad you're here, Anne,' said Miss Lavendar, nibbling at her candy. 'If you weren't I should be blue…very blue…almost navy blue. Dreams and make-believes are all very well in the daytime and the sunshine, but when dark and storm come they fail to satisfy. One wants real things then. But you don't know this…seventeen never knows it. At seventeen dreams do satisfy because you think the realities are waiting for you further on.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

"'How sympathetic you look, Anne…as sympathetic as only seventeen can look.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea