You are a prince on the ocean

It smells like winter. It looks like winter. It is September.

It sounded like a dream to me

Srsly in love with Dan Bejar/Destroyer, vintage Mick Jagger and David Bowie right now.

The other day I made a mistake. I woke up thinking it's time to let my long hair go.

marcus loves spendusa

I've been thinking a lot about Italy.

Specifically, Pompeii.

There are a lot of things to marvel at. The sheer size of the ruins struck me immediately. The distance from Vesuvius surprised me as well.. I always imagined the city perched directly on the slope, I guess. The condition of the city itself is a wonder. It's really well-preserved, so much so that it's hard not to picture it as it once was. I read in a guidebook somewhere that it's easy to forget that you aren't in a living city. I can say that it's true. Pompeii seems alive.

One of the things I keep thinking about is the graffiti. Archaeologists found graffiti everywhere: some of which still remains in the city, but most of which resides elsewhere. It covers a wide range of subjects, most of which are still represented in modern-day graffiti: love, sex, politics, opinions. Even a couple of "I was here"s thrown in for good measure.

What I find so fascinating, and I'm sure a lot of historians probably agree with me, is that through this very basic form of expression, this group of people who existed so many many years ago, is able to speak directly to us. There are so many things we don't know about the past, and so much of what we do know is just surmised.

But here, we know for sure, hundreds upon hundreds of years after these people lived and died, that Marcus loved Spendusa. Enough to write it on a wall.

What will our graffiti say about us?

back to black

dear Amy,

I hope you are finally able to find some peace.

I keep thinking back to that spring night so many years ago, when we stared at each other across a bar at a party. I noticed your tattoos first. And then I was amazed at how small you were. And also, how low-key: a simple green shirt and a pair of jeans. No dramatic eyeliner, no beehive. No hysterics, no drunken antics. Just a quiet girl looking for a drink. Something like me.

You were looking at me and probably just wondering why I was staring.

When I first moved to NYC, in those rough first few months, I only had Back to Black on my Ipod. In a way, you were my truest friend during that time. With me on the subway, when I got lost in the city, with me as I sat alone in the park, with me as I fell asleep.

There are a lot of people saying a lot of things about you, as they do. I just feel sorry to have lost you, and wish you well.

We'll always have the fall of 2008.

dancing in the moonlight

Saw HP7.2 this evening with S... I totally expected him to crack first, but I was weeping like a crazy person about 45 minutes into it.

I don't have a long history with Harry, other than making fun of my friends who were reading the books. I saw the first movie in the theater when it came out, because it was free and I had nothing else to do.

It wasn't until the summer that the Deathly Hallows was released that I thought I should see what the fuss was all about. I went on a vacation with book one, thinking maybe I'd get to reading it. I started one night and ending up reading the whole book in one sitting, something I haven't done since I was in elementary school. Who knew a children's series about wizards could be so well-written and so engaging to a person in her late 20s?

Harry Potter is in fact about a lot of things... wizards being the least of them. That's for a whole other post. Tonight I mostly just wanted to say something to all the people on the internets who are losing their shit over the movies being over. You are all missing the most beautiful thing about it. About Harry Potter, Frodo, even Edward fucking Cullen. About books in general.

They will always be there for you, waiting. Whenever you need them. Even though you know where the journey ends, that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the ride again.

And so, after crying my way through the final Harry Potter film this evening, I walked down to my local bookstore and bought books one and two (for the second time). So I can start all over again.

listen, I've been drinking... as our house lies in ruin. I don't know what I'm doin'. Alone, in the dark. At the park or at the pier, watching ships..

...disappear in the rain. ?

The 12 year-old me would be judging the 29 year-old me endlessly. I definitely never designed this life for myself. I was smart; I was gifted. I was destined to discover a cure for cancer AND open a top 3 Hollywood film. I was going to give a million dollars to my public high school english teacher; and a million dollars to my private high school. I was going to be married with three children by the age I am now.

But when I lay it all out, in memory, and really consider it all?

All I can say is that it was really fun. If I died tonight, I would have regrets, sure. But mostly I would have love and gratitude for the people who have come in and out of my life. There are some people and places and times that I miss so much.

I have kind of always been looking elsewhere... When I was younger, I was waiting for summer and rendezvous or Advance. When I was older I was waiting for Michigan (during which I was waiting for Texas) and then I was in Austin dreaming of the future and now I am in New York dreaming of Austin. I guess this is my fate. To be lonely for those cool Austin nights of 2004, where I rode my bike around town alone, listening to music and reading good books in the patios of closed restaurants, in the stillness of the town. Someday I suppose I will be lonely for Brooklyn, and the airplanes flying overhead at night, and the sound of rain on the roof.

The tide comes in, and the tide goes out again. I suppose this is the kind of thing we see every day.

The tide goes in; the tide goes away. Oh, the tide comes in, yeah the tide, yes the tide...