Really upset. Cannot find Hat With Flower, bought at Family Dollar in Sisseton, SD. Why do I always lose hats with flowers?

In the last few days, it has become apparent that my life is suddenly about to become real. I am reminded of responsibilities. Money to earn. Kitties to take care of. Suddenly, a car to look after. I guess it is unrealistic to graduate and disappear to a foreign country and live there for a few months and make some money and just get by when your parents who love you but want you to do well remind you that you need to do this for yourself now. And the truth is, I don't want a nomad life. But I do want the option. Little things are starting to pin me down. Responsibility. Responsibility. Responsibility.

i f

One small white 'IF' on a black expanse, seen only after the second time viewing the picture, to make the difference and to mean the world.

secret women's writing

I read a book that I would have never read unless I was about to finish a book and wanted an easy read for the upcoming winter break. I would have never picked it up from the Barnes&Noble '3 For 2' section because it was sandwiched inbetween 'The Devil Wears Prada Part Nine' and the newest Mitch Albom book. And it didn't have a very good cover. And its title was 'The History of Love,' which, being the fictional romantic nut that I am, would have touched the sentimental string but I would have never picked it up and read the back because I figured it was a scam. An Anne Tyler with a new cover designer. In fact, it was a really good book.

So the book I read before this was 'Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,' a prime example of stupid book titles. My aunt and Jackie both read it in their book club and Jackie told me to read it because then we could talk about the meaning of friendship and blah blah so I read it. I learned a lot about footbinding. I even looked up images of how the toes crunch up into the ball of the foot so the girl essentially ends up with a foot resembling a fist. But the writing was boring and she narrator of the story kept referring to 'sex' as 'bed business' and that got really annoying. I understand that these are 18th century Chinese women but you can't refer to it as 'bed business' in every single context of life. You're not going to call it 'bed business' when you're talking about your wedding night to your lao tong (old same!). I know now that the Chinese language is a whole lot simpler in terms of its vocabulary than English (none of that synonym stuff) so this author pretending that they might use another phrase in place of 'sex' is just a fanciful orientalist dream. I guess at one point the narrator said 'make love' but that's just another cop out.

But 'The History of Love' was good. Really good. I wish the author on the back didn't have such a glamour shot photo because I thought that she was a chick lit writer and she's clearly not, even though she looks like one.

Although I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with my author photo because it will be so hot that you'd think you were reading a Danielle Steel or Jackie Collins.

A Fit

I just spent about an hour updating the look of this blog because I wanted to write, but now that I've spent an hour playing with this thing I hardly have a desire to write. I keep changing locations for a journal on the internet because I think the new internet locale will have a better, more attractive view from its patio, like I thought maybe Diaryland would provide a place in the mountains, somewhere clean and clear and pristine where I would be inspired to write. Instead, it was too lonely and isolated. I came back here with a makeover, something new and pure and simple, but a place with a history of my presence - maybe a small and clean flat in London is where this blog is now. I tried the beach, the Riviera, the Los Angeles of Livejournal, but really, it's not the place. It could be, any place could be it at the beginning, but when it comes down to it, it's just me and my inspiration or non-inspiration to write.

This happens in the real world too. I have a locked desk drawer at home here in California with a stack f journals that have introspective entries on the first five pages (if they're lucky, usually it's about two pages) and then NOTHING. With each one, I vowed it would be my new tell-all, write-all place to outsource my feelings. I would sketch in it, cut out things that caught my fancy, and from time to time write things that rivaled [any famous/respected author that I like]. The problem is I have an ideal in my mind of what I want my journals and creative process to be that I have not yet been able to bend myself to. The books that I have ended up writing in have been ones that weren't pretty or nice or special. I just started writing. Blank pages are too frightening - blank books even worse. Each time I buy a book that's pretty (a Moleskin, for example), that first page always scares me although I want nothing more than to make a beautiful mark on it right away. When I delve in, I'm always unhappy with the result and ditch the book altogether. I stress out too much. I think too much. Each time I think, this is the journal they are going to find when I am dead. This is the stuff they'll posthumously publish.

Each time I am wrong.