Painting
Untitled

Random Musing
I just bought the new iPod Touch to replace my iPod Video. I'd had the iPod Video for about four and a half years - I got it for my 16th birthday - and it did serve me really well for a pretty long time. In the end, the decision to buy a new iPod had to do with just one thing: battery life. (Well, that and the fact that I prefer iPods to other mp3 players.)

But yeah, battery life was really the big thing. After so many years, the battery on the iPod Video ran down considerably. I could get maybe 6-7 hours if I refused to ever hit skip or even change the volume (when it was new you could listen to 14 hours of music - even while hitting "next"). If I did decide to use it like a normal mp3 it would only last for around 1-3 hours, which became irritating very quickly. So I finally decided, after too many instances where I fully charged it only to have it die on me in no time, that it was time to buy a replacement.

So after doing research on various iPods and mp3 players - and post going into the Apple Store and discovering (to my shock actually) that I did like the whole touch screen thing - I decided on the new iPod Touch. I only got it in the mail today, and after hours of messing around, it's now fully synced with my iTunes and my apartment's wireless and is basically set up how I want it. I'm pretty excited about it. A normal reaction given that it is shiny and new and pretty - like all Apple products.

I do still need to find a case or some sort of protection for it, but minus that little worry blip I'm just excited to be able to go for long walks and not have to worry about my iPod dying any minute. It's a relief. And yes, the purchase has relieved my bank account a bit (sue me - I like puns), but I can live with that since this really is a purchase that will be useful in the long term. The last iPod lasted almost five years. And I think that stat bodes well for the new one. Fingers crossed.

Quotation
"What if we were muons?
Would you still love me?
You wouldn't have to for very long.
It's all relative." -Sarah Barton, "Muons"

Random Musing
The above poem is what happens when English majors have to take physics classes. If you're confused, wiki/google "muons" - it should make more sense.

I should mention that I took the liberty of titling the poem "Muons" since the author didn't deign to bestow a title on it. Not that she ever does give her poems titles actually.

Quotations
"'Listen to the trees talking in their sleep,' she whispered, as he lifted her to the ground. 'What nice dreams they must have!'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

"But the little path was shadowy and narrow. Trees crowded over it, and trees are never quite as friendly to human beings after nightfall as they are in daylight. They wrap themselves away from us. They whisper and plot furtively. If they reach out a hand to us it has a hostile, tentative touch. People walking amid the trees after night always draw closer together instinctively and involuntarily, making an alliance, physical and mental, against certain alien powers around them." -L.M. Montgomery, Rainbow Valley

"'This afternoon I sat at my window and alternately wrote at my new serial and watched a couple of dear, amusing, youngish maple-trees at the foot of the garden. They whispered secrets to each other all the afternoon. They would bend together and talk earnestly for a few moments, then spring back and look at each other, throwing up their hands comically in horror and amazement over their mutual revelations. I wonder what new scandal is afoot in Treeland.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

Rory: I have to tell you, this tree is perfect.
Lorelai: All girls think their tree is perfect.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 4.06: An Affair to Remember)

Random Musing
I love how incredibly whimsical L.M. Montgomery's quote about Treeland is. I wish I could write anything as charming as that. But alas, the dark and dreary are more along my lines than the enchanting.

In entirely unrelated news, Happy Birthday to my sisters Namira and Nishat! They turned 23 and 19 respectively. (And yes, it is rather strange that they have the exact same birthday when they're four years apart.)

Random Musing
I'm sure that some news of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity/March to Keep Fear Alive has reached you by this point. It's going to happen in Washington D.C. on October 30th - so it's a little over a month away - and I think that you should go. Yes, whoever is reading this, "you" really does mean you. I say this because I'm going. That's right, I'm abandoning Ann Arbor Halloween weekend and making my way to D.C. It should be a good time - 10 hour drive and all.

Check out the site for more information on the whole thing, keep watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and make the incredibly-smart decision to be in D.C. October 30th. Maybe I'll see you there!

(Well, probably not to be entirely honest. It's a big city and there are going to be a lot of people there. The odds are very slim that I'll run into you. Whoever "you" are. But I figured I'd end the post on a more optimistic note. Which I'm entirely doing away with here. It's just more in character.)

Painting
Untitled

Random Musing
I just discovered that it is possible to find green ink cartridges for my fountain pen. Green ink. I'm totally going to feel like Harry Potter writing in green ink with a fountain pen. Sure it's not exactly a quill pen, but it's as close as we're going to get in the real world (aka: The Not-Nearly-As-Exciting-As-Harry Potter World). In case you couldn't tell from that statement: I'm very excited about this green ink. Yes - I'm just going to go ahead and say it - my life is that small.

I still have many many blue/black ink cartridges left, so the green's not going to be forthcoming for a while, but eventually those blue/black cartridges will run out and I will be buying green ink. I know what you're thinking. I could just go ahead and buy the cartridges now. Who cares if I still have blue/black ones left? True. I could. Well, except not really cause that just seems sort of wasteful. I know that with green ink in hand I'll probably ignore my blue/black ink. Forever. Even when I run out of green ink. I'll just buy more green and the blue/black cartridges will gather dust. See, wasteful. So I will just bide my time and look forward to the day that my world becomes more aligned with Harry Potter's. As is the hope and dream of every sane person on the planet.

Quotation
"'Listen. You know those days when you've got the mean reds?'
'Same as the blues?'
'No,' she said slowly. 'No, the blues are because you're getting fat or maybe it's been raining too long. You're sad, that's all. But the mean reds are horrible. You're afraid and you sweat like hell, but you don't know what you're afraid of. Except something bad is going to happen, only you don't know what it is.'" -Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's

Random Musing
I've always wondered what to call the mean reds once that "something bad" actually does happen and you know what it is. The mean reds would have evolved into something else by that point; horrible uncertainty and anticipation is such a huge part of them. And as awful as the mean reds are I think that new manifestation of them would probably be worse.

Horrible things are often even more horrible than you were expecting them to be. It's kind of like how the anticipation of looking forward to something is so often more fun than that "something" itself. Breakfast at Tiffany's introduces us to the mean reds, but I'm personally looking to avoid what inevitably follows them. The "Evil Blacks" or "Sad Greys" maybe? Lame suggestions I'm afraid.

Quotation
"'All had their rapture; their common feeling with death; something that stood them in stead. Thus I visited each of my friends in turn, trying, with fumbling fingers, to prise open their locked caskets. I went from one to the other holding my sorrow – no, not my sorrow but the incomprehensible nature of this our life – for their inspection. Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends, I to my own heart, I to see among phrases and fragments something unbroken – I to whom there is not beauty enough in moon or tree; to whom the touch of one person with another is all, yet who cannot grasp even that, who am so imperfect, so weak, so unspeakably lonely. There I sat.'" -Virginia Woolf, The Waves

Painting
Untitled

Random Musing
September is drawing near which means so is the start of fall semester. Classes don't actually start until September 7th, but already I need to worry about one of my (potential) classes: English 424, aka: Advanced Poetry Writing.

I don't get to take this class unless the portfolio I submit as a sort of audition passes muster. Now I've written a lot of poems. Most not very good, some passable, and a few I'm kind of happy with. Nothing really spectacular. But now I have to compile a portfolio of ten poems before September 1st, and I am at somewhat of a loss as to which poems I should choose.

So, I'm asking for some help from you loyal blog followers. If anyone reading this can think of any poems that I've posted which struck them as particularly/any good whatsoever, let me know. The suggestions will be helpful in pulling together a portfolio.

Thanks in advance!

Quotation
"Those final weeks, spanning end of summer and the beginning of another autumn, are blurred in memory, perhaps because our understanding of each other had reached that sweet depth where two people communicate more often in silence than in words; an affectionate quietness replaces the tensions, the unrelaxed chatter and chasing about that produce a friendship's more showy, more, in the surface sense, dramatic moments." -Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's

Random Musing
Here are a couple of songs I've been listening to a lot lately:

1. "I'm Waking Up to Us"

2. "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead"

I've recently become enamored with Belle & Sebastian - Push Barman to Open Old Wounds is my favorite of their CDs thus far - and I previously recommended another Star's song, "Dead Hearts." If you're looking for new music, the above links could be a good starting point. Hope you enjoy!

Quotation
"'Keep your dream, little Marigold, as long as you can. A dream is an immortal thing. Time cannot kill it or age wither it. You may tire of reality but never of dreams.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Magic for Marigold

Random Musing
"Do you ever get so caught up in the previews that you forget what movie you're watching? Well that's my life."

That's not an actual quote. Well, not one that I read or heard or anything. It just popped into my head while I was watching Breakfast at Tiffany's. Elizabethtown was one of the previews on the DVD so I suppose Cameron Crowe rubbed off on me and made the above come to mind. It's not a horrible line exactly. I don't have anything to follow it up with though. I don't know if anything good could even come from trying to follow it up. As of right now I'm not going to try. I'm just going to throw that one line into the "blogosphere" and let it go.

Quotation
Emily: All right, fine. Sweetie's father was a very poor man, so poor that Sweetie and her four siblings all had to sleep in a hollowed-out tree trunk because the house was only big enough for their parents. One winter, there was no food, so Sweetie crawled out of her trunk, wrapped her feet in newspaper, and walked forty miles in the snow to the nearest town, where she stumbled into a candy store. The owner took pity on her and gave her bags of candy, a dill pickle, and drove her back to her family. He promptly offered a job to her father, who gladly accepted and eventually owned that store and turned it into one of the most important candy emporiums in the world. And that is how she got the name Sweetie. There, how was that?
Lorelai: Now, that was a pretty good story.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 4.16: The Reigning Lorelai)

Quotation
"'I do suspect that he is not really necessary to my happiness.  So much the better.  I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do.  I am quite enough in love.  I should be sorry to be more.'" -Jane Austen, Emma

Quotation
"How could any one in the world be happy when we were so unhappy?" -L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl

Quotation
"'He has the face of a dreamer, but of a dreamer who's dreaming at great speed.  A dreamer whose dreams are far out ahead of our dreams.  And that scares me.  Do you understand?'" -Roberto Bolaño (Translated by Natasha Wimmer), 2666

Quotation
"Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep - while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?" -Edgar Allan Poe, "A Dream Within a Dream"

Quotation
"'If I gave you my life, you would drop it.  Wouldn't you?'
I didn't say anything." -Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

Quotations
"And yet your shadow isn't following you anymore. At some point your shadow has quietly slipped away. You pretend you don't notice, but you have, you're missing your fucking shadow, though there are plenty of ways to explain it, the angle of the sun, the degree of oblivion induced by the sun beating down on hatless heads, the quantity of alcohol ingested, the movement of something like subterranean tanks of pain, the fear of more contingent things, a disease that begins to become apparent, wounded vanity, the desire just for once in your life to be on time. But the point is, your shadow is lost and you, momentarily, forget it. -Roberto Bolaño (Translated by Natasha Wimmer), 2666

"'Fancies are like shadows…you can't cage them, they're such wayward, dancing things.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

"The wind swayed the trees and the shadows danced madly. Were they only shadows–?" -L.M. Montgomery, Magic for Marigold

"In any case life is but a procession of shadows, and God knows why it is that we embrace them so eagerly, and see them depart with such anguish, being shadows." -Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room

Quotations
"'It's so beautiful that it hurts me,' said Anne softly. 'Perfect things like that always did hurt me – I remember I called it "the queer ache" when I was a child. What is the reason that pain like this seems inseparable from perfection? Is it the pain of finality – when we realise that there can be nothing beyond but retrogression?'
'Perhaps,' said Owen dreamily, 'it is the prisoned infinite in us calling out to its kindred infinite as expressed in that visible perfection.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams

"'I wouldn't mind that if it didn't hurt,' muttered Walter. 'I don't think I'm afraid of death itself – it's of the pain that might come before death – it wouldn't be so had to die and have it over – but to keep on dying! Rilla, I've always been afraid of pain – you know that. I can't help it – I shudder when I think of the possibility of being mangled or – or blinded.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Rilla of Ingleside

"Oh, there was a certain pleasure. And don't ever underestimate people, don't ever underestimate the pleasure they receive from viewing pain that is not their own, from delivering bad news, watching bombs fall on television, from listening to stifling sobs from the other end of the telephone line. Pain by itself is just Pain. But Pain + Distance can = entertainment, voyeurism, human interest, cinéma vérité, a good belly chuckle, a sympathetic smile, a raised eyebrow, disguised contempt." -Zadie Smith, White Teeth

"…This is the Hour of Lead–
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow–
First–Chill–then Stupor–then the letting go–" -Emily Dickinson, "After great pain, a                                                                                                         formal feeling comes"

"Pain – has an Element of Blank –
It cannot recollet
When it begun – or if there were
A time when it was not –

It has no Future – but itself –
It's Infinite contain
It's Past – enlightened to perceive
New Periods – of Pain." -Emily Dickinson, "Pain has an element of blank"

Henry: Life is pain.
-Dedication

Quotation
"…she knew that love, no matter how mistreated or mutilated, always left room for hope, and that hope was her plan (or the other way around)…" -Roberto Bolaño (Translated by Natasha Wimmer), 2666

Quotation
"Madness really is contagious, and friends are a blessing, especially when you're on your own."-Roberto Bolaño (Translated by Natasha Wimmer), 2666

Quotation
"Dreams do sound so foolish when they are put into cold brutal words." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Ingleside

Random Musing
I've briefly written about Michael Dickman before.  "We Do Move On" was the imitation of his writing style that I wrote for my English 324 class last semester. Well, I realized, after some failed googling (I know, shocking concept) that it's very difficult, if not impossible to find a full copy of a particular poem of his: "My Dead Friends Come Back."

Since you're unlikely to go out and buy a copy of The End of the West, and I really think you should read it, here is the poem in full:

Quotation
"My Dead Friends Come Back" by Michael Dickman

If you want to
come back, just you
I say it's fine

From the flattened universe
From His side
of the bed

Shave my head and put me in the ground with you surrounded by
             trillium

Trillium or
something else

Shit and violets

*

If you want to
come back, just you
I say it's fine

From endless singing
From the icy branches
of evergreens

I want to trade you sunlight for starlight, or star for star, the night sky
             disappearing for
             coffee in the morning

What I want

I want to fuck you again
on the living-room
floor

*

If you want to
come back, just you
I say it's fine

From your hijacked brain

From your skeleton
sparkling like change
on a countertop

Your life as light is just beginning in the cosmos, but you can come
             back if you want to

What a terrible place this is

Limping around
not in each other's arms
not like light
at all

Quotations
"'I like rain when it has turned to snow and becomes palpable.'" -Virginia Woolf, The Waves

Lorelai: Everything's magical when it snows…
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.08: Love and Snow and War)

Lorelai: The world changes when it snows. It gets quiet. Everything softens.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.08: Love and Snow and War)

Painting
Untitled

Quotation
"'How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation?'" -Jane Austen, Emma

Quotation
"'Matthew,' she said, 'have you ever loved someone and it became yourself?'
For a moment he did not answer.  Taking up the decanter he held it to the light.
'Robin can go anywhere, do anything,' Nora continued, 'because she forgets, and I nowhere because I remember.'  She came toward him.  'Matthew,' she said, 'you think I have always been like this.  Once I was remorseless, but this is another love – it goes everywhere; there is no place for it to stop – it rots me away.'" -Djuna Barnes, Nightwood

Quotation
"'Nobody is ever too old to dream. And dreams never grow old.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

Painting
Untitled

Quotation
"'It's about Diana,' sobbed Anne luxuriously. 'I love Diana so, Marilla. I cannot ever live without her. But I know very well when we grow up that Diana will get married and go away and leave me. And oh, what shall I do? I hate her husband – I just hate him furiously. I've been imagining it all out – the wedding and everything – Diana dressed in snowy white garments, and a veil, and looking as beautiful and regal as a queen; and me the bridesmaid, with a lovely dress, too, and puffed sleeves, but with a breaking heart hid beneath my smiling face. And then bidding Diana good-bye-e-e–' Here Anne broke down entirely and wept with increasing bitterness.
Marilla turned quickly away to hide her twitching face, but it was no use; she collapsed on the nearest chair and burst into such a hearty and unusual peal of laughter…" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Quotation
"You were never poor as long as you had something to love." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

Random Musing
This is unbelievably cheesy. I am aware of this. And yet I posted it. It fits with the whole "On Love" theme. Please don't judge.

Quotation
"They were like two old friends who don't need to say much to each other." -Roberto Bolaño (Translated by Natasha Wimmer), 2666

Quotation
"One word is sufficient. But if one cannot find it?" -Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room

Quotations
"She had dreamed some brilliant dreams during the past winter and now they lay in the dust around her. In her present mood of self-disgust, she could not immediately begin dreaming again. And she discovered that, while solitude with dreams is glorious, solitude without them has few charms." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

"The more she thought about it, the more Madeleine understood that extreme solitude didn’t only describe the way she was feeling about Leonard. It explained how she’d always felt when she was in love. It explained what love was like and, just maybe, what was wrong with it." -Jeffrey Eugenides, "Extreme Solitude"

"D'Arnot closed the door.  He was very nervous.  Even brave men, and D'Arnot was a brave man, are sometimes frightened by solitude." -Edward Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes

Quotation
"'You must be the best judge of your own happiness.'" -Jane Austen, Emma

Quotation
"For disguise the fact as we will, when friends, even the closest – perhaps the more because of that very closeness – meet again after a separation there is always a chill, lesser or greater, of change. Neither find the other quite the same. This is natural and inevitable. Human nature is ever growing or retrogressing – never stationary. But still, with all our philosophy, who of us can repress a little feeling of bewildered disappointment when we realize that our friend is not and never can be just the same as before – even though the change may be by way of improvement?" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

Quotation
"…could not have understood what perverted shaped thwarted love can take." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

Quotation
"'Mrs. Spencer said that my tongue must be hung in the middle. But it isn't – it's firmly fastened at one end.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Quotation
"'…I think,' concluded Anne, hitting on a very vital truth, 'that we always love best the people who need us.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

Quotation
"'We all feel those things. They're not ridiculous when we feel them. It's only when we put them into words that they're ridiculous.'" -L.M. Montgomery, A Tangled Web

Random Musing
I've recently become a big Stars fan. I first heard "Take Me to the Riot" a couple of years ago via a friend's school radio program. I really loved the song, but for whatever reason didn't end up looking into other Stars' songs until much later. Like say the last couple of weeks. The newest song of theirs that I've been playing on repeat is "Dead Hearts". Give it a listen. Hopefully you like it.

Quotations
"The silence depressed me.  It wasn't the silence of silence.  It was my own silence.” -Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

"The silence drew off, baring the pebbles and shells and all the tatty wreckage of my life. Then, at the rim of vision, it gathered itself, and in one sweeping tide, rushed me to sleep." -Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

"Her silence wasn't unpleasant, nor did it imply resentment or sadness. It was transparent, not dense. It took up almost no space. A person could even get used to a silence like this, thought Espinoza, and be happy. But he would never get used to it, he knew that too." -Roberto Bolaño (Translated by Natasha Wimmer), 2666

"…Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, 'Lenore!'
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, 'Lenore!'
Merely this and nothing more…" -Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven"

Richard: Oh Mrs. Dalloway, always throwing parties to cover the silence.
-The Hours

Random Musing
Can't have a post titled 'The Sound of Silence' without a link to the Simon & Garfunkel song. Also, if you haven't yet, go watch The Graduate. Really great movie.

Quotation
"'Oh, here we are at the bridge. I'm going to shut my eyes tight. I’m always afraid going over bridges. I can't help imagining that perhaps, just as we get to the middle, they'll crumple up like a jackknife and nip us. So I shut my eyes. But I always have to open them for all when I think we're getting near the middle. Because, you see, if the bridge did crumple up I'd want to see it crumple. What a jolly rumble it makes! I always like the rumble part of it. Isn't it splendid there are so many things to like in this world? There, we're over. Now I'll look back. Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say good night to the things I love, just as I would to people. I think they like it. That water looks as if it was smiling at me.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Quotation
"…I realized my happiness was artificial. I felt happy because I saw the others were happy and because I knew I should feel happy, but I wasn't really happy." -Roberto Bolaño (Translated by Natasha Wimmer), 2666

Random Musing
"'Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think.  It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

*Credit has to go to Mark Rudolf for pulling this particular quote from the novel. For some mysterious reason I hadn't written it down myself. Hmm, maybe it was just too optimistic...

Random Musing
This needs no explanation.

Also, note that today is Sandwich Day.

Random Musing
In the past I have become very excited about the upcoming release of certain films. The Painted Veil, Atonement, and Nine were all such movies. The first two pretty much satisfied all of my (ridiculously) high expectations, while the third was a major disappointment. I'm hoping that the upcoming film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go follows The Painted Veil/Atonement path.

I haven't read the novel yet, but am anxiously waiting for one of the libraries (both public and university) to have an available copy. This whole situation is actually very reminiscent of a few summers ago when I found out that Joe Wright was adapting Atonement and Keira Knightley was going to star in it. I read the novel and then waited for the movie to finally come to a theater nearby. And now, while Joe Wright isn't involved, here is yet another Knightley film. Hopefully it turns out to be amazing. And comes to the Michigan Theater when it's released.

Quotations
Richard: Oh Mrs. Dalloway, always throwing parties to cover the silence.
-The Hours

Richard: No matter what you start with it ends up being so much less.
-The Hours

Richard: I'm saying I think I'm only staying alive to satisfy you.
Clarissa: Well, so that is what we do. That is what people do. They stay alive for each other.
-The Hours

Angelica: What happens when we die?
Virginia: We return to the place that we came from.
-The Hours

Clarissa Vaughan: So this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And, of course, there will always be more. It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning: it was happiness, it was the moment…
-The Hours

Richard: I seem to have fallen out of time.
-The Hours

Virginia: Dear Leonard. To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours.
-The Hours

Quotation
"'Oh, sometimes I think it is of no use to make friends. They only go out of your life after awhile and leave a hurt that is worse than the emptiness before they came.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

Quotations
Dated Tuesday, March 18th of 1941:

Dearest,
I feel certain that I am going
mad again: I feel we cant go
through another of these terrible times.
And I shant recover this time. I begin
to hear voices, and cant concentrate.
So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have
given me
the greatest possible happiness. You
have been in every way all that anyone
could be. I dont think two
people could have been happier till
this terrible disease came. I cant
fight it any longer, I know that I am
spoiling your life, that without me you
could work. And you will I know.
You see I cant even write this properly. I
cant read. What I want to say is that
I owe all the happiness of my life to you.
You have been entirely patient with me &
incredibly good. I want to say that -
everybody knows it. If anybody could [new page]
have saved me it would have been you.
Everything has gone from me but the
certainty of your goodness. I
cant go on spoiling your life any longer. I dont think two
people
could have been happier than we have been.
V.

Dated Friday, March 28th of 1941:

Dearest,
I want to tell you that you have
given me complete happiness. No one
could have done more than you have done.
Please believe that.
But I know that I shall never get over
this: & am wasting your life. It is this madness.
Nothing anyone says can persuade me.
You can work, & you will be much
better without me. You see I cant
write this even, which shows I am right.
All I want to say is that until this
disease came on we were perfectly
happy. It was all due to you.
No one could have been so good as
you have been. From the very
first day till now.
[she added with fresh ink]: Everyone knows that.
V.

[Turning the page, she wrote on the left-hand side]:

You will find Roger's letters to the Maurons in the
writing table drawer in the Lodge. Will
you destroy all my papers.

Random Musing
Virginia Woolf died on March 28, 1941. She filled her overcoat pockets with rocks and drowned herself in the River Ouse. She was 59 years old.

Both of the above notes were addressed to her husband Leonard Woolf. I'm not entirely sure why there are two different notes. The best I can come up with is that she was planning on killing herself on the 18th, but was somehow kept from doing so until the 28th when she felt that she should leave a more up to date note for her husband.

I find the notes incredibly touching, and they're even just interesting from a literary standpoint - the verse form really adding to their impact somehow.

Quotations
"…there was something about her that made you feel it was safe to tell her secrets." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

"'We always hate people who surprise our secrets…'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

"She shivered a little…and did not know that it was because of a secret unadmitted fear of losing her dream. Which is always, for youth or maturity or age, a catastrophe." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Ingleside

Quotation
"…There is that in me – I do not know what it is – but I know it is in me.

Wrench'd and sweaty – calm and cool then my body becomes,
I sleep – I sleep long.

I do not know it – it is without name – it is a word unsaid,
It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol.

Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on,
To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me.

Perhaps I might tell more.  Outlines!  I plead for my brothers and sisters

Do you see O my brothers and sisters?
It is not chaos or death – it is form, union, plan – it is eternal life – it is Happiness…." -Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself" (Section 50)

Quotations
"Marigold listened and sympathized with one side of her mind, and with the other carried on her own small though-processes. As is the way of womenkind of all ages, whether men know it or not." -L.M. Montgomery, Magic for Marigold

"…and who shall deny that this blankness of mind, when combined with profusion, mother wit, old wives' tales, haphazard ways, moments of astonishing daring, humour and sentimentality – who shall deny that in these respects every woman is nicer than any man?" -Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room

"And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs. Willard's kitchen mat." -Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

"My aunt once said the world would never find peace until men fell at their women's feet and asked for forgiveness." -Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Paris: No man is an island, but this woman is.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 6.13: Friday Night's Alright For Fighting)

Quotation
"'…I'm so thankful for friendship. It beautifies life so much.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

Quotation
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)

Quotation
"…always felt the pain of her friends so keenly that she could not speak easy, fluent words of comforting. Besides, she remembered how well-meant speeches had hurt her in her own sorrow and was afraid." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams

Quotation
"'I suppose all this sounds very crazy – all these terrible emotions always do sound foolish when we put them into our inadequate words. They are not meant to be spoken – only felt and endured.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams

Random Musing
In case you were looking for a music recommendation, I found out about The Soloists a few months ago. I happen to think they are pretty great, and so decided to help spread word. "Something Good" is probably my favorite of their songs, but they're all pretty awesome. Happy listening!

Quotation
"A keen wind that had been hiding itself struck me full in the mouth and raked the hair back horizontal on my head.  I was descending but the white sun rose no higher. It hung over the suspended waves of the hills, an insentient pivot without which the world would not exist.  A small, answering point in my own body flew toward it.  I felt my lungs inflate with the inrush of scenery – air, mountains, trees, people.  I thought, 'this is what it is to be happy.'" -Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Quotation
"And the other way about it was equally surprising – that is, when everything was arranged – music, weather, holidays, every reason for happiness was there – then nothing happened at all. One wasn't happy. It was flat, just flat, that was all. -Virginia Woolf, "The New Dress," Mrs. Dalloway's Party

Quotation
"'...I don't care for pictures; I prefer the reality!'" -Henry James, The American

Painting
Untitled

Quotation
"'I'm not mad,' said Marigold calmly. 'I'm only sorry for you. It must be so terrible to be you.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Magic for Marigold

Painting
Untitled

Quotation
"'Don't be ridiculous, please.'
The most insulting words in the world!" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

Quotation
"'Or she may find out what is at the end of the harbor road…that wandering, twisting road like a nice red snake, that leads, so Elizabeth thinks, to the end of the world. Perhaps the Island of Happiness is there.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

Prose
"Nothing More. Nothing Less. Nothing Else."

You are not going to change the world. That is a fact. I have seen the future and I know that in the end you do absolutely nothing of any importance. I made sure of that when I saw that I had a glimpse of the future. I looked you up. I actually went and squandered my chance at taking hold of the future – seeing what stocks were up and which to avoid even shitting on, what inventions were making millions and how I could invent them first – and went and looked your future up. All because you’re such a fucking optimist. You think the world is everything brilliant and you are everything brilliant and your life will be everything brilliant one day. Well guess what, that’s all bullshit. I’ve seen it. I saw how useless you are and always will be – not even in just the little things like making the people around you happy, but the big things like fighting world hunger and poverty. You end up failing at everything even the most pathetic schmuck normally manages to accomplish without even trying.
I’ll admit that I didn’t believe it at first. I didn’t see how you’d ended up such a miserable fucking lunatic. How could the promised boy end up like that? So after peering at the future, I went and looked at all of God’s logs and accounts and saw that you really were worthless. It was confirmed by even divinity above. He actually had you marked as “Worthless.” Wait, that isn’t true. He has you marked as “Worthless.” That’s what the problem is. From the beginning of existence your name has been shit to the world, and that is never going to change. You can’t fight God. You know that. You live by that. You’ve just always assumed he was on your side.
Isn’t that depressing? Isn’t that horrifying like nothing else you’ve ever seen or thought of in your life? I think it is. I hope you think so too. You have to. I know you’re stupid, but you’re not that stupid are you? If you are, and even I – and I hate you beyond anyone else in existence, unless you’re counting God I suppose – don’t see how you could be that much of a prick. So now you know for a fact that your big goals and ideals and all that shit come to nothing. No matter how much you try, you will do nothing. It’s predestined that way.
It’s predestined that while you fall on your ass over and over and over and over again as the years stretch out in front of you and remind you why some think death is sweet, you really will be miserable. I’ll save you the suspense and tell you that you’re going to be miserable for the next twenty five years. Then you’ll die. Yes, you heard me. You are going to be miserable for the next twenty five fucking years and then die. I didn’t decide this. No one decided this. You aren’t murdered or anything even remotely like that. You just die. You die just like all those people on the planet who God doesn’t hate. You’re gonna be sitting one day, just sitting at your kitchen table, reading your newspaper, when you suddenly keel over cause your heart’s stopped. You’ll be 53 years old. Only 53 years old. That is your future. And you’ll have done nothing of any importance before this happens. Nothing. No one will even remember you. That’s right, no one will remember you. Well, actually that’s not true. No one will remember you fondly. You’ll have no children, no friends, no other family except for a wife who hated you in life and wasn’t afraid to let you know it - but wouldn’t dare divorce you in case God really did exist (her words, not mine). Your legacy will be $15,000 in debt and a stack of porno magazines hidden under the bed. That is it. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else.
So look at the future as a done deal my friend. I know you won’t really believe me on all this. You’ll think I’ve gone apeshit crazy or something. But I’m not lying. I wouldn’t lie about this, I couldn’t lie about this. This is just how the future will be and you, instead of trying to make something of it, should just let it all go right now. You’ll save yourself the disappointment. You’ll save yourself the pain. Just accept it all and throw in the towel. If you’re lucky, and God really does have a crazy sense of humor, maybe you’ll even save yourself that way.

Quotation
"'Words aren't made – they grow,' said Anne." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

Painting
Untitled

Quotation
"She had always wanted words, she loved them, grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape. Whereas I thought words bent emotions like sticks in water." -Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

Painting
Untitled

Random Musing
I wrote a previous post about the short I wrote and directed last year for the university's student film group M-agination Films. Well, I actually ended up writing and directing a new short for this past school year as well. The short was very recently added to youtube, so here it is for your viewing pleasure.

Random Musing
You are probably unaware that for the past few weeks I have not written a single new poem or bit of prose or really anything at all that fits under the heading of creative writing. How would you know that? I had not - in earlier posts - made you privy to that bit of information. Instead I just went ahead and posted a bunch of quotes and some "old" poems that had not yet appeared on the the blog - kind of passing them off as new.

Now however, I am willing to admit to having fallen into a creative slump since classes and finals wrapped up. I only admit this because I have finally broken through the "block" - stereotypically speaking that seems like the appropriate terminology - and started on some new poems. They're not at all finished, some barely actually started, but I'm not going to complain. It's something, which is much better than the masses of nothing I've been dealing with. So yes, expect some new poetry in the future. For now though - and at least until those poems are actually entirely written and edited - you only get this little blurb about my life.

Accept it. Life's just unfair like that sometimes.

Quotation
Clarissa Vaughan: So this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And, of course, there will always be more. It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning: it was happiness, it was the moment…
-The Hours

Random Musing
I obviously find all the quotations that I've shared, as well as the ones I've so far only collected and have yet to use in a post, meaningful. However, this particular quote is probably one of the very first quotations I ever wrote down, and is one that has really resonated with me. It's a really honest way of looking at the "concept" of happiness.

On another, and yet still related, note: If you have not yet watched The Hours, you need to put some time aside to do that. It is really good. Really, really, really good.

And that's all I have to say about that. As Forrest Gump once said.

Quotations
"They had one year of perfect happiness, which is always worth living for, even if the rest of life be a dreary pilgrimage…" -L.M. Montgomery, "Old Man Shaw's Girl," Chronicles of Avonlea

"'She used to say that she had given them three perfect months, and no one had a right to more; and I sometimes think, Katherine, that's true, you know.  It's more than most of us have, only we have to pretend…" -Virginia Woolf, Night and Day

Quotations
"'Nothing is worse than emptiness…'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

"'…it's so dreadful to have nothing to love – life is so empty – and there's nothing worse than emptiness…'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams

"'My life has been empty – empty. Nothing is worse than emptiness. Nothing!'" -L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle

"She had nothing to love, and that is about as unwholesome a condition as is possible to anyone." -L.M. Montgomery, "Old Lady Lloyd," Chronicles of Avonlea

Random Musing
I personally find L.M. Montgomery's choice to repeat - essentially verbatim even - this same thought on emptiness interesting. I've noticed that she's done this same thing with other ideas or concepts as well actually. If you've read enough of her books you may have noticed this trend as well. These must have been particularly important ideas for her - or just ones that really resonated. Given my obsession with her writing, I find such little insights into her psyche worth noting. If you're not a fan of hers - which I'm going to pretend isn't at all a possibility - then this bit of information probably appears trite and useless. In that case, I apologize. Except not really. Cause how can you not like L.M. Montgomery?

*Post edited on 11-9-2010 to include a quotation from The Blue Castle

Quotation
"'I guess I'm the Black Death,' he said slowly. 'I don't seem to bring people happiness any more.'" -F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night

Quotation
"…what they were all afraid of saying, was that happiness is dirt cheap. You can have it for nothing. Beauty." -Virginia Woolf, "The Man Who Loved His Kind," Mrs. Dalloway's Party

Quotation
"He had learned the rare secret that you must take happiness when you find it – that there is no use in marking the place and coming back to it at a more convenient season, because it will not be there then." -L.M. Montgomery, "Old Man Shaw's Girl," Chronicles of Avonlea

Quotations
"'To think is to be sick...'" -Djuna Barnes, Nightwood

"…Where but to think is to be full of sorrow…" -John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale"

Quotations
"Gilbert put his arm about them. 'Oh, you mothers!' he said. 'You mothers! God knew what He was about when He made you.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams

"…and your mother, white and weak, smiled just that dear, slow, wonderful smile I loved, and said, 'We've – got – the – only – baby – of any importance – in – the world, dear.  Just – think – of that!'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily of New Moon

"…suggesting how mothers down at Scarborough scribble over the fire with their feet on the fender, when tea's cleared away, and can never, never say, whatever it may be – probably this – Don't go with bad women, do be a good boy; wear your thick shirts; and come back, come back, come back to me." -Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room

Kate: Everybody loves their mothers. Even people who hate their mother love their mother.
-French Kiss

Quotations
"I am glad the rain is coming down hard. It's the way I feel inside." -Sylvia Plath, Letters Home

"So with all the lamps put out, the moon sunk, and a thin rain drumming the roof a downpouring of immense darkness began." -Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

"O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy." -William Blake, "The Sick Rose"

Quotations
"But there is something very strange and terrible in being awake when all the rest of the world is asleep. You are alone then with nothing but your own feeble personality to pit against the mighty principalities and powers of darkness." -L.M. Montgomery, Rainbow Valley

"…and tell me why I couldn't sleep and why I couldn't read and why I couldn't eat and why everything people did seemed so silly, because they only died in the end." -Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

"I'm not going to bed after all. Somebody around here hath murdered sleep. Good for him." -J.D. Salinger, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour An Introduction

"…The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep." -Robert Frost, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy
                                                                              Evening"

"Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted,
Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and unfrequented spot, seating
        myself, leaning my face in my hands;
Hours sleepless, deep in the night,…" -Walt Whitman, "Hours Continuing Long"

Quotations
Paris: Well, how nice it must be to be you. Maybe someday I'll stumble into a Disney movie and suddenly be transported into your body, and after living there awhile, I'll finally realize the beauty of myself. But until that moment, I'm going to go in there and I'm going to become a Puff. Now get out of my way.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 2.07: Like Mother, Like Daughter)

Paris: You're not torturing me, you know. I don't care. My scores were great. I'm very, very happy with my scores. And I hate looking at a sunset so my standard for happiness is high!
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 2.11: Secrets and Loans)

Janet: No. I cannot calm down. I have tried to be reasonable. I have told myself over and over, "God, look at her. Imagine what she's been through to make her turn out like that."
Paris: A lot!
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 4.05: The Fundamental Things Apply)

Rory: No, I'm just making you crazy.
Paris: Like that's hard. Feel proud.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 4.09: Ted Koppel's Big Night Out)

Paris: Great, we have one prop, and it's blowing away.
Rory: You knocked it over.
Paris: Well, you put it right in front of me.
Rory: How was I supposed to know you were gonna jump out of your seat like a maniac?
Paris: You know me. You room with me. You should have known.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 4.17: Girls in Bikinis, Boys Doin' the Twist)

Female Student: Is it raining?
Paris: No, it's National Baptism Day. Tie your tubes, idiot.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 4.17: Girls in Bikinis, Boys Doin' the Twist)

Paris: No man is an island, but this woman is.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 6.13: Friday Night's Alright For Fighting)

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