Tuesday, December 13, 2011


I had deja vu watching this clip.

People sometimes give me grief for loving Johnny - he's so old, he's a drinker, all thetattoos, etc - but he is very talented, deep, and wise beyond his years (well...).

He's always learning from the people he encounters. He doesn't just meet someone or work with someone and move on. He learns from them, he takes their wisdom and lives with it.

He loves his family, more than anything. It's clear the way he talks about them, or doesn't talk about them, how much he loves, and respects, and wants to protect his family.

I love this man - not because he's beautiful on the outside (which he definitely is), but because he's beautiful on the inside.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

The Stars Not Too Far Off

The following poems are from my collection, which I titled "The Stars Not Too Far Off," a quote from the preface of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. I've written them for my astronomy class, and I'll print them and have them bound to hand in, and I'll probably keep a copy for myself as well, because I like them.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Stargazing

Lying on the cold concrete,

A flannel blanket folded beneath my head,

A thermos of hot coffee in my hands.

The darkness of the heavens stretch above me,

Dotted through with burning, white-hot stars,

Each the size of a pinprick.

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

When was the beginning of the universe,

and where will it end?

What is the destiny of mankind?

A flannel blanket folded beneath my head,

Lying on the cold concrete,

I contemplate my own insignificance.

TRITFID NEBULA

Not made for this world.

Brilliant, otherworldly shades of azure and magenta.

Swirling about in a rage of heat and pressure.

That beauty is not of this world,

It is too great, too terrible for humanity to behold.

Better to observe at a distance –

If viewed too closely,

Such terrible beauty could annihilate the human race.

Sunrise Photography

I’d forgotten how cold it is before sunrise.

Sitting here on this cold, hard, blue plastic slide,

Waiting for the sun to make its slow way over the horizon.

My camera is ready, my compass is set,

But still, everything is grey.

The frost sparkles on the grass.

I wait.

I watch.

The horizon becomes too bright to look at,

But still, everything is grey.

I keep waiting.

I keep watching.

A sliver of gold.

Warmth on my face.

Click.

Night At the Lab

Wait.

It’s real.

I always knew it was,

I’d read about it,

Seen photos of it,

Even seen video footage of it.

But until I looked through the telescope myself,

And saw it up there in the blackness,

Suspended in face with its four Gallilean moons,

Two red equatorial bands and all:

Jupiter.

Haiku Sequence on the Subject of Astronomy

Seeing the vastness –

We can’t be the only ones

In this universe.


Endless sky-darkness,

Eternal void overhead,

Gravity keeps me.


Lighting the darkness,

Billions of miles away,

Tiny burning suns.


In the endless night,

Streaks of light across the sky –

Meteor shower.


Pre-dawn, all is still,

The grass glittering with frost,

Steely grey-blue sky.


The sun is rising,

Flash of gold on the mountains –

Burning hydrogen.


Sun in the window,

Looking through a spectograph –

Rainbow on the wall.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Happy Birthday, Bridget

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Today is my sister Bridget's birthday. She's so awesome - she's a huge Harry Potter nerd like me (and had a sweet awesome HP birthday party last night!) This photo is of her at the HP7.2 premiere in July. She was dressed as Luna Lovegood (though if you couldn't tell that from the photo I'm not sure why I even know you. :P)
Bridgey is the one I think of as my "baby sister," even though Julia is the baby now. Maybe it's because Bridget reminds me most of me? She's pretty awesome like that. Haha.

I love you, Bridge! Happy birthday!

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Summeritis

You know that feeling towards the end of term (also known as "semesteritis" or "senioritis") where there's so much left to do and absolutely no desire to do it?

That's how I feel right now - with one exception:

Semester- and senioritis are often characterized also by a desire for that particular increment of time (semester or senior year) to be over, hence the lack of desire to take action.

The opposite is true for me. I'm not ready for this week. I'm not ready for this summer to be over.

Monday, August 1, 2011

London Poems

VAN GOGH’S SUNFLOWERS

Mom always wanted a copy of this painting.

Yellow, she said, was her favourite colour.

The golden sunflowers droop, full blown over the lip of the saffron vase,

Arching towards the olive tabletop.

Set against an icterine background,

The yellows are dull yet hopeful,

And stenciled in cerulean on the vase, a name:

Vincent.


----

THE PARTHENON MARBLES

I have not often contemplated eternity in a block of stone.

Scenes of glory and bloodshed,

Etched, erased and preserved by the hands of masters:

Sculptors, time, historians.

With Keats before me and millions after,

I write to create, to preserve.

And we hope that one day our work will be as precious.


----

UNTITLED

Zeus dominates the skyline,

His rod of lightning stretching every higher.

Poseidon rules in the Thames,

Quenching the thirst of the metropolis.

Hades blows his foul hot breath through the tunnels of the Underground.


----

CITY GIRL

“It took no practiced eye to see at a glance

that the Londoner was different…”

Sixty-seven years ago

These words were written about a time

Three-hundred and fifty years before.

Another time, an older age,

As true today as ever.

The Londoner is quick but unhurried,

Busy but not frantic.

She spends her leisure in the shops, in the streets, in the park –

Shopping, socializing, sunbathing – when the weather permits.

She is call, collected, cool,

Even in the face of the pushing, sultry, sweaty crowds aboard the evening Tube.

She has learned not just to survive, but how to live in her world of speed and quickness.

She is who I want to see in the mirror.


----

THE ENGLISH VOICE

The English voice

Is at once softer and more harsh than its American cousin.

Clipped consonants, rounded vowels,

The sound of eloquence to my untrained ears.

The sound of drama, conditioned by the BBC,

At once soothing and frightening,

Strange and familiar.


----

PORTRAIT OF AN UNKNOWN LADY

High on the wall

In a great gilt frame

She sits by her window,

Her raven hair curling over one bair shoulder.

Her gown of brown and blue is simple,

Different from the others Peter Lely has painted:

Barbara Palmer, the Countess of Castlemaine,

Frances Stewart, the Duchess of Richmond,

The mistresses of Charles the Second.

But her face is the same as theirs,

Her hair coiffed à la mode in Lely’s familiar style.

She could be Moll Davis or Nell Gwynne,

But there’s no way to tell –

Lely’s faces all look the same.


----

CAPTURED

A spiderweb.

An impassable labyrinth of asphalt and cobblestone.

It will reach you from across the world,

And pluck you out of your comfortable suburban life

And consume you.

Spires of steel, glass, and chrome,

The skyscrapers look soft against the jagged iron and Gothic sandstone of churches

and castles.

And fluttering over all, the Union Jack.

You will wander,

And just when you think you’ve found your way

You realize you’re lost.

Eventually you’ll get out,

And you’ll return home,

But you will never escape.

You will never be free.


----

EAST COAST LINE

Faster and faster,

Like magnets,

Pulling us forward in one long, straight line

Until we reach our destination,

Our destiny.

Pulling us inexorably forward,

And we cannot return.

The rail lines cross the country in every direction –

North, South, East, West –

And we travel blindly

Through space,

Through time,

Not knowing that we can never return to the exact place from whence we left.

Past the windows of the train,

Images flash:

Farms, villages, castles, the North Sea.

Slide projections of our lives,

Snapshots of memory

Seen for an instant and gone forever.


SHERWOOD FOREST

Dappled earthen floor,

Shadows in the shape of aspen and oak leaves.

This is a place of magic.

Robin and his merry men once ran here.

Still I hear their whispers

Echoed by the shifting branches overhead.

In a forest as old as the world

And green as anything,

Wet under an eternally gray sky,

I sip coffee and contemplate my own insignificance,

And the oak trees drop rainwater on my head.


----

Haiku Sequence

Sidewalk of Baker Street

Gum-splattered pavement,

All twenty-six shades of grey,

Sticking to my shoe.

On the Way to the Station

A touch on my head,

Unexpected in grey light:

Early morning bird poop.

Evening Tube

Warm bodies press close,

The humid breath of hundred

Fills the Underground.

Baker Street Station

The stench of years past

In Underground’s unmoving air –

Coal dust in my eye.

The Heath

Untouched for centuries,

Growing and green in the city,

Stretch of wilderness.

Waking Up

Laying in bed,

Hazy moon in the window.

Last day in London.

Numbered

The twelfth day of May,

Six pounds and seventeen steps,

Three rooms in 221B.


----

221B

Mecca in a three-room flat

Crammed impossibly full

Of reality mixed with dreams.

Tourists, worshippers, disciples

Cross the world to visit this place.

The table set for two--

Ignored in favor of the old violin

And the softly simmering test tubes on the table in the corner.

The smell of tobacco, formaldehyde, and rain

Has been smothered by the sell of cross trainers and perfume,

But the rooms remain untouched,

Everything in its rightful place,

Just as shrines are wont to be.


----

REALLY?

Is there really such a thing as reality?

Surely not here.

Not here where Robin ran,

Where Harry hunted,

Where Sherlock sleuthed.

These places,

I thought,

Existed only in stories.


----

TWO MONTHS LATER

The last night,

Standing on the corner of Marylborn and York Gate.

The sky overhead looked like water,

Blue and shaded, rippled by the wind.

Cars streamed by, red and white lights a blur in the darkness.

I tried to memorize every detail –

The cool evening breeze,

The way the air smells of grass and water and petrol,

The rushing silent sound of city traffic.

But even now it’s just a memory.

Was I ever really there?

Friday, July 22, 2011

I seem to recall I once said, " It’s not often that I wish for the impossible, but if only I could have had a bit more time."

I seem to be wishing that a lot more now.

School starts a month from today. This has officially been the shortest summer of my life.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Love Your Body

Re-blogged from Shannon and Operation Beautiful.

This list is wonderful and amazing and I think everyone everywhere should read it. The end.

  1. Think of your body as the vehicle to your dreams. Honor it. Respect it. Fuel it.
  2. Create a list of all the things your body lets you do. Read it and add to it often.
  3. Become aware of what your body can do each day. Remember it is the instrument of your life, not just an ornament.
  4. Create a list of people you admire: people who have contributed to your life, your community, or the world. Consider whether their appearance was important to their success and accomplishments.
  5. Walk with your head held high, supported by pride and confidence in yourself as a person.
  6. Don’t let your weight or shape keep you from activities that you enjoy.
  7. Wear comfortable clothes that you like, that express your personal style, and that feel good to your body.
  8. Count your blessings, not your blemishes.
  9. Think about all the things you could accomplish with the time and energy you currently spend worrying about your body and appearance. Try one!
  10. Be your body’s friend and supporter, not its enemy.
  11. Consider this: your skin replaces itself once a month, your stomach lining every five days, your liver every six weeks, and your skeleton every three months. Your body is extraordinary–begin to respect and appreciate it.
  12. Every morning when you wake up, thank your body for resting and rejuvenating itself so you can enjoy the day.
  13. Every evening when you go to bed, tell your body how much you appreciate what it has allowed you to do throughout the day.
  14. Find a method of exercise that you enjoy and do it regularly. Don’t exercise to lose weight or to fight your body. Do it to make your body healthy and strong and because it makes you feel good. Exercise for the Three F’s: Fun, Fitness, and Friendship.
  15. Think back to a time in your life when you felt good about your body. Tell yourself you can feel like that again, even in this body at this age.
  16. Keep a list of 10 positive things about yourself–without mentioning your appearance. Add to it!
  17. Put a sign on each of your mirrors saying, “I’m beautiful inside and out.”
  18. Choose to find the beauty in the world and in yourself.
  19. Start saying to yourself, “Life is too short to waste my time hating my body this way.”
  20. Eat when you are hungry. Rest when you are tired. Surround yourself with people that remind you of your inner strength and beauty.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Podcast Thoughts

I've been listening to podcasts a lot at work lately - lots of long-ish projects as it's a new month - and even though it's too late to write/call in to the podcasts and tell them my opinion, I decided I'd share it on my blog.

While listening to The Transmission, I realized that I'd never picked a "favourite moment" from LOST. Then I realized that the one single moment that got me hooked on the show was the moment I saw the "LOST" title come floating out of the darkness. The eerie music and the way the logo floats in and out of focus hooked me instantly.

A while back, Empire magazine did a video (posted below) showing the cast of Harry Potter describing the series in 1 word. So here's my word:
Transcendent
Yep. That's my word.

Alrighty, it's 1:30 and I have to work tomorrow...today? Anyway, in 7 hours, so I REALLY should go to bed...