Scene from a hipster party weekend
You know. We danced and listened to some really profound music and stuff. Definitely nothing mainstream.
Date a Girl Who Reads by Rosemarie Urquico
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.
She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by God, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
Thrill of the hunt
My friend Jeff posted this video, and it made me nostalgic for Africa! He recommends starting 2 minutes in and ending it 24 seconds early. It's not what you'd think... When I was in Tanzania, we watched lionesses strategically planning a hunt for over half an hour, but they didn't go in for the kill while we were there. Sometimes the lionesses will spend hours on end simply rotating their individual positions around a herd and deciding which animal will be their target and then they will proceed to isolate it. Although sometimes, as you'll see, they pick the wrong herd to mess with!
My Summer Essentials
Daytime
2. e.l.f. Shimmering Facial Whip in Toasted ($1 - in place of eye shadow)
3. N.Y.C. SkyRise Mascara ($1.82 - Target)
4. CoverGirl + Olay Simply Ageless Foundation ($12 - spf 22)
5. Maybelline Blush ($5)
6. N.Y.C. Lipstain in Never Ending Nude ($5)
7. Nivea Kiss of Moisture ($4 - spf 4)
Nighttime
2. CoverGirl +Olay Simply Ageless Under-eye Concealer ($12 - spf 22)
3. e.l.f. Mineral Eyeshadow Primer ($3)
4. Sephora Collection Colorful Mono Eyeshadow in Retrochic 83 ($12 - warm neutral gray shimmer)
5. Wet 'n Wild Liquid Eyeliner ($3)
6. Maybelline Falsies Mascara ($9)
7. The Body Shop Honey Bronze Bronzing Gel for Face ($14)
8. N.Y.C. Lipstain in Never Ending Nude ($5)
9. N.Y.C. Moisture Rich Lipstick in Cafe ($1)
10. Nivea Kiss of Moisture ($4 - spf 4)
Breathless.
It's up in the morning and on the downs
Little white clouds like gambolling lambs
And I am breathless over you
And the red-breasted robin beats his wings
His throat it trembles when he sings
For he is helpless before you
The happy hooded bluebells bow
And bend their heads all a-down
Heavied by the early morning dew
At the whispering stream, at the bubbling brook
The fishes leap up to take a look
For they are breathless over you
Still your hands
And still your heart
For still your face comes shining through
And all the morning glows anew
Still your mind
Still your soul
For still, the fare of love is true
And I am breathless without you
The wind circles among the trees
And it bangs about the new-made leaves
For it is breathless without you
The fox chases the rabbit round
The rabbit hides beneath the ground
For he is defenseless without you
The sky of daytime dies away
And all the earthly things they stop to play
For we are all breathless without you
I listen to my juddering bones
The blood in my veins and the wind in my lungs
And I am breathless without you
Still your hands
And still your heart
For still your face comes shining through
And all the morning glows anew
Still your soul
Still your mind
Still, the fire of love is true
And I am breathless without you
Little white clouds like gambolling lambs
And I am breathless over you
And the red-breasted robin beats his wings
His throat it trembles when he sings
For he is helpless before you
The happy hooded bluebells bow
And bend their heads all a-down
Heavied by the early morning dew
At the whispering stream, at the bubbling brook
The fishes leap up to take a look
For they are breathless over you
Still your hands
And still your heart
For still your face comes shining through
And all the morning glows anew
Still your mind
Still your soul
For still, the fare of love is true
And I am breathless without you
The wind circles among the trees
And it bangs about the new-made leaves
For it is breathless without you
The fox chases the rabbit round
The rabbit hides beneath the ground
For he is defenseless without you
The sky of daytime dies away
And all the earthly things they stop to play
For we are all breathless without you
I listen to my juddering bones
The blood in my veins and the wind in my lungs
And I am breathless without you
Still your hands
And still your heart
For still your face comes shining through
And all the morning glows anew
Still your soul
Still your mind
Still, the fire of love is true
And I am breathless without you
-Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Some scenes from the 4th of July weekend
Best frand in town for 4 whole days! Weekend highlights: Exeter, NH (American Independence Museum), Providence, NH (Strawberry Banke and Cere's), Kittery Point, ME (Fort Foster), Boston Harborfest, shopping, Deer Island and Winthrop Beach, a sunset cruise on the Charles River, gellato and lunch in Little Italy, the Freedom Trail (including the South Meeting House museum and a special tour of the North Church bell tower and crypt), Revere Beach, and the fireworks extravaganza, where the Boston Pops played and they estimated 750,000 people came to watch. Oh, and we chilled in the room where George Washington ate breakfast AND the place where young Paul Revere was a bell-ringer and probably got his idea to hang the lanterns. Paul actually traveled through time for the celebrations and was kind enough to pose with us in a picture. No biggie.
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