“...[E]ach of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves; just as in the experiment, we need oxygen and a candle to help. In this case, the oxygen, for example, would come from the breath of the person you love; the candle could be any kind of food, music, caress, word, or sound that engenders the explosion that lights one of the matches.” (115)

~ Like Water for Chocolate

Sonnet CXVI ~ William Shakespear

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom:

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never write, nor no man ever loved.

Internal conflicts are often cause for the worst kind of madness ...

I agree ... love is like a butterfly ...

It physically hurts me....

So, I am currently 17 chapters into Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. I will admit that I have jumped into this book with a very strong prejudice (no pun intended). As you may or may not know, I spent a good portion of my academic career studying and writing countless papers on Jane Austen and her novels. I love Jane Austen. Love her. The idea of taking this book (one of my all time favorites) and giving it a zombie twist seemed... well really, almost crude. Clearly not crude enough to keep me from ordering the book as soon as it came out and now (I actually have some time to sit down and read) read it. I almost hesitate to say this ... but I think I may really like this book. So far. Elizabeth Bennett is pretty bad ass with her zombie killing and the author has twisted the zombie "plague" into the original text rather well...

Oscar Wilde's grave...

With kisses. All over it.

: )

"I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one HELL of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult!" - E.B.White

A Memory by Rupert Brooke

(From a sonnet-sequence)

Somewhile before the dawn I rose, and stept

Softly along the dim way to your room,

And found you sleeping in the quiet gloom,

And holiness about you as you slept.

I knelt there; till your waking fingers crept

About my head, and held it. I had rest

Unhoped this side of Heaven, beneath your breast.

I knelt a long time, still; nor even wept.

It was great wrong you did me; and for gain

Of that poor moment’s kindliness, and ease,

And sleepy mother-comfort!

Child, you know

How easily love leaps out to dreams like these,

Who has seen them true. And love that’s wakened so

Takes all too long to lay asleep again.

In Memory of a Happy Day in February by Anne Bronte

Blessed be Thou for all the joy

My soul has felt today!

O let its memory stay with me

And never pass away!

I was alone, for those I loved

Were far away from me,

The sun shone on the withered grass,

The wind blew fresh and free.

Was it the smile of early spring

That made my bosom glow?

'Twas sweet, but neither sun nor wind

Could raise my spirit so.

Was it some feeling of delight,

All vague and undefined?

No, 'twas a rapture deep and strong,

Expanding in the mind!

Was it a sanguine view of life

And all its transient bliss -

A hope of bright prosperity?

O no, it was not this!

It was a glimpse of truth divine

Unto my spirit given

Illumined by a ray of light

That shone direct from heaven!

I felt there was a God on high

By whom all things were made.

I saw His wisdom and his power

In all his works displayed.

But most throughout the moral world

I saw his glory shine;

I saw His wisdom infinite,

His mercy all divine.

Deep secrets of his providence

In darkness long concealed

Were brought to my delighted eyes

And graciously revealed.

But while I wondered and adored

His wisdom so divine,

I did not tremble at his power,

I felt that God was mine.

I knew that my Redeemer lived,

I did not fear to die;

Full sure that I should rise again

To immortality.

I longed to view that bliss divine

Which eye hath never seen,

To see the glories of his face

Without the veil between.

~M~

1. I am moving this week ...
2. While working my usual schedule ...
3. I don't think I will sleep till Sunday ...
4. I am sorry if my lack of sleep makes me a little mean ...
5. I may never get all this paint out of my hair ... haha, imagine if I have to go over to court for work today! ... yikes, I'm a wreck. Oh well : )

On a totally unrelated note, how cute is my little cousin?? I don't really even like kids all that much, but I could just eat this little guy up.

p.s. I am starving!!! I will have no objections to anyone bringing me food ...

Northanger Abbey

"Dear Catherine,

"Though, God knows, with little inclination for writing, I think it my duty to tell you that everything is at an end between Miss Thorpe and me. I left her and Bath yesterday, never to see either again. I shall not enter into particulars—they would only pain you more. You will soon hear enough from another quarter to know where lies the blame; and I hope will acquit your brother of everything but the folly of too easily thinking his affection returned. Thank God! I am undeceived in time! But it is a heavy blow! After my father's consent had been so kindly given—but no more of this. She has made me miserable forever! Let me soon hear from you, dear Catherine; you are my only friend; your love I do build upon. I wish your visit at Northanger may be over before Captain Tilney makes his engagement known, or you will be uncomfortably circumstanced. Poor Thorpe is in town: I dread the sight of him; his honest heart would feel so much. I have written to him and my father. Her duplicity hurts me more than all; till the very last, if I reasoned with her, she declared herself as much attached to me as ever, and laughed at my fears. I am ashamed to think how long I bore with it; but if ever man had reason to believe himself loved, I was that man. I cannot understand even now what she would be at, for there could be no need of my being played off to make her secure of Tilney. We parted at last by mutual consent—happy for me had we never met! I can never expect to know such another woman! Dearest Catherine, beware how you give your heart. "Believe me," &c

I had forgotten how much I love this book.

: )

Trapped in my own mind.

Its the first week of October and I am already cranky about the degree of coldness outside.

Bring on the winter hibernation ... I suspect that I am going to be a big baby about the cold this year. I apologize in advance.

October by William Cullen Bryant

Ay, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath!

When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf,

And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief

And the year smiles as it draws near its death.

Wind of the sunny south! oh, still delay

In the gay woods and in the golden air,

Like to a good old age released from care,

Journeying, in long serenity, away.

In such a bright, late quiet, would that I

Might wear out life like thee, 'mid bowers and brooks

And dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks,

And music of kind voices ever nigh;

And when my last sand twinkled in the glass,

Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass.

When Stretch'd on One's Bed by Jane Austen

When stretch'd on one's bed

With a fierce-throbbing head,

Which preculdes alike thought or repose,

How little one cares

For the grandest affairs

That may busy the world as it goes!

How little one feels

For the waltzes and reels

Of our Dance-loving friends at a Ball!

How slight one's concern

To conjecture or learn

What their flounces or hearts may befall.

How little one minds

If a company dines

On the best that the Season affords!

How short is one's muse

O'er the Sauces and Stews,

Or the Guests, be they Beggars or Lords.

How little the Bells,

Ring they Peels, toll they Knells,

Can attract our attention or Ears!

The Bride may be married,

The Corse may be carried

And touch nor our hopes nor our fears.

Our own bodily pains

Ev'ry faculty chains;

We can feel on no subject besides.

Tis in health and in ease

We the power must seize

For our friends and our souls to provide.

Romance by Edgar Allan Poe

Romance, who loves to nod and sing

With drowsy head and folded wing

Among the green leaves as they shake

Far down within some shadowy lake,

To me a painted paroquet

Hath been—most familiar bird—

Taught me my alphabet to say,

To lisp my very earliest word

While in the wild wood I did lie,

A child—with a most knowing eye.

Of late, eternal condor years

So shake the very Heaven on high

With tumult as they thunder by,

I have no time for idle cares

Through gazing on the unquiet sky;

And when an hour with calmer wings

Its down upon my spirit flings,

That little time with lyre and rhyme

To while away—forbidden things—

My heart would feel to be a crime

Unless it trembled with the strings.

~ Galaxy ~

Normally I do not support Cosmo magazine, however...

The October issue of Cosmo has an article in it about Glenna, a girl I went to college with and breifly worked with. Go buy this issue.

Please read about her battle with skin cancer and please speak up about the danger of tanning beds and the need to have an age limit on the use of them. As you will read in the article, there is now a bill being put in front of Massachusetts law makers about this long over looked issue.