things are good.
i don't have internet at home, so e-mail is the best way to reach me. I get it on my phone.
I haven't looked at my friends page since I moved, I miss you guys! 
I can't look at livejournal at work, but I'll try to be better about checking it when I can at my parents' house or on my iphone.
hope you're all doing well!

i'm not entirely sure how, but my ribs icon has turned into this angry cat? wtf? i didn't do it. and i'd love to know how that happened.

in other news...
i'm seriously considering moving into my brother's place for a while. he's only gonna charge me $300/month and some utilities. i've liked living at home, it's not terrible, but i want to not live here anymore. i've been guilt tripped enough, i shouldn't feel bad about hanging out with friends and not being home for dinner. that's bullshit. seriously? fuck it.

its going to be a pretty big change, but I think it'll be okay. when it comes down to it, I'll basically be paying my brother instead of my parents, and they're okay with me moving in with ian.
and in time, i'll move out to riverside with monica. we're going to see how things go, but i'm pretty sure it'll happen. she's awesome. she makes me happy, she's adorable and smart, and while things are complicated right now, they're about to be a lot less.

i'm tired. more later.

i'm letting go of the things i cannot control. i can't force someone to be friends with me if they really don't want to be. while that makes me very sad, it's not something i can control or change. i've said everything i wanted to say and made my peace. maybe someday we'll be friends and we'll hang out and it'll be great.

it's been a mellow weekend. fun times with monica and john on friday, mellow day yesterday and today. delicious brunch with kelly and jonathan made my day. I love my friends.

bought a new sketchbook today. my goal is to fill it up completely and not abandon it halfway through.

happy: Obama is our new president.
sad: florida passed the amendment to ban gay marriage.

not that i have or even will have someone to marry... i have the right to it. but i'm so glad discrimination is back in action. equal rights? pssh. fuck that. keep telling me my "choice" is to blame for all this.

you are the first thing i think about when i wake up, and the last when i fall asleep. you make me nervous. palms sweaty, heart races, but when i'm with you... i feel calm. it feels right. not just because this heart wants it so much, just like i'm where i belong. how i feel when i'm in colorado.
you're worth waiting for. i'm sorry it took me this long to not be afraid to love you.
never forget nc. i fell for you the moment we met.

August 20, 1918

Darling, my darling. One line in haste to tell you that I love you more today than ever in my life before, that I never see beauty without thinking of you or scent happiness without thinking of you. You have fulfilled all my ambition, realized all my hopes, made all my dreams come true.

You have set a crown of roses on my youth and fortified me against the disaster of our days. Your courageous gaiety has inspired me with joy. Your tender faithfulness has been a rock of security and comfort. I have felt for you all kinds of love at once.

I have asked much of you and you have never failed me. You have intensified all colours, heightened all beauty, deepened all delight. I love you more than life, my beauty, my wonder.

Duff Cooper, English politician, to Diana, his future
wife.

today has been rough. i barely got any sleep last night. i couldn't get comfortable, couldn't fall asleep. i was so exhausted, and my body tried, but i kept getting this weird feeling. i woke up and puked this morning. purely anxieties. it's like i can't calm my body down, its going as fast as my head. so now my body aches. i'm exhausted, and i'm nursing a headache. i need to learn how to calm myself down better. i never used to have anxieties this bad.

this letter is one of my favorites so far. i think because i feel a lot of it myself. underneath all the doubts and what ifs i fear, i know i can't give up. i've felt this strongly, this much, for one other person in my life... and that was shannon. and so i will wait and hope. because she's the only person in the whole world i want to spend my life with. for what i did to her, i deserve it. i don't deserve her. but she makes me want to be a better person. and i feel like we fit together.

c 1780

Sophie,

To be with the people one loves, says La Bruyere is enough -- to dream you are speaking to them, not speaking to them, thinking of them, thinking of the most indifferent things, but by their side, nothing
else matters. O mon amie, how true that is! and it is also true that when one acquires such a habit, it becomes a necessary part of one's existence.

Alas! I well know, I should know too well, since the three months that I sigh, far away from thee, that I possess thee no more, than my happiness has departed. However, when every morning I wake up, I look for you, it seems to me that half of myself is missing, and that is too true.

Twenty times during the day, I ask myself where you are; judge how strong the illusion is, and how cruel it is to see it vanish. When I go to bed, I do not fail to make room for you; I push myself quite close to the wall and leave a great empty space in my small bed. This movement is mechanical, these thoughts are involuntary. Ah! how one accustoms oneself to happiness.

Alas! one only knows it well when one has lost it, and I'm sure we have only learnt to appreciate how necessary we are to each other, since the thunderbolt has parted us. The source of our tears has not dried up, dear Sophie; we cannot become healed; we have enough in our hearts to love always, and, because of that, enough to weep always.

Gabriel Honore de Mirbeau
french revolutionary

it's been a rough day. i found myself reading our old conversations tonight. and it only made me miss you, us, and make me more upset. i promise to do everything i can to make you happy. more importantly, i promise to love you and not be afraid of it.

a letter for today. franz liszt.

Thursday morning 1834

My heart overflows with emotion and joy! I do not know what heavenly languor, what infinite pleasure permeates it and burns me up. It is as if I had never loved!!! Tell me whence these uncanny disturbances spring, these inexpressible foretastes of delight, these divine, tremors of love. Oh! all this can only spring from you, sister, angel, woman, Marie! All this can only be, is surely nothing less than a gentle ray streaming from your fiery soul, or else some secret poignant teardrop which you have long since left in my breast.

My God, my God, never force us apart, take pity on us! But what am I saying? Forgive my weakness, how couldst Thou divide us! Thou wouldst have nothing but pity for us...No no! It is not in vain that our flesh and our souls quicken and become immortal through Thy Word, which cries out deep within us Father, Father...out Thy hand to us, that our broken hearts seek their refuge in Thee...O! we thank, bless and praise Thee, O God, for all that Thou has given us, and all that Thou hast prepared for us....

This is to be -- to be!

Marie! Marie!

Oh let me repeat that name a hundred times, a thousand times over; for three days now it has lived within me, oppressed me, set me afire. I am not writing to you, no, I am close beside you. I see you, I hear you. Eternity in your arms... Heaven, Hell, everything, all is within you, redoubled... Oh! Leave me free to rave in my delirium. Drab, tame, constricting reality is no longer enough for me. We must live our lives to the full, loving and suffering to extremes!...

Franz

one for today.
i'm sorry it took me so long to not be afraid... that i ever left because of it.
you're still my one. after all this time.

"Friday 8 p.m.

If only I were a clever woman, I could describe to you my gorgeous bird, how you unite in yourself the beauties of form, plumage, and song!

I would tell you that you are the greatest marvel of all ages, and I should only be speaking the simple truth. But to put all this into suitable words, my superb one, I should require a voice far more harmonious than that which is bestowed upon my species - for I am the humble owl that you mocked at only lately, therefore, it cannot be.

I will not tell you to what degree you are dazzling and to the birds of sweet song who, as you know, are none the less beautiful and appreciative.

I am content to delegate to them the duty of watching, listening and admiring, while to myself I reserve the right of loving; this may be less attractive to the ear, but it is sweeter far to the heart.

I love you, I love you. my Victor; I can not reiterate it too often; I can never express it as much as I feel it.

I recognise you in all the beauty that surrounds me in form, in colour, in perfume, in harmonious sound: all of these mean you to me. You are superior to all. I see and admire - you are all!

You are not only the solar spectrum with the seven luminous colours, but the sun himself, that illumines, warms, and revivifies! This is what you are, and I am the lowly woman that adores you.

Juliette
- to Victor Hugo"

second and third.

To Robert Browning:

And now listen to me in turn. You have touched me more profoundly than I thought even you could have touched me - my heart was full when you came here today. Henceforward I am yours for everything....

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(1806-1861)

May 12, 1869

Out of the depths of my happy heart wells a great tide of love and prayer for this priceless treasure that is confided to my life-long keeping.
You cannot see its intangible waves as they flow towards you, darling, but in these lines you will hear, as it were, the distant beating of the surf.

Mark Twain

the first. life is too short to hide things.
"Good morning, on July 7

Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - At my age I need a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection? My angel, I have just been told that the mailcoach goes every day - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the letter at once - Be calm, only by a calm consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together - Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.

ever thine
ever mine
ever ours"
-beethoven